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THE original earldom of Angus was one of
the oldest titles in the kingdom. The early rulers of the
district termed Angus, or the Mearns, extending along the
east coast of Scotland from the Tay to the Dee, which they
governed with almost independent authority, bore the
title of Mormaor, but little or nothing is known of their history.
The inhabitants were a fierce and warlike race, and vigorously
resisted the attempts of the Scottish kings to subject the
province to their authority. Two of these sovereigns, indeed, lost
their lives in battle with the men of the Mearns. Kenneth III., on
some pretext or other, caused the son of the Mormaor of the
province to be executed at Dunsinnan. In revenge for this deed he
was killed—according to the ‘Chronicle of the Picts and Scots
‘—at Fettercairn, by the treachery of Finella, daughter of
Cunchar, whose only son he had put to death.
The first of the chieftains of the province of
Angus who bore the designation of Earl was GILCHRIST. A singular story regarding him is related by Buchanan,
on the authority of an old chronicle. For the great services which
this powerful noble performed to the Crown he received the hand of
the King’s sister in marriage. She, however, proved unfaithful
to her marriage vow, and he caused her to be put to death. This
murder so enraged the King—William the Lion—against Gilchrist
that he dismantled his castles, confiscated his estates, and
banished him the kingdom. The Earl took refuge in England; but in
the treaty between William and the English King Henry it was
stipulated that neither of the two should shelter the other’s
enemies. The exiled noble was in consequence obliged to leave
England, and returning to Scotland with his two sons, he shifted
from place to place in great want and misery. One day they were
seen by the King in the neighbourhood of Perth, in the disguise of
farmers. Their mien, however, showed them to be superior to that
station, and on the approach of the King they quitted the road to
prevent discovery. Their evident desire to avoid him roused
William’s curiosity, and he caused the three men to be brought
before him. On inquiring who they were, Gilchrist knelt down
before the King, and in very moving terms acquainted him with
their lamentable condition. William was so much affected by the
story that he not only pardoned the Earl, but restored him to his
former honours and estates.
Gilchrist was
succeeded by his son GILIBREDE, the second ruler who bore
the designation of Earl. He was present at the Battle of the
Standard, under David I., and was one of the twenty barons
given as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty made
between the English King and William the Lion. The earldom
passed in 1243 to GILBERT DE UMFRAVILLE, Lord of Redesdale,
Prudhoe, and Harbottle in Northumberland, by his marriage to
the heiress, daughter of the fifth earl of the original
family. His son by the countess, who bore the same name, was
governor of the castles of Dundee and Forfar, when the
Regent in 1291 agreed to surrender the kingdom and its
fortresses to Edward I. The conduct of Gilbert de Umfraville
in this hour of trial presented a prudent contrast to the
unpatriotic spirit which his brother barons displayed. He
declared that, having received his castles in charge from
the Scottish nation, he would not surrender them to the King
of England without an obligation to indemnify him from
Edward and all the claimants for the Crown. To remove his
objections a letter of indemnity was signed by Edward, by
the competitors, and by the guardians. On receiving this
document Gilbert delivered up Dundee and Forfar to the
English king. He afterwards, however, deserted the patriotic
cause, and treacherously went over to the side of Edward,
along with the Earl of Dunbar, immediately before the battle
of Falkirk in 1298. The information which these two nobles
conveyed to the English King rescued his army from a
position of imminent peril. He died in 1307.
ROBERT DE
UMFRAVILLE, the son and successor of Earl Gilbert, was
appointed Joint Guardian of Scotland by Edward II. in 1308,
and was forfeited by King Robert Bruce for his adherence to
the English interests.
The earldom
was then bestowed upon Sir John Stewart, of Bonkil, who was
descended from the second son of Alexander, High Steward of
Scotland. On the death of Thomas, third Earl of Angus of the
Stewart family, in 1377, without issue, the title devolved
on his sister, Lady Margaret. She resigned it in 1389, and
King Robert II. then granted the earldom of Angus, with the
lordships of Abernethy, in Perthshire, and of Bonkil, in
Berwickshire, to George Douglas, her illegitimate son by
William, the first Earl of Douglas, her brother-in-law.
GEORGE
DOUGLAS, first Earl of Angus of the Douglas family, married
the second daughter of Robert IlI., was taken prisoner at
the Battle of Homildon, in 1402, and died the same year in
England of the plague. There was nothing worthy of special
notice in the career of his two immediate successors. On the
death of James, the third Earl, without issue, the title and
estates devolved upon— GEORGE DOUGLAS, second son of the
second Earl, who filled several important offices, and
commanded the royal forces in the contest with the Earl of
Douglas, whose lands and lordship of Douglas he obtained on
the forfeiture of that formidable and turbulent noble. The
Earl, who had a high military reputation, held the office of
Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom after the death of James
II. He died in 1462. He performed a brilliant exploit during
the Wars of the Roses, in bringing off the French garrison
from Alnwick under the eyes of the Yorkists. His son,
ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS, fifth Earl of Angus, became the most
powerful nobleman in the kingdom, and was commonly called
the Great Earl. He was only fourteen years of age when he
succeeded his father. On attaining maturity the young Earl
did not prove more loyal than his kinsmen of the elder
branch. When the Duke of Albany quarrelled with his brother,
King James III., and fled into England, Angus became a party
to the treasonable treaty which Albany concluded with the
English King for the acknowledgment of his sovereignty, and
ceding to him Eskdale, Annandale, and Liddesdale, on
condition of being made King of Scotland. The young Earl (in
his twenty-eighth year) was the leader of the discontented
nobles who were indignant at the preference which the King
showed for architects, musicians, and painters, and
determined to seize the person of their sovereign and to
wreak their vengeance on his favourites. The muster of their
feudal array for the purpose of invading England, in
retaliation for the ravages which an English army had made
in Scotland, afforded them a favourable opportunity for
carrying their nefarious schemes into effect. On their march
to the Border the army halted for the first night at Lauder,
and next morning the principal conspirators held a secret
council in the church to arrange for the immediate execution
of their designs. They were all agreed as to what should be
done, but they hesitated as to the best mode of proceeding.
Lord Gray, as Godscroft relates the occurrence, ‘craved
audience, and told them the apologue of the mice, who
consulting in a public meeting how to be sure from the cat’s
surprising them, found out a very good way, which was to
hang a bell about her neck, that would ring as she stepped,
and so give them warning of her approach, that they might
save themselves by flight. But when it came to be questioned
who would undertake to tie the bell about the cat’s neck,
there was never a mouse durst cheep or undertake it.’
Angus started up when Gray had done speaking, and exclaimed,
‘I will bell the cat‘—a saying which procured for him
the cognomen of ‘Archibald Bell-the-Cat,’ by which he
was ever afterwards familiarly designated. Cochrane and the
other royal favourites were immediately seized, and in the
most brutal manner hanged over the bridge at Lauder. After
these cruel and foul murders, the conspirators returned to
the capital, carrying with them their unfortunate sovereign,
and committed him a close prisoner to the Castle of
Edinburgh.
A temporary
reconciliation followed between the King and his brother, on
whom offices and grants were liberally bestowed; but this
did not prevent Albany from renewing his treasonable
intrigues with the English king. The Earl of Angus and other
two of his accomplices, Lord Gray and Sir James Liddal, were
despatched to England to negotiate a secret treaty with the
Commissioners of Edward IV., in which it was stipulated that
on certain specified conditions he should assist Albany in
the conquest of the Crown of Scotland ‘to his proper use.’
Angus and his associates promised that in the event of
Albany dying without heirs, they would maintain their
castles against James, now King of Scots, and ‘live under
the sole allegiance of their good and gracious prince the
King of England.’
As soon as
this infamous transaction transpired, the great body of the
barons, who had hitherto been unfriendly to the King,
rallied round the throne, and enabled James to defeat the
plots of the conspirators against the independence of the
kingdom. Angus was compelled to resign his office of Lord
Justiciar on the south side of the Forth, his Stewardry of
Kirkcudbright, his Sheriffdom of Lanark, and his command of
the strong castle of Thrieve. His principal accomplices were
at the same time deprived of their dignities and offices. In
no long time, however, the conspiracy against the royal
authority was renewed, and the Earl of Angus and Lord Gray
were the principal instigators of the new rebellion, which
led to the overthrow and death of their unfortunate
sovereign. Angus was one of the commanders of the insurgent
forces at the battle of Sauchieburn, in which the royal army
was defeated, and James was murdered in his flight from the
field.
King James
IV., at that time a youth of sixteen years of age, had been
induced to take part in the rebellion against his father,
but as he grew older he felt deep remorse for having allowed
himself to be made the tool of a selfish and unprincipled
faction, and gradually withdrew his countenance from its
leaders. It was probably the coldness with which he was now
treated that induced Angus, the old intriguer and traitor to
his country, to enter into a plot with Henry VII. of England
against his youthful sovereign, and ultimately to withdraw
for a season into England. Some knowledge of his treason had
probably reached the King, for on the return of the Earl to
Scotland he was committed a prisoner to his own castle of
Tantallon, and, as the price of his pardon, was compelled to
exchange the lordship of Liddesdale and the strong fortress
of Hermitage, in the first instance, for the lordship of
Kilmarnock; but a few months later, Liddesdale and its
stronghold were bestowed in fee and heritage on the Earl of
Bothwell, and Bothwell Castle, resigned by that nobleman,
was given to Angus in exchange for Kilmarnock. This
transference was a considerable diminution of the greatness
and power of the Douglas family.
The
displeasure of the King was increased by the slaughter of
Spens of Kilspindie, a favourite courtier, who about this
time was killed in a casual encounter with Angus. The
incident, which is thus related by Godscroft, illustrates
both the character of the fierce and stalwart noble and of
the stormy and violent times :—
The King on a
time was discoursing at table of the personages of men, and
by all men’s confession the prerogative was adjudged to
the Earl of Angus.
[Sir Walter
Scott thus describes, in ‘Marmion,’ the aspect of
the stalwart ‘Bell-the-Cat,’ in his old age:—
‘His giant
form, like ruined tower,
Though fallen its muscles’ brawny vaunt,
High-boned, and tall, and grim, and gaunt
Seem’d o’er the gaudy scene to lower:
His locks and beard in silver grew;
His eyebrows kept their sable hue.’]
A courtier
that was by, one Spens of Kilspindie, . . cast in a word of
doubting and disparaging: ‘It is true,’ said he, ‘if
all be good that is up-come,’ meaning, if his action and
valour were answerable to his personage. This spoken openly,
and coming to the Earl’s ears, offended him highly. It
fell out after this, as the Earl was riding from Douglas to
Tantallon, that he sent all his company the nearest way, and
he himself with one only of his servants, having each of
them a hawk on his fist, in hope of better sport, took the
way of Borthwick towards Fala, where lighting at the brook
at the west end of the town, they bathed their hawks. In the
meantime this Spens happened to come that way, whom the Earl
espying said, ‘Is not this such a one, that made question
of my manhood? I will go to him and give him a trial of it,
that we may know which of us is the better man.’ ‘No, my
lord,’ said his servant, ‘it is a disparagement for you
to meddle with him.’ . . . ‘I see,’ said the Earl, ‘he
hath one with him; it shall be thy part to grapple with him,
whilst I deal with his master.’ So fastening their hawks
they rode after him. ‘What reason had you,’ said the
Earl to him, ‘to speak contemptuously of me at such a
time?’ When the other would have excused the matter, he
told him that would not serve the turn. ‘Thou art a big
fellow and so am I; one of us must pay for it.’ The other
answered, ‘If it may be, no matter; there is never an earl
in Scotland but I will defend myself from him as well as I
can.’ . . . . So, alighting from their horses, they fought
a certain space; but at last the Earl of Angus cut Spens’
thighbone asunder, so that he fell to the ground and died
soon after.
It was no
easy task for a monarch only twenty years of age to maintain
the royal authority over such turbulent and lawless nobles,
who, if they possessed many of the virtues of the savage
state, exhibited also much of its ferocity.
Advancing
years seem to have moderated the fiery and fierce temper of
Bell-the-Cat, and from this time onward he appears to have
acted the part of a dutiful and peaceful subject. James,
with whom he now stood in high favour, conferred on him the
office of Chancellor in 1493, which he held for five years.
He accompanied the King in his unjustifiable and disastrous
invasion of England in 1513, and earnestly remonstrated
against the rash and imprudent resolution of James to wait
the attack of the English at Flodden. The King was so
enraged at the remonstrance of the old warrior that he
scornfully replied, ‘Angus, if you are afraid you may go
home.’ The Earl burst into tears at this insult and
hastened to depart, saying mournfully, ‘If my past life
does not free me from any suspicion of cowardice, I do not
know what can; as long as my body was capable of exertion, I
never spared it in defence of my country or my sovereign’s
honour. But now, since my age renders my body of no use in
battle, and my counsel is despised, I leave my two sons and
the vassals of Douglas in the field; may Angus’s
forebodings be unfounded.’ The Earl quitted the camp that
night; but his two sons, George, Master of Angus, and Sir
William Douglas of Glenbervie, with two hundred gentlemen of
the name of Douglas, remained, and fell in the battle.
Earl
Archibald, broken-hearted by the calamities of his house and
his country, retired into the Abbey of St. Mains in
Galloway, where he died twelve months after the battle of
Flodden, in the sixty-first year of his age. The historian
of the family bestows the most glowing eulogiums on the ‘Great
Earl,’ as a man every way accomplished both for mind and
body. ‘He was of stature tall, and strong made,’ he
says; ‘his countenance was full of majesty; wise and
eloquent of speech; upright and square in his actions; sober
and moderate in his desires; valiant and courageous; a man
of action and understanding; liberal also, loving and kind
to his friends, which made him to be beloved, reverenced,
and respected of all men.’ Master David, however, is
obliged to admit that ‘One fault he had, that he was too
much given to women; otherwise there was little or nothing
amiss.’
GAWAIN
DOUGLAS, Bishop of Dunkeld, was the third son of Earl
Archibald, and at an early age was presented to the rectory
of Hawick. Some time before the year 1509 he was appointed
by James IV. Provost of the Collegiate Church of St. Giles,
Edinburgh. A few months after the battle of Flodden he was
nominated by the Queen-Dowager, Archbishop of St. Andrews,
in the room of the King’s son, Alexander Stewart, who fell
in that disastrous conflict. He was fiercely opposed,
however, by Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews, who had been
elected by the canons, and by Forman, Bishop of Moray, who
had obtained a grant of the benefice from the Pope, and
Douglas withdrew in disgust from the unseemly contest. In
the following year he was appointed by the Queen to the See
of Dunkeld, and obtained a papal bull in his favour. But he
was imprisoned for more than a year, on the charge of having
violated the laws of the realm by procuring bulls from Rome.
After his release, a rival candidate, the brother of the
Earl of Athole, attempted to keep possession of the
episcopal palace and cathedral by force of arms. Douglas in
the end obtained possession of the See without the effusion
of blood, and discharged the duties of the office with most
exemplary diligence and fidelity. He was distinguished also
for his acts of charity and munificence, and his efforts to
preserve the peace of the country. He made a praiseworthy
but unavailing attempt to mediate between the rival factions
of the Douglases and Hamiltons before the famous skirmish of
‘Clear the Causey,’ in Edinburgh, 30th April, 1520. At
the request of Angus, his nephew, he waited upon Archbishop
Beaton, the Chancellor, whose niece Arran, the head of the
Hamiltons, had married, and entreated that prelate, both as
a churchman and as the official conservator of the laws of
the realm, to act as a peacemaker. Beaton, however, had
actually prepared for the encounter by putting on a coat of
mail under his linen rochet; and in answer to the appeal of
Douglas he said, ‘Upon my conscience I know nothing of the
matter,’ at the same time striking his hand upon his
breast, which caused the armour to return a rattling sound.
‘My lord,’ replied Douglas, with merited sarcasth, ‘your
conscience clatters’ (tells tales). After this pointed
rebuke he hastened back to his nephew and told him that he
must do his best to defend himself with arms. ‘For me,’
he added, ‘I will go to my chamber and pray for you.’
The conflict terminated in the complete defeat of the
Hamiltons, who were the aggressors, and Archbishop Beaton,
who took refuge in the church of the Blackfriars’
monastery, was assaulted by the victorious party, and would
have been slain on the spot but for the prompt interposition
of the Bishop of Dunkeld.
In 1521,
however, the party of Angus was worsted, and Bishop Douglas,
along with his nephew, was obliged to take refuge at the
English Court, where he was hospitably entertained, and
enjoyed the society of Polydore Virgil and other eminent
scholars. The dominant party in Scotland, on the 21st of
February, 1522, denounced the Bishop as a traitor,
sequestered the revenues of his cathedral, and wrote to the
Pope, beseeching his Holiness to beware of nominating the
traitor Gawain Douglas to the Archbishopric of St. Andrews,
which had again become vacant. The Bishop was in consequence
cited to appear at Rome, but before he could obey the
summons he suddenly died of the plague at London.
Bishop
Douglas left behind him various poems of considerable merit.
His chief original work is an elaborate and quaint allegory
entitled ‘King Hart,’ intended to represent the progress
of human life. It is ingenious, but heavy and full of
alliteration. The longest of his original compositions is
‘The Palace of Honour,’ which displays much learning and
versatility of fancy, but is marred by incongruous passages,
and tedious and confused descriptions. His translation of
Virgil’s ‘AEneid,’ which was produced before there was
an English version of any of the classical writers, is on
the whole felicitously executed. The original pieces styled
‘Prologues,’ which are affixed to each book, are among
the poet’s happiest pieces.
ARCHIBALD
DOUGLAS, of Kilspindie, fourth and youngest son of Archibald
Bell-the-Cat, appears to have been one of the ablest and
most energetic of his family. He was appointed Provost of
Edinburgh in 1520, and High Treasurer of Scotland in 1526.
He was remarkable for his great strength and skill in
warlike exercises, and gained the affection of James V. in
his boyhood, who called him his ‘Grey Steill,’ after a
renowned champion in the romance of ‘Sir Egar and Sir
Grime.’ But after the King made his escape from the
custody of the Earl of Angus, Kilspindie was, along with the
rest of the Douglases, attainted and forfeited by the
Parliament, 5th September, 1528, and compelled to take
refuge in England. An affecting story is related by
Godscroft respecting the treatment which he received from
King James, on a visit paid by him to his native land.
‘Archibald
being banished into England, could not well comport with the
humour of that nation, which he thought to be too proud, and
that they had too high a conceit of themselves, joined with
a contempt and despising of all others. Wherefore, being
wearied of that life, and remembering the King’s favour of
old towards him, he determined to try the King’s
mercifulness and clemency. So he comes into Scotland, and
taking occasion of the King’s hunting in the park at
Stirling, he casts himself to be in his way as he was coming
home to the castle. So soon as the King saw him afar off,
ere he came near, he guessed it was he, and said to one of
his courtiers, "Yonder is my Grey Steill, Archibald of
Kilspindie, if he be alive." The other answered that it
could not be, and that he durst not come into the King’s
presence. The King approaching, he fell upon his knees and
craved pardon, and promised from thenceforward to abstain
from meddling in public affairs, and to lead a quiet
and private life. The King went
by without giving him any answer, and trotted
a good round pace up the hill, Kilspindie
following him; and though he wore on him a
secret, or shirt of mail, for his particular
enemies, was as soon at the castle-gate as the
King. There he sat him down upon a stone
without, and entreated some of the King’s
servants for a cup of drink, being weary and
thirsty. But they, fearing the King’s
displeasure, durst give him none. When the
King was sat at his dinner he asked what he
had done, what he had said, and whither he had
gone. It was told him that he had desired a
cup of drink and had gotten none. The King
reproved them very sharply for their
discourtesy, and told them that if he had not
taken an oath that no Douglas should ever
serve him, he would have received him into his
service, for he had seen him some time a man
of great ability. Then he sent him word to go
to Leith, and expect his further pleasure.’
Subsequently the King commanded him to go to
France, and there he shortly after died, it is
believed of a broken heart. James was greatly
and justly blamed for this unforgiving and
pitiless treatment of a man who had never
personally injured him. It called forth the
indignation even of his vindictive uncle Henry
VIII., who on hearing of it quoted the
familiar proverb—
‘A king’s
face
Should give grace.’
As the two eldest sons of Archibald Bell-the-Cat had
fallen at Flodden, he was succeeded in the family honours
and estates by his grandson:—
ARCHIBALD
DOUGLAS, sixth Earl of Angus, eldest son of
George,
Master of Douglas. He was possessed of
great personal attractions and showy accomplishments, but
according to Lord Dacre, ‘he was childish, young, and
attended by no wise counsellors;’ and besides he speedily
exhibited the characteristic vices of his family—lawless
ambition and lust of power. He married with indiscreet
haste, in 1514, Margaret, widow of
James IV., but disappointed in obtaining the Regency, which
he expected as the result of this alliance, he made it
evident that on his side the match was one of interest, not
of affection, and showed himself a careless and unfaithful
husband. The Duke of Albany was appointed Regent in the room
of Margaret on her marriage, and compelled Angus and
Margaret to take refuge in England, where she was delivered
of a daughter, the Lady Margaret Douglas, afterwards the
mother of the unfortunate Darnley. Angus, in a very
heartless manner, left his wife before she had completely
recovered, and returned to Scotland to pursue his selfish
intrigues. His scandalous desertion of his wife in these
circumstances began that alienation of feeling in her mind
which ultimately led her to obtain a divorce from the Earl
in 1525. On the departure of the Duke of Albany for France,
in 1516, Angus was appointed a member of the Council of
Regency, and soon acquired great ascendancy in the kingdom.
In 1520 the Hamiltons and other powerful western families
assembled at Edinburgh for the purpose of seizing the Earl,
but they were completely defeated, as we have seen, and
driven out of the city. In the following year, however, on
the return of Albany, Angus was compelled to flee to
England, and subsequently passed into France as a voluntary
exile. He returned to Scotland in 1524, and became the head
of the English party among the nobles there, and by his
ambitious and violent proceedings kept the country in a
state of disorder and almost anarchy. He obtained possession
of the person of the King, then in his fourteenth year,
became Lord Chancellor, and filled all the offices of the
State either with members or the supporters of his house. He
raised the power of the Douglases to such a height as
seriously to endanger both the independence of the Crown and
the liberties of the people. An old chronicler says, ‘There
dared no map strive at law with a Douglas or a Douglas man,
for if he did he was sure to get the worst of the lawsuit.’
‘And,’ he adds, ‘although Angus travelled through the
country under pretence of punishing thieves, robbers, and
murderers, there were no malefactors so great as those who
rode in his own train.’ The young King himself was eager
to escape from the thraldom in which he was held, but Angus
succeeded in defeating two attempts made, with the King’s
knowledge and approbation, to set him at liberty—one by
Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, near Melrose; the other by
the Earl of Lennox, at Almond Bridge, near Linlithgow, in
which, to the great grief of James, the Earl lost his life.
At length, in July, 1528, the King succeeded in making his
escape, in disguise, from Falkland Palace, where he had been
virtually kept a prisoner, and rode to Stirling Castle,
which had been prepared for his reception. Shortly after a
meeting of Parliament was held, at which Angus and his
brothers were declared rebels and traitors, and their
estates forfeited. The King was baffled in his attempts to
reduce the castles of Douglas and Tantallon, but Angus and
his brothers were driven out of Scotland, and once more took
refuge in England. He received a pension of a thousand marks
from Henry VIII., and to his great disgrace made several
hostile incursions across the Borders against his own
countrymen. He remained fifteen years in exile, and was not
permitted to return to Scotland until after the death of
James, when his diminished power and the altered state of
parties rendered his presence less formidable to the public
tranquillity. His attainder and that of his brothers was
removed by Parliament, and they were restored to their rank
and possessions in 1543.
Angus and his
astute brother, Sir George Douglas, did all in their power
to promote the scheme of the English king for the marriage
of his son, Prince Edward, to the infant Queen Mary, and
gave him judicious advice as to the best mode of carrying it
gradually into effect. But Henry’s arbitrary disposition
and violent temper would brook no delay, and his invasions
of Scotland for the purpose of compelling the people to
submit to his demands alienated his best friends. In his
anger against the Scots, and his confident belief that he
could conquer their country, an English force, under Sir
Ralph Evers and Sir Brian Latoun, was despatched to lay
waste the Borders with fire and sword; and Henry is said to
have bestowed upon Evers a grant of all the lands he could
conquer in the Merse, Teviotdale, and Lauderdale, the
greater part of which belonged to the Douglases. Angus
swore, that ‘if Ralph Evers dared to act upon the grant,
he would write his sasine (or instrument of possession) on
his skin with sharp pens and bloody ink.’ He had not long
to wait for an opportunity of carrying his threat into
effect. Evers, stimulated by the prize which his sovereign
had promised him, made a second inroad into Scotland at the
head of five thousand men, and ravaged the Borders with
unexampled ferocity. The English had previously destroyed
the abbey of Melrose, and they now wantonly defaced the
tombs of the Douglases who were buried in its aisles.
Angus
collected his retainers and vassals to revenge these
outrages on the ruthless invaders, and having been joined by
Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch at the head of his clan, and
by Norman Lesley with a body of men from Fife, he
encountered them on a moor near the village of Ancrum, in
Roxburghshire. The English were completely defeated with the
loss of eight hundred men, among whom were Sir Ralph Evers
and Sir Brian Latoun, and a thousand were taken prisoners.
King Henry, on receiving news of this defeat, was furious at
Angus, and vowed that he would inflict signal vengeance on
him for his ingratitude and perfidy. The Earl replied to the
threats of the irate monarch in characteristic terms. ‘Is
our brother-in-law,’ he said, ‘offended that I, as a
good Scotsman, have avenged my ravaged country and the
defaced tombs of my ancestors upon Ralph Evers? They were
better men than he, and I was bound to do no less. And will
he take my life for that? Little knows King Henry the skirts
of Kirnetable. [Kirnetable, or Cairntable, is a mountainous
tract of country at the head of Douglasdale. An Afghan chief
replied in similar terms to a threat of Sir Henry Lawrence
that he would march an army into his territory, and punish
his people for the murder of a British traveller. ‘The
roads in my country,’ he said, ‘are bad for armies.’]
I can keep myself there against all his English host.’
Angus’s
policy continued to the end selfish, short-sighted, and
unprincipled. He was privy to the nefarious project, devised
by a number of the nobles with the approval of Henry VIII.,
to assassinate Cardinal Beaton; and his brother, Sir George
Douglas, informed Sadler in distinct terms that ‘if the
King would have the Cardinal dead’ his wish would be
gratified ‘if his grace would promise a good reward for
the doing thereof.’ The Earl commanded the van of the
Scottish army at the disastrous battle of Pinkie. He
inflicted a sanguinary defeat upon the English Warden, Lord
Wharton, who invaded the Western Marches in February, 1548.
During the regency of Mary of Guise, as under the rule of
Albany and of Arran, Angus’s main object was the
maintenance of the power of his family and the privileges of
his order. The Regent at one time attempted to obtain
possession of some of the strong fortresses of the kingdom,
in order to garrison them with French troops, and she cast a
longing eye on Tantallon, a stronghold of the Douglases. ‘They
tell us,’ says Godscroft, ‘also how at another time she
desired of him to have his castle of Tantallon to keep
warders in, or upon I know not what pretext or for what use.
To this he gave no direct answer for a long time, but having
a gose-hawk on his fist which he was feeding, spake of her
saying she was a greedy gled. [The Scottish name for a
hawk.] "The devil is in this greedy gled; will she
never be full?" But when the Queen insisted, not
understanding or not willing to understand his meaning, he
told her, "Yes, madam; why not? All is yours, ye shall
have it, it is at your service; but, madam, I must be
captain and keeper of it. I shall keep it for you as well as
any man you shall put into it."’
‘They tell,
also, how the Queen-Regent had intention to make the Earl of
Huntly a duke; whereof, when she was discoursing with Angus,
she told him how Huntly had done her very good service, for
which she intended to advance him and make him a duke. To
which he answered, "Why not, madam? We are happy that
have such a Princess that can know and will acknowledge men’s
service, and is willing to recompense it; but, by the might
of God" (this was his oath when he was serious and in
anger; at other times it was, by Saint Bride of Douglas),
"if he be a duke I will be a drake ;" alluding to
the word duke, which in Scotland signifies a duck as well as
that title and dignity, which, being the female and the
drake the male, his meaning was he would be above and before
him. . . . So she desisted from further prosecuting of that
purpose.’
The Earl died
at the castle of Tantallon in 1556. His only son, James,
pre-deceased him, and he was succeeded by his nephew, DAVID
DOUGLAS, who held the family honours and estates only two
years, and died in 1558.
SIR GEORGE
DOUGLAS, of Pittendriech, was an abler man than his brother,
the sixth Earl, and had great influence over him. He was
thoroughly unprincipled and perfidious, and took a prominent
part in the treasonable intrigues of a section of the nobles
with the English king. He was master of the royal household
and had charge of the young King when the Earl, his brother,
hastened to assist Arran in the conflict with Lennox at
Almond Bridge. Enraged at the evident reluctance of James to
proceed, the brutal baron exclaimed, ‘Bide where you are,
for if they get hold of you, be it by one of your arms, we
will seize a leg and pull you in two pieces rather than part
from you;’ a threat which the King never forgave. Sir
George died before the Earl, leaving two sons: David, who
became seventh Earl of Angus on the death of his uncle, and
James, Earl of Morton, the celebrated Regent of Scotland.
ARCHIBALD
DOUGLAS, eighth Earl of Angus, only son of Earl David, was
only two years of age when he succeeded to the titles and
estates of the family. His character differed greatly from
that of most of his predecessors, for he was styled the ‘Good
Earl’ on account of his virtuous and amiable disposition.
He held the office of Warden of the Marches for several
years, and discharged its duties with great diligence and
fidelity. During the regency of his uncle, the Earl of
Morton, who was his guardian, he took part with him in the
siege of Hamilton Castle and in the overthrow
of the Hamilton family. After the execution of Morton in
1581, Angus retired to England, the usual refuge of
Scottish exiles. He was honourably received and hospitably
entertained by Queen Elizabeth, and during his residence
in London contracted a close fellowship with the
illustrious Sir Philip Sydney. In 1582, after the Raid of
Ruthven, he was permitted to return home, and joined the
nobles connected with that enterprise. When the worthless
favourite, Stewart, Earl of Arran, regained his ascendancy
over the King, Angus retired for safety beyond the Spey.
He was privy to the plot of the Earl of Gowrie to seize
the person of James in 1584, but its
sudden collapse in consequence of the capture of the Earl
and the approach of James at the head of a powerful force,
caused Angus and his associates a second time to throw
themselves on the protection of Elizabeth. At the meeting
of Parliament, August 22nd, of that same year, Angus was
attainted and his estates forfeited. Though in exile he
still continued to exercise great influence in Scottish
affairs, and was particularly obnoxious to James and his
advisers on account of his opposition to the efforts made
by the King to subvert the Presbyterian form of Church
government, and a plot was concocted by Arran and Montrose
for his assassination. But the apprehension of the person
hired to perpetrate this foul deed, who was seen lurking
about the neighbourhood of Newcastle, where Angus was
living, brought the whole plot to light and prevented its
execution. He returned to Scotland in 1585, along with the other banished lords, who expelled Arran
from the Court, and obtained a revocation of their
forfeiture and the pardon of their offences. Angus,
towards the close of his life, was offered, but declined,
the office of Chancellor of Scotland. He died in 1588, and
leaving no male issue, he was succeeded by—
SIR WILLIAM
DOUGLAS, of Glenbervie, as ninth Earl. He was the son of Sir Archibald Douglas, of
Glenbervie, grandson of Archibald Bell-the-Cat, the fifth
earl. James VI. made an attempt to seize the earldom, and
brought a suit to reduce the charters granting and
confirming the title, but a decision was given in favour
of Sir William. He held the earldom only three years and
was succeeded by his eldest son—
WILLIAM
DOUGLAS, tenth Earl, who became a Roman
Catholic, and, in conjunction with the Earls of
Errol and Huntly, disturbed the peace of the country and
perilled its safety by their treasonable intrigues with the
King of Spain. They were implicated in the conspiracy of the
‘Spanish Blanks,’ as it was called in consequence of
certain blank sheets of paper, having at the bottom the
seals and signatures of the Popish lords, being found in the
possession of George Kerr, a brother of the Abbot of
Newbattle, who was about to proceed on a secret mission to
Spain. Kerr, on being put to the torture, confessed the
whole affair. It appears that the King of Spain was to land
an army of thirty thousand men on the west coast of
Scotland, where they were to be joined by the Popish lords
with all the forces they could muster. Fifteen thousand of
the Spanish troops were to march across the Border and
assist in raising an insurrection in England, while the
remainder, with the assistance of the Romish faction, were
to overthrow the Protestant Church in Scotland. This
nefarious plot against the independence of the country and
the national religion was repeatedly renewed by the three
Popish lords; but James, who was unwilling to proceed to
extremities against them, contrived to delay the infliction
of the punishment which their crime deserved. The lenity
shown by the King seemed only to embolden them to open
resistance against the royal authority. They were at length
declared guilty of high treason, and excommunicated as
obstinate Papists, their estates and honours were forfeited,
and a commission was given to the young Earl of Argyll to
pursue them with fire and sword. Huntly and Errol collected
their retainers, and, after a stubborn conflict, defeated
the royal forces at a place called Glenlivet, 3rd October,
1594. (See THE CAMPBELLS OF ARGYLL.) The King, indignant and
alarmed at this disaster, marched at the head of a powerful
army to the north, and laid waste the estates of the
insurgents and destroyed their strongholds. Angus was not
present at the battle of Glenlivet, but he shared the fate
of his associates, and implored the King’s permission to
leave the kingdom, which was granted on condition that he
would not return without the royal sanction, nor during his
exile make any attempt to injure the Protestant religion or
the peace and liberties of his native country. He returned
secretly in 1595 and was suffered to remain in Scotland on
giving assurance that he would henceforth conduct himself
like a loyal and peaceful subject. In the following year he
was formally ‘released’ from the bond, and in 1597,
along with Huntly and Errol, was publicly absolved from his
excommunication and reconciled to the Kirk at Aberdeen, in
the presence of a great assembly of persons of all ranks. He
subsequently retired to the Continent, and died at Paris,
3rd March, 1611, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.
From this
period downward the influence of this ‘great old house’
steadily declined. Its extensive estates, indeed, remained
unimpaired amid all the vicissitudes of the Great Civil War
and the Jacobite rebellions; but the heads of the house were
no longer, as in the olden times, celebrated for their ‘singular
manhood, noble prowess, and mightie puissance.’ They were,
however, kindhearted, amiable men, noted for their princely
hospitality and cultivated tastes, though without the
ambition or the abilities requisite either to occupy a place
in the Cabinet or to command ‘the applause of listening
senates.’
WILLIAM
DOUGLAS, eleventh Earl of Angus, was a Roman Catholic like
his father, the tenth Earl, and a zealous supporter of the
royal cause during the Great Civil War. He was raised by
Charles I., in 1633, to the rank of Marquis of Douglas, and
was nominated Lieutenant of the Borders. When matters were
coming to a crisis between the King and the Covenanters, the
latter succeeded in capturing Tantallon and Douglas, the two
strongholds of the Marquis. He does not appear to have taken
up arms in behalf of Charles until the march of Montrose to
the Borders in 1645. But ‘old times were changed, old
manners gone.’ The representative of a family whose early
chiefs could bring into the field 30,000 men joined the
royal standard followed only by his personal attendants. He
made his escape from the rout of Philiphaugh along with
Montrose himself and Lord Napier. He fell, however, into the
hands of the Estates, and was imprisoned in Dumbarton
Castle. He was fined £1,000 sterling by Cromwell’s ‘Act
of Grace and Pardon.’
Long before
the final overthrow of the royal cause in Scotland, the
Marquis and his wife, who was a daughter of the Marquis of
Huntly, had been subjected to a species of ecclesiastical
persecution at the hands of the Lanark Presbytery. The
reverend court sent deputations every now and then to
Douglas Castle threatening them with excommunication if they
refused to abjure the Roman Catholic religion. After
numerous conferences the Presbytery prevailed on the
Marchioness with great difficulty to attend the parish
church, and to allow her children to be instructed in the
principles of the Presbyterian faith, a concession which
seems to have obtained for her a temporary relief from
the ill-judged importunities of the clerical court. It took
six years’ ‘dealing’ with the Marquis to persuade him
to abjure Popery and sign the Covenant. This ceremony was
performed in the parish church of Douglas amid great
rejoicing on the part of the Presbytery and the
Congregation. Lady Douglas, however, obstinately adhered to
her hereditary creed, and the reverend court in consequence
demanded that she and her husband should consent to be
separated from their children in order that security might
be taken that they should be brought up in the Protestant
religion. It is probable that this outrageous demand may
have had some effect in inducing the Marquis, who had
hitherto lived quietly in his castle at Douglas, to break
through all his engagements to the Presbytery and to join
Montrose.
During the
imprisonment of the head of the family in Dumbarton Castle
the reverend court renewed their dealing with the
Marchioness, who was compelled to appear before them in
order to be examined touching her ‘malignancy and
obstinate continuance in the profession of popery.’ She
appears to have given them smooth words, and to have made
such apparent concessions as induced them to leave her
unmolested for a little while. But their ‘manifold
expressions of lenity and long-suffering’ toward her
failed to make the lady give up her ‘disobedience,’ and
the Presbyters proceeded to take steps for her
excommunication and separation from her children. For some
unknown reason they paused in carrying out this formidable
process, which in those days was followed by forfeiture of
property and imprisonment. At length the Marquis found it
necessary to make his peace with the ruling powers, who had
imposed upon him a fine of 50,000 merks; and at the
commencement of the year 1647 he appeared before the Lanark
Presbytery, expressed his deep penitence for his violation
of the Covenant, and promised faithful adherence to it in
time to come. One-half of his fine was then remitted by the
Estates, and he was released from his long imprisonment.
Still the Presbytery were not satisfied, and he was
constrained to agree that his children should be boarded
with the minister of the parish and be instructed by a tutor
approved of by the court. The reluctance with which his
lordship submitted to these restrictions was speedily made
apparent to his tormentors by their learning that he was
arranging to send his youngest son to be brought up in
France. They renewed their deputations and their demands,
and the recusant peer and his wife were equally persistent
in their adherence to their own faith, though professing
their willingness to comply with the terms pressed on their
acceptance by the Presbytery. At last the patience of the
sincere and zealous but intolerant brethren was exhausted,
and in October, 1648, when the Covenanters were dominant in
Scotland and all opposition crushed, they peremptorily
ordered that, failing immediate satisfaction, his lordship
be summoned and the lady ‘excommunicat.’ The Marquis
appeared before them to answer ‘for not keeping his son at
the school with a sufficient pedagogue approven by the
Presbytery; for not delivering his daughter to some
Protestant friend by sight [under the approval] of the
Presbytery; for not having a sufficient chaplain approven as
said is for family exercise in his house; for not calling
home his son who is in France; and, finally, for his
grievous oppression of his tenants.’ On all these points
he was fain to make explanations and concessions. Shortly
after he supplicated the Presbytery to be allowed to bring
his son from the school of Glasgow to that of Lanark,
expressing his willingness, should his request be granted,
that ‘he should not come home to his parents except the
Presbytery permit.’
All the time,
notwithstanding the professed submission of the Marquis and
his wife to these imperious mandates, the members of the
reverend court evidently felt that they were being foiled by
the mere semblance of adherence to the Presbyterian form of
worship, while the culprits with whom they were dealing
remained at heart strongly attached to the Roman Catholic
Church. But they were none the less determined to compel
them to make a profession of the Protestant faith. On the
9th of March, 1650, two members of the Presbytery were sent
with authority to pass upon Lady Douglas a sentence of
excommunication unless she should instantly express her
adherence to the established system of religion. At the same
time, with an almost incomprehensible obliquity of moral
vision and wilful blindness to the real character of their
mode of dealing with the lady, they pointedly reminded her
‘how fearful a sin it was to swear with equivocation or
mental reservation.’ The Marchioness, knowing well the
result should she fail to give ‘full obedience and
satisfaction to the kirk,’ declared that ‘she had no
more doubts,’ and expressed her willingness, at the
bidding of one of the ministers, to declare her acceptance
of the Covenant before the congregation assembled in the
parish church. In the words of the report made to the
Presbytery, ‘After he [the minister] had read the Solemn
League and Covenant, and desired her to hold up her hand and
swear by the great name of God, to observe according to her
power every article thereof,’ she did so; and after divine
service was ended he desired her to ‘go to the session
table and subscribe the Covenant, and before the ministers
and elders she went to the table and did subscribe.’
The true
value of this enforced and shocking profanation of a solemn
ceremony was speedily made manifest to the men who had shut
their eyes in wilful blindness to the real state of opinion
and feeling on the part of the noble pair whom they were
tormenting. On the very day that the two ministers reported
to the Presbytery their proceedings with the Marchioness of
Douglas, ‘the Court,’ hearing that of late the Marquis
of Douglas and his lady had sent away one of their daughters
to France, to a Popish lady, to be bred with her in Popery,
without the knowledge of the Presbytery, and without any
warrant from the Estates, thought the fault intolerable, and
so much the more because they had sent away one of their
sons before to the Court of France.’ Weighty reasons might
have been given why in those times the sons of the nobility
should not have been sent to France for their education; but
the unreasonable and tyrannical character of the other
demands of the Presbytery, and especially their persistent
attempts, as detailed in their own records, to compel the
Marquis and his wife to make a hypocritical profession of
their belief of a religious system which, in their hearts,
they disowned, throw great light on the spirit of the times,
and show how little the principle of toleration was
understood and acted upon by either party in those troublous
times.
[See Report
of the Presbytery of Lanark. The members of the Lanark
Presbytery would no doubt have disclaimed the notion that
there is no salvation possible for those who do not belong
to their Church, but there can be no doubt that they
believed that those who persisted in adhering to the Romish
Church would be lost. They would have cordially concurred in
the statement made by Thomas Carlyle, to some Irish
Romanists who were speaking to him of the intolerance of
Scotsmen towards Roman Catholics, ‘Why, how could they
do otherwise? If one sees one’s fellow-creature following
a damnable error, by continuing in which the devil is sure
to get him at last and roast him in eternal fire and
brimstone, are you to let him go towards such consummation?
or are you not rather to use all means to save him ? ‘—Letters
and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, p. 308.]
In his
personal character the Marquis appears to have been one of
the best of his race. He usually resided at the castle of
Douglas, where he kept up the old Scottish grandeur and
hospitality, and maintained a more numerous household than
any nobleman in the kingdom.
The Marquis
died in February, 1660. He was twice married, first to the
only daughter of Claud Hamilton, Lord Paisley, and secondly
to the third daughter of the first Marquis of Huntly. His
eldest son, by his first wife, styled Earl of Angus, took an
active part in public affairs, and officiated as Lord High
Chamberlain at the coronation of King Charles H., January
1st, 1651. He was fined one thousand pounds sterling
by Cromwell’s ‘Act of Grace and Pardon.’ He died
before his father, January 15th, 1655. His eldest son
succeeded as second Marquis of Douglas.
William, the
second son of the Marquis, was created Earl of Selkirk, and
by his marriage with Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, became Duke
of Hamilton. George, his third son, was created Earl of
Dumbarton in 1675.
JAMES, second
Marquis of Douglas, succeeded his grandfather in 1660, and
died A.D. 1700, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. The
lapse into Popery seems to have been confined to the first
Marquis. If the Earl of Angus, eldest son of the second
Marquis, had not been a strict Presbyterian he could never
have succeeded in raising among the sternest class of
Covenanters a body of infantry which is still, after the
lapse of well-nigh two centuries, known by the name of the
Cameronian Regiment.
[The
regiment had a very peculiar character. They stipulated that
their officers should exclusively be men such as ‘in
conscience’ they could submit to. Alexander Shields, a
noted field preacher, was appointed their chaplain, and an
elder was nominated for each company, so that the regiment
should be under the same religious and moral discipline as a
parish. A Bible was a part of the equipment of every private—a
regulation which was then, and for a long time afterwards,
singular. While the young Earl of Angus was appointed
Colonel of this remarkable regiment, the
Lieutenant-Colonelcy was conferred upon William Cleland, a
man of poetical genius as well as a brave soldier, who had
fought for the ‘good old cause’ at Bothwell Brig. He was
killed at Dunkeld.]
At Dunkeld,
where they were victorious, though attacked by overwhelming
numbers, they unfurled, for the first time in the face of an
enemy, their colours, which have since been proudly borne in
every quarter of the world, and which are now embellished
with the Sphinx and the Dragon, emblems of brave actions
achieved in Egypt and in China. They fought with desperate
valour at the battle of Steinkirk, in August, 1692, where
their gallant Colonel, the Earl of Angus, was killed, in the
twenty-first year of his age. His half-brother, William,
died in infancy, and his youngest brother—
ARCHIBALD
DOUGLAS, became third Marquis of Douglas. He was born in the
year 1694, succeeded his grandfather in 1700, and while yet
a minor was created, in 1703, Duke of Douglas, in
consideration of his noble descent and the illustrious
services of his ancestors. His Grace served as a volunteer
under the Duke of Argyll in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715,
and was present at the battle of Sheriffmuir. He was
unfortunately a person of weak intellect, and he seems also
to have been liable to sudden outbursts of passion. He took
no part in public affairs, such as befitted his rank and
fortune, and is said to have passed his time in low
amusements, not always in choice society. It is mentioned in
the newspapers of the day that he fought a duel on a Sunday
evening in 1724, in which both he and his antagonist, the
Earl of Dalkeith, were wounded. Amongst his visitors was a
young man named Kerr, a natural son of Lord John Kerr,
brother of the Marquis of Lothian, and also of the Dowager
Countess of Angus, the Duke’s mother. This youth, who was
thus the Duke’s cousin, aspired to the hand of his Grace’s
only sister, Lady Jane Douglas, and it is also alleged that
he ventured to remonstrate with the Duke about his keeping
company with a low person belonging to the village of
Douglas. Prompted by this fellow, the Duke stole by night
into the chamber of Mr. Kerr and shot him dead as he lay
asleep. His Grace is said to have been overwhelmed with
horror at the deed he had committed. No time was lost in
sending him off to Holland, there to remain till he could
safely return home.
The affair
was hushed up, and no steps were taken by the public
authorities to bring the murderer to justice. It is
uncertain at what time the Duke returned to Scotland, and
little or nothing is known of his subsequent life until the
time of his marriage more than thirty years after this
incident. In the year 1758, when his Grace was turned
of sixty, he married Margaret, daughter of James Douglas, of
Mains, Dumbartonshire, who was celebrated for her wit and
beauty, and not less for her freedom of speech and action.
Dr. Carlyle of Musselburgh, who met this lady in the year
1745, and made an excursion from Glasgow with her and
several other ladies and gentlemen, says, ‘When we came to
Hamilton, she prayed us to send a messenger a few miles to
bring to us a clergyman of a neighbouring parish, a Mr.
Thomas Clelland. He came to us when we were viewing the
romantic gardens of Barncluith. Thomas Clelland was a
good-looking little man, but his hair was becoming grey,
which no sooner Margaret observed than she rallied him
pretty roughly (which was her way) on his being an old fusty
bachelor, and on his increasing marks of age since she had
seen him not more than a year before. After bearing
patiently all the efforts of her wit, "Margaret,"
says he, "you know that I am master of the parish
register, where your age is recorded, and that I know when
you may be with justice called an old maid, in spite of your
juvenile airs." "What care I, Tom?" said she,
"for I have for some time renounced your worthless set.
I have sworn to be Duchess of Douglas or never to mount a
marriage bed." She made her purpose good. When she
uttered in jest this prediction she was about thirty. It was
fulfilled a few years after.’ Many stories are told of her
Grace’s broad humour and freedom of speech. Dr. Johnson,
who met her at dinner in Boswell’s house in Edinburgh in
1773, the year before her death, described her as an ‘old
lady who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is
scarcely understood by her own countrymen.’ ‘Had the
doctor seen her ten years earlier,’ says Robert Chambers,
‘when she was in possession of all her faculties, he would
have found out how much comicality and rough wit could be
expressed in broad Scotch under the coif of a duchess.’
She survived her husband twelve years.
The Duke had
an only sister, Lady Jane Douglas, whose life was most
unhappy, but is chiefly memorable on account of its
connection with the celebrated DOUGLAS CASE. She was one of
the handsomest and most accomplished women of her age, but
her happiness was unfortunately ruined in early life by the
rupture of her engagement to the Earl of Dalkeith,
afterwards Duke of Buccleuch. From that time onward she
persistently rejected all offers of marriage until she had
attained the mature age of forty-eight, when, in August,
1746, she secretly married Mr. John Stewart, second son of
Sir Thomas Stewart of Grandtully. Mr. Stewart had no fortune
or profession, or income from any source, and the whole
resources of the pair consisted of £300 a year, paid to
Lady Jane by her brother the Duke, with whom she was not on
good terms at the time of her imprudent marriage.
Immediately after her union Mr. Stewart and Lady Jane went
abroad, and resided principally in France from 1746 till the
end of 1749. On their return to England they brought with
them two male children, of whom they alleged Lady Jane had
been delivered at one birth in Paris in the month of July,
1748, when her ladyship was in the fifty-first year of her
age. Her brother the Duke of Douglas had stopped her
allowance when her marriage was made public in the summer of
1749, and her husband and she were in consequence reduced to
the greatest distress. Mr. Stewart was besides deeply
involved in debt, and his creditors threw him into gaol. In
this deplorable condition some of her old friends obtained
for Lady Jane from Government a pension of £300 a year. But
this boon failed to relieve the wretched pair from want, and
Lady Jane was obliged more than once to sell her clothes to
support her husband, who was still living within the rules
of the King’s Bench Prison, in Southwark. In 1752 she
visited Scotland, and attempted to obtain a reconciliation
with her brother; but he refused even to see her. She
returned again to London, leaving the two children in
Edinburgh, under the care of a woman who had formerly
accompanied her and her husband to the Continent as a
servant. The younger of the two, who was named Sholto Thomas
Stewart, died in May, 1753, and, shortly after, Lady Jane
returned to Edinburgh and made another fruitless effort to
be reconciled to her brother. Her health was now completely
broken down, and in the following November the unfortunate
lady died at Edinburgh, destitute even of the common
necessaries of life, and was interred in the Chapel Royal at
Holyrood.
After the
death of Lady Jane, Archibald, the survivor of the two
children, was befriended by Lady Schaw, who, pitying his
destitute condition, supported and educated him. In the year
1759, when he was eleven years of age, Mr. Stewart
succeeded, by the death of his elder brother, Sir George, to
the family estate and baronetcy, and executed a bond of
provision in Archibald’s favour for £2,500, designating
him in the document as his own son by Lady Jane Douglas. The
Duke of Douglas, however, continued obstinate in his refusal
to acknowledge the boy as his nephew. But the Duchess was
most zealous in his behalf, and advocated his cause so
warmly as to lead to a quarrel between her and the Duke on
that account and a separation, which, however, was not of
long duration. In 1754 the Duke executed a settlement of his
estate upon the Duke of Hamilton, failing heirs of his own
body, and in 1757 he executed a second deed in favour of the
same heir, in which he declared it to be his intention that
the son of his sister should in no case succeed to his
estate. But in the year 1760 the Duke revoked and cancelled
these settlements. In the summer of 1761 his Grace was taken
with a serious illness, and believing that his end was near,
he executed, on the 11th of July, an entail of his whole
estate, settling it upon the heirs whatsoever of his father,
with remainder to Lord Douglas Hamilton, brother of the Duke
of Hamilton. On the same day he executed another deed
appointing the Duchess of Douglas, the Duke of Queensbury,
and other persons to be tutors to Archibald Douglas, or
Stewart, son of his deceased sister, who was to succeed him
in his estates.
On the death
of the Duke, which took place on the 21st of July, the
dukedom of Douglas became extinct; but the other titles of
this great old house passed to the Duke of Hamilton. The
guardians of young Stewart took the usual steps to put him
in possession of the Douglas estates, and he was sworn heir
to the late Duke before a jury, according to the form
prescribed by the law of Scotland. The guardians of the Duke
of Hamilton, however, who was also a minor, were not
convinced by the evidence laid before the jury, that
Archibald Stewart was really the son of Lady Jane Douglas;
and Mr. Andrew Stuart, one of their number, was dispatched
to Paris for the purpose of investigating the statements
which had been made on that point. The discoveries which
Stuart made were, in his opinion, and that of the other
guardians, sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the
whole story of Lady Jane’s delivery was a pure fiction.
Proceedings were, therefore, immediately instituted by them
before the Court of Session to set aside Stewart’s claim
to the Douglas estates.
In support of
his claim there was adduced—
1st. The
depositions of several witnesses that Lady Jane appeared to
them to be with child while at Aix-la-Chapelle and other
places. 2nd. The testimony of Mrs. Hewit, who accompanied
Lady Jane to Paris, that she was delivered of twin boys at
Paris upon the 10th of July, 1748. 3rd. The depositions of
other witnesses, with regard to the claimant being
acknowledged by Lady Jane and her husband to be their child.
4th. A number of letters which had passed between Sir John
Stewart, Lady Jane Douglas, Mrs. Hewit and others,
respecting the claimant’s birth. 5th. Four letters said to
have been written by Pierre la Marre, who, it was alleged,
was the accoucheur that officiated at Lady Jane’s
delivery. The solemn declaration was also adduced of Sir
John Stewart; emitted a few days before his death, in June,
1764, in the presence of two ministers and a justice of the
peace, affirming that Archibald Stewart and his twin brother
were both born of the body of Lady Jane Douglas, his lawful
spouse, in the year 1748. Mrs. Hewit, who was charged with
being an accomplice in the fraud, died during the suit, and
to the last persisted in declaring that all she had sworn
respecting the birth of the children was truth.
On the other hand, it was
maintained by the guardians of the Duke of Hamilton—
1st. That Lady Jane Douglas
was not delivered upon the 10th of July, 1748, by the
evidence of various letters written by her husband and Mrs.
Hewit upon the 10th, 11th, and 22nd of that month. 2nd. That
Lady Jane was not delivered, as was asserted, in the house
of a Madame la Brune, nor in the presence of a Madame Ia
Brune and her daughter. And various circumstances were
adduced to show that no such persons as the Madame la Brune
in question or her daughter ever existed. 3rd. That La4y
Jane Douglas could not have been delivered, either upon the
10th of July or in the house of a Madame la Brune, because
that upon that date, and upon several days preceding and
subsequent to the 10th of July, Lady Jane, with her husband
and Mrs. Hewit, resided at the Hotel de Chalons, kept by
Mons. Godefroi, where it is acknowledged she was not
delivered; and that it was clearly shown that this was the
case by the testimony of Mons. and Madame Godefroi, as well
as by the ‘book of expenses’ and ‘ledger-book’ kept
by them. 4th.. Great stress was laid upon the studied
concealment and mystery observed at Paris in July, 1748,
when Sir John and Lady Jane, with their confidante, Mrs.
Hewit, carried with them from Paris to Rheims one child, and
on their repetition of the same concealment and mystery upon
their return to Paris, in November, 1749, when the same
three persons brought from Paris to Rheims a second child.
5th. Proof was brought that at Paris, in the month of July,
1748, a recently born male child was carried off from his
parents of the name of Mignon, and that in the month of
November, 1749, another male child, born in the year 1748,
was in like manner taken from his parents, of the name of
Sanry. It was asserted that both of these children were,
under false pretences, carried off from their parents by
British residents of Paris, and that the persons who did so
were Sir John Stewart, Lady Jane Douglas, and Mrs. Hewit. It
was also affirmed that no such person as Pierre Ia Marre,
the alleged accoucheur, existed, and that the letters said
to have been written by him were proved, and indeed admitted
to be, a forgery.
A variety of
other circumstances were pleaded in confirmation of these
statements. On the 21st of May, 1748, Lady Jane and her
husband left Aix-la-Chapelle, where they had resided upwards
of a year, giving various contradictory and untrue reasons
for doing so. They stopped for some time at Liege and Sedan,
and then proceeded to Rheims, travelling all the way in the
stage-coach. They remained at Rheims for a month, and then
set out for Paris, leaving behind them their two female
servants, and accompanied only by Mrs. Hewit. The excuse for
leaving their servants at Rheims was that they had no money
to carry them to Paris, which was proved to be untrue, and
the reason given by Lady Jane for undertaking this long,
tedious, and fatiguing journey at a time when she professed
to be very far advanced in pregnancy was that she had been
told that the medical practitioners in Rheims were unskilful;
and yet the accoucheur who was said to have delivered her in
Paris, according to Sir John Stewart’s own story, was a
person of a very humble class, with whose place of residence
he was not acquainted. On the ninth day after her alleged
delivery, the husband and wife appeared at the Hotel d’Anjou,
without either nurse or child. They went next day to the
country and returned with a child and a nurse, the child
looking much older than the date assigned for its birth, and
almost starved to death for want of milk, and the nurse a
poor wretched creature, officially branded as a thief, who
had no milk to give the child. It was at this very time that
the son of the peasant Mignon disappeared. With regard to
the other boy, Sir John affirmed that it was so weak and
sickly that the accoucheur baptised him as soon as he was
born, that it was left at nurse with a woman of whom Lady
Jane and he knew nothing, and under the care of Pierre la
Marre, whom they themselves acknowledged they did not know
where to find. They admitted also that for a whole month
they made no inquiry about the child. Great stress was laid
by the judges who were adverse to the claim of young Stewart
upon the numerous contradictions in the declarations made
both by Lady Jane and her husband, and on the fact that not
a few of their statements were proved to be false.
The case
excited extraordinary interest not only in Scotland and
England, but throughout the Continent, on account of the
great importance of the interests at stake, and it is
probably the most remarkable case of the kind ever
litigated. In Scotland the people were ranged into two
hostile parties, who argued the question at issue with as
much asperity and zeal as if the fate of the kingdom had
been dependent on the issue. Popular opinion ran strong in
favour of young Stewart, as the Hamilton family at this time
had fallen into disrepute.
The case came
on for judgment in the Court of Session on the 7th of July,
1767, and so important was the cause deemed that the fifteen
judges took no less than eight days to deliver their
opinions. The result was that eight of the judges, including
the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk, voted in
favour of the Duke of Hamilton, and the other seven for
Stewart.
This
decision, however, was reversed by the House of Lords, it
was alleged on political rather than on legal grounds; but
the judgment of their Lordships has not been ratified by
public opinion in subsequent times. In his own district the
general idea was that Mr. Stewart closely resembled a
Frenchman in his personal appearance, and it is a
significant fact that when Lord Shelburne met him he formed
and expressed the same opinion. Be this as it may, no one
can doubt that on social and economical grounds it was much
better for the country that the Douglas estates should have
been awarded to young Stewart, whether he was the son of
Lady Jane Douglas or of a French peasant, than that they
should have been merged in the vast possessions of the house
of Hamilton. The fortunate youth proved himself to be one of
nature’s noblemen, most exemplary in all his relations in
life, public and private—a model landlord, generous and
hospitable to his neighbours and retainers, and especially
esteemed and loved for his kindness to the poor. George III.
raised him to the peerage by the title of Baron Douglas; but
though a supporter of the Tory Government, he does not
appear to have taken any prominent part in political
affairs. He was twice married. First, to Lucy Graham,
daughter of the second Duke of Montrose; and, secondly, to
Frances Scott, sister of the third Duke of Buccleuch. They
bore to him seven sons and four daughters, all of whom,
except two sons, reached maturity. Four of his sons died
unmarried, and a fifth left no family. Two of his sons by
his first wife, Archibald and Charles, were the second and
third Lords Douglas. James, the son of his second wife, was
in holy orders, and on his death without issue, in 1857, the
title became extinct. Jane Margaret, the eldest daughter of
the first Lord Douglas, married Henry James, Lord Montague,
brother of the second Duke of Buccleuch, and bore to him
four daughters, but no son. Her eldest daughter became the
wife of Cospatrick, eleventh Earl of Home, who was created,
in 1875, Baron Douglas of Douglas, in the peerage of the
United Kingdom, and bore to him six sons and three
daughters. On the death of her mother, the Countess
inherited the Douglas estates, which are now possessed by
her eldest son, CHARLES ALEXANDER, twelfth Earl of Home, and
second Baron Douglas of the new creation.
It is
interesting to notice that notwithstanding the forfeitures
and vicissitudes which the family have undergone, a great
part of the estates associated with the history and exploits
of the old house of Douglas are still in the possession of
the present Lord Douglas. The extensive territory in
Galloway which belonged to the Black Douglases, and their
lands in Liddesdale, were divided among the Border clans who
had contributed to their overthrow; and Lord Hamilton
obtained a large share of their Clydesdale property.
Hermitage Castle, at one time their chief stronghold, was
surrendered by Archibald Bell-the-Cat, and now belongs to
the Duke of Buccleuch. Tantallon Castle, which he received
in exchange, has passed into the hands of the Dalrymples.
But Douglasdale, the cradle of the house, with the remains
of its famous old castle, still belongs to the family, along
with Bothwell, redolent of the memories of the War of
Independence, and of Archibald the Grim, whose daughter was
married, in the Collegiate Church there, to the unfortunate
Duke of Rothesay; and Linthaugh, near Jedburgh, the gift of
King Robert Bruce to his trusty companion in arms, the ‘Good
Lord James,’ as the reward of one of his most gallant
exploits. The Berwickshire estates, also of the Black
Douglases, now yielding £7,000 a year; and the Angus
property of the Red Douglases, worth £7,356 per annum,
belong to the Earl of Home—altogether, according to the
Domesday Book, extending to 90,336 acres, with a rent-roll
of £47,721 a year.
In Sir Walter
Scott’s ‘Abbot,’ the golden zone of the White Lady,
which was diminished to the tenuity of a silken thread when
the family of Avenel seemed on the eve of extinction—as
was the case with the house of Douglas—was afterwards seen
around her bosom as broad as the baldrick of an earl. It is
to be hoped that this omen will be fulfilled in the case of
the ancient and estimable family—a branch of the great
house of Dunbar and March—on whom the estates of the old
Douglases have now devolved.
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