"He torians who have referred to this subject." neither pure nor patriotic. entered," says Mr. Fraser, "into a solemn agreement with the King of England to be his servant, and to permit the English to pass through his lands at all times without hindrance, in return for which he was set at liberty, with a grant of the lands of Liddesdale and Hermitage Castle, &c., to be held of the English King." But the Scotts were rapidly winning back the country, and the Knight's treasonable plans were held in check. His death was a sad one, as he was slain by his pupil and godson, William of Douglas, while hunting in Ettrick Forest. The old legend assigns jealousy as the cause of quarrel, and an old ballad supports the story:— This view is strengthened by the fact that the Knight's death was followed by a royal grant of Liddesdale to William of Douglas. To view his character as a whole, the "Flower of Chivalry" comes out the least satisfactorily of all his generation of Black Douglases. William soon after fought at Poitiers on the French side, and was knighted by the luckless King John. He was one of the three great lords selected as hostages for King David II., and succeeded in having the restoration of his English estates secured to him by the treaty between the two countries. At the death of David he stood in a position to be a formidable "The Countesse of Douglas out of her opponent to the succession of the Stewart. Wyntown indeed asserts that William was preparing to advance his claims, based on an alleged descent from the Comyns and Baliols; but Mr Fraser points out so many inconsistencies in the chronicler's narrative, that we have no hesitation in dismissing the statement. If the Douglases did ever aim at royal power in Scot land, it was after this period, at a time when their rivalry with the Crown became more keenly accented. The Stewart and Douglas had been in the closest alliance, and the latter's accession to the throne was speedily followed by a contract of marriage between the heir of Douglas and the Princess Isabel. He continued to be the bulwark of the country against the English, and his last service was to again clear Liddesdale from their occupation. By his marriage. with Margaret of Mar he succeeded to that earldom on the death of her brother Thomas, the last male of the line of ancient Earls. In connection with the vexed ques tion about the ranking of that earldom, it is of interest to quote Mr Fraser's remarks with regard to the position held by the Earl of Douglas : "The Earldom of Mar, as possessed by Thomas Earl of Mar, was in the time of King Robert II. the premier earldom of Scotland. The dignity of Earl of Douglas was then the most modern dignity with the rank of Earl, and William Earl of Douglas was the first Earl of his family, having been created on 26th January 1357-58. When he received the conjoined titles of Douglas and Mar on the death of Thomas Earl of Mar, he had only been sixteen years Earl of Douglas, yet on every occasion his title of Douglas is invariably placed before that of Mar. He styles himself Earl of Douglas and Mar; his widow also after his death placed the title of Mar after that of Douglas, styling herself Countess of Douglas and Mar, and the same course was followed in Crown charters by the King. The dignity of Earl of Doug. las could not have been placed before that of Earl of Mar if Earl William had been entitled in right of his wife to be ranked as and to bear the style of the first Earl of the kingdom. Both of the Earls of Douglas and Mar, William and James, father and son, sealed the legal deeds granted by them with their armorial seals, having Douglas in the first and fourth quarters and Mar in the subsidiary second and third, thus again plainly showing that the title of Mar, as possessed by William Earl of Douglas, was junior to his recently created dignity of Douglas." William's successor was the hero of Otterburn, and as he died without legitimate issue, the Earldoms of Mar and Douglas parted company-the latter going to Archibald, the grim Lord of Galloway. Earl James was not thirty when he fell, but he had crowded many exploits into a short life; and his successful raids across the Border excited the en more than thusiasm of Scottish chivalry, and up the siege, and were encamped unexpectedly that Douglas had not time to have his armour fastened, and the "Earl of Moray fought all night without his helmet." Douglas was soon in the thickest of the fight, armed with a mace or battle-axe, “lyke a hardy Hector," says Froissart, wyllynge alone to conquer the felde, and to dyscomfyte his enemyes." Unrecognised in the mêlée, he received three spearwounds at once, and a blow on the head from an axe as he was falling. His body was recovered when the English were driven back; and, says Mr Fraser, "the scene which followed is one of the most affecting in the annals of chivalry: "When asked how he did, the dying Earl replied, Right evil; yet, thank God, but few of my ancestors have died in their beds. I am dying, for my heart grows faint, but I pray which lyeth near me on the ground; you to revenge me. Raise my banner show my state neither to friend nor foe, lest mine enemies rejoice, and my friends be discomfited." as Sir place. Between the parties there was many a goodly passage of arms, and many a man thrown to the earth; many taken and rescued again. Archibald Douglas was a mighty knight, and much feared by his enemies. When near the English he lighted down on foot, wielding a long sword with a blade two ells in length. Too heavy for any other man to lift easily, this weapon was for him light enough, and with it he gave such strokes that whosoever he hit went to the earth, and not the hardiest of the English could withstand his strokes." We need not dwell on the victory that followed the raising of the banner, and the war-cry of "Douglas! Douglas!" And we need not wonder that such an episode should have inspired a deathless lay which moves the heart more than a trumpet. On the death of Earl James the title and estates went, we have seen, to Archibald, the. grim Lord of Galloway, a natural son of the Good Sir James. Of Archibald it is recorded that he refused the title of Duke when that dignity was first introduced into Scotland; "and when the We may note, in passing, that heralds cried out to him, Schir this great physical strength was Duk, Schir Duk,' he replied, sayas much a characteristic of the ing, Schir Drake, Schir Drake,' Black Douglases as personal braand would accept only the title very, and this endowment contribof Earl." Both by marriage and uted in no small degree to the acquisition the Douglas domains maintenance of their feudal supeincreased largely under Archibald. riority. It was as Warden of the Marches and Justiciar on the Borders that his most notable achievements were performed; and "Black Lord Archibald's battle-laws" formed a code of weighty authority in the ever-recurring collisions on the Border line. The description which Froissart gives of him in the famous contest with Sir Thomas Musgrave is no doubt substantially accurate, although the historian has apparently fallen into some confusion as to the details.. "There began," he says, "a fierce encounter; archers began to shoot, and men-at-arms began to stir. The Scotch were so numerous that the archers could not take heed in every Contemporary with Archibald was another renowned Douglas, Sir William of Nithsdale, who won high military honours in Prussia, and who, according to Godscroft, created Duke was of Spruce (Prusse) and Prince of Danskin (Dantzic). It is worthy of note that the Douglas prestige thus worthily established in Prussia five hundred years ago, is still maintained; for only a few months ago a gentleman of the name was enrolled among the Prussian nobles as Freiherr von Douglas, on his making good his connection with vices in the Franco-German war. the house of Angus, for his ser Next to Archibald the Grim came Archibald, Duke of Touraine, and fourth Earl of Douglas, whose 1 The point of the joke lies in the Scottish pronunciation of "duck," which is "duke." Thus the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, when examined before the House of Lords in connection with the Porteous Mob, incurred the indignation of the Duke of Newcastle, and was like to have been committed for contempt of the peers, by describing the piece with which Captain Porteous fired, "as just such a gun as ye would shoot dukes and fools with" (ducks and fowls). which has always associated the Douglas and Albany pillar in St Giles's Church, Edinburgh, with the murder of Rothsay. The coincidence of the Douglas and Albany arms appearing conjointly on a pillar Mr Fraser explains by pointing to the fact that both these noblemen had contributed to the repair of the church. This, however, does not go far enough to shake our belief in the votive character of the pillar, which is, however, quite consistent even with Mr Fraser's theory of the innocence of both Douglas and Albany. They required a special career was not so uniformly successful as those of most of his predecessors. He was taken prisoner at Homildon, and shared in the rebellion which the old enemy of his house, Hotspur, raised against Henry IV. He is the Douglas of whom Shakespeare gives us a not very happy or probable portraiture. With Sir Archibald the Warden he divides the claim to the uncomplimentary title of "Tineman." In him we first notice the exaggerated form which a taste for feudal magnificence and display was beginning to assume among the Douglases, and which was amply gratified by the pomp Act of Parliament to clear their which he was enabled to assume fame in the popular estimation; when installed as Duke of Tou- and it is quite possible that, raine. But the French honours though conscious of their innoof the family were not destined cence, they may have felt that to last long. Duke Archibald's public sentiment demanded some death in the unfortunate battle expiatory act at their hands, as of Verneuil, which was unques- it was by their counsels to the tionably lost by his indecisive King that Rothsay had been sent generalship, ended the substantial into confinement. benefits of the French duchy; The and though his two immediate of the Black line is largely successors bore the empty style checkered by tragedies and misand arms of Dukes of Touraine, fortune. The Douglases were now no French dignity was destined to to pay the penalties of the lofty remain in the house of Douglas, as position into which their talents in that of Lennox or Hamilton, to and ambition had raised them. commemorate the Ancient League When the crown was worn by a between Scotland and France. captive, a minor, or a fainéant, This Archibald is the Earl who, it was completely eclipsed by the along with Albany, is inculpated Douglas coronet; even a strong in the murder of the Duke of and resolute king, such as James I. Rothsay, although Sir Walter proved to be after his release, could Scott, by an anachronism surely only maintain his authority by intentional, to secure the introduc- evading possible collisions with the tion of the "Grim" personality of Douglases, and a great proportion the elder Archibald, has made the of the Scottish nobles were confather figure in the 'Fair Maid of nected either by blood or alliance Perth.' We need not reopen here with the head of the house. The the problem of Rothsay's murder, pride which had all along distinif murder there was, which Mr guished the Douglas character, culFraser denies. He seems to us, minated in William, the sixth Earl, however, to be unnecessarily icon- with an assumption of state and a oclastic in rejecting the tradition display of power intolerable in any history of the latter lords subject, and excusable only on account of his youth. Mr Fraser softens down the allegations of his tory regarding Earl William's pretensions, but enough still remains, even on his own showing, to satisfy us that those to whom the destinies of Scotland were committed, were justified in making a bold effort to curb the Douglas power. His train was never less than a thousand or two thousand horsemen ; he dubbed knights with his own sword; his family councils rivalled the Royal Parliaments by the number and importance of those who attended them; and when he sent proxies to France to do homage for the fief of Touraine, which he did not hold, it was with all the importance and state that befitted an embassy from a crowned head. The assassination -for no other term is admissible—of the Earl and his still more youthful brother in Edinburgh Castle was a foul deed; but if the plea of state necessity can condone it, it is supportable by many arguments. The murder of the eighth Earl in Stirling Castle, by the hand of James II., was not less justifiable on the grounds of the aggravated hostility which the Douglases were now manifesting towards the Crown; but the plot, if plot there was, was still more treacherously conceived than in the previous crime, for the Earl had come to Court on James's own safe-conduct. Yet in a rebellion headed by two such powerful nobles as Douglas and Crawford, the Crown would have been placed in such extremity as to give James a plea of self-preservation to justify his act. These two tragedies following so closely upon each other, shattered the power of the Black Douglases. James, the ninth and last Earl, could never make head against the Crown, although the greater part of his career was passed in fighting and intriguing against it; and the result was that his life was only spared by the King's clemency on condition that he should bury himself and his line in the Abbey of Lindores. There is a tradition mentioned by Godscroft, and apparently accepted by Mr Fraser, that James III., when hard pressed by the rebellion of his son, sought the cloistered Earl, and offered the restoration of his dignities and honours if he would put himself at the head of the Royal forces. "The reply of Douglas was sad and sarcastic: Sir, you have kept me and your black coffer in Stirling too long. Neither of us can do you any good.'" Much more of the Douglas spirit than the last lord was his wife, "The Fair Maid of Galloway," who had previously been married to William, the eighth Earl, and who is credited with having stimulated a pride which already required no spur to urge it on. Mr Fraser rejects the legend that this lady had her arm shot off by the huge cannon which the Royal troops brought to the siege of Thrieve, and proudly concealed her mutilation that the enemy might not enjoy the triumph. Another Douglas heroine, that Katherine who barred with her bare arm the door against the assassins of James I., must also, we presume, be relegated to the regions of romance, for Mr Fraser takes notice of her bravery. no With the death of the ninth Earl the representation of the Douglas family passed to the house of Angus, which descended from George, a younger son of the first Earl of Douglas, who married the Stewart heiress of Mar and Angus. The fourth Earl of Angus, on the forfeiture of his chief, received a grant of Douglasdale in 1457. He |
