Part 921

From 1389 to 1399 there was a truce between England and Scotland, and the Scotch borderers watched impatiently for the termination of it, that they might be let loose on the northern English counties, "like hounds let off the leash. It was asserted on the part of England, indeed, that they did not wait for the conclusion. Ten years of peaceful husbandry had prepared a harvest for them, and they swept it off in the old way—the English borderers retaliating by an invasion of the Lowlands. The political aspect again became menacing for Scotland. The conditions which rendered peace almost a necessity for England had ceased with a revolution. It was no longer Richard II., but Henry IV., who reigned; and he began his reign by a great invasion of Scotland." He marched with a large army (A. D. 1400) as far as Leith and threatened Edinburgh Castle, which was stoutly defended by the Scottish king's son; but the expedition was fruitless of results. Henry, however, gained the adhesion of the Earl of March, one of the most powerful of the Scottish nobles, who had received an unpardonable affront from the Duke of Albany, then regent of Scotland, and who joined the English against his country in consequence. In the autumn of 1402 the Scotch retaliated Henry's invasion by a great plundering expedition under Douglas, which penetrated as far as Durham. The rievers were returning, laden with plunder, when they were intercepted by Hotspur and the traitor March, at Homildon Hill, near Wooler, and fearfully beaten, a large number of Scotch knights and lords being killed or taken prisoner. Douglas and others among the prisoners of this battle were subsequently released by Hotspur, in defiance of the orders of King Henry, and they joined him with a considerable force when he raised his standard of revolt. Sharing the defeat of the rebellious Percys, Douglas was again taken prisoner at Shrewsbury, A. D. 1403. Two years later the English king gained a more important captive, in the person of the young heir to the Scottish throne, subsequently King James I., who was taken at sea while on a voyage to France. The young prince (who became titular king of Scotland in 1406, on his father's death) was detained at the English court nineteen years, treated with friendly courtesy by Henry IV. and Henry V. and educated with care. He married Jane Beaufort, niece of Henry IV., and was set free to return to his kingdom in 1424, prepared by his English training to introduce in Scotland a better system of government and more respectful ideas of law. The reforms which he undertook gave rise to fear and hatred among the lawless lords of the north, and they rid themselves of a king who troubled them with too many restraints, by assassinating him, on the 20th of February, 1436.

_J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, volume 3, chapters 26-27._

ALSO IN: _Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, volume 1, chapters 16-18._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1411. Battle of Harlaw. Defeat of the Lord of the Isles and the Highland clans.

See HARLAW.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1437-1460. Reign of James II. Feuds in the kingdom. The Douglases.

James II. was crowned (1437) at six years of age. "Sir Alexander Livingstone became guardian of his person; Sir William Crichton, Chancellor of his kingdom; and Archibald, fifth Earl of Douglas, … nephew of the late King, became Lieutenant-General. The history of the regency is the history of the perpetual strife of Livingstone and Crichton with each other and with the Earl of Douglas, who had become 'very potent in kine and friendis.' His 'kine and friend is' now spread over vast territories in southern Scotland, including Galloway and Annandale, and in France he was Lord of Longueville and possessor of the magnificent duchy of Touraine. The position the Douglases occupied in being nearly related to the house of Baliol (now extinct) and to the house of Comyn placed them perilously near the throne; but there was a greater peril still, and this lay in the very dearness of the name of Douglas to Scotland. … To the Queen-mother had been committed by Parliament the care of her son, but as Crichton, the Chancellor, seemed disposed to take this charge upon himself, she determined to outwit him and to fulfil her duties. Accordingly, saying she was bound on a pilgrimage, she contrived to pack the boy up in her luggage, and carried him off to Stirling Castle. {2851} He was soon, however, brought back to Edinburgh by those in power, and then they executed a wicked plot for the destruction of William, who, in 1439, had, at the age of sixteen, succeeded his father, Archibald, as Earl of Douglas. The Earl and his brother … were executed, and for a time it would appear that the mightiness of the Douglases received a shock. … The Queen-mother had been early thrust out of the regency by Livingstone and Crichton. Distrusted because she was by birth one 'of our auld enemies of England'; separated from her son; still comparatively young, and needing a strong protector, she gave her hand to Sir James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn. … After her second marriage she sinks out of notice, but enough is told to make it apparent that neglect and suffering accompanied the last years of the winning Jane Beaufort, who had stolen the heart of the King of Scots at Windsor Castle. … The long minority of James, and the first years of his brief reign, were too much occupied in strife with the Douglases to leave time for good government. … When there was peace, the King and his Parliament enacted many good laws. … Although the Wars of the Roses left the English little time to send armies to Scotland, and although there were no great hostilities with England, yet during this reign a great Scottish army threatened England, and a great English army threatened Scotland. James was on the side of the House of Lancaster; and 'the only key to the complicated understanding of the transactions of Scotland during the Wars of the two Roses is to recollect that the hostilities of James were directed, not against England, but against the successes of the House of York.' … Since the Battle of Durham, the frontier fortress of Roxburgh had been in English hands; and when, in 1460, it was commanded by the great partisan of York, the Earl of Warwick, James laid siege to it in person. Artillery had been in use for some time, and years before we hear of the 'cracks of war.' Still many of the guns were novelties, and, curious to study the strange new machinery of death, 'more curious than became the majesty of ane King,' James ventured too near 'ane misframed gun.' It burst, and one of its oaken wedges striking him, he fell to the ground, and 'died hastlie thairafter,' being in the thirtieth year of his age. … King James III., who was eight years old, was crowned at the Monastery of Kelso in 1460."

_M. G. J. Kinloch, History of Scotland, volume 1, chapter 16._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1460. Accession of James Ill.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1482-1488. Lauder Bridge and Sauchie Burn.

James III., who was an infant at the time of his father's death, developed a character, as he came to manhood, which the rude nobles of his court and kingdom could not understand. "He had a dislike to the active sports of hunting and the games of chivalry, mounted on horseback rarely, and rode ill. … He was attached to what are now called the fine arts of architecture and music; and in studying these used the instructions of Rogers, an English musician, Cochrane, a mason or architect, and Torphichen, a dancing-master. Another of his domestic minions was Hommil, a tailor, not the least important in the conclave, if we may judge from the variety and extent of the royal wardrobe, of which a voluminous catalogue is preserved. Spending his time with such persons, who, whatever their merit might be in their own several professions, could not be fitting company for a prince, James necessarily lost the taste for society of a different description, whose rank imposed on him a certain degree of restraint. … The nation, therefore, with disgust and displeasure, saw the king disuse the society of the Scottish nobles, and abstain from their counsel, to lavish favours upon and be guided by the advice of a few whom the age termed base mechanics. In this situation, the public eye was fixed upon James's younger brothers, Alexander duke of Albany, and John earl of Mar." The jealousy and suspicion of the king were presently excited by the popularity of his brothers and he caused them to be arrested (1478). Mar, accused of having dealings with witches, was secretly executed in prison and his earldom was sold to the king's favourite, Cochrane, who had amassed wealth by a thrifty use of his influence and opportunities. Albany escaped to France and thence to England, where he put himself forward as a claimant of the Scottish throne, securing the support of Edward IV. by offering to surrender the hard-won independence of the kingdom. An English army, under Richard of Gloucester (afterwards King Richard III.) was sent into Scotland to enforce his claim. The Scotch king assembled his forces and advanced from Edinburgh as far as Lauder (1482), to meet the invasion. At Lauder, the nobles, having becoming deeply exasperated by the arrogant state which the ex-architect assumed as Earl of Mar, held a meeting which resulted in the sudden seizure and hanging of all the king's favourites on Lauder Bridge. "All the favourites of the weak prince perished except a youth called Ramsay of Balmain, who clung close to the king's person," and was spared. Peace with Albany and his English allies was now arranged, on terms which made the duke lieutenant-general of the kingdom; but it lasted no more than a year. Albany became obnoxious and fled to England again. The doings of the king were still hateful to his nobles and people and a continual provocation of smouldering wrath. In 1488, the discontent broke out in actual rebellion, and James was easily defeated in a battle fought at Sauchie Burn, between Bannockburn and Stirling. Flying from the battlefield, he fell from his horse and was taken, badly injured, into the house of a miller near by, where he disclosed his name. "The consequence was, that some of the rebels who followed the chase entered the hut and stabbed him to the heart. The persons of the murderers were never known, nor was the king's body ever found."

_Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 20 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, series 3, chapters 18 and 22._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1488. Accession of James IV.

{2852}

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1502. The marriage which brought the crown of England to the Stuarts.

"On the 8th of August 1502 the ceremony of marriage between King James [IV. of Scotland] and Margaret, Princess of England [daughter of Henry VII. and sister of Henry VIII.], was celebrated in the Chapel of Holyrood. A union of crowns and governments might be viewed as a possible result of such a marriage; but there had been others between Scotland and England whence none followed. It was long ere such a harvest of peace seemed likely to arise from this union—it seemed, indeed, to be so buried under events of a contrary tenor that it was almost forgotten; yet, a hundred and one years later, it sent the great-grandson of James IV. to be King of England."

_J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 30 (volume 3)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1502-1504. The Highlands brought to order. Suppression of the independent Lordship of the Isles.

"The marriage of James in 1502 with the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., helped to prolong the period of tranquillity. But, in fact, his energetic administration of justice had, almost from the beginning of his reign, restored confidence, and re-awakened in his subjects an industrial activity, that had slumbered since the death of Alexander III. Everywhere he set his barons the novel task of keeping their territories in order. The Huntlys in the North, the Argylls in the West, were made virtual viceroys of the Highlands; the Douglasses were charged with maintaining the peace of the Borders; and at length the formidable Lordship of the Isles, which had been the source of all the Celtic troubles of Scotland since the days of Somerled, was broken up in 1504, after a series of fierce revolts, and the claim to an independent sovereignty abandoned forever. Henceforth the chieftains of the Hebrides held their lands of the Crown, and were made responsible for the conduct of their clans."

_J. M. Ross, Scottish History and Literature, chapter 5, page 177._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1513. The Battle of Flodden.

In 1513, while Henry VIII. of England, who had joined the Holy League against France, was engaged in the latter country, besieging Terouenne, he received an embassy from James IV., king of Scotland, his brother-in-law. "French intrigues, and the long-standing alliance between the nations, had induced James to entertain the idea of a breach with England. Causes of complaint were not wanting. There was a legacy due from Henry VII.; Sir Robert Ker, the Scotch Warden of the Marches, had been killed by a Heron of Ford, and the murderer found refuge in England; Andrew Barton, who, licensed with letters of marque against the Portuguese in revenge for the death of his father, had extended his reprisals to general piracy, had been captured and slain by Lord Thomas and Sir Edward Howard, and the Scotch King demanded justice for the death of his captain. To these questions, which had been long unsettled, an answer was now imperiously demanded. Henry replied with scorn, and the Scotch King declared war. The safety of England had been intrusted to the Earl of Surrey, who, when James crossed the border, was lying at Pontefract. Without delay, he pushed forward northward, and, challenging James to meet him on the Friday next following, came up with him when strongly posted on the hill of Flodden, with one flank covered by the river Till, the other by an impassable morass, and his front rendered impregnable by the massing of his artillery. Ashamed, after his challenge, to avoid the combat, Surrey moved suddenly northward, as though bound for Scotland, but soon marching round to the left, he crossed the Till near its junction with the Tweed, and thus turned James's position. The Scots were thus compelled to fight [September 9, 1513]. On the English right, the sons of Surrey with difficulty held their own. In the centre, where Surrey himself was assaulted by the Scotch King and his choicest troops, the battle inclined against the English; but upon the English left the Highlanders were swept away by the archers, and Stanley, who had the command in that wing, fell on the rear of the successful Scotch centre, and determined the fortune of the day. The slaughter of the Scotch was enormous, and among the number of the slain was James himself, with all his chief nobility."

_J. F. Bright, History of England, volume 2, pages 370-372._

"There lay slain on the fatal field of Flodden twelve Scottish earls, thirteen lords, and five eldest sons of peers—fifty chiefs, knights, and men of eminence, and about 10,000 common men. Scotland had sustained defeats in which the loss had been numerically greater, but never one in which the number of the nobles slain bore such a proportion to those of the inferior rank. The cause was partly the unusual obstinacy of the long defence, partly that when the common people began … to desert their standards, the nobility and gentry were deterred by shame and a sense of honour from following their example."

_Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 21 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _P. F. Tytler, History of Scotland, volume 2, chapter 6._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1513. Accession of James V.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1542. The disaster at Solway-frith.

James V. of Scotland, who was the nephew of Henry VIII. of England—the son of Henry's sister, Margaret Tudor—gave offense to his proud and powerful uncle (A. D. 1541) by excusing himself from a meeting which had been arranged to take place between the two kings, and for which Henry had taken the trouble to travel to York. It was the eager wish of the English king to persuade his royal nephew to take possession of the property of the monasteries of Scotland, in imitation of his own example. The appointed meeting was for the further urging of these proposals, more especially, and it had been frustrated through the influence of the Catholic clergy with young King James,—very much to the disgust of many among the Scottish nobles, as well as to the wrath of King Henry. Whence came results that were unexpectedly sad. Henry determined to avenge himself for the slight that had been put upon him, and, having made his preparations for war, he issued a manifesto, alleging various injuries which gave color to his declaration of hostilities. "He even revived the old claim to the vassalage of Scotland, and he summoned James to do homage to him as his liege lord and superior. He employed the Duke of Norfolk, whom he called the scourge of the Scots, to command in the war." After some preliminary raiding expeditions, the Duke of Norfolk advanced to the border with 20,000 men, or more. "James had assembled his whole military force at Fala and Sautrey, and was ready to advance as soon as he should be informed of Norfolk's invading his kingdom. The English passed the Tweed at Berwick, and marched along the banks of the river as far as Kelso; but hearing that James had collected near 30,000 men, they repassed the river at that village, and retreated into their own country. The King of Scots, inflamed with a desire of military glory, and of revenge on his invaders, gave the signal for pursuing them, and carrying the war into England. {2853} He was surprised to find that his nobility, who were in general disaffected on account of the preference which he had given to the clergy, opposed this resolution, and refused to attend him in his projected enterprise. Enraged at this mutiny, he reproached them with cowardice, and threatened vengeance; but still resolved, with the forces which adhered to him, to make an impression on the enemy. He sent 10,000 men to the western borders, who entered England at Solway-frith [or Solway Moss]; and he himself followed them at a small distance, ready to join them upon occasion." At the same time, he took the command of his little army away from Lord Maxwell, and conferred it on one of his favorites, Oliver Sinclair. "The army was extremely disgusted with this alteration, and was ready to disband; when a small body of English appeared, not exceeding 500 men, under the command of Dacres and Musgrave. A panic seized the Scots, who immediately took to flight, and were pursued by the enemy. Few were killed in this rout, for it was no action; but a great many were taken prisoners, and some of the principal nobility." The effect of this shameful disaster upon the mind of James was so overwhelming that he took to his bed and died in a few days. While he lay upon his deathbed, his queen gave birth to a daughter, who inherited his crown, and who played in subsequent history the unfortunate role of Mary, Queen of Scots."

_D. Hume, History of England, chapter 33._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 33._

_W. Robertson, History of Scotland, book 1._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1542. Accession of Queen Mary.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548. The English Wooing of Queen Mary.