Part 6

After some years of feud, the two chiefs, “by the industry of certain wise gentlemen of the Johnstones,” surprised all Scotland by making a treaty of peace. On April 1, 1592, they entered into a bond to forget and forgive all rancor and malice of the past, and to live in amity, themselves and their friends, in all time coming. A little more than a year after, a party of Johnstones, relying, no doubt, on the forbearance of their new ally, then warden of the West Marches, “rode a stealing” in the lands of Lord Sanquhar and of the knights of Drumlanrig, Lag, and Closeburn, carried off a large booty, and killed eighteen men who endeavored to retrieve their property. (See No 184, ‘The Lads of Wamphray.’) The injured gentlemen made complaint to Maxwell as warden, and also procured a commission directing him to proceed against the Johnstones. Maxwell was in an awkward plight. To induce him to take action, several of the sufferers engaged to enter into a bond of manrent, or homage, to Maxwell, by which they should be obliged to service and he to protection. “Maxwell, thinking this to be a good occasion for bringing all Nithsdale to depend upon him, embraced the offer.” But this bond, through negligence, came to the hands of Johnstone, who, seeing what turn matters would take, made a league with Scotts, Eliots, and others, and in a battle at Dryfe Sands, by superior strategy, defeated Maxwell, though the warden had much larger numbers. This was in December, 1593. “The Lord Maxwell, a tall man and heavy in armor, was in the chase overtaken and stricken from his horse. The report went that he called to Johnstone and desired to be taken as he had sometime taken his father, but was unmercifully used, and the hand that he reached forth cut off. But of this,” says Spotiswood, “I can affirm nothing. There always the Lord Maxwell fell, having received many wounds.” Drumlanrig, Closeburn, and other of the Nithsdale lairds of Maxwell’s faction, barely escaped with their lives.

Sir James Johnstone soon made his peace with the king, whose warden had been slain while acting under royal authority. The heir of the slain warden, John, the ninth Lord Maxwell, is said to have been only eight years old at the time of his father’s death.[14] If this was so, he became very early of age for all purposes of offence. The two clans kept up a bloody and destructive private war. Both chiefs were imprisoned and proclaimed rebel or traitor; Maxwell twice, first in 1601, as favoring popery, and again in 1607, for his extravagant turbulence; and in each case he made his own escape, the second time by the use of violence. At length, influenced perhaps by a conviction that his defiance of the law had gone too far for his safety, Maxwell seemed to be seriously disposed to reconcile himself with his inveterate enemy.[15] Sir James Johnstone, as it happened, had already asked Sir Robert Maxwell, who was his brother-in-law and cousin to Lord Maxwell, to speak to his kinsman with that view. Sir Robert had no wish to meddle, for his cousin, he said, was a dangerous man to have to do with. Lord John, however, spontaneously sent for Sir Robert, and said to him, You see my estate and the danger I stand in. I would crave your counsel as a man that tenders my weal. The result of much conference and writing (in which Sir Robert Maxwell, evidently feeling imperfect confidence in his cousin, acted with great caution) was that Lord Maxwell proposed a tryst with Sir James Johnstone, each of them to be accompanied by one person only, and no others to be present except Sir Robert, and faithfully promised, with his hands between Sir Robert’s hands, that neither he nor the man he should bring with him should do any wrong, “whether they agreed or not.” Johnstone accepted the terms and made corresponding promises. The meeting came off the 6th of April, 1608. Johnstone brought Willie Johnstone with him, and Maxwell Charlie Maxwell, a man that Sir Robert strongly disapproved, but his chief undertook to be answerable for him. Sir Robert required the same guaranty on the part of Johnstone for his follower, and these men were ordered to keep away from one another. The two principals and their mediator between them rode off, with their backs to their men, and began their parley. Looking round, Sir Robert saw that Charlie Maxwell had left his appointed place and gone to Willie Johnstone, at whom, after some words between them, he fired a pistol. Sir Robert cried to Lord Maxwell, Fie, make not yourself a traitor and me both! Lord Maxwell replied, I am blameless. Sir James Johnstone slipped away to see to his follower’s safety. Lord Maxwell followed Sir James, shot him in the back, and rode off.[16]

Lord Maxwell fled the country, but was tried in his absence and sentenced to death, with forfeiture of his estates. He came back to Scotland after four years, was basely betrayed into the power of the government by a kinsman, and was beheaded at Edinburgh May 21, 1613.[17]

“Thus was finally ended,” remarks Sir Walter Scott, “by a salutary example of severity, the ‘foul debate’ betwixt the Maxwells and Johnstones, in the course of which each family lost two chieftains: one dying of a broken heart, one in the field of battle, one by assassination, and one by the sword of the executioner.”

#A# 1, 2, and _passim_. The very affectionate relations of Lord Maxwell and his ‘lady and only joy,’ are a fiction of the ballad-maker. His wife was daughter of the first Marquis of Hamilton. Maxwell instituted a process of divorce against her, and she died while this was pending, before he fled the country in 1608. By his treatment of his wife he made her brother, the second marquis, and the Hamiltons generally, his enemies.[18]

5, 6. Carlaverock castle had from far back belonged to the Maxwells, and is theirs still. They had a house, or castle, at Dumfries, and the custody of the “houses” of Lochmaben, Langholm, and Thrieve.

9, 10. Douglas of Drumlanrig, Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and Grierson of Lag fled in the _sauve qui peut_ of Dryfe Sands, and the partisans of Lord Maxwell, who there lost his life, would naturally describe them as deserting their chief. They (or two of them) had entered into a “band” with Maxwell, as aforesaid. The ballad-maker seems to intimate that they were in a band with each other, or with somebody, to betray Maxwell.

11, and #B# 1. ‘Robin in the Orchet,’ ‘Robert of Oarchyardtoan,’ is properly Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardton, Lord John’s cousin, but it is evident, from the conjunction of mother and sisters, that the person here intended is his brother Robert, to whom, some years after the execution and forfeiture of Lord John, the estates were restored.

14. Maxwell’s wife, as said above, was no longer living. The “offers” which he made, to save his life, contain a proposal that he should marry the slain Sir James Johnstone’s daughter, without any dowry.

“Goodnight” is to be taken loosely as a farewell. Other cases are ‘John Armstrong’s last Goodnight,’ and the well-known beautiful fragment (?) of two stanzas called ‘Armstrong’s Goodnight;’ again, Essex’s last Goodnight, to the tune of The King’s last Goodnight, Chappell, Roxburghe Ballads, I, 570, and Popular Music, p. 174. The Earl of Derby sings a Goodnight (though the name is not used) in ‘Flodden Field,’ No 168, III, 356, stanzas 36–58. Justice Shallow sang those tunes that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his Fancies, or his Good-nights: Second Part of Henry IV, III, 2. Lord Byron, in the preface to Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, says “the good-night in the beginning of the first canto was suggested by Lord Maxwell’s Goodnight in the Border Minstrelsy.”

* * * * *

A

Communicated to Percy by G. Paton, Edinburgh, December 4, 1778.

1 ‘Good lord of the land, will you stay thane About my faither’s house, And walk into these gardines green, In my arms I’ll the embraice.

2 ‘Ten thousand times I’ll kiss thy face; Make sport, and let’s be mery:’ ‘I thank you, lady, fore your kindness; Trust me, I may not stay with the.

3 ‘For I have kil’d the laird Johnston; I vallow not the feed; My wiked heart did still incline; He was my faither’s dead.

4 ‘Both night and day I did proced, And a’ on him revainged to be; But now have I gotten what I long sowght, Trust me, I may not stay with the.

5 ‘Adue, Dumfriese, that proper place! Fair well, Carlaurike faire! Adue the castle of the Trive, And all my biddings there!

6 ‘Adue, Lochmaben gaits so faire, And the Langhm shank, where birks bobs bony! Adue, my leady and only joy! Trust me, I may not stay with the.

7 ‘Adue, fair Eskdale, up and doun, Wher my poor frends do duell! The bangisters will beat them doun, And will them sore compell.

8 ‘I’ll reveinge the cause mysell, Again when I come over the sea; Adue, my leady and only joy! Fore, trust me, I may not stay with the.

9 ‘Adue, Dumlanark! fals was ay, And Closburn! in a band; The laird of the Lag from my faither fled When the Jhohnstones struek of his hand.

10 ‘They wer three brethren in a band; I pray they may never be merry; Adue, my leady and only joy! Trust me, I may not stay with the.

11 ‘Adue, madam my mother dear, But and my sister[s] two! Fair well, Robin in the Orchet! Fore the my heart is wo.

12 ‘Adue, the lillie, and fair well, rose, And the primros, spreads fair and bony! Adue, my leady and only joy! Fore, trust me, I may not stay with the.’

13 He took out a good gold ring, Where at hang sygnets three: ‘Take thou that, my own kind thing, And ay have mind of me.

14 ‘Do not mary another lord Agan or I come over the sea; Adue, my leady and only joy! For, trust me, I may not stay with the.’

15 The wind was fair, and the ship was clare, And the good lord went away; The most part of his frends was there, Giving him a fair convoy.

16 They drank the wine, they did not spare, Presentting in that good lord’s sight; Now he is over the floods so gray; Lord Maxwell has te’n his last good-night.

* * * * *

B

Glenriddell MSS, XI, 18. 1791.

1 ‘Adiew, madam my mother dear, But and my sisters two! Adiew, fair Robert of Oarchyardtoan! For thee my heart is woe.

2 ‘Adiew, the lilly and the rose, The primrose, sweet to see! Adiew, my lady and only joy! For I manna stay with thee.

3 ‘Tho I have killed the laird Johnston, What care I for his feed? My noble mind dis still incline; He was my father’s dead.

4 ‘Both night and day I laboured oft Of him revenged to be, And now I’ve got what I long sought; But I manna stay with thee.

5 ‘Adiew, Drumlanrig! false was ay, And Cloesburn! in a band, Where the laird of Lagg fra my father fled When the Johnston struck off his hand.

6 ‘They were three brethren in a band; Joy may they never see! But now I’ve got what I long sought, And I maunna stay with thee.

7 ‘Adiew, Dumfries, my proper place, But and Carlaverock fair, Adiew, the castle of the Thrieve, And all my buildings there!

8 ‘Adiew, Lochmaben’s gates so fair, The Langholm shank, where birks they be! Adiew, my lady and only joy! And, trust me, I maunna stay with thee.

9 ‘Adiew, fair Eskdale, up and down, Where my poor friends do dwell! The bangisters will ding them down, And will them sore compel.

10 ‘But I’ll revenge that feed mysell When I come ou’r the sea; Adiew, my lady and only joy! For I maunna stay with thee.’

11 ‘Lord of the land, will you go then Unto my father’s place, And walk into their gardens green, And I will you embrace.

12 ‘Ten thousand times I’ll kiss your face, And sport, and make you merry;’ ‘I thank thee, my lady, for thy kindness, But, trust me, I maunna stay with thee.’

13 Then he took off a great gold ring, Where at hang signets three: ‘Hae, take thee that, my ain dear thing, And still hae mind of me.

14 ‘But if thow marry another lord Ere I come ou’r the sea— Adiew, my lady and only joy! For I maunna stay with thee.’

15 The wind was fair, the ship was close, That good lord went away, And most part of his friends were there, To give him a fair convay.

16 They drank thair wine, they did not spare, Even in the good lord’s sight; Now he is oer the floods so gray, And Lord Maxwell has taen his good-night.

* * * * *

#A.#

1^2. faither’s place? _So_ #B#.

4^2. And a’ to be revainged on him. _Cf._ #B#.

5^2. Fair well the Lanríke faires. (?)

9^4. struet. (?)

13^{1,2}. He took out a good gold ring [where it hang, _partly erased_.] Where it hang signets three.

#B.#

_Written in stanzas of eight lines._

4^1. labourod.

_The variations of the Minstrelsy, being editorial, do not require to be recorded, but some of them have a certain interest._

1^2. sisters three.

1^4. My heart is wae for thee.

3^3. mind their wrath disdains.

6^{3,4}. Their treacherous art and cowardly heart Has twin’d my love and me.

11 Lord of the land, that ladye said, O wad ye go wi me Unto my brother’s stately tower, Where safest ye may be!

12^{1,2}. There Hamiltons and Douglas baith Shall rise to succour thee.

14^3. His life is but a three days’ lease.

15^1. was clear, _as in_ #A#.

196

THE FIRE OF FRENDRAUGHT

#A. a.# ‘The Fire of Frendraught,’ Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 161, 1827. #b.# ‘Burning of Frendraught,’ Maidment’s North Countrie Garland, p. 4, 1824.

#B.# ‘The Burning of Frendraught,’ Kinloch MSS, V, 399.

#C.# ‘The Fire of Frendraught,’ from a note-book of Dr Joseph Robertson’s.

#D.# Ritson’s Scotish Songs, II, 35, 1794.

#E.# Kinloch MSS, VI, 27, one stanza.

#A a# was communicated to Motherwell by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe. (Corrections have here been adopted from Motherwell’s Errata: see also the Musical Museum, 1853, IV, 322*.) #A b#, says Motherwell, has the “disadvantage of containing a very considerable number of slight verbal and literal inaccuracies.” The implication is, or should be, that these variations are of editorial origin. Some of the readings of #b# are in themselves better than those of #a#. #b# is repeated in Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 165. The copy in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads, 1868, I, 267, is a with a reading or two from #b#, arbitrary alterations, and some misprints.

Dr Joseph Robertson has, in one of his notebooks, “Adversaria,” p. 63, the two following stanzas, given him by a gentleman of Buchan as belonging to “The Burning of Frendraught House.”

‘Will ye play at the cards, Lord John? Will ye drink at the wine? Or will ye [gang] to a weel made bed, And sleep till it be time?’

‘I’ll no play at the cards, ladie, I’ll no drink at the wine; But I’ll gang to a weel made bed, An sleep till it be time.’

Undoubtedly these stanzas may have occurred in a version of this ballad, but they are a commonplace, and sometimes an intrusive one. See II, 109, ‘Fair Janet,’ #F# 4, 5; 154, ‘Young Hunting,’ #K# 8, 9; 164, ‘Clerk Saunders,’ #F#, 5, 6; 409, ‘Willie o Douglas Dale,’ #B# 20.

The modern, and extremely vapid, ballad of ‘Frennet Hall’ appeared originally (I suppose) in Herd’s Scottish Songs, 1776, I, 142, and was afterwards received into Ritson’s Scotish Songs, II, 31, The Musical Museum, No 286, etc.

James Crichton of Frendraught and William Gordon of Rothiemay (a neighboring estate[19]) had a fierce quarrel about fishing-rights pertaining to lands which Gordon had sold to Crichton. A legal decision was rendered in favor of Frendraught, who, however, pursued his adversary with excessive vigor and procured him to be outlawed. After this, Rothiemay would hear to no terms of peace, and collected a party of loose fellows with the intent to waste Frendraught’s lands. Frendraught obtained a commission to arrest Rothiemay, and on the first day of the year 1630 set out to put this in force, accompanied, among others, by his uncle (George Gordon) James Leslie, son of the laird of Pitcaple, and John Meldrum, who was married to young Leslie’s aunt. Rothiemay, hearing of Frendraught’s coming, rode out to meet him, and there was a fight, in which Rothiemay and George Gordon were mortally wounded, and Meldrum badly. The feud waxed hot, and Frendraught’s lands were in danger of being burned and ravaged by Highlanders, with whom John Gordon of Rothiemay, son to the slain laird, had combined for the purpose. But in the end, by the strenuous exertions of the Marquis of Huntly and others, a settlement was effected. The laird of Rothiemay and the children of George Gordon were “to remit their father’s slaughter mutually,” and in satisfaction thereof the laird of Frendraught was to pay a certain sum of money to young Rothiemay and to George Gordon’s children: “which both, Frendraught obeyed and performed willingly, and so, all parties having shaken hands, they were heartily reconciled.”

This broil was no sooner settled than another sprouted, a side-shoot from the same stem. Meldrum, who had been with Frendraught in the affray with Rothiemay, and had been wounded, was dissatisfied with such requital as he received, and, getting nothing more by his bickering and threats, helped himself one night to two of Frendraught’s best horses. Summoned to court for the theft, he “turned rebel” and did not appear. Frendraught obtained a commission to arrest him, and went to look for him at Pitcaple, a place belonging to John Leslie, Meldrum’s brother-in-law. He did not find Meldrum, but fell in with James Leslie, Pitcaple’s son, who had also been of Frendraught’s party at the encounter on New Year’s day. There was talk about Meldrum’s behavior, in which Frendraught comported himself forbearingly; but James Leslie and Robert Crichton, a kinsman of Frendraught, had hot words, which ended in Leslie’s getting a dangerous shot in the arm. Hereupon the larger part of the surname of Leslie rose in arms against the Crichtons. Frendraught, grieved for what had happened to James Leslie, betook himself to the Marquis of Huntly, and entreated him to make peace. The marquis sent for the Leslies, and did his best to reconcile them, but Pitcaple would listen to nothing until he knew whether his son James was to live or die. Huntly, fearing for Frendraught’s safety, kept him two days at the Bog of Gight, and then, hearing that the Leslies were lying in wait, sent his own son, Viscount Melgum, and the young laird of Rothiemay, to protect him on the way home. Arrived there, the laird and his lady begged these young gentlemen to remain overnight, “and did their best, with all demonstration of love and kindness, to entertain them, thinking themselves happy now to have purchased such friends who had formerly been their foes.” At about two in the morning the tower of Frendraught house, in which these guests lay, took fire, and they with four of their servants were burnt to death. This occurred on the eighth (ninth) of October.

So far Sir Robert Gordon, uncle of the lady of Frendraught and cousin of the Marquis of Huntly, who was perfectly acquainted with all the parties and circumstances. He goes on to say, with entire fairness: “The rumor of this unhappy accident did speedily spread itself throughout the whole kingdom, every man bewailing it, and constructing it diversly as their affections led them; some laying an aspersion upon Frendraught, as if he had wilfully destroyed his guests, who had come thither to defend him against his enemies; which carried no appearance of truth; for, besides the improbability of the matter, he did lose therein a great quantity of silver, both coined and uncoined, and likewise all his writs and evidents were therein burnt.”[20]

The monstrous wickedness of this act would not, in the light of the history of those times, afford an argument that would of itself avail to clear Frendraught; but what words could describe his recklessness and folly! Supposing him willing to set fire to his own house, and sacrifice his silver and securities, for the gratification of burning young Rothiemay with the rest, he knew very well what consequences he had to expect. He had been glad to compound his feud with the Rothiemays by the payment of money (some say the considerable sum of 50,000 merks). He had been alarmed, and with good reason, at the prospect of a feud with the Leslies. But what were these to a feud with the Marquis of Huntly, which would bring down upon him, and did bring down upon him, not only the reprisals of the Gordons, but spoliation from all the brigands of the country?[21]

‘Lewed people demen gladly to the badder ende,’

says Chaucer, and so it was with ballad-makers, and sometimes even with clerks; John Spalding, for instance, the other contemporary authority upon this subject, who gives a lively and detailed account of the burning of the tower, as follows.[22]

“The viscount was laid in a bed in the Old Tower, going off the hall, and standing upon a vault, wherein there was a round hole, devised of old, just under Aboyne’s[23] bed. Robert Gordon, born in Sutherland, his servitor, and English Will, his page, was both laid beside him in the same chamber. The laird of Rothiemay, with some servants beside him, was laid in an upper chamber just above Aboyne’s chamber; and in another room above that chamber was laid George Chalmer of Noth, and George Gordon, another of the viscount’s servants; with whom also was laid Captain Rollok, then in Frendraught’s own company. Thus all being at rest, about midnight that dolorous tower took fire in so sudden and furious manner, yea, and in a clap, that this noble viscount, the laird of Rothiemay, English Will, Colin Ivat, another of Aboyne’s servitors, and other two, being six in number, were cruelly burnt and tormented to the death, but help or relief; the laird of Frendraught, his lady and whole household looking on, without moving or stirring to deliver them from the fury of this fearful fire, as was reported. Robert Gordon, called Sutherland Robert, being in the viscount’s chamber, escaped this fire with his life. George Chalmer and Captain Rollok, being in the third room, escaped also this fire, and, as was said, Aboyne might have saved himself also if he had gone out of doors, which he would not do, but suddenly ran up stairs to Rothiemay’s chamber, and wakened him to rise, and as he is wakening him, the timber passage and lofting of the chamber hastily takes fire, so that none of them could win down stairs again; so they turned to a window looking to the close, where they piteously cried help, help, many times, for God’s cause! the laird and the lady, with their servants, all seeing and hearing this woeful crying, but made no help nor manner of helping;[24] which they perceiving, they cried oftentimes mercy at God’s hands for their sins, syne clasped in other arms, and cheerfully suffered this cruel martyrdom. Thus died this noble viscount, of singular expectation, Rothiemay, a brave youth, and the rest, by this doleful fire never enough to be deplored, to the great grief and sorrow of their kin, friends, parents, and whole country people, especially to the noble marquis, who for his goodwill got this reward.”