HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.

CHAPTER I.

ROBERT THE THIRD.

1390—1424.

The remains of Robert the Second
were committed to the sepulchre in
the Abbey of Scone; and on the 14th
August 1390, being the morning suc­
ceeding the funeral, the coronation of
his successor, John, earl of Carrick,
took place, with circumstances of great
pomp and solemnity¹ Next day,
which was the Assumption of the
Virgin, his wife,AnnabellaDrummond,
countess of Carrick, a daughter of
the noble house of Drummond, was
crowned queen; and on the following
morning, the assembled prelates and
nobles, amidst a great concourse of
the people, took their oaths of alle­
giance, when it was agreed that the
king should change his name to that
of Robert the Third; the appellative
John, from its associations with Baliol,
being considered ominous and un­
popular.

The character of the monarch was
not essentially different from that of
his predecessor. It was amiable, and
far from wanting in sound sense and
discretion; but the accident which
had occasioned his lameness, unfitted
him for excelling in those martial ex-

¹ Winton, vol. ii. pp. 361, 362. Fordun a
Goodal, vol. ii. p. 418. Chamberlain Accounts,
vol. ii. p. 196. The funeral expenses amounted
to £253, 19s. 9d.
VOL. II.

ercises which were then necessary to
secure the respect of his nobility, and
compelled him to seek his happiness
in pacific pursuits and domestic en­
dearments, more likely to draw upon
him the contempt of his nobles than
any more kindly feelings. The name
of king, too, did not bring with it, in
this instance, that high hereditary
honour which, had Robert been the
representative of a long line of princes,
must necessarily have attached to it.
He was only the second king of a new
race; the proud barons who surrounded
his throne had but lately seen his
father and himself in their own rank ;
had associated with them as their
equals, and were little prepared to
surrender, to a dignity of such recent
creation, the homage or the awe which
the person on whom it had fallen did
not command by his own virtues.
Yet the king appears to have been dis­
tinguished by many admirable quali­
ties. He possessed an inflexible love
of justice, and an affection for his
people, which were evinced by every
measure where he was suffered to fol­
low the dictates of his own heart; he
was aware of the miseries which the
country had suffered by the long con­
tinuance of war, and he saw clearly
that peace was the first and best bless-

2                                       HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

ing which his government could be­
stow, and for the establishment and
continuance of which almost every
sacrifice should be made. The sound­
ness of these views could not be
doubted. They were the dictates of
a clear and correct thinking mind,
which, confined by circumstances to
thoughtfulness and retirement, had
discovered the most judicious line of
policy, when all around it was turbu­
lence and error, and a few centuries
later they would have been hailed as
the highest virtues in a sovereign.

But Robert was wanting in that
combination of qualities which could
alone have enabled him to bring these
higher principles into action; and this
is explained in a single word, when it
has been said he was unwarlike. The
sceptre required to be held in a firm
hand; and to restrain the outrages of
a set of nobles so haughty as those
who then domineered over Scotland,
it was absolutely necessary that the
king should possess somewhat of that
fierce energy which distinguished
themselves. Irresolution, timidity,
and an anxious desire to conciliate the
affection of all parties, induced him to
abandon the most useful designs, be­
cause they opposed the selfishness, or
threatened to abridge the power, of
his barons; and this weakness of char­
acter was ultimately productive of
fatal effects in his own family, and
throughout the kingdom. It hap­
pened also, unfortunately for the peace
of the community, that his father had
delegated the chief power of the state
to his brothers, the Earls of Fife and of
Buchan, committing the general man­
agement of all public affairs, with the
title of Governor, to the first; ¹ and
permitting the Earl of Buchan to rule
over the northern parts of the king­
dom, with an authority little less than
regal. The first of these princes had
long evinced a restless ambition, which
had been increased by the early pos­
session of power; but his character
began now to discover those darker
shades of crime, which grew deeper as
he advanced in years. The Earl of

¹ Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. pp. 165,
192.

Buchan, on the other hand, was little
less than a cruel and ferocious savage,
a species of Celtic Attila, whose com­
mon appellation of the “ Wolf of
Badenoch,” is sufficiently character­
istic of the dreadful attributes which
composed his character, and who issued
from his lair in the north, like the
devoted instrument of the Divine
wrath, to scourge and afflict the nation.
On the morning after the coronation,
a little incident occurred, which is in­
dicative of the gentle character of the
king, and illustrates the simple man­
ners of the times. The fields and
enclosures round the monastery had
been destroyed by the nobles and
their retinue; and as it happened
during the harvest, when the crops
were ripe, the mischief fell heavily on
the monks. A canon of the order,
who filled the office of storekeeper,
demanded an audience of the king, for
the purpose of claiming some compen­
sation ; but on announcing his errand,
the chamberlain dismissed him with
scorn. The mode in which he re­
venged himself was whimsical and
extraordinary. Early on the morning
after the coronation, before the king
had awoke, the priest assembled a
motley multitude of the farm-servants
and villagers belonging to the monas­
tery, who, bearing before them an
image stuffed with straw, and armed
with the drums, horns, and rattles
which they used in their rustic festi­
vals, took their station under the win­
dows of the royal bed-chamber, and at
once struck up such a peal of yells,
horns, rattles, and dissonant music,
that the court awoke in terror and
dismay. The priest who led the rout
was instantly dragged before the king,
and asked what he meant. “Please
your majesty,” said he, “ what you
have just heard are our rural carols,
in which we indulge when our crops
are brought in; and as you and your
nobles have spared us the trouble and
expense of cutting them down this
season, we thought it grateful to give
you a specimen of our harvest jubilee.”
The freedom and sarcasm of the answer
would have been instantly punished
by the nobles; but the king under-

1390-8.]                                          ROBERT III.                                                    3

stood and pardoned the reproof, or­
dered an immediate inquiry into the
damage done to the monastery, and
not only paid the full amount, but
applauded the humour and courage of
the ecclesiastic.¹

It was a melancholy proof of the
gentle and indolent character of this
monarch that, after his accession to
the throne, the general management
of affairs, and even the name of Gover­
nor,² were still intrusted to the Earl
of Fife, who for a while continued to
pursue such measures as seemed best
calculated for the preservation of the
public prosperity. The truce of Leil-
inghen, which had been entered into
between France and England in 1389,
and to which Scotland had become a
party, was again renewed,³ and at the
same time it was thought expedient
that the league with France, concluded
between Charles the Sixth and Robert
the Second in 1371, should be pro­
longed and ratified by the oath of the
king,⁴ so that the three countries ap­
peared to be mutually desirous of
peace. Upon the part of England,
every precaution seems to have been
taken to prevent any infractions of
the truce. The Scottish commerce
was protected; all injuries committed
upon the Borders were directed to be
investigated and redressed by the
Lords Wardens; safe-conducts to the
nobles, the merchants, and the stu­
dents of Scotland, who were desirous
of residing in or travelling through
England, were readily granted ; and
every inclination was shewn to pave
the way for the settlement of a lasting
peace.⁵ Upon the part of Scotland,
these wise measures were met by a
spirit equally conciliatory; and for
eight years, the period for which the
truce was prolonged, no important war-

¹ Fordun a Hearne, vol. iv. pp. 1111, 1112.

² Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 165.
“Et Comiti de Fyf: Custodi regni pro officio
Custodis percipient: mille marcas per an­
num.” Ibid. pp. 261, 267.

³ Rymer, Fœdera, vol. vii. p. 622. Rotuli
Scotiæ, vol. ii. pp. 103, 105.

⁴ Records of the Parliament of Scotland, sub
anno 1390, p. 136. Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. ii.
p. 98.

⁵ Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. ii. pp. 99,100,101.103,
105.

like operations took place : a blessed
and unusual cessation, in which the
country began to breathe anew, and to
devote itself to the pursuits of peace.
So happy a state of things was first
interrupted by the ferocity of the
“ Wolf of Badenoch,” and the disorders
of the northern parts of the kingdom;
On some provocation given to Buchan
by the Bishop of Moray, this chief
descended from his mountains, and
after laying waste the country with a
sacrilege which excited unwonted hor­
ror, sacked and plundered the cathe­
dral of Elgin, carrying off its chalices
and vestments, polluting its shrines
with blood, and, finally, setting fire to
the noble pile, which, with the ad­
joining houses of the canons and the
neighbouring town, were burnt to the
ground.⁶ This exploit of the father
was only a signal for a more serious
incursion, conducted by his natural
son, Duncan Stewart, whose manners
were worthy of his descent, and who,
at the head of a wild assemblage of
ketherans, armed only with the sword
and target, broke across the range of
hills which divide the counties of
Aberdeen and Forfar, and began to
destroy the country and murder the
inhabitants with reckless and in­
discriminate cruelty. Sir Walter
Ogilvy, then Sheriff of Angus, along
with Sir Patrick Gray, and Sir
David Lindsay of Glenesk, instantly
collected their power, and although
far inferior in numbers, trusting to
the temper of their armour, attacked
the mountaineers at Gasklune, near
the Water of Isla.⁷ But they were
almost instantly overwhelmed, the
Highlanders fighting with a ferocity
and a contempt of life, which seem to
have struck a panic into their steel-
clad assailants. Ogilvy, with his
brother, Wat of Lichtoune, Young of
Ouchterlony, the Lairds of Cairncross,
Forfar, and Guthrie, were slain, and

⁶  Winton, vol. ii. p. 363. Keith’s Catalogue,
p. 83. See Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii.p.355.

⁷  Winton, Chron. vol. ii. pp. 368, 369. For-
dun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 420. Glenbreret,
where this writer affirms the battle to have
been fought, is Glenbrierachan, about eleven
miles north of Gasklune. Macpherson' Notes
on Winton. p. 517.

4                                       HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

sixty men-at-arms along with them;
whilst Sir Patrick Gray and Sir David
Lindsay were grievously wounded, and
with difficulty carried off the field.
The indomitable fierceness of the
mountaineers is strikingly shewn by an
anecdote preserved by Winton. Lind­
say had pierced one of these, a brawny
and powerful man, through the body
with his spear, and thus apparently
pinned him to the earth; but although
mortally wounded, and in the agonies
of death, he writhed himself up by
main strength, and, with the weapon
in his body, struck Lindsay a desperate
blow with his sword, which cut him
through the stirrup and steel-boot into
the bone, after which his assailant in­
stantly sunk down and expired.¹

These dreadful excesses, committed
by a brother and nephew of the king,
called for immediate redress; and it
is a striking evidence of the internal
weakness of the government, that they
passed unheeded, and were succeeded
by private feuds amongst the nobility,
with whom the most petty disputes
became frequently the causes of cruel
and deadly revenge. A quarrel of
this kind had occurred between the
Lady of Fivy, wife to Sir David Lind­
say, and her nephew, Robert Keith, a
baron of great power. It arose from
a trifling misunderstanding between
some masons and the servants of
Keith regarding a watercourse, but it
concluded in this fierce chief besieging
his aunt in her castle; upon which
Lindsay, who was then at court, flew
to her rescue, and encountering Keith
at Garvyach, compelled him to raise
the siege, with the loss of sixty of his
men, who were slain on the spot.²

Whilst the government was dis­
graced by the occurrence of such de­
liberate acts of private war in the low
country, the Highlanders prepared to
exhibit an extraordinary spectacle.
Two numerous clans, or septs, known
by the names of the clan Kay, and the
clan Quhete,³ having long been at

¹ Winton, vol. ii. p. 369. Extracta ex
Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. folio 240.

² Winton, vol. ii. p. 372.

³ Clan Quete or clan Chattan. The clan
Kay is thought to have been the clan Dhai—
the Davidsons, a sept of the M’Pherson.

deadly feud, their mutual attacks
were carried on with that ferocity
which at this period distinguished the
Celtic race from the more southern
inhabitants of Scotland. The ideas
of chivalry, the factitious principles of
that system of manners from which
we derive our modern code of honour,
had hitherto made little progress
amongst them; but the more inti­
mate intercourse between the northern
and southern portions of the kingdom,
and the residence of the lowland
barons amongst them, appear to have
introduced a change; and the notions
of the Norman knights becoming more
familiar to the mountaineers, they
adopted the singular idea of deciding
their quarrel by a combat of thirty
against thirty. This project, instead
of discouragement, met with the ap­
proval of the government, who were
happy that a scheme should have sug­
gested itself, by which there was some
prospect of the leaders in those fierce
and endless disputes being cut off. A
day having been appointed for the
combat, barriers were raised in the
level ground of the North Inch of
Perth, and in the presence of the king
and a large concourse of the nobility,
sixty tall athletic Highland soldiers,
armed in the fashion of their country,
with bows and arrows, sword and
target, short knives and battle-axes,
entered the lists, and advanced in
mortal array against each other ; but
at this trying moment the courage of
one of the clan Chattan faltered, and,
as the lines were closing, he threw
himself into the Tay, swam across the
river, and fled to the woods. All was
now at a stand : with the inequality
of numbers the contest could not pro­
ceed ; and the benevolent monarch,
who had suffered himself to be per­
suaded against his better feelings, was
about to break up the assembly, when
a stout burgher of Perth, an armourer
by trade, sprung within the barriers,
and declared that for half a mark
he would supply the place of the de­
serter. The offer was accepted, and a
dreadful contest ensued. Undefended
by armour, and confined within a
narrow space, the Highlanders fought

1390-8.]                                        ROBERT III.                                                      5

with a ferocity which nothing could
surpass; whilst the gashes made by
the daggers and battle-axes, and the
savage yells of the combatants, com­
posed a scene altogether new and ap­
palling to many French and English
knights, who were amongst the spec­
tators, and to whom, it may be easily
imagined, the contrast between this
cruel butchery, and the more polished
and less fatal battles of chivalry, was
striking and revolting. At last a
single combatant of the clan Kay
alone remained, whilst eleven of their
opponents, including the bold ar­
mourer, were still able to wield their
weapons; upon which the king threw
down his gage, and the victory was
awarded to the clan Quhete. The
leaders in this savage combat are said
to have been Shaw, the son of Farqu-
hard, who headed the clan Kay, and
Cristijohnson, who headed the victors;¹
but these names, which have been
preserved by our contemporary chro­
niclers, are in all probability corrupted
from the original Celtic. After this
voluntary immolation of their bravest
warriors, the Highlanders for a long
time remained quiet within their
mountains; and the Earl of Moray
and Sir James Lindsay, by whom this
expedient for allaying the feuds is
said to have been encouraged, con­
gratulated themselves on the success
of their project. Soon after this, the
management of the northern parts of
the kingdom² was committed to the
care of David, earl of Carrick, the
king’s eldest son, who, although still a
youth in his seventeenth year, and
with the faults incident to a proud
and impatient temper, evinced an
early talent for government, which,
under proper cultivation, might have
proved a blessing to the country.

For some years after this, the cur­
rent of events is of that quiet char­
acter which offers little prominent or

¹ Winton, vol. ii. pp. 373, 374, and Notes,
p. 518. Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 420.

² Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 349.
“ Et Dno. Comiti de Carrick de donacione
regis pro expensis suis factis in partibus
borealibus per tempus compoti: ut patet per
literas regis concessas super has, testante
clerico probacionis, 40 li.”

interesting. The weakness of the go­
vernment of Richard the Second, the
frenzy of the French king, the pacific
disposition of the Scottish monarch,
and the character of the Earl of Fife,
his chief minister, who, although am­
bitious and intriguing, was unwarlike,
all contributed to secure to Scotland
the blessing of peace. The truce with
England was renewed from year to
year, and the intercourse between the
two countries warmly encouraged; the
nobility, the merchants, the students
of Scotland, received safe-conducts,
and travelled into England for the
purposes of pleasure, business, or
study, or to visit the shrines of the
most popular saints ; and the rivalry
between the two nations was no longer
called forth in mortal combats, but in
those less fatal contests, by which the
restless spirits of those times, in the
absence of real war, kept up their
military experience by an imitation of
it in tilts and tournaments. An en­
thusiastic passion for chivalry now
reigned in both countries, and, unless
we make allowance for the universal
influence of this singular system, no
just estimate can be formed of the
manners of the times. Barons who
were sage in council, and high in civil
or military office, would leave the
business of the state, and interrupt
the greatest transactions, to set off
upon a tour of Adventures, having the
king’s royal letters, permitting them
to “ perform points of arms, and mani­
fest their prowess to the world.”
Wortley, an English knight of great
reputation, arrived in Scotland; and,
after a courteous reception at court,
published his cartel of defiance, which
was taken up by Sir James Douglas of
Strathbrock, and the trial of arms ap­
pointed to be held in presence of the
king at Stirling; but after the lists
had been prepared, some unexpected
occurrence appears to have prevented
the duel from taking place.³ Sir
David Lindsay of Glenesk, who was
then reputed one of the best soldiers
in Scotland, soon after the accession
of Robert the Third sent his cartel to

³ Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 366.
Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii, p. 421.

6                                        HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

the Lord Wells, an English knight of
the court of Richard the Second,
which having been accepted, the duel
was appointed to take place in London
in presence of the king. So impor­
tant did Lindsay consider the affair,
that he freighted a vessel belonging to
Dundee¹ to bring him from London a
new suit of armour; and, when the
day arrived, at the head of a splendid
retinue he entered the lists, which
were crowded by the assembled nobles
and beauties of the court. In the first
course the English knight was borne
out of his saddle; and Lindsay, al­
though rudely struck, kept his seat so
firmly, that a cry rose amongst the
crowd, who insisted he was tied to his
steed, upon which he vaulted to the
ground, and, although encumbered by
his armour, without touching the
stirrup, again sprung into the saddle.
Both the knights, after the first
course, commenced a desperate foot
combat with their daggers, which con-
cluded in the total discomfiture of
Lord Wells. Lindsay, who was a man
of great personal strength, having
struck his dagger firmly into one of
the lower joints of his armour, lifted
him into the air, and gave him so
heavy a fall, that he lay at his mercy.
He then, instead of putting him to
death, a privilege which the savage
laws of these combats at outrance con­
ferred upon the victor, courteously
raised him from the ground, and, lead­
ing him below the ladies’ gallery, de­
livered him as her prisoner to the
Queen of England.²

Upon another occasion, in one of
those tournaments, an accomplished
baron, named Piers Courtney, made
his appearance, who bore upon his
surcoat a falcon, with the distich,—
“ I bear a falcon fairest in flycht, whoso
prikketh at her his death is dicht, in
graith.” To his surprise he found
in the lists an exact imitation of him­
self in the shape of a Scottish knight,
with the exception, that instead of a

¹ Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. ii. p. 104.

² Winton, vol. ii. pp. 355, 356, 357. For-
dun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 422. Lindsay, in
gratitude for his victory, founded an altar
in the parish church of Dundee. Extracta
ex Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. fol. 243.

falcon, his surcoat bore a jay, with an
inscription ludicrously rhyming to the
defiance of Courtney,—"I bear a pyet
peikand at ane pees,³ quhasa pykkis at
her I sall pyk at his nees,⁴ in faith.”
The challenge could not be mistaken;
and the knights ran two courses
against each other, in each of which
the helmet of the Scot, from being
loosely strapped, gave way, and foiled
the attaint of Courtney, who, having
lost two of his teeth by his adversary ’s
spear, loudly complained of the occur­
rence, and insisted that the laws of
arms made it imperative on both
knights to be exactly on equal terms.
“ I am content,'’ said the Scot, “ to run
six courses more on such an agreement,
and let him who breaks it forfeit two
hundred pounds.” The challenge was
accepted; upon which he took off his
helmet, and, throwing back his thick
hair, shewed that he was blind of an
eye, which he had lost by a wound in
the battle of Otterburn. The agree­
ment made it imperative on Courtney
to pay the money, or to submit to lose
an eye; and it may readily be imagined
that Sir Piers, a handsome man, pre­
ferred the first to the last alternative.⁵
The title of duke, a dignity origin­
ally Norman, had been brought from
France into England; and we now
find it for the first time introduced
into Scotland in a parliament held by
Robert the Third at Perth, on the
28th of April 1398.⁶ At this meeting
of the estates, the king, with great
pomp, created his eldest son, David,
earl of Carrick, Duke of Rothesay,
and at the same time bestowed the
dignity of Duke of Albany upon the
Earl of Fife, to whom, since his acces­
sion, he had intrusted almost the
whole management of public affairs.⁷

³ Pees—piece.                      ⁴ Nees—nose.

⁵ Fordun a Goodal. vol. ii. p. 423.

⁶ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 422.

⁷ Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 421.
Et libat: Clerico libacionis, domus Dni nostri
Regis, ad expensas ipsius domus "factas apud
Sconam, et apud Perth tempore quo tentum
fuit Scaccarium, quo eciam tempore tentum
fuit consilium Reg: ibidem super multis
punctis et articulis necessariis pro negotiis
regni, et reipublicæ, £119, 6s. 4d.” The
account goes on to notice the creation of the
Earl of Carrick as Duke of Rothesay, of Fife

1398.]                                             ROBERT III.                                                     7

The age of the heir-apparent rendered
any further continuance of his dele­
gated authority suspicious and un­
necessary. Rothesay was now past
his twentieth year; and his character,
although exhibiting in an immoderate
degree the love of pleasure natural to
his time of life, was yet marked by a
vigour which plainly indicated that he
would not long submit to the superi­
ority of his uncle Albany. From his
earliest years he had been the darling
of his father, and, even as a boy, his
household and establishment appear
to have been kept up with a munifi­
cence which was perhaps imprudent;
yet the affectionate restraints imposed
by his mother the queen, and the con­
trol of William de Drummond, the
governor to whose charge his educa­
tion seems to have been committed,
might have done much for the forma­
tion of his character, had he not been
deprived of both at an early age. It
is a singular circumstance, also, that
the king, although he possessed not
resolution enough to shake off his im­
prudent dependence upon Albany,
evidently dreaded his ambition, and
had many misgivings for the safety of
his favourite son, and the dangers by
which he was surrounded. This may
be inferred from the repeated bands
or covenants for the support and de­
fence of himself and his son and heir
the Earl of Carrick, which were entered
into between this monarch and his
nobles, from the time the prince had
reached his thirteenth year.¹

These bands, although in themselves
not unknown to the feudal constitu­
tion, yet were new in so far as they
were agreements, not between subject
and subject, but between the king and
those great vassals who ought to have
been sufficiently bound to support
the crown and the heir-apparent by
the ordinary oaths of homage. It is
in this light that these frequent feudal
covenants, by which any vassal of the
crown, for a salary settled upon him
and his heirs, becomes bound to give
his “ service and support " to the sove-

as Duke of Albany, and of David Lindsay as
Earl of Crawford^.
1 Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 197.

reign and his eldest son the Earl of
Carrick, are to be regarded as a new
feature in the feudal constitution of
the country, importing an increase in
the power of the aristocracy, and a
proportional decrease in the strength
of the crown. There seems, in short,
throughout the whole reign of David
the Second and his successor, to have
been a gradual dislocation of the parts
of the feudal government, which left
the nobles, far more than they had
ever yet been, in the condition of so
many independent princes, whose sup­
port the king could no longer compel
as a right, but was reduced to pur­
chase by pensions. In this way, there
was scarce a baron of any power or
consequence whom Robert had not at­
tempted to bind to his service and
that of his son. The Duke of Albany,
Lord Walter Stewart of Brechin his
brother, Lord Murdoch Stewart, eldest
son of Albany, and afterwards regent
of the kingdom; Sir John Mont­
gomery of Eaglesham, Sir William de
Lindsay, Sir William Stewart of Jed-
burgh, and Sir John de Ramorgny,
were all parties to agreements of this
nature, in which the king, by a charter,
grants to them, and in many instances
to their children, for the whole period
of their lives, certain large sums in
annuity, under the condition of their
defending the king and the Earl of
Carrick, in time of peace as well as
war.² We shall soon have an opportu­
nity of observing how feeble were such
agreements to insure to the crown the
support and loyal attachment of the
subjects where they happened to
counteract any schemes of ambition
and individual aggrandisement.

In the meantime, the character of
that prince, for whose welfare and
security these alliances were under­
taken, had begun to exhibit an increas­
ing impatience of control, and an eager
desire of power. Elegant in his per­
son, with a sweet and handsome coun­
tenance, excelling in all knightly ac­
complishments, courteous and easy in
his manners, and a devoted admirer
of beauty, Rothesay was the idol of

² Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. pp. 281,
310, 332, 197, 206, 207, 370, 495, 219.

8                                         HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. I.

the populace ; whilst a fondness for
poetry, and a considerable acquaint­
ance with the literature of the age,
gave a superior refinement to his
character, which, as it was little appre­
ciated by a fierce nobility, probably
induced him, in his turn, to treat their
savage ignorance with contempt. He
had already, at an early age, been
familiarised to the management of
public business, and had been engaged
in the settlement of the disturbed
northern districts, and employed as a
commissioner for composing the differ­
ences on the Borders.¹ His mother,
the queen, a woman of great sense
and spirit, united her influence to that
of her son; and a strong party was
formed for the purpose of reducing
the power of Albany, and compelling
him to retire from the chief manage­
ment of affairs, and resign his power
into the hands of the prince.

It was represented to the king, and
with perfect truth, that the kingdom
was in a frightful state of anarchy and
disorder; that the administration of
the laws was suspended; those who
loved peace, and were friends to good
order, not knowing where to look for
support; whilst, amid the general con­
fusion, murder, robbery, and every
species of crime, prevailed to an alarm­
ing and dreadful excess. All this had
taken place, it was affirmed, in conse­
quence of the misplaced trust which
had been put into the hands of Albany,
who prostituted his office of governor
to his own selfish designs, and pur­
chased the support of the nobles by
offering them an immunity for their
offences. “ If,” said the friends of
the prince—“ If it is absolutely neces­
sary, from the increasing infirmities
of the king, that he should delegate
his authority to a governor or lieu­
tenant, let his power be transferred to
him to whom it is justly due, the heir-
apparent to the throne; so that the
country be no longer torn and en­
dangered by the ambition of two con­
tending factions, and shocked by the
indecent and undignified spectacle of
perpetual disputes in the royal house-

¹ Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 349.
Winton, vol. ii. pp. 376, 377.

hold.” These representations, and the
increasing strength of the party of the
prince, convinced Albany that it would
be prudent for the present to give way
to the secret wishes of the king and
the open ambition of Rothesay, and
to resign that office of governor,
which he could no longer retain with
safety.

A parliament was accordingly held
at Perth on the 27th of January 1398,
of which the proceedings are interest­
ing and important; and it is fortunate
that a record has been lately disco­
vered,² which contains a full account
of this meeting of the three estates. It
is declared, in the first place, that the
“ misgovernance of the realm, and the
defaults in the due administration of
the laws, are to be imputed to the
king and his ministers;³ and if, there­
fore, the king chooses to excuse his
own mismanagement, he is bound to
be answerable for his officers, whom
he must summon and arraign before
his council, whose decision is to be
given after they have made their de­
fence, seeing no man ought to be con­
demned before he is called and openly
accused.”

After this preamble, in which it is
singular at this early period to see
clearly announced the principle of the
king’s responsibility through his min­
isters, it is declared, that since the
king, for sickness of his person, is not
able to labour in the government of
the realm, nor to restrain “ tresspass-
ours,” the council have judged it ex­
pedient that the Duke of Rothesay
should be the king’s lieutenant gene­
rally throughout the land for the term
of three years, having full power in
all things, equally as if he were him­
self the king, under the condition that
he is to be obliged, by his oath, to

²  This valuable manuscript Record of the
Parliament 1398, was politely communicated
to me by Mr Thomson, Deputy-clerk Register,
to whom we owe its discovery. It will be
printed in the first volume of the Acts of the
Parliament of Scotland. It appears not to
be an original record, but a contemporaneous
translation from the Latin original, now lost.

³  Skene, in his statutes of Robert the Third,
p. 59, has suppressed the words, "sulde be
imputyt to the kyng.” His words are, “sulde
be imput to the king’s officiars.”

1398.]                                            ROBERT III.                                                    9

administer the office according to the
directions of the Council-General; or,
in absence of the parliament, with the
advice of a council of experienced and
faithful men, of whom the principal
are to be the Duke of Albany, and
Walter Stewart, lord of Brechin, the
Bishops of St Andrews, Glasgow, and
Aberdeen, and the Earls of Douglas,
Ross, Moray, and Crawford. To these
were added, the Lord of Dalkeith, the
Constable Sir Thomas Hay, the Mar­
shal Sir William Keith, Sir Thomas
Erskine, Sir Patrick Graham, Sir John
Levingston, Sir William Stewart, Sir
John of Ramorgny, Adam Forester,
along with the Abbot of Holyrood,
the Archdean of Lothian, and Mr Wal­
ter Forester. It was next directed, that
the different members of this council
should take an oath to give to the
young regent “lele counsail, for the
common profit of the realm, nocht
havande therto fede na frendschyp; “
and that the duke himself be sworn
to fulfil everything which the king, in
his coronation oath, had promised to
Holy Kirk and the people. These
duties of the king were summarily
explained to consist in the upright
administration of the laws; the main­
tenance of the old manners and cus­
toms for the people; the restraining
and punishing of all manslayers,
reifars, brennars, and generally all
strong and masterful misdoers; and
more especially in the seizing and put­
ting down of all cursed or excommu­
nicated men and heretics.

Such being the full powers com­
mitted to the regent, provision was
made against an abuse very common
in those times. The king, it was de­
clared, shall be obliged not to “let
or hinder the prince in the execution
of his office by any counter-orders, as
has hitherto happened; and if such
were given, the lieutenant was not to
be bound either to return an answer
or to obey them.” It was next directed
by the parliament that whatever mea­
sures were adopted, or orders issued,
in the execution of this office, should
be committed to writing, with the
date of the day and place, and the
names of the councillors by whose

advice they were adopted, so that each
councillor may be ready to answer for
his own deed, and, if necessary, sub­
mit to the punishment which, in the
event of its being illegal, should be
adjudged by the council-general. It
was determined in the same parlia­
ment that the prince, in the discharge
of his duties as lieutenant, was to have
the same salary allowed him as that
given to the Duke of Albany, his pre­
decessor in the office of regent, at the
last council-general held at Stirling.
With regard to the relations with
foreign powers, it was resolved that
an embassy, or, as it is singularly
called, “a great message,'’ be de­
spatched to France, and that commis­
sioners should be appointed to treat at
Edinburgh of the peace with England,
to determine whether the truce of
twenty-eight years should be accepted
or not.

On the subject of finance, a general
contribution of eleven thousand pounds
was raised for the common necessities
of the kingdom, of which the clergy
agreed to contribute their share, under
protestation that it did not prejudice
them in time to come; and the said
contribution was directed to be levied
upon all goods, cattle, and lands, as
well demesne as other lands, excepting
white sheep, riding-horses, and oxen
for labour. With regard to the bur­
gesses who were resident beyond the
Forth, it was stated that they must
contribute to this tax, as well as those
more opulent burghers who dwelt in
the south, upon protestation that their
ancient laws and free customs should
be preserved; that they should be
required to pay only the same duties
upon wool, hides, and skins, as in the
time of King Robert last deceased,
and be free from all tax upon salmon.
The statutes which were passed in the
council held at Perth in April last,
regarding the payment of duties upon
English and Scotch cloth, salt, flesh,
grease, and butter, as well as horse
and cattle, exported to England, were
appointed to be continued in force;
and the provisions of the same parlia­
ment went on to declare that, con­
sidering the “great and horrible de-

10                                 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                        [Chap. I.

structions, hersehips, burning, and
slaughter, which disgraced the king­
dom, it was ordained, by consent of
the three estates, that every sheriff
should make proclamation that no
man riding or going through the coun­
try be accompanied with more atten­
dants than they are able to pay for;
and that, under penalty of the loss of
life and goods, no man disturb the
country by such slaughters, burnings,
raids, and destructions, as had been
common under the late governor,”
The act also declared that, “after
such proclamation has been made, the
sheriff shall use all diligence to dis­
cover and arrest the offenders, and
shall bind them over to appear and
stand their trial at the next justice
ayre : if unable to find bail, they were
immediately to be put to the know­
ledge of an assize, and if found guilty,
instantly executed.”

With regard to those higher and
more daring offenders, whom the
power of the sheriff or his inferior offi­
cers was altogether unable to arrest,
(and there can be little doubt that
this class included the greater portion
of the nobles,) it was provided that
this officer “should publicly declare
the names of them that may not be
arrested, enjoining them within fifteen
days to come and find bail to appear
and stand their trial, under the penalty
that all who do not obey this summons
shall be put to the king’s horn, and
their goods and estate confiscated.”
The only other provision of this par­
liament regarded a complaint of the
queen-mother, stating that her pension
of two thousand six hundred marks
had been refused by the Duke of
Albany, the chamberlain, and an order
by the king that it be immediately
paid—a manifest proof of the jealousy
which existed between this ambitious
noble and the royal family.¹

Whilst such was the course of events
in Scotland, and the ambition of Rothe-
say in supplanting his uncle Albany
was crowned with success, an extra­
ordinary event had taken place in
England, which seated Henry of Lan­
caster upon the throne, under the title
¹ MS. Record of Parliament 1398, ut supra.

of Henry the Fourth, and doomed
Richard the Second to a perpetual
prison. It was a revolution having in
its commencement perhaps no higher
object than to restrain within the
limits of law the extravagant preten­
sions of the king; but it was hurried
on to a consummation by a rashness
and folly upon his part which alienated
the whole body of his people, and
opened up to his rival an avenue to
the throne which it was difficult for
human ambition to resist. The spec­
tacle, however, of a king deposed by
his nobles, and a crown forcibly appro­
priated by a subject who possessed no
legitimate title, was new and appalling,
and created in Scotland a feeling of
indignant surprise, which is apparent
in the accounts of our contemporary
historians. Nor was this at all extra­
ordinary. The feudal nobility con­
sidered the kingdom as a fee descend­
ible to heirs, and regarded the right to
the throne as something very similar
to their own right to their estates; so
that the principle that a kingdom
might be taken by conquest, on the
allegation that the conduct of the king
was tyrannical, was one which, if it
gave Henry of Lancaster a lawful title,
might afford to a powerful neighbour
just as good a right to seize upon their
property. It was extraordinary for us
to hear, says Winton, with much sim­
plicity, that a great and powerful king,
who was neither pagan nor heretic,
should yet be deposed like an old ab­
bot, who is superseded for dilapidation
of his benefice; ² and it is quite evi­
dent, from the terms of the address
which Henry used at his coronation,
and his awkward attempt to mix up
the principle of the king having va­
cated the throne by setting himself
above the laws, with a vague heredi­
tary claim upon his own side, that the
same ideas were present to his mind,
and occasioned him uneasiness and
perplexity.³

It is well known that he was scarce
seated on the throne when a conspiracy
for the restoration of the deposed
monarch was discovered, which was

² Winton, vol. ii. p. 386.

³ Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 427.

1398.]                                            ROBERT III.                                                   11

soon after followed by the news that
Richard had died in Pontefract castle,
and by the removal of a body declared
to be that of the late king from Pom-
fret to St Paul’s, where, as it lay in
state in its royal shroud, Henry him­
self, and the whole of the nobility,
officiated in the service for the dead.
A report, however, almost immediately
arose, that this was not the body of
the king, who, it was affirmed, was
still alive, but that of Maudelain, his
private chaplain, lately executed as
one of the conspirators, and to whom
the king bore a striking resemblance.¹
After the funeral service, it is certain
that Henry did not permit the body
to be deposited in the tomb which
Richard had prepared for himself and
his first wife, at Westminster, but had
it conveyed to the church of the
preaching friars at King’s Langley,
where it was interred with the utmost
secrecy and despatch.²

Not long after this an extraordinary
story arose in Scotland. King Richard,
it was affirmed, having escaped from
Pontefract, had found means to convey
himself, in the disguise of a poor tra­
veller, to the Western, or out Isles of
Scotland, where he was accidentally
recognised by a lady who had known
him in Ireland, and who was sister-
in-law to Donald, lord of the Isles.
Clothed in this mean habit, the un­
happy monarch sat down in the kit­
chen of the castle belonging to this
island prince, fearful, even in this
remote region, of being discovered and
delivered up to Henry. He was treated,
however, with much kindness, and
given in charge to Lord Montgomery,
who carried him to the court of Robert
the Third, where he was received with
honour. It was soon discovered that,
whatever was the history of his escape,
either misfortune for the time had un­
settled his intellect, or that, for the
purpose of safety, he assumed the
guise of madness, for although recog­
nised by those to whom his features
were familiar, he himself denied that

¹ Metrical History of the Deposition of
Richard the Second. Archœologia, vol. xx.
p. 220.

² Otterburn, p. 229. Walsingham, p. 363.
Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments, vol. i. p. 168.

he was the king; and Winton describes
him as half mad or wild. It is cer­
tain, however, that during the con­
tinuance of the reign of Robert the
Third, and after his death, throughout
the regency of Albany, a period of
nineteen years, this mysterious per­
son was treated with the consideration
befitting the rank of a king, although
detained in a sort of honourable cap­
tivity ; and it was constantly asserted
in England and France, and believed
by many of those best able to ob­
tain accurate information, that King
Richard was alive, and kept in Scot­
land. So much, indeed, was this the
case that, as we shall immediately see,
the reign of Henry the Fourth, and of
his successor, was disturbed by re­
peated conspiracies, which were in­
variably connected with that country,
and which had for their object his
restoration to the throne. It is cer­
tain also that in contemporary records
of unquestionable authenticity, he is
spoken of as Richard the Second, king
of England; that he lived and died in
the palace of Stirling; and that he was
buried with the name, state, and hon­
ours of that unfortunate monarch.³

A cloud now began to gather over
Scotland, which threatened to inter­
rupt the quiet current of public pro­
sperity, and once more to plunge the
country into war. It was thought
proper that the Duke of Rothesay, the
heir-apparent to the throne, should no
longer continue unmarried; and the
Earl of March, one of the most power­
ful nobles in the kingdom, proposed
his daughter, with the promise of a
large dowry, as a suitable match for
the young prince. The offer was ac­
cepted, but before the preliminaries
were arranged, March found his de­
signs traversed and defeated by the
intrigues and ambition of a family
now more powerful than his own.
Archibald, earl of Douglas, loudly
complained that the marriage of the
heir to the crown was too grave a
matter to be determined without the
advice of the three estates, and, with
the secret design of procuring the

³ See Historical Remarks on the Death of
Richard the Second, infra.

12                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                         [Chap. I.

prince’s hand for his own daughter,
engaged in his interest the Duke of
Albany, who still possessed a great in­
fluence over the character of the king.
What were Rothesay’s own wishes
upon the occasion is not easily ascer­
tained. It is not improbable that his
gay and dissipated habits, which un­
fortunately seem not to have been re­
strained by his late elevation, would
have induced him to decline the pro­
posals of both the earls; but he was
overruled, the splendid dowry paid
down by Douglas, which far exceeded
the promises of March, was perhaps
the most powerful argument in the
estimation of the prince and the king,
and it was determined that the daugh­
ter of Douglas should be preferred to
Elizabeth of Dunbar.

In the meantime the intrigue reached
the ears of March, who was not of a
temper to suffer tamely so disgraceful
a slight; and, little able or caring to
conceal his indignation, he instantly
sought the royal presence and up­
braided the king for his breach of
agreement, demanding redress and the
restoration of the sum which he had
paid down. Receiving an evasive re­
ply, his passion broke out into the
most violent language; and he left the
monarch with a threat that he would
either see his daughter righted, or take
a revenge which should convulse the
kingdom. The first part of the alter­
native, however, was impossible. It
was soon discovered that Rothesay
with great speed and secrecy had rode
to Bothwell, where his marriage with
Elizabeth Douglas had been precipi­
tately concluded; and the moment
that this intelligence reached him,
March committed the charge of his
castle of Dunbar to Maitland, his
nephew, repaired to the English court,
and entered into a correspondence
with the new king.

His flight was the signal for the
Douglases to wrest his castle out of
the hands of the weak and irresolute
youth to whom it had been intrusted,
and to seize upon his noble estates;
so that to the insult and injustice with
which he had already been treated
was added an injury which left him

without house or lands, and compelled
him to throw himself into the arms of
England.¹

On ascending the throne, the Duke
of Lancaster, known henceforth by the
title of Henry the Fourth, was natu­
rally anxious to consolidate his power,
and would willingly have remained at
peace; but the expiration of the truce
which had been concluded with his
predecessor seems to have been hailed
with mutual satisfaction by the fierce
Borderers ; and careless of the pesti­
lence which raged in England, the
Scots broke across the marches in great
force, and stormed the castle of Wark
during the absence of Sir Thomas
Gray, the governor,² who, hurrying
back to defend his charge, found it
razed to the foundation. These in­
roads were speedily revenged by Sir
Robert Umfraville, who defeated the
Scots in a skirmish at Fullhopelaw,
which was contested with much ob­
stinacy. Sir Robert Rutherford with
his five sons, Sir William Stewart, and
John Turnbull, a famous leader, com­
monly called “ Out wyth Swerd,” were
made prisoners ;³ and the ancient en­
mity and rivalry between the two na­
tions being again excited, the Borderers
on both sides issued from their woods
and marshes,and commenced their usual
system of cruel and unsparing ravage.

For a while these mutual excesses
were overlooked, or referred to the
decision of the march-wardens; but
Henry was well aware that the secret
feelings both of the king and of Albany
were against him : he knew they were
in strict alliance with France, which
threatened him with invasion; and the
story of the escape of the real or pre­
tended Richard, whom he of course
branded as an impostor, while the
Scots did not scruple to entertain him
as king, was likely to rouse his keenest
indignation. He accordingly received
the Earl of March with distinguished
favour; and this baron, whose remon­
strances regarding the restoration of

¹ Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. ii. p. 153. Rymer,
Fœdera, vol. viii. p. 153.

² Walsingham, p. 362.

³ Rymer, Fœdera, vol. viii. p. 162. “ This
expressive appellative” appears in Rymer,
“ Joannus Tournebuli Out wyth Swerd.”

1398-1401.]                                  ROBERT III.                                                   13

his castle and estates had been an­
swered with scorn, renounced his alle­
giance to his lawful sovereign, and
agreed to become henceforward the
faithful subject of the King of Eng­
land;¹ upon which that monarch
publicly declared his intention of in­
stantly invading the country, and pre­
pared, at the head of an army, to
chastise the temerity of his vassal in
the assumed character of Lord Su­
perior of Scotland. In so ludicrous a
light did the revival of this exploded
claim appear, that, with the exception
of a miserable pasquinade, it met with
no notice whatever. March in the
meantime, in conjunction with Hot­
spur and Lord Thomas Talbot, at the
head of two thousand men, entered
Scotland through the lands which he
could no longer call his own, and wast­
ing the country as far as the village of
Popil, twice assaulted the castle of
Hailes, but found himself repulsed by
the bravery of the garrison; after
which they burnt and plundered the
villages of Traprain and Methill, and
encamped at Linton, where they col­
lected their booty, kindled their fires,
and as it was a keen and cold evening
in November, proposed to pass the
night. So carelessly had they set
their watches, however, that Archibald
Douglas, the earl’s eldest son, by a
rapid march from Edinburgh, had
reached the hill of Pencrag before the
English received any notice of his ap­
proach ; upon which they took to flight
in the utmost confusion, pursued by
the Scots, who made many prisoners
in the wood of Coldbrandspath, and
continued the chase to the walls of
Berwick, where they took the banner
of Lord Talbot.²

Soon after this Henry determined
to make good his threats; and, at the
head of an army far superior in num­
ber to any force which the Scots could
oppose to him, proceeded to New­
castle ; and from thence summoned
Robert of Scotland to appear before
him as his liegeman and vassal.³ To
this ridiculous demand no answer was

¹ Rymer, Fœdera, vol. viii. p. 153.

²  Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 429.

³  Rymer, Fœdera, vol. viii. pp. 157, 158.

returned, and the king advanced into
Scotland, directing his march towards
the capital. Rothesay, the governor,
now commanded the castle of Edin­
burgh, and, incensed at the insolence of
Henry, sent him his cartel, publicly de­
fying him as his adversary of England;
accusing him of having invaded, for
the sole love of plunder, a country to
which he had no title whatever ; and
offering to decide the quarrel, and
spare the effusion of Christian blood
which must follow a protracted war,
by a combat of one hundred, two hun­
dred, or three hundred nobles on each
side.⁴ This proposal Henry evaded,
and proceeded without a check to
Leith, from which he directed a moni­
tory letter to the king, which, like his
former summons, was treated with
silent scorn.

The continuance of the expedition
is totally deficient in historical interest,
and is remarkable only from the cir­
cumstance that it was the last invasion
which an English monarch ever con­
ducted into Scotland. It possessed, also,
another distinction highly honourable
to its leader, in the unusual lenity
which attended the march of the army,
and the absence of that plunder, burn­
ing, and indiscriminate devastation,
which had accompanied the last great
invasion of Richard, and iudeed almost
every former enterprise of the English.
After having advanced to Leith, where
he met his fleet, and reprovisioned his
army, Henry proceeded to lay siege to
the castle of Edinburgh, which was
bravely defended by the Duke of
Rothesay. Albany in the meantime
having collected a numerous army,
pushed on by rapid marches towards
the capital, with the apparent design
of raising the siege and relieving the
heir to the throne from the imminent
danger to which he was exposed. On
reaching Calder-moor, however, he
pitched his tents, and shewed no in­
clination to proceed; whilst public
rumour loudly accused him of an in­
tention to betray the prince into the
hands of the enemy, and clear for
himself a passage to the throne. Yet,
although the prior and subsequent
⁴ Rymer, Fœdera, vol. viii. p. 158.

14                                     HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

conduct of Albany gave a plausible
colour to such reproaches, it is not
impossible that the duke might have
avoided a battle without any such base
intentions. The season of the year
was far advanced, and the numerous
host of the English king was already
suffering grievously, both from sick­
ness and want of provisions. Rothe-
say, on the contrary, and his garrison,
were well provisioned, in high spirits,
and ready to defend a fortress of great
natural strength to the last extremity.
The event shewed the wisdom of these
calculations; for Henry, after a short
experience of the strength of the
castle, withdrew his army from the
siege; and receiving, about the same
time, intelligence of the rebellion of
the Welsh, commenced his retreat into
England.

It was conducted with the same
discipline and moderation which had
marked his advance. Wherever a
castle or fortalice requested protection
it was instantly granted, and a pennon
with the arms of England was hung
over the battlements, which was
sacredly respected by the soldiers.
Henry’s reply to two canons of Holy-
rood, who besought him to spare their
monastery, was in the same spirit of
benevolence and courtesy. “ Never,”
said he, “while I live, shall I cause
distress to any religious house what­
ever : and God forbid that the monas­
tery of Holyrood, the asylum of my
father when an exile, should suffer
aught from his son ! I am myself a
Cumin, and by this side half a Scot;
and I came here with my army, not
to ravage the land, but to answer the
defiance of certain amongst you who
have branded me as a traitor, to see
whether they dare to make good the
opprobrious epithets with which I am
loaded in their letters to the French
king, which were intercepted by my
people, and are now in my possession.
I sought him” (he here probably meant
the Duke of Albany) “ in his own land,
anxious to give him an opportunity of
establishing his innocence, or proving
my guilt; but he has not dared to
meet me.”¹

¹ Fordun a Groodal, vol. ii. p. 430.

That these were not the real motives
which led to an expedition so pompous
in its preliminaries, and so inglorious
in its results, Henry himself has told
us, in the revival of the claim of ho­
mage, the summons to Robert as his
vassal, and his resolution to punish his
contumacy, and to compel him to sue
for pardon; but when he discovered
that any attempt to effect this would
be utterly futile, and the rumours of
the rebellion of Glendower made him
anxious to return, it was not impolitic
to change his tone of superiority into
more courteous and moderate language,
and to represent himself as coming to
Scotland, not as a king to recover his
dominions, but simply as a knight to
avenge his injured honour. He after­
wards asserted that, had it not been
for the false and flattering promises of
Sir Adam Forester, made to him when
he was in Scotland, he should not have
so readily quitted that country; but
the subject to which the king alluded
is involved in great obscurity.² It
may, perhaps, have related to the de­
livery into his hands of the mysterious
captive who is supposed to have been
Richard the Second.

The condition of the country now
called for the attention of the great
national council; and on the 21st of
February 1401, a parliament was held
at Scone,³ in which many wise and
salutary laws were passed. To some
of these, as they throw a strong and
clear light upon the civil condition of
the country, it will be necessary to
direct our attention; nor will the
reader, perhaps, regret that the stir­
ring narrative of war is thus some­
times broken by the quiet pictures of
peace. The parliament was composed
of the bishops, abbots, and priors, with
the dukes, earls, and barons, and the
freeholders and burgesses, who held of
the king in chief. Its enactments ap­
pear to have related to various subjects
connected with feudal possession: such
as the brief of inquest; the duty of
the chancellor in directing a precept

²  Parliamentary Hist, of England, vol. ii.
p. 72.

³  Statutes of King Robert the Third, p. 51.
Regiam Majestatem.

1401.]                                          ROBERT III.                                                     15

of seisin upon a retour; the preven­
tion of distress to vassals from all im­
proper recognition of their lands made
by their overlords ; the regulation of
the laws regarding the succession to a
younger brother dying without heirs
of his body; and the prevention of a
common practice, by which, without
consent of the vassal, a new superior
was illegally imposed upon him. Owing
to the precarious condition of feudal
property, which, in the confusions in­
cident to public and private war, was
constantly changing its master, and to
the tyranny of the aristocracy of Scot­
land, it is not surprising that number­
less abuses should have prevailed, and
that, to use the expressive language of
the record itself, “divers and sindrie
our soverane lordis lieges should be
many wayes unjustlie troubled and
wexed in their lands and heritage be
inquisitions taken favorably, and be
ignorant persons.” To remedy such
malversation, it was enacted that no
sheriff or other judge should cause any
brief of inquest to be served, except
in his own open court; and that the
inquest should be composed of the
most sufficient and worthy persons
resident within his jurisdiction, whom
he was to summon upon a premonition
of fifteen days. When an inquest had
made a retour, by which the reader is
to understand the jury giving their
verdict or judgment, the chancellor
was prohibited from directing a pre­
cept of seisin, or a command to deliver
the lands into the hands of the vassal,
unless it appeared clearly stated in the
retour that the last heir was dead, and
the lands in the hands of the king or
the overlord.

It was enacted, at the same time,
that all barons and freeholders who
held of the king should provide them­
selves with a seal bearing their arms,
and that the retour should have ap­
pended to it the seals of the sheriff,
and of the majority of the persons who
sat upon the inquest. It appears to
have been customary in those unquiet
times, when “strongest might made
strongest right,” for the great feudal
barons, upon the most frivolous pre­
tences, to resume their vassals’ lands,

and to dispose of them to some more
favoured or more powerful tenant.
This great abuse, which destroyed all
the security of property, and thus in­
terrupted the agricultural and com­
mercial improvement of the country,
called for immediate redress; and a
statute was passed, by which all such
“ gratuitous recognitions or resump­
tions of lands which had been made
by any overlord, are declared of none
effect, unless due and lawful cause be
assigned for such having taken place.”
It was provided, also, that no vassal
should lose possession of his lands in
consequence of such recognition until
after the expiration of a year, provided
he used diligence to repledge his lands
within forty days thereafter.¹ The
mode in which this ceremony is to be
performed is briefly but clearly pointed
out: the vassal being commanded to
pass to the principal residence of his
overlord, and, before witnesses, to de­
clare his readiness to perform all feudal
services to which he is bound by law,
requesting the restoration of his lands
upon his finding proper security for
the performance of his duties as vassal;
and in order to the prevention of all
concealed and illegal resumptions, it
is made imperative on the overlord to
give due intimation of them in the
parish church, using the common
language of the realm; whilst the
vassal is commanded to make the same
proclamation of any offer to repledge
in the same public manner. In the
event of a younger brother dying with­
out heirs of his body, it is declared
that his “conquest lands”—that is,
those acquired not by descent, but by
purchase, or other title—should be­
long to the immediate elder brother,
according to the old law upon the sub­
ject; and it is made illegal for any
vassal holding lands of the king to
have a new superior imposed upon
him by any grant whatever, unless he
himself consent to this alteration.

In those times of violence, it is in­
teresting to observe the feeble attempts
of the legislature to introduce these
restraints of the law. In the event of

¹ Statutes of King Robert the Third, pp,
52, 55.

16                                      HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                          [Chap. I.

a baron having a claim of debt against
any unfortunate individual, it seems
to have been a common practice for
the creditor, on becoming impatient, to
have proceeded to his house or lands,
and there to have helped himself to
an equivalent, or, in the language of
the statute-book, “to have taken his
poynd.” And in such cases, where a
feudal lord, with his vassals at his
heel, met with any attractive property,
in the form of horses or cattle, or rich
household furniture, it may easily be
believed that he would stand on little
ceremony as to the exact amount of
the debt, but appropriate what pleased
him without much compunction. This
practice was declared illegal, “ unless
the seizure be made within his own
dominions, and for his own proper
debt:" an exception proving the ex­
treme feebleness of the government;
and, in truth, when we consider the
immense estates possessed at this pe­
riod by the great vassals of the crown,
amounting almost to a total annulment
of the law.¹ In somewhat of the same
spirit of toleration, a law was made
against any one attempting, by his own
power and authority, to expel a vassal
from his lands, on the plea that he is
not the rightful heir; and it was de­
clared that, whether he be possessed
of the land lawfully or unlawfully, he
shall be restored to his possession, and
retain the same until he lose it by the
regular course of law ; whilst no pen­
alty was inflicted on him who thus
dared, in the open defiance of all
peace and good government, to take
the execution of the law into his own
hands.

It was next declared unlawful to set
free upon bail certain persons accused
of great or heinous crimes; and the
offenders thus excepted were described
to be those taken for manslaughter,
breakers of prison, common and noto­
rious thieves, persons apprehended for
fire-raising or felony, falsifiers of the
king’s money or of his seal; such as
have been excommunicated, and seized
by command of the bishop ; those ac­
cused of treason, and bailies who are
in arrears, and make not just accounts

¹ Statutes of King Robert the Third, p. 54.

to their masters.² Any excommuni­
cated person who complains that he
has been unjustly dealt with, was em­
powered within forty days to appeal
from his judge to the conservator of
the clergy, who, being advised by his
counsel, must reform the sentence;
and, if the party still conceived him­
self to be aggrieved, it was made law­
ful for him to carry his appeal, in the
last instance, to the General Assembly
of the Church. With regard to the
trial of cases by “ singular combat,'’ a
wise attempt seems to have been made
in this parliament to limit the circum­
stances under which this savage and
extraordinary mode of judgment was
adopted; and it is declared that there
must be four requisites in every crime
before it is to be so tried. It must
infer a capital punishment—it must
have been secretly perpetrated—the
person appealed must be pointed out
by public and probable suspicion as
its author—and it must be of such a
nature as to render a proof by written
evidence or by witnesses impossible.
It was appointed that the king’s lieu­
tenant, and others the king’s judges,
should be bound and obliged to hear
the complaints of all churchmen,
widows, pupils, and orphans, regard­
ing whatever injuries may have been
committed against them; and that jus­
tice should be done to them speedily,
and without taking from them any
pledges or securities. Strict regula­
tion was made that all widows, who,
after the death of their husbands,
had been violently expelled from their
dower lands, should be restored to
their possession, with the accumulated
rents due since their husband’s death ;
and it was specially provided, that in­
terest or usury should not run against
the debts of a minor until he is of per­
fect age, but that the debt should be
paid with the interest which was
owing by his predecessor previous to
his decease.³

Some of the more minute regulations
of the same parliament were curious :
a fine of a hundred shillings was im­
posed on all who catch salmon within

²  Statutes of King Robert the Third, p. 54.

³  Ibid. p. 56.

the forbidden time; a penalty of six
shillings and eightpence on all who
slay hares in time of snow; and it was
strictly enjoined, as a statute to be
observed through the whole realm,
that there should be no muir-burning,
or burning of heath, except in the
month of March; and that a penalty
of forty shillings should be imposed
upon any one who dared to infringe this
regulation, which should be given to
the lord of the land where the burning
had taken place.¹ With regard to a
subject of great importance, “the as­
size of weightis and measuris,” it is to
be regretted that the abridgment of
the proceedings of this parliament,
left by Skene, which is all that re­
mains to us, is in many respects con­
fused and unintelligible. The original
record itself is unfortunately lost. The
chapter upon weights and measures
commences with the declaration, that
King David’s common elne, or ell, had
been found to contain thirty-seven
measured inches, each inch being equal
to three grains of bear placed length­
ways, without the tail or beard. The
stone, by which wool and other com­
modities were weighed, was to contain
fifteen pounds; but a stone of wax,
only eight pounds : the pound itself
being made to contain fifteen ounces,
and to weigh twenty-five shillings. It
is observed, in the next section of this
chapter, that the pound of silver in
the days of King Robert Bruce, the
first of that name, contained twenty-
six shillings and four pennies, in con­
sequence of the deterioration of the
money of this king from the standard
money in the days of David the First,
in whose time the ounce of silver was
coined into twenty pennies. The same
quantity of silver under Robert the
First was coined into twenty-one pen­
nies ; “ but now,” adds the record, “ in
our days, such has been the deteriora­
tion of the money of the realm, that
the ounce of silver actually contains
thirty-two pennies.”

It was enacted that the boll should
contain twelve gallons, and should be
nine inches in depth, including the

¹ Statutes of King Robert the Third, pp.
53,54.

VOL. II.

thickness of the tree on both the sides.
In the roundness or circumference
above, it was to be made to contain
threescore and twelve inches in the
middle of the “ower tree;“ but in the
inferior roundness or circumference
below, threescore eleven inches. The
gallon was fixed to contain twelve
pounds of water, four pounds of sea
water, four of clear running water, and
four of stagnant water. Its depth was
to be six inches and a half, its breadth
eight inches and a half, including the
thickness of the wood on both sides;
its circumference at the top twenty-
seven inches and a half, and at the
bottom twenty-three inches.² Such
were all the regulations with regard to
this important subject which appear
in this chapter, and they are to be re­
garded as valuable and venerable relics
of the customs of our ancestors; but
the perusal of a single page of the
Chamberlain Accounts will convince
us how little way they go towards
making up a perfect table of weights
and measures, and how difficult it is
to institute anything like a fair com­
parison between the actual wealth and
comfort of those remote ages, and the
prosperity and opulence of our own
times.

The parliament next turned its at­
tention to the providing of checks
upon the conduct and administration
of judges : a startling announcement,
certainly, to any one whose opinions
are formed on modern experience, but
no unnecessary subject for parliamen­
tary interference during these dark
times. It was enacted that every,
sheriff should have a clerk appointed,
not by the sheriff, but by the king, to
whom alone this officer was to be
responsible; and that such clerk should
be one of the king’s retinue and house-
hold, and shall advise with the king
in all the affairs which were intrusted
to him.³ The sheriffs themselves
were to appear yearly, in person or by
deputy, in the king’s Court of Exche­
quer, under the penalty of ten pounds,
and removal from office; their fees, or
salaries, were made payable out of the

²  Statutes of Ring Robert the Third, p. 56,

³  Ibid, p. 57.

1401.]                                  ROBERT III.                                         17

18                                     HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

escheats in their own courts, and were
not due until an account had been
given by them in the Exchequer; and
it was specially ordained that no
sheriff should pass from the king’s
court to execute his various duties in
the sheriffdom, without having along
with him for his information the “Acts
of Parliament, and certain instructions
in writ, to be given him by the king’s
Privy Council.” It was enacted that
justiciars should be appointed upon
the south side and north side of the
water of Forth; it was made imper­
ative upon these high judges to hold
their courts twice in the year in each
sheriffdom within their jurisdiction;
and if any justiciar omitted to hold
his court without being able to allege
any reasonable impediment, he was to
lose a proportion of his salary, and to
answer to the king for such neglect of
duty.

The process of all cases brought
before the justiciar was appointed to
be reduced into writing by the clerk ;
and a change was introduced from the
old practice with regard to the cir­
cumstances under which any person
summoned before the justiciar should
be judged and punished as contuma­
cious for not appearing. Of old, the
fourth court—that is, the court held on
the fourth day—was peremptory in all
cases except such as concerned fee and
heritage; but it was now appointed
that the second court, or the court
held on the second day, and on the
last day, should be peremptory; and
any person who, being lawfully sum­
moned, neglected to appear on either
of these days, was to be denounced a
rebel and put to the horn, as was the
custom in “ auld times and courts.” ¹
The officer of the coroner was to arrest
persons thus summoned ; and it was
declared lawful for such officers to
make such arrests at any time within
the year, either before or after the
proclamation of the justice ayre. All
lords of regality—by which the reader
is to understand such feudal barons as
possessed authority to hold their own
courts within a certain division of
property, all sheriffs, and all barons^,
1 Statutes of King Robert the Third, p. 57.

who have the power of holding crimi­
nal courts—were strictly enjoined to
follow the same order of proceeding
as that which has been laid down for
the observance of the justiciars.
These supreme judges were also com­
manded, in their annual courts, to
inquire rigidly into the conduct of the
sheriffs and other inferior officers; to
scrutinise the manner in which they
have discharged the duties committed
to them; and, if they found them
guilty of malversation, to remove them
from their offices until the meeting of
the next parliament. Any sheriff or
inferior officer thus removed, was to
find security for his appearance before
the parliament, who, according to their
best judgment, were to determine the
punishment due for his offence, whe­
ther a perpetual removal from his
office, or only a temporary suspension;
and, in the meanwhile, the person so
offending was ordained to lose his
salary for that year, and another to be
substituted by the justiciar in his
place.

With regard to such malefactors as
were found to be common destroyers
of the land, wasting the king’s lieges
with plundering expeditions, burning
and consuming the country in their
ruinous passage from one part to
another, the sheriffs were commanded
to do all diligence to arrest them, and
to bind them over to appear at the
next court of the justiciar on a certain
day, under a penalty of twenty pounds
for each offender, to be paid in case of
contumacy, or non-appearance, by those
persons who were his sureties; and it
was strictly enjoined that no person,
in riding through the country, should
be attended by more persons than
those for whom he makes full pay­
ment, under the penalty of loss of life
and property. In all time coming, no
one was to be permitted with impunity
to commit any slaughter, burning,
theft, or “ herschip ; “ and if the of­
fender guilty of such crimes be not
able to find security for his appearance
to stand his trial before the justiciar,
the sheriff was enjoined instantly to
try him by an assize, and, if the crime
be proved against him, take order for

1401.]                                            ROBERT III.                                                   19

his execution. In the case of thieves
and malefactors who escaped from
one sheriffdom to another, the sheriff
within whose jurisdiction the crime
had been committed, was bound to
direct his letters to the sheriff in
whose county the delinquent had taken
refuge. It was made imperative on
such officer, with the barons, free­
holders, and others the king’s lieges,
to assist in the arrest of such fugitives,
in order to their being brought to
justice; and this in every case, as well
against their own vassals and retinue
as against others; whilst any baron or
other person who disobeyed this order,
and refused such assistance, was to
pay ten pounds to the king, upon the
offence being proved against him before
a jury.

It was made lawful for any tenant
or farmer who possessed lands under
a lease of a certain endurance, to sell
or dispose of the lease to whom he
pleased, any time before its expiry.
Any vassal or tenant who was found
guilty of concealing the charter by
which he held his lands, when sum­
moned by his overlord to exhibit it,
was to lose all benefit he might claim
upon it; and in the case of a vassal
having lost such charter, or of his
never having had any charter, a jury
was to be impannelled, in the first
event, for the purpose of investigating
by witnesses whether the manner of
holding corresponds with the tenor of
the charter which had been lost; and,
in the second case, to establish by
what precise manner of holding the
vassal was in future to be bound to his
overlord, which determination of the
assize was in future to stand for his
charter. If any person, in conse­
quence of the sentence of a jury, had
taken seisin. or possession of land
which was then in the hands of an­
other, who affirmed it to be his pro­
perty, it was made lawful for this last
to retain possession, and to break the
seisin, by instituting a process for its
reduction within fifteen days, if the
lands be heritage, and forty days if
they be conquest. If any pork or
bacon, which was unwholesome from
any cause, or salmon spoilt and foul

from being kept too long, was brought
to market, it was to be seized by the
bailies, and sent immediately to the
“lipper folk,” ^l—a species of barbarous
economy which, says little for the hu­
manity of the age ; the bailies, at the
same time, were to take care that the
money paid for it be restored, and
“gif there are no lipper folk,” the
obnoxious provisions were to be de­
stroyed. ²

Such is an outline of the principal
provisions of this parliament, which I
have detailed at some length, as they
are the only relics of our legislative
history which we shall meet with until
the reign of the first James; a period
when the light reflected upon the
state of the country, from the parlia­
mentary proceedings, becomes more
full and clear. Important as these
provisions are, and evincing no incon­
siderable wisdom for so remote a
period, it must be recollected that, in
such days of violence and feudal
tyranny, it was an easier thing to pass
acts of parliament than to carry them
into execution. In all probability,
there was not an inferior baron, who,
sitting in his own court, surrounded
by his mail-clad vassals, did not feel
himself strong enough to resist the
feeble voice of the law; and as for the
greater nobles, to whom such high
offices as Justiciar, Chancellor, or
Chamberlain, were committed, it is
certain, that instead of the guardians
of the laws, and protectors of the
rights of the people, they were them­
selves often their worst oppressors,
and, from their immense power and
vassalage, able in frequent instances
to defy the mandates of the crown,
and to resist all legitimate autho-
rity.

Of this prevalence of successful
guilt in the higher classes, the history
of the country during the year in
which this parliament assembled, af­
forded a dreadful example, in the
murder of the Duke of Rothesay, the
heir-apparent to the throne, by his
uncle the Duke of Albany. Rothesay’s
marriage, which in all probability was

¹ Leprous folk.

² Statutes of King Robert the Third, p. 59.

20                                     HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                           [Chap. I.

the result of political convenience
more than of inclination, does not
appear to have improved his character.
At an age when better things were to
be expected, his life continued turbu­
lent and licentious; the spirit of mad
unbridled frolic in which he indulged,
the troops of gay and dissipated com­
panions with whom he associated, gave
just cause of offence to his friends,
and filled the bosom of his fond and
weak father with anxiety and alarm.
Even after his assuming the temporary
government of the country, his con­
duct was wild and unprincipled; he
often employed the power intrusted
to him against, rather than in support
of, the laws and their ministers;
plundered the collectors of the rev­
enue;¹ threatened and overruled the
officers to whose management the
public money was intrusted; and ex­
hibited an impatience for uncontrolled
dominion.

Yet amid all his recklessness, there
was a high honour and a courageous
openness about Rothesay, which were
every now and then breaking out, and
giving promise of reformation. He
hated all that was double, whilst he
despised, and delighted to expose, that
selfish cunning which he had detected
in the character of his uncle, whose
ambition, however carefully concealed,
could not escape him. Albany, on
the other hand, was an enemy whom
it was the extremity of folly and rash­
ness to provoke. He was deep, cold,
and unprincipled; his objects were
pursued with a pertinacity of purpose,
and a complete command of temper,
which gave him a great superiority
over the wild and impetuous nobility
by whom he was surrounded; and
when once in his power, his victims
had nothing to hope for from his pity.
Rothesay he detested, and there is
reason to believe had long determined
on his destruction, as the one great
obstacle which stood in the path of
his ambition, and as the detector of
his deep-laid intrigues; but he was
for a while controlled and overawed
by the influence of the queen, and of

¹ Chamberlain Accounts, vol. ii. pp. 512,
520, 476.

her two principal friends and advisers,
Trail, bishop of St Andrews, and
Archibald the Grim, earl of Douglas.
Their united wisdom and authority
had the happiest effects in restraining
the wildness of the prince ; soothing
the irritated feelings of the king, whose
age and infirmity had thrown him into
complete retirement; and counteract­
ing the ambition of Albany, who pos­
sessed too great an influence over the
mind of the monarch. But soon after
this the queen died; the Bishop of St
Andrews and the Earl of Douglas did
not long survive her; and, to use the
strong expression of Fordun, it was
now said commonly through the
land,² that the glory and the honesty
of Scotland were buried with these
three noble persons. All began to
look with anxiety for what was to
follow; nor were they long kept in
suspense. The Duke of Rothesay,
freed from the gentle control of ma­
ternal love, broke into some of his ac­
customed excesses; and the king, by
the advice of Albany, found it neces­
sary to subject him to a control which
little agreed with his impetuous tem­
per.

It happened that amongst the
prince’s companions was a Sir John de
Ramorgny, who, by a judicious ac­
commodation of himself to his caprici­
ous humours, by flattering his vanity
and ministering to his pleasures, had
gained the intimacy of Rothesay.
Ramorgny appears to have been one
of those men in whom extraordinary,
and apparently contradictory qualities
were found united. From his educa­
tion, which was of the most learned
kind, he seems to have been intended
for the church; but the profligacy of
his youth, and the bold and audacious
spirit which he exhibited, unfitted
him for the sacred office, and he be­
came a soldier and a statesman. His
great talents for business being soon
discovered by Albany, he was repeat­
edly employed in diplomatic negotia­
tions both at home and abroad; and
this intercourse with foreign coun­
tries, joined to a cultivation of those

² Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. p. 431. Extracta
ex Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. p. 248.

1401-2.]                                       ROBERT III.                                                   21

elegant accomplishments to which
most of the feudal nobility of Scot-
land were still strangers, rendered
his manners and his society exceed­
ingly attractive to the young prince.
But these polished and delightful
qualities were superinduced upon a
character of consummate villany, as
unprincipled in every respect as that
of Albany, but fiercer, more audacious,
and, if possible, more unforgiving.

Such was the person whom Rothe-
say, in an evil moment, admitted to
his confidence and friendship, and to
whom, upon being subjected to the
restraint imposed upon him by Albany
and his father, he vehemently com­
plained, Ramorgny, with all his acute-
ness, had in one respect mistaken the
character of the prince ; and, deceived
by the violence of his resentment, he
darkly hinted at a scheme for ridding
himself of his difficulties by the assas­
sination of his uncle. To his astonish­
ment the proposal was met by an
expression of scorn and abhorrence;
and whilst Rothesay disdained to be­
tray his profligate associate, he up­
braided him in terms too bitter to be
forgiven. From that moment Ram-
orgny was transformed into his worst
enemy; and throwing himself into
the arms of Albany, became possessed
of his confidence, and turned it with
fatal revenge against Rothesay.¹ It
was unfortunate for this young prince
that his caprice and fondness for plea­
sure, failings which generally find
their punishment in mere tedium and
disappointment, had raised against
him two powerful enemies, who sided
with Albany and Ramorgny, and,
stimulated by a sense of private in­
jury, readily lent themselves to any
plot for his ruin. These were Archi­
bald, earl of Douglas, the brother of
Rothesay’s wife, Elizabeth Douglas,
and Sir William Lindsay of Rossie,
whose sister he had loved and for­
saken. Ramorgny well knew that
Douglas hated the prince for the cold­
ness and inconstancy with which he
treated his wife, and that Lindsay
had never forgiven the slight put

¹ Extracta ex Chronicis Scotiæ, MS. Advo­
cates’ Library, Edinburgh, p. 248

upon his sister ; and with all the dis­
simulation in which he was so great a
master, he, assisted by Albany, con­
trived out of these dark elements to
compose a plot which it would have
required a far more able person than
Rothesay to have defeated.

They began by representing to the
king, whose age and infirmities now
confined him to a distant retirement,
and who knew nothing but through
the representations of Albany, that
the wild and impetuous conduct of
his son required a more firm exertion
of restraint than any which had yet
been employed against him. The
bearers of this unwelcome news to
the king were Ramorgny and Lind­
say; and such was the success of
their representations, that they re­
turned to Albany with an order under
the royal signet to arrest the prince
and place him in temporary confine­
ment. Secured by this command, the
conspirators now drew their meshes
more closely round their victim ; and
the bold and unsuspicious character
of the prince gave them every advan­
tage. It was the custom in those
times for the castle or palace of any
deceased prelate to be occupied by
the king until the election of his suc­
cessor; and although the triennial
period of the prince’s government was
now expired, yet probably jealous of
the resumption of his power by Al­
bany, he determined to seize the castle
of St Andrews, belonging to Trail the
bishop, lately deceased, before he
should be anticipated by any order of
the king. The design was evidently
illegal; and Albany, who had received
intimation of it, determined to make
it the occasion of carrying his purpose
into execution. He accordingly laid
his plan for intercepting the prince ;
and Rothesay, as he rode towards St
Andrews, accompanied by a small
retinue, was arrested near Stratyrum
by Ramorgny and Lindsay, and sub­
jected to a strict confinement in the
castle of St Andrews, until the duke
and the Earl of Douglas should deter­
mine upon his fate.

This needed little time, for it had
been long resolved on; and when

22                                 HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.                       [Chap. I.

once masters of his person, the cata­
strophe was as rapid as it was horrible.
In a tempestuous day Albany and
Douglas, with a strong party of sol­
diers, appeared at the castle, and dis­
missed the few servants who waited
on him. They then compelled him
to mount a sorry horse, threw a coarse
cloak over his splendid dress, and hur­
rying on, rudely and without cere­
mony, to Falkland, thrust him into a
dungeon. The unhappy prince now
saw that his death was determined;
but he little anticipated its cruel
nature. For fifteen days he was suf­
fered to remain without food, under
the charge of two ruffians named
Wright and Selkirk,¹ whose task it
was to watch the agony of their vic­
tim till it ended in death. It is said
that for a while the wretched prisoner
was preserved in a remarkable man­
ner by the kindness of a poor woman,
who, in passing through the garden of
Falkland, and attracted by his groans
to the grated window of his dungeon,
which was level with the ground, be­
came acquainted with his story. It
was her custom to steal thither at
night, and bring him food by dropping
small cakes through the grating, whilst
her own milk, conducted through a
pipe to his mouth, was the only way
he could be supplied with drink. But
Wright and Selkirk, suspecting from
his appearance that he had some secret
supply, watched and detected the
charitable visitant, and the prince was
abandoned to his fate. When nature
at last sunk, his body was found in a
state too horrible to be described, but
which shewed that, in the extremities
of hunger, he had gnawed and torn
his own flesh. It was then carried
to the monastery of Lindores, and
there privately buried, while a re­
port was circulated that the prince

¹ John Wright and John Selkirk are the
names, as given by Fordun a Goodal, vol.
ii. p. 431. In the Chamberlain Accounts, vol.
ii. p. 666, sub anno 1405, is the following
entry, which perhaps relates to this infamous
person: “ Johanni Wright uni heredum
quondam Ricardi Ranulphi, per infeodacio-
nem antiquam regis Roberti primi percipi-
enti per annum hereditarie quinque libras
de firmis dicti burgi, (Aberdeen.)”

had been taken ill and died of a dy­
sentery.²

The public voice, however, loudly
and vehemently accused his uncle of
the murder; the cruel nature of his
death threw a veil over the folly and
licentiousness of his life; men began to
remember and to dwell upon his bet­
ter qualities; and Albany found him­
self daily becoming more and more
the object of scorn and detestation.
It was necessary for him to adopt some
means to clear himself of such impu­
tations ; and the skill with which the
conspiracy had been planned was now
apparent: he produced the king’s
letter commanding the prince to be
arrested; he affirmed that everything
which had been done was in conse­
quence of the orders he had received,
defying any one to prove that the
slightest violence had been used ; and
he appealed to and demanded the
judgment of the parliament. This
great council was accordingly assem­
bled in the monastery of Holyrood on
the 16th of May 1402; and a solemn
farce took place, in which Albany and
Douglas were examined as to the
causes of the prince’s death. Unfor­
tunately no original record of the ex­
amination or of the proceedings of the
parliament has been preserved. The
accused, no doubt, told the story in
the manner most favourable to them­
selves, and none dared to contradict
them ; so that it only remained for
the parliament to declare themselves
satisfied, and to acquit them of all
suspicion of a crime which they had
no possibility of investigating. Even
this, however, was not deemed suffi­
cient, and a public remission was
drawn up under the king’s seal, declar­
ing their innocence, in terms which
are quite conclusive as to their guilt.³

The explanation of these unjust
and extraordinary proceedings, is to
be found in the exorbitant power of
Douglas and Albany, and the weak­
ness of the unhappy monarch, who

²  Fordun a Gloodal, vol.ii. p. 431. Cham­
berlain Accounts, vol. ii. p. 511.

³  This deed was discovered by Mr Astle,
and communicated by him to Lord Hailes,
who printed it in his Remarks on the History
of Scotland.

1402.]                                            ROBERT III.                                                   23

bitterly lamented the fate of his son,
and probably well knew its authors,
but dreaded to throw the kingdom
into those convulsions which must
have preceded their being brought to
justice. Albany, therefore, resumed
his situation of governor; and the
fate of Rothesay was soon forgotten
in preparations for continuing the
war with England.

The truce, as was usual, had been
little respected by the Borderers of
either country; the Earl of Douglas
being accused of burning Bamborough
castle, and that baron reproaching
Northumberland for the ravages com­
mitted in Scotland. The eastern
marches especially were exposed to
constant ravages by the Earls of March
and the Percies; nor was it to be ex­
pected that so powerful a baron as
March would bear to see his vast pos­
sessions in the hands of the house of
Douglas without attempting either to
recover them himself, or, by havoc
and burning, to make them useless to
his enemy. These bitter feelings led
to constant and destructive invasions;
and the Scottish Border barons—the
Haliburtons, the Hepburns, Cock-
burns, and Lauders—found it neces­
sary to assemble their whole power,
and intrust the leading of it by turns
to the most warlike amongst them, a
scheme which rendered every one
anxious to eclipse his predecessor by
some exploit or successful point of
arms, termed, in the military language
of the times, chevanches. On one of
these occasions the conduct of the
little army fell to Sir Patrick Hep­
burn of Hailes, whose father, a vener­
able soldier of eighty years, was too
infirm to take his turn in command.
Hepburn broke into England, and laid
waste the country ; but his adventu­
rous spirit led him too far on, and
Percy and March had time to assemble
their power, and to intercept the Scots
at Nesbit Moor, in the Merse, where
a desperate conflict took place. The
Scots were only four hundred strong,
but they were admirably armed and
mounted, and had amongst them the
flower of the warriors of the Lothians;
the battle was for a long time bloody

and doubtful, till the Master of Dun-
bar, joining his father and Northum­
berland with two hundred men from
the garrison at Berwick, decided the
fortune of the day^.1 Hepburn was
slain, and his bravest knights either
shared his fate or were taken prisoners.
The spot where the conflict took place
is still known by the name of Slaughter
Hill.² So important did Henry con­
sider this success, probably from the
rank of the captives, that, in a letter
to his privy council, he informed them
of the defeat of the Scots; compli­
mented Northumberland and his son
on their activity, and comma