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THE UNIVERSITY OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA
LIBRARY   THE SCOT
in
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
BY
W. J. RATTRAY, B. A.
VOL. I.
Toronto;
MACLEAR   AND   COMPANY
All Rights Reserved. Eatered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and eighty, by Maclea.E & Co., Toronto, in the
**:    office of the Minister of Agriculture. TO
HIS   EXCELLENCY
THE RIGHT HON.
 
MARQUIS OF LORNE,
K.T., G.C.M.G.,
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,
HEIR TO
THE MAC CAILEIN MOR,
AND TO THE HONOURS OF
AN ILLUSTRIOUS LINE OF ANCESTORS,
DISTINGUISHED    FOR    ARDENT    ATTACHMENT    TO    THE    FREEDOM    AND
INDEPENDENCE OF THEIR NATIVE LAND, BY PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED.  PREFACE.
d^>-
fHE purpose of this work is so fully developed in the
introductory chapter that any preliminary reference
to it would seem unnecessary. At the same time readers
•expect to have a preface to a hook, even if they do not
read it. There are one or two remarks to be made, by way
of addenda, to the explanations given in the body of the
volume. In the first place it seems well to disclaim emphatically any attempt to exalt the Scot above his fellow-colonists of other nationalities. The publishers have already
given Ireland a chance to speak, as she is fully capable of
doing, for herself and her sons; and it is only fair that
■" auld Scotia " should also have her turn. It seems strange,
and yet it is a fact, that there has been, amongst kindredpeo-
ples, an amount of prejudice against the Scot, which seems
perfectly inexplicable. From the time when James VI. of
Scotland became James I. of England until now, not merely
.at home, but in later years in the colonies, nothing has
been so common as virulent criticism of the Scottish character. The predominant religion of the country, the caution
and the thrift of its people, and their so-caUed clannishness,
have been made the unmerited butts forSidicule or sarcasm. VI
PREFACE.
In England, during the eighteenth century, most of the literary men took delight in abusing the North Briton. Horace
Walpole, Junius, John Wilkes and Dr. Johnson are only
samples of the general herd.    The virulent pen of Junius-
was especially active.    He had, or fancied he had, grounds-
for suspecting the backstairs influence of Lord Bute, and
afterwards fell foul of Lord Mansfield, whom he abused, when
argument failed, because he was born north of the Tweed.
That most vindictive of political opponents, whilst he admitted that " national reflections'"' were not to be justified,,
as a general rule, deemed them quite proper when they gave
point to the stiletto he plied in the dark.    Of the later use
of prejudice against the Scottish people, it is unnecessaiy to
speak, for every reader must have met with instances of it-
even in the Dominion.    The truth seems to be that, while
■ nothing succeeds like success," there is nothing which so-
readily inspires jealousy.    The very virtues   which have
given Scotsmen success have been the causes of " envv..
hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness" in regard to
them.
In this work an endeavour is made to show whence the
strong, honest and persevering character of the Scot
had its origin, and then to describe in detail what he has-
done for British North America. "While doing; this to the-
extent of the information at his command, the writer has
been careful to avoid invidious comparisons between the
Scottish and other nationalities. The aim of the book is-
simply to show what the Scot has done in the DominionI
without in any  way undervaluing what it owes to  the PREFACE.
Vll
Englishman, the Irishman, the Frenchman, or the German.
The difficulty of collecting local data or facts of any sort only
to be found outside of books has been an obstacle; and if
the survey seems to lack completeness, the reader must be
so kind as to lay it to this account.
Without desiring to obtrude his personality unduly, it
seems proper to state that, although, on one side of the
house a Scot)—the son of a Scotsman—the writer has never-
had the opportunity of visiting North Britain. Perhaps that
may not be so great a disadvantage as it might at first sight
appear. This preface is necessarily written before the remaining volumes have taken final form and shape and therefore,
seems to be hardly so complete as it otherwise would have-
been. It is to be hoped that, when the entire work is in
the hands of the public, the promise of its title page will
be found to have been fully kept.
Toronto, February 16th, 1880.  ®=
tS
The following works have been consulted in the preparation of this*
volume :—
Macaulay's History of England ;  Green's History of the   English
People,   and  Short  History;   Lecky's  England in the  Eighteenth
Century;   Buckle's   History  of   Civilization ;   Burton's   History  of
Scotland, and The Scot Abroad; Robertson's History of Scotland I
Chambers' Biographical Dictionary of Eminent  Scotsmen; Logan's.
Scottish Gael; Keltie's History of the Highlands ; Browne's History
of the Highlands ; Stewart's Highlanders ; Flora Macdonald, Her Life-
and Adventures ; Scott's Border Minstrelsy ; Percy's Reliques ; Dr.
Rogers' Scottish Minstrel; Ballads, Scottish and English ; The Ballads-
and Songs of Scotland,  by Professor Murray, of McGill  College ;.
"Veitch's Border History and Poetry ; The Songstresses of Scotland,
by Sarah Tytler and J.  L. Watson ;  Carlyle's Essay on Burns ;,
Burns' Poems ; Principal Shairp's Life of Burns ; Scott's Poetry and
Prose;   Lockhart's Life of Scott;   R.  H.  Hutton's Life of Scott;.
Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature; The Whistle Binkie ;.
Dean Ramsay's  Reminiscences ;  Rogers' Century of Scottish Life ;
Carlyle's Early Kings of Norway, and Portraits of Knox; Froude's-
Short Studies on Great Subjects ; McCrie's Biographies; Wodrow's-
Church History ;  Dean Stanley's Lectures on the History of the
Church of Scotland ; Gibson's Banner of the Covenant; Anderson's
Ladies of the Covenant; Dodds' Fifty Years Struggle of the Covenanters ;   The Cloud of Witnesses ;  Howie's Scots Worthies ; The
Clan Campbell;   The Clan Maclean; Wilson's Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time ; Brown's Horse Subsecivse ; Smiles' Lives
of the Engineers,  and his Lives of Thomas Edward and Robert
Dick; Percy Anecdotes ; Histories of Canada by Garneau, Christie,. x ' WORKS CONSULTED.
McMullen and Withrow ; Miles' History of Canada under the French
Regime ; Le Moine : Maple Leaves (four series), Quebec, Past and
Present, and Chronicles of the St. Lawrence ; Parkman's Old Regime
in Canada and Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. ; Bou-
•chette's British Dominions in North America, and Topographical
Dictionary of Lower Canada ; McTaggart's Three Years in Canada ;
Alexander's L'Acadie ; Les Soire'es Canadiennes; Jeffreys' French
Dominions in America ; Wright's Life of Wolfe; Montgomery Martin's
British Colonies ; Murray's British America ; McGregor's British
America ; Sabine's Loyalists of the American Revolution ; Sir William
Alexander and American Colonization (Prince Society) ; Haliburton's
Nova Scotia; Murdoch's Nova Scotia; Campbell's Nova Scotia;
Hannay's Acadia; Brown's Cape Breton; Genuine Letters and Memoirs
relating to Cape Breton and St. John (P. E.I.), by an Impartial
Frenchman ; Gesner's Nova Scotia ; Patterson's Pictou ; Munro's New
Brunswick ; Gesner's New Brunswick ; Stewart's Prince Edward
Island ; Johnstone's Travels in Prince Edward Island ; Wilson's New-
- foundland; Knox's Historical Journal of the Campaign in North
America (1757-1760) ; Cavendish's Debates on the Act of 3774 ;
Henry's Campaign of Arnold in 1775 ; Irving's Life of Washington,
Yol. iii. ; Drake's Dictionary of American Biography ; Reports on
the Scottish Missions in British North America ; Rintoul's Claims of
Scotsmen Abroad ; Scadding's Toronto of Old ; Johnston's Notes on
North America ; Morgan's Celebrated Canadians, and also the Biblio-
theca Canadensis ; The Parliamentary Companion from 1862 to 1879 ;
The Catholic Directory ; The Canadian Legal Directory ; The Clerical
Directory ; besides other works of reference, pamphlets and MSS.
The writer desires to acknowledge his obligations to those who Lave
assisted by permitting the use of books, documents, or MSS.—Alpheus
Todd, Esq., Librarian of Parliament; S. J. Watson, Esq., Librarian
of the Ontario Legislature; the  Rev.  Dr.  McCaul,  of University ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. xi
College, for the use of books from the library ; Professor Gregg, of
Knox College ; Dr. Hodgins, Deputy Minister of Education j and
Mr. John Davy, the Librarian of the Mechanics' Institute, for similar
courtesies. Thanks are due also for their kindness to Chief Justice
Moss, Hon. George and Mrs. Brown, Hon. Oliver Mowat, Hon. Isaac
Buchanan, C. W. Bunting, Esq., M.P., Samuel Piatt, Esq., M.P.,
Sandford Fleming, Esq., Dr. Daniel Wilson, Rev. Dr. Scadding,
Rev. Dr. Reid, Rev. Dr. Barclay, Rev. Dr. Patterson (New Glasgow,
N.S.), Rev. D. J. Macdonell, B.D., Rev. Dr. McNish, Rev. Mr.
Dobie, Dr. William Canniff, Mrs. Wm. Thomson, Mrs. (Dr.) Jennings, Major G. A. Shaw, Messrs. James BethUne, W. J. Macdonell
(French Consul), Alan Macdonell, A. McLean Howard, Charles Lind-
sey, Thomas Henning, Kivas Tully, C.E., John Macara, J. A. Macdonell, R. H. Oates (Alderman), G. Maclean Rose, W. Strickland,
John Mclntyre, James Hedley, and John C. Notman (Queen's
Printer). Mr. G. R. Lancefield is entitled to special thanks for the
invaluable assistance he has given to the writer.  THE  SCOT
IN
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
INTRODUCTION.
Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, hut transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.
* * * *        , *
Make knowledge circle with the winds j
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before ber to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.
—TEjrarscw.
Our ain native land ! our am native laud !
There's a charm in the words that we a' understand,
That flings o'er the bosom the power of a spell,
And makes us love mair what we a' love so well.
The heart may have feelings it canna conceal,
As the mind has the thoughts that nae words can reveal,
But alike be the f eelings and thoughts can command
Who names but the name o' our ain native land.
—Henbt Scott Eiddeh.
,N the general upheaval of traditional ideas on most
^-> subjects of human concern, it seems to have become at least debateable, whether patriotism ought any
longer to be reputed a virtue. It is many years since
every other estimable disposition—even to love, bonevo-
lence, sympathy and self-sacrifice—was resolved into sel-
fishnesss, I enlightened " or the reverse, and it would have
been idle to  expect that love of country should escape THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the same fate. But not even content with its ultimate
analysis of the source of all virtue, the moral chemistry in
yogue seek3 to deprive man's noblest thoughts and affections
of their essential dignity and worth. In the hands of a
perverse and spurious alchemy, the gold has become dim
and the most fine gold changed—transmuted, in fact, inta
the basest dross. Whether there yet remain any residuum
of the old-fashioned conceptions of right and wrong appears
questionable; and to Falstaff s query, j Is there no virtue
extant ?" we ought probably to reply, not only that there
is none, but that it is very doubtful whether such a thing
ever existed. It is selfishness, in this view, that prompts
a mother to doat upon her child, a husband to love and
cherish a wife—that is his own wife—or a friend to feel
affection for his friend; and, since the nation is merely a
wid^ng of the circle of kin and acquaintance, patriotism is
intensely selfish, because it extends the empire of selfishness
over a larger area. It is the perfection of self-denying virtue to be cosmopolitan; and the truly good man must
approve himself j the friend of every country but his own"
—a citizen of the world, or like Anacharsis Clootz, at the bar
of the Convention, an | ambassador of the human race."
Certainly there are national prejudices and conceits, which
vulgarly pass under the name of patriotism, as most men
will readily admit when they are dealing with the faults
and foibles of alien peoples. The pride of country which
fires an Englishman is offensive to the Frank or the German,
and the poor Scot is proverbially sneered at by the Southron
as exclusive and " clannish I—the last epithet being an effec- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
tual extinguisher to Caledonian-assurance. That the virtue >
for such we maintain that it is, may be perverted and made
offensive by jealous pride and ignorant self-assertion might
have been anticipated. All our best impulses and instincts
seem liable to abuse in proportion as they are good, and noble
in themselves ; and, as a matter of fact, they are constantly,
and sometimes flagrantly, abused. But love of country—an
our forbears used to praise and cherish it, and, nerved by its
potent spirit, were ready to do and dare and die with cheerfulness and alacrity—is something nobler and more precious,
because it springs from the purest and most healthful part
of man—his affections. Much that history palms off upon
the world as patriotism is merely a showy veneering over
lust of power and territory, by which kings have profited
at the expense of people who became the sufferers and
dupes; yet all the false sentiments, all the causeless quarrels
and unjust warfare ever occasioned in this way, are but a
feather in the balance when weighed against that true
devotion to country which has fired men's zeal for liberty
and independence, made great and noble states out of nought,
raised the thoughts and ennobled the aspirations of the
honest and -earnest all over the earth. Patriotism and
liberty are twin brothers; and wherever in the world the
heart of a country has beaten time to the pulses of the one,
it has always, in the end, claimed and vindicated its kinship
with the other. The very name and reality of freedom are
associated in history with those nations which have been
intensely patriotic. If one were asked to point out the
countries which have struggled the hardest for indepen- 4
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
dence and liberty, he would name Greece, old Rome, Italy,
Switzerland, Holland, England, and last, though not least,
stern and rugged | auld Scotia."
So far as the progress of knowledge, the expansion of commerce and the interchange of thoughts, sympathies and
courtesies have enabled nations to draw more closely together, to view one another's faults, virtues and idiosyncrasies
with a less jaundiced vision, and a more appreciative temper, patriotism has been chastened and purified; but fthe
world cannot yet afford to do without it. The true lover of
his own country, wherever it may be, will feel more surely,
and cherish more ardently on that, account, the real and
substantial brotherhood of man. As he who loves his own
will prove the best citizen; so, as the circle of view widens,
the ardour of patriotism will glow into affection for the
race. The charity which begins at home and ends there is
not of the most estimable type ; yet it seems more likely to
embrace all human kind than that which begins nowhere,
or is dissipated at the antipodes where it will he of little or
no use to man, beast or thing. It is Burns,. the poet and
patriot of Scotland, who can sing with fervid enthusiasm
and hope:
" Then let us pray, that come it may,
As come it will, for a' that;
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth
May bear the gree, and a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man to man, tbe warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that."
Attachment to one's native land is not a novel or factitious form of affection.   In all languages, from the dawn of THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 5
literature to the chanting of Der Jf acht am Rhein under
the walls of Paris, it has been inculcated as a duty and
extolled as a virtue. It is the bond which knits together
the family units which first made up the clan, sept or tribe,
and thereafter the nation or empire; the cement which
binds society by the cohesive power of affection ; the true
antidote to absorption in self and its immediate surroundings, the all-powerful motive power which prompts to heroic
deeds of noble daring and cheerful self-abnegation and self-
sacrifice. Heroism sprang from love of country, and all
that is great and glorious in human history, as distinguished
from the vain glamour of its ambitions and its crimes, is
distinctly traceable to patriotic aspiration. Even before
the formation of nationalities properly so called, pride in
the value and worth of ancestry, and a desire to enuilate
and surpass the noble deeds of " the fathers," constituted
patriotism in the germ. Even now, as Mr. Froude has
remarked, whilst the optimist is lond of speaking irreverently, of his "barbarian ancestors," the pessimist is ever
ursrinsr that our predecessors " had more of wit and wisdom
than we." The golden age of purity, of matchless beauty,
and dauntless prowess is far back in the mists of a primaeval age, when "there were giants in those days." In
Homer, a hero thought it the best he could say for himself
and his fellow heroes, "We boast ourselves to be better
than our fathers"; and when the despairing prophet of
Israel laid himself down in the wilderness, a day's journey
from Beer-sheba, " and requested for himself that he might
die," his plaintive wail found articulate form in' the touch- 6 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ing words: 8 It is enough; now 0 Lord take away my life;
for I am not better than my fathers." Thus the record of
douo-hty deeds, lofty thoughts or worthy lives has, in all
ages.and all countries, proved the spur to noble and earnest
men, whether it has aroused them to heroism, or stung them
with reproach.
Every civilized nation has such a history in which there
is written much to stimulate courage, virtue, and vigorous
effort, and, not a little to warn, to humiliate and sadden the
proudest and most complacent patriot. It was to perpetuate the fame of native valour and heroism for all time to
come, that literature, first as minstrelsy, and then as rude
chronicling, shed so early its genial and fructifying radiance
upon the earth. The rhapsody, the ballad, the epic, the
tragedy, the poetic tales of heroism, which every land
accumulated at the dawn of its historic day, were at once
the offspring and the prolific ancestry of patriotic pride
and patriotic impulse all the world over. Admiration for
the valour of individual champions or hosts was succeeded
by love of country for its own sake—for what it had been
and for what it had achieved; and this, as in the normal
exercise of all healthy affection, re-acted upon the patriot,
and nerved him to strive his hardest, dare his boldest, defy
danger, and welcome death, if only he could do something
which might leave his country more glorious and free than
he had found it. In the ancient poets, Greek and Latin,
there is a fervent patriotism ever flowering into the brightest
forms of expression. Thus with Euripides, it appears in
"0 my country! would that all who inhabit thee, loved THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
thee as I do; then should we live a better life, and thou
would'st suffer no harm; | and in Ovid : 11 know, not by
what sweet influence, the land of their birth draws all men;
will not suffer them to be unmindful of it;" or, in higher
strain and diviner words: | 0 Jerusalem ! if I forget thee,
let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if
I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." Thus sang the
•captive Judsean by the waters of Babylon, and the echo of
that plaintive chord has touched the patriot and exile in
every land where the Book of Psalms has been said or sung.
The patriotic poetry of all nations is the very flower of literature—its real anthology, and whether in castle or hut, on the
field of battle, in the forest, on the hills, in the cavern refuge
•of hunted heroism, or among | those afar that be upon the
sea," it, more than any other strain of bard or minstrel, has
roused the cheerless, spurred the flagging and sent out the
brave to conquer or to die. Sir Philip Sydney is reported
to have said that the reading of ".Chevy Chase" stirred his
-sovlI like the blast of a war trumpet, and with all heroic
spirits the poetry of patriotism has appealed, with wondrous
potency, to the burning love of country and its fame,
-kindled inextinguishably in every honest human breast.
If, as the prevailing scientific philosophy insists, the bias
of our nature, and its main features, moral and intellectual,
-as well as physical, are inherited—the result of influences
working through an immeasurable past—surely of all the
powers moulding the character, one of essential moment and
surpassing value is that exerted by patriotism.   Whatever 8 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
its origin, the foundations of love for one's native land are
laid broad and deep in the universal heart of humanity. It
has flourished ever since j the first syllable of recorded time"
was articulately spoken, and there is no nation under heaven
in which its subtile energy has notbeenfelt,orwhere theinspir-
ing throb of its vivifying influence has not incited to nobler
thoughts and higher deeds of chivalrous emprise. Men can no
more escape from it than they can flee from themselves ; like
the air they breathe or the rays of the glorious sun, it encompasses them round about, at once the source of life, joy and
healthful activity. Indeed, had not patriotism been so obviously essential to national progress, so natural and so beneficent in its influence, its value and reality would never
have been questioned by philosophers. Love of paradox is
at the bottom of most assaults upon cherished feelings, affections and aspirations; and the more vital and cogent these
may be, the more violent and reckless are the crusades against
them. The modern Don Quixote does not tilt at windmills
which he mistakes for mailed knights; his opponents are a
great deal too real for the weapons at his command and may
safely defy these puny efforts to unhumanize them. A
system which " sees men like trees walking" or as automata
of some sort, and sees nothing more, is not of much practical
account in the working human world of to-day.
It is an instinct in man, therefore, to love his country;* and
because it is natural, it is also seemly, wholesome, laudable
and useful to cherish that affection. Humanity is far too
wide and abstract a conception to gain any firm grasp upon
the sympathies or affections. " Man is dear to man," no doubt THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
as Wordsworth says; and the man of large and warm heart
will no doubt exclaim with Terence, in the Self-tormentor,
"lama man, and deem nothing human beyond my concern; I
but it requires some j touch of nature " to 1 make the whole
world kin "—some story of helpless and hopeless suffering to
evoke pity, some flagrant oppression and brutality to arouse
indignation in lands and climes far removed from our own.
The wrongs of Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, or Greece appeal
vividly to the humanity within man's breast, and a famine or
an inundation in India, China or Japan immediately commands earnest. sympathy and generous self-sacrifice. But
ordinarily speaking, the impression made upon men by the
degradation and other misfortunes of people separated from
us by the barriers of distance, language, manners and habits,
is feeble and transient. The visible horizon is not more contracted than the circumference which encloses the field of
powerful and effective sympathy. National vitality is
strongest in small communities at first, and for the most part,
persistently. Greece,England,Scotland,Holland and Switzerland are at once the countries which have struggled most for
independence, enduring untold sufferings to secure and maintain it, and the nations also which have proved themselves
the champions of liberty, the refuge for the exile and
wanderer, without regard to country. In Germany, patriotism, which seemed well nigh extinct, was revived and burnt
into the national heart during the war of Liberation, and has
finally established itself definitively under the Emperor William and Otto von Bismarck. France suffered for many
centuries from the lack of cohesiveness which kept its mem- 10
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
bers asunder. The people of Normandy and Brittany despised the Poitevin; the Burgundian looked askance at the
native of Auvergne or Provenge; and the Parisian ridiculed
and satirized all provincials without exception. One of
Balzac's great points against Montaigne was his Gascon birth;
for what good could come of a writer born " in the Barbary
of Quercy and Perigoid?" The fatal effects of this looseness
in the bond of nationality have been felt in all the misfortunes of France, and are even now traceable in the centralizing system which consigns all power and distinction, political,
literary or social, to the custody of one great city.
Prof. Huxley has said, " Throw a stone into the sea, and
there is a sense in which it is true that the wavelets which
spread around it have an effect through all space and all
time." It is so also with every individual man or woman
cast upon the tide of time. From the thinking, willing and
acting self, and forth into infinite space and into eternity, the
energies of personal existence move in concentric circles until
they are dissipated—lost to human view—expanded into
seeming nothingness and mere oblivion. It is so with our
sympathies and affections. The j wretch who concentred all
in self " has been held up to reprobation by Sir Walter Scott;
and yet it is doubtful whether any man, however selfish,
could either live or die wholly for himself. Strong within
the sphere of relationship, love for our fellows originates in the
affections of the family—that primal unit, out of which, in
the opinion of Mr. Gladstone and others, springs the social
•state, with all its virtues and amenities. Thither may be
traced, in germ, the love of country, developed in the ever- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA..
11
widening range of affection, and speedily embracing in its
generous warmth all who dwell in our own land, speak its
tongue, inherit its traditions, and share its characteristic
tendencies. The irrefragable bonds of a common language,
similar modes of thought and action, kindred hopes and aspirations, thus knit men together in the strongest and
broadest union society has yet provided. Even the historical
element alone, the sense of .intercommunion through a common ancestry, which struggled, suffered and, in the issue,
triumphed that they might be endowed with independence,
freedom, strength and honesty of purpose, tends to stimulate
men, by fostering a healthful and honest pride in what is the
common appanage of the entire nation. But beyond the
claims of patriotic affection, all grows vague and nebulous ;
the energy imparted by a glorious history is dissipated in the
excursive maunderings of an objectless sentimentality; for
what is not a subject of human interest fails to be an object
of active human sympathy. The substance and purpose of
benevolent affection fade and shadow off into those airy
phantoms through which cosmopolitan philosophy breathes a
spasmodic life—its own. Human attachments are limited,
like bodily vision and all else that is human. Within reasonable bounds, our sympathies will not fail to assert their
native power; surpass those boundaries, and the influence
wanes and grows languid until, like the force of gravity, it
vanishes or becomes intangible and inane, dispersed in
vacancy too far away from the centre at which it sprang.
Man's affections, no matter how far they may reach, must
have something palpable on which to expend themselves; 12
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
their, object must be definite, concrete and readily grasped
within the circle of knowledge and acquaintanceship, or they
must be wasted in quest of abstractions, j If a man love
not his brother whom he hath seen," and yet affects to "love
God whom he hath not seen," he is stigmatized by Divine
authority as a liar. Similarly with what consistency can any
one simulate devotion to the race, past, present and to come,
when he refuses to love the land and the people peculiarly
his own ? Our disinterested virtues, if any such survive the
ultimate analysis, are not so secure and stable in these days,
as to need artificial volatilization. Patriotism may be sometimes overladen with parasitic growths that poison its vitality;
if so, there is need of the pruning knife, not the axe. It is
glorious to dwell upon the past of one's country; to live in
fancy amongst the stirring deeds which have made its name
illustrious amongst.the nations and by which we are privileged to five in freedom, happiness and peace. The fair inheritance is ours, although the anguish, the toil and the pain
were theirs who went before; they suffered and. were strong,
that we might reap the harvest. The thorny path was trodden through blood and tears, that we might enter upon the
heritage to till and enjoy it. To us upon whom the ends of
the world are come, generations long gone to their rest
have bequeathed the results of their industry and wrestling
with powers terrestrial and infernal. The goodly possession lies around us everywhere, nay, it is within us,
giving the impetus to honest exertion and elevated aims;
why should it not be cherished with manly pride and satisfaction ? THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Moreover, let a man, so far as he may, abjure his country,
repudiate his nationality, and turn his back upon the glorious scroll of its fame, forget what has been suffered and
achieved by his ancestry and "forfeit the fair renown,"
handed down to him, it will avail nothing. Nature has
stamped the national characteristics upon his mind and
heart, perhaps on his form and features, and not even self-
destruction can remove the indelible traces of all he would
fain cast behind him. It is this persistence of national
energy, to borrow a scientific phrase, which makes the formation of any country's peculiar type of character a study
so valuable, especially in a new land, like ours, where
much depends upon the moral, intellectual and physical
fibre of the races contributing to.the sum of its population.
It has been urged by Mr. Mill, Sir Henry Maine and others
that historical or ethical deductions from differences of race,
and especially of related branches of the same race, are vain
and illusory. That is no doubt true if we rely upon ethnic
distinctions alone, without taking into account, the physical
character of the country, its position relatively to adjacent
peoples, hostile or friendly, and the general course of its history. At the same time, race and language are important factors in any estimate of a nation, provided only they
do not assume undue" predominance and pass for more than
they are worth. The peculiar traits of character which we
note in various peoples, the ancient Greeks and Romans, the
Jews, the Teuton, the Celt in Scotland and Ireland, or the
Anglo-Saxon in both, and in the English, strictly so called,
are the net results of a vast number of acting, reacting and 14
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
retroacting influences, almost always so complex and intricate as to defy unravelling. In modern times much has
been done to clear the stage of cumbering theories, whose
only merit was their ingenuity; and, if the philosophy of
history is only yet in embryo, it seems at least to have shape
and coherence as a branch of knowledge in the making.
Scotland and the Scottish people, perhaps, afford as compact and instructive a mass of material as the philosophical
historian can desire. The country has, of late years, occfupiod
a lareer figure in English and foreign literature than it
formerly did. No people concerning which we have abundant information, presents the student with so well-defined
a history; no nation has produced a more salient and clear
cut type of character than Scotland. Physically, considered
in the rough, it is an eminently poor and sterile land;
nature has been a stern and hard-tempered mother to her
sons in " auld Scotia." She has given them nothing which
they have not drawn from her rugged bosom, by constant,
painful and often fruitless toil; but her very parsimony has
reared the Scottish nation up, as a hard-working, frueral.
sturdy and honest race, eager to discharge the duties set before them honestly,fearlessly and welL Moreover, as if nature
had not been grudging enough, Scotland has been, from beyond the dawn of authentic history, the prey of foes from
all sides. From the rock-bound coast where Caithness bares
its scarred and weather-beaten brow, crowned with island
jewels, to the rough North Sea, and down to the Mull of Galloway, Scotland, from the earliest days was harried and des-
spoiled, through all its length and breadth by fierce invaders.
■SffiBRS THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
15
At a far remote period in the past, Gothic rovers of some
sort, Scandinavian or Teutonic, must have made the entire
north and north-west their prey; then appeared the Irish
Scots, and fresh Norse and Saxon visitors, and soon over
the whole scene the curtain of oblivion is thrown for four
centuries. The Christianity of Columba and his island
home had almost disappeared, when Kentigern or St.
Mungo appeared in Strathclyde to raise anew the standard
of the cross. Then came Saxon immigration from England ;
Norman cupidity was excited, and thenceforward over the
whole Border from the Humber to the Forth, and from Carlisle to the Clyde the raiders, plied their rough and ready
warfare from either side, without regarding truce or pact
between the courts at Scone or Holyrood and London.    So
late as the time of James V. the rule of might was the
only one  acknowledged by these rough troopers.     That
monarch had sent James Boyd to the castle of Murray of
Philiphaugh, who had been particularly audacious, in order
to command his allegiance.    Quoth Boyd, according to the
old ballad:
" The King of Scotland sent me here,
And, gude outlaw, I am sent to thee;
I wad wot of whom ye hauld your landis,
Or, man, wba may thy master be."
Murray's answer was fierce and defiant:
" The landis are mine!" the outlaw said,
" I ken nae king in Christentio;
Frae Soudron I this forest wan,
When the king nor his knights were not to see."
Neither these wild moss troopers, nor the Highlander* 16 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
who levied toll on the northern Lowlands considered their
exploits as anything dishonest or dishonourable. To them
it was simply a natural right to make war and secure loot.
Thus in Johnnie Armstrong, whom the king charges with
treason and robbery, the borderer replies:
" Ye lied, ye lied, now, king," he says,
" Although a king and prince ye be!
For I've loved naething in my life,
I weel dare say but honesty.
" Save a fat horse, and a fair woman,
Twa bonnie dogs to kill a deir;
But England sould have found me meal and mault,
Gif I had lived this hundred yeir!"
Kinmount Willie, Auld Wat of Harden, and other names
celebrated in the old ballad literature, will readily occur to
the reader of Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," "Percy's Reliques,"
and kindred works.
Then followed the war of Independence, the heroic struggle under Wallace, " his country's saviour," as Burns terms
him, with his signal victory at Stirling, and his unhappy
defeat at Falkirk, the terribly heavy hand of Edward I.,
the establishment of Scottish nationality at Bannockburn,
in 1314, ten years after the valiant Wallace gave up his
life on Tower Hill. Following these memorable events there
came the French alliance and Scottish participation in the
Hundred Years' war. At home, after the chequered reigns
of the Bruces, the Stuarts, foredoomed to disaster in England
and Scotland both, were incessantly contending with the
nobles or with England. At last we reach the flower of
the race in beauty and craft, the unhappy Mary and the
Reformation, the contest for presbytery and civil freedom THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
17
against the Stuarts on the English throne, the Glencoe massacre after the Revolution, the Union and finally those
last struggles of many centuries, the Jacobite uprisings of
1715 and 1745. Some of the more prominent features of
this wild and eventful history must be examined more
closely hereafter; meanwhile it is necessary to enquire what
effects such a terrible and prolonged ordeal of sorrow and
suffering must have entailed upon the Scottish people. It
will be found that it has left many seams and scars upon
the national character; but it will clearly appear also that
that character has emerged from the fiery trial, purged and
purified, and that if some of the less attractive traits, which
are made so much of to the prejudice of Scotsmen, are due to
that prolonged woe, the virtues which have made Scotland
pre-eminently distinguished among the nations are traceable
to the same source. The industry, the energy, the shrewdness, the probity, the caution, the enterprise, the noble daring, the frugality, the high sense of honour, the haughty
pride and reserve, which have given to the Scot a place
and renown in the world, far above any to be anticipated
from his numbers or the importance of his rugged land, have
all been hardly and honestly earned, and paid for in the blood
and toil and constant suffering of an heroic and illustrious
ancestry. Surely then, some faults and foibles may be forgiven the people of a nation who have won distinction all
the world over and whose noble record may not unreasonably inspire them with proud confidence and self-reliant
perseverance and self-assertion.
There are many, no doubt, who will admit Scotland's title
B 18
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
to all the glory she has won, and who yet are ready with this
objection, that old-country patriotism should be left at home.
In Canada, it is urged, men should cease to be Englishmen,
Scotchmen, Irishmen, and so forth, and be known only as
Canadians.    The motive which prompts this suggestion is
laudable in itself.   It seems in every way desirable that
those who live in the Dominion, and especially the natives
of this country, should cultivate and cherish a patriotic feeling of attachment to it—such an affection as may be fittingly
termed   national.     No   community composed   ol   diverse
elements ever became great until these were fused together
and the entire people, irrespective of origin, learned to have
common hopes and aspirations, and united in a combined
effort to advance their country's progress and make it great
and distinguished among the nations of the earth.    But
nationality is, after all, a growth, and not a spasm or a gush.
It is certainly full time that Canadians began to regard their
noble heritage with the eye of national pride and predilection, and that its life, political, intellectual and social, were
taking a national tinge.   If we cannot at once spring into
the stature of complete manhood, it is at least possible, indeed necessary if we desire Canada to be great, that the habit,
so to speak, of nationality should be formed and cherished
until it grows to be a familiar and settled feature in our
: country's fife.
But it is quite another thing to propose that the slate
shall be cleaned off, and that if this noble Canada of ours
cannot begin without patriotic capital of its own, it should
wait patiently until it has made a history and a name for THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
19
itself.     The stimulus   necessary in the initial  stages of
colonial progress must be drawn from older lands ; it cannot
be improvised off-hand at pleasure.     Factitious patriotism
is a sentimental gew-gaw which anybody may fabricate and
adorn with such tinsel rhetoric as he can command, but it
bears no resemblance to the genuine article.   As with the
individual, so with the embryo nation; the life it leads, the
pulse which leaps through its frame, is the life of the parent
—the mother or the mother-land, as the case. may be.
Traditions gather about, the young nationality as it advances
through adolescence to maturity.    Yet  even the sons and
grandsons of Englishmen, Scots, Irishmen, French or Germans must revere the memories of the country from which
they sprang—glory in what is illustrious in its history, and
strive to emulate the virtues transplanted in their persons
to blossom on another soil and beneath another sky.    The
old maxim, "No one can put off his country," has lost its
international value in a legal sense; but it remains valid in
regard to the character, tendencies and aptitudes of the individual man.    Such as his country has made him he is, and,
broadly speaking, he must remain to the end of the chapter;
the national stamp will be impressed upon his children and
his children's children, and traces of  it will survive all
vicissitudes, and be perpetuated in his remotest posterity. In
a new country there is much to dissipate traditional feelings,
but inherited traits of character remain, and crop up long
after the ties of political connection have been broken for
ever.    Up to the time of the American. Revolution, the
colonists of New England, or Virginia, looked across the 25
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
•ocean with tender affection to the dear old land they had
left behind. England was a harsh mother to some of those
•expatriated ones, yet they never ceased to feel an honest
pride in her renown; and even beneath the surface-coldness
■of the Puritan character the glow of tender, and almost
yearning, love for England burned in the heart and found
expression in the writings of those early days. And, so
at this day, with much to estrange the peoples of England
and America, what is common to both on the glorious page
of history, in the language and literature of the English-
speaking peoples, seems to attach them again to each other
with ever tightening bands. Crafty demagogues may flatter
and prompt the ignorant prejudices of the residuum, but
there can be little doubt that the sound heart of the United
States is drawing closer to the maternal bosom than it has
done at any time since '76.
Attachment to the land from which we or our fathers
came is not only compatible with intense devotion to the
highest interests of the country where we dwell, but is a
necessary condition of its birth, its growth and its fervour.
The dutiful son, the affectionate husband and father, will
usually be the best and most patriotic subject or citizen ;
and he will love Canada best who draws his love of country
in copious draughts from the old fountain-head across the
sea. We have an example of strong devotion to the European stock, combined with unwavering attachment to
Canada, in our French fellow-countrymen of Quebec. No
people can be more tenacious of their language, their institutions and thejr religion than they are; they still love France THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and its past glories with all the passionate ardour of their
warm and constant natures. And yet no people are more
contented, more tenderly devoted to Canadian interests
more loyal to the Crown and the free institutions under
which they live. Sir Etienne Tachd gave expression to the
settled feeling of his compatriots when he predicted that the
last shot for British rule in America would be fired from the
citadel of Quebec by a French Canadian. The Norman and
Breton root from which the Lower Canadians sprang was
peculiarly patriotic, almost exclusively so, in a provincial or
sectional sense in old France; and they, like the Scot,
brought their proud, hardy and chivalrous nature with them
to dignify and enrich the future of colonial life. The French
Canadian, moreover, can boast a thrilling history in the
Dominion itself, to which the English portion of the population may lay no claim. Quebec has a Walhalla of departed
heroes distinctively its own; yet still it does not turn its
back upon the older France, but lives in the past, inspired
by its spirit to work out the problem of a new nationality
in its own way. There is no more patriotic Canadian than
the Frenchman, and he is also the proudest of his origin and
race. There is nothing, then, to forbid the English-speaking
Canadian from revering the country of his fathers, be it
England, Scotland or Ireland ; on the contrary, it may be
laid down as a national maxim that the unpatriotic Englishman, Scot or Irishman will be sure to prove a very inferior
specimen of the Canadian.
In this work we have to do with one portion of the
British Empire, and it is perhaps well to disabuse the read- 22
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
er's mind of a few mistaken prejudices he may have contracted. It is not the purpose of the 1 The Scot," any more
than of its companion and predecessor, " The Irishman," to
draw invidious and unfair comparisons between the nationalities or to boast unduly of the pre-eminent virtue, intelligence or prowess of either country. The design of the publishers was and is, to select in turn each of the elements
which go to make up our Canadian population, and to trace
separately, so far as that may be done, the history of its influence, the extent to which it has contributed to the settlement, growth and progress in development of the British
North American Provinces. There is an advantage in such
a mode of treatment which cannot fail to suggest itself to the
reader, after a moment's reflection. A subject complex and
unwieldly in the mass, is much more readily dealt with, if it
be taken up by instalments; and no division promises so
much interest and instruction as that which marks off the
various factors as they were, originally and before combination, and then follows them down the stream of time, where
they will at last be lost in a homogeneous current of national
life. Be it, therefore, distinctly understood, on the threshold,
that it is not intended to assert that British North America
owes everything to Scotland and the Scots, and that its present and future greatness are entirely of Caledonian origin.
St. Andrew forbid! The privilege is asserted here of eliminating, for the nonce, the other nationalities, in order that we
may deal more clearly and comprehensively with Scottish
character and its influence upon the settlement and progress
of this vast outlying arm of the British Empire.   If, there-
wssssw THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
fore, prominence is given to the glorious history of Scotland,
the sterling virtues of the Scottish people and the immense
weight of obligation under which they have laid their fellows of other, and even widely severed, nationalities and
races, all the world over, it is simply because to do so is our
immediate business.
There are two clearly marked types of race in Scotland,
and the distinction remains in the immigrant. Scots ; in religion, there is also a disturbing element, and, although the
Presbyterian or distinctively national faith is overwhelmingly preponderant, we must not lose sight of the remnant who
have clung to the ancient Church or that other minority, for
the most part highly cultured and intelligent, belonging to
the Episcopal Church. Notwithstanding these complicating elements of race and religion, however, there is a substantial unity in Scottish history, a main type of character,
firmly persisting in the Scot, which facilitates the preliminary portion of our task. In order to analyze the effect of
Scottish settlement in British America, it is essential, in
the first place, to examine the character of the people.
What are the salient qualities which mark off the Scot from
his brothers of the English-speaking race ? How has he
acquired them, and what are they intrinsically worth when
brought to a new country, and contributed to the common
stock ? . Obviously in order to answer these questions, even
with proximate accuracy, it is necessary to take a hasty survey of the country, the origin and history of its people, so as
to be in a position to judge what characteristics are markedly Scottish, what might be antecedently expected from the 24
THE SOOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
full play of these national traits and aptitudes, and what has
really been achieved by the clear head and the stalwart arm
of the Scot, at home, abroad, and more especially for that
vast and progressive region in which our lot is cast.
It will be found that, although the people of that ancient
land have served a hard apprenticeship in a land comparatively rugged and sterile, they have gone forth to the conflict
of life equipped with the highest type of social energy and
virtue. Though they have fought their own battles and
contended for freedom in many lands, no race has practised,
with such unwearied industry and assured success, the nobler
arts of peace. The harrow of raid, invasion and unjust aggression, which tore the vitals of Scotland for centuries, has
not left them exhausted or desponding; on the contrary,
from the blood and sweat which fertilized its soil have
sprung the heroes of martial strife as well as of honest labour
in every land beneath the sun. I Their sound has gone out
into all the earth," and the record of their noble deeds is
worked in broad characters upon the history, the civilization and the religion of the race. If we inquire whence
those inestimable qualities arise, which have been impressed
upon the national character, they must be traced in the stem
discipline of the past. The independent self-assertion, the
sensitive pride, the delicate sense of honour, the indomitable
perseverance, the unflinching courage and the rigid integrity
of the Scot, are an inherited possession of which he may
surely boast, and for which the world has substantial cause
to be abundantly grateful. " Wha daur meddle wi' me ?"
the motto encircling the thistle, gives the key-note to the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
25
Scottish character.    Says Hamilton in his lines to the old
emblem:
" How oft beneath
Its martial influence, have Scotia's sons
Through every age, with dauntless valour fought,
On every hostile ground ?   While o'er their breast,
Companion to the silver star, blest type
Of fame unsullied and superior deed,
Distinguished ornament! this native plant
Surrounds the sainted cross, with costly row
Of gems emblazed, and flame of radiant gold,
A sacred mark, their glory and their pride."
So Allan Ramsay in "The Vision," a poem in antique dress.
It is the genius of Scotland he describes:—■
" Great daring darted frae his e'e,
A braid sword shogled at his thie,
On his left arm a targe ;
A shining spear filled his right hand
Of stalwart make in bane and brawnd,
Of just proportions large;
A various rainbow-coloured plaid
Ower his left spail he threw;
Down his braid back frae his white head
The silver wimplers grew.
Amazed, I gazed
T© see led at command,
A stampant and a rampant
Fierce lion in his hand."
It is in the martial prowess of the Scot, that one must seek
for that invincible and plodding energy which has subdued
the wilderness and shed abroad upon many lands the benign
light of peace, plenty and civilization. The old warlike
triumphs celebrated by many a Scottish bard and errant
minstrel in hall and cot, were the harbingers of those unwearying wrestlings with the rude and untamed forces of
nature, and with the ignorance and savagery of man, in which
the Scots have earned laurels more enduring than those- 26
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
which encircle the brows of the doughtiest champions. For
that later conflict, as will be seen more clearly hereafter, the
people of Scotland were trained and disciplined in the hard
school of penury, adversity and oppression. The world may
mock those salient angularities of character,' which are
merely the accidents attaching to it, not its precious substance. They mark the fury of the furnace, the crushing
weight of the pitiless hammer and the rough and inexorable
strength of the grindstone; but they indicate also, only more
conspicuously, the true and bright steel in the Scottish,
nature, its fine and polished temper, and the subtle keenness of its trenchant blade.
uwwimm jf^^Sb
PART 1
THE SCOT AT HOME AND ABROAD.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAND AND THE   PEOPLE.
0 Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child !
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires ! what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band,
That knits me to thy rugged strand ?
—Scott.
Caledonia ! thou laud of the mountain and rock,
Of the ocean, the mist, and the wind—
Thou land of the torrent, the pine and the oak,
Of the roebuck, the hart, and the hind;
Though bare are thy cliffs, and though barren thy glens,
Though bleak thy dun islands appear,
Yet kind are the hearts, and undaunted the clans,
That roam in the mountains so drear 1
—James Hogg.
J HE two little islands which stand forth in bold re-
(^7* lief from the North Atlantic, as outposts of European civilization, have exerted a beneficial influence upon
the entire world, exceedingly disproportionate to the
figure they make upon the map, or their numerical and
fighting strength. The cradle of the English-speaking
race, they have reared and sent forth over the globe a vast
progeny of sturdy sons and daughters to conquer nature 28        ' THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,
and to elevate the race of man. In the spirit of prophecy
which the bard in Cowper mistakenly addressed to Boadicea,
it may be vaunted now with still more significance,, after
the event—
I Kegions Csesar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they."
It is with the northern part of Great Britain—the rugged
and stern Caledonia—the least promising part of the motherland—that we are immediately concerned. Scotland is the
smallest of this group of nations, contains a smaller aggregate
of natural ad vantages than her sisters, and has improved those
advantages under circumstances far less encouraging and
hopeful. And yet no country • of its size and intrinsic importance can show a more glorious record. Ancient Greece,
Switzerland, Holland and Denmark, naturally occur to the
student as furnishing analogies to the unique history and
influence of Scotland ; yet they furnish no parallel. The first
was small, rocky and barren, but it possessed the vantage
ground of position in the great southern inland sea. Greece
was a naval and colonizing country and, as the rival powers
of Egypt and Phoenicia waned, she stood unrivalled until the
rod of empire was stretched forth from the banks of the
Tiber. She had her foes from the east and north, but valiantly held her own so long as she was true to herself, and
the intellectual legacy she bequeathed to mankind remains
an everlasting possession. Scotland, during a millennium
and more, had no outlet for her energy; beset by foes on
every side, and yet more than a match for them all; without THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
29
a navy, without cities, with rude agriculture and a precarious
commerce, she has yet accomplished the mightiest results.
Switzerland achieved freedom, but remained isolated ; Holland passed through the fire and quenched it with her dykes;
"the Danes, or rather the Scandinavian stock, of which they
only formed a small section, were early sea-rovers, who
preyed upon every land within their reach. In all these
•cases; where the colonizing, raiding, or merely voyaging,
spirit has been the earliest characteristic of a small country,
it has been sure to leave a broad mark upon human history.
"Scotland alone was the victim in its youth and early manhood ; there was always enough to do there at home, and
not over much to get. The greater part of the small territory must have always been hopelessly barren: and even
the fertile straths, haughs and plains of the east and south,
were so constantly under the harrow, not of tillage, but of
rapine and invasion, that progress, wealth and culture were
out of the question for centuries.
Scotland contains about 30,000 square miles, or 19,496,132
acres, about one-third, or slightly over, of the entire area of
Britain; but of these less than four millions and a half
are cultivated. The population, at the time of Bruce, was
about 300,000; when James VI. ascended the Throne it was
about 900,000, and at the union, in 1707, not much more
than a million. In 1801, the census gave 1,678,452; in
1821, 2,137,325 ; in 1861, 3,096,808; and at the latest enumeration (1871), it stood 3,360,018, as against 22,712,266 in
England and Wales, and 5,411,416 in Ireland.^ Adding the
population of the Islands, the soldiers and sailors at home 30
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and abroad, Scotland contributes but one-ninth to the total
number of inhabitants in the United Kingdom.    The country, as it lies before us on the map, is in the main rocky, the
land of mountain, frith and flood; the land of hardy shepherds
and fishermen; of stout fighters and frugal husbandmen.
The thin-soiled glens of the Highlands, the straths  and
carses of Perthshire, the haughs and dales of the Lowlands,
generally form but a comparatively small portion of the
surface, and, for the most part, fife is sustained throughout
Scotland under hard conditions.    The east and north, on
the coasts of the North Sea, are fertile, and it is on th»)
former side that the large streams are found—the Tweed,
Forth, Tay and Dee.   On the west side, the Clyde, although
certainly of high renown, is the  only river of considerable size.   Scotland, then, presents an uncouth and not altogether alluring prospect to the eye of the superficial observer ; if so, it is merely because of his superficiality. That
western coast, and the stern ribs of rock which strike towards
it, is, for the most part, the home of the Celt; but, as we go
northward, to where the Western Isles glitter in the Atlantic,
like the crest on Minerva's helmet, the blood of the Norseman begins to tell, as it does over the entire North of
Scotland.    The Highlands will always maintain their place
in the feelings and imagination of more than Scotsmen.    It
is the custom, in the practical vein of Anglo-Saxondom, to
sneer at the Gael, as a cateran, a dreamer, or something1
O
worse; but there never was a greater mistake conceived in
the unreasoning prejudice of race. The grandeur of Hi^h-
land scenery, the precarious labours of peace, and a lono-, sad THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
31
history of suffering and sorrow, culminating in the massacre
of Glencoe, have all made men frugal, imaginative, pensive,
and poetical in that
" Land of proud hearts and mountains grey,
Where Eingal fought and Ossian sung."
Mr. Lecky, in his History,* insists upon a fact which the
Lowland Scot is apt to forget in contempt for his Gaelic
countrymen: 1 It would be a great mistake to suppose that
the Highlands contributed nothing beneficial to the Scotch
character. The distinctive beauty and the great philosophic
interest of that character sprang from the very singular
combination it displays of a romantic and chivalrous with a
practical and industrial spirit. Li no other nation do we
find the enthusiasm of loyalty blended so happily with the
enthusiasm for liberty, and so strong a vein of poetic sensibility and romantic feeling qualifying a type that is essentially industrial. It is not difficult to trace the Highland
source of this spirit."
There are in Scotland, as every one knows, two races,
recognisable by certain broad characteristics, the Gaelic
Celt and the Lowland Scot, the latter somewhat loosely
termed Anglo-Saxon, whenever he speaks a language which
is not Gaelic. But in the school days of most people not yet
past middle age, there were two giants, who met them on the
threshold of British history—the Pict and the Scot. These
ogres were always doing something that had better have
* A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. By E, H. Lecky. (Amer.
Ed.) Vol. IL p. 99. 32
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,
been left undone, especially during the Roman time. To
unsophisticated youth, unlearned in modern ethnology, the
Scots were, of course, the people of Scotland proper. That,
at any rate, seemed to admit of no dispute; but the Picts,
who were they ? Did any body then know, or does anybody
know even now, when men appear to know all but everything? The Scots were certainly a branch of the Irish
Celts, who took to their caracoles and rowed over the narrow
North Channel to the Scottish coast. That there was an
interchange of rough civility between the islands we know,
because there is geological evidence of it in the basaltic
columns of Fingal's Cave at Staffa, and Giant's Causeway in
Antrim. If the courtesy of Fian Mac Coull, the Irish giant,
did not spread those stepping-stones originally to accommodate his Scottish antagonist, how came they there on both
sides of the channel ? The Mull of Cantire is only twelve miles
from the Irish coast, and, although legend may be safely
dismissed, it is certain that the Scots of the Irish Dalriada
crossed over and established a footing for themselves on the
isles and mainland of Argyleshire, early in the Christian era.
The;y were not addicted like the Norsemen to long sea-trips,
which may probably account for Mac Coull's politeness in
providing a rude viaduct for his antagonist; but they
were an active, impetuous, warlike race, and so wandered
over their new-found territory until some of them returned, and but for the battle of Moyra, the Albanian
Scots bade fair to make Ireland a vassal of Scotland.
That battle, as Mr. Burton remarks, although little known,
was the Bannockburn of early Ireland.     The historian, THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
33
whose sympathies are evidently not with the Celts,
hints that the difference between them and their Saxon
rivals thereafter, may be stated as a case of peat versus coal.
' They were an indolent race," he says, " to whom the elements of value are not the resources capable of development
but those which offer the readiest supply of the necessaries
of life." " It is a curious coincidence, worth remembering:,
that those very lands in Northern Ireland, which the ancestors of the Scottish Highlanders .abandoned, were afterwards
■eagerly sought and occupied by Scottish Lowlanders as a
promising field of industrial enterprise."*—a comparison
which strikes one as rather unfair to the Celts both of Ireland and Scotland.
Whatever they may afterwards have effected in the way
of conquest, the Irish Scots held sway, in St. Columba's time,
no further north than the latitude of Iona—that is, over the
moiety of Argyleshire and perhaps all the isles off the coast.
In the new histories, notably those of Mr. Green, they occupy a somewhat larger figure on the map ; but all the rest
■of northern Scotland down to the Firths of Forth and Clyde,
—the boundary of the old Roman Province, was under the
rule of the mysterious Picts. What were they, Celt, Norse,
or Saxon? If Celtic, they evidently sprang from the
Cymric or Welsh branch, or they would have been indis-.
tinsruishable from the Irish Scoti. Tacitus, in his life of
Agricola, writing of a period long antecedent to the establishment of the Dalriadic kingdom in Argyleshire, contrasts
them with the old Britons of the Cymric stock.   He traces
Burton: Hfet of Scot., vol. i. 213. 34
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
an affinity between them and the Germans, because, unlike
the Britons of the south, the Caledonians were fair-haired
and large-boned.    Columba, it is said, made conversions to
Christianity in Pictland, but his intercourse with the people
was through the medium of an interpreter.    Bede, early in
the eighth century, relates that the New Testament had been
translated into four .native languages, the English, the British or Welsh, the Scots (or Irish), and the Pictish.   Philology
has tried its hand in vain; the names of rivers and other
forms of local nomenclature are made Celtic, Norse or Saxon,
according to the bias of the philologist.    On the whole, we
may give up the matter in despair, unless we accept the
rational view that the east and north of Scotland, like England, were subject to long and overpowering incursions of
Scandinavians and Saxons, and that the people known as
Picts was a conglomerate made up of the three races or sub-
races rather, Celt, Norse and Teutonic.    The Pictish controversy, says Mr. Burton, 1 leaves nothing but a melancholy
record of wasted labour and defeated ambition I" and that
being so, we may be content to let it alone.   There was also
the kingdom of Strathclyde.    It formed part of that Cymric
territory which, in 600, extended down the entire  west
coast of Britain from the Clyde to Land's End; was bounded
on the east by the Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria, North
Anglia, Mercia and Wessex.   The Saxon kingdom of Northumbria consisted of Bernicia, from the Forth to the Tees in
England, and Deira which met North Anglia at the Hum-
ber.   In process of time the Cymric Celts were cut in two
and the Scottish portion became isolated by the»Anglian con- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
35
quest of Cumbria. But not only have we the Cymric Celts and
the Saxons in Scotland to deal with, but the Scandinavian
element, over the entire Lowlands, along the entire east, and
north and north-west coasts. Through some of its numerous
branches, Norse, Icelandic or Danish, it has left too broad a
stamp upon the language, especially in the names of places,
to be accounted for by mere temporary inroads of the 1 sea-
kings." Whatever the Picts may have been, their kingdom
never was, except nominally, and by the imposition of a
monarch from Dalriada, a Celtic country within the historic
period. Mr. Burton makes this clear enough in his work.*
It was no mere stampede of Saxons under Edgar Atheling, at
the conquest, that made eastern Scotland Teutonic, modified
by Scandinavian. Indeed, many of the conquering bands
that pass under the generic name of Norse were, like the
Angles of Northumbria, from that debateable territory
known as Schleswig.
Whether, however, the people were more or less tinged
*Mr. Burton's remarks are worth quoting: " Overlying the little that we absolutely
know o» the Picts, there is a great fact, that at a very early period—whenever, indeed, the
inhabitants of Scotland come forward in European history—the territory of old assigned to
the Picts was occupied by a people thoroughly Gothic or Teutonic, whether they were the
descendants of the large liml ed and red-haired Caledonians of Tacitus, or subsequently
found their way into the country. To the southward of the Frith, we know pretty well
that they were Saxons of Deira and Bernicia, superseding the Romanized Britons; but all
along northwards the Lowlands were people of the same origin. Those who see their descendants of the present day, acknowledge the Teutonic type to be purer in them than in
the people of England. How far Celtic blood may have mingled with the race we cannot
tell, but it was the nature of the language obstinately to resist all admixture with the Gaelic
The broadest and purest Lowland Scots is spoken on the edge of the Highland line. It
ought, one would think, to be a curious and instructive topic for philosophy to deal with,
that while the established language of our country—of England and Scotland—borrows at
all hands—from the Greek, from Latin, from French, it takes nothing whatever, either
in its structure or vocabulary, from the Celtic race, who have lived for centuries in the same
island with the Saxon-speaking races, English and Scots." History of Scotland, Vol. i. pp.
S06.207. 36 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
with Norse blood, their language was Saxon, more entirely
so than the English has been since the Norman conquest. In
the reigns of the early Norman Kings and under the Planta-
genets, " the pure well of English undefiled " was adulterated •
with the French of the conquering race, and the literature
of England, as we find it in Chaucer, is more difficult for a
modern reader than that of John Barbour, Archdeacon of
Aberdeen, and chaplain of David Bruce, who was Chaucer's
contemporary. Take this passage from Barbour's " Bruce,"
for example, and let any one compare it with a passage
taken at random from " Canterbury Tales." It is just before
Bannockburn:—
" When this was said—
The Scottismen commonally
Kneelt all doun, to God to pray,
And a short prayer, there made they,
To God to help them in that ficht.
And when the English king had sicht
Of them kneeland, he said inhy:
' Yon folk kneel to ask mercy.'
Sir Ingram said : ' Ye say sooth now,
They ask mercy, but not of you ;
Eor their trespass to God they cry:
I tell you a thing sickerly,
That yon men will win or die ;
For doubt of deid (fear of death) they sail not flee'."
Barbour lived from 1316 to 1396, and Chaucer from 1328
to 1400 ; and yet the Scottish poet, a few archaisms excepted, speaks something like modern English, whilst the great
" father of English poetry " abounds in the Normanized dialect of the court and literature of the fourteenth century
London. There evidently is no greater mistake made by
historians than to attribute the Saxon element all up the
east coast, at St. Andrews', Montrose or Aberdeen, and round THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
37
by Moray Firth to Inverness, as either the effect of Anglian'
rule in Bernicia, or of immigration, on a large scale, after
the conquest in England. One might as well believe that
all the Britons were driven into the Welsh mountains, as
folks used to say, or that the Norsemen, who obtained so
strong a hold in the north-western Highlands, perished after
their victory over the Gaels, instead of being absorbed, and
lost sight of, in the superior civilization, such as it was, of
the ancient Celt. If there were four tongues, what were
they ? Certainly Pictish was not one of them. In Macbeth
or Malcolm's time it is possible that four languages may have
been spoken; if so, they must have been Norse in Ross and
the North-west, Gaelic in the west and centre, Cymric in
Strathclyde, and Saxon all over the east from the border,
and all the way round to Inverness. The Scots' kings, in
fact, ruled over but a small portion of the Lowlands, even
after Bannockburn, and there were petty jarls or earls in
Ross and Caithness long after Kenneth or Duncan. These
last were Norse rulers; but concerning Scandinavian inroads
more will be said in the next chapter. It is sufficient here
to note that the Saxon character of the entire east and north
was of much older date than most historians suppose, and
that neither the conquest of the Lowlands, the transfer of
the government to Edinburgh, nor the marriage of Malcolm
Canmore with St. Margaret, whatever these have done for
the dynasty, effected any more than a superficial change
upon the people. CHAPTER II.
EARLY HISTORY.
!HE first delusion to be encountered in surveying the
early history of Scotland, is that Scotland, in its
modern sense, can be traced back to Kenneth, or even
to a date several centuries later. The name of the Celtic
Highlanders or Irish-Scots has been the cause of great
bewilderment, because that people have been confounded
with the country to which they gave their name; just as
the Angles were privileged to bestow theirs upon Angle-
land or England. Speaking of the historians, Burton
says: | At one time they find the territory of some Saxon
king, stretching to the Tay; at another the King of Scots
reigns to the Humher or farther. It would have saved
them a world of trouble and anxiety to come at once to the
conclusion that Scotland was nowhere—that the separate
kingdom marked off against England by a distinct boundary
on the physical globe, as well as by a moral boundary of undying hatred—did not exist."* It is the persistence of the
name of Scot from Fergus in 404, or Kenneth in 838, to Mary
Queen of Scots, and her son the first James of England, and
on to the Union in the reign of Anne, the last Stuart, that
* The Scot Abroad-.   Vol. i. p. 4. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
has been the cause of all the trouble and confusion. Gibbon
calls it" national pride," but it appears rather to have sprung
from antiquarian prejudice or stupidity. There is an obscure
period lasting several centuries, upon which a veil of thick
darkness hangs, and concerning it the chronicler or historian
has been able to work his own sweet will—an advantage
England, after Egbert, cannot boast. George Buchanan has
made Fergus II. the fortieth King of Scotland, and discovered
a Scots' king of the same name on the throne anterior to
300 B.C., somewhere about the time that Alexander the
Great was engaged in taking Babylon. During Celumba's
time there was a King Aidan who was anointed by the saint
of Iona, and he is said to have emancipated his country from
Irish supremacy, fought the Picts, the Britons of Strath-
clyde, and even the Saxons. He was defeated by Ethelfried
near Carlisle. Donald Brae (A. D. 637), tried to conquer Ireland with a vast army made of Picts, Scots, Strathclyde
Britons and Saxons, but was signally defeated after fighting
a seven days' battle, already mentioned, at what is now
Moira, in the County Down. This obstinate conflict, says
Burton (History, i. 328) was | the Marathon of all Ireland as
it at last became as it grew in. fame and importance," and
the memory of it became more significant, i when, after the
lapse of centuries, the Saxons returned to enslave the Celt."
Usually the Picts went with the Saxons, whether from a
feeling of kinship or near neighbourhood does not appear.
They combined under Egbert and fought against the Scots
and took what is now Dumbarton in 7o6. On the other
hand the Scots had as their allies, their brother Celts of 40
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Strathclyde in 1018, at the battle of Car, near Wark, hi
Northumberland.
Kenneth, reported to be the grandson of a semi-mythical
Achaius, | the ally of Charlemagne and patron of letters,"
is, in 843, found ruling over both Picts and Scots, and the
former soon disappear out of history, although we hear of
the Picts of Galloway, probably Strathclyde Welsh afterwards, but there were so-called Picts at the battle of the
Standard, in the English Stephen's reign (A. D. 1138). In
centre Scotland, Kenneth reigned supreme, either by eon-
quest, by marriage or inheritance, and the last two sources
of power in those days were often the fruit of the first. He
did not reign over Scotland in any intelligible sense, yet he
became, in a wider sense than hitherto, King of the Scots
by absorption, or by whatever name the coup dJUat of those
days may be properly designated. He was still, however,
only King of the Scots, including what was left, by Norse
and Teuton, of the Pictish dominions.
The subject of the heathen religion prevalent in Scotland
before the introduction of Christianity can hardly be touched
here, and, sooth to say, it is not a profitable theme. It was
probably some form of nature-worship, and that is about all
that can be safely asserted. The so-called Druidical remains
are attributed to that mysterious hierarchy which probably
had no existence in fact, and may safely be left enshrined,
where most moderns are acquainted with it, in Bellini's
opera of Norma, or the scattered references to it in poetical
literature.
Towards the end of the fourth century we come upon the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
famous name of St. Ninian, the apostle of Southern Scotland. "From his White House on the sea," says Prof.
Veiteh, | the teacher of Pict and Scot had apparently, about
the beginning of the fifth century, partially reached the
Pagan Cymri of Tweeddale."* Butler says that St. Ninian
or St. Ringan was born in Cornwall; he certainly was of
Cymric origin, and his influence, however great for the time,
was swept away before St. Columba and St. Kentigern appeared in the sixth century. It is unnecessary to refer specially to the renowned St. Patrick further than to write
that he was indubitably a native of the same Strathclyde—
the former Roman Province called Valentia between the
walls. He has been claimed by freland and even Brittany;
but there is no doubt he belonged to Kil Patrick, a district
at the west end of the wall, and even his original name of
Succat, or Succoth, is still borne by an estate in that district. Neither he nor any other single man produced the
wonderful transformation of the Green Isle attributed to
him. The shoal of able and learned missionaries who, in
the next century, carried the Gospel, under St. Columba, St.
Gall and a host of others, to Scotland, to Germany and other
parts of the continent, owed their Christianity to something
more than the isolated work of the patron saint, energetic
and zealous though he unquestionably was.
The illustrious name of St. Columba and the school of
Iona, that gradually spread the faith of the Gospel over
* Veitch : Border History and Poetry, p. 122. See also Burton's History, vol. ii, chap,
vii. The historian examines the peculiar Christianity of this time, and the more permanent
work of Columba, Kentigern and Cuthbert, contrasting it with the fully developed Catholicism subsequently introduced from Rome.
!■* 42
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the west and across by Northumbria to Lindisfarne, or Holy
Island, in spite of legends, shed a glorious light in a
period of the thickest darkness. To Ireland that light is
due; and characteristically enough the Iona church was the
result of a sanguinary feud between the so-called Kings of
Ireland, which drove Columba forth an exile. He was born
about 520, in Donegal, and to St. Adamnan, his biographer,
the sixth abbot of Iona, we owe the story of his eventful life.
St. Kentigern or St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow,
was the apostle of Strathclyde. In the arms of the city are
perpetuated—by the bird, the tree or branch, and the fish
with a ring in its mouth—three of his miracles. He is
mythically said to have been the grandson of Loth, King of
the Lothians; but, whatever his origin, he was at least
known to St. Columba, though perhaps not his disciple.
Besides these there were St. Palladius, rather a hazy
figure, from Rome according to the story, who founded
a church at Fordun, Kincardineshire; and of the Irish
school, St. Ternan, whose name is still preserved in Banchory
Ternan; St. Serf, with his monastery in Kinross, on an island in Mary Stuart's Lochleven, where Wyntoun wrote his
chronicle; St. Donnan, St. Ronan, and a host of others to
be found in the hagiologies*    St. Finnian built the church
*In Kempion, a weird legendary ballad, St. Mungo is celebrated as a deliverer:
" None shall take pity her upon,
In Wormeswood, aye, shall she be won;
And relieved shall she never be,
Till St. Mungo comes over the sea."(
And Bishop Forbes quotes as the battle-prayer of the Scottish borderers:—" Godde and St
Mungo, Saint Ronayn and Saint Andrew, schield us this |day fro' Goddes grace, and the
foul death that Englishmen died on."
■H THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
on Lindisfarne; but before him, also of the Irish school,
was the redoubtable St. Aidan, the apostle of Northumbria,
and, like Columba, a soldier as well as a priest. St. Cuth-
bert. although intimately connected with the Irish school of
Iona appears first in story as " a shepherd boy on the braes
of the Leader," then in the kingdom of Northumbria, that
bordered on Strathclyde and touched it at Galashiels. He
was miraculously converted by an angelic vision, it is said,
in 657, in which he saw St. Aidan's soul borne upward from
Holy Isle to Heaven. The story of his miracles and the
removal of his body must be familiar to all readers of Mar-
mion. The account of the saint, as it is given, in the second canto, tells—
**. How, when the rude Dane hurned their pile,
The monks fled forth from Holy Isle
O'er northern mountain, marsh and inoor,
From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore,
They rested them in fair Melrose," &c,
and finaDy buried it in the eastern extremity of the choir
of Durham Cathedral, " where," says Prof. Veitch, it i was
disinterred in 1827, 1139 years after his death." With him
we may leave behind us the primitive Christianity of North
Britain.
The human material in those early centuries was crude,
and the manifestations of its rough energy coarse and often
brutal; but, in their primitive- migrations and the effects of
them, lay already potentially the future glory of that world-
girding chain of peoples which is beginning to work its
perfect work. Upon Scotland, it was natural that the shock
should fall with exceptional severity from all quarters.  Ire- 44
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
land was to the north-west, the Scandinavian peninsula and
Denmark not far away; and the Orkney and Shetland Isles
stretched off to the latter like a tentacle extended in an attitude of invitation. Between them and the Celts of Argyle
and theiWestern Isles there was constant warfare, and, in
some of the blank intervals, filled up from fancy by the
chroniclers, it appears probable that the early Scoto-Irish
civilization was under an all but irrecoverable eclipse.
On the east coast, the invasions took another form in
earlier times ; there, though raiding might be profitable, it
must soon have appeared that it could not continue to be
so, and the strangers gradually disappeared. Long prior to
the arrival of the Saxons in England, droves of them had
settled in all parts of northern and eastern Scotland, the
rougher class in the north-west, the more civilized in the counties bordered by the German Ocean. The former doubtless
came from the fjords of Norway and from Jutland or the
Elbe ; the latter from the Baltic shores, and at that time, the
people of Schleswig or Holstein were scarcely distinguishable
in language or appearance from the Frisian or Pomeranian,
or the former from their Danish fellows of the North. So
it came to pass in the North of Scotland that there were jarls
or maorrriors—earls as we call them—of Ross, Caithness and
Orkney, and, with the Celts on the one hand, and the Saxons, so soon as they came in contact with them, they waged
perpetual warfare. The battle of Neehtansmere took place
in 685, near Dunnichen, and there Egfried, the Saxon of
Northumbria, fell fighting with the Picts; later the Northumbrians were contending, in alliance with the Picts, against THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the Cymric Strathclyde, and in 756 the Britons submitted;
in the west the Scots of the Dalriada fought with the
Norse jarls of the extreme north; and in 793 the Danes and
Norwegians descended on the Bernician coast at Lindis-
farne and ravaged the country far over the border by the
valleys of Tweed, Ettrick and Yarrow. Thus within, all was
•division; from without, constant invasion.
Saxon rule took definite form in 547, when Ida founded
Bernicia, and Ella established Deira to the south—
both afterwards united as Northumbria which extended
from the Forth to the Humber and occasionally further to
the southward and northward. Between these Saxons and
the Cymric Celts of Strathclyde there was constant war
until Cumbria—an elastic name, became Saxon also, and
the entire Lowlands between the entrances of the Forth and
Clyde were thoroughly Saxonized, with a strong admixture
of the Norse. It was not until about the middle of the
tenth centurv that the Scots' kings obtained Dunedin or
Edinburgh, and altogether too late to change either the
blood or language of the people in Scotland, east and south.
In the north, they never possessed more than a fictitious
sovereignty. On all sides then, there appears the evidence
of a nation in the making, and it is perhaps the more inr
structive as a study, because the birth throes lasted so far
down in the history, as compared with England which ended
its race troubles early, and with poor Erin where they are, as
Mr. Froude remarks, not yet brought to a peaceful solution.
The outlook was not over-promising under Malcolm Canmore,
with whom, according  to Tytler, Scottish history proper 46
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
commences. There was a people not homogeneous, as was
once supposed, but composite. It was certainly not Celtic,
nor yet unmixed with Saxon; yet evidently there was a hardy,
determined and vigorous community in the process of formation. If you ask why the Scot in British North America has
approved himself the frugal, pushing, keen-witted and sternly
straightforward man he appears in the main, the answer is
because of those barren hills with heather-clad slopes and
the wildness of nature around him—its grandeur and its
penuriousness together—thathe hasbeenmadeat once thrifty
and imaginative—a ploughman, a shepherd, a weaver, and yet
a poet or a philosopher. And if to the influences of nature \ve
add the fiery discipline of unceasing conflict within, and
from without, what wonder if the Scot, who is the inheritor
of the stout virtues bequeathed him by his fathers, should
be one of the first in the peaceful crusade of British civili -
zation all the world over ?
Malcolm Canmore's reign, as already remarked, is usually
taken to be the opening of a new era in Scotland; but
neither nature nor man effects anything by abrupt leaps.
The King of Scots was merely the ultimate link in a chain
which had been drawing the Celtic dynasty to its Saxon
subjects for many a long year. The monarch whom he dethroned had, perhaps, as good a title to the throne as he,
and the mention of his name to most readers will excite a
deeper feeling of interest than that of the husband of St.
Margaret. Macbeth, or Macbeda, as Mr. Burton prefers to
call him, was no mean man, apart from that lurid and sinister glow which the transcendent genius of Shakspeare has. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
47
thrown about him. It is not certain that he was not a
usurper to be sure ; but it would be exceedingly difficult to
prove that he was one. Mr. Burton shrewdly hints that the
Norman chroniclers, monkish or otherwise, not finding a
proper genealogy for Macbeth, as king in hereditary succession on Norman principles, boldly made him out "a
fraud," when, for all that appears, he was the rightful heir,
if not in himself, in right of his wife Gruach, whom we all
know now as the Lady Macbeth of Shakspeare. Indeed, it
is not very hard to demonstrate that | the gracious Duncan,"
instead of being one who
" Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office that his virtues
Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off "—[Act I., so. 7),
as Macbeth is made to declare, would seem to have been an
aggressive and troublesome ruler and  a usurper to boot,
according to the notions of succession prevalent in those
days.   From the time of Kenneth Macalpine, who conquered
the Picts, the Scots were incessantly at war with the Danes,
and no less that eight Scottish kings altogether are said to
have fallen in fighting with them.    Malcolm I., to whom, in
945, Edmund had made over Cumbria, was one of these.
Kenneth III., however, defeated the Danes signally at the
great battle of Luncarty (970); but was killed at the castle
of FettercairnSj in a row with the Earls or Maormors of Angus
and Mearns.   Constantine was killed by a rival, Kenneth
IV. (the Grim), who was in turn slain in fight by Malcolm
II.   He reigned twenty years, dying in 1033, and was a
warlike king, consolidating and even enlarging his territory- 48
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORfH AMERICA.
In the year 1018 he invaded Northumbria, and, at Carham
on the Tweed,- gained a victory which made the Tweed
henceforth the boundary of the Scottish kingdom. Malcolm,
therefore, was the first monarch entitled to be called King
of Scotia, and, with him, the male line of Kenneth Macalpine
became extinct. Duncan, his grandson by the maternal
side succeeded. At the time of Duncan's death, he was not
the guest of Macbeda,: or Macbeth, Maormor of Ross and
Moray, but an invader of his territory. The Lady Macbeth was Gruach, granddaughter of Kenneth IV.; and if, as
is alleged, Malcolm had put a grandson of Kenneth's to
death, Gruach was his sister, who thus had an " inheritance
of revenge;" but, apart from" that, " she was, according to
the Scots' authorities, the representative of the Kenneth,
whom Duncan's grandfather had deprived of his throne and
his life 1 (Burton: History, i., 369-71). Macbeth was the
rightful ruler of all the country from Moray Firth and Loch
Ness north; and his wife was heiress of Scotland. The latter,
after Duncan's death, was ruled evidently in right of the
wife, because, in grants, the royal title ran, " The King and
Queen of Scots." How Duncan met his death is a matter
of uncertainty. He appears to have been slain near Elgin,
and he was northward with hostile intent where he had no
business to be. Mr. Burton alludes to a rumour that
Shakspeare had once visited Scotland, and had derived his
views of the wretched state of the country in the eleventh
century from the utter despair which settled upon it after
Flodden. The whole of Macduff's description, in his colloquy with Malcolm  {Act iv., sc. 3),   sets forth vividly the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
49
desperate plight of that sore-bested land. As in most other
cases, where Shakspeare's knowledge or experience surprises one, it is better perhaps to leave the mystery unexplained and be content to call it the fruit of transcendent
genius.
Duncan perished in 1039, having reigned five or six years;
Macbeth was slain in battle in 1057, so that his tenure of
royalty was much longer than readers of the tragedy would
suppose. He was the first Scottish monarch who appears as
a benefactor of the Church, and he proved, so far as appears,
an enlightened ruler. With him " the mixed or alternative
royal succession" terminated, and the strictly hereditary
system was established. After Macbeth's death, Lulach,
as Gruach the Queen's son by a first marriage, claimed the
throne. It was in 1054 that Siward, Danish Earl of Northumbria, whose sister Duncan had married, conquered Cumbria and the Lothians, and gave them to Malcolm, his
nephew and Duncan's son. In 1057 the war was carried
further; there was a battle at Dunsinnane, as the dramatist
tells us; but it was not decisive. The allies crossed the Dee
and defeated and slew Macbeth at Lumphanan, in Aberdeenshire. Lulach was afterwards overcome and perished at
Strathbogie. With Malcolm ILL, surnamed Canmore or Big
Head, the veil which almost impenetrably shrouds Scottish
history for four centuries is uplifted, and events are seen in
clearer outline. He was a natural son, according to Wyntoun,
his mother being a miller's daughter. His coronation, like
that of all the old kings, took place at Scone, in 1057, nine
years before the Battle of Senlac or Hastings.    Edmund
Ti THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Ironsides had left two children, Edgar iEtheling and Margaret, and in 1068 these last survivors of the Saxon line
took refuge in Scotland, and were hospitably received by
Malcolm; Margaret took something more—a husband to wit,
and became Malcolm's second wife. The Conquest in England was the signal for an extensive Saxon migration northwards ; the exiles " found in Scotland people of their own
race, and made a marked addition to the predominance of the
Saxon or Teutonic element." Malcolm became the champion
of the Saxon royal house and William's enemy. The Norman
conquest unquestionably effected much in Scotland, but
rather by subtle working than the forcible upsetting of established institutions. Yet the strong hand of feudalism was
laid upon these, before the reign of William ; the nobles grew
more powerful, the Crown more arbitrary and exacting,
whilst the people sank from villeinage into serfdom. The
stubborn resistance of small landed proprietors who disdained " the sheep's skin title " to their estates, prevented
the permanent establishment of the feudal system in Scotland ; but it immensely increased the power of the great
nobles, and paved the way for those disastrous conflicts
which proved so vexatious, and often fatal, to the Jameses.
Malcolm's wife, St. Margaret, was an earnest devotee, and
so naturally favoured the Roman system rather than the
practice of the Columbite Church or of the Culdees. Still it
was the twelfth century before Rome imposed its hierarchical system on Scotland, to be overthrown by a national
uprising in the sixteenth. The Culdees—a word, according
to the philologist, equivalent to Cultores Dei, worshippers THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
51
of God—deserve more attention than is compatible with the
present purpose. They were certainly Catholics, though
not of the Roman type, and much ingenious sophism has
been expended upon them. They appear to have preserved
something of the early simplicity of the primitive Celtic
Church, but, having passed through a barbarous and unlettered time and gathered, as Christianity elsewhere did, of the
foulness which reeked in that channel through which it passed
down the stream of time. Into the Culdee controversy it
would be absurd to enter. At the time of the Reformation,
the verv name was a tower of strength to the evangelical
party; but it is not well to claim too much for men who
simply adhered to the ritual and form of Church government which had come down to them through oral tradition,
for the most part, of a non-episcopal Christian Church. At
the beginning the Culdees, so far as may be gleaned, were
stricter in form and more democratic in spirit than the school
of Iona, which was itself episcopal, or non-episcopal, as suited
the times. A bishop in those days was not of much account,
either in the Irish or Scottish Dalriada, and St. Patrick
would have thought himself degraded by the crozier which
modern Irish Catholics regard as inseparable from his dig-
nitv. Moreover, great as even St. Patrick was, it speaks
volumes for the Celtic race—for its pure love and reverence
for womanhood, especially when sanctified by a living faith
—that St. Bridget stands high above all the saints, even the
redoubtable St. Patrick himself. Whatever the Culdees may
have been—and it seems almost ludicrous to search for
pure Christianity in a cult handed down under such condi- 52
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
tions—it may be taken for granted that they were early
Protestants in the sense that they resisted Rome. In Scotland, the feudal fashion, for such it was, had drawn more
closely together the baron and the ecclesiastic. There was
no longer room for the Culdees, nor, indeed, for the old-fashioned school of Iona. The Saxon influence and the Norman
pressure acting on a new and unstable rSgime, quenched
opposition to the supremacy of the Papal See, and made the
Church of Scotland a branch of the great Roman Catholic
communion. It was only natural that modem Protestants
should revert to the Culdees with an affectionate reverence
which, on the whole, seems entirely misplaced. " That the
Culdees were bad Papists, may be clear enough; but it must
not be held to follow that, on that account, they were good
Protestant Evangelicals." (Burton: History, Vol. ii., p.
26.) Whatever the doctrine or practice of the Culdees may
have been, they had certainly degenerated so far from any
reasonable theology or ordinary modus vivendi with the
world around, that the introduction of the Roman or Papal
system was, on the whole, a blessing. Whether Churches be
prelatica! or non-prelatical, they run through the human
cycle with unerring regularity, and the Culdees, of whom
little is known till they were in a state of decadence, fell
out of the great preparatory scene in the historic drama ere
long to be enacted with terrible effect in Scotland.
To return to secular affairs. Malcolm, although he had a
pious wife, who, for aught we know, may have taught him
his letters, was plagued with the same weird beckonino-,
which in drama, though not in history, lured Macbeth to his THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 53
doom. Having received the Saxon royal family and espoused
the sister of the heir to England's throne, what was then left
him but to make war upon England ? Under William, however, he was saved the trouble, for the descendant of Rollo
was quite as eager for the fray; in fact, the one was all impetuosity, the other, facing a disagreeable duty imposed oh
him by kinship, was not whole-hearted in the matter. He
however, invaded Northumbria, south of the Tweed, much
as the Russians occupied Roumania as a point d'appui.
William invaded by sea and land, and did an immense
amount of damage, devastating the country between the
Humber and Tees, in the old Deira, and applying the scourge
principally on English soil. War raged fiercely after William's fatal rage had wrought its own retribution, and his
horse had plunged upon the hot embers of Mantes as he rode
down the steep street vowing vengeance on Philip of France.*
In the Church he deposed the Saxon Stigand and enthroned Lanfranc the Norman, who speedily made the see
of York subordinate to his own. William had shown his
power in Northumbria, but he hardly touched Scotland. Under
Rufus, Malcolm made war and made peace; marched over
the northern English counties and, at last, met Rufus at
Gloucester for conference; when returning, he and his son
and heir were slain by the Northumbrian Earls. Then followed, in short order, Donald Bane and Malcolm's natural
son Duncan; Edgar fought his way to the throne, in turn,
and unconsciously made the Kingdom of Scotland what it is
by ceding the country from  the  Lammermoor Hills west
■"Green's History, Vol. i., Book ii., chap, i., p. 133. 54
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
through that portion of the country between the Solway and
Clyde to his younger brother David. In 1124 David became King and held the Scottish kingdom almost intact.
Cumberland still remained a part of Scotland until 1153, when
William the Lion relinquished it to Henry II. after he was
beaten at Alnwick. In 1237, the boundaries of the kingdoms
were for the first time definitively settled.
Edgar's reign of eight or nine years was chiefly remarkable
for the first matrimonial union of England and Scotland in
regnant families. In 1100 his sister Matilda married Henry
I. and thus the heirs of the Saxon and Norman line were
doubly united, and the bond was further cemented when
Alexander I. married Sibylla, the daughter of Henry. David
I. was, above all things, a Churchman, and he was also an
hereditary enemy of the Norman line—a legacy of ill to him.
In the usurpation of Stephen, when Matilda, the daughter of
the first Henry was set aside, there was an illegitimate uncle
named Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who fled to Scotland and
was received by David. The end of that enterprise was the*
contest at Northallerton, known as the Battle of the Standard
from the vehicle with crucifix and adornments which formed
the rallying point of the English host. At this battle the
Scots and the malcontents from the south were terribly defeated in the year 1138. Of David's army it is somewhat
difficult to form a conception, and almost beyond the art of
the literary scene-painter to describe. IA wild, diversified
horde such as we may suppose to have been commanded by
Attila or Genseric," not only of Scots or wild Picts, but
strange men from Orkney over which David had no pretence
■Ml THE SCOT IN.BRITISH NORTH  AMERICA,
of authority. It is not a matter for surprise that this motley
host, although they piled charge upon charge, were defeated;
yet, as the Scottish historian observes, David " acted more
like a baffled than a beaten general, and collecting such of
his forces as remained, laid siege to Wark Castle. Stephen
had enough Work on his hands elsewhere ; he therefore made
peace with David in 1139 at Durham. St. David, for he has
been canonized, was what is called " a pious prince," that is,
he endowed the Church liberally—rather too liberally in the
opinion of James I. (of Scotland), for«he used an expression
•at David's sepulchre at Dunfermline—| as he wald mene that
that king left the Kirk ower riche, and the crown ower
puir." He endowed or adjusted nine bishoprics and a number of religious houses, known in after song and story,
among them Holyrood, Melrose, Jedburgh, Kelso, Dryburgh,
Newbattle, and Kinloss. (in Moray).
Malcolm IV. lived on amicable terms with Henry II. of
England ; but his brother, William the Lion, took part with
Henry's undutiful sons and having fallen into that king's
hands at Alnwick (1174), was taken prisoner to Northampton and then to Normandy, where at Falaise, he made a treaty
acknowledging " a complete feudal Superiority of the King
of England over Scotland"—a concession which proved of
some moment in years to come* " Whatever its value, as
* Mr. Burton observes: " The much desired infeudation of Scotland was now complete—at
least on parchment. In the great homage dispute, on one side at least, a perverse pedantry has depended on ceremonies and writs, instead of broad historical facts; as if all that
a high-spirited people could gain by ages of .endurance and contest might be lost by a slip
of parchment. But it is odd that these pedantic reasoners should have overlooked how
strongly this transaction bears against them. If the Scottish people really were under
feudal subjugation to the Norman kiugs of England, what need to create that condition by 56
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
extorted from a prisoner, apart from other considerations, it
is certain that Richard I. in 1189, in the strongest language
absolved the Scottish king from the agreements which his
3 good father Henry had, through his capture, been able to
wrest from William (per captionem suam extorsit)." For
that act of justice the impulsive Coeur de Lion received the
sum of ten thousand pounds and flung it away, with chivalrous recklessness, in the abyss of the Crusades. There was.
now a lull in the affairs of Scotland, although much of note
was going on in Europe—the cause, doubtless, of tranquillity
in North Britain. From the accession of William to the
death of his successor Alexander II., eighty-four years
elapsed—a period pregnant with momentous issues to Europe and the world. Becket had been murdered at Canterbury, Ireland conquered, Jerusalem taken by Saladin, and
re-taken by Richard after the battle of Ascalon; Pope Innocent III. sat on the throne, the Albigenses were slaughtered by Simon de Montford, and the Inquisition was set on
foot; John had signed the Magna Charta, and behaved
generally, like the crafty poltroon that he was; and St.
Louis, the tender, ascetic, yet almost pitiful impersonation
of mediaeval piety, had just embarked upon his Crusade,,
when Alexander III. mounted the Scottish throne in 1249.
In accordance with the treaty of Newcastle made with
Henry III., King Alexander II. was married to the Prin-
a hard bargain with a prisoner ? Or, supposing that the condition had really been established, and the King of Scots was a rebel, then the phraseology of the documents would
hare undoubtedly shown as much, and would have renewed and confirmed the past. What
the conditions of the Treaty of Falaise did, however, was to create the new condition of vassal
and superior from their date. They explain the opportunity and certify the use it is put
to."—.H. oj Scot., Vol. ii., p. 70. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA,
cess Margaret of England at York. He did homage for
territories south of the Border; but when the wily Henry
proposed to the boy—for such he was—that he should also
perform the same feudal obligation for the kingdom of
Scotland, the answer was, that that was too important a
matter for a festive occasion, and must be deferred. It was
deferred accordingly until the next reign, when the great
Edward accomplished the work of conquest, and, in the
end, got nought but worry and anxiety for his victories and
temporary success. In 1262, Haco or Hakon, king of Norway, made his way, on the usual track, round the northwest coast of Scotland by the Hebrides, Outer and Inner,
and so south, until he rounded Cantire and by Bute and
Arran reached the pleasant coast of Ayrshire, where he
landed a force. Mr. Carlyle says that he had been engaged
during this cruise in " adjusting and rectifying among his
Hebrides as he went along, and landing withal on the Scotch
coast to plunder and punish as he thought fit."* At Largs,
now a town—or rather south of it—there are still " stone-
cairns and monumental heaps " | mutely testifying to a
battle there, altogether clearly to this battle of King Hakon ; who, by the Norse records, too, was in these neighbourhoods about that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of humour."+ Whether Haco's failures were
• Carlyle: Early Kings of Norway.—Chap. xv.
t By the hand of the veteran master are also written these remarks, which would seem
to point to the conclusion that Alexander 1U. had not much more to do with Haco's discomfiture than Elizabeth with the fate of the Armada:—" Of Largs, there is no mention whatever in Norse books. But beyond any doubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon did
land there; land and fight, not conquering rather than beaten; and very certainly retiring
to his ships, as in either case he behooved to do ! It is further certain that he was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts; and altogether credit)!'1, as the- 5$
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
due chiefly to the winds or to the superior prowess of the
Scots, Norseman invasion henceforward ceases to be a factor
in Scottish history. Magnus IV. of Norway ceded all the
Western Isles, and the only Norse possessions thereafter
were Orkney and Shetland ; yet the Norse element remained
in North-western Scotland and the Isles, and impregnated
strongly the Celtic region in the south-west which had been
the original realm of the Scots. This district, says Mr.
Burton, along with a large strip on the east coast of Ireland,
having Dublin as its capital, and the Isle of Man, constituted
a sort of naval empire of the Northmen.*
In 1281, Eric of Norway married Margaret of Scotland,
and with their daughter, " the Maid of Norway," who died
at Orkney on her way to take possession of the Crown,
the direct line failed, and then new and terrible woes to that
sorely harassed country began.-f-   Alexander III, fell over
Scotch records bear, that he was so at Largs very specially. The Norse records or Sagas
say merely that he lost many of his ships by the tempests, and many of his men by land-
fighting in various parts,—tacitly including Largs, no doubt, which was the last of these
misfortunes to him. ' In the battle here he lost 15,000 men,' say the Scots, ' we 6,000 !'
Divide these numbers bj" ten, and the excellently brief and lucid summary by Buchanan
may be taken as the approximately -true and exact. Date of the battle is A. D. 1263."
—Ibid.
* Hist. ii. 100.
+ The convoy which attended Eric's bride to Norway met with a dire mishap coming
home, which is celebrated in the ballad of " Sir Patrick Spens." Before reaching the catastrophe, which is properly reserved for the last, there is a quaint description of the treatment the guests received, when " they hadna been there a week." This is what the " lords
•o* Norway " said to Spens and his comrades ;—
" ?e Scottishmen spend a' our king's goud,
And a' our queenis fee."
" "Se lie, ye lie, ye liars loud!
Fu' loud I hear ye lie ;
" For I hae brought as much white monie,
As gave (sufficed) my men and me,
And I hae brought a half-fou of gude red goud,
Out o'er the sea wi' me.'1 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
59
the crags at Kinghorn, and the condition of Scotland, from
the death of " The Maid," in 1286, until the battle of Ban-
nockburn (1314), was deplorable in the extreme. An old
verse, chiefly interesting for its age, and as expressing the
■despair which soon settled on the people, may be inserted
here :—
" When Alysandyr our Kynge was dede,
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away was sons of ale and brede,
Of wyne and wax, of gainyn and gle,
Our gold was changyd into lede,
Cryst born into virgynyte,
Succour Scotland and remede,
That stad is in perplexyte."
" This," says Prof. Murray, "which is probably the earliest
extant specimen of Scottish verse, is of peculiar interest, as
revealing the bitterness with which the people remembered
the good old times of plenty preceding the War of Independence, and enabling us to understand the intensity of
national feeling which called the war forth, and which
found utterance in the popular songs of the period."* The
" perplexyte," of which the unknown rhymer tells must
have been appalling, because apparently without hope. The
kingdom, although marked out by natural boundaries, was
The result is an immediate order to embark issued by Sir Patrick in anger. They are
caught in a storm, and the result is pathetically told in the last five stanzas. This is the
concluding one:—
" Half owre, half owre, to Aberdour,
Tis fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens.
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet."
This ballad was long thought to have been the oldest specimen of its kind; but it would
appear that both it and " Hardyknute," which relates to the battle of Largs, were written
by Elizabeth Halkett, Lady Wardlaw.
* The Ballads and Songs of Scotland, in view of their influence on the character of the
people.   By J. Clark Murray, LL.D, McGill College, Montreal. 60
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
far from homogeneous. There were lords and lairds, petty
monarchs, earls and potentates of all sorts, from the Norse
ruler in Caithness to the robber-kings of Liddesdale, and
the other valleys of the Border—Tushielaw, Mangertoun,
and the like. To the south, were the English Border earls,
and behind them that dreaded Norman tyranny of which
Scotland had already experienced her share. Everything
seemed hopeless; within were poverty and despair, no
middle class, a few miserable towns, wretched agriculture,
and security for person or property nowhere. The reivers
of the Highlands were on one side, and the free-booters of
the Border on the other, and between them, as in a press,
poor Scotland was squeezed until all the healthy vitality
was well-nigh crushed out of her. There was no central
focus of power, whatever the kings may have claimed, during this early period; and when the royal line became
extinct all hope of nationality, of prosperity and peace,
must have vanished. This was the primary school of discipline, hard, stern and rugged, through which the Scottish
nation was compelled to pass, and its effects are to be seen
in the vigorous efforts which followed under Wallace and
Bruce. In addition to former troubles, the Norman Conquest and its influence, indirect rather than otherwise, but
none the less real and galling, had, in the Lowlands, introduced feudality with its burdens and oppressions. In the
next chapter will appear how far resistance to the Norman
system lay at the bottom of the great national struggle.
Meanwhile it is well to recall the facts regarding race
already insisted upon.    One race which figures in ancient THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
61
story vanished eprly from history and was known no more.
What the Picts were it is impossible to tell; perhaps they
were Cymri, like the Ancient Britons of the south, acted
upon by Gothic influences of some sort, Scandinavian or
Teutonic. At any rate they were not Scoti or Gaels, and to us
the survival of the name in | the Picts of Galloway " seems
to indicate a Cymric basis. | It has been usually supposed,"
says Mr. Burton, " that the reign of Malcolm and Margaret
was the turning-point, at which the court, which had been
Celtic, became a Saxon court, with a dash of Norman to
adorn it; but of this we cannot be sure."* One thing is
certain, that a Teutonic population existed far beyond their
jurisdiction. Long after Norman feudality had stamped its
impress on southern Scotland, it was unknown north of the
Tay, where the Saxon institutions of that age survived in
all their purity. That crowds of Saxons fled from oppression
in England is true : but that immigration was too limited to
account for the settled nature of the Saxon population all
over the east and north, with institutions, language, and
manners complete ; and' if the facts seem to warrant such
a theory, all that need be said is, so much the worse for the
facts—or rather for those who undertake to interpret them.
Leaving the Picts out of the question, there were four distinct peoples at least in Scotland at an early period, the
-Gaelic or Irish Celts, the Cymric or British Celts, as in
Strathclyde, the Norsemen, and the Saxons, including under
this name all the Teutonic tribes of the Southern Baltic and
German Ocean.    In what condition the conglomerate nation
Hist, ii., 135. 62
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
—if such a name may be applied to a mass of autonomous
tribes, septs, and lordships—found itself at or near the end of
the thirteenth century has been imperfectly shown. It is now
our task to mount to a higher level, breathe a purer and more
bracing air in the noble struggle which the Norman kings
forced upon Scotland, and out of which she emerged, if not
happy and. secure, at all events, victorious and free. CHAPTER III.
THE WAR OF  INDEPENDENCE.
Ah! fredome is a nobill thing !
Fredome makes man to haiff liking!
Fredome all solace to man gives,
He lives at ese that frely lives.
A nobill hart may haiff nane ese,
Na ellys (else) nocht that may him please. ,
Gyff fredome failythe.
—Babboub.
Thy Spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle eye !
Thy steps I follow, with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north,
A goddess violated bro't thee forth,
Immortal Liberty ! whose look sublime
Hath bleached the tyrant's cheek in every varying clime.
—Smollett. .
Soots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Biuce has often led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie.
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;.
See approach proud Edward's power—
Edward ! chains and slaverie !
*****
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe !
Liberty's in every blow !
Forward ! let us do or die !
—Bubns.
*HE story of a brave and high-spirited people strug-
ts^    ghng, against fearful odds, to secure freedom and independence for themselves and posterity, never fails to kindle
the eye and quicken the pulse of every warm-hearted man.
Even after the lapse of centuries, when the liberty borne tri- 64
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
umphant out of the fray has ceased to be valued for what it
cost, or has become, like most of our everyday blessings,
so much a matter of course as, scarcely to be valued at all,
the old heroic tale will always fire the sympathetic soul.
It is not merely that there is in it the excitement of
struggle; men may love the battle for its own sake, or
because of the heroism evoked in the fray. To deprecate this tendency is certainly as vain as it is unnatural,
because whatever may be thought about Hobbes' theory
of our natural penchant for war, man is unquestionably, in
one way or other, a fighting animal; and he is rather an
inferior specimen of his kind, who is not flavoured with a
strong tincture of pugnacity. Everything depends, however, upon the channel into which this powerful force is
diverted. When men admire bravery in war, considered by
itself, they only follow the irresistible instinct of their
nature to be attracted by what is manly. Courage implies
many noble qualities, skill, fearlessness of danger, self-sacrifice and so forth; but these, after all, ought only to be the
means to higher and still nobler ends.
In a good cause, all these qualities are sanctified and become inestimably precious. It is the peculiar characteristic
of patriotic effort that it makes bravery appear doubly brave,
and inspires even craven souls with the fire of manlv courage.
When we read with glowing sympathy and admiration of
valiant deeds in time3 gone by, wrought by poor, weak
and sufferiug communities in the cause of freedom, many
healthful feelings are brought into action—a deadly hatred
of wrong, cruelty and oppression, by whomsoever perpetrated, THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
65
a tender fellow-feeling for the woes of their victims, and a
reverence for the essential nobility of unselfishness and self-
sacrifice in their highest and most glorious forms. During
the last thirty years, the sympathies of mankind, and especially of the free English-speaking race on both sides of the
Atlantic, or rather in every quarter of the globe, have been
poured out, without stint, on behalf of oppressed and struggling races and nationalities. Although, happily, they cannot with Dido, learn to feel with or relieve the wretched, because themselves not strangers to woe, there has passed before
them, in living panorama, what their fathers underwent that
they might live, and live in freedom, happiness and peace.
What is done in this age should make menglow with patriotic
and grateful pride, when they think of what was achieved
I in the old time before them." It is the fashion now-a-
days to ridicule anything in the shape of patriotic enthusiasm
as indecorous and undignified; we are not sure that it is
not considered ungentlemanly; certainly it has been stigmatized as narrow and selfish—clannish, if the lover of his
country be a Scot.
Now, if the people of any country have a right to be proud
of the bond that unites them to it, that country is surely Scotland ; yet it is exceedingly easy to feel a kindred glow from
the broadly human stand-point. In a letter to the Earl of
Buchan, Kobert Burns points out this fact distinctly: | Independent of my enthusiasm as a Scotchman, I have rarely
met with anything in history, which interests my feelings as a man equal with the story of Bannockburn. On
the one hand a cruel usurper, leading on the finest army in
E 66 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Europe, to extinguish the last spark of freedom among a
greatly daring and greatly injured people; on the other
hand, the desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting
themselves to rescue their bleeding country, or to perish
with her." (Jan 12, 1794). Now it is not difficult to eliminate here what is due to the " enthusiasm " of the patriot,
•and when that is removed, for any generous-minded man
to feel precisely what Burns felt. Mr. Buckle was an Englishman, and, as will be seen hereafter, gave Scotland
SOme rather hard blows, yet mark his righteous indignation
at the Edwards and his exultation at their discomfiture:
"The darling object of the English was to subjugate the
Scotch; and if anything could increase the disgrace of so
base an enterprise, it would be that, having undertaken it,
they ignOminously failed."*
A brief survey of the circumstances which brought on the
struggle under Wallace in the first place, and ultimately
under Bruce, may be given without troubling the reader
with cumbersome details about overlordships and other matters discussed by the historians. The death of the Maid of
Norway unquestionably precipitated the. interference of
England; but even had she lived, Edward would never have
permitted her to reign, unless as the wife of his son. But
apart from that, the traditional policy of the Norman and
Plantagenet kings, from an early date, had been to enmesh
Scotland into the net of feudality and ultimately to subdue
it. This design was plainly manifest, in the oath of fealty
extorted from William  the Lion, when   a prisoner, by
* History of Civilization, &c.. Vol. iii. p. 13; London, 1871. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
67
Henry II. According to Tytler, approaches of a direct
character were made in the early part of the reign of Alexander III. It may well be, however, that Henry III, tormented about the charters and having on his hands an
England soon to give birth to Parliamentary government,
had neither the heart nor the leisure to turn his steps actively northward. When Edward succeeded to the throne,
with that splendid energy which he possessed, and that
unscrupulous savagery, pertaining to his age rather than to
himself, the grand step towards the acquisition of Scotland
was taken. Everything seemed to have conspired in his
favour. The royal line was extinct, save in the representatives of three daughters of David Earl of Huntingdon, a
brother of Malcolm IV. and William the Lion. The subtlety of the English monarch seems transparent enough in
later times; but, at that day, craft more easily beguiled, and
was invincible when backed by overwhelming power.
In 1291, Edward summoned his Northumbrian vassals to
meet him at Norham Castle on the south bank of the Tweed.
Having conquered Wales with ruthless vindictiveness,he now
resolved to turn his attention to Scotland. Baliol, Bruce
the elder, and Hastings, represented respectively the three
daughters already mentioned—Margaret, Isabel and Ada.
The point in dispute really lay between Baliol and Bruce—
the former claiming as grandson of the eldest daughter, the
latter as son of the second daughter, and therefore the
nearest male to the common ancestor. Mr. Burton gives a
graphic account of the meetings on both sides of the Tweed.
The Parliament of Scotland, if such it may be termed, had 68
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
asked Edward's good offices and were informed that he-
could only intervene as suzerain; they demurred to .any
concession on that point; and, from first to last, never
yielded an inch to Edward. They were dismissed to their
own bank of the river, and there by some dexterous manipulation of the referees, Baliol was chosen and crowned at
Scone on | the Stone of Destiny," now the seat of the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. It is to be observed,,
that both the claimants, Baliol and the eldest of the historical Bruces were Normans, each of them quite as willing as the other to take an oath of fealty to Edward
so that, patriotically regarded, there was not much to
choose between them. The Bruce had not yet arrived and .
meanwhile the stage was clearing for the advent of that
hero who paved the way for Bannockburn at Stirling and
struck the first crashing blow for Scottish independence.
The John Baliol who was crowned at Scone and afterwards
invested by Edward at Newcastle was a poor simpleton, a
lamb amongst wolves according to the historians, constantly
hampered and crossed at every point. Bruce the elder had
shown some of the sterling stuff of his stock by boldly collecting a force and received the crown in form before the
meeting at Norham.* The Newcastle ceremony took place
at the close of 1292 ; and Edward soon began to disclose his
real purpose. Poor Baliol was summoned to London r@-
peatedly on various frivolous pretexts, treated with purposed indignity and, so far as seemed possible, provoked to
rebel.   But a war with Philip IV. of France was in prospect
* See the whole of chapter xix. in Mr. Burton's second volume. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and therefore, when Edward found that Baliol had begun to
intrigue with his enemy, he resolved to occupy the interval
of preparation in once for all quieting Scotland. He
marched north, besieged and took Berwick, and, finding
Baliol in arms, attacked and defeated him at Dunbar. The
royal puppet surrendered, and the English monarch devastated, with merciless cruelty, the whole country as far as
Aberdeen and Elgin. Baliol remained a prisoner in the
Tower for two years ; released at the request of the Pope he
retired to France, where he died in the Bannockburn year,
1314. His name, or rather his father's, survives him in
the Oxford collegiate foundation.
All was darkness in the land after the deposition of Baliol, until a deliverer fittingly arose from the ranks of the
people to emancipate the country. Many incredible marvels have gathered about the name of William Wallace, and
yet the main facts of his history are beyond question. He
was a tj^pical Lowland Scot, of great personal strength and
power of endurance, of consummate tact, unimpeachable
probity and great military skill.* How he came by the
singular ability he possessed, it is hard to say, unless it be
credited to mother wit. He could boast no royal lineage,
being but a simple knight of Ellerslie, in Renfrewshire. But
the people were thoroughly exasperated by the sufferings
they had undergone, and he had personal wrongs to avenge in
the destruction of his house ard themurder of his youn£
* In spite of the mythical stories about Wallace, "few historical figures come out so distinctly and grandly when stripped of the theatrical properties." (Burton: The Scot Abroad,
i. 11.   | He was a skilful and brave general, an accomplished politician, and a public man
of unstained faith and undying zeal."   (Ibid.) 70 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
wife. Driven to desperation, like a lion at bay, he prepared
to turn upon his foes. Capable of enduring any amount of
hardship, he slowly collected the strength of the oppressed
Anglo-Saxons of the Lowlands, wandering about and, at
need, lurking in caves and thickets, until he had collected a
force sufficient from the first to harass Edward's outposts-
He acknowledged Baliol, and even assumed to act in his.
name; nevertheless he represented the Saxon element, at.
deadly feud with Norman feudalism.* One of his most-
audacious acts at the outset was a bold daylight raid upon
Scone where Justiciar Ormsby was holding Edward's Court;
and this was only one of the many daring exploits by which
the champion of the Scots effected the double purpose of
training and increasing his forces, and of keeping the foe ini
a constant state of alarm. He had an arduous task before
him; yet he fulfilled it with all the confidence of genius.
"As a soldier" says Burton, "he was one of those marvellously gifted men, arising at long intervals, who can see-
through the military superstitions of the day, and organize-
* Prof. Veitch, in his admirable History a:id Poetry of the Scottish Border, observes:.
" Edward had no doubt what some may regard as enlightened views of Government. They
were, however, of a somewhat imperial and arbitrary sort, and the enlightened element in
views pressed upon a people at the point of the sword, is apt not to be greatly appreciated..
The spirit of the War of Independence was an Anglo Saxon hatred of the feudal Normans
of the south. It was manifested especially in the Lowlands of Scotland. It met with no
sympathy, rather opposition, from the Gael of the Highlands, who had far more affinity of
feeling with what it confronted than with what it sought, and who was indifferent as to-
what king reigned south of his [mountains. Yet it was this spirit which fused the mixed
elements of population on the Lowland plains and hills during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries into one nationality. It is that which has given the Lowland Scot his character of stern individuality, self-reliance, and stubborn independence, qualities which sometimes with him assume so pronounced a form of self-assertion when no one is questioning-
his dignity or importance as to be slightly disagreeable." (P. 144-5.) Dr. Veitch is certainly
not disposed to conceal the weak side of his countrymen's character. See also Burton •
History of Scotland, ii. 278. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
71
power out of those elements which the pedantic soldier
rejects as rubbish."* Apart from the disparity of numbers,
England had been trained by almost constant warfare at
home and abroad, whilst Scotland had enjoyed a long period
of repose. The one possessed the perfection of discipline and
milioary equipment ; the other's army was only in the
making and could feel its way merely by tentative steps.
Nevertheless Wallace was equal to the task.    Or^anizine-
J- © ©
his force north of the Tay, and reinforced from the northwest, he attacked and took the strongholds, and was besieg-
ing Dundee, when he heard that John de Warenne, Earl of
Surrey, head of the Council of Regency, was advancing and at
once made for Stirling Bridge., the great pass between north
and south. Here he selected his position, with great skill,
on the carse-ground below Stirling, behind a loop of the
Firth. John de Warenne offered terms; the scornful
answer was, | We have come not to make peace, but to free
our country." The bridge, over which the Norman army
had perforce to pass, was exceedingly narrow, and before
half the enemy had crossed, the assault was made by Wallace and caused irretrievable confusion in the English army,
and its utter defeat (Sept. 11,1297). Surrey fled across the
Border and Wallace after him, ravaging the north of England as far as Durham.f Edward was now fully aroused to
the danger and marched northward with an overwhelming
force—the largest ever asSembled under his banner. Wal-
lace retreated and might have successfully avoided battle
* History, ii. 280.
t Green : History of the English People., Vol. i. p. 366.   (Amer. Ed.)   Burton: History
Vol. ii. chap. xx. 72
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
but for the discovery, by treachery, of his whereabouts.
He was compelled to fight at hopeless disadvantage. Nevertheless, he selected his ground with even greater skill than
before, and awaited the onset of Edward's host. Here at
Falkirk, in his last heroic fight, the Scottish hero showed
his contempt for the military superstitions of the time by a
new disposition of his forces,—then seen for the first time,
but centuries after to be famous—the formation of the square
to receive cavalry. | The Scotch force," says Mr. Green,
a consisted almost wholly of foot, and Wallace drew up his
spearmen in four great hollow circles or squares, the outer
ranks kneeling, and the whole supported by bowmen within,
while a small force of horse were drawn up as a reserve in
the rear. It was the formation of Waterloo, the first appearance in our history since the day of Senlac (Hastings) of
'that unconquerable British Infantry' before which chivalry
was destined to go down." * Mass after mass of the heavy
knights in armour was hurled against those living ramparts
in vain. At length, however, some mounted men broke in
and all was over, but ruthless slaughter and headlong flight.
Edward had conquered; but the victory was a barren one,
and the English king found himself " master only of the
ground he stood on ; want of supplies forced him at last to
retreat," for Wallace had laid waste all the South when he
withdrew from England, and the restless monarch, next
year, having abandoned Scotland, betook himself again to
France.   Dark as the night appeared, the cause of independ-
* Green : History, Vol. i. p. 367.  See also, a longer and more entertaining account In Burton : History, Vol. ii. p. 302. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
encejiad received a new light, and out of the murky sky of
Falkirk gleamed the morning star of Scottish freedom.
The rest of Wallace's career may be soon told, so far as it is
known. He is said to have visited France to strengthen
the Scottish alliance, and Italy to enlist the favour of the
Holy See, but in 1304 he was certainly in Scotland, where he
alone refused the amnesty. Edward was about to try mild
measures with Scotland, and his leniency was probably as
much a matter of calculation as of mercy. " The English .
Justinian " was a great, wise, brave, and on the whole, humane monarch ; but he wanted, like most men, better and
worse than himself, to have his own way, and, when thwarted, was like an enraged tiger. His aims were high and
far-reaching; and yet it was unquestionably as fortunate
for England that they failed in Scotland, as that the ambitious views of the Plantagenet Edwards and Henries were
©
disappointed in France. For Wallace, as the impersonation
of perverse and uncompromising opposition, there could be
no mercy.. He was captured at Glasgow by a party, under
Alexander de Menteith, who had recently received the royal
clemency. The Scotch historian is careful to urge that
" fause" is an unjust epithet, coupled with the name of
Menteith, since he was in no sense a traitor, being one of
Edward's officers and Governor of Dumbarton Castle. Wallace was carried through London and tried as a subject of
the king's for treason, border-raiding, and conspiring with
the king of France.    He was executed with all the barbari-
©
ties of that time, and unhappily of times much more recent.
His head was fixed on London Bridge, and his  quarters 74 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
were put up at Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.*
The hero's work was done, however, and could not be undone. He had breathed the quickening breath of national
vitality into the Scottish people; sealed the cause of their
independence with his patriotic blood; and, of all the un-
canonized martyrs of history, whose memories are embalmed
in its Walhalla, none stand* out in purer and brighter sheen
than William Wallace, the simple knight of Ellerslie.
The organizing schemes of Edward were now complete
and he was about to hold a joint Parliament, of both nations,
at Carlisle, when the irrepressible Scot again broke out in
the illustrious person of Robert Bruce, grandson of the
claimant to the crown in 1290. The house of Bruce was
Norman, and belonged properly to Yorkshire; but, by marriage it had obtained the Earldom of Carrick and the
Lordship of Annandale. The first Bruce and his son had,
on the whole, though somewhat fitfully, adhered to the
English side, and for obvious reasons. However attractive
the crown or the independence of Scotland may have been,
thev were not much to blame if thev secured the main
chance—their English patrimony. It was no light matter
to provoke the wrath of Edward, and defeat meant absolute
and irretrievable ruin. The grandson proved himself a man
of sounder fibre, but his education gave small promise of
* " Such deeds," as our historian remarks, " belong to a policy which outwits itself; but
the retribution has seldom come so quickly, and so utterly in defiance of all human preparation and calculation as here. Of the bloody trophies sent to frighten a broken people
into abject subjection, the bones had not yet been bared, ere they became tokens to deepen
the wrath and strengthen the courage of a people arising to try the strength of the bands
by which they were bound, and, if possible, break them once and for ever." Burton;
History, Vol. ii. 338. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 75
future greatness.      The English king had reared him in
England  as  the Norman youth were  then trained, and
appears to have been attracted by his frank, mild and generous nature.     He thought that as he had done much for
Robert, great things might be expected from him in return,
still there was much uneasiness about him at court; and a
few words dropped by Edward, over his cups, and conveyed
to Bruce  by the  Earl  of   Gloucester,  caused  a  sudden
flight northwards, in February, 1306.    The Earl's message
was in  symbol—a purse  of money and a pair of spurs-
There was snow on the ground at the time and so, to baffle
pursuit, his horses were shod in a reverse way, to appear as
if he were going to town, instead of flying from it.    At
Dumfries. Bruce met Comyn, Earl  of Badenoch,  in the
church of the Grey Friars, showed him the abject state of
Scotland, and made a proposition, it is said, in these terms i
I Take my estates and help to make me king, or, if  you
prefer it, I will take yours and support your claim." Cornyn,.
whom Bruce suspected of having betrayed his ambition to
Edward, demurred, pleading his duty and loyalty to the
king.    Bruce upbraided him with disclosing secrets to the
English Court; a fierce altercation ensued, and at last Bruce
stabbed Comyn and rushed out.   He had not only probably
committed murder, but a more heinous crime in those days.
—sacrilege.   Meeting Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, he exclaimed
" I doubt I have slain the red Comyn!"   I Do you doubt ?'"
said Kirkpatrick, " ich mak sicher " (I make sure), and then
went in and finished the red Comyn.    The play upon the
word " doubt," here, is rather good—so good indeed as to
K5^B 76
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
make one question the truth of the conversation. Whether
the slaughter precipitated the next step or not—and it probably did—Bruce was crowned at Scone, on the 27th of
March, 1306, as Robert I. of Scotland.
At this coronation, the patriotic Lamberton, Bishop of St.
Andrews, furnished the properties as well as the ecclesiastical
proprieties, and the crown was placed on Robert's head, by
the Countess of Buchan. " Shaken by sickness and bowed
by care," the aged Edward once more nerved himself to his
appointed task. He first secured the Pope's excommunication of Bruce for sacrilege ; threatened death to all concerned in Comyn's murder; and, in his rage, caused the poor
Countess of Buchan to be suspended from one of the towers
of Berwick, in a cage of spars. All who took up arms were
menaced with death; and Edward made formidable preparations for vengeance against Bruce, vowing, as if entering
upon a solemn crusade or holy war, to devote the remainder
of his days to that work. From his son, who had been made
a knight in Westminster Abbey, after a night's vigil, he exacted a vow, that should he die before the accomplishment
of his purpose, his body should be borne about with the
army, and never buried till Scotland was subdued. The
advance army, under Pembroke, Clifford and Percy, arrived
in Scotland early in 1306. The king only reached Carlisle
in March, 1307, although he had set out the summer before,
borne in a litter; meanwhile Bruce, the king's brother, his
sister's husband, the Earl of Athole, Sir Simon Fraser* and
* See an interesting.account of this remarkable reiver, and of the Fraser family in Tweed-
dale in Veitch: Border History and Poetry, Chap. vii. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
others were put to death. Two bishops, Lamberton of St.
Andrews, and Wishart of Glasgow—who, like many Scottish
mediaeval prelates, remind one of Grossteste, of Lincoln,
the manly English bishop of the previous century—were
simply put in prison. The brave and indomitable old English king was 1 wearin' awa';" but his fiery spirit and iron
will bore up the failing frame until he beheld once more the
land he longed to subdue. The last flicker of the taper
flashed from the socket. Edward fancied that a new lease
of life had been granted him; the litter was hung up, as a
votive offering, in the cathedral of Carlisle, and, mounting
his horse, the dying monarch rode toward the Solway. At
Burgh-on-the-Sands, within sight of Scotland, Edward L
" the Hammer of the Scots," breathed his last, after bequeathing the war as a heritage of vengeance to his degenerate son and successor.
Robert's first brush with Percy was a surprise, and the
result a serious check to his small army. In addition to his
other troubles he came into conflict with the Celtic Scots,
who occupied the western mountain district and the Isles.
Though the representatives of those who gave the country
its name of Scotland, they could not conform readily with
the Saxonized kingship. Between the Celts and the Low-
landers there was an antipathy of race; and this, though
sometimes dormant, was never extinguished.*    Having, for
* " It was the natural condition of these people to be under absolute chiefs and leaders,,
who set up a mimic royalty. . . . There was generally more than one king or chief. Had all
been under one leader, when King Edward began bis encroachments, there is no doubt he
would have thorough help from that leader. As it was he entered into alliance with
three of them (Alexander of Argyle, Alexander of the Isles, and Donald of the Isles), who
as they were in some measure rivals, did not always co-operate."   Burton: History, ii. 262. 78 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
some reason, to pass through the Highlands, Bruce reached
John of Lorn's country; and as that haughty potentate was
a relation of Comyn's, Bruce soon found himself beset by a
swarm of Highlanders;  yet his mailed force outwitted the
half-naked horde.    He was attacked also by Pembroke's
force; but from 1306 to 1310 his movements cannot be
clearly traced.     We find his force gradually melting before
Pembroke and Lorn, who hunted him with blood-hounds.
He and a companion broke the scent by swimming streams,
catching the boughs of trees, and swinging from tree to tree.
Their wives followed them and were tended with chivalrous
care, until at last they reached Bruce's home at Kildrummy,
in the earldom of Mar.    At the accession of Edward II., in
1307, the turning, point in the war was reached.    One after
another the strongholds gave way to the Scottish king;
Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Linlithgow, Perth, Dundee, Ruther-
glen, Aberdeen and Dumfries were surrendered, and the
English garrisons driven out sometimes by the people of
the district of their own motion.     All the defensive positions, save Stirling, had been taken, and it was besieged by
Edward Bruce, in 1313.    The commander promised to surrender if not relieved before  St. John Baptist's Day—an
arrangement, which if it meant anything, betokened an
invasion,  and such an enterprise   was' actually  on  foot.
Edward had collected a mighty host of 100,000 English,
Welsh, Irish, also Gascons and other foreigners; the Scots
are stated at 40,000, but Mr. Burton says that this is certainly
an exaggeration.     The battle was of necessity to be fought
under the walls of Stirling Castle, and there, a little to the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
south of it, there was a rising ground, flanked by a little
brook or burn, destined to be famous in the world's history;
for its name was Bannockburn.
Bruce selected his ground at leisure, and Edward had no
choice but to fight or lose the stronghold, which his father
had felt more pride in seizing than in defeating Wallace at
Falkirk. Stirling Castle stands on a trap rock; south and
partly east and west were the Campsie Fells—hills neither
lofty nor precipitous, and affording ground easy of successful
defence. Bruce fortified' this position, because here only
could he meet that mighty host face to face. There was
still a weak point—a tract of flat ground to the right by
which the enemy might pass to the Castle. This was honeycombed with pits, covered with branches, not, says Mr.
Burton, that these might serve as traps, but to destroy the
ground for cavalry purposes. On the eve of the battle, a
futile attempt was made to relieve the Castle and this disastrous result cast a portentous gloom over the English
-army. Whilst Robert was riding along his line, conspicuous
by a gold circlet, Hugh de Bohun bore down upon him, and
o~ave a challenge to single combat. Bruce was mounted on
.a small hackney and his opponent made an assault with the
.spear; this was dexterously warded off by the, king, who,
wheeling round, cleft Bohun's skull with so fearful a blow
©
that the handle of the axe was shattered in his grasp. At
daybreak on the twenty-fourth of June, 1314 the English
advanced to the charge. Then, again, as at Falkirk, the two
methods of warfare, the old and the new, came into competition.    Following in the footsteps of Wallace, Bruce had 80
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
drawn up his forces in hollow squares, or circlets, and Ed
ward attempted, as his father had successfully done in 1298
to rake them with the arrows of his archers. The move
ment was sufficiently promising, and might have been sue
cessful if, as at Falkirk, the bowmen had been well supported ;
as it was, Bruce's reserve of horse easily scattered them, and
the danger was past. " The body of men-at-arms next flung
themselves on the Scottish front, but their charge was embarrassed by the narrow space along which the line was to
move, and the steady resistance of the squares soon threw
the knighthood in disorder. 'The horses were stickit,*
says an exulting Scotch writer, ' rushed and reeled, right
rudely.' In the' moment of failure the sight of a body of
camp-followers, whom they mistook for reinforcements, to
the enemy, spread a panic through the English army. It
broke in a headlong rout. Its thousands of brilliant horsemen were soon floundering in pits, which guarded the level
ground to Bruce's left, or riding in wild haste for the border.
Few, however, were fortunate enough to reach it. Edward
himself,- with a body of five hundred knights, succeeded in
escaping by Dunbar and the sea. But the flower of the
knighthood fell into the hands of the victors, while the
Irishry and the footmen were ruthlessly cut down by the
country folk as they fled. For centuries to come the rich
plunder of the English camp left its traces on the treasure-
rolls and vestment-rolls of castle and abbey throughout the
Lowlands." *
* Green : History of the English People, Vol. i. Book iv. p. 887.   Also for a full and
graphic account of Bannockburn, Burton: History of Scotland, Vol. ii, pp. 378 et sen;. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
81
Thus was the yoke of oppressed Scotland broken, and her
national independence secured by the valour of her own
sons; but the end was not yet. The English monarchs
chafed under the. sting of humiliation; the disgrace was
keenly felt, the more because it was without remedy; but
of the shame which should have wrought repentance, there
was not a trace. Two names are coupled together in this
contest—those of Robert Bruce and the dauntless James
Douglas, "the darling of Scottish story," the first of the
Lowland Barons who cast in his lot with the kino-, and
©*
without whose adhesion the great triumph of Bannockburn
might never have been.* Edward, notwithstanding his
crushing defeat,, still hesitated to deal frankly or decidedly
* The War of Independence, as might have been expected, gave the first impetus to that
stream of ballad and song which has flowed down in an uninterrupted stream during
more than five centuries. John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, celebrated The Bruce
in a lengthy poem, full of marvellous legend, mingled with historic fact; and he had the
advantage of living only thirty years after the death of his hero. Blind Harry attempted
the same task for Wallace, but he wrote two centuries after the time, and his skill and
genius were inferior. Of the ballads, a few extracts may be given from Professor Murray.
The first relates to Edward's siege of Berwick, in 1296:—
" What wende the Kyng Edward
For his langge shanks ;
For to wfime Berewyke
Al our unthankes ?
G-o pike it him ;
And when he it have wonne
Go dike it him."
There is also a fragment relating to Bannockburn preserved in Fabyan's
Cronycle .---
1 Maydens of Englande, sore may ye mourne.
For your lemmans ye have loste at Bannockysborne;
With a heue a lowe,
What! weneth the King of Englande,
So soon to heve wonne Scotlande—
With rumbylowe." 82
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
with the Scots; he wanted a truce—a pause to make peace
with his insubordinate barons, and to begin war afresh.
Robert I. would hear of nothing but a renunciation of English authority over Scotland, and the acknowledgment of his
title. In 1319, however, a truce was concluded for two
years. At its expiration the war broke out with redoubled
fury; Bruce was compelled to lay waste all the country
south of the Forth, the inhabitants fleeing to the mountains.
The English king reached Edinburgh ; during his progress
he robbed Melrose and Holyrood, burned the abbey of Dry-
burgh, and slew the sick or aged monks.    In 1323 a truce
©      r O
for thirteen years was arranged, but in 1327 the weak
Edward II. was murdered in Berkeley Castle, and a monarch
cast in a far different mould ascended the English throne.
About the Border there had been continual fighting, rapine
and devastation, and the reign of Edward III. was opened
with an attempt to divide the Scots in order to conquer them.
Edward set Up the son of John Baliol, and received him as
vassal-king of Scotland; but the new claimant and his supporters were hurled over the Border again by Douglas and
Randolph. Nothing remained but the acknowledgment of
Scottish independence. This was done by a compact made
at Edinburgh, but confirmed by Parliament in England, and
thus known as the treaty of Northampton (April, 1328).
The military spirit of the time appears in G-ude Wallace, The Thistle of Scotland, and other ballads.   This stanza is from Auld Maitland.
I It's ne'er be said in France, nor e'er
In Scotland, when I'm liame,
That Englishman lay under me,
And e'er gat up again." THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
83
By this instrument Edward recognized the independent
sovereignty of Scotland, renouncing all claim to feudal
superiority. He agreed " that the kingdom should remain
for ever to the great prince Lord Robert, by the grace of
God, illustrious king of Scotland, and his heirs and successors ; and that Scotland, by its old marches in the
days of King Alexander, should be separated from the kingdom of England, and free of all claims of subjection and
vassalage." The treaty cancelled all previous writings and
obligations ; Bruce promised to give compensation for damage done on the English side of the Border, and to marry
his son, David, to Edward's sister, Joan.*
Robert Bruce had at last accomplished his task; and now
with the certificate, signed and sealed, of his country's freedom and autonomy in his possession, he laid him down to
die. His iron frame which had endured toil, privation,
suffering, and danger in every form, for many a year had,
for some time previously, shown symptoms of decay and
approaching dissolution; and now, after all the struggle and
in the hour of triumph, the great Robert passed away peacefully, atifpardross, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth,
on the seventh of June, 1329. " Such a man," says Mr. Burton,
■ would not fail to leave a strong and enduring impression
on the hearts of a manly and kindly people. What he had
of adversity, endurance and struggle in his early days, told
for their emancipation, as well as the triumphs of his later,"f
and in both he appears the typical Scot as he emerges from
* Burton; History, VoL IL, p. 425.
t Ibid. p. 431.
I^m JINUP 84
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the chaos of the past. Eulogy upon the character and deeds
of a hero whose memory is thus enshrined in the hearts of
his countrymen, and has been bequeathed, as a precious and
■everlasting possession, to universal humanity, would seem
superfluous, if not impertinent. His life and achievements
point their own moral and the tale unfolded in his glorious
•career needs no meretricious adornment. The legend of his
heart is an attractive one, whether true or false. It is said
that Lord James Douglas was commissioned by the dying
king to carry his heart to the Holy Land. The faithful
friend and liege started upon his pilgrimage, but, after the
fashion of the time, turned aside to aid the king of Leon and
Castile against. the Moors  of Granada.      While fighting
© © ©
against the Moslem, Douglas flung the casket, containing the
precious relic, into the midst of the foe, and exclaimed as he
spurred his horse to the charge, 1 Onward, as thou wert
wont, noble hearty Douglas will follow thee." The hero
was slain, but the casket, with the heart of Bruce, was recovered, and deposited in the Abbey Church of Melrose.
Our survey of the^War of Independence is thus concluded.
It has been purposely extended because, without an intelligent appreciation of that great struggle, the Scottish character can hardly be fully appraised or understood either in its
strength or in its weaknesses, its sterling worth or its peculiar
fallings. If not the head-waters of " the Scottish stream of
tendency " it served to fuse together the pent-up energies
of the race and send them forth anew upon their world-wide
mission. What Lake Constance is to the Rhine, and the
Lake of Geneva to the RS>ne, the War of Independence THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 85
was to the genius of Scotland, and much more, since it was
not merely a reservoir of mental and moral force in itself,
but it availed to determine the bent of the national character,
in certain broad directions, for all coming time, x Another
such nucleus of development and stored-up power will appear in the next chapter. Meanwhile it seems advisable to
run over the intervening and connecting period, so as to be
able, without missing a link, to trace the chain of events
down to the time when the Scottish type of character, may,
comparatively speaking, be looked upon as fixed.
David II., Robert's son, was a boy of eight years old when
his father died, in 1329, and Randolph, Earl of Murray had
been appointed Regent. Both the Regent and Douglas,
however, were early removed, and disputes arose concerning
the restitution of estates owned by Englishmen, which was
ordained by the treaty of Northampton. Edward Baliol,
taking advantage of the confusion, and contrary to the
wish, real or affected, of Edward, made a bold attempt to
secure the throne. He landed in Fife in 1332, was crowned
at Scone, and at once acknowledged Edward as his feudal
superior. This last step ruined him utterly, and he and his
retainers were driven across the Border. In 1333, Berwick
was besieged and, on a relieving force making its appearance,
a battle was fought at Halidon Hill in which the Scots
were defeated. Baliol then ceded all south of the Firth of
Forth and did homage for the rest—a step which, when discovered, sent Baliol back to Berwick. The Scottish League
with France now proved of service, and Edward inaugurated
the Hundred Years' War between England and France by
«ap 86
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
making his preposterous claim to the French throne. David
II. took refuge with Philip, but his cause was in the hands of
Robert the Stewart, of Scotland, ancestor of the Stewart
family, and the Earl of Moray. In 1336, according to Buckle,
Edward devastated the whole country as far as Inverness.
But in 1337, the declaration of war gave the coup de grace
to Baliolism, and David returned to his kingdom in 1342. In
1346, in a movement on England to aid their French allies,
the Scots were routed at Neville's Cross, near Durham, and
David was taken prisoner. On this occasion the entire
Lowlands, especially Tweeddale, the Merse, Ettrick, Annan-
dale and Galloway, were laid waste. This was also the
year of Crecy. The Scots king was detained in captivity
eleven vears, and it was during this time that the power of
the nobles attained such formidable dimensions. At his
death the crown passed to the first Stewart king, David's
nephew, Robert II., in accordance to the will of the great
Robert. This new monarch was weak and permitted the
nobles to do much as they pleased. Robert III. was equally
indifferent to the assertion of the royal authority, and
when his son James—afterwards 6rst king of that name, was
taken prisoner while on his way to France, and carried to
London where he remained in confinement for eighteen
©
years—Robert sank under his misfortunes. He had already
lost his eldest son, Rothesay, who had been imprisoned by
his uncle, Albany, on a pretence of treason, and starved to
death. He was unequal to a contest with the factious
nobles and did not attempt one. After a wretched reign of
fifteen years, he died of what is called a broken heart, in THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 87
1406, leaving the Duke of Albany Regent of the kino-dom
A vigorous effort was now made to check the excessive power
of the nobles; and Donald of the Isles, who had endeavoured
to secure for himself the Earldom of Ross, was brought to
his knees. Meanwhile the main causes of trouble and confusion during the century and a half to come disclosed
themselves. They are well put by Mr. Buckle. I. The inordinate power of the nobles, owing partly to the structure
of the country, partly to the structure of society, and the long
minority and imprisonment of David. Ever and anon there
was war with England and, at such times, the power of the
chiefs increased ; and, when there was no foreign war there
was a reluctance to begin a civil one, by a crusade on the
nobles. The history of the Stuart monarchs is the record
of one prolonged struggle with the nobility. It was not
the turbulent nature of the people, but the unhappy
supremacy of the nobles which caused the woes of the
fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.* II. The absence
of the municipal spirit. When towns were constantly being burned and the entire country ravaged sometimes by
English armies, sometimes by Highland caterans, and anon
by Border moss-troopers, there could be no middle class
like that which grew up in England, flourished even during
the wars of the Roses, and fixed itself firmly upon the soil.
* A well known passage from Buckle's History of Civilization, may be quoted here.
"There have been more rebellions in Scotland than in any other country, and the rebellions
have been very sanguinary, as well as very numerous. The Scotch have made war with
their kings, and put to death many. To mention their treatment of single dynasty, they
murdered James I. and James III. They rebelled against James II. and James VII. They
laid hold of James V. and placed him in confinement. Mary they immured in a castle and
afterwards deposed. Her successor, James VI., they imprisoned; they led him captive
aibout the country, and on one occasion attempted his life."
SP THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Mr. Buckle admits that, in Scotland, the nobles, with all
their faults, were the only barrier against despotism; for
there was another element always in alliance with the
Crown. III. The clergy who flourished upon the conflicts
of the Crown and the nobility. They had the ecclesiastical
arm and, by their superior training, tact and experience,
could always command the royal authority. The chief adviser of James II, the violator of hospitality and his plighted
word in the murder of the Douglases, was Kennedy, Bishop
of St. Andrews. This must be borne in mind when one
comes to read the lessons of the Reformation period. Moreover, although the excessive power and the indomitable
pugnacity of the nobles wrought much evil, there was no-
element to take its place. In England, the yeomanry and
the urban middle classes were always ready to step into the
breach, and the destruction of the nobility in the civil wars,,
although it rendered Tudor despotism possible, was not
an unmixed evil. There were two Roses to contend for in
England; in Scotland there was but one Thistle, and it
bristled up at its spiny points and drew blood in all quarters.   The contest between the kings and the nobles con-
©
tinued the work of devastation, far on, up to and beyond
the close of the middle ages. When people speak of Scotland having been a century behind its sister kingdom at
the beginning of the seventeenth or eighteenth century, let
them consider what that poor, long-suffering, brave and
dauntless people achieved and endured during those long,,
dark centuries from the end of the thirteenth to the begin-
©
ning of the eighteenth.    They suffered and were strong • THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
S9
and thence was drawn the energy stored up in the national
character. Surviving all the rude shocks of time and man,
it has girt the world with an influence almost wholly beneficent—an influence which has gradually permeated the
English-speaking peoples, infusing its vigour", its stern and
sterling probity, and its untiring zeal for progress and right
in every land.
It seems unnecessary to follow out in detail the events of
the Stuart reigns from the second Robert to the death of
James V., after his mishap at Solway Moss, and the birth of
the still more unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots (1370-1542.)
It was a period of dire tribulation for that afflicted land;
and yet no period in British annals was so fruitful in poetry,
ballad and romance.    During that dead time in English
G ©
literature, which extended from the death of Chaucer to the
Tudor times, Scotland produced many an illustrious poet,
and many a stirring Border ballad of fame enough, though
of authorship unknown.* Foremost in the ranks stood the
names of John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, the Homer
of the War of Independence, Blind Harry, the Minstrel, who
celebrated Wallace, Andrew Wyntoun, Prior of St. Serf's,
Lochleven, the chronicler, and Robert Henryson of Dunfermline. More illustrious in the annals of poetry were William
Dunbar—"a poet," says Scott, "unrivalled by any that Scotland has ever produced "—the author of The Thistle and the
Rose, a nuptial ode in honour of the marriage of James IV.
* It was intended to devote a chapter to the Border and its literature, but space forbids.
The reader is referred to the well known work of Scott, on Border Minstrelsy, Percy's
Reliques, Dr. Veitch's admirable volume already cited, Pinkerton, Sibbald, Irving, Allan,
Cunningham, and other authorities on the subject. 90
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
•and the Princess Margaret of England—Gawain or Gavin
Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, with his Palace of Honour,
and Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount (Fifeshire), the author
of that scathing Satire of the Three Estates (king, barons and
clergy), in which the foibles of fashion, even to ladies' trains,
and the tricks and deceits of the pardoners and relic vendors,
-are hit off with grim humour. The first James, not only
as a royal author, but because of his sufferings in a prolonged captivity, and his violent death at the hands of his
uncle, the Duke of Athole, and the recalcitrant nobles, is a
unique figure in Scottish History, only surpassed in his
claims on human sympathy by his still more helpless
descendant, the victim of Fotheringay. The King's Quair
(quire or little book) was written- when the young prince
was a prisoner in the Tower. It was Lady Joan Beaufort,
who inspired his verse, and it is like a gleam of sunshine
across his sad and chequered career to learn that his love
became his Queen; sadder than all that he perished by the
•assassin's hand in his forty-fourth year. To him have been
assigned also Peblis at the Play and two other kindred
poems, partly satirical and partly descriptive of society, of
rural manners and the Church.* This most accomplished of
the Stuarts "who strove to civilize the country he was called
upon to govern, by curbing the power of the nobles, appears
as a gracious figure in Scottish annals." He attempted too
much, and fell a victim to his unselfish and patriotic ambition. To James V. is attributed a reflection of himself in
the Gaberlunzie Man, and James VI. was also a poet in a
* Veitch: Border History and Poetry, p. 311. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
91
small way. Whatever maybe said of the paucity of philosophical thinking in Scotland before Buchanan—and that is
a mistake in the main—there can be no doubt of the splendid galaxy of poetic spirits which adorned the centuries
from Robert II. to Mary, Queen of Scots* On Flodden
Field, in fight with his brother-in-law, Henry VIII., and as
a consequence of the ancient Scottish league with France,
James IV. with the flower of his chivalry perished, and
Scotland received a staggering blow long remembered with
grief and anger by the unhappy people. Nearly two centuries and a half from the fatal disaster at the foot of the
Cheviots, Jean Elliott wrote her plaintive version of The
Flowers of the Forest, in memory of it."f* These are the concluding stanzas:—
" Dull and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border,
The English for ance, by guile wan the day;
The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o' our land are cauld in the clay.
" We'll hear nae mair tilling at the yowe-milking,
Women and bairns are heartless and wae,
Sighing and moaning On ilka green loaning—
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away."
The fight with Surrey at Flodden in 1513 was in every
way disastrous to Scotland. Her king was slain with the
bravest of Ms nobility; those most attached to the Crown,
and earnest in patriotic aspiration had fallen with him. Again
there was a royal minority, with a feeble ruler in the Regent
* Mr. T. Arnold, in discussing the authorship of the Court of Love in the Academy,
(June, 1st, 1878), says that whoever may have written itjra'he seems to me to have been a
man of poetical power, far superior to Lydgate, Gower, Occleve, Harris, or any known English writer between the time of Chaucer and the reign of Henry VIII. Scotland produced
within that period men capable of writing it, but there is not a particle of evidence to
connect it with Scotland."
t See The Songstress of Scotland, by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson.   Vol. I, p. 204, &c. 92
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Albany. The lords raised their heads once more to hamper the
Crown; and when the king became a power in the State,
his hopes were fixed upon the clergy, with the inevitable
result that Church and Monarchy were involved in common
ruin. James V. wa3 not a model as a man; rude though
chivalrous like the rest of his house before and after, his
wayward nature was always going astray. Since Flodden
everything had been tending to the bad. The peace Albany
had negotiated with Lord Dacre was disgraceful and hu-
miliating; Surrey had advanced over the border in 1523
and taken Jedburgh almost without resistance ; and at
last the Scot nobles, in order to humble their king, had refused to do their duty. In 1542, the Scots were defeated at
Halidon Hill, and three months after at Solway Moss, in
Cumberland (December 14th, 1542)—that last grief which
broke the heart of the Scottish king. When informed of
the birth of a daughter as he lay dying, looking back upon
the Maid of Norway, and forward blindly to the fate of his
infant, Mary, Queen of Scots, which he seems partly to have
foreseen, the despairing exclamation escaped his lips, | It
came with a lass, it will go with a lass," and then he turned
over upon his broken heart and sank to rest. CHAPTER IV.
RELIGION IN  SCOTLAND—THE REFORMATION  AND  THE
* COVENANT.
Had not the Lord been on our side,
May Israel now say ;
Had not the Lord been on our side,
When men rose us to slay ;
They had us swallowed quick, when as
Their wrath did 'gainst us flame ;
Waters had covered us, our soul
Had sunk beneath the stream.
—Psalm cxxiv. (Scottish version.)
The Martyrs' Hills forsaken—
The simmer's dusk sae calm,
There's nae gathering now, lassie,
To sing the evening psalm !
ggS'tit the martyrs' grave will me, lassie,
Aboon the warrior's cairn ;
And the martyrs soun' will sleep, lassie,
Aneath the waving fern.
—Robert Allan : The Covenanter's Lament.
The Scottish Church, both on himself and those
With whom from childhood he grew up, had held
The strong hand of her purity j and stiE
Had watched him with an unrelenting eye.
This he remembered in his riper age,
"With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.
—Woedsworth : The Excursion.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle, form a circle wide ;
The sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride :
Has bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haff ets wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And ' Let us worship God !' he says, with solemn air.
From scenes like these auld Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad;
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
' An honest man's the noblest work of God.'
—Burns : The Cotter's Saturday Night. 94
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«£
"STl T seems a delicate task to attempt any exposition of Scotch    land on its religious side ; still it is obviously impossible to form a just and adequate conception of the Scot
tish  character,  as  it has   been  developed, at home  and
abroad, without taking one of the chief factors in the reckoning into account.    Religion, chiefly in the Presbyterian
form, plays too important a part in Scottish history, and in
the moulding of national characteristics, to be slighted or
ignored.    It is not necessary, however, for the present purpose, to plunge through the white coating of those  red
ashes, which still glow through the surface, or to burn one's
fingers with questions of dogma and Church government.
Taking for granted the essential sincerity and earnestness
of the disputants,  whether   oppressors or victims, victorious or vanquished, it seems possible to scan, with a vision r
more or less sympathetic, the struggles.of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, as they radically  and definitively
affected Scottish.character.   In order to take a dispassionate
view of these ecclesiastical troubles, it is necessary to bear
in mind that there are three religious communions to be
taken into account—the ancient or Roman Catholic Church,
the Presbyterian or National Church of the Reformation,
with its numerous offshoots, and the Episcopal Church—the
representative in Scotland of the Established Church of
England.    The last may be referred to hereafter; meanwhile
let us glance briefly at the old creed, and the process by
which the faith of an overwhelming majority of Scotsmen
was evolved, or rather fought its way out from it. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
95-
It is extremely natural that the Presbyterian Scotsman I
even though he be an historian, should depreciate the real
service performed in mediaeval times by the Church of Rome
in Scotland. Even now, centuries after the fierv struggle has-
spent its strength, and the persecuted believers became conquerors, the fire of the furnace still smoulders, and the attempt,
to be impartial seems to the ardent religious patriot a sin
scarcely less heinous than overt apostasy. Still, it is well
to be reminded that if the ancient Church had finished its
work in the sixteenth century, or even earlier, it had a work
to do which was accomplished with ardoi#r and sincerity-
As Mr. Froude remarks, § the traditions of the struggle survive in strong opinions and sentiments, which it is easy to-
wound without intending it;" yet that is no reason for refusing to gauge fairly the good wrought by a system, even
although it may have survived its usefulness and been perverted to mischief.* There may be truth on both sides, if
only the great religious principles on which the. belligerents,
are agreed; and the spirit of conservatism in religion—" the
use and wont"—will often attach men sincerely not only to
the truth which means vitality, but to the error which evidences decay. Not in Scotland alone, but all over Europe,
modern society owes more to the mediaeval Church than it
has been willing to acknowledge   since the Reformation..
* " My own conviction, with respect to all great social and religious convulsions is the
extremely commonplace one that much is to be said on both sides. I believe that nowhere,
and at no time, can any such struggle take place on a large scale, unless such party is contending for something that has a great deal of truth in it. Where the right is plain; honest,
wise and noble-minded men are all on one side; and only rogues and fools are on the otherwhere the wise and good are divided, the truth is generally found to be divided between
them." Froude: The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character—a Lecture-
in " ihort Studies on Great Subjects."   First series, Amer. Edit., p. 103. "96 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
In the main it was the civilizer, the instructor and the
peacemaker .in the midst of rude, savage and merciless
nations of illiterate and uncouth warriors, governed by barbarous and tyrannical chiefs or kings. Between the oppressor
and the oppressed the Church was the only bulwark, and it
stood firm and unshaken when the tide of anarchy and violence lashed its potent billows against that solid rampart.
All these things ought not to have been forgotten when the
fabric rotted to decay, and the bats and owls, and all unclean
things found a refuge in its ruined cloisters. In England,
such names as liiose of Lanfranc and Langton, Archbishops
of Canterbury, and Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln,
might well rescue any Church from obloquy; and in Scotland the aid afforded by the Bishops of St. Andrews and
Glasgow to Wallace and Bruce entitle them to everlasting
gratitude.
That the Church of St. Ninian, St. Patrick, St. Mungo and
St. Cuthbert was not hierarchical or ultramontane is certain ; indeed it can hardly be called episcopal; and the Culdees, whatever they were, had extremely loose ideas about
apostolical succession. The Saxon Church in process of
time became more closely united to Rome; but neither at
first, nor in the early Norman time, was its submission
to the Holy See perfect or voluntary. In Scotland the
bishops were almost invariably patriots and the friends of
education. They first established not only the great seats
of learning, but the Grammar Schools. The University of
St. Andrews was founded in 1410; that of Glasgow, in 1450;
that-of   Aberdeen, in 1495; and even the University of THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
97
Edinburgh, though not formally established till 1582, was-
chiefly endowed by a sum bequeathed many[years before, by
Reid, the Catholic Bishop of Orkney.*
In 1495, the Scottish Parliament—in which the clergy
were the leaders, not less on account of their cultured intelligence than their sacerdotal claims—enacted a law, compelling all barons and freeholders to send their eldest sons
to the Grammar Schools, under pain of a heavy fine. It is
not an excess of charity to believe that the Scottish bishops
saw in religious education the one great agent in civilizing
the untutored race around them, and of reducing to something like order the frightful chaos in which Scotland was
involved.
The wealthy endowments, no less than the patronage,
bestowed upon the Church by kings from Malcolm and
St. David onwards, no doubt caused it to gravitate to the
side of royalty; yet it is not unreasonable to suppose that
the clergy were also influenced by the patriotic conviction
that, in the strengthening and consolidation of the monarchy,
lay the only prospect of permanent relief from so wretched a
condition of affairs. On the other hand the nobles saw with
dismay the gradual absorption of the nation's slender resources by religious foundations, and they knew well how
hopeless it was by any ordinary effort, to unclinch the rigid
I dead hand " of the Church, when it had once closed upon
* Lecky : England in the Eighteenth Century. Amer. Ed. Vol. U., p. 47. " It must be
acknowledged that a large part of the credit of the movement in favour of education
belongs to the Church which preceded the Reformation ; nor is any fact in SSpttsh history
more remarkable than the noble enthusiasm for knowledge which animated the Church
during the fifteenth century."   Ibid.
G
\m i umup 98
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the possessions within its reach. Religion " waxed fat, and
kicked ;" became of the world, worldly; filled with avarice
and carnal ambitions, weak in faith and corrupt in morals.*
To the degenerate hierarchy had gone forth the solemn
warning heard by the Apocalyptic seer and addressed to the
Church at Sardis,—" I know thy works, that thou hast a
name that thou livest, and art dead." During the minority
of James V. the struggle between the nobles and the Church
assumed definite shape. Albany, the Regent, had retired in
disgust, and for a time the Douglases reigned supreme. They
had turned James Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, out
of the Chancellorship; but their triumph was short-lived.
In 1528, the clergy had again asserted their supremacy and
maintained it for the next thirty-two years, until the first
General Assembly met to garner in the fruits of the Protestant victory. Meanwhile, the ecclesiastical influence was
advancing, by sure but rapid strides, to the supremacy. The
clergy gradually got possession of all offices of trust and
emolument; the chiefs of the nobles were exiled or imprisoned ; the burning of heretics became a sacerdotal business
and a royal pastime. To make bad worse, James took as
his second wife—Mary, a daughter of the bigoted and ruthless family of Guise, or as Kirkton terms her, " ane esse of
the bloody nest of Guise." In 1539, David Beaton, who had
been raised to the cardinalate, succeeded his uncle as Archbishop of St. Andrews, and from that time till his assassina-
* " From the see of St. Peter to the far monasteries in the Hebrides or the Isle of Arran
the laity were shocked and scandalized at the outrageous doings of high cardinals prelates
priests and monks.   It was clear enough that these great personages themselves did not
believe what they taught; so why should the people believe It? " Froude (as above), p. 106. Hrujirup
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 99
tion was the king's sole adviser. James had received from
the Pope the title Henry VIII. had forfeited, of. I Defender
of the Faith," and the outlook for Scotland became altogether dark, lowering and hopeless. But the doom of the
•ancient Church was pronounced at the very moment, when
flushed with their triumph, the clergy were enacting new
•and more sanguinary penal laws against heresy. They
liad even registered for death no less than six hundred
of the aristocracy in what Watson has called " the bluidy
scroll."
Step by step, as the breach widened between the clergy
and the nobles, the doctrines of the Reformation were diffused all over the East and the Lowlands. Brutal measures of repression only exasperated the aristocracy and
ere long the entire people. Violence begets violence;
and, although there had been a time when conciliation
anight have appeased the lords and delayed the impending
•change in religion, that time was now past. Cardinal
Beaton and his fellow clerics had made the struggle one of
life and death, and the defiant challenge they had hurled at
their foes was taken up eagerly and savagely. The first
consequence was a temporary eclipse of the monarchy.
Henry VIII. had been in correspondence with the recalcitrant
Scot Lords, and James V. called upon them to assist him
in an invasion of England. They refused, and the result
was the shameful defeat at Solway Moss, in 1542. The chivalrous monarch, in the utter despair of shattered pride and
wounded honour, would hear no words of comfort but
turned his face to the wall and died, leaving as his successor 100
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the new-born babe, which had better have yielded up its
little life and been laid beside its father in the grave.
Now began a terrible period of confusion and distress.
Cardinal Beaton had been appointed, by the late king, guardian of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Governor of the realm ;.
and he immediately set to work with unrelenting severity
to extirpate heresy and to crush insubordination in Church
and State. He was utterly without principle, religious
only in name ; his master passion was love of power, and,
in its pursuit, he knew no scruples of conscience, no touch
of pity, no restraint from honour or remorse. For a time
dissensions among the nobles worked to his advantage. But
Angus and Douglas had returned from exile; Beaton was
imprisoned at Dalkeith ; and the Earl of Arran, who affected to be a Protestant when it suited his purpose, became
Regent. The struggle, so far as the nobles were concerned,
was not in any sense a religious one; they had a deadly
reckoning of revenge to make with Beaton and the Church r
looked with greedy eyes upon ecclesiastical wealth, and
longed to lay their hands upon it. But they soon fell out,
as such men will do, over a division of the spoils; the clergy
appealed to the people, and the Cardinal was again master
of the situation. But if the lords were not in earnest, the
people now rising into prominence soon proved that they
were. In England, there was a popular power of opinion
and action; in Scotland it was called into being by the
religious contests of this age*     This was the first great
• " In this it was that the Reformation in Scotland differed from the Reformation in any
other part of Europe. Elsewhere it found a middle class existing—created already by trade
or by other causes.   It raised and. elevated them, but it did not materially affect their MM
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
boon conferred on Scotland by the Reformation, and it has
left indelible traces upon the Scottish character in all
lands, and through every succeeding age. The common
people, as in the early days of Christianity, heard gladly
the preachers of the Gospel; and it was their horror at the
brutalities of the hierarchy which sealed the fate of the
ancient Church. Early in the fifteenth century, two
■ heretics " had been burned to death under Henry Ward-
law-, Bishop of St. Andrew's, who founded that University,
in 1412; | which might have done him honour, had he not
imbrued his hands in innocent blood."* But the first names
enrolled in the new book opened by the Beatons in the
Scottish martyrology are those of Patrick Hamilton, burned
in 1527, and George Wishart in 1546.
Whether Cardinal Beaton would have been suffered to
continue his sanguinary course, in any case, may be doubted;
yet the popular indignation at Wishart's death was the
proximate cause of his assassination. On the 20th of May,
1546, within three months after the martyr's execution at
the stake, Norman and John Leslie, William Kirkcaldy of
Grange, James Melville, and others, gained access to the
castle and | stabbed him twice or thrice," ending his cruel
and arbitrary career upon the spot.f  The restrained energy
political condition. In Scotland, the commons, as an organized body, were simply created
by religion. Before the Reformation they had no political existence; and therefore it has
been that the fruit of their origin has gone so deeply into their social constitution. On
them, aud them only, the burden of the w.ork of Reformation was eventually thrown; and
when they triumphed at last, it was inevitable that both they and it should react one upon
the other." Froude (as before), p. 108. To this peculiar feature in the Scottish Reformation, may no doubt be traced the democratic constitution of the Scottish Church.
* The Scots Worthies: By John Howie.   Edinburgh, 1870, p. 9.
■+ According to Howie, Wishart is reported to have said, just before his death : "This
flame hath scorched my body, yet it hath not daunted my spirit; but he who, from yonder THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and enthusiasm of the people at once burst forth. John
Knox, although not privy to the murder, shut himself up-
with the chief actors in the castle of St. Andrew's, and
made common cause with the Leslies and their associates.
Calderwood and other Church historians characterize the
murder as " a providential and stupendous act of Divine-
judgment," and it has seldom been spoken of as a deed
requiring either defence or even extenuation.
The subsequent events of the history are too generally
known to require recapitulation in detail. In 1554, Mary
of Guise became regent in Arran's place—a step thus commented upon by Knox in a characteristic sentence-1-" a
croune was patt upone hir head, als.seimlye a sight (yff men
had eis) as to putt a sadill upone the back of ane unrewly
kow." Mr. Buckle suggests that Mary would not have
ruled badly if her bigoted and ambitious relations, the Duke-
of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine had left her alone.
He quotes George Buchanan as saying that although she
had been called ambitious and intriguing, she was regretted
even by her opponents ; that she possessed a distinguished
mind and a disposition inclined to equity. But the masterspirit of the time was about to return, after a long absence
to his native land. The character of John Knox has been
drawn by many hands. To some he is the incarnation of
stern probity, holy zeal and devout piety; to others a harsh,,
cruel and unscrupulous zealot, fond of power and quite
place, beholdeth us with such pride, shall, within a few days, lie in the same as ignominiously
as he is now seen proudly to rest himself." (p. 30.) The fact of this reported saying has
been seriously questioned; it has been represented as a prophecy, but it is certain that the-
plot to take off the Cardinal \ras entered into a year before Wishart's death. MtM
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
103
willing to abuse it when in his hands. It is probable that
he was brusque and uncompromising; yet the time needed
the mailed hand stretched forth by a dauntless soul. Philip
Melancthon in Scotland would never have perfected the
work given to the Scottish Reformer to do. When a mighty
upheaval like the Reformation is in progress, there is but one
spirit fitted to cope with it, and direct its unruly energy—
the spirit of a Luther or a Knox. It is the fashion now-a-
days to look askance at the rugged heroes of the past, and
to forget the vast debt of gratitude due them from posterity.
Of all the Scottish heroes John Knox is the one who can
best bear inspection. His character may appear to be angular, and sharply cut at that, but the angularities are those of
the diamond, and, instead of detracting from its value, they
serve to display more clearly its purity and worth. During
the five years of struggle yet remaining his was the fiery
and indomitable spirit which conquered all opposition, renewed the youth of Scotland, and placed her at once and
forever on that higher plane up to which she was toiling at
Stirling and Bannockburn.* Even the brief period referred
to was broken by another visit to the Continent | but after
1559, Knox put all his energies to the task of completing
the work of Reformation. In 1558, Mary of Guise married
her daughter to Francis the Dauphin, eldest son of Henry II.
of France, and brother of Charles IX., whose name has come
* | This independence of the Scottish Church belongs in fact to the independence of the
Scottish race. It was nurtured, if not produced, by the long struggle first of Wallace,
then of Bruce, which gave to the whole character of the people a defiant self-reliance, such
as, perhaps, is equally impressed on no other kingdom in Europe." Dean Stanley: Lectures
on the History of the Church of Scotland.   (Am. Ed.) p. 70.
WP THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
down to us coupled with the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
During that year Mary Tudor of England died, Elizabeth
mounted the Throne, and the nobles made an offensive and
defensive alliance under the name of "The Lords of the
Congregation." In May, 1559, John Knox arrived once
more. He was fifty-four years of age, and the work might
possibly have been completed without him; but his presence
seemed to send a sudden spasm of energy through the
nation. Like' his master, Wishart, he appealed to the
commonalty from the first; and, after his summons at
Dundee, and especially at Perth, they rose, plundered the
churches, destroyed the monasteries, and overthrew in a
moment the old hierarchy. Mary, the Regent, moved
troops; but the Lords of the Congregation were on the
alert. Glencairn, Argyle and Murray came to their aid;
Perth, Stirling and Linlithgow were seized; Elizabeth's
contingent drove the French force out of Leith; Edinburgh
was evacuated, and the Lords and their army entered the
capital in triumph. The Queen Regent was suspended,
because she opposed | the glory of God, the liberty of the
realm, and the welfare of the nobles." In 1560, the entire
face of Scottish affairs was changed. The English fleet was
in the Firth of Forth ; Norfolk was ready with an English
. army at Berwick, and so the Reformation definitively
triumphed. It is impossible to say much for Elizabeth's
part in the issue. She had, as usual, played with matrimonial schemes for the union of the realms. Protestantism,
especially of the Scottish type, was not at all to her mind,
her aim being simply to crush the cause of Mary, Queen of
m THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
105
Scots, as a claimant to the English throne. For this purpose, in a feeble way, she had assisted the Lords in driving
out the French and the Regent; but she had no heart in
the" cause, and Knox she detested, as was natural, because
of his ungallant treatise on "The Monstrous Regiment (rule)
of Women."
In addition to the triumph of the Reformation, the year
1560 was remarkable for three notable incidents, unconnected apparently, yet extending nevertheless to a common
issue, so far as Scotland was concerned. Francis II., the
husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne of
France in the spring of 1559—a weakly youth of sixteen ; he wore the crown during the shortest reign in French
history—about eighteen months—dying in December, 1560.
Within that brief period, the Guises and their enemies had
been busy. There were plots and counter-plots, whilst poor
Marv finished her education, with a Guise for mother, and
J 3 1
Catherine de Medici for a mother-in-law. As for France, it
knew no health or vigour through the reigns of those three
wretched brothers, Francis, Charles and Henry, until Henry
of Navarre ascended the throne, a Bourbon when that house
couldboastof nascent energy. In Scotland, the widowed Queen
of France and of Scots, became the focus of converging lines
traced by fate—the cause of woe, and yet herself the saddest
and most pitiable figure in that long drawn tragedy. On the
19th of August, 1561, she landed at Leith as the historian
pathetically phrases it, "a stranger to her subjects, without
experience, without allies, and almost without a friend."
During the same year the first General Assembly of the
P« THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Church of Scotland was held, and there Knox made an
open breach with the nobles who had espoused the Reformation solely to plunder and sequestrate the property of the
Church. He boldly demanded that what had ever been
dedicated to sacred uses should be restored and devoted to-
the cause of the Gospel. The nobles having obtained the
plunder—refused to surrender it, and thus the cause of the
Reformation under Knox was thrown into the hands of the
people. The pulpit rang with vehement declamation against
the spoliation which had been committed. The money had
been squandered upon the unprincipled nobility,—" Satan
had prevailed, and the property had been given to profane
men, court flatterers, ruffians and hirelings." Knox declared
that two-thirds of the Church endowments j had been given
to the devil, and the remaining third divided between God
and the devil," alluding to the arrangements proposed by
the nobles. When the | First Book of Discipline " was pre-*
sented to the Privy Council, the nobles refused their concurrence, not because they objected to its views on Church
government, but because it provided that f the haill rentis
of the Kirk, abusit in Papistrie sail be referrit again to the
Kirk." Thus then the people under Knox were arrayed
against the Crown and the nobility, whilst these were at
variance, the one with the other.*    In the same year, Knox
I I know of nothing finer in Scottish history than the way in which the commons of the-
Lowlands took their places by the side of Knox in the great convulsions which followed. If
all others forsook him, they at least would never forsake him while tongue remained to
speak and hand remained to strike. Broken they might have been, trampled out, as the
Huguenots at last were trampled out in France, had Mary been less than the most improvident on the most unlucky of sovereigns. But Providence, or those with whom they had
to deal, fought for them." Froude, p. 112. Even Mr. Buckle, no friend to the Scottish.
Church, speaks in glowing terms of the turn in affairs, because it " eventually produced. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
101
who had aroused the commonalty or rather called them into
active life, proposed the system of popular education which
afterwards made the Scottish people at large what they
have been at home and abroad in the field, the shop, the
counting-house, at the bar and in the senate—a fairly cultured and eminently intelligent people. The scheme of
Knox was not carried out in its entirety until 1640 when
the first attempt was made, to be fully executed, " finally and
permanently established " in 1696.* Thus Scotland owes
the initiation of its parochial system of education—the
first honest effort to raise the people by general education
made in Europe—and all the beneficent results which
have flowed from it to the same bold hand which rent
asunder the ecclesiastical bonds enthralling the people,
taught them to be independent and free, and pointed out to-
the humblest the path of knowledge and success. John
Knox accomplished a glorious work, not merely for Scotland
but for the liberties of England and of the world, when he
stood face to face with_the Crown, and a time-serving aristocracy and defied them all in the name of God and in the
cause of the people.
In 1565, Mary married her cousin Henry Darnley, son of
the Earl of Lennox ; then followed the Rizzio episode. The
birth of James, the miserable tragedy of Kirk o' Field, the
marriage with James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, the battle
at Carberry Hill, and the imprisonment of Mary at Loch-
levin.    Murray was made Regent, and then came in fated
the happiest results, by keeping alive, at a critical moment, the spirit of libeity."   History
of Civilization, Vol. iii. 681.
* Lecky: History of England, &c, Vol. ii. p. 48. 108
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
order the escape from her island prison, the battle of Lang-
side (1568), the flight over Solway Firth, imprisonment and
ultimately,death by the headsman at Fotheringay. Meanwhile all was danger and apprehension. The Queen had
abdicated and fled to England; her friends were in arms,
and the Spaniards under Alva threatened to land in England. In 1570, Murray, the only honest man amongst the
lay leaders—"the one supremely noble man," was removed by the dagger of the assassin, and no trustworthy
member of the nobility was left.* Knox alone, weak,
broken in body and scarcely able to- stagger up the
pulpit stairs, still thundered in the parish church; and
his voice, it was said, was like ten thousand trumpets, pealing in the ear of Scottish Protestantism. During three
years of civil war, it was the genius of Knox, unaided by
the vacillating and parsimonious Elizabeth, or by the nobles,
split up as they were into factions, which saved Scotland.
At last all was over, and the knell of Mary's cause sounded
in the tocsin, which awakened the perpetrators of St. Bartholomew's massacre. In the same year, John Knox died
quietly in his bed, the deliverer of his country, the bold,
-devout, stern old preacher of righteousness, " who, in his life,
* " The only powerful noblemen who remained on the Protestant side were Lennox, Morton, and Mar. Lord Lennox was a poor creature, and was soon despatched; Mar was old
and weak ; and Morton was an unprincipled scoundrel who used the Reformation only as a
stalking horse, to win the spoils which he had clutched in the confusion, and was ready to
desert the cause at any moment, if the balance of advantage shifted. Even the Ministers
of the Kirk were fooled and flattered over. Maitland told Mary Stuart, that he had gained
them all except one. John Knox alone defied both his threats and his persuasions. Good •
Teason has Scotland to be proud of Knox. He only, in this wild crisis, saved the Kirk which
he had founded, and saved with it Scottish and English freedom. But for Knox and what
he was still able to do, it is almost certain that the Duke of Alva's army would have landed
on the eastern coast."   Froude, p. 114.
mm THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
109-
never feared the face of man," as Morton said at his grave
" who hath been often threatened with dag and dao-aer but
hath ended his days in peace and honour."   He died on the
24th of November, 1572, exactly three months after the
fatal Day of St. Bartholomew.*
After the battle of Langside, and her retreat from-
the field, Mary saw Scotland no more. Without waiting to ascertain what reception she was likely to receive in
England, "she got into a fisher-boat, and with about twenty
attendants (May 16, 1568), landed at Workington in Cumberland, and thence she was conducted with many marks of
respect to Carlisle" (Robertson; History, B. V.). Before the
escape from Lochleven, Murray had been appointed Regent,
and began the work of evolving order from confusion. Mary
had resigned the Crown to her son; but she entertained
hopes of aid from Elizabeth as a sister-queen, who had no
sympathy with rebellious subjects anywhere, still less at her
* Carlyle, in The Portraits of John Knox (p. 180), speaks of the great Reformer as one
who " kindled all Scotland within a few years, almost within a few months, into perhaps
the noblest flame of sacred human zeal, and brave determination to believe only what it
found completely believable, and to defy the whole world and the devil at its back, in un-
subduable defiance of the same." This is the master's view of his character; "Knox,
you can well perceive, in all his writings, and in all his ways of life, was emphatically of
Scottish build; eminently a national specimen; in fact what we might denominate the
most Scottish of Scots; aDd to this day typical of all the qualities which belong nationally
to the very choicest Scotsmen we have known, or had clear record of—utmost sharpness
of discernment and discrimination, courage enough and what is still better, no particular
consciousness of courage, but in all simplicity to do and dare whatsoever is commanded by
the inward voice of native manhood; on the whole a beautiful and simple, but complete
incompatibility with whatever isfalse in word or conduct; inexorable contempt and detestation of what in modern speech is called humbug. Nothing hypocritical, foolish or untrue
can find harbour in this man \ pure, and mainly silent tenderness of affection is in him;
touches of genial humour are not wanting under his severe austerity ; an occasional growl
of sarcastic indignation against malfeasance, falsity and stupidity; indeed secretly, an
extensive fund of that disposition, kept mainly silent, though inwardly In daily exercise;.
a most clear-cut, hardy, distinct and effective man; fearing God, and without any other
fear."   Carlyle; Portraits of Knox, p. 181. 110
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•own doors. Unhappily for Mary, the English Queen was
in one of her ever-recurring fits of perplexity. She had no
deliberate intention to be cruel; but her natural, overpowering desire was to be safe. Therefore, she simulated and dis-
simulated, both at once, or each in turn, as it suited her.
The embarrassment of the situation was, doubtless, trying ;
but the affectation of regard and sympathy for Mary, the
underplotting by which she kept the contending parties embroiled in Scotland, from Carlisle and Bolton to the last sickening scene at Fotheringay in 1587, allis intrigue, darkness,
conspiracy, faithlessness, and perfidy. Murray's purpose as
Regent once more, honest as it no doubt was, had hardly unfolded itself, when he was cut off by the hand of an assassin.
Amongst the prisoners taken at Langside, were six men, distinguished by birth or position, who had been condemned to
death, but pardoned by Murray at the intercession of Knox.
One of these, Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, it was, who fired
at Murray, from a house at Linlithgow, and caused his death
in 1570. Henceforward there was a dreary time of plot,
counterplot, dissension and civil war. Lennox, the father of
the wretched Darnley, fell in fighting the malcontents, it is
believed by the order of Lord Claud Hamilton. Mar, who
succeeded him by the voice of the nobles, an ardent lover
of peace and order, sank under the troubles of that chaotic
period, and died of a broken heart. It was during Mar's
rule, in 1570, that Morton, at heart a traitor and a hypocrite
throughout, made a simoniacal compact with the bishops,
by which the nobles obtained the bulk of the church temporalities and episcopacy was re-established.     Morton him- Mri    I
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Ill
self had secured from the Crown the property of the archi-
episcopal see of St. Andrew's. According to Robertson, he
obtained the appointment of Robert Douglas, rector of the
University, as archbishop, giving him a small annuity, but
retaining the bulk of the wealth for his own use. Other
nobles were anxious to have a share in the church lands,
and the result was an arrangement in 1570, for the re-establishment of episcopacy, ten years after the first General
Assembly by which the Reformation had been accomplished.
Knox, upon whom the hand of death was already laid, protested vehemently against the compact; but he was unable
to attend the meeting, and died in 1572,in his sixty-seventh
year, the bold, courageous and vehement apostle to the Reformation he had been from first to last. The resolution referred to ran in these terms: " That the house and office of the
archbishop and bishop shall be continued during the King's
minority, and these dignities should be conferred upon the
best qualified among the Protestant ministers ; but that, with
regard to their spiritual jurisdictions, they should be subject
to the General Assembly of the Church."
At Mar's death, Morton secured the prize of his ambition,
the Regency, which he retained for eleven troublous years,
from 1570 until he mounted the scaffold in 1581. During
that period the history of Scotland is a mass of confused
negotiations with England, intrigues on behalf of Mar, and
struggles for supremacy amongst the nobles, upon which we
need not enter. Morton was not without administrative
o-enius; but such efforts as he made to settle public affairs
were marred by his unscrupulous ambition, his lack of prin- 112
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ciple, his avarice and extortion. His strong-handed rule
became intolerable, and he gradually arrayed against him the
nobles and the people under Argyle and Athole. James was
young,but,during his whole life,he was swayed by favourites.
Lennoxseemed,in 1580,the rising star; and,in orderto remove
so dangerous a rival, Morton declaimed against him as a foe
to thereformed religion. Therefore, Lennox, with an accommodating conscience, not at all singular amongst the nobles of
the time, listened to some divines sent to him by the King,
• I renounced the errors of Popery, in the church of St. Giles,,
and declared himself a member of the Church of Scotland by
signing her Confession of Faith." All was soon over with
Morton; the King was restive, and Lennox accused the Regent of intending to seize the royal person and fly to England. He was taken prisoner, confined in Edinburgh Castle,
and, under the sinister management of Arran, tried, and
found guilty of complicity in Darnley's death at Kirk o' Field,
fourteen years before. He was beheaded; and his head affixed
to the public iail at Edinburgh.
During Morton's Regency, the second great name on the
roll of the Scottish Church became prominent. If John
Knox was the father of the Reformation in that country, it
was Andrew Melville who stamped upon it its Presbyterian
character with indelible distinctness. Knox had no peculiar
views of his own on Church government; and, although he
declined the archbishopric of St. Andrews, it does not
appear that it was on any ground of Scripture or conscience.
He was anxious to draw as close as might be to the Church
of England, and almost his last signature, "with a dead THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
113
hand, but a glad heart," was subscribed after that of the
Archbishop of St. Andrews* But when Melville reached
Scotland from Geneva in 1574, he saw, with admirable
sagacity and prescience, the drift of civil and ecclesiastical
affairs, and took his measures with characteristic boldness
and vigour. If Melville bearded James VI. as Knox had
confronted Mary, it was because he could detect, in the
King, that twin-headed form of absolutism in Church and
State which the Stuarts strove to impose upon both England
and Scotland. James preached and endeavoured to establish
the divine right of bishops, because he saw in it the mainstay of the corresponding dogma, so dear to his heart—the
■divine right of kings. In 1572 Knox was " taken away
from the evil to come," without, perhaps, having detected the
signs of storm in that heated atmosphere and lowering sky
which was gathering its forces in cloud and tempest.
Andrew Melville arrived to be his successor; an Elisha more
trenchant and uncompromising than the Elijah whose mantle
descended upon him. And it was no common struggle which
he undertook. It meant the battle of freedom, civil and
religious, against absolutism; of moral and spiritual force,
against tyrannical power, which Melville and his colleagues
fought with desperate and stubborn perseverance. It may
suit the canons of modern taste, philosophical or other, to
call that indomitable heroism in faith and fight, bigoted;
but men cannot afford to weigh the proprieties, or be mealy-
mouthed in defining their beliefs or in expressing them, when 114
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the flames of cruelty and persecution, having already singed
their garments, threaten to enwrap their bodies in a fiery
embrace. There is much in the religious literature of those
days to repel, and perhaps offend; but it was not intended
to tickle fastidious palates, or to provoke digestion in jaded
and dyspeptic stomachs. The people of to-day enjoy the
fruits of what such men as Knox and Melville sowed for
them amid storm and mist; and, therefore, so far front
quarrelling with the uncouth husk, we ought to be eternally
thankful to those who,as sturdy husbandmen, committed the
seed to the earth, and invoked upon it the blessing of
Heaven.
Mr. Buckle, although he had but little appreciation for
the henest and earnest conscientiousness of Melville, is-
ready to bear testimony to his " great ability, boldness of
character, and fertility of resource." McCrie, in his biography,
pourtrays the great leader of the second Scottish Reformation in nobler and more attractive colours : " Under God,
save Knox," he says, § I know of no individual from whom
Scotland has received such important services, or to whom
she continues to owe so deep a debt of gratitude as Andrew
Melville." His work, which extended over a quarter of a
century, until his imprisonment in the Tower of London and.
subsequent exile to Sedan, must be rapidly surveyed. In
1575 the question of Church government was raised by
John Dury, it is said at Melville's instance ; but, although,
the latter spoke unfavourably of episcopacy, he acted cautiously as one feeling his way. In 1578, the General-
Assembly resolved that no new bishop should be made, and THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 115
that those at present in possession should be called by their
names and not by their sees. In the same year, the second
Book of Discipline marked the important change which had
come over Scotland since 1560 when the First Book was
compiled, under Knox. That these works are essentially
different admits of no question; yet, as Buckle urges, the
charges of inconsistency in the Presbyterian leaders is
untenable and unjust. | They were perfectly consistent,
and they merely changed their maxims that they might
preserve their principles." In truth, the positions of the
parties had undergone a serious modification. In 1560, the*
nobles, with more or less sincerity, fought the battles of the
Reformation against the Crown and clergy; in 1578 their
intrigues and personal ambitions had alienated the hearts of
the ministers and of the commonalty which preaching, devout-
ness, zeal and fervour, had summoned into existence. The
natural leaders of the people had, in fact, deserted them,
and were involved in plots of infinite variety—plots for their
own aggrandizement, for the destruction of rivals, for the
possession of the royal ear or person, for the restoration of
Mary, and aid from France or Spain, or for the intervention
of Elizabeth. When Scotland was not embroiled in civil
war, it was a hot-bed of conspiracy. All this time the people
had been suffering from a rigorous oppression which was
only too real, and from fears which were hardly less so.
The Duke of Alva had been perpetrating his wholesale
slaughter in the Netherlands, and, in 1572, the massacre of
St. Bartholomew sent a thrill of horror through Christendom,
which aroused even the torpid heart of Elizabeth. The Duke 116
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of Alva was preparing for a descent on Scotland and the
French for an expedition to Leith to seize the capital. The
commonalty, whose hearts and consciences the ministers had
quickened into a new and vigorous life, recognised in them
its only leaders against the cruelty and oppression which
beset them. This confidence, as the event proved, was fully
justified by the zeal and intrepidity of Melville and his
colleagues.
In 1580, at the General Assembly, held at Dundee, with
Melville as Moderator, the decisive blow was struck. The
office of bishop was unanimously denounced as unlawful,
unscriptural, of human invention, and at once to be abolished.
All those who held sees were called upon to resign them or
suffer excommunication. The language employed at Dundee was not finely phrased. The Church knew that it must
expect a conflict and, as the sword was to be drawn, the people boldly flung away the scabbard. In the following year,
so as to test the question,the Crown nominated Robert Montgomery to the Archbishopric of Glasgow. The Chapter refusing to elect, the Privy Council fell back on the royal prerogative ; the General Assembly forbade the Archbishop to
enter Glasgow, and he appealed for aid to the Duke of Lennox, brilpng him with the bulk of the archiepiscopal revenues. The year 1582 was a very notable one in Scotland.
The King ordered the General Assembly not to discuss
the Archbishopric ; but its members were men who knew
not how to flinch, still less how to yield. They summoned
Montgomery, deposed him from the ministry, and threatened
him with instant excommunication.     Fearing for his life. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
117
the Archbishop trembled and yielded, promising not to make
any attempt to take possession of the see. The King and
Arran were enraged ; and, when some resolutions were presented by Melville and the other commissioners, denouncino-
these encroachments of the State upon the Church and seeking redress, | the Earl of Arran," says Howie, " cried out, ' Is
there any here that dare subscribe these articles ?' Melville
stepped forward and said, ' we dare, and will render our
lives in the cause,' and then took up the pen and subscribed." But the Privy Council had material force on their side,
and at once prepared to use it. Dury was banished; some
of the other members were called to account; and more
violent measures were preparing "when," says Buckle, " they
were interrupted by one of those singular events, which not
unfrequently occurred in Scotland, and which strikingly evince
the inherent weakness of the Crown, notwithstanding the
inordinate pretensions it commonly assumed." This event
was known as the Raid of Ruthven. According to the
historians, James was returning towards Edinburgh, after
hunting, when he was invited to Ruthven Castle. Think-
ino- probably that some further diversion might be on foot, he
went thither; but he had sufficient cause for apprehension, as the castle was crowded with strangers and fresh
groups were constantly arriving. The secret was soon disclosed ; James was a prisoner, and remained in durance at
Stirling or Holyrood for ten months. During this period
the popular party had it all their own way; Lennox and
Arran were astounded, and, for the time, paralysed. When
James recovered his liberty in 1583, he found himself con-
as? THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
fronted, not merely by the Presbyterian ministers, but by a
new power, of which he had hitherto formed but a hazy conception—the sturdy adolescence of the Scottish Commons.
The King's release was the signal for a fiercer struggle
which need not be followed in detail. It seems sufficient
to note the altered tone of the popular leaders now that they
had aroused their hearers by many a stirring and often violent appeal from the pulpit. They openly defied the King.
By one he was likened to Cain; another denounced upon
him the curse of Jeroboam, that he should die childless and
that his race should perish with him— a prophetic denunciation unhappily falsified by the event. Simpson, Dury,
Gibson, Black, Welch (Knox's son-in-law) and others were
furious in their declarations, and Melville did not hesitate to
upbraid James to his face of having perverted the laws of
God and man. He even, according to the story " plucked
him, as God's silly vassal, by the sleeve." In 1592 James,
finding himself powerless to resist, re-established Presbytery
in its complete form, and promised to maintain it, with the
mental reservation, which gives its peculiar bias to Stuart
perfidy, that he would break his promise at the earliest opportunity. Melville's struggles with the King extended
over the rest of James' reign in Scotland, and for three or
four years after he ascended the English throne. He was
several times before the Council, yet never yielded one jot
of his principles, even when death seemed certain and imminent. During four years he was imprisoned in the Tower,
the years during which the authorized version of the Scriptures was in process of. making.   The " setting of that bright MM
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
119
occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth," had occurred eight years
before ; and then as the fulsome preface tells us, came 1 the
appearance of your majesty as of the Sun in his strength,"
to dabble in dark and foul matters with Essex, Villiers, and
the rest of that diabolical crew, and when the Bible, as we
have it, emerged with these words of flattery prefixed, in
1611, Andrew Melville was permitted, at the solicitation of the
Duke de Bouillon, to retire to France. ' At Sedan—a name
of renown in more times than one—"the Apostle of Presby-
terianism in Scotland," . as Archbishop Spottiswoode terms
iiim, breathed his last, in the year 1622, having attained the
•good old age of seventy-seven years.
Let us pass over an intervalof some fifteen years to the year
i637, the twelfth of the reign of Charles I. His predecessor
had attempted to restore episcopacy in the fitful way characteristic of his sinister genius; but he was too wary, and had
too much on his hands in England to venture his arm farther than he could draw it safely back. Before Laud
mounted the episcopal bench, James had found it necessary
to restrain him | because he had a restless spirit," and again
and again strove to curb him in a career which ended on the
scaffold*    Charles, however, was a monarch of a different
* After referring to the furious effort made by Laud, James remarks : "For all this he
•feared not mine anger, but assaulted me again with another ill-fangled platform to make
■that stubborn Kirk stoop more to the English pattern. But I durst not play fast and loose
-with my soul. He knows not the stomach of that people. But / ken the story of my
grandmother, tho Queen Margaret, that after she was inveigled to break her promise made
to some mutineers at a Perth meeting, she never saw ' good day,' but from thence, being
much beloved, was despised by all the people." Hackett's Life of Williams, p. 14, quoted by
Dean Stanley: Lectures, p. 80. Perhaps James had received this story from the preachers
in 1583. when they."bade him take heed what he was about, and reminded him that no
•occupant of the throne had ever prospered, when the ministers began to threaten him.'1
.Buckle, vol. III., p. 104.
|n«MBpi 120
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
,T7*
'J
turn of mind. He was stubborn without firmness, craft
without tact, yielding without pliability, placable without
grace or ingenuous feeling. In the hands of William Laud,
he was plastic enough, and that narrow-minded prelate soon
managed every thing ecclesiastical in his own way. In 1626,.
the year after Charles' accession, he was made Bishop of Bath
and Wells; in 1628 transferred to London; and in 1633
raised to the see of Canterbury. On the 23rd of January, 16 37,
the first symptoms of the turbulent "stomach" of the Scottish
people showed themselves in the historical Church of St. Giles,.
Edinburgh. Whether Jenny Geddes really " discharged the
famous stool" at the devoted head of the Dean of Edinburgh,*
and was imitated by ladies or their maids until a volley of
" fauld stools " were hurled at the reading-desk, has been disputed ; yet it is quite certain that a determined resistance to-
the Anglican liturgy was excited on that memorable Sunday,,
by the words, gestures, or actions of some woman or women.
Episcopacy had been nominally restored in 1610, and the free
General Assemblies prevented from meeting; aggression
after aggression had been committed upon the established
faith of Scotland, and the people were determined to submit to these encroachments no longer.    " General causes,"
* "The person whose fervent zeal was most conspicuous on that occasion was a humble
female who kept a cabbage stall at the Town Kirk, and who was sitting near the reading
desk. Greatly excited at the Dean's presumption, this female, whose name was Janet
Geddes—a name familiar in Scotland as a household word, exclaimed, at the top of her
voice, ' Villain, dost thou say mass at my lug,' and suiting the action to the word, launched
the cutty-stool on which she had been sitting at his head, ' intending,' as a contemporary
remarks, ' to have given him a ticket of remembrance,' but jouking became his safe-guard
at that time." Rev. James Anderson : The Ladies of the.Covenant, Introd, p. xix. It is-
added in a note that Janet long survived this incident and kept her cabbage stall so late as
166J. Reference is made to Wilson's Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, Vol. I_
p. 92, and Vol. II. p. 30. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
121
says Buckle, " had made the people love the clergy, and
made the clergy love liberty. As long as these two facts
co-existed, the destiny of the nation was safe. It might be
injured, insulted, trampled upon; but the greater the harm
the surer the remedy. All that was needed was a little more
time, and a little more provocation." The time had been spent
in patient preparation; the provocation came in the attempt
to force the English liturgy—| the black service book," the
peculiar appanage of " foul Prelacy"—upon the people. Riots
began in Edinburgh, and the contagion soon spread over the
country until in the autumn the entire nation had risen in
sturdy resistance. In 1638, "in a paroxysm of enthusiasm,"'
says Robert Chambers, "unexampled in our history," the
National Covenant was signed bv all classes throughout the
country.* It was a national defiance, a religious Declaration of Independence, a solemn protest against absolutism
in Church and State, destined to make its potent influence
felt, not only there in Scotland, but in England, and, in
later ages, over every quarter of the globe. In November,.
1638, Charles I. was prevailed upon to allow a free General
* " It was in the Greyfriar's Church at Edinburgh, that-lJBwas first received, on February
28,1638. The aged Earl of Sutherland was the first to sign his name. Then the whole congregation followed. Then it was laid on the flat gravestone still preserved iu the churchyard. Men and women crowded to add their names. Some wept aloud, others wrote their
names in their own blood; others added after their names 'till death.' For hours they
signed; till every corner of the parchment was filled, and only room left for their initials,
and the shades of night alone checked the continual flow. From Greyfriars' church-yard it.
spread to the whole of Scotland. Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies of it in their
portmanteaus and pockets, requiring and collecting subscriptions publicly and privately.
Women sat in church all day and all night, from Friday till Sunday, in order to receive the-
Communion with it. None dared to refuse their names. The general panic, or the general
contagion caught those whom one should least expect. The chivalrous Montrose, the gay
Charles II., the holy and enlightened Leighton, were constrained to follow in the universal
rush.   Dean Stanley; Lectures, p. 84. 122
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Assembly—the first for twenty years—to meet at Glasgow.
This concession, yielded in consequence of the universal
uprising of the nation, came too late. The Commissioner
was arbitrary, and, on the whole, matters were made worse
by the characteristic tardiness in yielding, the ungracious
manner and want of sincerity manifested throughout that
unhappy king's career. The Marquis of Hamilton, the Royal
Commissioner, first threatened to withdraw, and then ordered
the Assembly to break up. They refused to separate until
they had finished the work, deposed the bishops, and put an -
■end to the " foul sin of Prelacy." Nothing remained but an
appeal to arms. The King repudiated the existing treaty,
and in 1640 the Scots invaded England, with an army of
25,000 men, defeated a detachment sent against them at
Newburn, and took Newcastle. Charles again made an
armistice and proposed a treaty. In 1641, Strafford and
Laud perished along with their policy of " Thorough."
During the autumn of that year the King visited Scotland ;
was lavish in promise and concession as usual, professed to
■conform to the Presbyterian worship, and appointed several
Covenanters to his Council. Then followed "The Grand
Remonstrance," the arrest of the five members and civil
-war in England. It is not too much to assert that to the
religious resistance of Scotland, the first blood drawn by
the Scots on the Tyne, and the example as well as the
invaluable aid they afforded England, the triumph of its
liberties was largely due. Without the stubborn opposition
of Scotland, it is highly probable that Charles might have
continued to trample upon his  rebellious subjects in the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 12 3
south; and thus, as Buckle, Froude, and most modern
historians cheerfully acknowledge, England owes a lasting
debt of gratitude to Knox, to Melville; and to the champions
and martyrs of the Covenant*
The events that followed the outbreak of civil war in
England, from August, 1642, when Charles raised the royal
standard at Nottingham, until his defeat at Naseby, (June
14, 1645), hardly need particular reference here. Most
readers are well aware of the essential service rendered by
the Scots' army. It was they who turned the tide of victory
against the King, and fought side by side with Fairfax and
Cromwell at Marston Moor; and without their aid Naseby
would not have left Charles hopeless and a fugitive to the
land from which he sprang and which, through Wentworth
and Laud, as well as by his own perfidy, he had so deeply
outraged. The last battle of the war was, in fact, fought on
Scottish ground. The chivalrous James Graham, Earl of
Montrose, with his Highlanders, aided by a body of Irish,
had defeated Lord Elcho at Tippermuir near Park, in the
previous autumn. A victory at Kilsyth in 1645 had revived the drooping spirits of the Royalists, and for the
moment placed Scotland in the power of Montrose. But on
the 13th of September, four months after Naseby, Leslie
* See an eloquent passage in Buckle, Vol. iii. pp. 112-114, from which there is only space for
a sentence or two : —" It is also well known that, in the struggle, the English were greatly
indebted to the Scotch, who had, moreover, the merit of being the first to lift their hand
against the tyrant. What, however, is less known, hut is inadvertently true is, that both
nations owe a debt they can never repay to those bold men who, during the latter part of
the sixteenth eentury, disseminated, from their pulpits and assemblies, sentiments which
the people cherished in their hearts, and which, at a fitting moment,' they reproduced to
the dismay, and eventually to the destruction of those who threatened their liberties." See
also Froude's Lecture (Short Studies, pp. 118-121), and McCrie : Lije of Melville, i. p. 302.
it^mmm 124
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
defeated him utterly and irretrievably in the battle of
Philiphaugh; and all was over* The only remaining
episode was the landing of the second Charles, his treacherous dealings with the Scottish Church, and the signal defeat
of the national forces by Cromwell at Dunbar. The inherited faithlessness of the Stuarts had induced' Charles to take
a false oath to the Covenant; the Scots fell into the trap
and suffered for it. During the progress of the civil war,
several important events had occurred, having a direct bearing upon the progress of Presbyterian principles. When
Pym, in Mr. Green's words, "had resolved at last to fling the
Scotch sword into the wavering balance, and in the darkest
hour of the Parliament's cause," the first condition required
by the Scots was " unity of religion." Accordingly, " in St.
Margaret Church," says Dean Stanley, " beneath the shadow
of Westminster Abbey, the Covenant was read from the
pulpit article by article, in the presence of both houses of
Parliament and of the Assembly of Divines. Every person
in the congregation stood up with his right hand raised to
Heaven, and took a pledge to observe it." This notable
congregation vowed to "bring the Churches of God in the
kingdom to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government,
direction for worship and catechizing; that we and our
posterity after us may five in faith and love, and the Lord
may delight to live in the midst of us; to extirpate Popery,
prelacy, superstition, schism and profaneness, &c." -f-    This
* Green : Short History, p. 541.
t Dean Stanley; Lectures, pp. 84, 85.   Green's Short History, p. 534. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 125
agreement was the renowned Solemn League and Covenant.
Of the effort to impose its terms by force it is only necessary to remark that it was in consonance with the arbitrary
spirit of the age. Finally in 1648, the celebrated Westminster Assembly, which had met in the Jerusalem Chamber
since 1643, presented the Confession of Faith, the Larger
and Shorter Catechism and the Directory of Public Worship
which still constitute " the standards " of the Kirk of Scotland and the wide-spreading branches which have sprung
from that common root.
From the Restoration in 1660, almost without pause, to
the Revolution, Scotland passed through the fiery furnace of
one of the most ruthless persecutions that ever disgraced
one nation and tried the heroic faith and endurance of
another. The Scottish Martyrs of the Covenant appear in
no ecclesiastical calendar with the prefixed " St." of canonization ; yet surely if there ever was a hagiology worthy of
special prominence, it is that in which are enrolled those
devoted witnesses and sufferers for conscience' sake in " auld
Scotia." * What Beaton had begun in the old time, and
Laud continued under the first two Stuart monarchs of
England, Lauderdale, Middleton, Sharp and Graham of
Claverhouse finished after the Restoration. In perusing the
bloody record of these terrible twenty-eight years, two
powerful passions struggle for the mastery in any human
soul—the one made up of horror, burning hatred and over-
* See Macaulay; History of England, Vol. I. chaps, ii. and iv. Howie; Scot's Worthies,
Simpson; The Banner of the Covenant. Anderson; The Ladies of the Covenant. Also
The Cloud of Witnesses, and the individual biographies and Church histories treating of
the time. 126
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
powering indignation at the brutal persecutions ; the other
of tender, pitying sympathy and intense admiration at the.
inspiring story of those who were so constant in faith,
fervent in zeal, and heroic in life and unto death. It is
exceedingly difficult to put forward any plea for Charles,
and more especially for James, who was personally responsible for much of the brutality perpetrated—that will pass
muster at the bar of posterity. Charles was not a zealot
like Philip II or Mary Tudor; he could not claim the decent covering of religious conviction for his treatment of the
Scots, since, from first to last, he was a profligate though by
no means a heedless one. There was more method in his
roystering madness than contemporaries gave him credit
for. What his brother James did with the sour face of a
bigot, and in a blundering style that proved his paternity,
Charles, with easy and gentlemanly grace, could surpass.
The elder brother wore the mask of comedy behind which
the threatening grimace of evil 'passion was perpetually at
work upon his countenance. James was not more arbitrary, more treacherous, or more cruel than his brother; but
he wanted the vizor or the paint, and always appeared
the brutal, sensual and unfeeling bigot that he was. Charles
never had any religion at all, unless it were Hobbism which
commended itself to his theory 'of divine right, or the other
epicurean form of worship in which he was engaged on that
fatal Sunday in February, 1685, when he enjoyed his last
orgy at the palace with the Duchesses of Cleveland, Portsmouth and Mazarin. From it he retired to a dying bed, and
made an arrangement with Heaven through the medium of THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
127
Father Huddlestone. Whether in Scotland or in England
his successor was an unmitigated ruffian; cruel for cruelty's
sake, treacherous almost beyond the treachery even of a
Stuart; perfidious, immoral, in every way base, but always
on the surface a zealot, at heart either a conscious or unconscious hypocrite.
These were the men who hunted the simple-minded
Covenanters of Scotland through the glens, over the passes,
into the caves, where these pious Christian men and women
had taken refuge, that they might worship the God of their
fathers, in spirit, in truth, and above all, in peace. Lauderdale, who contributed the final letter to the name of the
infamous Cabal, was the chief agent in the work, after
James had done his part. On one occasion, 8,000 Highlanders, of the wildest and most unruly clans, were let loose
upon the entire south-western Lowlands, to murder, to rob,
to torture and to outrage, as their savage natures bade
them. In May, 1876, the world was excited over the
atrocities of irregular troops in Bulgaria, not authorized
certainly, but connived at and subsequently condoned by a
semi-civilized power. But.two centuries before,in Dumfries
and Wigton especially, deeds were wrought by the agents
of chivalrous and respectably veneered moharchs, in comparison with which the horrors of Batak and Philippopolis
sink to the common-place level of ordinary criminality. Nor
was that all; for, behind the ruffianism of a brutal soldiery
there sat, with a solemn show of justice, a bench of magistrates, whose names it would be grossly unfair to Jeffries and
Scroggs to link together with theirs on the scroll of infamy. 128
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
All the massacres and cruelties were not by any means the
Work of extra-legal agents. Every crime committed in
Galloway, or elsewhere in the devoted district, was sanctioned
by laws solemnly ordained by the Council, and enforced
under such men as Claverhouse, in whose behalf much has
been urged, and whose death at the moment of victory in
the pass of Killiecrankie has done much to throw a glamour
about his name. Prof. Aytoun has sung the praises of the
Scottish cavaliers in 'the Jacobite resistance; but it would
require infinitely more to redeem the memories of Dalyell,
Lagg, Crighton, Bruce and Douglas from the posthumous
hate with which they are weighted down amongst Scotsmen.
The plot, in fact, was of English manufacture, although
its execution was entrusted to a packed Council, and a
degenerate nobility. Puritanism was silent, but not inactive,
in England; for amid the orgies of the Restoration period
there reposed, in fitful and uneasy slumber, the earnest and
quenchless spirit aroused during the Commonwealth. Tn
Scotland and Ireland, however, as Mr. Green observes
(p. 618), it seemed possible to undo the work, and once
more to impose the yoke of absolutism, civil and ecclesiastical. By one statute, | the Drunken Parliament" repealed
every Act passed during the previous eight-and-twenty
years. The Covenant was abolished; the ordinary machinery
of Church government shared the same fate as the General
Assembly, which Cromwell had abolished in a fit of anger
after Dunbar. Episcopacy re-appeared, and prelates sat
again in Parliament.   Under a monstrous perversion of the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
129
law of high treason, Archibald Campbell, Marquis of Argyle,
was beheaded by that ingenious instrument " the maiden,"
an anticipation of the guillotine, and a fresh proof of the
execrable ingenuity which had already made " the boots "
and the § thumbikins " to be the special delights of James.
Argyle was the only noble opposed to arbitrary government,
who appeared likely to be a leader in popular resistance,
■ the proto-martyr to religion since the Reformation." Says
Howie, I in a word, he had piety for a Christian, sense for a
counsellor, courage for a martyr, and soul for a king." i If
ever any was, he might be said to be a true Scotsman."*
And now the crew who set themselves to the task of crushing the religion and freedom of a nation went to work
in earnest. 1 The Government," says Mr. Green (p. 619),
I was entrusted to a knot of profligate statesmen, who were
directed by Lord Lauderdale, one of the ablest and most
unscrupulous of the King's ministers, and their policy was
steadily directed to the two purposes of humbling Presby-
terianism—as the force which could alone restore Scotland
to freedom, and enable her to lend aid, as before, to English
liberty in any struggle with the Crown—and of raising a
Royal army which might be ready, in case of trial, to march
over the border to the King's support." Charles, who had
the soundest head at his Council-board, was no | idler and
mere voluptuary;" on the contrary, he knew how to plot
and plan the means of attaining the crooked ends he had
in view.
* See Howie's biography of Argyle in Scots Worthies, pp. 242-257, and the account of
Margaret, his Marchioness, in Ladies of the Covenant, p. 83. 130
TEE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
At once the dogs of war were let loose upon the western
Lowlands. The record of that fearful period has left a broad,
black mark in history; but what is more to the present purpose, it has left unmistakable traces indellibly stamped upon
the Scottish character. Englishmen look back with horror
to.the period of "bloody Mary," as she has perhaps, considering her unhappy life, been too harshly termed. But
what were the handful of sufferers in the southern kingdom,
as compared with the wholesale butchery, torture and outrage committed in the poor old realm of Scotland ? The
terrible story is related at length, in almost sickening fulness of detail, in Wodrow, upon whom Macaulay and most
other authorities have drawn. In turning over those gloomy
pages, one almost instinctively hopes that the chronicler
may have grossly exaggerated the facts, and dipped his
sombre landscape in Rembrandt tints to some extent for
artistic effect. But alas ! the truth is too dark in itself to
be deepened by the resources of art. Defoe has left a
record of the doings of Claverhouse and Douglas, with their
"troopers, heritors, dragoons and Highlanders," when they
swept Galloway from end to end in search of the hapless
Covenanters. Those poor, pious, unoffending sufferers, for
conscience sake, had been driven from their homes; they
had been forced to worship on moors, in caves, or " anions the
thickets of woodland dells ;" but even there the remorseless
persecutors followed them. " This outrage," says Simpson of
Sanquhar, " on the lives of the subjects was not committed
by armed banditti on their own responsibility. It was committed by the regular military, by the license of the Gov- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
131
ernment of the country."*    He should rather have said, by
the express command of James, whether as vice-regent or
King, and of Sharp and Claverhouse. Many potentates have
been permitted to live and rule, as scourges of mankind;
but James II. was one of the few cruel and bloodthirsty
men, high in place, to whom the spectacle of torture was a
delight for its own sake.  Many other monsters have plied the
rack, the boots, the thumbscrew, and other diabolical contrivances of the sort; but the last Stuart attained the frightful
eminence of positively gloating with delight over the feast of
human suffering he had prepared.    Buckle, no friend to the
Kirk, in an eloquent passage,*!" declaims with power and
generous indignation against this royal miscreant.    Speaking of his odious pleasure in witnessing torture, he says :
■ This is an abyss of wickedness into which even the most
corrupt natures rarely fall."    Men have often been indifferent to human suffering, and ready to inflict pain; " but to
take delight in the spectacle is  a peculiar and hideous
abomination."    When one contemplates James feasting his
eyes, and revelling with fiendish joy, " over the agonies, the
tears and groans of his victims, it makes one's flesh creep
to think that such a man should have been the ruler of millions."  Burnet relates that, although almost all the members
of the Council offered to run away, when " the boots " were
produced, James " looked on all the while with an unmoved
. indifference, and with an attention as if he had been to look
on some curious experiment.    This gave a terrible idea of
* The Banner of the Covenant, p. 17
t Vol. iii. p. 147. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
him to all who observed it, as of a man who had no bowels
nor humanity in him." Nor was the head of the hierarchy,
Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, " a cruel, rapacious man '"
and an apostate to boot, far behind the Duke of York and
Lauderdale in cruelty. Cardinal Beaton, alone of ecclesiastics in Scotland, can be compared with him for the intense
hatred he excited in the breasts of an oppressed people; but
of the two, Sharp was unquestionably the* meaner and the-
worse. In 1668, James Mitchell attempted to put him out
of the way, and in 1679 he was murdered by John Balfour,,
of Burley, and others, at Magus Muir, in Fifeshire, with a
cruelty only to be palliated in consideration of the despairing rage and madness of the times. Inl666, the poor Covenanters made a hopeless effort at resistance, but were easily
crushed at the Pentland Hills. After Sharp's assassination*
the chief actors collected a small force which defeated the-
cavalry of Claverhouse, and made them temporarilly masters-
of Glasgow. But this slight success at Drumclog was in
vain; they had mustered 8,000 men, but were finally routed,
by Monmouth at Bothwell Brig, on the Clyde, at midsummer, 1679.
Reference has already been made to John Graham, the-
" bluidy Claverhouse," as he is still called in every peasant
home in the South of Scotland. No historic figure comes- '
out with greater clearness of outline in the annals of Scotland ; he finds panegyrists in the poetry of Aytoun,and the
prose of Scott; yet neither the author of Tlie Lays of the
Cavaliers, nor the matchless artist who drew Dundee's portrait at full length in Old Mortality, can reverse the sober THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
133
and deliberate verdict of history or efface the dark and
fearful image of the man which fills a skeleton closet of its
own in every Lowland heart. Those who choose may dw^
upon the chivalrous devotion and unquestioned courage of
Claverhouse, or the glorious death which became him better
than almost anything else in his life ; yet the influence of his
career from first to last was undoubtedly pernicious and malign. After both uprisings in 1666 and 1679 his dragoons
were set to their bloody work. Defoe relates that these men,
■" forming themselves into a great army, spread themselves
from one side of the whole country to another, having their
men placed marching singly at a great distance, but always
one in sight of the other; so marching forward every one
straight before him, they by this means searched the rocks,
rivers, woods, wastes, mountains, mosses, and even the
most private and retired places of the country, where they
thought we were hidden; so that it was impossible anything could escape them. And yet so true were the mountain men, as their persecutors called them, to one another,
that in that famous march they found not one man, though
many a good man, perhaps with trembling heart and hands
lifted up to Heaven for protection, saw them, and were
passed by them undisturbed." But in the inhabited country
the slaughter was great. The same author says that Claver-
house alone killed over a hundred "'in cold blood, making it
his business to follow and pursue poor people through the
whole country, and having at his. heels a crew of savages,
highlanders and dragoons whose sport was in blood, and
whose diversion was to haul innocent men from their houses THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
or hiding-places and murther them." Many were slain
whose names and memories perished with them and " multitudes of graves are discernible in the wilds, of which no
account can be given further than that they are the graves
of the martyrs." * Many perished of fatigue, cold and
hunger, whose bones 1 were found bleaching on the moors
after the troublesome times had passed away." It is impossible now to realize, in anything like their fearful truth,
the horrors of that terrible persecution. But even that does
not exhaust the tale. In addition to the work of military
butchery, the civil power was perpetrating deeds of kindred
wickedness under the forms of law. In the works before
cited, the muster-roll of Scotland's martyrs and their piteous
story may be read at length. Macaulay cites a few cases in
his fourth chapter such as those of John Brown, "the
Christian carrier,"*f* Gillies and Bryce. But the most touching story of all is the drowning of Margaret McLauchlan
and Margaret Wilson, the former an aged widow, the latter,
a poor girl of eighteen, a farmer's daughter of Wigtonshire^
Their offence was that they had refused to take the oath
abjuring "The Apologetic Declaration" of the Cameronians*.
their sentence, to be tied to stakes near the sea-shore and so
drowned by the rising tide in the water of Blednoch, an
inlet of the Solway. The widow died first being further
from shore and then occurred the pathetic death-scene ®f the
simple maid which touched the chords of many a heart
* Gibson : The Banner of the Covenant, p. 15.
t Macaulay, quoting Wodrow, states that Brown's widow cried out to Claverhouse in
her agony,—for the latter, in a rage at not finding an executioner had shot him dead like a
dog—"Well, sir, well; the day of reckoning will come." His reply was, "To man I can
answer for what I have done; and as for God I will take Him into my own hands." THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 135
after a lapse of nearly two centuries. The meek, untroubled
calmness of the martyr, the gibes of the troopers, the fruitless
efforts to induce her to recant, and the steadfast courage which
made her victorious in death are not to be read of unmoved.
The maiden's devotions- at that trying hour, the Presbyterian simplicity that strikes one so forcibly in its manner and
order—the Psalm (xxv, 7) in the Scottish version:
" Let not the errors of my youth,
Nor sins remembered be;
In mercy for thy goodness' sake,
4 O Lord remember me, &c."
—the chapter and the prayer which was ended by a benediction from no earthly priest, but came to that pure devout
heart from Heaven itself, all the circumstances seemed to
shed a halo of celestial light upon the maiden martyr's brow
as she Ifittks beneath the wave to realize the beatific vision
cf which she fancied she had caught a glimpse on earth.*
An attempt has thus been made to indicate, rather than
-..race in detail, the rise and progress of the Presbyterian faith
in Scotland. It has not been possible, even were it relevant,
to refer particularly to the many noble confessors, preachers
or sufferers of that faith. Many names will occur to the
reader of Scottish history, which ought to find a place in a
systematic account of its religion, such as those of Richard
Cameron, Samuel Rutherford, Alexander Henderson, Alexander Peden, Patrick Simpson, James Guthrie and James Ren-
wick. But the present purpose being to examine the influences which have made the Scot at home or abroad what he
is it seems sufficient to indicate these influences as they have
I See Anderson; Ladies of the Covenant, p. 427.    Simpson; Banner of the Covenant,
p. 258, &c. 136
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
moulded national character.    Upon the merits of the creed
or form of church government no opinion must be advanced,
still as the question has often been raised, notably by Mr.
Buckle, it seems well, in concluding this chapter, to inquire
whether, on the whole, the Church has been a benefit to the
Scottish people and through them to the world.    With
purely aesthetics! pleas, it is not necessary to deal; but
charges of violence and intolerance have been made against
the Reformers and of narrowness, bigotry, acerbity and
over-bearing interference with freedom of opinion and with
social life in its amenities and amusements.   Dean Stanley
in his Lectures has made some reference to the rather
savage onslaught of Buckle; aud the Church has been well
defended from most of those charges by its authorized exponents.   The writer of the unfinished History of CivilizQ-
tion laboured under the capital defect of not being ablt,
from want of knowledge and want of sympathy, to undeir
stand and appreciate the religious character of the Scottisl
people.    He can defend Knox and even Melville, execrate
the Stuarts, Sharp, Lauderdale and the  other agents oi
oppression; but, strangely enough, appears to suppose that
after the Revolution, the sternness of the discipline, the conn
tracted views of human life and destiny which he attributes
to tiie clergy, and the robust piety of Covenanting times
should have been mellowed all of a sudden and that the
fiery rays which illumined the centuries of struggle and
suffering should have been toned down as though it had
entered " the studious cloisters pale" through
" Storied windows sickly dight,
Casting a dim religious light." THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 137
National character is not modified by legislative unions; it
may pass through vicissitudes which rub off its angles
and divert the forces which together constitute its enerav:
but at bottom the race, and especially the religion of the
race, where it has been forced into prominence, as in Scotland, is seldom altered radically. The characteristics of the
people may take eccentric turns to all appearance; but they
are obedient to law, and that most certain and unerring of
all laws, heredity. The first instinct of the Scottish nature,
wherever found, is the love of freedom, of action, of thrift,
linked closely with a strong and earnest moral sense, and a
•deep reverence for the Maker and Giver of all that is good.
'•Sydney Smith's celebrated mot about the obtusity of the
"Scot's head to pleasantry, is plainly absurd, if, by a joke he
meant anything but that sort of sharp, verbal sleight-of-hand
that passes for what is called wit. The Scot is a born
humorist, full of quiet, paukie, good-natured fun, not often
found so universally diffused amongst all classes of any people.
Dean Ramsay's entertaining Reminiscences show, and it was
necessary, to all appearance, that it should be shown, that
so far from the Scot being the slave of his minister, as
Buckle seems to think, the minister was his slave, his butt
occasionally, and always merely his representative in sacred
things.
Democracy in Scotland was the fruit of long centuries of
painful effort. It involved ages of struggle, endurance,
sorrow and suffering; and to suggest that Scotland, is
<l priest-ridden," in even a greater degree than Spain, is a
paradox which disconcerted Mr. Buckle, but never suggested THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
to him the possibility that his selected data and the conclusions he had determined to infer in advance, were altogether
fallacious. Mr. Froude has well remarked that the Scottish
people are not so gloomy as the philosophical historian
would have us believe; indeed their literature, no less than
their daily life, proves that they are not oppressed by the
alleged gloom of Calvinistic doctrine or pulpit denunciation.
That the clergy 1 thought more of duty than of pleasure,"
one might expect; but that simply shows that their over-
exuberance of animal spirits appeared to religious minds to
require rebuke.* Calvinism, whatever doctrinal or philosophical value it may have as a dogmatic principle, cannot exert
an injurious effect upon a strong-headed, energetic, earnest
and enterprising people. The Turk may be a f atalist, and the
Scot may be a predestinarian; but in the one case there is
the despondency and sluggishness which dispose to inaction,
in the other, the virtue and energy of a race are nerved to
action by a strong moral and religious impetus gathered by
honest and free action, through many generations, as well
as an inexorable sense of duty which forms a feature in the
national type, and is inseparable from it. The Turk leaves
all to destiny; the Scot, according to the injunction of the
great Apostle,    makes his calling and election sure."
* " Among other good qualities, the Scots have heen distinguished for humour—not for
venomous wit, hut for kindly, genial humour which half loves what it laughs at—aud this
alone shows clearly enough that those to whom it helongs have not looked too exclusively
on the gloomy side of the world. I should rather say that the Scots had heen an unusually
happy people. Intelligent industry, the honest doing of daily work, with a sense that it
must he done well, under penalties; the necessaries of life moderately provided for; and
a sensible content with the situation of life in which men are horn—this through the week,
and at the end of it the ' Cotter's Saturday Night'—the homely family, gathered reverently
and peacefully together, and irradiated with a sacred presence. Happiness! such happiness
as we are likely to know upon this world, will he found there, if anywhere." Froude;
Sliort Studies, p. 120. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 139-
The illiberality of I the Kirk § is often insisted upon; but
what would have become of the liberties of Scotland and
England also, and measurably of the world, if Knox had
spoken soft words to poor Mary Stuart, or Melville had
picked phrases when he bearded her son ?* How, when the
■ Stuarts harried the Lowlands, could the people, physically
helpless and under the heel of oppression, have endured like
true disciples of their Master until the end, if a strong faith,
stern and sharply defined, had not inspired and made heroes
of them ? It is a subject of complaint that Scottish religion
is Judaic, and reverts unduly to the Old Testament; what
could you expect of those who have experienced, under a new
dispensation, the trials, reverses, and triumphs of Moses,
David, Elijah, Josiah and all the sacred seers or leaders of
the olden time ? What it concerns us here to note is that,
their ancestral faith has made honest and God-fearing men
of the Scots. There are bad men of Scottish birth, and a.
bad Scot, like an unworthy woman, is sure to appear in an
aggravated form of wickedness—a- result partly flowing
from the exalted pattern set before him, and partly from a
comparison we are apt to make between the pure and good
and those who, through despair or reckless indifference,
have drifted from their moorings, out upon the dark sea of
vice and impiety.
* " Suppose the Kirk had heen the broad, liberal, philosophical, intellectual thing which
some people think it ought to have been, how would it have fared in that crusade; how
altogether would it have encountered those surplices of Archbishop Laud or those dragoons
of Claverhouse 1 It is hard to lose one's life for a ' perhaps,' and philosophical belief- at the.
bottom means a * perhaps,' and nothing more. For more than half of the se^ enteenth
century, the battle had to be fought out in Scotland, which, in reality, was the battle
between liberty and despotism; and where, except in an intense, burning conviction that-
they were maintaining God's cause against the Devil, could the poor Scottish people have- 140 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Where a high standard of morals is kept before a people,
and especially where it is reinforced by the solemn sanctions of a rigid and commanding creed, it is inevitable that
those who leave the strict and narrow path shall wander far
astray.    But that is not the normal action of the Scottish
religion.    Inherited through  centuries, its beneficent and
healthy influences remain in the form of strong earnestness,
a deep sense of duty, high aims and an unfaltering confidence in God and morality, whether in principle or in life.
Dean Stanley quotes two testimonies to the high worth of
the Scottish character from an outside point of view.    The
first relates to the  Covenanters.     "The soldiers of the
•Cameronian regiment," who, says one being among them,
but not of them, g are strictly religious, and make the war
a part of their religion, and convert State policy into points
of conscience.    They fight as they pray, and they pray as
they fight.    They may be slain; never conquered.   Many
have lost their lives; few or none ever yielded.    Whenever
their duty or their religion calls them to it, they are always
unanimous and ready with undaunted spirit  and great
vivacity of mind to  encounter hardships, attempt great
•enterprises, despise dangers, and bravely rush to death or
victory."*    In 1736, when John Wesley visited the Darien
■settlement of Scots, and was greatly shocked at the absence
of a liturgy and of daily church services, | yet," he says,
i it must be owned that in all instances of personal or social
duty, this people   utterly shames   our   countrymen.    In
found strength for the unequal struggle which was forced upon them ?"    Froude;  (as
.before) p. 118.
* Burton, vii. 400. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
141
sobriety, industry, frugality, patience, in sincerity and openness of behaviour, in justice and mercy of all kinds, being
not content with exemplary kindness and friendliness to
one another, but extending it to the utmost of their ability
to every stranger that comes within their gates."* These
testimonies to the essential worth of the Scottish character
might* be multiplied to any extent. The industry, enterprise and thrift of the Scot informed and sustained by
sterling probity, sensitive pride, independence, self-respect
and an abiding regard to duty for its own sake, have made
him an inestimable power for good all the world over
Individual Scotsmen may have renounced the faith of their
ancestors; but they can no more divest themselves of the
inherited traits of character they owe to their country's
religious history, than they can change their form and
features, or the colour of their skin. The inestimable qualities, social and industrial, which have made the people of
Scotland so prominent in almost every land in which they
have settled, are the accumulated results of many ages of
poverty, hardship, toil and suffering, and cannot be effaced
by volition or effort. But the greatest factor of all in any
rierht estimate of that character, and its value in colonists
to British North America or elsewhere, is the moral bent it
has acquired through centuries of severe discipline, and
that is in the main due to the religious element which has
formed the backbone of Scottish history during the last
three hundred years.    On that account, it has appeared
* Wesley's MS. Journal, "communicated  by the kindness of  Dr. Bigg."    Stanley;
Lectures, p. 157. 142
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
necessary to enter at some length into the great struggles
out of which the national genius of the Scot emerged, and
became what it now is everywhere found to be. CHAPTER V.
THE  HIGHLANDERS  AND  JACOBTTISM.
Hail to the chief who in triumph advances !
Honour'd and bless'd be the evergreen Pine !
Long may the tree in his banner that glances
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line !
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Gaily to bourgeon, and broadly to grow,
While every Highland glen,
Sends back our shout agen,
Pvoderigh Vich Alpine dhu ! ho ! ieroe,
—Scott.
When hath the l|fcrtan plaid mantled a coward ?
When did the fine bonnet crest the disloyal ?
Up, then, and crowd to the standard of Stuart,
Follow your leader -the rightful—the royal!
Chief of Clanronald,
Donald Macdonald!
Lovat! Lochiel! with the Grant and the Gordon,
Rouse every kilted clan,
Rouse every loyal man,
Gun on the shoulder, and thigh the good sword on.
—John Imlah.
I was the happiest of a' the clan,
Sair, sair may I repine;
For Donald was the brawest lad,
And Donald he was mine.
Till Charlie Stewart came at last,
Sae far to aet us free;
My Donald's^arm was wanted then,
For Scotland and for me.
Their waefu' fate what need I tell ? —
Right to the wrong did yield ;
My Donald and his country fell
Upon Culloden's field.
—Burns.
HlVkfo attempt to sketch the characteristics of the Scottish
^U^ people can be satisfactory, even in outline, which
fails to make mention of the vigorous Celtic stock of the
mni ww f[|-
144 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Highlands. In Canada, above all—including under that name
the whole of her Majesty's possessions in North America—it
is essential to take this element into deliberate account. Whether the British North America colonist be a farmer, a mechanic, an artisan, a manufacturer, a merchant, a ship-owner,
a professional man, a statesman or otherwise, he is associated
in private and public intercourse with members or descendants
of almost all iihe clans. Everybody here rubs elbows with
fellow toilers in the hive, or knows public men of distinction,,
who trace their descent to the land of mountain and flood, glen
and tarn, moor and heather. The names of Maclean, Macleod,
Mackenzie, Macpherson, Macfarlane, Mackinnon, Macdonald,.
Macdougall, Mackintosh, MacNab, Mackay, MacLachlan,.
MacGregor, MacNeill, Maclntyre, Campbell, Fraser, Robertson, Cameron, Sutherland, Chisholm, Stewart, Munro, Ross,.
Grant, Farquharson, Gunn, Forbes, Menzies, and many
others are as familiar to all Canadians, as if they were indigenous to the soil in this new land of ours. Unfortunately
it would be obviously impossible within the limits of a brief
chapter to do more than attempt to seize the salient points
in Highland character, leaving an examination of its actual
value, in this country, to the fuller survey of the Scot's
work which is to follow.
It has been already remarked that a considerable ethnical
element from the Norse kingdoms was, from time to time,
absorbed in the north-western portion of the Highlands—including certainly the shires of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross
and Inverness. Still the entire country must be viewed as
pertaining to the dominant Celtic race, and in the main> THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
145
exhibiting its idiosyncrasies. To define the Highlands of
Scotland geographically is not an easy task since its boundary is not physical, but social, lingual and what is usually
called political. An elaborate work on " The Highlands of
Scotland" to which the writer is considerably indebted,
traces the Highland limits thus:—| This definition assigns
to the Highlands all the continental territory north of the
Moray Firth, and all the territory both insular and continental, westward of an easily traceable line from that firth to
the Firth of Clyde." * This line begins at the mouth of the
Nairn and proceeds irregularly, forming in its progress a
rudely-convex series of bends, impinging upon Aberdeen,
Perth, Forfar and Stirling, thence due south-west to the
Firth of Clyde in the parish of Cardross.
The influence of Scotland upon progress and civilization
is altogether a marvel, considering the odds against her,
when she entered the contest. Taken altogether the
country is barren in soil; it is small, and its populSion has
always been sparse, scarcely able to keep pace with the
great Babylon on the Thames. And when the fearful succession of ordeals under which Scotland has passed are
taken into the reckoning, one almost wonders that, in all
quarters of the globe, they are foremost in adventure, enterprise, industry and staunch adherance to duty. The Highlander differs from the Lowlander in several important
points. His life is more rugged, and his notions of man
and nature seem simply the  result of conditions forced
* A History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans and Highland Regiments, &c,
«dited by John S. Keltie, F. S. A. Sec, in two vols. Edinburgh and London: 1875.
im 146
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
upon him by that life. Locked up amid the wild scenery
of those romantic shires, and especially upon the Isles of
which Thomas Campbell wrote in Mull:
" Far different are the scenes allure my wandering eye :
The white wave foaming to the distant sky ;
The cloudy heaven, unblest by summer's smile;
The sounding storm that sweeps the rugged isle,
The chill, bleak summit of eternal snow,
The wide, wild glen, the pathless plains below,
The dark, blue rocks, in barren grandeur piled,
The cuckoo sighing to the pensive wild. '
—the Highlander became a philosopher and a poet, as some
one has said of Scotsmen generally, " cultivating all the
virtues upon a little oatmeal." The ordinary notion of the-
Highlander which comes down, in bogie form, partly the
result of ludicrous terror, and partly of mental confusion,,
takes the corporeal form of a dapper bandit, with round,
bonnet, belt, kilt and buckled shoes. Pinkerton describes
some weird practices which may, or may not, have existed
as relics of Paganism, mingled with mediaeval Catholicism,
and now and again turning up in strange contiguity with
.Presbyterianism. Mr. Lecky has summed up some of these
survivals of the unfittest, one of the latest being the summoning of the clans | to war by the fiery cross dipped in
blood with those mystic rites which the great Scotch poet
has made familiar. As late as 1745 it was sent round Loch
Tay by Lord Breadalbane to summon his clansmen to support the Government" *
* Lecky; England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol ii. p. 301. It may be remarked
that the whole of Mr. Lecky's chapter v., in so far as it relates to Scotland, and especially
the Highlands, is valuable for the amount of research displayed by tjhe author, as well as.
for the generally impartial deductions from the facts at his command. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
147
It is not by romance or poetry, however, though these
have been the fruit, in abundance, of Highland life and
adventure, that one may gauge fairly the latent power
which was pent up in those glens. The Celt is always a
being of the brooding and reflective sort, as the Chaldeans,
the Arabians, and all pastoral nations have been since recorded history committed its first syllable to the keeping ot
wood, clay, stone or metal. Unfortunate as it is in one
regard, the imaginative and thoughtful side of the Scottish
Celt have lost their philosophic aspect in the picturesque
scenery upon which he played his miniature drama, and the
bold, brave, reckless daring which broke its bounds and
poured down upon the fertile South in raid and romantic
adventure. Border history seems to have been forgotten in
the modern conception of the Highlander. Men have lost
sight, except in ballad, of Robin Hood or of Jack Cade, not
to speak of even ignoble heroes like Dick Turpin, Cartouche,
or Robert Macaire. The Highlander was never an outlaw in
his own country; on the contrary, he was a law unto himself, and his code, on the whole, considering the times, seems
to have been a strict one. He has been accused of | reiving,"
of stealing black cattle, and so on; and yet no man was
ever more strongly imbued with the spirit of integrity than
he was in the conventional code of his age. No man ever
surpassed him in honour, bravery, and fidelity, because to no
man would he yield in battle, and never did his fealty or
loyalty fail. There may be differences of opinion concerning
the clan system which was not confined to the Scottish
Highlands.    It was prevalent in Ireland under the name of -"I
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
septs, and in the Lowlands it was fully established in the
great ballad era of the Border * The clan system was in
fact an extension of the family, and those who rejoice in its
practical disappearance under the Act for the abolition of
hereditary jurisdictions by the Pelham Government in 1746,
ought to pause before condemning it, during the centuries
when it was the only possible bond of cohesion between
men, in a society like the Highlands, competent to secure
even a measure of order and authority.
The two prime virtues attributed, and justly attributed,
to the Highland clans are fidelity and courage. Now conscious
dishonesty is incompatible with honour or fealty in any shape,
whatever the somewhat hackneyed saw about thieves may say.
The Celtic Highlanders in their hereditary divisions, formed
so many petty nationalities, which were in continual warfare
either in leagues, or separate tribes. They had no king but
the chief; and, in the wild country they inhabited, there
was no law but the strong arm. Modern statesmen seize
territories, appropriate revenues, and parcel out empires
under the ostensible pretext of preserving their integrity
and independence. In old times the chiefs simply ordered
the lifting of black cattle, an indiscriminate slaughter where
it was necessary, and that was the end of it. It was thus
with most of the Highland raids in early times; and in the
beginning of last century, Rob Roy was always under the
protection of a chief of his own  or another clan.f    The
* See Keltie: History of the Scottish Highlands, Vol. ii. p. 116. Also Scott and Veitch
in their works on the Border and Border Minstrelsy.
t "Of the extraordinary impotence of the law in the early years of the eighteenth
century, even in the southern extremity of the Highlands, we have a striking instance in THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 149
Highland robbery, so-called, was in the first instance simply
a belligerent operation—one with which all great conquerors
have been familiar. In fact it was a sort of via media,
between robbing a hen-roost, and ravaging a kingdom. The
evidence that the Highland raid was regarded, not merely as
no crime, but even as praiseworthy and laudable, is clear
both from history and from romance, which is occasionally
quite as trustworthy. There was a distinction between the
"lifting" of sheep and cattle, which was not without its meaning ; there_was a feeling of utter abhorrence for robbery, pure
and simple. Captain Burt, who travelled [from England
with only one servant, was well-known to have a very large
sum in gold about him, and yet had perfect confidence in
Celtic integrity. Finally the Highlander never took anything, on pain of death, from a friendly clan, and never
made a business of cattle-raiding save upon the Lowlands
against which it would have been easy for him to frame an
hereditary bill of complaint. When he engaged in a "descent
upon the Lowlands, he was able to pray for success in good
round pious phrases, compared with which Plantagenet,
Hapsburg, Napoleonic, Hohenzollern or Romanoff's canting
invocations appear like the mincing petitions of a May-fair
vicar on behalf of a rose-water bridal party. Although the
Celt was clearly culpable, according to our conceptions of
the career of Robert Macgregor, the well-known Rob Roy. For more than twenty years he
carried on a private war with the Duke of Montrose, driving away his cattle, intercepting
his rents, levying contributions on his tenants, and sometimes, iu broad daylight, carrying"
away his servants. He did this—often under the protection of the Duke of Argyll—in a
country that was within thirty miles of the garrison towns of Stirling and Dumbarton, and
of the important city of Glasgow, and this although a small garrison had been planted at
Inversnaid for the express purpose of checking his depredations. He at last died peacefully on his bed in 1736, at the patriarchal age of eighty.   Lecky: History, Vol. ii. p. 28. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
morality, he was conscious of no wrong; and in his backward state of culture and the poverty and hardness of his
life might have pleaded, had he known it, the example
of the ancient Spartans and of all the vigorous races'
of Europe at a similar stage of development. Had it not
been for their free mountains, their barren moors and
their inaccessible glens and caves, they would have been
crushed or exterminated like their Celtic brethren in England, or across the Irish Sea. If they were guilty of barbarous excesses in the Stuart persecutions, more atrocious,
perhaps, than those connived at, and rewarded, by a European power in Bulgaria, the sin must not be laid to their
charge, but at the door of those who let them loose upon a
peaceful people, with deliberate instructions to torture and
to slay.
Let us look at their fidelity. In James the Fifth's reign
when Murray suppressed an insurrection of the Clan Chattan,
two hundred of the rebels were sentenced to death. "Each
one as he was led to the gallows was offered a pardon if he
would reveal the hiding-place of his chief; but they all
answered, that were they acquainted with it, no sort of punishment could induce them to be guilty of treachery to their
leader. Innumerable cases of this unwavering steadfastness
of faith occurred during and after the '15 and '45, amongst
the Erasers, the Macleans, the Macdonalds and the Macpher-
sons. One must suffice. In 1745, the home of Macpherson,
of Cluny, was burnt to the ground by Royal troops, and
a reward of £1,000 offered for his arrest. The country
was scoured by soldiers ; and | yet for nine years the chief THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
was able to live concealed on his property in a cave which
lis clansmen dug for him during the night, and, though
upwards of one hundred persons knew of his place of retreat,
no bribe or menace could extort the secret; till, at last,
wearied of the long and dreary solitude, and despairing of
pardon, he took refuge in France."* It is hardly necessary to
refer to the wanderings of Charles Edward through the High-
lands and Islands for five months with a reward of £30,000
upon his head, known, as in South Uist, by hundreds at a
time, helpless and at the mercy of any one whom lucre could
tempt; and yet far safer than some of his ancestors had
been at Holyrood or St. James's. The names of Malcolm
Macleod, Macdonald of Kingsburgh, and the heroic Flora
Macdonald who " built herself an everlasting name " wher-
•ever the romantic storv of the '45 is told.*f* James Ho£
"the Ettrick shepherd, embalmed her memory in "Flora
Macdonald's Lament," from which the temptation is strong
to quote one verse :
" The target is torn from the arm of the just,
The helmet is cleft on the brow of the brave,
The claymore for ever in darkness must rust,
But red is the sword of the stranger and slave ;
The hoof of the horse, and the foot of the proud,
Have trod o'er the plumes on the bonnet of blue ;
Why slept the red bolt in the breast of the cloud,
When tyranny revell'd in blood of the true ?
Farewell, my young hero, the gallant and good,
The crown of thy father^B torn from thy brow ! "J
* Lecky : History of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. pp. 32. 33.
t Keltie: History of the Scottish Highlands, vol. i. chaps. 36 and 37, where a very full
and interesting account of Culloden and subsequent events will be found.
{ Flora Macdonald was the daughter of Ronald Macdonald, of jplltown, in South Uist,
■one of the most distant of the Welferii Isles. She was born about 1722, and died in Skye in
4790, being buried with the sheet used by Prince Charlie, as her shroud. See a very interesting biography of her by a granddaughter pulffl&hed at Edinburgh (new edition), 1875. 152
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Of Highland bravery, what need to expatiate when
addressing an English-speaking race ? What part of the
world does not bear testimony to Celtic valour on a hundred
battle-fields ? The hardy life of the Highlander, the free
bracing air of mountain and loch had marked him out as a
soldier, reared, though not disciplined, by Nature herself.
The people of the Lowlands, from their peculiar history and
surroundings no doubt, as Mr. Lecky says, shared their high
military qualities to the full extent. 1 Great courage, great
power of enduring both privation and pain, great fire and
impetuosity in attack, were abundantly shown; but the
discipline of a regular army was required to add to these,
that more than English tenacity which has placed the
Scotchman in the first rank of European soldiers."* The
clan system had of course inured the Highlanders to the
toils of war, and in the seventeenth century, the great
leaders could bring large numbers into the field. Thus we
find that some of the chiefs could muster men by thousands.
In 1764, a muster was made of about 10,000, and General
From the earliest period she was a Jacobite, and remained so to the last.    Her earliest
recollections were songs breathing hatred to the Sassenach.   Two lines are preserved;
" Geordie sits in Charlie's chair;
The de'il tak him for sitting there,"
Years after, when "the lost cause" was beyond recoveiy, she would never so much as
name George III., and when her son spoke of him as His Majesty, she slapped him soundly,
saying she would hear nothing of " soft Geordie" (p. 385). As Dr. Johnson said, she left.
I a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, men
tioned with honour." In the work deferred to, there is an admirable portrait of the Highland heroine; ard, as Johnson describes her, we can readily believe that Bhe had " soft
features, gentle manners and elegant presence."
* Lecky, Vol. ii. p. Si. Mr. Lecky has heard one of the most eminent English surgeons state*
as the result of his experience, that he found a wide difference in the power of enduring
pain shown by patients from different parts of the British Empire, and that he has usually
found his Scotch patients, in this respect, greatly superior to his English and to his Irish,
ones.   Ibid. note. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
153
Wade states the rebel Highlanders at 14,000, and the
loyal at 8,000 in 1745. A song called I The Chevalier's
Muster Roll," enumerates the chiefs and their clans ; these
lines may serve as a sample :—
" The I^aird o' Macintosh is comin',
MacGregor and Macdonald's comin',
The MacKenzies an' MacPherson's comin',
A' the wild McRaes are comin',
Little wat ye fa's comin',
Donald Gunn an' a's comin'," &c*
The Union, under Anne, in 1707, was at the time exceedingly
unpopular in Scotland for many reasons. There was the
absorption of that dearly-prized nationality for which the
Scots had fought so hard; and besides differences in religion
and laws between the two countries, the superior wealth
and also the heavy national debt of England, made the people of the north strongly averse to the measure. And even
long after it had been consummated, and the benefits flowing
from it had discredited the augury of ill, there was a strong
undercurrent of dissatisfaction which even influenced Smollett and Scott. It cannot be doubted that the anti-Union
feeling all over Scotland imparted some of that galvanie
energy which temporarily gave vitality to the dying cause
of the Stuarts. This broke out, as everyone knows, at the
death of Anne, the last monarch of that arbitrary, faithless,
and ill-fated house. The rising in 1715, and its collapse
at Sheriffmuir, and the more formidable outbreak under
Charles Edward, the march to Derby and the final defeat
bv 1 the butcher Cumberland " at Culloden, are events which
James Logan: The Scottish Gael: or Celtic Manners, pp. 77-78. 154
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
need not be rehearsed here.* Were all the histories swept
■out of existence the story of " The Forty-Five " could never
die, while the songs of the Jacobites and the poems of many
a Scottish bard linger in the memories of the people. One
of the satirical pieces, | Cumberland's and Murray's descent
into Hell," is not so generally read, and ifc certainly exhibits
* The battle of Sheriffmuir was not a victory either for Mar or Argyll, yet its effects was
to extinguish the Chevalier's hopes. The following verse from Hogg's " Jacobite Relics " is
■quoted in The Scottish Highlanders, "vol. i. p. 464;—
u There's some say that we wan, and some say that they wan,
And some say that nane wan at a', man;
But one thing I'm sure, that at Sheriffmuir,
A battle there was that I saw, wan;
And we ran, and they ran, and they ran, and we ran,
But Florence ran fastest of a', man."
By | Florence " is meant the Marquis of Huntly's steed.
Amongst the individual heroes on the Highland side, Golice or Gillies Macbane is conspicuous. He was six feet four inches and a quarter in height, and of prodigious strength.
At Culloden, being beset by a party of dragoons, he placed his back against a wall, and
though covered with wounds, defended himself with target and claymore. Thirteen of the
foe were struck dead at his feet before he succumbed. The Scottish Highlanders, Vol. i. p.
•666. In The Scottish Gael, p. 96, his memory is preserved in a poem attributed to Lord
Byron, and as it is not often met with, the reader will be be pleased to see it here.
" The clouds may pour down on Oulloden's red plain,
But the waters shall flow o'er its crimson in vain :
For their drops shall seem few to the tears for the slain,
■ But mine are for thee, my brave Gillies Macbane.
§ Though thy cause was the cause of the injured and brave,
Though thy death was the hero's and glorious thy grave;
With thy dead foes around thee, piled high on the plain,
My sad heart bleeds o'er thee, my Gillies Macbane!
" How the horse and the horseman thy single hand slew.
But what could the mightiest single arm do?
A hundred like thee might the battle regain ;
But cold are thy hand and thy heart, Gillies Macbane !
" With thy back to the wall and thy breast to the targe,
Full flashed thy claymore in the face of their charge;
The blood of their tallest that barren turf stain ;
But alas! thine is reddest there, Gillies Macbane !
| Hewn down, but still battling, thou sunk'st to the ground,
The plaid was one gore, and thy breast was one wound;
Thirteen of thy foes by thy right hand lay slain;
Oh ! would they were thousands for Gillies Macbane ! M<
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA
I wealth of diabolical fancy, hate and humour combined
which make it irresistible. These are the concluding
verses:—
" Ae deevil sat splitting brumstane matches,
Ane roasting the Whigs like baker's batches ;
Ane wi' fat a Whig was basting,
Spent wi' frequent prayer and fasting,
A' ceased when thae twin butchers roar'd,
And hell's grim hangman stop'd and glowr'd.
' Fy, gar take a pie in haste,
Knead it of infernal paste,'
Quo' Satan ; and in his mitten'd hand,
He hyert up bluidy Cumberlanc
And whittled him down like tow-kail castock
And in his hettest furnace roasted.
Now hell's black table-claith was spread
Th' infernal grace was reverend said ;
Yap stood the hungry fiends a' owre it,
Their grim jaws gaping to devour it,
When Satan cried out, ' fit to scunner,
Owre rank a judgment's sic a dinner !'"
The brutality of a royal general whose deeds could call forth
so terrible a stroke of concentrated detestation, must have
itself been fearful, and such it certainly was. Maddened
by the defeat of Hawley at Falkirk, in January, 1746, the
Duke of Cumberland, who might have been content with
an inglorious victorv, in which he fought a starving and
dispirited enemy with more than twice its numbers, began a
course of vindictive reprisals which have earned for him the
' Oh ! loud, and long heard shall thy coronach be,
And high o'er the heather thy cairn we shall see,
And deep in all bosoms thy name shall remain,
But deepest in mine, dearest Gillies Macbane !
1 And daily the eyes of thy brave boy before,
Shall thy plaid be unfolded, unsheathed thy claymore;
And the white rose shall bloom on his bonnet, again
Shall he prove the true son of my Gillies Macbane." 156
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
name of I the Butcher." All that Lauderdale and his crew
had wrought, on behalf of the Stuarts, was now perpetrated
upon the romantic spirits who championed the lost cause,
and the courageous men who desired in their own way to
answer the question " Wha'll be king but Charlie ?" Thus
Scotland suffered at Glencoe under William IIT., as well as
at and after Culloden, on behalf of the Stuarts.
With 1746 the agony was over, and, although there were
riots occasionally over unpopular imposts, there has been no
warfare in Scotland since. The intrepid Celt has fought
the battles of Britain in every clime wherever the Union
Jack has been unfurled; and the courage of the Highlander,
was, by a happy inspiration, turned into a noble channel.
Those gallant regiments, whose numbers of themselves arouse
the British heart with memories of distinguished prowess,
were formed only a year or two after the Rebellion. Culloden was fought on April 16th, 1746, and only twelve
years after, the 79th Highlanders took part in the siege of
Louisbourg, and on the 12th of September in the following
year, the Fraser Highlanders mounted the heights of Abraham and played the foremost part in the taking of Quebec*
The merit of forming the Highland regiments is usually
given to the elder Pitt; but he can only be credited with
realizing a brilliant idea. It was Duncan Forbes, of Culloden,
a man of splendid powers, unfortunate in not being favoured
with a wider stage upon which to display and develop them,
* The heights themselves took their name from Abraham Martin, dit VEcossais (sur-
named the Scot), a pilot on the St. Lawrence in the time of Champlain, a century and a
quarter before the conquest of Quebec. See Le Moine : Quebec, Past and Present. Note
p. 21; also Murdoch's Nova Scotia, vol. i. p. 95.
IL THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
15-i
who first proposed to Robert Walpole the scheme which
Pitt afterwards carried out in practice with such glorious
results. It is impossible here to summarize the gallant
achievements of the Highland regiments in the British
army or the famous names associated with them." The 42nd
or " Black Watch" arose apparently out of a tentative effort
of the Government in 1729 ; their first action was fought
at Fontenoy, 1745, and their latest combat in Ashantee,
1873. As the original Highland regiment, the words of the
" Garb of Old Gaul" have an appropriate connection with
the subject of this volume, a few verses therefore- are
selected :—
" In the garb of old Gaul, with the fire of old Rome,
From the heath-covered mountains of Scotia we come ;
Where the Romans endeavoured our country to gain,
But our ancestors fought and they fought not in vain.
" Quebec and Cape Breton, the pride of old France,
In their troops fondly boasted till we did advance,
But when our claymores they saw us produce,
Their courage did fail, and they sued for a truce.
| Then well defend our liberty, our country and our laws,
And teach our late posterity to figbt in freedom's cause,
That they like our ancestors bold, for honour and applause,
May defy the French, with all their arts, to alter our laws."
It was in the 42nd that Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde,
was Colonel. The London Highlanders were another old
Highland Regiment, but they were reduced after the loss of
o. o ? is
Bergen op Zoom and the peace of 1748. The Montgomery
Highlanders, the Frasers, who were prominent at Quebec,
forming the old 78th and 71st, the Keith and Campbells or
old 87th and 88th, Johnstons, Keiths and a number of
others have passed across the stage and played their gallant 168
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parts, only to disappear by reduction or amalgamation. Of
the existing regiments best known to fame are the 71st
formerly the 73rd or Macleod's Highlanders, the 72nd or
Duke of Albany's, the 78th or Ross-shire Buffs, the 79th or
Cameron Highlanders, the 91st now called the Princess
Louise Argyleshire Highlanders, the 92nd Gordons and the
93rd Sutherlands. Burn's "son of Mars," rather a roystering
specimen, however, like most of the first Scottish soldiers
in the British army began their service in America in the
life and death struggle with France .*
From the Seven Years' War until now, the Scots, and
largely the Highlanders, have constituted the flower of the
British fighting stock. Their valour has been displayed
alike in Egypt, the Crimea, India, the Peninsula, Canada
or America, Abysinnia, Ashantee or wherever else the voice
of duty called them.
Much of the poetry and chivalry of Highland History is
bound up with the Stuart cause, and gathers about such
distinguished names as those of Dundee and Montrose. But
it may be well to remind the reader here that the cause of
the Whig and the Covenanter was by no means a dull and
unheroic one.    The illustrious house which has stood for
* In the same singular medley the reader  of Burns is also treated to a view of tha
Highlander of the old time in the song of the " raucle carlhi ":—
" A Highland lad my love was born,
The Lowlan' laws he held in scorn ;
But he still was faithful to his clan,
My gallant braw John Highlandman.
With his phillibeg an' tartan plaid,
And gude claymore down by his side,
The ladies' hearts he did trepan,
My gallant braw John Highlandman.
Sing hey, my braw John Highlandman, &&"* THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ages at the head of the clan Campbell should be held in
everlasting esteem and remembrance for its unfaltering and
steadfast adherance to the sacred cause of liberty, civil and
religious. There are weak and dark spots in the history of
all noble families, and yet, taken altogether, there is none
which will bear closer scrutiny, than the house of Campbell
of Argyll, I The Mac Cailein M6r," Lord of Lome, Lochow,
and Inverary. Now that our gracious Sovereign is represented in her fairest colony by the heir of this ancient and
noble family, who brings with him, as an additional claim,
upon Canadian loyalty, a Princess, in whose veins flows the
blood of Scotland's royal race, it may not be amiss to glance
episodically at a few members of the fine from which His
Excellency sprang. With genealogical or heraldic considerations it is unnecessary to meddle here, and, therefore, the
first name of note to be mentioned is that of Sir Neil Campbell, son of Cailein M6r, who fought by the side of Robert
the Bruce, and obtained the hand of his sister Mary. Sir
Colin Campbell, a name since illustrious, in our day, in far
distant fields, was his son, brave and impetuous to rashness.
In 1445 the head of the family became a Scottish peer, and
sat as Lord Campbell, and in 1457, Colin Campbell became
Earl of Argyll. The Argylls always figured conspicuously
upon the stage of public affairs in Scotland, and invariably
on what posterity has adjudged to be the right, if not the
picturesque side. Three.who bore the Gaelic title of Mae
Cailein Mdr obtained special distinction. Archibald, eighth
Earl, and first Marquis of Argyll, the rival of Montrose,
stands out in bold relief, both for his firm adherence to 160
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
principle, and his tragic death, as a French writer has observed, like one of " the heroes of Plutarch." He was as
chivalrous as his great opponent; and, although no bigot,
he opposed the Episcopal system and the liturgy, and ad-
ered to the Covenant. He was no foe to the monarchy, however, and his most strenuous efforts were put forth to keep
the wayward Stuarts in the right path. Against Montrose,
aided by a savage band of Irish raiders, he fought and lost
the battle of Inverlochy in 1645, which was followed by the
complete rout of the Covenanters near Kilsyth. At Philip-
haugh, in the same year, the gallant Leslie defeated Montrose, but Argyll, who deserved some amends from fortune,
had no share in the victory. The Marquis did all that was
possible, even up to the time of the King's surrender, to save
the Royal fortunes, and he had nothing to do with the surrender of Charles to the English Parliament. It was he
who crowned Charles II. at Scone, and no one could have
been more lavish in his promises to him than the merry,
unstable and faithless King. | Whenever," said he, | it
shall please God to restore me to my just rights, I shall see
him paid £40,000 sterling, which is due to him." This,
and all other scores, were wiped out when Charles caused
the great noble's head to be struck off on a false charge of
treason, in May, 1661, at the cross of Edinburgh. According
to Wodrow, Argyll's piety set Charles against him as far
back as the coronation at Scone. On one occasion he kept
the young King till two or three in the morning in religious
conversation and prayer. j The Marchioness said plainly
that that night would cost him his head—words which, as THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
161
has been shown, proved too true."* It is hardly necessary
to remind the reader of Scott that this is the Argvll who
figures in the early chapters of The Legend of Montrose.
Archibald, his son, was destined to prove a victim to that
bloodthirstier of the last two Stuart kings, the second James.
In Charles' reign, James went down to gloat over the
I boots I and " thumbikins; " and, of course the head of the
Campbells was too conspicuous a Whig to be allowed to
escape. In 1681 he was prosecuted in the ffisticiary Court
by the Royal advocate vulgarly known am " Bluidy Mackenzie." In spite of Court pressure, however, the judges
were so closely divided, that Lord Nairn, who had been
superannuated, was brought in to turn the scale. By the
affectionate ingenuity of his daughter-in-law, Lady Sophia
Lindsay, he escaped, after his conviction, disguised as
her page. From Holland, Argyll made the fatal movement
at Charles' death, which was unhappily premature. In the
epitaph which he wrote on the eve of his execution, there is
if not poetry, at least prescience and " an heroic satisfaction of
conscience, expressed in them, worthy of the cause in which
he fell."    The lines are these :—
i On my attempt though Providence did frown,
His oppressed people God at length shall own ;
Another hand, with more successful speed,
Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head.
Though my head fall, that is no tragic story,
Since, going hence, I enter endless glory."
So perished the most illustrious of the noble army of Covenanting martyrs.*f*
* See an interesting brochure published by Hogg, of London, at the time of the marriage
of His Excellency, the Marquis of Lome and the Princess Louise.
t See McCrie, Wodrow, and Howie's Scots Worthies, also Anderson's Ladies of the Covenant, and Dodds' Fijty Years' Struggle of the Scots Covenanters, 163S-88.
K 162
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
The great John Campbell, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, who appears to such advantage as the patron of Jeanie
Deans in The Heart of Mid-Lothian (chaps. 35-38 and chap.
48), has left perhaps the strongest impression upon the popular Highland mind of all his line.   He was supreme in Scotland ; as the strongest bulwark of the House of Hanover ; in
England his claim upon Government was, of course, indisputable from the first.  He was a soldier, moreover, and had distinguished himself in Flanders under Marlborough.    In the
first Rebellion of 1715, Argyll fought Mar at Sheriffmuir
with rather questionable success.      When all   was over,
however, he immediately took up his natural position as
intercessor for   his  misguided   countrymen;    and it has
been well-observed that   if   the   counsels  of   Ian Roy—
John the  Red, as he  was called by his clan—had been
followed,   the '45 would   never have sent  England into
a cowardly  panic.    At the Porteous Riots he had some
difficulty in managing matters in London ; and the speech
which Sir Walter Scott has merely transcribed, best describes the man as he appeared to himself and those who
knew him: " I am no minister, I never was a minister, and
I never will be one.    I thank God I had always too great a
value for those few abilities which nature has given to me,
to employ them in doing any drudgery or any job of any
kind whatever."*   The Duke's well-known retort to the
able, and almost great, Queen Caroline, then Regent during
one of the second George's absences on the Continent, shows
clearly the commanding attitude Argyll  felt himself en-
* Heart of Mid Lothian, ch. xxiv. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 163
titled to hold as the representative of the Scottish people.
When the Queen, in a moment of not unnatural indignation,
after the Riots, declared that | she would turn Scotland into
a hunting-seat," the Duke coolly replied, "if that be the
case, madam, I must go down and prepare my hounds." In
his later years, the Duke broke with Sir Robert Walpole
and formed a member of the coalition which caused the
downfall of 1 The Great Commoner" in 1742. In the October
of the following year John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich
died and was interred in Westminster Abbey. That he
must have been a great, as well as a good man, we have the
testimony of those who were of his friends as well as ours
—Pope and Thomson; we know him best through Scott;
but his real character is more indubitably fixed by the place
he holds in the affectionate traditions of the Highland
people on both sides of the Atlantic. Of the other branches
of the Campbells, it is not necessary to write at length. All
of them from the Breadalbanes down have distinguished
themselves in war and peace. Amongst those who bore the
name, the Campbells of Inverawe were one of the most
ancient collateral branches and one connected in later days
with Canada. The Inverawe branch came of the old Neil
Campbell stock which fought with Bruce, fought with
Argyll against Montrose, and poured forth its energy into
the British service when the national troubles were at their
height. It was Duncan Campbell of Inverawe who raised
" The Black Watch," and he with his only son perished at
Ticonderoo-a, fiVnting the French in the war of the Conquest.
The Major's great nephew, another Major Campbell, seignior THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
of St. Hilaire, in the Province of Quebec, was also a gallant
soldier, and for some years M. P. for the County of Rouville.
The Highland aptitude for peaceful and industrious
labours was not discovered until long after the Union. But
so soon as tranquillity was definitively assured, hereditary
jurisdictions were abolished, education disseminated, roads
constructed, and new avenues for the restrained energies of
the Celts opened up; then a new era dawned upon them.
They had always possessed many kindly traits of character,
love of kindred, hospitality, tenderness to the helpless and
unfortunate ; but their real power as honest toilers was never
fully proved until they went forth, some of them driven out
that a lord might make a sheep-walk or a game preserve,,
to the Dominion in which, still cherishing the Gaelic of their
fathers, they have made a name for themselves and their
race, far from the hoary mountain, the rushing torrent, and
the awesome moor.
The literature of the Highland people is far too extensive-
a subject to be touched on here. The pensive imagination
which breathes through the poems handed down in the
Celtic tongue is the outcome of nature attuned to loneliness, upon dark mountains, under a chilly star-lit heaven.
I The seat of the Celtic Muse," says Sir Walter Scott, in
Waverley (ch. xxii.), " is in the mist of the secret and solitary hill, and her voice in ^he murmur of the mountain
stream. He that woos her must love the barren rock more
than the fertile valley, and the solitude of the desert better
than the festivity of the hall." The music of the Highlands
has, in its brightest moods, an undertone of sadness; even the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
165
pibroch has borrowed some of its basic power from the wail
of the coronach. It is this imaginative and meditative
spirit which has passed over the philosophy of all Scotland,
percolating through the husk of all the creeds, and saturating the national mind with a seriousness which evolves
energy, not despair, and a dignity of self-respect and a stern
feeling of responsibility which makes men at once devout,
affectionate, thoughtful, loyal and true in whatever station,
or in the discharge of whatsoever duty Providence may
assign them. Mr. Lecky, in the work often quoted, has
pointed out the essentially beneficial contribution made by
the Highlanders to the national character in a few sentences
with which this chapter may not unfitly conclude:—" The
distinctive beauty and the great philosophic interest of that
(the Scottish) character, spring from the very singular combination it displays of a romantic and chivalrous with a
practical and industrial spirit. In no other nation do we
find the enthusiasm of loyalty blending so happily with the
enthusiasm for liberty, and so strong a vein of poetic sensibility and romantic feeling qualifying a type that is essentially industrial. It is not difficult to trace the Highland
source of this spirit. The habits of the clan life, the romantic
loyalty of the clansman to his chief, the almost legendary
■charm that has grown up around Mary Queen of Scots, and
round the Pretender, have all had their deep and lasting
influence on the character of the people. Slowly, through
the course of years, a mass of traditional feeling was formed,
clustering around, but usually transfiguring facts. . . .
The clan legends, and a very idealized conception of clan -1
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virtues, survived the destruction of feudal power; and the
pathos and the fire of the Jacobite ballads were felt by
multitudes long after the star of the Stuarts had sunk for
ever at Culloden. Traditions and sentiments that were
once the badges of a party, became the romanceof a nation;
and a great writer arose who clothed them with the hues of
a transcendent genius, and made them the eternal heritage
of his country and of the world."    (History ii., p. 99).
■w THE WOMEN AND THE HOMES OF SCOTLAND
All hail, ye tender feelings dear !
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since this world's thorny ways
Had numbered out my weary days,
Had it not been for you.
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In every care and ill;
And oft a more endearing band,
A tie more tender still.
-Burh
0, I hae seen great anes, and sat in great ha's,
'Mang lords and 'mang ladies a' covered wi' braws
But a sight sae delightful I trow I ne'er spied,
As the bonrde blythe blink o' my ain fireside.
My ain fireside, my ain fireside,
O sweet is the blink o' my ain fireside.
Nae falsehood to dread, nae malice to fear,
But truth to delight me, and kindness to cheer;
0' a' roads to pleasure that ever were tried,
There's nane half sae sure as one's ain fireside.
My ain fireside, &c.
Glens may be gilt wi' gowans rare,
The birds may fill the tree,
And haughs hae a' the scented ware
That simmer growth may gie;
But the cantie hearth where cronies meet,
An' the darling o' our e'e
That makes to us a warP complete,
0, the ingle side's for me.
—Hew Ainslie.
v 'HE wholesome sphere of the domestic affections is co-ex-
(SA   tensive with humanity, and their influence is happily the property of no single race or nation.   Still, as in 168
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
other cases, the peculiar form they take, as- well as the
purity and fervour of their manifestations, varies considerably, according to the genius, the temperament, the history,
and the general social habits of different peoples. Napoleon
declared that the need of France was mothers, and a distinguished French writer states that nothing in England
struck him so forcibly as its homes. Now any attempt at
comparing the capacities for the highest ideals of domestic
life exhibited in different countries would be futile, even if it
were successful. Still it may be well to note that the value
of any people as colonists and civilizers will always depend
upon the character and social position of its women. Female
influence is so intertwined with man's every-day life, and is
so much an ordinary blessing, that it is too much the habit
to take it as a matter of course; its value, like the value of
light, air, or any other mercy which comes down from the
Father of Lights, is never gauged and prized as it should be,
until its loss is felt in absence or bereavement. At other
times woman and her works and ways are too often treated
with the flippant or contemptuous quip, or, what is still more
offensive to the refined and sensitive, with the high-strained
and fulsome compliment, not yet out of fashion.
In Scotland, many circumstances have combined to give
the female element large opportunities for home development, and not a few for conspicuous public action. All
those historic influences which have moulded the national
character—the invasions, the prolonged wars, foreign and
intestine, persecutions and raids from the mountains or
the Border—whilst they tended to keep everything else in THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
169
a state of solution, strengthened wonderfully the bonds of
domestic affection. The love which welled up in the strong
and passionate heart of the Scot could only find solace and
satisfaction at the trysting place or the home fire-side.
Hence the fervour of the poetry of Scotland, especially that
branch of it which deals with the affections. Deprived of
peace elsewhere, with stunted ambitions, and a life made up
of toil, suffering, povertv, and apprehension, the people
naturally sought and found their happiness within the
household. Burns expresses the general feeling when he
■says :
" To make a happy fireside chime,
To weans and wife—
That's the true pathos, and sublime
Of human life."
poets and romance writers—from Burns, Scott, Hogg, Ramsay, Tannahill, Gait and innumerable others, is eminently
vivid and realistic. In the absence of any wider sphere of
action, home assumed a prominent place in the thoughts of
•Scotsmen, not often traceable in countries where the heart
has so many claimants upon its notice and regard. In the
poems of Burns, the whole gamut of love is mastered and
•employed in weaving the most exquisite melody. Is it
simple admiration for women, what can be finer than the
well-worn song 1 Green grow the rashes, 0 " ?
" Auld nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, 0 ;
Her 'prentice hand she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses, 0."
From that light vein of generous appreciation, all the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
notes in the weird symphony of human affection are tried in
turn, with marvellous power until we reach to the height of
the poem " To Mary in Heaven," or the concentrated volume
of pathos of the verse in the lyric " Ae fond kiss before we
part: —
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met and never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted."
Of conjugal affection, the song, " Of a' the airts the wind
can blaw," short as it is, it gives full expression. He is
speaking of Jean Armour, his wife :—
I see her in the dewy flowers,
Sae lovely, sweet and fair ;
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
Wi' music charm the air ;
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonnie bird that springs
But 'minds me o' my Jean."
Throughout the songs of Burns, the same intense wealth
of affection shines with sterling lustre. There is another side
to the picture, alas! but there the living man, and not the
poet, was at fault. For the most part his songs are full of
healthy, strong human affection, embracing all mankind,
but garnering itself up peculiarly in the closer attachments
of the heart. "The Cotter's Saturday-Night," and "The
Epistle to a Young Friend " reveal the inner self of the wayward bard. As it was from life, and lovingly, he depicted
the pious home and simple Presbyterian family worship in
the one, so from a sad experience, which had taught, but not
enforced, wisdom, he wrote:— THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
I The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt the illicit rove,
Tho' neathing may divulge it;
I wave the quantum of the sin,
The hazard o' concealing,
But, och ! it hardens a' within, •
And petrifies the feeling !"
Others may better " reck the rede, than ever did th' adviser," yet one feels a yearning sympathy for that true-
hearted man, whose spirit was so willing, and his flesh so^
very weak. Penitent, cautious self-control, which, in "The
Bard's Epitaph," he calls " wisdom's root," was not given to>
him. The words of that self-indited coronach are keen and.
worth the reading more than once.
" Is there a man whose judgment clear,
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs himself, life's mad career
Wild as the wave ;
Here pause and through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn, and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name !"
Dean Stanley has said that the struggle in Scotland during
this century has been a conflict of the spirit of Knox with the
spirit of Burns. Is it quite certain that such an antagonism
really exists ? If it were possible—and perhaps for an outsider
it is not—to analyze dispassionately the phenomena of the
two centuries, during the latter part of which these " representative" Scots left the scene, it would be found that both of
them were diverse developments of the same type of charac- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ter—bold, self-reliant, proud, disdainful where there was anything despicable, fiery, impetuous, independent. Knox was
recalcitrant, so was Burns; but the energetic enthusiasm of
the latter, his fine poetic temper, and the strong predominance
of social feeling and passion in his nature made him a rebel
against the restraints of Church or public opinion, even when
at heart he approved of them. The war in his members
never ceased, and if any one really supposes him to have
determinedly posed as an enemy to the Presbyterian spirit
of Knox or Melville, he has only to study his letters, and
then compare his poems, as a whole, gross or refined, with
the conscienceless sensuality of Byron.
Burns has naturally claimed a foremost place in the poetry
of the affections; but there are others who have struck the
•celestial lyre in strains not less exalted, in their inspired
moments. In the Border Minstrelsy there are so many
touching ballads of hapless love, that it would be hard to
select any without extending this chapter unduly. Professor
Murray cites specially "The Lass of Lochroyan," 1 Willie
and May Margaret," "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow"; but
one cannot but agree with him that " Fair Helen of Kir-
•connell" is unrivalled in impassioned anguish of expression.
It is Adam Fleming the, favoured lover—at whom his rival
aimed the shot which poor Helen, in shielding her lover,
received in her breast—who sings 11 wish I were where
Helen lies," in the plaintive strains of the ballad. The rage,
the revenge, the love stronger than death, and even lono-ino-
for it, succeed one another to an admirable and touching THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
173
climax.    The broken-hearted wail of the concluding stanzas
is deeply pathetic:
" I wish my grave were growing green ;
A winding-sheet drawn o'er my een,
And I in Helen's arms lying
On fair Kirconnell lee.
I wish I were where Helen lies !
Night and day on me she cries,
And I am weary of the skies,
For her sake who died for me !"
On the brighter side of youthful love, there is, says Professor Murray, a remarkable susceptibility to the emotional
influences in nature. The loves celebrated in these sonars
are commonly associated with beautiful scenes; and thus
Maxwelton Braes and Kelvin Grove, Gala Water and the
Yarrow, The Bonnie Woods of Craigilea, and the Birks of
Aberfeldy, as well as a hundred other spots, have attained
something like a classical fame.* Still it will generally be
found that the human interest, as might be expected, overshadows delight in the beauty of external nature; and, in
all the poetry worthy of note, that of Burns and Scott included, there is hardly a trace of lonely communion with
the world around. One of the best specimens of amatory
poetry in this vein, is Hogg's " When the Kye comes hame.'"
He had, undoubtedly, a keen eye for nature, and here each
verse hints some aspect of the rural scene with the delight
of wooing a bonnie lassie.
"Tween the gloamin and the mirk,
When the kye comes hame."
Hector Macneills \ Mary of Castlecary " is a gem in its way,.
* Prof. Murray: The Ballads and Songs of Scotland, p. 79. 174 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
far superior to the 1 Edwin and Emma " of the ballad and
of Goldsmith. Then there are Tannahill's "Jessie, the Flower
of Dumblane," Motherwell's " Jeanie Morrison," Lyle's
"Kelvin Grove," and innumerable others that will readily occur to the reader. In the pathetic view of social and
domestic life, Smibert's " Scottish Widow's Lament,"
Thorn's "Mitherless Bairn," Ballantine's "Naebody's Bairn,"
with that simple little childhood lyric 1 Castles in the Air,"
also Ballantine's, are noteworthy.
Scotland's poetic roll, however, has been made illustrious
above measure by the names of an unprecedented number
of female lyricists.* At the head of these stands unquestionably Caroline, Baroness Nairne, whether the versatility
of her genius or the marked individuality of her style, be
taken into account. But to enumerate the female poets
chronologically we must begin with Lady Grisell Baillie,
"the bravest of all Scottish heroines," whose romantic life
extended from 1665 to 1746. Her poetic fame rests on one
song, a pathetic wail over a wasted "might have been."
The refrain gives its name to the poem and is repeated in
the last line of this, the concluding verse :—
" Oh ! were we young as we ance hae been,
We should hae been gallopin' down yon green,
And linkin' it ower the lily-white lea;
And werena my heart licht I wad dee."
Allan Cunningham remarked that this sonc is " verv
original, very characteristic and very irregular; but Lady
Grisell's life was rather out of the common.    She had the
* Authorities -.'The Songstresses of Scotland,  by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson; and
the biographical notes in The Scottish Minstrel„by the Rev. Chas. Rogers, LL.D. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
175
cares of a household laid upon her, when a child. The
mother was a confirmed invalid and Grisell was the eldest
of the eighteen children of Sir Patrick Home, afterwards
Earl of Marchmont, who was always in a stew of political
trouble in those early days. The heroine of the house was
sent upon errands, not usually considered domestic. Her
father and her future husband's father were in trouble with
the Stuart rulers. The former escaped to be enobled; the
latter suffered for treason when George Baillie was nineteen
and Grisell only eighteen. It would be curious to know
something of the love-passages between these companions in
adversity, when she went to the Tolbooth to see his father,
or he stole forth to carry food to Sir Patrick, in the family
tomb of Polwarth, lying on a mattress, "among the mouldering bones of his fathers, with his good Kilmarnock cowl
drawn well over his brow, defying the cold, as he whiled
away the time in repeating George Buchanan's Latin
Psalms," * the grand text-book by the use of which the
Dominies of those days combined classical Latinity, with a
due regard for religious training. Sir Patrick went over to
Holland, arid, as luck would have it, was on the side that
turned up right at the Revolution. But there was a terrible
time, meanwhile. Poor Grisell had " the heavy end of the
string to bear," and bore it, as only such a brave little
. woman could. The story of her trials and triumphs has
been written by her daughter, and no one can read without
rsjoicing that the noble heroine, who sacrificed so much for
kith and kin, lived, through many troubles, a life of peaceful
* Songstresses of Scotland, Vol. i. p. 3. 376 THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
equanimity and died only eight years after the lad who was
destined to be her husband and the father of her children.
At her death she said that " she could die in peace, that all
she desired was to be with George Baillie"—and so she
died*
When Lady Baillie had about reached middle age, the
writer of the most powerful expression of conjugal love in
any language, was born at Greenock. Jean Adam's long
life was a sore struggle with poverty. She early ate
the bread of dependence, tried to keep a school for little
girls, made a pilgrimage on foot to London, like Jeanie
Deans, though upon a different errand, and at last died in
the workhouse, the day after her name had been entered on
the books as 1 a poor woman in distress, a stranger who had
been wandering about." Jean Adam was the author of
I There's nae luck about the house"; yet she died without
even knowing the rapturous affection she described, or tasting aught of a mother's joys. " The last verse," say the authors of the "Songstresses" (Vol. i. p. 48) is the climax of the
whole—the ineffable melting of the tremulous laughter into
a sudden storm of tears, all glistening as they temper the
sunshine of the heart,—
"And will I see his face again ?
And will I hear him speak ?
I'm downright dizzy with the thocht,
In troth I'm like to greet,"
followed up quickly by the recovered bell-like ring,
"3Tor there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck at a',
There's little pleasure in the house,
When our good man's awa'."
*Jbid, p. 14. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
177
Two years after Jean Adam | was born in the sea-captain's
house at Crawfordsdyke," Alison Rutherford, better known
as Mrs. Cockburn, first saw the light in the mansion-house
of Fairnalee near .Gala water and the Tweed. She lived
during the greater part of the eighteenth century—from
1712 to 1794—and was long the centre of. the cultured
society of Edinburgh. The biography given by the authors
of the I Songstresses" extends over more than one hundred
and forty pages; it should be read by all who desire a more
intimate acquaintance with one of the most lively, versatile,
humorous and thoroughly happy women who ever adorned
the capital of any country. Her letters are full of shrewd
and pungent remarks upon society, literature, politics, religion and almost every other topic of interest in her eventful
time from the '45 to the French Revolution. Written in a
pleasant, chatty style, they disclose considerable critical
power, keen discernment of character, and an accurate insight
into the men and doings of the period.* Our authors observe that "in Alison Cockburn's long career—which was
long enough to make her a connecting link between the
Edinburgh of Allan Ramsay and Burns and the Edinburgh
of Scott—her house was the rallying-ground, while she herself was a queen of the literati of Edinburgh." ( Vol. i. p. 179.)
As a poet, she is chiefly \ known as the writer of another
" Flowers of the Forest," the most popular rendering of the
theme.    The refrain in the alternate verses, the " Flowers of
* Her letters to David Hume are especially noteworthy, and it may be added that she had
no tinge of Jacobitism, unlike most of the literary ladies of the time. 178
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the Forest" are g a' wede away" reminds us of one already
quoted.    The first verse runs thus:—
" I've seen the smiling
Of fortune beguiling;
I've felt all its favours, and found its decay :
Sweet was its blessing,
Kind its caressing;
But now 'tis fled—fled far away."
The author of | The Flowers of the Forest" was unquestionably Miss Jean Elliott in the first place, and nothing;
certainly can exceed its tenderness and simplicity. In every
respect it surpasses the treatment of the same theme by
Mrs. Cockburn:—
"I've heard them lilting at our yowe milking,
Lasses a' lilting before the dawn o' day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaming—■
The Mowers of the Forest are a' wede away."
Jean Elliott lived from 1727 to 1805, and died an old maid!
Miss Susan Blamire is chiefly known as the writer of the
popular song, " And Ye Shall Walk in Silk Attire." Jean
Glover, who wrote the pretty song | O'er the Muir Amang
the Heather," which opens thus:—
" Comin' through the craigs o' Kyle,
Amang the bonnie bloomin' heather,
There I met a bonnie lassie
Keepin' a' her flocks thegither."
was an Ayraiire peasant girl, | with a desperate strain of
gipsy wildness and recklessness in her temperament." Like
the Ayrshire ploughman, she had a quarrel with the strict
discipline of the time ; married a strolling player, and died
in Ireland at the early age of forty-two. Mrs. Elizabeth
Hamilton, the  author of that grand  domestic lyric—the THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
179
Home, Sweet Home of Scotland—" My Ain Fireside," was
Scottish* by blood, nurture and education, though born in
Ireland. It gives the best exposition of domestic life among
the Scottish people, and the warmth and power of their
home affections. Lady Anne Barnard (1750-1825) came of
the ancient race of the Lindsays of Balcarres; but she owes
no celebrity to her ancestors, since she immortalized herself
in "Auld Robin Gray."
Carolina Oliphant, Baroness Nairne, lived from 1766 till
1845, and, on the whole, must be placed at the top of any
list of Scotland's female poets. She was born in the mansion-house at Gask, in Perthshire, between the Grampians
and Ochils, with Ben Voirlich for its landmark. Singularly
beautiful in youth, she was' known as 1 The Flower of
Snathearn." The work she performed for Scottish poetry
was partly original and partly in the way of refining the
coarse songs in vogue amongst the people. As many of her
songs serve to show, Lady Nairne was strongly Jacobite in
her feelings, and the " Charlie " poetry, owes much to her
pen. Her most pathetic piece—one which can never die
while human bereavements point the way to an " eternal
hope "—is I The Land o' the Leal,"
" I'm wearin' awa', John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I'm wearin' awa'
To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, John,
There's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair in the land o' the leal."
and so to the last hopeful glance towards the "warkb
ayont"— 180
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
" Oh ! hand ye leal and true, John,
Your day it's wearin' thro', John,
And I'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Now fare ye weel, my ain John,
This warld's cares are vain, John,
We'll meet and we'll be fain,
In the land o' the leaL"
Lady Nairne's versatile talents embraced a wide range, for
we may pass from the paths of this glimpse " behind the
veil I to the serio-humorous " Caller Herrin'," and thence to
the broad fun of " The Laird of Cockpen." The number of
songs she either wholly compiled, or materially altered and
embellished, is considerable, including the " Lass of Gowrie,"
I The Bonnie Brier Bush," I My Ain Kind Dearie, 0," " Kind
Robin Lo'es Me," 1 0 Wae's Me on My Ain Man," " Saw Ye
Nae My Peggie," "The Auld House" (Gask), "Here's to
Them That are Gone," " The Mitherless Lammie," and a
version of " Gude Nicht and Joy be Wi' Ye A'." Besides a
number of comic songs, there is the Jacobite series, including
" Wha'll be King but Charlie ? I " Charlie is My Darling,"
I He's Ower the Hills that I Lo'e Weel," and " WiU Ye No
Come Back Again ? " The attachment to " the lost cause "
runs more or less through most of Lady Nairne's lyrics;
but her strong wealth of wifely and domestic affection is the
salient feature in her noblest efforts.
Joanna Baillie's name is well known in literature, on
both sides of the Tweed, for she lived from 1784 to 1851 in
London, when she died at the age of eighty-nine in England.
A good deal of her Scottish poetry was like Lady Nairne's,
merely a re-cast and purified setting of olden verse. Among
her best-known lyrics are " Fy, Let TJs A' to the Wedding," " THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 181
" Houly and Fairly," « The Weary Pund o' Tow," " Saw Ye
Johnnie Comin'," "It Fell on a.Morning," | Woo'd and Married and A'," &c. Of the many other female minstrels of
the North may be mentioned Mrs. John Hunter—wife of
the celebrated surgeon and anatomist—the author of " My
Mother Bids me Bind my Hair," and other short pieces ; Mrs.
Grant of Carron ! 1 Roy's Wife of Aldivalloeh "; Mrs. Dugald
Stewart, wife of the philosopher: " The Tears I Shed Must
Ever Fall" : Mrs. Agnes Lyon: " Neil Gow's Farewell to
Whisky "; Miss Graham: " The Birkie of Bonnie Dundee ";
Isobel Pagan j " Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes" (written
before Burns' song of the same name); Miss Mary Campbell:
"The March of the Cameron Men"; Miss Ogilvy: "The
Gloamin' Horn " ; and Mrs. Isa Craig Knox, who has written
the I Burns' Centennial" poem, " The Brides of Quair,"
" My Mary an' Me," and a number of other lyrics. The
contributions to Scottish poetry by its women, gentle and
simple, are unprecedented in the literary annals of any
country; and they are almost uniformly of sterling merit.
Naturally enough the affections form the most prominent
feature in these poems, as they do in those of their
brother bards. The same glow, purified, under the gentle
and mellowing influence of the female type of thought and
feeling, is common to both. There'is no mistaking the true
womanly character of the poems alluded to, but they have
all the fire, energy and pathos of the male singers, with
more of the chaste and pensive tone of colouring, which sets
off the intrinsic beauty of womanhood in manly eyes. The
men of Scotland must have been heroic and love-worthy, or 182
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
the women who displayed so deep and fervent a flow of
love, wifely, maternal and patriotic, could never have
expended it, in all its fulness, upon them. The great names
that have come down to us in history and literature, represent but feebly the domestic life of the Scottish people.
There are memoirs, letters, anecdotes, verses from which we
can gather an inkling into the essentially pure, peaceful,
happy, and nobly-contented little world in the Scottish
home. But since moderns render their verdict upon a
people, as school-boards pay the master, according to results,
the moral tone of the contemporary Scot, at home or in
Canada, ought to be the crucial test of what the mothers and
the homes of the land were through the struggling centuries,
and not less in the years of peace, plenty, and advancement,
which have succeeded.
If the men in the old time fought and suffered like heroes, their wives and daughters were strong, brave, Christian
heroines. In public affairs, the women of Scotland always
took an exceptional part. It was the wife, the mother or
the sweetheart who decked the Highland clansman, and
sent him forth with strong words of cheer to the conflict.
And in the Lowlands, the wife of the noble, the landowner,
or the statesman, was no cipher in his councils or his work.
To read of the struggles during the Reformation troubles,
the fierce conflict with the Stuarts after the Reformation, or
the Jacobite risings under the first two Hanoverian mon-
archs, is to note the silver thread of womanly courage, perseverance, astuteness and inventive affection which lightens
the dark warp and woof of  the texture woven in these THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
183
rough looms; once, only, does there appear to have been any
discord in all the struggles of husband and wife, so strong
was the bond of domestic attachment in Scotland. The
story of the wife of Grainge, a Lord of Session, is a melancholy and, happily, an exceptional one. She had been suspected of abstracting state papers—an offence not considered
heinous in the Foreign Office now-a-days—and her husband
and son actually carried her off by night on a fishing vessel,
and immured her alive on the lone island of St. Kilda, beyond the outer Hebrides, where she lingered for thirty years,
till death released her.* But, invariably, with this exception, wherever the student may turn, he will find the
wife and mother the cherished adviser, ally and effective help-meet of the husband and father, reviving the
•despondent, emulating the courage of the brave, and employing her subtle instincts where the lion's skin, as Richelieu said, must needs be eked out by the foxes. When their
lords left the castle, the women of Scotland did not sit at
home, wringing their hands and mumbling dismal laments
in monotones. They were northern Elizabeths on their
little Thames, not content with progresses to Tilbury Fort
in war, or to Kenilworth in times of peace. They appeared,
for the nonce, as lords of the heritage, could muster and
harangue retainers, rebuke insubordination and vice, and
defend their homes at the head of their people, with a
•calm vigour of determination which inspired the brave
with new courage, and made a true man of the coward.
•Canadians may find at least one noble example of mod- ■WI
184
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
est intrepedity, in the hour of danger, in the glowing account
of Mademoiselle de Vercheres, in Parkman's " Count Fronte-
nac, and New France under Louis XLV* What the heroine of that defence against the Iroquois approved herself, the
Scottish ladies often were at many a trying exigency. No
steward or lieutenant in those perilous times could serve his
lord, as the faithful wife, his second self, could serve him.
when danger knocked at the postern.
All through the desperate period from the Restoration,
the women of Scotland suffered with patience, or withstood
violence by calm and constant bravery, or with those illimf-
table resources which were suggested by the inspiring energy of religious faith and female affection. In those dark
times when violence, with hoof of steel and heart of stone,,
rode rough shod over the land, and trampled out its freedom
andj independence, the grandeur and the pathos of Scottish home life, whether in castle or cot, shone out with
something of celestial brightness. Whether it were Margaret Wilson at the stake below high-water mark, or Lady
Caldwell on the Bass Rock, or Mrs. Veitch, in suffering more
than mere bereavement from the Dragoons, the same heroic
spirit, the spirit of an earnest piety, which was a part of
themselves and of their life, sustained them in tribulation,
and in death. The words of heavenly assurance and solace-
came into the inward ear, and found responses through
the tremulous voice in the words of the Psalm (xliii, 5.)
" Why art thou then cast down, my soul
What should discourage thee ?
Farkman : Frontenac, page 302. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 185
And why with vexing thoughts art thou
Disquieted in me ?
Still trust in God ; for him to praise
Good cause I yet shall have ;
He of my countenance is the health,
My God that doth me save."
That man is to be pitied whom prejudice, or want of generous human enthusiasm, has rendered dead to the story of
these times—the abiding firmness of its men, and the unflinching faith, love and tenderness of its long-suffering and
noble-hearted women.*
The desperate efforts made by Lady Argyll to secure her
husband's pardon; the supplications of her daughter to
Middleton—one of the gang of oppressors—for her father's
life, and the Earl's temporary escape in disguise from Edinburgh Castle, by a wife's stratagem, are something of a piece
with much that was done in Jacobite times by Lady Niths-
daJe and others on behalf of the Stuart partizans near and
dear to them. In every rank of society, during the troubled
history of Scotland, from Marjory Bruce downwards, the
intelligence, the faith, the ardent and unquenchable affection
of its women have stamped their impress not only upon the
history, but upon the character, of the Scottish people.
There, if anywhere, the woman, whether acknowledged as
man's equal or not, has established her claim to be so bound
up in his life as to render any question of superiority or
precedence an idle quibble. In war and peace, in the stronghold, in the cottage, in the cave or the prison, in the hall or
* Anderson's Ladies of the Covenant, has already been often cited; and it must be
again referred to here, as an admirable collection, of facts in proof of the noble courage and
strong religious fervour and domeplc affection of Scotswomen. 186
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
.at the modest ingle, she has been his better self, heroic and
undaunted in danger, patient during sorrow or suffering,
i a ministering angel" in the long-drawn hours of darkness
and distress. That the eminently noble type of women
which history, romance and poetry concur in finding north,
of the Tweed should have failed to exercise its normal influence upon the national character can hardly be conceived.
Like produces like; and even variations in development,
though they may tend to deterioration, never alter spiritually the main features of the plan wrought out in broad outline during centuries of gestation. The domestic life of
Scotland is the fountain from whence all that is good and
great in its sons—their religious temper, and those virtues
of industry, frugality, integrity and high-mindedness which
distinguish the Scot—took their origin. To the home may
be traced the uprightness, and much of the strong persistence in honourable effort which have made Scotsmen prosperous and successful in lands " near the setting sun" or
upon the dearly prized soil of that auld home across the sea. CHAPTER VII
GENERAL  SUMMARY.
Still on thy banks so gaily green,
May numerous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chanting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale;
An ancient faith that knows no guile,
An industry embrowned with toil,
And hearts resolved, and hands prepared,
The blessings they enjoy to guard.
—Smollett.
Hale hearts we hae yet to bleed in its cause ;
•Bold hearts we hae yet to sound its applause ;
How then can it fade, when sic chiels an' sic cheer,
And sae mony brave sprouts of the thistle are here.
Hurrah for the thistle, &c.
—Alexander Macl.vgan
■Cold though our seasons, and dull though our skies,
There's a might in our arms and a fire in our eyes ;
Dauntless and patient to dare and to do—
Our watchword is " Duty," our maxim is "Through ;"
Winter and storm only nerve us the more,
And chill not the heart if they creep through the door :
Strong shall we be,
In our isle of the sea,
The home of the brave and the boast of the free !
Firm as the rocks when the storm flashes forth,
We'll stand in our courage—the Men of the North !
Sunbeams that ripen the olive and vine,
In the face of the slave and the coward may shine ;
Hoses may blossom where Freedom decays,
And crime be a growth of the sun's highest rays.
Scant though the harvest we reap from the soil,
Yet Virtue and Health are the children of Toil,
Proud let us be,
Of our isle of the sea,
The home of the brave and the boast of the free !
Men with true hearts—let our fame echo forth—
Oh, these are the fruit that we grow in the North !
—Charles Mackat 188
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
*)TL N the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to
@=> glance as briefly as the nature and extent of the subject admitted, at those peculiar features, physical as well as
historical, which have concurred in moulding the Scottish
character. Without some acquaintance with the antecedents of a people, their surroundings and the discipline they
have undergone through the ages, it is not only difficult to
understand the national bent and idiosyncrasies, but also to
calculate the aptitude for colonization they are likely to display when transferred to | fresh scenes and pastures new."
This consideration applies with peculiar force in the case
of the Scot; because, in the absence of information touching
its past history, people are sure to misunderstand the Scottish nature, and assign to any but its true causes the wonderful
successes Scotsmen have achieved wherevertheyhaveset foot.
National pride is no doubt blind; but national jealousy is not
less so; and so it has happened that when men are asked how
Scotsmen havecome to get onsd well in the world, commanding
respeet and confidence, and securing social positions of trust,
power and wealth,the peevishanswer is given that they owe it
to their craft, their parsimony, their 1 clannishness," their irrepressible assurance, their narrow pride or what not. People are asked to believe that, in a free country, where all
men start on an equal footing, the Scot has thrown some
spell upon the rest of the community and elbowed everybody else out of his path by some glamour or witchery
hanging about him. That the virtues which have given this
||ltle nationality so prominent a place in the social and in- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 189
dustrial world, have at times degenerated into something
akin to fault and failing, no one can deny. All the noble
qualities which have elevated society may be perverted
readily from their normal purpose. Thrift may sink into
niggardliness; patriotism may become narrow, prejudiced
and exclusive ; astuteness may grow rank and blossom into
cunning; self-respect and self-reliance may beget selfishness and malevolence ; and the religious temper itself lose
its celestial charity and humility in bigotry and intolerance.
But that does not make the good qualities less salutary in
their influence on the individual, the nation or the race i and
it is quite certain that neither the Scots, nor any other people
ever rose to any exalted position among the nations, by a perversion of the virtues but solely by the virtues themselves.
Let it be once understood that the sterling characteristics
of the Scottish people have come down to them as an inheritance—the outcome of hardship, penury, conflict, toil and
suffering during many centuries—and there is at once a
rational explanation of their success at home and abroad.
These characteristics, in fact, are so much mental and moral
capital stored up in the race by the accumulated efforts of
their forbears in times gone by. In the chapters preceding,
it was seen that the country itself is for the most part,
barren, demanding unflinching industry from man rind
making but scanty returns. Toil has always been in Scotland the inexorable condition of existence. Hence the development of laborious habits, frugality, thrift, and a
hardy, self-reliant nature. The invasions from Ireland,
from the Norse Kingdoms, from the South under Saxon 190
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and Norman made the possession of wealth and life itself,
precarious. The ambition of the Plantagenet Kings of
England compelled the Scots to enter upon a bitter and
stubborn conflict for their national independence under
Wallace and Bruce. They triumphed gloriously, and
emerged from the fiery trial with that pride of nationality
and a stern and haughty independence which are begotten
of a victory achieved by a people's own strong arm. The
Nemo me impune lacessit, and its terse Scottish rendering
I Wha daur meddle wi' me ?" are mottoes which speak at
once for the Thistle and the gallant race whose chosen emblem it is. The religious troubles, which began at the dawn
of the Reformation, the ruthless persecutions which culminated in the brutalities of Lauderdale, Sharp and Claverhouse
gave new vigour to the Scottish people and made them a
nation in fact, as they had hitherto been in form. The
commonalty then sprang at once into vigorous being. The
doctrinal and other points of controversy which split the
Kirk up into sects, quickened the national intellect, whilst-
the pain and anguish of the times chastened the hearts and
purified the morals of the people. They were made, if not
" perfect through suffering," at least elevated, self-respecting,
thoughtful and, above all, deeply saturated with an overmastering sense of responsibility to God for the honest discharge of duty. The moral backbone of the Scottish character was developed and consolidated during the time which
elapsed from the return of Mary Stuart to the Revolution.
It was then that the foundation of that admirable system of
general education was laid, which, in the future, was to THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
191
distinguish the Scot as a man of reading and practical information. England owes much to the Scottish people; but
the discipline of sorrow did not elevate the people of the
south, nor could the reflective turn of mind, which has
brought forth so much fruit in Scotland, be impregnated
into the English common people where the religion, education and adversity which upraised the peasantry of Scotland, exerted little or no influence. Whatever may be
thought of the dogmatic value of the Presbyterian standards,
it is certain that they deepened the sense of duty, the feeling of manly independence and the impatience of external
restraint in matters of faith and practice. The burning
bush, which the Kirk adopted as its emblem, was only the
thistle transfigured and sanctified, under a feeling of dependence upon the Divine assistance for guidance and protection.
Nee tamen consumebatur—" yet the bush was not consumed" (Exod. iii. 2)—adopted as its motto, illustrated at
once the security of the faith and the necessity for God's
hand interposed on its behalf. It epitomized, in fact, the
solemn conviction of the Psalmist, in the verses so often
sung in Scottish worship, at diverse times and vicissitudes
of national fortune:—
i Except the Lord do build the house,
The builders lose their pain;
Except the Lord the city keep,
The watchmen watch in vain."
But the influence of the religious upheaval, and the dark
days consequent upon it, did not stop there. It not only
quickened faith and spirituality, but stimulated and trained
the intellect, and aroused in Scotland the'philosophic, scien- -192
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
tific and inventive spirit for which it is so distinguished.
Paradoxical as it may at first sight appear, David Hume
was the offspring of the Reformation. The inquiring frame
of mind, which, at first, found legitimate scope in theological
inquiry, gradually invaded the territory of mental science,
and busied itself about the fundamental axioms of ethics
and economics. Hume, Hutcheson, Brown, Reid, Stewart,
Hamilton, Mill, Bain and others worthy of note, have worked
at the ultimate problems of life and the universe, and Adam
Smith laid the foundation of economical science. He was
at once an economist in his Wealth of Nations, and an intuitional moralist in his Theory of the Moral Sentiments. The
Mills, father and son, were both Scottish, the one by birth,
the other by inherited cast of mind and early training. The
greatest original thinker, and the man who, whether people
recognise it or not, has influenced this age more strongly
than any other except, perhaps, Coleridge, is a Scot, Thomas
Carlyle, the veteran sage, first of Craigenputtoch, and thenceforward of Chelsea. The same thoughtful caste of mind is
manifest in the region of pure science. It was Black and
Leslie who developed the philosophy of heat and paved the
way for James Watt and the steam-engine. Hutton was
the first systematic geologist, and his name is coupled with
the German Werner's in the rival Plutonian and Neptunian
theories of the earth's formation. In surgery and anatomy
Hunter has never been surpassed, and in pathology and the
science of medicine, there are few names to compare with
those of Cullen, Brodie, Christison, Simpson, Carpenter,
and innumerable others who might be named. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
193
Mr. Buckle wonders how so much that is valuable could
have been achieved in a country where the theological
spirit was in the ascendant. The obvious response is that
it was the theological spirit which stimulated the intellect,
and made free inquiry in philosophy and science possible in
Scotland. And the most conclusive evidence of that is the
insatiable thirst for scientific research which has seized men
in lowly station. As it was the theological spirit alone
which gave the people political being and the means of
culture ; so also did it create that keen love of investigation
3 O
into the works of nature, because they are the works of
God. Nothing is more remarkable than the conscientious
energy with which Scotsmen, engaged in hard toil to procure
their daily bread, have surmounted all obstacles, not to gain
wealth or renown, but to satisfy a burning desire for knowledge. Three names occur at the moment of men living in
different parts of Scotland—a shoemaker, a weaver and a
gardener—all poor and in lowly station. Mr. Smiles has
done good service in recording the career of Thomas Edward,
" the Scottish naturalist," whose love for the study of zoology
began with his school-days, and continues until now. A
humble shoemaker of Banffshire, he has added materially to
the sum of scientific knowledge, under circumstances, and
by self-imposed labours, vigils and dangers almost beyond
belief.* In the April and May (1878), issues of Good
Words, Mr. Jolly, H. M., Inspector of Schools, sketches the
career of John Duncan of Kincardine, " the Alford Weaver
* The Life of a Scottish Naturalist:  Thomas Edward, Associate of the Linncean
Society.    By Samuel Smiles.    New York: 1877.    See also The Life of Robert Dick, of
Thurso, Baker and Geologist, by same author.
M 194
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
and Botanist," and introduces also Charles Black, a gardener,,
who possesses (for he is still living), " high natural endowments, sterling worth, and great individuality of character."
His home is on the shores of the Solway, within sight of
the English coast and far from where his scientific friend,
the weaver, plodded on, away to the north-east. Blackr
Mr. Jolly says, is an excellent botanist, a good geologist,,
with a splendid collection of fossils, a capital ornithologist,,
knowing all the birds "by plumage, flight, cry and egg, and
having an almost perfect collection of British eggs; and a
fair numismatist, with a ■ remarkable collection of coins r
home and foreign, ancient and modern, for a working niam
He is an insatiable reader, especially in natural science and
theology g in short, an ardent lover and student of beasts and.
birds and insects and plants, and not less of mankind."
In the higher walks of life the spirit of philosophical andi
scientific enquiry, whatever the upshot of it, may invariably
be traced in its inception to the strong energy infused into
the Scottish mind by the national religion. The forces let
loose, during the struggles of the Reformation and the
Covenant may be diverted from the old channel; but
there can be no mistake about the laboratory in which
they were first generated. Whatever men may think
of the faith, the works are before them, and those of
us who are not in sympathy with the rigid formulas
of the one, ought not to refuse admiration for the unspeakable value of the other. In Scotland they have, at all events,
until recently, been inseparable; because intellectual revolt
from the creed does not emancipate from, the vigorous im- HSf^"«^
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
195
petus due to that creed. Hume, in his Essays, and Burns in
Holy Willie's Prayer or the Holy Fair, were just as clearly
the offspring of the free spirit engendered by the religious
struggles in Scotland, as Rutherford, Cameron, the two Er-
skines, Thomas Chalmers or Edward Irving. It is likely
enough that Knox and Melville would have shrugged their
shoulders and left the consequences to God, and that "Douce
Davie Deans," and "Old Mortality" would have renewed their
lament for " a broken Covenant," had they foreseen even so
much of the issue as we are able to pass in retrospect; yet
though they little expected it, it is now evident enough, that
freedom of thought and educated intelligence cannot be
bounded by any human device; they must have free course,
eventually with the best results. Bishop Burnet, in describing a visit to his native land in 1670, says, "We were
indeed amazed to see a poor commonalty so capable to
argue on points of government, and on the bounds to
be set to the power of princes in matters of religion. Upon all these topics they had texts of Scripture at
hand, and were ready with their answers to anything that
was said to them. This measure of knowledge was spread
even amongst the meanest of them, their cottagers and their
servants."* The spirit of enquiry and discussion thus
evoked, could not fail to make itself felt in all departments
of human thought, so soon as the absorbing questions of the
day were apparently set at rest by the Revolution settlement. Logic is a dangerous, two-edged weapon; when
once it has been taken up, it will never cease to be employed 196
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
upon something—Theology, Philosophy or some other debatable theme; and the intellectual activity it has aroused, is
sure, in the long run, to find a sphere of action in science,
invention, exploration, or whatever other beneficent outlet
may be open to it.
One of the most remarkable features in the biography of
distinguished Scots is the large number of them who rose
from the humblest positions in life, to honour and distinction.
In most countries the middle class, and especially the learned
professions, supply the men from whom the ranks of the illustrious thinkers and workers are recruited; but in Scotland, if not themselves peasants, weavers or mechanics, their
fathers have been something of the sort, before them ; and
they, themselves, brought up in lowly life, have struggled
to prosperity and fame out of an atmosphere of poverty.
That many noted Scots have descended from great families
is, of course, true; but taking the eminent men produced
north of the Tweed, there can be no question that
a large majority sprang from the ranks of the common
people. The absence of large urban populations in early
times, the comparatively narrow range of commerce, and the
general poverty of the country, no doubt stimulated the
poorer classes to enterprising efforts. There was no superincumbent middle class, pressing, with its solid, inert weight,
upon them; they were free to rise as high as their energy
and ability could elevate them, and thus we find them continually aspiring to eminence in the Church, at the Bar, in
medicine, science, arts, and literature. It speaks volumes
for the native' genius of the Scottish people, that they were THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 197
able to aim high, make good their footing, step by step, and
in the end fulfil measurably their lofty aspirations. It
must not be forgotten that the men who made the masses
what they were—the Reformers and the Covenanters—whilst
they spurred the national intellect, and with it the strong
feeling of independence and self-reliance, also, with wondrous prescience, provided for their education. No matter
how poor a Scot may have been at the outset, he had at
least so much valuable capital to begin life withal, as a sound
plain education could bestow upon him; and it is this obvious advantage over his neighbours that has given the stimulus to so many ardent spirits, and Hf ted them from poverty
to fame. In the army, for instance, during the old time,
when, in addition to the purchase system, promotion for
valour and good conduct was so slow in the British service,
the Scot always had the best chance; because he was decently educated, and had a strong sense of honour and duty.
Major-General William McBean, who died only the other day,
full Colonel of the 93rd, in which he entered as a drummer-
boy, is only one of the instances of Scottish energy and
steady perseverance onward and upward. The schoolmaster
was abroad in Scotland before the recruit entered barracks,
and the Scot was equipped with the elementary instruction
gained at the parish school; the Englishman and Irishman,
in nine cases out of ten, were not. The great value of the
parochial school-system of Scotland, now that it has been
superseded, may be depreciated, perhaps forgotten; its mark
will remain, however, upon the people of Scotland, and
through them, upon the world, to the latest generations. 198
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
The army has been spoken of; and it seems well here to
note a few names renowned in story, although the list must
necessarily be imperfect. Considering the relative populations of Scotland and England—the one with its two or
three millions, the other, with from twenty to twenty-two—
the amount of military genius and personal bravery the
United Kingdom owes to the North is amazing.* There is
scarcely a war England has been engaged in during the last and
present centuries in which Scottish military skill and soldierly valour have not done more than their share.    The names
of Sir Ralph Abercromby, General George Elliott, Sir John
Moore, Lord Clyde and a legion of others are well known; but,
of all the distinguished names perhaps, on the whole, that of
Napier shines brightest in the scroll of fame. So distinguished a family has, perhaps, never added equal lustre upon
its country. Those more immediately known to us were intensely Scottish, albeit on the maternal side they sprang from
that Lady Sarah Lennox, of whom George III was enamoured in his youth. The hero of Scinde, the historian of the
Peninsular War, and the gallant, bluff old Charlie, the Admiral, were all of that stock. The latest offshoot is Lord Napier and Ettrick, descended of the elder branch, who has won
his honours as a diplomatist. Not to abandon the name, whilst
* At the beginning of the century the population of the kingdom stood thus: England
and Wales, 9,156,171; Scotland, 1,678,452; Ireland, 5,319,807. In 1841 the proportion had
changed much to the disadvantage of Scotland, the census enumerating for England,
16,085,198 : for Scotland, 2,652,330; for Ireland, 8,222,664. At the last census (1871) the
account stood: England 22,704,108; Scotland, 8,358,613; Ireland, 5,402,759. During the
several decades of the century Scotland lost ground as regards England especially, until the
census of 1851. Roughly the population relatively to the entire United Kingdom, the
Islands included, was in 1S01 nearly one-ninth; in 1831, less than a tenth; and thence-
forward between a ninth and a tenth. THE SCOT IN BRITISH  NORTH AMERICA.
199
it is uppermost, mention may be made here first of John
Napier, laird of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms, to
whom, in Hume's opinion, "the title of a great man was
more justly due than to any other whom his country ever
■produced." A descendant of his house has filled hio-h office
in England and in Ireland, where he was born, and was
created a baronet by Mr. Disraeli in L867—Sir Joseph
Napier. Robert Napier, though certainly descended from
Adam, can boast no noble genealogy; his father was a blacksmith and the son has made " a new departure" for the
illustrious name, for he was the head of the great Clyde
firm of ship-builders. He was concerned in the early attempts at trans-atlantic steam navigation on the British
■Queen and the Sirius. The steam ironclads constructed of
late, beginning with the Black Prince, are his latest work.
As our notice of the Napiers has brought us to the sea,
iJae other branch of the service may be noticed. Neither
Scotland nor Ireland has contributed so large a proportion
of eminent men to the navy as to the army. They have no
Drakes, Hawkinses, Frobishers or Raleighs on the roll of
their ancestry and the sea-fighting instinct wa*s not a salient
feature with' them. Nevertheless Sir Charles Douglas, a
linguist also, and mechanic, the victor over the French in
the West Indies; Lord Keith, the hero of Aboukir Bay,
and Viscount Duncan, of Camperdown, are names not unworthy to be placed by that of Nelson. Paul Jones, the
•Captain Semmes of the American Revolution, was also a
Scot. In peaceful exploration to the frozen north there are
the two Rosses, Sir Alexander Mackenzie and a large num- mm*
200
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ber of others. The number of Scottish travellers generally
is extremely large. Africa has been" especially their chosen
ground. James Bruce, Mungo Park, Hugh Clapperton, Alex-^
ander Gordon Lang, David Livingstone and Commander
Cameron are the best known; and of the missionaries, pure
and simple, Alexander Duff, Robert Moffat and Charles
Fraser Mackenzie. In the last century two travellers deserve pre-eminence as pioneers—James Baillie Fraser, who
traversed Persia and the Himalayas, and John Eell, who
crossed over from the Baltic, through European Russia and
Siberia, to China and explored the Caucasus. In India,,
the Scotsman has played almost as prominent a part as in
Africa. It is only necessary to mention Sir David Baird,
during Hyder Ali's time, Elphinstone, Malcolm, Munro, Dalhousie, Minto, and Elgin.
Passing to locomotion and the inventive arts, it may be
noted that to James Watt, the world owes the practical application of steam as a motor; to Henry Bell, Britain is indebted for steam navigation; to John Loudon Macadam, for
the roads which pass by his name, and to William Murdoch,
the use of coal gas as an illuminator.*
In natural philosophy, which along with mathematics is
a condition precedent of inventive skill, Scotland has been
peculiarly rich. Of the many names which will occur to the
reader, those of Black, Bryce, Craig, Keith, Leslie, Mac-
lannin, Playfair, Robison, Sinclair, and Simson, will suggest
themselves.    In other branches of science the names of emi-
* He was also the inventor of a locomotive which was improved by others, and perfected
by George Stephenson. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
201
nent Scots have grown so numerous durino- the recent revival, that it is hardly possible to attempt an enumeration.
Of the elders, Hutton, Pringle, Smellie, the naturalist, Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, MacGillivray, also a student
of birds ; and others have vindicated the claim of Scotland
to a place in the Pantheon of science. Some of the great
names in medicine have already been mentioned, but they
are inexhaustible. Most of them have not merely been
practitioners, but discoverers also. There are the Bells, the
Hunters, the Gregorys, William Cullen, George Fordyce,
Alexander Monro, Erasmus Wilson, Sir John Forbes, Brodie,,
Christison, Simpson and many others. In the department
of Technology, the name of Dr. George Wilson ought not to-
be passed over as an instanee of Scottish tenacity in the
pursuit of learning, and the faithful discharge of duty under
terrible bodily suffering.*
It was intended to pursue the Scot in the departments of
Literature and Art, but want of space compels us to pass
them over with a cursory reference. The lives of Robert.
Burns, Walter Scott, and a host of other great names hardly
need additional eulogy.f To theirs might be appended a long
roll of illustrious singer's—Skinner, Cowper, Macneill, Nicoll,
Hogg, Tannahill, Cunningham, Rodger, John Wilson, William Thorn, Motherwell, Robert Gilfillan, Imlah, Smibert,.
* Dr. Wilson was a brother of our esteemed Toronto Professor, Dr. Daniel Wilson, who-
wrote, we believe, a memoir of him. See also the biography by his sister Jessie, and an.
admirable and touching tribute in Dr. Brown's Borce Subseeivce.
t See Lockhart's Scott, and the admirable little volume by Mr. R. H. Hutton, in Morley's
series. For Burns, Carlyle's inimitable monogram of Critical and Miscellaneous Essays^
English Library Edit., Vol. ii., p. 5, and PriSpal Shairp's essay—one of the series already
referred to.   For poetic tributes consult the Burns' Centenary Poems. ■302
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Lyle, Aytoun, Riddell, Ainslie, Ballantyne, Mackay, Blackie,
Latto, McColl, McLachlan and Macdonald. Without attempting a detailed account of these poets, it may be well
to note that, in addition to the wealth of song devoted to
the North, England and Ireland are indebted to two Scottish
bards for their noblest lyrics. James Thomson wrote " Rule
Britannia," and Thomas Campbell was the author of " The
Exile of Erin," 1 The Battle of the Baltic," and " Ye Mariners of England."
Into the department of belles lettres generally there is no
room to enter, although the temptation is strong to do so. In
Art also there is a long roll of worthies. Robert Strange, for
■example, who came from the Orkneys, was the father of line
•engraving in Britain, and George Jameson was the Vandyke
of the island—i the first eminent painter," says Robert
Chambers, "produced to Britain" (born 1585J.* Of the
.artists in a higher walk may be taken at random, Robert
Aikman, Sir H. Raeburn, Patrick Gibson, Allan Ramsay, the
poet's eldest son, David Wilkie, the Faeds, and the lately deceased President of the Royal Academy, Sir Patrick Grant.
Robert A.dam, sepultured in Westminister Abbey, was the
.great Scottish architect, and his works dot the island from
his native Edinburgh to the English channel. In the de-
partment of engineering, it is only necessary to name John
Hennie, of East Lothian, and Thomas Telford, of Eskdale,
who was the son of a simple herdsman whose wife was left
& widow when the illustrious engineer of the future was but
§ See Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
203
a month old.* In other walks of mental activity, Mr.
George Heriot, the merchant goldsmith and banker, embalmed in the Fortunes of Nigel H John Law, of Lauriston,
to whom but scant justice has been done; William Paterson,
who failed in the Darien scheme, and yet gave the Bank of
England an existence, and so produced in embryo our wondrous system of national finance ; % Sir James Stewart, the
father of political economy; and Adam Smith, of Kirkaldy,
the illustrious author of The Wealth of Nations and The
Moral Sentiments.^ The name of William Forbes, of Pit-
sligo, the Edinburgh banker, the associate of Johnson,
Burke, Reynolds and Goldsmith, is also noteworthy. In
later times are the well known economists, John Stuart Mill,
McCulloch and Ramsay. In the list of Scottish lawyers and
statesmen we have the historic names of Robert Baillie, of
Jerviswoode; Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun ; Duncan Forbes
of Culloden; Alexander Henderson, and Maitland, of Leth-
ington. After the union, Scotsmen of distinction abound
in England. Of the Lord Chancellors were Wedderpurn,
Lords Lougborough, Brougham, Erskine and Campbell.
William Murray, Lord Mansfield, stands  almost without a
* See for both of these, The Lives of the Engineers, by Samuel Smiles, himself a Scot of
Haddington. Nothing could shew mo^dearly the strong and earnest volume of Scottish
home affection than Telford's intense love for bis,widowed parent. " She has been a good
mother to me," he quietly wrote with meanfpjf that lies in the words, " and I will try and
be a good son to her;" and he kept his word with a dutiful fidelity which is exquisitely
touching.
t See for a full account of the founder of Heriot's Hospital, Chambers' Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen.   Vol. Hi. p. 44.
{ For Law, see Chambers, "$§}. iii. p. 360; and for Paterson, ibid. vol. iv. p. 85.
§ The reader is referred to Sir James Mackintosh's Dissertation, sec. vi., and to Buckle's
History of Civilization, from which we quote a sentence—" The Wealth of Nations is
probably the most important book that has ever been written, whether we consider the
amount of original thought it contains, or its practical influence."   (Vol. iii. p. 311.) 204
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
rival at the head of the Common Law bench. At this moment, the Lord Chief Justiceship is filled by Sir Alexander
Cockburn, and the Archiepiscopal See of Canterbury by another Scot, Dr. Archibald Tait. Finally, must not be omitted
the honoured name of William Ewart Gladstone, the former
and prospective premier of England, the scholar, the orator
and statesman of whom*Scotland has just reason to be proud.*
There is little room left to name a few of the prominent
clergymen not already noted. Of the old period, there were
the Roman Catholic prelates, Kennedy of the loth century,
Elphinstone, of Aberdeen, Reed, of Orkney .*f* As scholars also
of the Roman communion, were Leslie, Bishop of Ross, Mary
Stuart's champion, John Mair or Major; Dr. Alex. Geddes,
and Father Innes. Of the Scottish Episcopal Church may
be mentioned Archbishop Adamson, of St. Andrew's ; Patrick Forbes of Aberdeen; Robert Keith of Fife; the sainted
Archbishop Leighton, of Glasgow; the historian Archbishop
Spottiswoode, and in our time the large-minded Alexander
Ewing, Bishop of Argyle and the Isles. His name reminds us
of a Presbyterian School analogous to that founded by Coleridge and Arnold in England, to which belong such men as
JohnM acleod Campbell, Erskine of Linlathen, Norman Mac-
leod and Principals Caird and Tulloch. In the various sections
of the Presbyterian Church, there are two names, for ever memorable, those of Edward Irving and Thomas Chalmers; one
of whom left a moral, the other an example—both masters,
* See the right hon. gentleman's own account of his origin, in answer to an address from
the Edinburgh corporation; also, two letters in the London Spectator of Dec. 13th and
20th, 1879.
. t See Lecky's History, Vol. ii., p. 147. uafi
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
205
each in his own way, of pulpit eloquence, exemplary piety
and earnest living.
Having thus indicated the historical elements of the Scottish character, and sketched, in  a cursory and imperfect
manner its practical results at home, we may proceed  to
.sketch his influence abroad. 1
w'
PART II.
THE SCOT ACROSS THE SEA.
CHAPTER I.
Farewell, our fathers' land,
Valley and fountain !
Farewell, old Scotia's strand,
Forest and mountain!
Then hush the drum, and hush the flute,
And be the stirring bagpipe mute—
Such sounds may not with sorrow suit—
And fare thee well, Lochaber!
—D. M. More (A.)-
He's away ! he's away
To fajf lands o'er the sea—
And longistheday
Ere home he can be;
But where his steed prances,
Amid thronging lances,
Sure he'll think of the glances
That love stole from me !
—Motherwell-
The loved of early days !
Where are they ?—where ?
Not on the shining braes,
The mountains bare ;—
Not where the regal streams
Their foam bells cast—
Where childhood's time of dreams
And sunshine pass'd.
Some in the mart and some
In stately halls,
With the ancestral gloom
Of ancient walls; THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 207
Some where the tempest sweeps
The desert waves;
Some where the myrtle weeps
On Roman graves.
And pale young faces gleam
With solemn eyes;
Like a remember'd dream
The dead arise;
In the red track of war
The restless sweep ;
In sunlit graves afar
The loved ones sleep.
—Robert Miller.
\ HE extraordinary activity of the emigrant or travelling
P and adventurous Scot all over the world is an anomaly
not readily explicable without understanding fully the antecedents of the country and the people, as we have attempted
to set them forth in the preceding part. Other nations,.
English-speaking and foreign, have either been impelled to-
migrate fitfully, or strayed far afield, in slender detachments ; but the Scots have been wanderers for the last seven
Or eight centuries systematically, and with little or no interruption. The extraordinary statements of Thomas
Dempster, a Scot at the University of Paris, that there
were learned Scots at all the learned institutions in Europe
as earlv as the eighth century. From the nature of things:
that was an impossibility, and only a perverted patriotism
could have made, or would persist in, the assertion. Mr,
Burton in his work, The Scot Abroad* lays down the more
reasonable rule, that all men called Scots on the continent
before the eleventh century, were Irish Scots.   This includes
* Vol. ii. pp. 9,10. As Mr. J. Ef. Burton's work is not readily accessible, it may be as well to
acknowledge our obligation to it here once for all, as well as to Chambers' Biographical
Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. The former is largely founded on Michel: Les Ecossais-
en France. 208
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
at home and abroad, such distinguished names as those of
St. Columba, St. Adamnan, Marianus Scotus, the historian
Sedulius, author of the first hymn-book, St. Gall, the Apostle
of Germany, and John Scotus Erigena.
On the other hand, Duns Scotus, the great founder of a
school of mediaeval philosophy, specially known as Scottists,
was unquestionably a Scot in the modern sense of the word.
His full name was Johannes de Dunse, Scotus—John of
Dunse, a Scot—and he left Oxford for France in 1307,
alarmed at the persistent assaults of Edward upon the independence of his country.* A few only of the scholars
who established the credit of Scottish intellect and erudition abroad need be mentioned—John Mair or Major, tutor
at the Sorbonne, Hector Bcece, James (the Admirable)
Crichton, satirised in Rabelais, George Buchanan, tutor of
Montaigne and James VI., Urquhart, translator of Rabelais,
and Dempster.- It was the War of Independence, and the*
intimate alliance of Scotland with France, in the face of a
common enemy, which gave the great impetus to Scottish
emigration to the continent and laid the foundation for
their influence for ages to come, especially in France. There
can be no doubt that whether Wall ace visited France between
his defeat at Falkirk and his capture, or not, the foundations
of what is known as " The Ancient League | were laid early in
the reign of Philip IV., if not earlier.f    It was not, however,
* See irrefragable proof of this in Chambers' Biographical Dictionary, Vol ii. pp. 198-9,
t Michel, quoted by Mr. Burton, distinctly affirms that Wallace did take refuge and that
his agent at home was the patriotic Lamberton, Archbishop of St. Andrews.   It was one
of the complaints made by Edward against the prelate that he was carrying on intrigue
with France. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 209
offensive and defensive, was concluded between the two
powers. This compact, which was renewed from time to
time, had important consequences in the progress and results
of "The One Hundred Years' War." The Scots, unlike the
foreign mercenaries serving under the House of Valois, stood
upon the footing of allies. They fought for the Scottish
national cause on the soil of France, and were no mere adventurers. More than that, as Sismondi says, they were soon
destined to prove | the nerve of the French army, at a time
when the people were sunk in wretchedness, dispirited by
defeats of no ordinary character, and had lost all hope or
self-helpfulness."
England had been in possession of the French capital for
more than ten years when, in 1424, John Stewart, Earl of
Buchan, landed with a small force, which succeeded, by the
valley of the Loire, in reaching the heart of Anjou. A few
French had joined him and the result was a battle in which
the English chivalry were defeated with terrible slaughter.
Honours unusually magnificent were heaped upon Buchan.
He was made High Constable of France, ranking next to the
princes of the blood and received large estates extending
between Avranches and Chartres. Archibald, Earl of
Douglas, Buchan's father-in-law, joined with several thousand Scots and was created Duke of Touraine. Meanwhile
the English had collected their strength, allied themselves
with the powerful Duke of Burgundy and proved too*much
for the Scots. They were defeated at Crevant with great
slaughter, and at the disastrous battle of Verneuil, the
Scots force  was all but annihilated, their brave leaders,
N THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
Buchan and Douglas, being left dead on the field. "Ver-
neuil," says Mr. Burton, " was no Crecy, Poitiers or Agin-'
court, ,and Bedford and Salisbury were so nearly defeated
as to be alarmed. Scotland independent and hostile to
England had saved France. Had Henry V. been King of
Great Eritain, with France at his feet, he might have re-established a Western Empire. The enjoyers of English
liberty owe a debt of gratitude to the victors of Bannockburn."*
More than that, France was rehabilitated, and became again
a warlike nation. Henry V. was no more, and there was a
minority; Burgundy forsook the English alliance, and
Charles VII. stood on his feet again. Out of the survivors
of Verneuil was formed the Scots Guard. This consisted of
one hundred gens d'armes and two hundred archers, and its
captain was to be named by the Scots king; when that
became absurd, the first French captain, the Count of Montgomery, was appointed solely to preserve the name. The
first captain was John Stewart, Lord of Aubigne", the founder
of an illustrious Scots house in France.
I Louis XL" says Mr. Burton, | perhaps of all monarchs
whose character is well known to the world, the most un-
confiding and most skeptical of anything like simple faith
and honesty—was content, amid all his shifting, slippery
policy and his suspicions and precautions, to rely implicitly
on the faith of his Scots Guard." (Vol I., p. 35). Indeed,
more than once, Louis, when his habitual suspicions yielded
to_the tempting allurements of his craft, had good reason to
Scot Abroad, Vol. i. p. 47. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
ill
believe, if he believed nothing else, that 1 simple faith" is
more than | Norman blood." Throughout his wily career,
he was ever learning lessons of the futility of trusting in
promises, hard and loud-mouthed; and, on one occasion, at
Liege,in the celebrated Peronne expedition,he was saved from
Burgundian treachery by the faithful Scots. The Guard were
not only faithful beyond the breath of suspicion; but their
bravery became proverbial. "Fier comme un Ecossais"—
proud as a Scot—says the Chronicler was long a French
proverb, " because " he adds 1 they preferred rather to die in
preserving their honour than to live in disgrace." In 1503,
it was that their banner-bearer, William Turnbull, fighting
the Spaniards in Calabria, was found dead, with the staff
in his rigid arms, and the flag gripped in his clenched teeth,
with the little cluster of His countrymen around him, killed
at their posts. I
Mr. Burton's account of illustrious Scots in France is very
full, but it will be obviously impossible to note more than a
few of them here.* In the early centuries they were a wild
lot in the North of Scotland, one of the wildest was Alexander, brother of Robert III, known, in history, as " The
Wolf of Badenoch." A natural son of Alexander, named
after his father, in the early part of his career, followed the
paternal example. He not only " wanted a wife, his braw
house to keep," like the Laird o' Cockpen, but he wanted
the braw house to boot.    He was not long in securing both;
* Michel, as already mentioned, is Mr. Burton's chief authority; but Bayle, in his Dictionary, had previously provided much raw materialise result, it is said, of the fact,
either that he had got hold of a Scottish bookseller in Paris, or that the latter had got
hold of him. 212
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
thinking, with the Laird, that "favour wi' wooing is fashions
to seek," so Alexander wooed the widowed Countess of Mar,
"as the lion wooes his bride."   He took both the lady and her
castle of Kildrummy by storm, married the one, and quietly
installed himself as Earl of Mar, in the other.  But there was
evidently a want of elbow-room for him in his new domains;
so he naturally went over to France with his retainers, and
cut a splendid figure at court.    Alexander Stewart, Duke
of Albany, was a brother of James III., but his conduct to
that monarch was hardly fraternal.    That both the King's
brothers, Albany and Mar, had some cause for complaint is
true; at any rate both were imprisoned in Edinburgh, where
the latter was murdered, and from which the former  escaped to France.   Albany, says Robertson, was inspired by
what had happened, " with more ambitious and criminal
thoughts.    He concluded a treaty with Edward IV. of England, in which he assumed the title of Alexander, King of
Scots," and thus brought northward an invading English
army, under a more  celebrated  character  in history and
drama, Richard, Duke^of Gloucester.   In France, Albany
was in the court sunshine.    A favourite of Louis XL he acquired immense estates, and married Anne, daughter of the
proud family of Auvergne and Boulogne, a scion of which
was Marshal Turenne.
Of the Darnley Stewarts, there were Sir John, founder of
the D'Aubignys, and Sir Alexander, who figures as "Viceroy of Naples, Constable of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of
Terra Nova," &c Also Matthew, Earl of Lennox, who
sought the hand of Mary of Guise, widow of James V. and THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
213
mother of Mary Stuart.    His rival, oddly enough, was the
father of that Both well "who settled all matters of small
family differences, by blowing his son into the air."*    Of
the nobility closely allied to royalty, there were  the Earls
of Douglas, Lords of Touraine, and the Dukes of Hamilton
and Chatelherault.   The Dukes of Richmond, Lennox and
Gordon, are,  of course, entitled to the D'Aubigny dignity.
Michel and the chroniclers give a host of Scottish names,
most of them long since sunk  in territorial titles; some of
these may be noted as proof  of the vast • influence of the
Scot upon the destinies of France.    There are Guillaume
Hay, Jacques Scrimgour, Helis de Guevremont(Kinrinmond),
Andrien Stievart, Guilleberfc, Sidrelant (Sutherland), Alexandre de Jervin (Girvin), Jehan de Miniez (Menzies), Nicholas Chambres, Sieur de Guerche, Coninglant (Cunningham),
Jean  de Hume, George  de Ramesay,  Gohory (Gowrie or
Govrie), De Glais (Douglas), D'Hendresson, Mauricon, Dro-
mont (Drummond),  Crafort   (Crawford), Leviston (Living-
•stone), Bercy,   Locart,  Tournebulle,  Moncrif,  Devillencon
or   DAillencon (Williamson),  Maxuel,   Herrison  (Henry-
-son),   Doddes,   De Lisle (Leslie), De Lauzun  ( Lawson),
D'Espence  (Spence),   Sinson   (Simpson),  &c,  &c     The
Blackwoods play a distinguished part, and there are also,
Thomas de Houston, seigneur, and Robert Pittcloch, a Dundee man, and many others.    These exiles from their native
Sand, in fact, regenerated Franee.    At a  time when the
national pulse beat so feebly as to forbode dissolution, the
lhardy sons of the north impregnated the veins of France with 214
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
their own vigorous Scottish blood. Like the Normans of England centuries before, the Scots colony "was received as a sort
of aristocracy by race or caste; and hence it became to be
a common practice for those who were at a loss for a pedigree to find their way to some adventurous Scot, and stop
there, just as, both in France and England, it was sufficient
to say that one's ancestor's came in with the Normans."*
In all biographies of the great Colbert, he is said to be of
Scottish descent. Moreri says that his ancestor's tomb is at
Rheims. Sully, whose family name was Bethune, Scottish
enough of itself, thought to trace relationship with the
Beatons. Moliere, to disguise the vulgarity of his patronymic which was Poquelin, suggested noble descent from a
Scot. Mr. Burton mentions that some Scots who were petty
landed proprietors, in later times, found it to their advantage to use the prefix "de " before the name of their petty
holding. John Law, of Lauriston, is a case in point; but
the most ludicrous was an invented title palmed off upon
Richelieu. Monteith's father was a fisherman on the Forth,
and when the Cardinal asked him to what branch of the
Monteiths he belonged, the candidate for patronage boldly
replied, "Monteith de Salmonet."
With the Reformation struggle the Scottish influence
abroad took, for a time at any rate, another direction. Daring the struggle for independence in the Netherlands the
Scots were divided: part of them adhering to the 1 old"
cause of Mary Stuart and Spain, and part attached to the
Protestant resistance of the United Provinces.    In Holland
* Scot Abroad, Vol. i. page 93. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 215
they appeared as champions of liberty, in the Scottish brigade, and it is said that, on the eve of the English Revolution, John Graham of Claverhouse, and Mackay, of Scourie,
afterwards William's general at Killiecrankie were rivals
for promotion in that corps. At that time, of course, the
Scots contingent in Holland had ceased to subserve its original purpose, although there was still plenty of work to
accomplish in the struggle with Louis XIV It was the
cause of the Elector Palatine which had hold upon the
hearts of patriotic Scots, and the glorious struggle made
by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Frederick V. had
married Elizabeth, the third child and eldest daughter of
James I., from whom is descended in a direct line, Her
Majesty the Queen.
In the service of Gustavus Adolphus, there were thirteen
Scottish regiments, which kept together in whatever particular part of the field they might be temporarily in the
fight. Under Mansfeldt, the king of Denmark, or " the
lion of the North," they fought for principle and achieved
undying renown. Of the illustrious names which came to
the surface in this desperate struggle are those of Sir
Andrew Gray, Robert Monro, Sir John Hepburn, Hamilton, Turner, Lumsden, Forbes, Ruthven, Grant, Ramsay, the
Leslies, the Lindsays, Rutherford, Spence, Ker, Drummond,
Douglas, Baillie, Cunningham, Meldrum, Innes, Ballantine,
Sandilands and Leckie—most of them in the rank of general
officers. The Thirty Years' War was the school of discipline from which the Scot emerged a trained soldier. It produced especially a body of the bravest, and most skilful 216
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
officers of the time, as Mr. Burton remarks, men of the
calibre of Alexander Leslie, who led the Covenanting forces,
and David Leslie, " who divides with Oliver Cromwell, the
fame of Marston Moor."
Before referring to the most illustrious of the Jacobite
Scots who performed service abroad, it may be well to note
one or two distinguished otherwhere. It has been related
that a Scot named Thomas Game or Garden was once
elected | King of Bukheria "; but as that appears to have
been on account of the height and grossness of his physical
framework, Thomas may be passed over. During that singular period when the Muscovite power was emerging from
barbarism under Peter the Great, there were a number of
Gordons who, by their fidelity, courage and native intelligence performed essential service. The chief of them was
General Patrick Gordon, who wrote a biography of the great,
though somewhat erratic, Czar. It is not recorded that
Patrick was | the seventh son of a seventh son," but only a
I younger son of a younger brother," which brings no luck
with it. As he inherited the sound, practical sense of his
country, and therefore did not expect his fortune to come
down from the stars, he determined to seek it somewhere or
other on the surface of the earth. Touching at Elsinore, a
classic spot where he may, or may not, have taken Shakespearian observations, he found of course a 1 brither Scot,"
one John Donaldson, who sped him on his way. " As he
began, so he went on, finding fellow-countrymen dotted here
and there, at convenient posting distances, on through Aus- THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
2tf
tria and Russia to the very extremities of civilization.* Of
his great services in Sweden and Poland under John Sobieski,
And during his later years in Russia, where he was the right
arm of Peter the Great, there is no need to speak in detail.
One fact, with the closing scene must suffice. When the
Czar went on his celebrated wanderings to Western Europe,
he left General Gordon in charge of the Kremlin at Moscow,
with four thousand men, and but for the Scot's valour,
address and skilful management, Peter might have worked
in the dockyard in England to the day of his death.
Another celebrated character connected with Russia was
Samuel Greig, the founder of the Russian navy, and the
projector of the fortifications of Cronstadt.*f* He was a Fife-
shire skipper's son, born at Inverkeithing in 1735, and
entered the Royal navy at an early age. He was a lieutenant when the British Government, having been solicited by
Russia to send out some naval officers of skill, amongst the
rest despatched Greig. Apart from his organizing abilities,
this Scot had all the dash of his race, as shown in the war
with the Turks in the Mediterranean, especially by his
daring exploits at Scio. He was loaded with honours by
the Empress Elizabeth : but whilst he triumphantly swept
the Baltic, after blocking up the Swedish fleet in harbour,
he caught a violent fever of which he died, in spite of the
efforts of Dr. Rogerson, the chief physician, whom the
Czarina had promptly sent to  his  side.    Greig had not
* Scot Abroad, Vol. ii. p. 183. This may well have been if, as has been stated, there were
no less than two thousand Scots pedlars in Poland alone during the reign of Charles I.
t "A French writer, speaking of these redoubtable works, says, that a Scotchman built
those walls which, years afterwarls, checked the career of his fellow-countryman, Sir
Charles Xapier.   Burton, Vol. ii. p. 222. 218
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
completed his fifty-third year.* Of the diplomatists of the
period may be specially mentioned Alexander Erskine, who-
represented Sweden in the conferences which terminated in
the Treaty of Westphalia; Sir William Lockhart, of Leer
the Commons' ambassador to France at the Restoration ;
Sir Robert Keith, who rendered invaluable services to the
Queen of Denmark, and Sir Alexander Mitchell's important
work at the Court of Prussia.
It would be impossible to give any satisfactory account of
the great amount of ability which the Jacobite movement
spread over Europe after the Revolution, but more especially at the accession of George I. It took various shapes-
from the military skill of the Duke of Berwick to the
controversial skill of Father Innes or the plottings of a
thousand intriguers. Andrew Michael Ramsay, usually
called I The Chevalier," was none of these, but a scholarly
man, who became a Catholic by accident, and not perhaps a
Jacobite at all. He was the son of a baker at Ayr, educated at Edinburgh, and afterwards at Leyden, where he met
Poiret the mystic, who subsequently introduced him to the
sainted Fenelon. Under his influence he ceased to be a
sceptic, as he had been, and joined the Church of Rome.
After this he educated the duke de Ch&teau-Thierrv and
Prince Turenne, and at Rome, the children of the Pretender.
He visited England, and was made a doctor of laws at
Oxford. He was altogether an exceedingly remarkable Scot,
even at a time when the star of Voltaire was rapidly near-
ing its zenith.
* Chambers : Biog. Diet. Vol. ii. pp. 532-3. THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. 210
We may now give a brief notice of the Keith brothers-
one of whom has a brilliant historical reputation. The
Earls Marisehal are principally associated with the eollege
at Aberdeen, established by the fifth earl, and called by
his title. The two of whom we speak are known by the
more familiar family name of Keith. Attainted, and the
hereditary estates confiscated for the part taken by the
brothers in 1715, they went abroad. Of the elder, little
need be said, except that he rose in the light of his brother's
genius, and became Frederick the Great's ambassador to
France. He was a man of considerable ability and force
of character; but it is James, Marshal Keith, who fills the
eye of the historic student. He was only nineteen when
the Earl of Mar set up the standard of the Pretender, and
had been designed for the bar—a very prescient choice of
profession, as appears from the event, but the natural destiny of a younger son. His martial instincts were apparent
before he smelt powder; his own remark was that he had
begun his studies at his mother's desire, but, he continued,
" commend me to stand before the mouth of a cannon for a
few minutes; this either makes a man in an instant, or he
dies gloriously in the field of battle." It was Keith's fate
to compass his first enjoyment many a time ; the other was
to be the fitting conclusion of an illustrious career. His first
'taste of glory was a wound at Sheriffmuir, and thence he
wandered to the Isles, where the brothers found the means
of transportation to Brittany. Their road, of course, led to
Paris and the mimic court of the Pretender; but there was
nothing to do there.   The story of his life for years thereafter 220
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
is one of the most romantic perhaps that could be written of a
great military genius, tossed between commissions in Sweden,
descents on Scotland under Ormond's auspices, service in the
Irish brigade in Spain, and so on, until he found himself "as
the French have it, au pie de la lettresur lepave"—he had
the key of the street. At last, with a royal purse in his
pocket, he set off for Moscow. The great obstacle in Spain
ihad been that he was a heretic—in Russia that was a
matter of small consequence. He now saw some service
-which attracted the notice of all Europe, and particularly the
notice of the great Frederick. In the Prussian service he
thereafter lived and died. His exploits are matters of
history; in all Frederick's great movements, he was a
leading spirit. One anecdote illustrates his Scottish fidelity,
-courage and pertinacity. He had been left to defend
Leipsic with 8,000 men, and when, at the age of 60, he
answered a summons to surrender in these words: | Let
your master know that I am by birth a Scotchman, by
inclination as well as duty, a Prussian, and shall defend the
town in such a manner that neither the country which gave
me birth, nor that which has adopted me, shall be ashamed
of me. The King, my master, has ordered me to defend it
to the last extremity, and he shall be obeyed." At Hoch-
kirchen, however, he " died- gloriously on the battle-field."
Wounded severely in the ^morning, he refused to quit his '
post; an hour after he received a shot in the breast and.
fell lifeless to the ground. Thus, in the sixty-third year of
his age, perished one of the bravest soldiers that were ever THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
221
stirred by the blast of a war trumpet.*    There is no need
to enter in detail upon the proof of the admitted fact that
the enterprising Scot has set foot on every land, and traversed every sea, almost invariably leaving beneficent traces
of his presence and his energy.   There used to be an old
saying that there is no part of the world where a Scotsman
and a Newcastle grind-stone cannot be found, and the same
notion is conveyed in a less complimentary form in an old
verse preserved by Michelf    The unsavoury connection in-
which the universal spread of the Scot is introduced, was
no doubt the fruit of a national jealousy, similar to that
traceable in England after the Union  in Swift, Horace
Walpole, Johnson and others, as well as in the letters of
Junius.    In these last, which are still read and admired as-
brilliant specimens of splendid, but scorching and unscrupulous invective, this outburst of jealousy was not altogether
without  defence, if we   make  allowance for the natural
indignation which must have burned in the breast of a.
patriotic Englishman, when he saw the illustrious Chatham
supplanted by the Earl of Bute, as a minister, and that the
* " A story regarding Keith, which illustrates the universality of Scottish influence, is
worth repeating, although it is found in the Percy Anecdotes. At the conclusion of a.
peace between the Russians and the Turks, an interview took place between Field Marshal
Keith and the Grand Vizier, Business over, and the parting bow and salaam, the Turkish*
minister suddenly approached the Marshal, took him by the hand, and in the broadest
Scots dialect, assured him, with warmth, that he was ' unco happy, now he was sae far frae-
hame, to meet a countryman in his exalted station.' Keith was astounded, but the Vizier
replied, 'my father was bellman o' Kirkaldy, in Fife, I remember to have seen you, sir,
and your brother occasionally passing." The Empress Catherine, by the way, had a famous-
physician who was the son of a miller at the head of Peebleshire."
t The original may be given without venturing on a translation;—
" Que d'Escossois, de m de poux,
Ceux qui voyagent jus qu' au bout
Du monde, en rencontrent partout." 222
THE SCOT IN BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.
influence of the latter continued, as was then supposed, in
the form of " a power behind the Throne," after he had been
driven from office. Still when he assailed William Murray,
Lord Mansfield, the most eloquent lawyer, and the ablest
judge who ever presided in the King's Bench, even Junius
felt that he was wrong. | National reflections." he remarks
in his Preface,* " I confess are not to be justified upon theory,
nor upon any general principles." His plea was that the
Scots formed an exception to any general rule. Their
| characteristic prudence, selfish nationality, persevering assiduity," the qualities for the most part, which were the cause
of their success annoyed him, and the | assiduous smile" with
which they refused to take offence touched him to the quick.
Sir Philip Francis was not the first nor the last, to envy the
Scotsman, his intelligence, or success in life. It is the fashion
in quarters nearer home thanMr. WoodfaU'sPu6Z'ic Advertiser
office to assign the uniform prosperity and elevation of the
Scot in every walk of life to all possible causes but the true
ones. He has been accused of "clannishness;" and yet in most
European countries, he has either toiled up the ladder of
success, round after round, unaided and alone by his own
shrewd intelligence, force of character and innate probity,
or he has triumphed