Herbert Maxwell

“ It is astonishing how so poor and small a country as Scotland could meet such a prolonged strain on its fighting power as had been involved already in the War of Independence, and yet find a surplus to sacrifice beyond its shores.
After his victory at Arscoll, the Earl of Carrick returned to Ulster. The whole of Ireland, during these years of misery, was afflicted by a direful famine, always the unfailing complement of mediæval warfare. So great was the scarcity that the Irish annalists declare that "men were wont to devour one another." ”

“ And wherever you come, let it be known that you carry with you the heart of King Robert of Scotland, at his own instance and desire, to be presented at the holy sepulchre.'"
Sir James at once pledged himself to the task, by the faith he owed to God and to the order of true knighthood. "Then I thank you," said the King, "for now I shall die in greater ease of mind, seeing I know that the most worthy and sufficient knight in my realm shall achieve for me that which I could not myself perform." ”

“ It behoved the King of Scots now to look to the safety of his own dominions. It was not his policy to risk another trial of strength with England; faithful to his favourite tactics he moved northward, causing every head of cattle, every sack of corn, every bale of goods, to be driven and carried out of Edward's line of march. It is in masterly, though unobtrusive, details like this that the genius of a great strategist may be recognised, as surely as in brilliant manœuvres and dashing victories. ”

“ It was on this hill that the King, when he caused his followers to separate, had told them to re-assemble, and hither he came alone after the loss of his foster-brother.
He asked the old widow for food, of which he stood in sore need. She bade him come in, for that all wayfarers were welcomed for the sake of one.
"And prithee who may that one be?" asked the King.
"I'll tell thee that," quoth the goodwife; "it is none other than King Robert the Bruce, rightful lord of this land. His foes are pressing him hard now, but the day is at hand when he shall come by his own." ”

“ Edward de Brus vowed he had had enough sea-faring, and, come what might, he would risk his fortune on land. Three hundred hungry desperadoes need little persuasion to action. It was still dark, and all was silent in the hamlet surrounding the castle. Bruce led his men along the causeway he knew so well. Not a scabbard rattled; the Highlanders, shod in deerskin brogues, moved as noiselessly as wildcats. Some of Percy's men lay outside the castle, in the cottages, but none stirred till, with a wild war-cry, the Bruce was upon them. ”

“ Perceiving that the King of England neither knew how to rule his kingdom nor was able to defend it against the Scots, who were each year doing more and more damage to it, and fearing lest in the end the whole kingdom should come to be lost, he chose the least of two evils and decided that it would be better for the commonalty of both kingdoms that each king should possess his own without homage of any sort, than that such slaughter, conflagration, imprisonments, devastation, and depredation should go on every year. ”

“ To him, in defence of our liberty, we are bound to adhere, as well of right as by reason of his deserts; and to him we will in all things adhere, for through him salvation has been wrought to all our people. Should he abandon our cause, or aim at reducing us or our kingdom under the dominion of the English, we will instantly strive to expel him as a common enemy, the subverter of our rights and his own, and we will choose another king to rule and protect us: for, while there exists a hundred of us, we will never submit to England. ”

“ Among these soldiers of fortune and the Cross there was one of wide-spread fame for his deeds of arms. Now it had been the fortune of this knight to receive so many wounds that his face was all hacked to pieces. He expressed a great desire to see Douglas, of whose renown he had heard so much, in order to compare notes on mutilation. Great was his surprise to find that there was not a single scar on the Scottish knight's visage. "Praised be God!" exclaimed Douglas, "I have always had hands to protect my head." ”

“ If Sir John de Balliol comes to your presence, we advise you to take care so to treat with him that in any event your honour and advantage be preserved. If it turn out that our Lady has departed this life—and may it not be so!—let your excellency deign if you please to approach towards the March for the consolation of the Scottish people, and the saving of the shedding of blood, so that the faithful men of the kingdom may keep their oath inviolate, and set over them for King him who of right ought to have the succession, if so be that he will follow your counsel. ”

“ Wherefore we most earnestly beseech your Holiness, as the Vicegerent of Him who giveth equal measure unto all, and with whom there is no distinction, either of persons or of nations, that you would behold with a fatherly eye the tribulations and distresses brought upon us by the English, and that you would admonish Edward to content himself with his own dominions, esteemed in former times enough for seven kings, and allow us Scotsmen, who dwell in a poor and remote corner, and who seek for nought but our own, to remain in peace. ”

“ Through favour of Him who woundeth and maketh whole, we have been freed from so great and innumerable calamities by the valour of our Lord and Sovereign Robert. He, like another Joshua or a Judas Maccabeus, gladly endured toils, distresses, the extremity of want, and every peril, to rescue his people and inheritance out of the hands of the enemy. The divine Providence, that legal succession which we will constantly maintain, and our due and unanimous consent, have made him our Chief and King. ”

“ The nature of the warfare King Robert had to wage was inevitably cruel. The repeated raids on English soil, the destruction of buildings and growing crops and the ruin of private owners, were the only means at his hand of enforcing his will against a foe far more powerful than himself. The least fascinating page of his warfare was the melancholy expedition to Ireland. ”

“ The fierce detestation of Edward of England, which generations of Scotsmen have learned to cherish, had no existence at the time of the proceedings of Upsettlington; it arose out of subsequent events. Hitherto he had been regarded, not as an aggressive tyrant, but as a powerful friend of Scotland, nearly related in blood to the lost line of Malcolm Canmore, and the most likely authority to deliver the realm from the evils of a disputed succession. ”

“ No; nothing is heard of this adventure till long after Bruce and his comrades have passed away, and then it makes its appearance, in company with such trash as the miraculous appearance of the arm-bone of St. Fillan on the eve of Bannockburn, and worthy of just about as much consideration.
"But then," it may be argued by persons unwilling to surrender a bit of favourite lore, "how comes it that spiders are treated with peculiar respect in Scotland, and, especially, that no one who claims consanguinity with Bruce will kill, or suffer one to be killed in his presence?" ”

“ Even had there been found a Scotsman so alien from the spirit of his race as to hold the memory of Robert the Bruce as a common thing, unworthy of honour, surely there were noble ashes enough besides in that abbey ground to make it forever sacred. For, so soon as the different peoples inhabiting Scotland had united to form one nation under one monarch, Dunfermline succeeded Iona as the sepulchre of the Scottish kings. Here were laid Malcolm Canmore, his Queen Margaret, and their sons Edward, Edmund, and Ethelbert ”

“ Nearly twenty miles long, and rising into mountains nearly 3000 feet high, its glens and corries, at that time densely clothed with forest, might have enabled the fugitives to set their pursuers at defiance for an indefinite time. But neither the Bruce nor the Black Douglas were of the mould to accept life under such conditions. The King had no tidings of the fate of his wife and child; perhaps he knew the stern Edward well enough to fear the worst. ”

“ Seeing, therefore, that my body cannot go to achieve what my heart desires, I will send my heart instead of my body, to accomplish my vow. And because I know not in all my realm a knight more valiant than you, or better able to accomplish my vow in my stead, therefore I require you, my own dear special friend, for your love to me, and to acquit my soul against my Lord God, that you undertake this journey. ”

“ As the Scottish host approached Dublin, the seat of English rule in Ireland, the spirit of its citizens rose to the occasion. They burned their suburbs and pulled down a church to strengthen their defences; they even went so far as to imprison the Earl of Ulster—the "Red Earl"—because they suspected him, most unjustly, of complicity with his brother-in-law, the King of Scots. Dublin proved too strong to be attacked, though Castle Knock, [22] belonging to the Tyrrels, fell into the hands of the Scots. ”

“ Sacrilege and murder under trust had left a stain which it would take all the favour of Mother Church to wash out of the record, and, notwithstanding that his own soul had already received absolution for that deed from Bishop Wishart, what evils might not be entailed on the Scottish people whom he loved, and on his son in whom so many hopes had their centre, unless they too were reconciled with the spiritual powers. ”

“ Unhappily, Barbour's poem, which is of the deepest interest to the philologer as the very earliest extant specimen of Scottish vernacular literature, has been almost irretrievably discredited as a chronicle by a monstrous liberty which the author takes in rolling three real personages into one ideal hero. In this way he has treated father, son, and grandson—all of whom bore the name of Robert de Brus—and gravely presented them as one and the same individual. ”

“ Above all—if, as cannot be doubted, he loved his own people who had suffered so sorely in his cause—if he had any concern for the future of the kingdom it had cost so much to win—how could he suffer himself to be severed for so long from all communication with Scotland, and from all intelligence of how things were faring at home? ”

“ We have to resume the course of events in 1288, when the number of Guardians was reduced from six to four, by the assassination of the Earl of Fife by Sir Patrick Abercrombie and Sir Walter de Percy, and the death of the Earl of Buchan about the same time. Meanwhile, the far-sighted sagacity of King Edward had conceived the statesmanlike project of bringing about the union of England and Scotland under one Crown, and thus laying to perpetual rest the thorny question of the suzerainty, by marrying his son and heir to the young Queen of Scots. ”

“ Probably it is the incident in Bruce's career most widely circulated and most popularly believed. The critic who expresses doubts of its veracity will be exposed to the charge of irreverence; if he professes disbelief, to that of rank blasphemy. Yet where is evidence to be found in support of it? Not in the writings of Barbour, Fordun, or Wyntoun, those most nearly contemporary with the Bruce and least likely to suppress a circumstance so picturesque, and illustrating so aptly the perseverance and patience of the national hero under desperate difficulties. ”

“ Henry de Percy lay in Bruce's own house of Turnberry, with a garrison of three hundred; English troops swarmed in all parts of the land, and, worst of all, the people were, some indifferent, others ill-disposed, to the cause of Bruce. So Cuthbert lit no fire.
Somebody else did, though, for it was the season of "muirburn," as they still call it in Scotland, when farmers burn the heather and gorse on their pastures. A chance blaze near Turnberry at the appointed hour deceived King Robert, who at once commanded his men to launch the galleys, and they rowed all night, steering for the fire. ”

“ The O'Neills of Ulster had been making overtures to him, complaining of the exactions of their English rulers, and offering the crown of Ireland to Edward, Earl of Carrick. In consequence of this an expedition was resolved on, which seems to one looking back on those distant days the sole blunder committed by Robert the Bruce from the day he finally took up the cause of Scottish independence. There was fighting and rapine enough in Britain, God knows, to satisfy a nature far more ferocious than that of the King of Scots, without seeking more in other lands. ”

“ Supposing the remains exhumed at Dunfermline to have been King Robert's, which is very far from improbable, he must have stood about six feet high. In days when deeds of arms formed as much of the everyday life of gentlemen as politics do of their modern counterparts, the union of a powerful body with a strong intellect was sure to bring a man to distinction, provided he escaped violent death on the field or the scaffold. Hence the prominence of men like Moray and Douglas, for before the invention of gunpowder, all combats were hand to hand. ”

“ THE service which King Robert had laid upon the Lord of Douglas, was one which not only removed from the defence of Scotland her most experienced soldier and perhaps the coolest head in her council, but also exposed him to mortal peril. ”