Margaret MacArthur

“ Hitherto the Queen's party had been chiefly made up of nobles with but a small following, but this attack on the part of the English aroused the old hatred of England and drove a large mass of the people to join them. The choice of Lennox, the King's grandfather, as the new Regent, did still more to divide the nation, for not only was he the subject of Elizabeth and recommended by her, but also, when he came to Scotland, it was as joint leader of one of these invading armies. Now, for the first time, the nation was truly divided against itself. ”

“ The feudal character of the legislature and of the national representation drove the energies of the people into the only channel that was left open to them—that of religious thought. Hence it came that in Scotland the great struggle for political freedom was fought out under the cloak of a contest for liberty of conscience. From the Reformation to the Union the history of the country is little but the record of a series of religious wars. ”

“ But while it was those from Denmark who chiefly harassed and finally conquered the English, the Norwegians seem to have looked upon Scotland as their own especial prey, attracted doubtless by the likeness between its many isles and inlets and the jagged outline of the larger Scandinavian peninsula. The long narrow lochs of the western coast, like the fiords of Norway, proved convenient harbours for the ships of these pirates. It is towards the close of the eighth century that we first hear of the descents of the Northmen on the Pictish kingdom. ”

“ Of this native gold James the Fourth struck some beautiful coins, which were called bonnet pieces, because they bore the image of the King wearing a bonnet. The state of the people at this time was one of almost serf-like dependence on their lords. But great as the power of the nobles was, there were no forest or game laws in Scotland, nor did they enjoy any privilege of peerage. An offender against the law, if he could be brought to justice, had to "thole an assize," like any peasant, however high his rank might be. ”

“ The life of David has been written by his friend and admirer, Æthelred the Abbot of Rievaulx. He has drawn an attractive picture of an able and virtuous prince, kindly and courteous alike to high and low; ever ready to listen to the complaints of all his subjects and to set wrong right, and never turning his face away from any poor man. He tells us how the King himself dealt out justice to his subjects, and in his progress through the several districts of his kingdom, used, on set days, in person to hear the suits and to redress the wrongs of the poor and oppressed among his people. ”

“ Against such men, inspired by such righteous indignation, the mixed multitude of Scots, Picts of Galloway, Welshmen from Strathclyde, Northmen from the Orkneys, and English from the Lothians, who with a body of Norman knights made up the so-called Scottish host, had but small chance of success. This chance was made still smaller by what proved fatal to the cause of Scotland in many an after fight, the inevitable squabbles between the rival races. The Celts were jealous of the Norman strangers, and clamoured so loudly for their right of leading the van, that David at last gave in to them. ”

“ When Edward had secured Berwick, he marched to Dunbar, took the castle, and then went on to Edinburgh. He there took up his quarters in Holyrood, laid siege to the castle, took it, seized the crown jewels, and then passed on to Perth, taking possession of Stirling on the way. To crush out all idea of an independent kingdom, and to let the people see that they were conquered, he carried off from Scone the Stone of Destiny, with which the fate of the Scottish monarchy was supposed to be mystically joined. ”

“ Grange gave himself up to the English general and appealed to the English Queen. But she either could not or would not protect him. His gallant defence of the castle for Mary was looked on as treason against the government of James, which Elizabeth had in a manner acknowledged. He was given up into the hands of Morton, his bitter enemy, and hanged at Edinburgh, August 3, 1573, in spite of all the efforts of his many friends to save him. Brave, gallant, and unselfish, he was distinguished among a greedy generation by his contempt alike of money and of place. ”

“ Wallace's Revolt.—The Celts in the North looked on this change in the government with apathy. To them it probably made little difference who sat on the Scottish throne, and Edward had not entered their district. The Norman nobles quietly agreed to it, for they were afraid of losing their estates in England. But it roused a spirit of defiance and opposition where resistance was least to be looked for, among the Lowlanders. They were the descendants of the earliest Teutonic settlers, and had remained more purely English in blood and speech than their kinsfolk on the southern side of the Border. ”

“ Cromwell's Conquest.—-No sooner did the news of these doings reach London than Cromwell was sent northward with a large army to put a stop to them. The old hatred of England was rekindled by this invasion, and numbers of recruits flocked round the banner of the Covenant. The army thus brought together was made up of good soldiers who made no pretences to piety, and of would-be saints who knew nothing of fighting. ”

“ The government was in the hands of Randolf, who had been appointed Regent by the Estates before the death of the late king. In the early part of the reign the country was torn by a struggle which, as it was really a civil war, was more dangerous to its independence and more hurtful to the national character than the long war with the English had been. This war was caused by those barons who, holding large estates in England, had, by marriage or by inheritance, become possessed of lands in Scotland, which they lost by the Act of the last reign against absentees. ”

“ Summary.—In this chapter we have seen how Scotland lost her independence by the selfish quarrels of her nobles and the weakness of her King John Balliol; how the rising of Wallace, the first effort for regaining her ancient freedom, was confined solely to the people without the nobles; how it came to nothing from the want of unity of purpose in the nation; how Scotland, after the failure of this attempt, had lost her separate national life and had been united to England ”

“ A two years' truce was made in 1319, but, as soon as it was ended, he once more invaded Scotland with a large army. He found nothing but a wasted country, for the Scots had carried both provisions and cattle to the hills, nor would they come out to fight, though they harassed the rear of the retreating army. At last the people of the northern counties of England grew weary of the constant struggle. They had suffered so much loss from the inroads of the Scots that they at last resolved that, if the King would not make peace for them, they must come to terms with the enemy on their own account. ”

“ It was not till after the Rebellion of 1745 that the spirit of industry first began to animate the people. But the Highlands remained for some time in a very bad state. The spirit of the people was broken, and the severe climate, barren soil, and lack of minerals left them no resource but the fisheries. The Highland Society, founded in 1784, did much to improve the state of agriculture, by reclaiming the waste districts; and latterly great numbers of the people have emigrated. At the time of the Union Scotland was without agriculture, manufactures, or trade ”

“ James, the brother and heir of the murdered Earl, openly defied the King; that is, he renounced his allegiance to him as a traitor and a perjured man. His cause was taken up by the parties to the bond, the Earls of Ross and Crawford. The King, who felt himself too weak to break the confederacy, was forced to turn to his own advantage the enmity among his nobles, and to pull down one house by building up another. This policy only changed the name of the rivals of the Crown, without getting rid of them, and it laid the foundation of the like troubles in future reigns. ”

“ This was prevented by the ceaseless party strife which disgraced the century, and made this period one of the most disastrous and oppressive to the people in the whole history of the nation. James the Sixth had found the strict discipline and constant interference of the ministers so irksome, and the turbulent independence of his nobles so little to his mind, that he was delighted to escape from both to the richer kingdom to which his good fortune called him. The severe training of his childhood had made him hate the Presbyterian polity with all his heart. ”

“ State of the Nation.—In Scotland the feudal system was still unshaken. To it the great barons owed their power, and the Reformation, which in England had strengthened the crown, had in Scotland only thrown more wealth and more power into the hands of the nobles. Hitherto the people had been only dependents of the great feudal barons, whose [Pg 123] burthens they bore in return for their protection. Still they could not have been very badly off, for in Scotland there were no peasant wars, as in France and England. ”

“ The history of Scotland also gives us a picture of pure and unmixed feudalism. The feudal system which was introduced under the sons of Malcolm and Margaret took much firmer root in Scotland than it ever did in England; and, as it was here untouched by the Common Law and the growth of the constitution which acted as checks upon it in England, it grew to such an excess of power that it quite overshadowed the power of the Crown. The practice of making hereditary jurisdictions, and of granting powers of regality, still further increased the influence of the feudal nobles. ”

“ At one time Bruce had met with so many defeats that he left Scotland and thought of giving up the struggle and going to the Holy Land. Tradition says that the example of a spider stirred him up to fresh courage and endurance. He was in hiding in the island of Rachrin, off the north coast of Ireland. As he lay one morning in bed in the wretched hut in which he had taken refuge, he saw a spider trying in vain to throw its web across from beam to beam of the roof above his head. The insect tried six times and failed. Bruce reckoned that he had been beaten just six times by the English. ”

“ But the French never gave the Scots any real help, and the English were so much taken up at home with the Civil Wars of the Roses that they made no serious attacks on the independence of Scotland. Though during this period there were four long minorities, there was no attempt made to break the regular line of succession. This was due partly to the attachment of the people to the royal line, and partly to the weakness of the royal authority, for the King had so little real power that the great nobles did not think the crown worth taking. ”

“ They were justly proud of having a king who was no mere puppet in the hands of others, fit only to wear a crown and to spend money, but a brave, wise man, who had shown himself as able to suffer want and to fight against ill-fortune as the best and bravest among themselves. ”

“ The Scottish people were deeply mortified and much enraged by the failure of this scheme. They blamed William for all the disasters of the colonists, because he had done nothing to help them, nor to prevent the interference of Spain. The Charter had been granted by the Government of Scotland without the King's knowledge when he was in Holland; and though he could not recall it, it would have been unjust to his English subjects to show any favour to a scheme which, had it succeeded, might have proved the ruin of their East Indian trade. ”

“ Social Progress.—The removal of the Government to London attracted thither not only all the Scottish nobles, but also all the wealthy and the ambitious commoners. Thus Edinburgh lost much of its importance through the Union, though it still remained the intellectual capital, where the members of the Courts of Law and of the University took the lead in society. Meanwhile Glasgow, the capital of the west, where the manufactures which were first introduced by Duncan Forbes had taken firm root, gradually rose to much greater importance in wealth and commerce. ”

“ Edward's policy in all this was to win favour with the people and the members of the council, although many of them, such as Bruce and Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, had taken part in the last rising. The King's peace was now offered to all rebels who would profit by it. But the great difficulty in dealing with the Scots was that they never knew when they were conquered, and, just when Edward hoped that his scheme for union was carried out, they rose in arms once more. ”

“ End of the Gaelic Period.—With Donald ends the Gaelic or Celtic period. The sons of Margaret carried out the reforms begun by their mother, and the Celtic customs gave way more and more to the Saxon influence both in the court and in the country. The King identified himself with his new nobles and with his English earldom, so that Lothian, as it was the richest, became the most prominent part of his dominions, and the true Scots of the North came to be looked on as savages and aliens, the natural enemies and perpetual disturbers of all peace and prosperity. ”

“ Each minister looked on himself as bishop over his own flock, and would not submit to having any overseer set over him again. But, as the removal of the bishops as spiritual peers would have been the removal of one of the three Estates—that one too that had always been on the side of the crown—and as their existence served as a pretext to the nobles for drawing their revenues, it was clearly the interest both of the crown and of the nobles to maintain them. In 1588 Philip of Spain fitted out a great fleet for the invasion of England. This caused a great panic throughout Scotland. ”

“ Union of the Crowns.—When Elizabeth died, James was the nearest heir to the throne of England by right of descent from Margaret, elder daughter of Henry the Seventh. But her right had been passed over by Henry the Eighth, who had in the will, which he was empowered by Parliament to make, settled the succession on the heirs of his younger sister, Mary. As it was politically convenient to the English Privy Council that James should succeed Elizabeth on her death, they sent off post haste to summon him to come and take the crown. ”

“ The House of Douglas.—Archibald, Earl of Douglas, was at this time the most powerful baron in Scotland. Besides holding Galloway, Annandale, and other great estates in Scotland, he had inherited the Duchy of Touraine, which had been conferred on his father by the King of France for good service done against the English, and in his foreign duchy he possessed wealth and splendour beyond anything that the Scottish king could boast. The family still had a hold on the popular favour won for them by the Good Lord James. ”