Edward Douglas

“ Their last stronghold, the Thrieve in Galloway, fell, and the lands of the Douglases were declared forfeit, and were divided among their rivals, the lordship of Douglas falling to the Red Douglas, 4th earl of Angus. In England the earl of Douglas intrigued against his native land; he was employed by Edward IV. in 1461 to negotiate a league with the western highlanders against the Scottish kingdom. In 1484 he was taken prisoner while raiding southern Scotland, and was relegated to the abbey of Lindores, where he died in 1488. ”

“ But what Douglas ought or ought not to have done depends solely on the precise terms of his trust; and it may be taken as certain that he knew King Robert's mind better than either Barbour or Froissart, or even their critics, and that he decided on his course in consultation with Randolph and the other magnates, prelates as well as barons. Edward's safe conduct and commendatory letter show by their terms that his going to Spain was no afterthought, but his original intention. To attribute to Douglas lack of 'strength of purpose' is to miss the whole significance of his career. ”

“ Sir William Douglas, designated the Hardy, succeeded his brother Hugh. He was also known by the name of Long Leg, and reckoned to be a very handsome and powerful man, surpassing most of his countrymen in stature. He appears to have been present in the Parliament at Brigham in 1289, as his name is appended to the letter addressed by “the community of Scotland,” to Edward I., as “Guillame de Duglas.” He swore131 fealty to Edward in the Chapel of Thurston, 5th July 1291. His first wife was Elizabeth, a near connection of the Steward of Scotland, who died shortly after her marriage. ”

“ The choice was unfortunate, and there is reason to suppose the prudence of Bruce had foreseen the incapacity of Mar when he preferred Douglas in the succession to the regency, which the youth of David made inevitably long. But Douglas had by this time fallen in the Moorish war in Spain. Encouraged by the divisions amongst the Scottish nobles, and secretly aided by Edward III, Edward the son of John Baliol, with many barons who had lost their Scotch estates by espousing the English side, made a descent on the coast of Fife. ”

“ This army, indeed, in arms and equipment, was not equal to the English, but Bruce was at their head, one of the ablest generals of the time, and under him were his brother Edward, his nephew Sir Thomas Randolph, and The Douglas, leaders under whom the Scots had always been aceustomed to conquer. Sir Thomas Randolph and Lord Douglas had aeted together on many a well fought field, and the strictost friendship existed betwixt these two great men. ”

“ The bold spirit of Douglas could ill brook this bravado, and he advised the acceptance of the challenge; but he was overruled by Murray, who replied to Edward that he never took the counsel of an enemy in any of his operations. The king, therefore, kept still his position opposite to the Scots; and daily expected that necessity would oblige them to change their quarters, and give him an opportunity of overwhelming them with superior forces. ”

“ Edward was therefore obliged to take the southern road; and he must have made a considerable circuit to avoid the Scottish army. He was, however, discovered on his retreat, and pursued by Douglas with sixty horse, who were all that could be mustered for the service. The King, by a rapid and continued flight through a country in which his misfortunes must have changed many friends into enemies, at length gained the castle of Dunbar, where he was hospitably received by the Earl of March. ”

“ His offer of allegiance to Edward I. being refused, he cast in his lot with Robert Bruce, whom he joined before his coronation at Scone in 1306. From the battle of Methven he escaped with Bruce and the remnant of his followers, and accompanied him in his wanderings in the Highlands. In the next year they returned to the south of Scotland. He twice outwitted the English garrison of Douglas and destroyed the castle. One of these exploits, carried out on Palm Sunday, the 19th of March 1307, with barbarities excessive even in those days, is known as the “Douglas Larder.” ”

“ In 1890 Douglas re-entered the political life of the colony as member for Launceston in the legislative council, and represented Tasmania at the Federal Convention at Sydney in 1891. He served in the Dobson ministry as chief secretary from 17 Aug. 1892 to 14 April 1894, when he became president of the legislative council; this position he held for ten years, being knighted at the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. In May 1904 he was defeated at the elections for Launceston, and retired from public life. He died on 10 April 1906 at Hobart, where he had come to reside ten years before ”

“ Meantime the youthful heiress has won the admiration of two young men, cousins of her own, who frequent the Castle—the handsome and elegant Colonel Delmour, a man of fashion and of the world, and the less showy but far deeper-natured Edward Lyndsay. A singular meeting now takes place between Mrs St Clair and a stranger named Lewiston, and soon afterwards it becomes apparent that the latter exercises a great, though unexplained, power over the lady. ”

“ While the armies lay thus opposed to each other, Douglas resolved to give the young king of England a lesson in the art of war. At the dead of night, he left the Scottish camp with a small body of chosen horse, not above two hundred, well armed. He crossed the river in deep silence, and came to the English camp, which was but carelessly guarded. Seeing this, Douglas rode past the English sentinels as if he had been an officer of the English army, saying,—"Ha, Saint George! you keep bad watch here!" ”

“ A cordial recommendation to publish his [Pg 111] verses was the result; and a large number of subscribers being procured, through the exertions of his medical friend, he appeared, in 1806, as the author of an octavo volume of "Poems," chiefly in the Scottish dialect. The publication yielded a profit of one hundred pounds.
Douglas was possessed of a weakly constitution; he died on the 21st November 1821. He was twice married, and left a widow, who still survives. Three children, the issue of the first marriage, died in early life. ”

“ Littlepage, Allen Williams, 1824, b. 1812.
Liveing, Edward Henry, 1866. Son of Edward Liveing, M.D., of 52, Queen Anne Street, London, b. 1855. Mining Engineer. Associate of the Royal School of Mines. First in the 1st Class in Mineralogy. ”

“ Son of Edward Matthey, Warwick Crescent, London, b. 1864.
Maud, Charles Theobald, 1809-13. Son of John Primatt Maud, of Hillingdon, Middlesex, b. 1797. Ball. Coll. Oxf.; died at Bath 1878.
Maud, Sidney Ashmore Stuart, 1874. Son of Rev. Henry Landon Maud, Vicar of Assington, Suffolk, b. 1861. Finished his education at the Institute of Commerce at Antwerp. ”

“ The crisis seems to demand a standard-bearer who will meet the cunning of the pale face with the cunning of the red man, and I therefore make this nomination in order that I may go to my camp in the Gunnison country feeling that I have done my duty by calling the attention of my people to a man who is well calculated to lead us to success. Douglas has filled almost every position of trust or profit in our nation. He has held nearly every office within the gift of the people from watermelon stealer extraordinary up to most supreme bartender of the nation, and he has never betrayed a trust. ”

“ Douglas was a remarkable man, both in character and in person. In age he may have been about fifty, with a strong-jawed, rugged face, a grizzling moustache, peculiarly keen gray eyes, and a wiry, vigorous figure which had lost nothing of the strength and activity of youth. He was cheery and genial to all, but somewhat offhand in his manners, giving the impression that he had seen life in social strata on some far lower horizon than the county society of Sussex. ”

“ Douglas’s quick and proud intelligence was amazed to find his father so weak and so incompetent under misfortune. All his boyish life he had looked up to the slender, handsome man, whom he himself so much resembled, on a solider, more substantial scale, as the most indulgent of fathers, the princeliest of hosts, the best of shots and riders, chief indeed of the Falloden clan and all its glories, who, like other monarchs, could do no wrong. ”

“ But every Monday morning Douglas would descend upon London, and when the diaries were bulging with records of swindles of all descriptions, and almost every tradesman in the West End was on his guard, he turned for a time to begging-letter writing, at which he proved himself an adept. He was the starving widow with eight children; the lonely widow of an Indian officer; the one-legged and one-armed hero of half a dozen campaigns; the old woman who had worked for the poor all her life, and was now in poverty herself ”

“ We should have no iron bridges built, or Atlantic cables laid, or financial companies started, and we certainly should not have any man-killing machines a million or half-a-million strong; whereas every well-conducted person knows that such things are now-a-days absolutely necessary. The truth is, that John Douglas, or Captain Douglas, as the neighbours called him with a kind of grudging respect, was a skulker from the battle of humanity. What he wanted was a beach of white sand, a hot day, a blue sea, a book, a pipe, and the absence of his fellow-creatures. ”

“ If he had not been a very sociable man, it was not through pride. He had done many generous actions. The children were fond of him. They waited for himself to find out the misfortune that had overtaken him.
Douglas's first intimation was contained in a letter sent him by a solicitor in Greenock. ”

“ Minstrels, play up for your warison, And well quit it shall be. "Every man think on his true love, And mark him to the Trinity; For to God I make mine a-vow This day will I not flee." The bloody heart in the Douglas' arms, His standard stood on high, That every man might full well know; Beside stood starres three. The white Li n on the English part, For sooth as I you sayne, The luces and the crescents both The Scots fought them again. ”

“ I sink fast; but let them still cry my war-cry, and conceal my death from my followers. There was a tradition in our family that a dead Douglas should win a field, and I trust it will this day be accomplished."
The Nobles did as he had enjoined; they concealed the Earl's body, and again rushed on to the battle, shouting "Douglas! Douglas!" louder than before. The English were weakened by the loss of the brave brothers Henry and Ralph Percy, both of whom were made prisoners, fighting most gallantly; and almost no man of note amongst the English escaped death or captivity. ”

“ He was appointed regent of Scotland in March 1333. The leadership of Douglas was impetuous rather than skilful, and lost the Scots the battle of Halidon, 19 July 1333. Douglas was slain there with many of his companions, including the son and successor of Sir James Douglas. Douglas married Beatrice, daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Crawford, who was afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Erskine of Erskine, and so ancestress of the Erskines, earls of Mar. Their eldest son, John, dying young, their second son, William, became first earl of Douglas [q. v.] ”

“ She is betrothed to the elderly Duke of{116} L——, but at the last moment throws him over and elopes to Scotland. The companion of her flight is Douglas, a handsome young officer in the army, the child of Scotch parents, but brought up in England by a wealthy adoptive father. The honeymoon is scarce over when the young people find themselves, not only partially disabused of their illusions, but in actual pecuniary straits. Juliana's elopement has hopelessly alienated the Earl ”

“ Growse, Edward Frederick, 1872. From Brentwood. Indian Civil Service. Guilding, Edward Lainson, 1871. Son of Edward Wingfield Guilding, of 19, Great Russell Street, b. 1858. Bracketed Scholar of Pemb. Coll. Oxf. ”

“ Townshend," announced Ellen.
No one had heard the sounds of his arrival. Elizabeth rose hastily, sending Buff and Billy to the floor, her eyes dazed with fire-light, her mind still in the Robbers' Cave.
"But the train isn't in yet," was her none too hospitable greeting.
"I must apologise," said the new-comer. "I came North last night to catch a man in Edinburgh—his ship was just leaving the Forth. I ought to have let you know, but I forgot to wire until it was too late. I'm afraid I'm frightfully casual. I hope you don't mind me walking in like this?" ”

“ And well they strove to keep their vow!
From Chicago he was chased, after two attempts so near success that it was sure that the third would get him. From Chicago he went under a changed name to California, and it was there that the light went for a time out of his life when Ettie Edwards died. Once again he was nearly killed, and once again under the name of Douglas he worked in a lonely canyon, where with an English partner named Barker he amassed a fortune. At last there came a warning to him that the bloodhounds were on his track once more, and he cleared—only just in time—for England. ”

“ Stung with this reproach, Randolph called upon his soldiers to follow him, exclaiming, "My wreath shall bloom, or I shall perish!"
As he advanced, the English, who were ten to one, wheeled round to attack him, and pressed hard on his little band. Douglas saw his jeopardy, and requested the king's permission to succour him. "You shall not move from your ground," cried the king; "let Randolph extricate himself as he best may,—I will not alter my order of battle, and lose the advantage of my position." ”