At Damietta, in the holy war, the life of St. Louis IX was twice saved by a Scottish band, led by the knights Stewart, Cumming, and Gordon; and in 1254, on his return from Palestine, the king increased the number of this guard to a hundred gentlemen-at-arms, and Charles V. afterwards placed them on the regular establishment.*
* See L'Escosse Française, par A. Houston, &c.
In 1415, when brave Harry of England won the field of Agincourt, and was acknowledged heir of France by the ignoble Charles VI., the Scottish Guard, led by Robert Patulloch, a native of Dundee, abandoned him, and marching from Paris towards Gascony, joined the gallant Dauphin, to whose assistance came several thousand veteran Scottish infantry, led by John, Earl of Buchan, who gained the battle of Bauge, on the 22nd March, 1421, cutting the English to pieces and slaying the Duke of Clarence, whose coronet was torn from his helmet by the Laird of Dalswinton. It was a desperate battle and a bloody one, as we might well expect when Englishmen and Scot met hand to hand on a foreign shore; and on that day the Dauphin, thenceforward Charles VII., ordered the Guard to consist of a hundred Scots men-at-arms and a hundred archers, to be commanded by the Earl of Buchan, whom he made Great Constable of France.
Signalising themselves on a thousand occasions, this chosen band of Scottish gentlemen were foremost at the storming of Avranches, in Normandy, in 1422, and at the great battle of Crevari in the following year. After being joined by five thousand comrades from Scotland, they led the furious charge at Verneuille in 1424; and destroyed the English convoy under the famous Sir John Fastolfe, in 1429. The Earls of Wigton, Buchan, and Douglas all fell in battle in one day, at the head of the Guard, and were interred in the church of St. Gracian, where their tombs are still to be seen.
Charmed by their unexampled valour and fidelity, Charles VII. ordained that 'le Garde du Corps Ecossoises' should forever take precedence of all other troops in France.'
In 1495 they were with the French army in Italy, and covered themselves with honour at the conquest of Naples, when Stuart of Aubigne was created Duke of Calabria.
They served under Louis XII. against the Venetians at the battle of Rivolta in 1509; and at the battle of Pavia, when Francis I. fell into the hands of the foe, one hundred and ninety-seven of the Scottish Guard lay killed and wounded round him. The King was taken, with three of his Scottish cavaliers, and gave up his sword, exclaiming—
'Gentlemen, we have lost all but our honour!'
In 1570, the Guard was ordained to consist of a hundred men-at-arms, a hundred archers, and twenty-four guards of the sleeve, or keepers of the King's body; and, eight years afterwards, at the battles of Gemblours and Mechlin, as Father Strada tells us, they flung off their armour, and in their doublets routed the Spaniards.
In the year I joined the Guard, there were three corps of Scottish infantry in the French service: viz., the regiments of Hepburn, Ramsay, and Lesly. Like other French corps, they consisted of several battalions. Hepburn's had seven, each a thousand strong. More than twenty regiments of the French line were led by Scottish colonels, and there were two Scottish lieutenant-generals, James Campbell, Earl of Irvine, and Andrew, Lord Rutherford of Hunthill; while De la Ferte Imbault, a brave veteran, was colonel-general of all the Scottish troops in France.