WALTER FENTON;
OR,
THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.
CHAPTER I.
LES GARDES ECOSSAIS.
Thus shall your country's annals boast your corps,
And, glorious thought! in times and ages hence,
Some valiant chief to stimulate the more,
And urge his troops, the battle in suspense,
Shall hold your bright example to their view.
RUDDIMAUN'S MAG.
Louis, surnamed the Saint, King of France, having taken the cross, sailed with a splendid retinue of knights, nobles, and soldiers bent on the delivery of Jerusalem from the profanation of the Moslem; and, landing in the East, laid siege to Damietta (in Lower Egypt), which he triumphantly won by storm. But, after enduring innumerable hardships and disasters by the sword, and by pestilence from the fœtid waters of the marshy Nile and the Lake of Menzaleh, he was overthrown in battle at Mansoura, and made captive by the Soldan.
This was about the year 1254, when Alexander III. was King of Scotland.
In these Eastern wars, St. Louis was twice saved from death by the valour of a small band of auxilliary Scots crusaders, commanded by the Earls of March and Dunbar, Walter Stewart Lord of Dundonald, and Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk. Those brave adventurers had the good fortune to rescue the French monarch, first from the scimitars of the followers of the King of the Arsacides, a Mahommedan despot, and afterwards from the emissaries of the Comtesse de la Marche. Our good King Alexander, sent ambassadors to congratulate St. Louis on his deliverance from these double perils; and on his return from this first crusade, the two monarchs agreed that, in remembrance of these deeds of fidelity and valour, there should remain in France, in all time coming, "a standing company or guard of Scotsmen recommended by their own sovereign," and who should in future form the garde-du-corps of the most Christian King.
Such was the origin of the bravest body-guard that Europe ever saw, though our ancient historians are fond of dating its formation from the days of Charlemagne and Gregory the Great of Scotland.
The Guard thus established by St. Louis marched with him to his second crusade, in the year 1270. It was then led by the Earls of Carrick and Athole, Sir John Stuart, Sir William Gordon, and other brave knights, most of whom perished with Louis of a deadly pestilence before the walls of Tunis, and under the towers of Abu Zaccheria.