Ruins and Old Trees, Associated with Memorable Events in English History

by Mary Roberts

There were sad hearts in Scotland, when the heavy tidings reached her of the young queen’s death; and when it was heard by those who met at evening around the oak of Ellerslie, they looked anxiously one upon the other, for they knew not what to say; it seemed to them that all hope for the weal of Scotland was about to be extinguished. They knew that Edward was both powerful and crafty; that having lately, by force of arms, brought Wales under subjection, he had designed, by the marriage of Margaret with his eldest son, to unite the whole island under one monarchy. With this view he had dispatched an embassy to the states of Scotland, when the late king died, and the proposal being favourable to the happiness and security of the kingdom, it was readily assented to. It was even agreed by the five guardians, that their young sovereign should be educated at the English court, while they at the same time, stipulated that Scotland should enjoy her ancient liberties and customs, and that in case the prince and Margaret should die without children, the crown of Scotland should revert to the next heir. The projected marriage promised well, but the sudden death of the young princess left only a dismal prospect for the kingdom. No breaking-out among the people immediately ensued, for the regency was sufficiently powerful to keep the crown from sudden spoliation. It was otherwise in the course of a short time, for several pretenders laid claim to the vacant throne. The posterity of William, King of Scotland, the prince who was taken prisoner by Henry II., being extinct on the death of Margaret, the crown devolved by natural right to the representatives of David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother to William, whose male line being also extinct, left the succession open to the descendants of his daughters. John Baliol represented his maternal ancestor Margaret, one of the three daughters of the Earl of Huntingdon, married to Alan, Lord of Galloway; Robert Bruce of Annandale, his mother Isabella; and John Hastings, the lady Adama, who espoused Henry Lord Hastings. This last pretended that the kingdom of Scotland, like other inheritances, was divisible among the three co-heiresses of the Earl of Huntingdon, and that he, in right of his mother, was entitled to a third. Baliol and Bruce spurned at the thought of dismembering the country, while each asserted the superiority of his own claim. Baliol was sprung from the elder branch, Bruce was one degree nearer the common stock; if the principle of representation was regarded, the former had the better claim; if consanguinity was considered, the latter was entitled to the preference. The sentiments of men were divided, all the nobility took part with one or other of the claimants, and the people implicitly followed their leaders. The different claimants themselves had great power and numerous retainers in Scotland, and each thought himself secure of gaining the Scottish throne. The danger which threatened the country was therefore iminent. The most thoughtless saw that a furious civil war would infallibly occur, unless some plan could be devised for adverting so terrible a calamity; and men, high in power, of all parties, and themselves secretly inclining either to Baliol, or Bruce, or Hastings, resolved, if possible, to lay aside their mutual differences, and to agree upon some measure for preserving the public peace.

Many and lengthened were the discussions which they held. The best and most obvious method of averting the threatened calamity, was to prevail upon two of the contending parties to lay aside their mutual claims. But this they would not do; each saw, or fancied that he saw, the crown of Scotland within his grasp, and he cared not if it was gained at the cost of a civil war. Another expedient then occurred to those who sat in council for the public good. This was the submitting of the question to the judgment of King Edward. For such a measure they had many precedents. The English king and his barons, in the preceding reign, had endeavoured to settle their differences by a reference to the King of France, and the integrity of that monarch had prevented any of the bad effects which might otherwise have ensued. The kings of France and Arragon, and afterwards other princes, had appealed in like manner to Edward’s arbitration, and he had acquitted himself with honour in his decisions. The parliament of Scotland, therefore, wishing if possible to prevent the misery attendant on civil discord, and allured by the great reputation of the English monarch, as well as by the amicable correspondence which had existed between the kingdoms, agreed in making a reference to Edward. Men of probity were chosen as deputies, and among these, Frazer, Bishop of St. Andrews, left his quiet home on the plains of Fife, at a short distance from the German ocean, to undertake a long and perilous expedition to the English court. They remembered that her monarch would have stood in the relationship of a father to their young queen, they had heard much concerning his integrity and honour, and how he had kept peace in France and Arragon, and they flattered themselves that he would now interfere in the affairs of a sister kingdom, with such authority as none of the competitors would dare to withstand.

Hope revived in Scotland, and many fondly trusted that the heavy cloud which had begun to settle on her mountains, and threatened to deluge her plains with wretchedness, would yet pass away.

Men often possess a high character for virtue, because they have no temptation to act wrong. In the case of France and Arragon, the remoteness of the states, the great power of their respective princes, and the little interest which Edward had on either side, induced him to acquit himself with strict impartiality in his decisions. It was not so in the present case, and the temptation was too strong for the English monarch to resist. He secretly purposed to lay hold of the present favourable opportunity, and if not to create, at least to revive, his claim of a feudal supremacy over Scotland; a claim which had hitherto lain in the deepest obscurity, and which, if it had ever been an object of attention, or had been so much as suspected, would have prevented the Scottish barons from choosing him as umpire. Passing by the archives of the empire, which, had his claim been real, must have afforded numerous records of homage done by the Scottish princes, he caused the monasteries to be ransacked for old chronicles and histories of bygone days, and from these every passage was transcribed which seemed to favour his pretensions. The amount of all such transcripts, when taken collectively, merely went to show that the Scots had occasionally been defeated by the English, and had concluded peace on disadvantageous terms. It was proved, indeed, that when the King of Scotland, William, was taken prisoner at the battle of Alnwic, he was constrained, for the recovery of his liberty, to swear fealty to the victor. But even this faint claim to feudal superiority on one side, of submission on the other, was done away by Richard II. That monarch being desirous to conciliate the friendship of the Scottish king, before his departure for the Holy Land, renounced the homage, which he said, in express terms, had been extorted by his father.

The commissioners soon perceived with dismay, that all which they could urge against the pretensions of the English monarch, were utterly unavailing. They heard, too, that a royal commission had been issued for the fitting out of a great armament, and intelligence quickly followed that the army was on its march to Scotland.

Edward and his men-at-arms, reached Norham Castle, on the southern banks of the Tweed, where he insiduously invited the Scottish parliament, and all the competitors to attend him, in order to determine the cause which had been referred to his arbitration. They came, but not on equal terms, for the English king brought with him a large body of warlike men, ready to do his bidding; while the parliament found themselves betrayed into a situation in which it was impossible to make any stand, for the liberty and independence of their country. One anxious year for Scotland passed on, while Edward pretended, impartially, to examine the claims of the various competitors, for nine others had now started. Having thus gained time for the furtherance of his ambitious view, he pronounced sentence in favour of Baliol. Baliol was, therefore, placed on the throne of Scotland, with the shadow merely of royal authority, for many and humiliating were the concessions which Edward required of the seeming king. They were such as even his mild and yielding disposition could not brook, and at length, taking advantage of a favourable juncture, he resolved to make a desperate effort for the restoration of his rights.

Rumours were soon afloat that an English army was rapidly advancing, and scarcely was the intelligence received, than it was also heard that some of the most powerful among the Scottish nobles, with Robert Bruce, the father and the son, and the Earls of March and Angus, foreseeing the ruin of their country from the concurrence of intestine divisions, and a foreign invasion, had submitted to the English king. Other rumours followed, fraught with distress for Scotland. Some related that the English troops had actually crossed the Tweed without opposition, at Coldstream; others that Baliol, having procured for himself, and for his nation, Pope Celestine’s dispensation from former oaths, renounced the homage which he had done to England, and was already at the head of a great army. Some spoke what they believed, others as they wished; but there was little ground for exultation as respected the movements of the Scotch king. Instead of bringing into the field any effective force, with which to oppose the encroachments of the English, he was constrained to hear of their continual successes. The castle of Roxborough was taken; Edinburgh and Stirling opened their gates to the enemy. All the southern portions of the country were readily subdued, and Edward, still better to reduce the northern, whose rocks and fastnesses afforded some security, sent for a strong reinforcement of Welch and Irish. These men, being accustomed to a desultory kind of warfare, were best fitted to pursue the fugitive Scots into the recesses of their glens and mountains. The quiet valleys and the upland solitudes, which had been untrodden by stranger steps for ages, were visited in consequence, and hostile men sat down beneath the shade of the old Oak of Ellerslie.

The spirit of the nation was broken at this period. Edward marched northward to Aberdeen and Elgin, without meeting an enemy. No Scotchman approached, but to pay him homage. Even the bold chieftains, ever refractory to their own princes, and averse to the restraint of laws, endeavoured to prevent the devastation of their mountain homes, by giving the usurper early proofs of obedience. The bards alone stood firm; they sung to the music of their harps the high and moving strains which, in ancient days, had roused those who heard them to a pitch of the wildest enthusiasm.

Scotland being thus reduced to a state of seeming dependence, the English forces generally repassed the Tweed, although strong garrisons remained in every castle of importance. They had carried with them that ancient stone, on which, from the remotest period either of history or of tradition, the Kings of Scotland received the rite of inauguration. They believed, on the faith of an ancient prophecy, that wherever this stone was placed, their nation should always govern; it was also treasured up in the minds of men, among their fondest traditions, that the day would come when one of Scottish birth should rule over England. Scone was no longer permitted to retain the true palladium of their monarchy; it was proudly carried off, and placed in the palace of Westminster. There was seeming tranquillity throughout Scotland on the day of its removal from the ancient church at Scone, but the hearts of all who saw it pass, or who heard of its removal, burned within them. The deed was spoken of throughout all Scotland. Men heard of it in the remotest parts; the chieftain in his castle-hall, the peasant in his highland hut; they were constrained to smother the indignation that glowed within them, yet they secretly awaited a favourable opportunity to assert the independence of their country. Baliol, too, was carried, a prisoner, to London; his great seal was broken, and when, after the lapse of two years’ confinement in the Tower, he was restored to liberty, it was with the harsh condition that he should submit to a voluntary banishment in France. Thither, accordingly, he retired, and died in a private station.

Scotland, meanwhile, was in a deplorable condition. Her king was powerless, and the administration of the country was in the hands of rapacious men—of Ormesby, who had been appointed justiciary by Edward; and Cressingham the treasurer. The latter had no other object than to amass money by rapine and injustice; the former was notorious for the rigour and severity of his temper: and both, treating the Scots as a conquered people, made them sensible too early of the grievous servitude into which they had fallen.