Elphinston, Lord Elphinston; has for his Motto "Caus Causit[321]," or, as written by Mr. Nisbet, "Cause caused it."[322]
In Almon's Short Peerage of Scotland Caus or Cause is interpreted Chance, which leads us to search for some casual circumstance in the history of the Family, whereby it was elevated.
Alexander Elphinston was ennobled by King James IV. in the time of our Henry VIII.; to whom a fatal incident happened, to which his Descendants might have a retrospect when the Motto was assumed. Some branches of the story are controverted; but enough is left by tradition to found our conjecture, and for the Family to rest the choice of their Motto upon. This Alexander, the first Peer, was slain at the Battle of Flodden Field (1513), together with King James IV.; and being, in his person and face, very like the King, his body was carried by the English to Berwick, instead of that of the King, and treated with some indignity. The controvertible part of the circumstance is, that the King escaped by this means, and lived to reward the Family who had thus lost their valiant Chief; but strong proofs are to be found, that the King was actually slain, though by some accounts not in the Battle, as his body was identified by more than one of his confidential Servants, who recognized it by certain private indelible marks[323].
Buchanan allows that the King escaped from the Battle; but adds, that he was killed the same day by a party of his own Subjects, whose interest it was to take him off, to avoid a punishment due to themselves for cowardice in the preceding Battle[324].
Holinshed tells us, that in order to deceive the Enemy, and encourage his own Troops, the King caused several of his Nobles to be armed and apparelled like himself[325]; and this practice, at that time of day, seems not to have been uncommon; for Shakspeare makes Richard say, during the Battle of Bosworth Field,
"I think, there be Six Richmonds in the Field:
Five have I slain to-day instead of him[326]."
Let this pass for truth; yet was Lord Elphinston's case the most remarkable, and most deserving of favour to his posterity, on account of the insults offered to his body, under a supposition that it was the body of the King. After the death of James IV. a long Minority ensued, and consequently a Regency; but what reward the Family of Elphinston had, or what weight they bore in the Reign of James V. or in that of Queen Mary, History is not minute enough to inform us; though we find, that the Great Grandson of the first Peer slain at Flodden-Field was of the Privy Council, and High Treasurer to James VI. (anno 1599) before his accession to the Crown of England. This King was too well read not to have known what passed in the Reign of his Great Grandfather respecting the first Lord Elphinston; and I am willing to suppose the Descendants of that Peer were equally informed of the fact above related; and that the Lord Treasurer Elphinston modestly imputed his elevation ultimately to that circumstance, and allusively took the Motto before us.
Lest this surmise should not be satisfactory, I will offer another on a very different ground, arising from the Crest, which is, "A Lady from the middle richly attired, holding a Castle in her Right Hand, and in her Left a Branch of Laurel." This throws the matter open to another conjecture; for the Bearing of the Lady, with the Castle in her Right Hand, may well be supposed to relate to Alliances; several of the Ancestry of the Family, which came originally from Germany in the time of Robert the Bruce (in the Reign of our Edward II.) having married Heiresses[327], whereby they obtained Lands, Castles, Power, and Nobility. These events often repeated, which may be termed the effects of chance, give us latitude to suppose the Motto may, on the other hand, relate to those casual means, whereby the Family rose to the honour of the Peerage.