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RENEWED
EFFORTS AND SUCCESS OF BALIOL – HE REWARDS HIS PATRON, THE ENGLISH
MONARCH, BY ASSIGNING TO HIM A LARGE PORTION OF SCOTLAND – RESISTANCE AND
TRIUMPH OF THE PATRIOTS UNDER MURRAY – REIGN OF DAVID II. – CARLYLE OF
TORTHORWALD IS KILLED DEFENDING THE KING AT THE BATTLE OF NEVILLE’S CROSS
– INCIDENTS OF THE WARFARE IN NITHSDALE AND ANNANDALE – HARROWING DOMESTIC
EPISODE: MURDER OF SIR ROGER KIRKPATRICK IN CARLAVEROCK CASTLE, BY HIS
GUEST, LINDSAY – CAPTURE OF THE ASSASIN, AND HIS TRIAL AND EXECUTION AT
DUMFRIES – A BREATHING TIME OF PEACE, AND ITS BENEFICIAL RESULTS ON THE
TOWN AND DISTRICT – MORE BORDER RAIDS – DUMFRIESSHIRE RAVAGED BY THE
ENGLISH UNDER LORD TALBOT – THEIR CAMP ON THE SOLWAY IS SUDDENLY ATTACKED
BY THE SCOTS WITH GREAT SLAUGHTER.
THIS
visitation would have finished Baliol, had not the English monarch set him
up anew. Next March, he was again at the head of an English army, invading
Scotland, and laying siege to the Castle of Berwick. While thus engaged,
Sir Archibald Douglas, with three thousand men, made a diversion on the
south side of the Border, and returned laden with booty, after ravaging
the whole district to the extent of thirty miles. With the view of paying
him back in kind, Sir Anthony de Lacey, of Cockermouth, led a considerable
force into Dumfriesshire. They plundered the country far and wide, till
the stout Castle of Lochmaben, that had often before done good service,
stopped their desolating march. Pity that its keeper, the gallant “Flower
of Chivalry,” Sir William Douglas, of Liddisdale, did not remain under its
shelter, instead of sallying forth with chivalrous generosity, as he did,
and giving the invaders battle in the open plain. He was taken prisoner in
the engagement that ensued, together with a hundred men of rank; and
upwards of a hundred and sixty of his soldiers were left dead on the
disastrous field. [Redpath, p. 302.] Among the slain were Sir Humphrey de
Bois, of Dryfesdale (supposed by Dalrymple to be the ancestor of Hector
Boece the historian), Sir Humphrey Jardine, and Sir William Carlyle, of
Torthorwald. Lacey, satisfied with his success, proceeded with his
captives and spoil to Carlisle [Walsingham, p. 132.] – the city where the
goods stolen from Dumfriesshire in those days were generally resetted. The
prisoned “Flower,” loaded with fetters, pined in Carlisle Castle more than
two years, but, unweakened by confinement, proved to be of the genuine
thistle kind in many a subsequent encounter with the English.
The
patriot cause suffered another serious blow when the Regent, Sir Andrew
Murray, was made prisoner, in abortive attempt to surprise the Castle of
Roxburgh; and it was almost entirely crushed when Sir Archibald Douglas,
his successor in the Regency, after a wasting raid into England, recrossed
the Tweed, for the purpose of relieving Berwick, attacked an intervening
army, strongly posted on Halidon Hill, and was thoroughly defeated, with
great slaughter – Douglas himself being mortally wounded, and the Earls of
Lennox, Ross, Sutherland, Carrick, Monteith, and Athol being numbered
among the slain. Baliol’s first failure was in these ways redeemed – his
disgraceful escapade at Annan was revenged – and his aspirations once more
mounted to the zenith. [Wyntoun, vol. ii., p. 170.]
At the
head of an immense force – twenty-six thousand men in number, it is said –
he overran the greater part of Scotland, meeting with little opposition,
and subjecting the whole of it, excepting the spots on which stood the
Castle of Urquhart, Loch-Doon, Lochleven, Kildrummie, and Dumbarton. Even
when this was accomplished, he remained but a nominal king. The Scots paid
him an unwilling homage: remembering Bannockburn, they never supposed for
a moment but that his puppet’s part would soon be played out. The English,
conscious of his indebtedness to them, became voracious in their demands.
They had made him a king, and he must show his gratitude for their
services, or he might find himself a crownless fugitive some day soon. He
gave Lord Henry Percy Annandale and Moffatdale; and, to enable him to keep
them with the strong hand, if need be, he added the Castle of Lochmaben to
the grant. [Redpath, p. 310.] In this way Randolph’s lands were disposed
of; and the estates belonging to other Brucian nobles were handed over to
other English lords, or those recreant patricians who were base enough to
accept a reward for assisting to destroy their nation, and to feast on the
honey which the lion’s carcase yielded. “More! we must have more!” was the
language of the exorbitant Southrons and their King. Baliol was placed in
the position of a necromancer, who, after doing many marvelous feats, and
acquiring much wealth, is required, by unceasing sacrifices, to propitiate
the remorseless demon to whom he is indebted for his success.
It was
not enough that Baliol had become the sworn vassal of Edward III., and had
curtailed his own revenue by enriching that monarch’s subjects; he must,
over and above that deep humiliation, and these liberal largesses, give
over in fee to his liege lord a goodly portion of Scottish land for
annexation to England, and henceforth to be completely Anglicized. However
mean-spirited Baliol was, he must have been disgusted by these exactive
demands. Though loath to comply with them, he durst not hazard a refusal.
In a Parliament held at Newcastle on the 12th of June, 1334,
he, by a solemn legal instrument, invested his royal master with the
ownership of the castle, town, and county of Berwick; of the castle, town,
and county of Roxburgh; of the forts, towns, and forests of Jedburgh,
Selkirk, and Ettrick; of the city, castle, and county of Edinburgh; of the
constabularies of Haddington and Linlithgow; of the town and county of
Peebles; and lastly, of the town, Castle, and County of Dumfries.
[Redpath, p. 310.] This most abject and disgraceful partition of the
ancient kingdom of Scotland could not actually be carried out. The
“departed spirits of the mighty dead” vetoed the arrangement: Wallace and
Bruce, though mouldering in the dust, lived in the hearts of their
countrymen, and dictated the nation’s protest against the base perfidy of
Baliol and the insatiable cupidity of the English King.
Edward
III. supposed he had succeeded where an abler man (Edward I.) had failed.
Having been invested in his new possessions, he made arrangements for
their government – appointing sheriffs for each district, with Robert de
Laudre as Chief Justice, and assigning to John de Bourdon the important
office of General Chamberlain. One Peter Tilliol, of whom we know little,
was made Sheriff of Dumfriesshire, and Keeper of the Castle of Dumfries.
[Fœdera, p. 615; also, Rutuli Scatiæ, vol. i., p. 271. in which the
following entry occurs: - “Petrius Tilliol, de officio vice comitatus de
Dumfries, et custodia castri R. ibidem.”] To Edward de Bohun were given
Moffatdale, Annandale, and the Castle of Lochmaden – Percy, their previous
English possessor, receiving for them an equivalent; and they continued to
be held by one or other of the Bohun family till the expulsion of the
Southrons from the district. Scarcely had these police arrangements been
effected, when Sir Andrew Murray, escaping from prison, unfurled the
patriotic flag with such effect that Baliol took flight from the country
he had betrayed; and Edward III., dreading that his own tenure of it might
be snapped asunder, passed with an army through Dumfries towards Glasgow,
at the close of 1334 – returning, however, in a hurry, as, though he
encountered no military force, hunger, and the rigour of the season, drove
him back over the Border. Next year he repeated the invasion, carrying
desolation into the country as far as Morayshire, and being forced to
retire a second time by the famine he had himself created. For fully three
years longer the war continued, the Scots adopting the policy, recommended
by Bruce, of avoiding pitched battles, and depending chiefly on guerrilla
attacks, by which they risked little and severely harassed the enemy.
In the
summer of 1338, Sir Andrew Murray died. He had for some time shared the
Regency with Robert Stewart, who, on his death, became sole Regent. Murray
had done much to keep, alive the flame of Scottish patriotism; and when
the management of affairs devolved entirely upon Stewart, they did not
suffer at his hands. The Castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, and many
smaller fortresses, were, one after another, wrested by him from the
invaders; and the national cause looked so promisingly that, in May, 1341,
the young King, David, now eighteen years of age, ventured to return from
France, where he had lived an exile nine long years. On landing at
Inverbervie, in Kincardineshire, with his Queen, he was received with
enthusiasm by the people, glad once more to have a sovereign amongst them,
and that sovereign the son of the Bruce under whom they had fought and
conquered. The son, however, proved unworthy of the sire: his reign was
discreditable to himself and disadvantageous to Scotland – the country
being often humiliated, and suffering great depression, during its course.
Shortly
after the King’s arrival, abortive efforts were made by Randolph, Earl of
Moray, to rid Dumfriesshire of the English. On laying siege to Lochmaben
Castle, he was repulsed, with serious loss, by Selby the governor.
[Redpath, p. 355.] A truce ensued between the Scots and English, to last
till Michaelmas, 1346, during which Nithsdale and the greater portion of
Annandale remained in the possession of the enemy. When the war resumed,
King David proceeded, at the head of a large army, on an ill-starred
expedition into Northumberland, gaining for it on the way a delusive gleam
of success by capturing the powerful fortress which had five years before
resisted the arms of Randolph. Its defender, Selby, was beheaded: a doom
richly merited by him, as, during his governorship, he had been the terror
of the dale. But the recovery of Lochmaben Castle, however important in
itself, weighed but as a feather in the scale against the thorough defeat
which awaited the Scots at Neville’s Cross, near Durham. Their main centre
was commanded by David himself; near him fought Thomas Carlyle of
Torthorwad, who fell slain when gallantly defending the person of the
King. The victory of the English was immensely enhanced by the capture of
the Scottish monarch; and when, nine years afterwards, he acquired his
liberty, it was on condition that he should pay the heavy ransom of a
hundred thousand merks. The King, on being restored to his throne, showed
that he cherished a grateful recollection of Carlyle’s services: a charter
signed by him, bearing date 18th October, 1362, conveyed the
lands of “Coulyn and Rowcan to our beloved cousin, Susannah Carlyle heir
of Thomas de Torthorwald, who was killed defending our person at the
battle of Durham, and to Robert Corrie, her spouse, belonging formerly to
our cousin, William de Carlyle.” [Barjarg Manuscripts.]
Edward
Baliol, who held a leading command on the side of the victors at Neville’s
Cross, co-operated with them in overrunning Tweeddale, the Merse, Ettrick,
Annandale, and Galloway. [Wyntoun, vol. ii., p. 265.] Next year, at the
head of twenty thousand men, he entered Dumfriesshire by the Western
Border, and, taking up his abode in Carlaverock Castle, wasted Nithsdale
and Carrick; while Admaro de Atheles assumed the governorship of Dumfries,
and strengthened his position by occupying the neighbouring stronghold of
Dalswinton. [It appears from an entry in the Rotuli Scotiæ, p. 173, that
Atheles at this time put the Castle of Dalswinton, which had suffered much
during the war, in good repair.] Baliol proceeded on his destructive
mission as far as Perth, where he was stopped by a messenger, announcing
that the King of France had, on his own behalf and that of his Scottish
allies, ratified an eight years’ truce with England; and before the
armistice expired, Baliol, despairing of realizing the object he had aimed
at, resigned his pretensions, for a money consideration, into the hands of
Edward III., and vanished from public life, regretted by no one, scorned
or contemned by all.
With the
review of making good the transfer, Edward III., in February, 1356, lead
an immense army into Scotland by the Eastern Marches. The Scots, still
acting upon the dying counsel of Bruce, did not attempt to meet the
invaders in the open field, but wasted the country round about,
confidently expecting that more havoc would be committed by hunger than by
the sword in the ranks of the enemy. It was even so. The English found the
farm-yards empty; and as their foraging parties roamed the country, they
met with neither herds nor flocks. No food could be obtained for men or
horses; and the Southern fleet, which was to have brought provisions
seaward to Berwick, suffered from a storm, which prevented it reaching
that port. Frantic with vexation and rage, Edward, more like a bandit
chief than a royal commander, took insane revenge upon the famine, by
resorting to the torch. He set fire to towns and villages, woods and
towers, causing such a terrific conflagration, that the season was long
after spoken of by the common people as “The Burnt Candlemas.” He then,
from the blackened ruins of Haddington, beat a precipitate retreat; his
forlorn host being galled and decimated on its homeward way by bands of
Scots, that sprung up on every side.
Relieved
from the presence of the invaders, the patriot forces assumed the
offensive. They succeeded in capturing many strongholds by which the
English had long kept a precarious tenure of the country. Sir Roger
Kirkpatrick stormed the Castles of Carlaverock, Dalswinton, and Durisdeer.
He afterwards paid a visit to Dumfries; but the friends of Edward there
seem to have decamped unceremoniously before he reached the town [Hume’s
House of Douglas.] – at all events, he established in it without
difficulty the undisputed rule of David II., prisoner though that monarch
still was, and made the rest of Nithsdale too hot for its foreign
occupants; while John Stewart, eldest son of the Regent, performed a
similar service towards the English in Annandale – Lochmaben Castle,
however, which had once more fallen into their hands, resisting his
attempts to capture it.
Edward
III., mortified by the failure of his expedition, and actively engaged in
hostilities with France, eagerly sought for and obtained a truce with the
Scots; and the year 1357 found the latter free, ruled by their rightful
sovereign, returned from his captivity, and beginning to taste the sweets
of tranquility, and to experience the protection of a settled government.
Lawlessness, the offspring of protracted war, had long cursed the country;
but, as a proof that the sword of justice was not at this time quite
rusted, even in the district where the sword of war had borne sway for
ages, the following domestic episode may be narrated; [Taken chiefly from
Fordun and Dalrymple.} and the illustration will perhaps be all the more
acceptable, seeing that it is associated with a great historical event –
the slaughter of Comyn in Dumfries.
It has
already been stated that Sir Roger Kirkpatrick took the Castle of
Carlaverock from the English in 1356. He was the son of the baron who, in
the company of Lindsay, hurried into the Greyfriars’ Monastery and made
“siccar” the fell stroke inflicted by Bruce on the treacherous Lord of
Badenoch; and, curiously enough, the son of this same Lindsay was an
invited guest at Carlaverock in 1357, soon after its new keeper had begun
to occupy it. Superstition traces their meeting on this occasion to no
accidental circumstance. Bowmaker tells us, in his “Chronicle,” that
whilst the body of Comyn was being watched at the midnight hour by the
Minorites, according to the rites of the Church, the officiating friars
fell into a dead sleep, with the exception of one aged father, who heard,
with wander and alarm, a voice, like that of a wailing child, exclaim,
“How long, O Lord, shall vengeance be deferred?” The answer, pronounced in
an awful tone, made the listener’s ear to tingle, and his heart to thrill,
as it sounded like a voice from heaven: “Endure with patience until the
anniversary of this day shall return for the fifty-second time!” This is
not history, but a priestly legend: the tragical incident, however, which
ensued at Carlaverock fifty-two years after the slaughter of Comyn, is
recorded by the Prior of Lochleven and other contemporary annalists, and
is entitled to credence.
The two
sons of Bruce’s colleagues met in the old Border fortress, as entertainer
and guest, on or about the 24th of June, 1357. They were both
promoters of the patriotic cause – they were seemingly on most friendly
terms; but, all the time, Lindsay, envying and hating his host, cherished
towards him a spirit of revenge. Kirkpatrick had wooed and married a
beautiful lady, whom Lindsay had loved in vain; and the latter, after the
festivities were over, and “all men bowne to bed,” rose from his couch,
stole on tiptoe to the chamber where his unsuspecting victim lay in the
arms of his wife, stabbed him to the heart, took horse hurriedly, and,
plying whip and spur, fled precipitately over moss and moor, through the
midnight gloom. He had thus glutted his vengeance on his successful rival;
but, bewildered by the darkness, and probably tormented by remorse, he in
vain tried to secure his own safety by speeding to a far distance from the
scene of the murder. After riding all night, the blood-stained criminal
was captured at break of day within three miles from the castle. His rank
and position, his services to the national cause, the intercession of his
powerful relatives, were insufficient to save him from the consequences of
his guilt. The widowed Lady Kirkpatrick, hearing that the King was in the
neighbourhood, went to him, and prayed for justice on the assassin of her
husband. Forthwith the monarch formed a tribunal at Dumfries, by which
Lindsay was regularly tried and condemned, as is recorded, in pithy
metrical terms, by the Prior of Lochleven: -
“His wife passyd till the King Davy,
And prayed him of his realte,
Of lawche that scho might servyd be.
The King Davy then also fast
Til Dumfris with his curt he past,
At lawche wald. Quhat was thare
mare?
This Lyndessay to deth he gart do
there.”
[Cronykil, book viii., c. 44.]
How
delightful it must have been for the Dumfriesians to breathe their native
air in peace and security, after the long storms of war, from which they
had suffered more than the rest of their countrymen, had subsided! Though
the years between the accession of David and his restoration were full of
trouble, his reign, after the latter event, was comparatively serene; and
the country got time to recover, in a great degree, from the fearful
ravages of war by which its trade and husbandry had been nearly ruined. If
hostilities had been prolonged for another generation, Scotland would have
been turned into the desert which Edward I. vowed to make it, and its
people been reduced by battle and famine to a mere handful. At the middle
of the fourteenth century, the whole population of the country, owing to
the long operation of repressing influences, would probably not exceed
eight hundred thousand; and we can see reason for thinking that the town
of Dumfries could not have had more than eighteen hundred inhabitants. The
likelihood is that its population was nearly double that amount in the
reign of Alexander III., and during the early years of the war of
independence. Thirteen blessed years of peace followed King David’s
release from captivity; and in their course fair Nithsdale would once more
blossom and rejoice, and its ancient capital grow and flourish –
increasing alike in dimensions and prosperity.
These
happy changes were certainly not due to the sovereign. It was not by his
wisdom and valour that the land was brought out of its wilderness
condition. So far as Dumfriesshire is concerned, he was more than
suspected of having secretly agreed with the English to keep it weak and
dependent, by demolishing some of its main sources of strength and freedom
– the Castles of Dumfries, Dalswinton, Morton, and Durisdeer. [Fordun, i.,
xiv., c. 18.] Had this nefarious arrangement been carried into effect, the
County would have been converted into a great hunting-field by the English
Borderers, and perhaps been eventually annexed to the English kingdom. But
the evils which the King’s perfidy or incapacity planned or made probable
were foreclosed by the firmness and patriotism of his people – favoured as
their efforts were by the inability of Edward III., on account of his war
with France, to prosecute his designs against Scotland.
Robert
Stewart, ex-Regent, in terms of the settlement made by his illustrious
grandfather, Robert Bruce, succeeded to the throne on the death of David,
in 1370. The peace between Scotland and England remained unbroken. It
continued other seven years, extending the repose of the northern kingdom
to a period of fully twenty years. Edward III. died in 1377, without
realizing any of his ambitious dreams; and the English crown devolved on
his grandson, Richard II., a boy of tender age, whose “baby-brow” was
ill-fitted to wear “the golden round of sovereignty,” which proves often a
diadem of thorns to full-grown men. Soon after his ascension, negotiations
for a continuation of the truce were entered into; but whilst these were
pending, Alexander Ramsay, with only two score of Scots, surprised and
took the strong Castle of Berwick, which the English had held for many
years.
The
embryo treaty was therefore cast to the winds. Berwick was recaptured by
Henry Percy; and William, Earl of Douglas, who had vainly tried to relieve
the fortress, paid a hostile visit to Penrith, at a time when one of its
great fairs was being held, plundered the husbandmen and burghers, set
fire to the town itself, and returned into Dumfriesshire laden with booty.
[Buchanan’s History of Scotland, book ix., ch. xliii.] These aggressive
forays proved that the Scots had increased in strength and boldness during
the long suspension of hostilities; and perhaps they were all the more
ready to undertake them, now that their powerful enemy was in his grave,
and the feeble hand of an inexperienced youth held the English scepter.
His subjects, however, were quite ready to take up the cartel of defiance
thrown down to them by their northern neighbours; and it seemed at one
time as if the war were about to take an extensive sweep, and become once
more national in its character. The valour and good fortune of the Scots
prevented this calamity, by restricting hostilities to the Border
district, and rendering them of brief duration. For the purpose of
revenging the raid against Penrith, Lord Talbot, at the head of fifteen
thousand men, crossed over the Esk: and had this formidable force
succeeded in its original design, it is more than probable the victor
would have been tempted to risk the hazard of a more ambitious die.
All
along, during the wars with England, the ford near the influx of the Esk
into the Solway was the principal avenue to and from Scotland by the
Western Marches, the territory further eastward being protected by
Carlisle Castle, and other places of strength planted irregularly along
the Border. [The guarding of this passage was made an object of great
consideration by the English Government. The duty of doing so was assigned
by Richard II. to Richard Burgh; and when he resigned the office, in 1396,
it was conferred on Galfrid Tilliol and Galfrid Louther. - -
Rotuli Scotiœ, vol. ii.,
p. 152.] It was by this passage, after the tidal waters had retired, that
the English army entered Scotland, and once more wakened with its
war-notes the echoes of Solway shore. The invaders ravaged the lower
district of Dumfriesshire, rifling farms and town at pleasure; and,
mightily pleased with their work, halted at nightfall in a narrow mountain
gorge or valley, for the purpose of taking rest, apportioning the spoil,
and deciding on their future plans. Presumptuous and reckless, they
courted the dolorous fate that awaited them. A band of five hundred Scots,
made up chiefly of common serfs or varlets, suddenly and secretly
assembled, fell with the force of a thunderbolt on Lord Talbot’s camp;
making their descent upon it more dismally appalling by wild shouts, and
the ringing of rattles used by them in scaring wild beasts from their
flocks. The surprise was like that of Edward Baliol’s army at Annan fifty
years before, only it was a larger scale, and had still more destructive
results. The English, startled, appalled, paralyzed, were taken and slain
in great numbers, as if they had been a flock of sheep doomed to the
shambles. Many who were not cut down perished in the Esk, whose tide had
returned, all untimely for the poor fugitives. Two hundred and forty were
made prisoners, and only a remnant of the aggressive host escaped with
life. [Fordun a Goodal, vol. i., p. 385; Wyntoun, vol. i., p. 309.] The
exulting victors recovered the whole plunder, and carried off besides the
valuable arms and stores which belonged to the invaders. It is not
surprising that, as a sequel to this overwhelming discomfiture, the
English were glad to sign a truce for three years, on terms favourable to
the Scots. |
