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Up to the commencement of
the eighteenth century the domestic annals of Scotland strike one as being
singularly squalid. Deeds of violence abound on every page. Human life is
held to be of little value, and murder is a crime of such frequent
occurrence as scarcely to call for comment or excite attention. The early
Scottish chronicles comprise for the most part descriptions of the public
torture of criminals, the commission of “agrarian” outrages (as we should
call them nowadays), the forcible abduction of desirable heiresses, the
“sequestration” of undesirable wives, and the worrying of witches. They
are largely devoted to unedifying accounts of family feuds, of forays, of
brawls between rival clans and rival factions. “For a long series of
centuries,” as Sir Walter Scott says, “the hands of rapine were never
folded in inactivity, nor the sword of violence returned to its scabbard.”
[Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, p. xlviii.] And though he was
referring particularly to the Border, the same words apply with equal
truth to the rest of Scotland, and more especially to the Highlands.
The lust of blood was a
vice common to both noble and peasant. It was not confined to the
uncivilised or uneducated half of the population. In October of the year
1396, for instance, the King of Scotland and all his court assembled of
the bank of the river Tay to witness a duel to the death between two
bodies of Highlanders, each thirty in number. The combatants were armed
with dirk and claymore, and so bloody was the fray that at the end only
one man remained alive on the one side, and on the other only ten, all of
whom were grievously wounded. Such an affair as this was probably the
result of a clan feud, a form of hostility too often marked by a cruel and
vindictive spirit expressing itself in deeds of the foulest treachery.
Thus at the beginning of the seventeenth century we read of the Macleods
driving the Macdonalds to the shelter of a cave in the Island of Eigg, and
deliberately smoking them all to death. [Sir Walter Scott visited the
scene of this slaughter two hundred years later, and took away a woman’s
skull as a memento.] Again, in the raid of the Clanranald against the
Mackenzies of Kintail, as late as 1603, a whole congregation of the latter
was burnt alive in the Church of Gilchrist, while the Macdonald pipers
marched round the building drowning the cries of the unfortunate victims
with inappropriate music. In this same year, too, the Clan Gregor
decimated the Colquhouns of Luss in Glenfruin in the Lowlands – Tobias
Smollet, the novelist’s ancestor, being among the slain – in what was
probably the last savage battle fought between the clans.
In early days the passions
of Celtic feudalism could not be restrained from acts of bloodshed and
devastation. They found a satisfactory outlet in this ceaseless battling
of clan with clan. There was a perpetual feud between the Lindsays and the
Ogilvies, between the Grants and the Gordons, between the Scotts and the
Kers. The hatred of the Maclaurins of Balquhidder for the Lenies of
Callander was only one degree less violent than that of the Maxwells for
the Johnstones. The Macleans were for ever quarrelling with the Campbells,
the Campbells with the Macdonalds. The Macdonalds and the Macgregors
combined against the Drummonds, and the Drummonds themselves were busy
harrying the Murrays. [Most people will agree with the sentiment
expressed by Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland, who, writing to a friend
in 1805, apropos of Sir Walter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy,
says: “I like the Border stories, I own, better than the very Highland
ones of Macleans and Macdonalds, which never go beyond their own hills;
and I like the hills themselves better then the traditions of a Maclean
kicking a Macdonald down one of them, or vice versa.” (Antiquarian
Notes, by C. Fraser-Mackintosh, p.266.)]
In such squabbles as these,
women – “generally the witnesses of men’s imbecility,” as Dr. Chalmers
declares – took an active share. They were, indeed, in many instances the
very cause and object of the strife. The system of “hand-fasting,” which
allowed two persons to contract a temporary connubial alliance, terminable
at the end of a year, was another prolific source of bloodshed. [A feud
ensued between the clans of Macdonald of Sleat and Macleod of Dunvegan,
because the chief of the former availed himself of this licence to send
back the sister of the Macleod after the expiration of the probationary
period.]
The dames of bygone days
did not spend their whole time at the distaff. They were not all the
timid, retiring ladies of whom we are accustomed to read in romantic
fiction. Some, indeed, like Lady Bridekirk, seem to have been almost too
bold and masculine. This good lady was long famous in the Annandale border
both at the bowl and in battle. She could drink a Scots pint of brandy
with ease, and “when the men grew obstreperous in their cups, could either
put them out of doors, or to bed, as she found most convenient.”
[Autobiography of Alexander Carlyle, edited by J. H. Burton, p.24.]
Lady Brux provides a good example of the implacable, vindictive spirit
common to the women of the sixteenth century. Her husband, Cameron of Brux,
had agreed to meet one Muat of Abergeldie, with whom he was at feud, each
being attended by twelve horse only. Muat treacherously took advantage of
the literal meaning of the words, and provided each of his twelve horses
with two riders. In the fight that ensued at Drumgaudrum, near the Don,
Brux and his party were outnumbered and slain. His widow thereupon offered
the hand of her daughter, now heiress of the Brux estates, to whomsoever
should avenge her husband’s death. A young gallant named Robert Forbes
challenged Muat to single combat, and killed him. On presenting himself to
Lady Brux, that bloodthirsty old lady clasped him to her bosom, declaring
that the marriage should take place at once, while Muat’s gore was yet
reeking upon the bridegroom’s knife. [Don: A Poem, p.16. (London,
1655.)]
Lady Johnstone is another
instance of a similar type of Scottish Amazon. The Johnstones and the
Maxwells were fighting outside the gates of Lockerby Castle, where Lady
Johnstone anxiously awaited the result of the struggle. Becoming impatient
to receive news of her husband’s safety, she sallied forth to the scene of
the fight, armed only with the keys of the fortress. Among the dead and
wounded on the field of battle she found Lord Maxwell, chief of the rival
clan, slowly bleeding to death. The old man begged for mercy, but in vain,
Lady Johnstone’s only reply being to raise her heavy bunch of keys and
dash out his brains. Again, during a feud between the clans of Gordon and
the MacIntosh, the chief of the latter, finding that he was getting
distinctly the worst of the argument, decided to submit himself to the
goodwill of Lord Huntly, chief of the Gordons. While the marquis was away
from home, the MacIntosh took the opportunity of surrendering himself to
the tender mercies of Lady Huntly. As a sign of complete submission, he
laid his head on a butcher’s block which chanced to be in the kitchen
where the interview took place. His hopes that such a token of humiliation
would melt her heart were not fulfilled, for the marchioness calmly gave
an order to the cook, and the wretched MacIntosh was neatly decapitated on
the spot.
When from time to time
Scotsmen agreed to sink their private differences in order to unite
against their own kings or a common Southron foe, women continued to play
a prominent part in the proceedings. It was the murder of his wife by the
English at Lanark that increased the fury of William Wallace, and made him
vow never to rest until he had slain the man who was guilty of this deed.
And an old historical legend long attributed the murder of the Regent
Murray to Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, who, sentenced to forfeit his
property as a traitor to James VI., saw his wife turned out of the house
in an almost naked condition – an outrage which drove her insane – and
found a speedy means of avenging the tyrant’s brutality.
The Scot, like Robert
Browning, was “ever a fighter.” He could always agree with that old Earl
of Buchan who declared, in his letter to Pitt, that “if the privileges of
Scotland are endeavoured to be violated, I shall know how to make my
porridge in my helmet, and stir it with my sword!” And his womankind
naturally inherited much of that admirable patriotic spirit. It was not
required of every one of them to emulate the achievements of that unknown
Amazon who, in the disguise of a knight, accompanied Guy, Count of Namur,
when he marched upon Edinburgh to fight the Earls of Moray and March on
the Borough-muir, in the early part of the fourteenth century, and engaged
with a Scottish squire in single combat which proved fatal to both. But
the women of that age were reared in an atmosphere of stress and turmoil;
the familiar din of battle and the clash of arms to which their ears were
ever accustomed helped to strengthen their characters, and rendered them
fit mates for warrior chieftains.
Women were often to be seen
upon the battlefields of those days. King Edward I. of England used, it is
said, to summon the ladies, as well as the earls and barons of his
kingdom, to attend him in war. In the year 1291 he called upon the ladies
of Cumberland and Westmoreland to meet him at Noreham, a village near the
Scottish border, provided with horses and accoutred with arms, “the
consequences of which summons,” says a chronicler, “it is believed
Scotland will never forget.” [An Inquiry into the Origin and Limitations
of the Feudal Dignities of Scotland, by William Borthwick. (Edinburgh,
1775.) ] And the list of ladies of Scotland who at that time swore
allegiance to the English king, of which the original is preserved at the
Tower of London, contains over a score of well-known Scottish names.
The women of that violent
period of history were, indeed, imbued with the universal spirit of
martial ardour which then pervaded Scotland, and have handed it down as an
heirloom to their descendants. [Near the border, betwixt the parishes
of Maxton and Ancrum, there is a ridge of hill called Lilliard Edge. Here,
in 1547, a battle was fought between English and Scots, wherein the latter
obtained a victory, though inferior in number. The success was ascribed to
a young woman named Lilliard, who fought with great courage on the
Scottish side. Some remains of a tombstone erected upon her grave on the
field of battle can still be seen, with this inscription:-
“Fair maiden
Lilliard lies under this stane,
Little was her stature, but great was her fame;
On the English lads she laid many thumps,
And when her legs were off, she fought upon her stumps.”
(See
Life in Scotland 100 Years Ago, by J. Murray, p.268.
Cf. The Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase, fytte ii. st.30)]
Even as late as the middle
of the eighteenth century, we find an example of a woman taking a personal
part in actual warfare. During the rebellion of ’45, the MacIntosh of
MacIntosh, laird and chief of the clan, remained loyal to the reigning
sovereign, and held a commission in Lord Loudon’s army. But his wife,
Anne, a daughter of Farquharson of Invercauld, was one of the Pretender’s
most active partisans, even going so far as to raise a small body of
troops to uphold his cause. “Colonel Anne,” as she was nicknamed, led this
corps in person, and a story is told of the MacIntosh being captured by
the insurgents and brought as a prisoner to his wife’s headquarters. “Your
servant, captain,” said the fair lady, as the captive was led into her
presence. “Your servant, colonel,” was the laird’s laconic reply. [History
of the Rebellion of ’45, by R. Chambers] Charles Edward remarked
at the time that the prisoner “could not be in better security of more
honourably treated,” and subsequently favoured the gallant “Colonel Anne”
with a visit to Moy.
Many a zealous adherent did
the Young Pretender find among the ranks of women. The Duke of Perth would
never have espoused Prince Charles’s cause so warmly but for his mother,
the duchess, who proclaimed the Chevalier from the battlements of Castle
Drummond and recruited a regiment on his behalf. She herself accompanied
the Scottish army to England, and at Carlisle, when the expected
reinforcements failed to put in an appearance, threatened to lead the
troops in person against the enemy. She was finally taken prisoner at
Culloden, a fate which she shared with another Scottish woman – the
short-tempered but courageous Lady Ogilvy.
Since that day more that
one Scotswoman has turned amateur recruiting sergeant. The regiment of
Gordon Highlanders was raised by a woman, Jane, Duchess of Gordon. Another
duchess, Elizabeth, Duchess-Countess of Sutherland, when a girl of twelve
years old, raised a Sutherland regiment, at the time of the American
Declaration of Independence, declaring that she was only sorry she could
not herself command it. This brave child subsequently reviewed her troops,
one thousand strong, from the windows of her aunt’s house in Edinburgh,
and later, in 1793, when she had reached womanhood, exerted herself to
raise another corps of “Fencibles” which was eventually embodied in the
famous “93rd” Regiment. In our own time the successful
enlistment of a body of Scottish Horse, which did splendid work in South
Africa during the war, was largely due to the exertions and influence of a
woman.
Of such women as these it
may truly be said that they inherited something of that spirit of courage
and patriotism which more than four centuries ago inspired two successive
Countesses of March in their celebrated defence of the castle of Dunbar.
The history of the castle
is a romantic and interesting one. The antiquity of the fortress is
unknown, but must be considerable, for we hear of its being burnt and
levelled to the ground by Kenneth, King of Scotland, as long ago as the
year 856 A.D. Two hundred years later, when the stronghold had been
rebuilt and fortified by all the artificial means then known, it was given
by another Scottish king, Malcolm Canmore, to Patrick, Earl of
Northumberland, who fled thither from England after the Conquest.
Built on a cluster of high
rocks, round which the sea beat fiercely at high water, Dunbar Castle was,
by reason of its natural situation, practically impregnable. It came
consequently to be regarded as the key to the eastern portion of Scotland,
and played an important part in the martial history of that country. In
1296, during the wars of Bruce and Baliol, when Edward I. occupied the
throne of England, the governor of the fortress, Patrick, 8th
Earl of Dunbar and March, seceded to the English side and fought in the
army of King Edward. But his wife, Margery Comyn, who hell the castle in
the absence of her lord, regarded the English with feeling of deadly
hatred, and entered into secret negotiations with the Scottish leaders to
deliver her charge into their hands. Margery was forced to choose between
disloyalty to her country and the betrayal of her husband, and readily
chose the latter. The Scottish besiegers, assisted as they were by the
chatelaine of the castle, found little difficulty in capturing it, and
expelling the few defenders who still remained true to England. Hearing of
the treacherous surrender of Dunbar, Edward I. at once despatched the Earl
of Surrey with a force of 10,000 foot and 1,000 horse to recover the
fortress. But the Scottish garrison were not easily to be daunted into
submission, and for some time succeeded in repelling the English attack.
Margery Comyn and her Scottish men-at-arms meanwhile stood on the
battlements and hurled insults at the Earl of Surrey’s soldiers. “Come on,
ye long-tailed hounds!” they shouted, “and we will cut off your tails for
you!” In spite, however, of these suggestive taunts, the English force
persevered in the siege, and was eventually rewarded by the capitulation
of the fortress and the unconditional surrender of its garrison.
Patrick, 10th
Earl of Dunbar and March, has been described by one historian [John
Major] as “at that time the most outstanding man among the Scots,” and
by another as a noble who stood “almost alone” in the position of a man
“whom no promises could entice, nor any dangers force to submit to the
English.” [Buchanan’s History of Scotland, p.483] Yet he
seems to have had some difficulty in fixing his allegiance permanently to
the cause of any particular monarch. His sympathies were at first entirely
on the side of the English, and he allowed Edward II. to take refuge at
Dunbar after the battle of Bannockburn, and thence to escape to Berwick by
sea. Later on, however, he tendered his allegiance to Robert Bruce, fought
in command of the Scottish troops, and was appointed governor of Berwick
Castle. But in 1333, after the battle of Halidon Hill, he surrendered once
more to the English, and became a loyal subject of Edward III., a
temporary allegiance which he renounced in the following year, when he was
once more to be found fighting on the side of the Regent of Scotland.
In the earl’s absence on
the field of battle, the castle of Dunbar was left in the charge of his
second countess. [The practice of leaving a woman in sole charge of the
fortress was then habitual. On one occasion at least it resulted in an
amusing incident which shows how deserving were the women of those days of
their husbands’ confidence. In July 1474, James II. informed Lord
Somerville, who was then at court, that he proposed paying his lordship a
visit at his country seat. Lord Somerville at once sent a messenger home
with a letter to his wife in which, according to his invariable custom
whenever he was bringing guests to stay, he wrote a postscript consisting
of the two words, “Speates and Raxes” (spits and ranges), thereby
suggesting that the kitchen muniments should be prepared. Lady Somerville
was unable to read, but her steward, a new man, who was unacquainted with
his master’s handwriting, deciphered the words as “Spears and Jacks.” From
this Lady Somerville concluded that trouble was brewing, at once set out
to collect and arm all the tenantry, and by 8A.M. next morning a body of
200 of her men were well on the road to Edinburgh. This force was met by
King James and his retinue on their way out. For a moment the King
suspected treachery, fearing a plot to seize his person, but when the
meaning of the cavalcade was explained to him, he was much delighted, and
commended Lady Somerville for her diligence and activity in having raised
a force so quickly. (See Memories of the Somervilles, vol i. p.241)]
“Black Agnes,” so called
from the darkness of her complexion, was a daughter of the famous
Randolph, Earl of Moray, and the alleged grand-niece of Robert Bruce, and
in her capable hands the fortress was safe against the attacks of the most
persistent foes. A powerful English force, under the command of Montagu,
Earl of Salisbury, proceeded to besiege it, and for five long months
sought in vain to accomplish its capture. A cordon of troops was drawn up
around the fortress, closing in upon it from day to day, while two Genoese
galleys were ordered to manoeuvre in concert with the land force, and
watch that side of the stronghold which overlooked the sea. But the
problem of its capture was not so easy as Montagu had perhaps imagined.
The defender of Dunbar – though only a young woman of twenty-five – was a
foe worthy of his steel, resolute and fearless, if (as an early bard would
have us believe) she was not altogether without pity.
[“In her fair hands
she grasp’d a spear,
A baldrick o’er her shoulders flung;
While loud the bugle-note of war
And Dunbar’s cavern’d echoes rung.
Then to the Castle
yard she sped,
Where her worn troops in order stood;
‘Spare all you can, my friends,’ she said,
‘Nor idly dip your dirks in blood.’”
----Black Agnes, or The
Defence of Dunbar (1804)]
The castle of Dunbar was
boldly situated on two rocks which projected far into the ocean, and were
connected by a natural reef of stone consisting of two archways, through
one of which, serving as a port to the water-gate, the Bass Rock might be
seen in the dim distance. It was the Earl of Salisbury’s intention to
prevent any friendly force from coming to the rescue of the beleaguered
garrison, and thus he hoped in time to reduce the defenders to starvation.
He had to reckon, however, with the courage and determination of a
particularly determined and courageous guardian of the fortress. “Black
Agnes” was a born leader of men, valiant and full of resource. “She
performed all the duties of a bold and vigilant commander,” says an
enthusiastic of chronicler; “animating the garrison by her exhortation,
munificence, and example,” [The Antiquities of Scotland, by Francis
Grose. (1797.)] and extorted even the praise of her enemies by her
warlike bearing. In the words of one of the English minstrels of the
time:-
“She kept a stir in
tower and trench,
That brawling, boisterous Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late,
I found Agnes at the gate.”
Day after day she exposed
herself fearlessly upon the battlements, deriding (like her predecessor
Margery Comyn) the futile onslaughts of the English invaders, and rousing
them to the fever pitch of fury by the fierce and ceaseless witticisms in
which she indulged at their expense. When the huge stones from the
besiegers’ catapults struck upon the castle walls, “Black Agnes” would
scornfully send one of her women to wipe off the dust with a white napkin
– a particularly felicitous manner of displaying her indifference to their
attacks.
Salisbury at last brought
up a huge military engine called the “Sow,” which had been used with great
success at other sieges, and which he now hastened to erect against the
walls of this stubborn fortress. This machine resembled the Roman
Testudo, and consisted of a vast wooden shield, under cover of which
the besieging force was intended to advance and undermine the foundations
of the castle. The arrival of this contrivance inspired Black Agnes to
burst into verse for probably the first and (let us hope) the last time.
Stepping forward onto an overhanging parapet, she shouted out the
following couplet – in which, claiming the licence of the true poet, she
sacrificed the correct pronunciation of her adversary’s name to the
exigencies of rhyme –
“Beware, Montagow” (she
cried),
“For farrow shall thy sow!”
As she uttered this
masterpiece, “Black Agnes” gave a preconcerted signal, and the defenders
paused in the admiration of their leader’s poetic gifts sufficiently long
to allow them to drop an enormous rock on to the top of the “Sow,”
crushing it to pieces, and killing a number of the unfortunate soldiers
who were sheltering beneath it. As the bruised and wounded Englishmen fled
from the wreck of their machine, “Black Agnes” added insult to injury by
jeering loudly at them, declaring that her metrical prophecy had been
fulfilled, and that they reminded her of nothing in the world so much as a
new-born litter of pigs.
Finding that force was
unavailing, the Earl of Salisbury determined to try other means to secure
the downfall of the castle. He sent to England for the Earl of Moray,
“Black Agnes’s” brother, who was a prisoner there, and, displaying him to
the defenders of Dunbar, declared that he would kill him before their eyes
unless they surrendered immediately. The countess was not to be moved by
such a threat. She retorted that the castle was not her property but that
of her husband, and that she could not, therefore, deliver it without his
authority, however much she might desire to do so. “If you slay my
brother,” she added coldly, “I shall be the heiress of the earldom of
Moray!” Salisbury was humane enough to appreciate the truth of her
argument, and refrained from putting his prisoner to death. Moray was sent
back to England, and survived to fight at the battle of Durham, where he
was killed in 1346.
The scheme of terrorising
the defenders having failed ignominiously, Salisbury now had recourse to
guile. He bribed the warden of one of the castle gates to admit a portion
of the English into the fortress at nightfall. This the man readily
consented to do, but wisely omitted to inform the earl that he had every
intention of betraying this typically southron scheme to his Scottish
mistress. When, therefore, the scene was wrapped in darkness, a body of
the besiegers crept stealthily up to the gate and gave the signal which
was to secure their admittance. The portcullis was silently raised and the
English made their way quietly into the fortress. Suddenly the defenders,
who had been watching events from a hiding-place on the battlements, gave
a loud shout, the portcullis was once more dropped into position, and the
invaders found themselves caught in a trap. The Earl of Salisbury happened
to step back just as the gate was lowered and so managed to get away, the
defenders having mistaken one of his men-at-arms, Copeland by name, for
the commander, and let down the portcullis a moment too soon. As he made
good his escape, “Black Agnes” called after him, begging him earnestly to
come back and sarcastically expressing her regret that his lordship could
not stay to give her the pleasure of his company at supper. She had a
strong sense of humour, a quality which Salisbury no doubt appreciated, as
he was not himself wholly deficient in it. One morning, when he was riding
near the wall in company with a knight in full armour, a Scottish archer,
named William Spens, shot an arrow from the battlements and stretched the
knight dead at his feet. “That is one of my lady’s tiring-pins,” said the
earl, with a smile, as he withdrew the arrow from the corpse of his
companion. “Black Agnes’s love-shafts pierce to the heart!”
For five weary months the
siege continued, until at length the garrison was reduced to extremities.
The supply of food began to run short, and things looked bad for the
gallant defenders of Dunbar. But the celebrated Sir Alexander Ramsay of
Dalwolsey [Sheriff of Teviotdale. He ended an adventurous career in
Hermitage Castle, where he was confined by his enemy, William Douglas,
Lord of Galloway, and died of starvation in 1342.] heard of the
straits in which the castle was placed and made up his mind to attempt its
relief. Ramsay had collected a small band of Scottish swashbucklers, and
was lurking in the caves of Hawthornden, whence he issued now and then to
harry or cut off detached parties of the English. Being a chivalrous man
as well as a brave one, he lost no time in arranging plans for the relief
of “beauty in distress,” as exemplified by the chatelaine of Dunbar.
Secure within the caverns of Hawthornden, he concocted an elaborate scheme
for turning the tables upon the hated English and rescuing the
hard-pressed countess and her little band of men-at-arms.
Hawthornden was a perfect
hiding-place for such a man as Alexander Ramsay. It is famous in Scottish
history as the refuge of many early patriots. It is still more famous
perhaps as being the residence of the poet and historian, Drummond. Hither
in the year 1618 Ben Jonson walked all the way from London on purpose to
visit his Scottish friend, an occasion on which their greetings took the
form of an impromptu couplet:-
D. – “Welcome, welcome,
Royal Ben!”
J. - “Thank ye, thank ye,
Hawthornden!”
Which has acquired (though it scarcely seems to have
deserved) immortality. The house itself was the scene of many a memorable
conflict in the past. On the gable of the old mansion was a tablet with
the inscription: “To the memory of Sir Lawrence Abernethy of Hawthornden,
a brave and gallant soldier, who, at the head of a party, in 1338,
conquered Lord Douglas five times in one day, yet was taken prisoner
before sunset.” [Fordun, book xii. Chap. 44.] The caverns, known
as “Bruce’s bedchamber” and “Bruce’s Library,” which were close to the
house, have been considered by archaeologists to date their origin to very
early times, when they were perhaps the stronghold of the old Pictish
kings. It was from these caves that Sir Alexander Ramsay and his forty
resolute followers emerged to the rescue of “Black Agnes.” Contriving by
some means or other to get into communication with the defenders of the
fortress, one dark and stormy night, at the head of his gallant little
force, Ramsay eluded the vigilance of the Genoese galleys, approached the
castle from the sea, and was gratefully admitted at the Water Gate by
“Black Agnes” herself.
[“O’erjoyed, the
Countess scarce could speak,
But straight her beaver up she flung,
Survey’d and wip’d his sea-beat cheek,
And on his neck her broadsword hung.”
--Black Agnes.]
Next morning, before the
besiegers had time to realise the addition that had thus been made to the
garrison, the latter sallied forth under Ramsay’s command and inflicted a
serious defeat upon the Earl of Salisbury’s troops, on the same ground
where, three hundred years later, Cromwell defeated the Scottish
Covenanters. The English now acknowledged themselves foiled by a woman’s
wit, determined to abandon the siege, and made a truce favourable to the
defenders.
There are numerous other
instances in Scottish history of women who have defended hearth and home
at the point of the sword. In 1336 king Edward III. made a successful
expedition to relieve the beleaguered Countess of Athole and her garrison
in the castle of Lochindorb. Sixty years later the castle of Fyvie in
Aberdeenshire was held by Margaret Keith, wife of Sir James Lindsay and
daughter of Sir William Keith, Great Marischal of Scotland, against the
attacks of her nephew, Robert de Keith, who was the centre of a family
quarrel. [Anderson’s Scottish Nation.] And in the Privy Council
Records at the General Register House at Edinburgh there is an account of
how “Dame Isobel Hepburn, Lady Bass,” and her son, George Lauder, defied
their creditors from the safe shelter of an impregnable tower on the Bass
Rock, where they long remained, bankrupt but undaunted, “presuming to keep
and maintain themselves, so as to elude justice and execution of the law.”
Of “Black Agnes” we hear
little more. Her husband changed his mind once again, in 1363, when he
rebelled against King David. He was speedily suppressed, however, and five
years later resigned his earldom. Some say that he and his countess had no
children; others that their daughter Agnes became mistress to David Bruce
and was perhaps the cause of that monarch’s divorce of Margaret Logie.
Patrick died about 1639 at the age of eighty-four, and his death was
shortly followed by that of his wife.
The castle of Dunbar is now
nothing but a ruin on the seashore. If the old stones could speak, what
strange stories they would have to tell of “far-off things and battles
long ago.” A thousand romantic memories cling to the fallen battlements.
It was at Dunbar that the luckless Mary sought refuge after Rizzio’s
death, and from the gates of this castle she set forth to the disastrous
Carberry Hill where she surrendered. But there is nothing more stirring of
remarkable in the annals of its history than that lengthy defence
maintained by the gallant body of Scotsmen who owed their success and
safety to the intrepid leadership of “Black Agnes” of Dunbar. |
