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The Scottish Chiefs

M >> Miss Jane Porter >> The Scottish Chiefs




"So," cried the veteran Ireland, "perish the murderers of William
Wallace!"

"So," shouted the rest, "perish the enemies of the bravest, the most
loyal of Scots, the benefactor of his country!"

At this crisis the women and followers of the Scottish camp, hearing
such triumphant exclamations from their friends, impatiently quitted
their station behind the hill, and ran to the summit, waving their
scarfs and plaids in exultation of the supposed victory. The English,
mistaking these people for a new army, had not the power to recover
from the increasing confusion which had seized them on King Edward
himself receiving a wound, and panic-struck with the sight of their
generals falling around them, they flung down their arms and fled. The
king narrowly escaped; but being mounted on a stout and fleet horse, he
put him to the speed and reached Dunbar, whence the young Earl of
March, being as much attached to the cause of England as his father had
been, instantly gave him a passage to England.

The Southron camp, with all its riches, fell into the hands of Bruce.
But while his chieftains pursued their gallant chase, he turned his
steps from warlike triumph, to pay his heart's honors to the remains of
the hero whose blood had so often bathed Scotland's fields of victory.
His vigils were again beneath that sacred pall--for so long had been
the conflict, that night closed in before the last squadrons left the
banks of Bannockburn.

At the dewy hour of morn Bruce reappeared upon the field. His helmet
was royally plumed, and the golden lion of Scotland gleamed from under
his sable surcoat. Bothwell rode at his side. The troops he had
retained from the pursuit were drawn out in array. In a brief address
he unfolded to them the solemn duty to which he had called them--to see
the bosom of their native land receive the remains of Sir William
Wallace.

"He gave to you your homes and your liberty!--grant, then, a grave, the
peace of the tomb to him, whom some amongst you repaid with treachery
and death!"

At these words a cry, as if they beheld their betrayed chief slain
before them, issued from every heart.

The news had spread to the town, and with tears and lamentations a vast
crowd collected round the royal troop. Bruce ordered his bards to
raise the sad coronach, and the march commenced toward the open tent
that canopied the sacred remains. The whole train followed the
speechless woe, as if each individual had lost his dearest relative.
Having passed the wood, they came in view of the black hearse, which
contained all that now remained of him who had so lately crossed these
precincts in all the panoply of triumphant war, in all the graciousness
of peace, and love to man! The soldiers, the people rushed forward,
and precipitating themselves before the bier, implored a pardon for
their ungrateful country. They adjured him, by every tender name of
father, benefactor, and friend, and in such a sacred presence,
forgetting that their king was by, gave way to a grief which, most
eloquently, told the young monarch that he who would be respected after
William Wallace must not only possess his power and valor, but imitate
his virtues.

Scrymgeour, who had well remembered his promise to Wallace on the
battlements of Dumbarton, with a holy reference to that vow now laid
the standard of Scotland upon the pall. Hambledon placed on it the
sword and helmet of the sacrificed hero. Bruce observed all in
silence. The sacred burden was raised. Uncovering his royal head,
with his kingly purple sweeping in the dust, he walked before the bier,
shedding tears, more precious in the eyes of his subjects than the oil
which was soon to pour upon his brow. As he thus moved on, he heard
acclamations mingle with the voice of sorrow.

"This is our king, worthy to have been the friend of Wallace! worthy to
succeed him in the kingdom of our hearts."

At the gates of Cambus-Kenneth, the venerable abbot appeared at the
head of his religious brethren; but without uttering the grief that
shook his aged frame, he raised the golden crucifix over the head of
the bier, and after leaning his face for a few minutes on it, preceded
the procession into the church. None but the soldiers entered. The
people remained without, and as the doors closed they fell on the
pavement, weeping as if the living Wallace had again been torn from
them.

On the steps of the altar the bier rested. The bishop of Dunkeld, in
his pontifical robes, received the sacred deposit with a cloud of
incense, and the pealing organ, answered by the voices of the
choristers, breathed the solemn requiem of the dead. The wreathing
frankincense parted its vapor, and a wan but beautiful form, clasping
an urn to her breast, appeared stretched on a litter, and was borne
toward the spot. It was Helen, brought from the adjoining nunnery,
where since her return to these once dear shores, now made a desert to
her, she had languished in the gradual decay of the fragile bonds which
alone fettered her mourning spirit, eager for release.

All night had Isabella watched by her couch, expecting that each
succeeding breath would be the last her beloved sister would draw in
this calamitous world; but as her tears fell in silence from her cheek
upon the cold forehead of Helen, the gentle saint understood their
expression, and looking up:

"My Isabella," said she, "fear not. My Wallace is returned. God will
grant me life to clasp his blessed remains!"

Full of this hope, she was borne, almost a passing spirit, into the
chancel of Cambus-Kenneth. Her veil was open, and discovered her face
like one just awakened from the dead; it was ashy pale, but it bore a
celestial brightness, which, like the silver luster of the moon,
declared its approach to the fountain of its glory. Her eye fell on
the bier, and, with a momentary strength, she sprung from the couch on
which she had leaned in dying feebleness, and threw herself upon the
coffin.

There was an awful pause while Helen seemed to weep. But so was not
her sorrow to be shed. It was locked within the flood-gates of her
heart.

In that suspension of the soul, when Bothwell knelt on one side of the
bier and Ruthven bent his knee on the other, Bruce stretched out his
hand to the weeping Isabella; "Come hither, my youthful bride, and let
thy first duty be paid to the shrine of thy benefactor and mine! So
may we live, sweet excellence; and so may we die, if the like may be
our meed of heavenly glory!"

Isabella threw herself into his arms and wept aloud. Helen, slowly
raising her head at these words, regarded her sister with a look of
awful tenderness, then turning her eyes back upon the coffin, gazed on
it as if they would have pierced its confines, and clasping the urn
earnestly to her heart, she exclaimed, "'Tis come! the promise--Thy
bridal bed shall be William Wallace's grave!"

Bruce and Isabella, not aware that she repeated words which Wallace had
said to her, turned to her with portentous emotion. She understood the
terrified glance of her sister, and with a smile which bespoke her
kindred to the soul she was panting to rejoin, she answered, "I speak
of my own espousals. But ere that moment is--and I feel it near--let
my Wallace's hallowed presence bless your nuptials! Thou wilt breathe
thy benediction through my lips," added she, laying her hand on the
coffin, and looking down on it as if she were conversing with its
inhabitant.

"O, no, no" returned Isabella, throwing herself on her knees before the
almost unembodied aspect of her sister; "let me ever be the sharer of
your cell, or take me with you to the kingdom of Heaven!"

"It is thy sister's spirit that speaks," cried Dunkeld, observing the
awe which not only shook the tender frame of Isabella, but had
communicated itself to Bruce, who stood in heart-struck veneration
before the yet unascended angel, "holy inspiration," continued the
bishop, "beams from her eyes, and as ye hope for further blessings,
obey its dictates!"

Isabella bowed her head in acquiescence. As Bruce approached to take
his part in the sacred rite, he raised the hand which lay on the pall
to his lips. The ceremony began--was finished! As the bridal notes
resounded from the organ, and the royal pair rose from their knees,
Helen held her trembling hands over them. She gasped for breath, and
would have sunk without a word, had not Bothwell supported her shadowy
form upon his breast. She looked round on him with a grateful though
languid smile, and with a strong effort spoke:

"Be you blessed in all things as Wallace would have blessed you! From
his side I pour out my soul upon you, my sister--my being--and, with
its inward-breathed prayers to the Giver of all good for your eternal
happiness, I turn, in holy faith--to my long looked-for rest!"

Bruce and Isabella wept in each other's arms. Helen slid gently from
the boom of Bothwell prostrate on the coffin, and uttering, in a low
tone:

"I waited only for this! We have met--I unite thy noble heart to thee
again--I claim my brother--at our Father's hands--in mercy!--in
love--by his all-blessed Son!"

Her voice gradually faded away as she murmured these broken sentences,
which none but the close and attentive ear of Bothwell heard. But he
caught not the triumphant exclamation of her soul, which spoke, though
her lips ceased to move, and cried to the attending angels:

"Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?"

In this awful moment the Abbot of Inchaffray, believing the dying saint
was prostrate in prayer, laid his hand on the iron box, which stood at
the foot of Wallace's bier. "Before the sacred remains of the once
champion of Scotland, and in the presence of his royal successor,"
exclaimed the abbot, "let this mysterious coffer of St. Fillan's be
opened, to reward the deliverer of Scotland, according to its intent!"

"If it were to contain the relics of St. Fillan himself," returned the
king, "they could not meet a holier bosom than this!" and resting the
box on the coffin, he unclasped the lock, and the regalia of Scotland
was discovered! At this sight, Bruce exclaimed, in an agony of
grateful emotion, "Thus did this truest of human beings protect my
rights, even while the people I had deserted, and whom he had saved,
knelt to him to wear them all!"

"And thus Wallace crowns thee!" said Dunkeld, taking the diadem from
its coffer, and setting it on Bruce's head.

"My husband, and my king!" gently exclaimed Isabella, sinking on her
knee before him, and clasping his hand to her lips.

"Hearest thou that, my beloved Helen?" cried Bothwell, touching the
clasped hands which rested on the coffin. He turned pale, and looked
on Bruce. Bruce, in the glad moment of his joy at this happy
consummation of so many years of blood, observed not his glance, but in
exulting accents exclaimed, "Look up, my sister; and let thy soul,
discoursing with our Wallace, tell him that Scotland is free, and
Bruce's king indeed!"

She spoke not, she moved not. Bothwell raised her clay-cold face.
"That soul has fled, my lord!" said he; "but from yon eternal sphere,
they now together look upon your joys. Here let their bodies rest; for
'they loved in their lives, and in their deaths they shall not be
divided!"

Before the renewing of the moon, whose waning light witnessed their
solemn obsequies, the aim of Wallace's life, the object of Helen's
prayers, was accomplished. Peace reigned in Scotland. The discomfited
King Edward died of chagrin in Carlisle; and his humbled son and
successor sent to offer such honorable terms of pacification, that
Bruce gave them acceptance, and a lasting tranquility spread prosperity
and happiness throughout the land.



***


APPENDIX.




NOTE RESPECTING THE PERSONAL CONFORMATION OF SIR WILLIAM WALLACE AND
KING ROBERT BRUCE.



The extraordinary bodily, as well as mental superiority which Wallace
and Bruce possessed over their contemporaries, is thus recorded by
Hector Boetius:

"About the latter end of the year 1430, King James I. (of Scotland), on
returning to Perth from St. Andrews, found his curiosity excited to
visit a very old lady of the house of Erskine, who resided in the
Castle of Kinnoul. In consequence of her extreme old age she had lost
her sight, but all her other senses were entire, and her body was yet
firm and active. She had seen William Wallace and Robert Bruce in her
earliest youth and frequently told particulars of them. The king, who
entertained a love and veneration for great men, resolved to visit the
old lady, that he might hear her describe the manners and strength of
the two heroes. He therefore sent a message acquainting her that he
would come to her the next day. When she was told that the king was
approaching, she went down into the hall of her castle, attended by a
train of matrons, many of whom were her own descendants. She advanced
to meet his majesty so easily and gracefully that he doubted her being
blind! At his desire she embraced and kissed him. He took her by the
hand and made her sit down on the seat next to him, and then, in a long
conference, he interrogated her on ancient matters. Among others he
asked her to tell him what sort of a man William Wallace was; what was
his personal figure; what his bearing, and with what degree of strength
he was endowed. He put the same comparing question to her concerning
Robert Bruce. 'Robert,' said she, 'was a man beautiful, and of fine
appearance. His strength was so great that he could easily have
overcome any mortal man of his time, save one--Sir William Wallace!
But in so far as he excelled other men, he was excelled by Wallace,
both in stature and in bodily strength! For in wrestling, Wallace
could have overthrown two such men as Robert. And he was comely as
well as strong, and full of the beauty of wisdom.'"

I might have thought, had I known the above record in my young days,
when I heard my old friend Luckie Forbes describe the Scottish heroes,
that she must have been one of those matrons of honor to Lady Kinnoul,
and had "seen baith the stalwarth chiefs" in her also venerable life.
But the description of my humble historiographer was the work of her
own heart, suggested there by tradition, and a holy reverence of even
the name of William Wallace to help it out; and so my pen, moved by the
same impulse, has attempted to copy the picture she presented.




NOTE CONCERNING JOANNA OF MAR AND STRATHEARN.



This unhappy and wicked woman's descendance, as daughter of a Princess
of the Orkneys, and her husband, Mellis, Earl of Strathearn, is given
in all the old Scottish genealogical words, and her marriage with Earl
de Warenne, followed up by her most unnatural treasons against her
native country, are not less faithfully recorded. But it is something
curious that while revising this volume a few years ago, I met a
paragraph in the Morning Post newspaper, relative to this very
lady--now dead upward of five hundred years--and dated August 26th,
1831; almost the very anniversary-day of Sir William Wallace's death!
It was an extract from the Perth Courier, and runs thus:

"In preparing the foundation of the classical monument which Lady Baird
is about to erect on Tom-a-Chastel, to the memory of Sir David, the
workmen discovered the remains of an extensive edifice, intermixed with
a blackish mold, in which human bones frequently occur, with stirrups,
buckles, and other decayed fragments of ancient armor. In an
excavation were found a quantity of black earth, the debris of animal
matter, some human bones, a bracelet, and a considerable portion of
charcoal, from which it may be concluded that the individuals whose
remains were discovered, had perished during a conflagration of the
castle. The tradition of the country is, that--Three ladies had been
there burned to death. And as it is known that the Lady of Strathearn,
a daughter of the Earl of Orkney, involved herself in the quarrels
between Bruce and Baliol, and was, after the ascendency of the former,
in a parliament held at Scone in 1329, doomed to perpetual imprisonment
for the crime of laesoe majestatis, it is no violent stretch of
conjecture to come to the conclusion that this very lady may have been
one of the unhappy victims whose remains have been thus accidentally
brought to light. The excavation undoubtedly (being the most probably
supposition) was that usually found in the base of the dungeon-keep of
the castle. Tom-a-Chastel, on the summit of which Sir David Baird's
monument is to be placed, overlooks the whole strath, and is even
visible from Dundee." So far the note from the Perth, newspaper (which
was first appended to this "almost veritable romance-biography of Sir
William Wallace," in the edition of 1831); and on comparing the
circumstances and dates of the period referred to, it does not seem
improbable that such might have been the fearful end of that ambitious
and cruelly impassioned woman. Earl de Warenne was not a man to burden
himself with cares for such a partner, after her treasons had become
abortive, in the secret continuance of which, most likely, she had been
discovered in some of her territorial permitted visits to her inherited
lands in Scotland. And the relics of the other two female forms found
in the ashes, may reasonably be supposed to have been those of her
personal attendants, sharing her captivity.

The above coincidence of recollections between the far past, and the
present nearly but passing events, may be regarded as rather
remarkable, for the hill of Tom-a-Chastel may now be looked upon as an
object recalling to memory of two heroes. One Scotland's noblest son,
of full five hundred ages gone! The other, her boast on the plains of
India, within our own remembrance. While the same summit brings two of
her daughters likewise to eminent recollection. One that disgraced her
sex in every relation of life; the other, who honors it, in all. The
hand of the first would have destroyed her country's greatest hero; the
hand of the second raised a tumulus, to maintain the memory and the
example of such true sons of her country in a perpetual existence.




THE SCARF OF JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND, IN THE POSSESSION OF DR.
JEFFERSON, OF WEST LODGE, CLAPHAM.



This scarf belonged to, and was worn by the truly royal, but something
romantically adventurous King of Scotland, James the Fifth. He was
fond of roaming about in his dominions, like the celebrated Haroun Al
Rashid, in various disguises, to see and to observe; and to make
acquaintance with his people of all degrees, without being known by
them. In one of these incognito wanderings, about the year 1533, he
was hospitably entertained for a night, by an ancestor of Dr.
Jefferson's lady, a man of liberal name in the country; and who
unwittingly had given most courteous bed and board to his sovereign
(then personally unknown to him), when he thought he was entertaining a
person not much above the rank of the commonest degree, it being the
monarch's humor generally to assume the most ordinary garb outwardly;
and it therefore depended on the tact of the entertainer, from his own
inherent nobleness, to discern the real quality of the mind and manners
of his transitory guest. The host in question did not discern that it
was his sovereign he was then treating like a prince; but he felt it
was a visitant, be he whom he may, that was worthy his utmost respect;
and the monarch, highly pleased with his night's lodging, and previous
gracious welcome, on his departure next morning, presented to the lady
of the mansion a grateful tribute to her good care, in the form of a
small parcel rolled up, which, when opened, they found to be a splendid
scarf, indorsed to herself and lord, in the name of the Gudemon o'
Ballangeich. All then knew it was the "generous and pleasant King of
Scotland" who had been their guest.

The Scottish Chief on whom this beautiful memorial of received
hospitality had been bestowed, was John Baird, of Burntisland, in
Fifeshire, from whom the writer of this note literally traces the
present inheritance of the scarf. John Burgh had an only daughter, who
married John Balfour, K. N., who also had an only daughter, and she
married Gilbert Blair, brother to Blair of Ard-Blair. Their only son,
James Blair, married Jane Morrison, daughter of -- Morrison, Esq., and
an heiress of the brave house of Ramsay, by which marriage the ancient
and honorable families of Burgh, Blair, and Ramsay, were woven into one
branch; and from this branch, indeed, from the first set-off of its
united stem was born of this marriage, Margaret Blair, who dying in the
year 1836, bequeathed the long-cherished scarf to Dr. Jefferson, the
worthy husband of her beloved kinswoman--direct in the line of John
Burgh, to whom it had originally been given.

The scarf was composed of a rich and brilliant tissue of gold and
silver threads, interwoven with silk-embroidered flowers in their
natural colors. They are chiefly pansies, the emblems of remembrance;
thistles, the old insignia of Scotland; and the field daisy, the
favorite symbol of King James' mother, the beautiful Queen Margaret.
The flowers, entwined together, run in stripes down the splendid web of
the scarf, which terminates at each end with what has been a
magnificent fringe of similar hues and brightness. The scarf is seven
feet in length, by one foot nine inches in width.

This interesting bequest was still further enriched to Dr. Jefferson by
the addition of a cap and gloves, which, tradition says, the worthy
chief of Burntisland wore on his nuptial day. There was also a smaller
pair of gloves, of a more delicate size and texture, appropriated by
the same testimony to the fair bride. But these articles are supposed
to have been of earlier fabric than that of the scarf--probably the
year 1500--and they are of less exquisite manufacture; the former
appearing to be from the fine looms of France, and the latter wrought
in the less practiced machinery of our then ruder northern isle. The
cap is of a pale red silk, with gold cord and embroidery down the
seams, it being formed to fit the head, and therefore in compartments;
broad where they are inserted into the rich fillet-band round the head,
and narrowing to the closely-fitting top. It looked something like an
Albanian cap. The gloves, which are said to have been those of the
chief, were of a brownish fine leather, with embroidered gauntlet tops.
The lady's are of a lighter hue, still softer leather, with gay fringe
of varied-colored silk and gold, and tassels at the wrists. Both these
pairs of gloves were well shaped and most neatly sewed.

On these relics of antiquity, and of ancestorial memorials devolving on
Dr. Jefferson, he sought for a place of deposit for them, suitable to
their dignity, their character, and their times. He had in his
possession a curious old table, of the era of Henry the Eighth, which
he soon adapted to the purpose. Its large oaken slab was of sufficient
dimensions to admit of the royal gift being spread in graceful folds
over the dark surface of the wood, which the better displayed the
tissue's interchanging tints, and also gave room for the disposal of
the cap and gloves, which were placed in a kind of armorial crest
between its gauntlets, at the head of the scarf, and at its foot was
added a beautifully written inscription in old emblazoned characters,
historic of the interesting relics above. The whole is secured from
dust or other injury by a covering of plate-glass, extending over the
entire surface of the table, which, having a raised carved oak
parapet-border of about four inches high along all its sides, forms a
sort of castellated sanctuary that completely defends from accident the
glass and the treasure beneath it; which is distinctly seen through the
lucid medium.

The shape of the table is like that we call a sofa-table, but very
long, being five feet by two and a half. The depth of its frieze
altogether is eight inches, for it extends four inches below the
four-inch parapet above, and this lower portion is worked into a
foliage enwreathing the sides. The whole height of the table from the
feet of its four-clawed pedestal, is three feet two inches. This
pedestal, or rather branching stem of polished oak--being of the sturdy
contour of its original growth, with its superb ramifications
supporting the precious slab above--shows an elaborate design in its
carvings, far beyond my power to describe, so luxuriant, so various, so
intricate, one might almost suppose that the matchless tool of the
famous Benevanta Cellini had traced its wild and graceful grotesque.
The four claws, which are like roots from the stem of the pedestal,
partake of the same rich arabesque in their design, and terminate in
the form of lion's paws.




The End.

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