genealogy; and doubtless many of the adventurers who planned and built their fortunes in France, as fully believed themselves cadets of the noblest family bearing their name, as if they had carried with them the certifi cate of the Lyon Office.

We

Whatever social position the Scottish adventurer might assume, there is little doubt that his claim to be somebody would be pretty substantially maintained by the proud reserve which naturally belongs to his race. can, in fact, see at the present day the qualities which made the fortunes of these men. These qualities are now exercised in another sphere-in England, in the colonies, and especially in our Indian empire, where Scotsmen are continually rising from obscurity into eminence. On the brow of the industrious crofter on the slopes of the Grampians we may yet see the well-becoming pride and self-respecting gravity that, in the fifteenth century, took the honours and distinctions of France as a natural right. Whence comes his pride? He has no rank-he is poorand he is no representative of an illustrious house. No, but he is founding a house. He rises up early, and late takes rest, that his son may go to college and be a gentleman; and when he reads contemporary history in the public press, he knows that the grandfather of the eminent law lord, or of the great party leader, or of the illustrious Eastern conqueror, whose name fills the ear of fame, laboured like himself in the fields close at hand.

It may be surely counted not without significance among ethnical phenomena, that though France has all along shown in her language the predominance of the Latin race, three infusions of northern blood had been successively poured into the country; first, the Franksnext, the Normans-and lastly, the Scots. It seems not unreasonable that these helped to communicate to the vivacity and impetuosity of the original race those qualities of enterprise and endurance which were needed to make up the illustrious history of France. The more, however, that the standard of national character was raised by the new element, the more would it revolt at a continued accession of foreign blood. A country, the

highest distinctions and offices of which were given by the despotic monarch to strangers, to enable him to keep down the native people, could not be sound at heart; and one hails it as the appearance of a healthy tone of nationality when murmurs arise against the aggrandising strangers.

It was not, indeed, in human nature, either that the French should not murmur at the distinctions and substantial rewards bestowed on the strangers, or that they themselves should not become domineering and exacting. M. Michel quotes some very suggestive murmurs of the time, in which it is questioned whether the slaughter of the Scots at Verneuil was not to be set down as a piece of good fortune to France in breaking the power of a set of masters likely to be more formidable even than the English. But of some of the characteristic blemishes of a mercenary foreign force the Scots were free. They did not go to France to act the mendicant or marauder, but to be teachers and leaders; and the evil of their presence was not that their wretchedness made them a nuisance, but that their ambition and haughtiness made them a reproach to the native French. Hence there were occasional disagreeables and bickerings between the favoured foreigners and the natives, especially when these began to gain heart and recover from the abjectness they lay under during the great war. The following is a little incident connected with these affairs so very like the beginning of 'Quentin Durward,' that it surely must have been running in Scott's mind when he framed the events of that romance :

1 "Cet échec tourna à l'avantage de la France; car tels étaient et l'orgueil des Ecossais et le mépris dans lequel ils tenaient les Français, que s'ils fussent sortis vainqueurs de cette lutte, ils eussent comploté d'égorger toute la noblesse de l'Anjou, de la Touraine, du Berry, et des provinces voisines, pour s'emparer eux-mêmes de leurs maisons, de leurs femmes, de tous leurs biens les plus précieux ; ce qui, certainement, ne leur eût pas été bien difficile, une fois vainqueurs des Anglais, comme ils l'avaient espéré."-Contemporary Chronicle in Meyer, 'Annales Rerum Belgicarum,' quoted in Michel, i. 149.

"Michael Hamilton, who had a share in the affair, relates that in Holy Week of the year 1429, he and several of his companions-in-arms were lodged in a village named Vallet, not far from Clisson, and threatened by the Bretons, who held the country in considerable number. Α spy sent to report on the Scots having fallen into their hands, they made him inform them, and then hanged him. They then took to flight, but not without leaving some of their people in the power of the peasants. Amongst the prisoners was Hamilton, the weight of whose cuirass had prevented his flight; he was brought to Clisson and hanged by the very hand of the son of the spy, eager to avenge his father. From the moment that he had seen himself taken he had invoked St Catherine, and made a vow to go to thank her in her chapel of Fierbois, if she would preserve him from death. He was successful; for he, having been hanged, on the following night the curate of the town heard a voice which told him to go and save Hamilton.

"He paid little attention to it, and it was only on a reiterated order that he made up his mind to bid one of his parishioners go to the gibbet and look whether the wretch was dead or not. After having turned him again and again, the messenger, to assure himself fully, bared the right foot of the culprit, and pricked the little toe in such a manner as to make a large wound, from whence blood sprang. Feeling himself wounded, Hamilton drew up his leg and moved. At this sight, terror took possession of the messenger; he fled, and in all haste bore to the curate an account of what had passed. He perceiving in the whole affair an interposition from on high, related the facts to the people who were present; then having arrayed himself and his clergy in sacerdotal vestments, they went in procession to the place of execution, and cut down Hamilton. All this passed in the presence of him who had hanged him furious at seeing that his victim was on the point of escaping him, he struck him on the ear with. a sword, and gave him a great wound-an act of barbarity which is not to be commended.

"Then Hamilton is laid upon a horse and taken to a

house and given into care; soon after the Abbess of the Regrippière, having heard of what had taken place, sent in quest of our Scot to have him treated in her convent: he is taken there; and as he was ignorant of French, the charitable lady gives him a fellow-countryman for his sick-nurse. He had just related his adventures to him when a voice reminded him that he had a vow to fulfil. Unable then to walk, he waited a fortnight, then set off for Fierbois, but not without finding by the way companions, with whom he remained some days to recover his strength. In this history, as in another of the year 1423, in which we find Scots in Berry hanging eight poor peasants to revenge themselves for having been robbed not far from there, and as also in the history of Captain Boyce Glauny, I see the faithful picture of the miseries which, during the Hundred Years' War, desolated our central provinces, become the prey of undisciplined hordes; but I find also that the Scots figure there in great numbers." 1

CHAPTER III.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RECIPROCITY-CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SCOT IN FRANCE AND LE FRANÇAIS EN ECOSSE-AN AMBASSADOR SNUBBED-FRENCH CHEVALIERS TREATED TO A BORDER RAID-THE ADMIRAL VIENNE'S EXPEDITION, AND HOW IT FARED WITH HIM AND HIS FOLLOWERS-THE GLADIATORIAL SPECTACLE ON THE INCH OF PERTH-FERDINAND OF SPAIN'S DEALINGS WITH SCOTLANDRULE OF ALBANY, AND ITS RESULTS-A STORY OF ECCLESIASTICAL PATRONAGE-THE FOREIGN FRIAR OF TONGUELAND-THE SLAUGHTER OF LA BASTIE.

BEFORE Coming to the later history of the League, let us take a glance at the reciprocity from the other side, and having seen what a good thing our wandering Scots made of it in France, see how the French got on in Scotland. We must prepare for differences which are not unlike some that we now see in ordinary social life. Suppose the common case of two friends, each having an independent position, and each useful to the other, but, from specialties in his private affairs, the one keeps a dinnergiving house, the other does not. It need not necessarily follow that the one is the other's inferior or dependant— he who goes to dinner perhaps thinks he is giving more favour and honour than he receives; but the conditions on which the friends will meet each other in their respective dwelling-houses will take a decided colour from the distinction. In the one house all will be joviality and social enjoyment-in the other, hard business, not perhaps altogether of the most agreeable kind. For centuries the French could expect no enjoyment in Scotland. The country was, on the whole, not poorer than their own-perhaps not quite so poor-but there was no luxu