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ing, by the way, the artist has thrown an air of absorbed devotedness into the very handsome countenance drawn by him, which is at variance, in some measure, with the tone of the attitude and costume, as pertaining to a mere figure in a state pageant.

Chapter XX.

Personal Anecdotes of the Scots Immigrants-The Wolf of Badenoch's Son-The Albany and Darnley Stewarts-The Hamiltons and Douglases-Investment of the Scotch Duke of Touraine-Notices of Scotsmen settled in France, and the Families founded by them-The Settlement of the Scots compared with that of the Normans.

HE arrival of the Scots auxiliaries, the battles

THE

in which they were engaged, and the formation of the Scots Guard from the remnant, make an episode in history which I have thought it best to keep by itself. There were constant migrations, however, of Scotsmen to France, from the commencement of the Hundred Years' War downwards, and I now propose to give a few characteristics of the men who went thither, of the reception they met with, and of the destinies of their descendants.

King Robert III. had a younger brother Alexander, who was made lieutenant of the northern part of the kingdom. His royal birth and breeding were insufficient to control the temptation of using his opportunities to collect a Highland following, and setting them to their natural work, which was mischief. He became, of course, the terror of all the well-disposed within the district he was set to rule over, and they complimented him with the title of "The Wolf of Badenoch." He set his eye on some lands on the Spey belonging to the Bishop of Moray, and sent a few hundreds of his galleyglasses to take possession. The bishop had recourse to his own peculiar artillery, and excommunicated the Wolf. One would have thought this mattered little; but besides being the wolf beyond the Grampians, Alexander Stewart was prince and courtier at Holyrood, where the condition of excommunication carried with it many social inconveniences, not to speak of the insolence of the prelate, who dared to cast such a slur on a man of his condition. He therefore, to give the bishop a foretaste of what might follow, sent down a few handy lads to the plains of Moray, where they burnt the choir of the church of Forres and the house of the archdeacon. As this had not the desired effect, he collected a larger force of ruffians, and, descending on the Lowland like an avalanche, fell on the episcopal city of Elgin and burned its noble cathedral. This was going rather too far. The Wolf had not only

to disgorge, but to propitiate the Church with gifts, and do penance until the Pope set him right by absolution. His ashes repose in the Cathedral of Dunkeld, where may be seen his recumbent effigy, with arms folded, in serene peace looking to another world, while, in a Gothic inscription, the forgiving Church records that here lies Alexander Stewart, Lord of Buchan and Badenoch, of good memory.

This worthy had a favourite illegitimate son, also called Alexander. He, as was natural, followed his father's footsteps, and collected a troop of barelegged ruffians, who rieved and ravaged far and near. The Lindsays, Ogilvies, and other gentlemen of Angus, resolved to put a stop to this, and collected a body of men-at-arms and Lowland bowmen, a sort of force which held the Highland caterans in utter scorn as a set of rabble to be swept before them. The Wolf cub, however, alighted on the tactic which, in later times, made a Highland force terrible-a concentrated rush on the enemy. This the small body of Lowlanders caught on the rugged banks of the Isla, and they were at once swept away, mail-clad horsemen and all, before the horde of savages they had despised. A little incident in this battle is thus described by a bard who might have been present, and probably had it from an eyewitness. Sir David Lyndsay, trying to make head against the torrent as a mounted man-at-arms, had trodden several of the Highlanders down, and

had one of them pinned to the earth with his long lance. Thereupon, in the words of old Wyntoun,

"That man held fast his own sword
Into his nieve, and up thrawing
He pressed him, not again standing
That he was pressed to the earth;
And with a swake there of his sword,
Through the stirrup-leather and the boot
Three ply or four, above the foot,
He struck the Lyndsay to the bone.
That man no stroke gave but that one,
For there he died." *

Nestling in a valley close to the mountain-range where the father and son held rather a roving commission than a right either of property or government, stood the Castle of Kildrummy. As its ruins still attest, it was not one of those grim, gaunt, starved-looking square towers which the impoverished nobility of Scotland were fain to hide themselves in, but a vast and beautiful Gothic fortress erected in the time of the great war of independence, probably by the English. This desirable residence the youth set his eye on; so with

Scott could not but see the value of such an incident in heroic narrative, and accordingly, in the ‘Lord of the Isles,' he brings it in at the death of Colonsay's fierce lord :

"Nailed to the earth, the mountaineer
Yet wreathed him up against the spear,

And swung his broadsword round;
Stirrup, steel boot, and cuish gave way
Beneath that blow's tremendous sway."

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