1518 the Scotch continued to come in quest of our wines, and did not always behave themselves in an exemplary manner.

"We know by President de Thou, that in his time, towards the end of the sixteenth century, Scotch wine-merchants came annually to Bordeaux; and we have a decree of the Council of State of the 3d June 1604, granting indemnification of 18,000 livres to John Anderson and John Williamson, Scotch merchants, from whom they had confiscated two hundred tons of wine at Havre." *

The Darnley branch of the Stewarts had a destiny in France which belongs to European history. Sir John Stewart of Darnley was one of Buchan's heroes, and fought at Baugé and Crevant, where he was wounded and taken. He was exchanged for the Earl of Suffolk's brother, Lord Pole. He was rewarded with the lands and lordships of Aubigny, Concressault, and Evereux, with the privilege of quartering the arms of France on his achievement. In 1427 he visited his own poor country in great state, with no less a function than that of ambassador from the Court of France. His mission was to negotiate a marriage between Louis the Dauphin and Margaret of Scotland. A year afterwards he and his brother were both killed in battle before Orleans, and were laid together in the cathedral of that memorable city. John Stewart's representa

* Michel, i. 357-361.

tives merged all their other titles in that of Lennox, which his marriage brought to the family. The fifth in descent from him, Mathew Earl of Lennox, who succeeded to the title in 1526, served under the French banner in the Italian wars, and though he hardly reached historic fame, is recorded in the books of genealogy as that respectable personage "a distinguished officer." Coming to Scotland in all his foreign finery, he made love to Mary of Guise, the widow of James V., a pursuit in which, by the oddest of all coincidents, he was the rival of the father of that Bothwell who settled all questions of small family differences by blowing his son into the air. This Lennox achieved, as every one knows, a more fruitful alliance with royalty through a daughter of Margaret, the sister of Henry VIII.

Returning to Sir Alexander Stewart, we find that his second son, John, founded a great house in France. The titles of John's son and representative, Bernard, were, "Viceroy of Naples, Constable of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Terra Nova, Marquis of Girace and Squillazo, Count of Beaumont, D'Arcy, and Venassac, Lord of Aubigny, and Governor of Melun.” * He commanded the army of Charles VIII. which invaded Naples, and gained the victory of Séminara, an achievement which Sismondi thus describes :

solved to arrest the progress which King Ferdinand was making in his territories, seconded by Gonzalvo of Cordova; and although he could not collect more than 400 mounted men-at-arms, twice the number of light cavalry, and a small body of Swiss infantry, he crossed the river between Terra Nova and Séminara before the enemy, and attacked them on the opposite bank, although their number was at least three times as great as his. The Calabrians, who had forced Ferdinand and Gonzalvo to accept the battle, did not wait for the first attack, but fled as soon as they saw the French advance. Ferdinand would have been taken had not John of Altavilla given him his horse, at the sacrifice of his own life: he was killed shortly after. Gonzalvo, Hugh of Cordova, Emmanuel Bénavides, Peter de la Paz, Spanish captains who all, at a later period, became famous at the expense of the French, would have been taken prisoners the following night in Séminara, if D'Aubigny, who was enfeebled by the Calabrian fevers, and sick all the time during which he was fighting, had been able to attack that town immediately. The gates were opened to him the next day."

Seven years later he was overpowered by numbers, and had to capitulate on the same spot; so that there is occasional confusion in history about the battle of Séminara, which is sometimes spoken of as a victory by, and sometimes as a defeat of, the

*

Sismondi, 'Hist. des François,' ch. xxvi.

French. Between these two conflicts there were many gallant feats of which he was the hero; and he was as renowned for gentleness as for bravery. He was the companion of Bayard, and his rival in fame as a chivalrous soldier.* He died at Corstorphine, near Edinburgh. One of the recumbent stone figures in the picturesque little Gothic church of that village is reputed by tradition to represent the great Lord of Aubigny, Marischal of France; but heraldry does not confirm this.

Next to the royal family of Scotland in France were the houses of Hamilton and of Douglas, who at times almost rivalled them at home. The French dukedom of Chatelherault is a name almost as familiar in history as the home title of the Hamiltons. By the side of the Scottish Constable of France rode a countryman scarcely less powerful-the lord of the vast province of Touraine, which had been conferred on the gallant Douglas. It may interest some people to read an official contemporary account of the pomps and ceremonies, as also of the state of public feeling, which accompanied the investiture of the territory in its new lord. It is clear from this document that the people of Touraine took with signal equanimity the appointment of a foreigner from a distant land to rule over them.

"Four days after the date of the letters-patent,

* "Le Sire d'Aubigny dont la loyauté etoit célébrée dans tout le royaume de Naples."-Sismondi, ch. xxix.

the news of the change which they celebrated reached Tours. Several ecclesiastics, burghers, and inhabitants assembled in alarm in the presence of Jehan Simon, lieutenant of the Bailli of Touraine, William d'Avaugour, and charged Jehan Saintier, one of their representatives, and Jehan Garnier, King's Sergeant, to go to Bourges, to William de Lucé, Bishop of Maillezais, and to the Bailli, to learn whether the King intended to give and had actually given the Duchy of Touraine to the Earl of Douglas, of the country of Scotland; and, if it was true, to beg of them to advise the said churchmen, burgesses, and inhabitants, what course they ought to pursue, and what was to be done in the circumstances, for the honour and advantage of this town of Tours and country of Touraine.

"The which Jehan Saintier and Garnier brought back for answer, that the said nobles above mentioned said to them that it was true that the King has given the said Duchy of Touraine to the said Earl of Douglas, and that they should not be at all alarmed at it, and that the people of the said Tours and country of Touraine will be very gently and peaceably governed; and that before the said Earl of Douglas shall have, or shall go to take possession of the said Duchy, the King will send letters to the said churchmen, burgesses, and inhabitants, and each of his officers commissioned to make over to him the said possession, and that my Lord Chancellor and the said Bailli would in a short time be in the