Chapter XII The Douglas Clan
The Douglas clan was at one time the strongest of all the great Scotch families on the Border; they were wild and proud and recklessly brave, and no account of the Borders would be complete without the broad details of their tragic history.
The first to raise the fame of the family to the highest place in honour was the brave Sir James Douglas, the friend of Bruce, and, after Bruce himself, the greatest hero among the Scots of that stormy period. He was a powerful, black-haired man with a dark complexion, and was called by the English “The Black Douglas.” So great was the terror of his name that English mothers on the Border, when their children were naughty, would tell them that the Black Douglas would get them, or if they were fretful they would comfort them with the assurance—
“Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye,
Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye,
The Black Douglas shall not get ye.”
Sir Walter Scott relates how, when the garrison of Roxburgh Castle were making merry at Shrovetide, the castle was surprised by the Douglas, who mounted to the ramparts where a woman was crooning the refrain to her babe. “You are not so sure of that,” he said, laying his hand upon her shoulder. It is pleasant to read that on this occasion the Black Douglas did not turn out so black as he was painted, and beyond her fright the woman came to no harm at the hands of Sir James and his followers.
At one time the English had seized the Douglas castle in Lanarkshire, and Sir James and his men disguised themselves and came to church on Palm Sunday, when the English soldiers were worshipping there. Suddenly in the midst of the service Douglas dropped his cloak and drew his sword and shouted: “A Douglas! a Douglas!”
The English soldiers were taken by surprise, and were killed before they could recover themselves. This deed brought Douglas great fame, but after all it was hardly a fair fight.
In 1327, when Edward III. was only fifteen years old, Douglas led a raid into Northumberland and Durham which did the English much damage. Edward came after them with an English army, and the Scots, being outnumbered, were compelled to dodge up and down in order to avoid a pitched battle. But in one bold night attack, Douglas and five hundred of the Scots penetrated to the king’s tent, and almost succeeded in taking him prisoner. Failing in this, they returned unharmed to their own country, and shortly afterwards, at the Treaty of Northampton in 1328, King Edward III. agreed to acknowledge Robert Bruce as King of Scotland, and the long war between Scotland and England ended.
A year later Bruce died, but after a romantic custom of that day he bequeathed his heart to his gallant friend, Sir James Douglas. Douglas had this heart enclosed in a silver casket and carried it hung about his neck. The war with England being over, this restless knight sought adventures in Spain, fighting against the Saracen followers of Mahomet. In one fierce battle, he and his men were surrounded by their enemies. Douglas, probably realising that this was his last fight, took the casket and flung it into the midst of his foes, crying: “Go first in fight, as thou wert used to do; Douglas will follow thee or die!” He then rushed desperately after it, fighting his way on till at last his dead body fell on this dearly prized relic, which he guarded to the end. The casket lies buried in the Abbey of Melrose, but Douglas’s body was laid in his own church.
Of the bold Earl Douglas who fought and died at Otterbourne the tale is told in our last chapter. We may pass on to another famous Douglas, this time a heroine, who lived in the reign of James I. of Scotland (quite a different king from James I. of England). When James was only twelve years old, he was taken prisoner by Henry IV. of England, and kept captive till he was thirty. But he was given an education fit for a king, and in England he met the lady he devotedly loved, Lady Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset. He addressed a beautiful poem to her and married her, and these two always most dearly loved one another. When at last his long captivity came to an end, he got back to Scotland to find the kingdom in disorder, and the nobles defying the law and acting as they pleased. James, a strong and able king, set his strength against their strength, and gradually got his whole kingdom into order and ruled with wisdom and justice.
But in these days it was impossible to be firm without sternness, and James made enemies. When he was staying at Perth one Christmas-time, these enemies, led by a bold villain called Sir Robert Graham, secretly encircled the house where he was staying. The unarmed king only heard of their presence when they were advancing, fully armed, to his room. He tore up a plank in the floor, seeking thus to find a hiding-place. The enemies were almost at the door, and it was necessary to delay their entrance, for one minute might save his life. All the bars of the door had been removed beforehand, but a brave heroine, Kate Douglas, thrust her arm through the staples. The villains were angered to find the door barred against them, and hurled their weight upon it.
The Douglas heroine stood there, her pale face set hard, without a cry, as the crash broke the bone of her brave strong arm, and the would-be murderers staggered in. But alas! the sacrifice of Kate Douglas availed nothing except to place her name upon the immortal roll of the heroes of the ages, for after a brief search the murderers found the king and slew him.
The queen, who had loved James with the utmost devotion, found her love give added fierceness to her hate against his murderers. They were all tracked down, and she caused them to die with terrible tortures, the cruellest of which she reserved for Graham. Thus did great King James’s “milk-white dove” revenge the slaying of the husband she loved dearer than life itself.
Till this time it had seemed as if the Douglases were devoted to the good of Scotland. But in those wild, reckless times qualities that were strong for good could also be strong for evil.
When James I. of Scotland was murdered, his young son was only six years old. This meant that for many years there would be no strong king able to cope with the lawless spirit of the nobles, strongest among whom were the proud, bold Douglases.
The lawlessness of the times is well shown by an act of foul treachery committed by Sir William Crichton, Governor of Edinburgh, and an enemy of the Douglas family. He invited one of the earls to dinner at the castle, and while there had him seized and beheaded. It is said that a bull’s head was placed on the dish in front of Douglas, this being a sign that he was to be killed. The people called this “Douglas’s black dinner,” and sang of the wicked deed in sorrowful verse:—
“Edinburgh Castle, town and tower
God grant thou sink for sin!
And even for that black dinner
Earl Douglas got therein.”
But the new King James found, before he was twenty years old, that the Douglases themselves could act with equal cruelty and lawlessness.
The king was fond of a brave young soldier named Maclellan, who, having some quarrel with Earl Douglas, was thrown by him into a dungeon in his castle. So the king wrote a letter to Douglas, saying he must set Maclellan free, and sent this letter by Maclellan’s uncle, Sir Patrick Gray. When Douglas saw Gray riding up to his castle, he at once guessed the errand. So he came out as though he were delighted to see him, and insisted on his sitting down and having dinner with him, before the king’s letter was opened and discussed. But the treacherous earl had given secret orders that Maclellan should be beheaded while they were dining, so that after dinner was over, and the letter was read, he could say that this had been done before he had seen the king’s message.
Gray dared not show his anger, for fear he too should be killed. He mounted his swift horse and rode away, but the moment he was outside the castle walls he shook his mailed fist at Douglas and cried out—
“Treacherous earl, disgrace to knighthood, some day you shall pay for this black, base deed!”
Douglas mounted his men, and they pursued Gray almost to the gates of Edinburgh; but he rode for his life, and faster than they.
When Douglas and the king next met there was a stormy scene. The earl was so proud and wilful that he would not bend to any of the king’s wishes or heed the king’s anger in the least. So King James, mad with rage, stabbed the reckless earl with his dagger, and Sir Patrick Gray, seeing this, struck him a death-blow with his axe.
The king was in Stirling Castle, a powerful fortress at the top of a steep hill, when the new earl, the younger brother of the murdered man, rode up with six hundred followers, and burnt and plundered the town before the king’s very eyes, and added to the insult by publicly declaring that King James II. was a law-breaker.
For three years the quarrel went on between the king and the Douglases, but it was then evident that there could be no peace between them. So at last the king’s army attacked the collected forces of the strong Douglas family at a place on the Borders then called Arkinholm, where the picturesque little town of Langholm now stands. Here the beautiful river Esk receives the water of two smaller streams, and so it was a good place to make a stand for a fight. The battle was long and desperate; three brothers of the bold black Douglases were there, and they withstood the king’s men till the rivers ran red; but their cause was hopeless. One was slain in battle; one was taken and executed; one escaped into England; and the power of the Black Douglases was gone.
Thus it was that the strongest and most famous family of the Borders was broken up, because its proud leaders dared to dictate to the king himself.