History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3. Henry Buckley
the most fertile part of Scotland which was most exposed to the English ravages. This, as we shall presently see, produced some very curious results on the national character; and for that reason, I will, without entering into many details, give a slight summary of the more immediate consequences of this long and sanguinary struggle.
In 1296, the English entered Berwick, the richest town Scotland possessed, and not only destroyed all the property, but slew nearly all the inhabitants.14 They then marched on to Aberdeen and Elgin; and so completely desolated the country, that the Scotch, flying to the mountains, and stripped of their all, had no resource left but to wage from their native fastnesses a war similar to that which their savage ancestors, twelve centuries earlier, had conducted against the Romans.15 In 1298, the English again broke in, burnt Perth and St. Andrews, and ravaged the whole territory south and west.16 In 1310, they invaded Scotland by the eastern march, and carrying off such provisions as were left, caused so terrible a dearth, that the people were forced to feed on horses and other carrion.17 All over southern Scotland, both east and west, the inhabitants were now reduced to a horrible condition, being for the most part houseless and starved. In 1314, made desperate by their state, they rallied for a moment, and, in the battle of Bannockburn, gloriously defeated their oppressors. But their unrelenting enemy was at hand, and pressed them so hard, that, in 1322, Bruce, in order to baffle an English invasion, was obliged to lay waste all the districts south of the Firth of Forth; the people taking refuge, as before, in the mountains.18 This time, therefore, when Edward II. reached Edinburgh, he plundered nothing, because, the country being a desert, there was nothing to plunder; but, on his return, he did what he could, and meeting with some convents, which were the only signs of life that he encountered, he fell upon them, robbed the monasteries of Melrose and Holyrood, burnt the abbey of Dryburgh, and slew those monks who, from age or disease, were unable to escape.19 In 1336, the next king, Edward III., equipped a numerous army, devastated the Lowlands, and great part of the Highlands, and destroyed every thing he could find, as far as Inverness.20 In 1346, the English overran the districts of Tweeddale, the Merse, Ettrick, Annandale, and Galloway;21 and in 1355, Edward, in a still more barbarous inroad, burnt every church, every village, and every town he approached.22 And scarcely were these frightful losses somewhat repaired, when another storm burst upon the devoted land. In 1385, Richard II. traversed the southern counties to Aberdeen, scattering destruction on every side, and reducing to ashes the cities of Edinburgh, Dunfermline, Perth, and Dundee.23
By these disasters, the practice of agriculture was every where interrupted, and in many places ceased for several generations.24 The labourers either fled, or were murdered; and there being no one to till the ground, some of the fairest parts of Scotland were turned into a wilderness, overgrown with briers and thickets. Between the invasions, a few of the inhabitants, taking courage, issued from the mountains, and raised wretched huts in the place of their former abodes. But, even then, they were pursued to their very doors by wolves, searching for food, and maddened with hunger. If they escaped from these famished and ferocious animals, they and their families were exposed to a danger still more horrible. For, in those terrible days, when famine stalked abroad, despair perverted the souls of men, and drove them to new crime. There were cannibals in the land; and we have it on contemporary authority, that a man and his wife, who were at length brought to justice, subsisted during a considerable period on the bodies of children, whom they caught alive in traps, devouring their flesh, and drinking their blood.25
Thus the fourteenth century passed away. In the fifteenth century, the devastations of the English became comparatively rare; and although the borders were the scene of constant hostilities,26 there is no instance, since the year 1400, of any of our kings invading Scotland.27 An end being put to those murderous expeditions, which reduced the country to a desert, Scotland drew breath, and began to recover her strength.28 But, though the material losses were gradually repaired; though the fields were again cultivated, and the towns rebuilt, there were other consequences, which were less easy to remedy, and from whose effects the people long smarted. These were inordinate power of the nobles, and the absence of the municipal spirit. The strength of the nobles, and the weakness of the citizens, are the most important peculiarities of Scotland during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and they, as I am about to show, were directly encouraged by the ravages committed by the English troops. We shall, moreover, see that this combination of events increased the authority of the clergy, weakened the influence of the intellectual classes, and made superstition more prevalent than it would otherwise have been. It is in this way, that in Scotland, as in all other countries, every thing is linked together; nothing is casual or accidental; and the whole march of affairs is governed by general causes, which, owing to their largeness and remoteness, often escape attention, but which, when once recognized, are found to be marked by a simplicity and uniformity, which are the invariable characteristics of the highest truths that the mind of man has reached.
The first circumstance favourable to the authority of the nobles, was the structure of the country. Mountains, fens, lakes, and morasses, which even the resources of modern art have only recently made accessible supplied the great Scottish chieftains with retreats, in which they could with impunity defy the power of the crown.29 The poverty of the soil also, made it difficult for armies to find means of subsistence; and from this cause alone, the royal troops were often unable to pursue the lawless and refractory barons.30 During the fourteenth century, Scotland was constantly ravaged by the English; and in the intervals of their absence, it would have been a hopeless undertaking for any king to try to repress such powerful subjects, since he would have had to march through districts so devastated by the enemy, that they no longer yielded the common necessaries of life. Besides this, the war with the English lessened the authority of the crown, absolutely as well as relatively. Its patrimony, lying in the south, was incessantly wasted by the borderers, and before the middle of the fourteenth century, greatly deteriorated in value.31 In 1346, David II. fell into the hands of the English, and during his captivity of eleven years, the nobles carried all before them, and affected, says an historian, the style and title of princes.32 The longer the war with England continued, the more these consequences were felt; so that before the close of the fourteenth century, a few of the leading Scotch families had raised themselves to such preëminence, that it was evident, either that a deadly struggle must ensue between them and the crown, or else that the executive government would have to abdicate its most essential functions, and leave the country a prey to these headstrong and ferocious chiefs.33
At this crisis, the natural allies of the throne would have been the citizens and free burgesses, who in most European countries were the eager and resolute opponents of the nobles, whose licentious habits interfered not only with their trade and manufactures, but also with their personal liberty. Here again, however, the long war with England was favourable to the aristocracy of Scotland. For, as the invaders ravaged the southern parts of Scotland, which were also the only tolerably fertile parts, it was impossible that towns should flourish in the places which nature had appointed for them. There being no large cities, there was no asylum for the citizens, and there could be no municipal spirit. There being no municipal spirit, the crown was deprived of that great resource, which enabled the English kings to curtail the power of the nobles, and to punish a lawlessness which long impeded the progress of society.
During the middle ages, the Scotch towns were so utterly insignificant, that but few notices have been preserved of them;
‘Anno gratiæ MCCXCVI. tertio kalendas Aprilis, villa et castro de Berevvico, per magnificum regem Angliæ Eadvvardum captis, omnes ibidem inuentos Angli gladio occiderunt, paucis exceptis, qui ipsam villam postmodum abiurarūt.’
‘The Scots assembled in troops and companies, and betaking themselves to the woods, mountains, and morasses, in which their fathers had defended themselves against the Romans, prepared for a general insurrection against the English power.’
‘The army then advanced into Scotland by moderate marches, wasting and destroying every thing on their way.’ … ‘A party of Edward's army, sent northwards, wasted the country, and burnt Perth and Saint Andrews.’
‘The king entered Scotland by the eastern march with a great army.’ … ‘There was this year so terrible a dearth and scarcity of provisions in Scotland, arising from the havoc of war, that many were obliged to feed on the flesh of horses and other carrion.’
Bruce ‘carefully laid the whole borders waste as far as the Firth of Forth, removing the inhabitants to the mountains, with all their effects of any value. When the English army entered, they found a land of desolation, which famine seemed to guard.’
‘Eadwardus, rex Angliæ, intravit Scotiam cum magno exercitu equitum et peditum, ac navium multitudine copiosa, duodecimo die mensis Augusti, et usque villam de Edinburgh pervenit.’ … ‘Spoliatis tamen tunc in reditu Anglorum et prædatis monasteriis Sanctæ Crucis de Edinburgh et de Melros, atque ad magnam desolationem perductis. In ipso namque monasterio de Melros dominus Willelmus de Peblis, ejusdem monasterii Prior, unus etiam monachus tunc infirmus, et duo conversi cæci effecti, in dormitorio eorundem ab eisdem Anglis sunt interfecti, et plures monachi lethaliter vulnerati. Corpus Dominicum super magnum altare fuit projectum, ablatâ pixide argenteâ in quâ erat repositum. Monasterium de Driburgh igne penitùs consumptum est et in pulverem redactum. Ac
‘Rex Angliæ, Richardus secundus ægrè ferens Scotos et Francos tam atrociter terram suam deprædare, et municipia sua assilire et ad terram prosternere, exercitum collegit grandem, et intravit Scotiam, ætate tunc novemdecim annorum, in multitudine superba progrediens, omnia circumquaque perdens, et nihil salvans; templa Dei et sanctuaria religiosorum monasteria viz. Driburgh, Melros et Newbottel, ac nobilem villam de Edinburgh, cum ecclesia Sancti Ægidii ejusdem, voraci flammâ incineravit; et, destructione permaximâ factâ per eum in Laudonia, ad propria sine damno repatriavit’
‘Agriculture was ruined; and the very necessaries of life were lost, when the principal lords had scarcely a bed to lye on.’
Notices of Scotch cannibals will be found in
Even when the two nations were at peace, the borderers were at war. See
In 1400, Henry IV. made ‘the last invasion which an English monarch ever conducted into Scotland.’
But very slowly. Pinkerton (
Owing to this, their castles were, by position, the strongest in Europe; Germany alone excepted. Respecting their sites, which were such as to make them in many instances almost unassailable, see
‘By retiring to his own castle, a mutinous baron could defy the power of his sovereign, it being almost impracticable to lead an army through a barren country, to places of difficult access to a single man.’
‘The patrimony of the Crown had been seriously dilapidated during the period of confusion which succeeded the battle of Durham,’
‘During the long captivity of David,’ the nobles had been completely insubordinate, and ‘affected the style and title of princes,’
In 1299, ‘a superior baron was in every respect a king in miniature.’