Bygone Scotland: Historical and Social. David Maxwell
hills and glens which were to them their fatherland; but they long continued in semi-barbarism, separated by race and language from the comparatively civilized Lowlands, with little of national patriotism, and a great distrust of the—to them distant—sovereignty of Holyrood. They often, as did their forefathers in the time of the Romans, a thousand years previously, made plundering incursions into the Lowlands; but they had continual clan-quarrels amongst themselves, which helped to keep them in their native wilds, and the government would foment these quarrels, and even, to their mutual destruction, employ one clan against another. So late as the reign of James IV. an Act of Parliament, for the better government of the Highlands and Islands, states that for want of justices and sheriffs, these districts had become almost savage.
And the border counties—on both sides of the hardly defined line of demarcation—were also in an unsettled state. They, too, had their family clanships, their hereditary feuds, their predatory raids. There was a sort of debatable land of moor, forest, and morass, where neither national nor forest-law was paramount. On both sides Wardens of the marches were appointed, with a mutual understanding to prevent border-raiding. But the Wardens themselves were generally heads of the great neighbouring families, and they often broke their own laws, by sheltering or encouraging offenders. Altogether the picture which we gather from the history of Scotland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is not a pleasant one to dwell upon.
But there were rifts in the cloud. The first James, 1406 to 1437, has left a noble record as a man of knightly nature, a fine poet, and a wise ruler. When eleven years of age, he was put by his father, Robert III., on board of a vessel to sail to France, to save him from his uncle, the Duke of Albany, who had caused the death by starvation of his elder brother. The vessel was captured by the English, and the young prince was for eighteen years a prisoner. But he was well educated, and seems to have had great freedom of movement—even taking part in the French wars. He married Joan Beaufort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and nearly related to the royal family of England. In 1424, a ransom was negotiated; James was set at liberty, and he and his queen were crowned at Scone. Under him many wise laws were enacted for the proper administration of justice, and for the fostering of home trade and foreign commerce. His great task was in curtailing the powers assumed by the nobles. This made him enemies, and cost him his life. Temporarily occupying a house in Perth, a band of miscreants under Sir Robert Graham, who had recently been punished by the King for law-breaking, burst at night into the King’s chamber, and in his wife’s presence savagely slew him. The Queen took wild vengeance on the murderers.
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