fifty thousand franks of gold and fourteen hundred suits of the newest fashioned armour for the King and his nobles. But the poor knights were most uncomfortable in this wasted and poverty-stricken land, where they found very indifferent food and lodgings, and there were no banquets, balls, or tournaments in la sauvage Escoche. We can gather from accounts of their visit that in spite of their beautiful gifts the contrast between these French gentlemen and the Scottish nobles was far from agreeable to the latter. The inhabitants of the country towns where they were lodged soon grew tired of their expensive visitors, who devoured their substance, and the peasants unceremoniously rose up and slew a hundred of them. They assisted in the invasion of England, when King Richard II. was with a great army creating desolation in southern Scotland, but the French and Scottish methods of war differed widely; and, on the whole, when the remains of Vienne's army returned with him to France, they perceived that their expedition had been a failure, and agreed that they had had enough of adventures among savages. The hostilities with England came to a climax, when, in what was considered chivalrous retaliation for vast injuries suffered from the visitation of Richard II., the battle of Otterburn, the Chevy-Chase of song, was fought on the 19th of August 1388. The Earl of Douglas entered Northumberland with a band of four or five thousand men, and proceeded to the neighbourhood of Newcastle. Here they were met by the two sons of Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Sir Henry, the renowned Harry Hotspur, and Sir Ralph. Douglas captured Hotspur's pennon, a gorgeous affair, and he boasted that he would plant it on his castle of Dalkeith. 'That,' said Percy, 'shalt thou never do. I will regain my lance ere thou canst get back into Scotland.' 'Then,' said Douglas, 'come to seek it, and thou shalt find

In

it before my tent.' The Scots encamped for the night at Otterburn, about twenty miles from the Scottish border. the middle of the night Sir Henry Percy with a powerful force bore down on the Scottish camp. A desperate fight took place in the strong light of a harvest moon. The Scots, being outnumbered, began to give way, and Douglas fell pierced by three mortal wounds. 'How fares it, cousin?' said Sinclair, a Scottish knight coming up to him. 'Indifferently,' answered Douglas, who lay on the ground bleeding to death; 'but blessed be God, my ancestors have died on fields of battle, not on down beds. I sink fast; but let them still cry my war-cry, and conceal my death. There was a tradition in our family that a dead Douglas should win a field.' His orders were obeyed, and the cry 'Douglas! Douglas!' was shouted louder than before. The day was turned, the English were overcome, and the two Percys were made prisoners.1

There is not much of ecclesiastical importance to record during the reigns of David II. and Robert II.2 In 1342 the first Collegiate Church was founded at Dunbar, by Patrick, Earl of March, for a Dean, an Archpriest, and eighteen Canons. A Collegiate Church is described as 'a college for theology and the arts for divine worship and scholastic

1 Tales of a Grandfather, vol. i. pp. 55, 56.

2 The Cathedral of Aberdeen had been destroyed during the The reconstruction was commenced in 1357.

wars.

3 Bull of Pius II. confirming the foundation of St. Salvator's College by James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews, A.D. 1458. 'These churches consisted of prebendaries, or canons, where they had their several degrees, or stalls, and sat for singing more orderly the canonical hours; and with their Dean or Provost made up the chapter. They were commonly erected out of several parish churches united for that effect.'-Spotiswood's Religious Houses; Keith's Scottish Bishops, p. 465.

exercises, with a view to the glory of Almighty God, . . . and for the strengthening of the orthodox faith, and the increase of the Christian religion. There were thirty-two of these institutes besides Dunbar.1 In the year 1275 the Lady Devorgoil, daughter of Alan, the Lord of Galloway, wife of John Baliol, and mother of the celebrated John Baliol, erected the last abbey in Scotland-Abbatia de Dulci Corde, or Sweetheart Abbey-on her husband's grave in Galloway.2 James de Bane, Bishop of St. Andrews, escaped to Flanders after the battle of Dupplin. He died abroad, and was buried there, 'his spirit intil Paradyse,' and was succeeded in 1341 by William de Landel. Bishop William abounded in excellent qualities, and is said to have loved his canons as if they had been his own children. A great deal of his time was, however, taken up in travelling, for he made twenty-two journeys to England, besides three pilgrimages across the sea. On his death the Prior of the Monastery, Stephen de Pay, was elected to succeed him in 1385. The Bishop-elect

1 Biggar, in Lanark; Botham, in East-Lothian; Bothwell, in Clydesdale; Carnwath, in Clydesdale; Corstorphin; Carail, in Fife; Crichton, in Mid-Lothian; Dalkeith; Dirleton; Dumbarton; Dunglass; Foulis, in Angus; St. Giles, in Edinburgh; Guthrie, in Angus; Hamilton, in Clydesdale; Kilmaurs, in Ayr; Kilmund, in Cowal; Kirkheugh, in St. Andrews; Lincluden, in Galloway; St. Mary in the Fields, near Edinburgh; Methven, in Perthshire; Minnibole, in Carrick; Restalrig, in Mid-Lothian; Roslin ; Royal Chapel of Stirling; St. Salvator's, in St. Andrews; Seton, in East-Lothian; Semple, in Renfrewshire; Tain, in Ross; Trinity College, in Edinburgh; Tullibardine, in Strathearn; Yester, in East-Lothian.

2 The Lady Devorgoil also founded a Franciscan convent in Wigtonshire, one for the same order in Dundee, and Baliol College in Oxford.

set off to Rome for confirmation, but having been taken prisoner by the English, he died at Alnwick the same year. We are told that the good man hailed his last hour thankfully, partly because his death would enable the see to be immediately filled, and would relieve his brethren from the heavy ransom that would be demanded for one elected to the Pontifical chair of St. Andrews. Walter Trail, a canon of the monastery, was then chosen, and having served a good episcopate till 1401, he was succeeded in 1403 by Henry Wardlaw. This bishop was a nephew of Walter Wardlaw, Bishop of Glasgow, who was made a Cardinal by Pope Clement VII. in 1385, being the first Scottish ecclesiastic who was raised to that dignity. The history of mediæval Scottish literature begins in the fourteenth century with three celebrated names,1 Barbour, Wynton, and John of Fordun. John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, wrote the great national poem of The Bruce, employing the language of lowland Scotland and of northern England, that is, Anglo-Saxon of the old northern type.2 Andrew Wynton, a canon-regular of St. Andrews, and Prior of the Monastery of St. Serf on Lochleven, was the author of the Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, which, beginning as it does with treatises on the nature of angels and the creation of the world, and proceeding leisurely through dissertations on the primeval race of giants, the origin of poetry and idolatry, and other obscure subjects, by way of

1 So early as the thirteenth century there was a Scotch poet called Thomas Learmount of Ercildoun, or Thomas the Rymer. The history of his life and writings is involved in obscurity, but his name was once viewed in Scotland 'with reverence scarcely inferior to what Orpheus obtained in Greece.'—Irving's History of Scotish Poetry, p. 41.

2 See Preface to The Brus, edit. Spalding Club, by Cosmo Innes, p. xxi.

an introduction speaks of the many hours for study that the Prior enjoyed in his monastery by the beautiful loch. John of Fordun, a priest, was the author of the first five books, and part of the sixth, of a Chronicle of the Scottish Nation, under the name of the Scotichronicon; the rest being completed by Walter Bower.

Robert II. died on the 19th of April 1390. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Adam Mure of Rowallan, he had four sons and six daughters; by his second wife, Euphemia Ross, he had two sons and four daughters. He was buried at Scone, and on the 14th of August, being the morning succeeding the funeral, his eldest son, John, Earl of Carrick, was crowned at Scone. Next day his wife, Annabella Drummond, a daughter of the noble house of Drummond, was crowned queen. The Christian name of the King being associated with that of Baliol, by a national agreement he was called by the beloved name of Robert. Robert III. was an excellent man, but he shrunk from being a king, especially a king of Scots. He naturally loved peace; and a kick from a horse had so lamed him, that he avoided not only war, but public affairs generally. A long way before his time, he fell into loneliness unbefitting a king, instead of trying to raise his subjects to his own high standard. He had not the courage and energy to overrule the proper administration of justice, or to face the tremendous revolution which he saw was necessary in the manners of the nation, and in every art of peace. This work was to be begun by one of his posterity, but he was to pay for it by the price of his own life. Yet it was sufficient for Robert to entertain pacific sentiments to bring on him the scorn and pity of his nobles, who saw in their tame, gentle monarch, incapacitated by his accident from even the mock war of a tournament, delighting in the society of his faithful wife, loving his books and his prayers, and ordering a household whose arrange