In the story of Scotland,’ says Mr. Froude, ‘weakness is nowhere; power, energy, and will are everywhere;’ and this national vigour, determined will, and indomitable resolution seem to have culminated in the ‘Doughty Douglases.’ Their stalwart and tough physical frames, and the strong, resolute, unbending character of such men as ‘William the Hardy,’ ‘Archibald the Grim,’ and ‘Archibald Bell-the-Cat,’ the types of their race, eminently fitted them to be ‘premier peers‘-leaders of men. From the War of Independence down to the era of the Reformation, no other family played such a conspicuous part in the affairs of Scotland as the Douglases. They intermarried no less than eleven times with the royal family of Scotland, and once with that of England. They enjoyed the privilege of leading the van of the Scottish army in battle, of carrying the crown at the coronation of the sovereign, and of giving the first vote in Parliament. ‘A Douglas received the last words of Robert Bruce. A Douglas spoke the epitaph of John Knox. The Douglases were celebrated in the prose of Froissart and the verse of Shakespeare. They have been sung by antique Barbour and by Walter Scott, by the minstrels of Otterburn and by Robert Burns.’ A nameless poet who lived four hundred years ago eulogised their trustiness and chivalry. Holinshed, in the next century, speaks of their ‘singular manhood, noble prowess, and majestic puissance.’ They espoused, at the outset, the patriotic side in the War of Independence, and they contributed greatly to the crowning victory of Bannockburn. They sent two hundred gentlemen of the name, with the heir of their earldom, to die at Flodden. There was a time when they could raise thirty thousand men, and they were for centuries the bulwarks of the Scottish borders against our ‘auld enemies of England.’ They have gathered their laurels on many a bloody field in France, where they held the rank of princes, and in Spain and in the Netherlands, as well as in England and Scotland, and - 

‘In far landes renownit they have been.’

They have produced men not only of ‘doughty’ character, but of the gentle and chivalric type also, like the ‘Good Sir James,’ and the William Douglas who married the Princess Egidia, justifying the exclamation of the author of the ‘Buke of the Howlat ‘-

‘O Douglas, Douglas,

Tender and true !’

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that their haughtiness and turbulence and ambition often disturbed the peace of the country, and imperilled the stability of the throne. On the whole, however, setting the good and the evil against each other, it may be said, in lines which were old in the days of Godscroft, and were then, he says, ‘common in men’s mouths ‘-

‘So many, so good, as of the Douglases have been,

Of one sirname were ne’er in Scotland seen.’

 The cradle of the race was in Douglasdale, but their origin is hid in obscurity. ‘We do not know them,’ says Godscroft, in his ‘History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus,’ ‘in the fountain, but in the stream; not in the root, but in the stem: for we know not who was the first mean man that did raise himself above the vulgar.’ The traditionary account of the descent of the family from ‘a dark-grey man’ (Sholto-Dhu-Glas), who rescued Solvathius, a mythical king of the Scots in the eighth century, from imminent danger of defeat in a battle with Donald Bane, is evidently fabulous. It is alleged by Chalmers that the founder of the family came from Flanders, about the year 1147, and was named Theobald the Fleming, and that he received from Arnold, Abbot of Kelso, a grant of lands on Douglas Water (Dhu-Glas), the dark stream, from which the family name was derived. But this is mere conjecture, not supported by any evidence; and it has been ascertained that the lands granted to Theobald are not those of which the first known Douglas, in the next generation, was in possession, and that these lands never formed a part of the barony of that name. Wyntoun is of opinion that the Douglases had the same origin as the Murrays, either by lineal descent or by collateral branch, as they have in their arms the same stars set in the same manner.

Through the innate energy of their character, the Douglases seem to have sprung almost at a bound into the foremost rank of the Scottish nobles. The first mention of their name in any authentic record is in a charter by Joceline, Bishop of Glasgow, to the monks of Kelso, between 1175 and 1199, which was witnessed by William of Dufglas, who is said to have been either the brother or brother-in-law of Sir Freskin de Kerdale in Moray. Sir William was a witness to a charter in 1240, and, along with Sir Andrew of Dufglas, to another charter in 1248. His great-grandson, surnamed the ‘Hardy,’ from his valour and heroic deeds, fought on the patriotic side in the War of Independence. He was governor of the Castle of Berwick in 1296, when that town was besieged and taken, after a resolute defence, by Edward I. The garrison of the castle on capitulating were allowed to march out with the honours of war; but Sir William Douglas was detained for some time a prisoner in one of the towers of that fortress. On regaining his liberty he rejoined the patriotic party, but fell once more into the hands of the English, and died in confinement in the Tower of York in 1302. He was the father, by a sister of the High Steward, of- SIR JAMES DOUGLAS, the ‘good Sir James,’ the friend of Robert Bruce, the most illustrious member of the Douglas family, and one of the noblest of the band of heroes who vindicated the freedom and independence of Scotland against the English arms. The romantic incidents in the career of this famous warrior and patriot would fill a volume. On the imprisonment of his father he retired to France, where he spent three years, ‘exercising himself in all virtuous exercise,’ says Godscroft, and ‘profited so well that he became the most compleat and best-accomplished young nobleman in the country or elsewhere.’ On the death of his father young Douglas returned to Scotland. His paternal estate having been bestowed by King Edward on Lord Clifford, he was received into the household of Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, with whom he ‘counted kin’ through his mother. He was residing there when Robert Bruce assumed the crown in 1305-6, and took up arms against the English invaders. Douglas, who was then only eighteen years of age, on receiving intelligence of this movement, resolved to repair at once to Bruce’s standard. According to Barbour, he took this step secretly, though with the knowledge and approval of the patriotic prelate, who recommended him to provide himself with a suit of armour and to take a horse from his stables, with a show of force, thus ‘robbing the bishop of what he durst not give.’ Lesley, Bishop of Ross, however, makes no mention of force, and says Douglas carried a large sum of money from Lamberton to Bruce. He met the future King at Erickstane, near Moffat, on his way to Scone to be crowned, and proferred him his homage and his services, which were cordially welcomed. From that time onward, until the freedom and independence of the kingdom were fully established, Douglas never left Bruce’s side, alike in adversity and prosperity, and was conspicuous both for his valour in battle and his wisdom in council. He was present at the battle of Methven, where the newly crowned King was defeated, and narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. He was one of the small band who took refuge, with Bruce and his Queen and other ladies, in the wilds first of Athole and then of Breadalbane, where for some time they subsisted on wild berries and the scanty and precarious produce of fishing and the chase. Barbour makes especial mention of the exertions of Sir James Douglas to provide for the wants and to promote the comfort of the ladies :- 

‘For whiles he venisoun them brocht,

And with his hands whiles he wrocht

Gynnes to take geddys (pikes) and salmonys, 

Troutis, eelys, and als menonys (minnows).’

Bruce himself was often comforted by his wit and cheerfulness.

At the encounter between the small body of men accompanying the King and the MacDougals of Lorn, at Dalry in Strathfillan, Douglas was wounded, and Bruce freed himself only by his great personal strength and skill in the use of his weapons from a simultaneous attack made upon him by three of the followers of the Lord of Lorn. It was Douglas who discovered the small leaky boat in which the remnant of Bruce’s followers were ferried, two at a time, over Loch Lomond. He spent the subsequent winter with the King on the island of Rachrin. On the approach of spring he made a successful descent on the island of Arran, and succeeded in capturing a large quantity of provisions, clothing, and arms. Shortly after, while Bruce was engaged in an effort to wrest his patrimonial domains in Carrick from the English, Sir James repaired secretly into Douglasdale, which was held by Lord Clifford, surprised the English garrison on Palm Sunday (1306-7), took possession of Douglas Castle, destroyed all the provisions, staved the casks of wine and other liquors, put his prisoners to the sword, flung their dead bodies on the stores which he had heaped up in a huge pile, and then set fire to the castle. This shocking deed, which we may hope has been exaggerated by tradition, was no doubt intended to revenge the atrocious cruelties which Edward had perpetrated on Bruce’s brothers and adherents, and especially the death of Douglas’s faithful follower, Dickson, who was killed in a conflict in the church. It was long commemorated in the traditions of the country by the name of the ‘Douglas larder.’ Sir James continued for some time after this exploit to lurk among the fastnesses of Douglasdale, for ‘he loved better,’ he said, ‘to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’

Douglas Castle was speedily rebuilt by Clifford, who placed a garrison in it under the command of a brave soldier named Thirlwall, and then returned to England. After his departure, Douglas determined to expel the enemy again from his patrimonial estates. For this purpose he had recourse to stratagem. ‘He caused some of his folk,’ says Godscroft, ‘drive away the cattle that fed near unto the castle, and when the captain of the garrison followed to rescue, gave orders to his men to leave them and to flee away. This he did often, to make the captain slight such frays, and to make him secure that he might not suspect any further end to be on it; which when he had wrought sufficiently (as he thought), he laid some men in ambuscade, and sent others away to drive such beasts as they should find in the view of the castle, as if they had been thieves and robbers, as they had done often before. The captain hearing of it, and supposing there was no greater danger now than had been before, issued forth of the castle and followed after them with such haste that his men (running who should be first) were disordered and out of their ranks. The drivers also fled as fast as they could till they had drawn the captain a little way beyond the place of ambuscade, which when they perceived, rising quickly out of their covert, they fell fiercely upon him and his company, and so slew himself and chased his men back to the castle, some of whom were overtaken and slain; others got into the castle and so were saved. Sir James, not being able to force the house, took what booty he could get without in the fields, and so departed. By this means and such other exploits he so affrighted the enemy that it was counted a matter of such great jeopardy to keep this castle that it began to be called the adventurous (or hazardous) Castle of Douglas. Whereupon Sir John Walton, being in pursuit of an English lady, she wrote to him that when he had kept the adventurous Castle of Douglas seven years [the real period prescribed was a year and a day], then he might think himself worthy to be a suitor to her. Upon this occasion Walton took upon him the keeping of it, and succeeded to Thirlwall; but he ran the same fortune with the rest that were before him. For Sir James having first dressed an ambuscade near unto the place, he made fourteen of his men take so many sacks and fill them with grass, as though it had been corn which they carried on the way towards Lanark, the chief market town in that country; so hoping to draw forth the captain by that bait, and either to take him or the castle, or both. Neither was the expectation frustrate, for the captain did bite, and come forth to have taken this victual (as he supposed). But ere he could reach these carriers, Sir James and his company had gotten between the castle and him; and these disguised carriers, seeing the captain following after them, did quickly cast off their upper garments, wherein they had masked themselves, and throwing off their sacks, mounted themselves on horseback, and met the captain with a sharp encounter, he being so much the more amazed that it was unlooked for. Wherefore, when he saw these carriers metamorphosed into warriors and ready to assault him, fearing (that which was) that there was some train laid for them, he turned about to have retired into the castle, but there also he met with his enemies; between which two companies he and his followers were slain, so that none escaped. The captain afterwards being searched, they found (so it is reputed) his mistress’s letters about him. The castle also fell into Douglas’s hands, and its fortifications were levelled with the ground.’

Read part two.

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