was
worse—of more recent promises. This memory had rankled in the breast of
the fierce " children of the mist," remarkable for their short tempers and
long rapiers. Vain had been the appeal for assistance of the Scot, so
liberal himself in the past of his blood on French battle-fields, to
uphold the French banner ;—vain the cry for help uttered by the
descendants of those faithful life-guards of Charles
VII. Sandy has got the cold shoulder
from his once cherished ally; his Highland blood is up; revenge, he will
have. Where is the time, when one of the royal line of Stewarts, John
Stewart Earl of Buchan, at the head of 7,000 Scots and some French landed
at incredible hazards at Rochelle, at the call of an ally, to meet the
English at the battle of Beauge, killing the English King’s brother ?
where, in the words of John’s Monstrelet, "the Duke of Clarence, the Earl
of Kyme? the Lord Roos, Marshal of England, and in general the flower of
the chivalry and esquiredom were left dead on the field, with two or three
thousand fighting men." France, in those days, knew how to prize the
warlike Mountaineers. Buchan became a
Grand Connétable of France—as high in
fact as a Luxembourg or a Montmorency. In remote times, "next to the Royal
family in France, were the houses of Hamilton and of Douglas, who almost
rivalled them at home."—(Blackwood.) Scotch names abound on French soil,
and Mr. Rattray notices some odd transformations.
["Of the Darnley Stewarts, there
were Sir John, founder of the D’Aubignys, and Sir Alexander, who figures
as "Vice-roy of Naples, Constable of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Terra
Nova," &c., also Matthew, Earl of Lennox, who sought the hand of Mary of
Guise, widow of James V., and mother of Mary Stuart. His rival, oddly
enough, was the father of that Bothwell "who settled all matters of small
family differences, by blowing his son into the air." Of the nobility
closely allied to royalty, there were the Earls of Douglas, Lords of
Touraine, and the Dukes of Hamilton and Chatelherault. The Dukes of
Richmond, Lennox and Gordon are, of course, entitled to the D’Aubigny
dignity. Michel and the chroniclers give a host of Scottish names, most of
them long since sunk in territorial titles, some of these may be noted as
proof of the vast influence of the Scot upon the destinies of