Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence/Death of the Queen of Scots and Marriage of the Prince

by Herbert Maxwell

The Earls of Carrick.	Sir Alexander de Seton.

CHAPTER XV.

DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF SCOTS AND MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE.

A.D. 1328.

ELIZABETH, the consort and second wife of King Robert of Scotland, did not live to witness the fulfilment of her husband's life-work, for she died on October 26, 1327. Of her character and appearance no memorial has been preserved. She was the second daughter of Richard de Burgh or Bourke, Earl of Ulster, the most powerful of the English barons in Ireland, and married Robert de Brus while he was still about the English court. During her long captivity in England, from the battle of Methven in 1306, till after that of Bannockburn in 1314, she was treated with the consideration due, if not to her rank as countess, which she lost by the forfeiture by her husband of the earldom of Carrick, at least to that of an earl's daughter.

In March 1314, Edward II., who was then preparing for his great campaign in Scotland, ordered the removal of "Elizabeth, wife of Robert de Brus," from the Abbey of Barking to Rochester Castle, where she was to have a sufficient chamber and 20s. a week for her expenses. She was to be allowed to take exercise within the castle and the Priory of St. Andrew, at suitable times and under a sure guard, and provision was made for her retinue consisting of three Englishmen and an English woman.^[1] After his great defeat she was brought to King Edward at York on July 18th; thence, on October 2d, she was removed with her sister-in-law and daughter to Carlisle for exchange with English prisoners,^[2] where £8 was paid for two casks of wine for her use.

From the scanty Scottish Exchequer Rolls it may be gathered that at Cardross she drove in an open carriage and pair,^[3] that she possessed a quantity of silver plate,^[4] and that the last recorded act of her life was the gift of an ornament—quædam frontalis—to the altar of St. Mary at Dunfermline.^[5] The details of her legacies to her personal attendants are not without interest, reflecting, as they do, light upon the manners of a distant day and a simple state of society. Elizabeth de Denton, domicilla (lady in waiting), received £66, 13s. 4d.; among other beneficiaries were the Queen's two grooms, William and Gilbert, each receiving £1, in complementum, as did also Esota, the washerwoman, Alan the chandler, David of the wardrobe, and others.^[6]

The Queen of Scots died at Cullen, where the

Frameless

DUNFERMLINE ABBEY, REFECTORY.

(From a photograph by Valentine Bros., Dundee.)

King founded a chaplainry worth £4 a year "to pray for the soule of Elizabeth his spouse, quene of Scottis, quhilk deceassit in our said burgh of Culane, and her bowallis erdit^[7] in oure Lady Kirk thairof." Of her children mention will be made hereafter.

The national mourning for the Queen was merged in the brighter occupation of preparing for the wedding of her son. Peter the mechanic (Petrus machinarum), a Flemish trader in Berwick, was sent to purchase in foreign markets certain materials which could not be bought at home, such as cloths, furs, and spices, on which he was allowed to charge a commission of 10 per cent. The cloth for the knights' robes, the gift of the King, cost £173, 9s. 2d., and for the esquires and valets, £90. Hoods and capes of vair, miniver, squirrel's and other fur, and of lambskin were also provided. For the household, a great store of linen was laid in, besides 4360 lbs. of almonds, 600 lbs. of rice, 40 loaves of sugar, 180 lbs. of pepper, and mace, nutmegs, saffron, coarse sugar in barrels, in abundance. Twenty tuns of wine cost £75 and, strange to say, 2200 eels in barrels—provender which would be very unpalatable to modern Scots. The whole bill for the first cargo (for Peter had to take two trips) came to £941, 0s. 6d., a vast sum in those days.

Another trader, Thomas de Carnock (?) was also sent to Flanders to buy silks, satins, and other valuables, at a cost of £400, but the King, by a letter under his own hand, exempted his accounts from audit because he was so well assured of the fidelity of Thomas as an agent; whereby we are deprived of a knowledge of all particulars, except that a gold seal and silver gilt chain for King Robert, and a silver seal and chain for the bridegroom, his son, cost together £28, 16s.^[8]

In addition to all this heavy expense, the household expenses at the marriage came to £966, 10s. 10d., besides immense quantities of oats and malt, lampreys, sturgeons, salt, coals, etc., 171 oxen, 413 sheep, 50 tuns of wine, and so on. It was a great occasion and it must have been a novel pleasure to the officials of both countries to spend money in good things, instead of perpetual drain for engines of war and payment of troops. After the wedding guests had departed from Berwick, Simon of Salton stayed behind to look after the fragments which remained. He accounted for six tuns of wine and a great weight of provisions and live-stock which had not been consumed. The pay of the cooks at this great feast came to £25, 6s. 8d., but the minstrels received no less than £66, 15s. 4d.

King Robert's new gold seal and chain were not destined to grace the wedding. His growing infirmity kept him at Cardross, when the heir apparent, now created Earl of Carrick,^[9] set out early in July to meet his bride. He rode with a numerous train, halting for the night at Lanark and Wedale, and reaching Berwick on the third day. Thence, before his wedding, he paid a visit to Coldingham Priory, apparently with a very large party, for they consumed six bullocks—de quibus nemo respondet—"for which nobody answers."^[10]

The boy bridegroom was only four years old, and the bride but six,—Princess Johanna of the Tower, as she was called, from having been born in that place of gloomy memories. Moray and Douglas acted for the absent King of Scots and received the Princess from the hands of the Queen Dowager of England and the English commissioners, for King Edward was not present in person.

It must have been a strange sight, such as had scarcely been witnessed since the days when the first Edward held his court at Berwick to adjudge the claims to the Scottish crown, to see the people of both countries merrymaking together beneath the walls of that grim old town, for the possession of which they had often fought so fiercely. The knights, too, the paladins of chivalry, must have been glad to fraternise; for, after all, most of them were of a common race, whose nationality had been decided by the accident of whether their most valuable possessions lay to the north or south of the Border. The bonds of kinsmanship or marriage, which had been so sorely strained by the war, were easily resumed, and the freemasonry of the knightly code was as powerful in peace as in war.

The style of the letters passing between the two courts offers a curious contrast to the tone which had long prevailed. There is no more mention of "the rebel Robert de Brus, lately Earl of Carrick," but Edward III. addresses himself to "the magnificent Prince Sir Robert, by the grace of God King of Scots, his dearest friend, greeting and embraces of sincere affection" (August 9, 1328).^[11]

The English records are full of pardons to King Edward's subjects for adhering to the Scots in the late war, and of instruments reinstating the Scottish churchmen and religious houses in their former possessions in England. It is true that in official documents not intended for Scottish inspection terms were still used, less complimentary to the royal house of Scotland than those employed in correspondence. Thus, on December 18, 1328, that clerk must have enjoyed a privy satisfaction who engrossed a deed confirming Hugh de Templeton in certain lands in Ireland, forfeited by William de Say for his rebellion "in company of Robert de Bruys, Edward de Bruys, and other Scottish felons in Ireland."^[12]

But outwardly all was concord, and there seemed every prospect of profound peace. There was, moreover, a gratifying change of tone in the papal letters of this year, when Pope John XXII., still holding his court at Avignon, resumed correspondence with the King of Scots. There is no more any difficulty in according Robert his royal dignity. Plenary absolution from excommunication was promised in October, 1328, in answer to the prayer of King Robert's envoys, the Bishops of St. Andrews, Moray, and Brechin, and Andrew de Moray, doctor of Canon Law. The only penance enjoined on the King was that he should not break the truce or invade England. And thus closes this strange chapter of ecclesiastical history; the culprit, upon whom had been poured all the most fearful imprecations of Holy Church, having regained complete favour by obstinate perseverance in the very course which had brought him into such deep disgrace.

During this year 1328, which witnessed the establishment of Scottish independence, there died a prelate, William de Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, from whom, perhaps more than from any other individual, Robert de Brus had received encouragement and counsel in first espousing what became the national cause.

During the year that the see of St. Andrews remained vacant after de Lamberton's death, the revenues, by a singular arrangement, were assigned to those children, the Earl and Countess of Carrick, and the Exchequer accounts show that they used the episcopal manor of Inchmorthach as a residence. In the meantime, the ancestral castle of the Bruces at Turnberry was being got ready for their occupation^[13]; additions were made to the building, and a park was enclosed. The boy Prince, now in his sixth year, attended the Parliament in Edinburgh. Sir David de Barclay was steward of his household at first, and afterwards Sir Alexander de Seton; besides whom there were a clerk of audit, a clerk of the wardrobe, a treasurer, Sir Robert Toynge, nine ladies, five knights, no less than nine chaplains and clerics, thirty-eight esquires, four boys, three laundresses, thirty-six sergeants, two larderers, twenty grooms, and a page.

It had been stipulated under the treaty of Northampton that the King of Scots should not aid the King of England's enemies in Ireland; and thus it came to pass that King Robert was able to resume friendly relations with his brother-in-law, William Earl of Ulster, son of the Red Earl, against whom Robert and Edward de Brus had waged such relentless war. Among other tokens of amity, the King sent the earl a present of 200 lbs of stockfish from Cardross—an acceptable offering, no doubt, in the season of Lent.^[14]

Although, as has been shown, the Pope had promised absolution to the King of Scots, and his people, and had, besides, written in the most friendly tone to King Robert in October, 1328, requesting him to receive with favour the papal chaplain, James, Archdeacon of St. Andrews, and James, the new Bishop of St. Andrews, yet there seems to have been unsatisfactory delay in fulfilling his promise. The Bishop of Brechin was at Avignon at the beginning of 1329, on a mission to the Papal Court, attended by other ambassadors, and carrying the significant provision of 4000 marks to facilitate negotiations—pro negotiis regni ad curiam Romanam expediendis.^[15]

1. Bain, iii., 68.
2. Ibid., 74.
3. Exchequer Rolls, i. 255.
4. Ibid., 212.
5. Ibid., i. 239.
6. Ibid., 217.
7. Earthed, i. e., buried.
8. Exchequer Rolls, cxvi.
9. At the present day one of the titles of the Prince of Wales is Earl of Carrick, under which designation his toast is always honoured in Ayrshire.
10. Exchequer Rolls, i., 191.
11. Bain, iii., 173.
12. Ibid., 175.
13. Exchequer Rolls, i., 259. Nothing now remains of this castle but the foundations. Turnberry lighthouse stands within its ancient enceinte.
14. Exchequer Rolls, i., 199.
15. Ibid., 211.