GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.- -STIRLING. 149 by Ninian Winzet, the polemical antagonist of John Knox; and at the Revolution by James Kirkwood, under whose care John, earl of Stair, received the early part of a classical education. Kirkwood, it will be remembered, was the author of a keen satire, entitled "The twenty-seven Gods of Linlithgow"-a "History" which provoked the town council, and led to the author's expulsion. STIRLINGSHIRE AND THE WEST HIGHLANDS. "Regia sublimis celsa despectat ab arce .... Discordia tristis, Heu quoties procerum sanguine tinxit humum. Lætior aut cœli frons, geniusve soli." THE shire of Stirling has been the theatre of several of the most important events recorded in the annals of Scotland. Every field, and town, and hamlet, and fastness, is rich in the traditions of those remote struggles from which it derives its name, and in which patriotism has withstood oppression, and waved the standard of independence over the scene of her achievements. As we pause on the history, how many pitched battles, sudden skirmishes, bloody combats, and midnight raids, pass in review before us! How many successive armies, mustered on its fields of strife, proclaim by their varying ensigns the power and ambition of those who at different epochs have laboured for its subjugation. From the Roman legions, who compensated for the humiliation of conquest by introducing among the conquered the arts and habits of refined life, down to the hostile movements which terminated with the last field of Falkirk, freedom has acquired fresh life from the blood of her sons. How different, too, the character of those conflicting armies, and the means and method of warfare !some with bow and battle-axe, and spear and javelin; others with the destructive engines of modern invention; all have successively met in the same field—as if only to leave fresh memorials of the woes that spring from the ambition of princes or the turbulence of faction To the contemplative mind, almost every scene Q Q on this Highland frontier presents some theme of intense interest. The phantoms of history become embodied, and the lengthened battalions, in hostile attitude, assume their stations as in the day of conflict. The mutual defiance, the impetuous charge, the clang of trumpets, and the clash of encountering steel, strike upon the ear! Anon the scene is changed!-the din of battle is hushed; the field is covered with dead; the standard of liberty waves in triumph; but the very hour of its triumph is marked with the tears of widows and orphans! But years roll by; the mourners have dried their tears, or joined those whom they deplored. The field that blushed with the blood of its victims is restored to its pastoral destination, or ripens in harvests, till the march of conflicting armies again halts upon its fated soil, and the combat rages with renewed fury. Once more its natural hues are effaced, and the conqueror and the conquered are "shovelled together" under the same turf, where nowas the ploughshare unsepulchres the relics of heroes from their shallow bed, the peasant rejoices in the happier destiny to which his country has at length arrived-a destiny in which the humblest of her children participate. Those battle-fields which have entailed so much glory on the descendants of the victors, and established an independence which nothing but their swords could achieve, must ever continue as places of national pilgrimage, at which the youth may imbibe the first glow of patriotism, and the old revive the fervour of youth. It is by revisiting such localities that the love of country is kept alive for in such places only the genius of freedom is to be invoked; her most appropriate altar is on that battle-ground where her votaries have wrested their country from the oppressor, and left an example for posterity through all ages, that freedom waits on the "resolution to be free." With the names of Leuctra and Marathon, Morat and Morgarten, every friend of liberty will associate the fields of this hard-debated frontier; and when he hears of the oppression which yet wastes and paralyzes a once proud and independent nation, he will remember the ardent apostrophe of the "poet of liberty" "O, yet again to Freedom's cause return The patriot Tell-the Bruce of Bannockburn!" For the last fourscore years this district has enjoyed the fruits of that internal repose and industry which ensure prosperity, and made extensive progress in all those measures which enrich and embellish a country. Those who only remember Stirlingshire as it appeared even twenty years ago, can form little idea of its actual condition-a condition which, in spite of the depressed state of agriculture, evinces the most agreeable picture of moral as well as physical FIRST BATTLE OF FALKIRK.-GRAHAM. 151 improvement. The great advantages which nature has here disclosed to the enterprising spirit of man, have been diligently cultivated, till the very surface. has assumed the appearance of one vast garden spreading itself over a soil rich in mineral treasures.* On crossing the Avon, in our advance towards Stirling, we catch many beautiful views of the Forth and the Ochil hills, bordered with a rich and highly variegated foreground. Falkirk, which gives its name to two of the hostile engagements referred to, is a large thriving town, and derives no small advantages from the celebrated trysts, or cattle-markets, of which it is at several periods annually the scene. In the churchyard are the memorials of Sir John the Graham, and Sir John Stewart, who fell in the first battle of Falkirk. The memory of the Graham, Wallace's staunch supporter in many a patriotic struggle, is thus honourably recorded: "Mente manuque potens, et Vallæ fidus Achates The first of the battles alluded to was fought on the 22d of July, 1298. The Scottish army was divided into phalanxes, with their lances lowered obliquely over each other, and so dense as to resemble, says an English historian, "a castle walled with steel." These spearmen were the flower of the army, and commanded by Wallace in person, who at the onset of battle addressed them in these expressive terms:-"I have here brought you to the ring, dance as ye best can." The archers under Sir John Stewart, whose fate has just been mentioned, were drawn up between the different masses of infantry, and were chiefly from Selkirk forest. In the rear was the cavalry, amounting only to about one thousand men. The earl marshal of England having begun the action by charging the Scottish front with his cavalry, became involved in a morass Being plentifully supplied with coal-mines, the following lines seem not inapplicable to Stirling, though intended by the author, Johnston, for Newcastle. The popular version of the epitaph is well known: "Of mind and courage stout, Wallace's true Achates, Here lies Sir John the Graham, felled by the English baties." After a long interval, Sir Robert Munro, of Foulis, was killed on the same field in the battle of 1746, and has a monument in the same enclosure. which intervened. The bishop of Durham, who led the other division of the cavalry, was wheeling round on the east, but observing this misfortune, became irresolute, and inclined to wait for support, when Ralph Basset, of Drayton, tauntingly exclaimed, "To mass, bishop-to mass !" and charged with the whole body. This was accomplished with such impetuosity, that the Scottish men-atarms left the ground without crossing a lance. The infantry met and sustained the shock for a time with unflinching courage; but in the struggle that followed, Sir John Stewart was dismounted and slain among his faithful archers. Thus discouraged and exposed to incessant showers of arrows, without the means of defence or retaliation, and thrown into disorder by the fall of one of their leaders, the Scottish troops gradually fell back, and at length betook themselves to flight. The rout was complete; and the few who survived, owed their lives to the shelter of the neighbouring forest. The body of Stewart was found among those of his Ettrick and Selkirk bowmen, who were distinguished from all others with which the field was covered, by their manly stature and fair complexions. Macduff, and Sir John the Graham, as already mentioned, perished in the same disastrous field, which, according to popular report, was lost by treachery and collusion between King Edward and the earls of Dunbar and Angus.* The second battle of Falkirk, fought on the 17th of January, 1746, was preceded and attended by very different circumstances. On arriving, General Hawley encamped with a force of six thousand men near the very field rendered so memorable by the disaster recorded. The Highland army in the mean time not only kept their ground, but prepared to attack the general in his camp; and crossing the Carron at Dunipace, were within two miles of Falkirk before their design was suspected. The English force, apprehending nothing like a surprise, were busied throughout the camp preparing dinner; while the general himself had gone to dine with the countess of Kilmarnock—although, from the fact of her husband holding at that time a command in the prince's army, her attachment to the opposite cause might have been suspected.† At This suspicion is strengthened by the disgraceful flight of the Scottish cavalry. But the defeat is sufficiently accounted for by the great superiority of the English archers, both as to numbers and expertness in their art. The Scottish spear was invincible in close quarters; but the well-feathered shaft of England carried death into the distant ranks, and was superior to the arquebuse or musket of the present day, inasmuch as the marksman's aim was unimpeded by that smoke which collects over a modern field of battle. + From the testimony of a person then in the house of Callander, it appears that the earl, as well as the countess of Kilmarnock, entertained General Hawley on this occasion; and that the earl, stepping out of the dining room, had taken his arms, mounted his horse, and leaving his lady to do the honours, joined the prince's army.-Hist. of the County, Append. p. 758. [Callander SECOND BATTLE OF FALKIRK.-CARRON. 153 length the Highlanders appearing in sight, the alarm spread, and Howard, the second in command, repaired to Callander House to report to the general and receive his orders. Hawley made light of the matter, and merely replied, that the troops might keep on the alert and put on their accoutrements, but that there was no occasion for remaining under arms. The officers, nevertheless, thought it expedient to prepare for the worst, and formed the troops in front of the camp. When the general arrived, three regiments of dragoons were ordered to take possession of a hill towards which the Highland infantry were advancing in quick time, and ultimately took the lead of Hawley's cavalry. Here Prince Charles's army drew up in order of battle, forming two lines, with a reserve in the rear. On the particulars, as it respects those in command of the different divisions, we need not dwell. About three, P.M. both armies stood within a hundred yards of each other, when Hawley ordered his dragoons to charge. This was obeyed with alacrity, but a volley from the Highlanders under Lord George Murray, and the attack with broad sword and target that immediately followed, told so severely, that several troops of horse, little accustomed to the Celtic mode of warfare, galloped right off the field. This left the infantry exposed; and the Highlanders, seizing the advantage, fell upon them with the broad sword, and put them to the rout. A tempest of wind and rain, which at the time blew directly in the faces of the royal troops, blinded their eyes, and by wetting the powder, rendered their muskets almost useless; while, on the other hand, it neither blunted the claymore, nor impeded the Highlanders' advance. The battle was maintained for some time with vigour; but at length resistance being only partial, the king's forces were driven back on Linlithgow, and the rout complete. Their artillery, ammunition, and baggage, fell into the hands of the victors; but the tents were set fire to by order of Hawley, who, though not formally condemned for his generalship in this affair, became highly unpopular, and was superseded by the duke of Cumberland, of whose qualifications, "moral and military," we shall have further occasion to speak. The banks of the Carron, though much celebrated in history and tradition, and not deficient in picturesque features, are best known in modern times as the seat of those immense forges from which has issued so large a portion of the cannon employed in the late war, and of the domestic implements in daily Callander house stands about a mile east of Falkirk, in a magnificent park, containing four hundred Scotch acres, and is altogether a princely residence. A room is shown in which Queen Mary, who, having come to be present at a baptism in the noble family to which it originally belonged, passed the night; and another which had afforded repose to Prince Charles Edward on the night of the 15th Sept. 1745. R R |