This interpolation and ascendency of strangers was
a continual source of jealousy and ire to the ancient
retainers of the olden heritage, and continually threatened
to break out into open feud, had not the soothing
policy of the Countess Margaret and her descendants,
by continually employing them together in subjecting
other petty clans, contrived to keep them in good
humor. As long as their lords were loyal to Scotland
and her king, and behaved so as to occasion no unpleasant
comparison between them and former superiors, all
went on smoothly; but the haughty and often outrageous
conduct of the present earl, his utter neglect of
their interests, his treasonous politics, speedily
roused the slumbering fire into flame. A secret
yet solemn oath went round the clan, by which every
fighting man bound himself to rebel against their master,
rather than betray their country by siding with a
foreign tyrant; to desert their homes, their all,
and disperse singly midst the fastnesses and rocks
of Scotland, than lift up a sword against her freedom.
The sentiments of the countess were very soon discovered;
and even yet stronger than the contempt and loathing
with which they looked upon the earl was the love,
the veneration they bore to her and to her children.
If his mother’s lips had been silent, the youthful
heir would have learned loyalty and patriotism from
his brave though unlettered retainers, as it was to
them he owed the skin and grace with which he sate
his fiery steed, and poised his heavy lance, and wielded
his stainless brand—to them he owed all
the chivalric accomplishments of the day; and though
he had never quitted the territories of Buchan, he
would have found few to compete with him in his high
and gallant spirit.
Dark and troubled was the political aspect of unhappy
Scotland, at the eventful period at which our tale
commences. The barbarous and most unjust execution
of Sir William Wallace had struck the whole country
as with a deadly panic, from which it seemed there
was not one to rise to cast aside the heavy chains,
whose weight it seemed had crushed the whole kingdom,
and taken from it the last gleams of patriotism and
of hope. Every fortress of strength and consequence
was in possession of the English. English soldiers,
English commissioners, English judges, laws, and regulations
now filled and governed Scotland. The abrogation
of all those ancient customs, which had descended from
the Celts and Picts, and Scots, fell upon the hearts
of all true Scottish men as the tearing asunder the
last links of freedom, and branding them as slaves.
Her principal nobles, strangely and traitorously, preferred
safety and wealth, in the acknowledgment and servitude
of Edward, to glory and honor in the service of their
country; and the spirits of the middle ranks yet spurned
the inglorious yoke, and throbbed but for one to lead
them on, if not to victory, at least to an honorable
death. That one seemed not to rise; it was as
if the mighty soul of Scotland had departed, when
Wallace slept in death.