The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hark! 'twas the trumpet rung!
Commingling armies shout;
And echoing far yon woods among,
The ravage and the rout!
The voice of triumph and of wail,
Of victor and of vanquish'd blent,

The celebrated battle of Roslin was fought on the 24th of February 1302, during the guardianship of Scotland by Comyn, after the dethroned king had been conveyed by the messengers of the Pope from his captivity in England to his castle of Bailleul in France, where, in obscurity and retirement, he passed the remainder of his life.

Aware we are that our Scottish historians, Fordun and Wyntoun—both of whom give accounts of this battle—are entitled patriotically to be a little partial; but it is curious, as Mr Tytler remarks, (Hist., vol. i. p. 440. Note N., p. 196,) how far Lord Hailes, “from an affectation of superiority to national prejudice,” passes over or disallows many corroborating circumstances admitted even by the English chroniclers themselves, Hemingford, Trivet, and Longtoft.

Is wafted on the vernal gale:
A thousand bows are bent,
And, 'mid the hosts that throng the vale,
A shower of arrows sent.

II

For Saxon foes invade
The Baliol's kingless realm:
Their myriads swarm in yonder shade,
The weak to overwhelm:—
'Tis Seagrave, on destruction bent,
From Freedom's roll to blot the land,

169

By England's haughty Edward sent;

Sir John de Seagrave was appointed Governor of Scotland by Edward I., and marched from Berwick towards Edinburgh, about the beginning of Lent, with an army of twenty thousand men, consisting chiefly of cavalry, and officered by some of the best and bravest leaders of England. Among these were two brothers of the governor, whom Hemingford designates as “milites strenuissimi,” and Robert de Neville, a nobleman who had greatly distinguished himself in the Welsh wars. This powerful force was divided into three sections, one of which was commanded by Seagrave himself, the second by Ralph de Manton, and the third by Neville; and, on approaching Roslin, as no enemy was met with, each encamped on its own ground, without any established communication with the others. Sir John Comyn and Sir Simon Frazer, who were at Biggar with a small force of eight thousand cavalry, marched from that place during the night, to take the enemy by surprise, and attacked Seagrave with his division on the Moor of Roslin. The commander, with his brother and son, as well as sixteen knights and thirty esquires, were made prisoners, and the Scots had begun to plunder, when the second division appeared. This also was routed with great slaughter, and Ralph de Manton taken captive. No sooner, however, was this second triumph achieved, than the last division, under Neville, appeared in the distance. Worn out with their march and two successive attacks, the first impulse of the Scots was to retreat; but the proximity of the enemy rendered this impossible, and a third conflict commenced, which, after being obstinately disputed, terminated in the death of Neville, and the total rout of his followers. The carnage is said to have been dreadful, as the whole of the prisoners taken in the first and second engagements were necessarily put to death.

But never on her mountain strand
Shall Caledonia sit content—
Content with fetter'd hand.

III

Not while one patriot breathes—
Not while each broomy vale
And cavern'd cliff bequeaths
Some old heroic tale!
The Wallace and the Græme have thrown
The lustre of their deeds behind,

After the disastrous battle of Falkirk, in which Sir John the Grahame and Sir John Stewart of Bonkill were slain, Wallace, disgusted with the jealousy and treacherous conduct of the Barons, retired into privacy. It was during this sequestration from public affairs that the battle of Roslin was fought.

The tombs of Grahame and Stewart are still extant in the churchyard of Falkirk, having been severally more than once renewed.

The children to their fathers' own
Unconquer'd straths to bind;
By every hearth their tale is known,
In every heart enshrined.

IV

The Comyn lets not home
To tell a bloodless tale,
And forth in arms with Frazer come
The chiefs of Teviotdale.
In Roslin's wild and wooded glen
The clash of swords the shepherd hears,
And from the groves of Hawthornden
Gleam forth ten thousand spears:
For Scottish mothers bring forth men

“Bring forth men-children only!
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.”

Macbeth.

Of might, that mock at fears!

170

V

Three camps divided raise
Their snowy tops on high;
The breeze-unfurling flag displays
Its lions to the sky:
While chants the mountain lark in air
Its matin carols of delight,
The tongue of mirth is jocund there;
Nor is it dreamt, ere night,
The sun shall shed its golden glare
On thousands slain in fight!

VI

Baffled, and backward borne,
Is England's foremost war;
The Saxon battle-god, forlorn,
Remounts his raven car.
'Tis vain—a third time Victory's cheer
Bursts forth from that resistless foe,
Who, headlong, on their fierce career,
Like mountain torrents go:
The invaders are dispersed like deer,
And whither none may know!

VII

Three triumphs in a day!
Three hosts subdued by one!
Three armies scattered, like the spray,
Beneath one vernal sun!

171

Who, pausing 'mid this solitude
Of rocky streams, o'erhung with trees,
Where rears the cushat-dove its brood,
And foxglove lures the bees,
Could think that men had shed the blood
Of man in haunts like these!

VIII

A dream—a nightmare dream
Of shadowy ages gone,
When daylight wore a demon gleam,
And fact like fiction shone:
A dream!—and it hath left no power
To blast these beauteous scenes around,

“It is telling a tale which has been repeated a thousand times, to say that a morning of leisure can scarcely be anywhere more delightfully spent than in the woods of Roslin and on the banks of the Esk. In natural beauty, indeed, the scenery may be equalled, and in grandeur exceeded, by the Cartland Crags, near Lanark, the dell of Craighall, in Angusshire, and probably by other landscapes of the same character which have been less celebrated; but Roslin and its adjacent scenery have other associations, dear to the antiquarian and the historian, which may fairly entitle it to precedence over every other Scottish scene of the same kind.”—

Provincial Antiquities.

Which look as if a halcyon bower
All gentlest things had found
Here, in this paradise, where flower,
And tree, and bird abound.

IX

Yes! the great Mother still
Claims Roslin for her own,
And Summer, girt with rock and rill,
Here mounts a chosen throne:
Blue Esk to Gorton's listening woods

Gorton lies between Roslin and Hawthornden, and on the same side of the river as the latter. It is celebrated for its caves, which are in the cliff facing the river, and so covered up with bushes and brambles that it is difficult to discover the entrance to them. They are cut in the form of a cross, and are supposed to have been the abode of hermits. During the unhappy reign of David II., when Scotland was overrun by the English, they yielded refuge to Sir Alexander Ramsey of Dalwolsey and a band of chosen followers, noted for patriotism and gallantry.

Is meekly murmuring all day long,
And birds for sheltering solitudes
Pay tributary song:
Check'd be each step that here intrudes
To offer Nature wrong.

172

X

St Clair! thy princely halls
In ruin sink decay'd,

The Castle and Chapel of Roslin are too well known to the lovers of the picturesque to be more than merely alluded to here. The origin of the castle is so remote that, says Chalmers, (Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 571,) it is laid in fable: in fact, it is beyond the date of authentic record. The ruins, with their tremendous triple range of vaults, are still, from their extent and situation, extremely imposing. The chapel, which is still in tolerable preservation, and has been lately carefully repaired, is one of the finest specimens of florid Gothic architecture north of the Tweed. It was founded in 1446 by William St Clair, Prince of Orkney, Duke of Oldenburgh, Earl of Caithness and Stratherne, &c., High Chancellor, Chamberlain, and Lieutenant of Scotland. Indeed, as Godscroft says of him, his titles were such as might “weary even a Spaniard.” The barons of Roslin, each in his armour, lie buried in a vault beneath the floor.

And moss now greens the chapel walls
Where thy proud line is laid!—
What sees the stranger musing here,
Where mail-clad men no longer dwell?
A bleach-field spreads its whiteness near,
And smoke-wreaths round the dell
Show whence the Christian worshipper
Obeys the Sabbath bell.

XI

Thus let it ever be!
Let human discord cease,
And earth the blest millennium see
Of purity and peace!
Die sin away—as dies the mist
Before the cleansing sunrise borne—
And Pity, vainly watchful, list
For Misery's moan forlorn!
Bright be each eve as amethyst,
As opal pure each morn!