Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets

Оглавление

Маргарет Олифант. Royal Edinburgh: Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets

PART I. MARGARET OF SCOTLAND, ATHELING—QUEEN AND SAINT

PART II. THE STEWARDS OF SCOTLAND

CHAPTER I. JAMES I. POET AND LEGISLATOR

CHAPTER II. JAMES II: WITH THE FIERY FACE

CHAPTER III. JAMES III: THE MAN OF PEACE

CHAPTER IV. JAMES IV: THE KNIGHT-ERRANT

CHAPTER V. JAMES V: THE LAST OF THE HEROIC AGE

PART III. THE TIME OF THE PROPHETS

CHAPTER I. UNDER THE QUEEN REGENT

CHAPTER II. UNDER QUEEN MARY

CHAPTER III. THE TRIUMPH AND END

CHAPTER IV. THE SCHOLAR OF THE REFORMATION

PART IV. THE MODERN CITY

CHAPTER I. A BURGHER POET

CHAPTER II. THE GUEST OF EDINBURGH

CHAPTER III. THE SHAKSPEARE OF SCOTLAND

Отрывок из книги

It is strange yet scarcely difficult to the imagination to realise the first embodiment of what is now Edinburgh in the far distance of the early ages. Neither Pict nor Scot has left any record of what was going on so far south in the days when the king's daughters, primitive princesses with their rude surroundings, were placed for safety in the castrum puellarum, the maiden castle, a title in after days proudly (but perhaps not very justly) adapted to the supposed invulnerability of the fortress perched upon its rock. Very nearly invulnerable, however, it must have been in the days before artillery; too much so at least for one shut-up princess, who complained of her lofty prison as a place without verdure. If we may believe, notwithstanding the protest of that much-deceived antiquary the Laird of Monkbarns, that these fair and forlorn ladies were the first royal inhabitants of the Castle of Edinburgh, we may imagine that they watched from their battlements more wistfully than fearfully, over all the wide plain, what dust might rise or spears might gleam, or whether any galley might be visible of reiver or rescuer from the north. A little collection of huts or rude forts here and there would be all that broke the sweeping line of Lothian to the east or west, and all that width of landscape would lie under the eyes of the watchers, giving long notice of the approach of any enemies. "Out over the Forth I look to the north," the maidens might sing, looking across to Dunfermline, where already there was some royal state, or towards the faint lines of mountains in the distance, over the soft swelling heights of the Lomonds. No doubt Edinburgh, Edwinesburgh, or whatever the antiquaries imagine it to have been, must have been sadly dull if safe, suspended high upon the rock, nearer heaven than earth. It is curious to hear that it was "without verdure"; but perhaps the young ladies took no account of the trees that clothed the precipices below them, or the greenness that edged the Nor' Loch deep at their feet, but sighed for the gardens and luxuriance of Dunfermline, where all was green about their windows and the winding pathways of the dell of Pittendreich would be pleasant to wander in. This first romantic aspect of the Castle of Edinburgh is, however, merely traditional, and the first real and authentic appearance of the old fortress and city in history is in the record, at once a sacred legend and a valuable historical chronicle, of the life of Margaret the Atheling, the first of several Queen Margarets, the woman saint and blessed patroness of Scotland, who has bequeathed not only many benefits and foundations of after good to her adopted country, but her name—perhaps among Scotswomen still the most common of all Christian names.

No more moving and delightful story was ever written or invented than the history of this saint and Queen. She was the daughter of Edward, called the Outlaw, and of his wife a princess of Hungary, of the race which afterwards produced St. Elizabeth: and the sister of Edgar Atheling, the feeble but rightful heir of the Saxon line, and consequently of the English throne. The family, however, was more foreign than English, having been brought up at the Court of their grandfather, the King of Hungary, one of the most pious and one of the richest Courts in Christendom; and it was not unnatural that when convinced of the fact that the most legitimate of aspirants had no chance against the force of William, they should prefer to return to the country of their education and birth. It was no doubt a somewhat forlorn party that set out upon this journey, for to lose a throne is seldom a misfortune accepted with equanimity, and several of the beaten and despondent Saxons had joined the royal exiles. Their voyage, however, was an unprosperous one, and after much beating about by winds and storms they were at last driven up the Firth of Forth, where their ship found shelter in the little bay at the narrowing of the Firth, which has since borne the name of St. Margaret's Hope.

.....

When they had crowned the little James, second of the name, the lords held a convention "to advise whom they thought most able both for manheid and witt to take the government of the commonwealth in hand." They chose two men for this office, neither of whom was taken from a very great family, or had, so far as can be known, any special importance—Sir Alexander Livingstone, described as Knight of Callender, and Sir William Crichton, Chancellor of Scotland. Perhaps it was one of the compromises which are so common when parties are nearly equal in power which thus placed two personages of secondary importance at the head of affairs: but any advantage which might have been secured by this selection was neutralised by the division of power, which added to all the evils of an interregnum the perplexity of two centres of government, so that "no man knew," as says Pitscottie, "whom he should obey." One of the Regents reigned in Edinburgh, the other in Stirling—one had the advantage of holding possession of the King, the other had the doubtful good of the support of the Queen. It may be imagined what an extraordinary contrast this was to the firm and vigilant sway of a monarch in the fulness of manhood, with all the prestige of his many gifts and accomplishments, his vigorous and manful character and his unquestioned right to the government and obedience of the country. It had been hard work enough for James I., with all these advantages, to keep his kingdom well in hand: and it would not be easy to exaggerate the difficulties now, with two rival and feeble powers, neither great enough to overawe nor united enough to hold in check the independent power of the great houses which vied with each other in the display of dominion and wealth. In a very brief time all the ground gained by King James was lost again. Every element of anarchy arose in new force, and if it had been hard to secure the execution of the laws which would have been so good had they been kept in the time when their chief administrator was the King himself, it may be supposed what was the difficulty now, when, save in a little circuit round each seat of authority, there was virtually no power at all. Pitscottie gives a curious and vivid picture of the state of affairs in this lamentable interval.

INNER BARRIER, EDINBURGH CASTLE

.....