eighteen ; and even two dozen sometimes appear ; nine
and ten It has been well remarked that any Bruce who in the present are common, and less than five rarely are recorded. Long life, too, day asserts his legitimate male descent, direct or collateral, from
is the rule, and the bodily powers and mental faculties are gene- King Robert, ought to be on the throne of these kingdoms, or at rally retained unimpaired to a late period. To men who have had least on that of Scotland. No doubt the unvarying tradition in from six to a dozen uncles and aunts, who have seen their grand- the Clackmannan family (admittedly chiefs of the Elgin line fathers and their great grandfathers hearty, cheery men at three- till their failure in 1772) assumed their representation of the score years and ten, and often living from ten to twenty years B,oyal line, and the story is well known of the old Jacobite lady, past that-period, with the ability to attend to all their duties, it is Mrs. Bruce of Clackmannan, knighting the poet Burns with a rather amusing to hear of anthropologists getting together and sword said to have belonged to the King, observing " that she buzzing over papers setting forth the sterility and the physical had a better right to do so than sinne folk."
degeneracy of the English race in America. Especially is it so to Tradition, however, in those days is reckoned an unsafe guide, those who refer to the Peerage and Baronetage and compare these and no genealogist now receives any evidence but that of charters, records with those of which I have just spoken, or, where they do services, and similar unerring though prosaic landmarks of time. not exist, with the family Bible. And in point of vigour and You cite a charter (December 9, 1359) by King David Bruce to likeliness the present generation shows no falling off from its his " eonsanguinens " (or kinsman) Robert de Brays, of the castle predecessor. Mr. Desor's talk about the "increasing delicacy of of Clackmannan, &c., and add that there is no evidence who he form, especially among the women," here is simply an exhibition of was, other than this general statement of his relationship to the sheer ignorance. The fact is just the contrary. Our young women King. It may be here observed that the term '4 corusanguineus," now are fuller and firmer in figure than their mothers were. The though in later times the invariable style used in regard to the truth is that the women of the last generation sought of all things nobility or great barons, was in the fourteenth century a mark of to be elegant and delicate. They ate little, they laced much ; peculiar distinction or regard. Now it is not generally known that they wore thin clothing, and little of it ; and they took little out- King Robert Bruce had a natural son, also Robert Bruce, who in door exercise, and that in paper-soled slippers. The effect of this 1322 had a charter from his father of the lands of Liddesdale, was pernicious. Girls, or their mothers, now are wiser. They which had been forfeited by William de &mils, the last of a have learned that a woman's figure should not be like an hour- family renowned in Border tradition, who for nearly 200 years glass ; they live generously ; they walk and ride ; and they weer were among the greatest barons in the kingdom, and themselves stout shoes. Any man of observation whose memory can go back had claims on the Scottish Crown. (Robertson's Index, p. 12, twenty years can see, in consequence, a very .marked improve- No. 54; p. 15, No. 2.) De Soulis forfeited his vast estates by ment, especially among the more cultivated people. But the adhering to the faction of Edward I. and Balliol. It is true that repute made for us by tourists in the days of the hour-glasses and this Royal gift to doubtless a favourite though natural son, was in the paper-soled slippers still clings to us—among tourists and twenty years afterwards the subject of a dispute between the anthropologists Steward of Scotland and William Douglas "de Laudonia " or In a previous letter I have shown the immense preponderance of " Lothian " (the " Flower of Chivalry"). It is recorded as follows the native element in our armies during the late war. In connec- in the Munimenta Vet. Corn. de Mortoun (published by the Benne- tion with the present subject it is interesting to notice that although tyne Club), pp. 46, 47 :—"In 1342, in presence of King David we called for men in such multitudes, and had thirty-six reasons for II. and his Council, assembled at Aberdeen in the Church of disability to twenty-three in the British and twenty in the French the Friars Preachers, there eompeared Sir Robert, the Steward army, the ratio of rejection in the British service is reported at of Scotland, asking seisin and possession of the ' Valley of 317.3 per 1,000; lathe French, 324.4, but in ours only 285.52, by Lydale,' by reason of the King's grant made to him at the which the anthropologists will see that the advantage VMS greatly time when he conferred on him the order of knighthood. in favour of the degenerating "Americans," in spite of their more The Steward's claim was opposed by Sir William of Douglas, rigid tests of physical ability. And this perhaps accounts for some who asserted that the said bulls of Liddesdale belonged
of that marching and fighting. to him by reason of the ward of the son and heir of Sir A brief consideration of these facts will make manifest one ins- Archibald of Douglas, and produced Sir Archibald's charter of portant point as to the population of the United States. It is that infeftment. This objection was overruled, chiefly on the ground its character has not been and will not be seriously affected by the that at the alleged time of the grant Sir Archibald was Warden enormous emigration hither from Ireland and Germany. The of the Kingdom, and could not therefore alienate the King's lands, effects of crowded living and dissipated habits must of course be especially in favour of himself. The King therefore, in presence taken into consideration in estimating the causes and the results of of his Council, forthwith gave the Steward seisin of the lands of the rate of mortality in cities above recorded. But the Irish and Liddesdale. Two days afterwards he granted to Sir William of the Germans, especially the former, cling to the cities, and there Douglas all the lands of the Valley of Lydale which belonged to we see that their mortality is so enormously in excess of that of the Sir William de Sculls, as held by him before his forfeiture of the Yankees, that even emigration cannot raise their ratio of increase same to the King's father. This deed is witnessed by the Steward above 22i in five years, while the 'Yankee increase is 40 per cent. of Scotland," afterwards Robert IL In the rural districts, except in the very far West, they have corn- Supposing, then, as seems probable, that Robert Bruce the paratively little hold upon the country. For instance, evenin Ohio, natural son, had been dispossessed by one or other of these power.
at the census of 1860 there were only 168,000 Germans in a popula- ful competitors, what can be more likely than that he, if alive, tion of 2,000,000, and the Irish were "nowhere." In the second or his son (who would doubtless also bear so honoured a name generation the German becomes a mere Yankee (which, by the as "Robert") should receive from King David the compensating way, the Irishman does not) ; but even in the matter of blood it gift of Clackmannan, &c., in 1359? In the total absence of will be seen that although emigrants come here by the hundred any historical notice of another Robert de Brays besides the thousand, there is no prospect of an appreciable change in the Bastard, it is, to say the least, highly probable that he and composition of the people who fought honeet, blundering, old King the grantee of Clackmannan were one and the same, or father
No public event of interest has taken place during the past Bastardy, as is well known, was no bar to social standing in
week except the convention of the Democratic party of New York those days. The great line of the" Black" Douglases was itself at Albany. By this body the " Copperhead" faction was swept carried on (to the exclusion of legitimate female heirs) by the well-
summarily away; President Johnson's policy of re-organization by known entail of 1342, in the person of Archibald, the third Earl, the committing the remodelling of local constitutions and the question natural son of the "Good" Sir James, and his son Archibald, the
of whom had been Republicans, were nominated. It is not at all talized by Shakespeare), married the Princess Margaret, daughter improbable that the Democrats upon this platform may come into of Robert III. Nay, it has been conclusively proved by the
by the Republicans, was the natural and indeed incestuous son of William, first Earl of A YANKEE. Douglas, by his sister-in-law, Margaret, Countess of Angus and Mar, and he likewise formed a Royal alliance with the Princess Mary or Mariot, another daughter of Robert III. While on this "Angus" question, may I call your attention to the editorial note in the Spectator of 15th July last, on your correspondent's letter regarding the Hamilton descent from Angus? You, in speak- ing of Earl William's lawful wife, Margaret, Countess of Douglas and Mar, say, "She was alive in 1385," and refer to the charter in her favour by her son, James, Earl of Douglas (the hero of Otter- bourne), as probably the warrant for the assumption by her second husband (Sir John Swynton) of the title of "Dominus de Mar." But there is distinct evidence. that she survived her famous son James, for Mr. Ridiell, in his' Slit/sari/ono (Edinburgh, 1843), p. 110, note, says:—" I have 'seen an original charter yet extant, December 5, 1389" (the year after Otterbourne) "by Johannes de Swyntoun, Doiniens de Mar, et Margareta de Douglas, Comitissa de Douglas et de Mar, whereby they guarantee Wil- Helmut 'de Douglas, ji/id .quondam EiOnaini Jacobi, Couaitis de Douglas, &C.."' (the OtterbOurne Douglas), the barony of Drum- " &c. This William Douglas, sometimes called of
Nidisdal" was e,
," though illgitimate, also a distinguished person, having:. formed a ROyat'; alliance and founded the Queensberry fain us evidlirig the enormous power of this great race In a more 4*;t9rt:, Way than.. ordinary history can indidate id es you surrniste, there "iii.„not a tittle of evidence for the 'assertion by 'iiid,rew Stuart, -(for well-known ' reasons a zealous partisan of the, Mose of Ilariiilten? thatrEarl
Li
William ever (.7,Ouniess of DozgisW she having ret.taipee, these title's till her death, as shoisnlay undoubted eiuterici,e`41qter this digression, let me Cite a final but most importntitistakce of the statement I have made that no social ffisadvasiWittuidlied to illegitimacy in these days. I refer to the well-known--case of the children of Robert II. by Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan, whOse lineal descendant, her:graeloue Majesty, now sits on the *One, Genealogists are now pretty well agreed that Robert III. and his fill brothers and sisters who were born before the Papal dispensation obtained by their father in 1347, Were not thereby (egithaated in the common sense of the term, while the ,childreo:. Of -Robert H. and Euphemia Ross were un- doubtedly lawful, having all been born after a Papal dispensation' and a regular marriage. But the Act of Parliament, in 1373 set- tling the crow* on Robert III and his fill brothers primo loco nmainatim, effectually fixed their right to the throne quite irrespec- tive of the flaw in their legitimacy, while doubtleas their " ex- hwredatio," as EllOritirsiAtey calls the postponement of Euphemia Ross's children in the R.Oyal succession, rankled in the minds of the latter stock, and formed the pretext for the conspiracy of Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholk one of their number, which cost James L his life. Likewise it is .well known that Charles t deprived William Graham, Earl of Strathern and Menteith, of that title, and substituted another, " Airth " (now extinct), in consequence of the Earl (a descendant of Euphetnia Ross) having said "his blood was the reddest in the kingdom." I trust these somewhat discursive remarks—(in genealogy one can scarcely be eoncise)s-may, in the absence of positive proof to the contrary, offer a strong presumption of the identity of Robert de Bruys of Clackmannan and the great King Robert's natural son. Assuredly in so distinguished a line it is no disparagement to the Elgin family to recognize in the latter their original anceator. The interest of the whole ,subject of the Stewart and Bruce ancestry, and that of others' of our great historic families, of late years only rescued from the obscurity and vagueness of tradition by the numerous valuable reprints of early charters and similar works, and the labours of acute and accurate genealogists, must be my excuse for trespassing so far on your space.
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