The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune. By James Grant. (Routledge and
Sons.)—This volume bears a date-1889—but surely cannot be a new one; unless, indeed, it was left in manuscript by its author, who has certainly been dead several months. The first six chapters are given to the " Scots in Russia," of whom General Keith is the best known. The Soots in Prussia, Austria, Turkey, Denmark, Holland, &c., are successively treated ; but, of course, the "Scots in France" occupy a greater past of the volume than any other set of their compatriots. The Scoto-French alliance, suggested by common fear and hatred of England, was of long standing. William the Lion made a treaty with Louis the Young, and Louis IX. had Scots among his bodyguard. The Black Prince met Scottish auxiliaries among the French army at Poitiers, as Henry V. did in his later campaigns in France. It was the Scotch who defeated and killed Thomas, Duke of Clarence, at the fatal fight of Beauge on Easter Eve, 1421. The book, though with much interesting matter, is too scrappy. It would have been better to have written at greater length of fewer men. Surely John Major did not speak of Margaret of Scotland (daughter of James I.) as virginuns formosum et honestam. On the preceding page, 1643 is misprinted for 1543.
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