THE SCOTS CANADIAN Issue XLII Newsletter of the Scottish Studies Society: ISSN No. 1491-2759 Spring 2016 Alice Munro named Scot of the Year as 2016 marks the Foundation’s 30th Anniversary

It was back in 1986 that the Scottish Studies university of British Columbia Foundation was first established as a and at the University of registered Canadian charity and thanks to the Queensland. support from our members and other donors She married Gerald Fremlin in we are still at work supporting the Scots- 1976 and moved to his Canadian community at the academic level. hometown of Clinton, Ontario, We are delighted that Alice Munro will be not far from Wingham. Gerald helping us to celebrate our 30th anniversary died in April, 2013. Alice has by agreeing to be our Scot of the Year, recently announced her especially shortly after her receiving the retirement from writing and prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature on continues to live in Clinton. December 10, 2013. We are in the process Many of Alice's stories are set of organizing a special event for this special in Huron County, Ontario. Her anniversary and will keep you posted once strong regional focus is one of plans are firmed up. the features of her fiction. Alice Munro: the first Canadian to I’m sure all of you know that Alice is a Another is her frequent use of the receive the Nobel Prize in Literature Canadian short story writer and that her work omniscient narrator who serves has revolutionized the structure of short to make sense of the world. Many compare other in ways that simply and effortlessly stories, especially in its ability to move Alice's small-town settings to writers from evoke life. forward and backward in time. the rural South of the United States. As in Many critics have asserted that Munro's Alice was born on July 10, 1931 and the works of William Faulkner and Flannery stories often have the emotional and literary raised on a farm outside of Wingham, O'Connor, her characters often confront depth of novels. Some have asked whether Ontario. Her father, Robert Eric Laidlaw, deep-rooted customs and traditions, but the Munro actually writes short stories or novels. was a fox and mink farmer, and her mother, reaction of Alice's characters is generally less Alex Keegan, writing in Eclectica, gave a Anne Clarke Laidlaw (née Chamney), was a intense than their Southern counterparts. Her simple answer: "Who cares? In most Munro schoolteacher. Her Scots ancestry can be male characters tend to capture the essence of stories there is as much as in many novels." traced back to the Scottish Borders. the everyman, while her female characters Alice is noted for her longtime association Alice began writing as a teenager, are more complex. Much of her work with editor and publisher Douglas Gibson. publishing her first story, The Dimensions of exemplifies the literary genre known as Douglas received our Scot of the Year Award a Shadow, in 1950 while studying English Southern Ontario Gothic. in 2005 and is also a former Foundation and journalism at the University of Western A frequent theme of her work, particularly board member. When Douglas left Ontario under a two-year scholarship. During evident in her early stories, has been the Macmillan of Canada in 1986 to launch his this period she worked as a waitress, a dilemmas of a girl coming of age and coming own Douglas Gibson Books imprint at tobacco picker, and a library clerk. to terms with her family and the small town McClelland and Stewart, Munro returned the In 1951, she left the university, where she she grew up in. In recent work such as advance that Macmillan had already paid her had been majoring in English since 1949, to Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, for The Progress of Love so that she could marry fellow student James Munro. They Marriage (2001) and Runaway (2004) she follow Douglas to the new company and they then moved to Dundarave, West Vancouver, has shifted her focus to the travails of middle have retained their professional association for where James had obtained a job in a age, of women alone, and of the elderly. It is ever since. When Douglas published his department store. In 1963, the couple moved a mark of her style for characters to book Stories about Storytellers in 2011, to Victoria, where they opened Munro's experience a revelation that sheds light on, Alice wrote the introduction and his latest Books, which is still in operation. and gives meaning to, an apparently ordinary book Across Canada by Story has a chapter Her first book of short stories was event. entitled Alice Munro Country. published in 1968 and since then she has Alice's prose reveals the ambiguities of To this day Douglas often makes public published fifteen more. Her work frequently life: "ironic and serious at the same time," appearances on Alice's behalf when her appears in magazines including The New "mottoes of godliness and honour and health prevents her from appearing Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Paris flaming bigotry," "special, useless personally. Review. She divorced in 1972 and moved knowledge," "tones of shrill and happy back to Ontario to take up a post as writer-in- outrage," "the bad taste, the heartlessness, the residence at the University of Western joy of it." Her style places the fantastic next Ontario, a position she later held at the to the ordinary, with each undercutting the

chapbooks and From the Chair identified some favourites. The website is just

wonderful, I am grateful to the Editor for this showcasing our opportunity to update members of the impressive Foundation on developments here at the assemblage of these Guelph Centre for Scottish Studies. endlessly interesting In September, we announced our little publications aspiration to establish a Genealogical and which have so much Family History Institute to enable the Centre to say about what better to promote, support and advance mattered to Scots, research and research-based teaching about what entertained Scottish Canadian history and families. In them, and what the month of December, we had the provoked them, in opportunity to participate in a University the eighteenth and crowdfunding experiment, in which we At the University of Guelph’s 2015 Fall Colloquium Left to right: nineteenth centuries invited potential donors to support our desire Prof. James Fraser, Michael Newton, Lewis MacKinnon, Allan when so many of our to work towards establishing a new Kennedy, Prof. Ewen Cameron Scottish ancestors repository for the storage of genealogical emigrated to Canada. being undertaken at Guelph by graduate data collected by people researching Scottish In the fall, I had the opportunity to lead the students in the Centre for Scottish Studies. Canadian families. The appeal ran “Topics in Scottish History” masters-level Fuller details will be provided as soon as throughout December; and, thanks to the course at Guelph. No doubt because the they have been finalized. As has become tremendous generosity of some twenty website has made them so accessible, a traditional in recent years, this event will be donors, we were successful in raising over number of the students chose to analyze a hosted once again by our friends at Knox $1600 before Hogmanay, funds which we chapbook as one of the components of the College, University of Toronto. We hope to will now invest in our Repository Project. course. The examples they chose engaged in see many members there: please consider I have been impressed by the fundraising religious argument, discussed magic and coming along to hear the fruits of the success achieved by this brief appeal, but it witches, related episodes of Scottish history, research projects of students who, in many scarcely rivals the steady and invaluable or told stories from Scottish and international cases, have received the invaluable support support that the Centre enjoys each year from literature, subjects that represent the tip of of Foundation generosity. the Foundation. It is our hope that the the iceberg where chapbooks are concerned. In closing, I would observe that this is the awareness raised by the crowdfunding appeal It is to the Foundation, as well as to the Jane time of year when we begin hearing from will encourage people who support our aims Grier Family Fund, that all of us interested in prospective new graduate students seeking to seek membership in the Foundation. Scottish history owe the digitization of our admission to the Scottish Studies As we approach the first anniversary of the chapbook collection and its presentation in programme, and happily, we have received a launch of the Scottish Chapbooks website this magnificent format on the Web, where number of applications and approaches (http://scottishchapbooks.org), I hope by now users of all sorts, from all over the world, can already. Enthusiasm for undertaking Scottish that all members have had the opportunity to appreciate it. I hope that members feel the Studies research at Guelph shows no signs of browse through the collection of digitized full measure of the pride to which they are abating, and to those who have done so much entitled for having made the website to make that research possible, we send our possible, and can take time from their busy warmest hopes for peace, health and lives to enjoy the chapbooks that they have happiness in 2016, and our profoundest, given to the world. enduring and ongoing gratitude. Of course, the Scottish Chapbooks website is only the beginning of the ambitious Dr. James Fraser digitization plan that the Foundation is Chair of Scottish Studies currently supporting, and as other parts of University of Guelph our archival collection receive similar THE SCOTTISH STUDIES attention, the final results will represent a singular, FOUNDATION monumental achievement P.O. Box 45069 on the part of the Scottish Studies Foundation, and 2482 Yonge Street one which will leave Toronto, Ontario generations of future Canada M4P 3E3 researchers in its debt. Charitable registration I would like to take this No. 119253490 RR0001 opportunity to let www.scottishstudies.com members know that our 2016 Spring Colloquium Membership Secretary: will be held on Saturday, Catherine McKenzie Jansen April 9, 2016, and will [email protected] feature papers showcasing the research currently U of G’s Scottish Studies Office Team: Alice Glaze and Marian Toledo

2 The Scots Canadian The Meeting of Burns and Scott In this extract from “The Life of Robert Burns” by J. G. Lockhard (1794-1854), Sir Walter Scott relates his one and only meeting with Robert Burns in 1787. Scott was 15 years old at the time, Burns was 28.

s for Burns, I may truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum.* I was a lad A of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr. Thomas Grierson “The Meeting of Burns and Scott” was at that time a clerk of my father's. He Oil on canvas painting by Charles Hardie, 1893 knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner; but had no opportunity to Burns seemed much affected by the print, most distinguished men of my time. keep his word; otherwise I might have seen or rather by the ideas which it suggested to His conversation expressed perfect self- more of this distinguished man. his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked confidence, without the slightest As it was, I saw him one day at the late whose the lines were; and it chanced that presumption. Among the men who were the venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there nobody but myself remembered that they most learned of their time and country, he were several gentlemen of literary reputation, occur in a half-forgotten poem of expressed himself with perfect firmness, but among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Langhorne's called by the unpromising title without the least intrusive forwardness; and Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat of “The Justice of Peace.” I whispered my when he differed in opinion, he did not silent, looked and listened. The only thing I information to a friend present; he mentioned hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same remember which was remarkable in Burns's it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look time with modesty. manner, was the effect produced upon him and a word, which, though of mere civility, I I do not remember any part of his by a print of Bunbury's, representing a then received and still recollect with very conversation distinctly enough to be quoted; soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog great pleasure. nor did ever see him again, except in the sitting in misery on one side, on the other his His person was strong and robust; his street, where he did not recognise me, as I widow, with a child in her arms. These lines manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of could not expect he should. He was much were written beneath: dignified plainness and simplicity, which caressed in Edinburgh: but (considering what received part of its effect perhaps from one's literary emoluments have been since his day) “Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His the efforts made for his relief were extremely Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain; features are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's trifling. Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew. picture; but to me it conveys the idea that I remember, on this occasion I mention, I The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. thought Burns's acquaintance with English Gave the sad presage of his future years, The child of misery baptised in tears.” I think his countenance was more massive poetry was rather limited; and also that, than it looks in any of the portraits. I should having twenty times the abilities of Allan have taken the poet, had I not Ramsay and of Ferguson, he talked of them known what he was, for a very with too much humility as his models: there sagacious country farmer of was doubtless national predilection in his the old Scotch school, i.e. none estimate. of your modern agriculturists This is all I can tell you about Burns. I who keep labourers for their have only to add, that his dress corresponded drudgery, but the douce with his manner. He was like a farmer gudeman who held his own dressed in his best to dine with the Laird. I plough. do not speak in malam partem, when I say, I There was a strong never saw a man in company with his expression of sense and superiors in station or information more shrewdness in all his perfectly free from either the reality or the lineaments; the eye alone, I affectation of embarrassment. I was told, but think indicated the poetical did not observe it, that his address to females character and temperament. It was extremely deferential, and always with a was large, and of a dark cast, turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which glowed (I say literally which engaged their attention particularly.  glowed) when he spoke with “Affliction,” from a drawing by Henry William Bunbury. feeling or interest. I never saw *Translates as "I have seen the great man but did It was print of this that caused Burns to shed tears. such another eye in a human not know him." head, though I have seen the

The Scots Canadian 3 ouvriers (workers) under a patron (boss). The They Sell , Don’t patron had to find a shop or warehouse to serve as a base for storing and preparing the They? onions for sale, as well as to provide rudimentary living space for the sellers. The patron also determined the daily quotas that Adapted from an article by Norman Ball the ouvriers had to sell, some of whom were less than 10 years old. rowing up in Scotland in the 1940s Initially, ouvriers pushed two-wheeled and ’50s, I was always intrigued handcarts or charrettes and then loaded G when, every summer, men with sticks, or batons, with onions. They carried bicycles laden with onions would appear on the batons over their shoulders, going from the streets and go around knocking at doors house to house, knocking on doors. A trying to sell them. What was even more freshly loaded baton could weigh as much as intriguing was that these men were from 50 or 60 pounds, providing the France and, as a young child, I rather naively Johnnies with strong incentive to sell the marveled at how they could have pedaled onions quickly. their bikes all that way! Living conditions were spartan. Home They were known as “Onion Johnnies” base was often an old shop, lined with stacks and the book published in 2002: Onion of onions. When eight-year-old Jean Saout Johnnies: Personal Recollections by Nine arrived in Glasgow in the 1920s, his father French Onion Johnnies of their Working was a patron. Jean recalls that they used a Lives in Scotland, by Ian MacDougall, big shop: “My father and I and all the Onion represents an astounding effort by the Johnnies slept there… We slept on straw and A typical Onion Johnnie Scottish Working People’s History Trust and we had blankets to cover ourselves with… “about half past-ten at night.” But, he added, the European Ethnological Research Centre But you slept well, you slept well.” and is a fascinating account of this unusual “That wasn’t a normal day’s work. It In 1930, 13-year-old Jean Milin began depended how lucky you were. But normally aspect of international enterprise. working full-time as an Onion Johnny in As the only seasonal immigrant onion it was round about seven or eight at night Leith: “There were no beds—only straw… when we used to finish. Most days the sellers in Britain, Onion Johnnies all came we all slept together in a row on the straw, from a relatively small area of , leaving time from the shop or the base was like herrings or sardines! I was the youngest from about six, half-past six in the morning.” particularly from Roscoff and neighbouring and I was in the middle of the row. You had villages such as St Pol de Léon. In the past, The long hours of Monday to Friday were covers, blankets. But we also had a sack or shortened on Saturday to midday or mid- life in Brittany had never been easy as it was bag to sleep in—a sleeping bag. Oh, it was at the mercy of the vicissitudes of the sardine afternoon. Sundays were for “stringing the very comfortable. We were there all onions or…gathering rushes from the fields catch and as the area grew more onions than together, quite warm in the straw, so we the regional market could absorb, exports for stringing them.” Straw or hay from didn’t feel the cold." The facilities included nearby fields might also be used. were crucial. a small kitchen, a table to eat on, a tap with The origins of the Johnnies and their Numerous photos show Onion Johnnies running water, and (wonder of wonders) a with strings of onions slung over bicycles, "oignons roses" or pink onions can be found flush toilet downstairs. But not all the Onion in the decade or more after the Napoleonic which by the 1930s were replacing handcarts Johnnies enjoyed such amenities. and batons. It was still hard work, as some Wars ended in 1815 at Waterloo with the Conditions improved somewhat in the late first Johnnies setting out from Santec in 1828 routes covered long distances with a heavy 1940s. Some Johnnies who worked out of load. After the Second World War, vans to cross the Channel to sell onions in Britain. vans and if they were away for more than a It appears that the trade arose out of the became more common. They were day, stayed overnight in hotels that bought employed as mobile depots from which the rescue from drowning at Roscoff of British onions from them. However, they were the royal personages and the consequent grant of Johnnies, lifting out their laden bikes once exception. Yves Rolland was a teenage that day’s destination was reached, could permission to local people to sell their onions Johnny who worked from a base in Maritime on the other side of the Channel. The pedal their rounds and return to the van again Street, Leith, in the 1960s: “The shop was for fresh supplies if needed. Onion-laden Johnnies' annual migration across the full of onions. So at that time we slept in Channel to England, and Scotland, bicycles also travelled on trains and tramcars. very cramped conditions. Have you ever had To people in Scotland, Onion Johnnies took place regularly toward the end of July rats running on top of you?” and in early August. With their strings and seemed stereotypically French: often seen The young ouvriers received no cash for with beret, bicycle, and striped shirts. But bunches festooned over the handlebars and their work; their share was sent home to their rear wheels of their bicycles, the Onion they represented the specific culture of parents. Those who were paid directly Brittany, and spoke Breton, the Celtic Johnnies were instantly recognizable generally received wages only at the end of wherever they went in Scotland. language similar to Welsh, rather than the onion-selling season. No wonder that French. At first, Onion Johnnies travelled to Great when householders asked the cost of onions, Britain by sailboat with a cargo of freshly The life of a Johnnie was one of hard the ouvrier would give the price and then work: Jean Milin summed it up with “We harvested pink onions and perhaps some say, “and a penny for myself.” and . Later, ferries and trains Onion Johnnies were always working. It was The days could be long, as ouvriers a hard life.” Claude Quimerech stated, “We replaced the sailboats. This trade peaked in seldom returned to home base until all the the late 1920s—when 9,000 tons of onions simply didn’t have plenty money! It was onions were sold. Looking back on his work very hard, very, very hard.” were sold in the UK by 1,400 Johnnies— as an ouvrier in Leith in the 1950s, Yves before gradually petering out. Jean Saout strikes one as a thoughtful Rolland could remember leaving the shop at workman. In 1965 when he was 52 years old Many in the onion trade were connected five in the morning and not returning until by family ties and were organized with and had been an Onion Johnny in Glasgow

4 The Scots Canadian for more than 40 years, he retired from the Calton Hill to once again meet with the fairy prevent the boy leaving. The boy answered job, but not from working: "Well, I never got folk. many questions without wanting to leave rich selling onions, ah, no! I just made But Bovet's original account differs until 11 pm when he left the room without enough to live on and to drink a little glass of considerably. His book is a collection of anyone noticing. When they do, Burton said wine. But I never wanted to change my job, stories from around the British Isles, with the that he “hasted to the door, and took hold of never. I never had any ambitions to do any Fairy Boy story being taken from a letter him and so returned him into the same other job like being a seaman or working on written to Bovet “by my worthy friend room.” Later in the evening, as Burton and the railways. It was the same when I was Captain George Burton in his own hand.” his acquaintances were watching the boy, working the other months of the year with The letter is transcribed by Bovet, with his suddenly he was gone; Burton followed him the vegetables at home in Brittany." Years own conclusions on it. out into the street where the boy made a later, aged 86, he told an interviewer: The letter tells of the experience of noise, as if he had been set upon. As people "The life of the Onion Johnnies was hard— Captain Burton when he was based in Leith, gathered to see what the commotion was, and it was hard for their wives and families with the events recounted occurring in 1648 Burton lost sight of the boy. Nothing is said at home, too. But you had to live as best you or 1649 at the latest, some 15 years prior to about where the boy goes or what happens to could. I wouldn’t like to begin all over the letter being written! Burton would him, all that is mentioned is that he again, though at least one doesn’t have to regularly meet acquaintances at a house disappears in a crowd after shouting that he sleep on straw any more! I don’t regret where they would drink wine. It was owned is being attacked. And so ends Burton's having worked as an Onion Johnnie at by a woman who was, in Burton's words, of letter. Glasgow. But it was a hard job, too hard." good reputation, and it was her who told Bovet adds his conclusions, stating how Whenever we get nostalgic about the past, Burton of the “fairy boy,” a child who had well known and trustworthy Burton is; that we do well to remember how hard things the gift of second sight. The woman showed he is a well known figure in commerce were for many people. The sight of an Onion him the boy who was playing in the street. circles in London, and that there is no need Johnny pushing his bicycle may conjure up Burton guessed he was not more than ten or for Bovet to justify Burton's integrity. Bovet “the good old days” for many in England and eleven years old. At this point we learn a bit concedes that he is not sure whether or not Scotland, but this was hard, lonely work for about the character of Burton, and see the the boy had a corporeal or dream experience, little pay, with only a sack of straw to sleep differences between the original account and and in concluding, he says that it's strange on at night.  the more Romantic later, modern versions. that the boy runs away considering he was Burton's letter states that he coerced the boy given the temptation of wine and money to into the house with money and “smooth keep him there, noting that money and wine words.” Once inside, and in the presence of are a powerful temptation to lads of his age. The Fairy Boy of Leith diverse people, Burton demanded of the boy There is little useful information in the By George Douglas several “Astrological Questions” which the original account which can indicate whether boy then answered with “great subtility.” the story is true or not, with the exception of he story of the Fairy boy of Leith tells Burton notes that the boy was more one point. Burton alleges that the boy went of a boy living in the port town of intelligent than he expected for someone of to “Yonder Hill,” interpreted as Calton Hill. T Leith, then adjacent to Edinburgh, his age. During this, the boy starts to drum These days Calton Hill is in the centre of who was famous because each week he his fingers on the table. Burton asks if the Edinburgh but back then, before Leith would disappear into a hill where he was boy can beat a drum. The boy replies that he became part of Edinburgh, it was between reputed to commune with the fairy folk; to can drum “as well as any man in Scotland for the two areas. Calton Hill sat dominant, dance, sing and feast. every Thursday night I beat all points to a amongst the farmland and fields, and in the The story has been retold a number of fort of people that use to meet under Yonder 18th century the boundaries between Leith times, possibly most famously in Sir Walter Hill, pointing to the great Hill between and Edinburgh were shrinking and a hundred Scott's The Heart of Midlothian but the Edinburough (sic) and Leith.” years later the two were almost joined original story can be traced back to a 17th Burton pursues this line of enquiry by together. Calton Hill then, as now, has century account in Richard Bovet's asking what company the boy has there, and remained relatively undeveloped. So did the Pandaemonium or the Devil's Cloister he replies that there is a great company of boy indeed enter into the Hill? (1684). men and woman who are entertained with In the 1790s Herman Lion was a Jewish All of the stories follow the same basic many types of music, and feast on meat. He merchant living in Edinburgh at the end of tale; that Captain George Burton, whilst even goes on to say that on many times they the 18th century. Sometime after 1791 he staying in Leith, came across a boy known are carried to France or Holland in a night started looking for a burial plot for himself locally as the “Fairy Boy” who had been and return again, enjoying the pleasures of and his wife. Being Jewish he did not want given the gift of second sight by the fairies. those countries; something more reminiscent to be buried in a Christian burial site and Every Thursday night, the boy would go to of the stories from the witchcraft trials rather appealed to the Town Council to sell himself Calton Hill (then a remote place between than of fairies. Burton then demanded to a piece of land on Calton Hill, and eventually Leith and Edinburgh) where he would enter know how the boy got under the hill, and was they agreed. 200 years later, the site of the hill through huge gates, only visible to told that there were a great pair of gates, Lion’s tomb was rediscovered. The those with “the fairy gift” and commune with invisible to others, beyond which were rooms Edinburgh Evening News told the story of the fairies. At these gatherings the boy large enough to accommodate most of two men in the Observatory complex on top would play drums for the little folk who Scotland. of the hill. Apparently they climbed through danced and feasted. One Thursday night, the Eventually Burton is told by the owner, a rabbit hole and ended up in the tomb. Captain, and some acquaintances, held the that no one could keep the boy from his Their description of Lion’s tomb implies that boy in conversation, hoping to avert his trip Thursday night rendezvous, and so Burton it may have originally been a cave or fissure. to the hill, but the boy gave them the slip, but promises the boy money to meet with him in So perhaps this is the cave that the Fairy Boy was found and brought back to the house, the afternoon of the following Thursday. told everyone that he danced in with the fairy where upon he managed to slip away for a Burton goes on to state that he arrived at the folk.  second time. There the story ends with most rendezvous with a group of acquaintances to accounts stating that the boy made off to

The Scots Canadian 5 The Gudeman of Ballangeich

From an 1861 review of the book “James the Fifth; or, the Gudeman of Ballangeich. His Poetry and Adventures”by James Paterson. Published by Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.

n the north-west side of Stirling Castle is a steep path, leading to the O town of that name. This path, in Nimmo's "History of Stirling," is called Ballochgiech, which is probably, says Mr. Paterson, the correct form of the word, though Ballangeich is the usual mode of pronouncing it. It means the stormy or windy pass. The term "Gudeman" was the customary designation given to a small proprietor, who was immediately dependent on the Crown, but who held from a vassal. Combining Cramond Brig near Edinburgh where King James V was saved from assailants by John these two names into one, the frolic-loving Howison, an event immortalized in Sir Walter Scott’s poem “Lady of the Lake.” King of Scotland, James V, when travelling incognito, generally assumed the title of the "Gudeman of Ballangeich." James was fond people, his attention to their wants, and his unquestionable ability exhibited in these of adventure; he was a bold gallant; a zeal in endeavouring to elevate their position, somewhat free poems; a drollery, a gaiety, a successful lover; a dexterous swordsman, James V won the proud designation of "King rhythm, and a song, that do the author the sometimes attacking banditti singly, or of the Commons." Kind, jocular, and highest credit. King James or any other king, supported only with a few of his courtly condescending, he mixed with the peasantry, might well be proud of such writing; of the attendants. chatted by their fireside, studied their poetry we mean, for the morality is not Who does not remember the famous single character, patronized their amusements, and unexceptionable. fight, in perhaps the most finished poem of sought their social improvement. Often Morality, indeed, was not James's forte. Walter Scott, "The Lady of the Lake," when disguising himself as a gaberlunzie, or a Like his father he had a number of Fitz-James, our wandering king, encountered wandering minstrel, he "ranted and sang" illegitimate children. In this respect, Rhoderick Dhu? In a note to the same poem, with a hearty good will, in the cottages of the however, he was no worse than the majority quoted by Mr. Paterson, we may read how humblest of his subjects, and learned wisdom of the Reforming as well as of the Catholic the merry monarch, beset by relations or in the huts where poor men lie. nobility. Mr. Paterson has some peculiar lovers of his mistress, as he returned from his In his agreeable and rather gossiping than observations on this subject. "The last to rendezvous, took post on the high and narrow judicial biography of this popular king, Mr. argue in favour of libertinism," he yet bridge over the Almond river, and defended Paterson aims to bring out all his fine questions whether crimes, not in themselves bravely with his sword, till a peasant, who qualities and princely accomplishments. A criminal, should be made so by conventional was thrashing in a neighbouring barn, brilliant adventurer, the Fifth James was also enactment. Certainly if licentiousness is not hearing the noise, sallied out, and taking part a poet of no mean order. Dempster, who criminal "according to nature," it should not with the weaker side, did such good wrote at the beginning of the seventeenth be made so, either by legislation in church or execution with his flail, that he dispersed the century, extols James V as a poet of rare state, or by the censorship of public opinion. king's assailants, thus probably saving his genius, and identifies him as the author of a But we cannot consent to treat the subject in sovereign's life. We may read further, how, "Heroic Poem on the Rural Dances of this way. The philosopher is bound to show as a reward for his services, the peasant, on Falkirk," evidently a mistake for Christ's either the criminality or non-criminality of an inquiring at the Palace of Holyrood for the Kirk. Bishop Gibson, who was the first to action. It does not follow that because an Gudeman of Ballangeich, was gratified with publish this poem in 1691, but without action is criminal it ought to be punished by a crown-charter of the lands of Braehead, to mentioning the source from which he derived law; but it certainly ought to incur popular be held on condition of presenting a ewer, it, seemingly acquiesced in the supposition reprobation. If, on the other hand, it be not basin and towel, as he had done in the barn, that it was written by James V, and was criminal, we ought not to make it criminal, after the broil, for the king to wash his hands supported by Watson, Mackenzie, Ruddiman by any artificial process, parliamentary or when he should happen to pass the Bridge of and others. Ramsey, on the authority of other. Mr. Paterson does not go into the Cramond. Bannatyne, was the first to subscribe it to religious question; neither shall we. It is due James has other pleasant names beside this James V, and was followed by Tytler, to him to say that he calls for an impartial of the Gudeman of Ballangeich. That of Pinkerton, and Ellis. There does not appear administration of law and opinion, and an "Snowdoun's Knight" is, we believe, due to us to be any positive evidence for the equal division of the penalty and odium solely to the poetical invention of the Ariosto authorship. Mr. Paterson, however, shows attached to the "crime," between the erring of the North; and here we may observe in the untrustworthiness of the Bannatyne lords and frail ladies of creation. passing, that Snowdoun, celebrated in Sir manuscript, and makes out something like a To James V must be accorded the merit of David Lyndsay's Complaint of the Paping's, presumption of authorship in favour of James patriotic rule and management. Besides the is a traditional name of Stirling Castle. V. encouragement of national literature and Another title of this favourite monarch is The other poetical effusions attributed to music, he was zealous in promoting the still more honourable. Happily, too, it is not the minstrel king, are "The Gaberlunzie material interests of the country. For this fictitious. From his sympathies with the Man," and "The Jollie Beggar." There is purpose he engaged foreign miners of skill,

6 The Scots Canadian concluded commercial treaties, pastured prompted by the supposed exigencies of his large flocks of sheep in Ettrick forest, and position, as the coercer of a "rampant, Dear Days of Old made considerable efforts to improve the vindictive, and ignorant feudal aristocracy," breed of horses. Mr. Paterson further and not by mere love of money or lust of commends this "patriot king" for his love of spoliation. justice and firmness of purpose. He found Mr. Paterson's narrative, though not his kingdom distracted with family feuds, severely historical, indicates care and and overrun with high-handed noble and research. In the composition of his little baronial plunderers. volume he has drawn on Pitcairn's Criminal One principal object with James, therefore, Trials, the Privy Seal Register, and was to restrain the marauding aristocrats of Treasurer's Accounts. The result of his Scotland, to break up the factions, and to inquiries is an unpretending little volume, in restore peace and security. In prosecuting which, after briefly sketching the state of Home no more home to me, these ends, James sometimes exhibited Scotland during the king's nonage, he whither must I wander? extreme severity, as in the case of the famous describes his position under the Douglases, Hunger my driver, Johnnie Armstrong, of ballad fame, who, his conduct as a free king, after his I go where I must. with thirty-six, or perhaps even forty-eight, emancipation from that faction; investigates Cold blows the winter wind of his followers, was hanged on a clump of his merits and demerits as man, ruler, and over hill and heather; trees in a little hollow, where they had met author, vindicates his good fame, explains his Thick drives the rain, with a view of soliciting the royal pardon. policy, and concludes with a general estimate and my roof is in the dust. James was no less severe in the case of Lady of his character, interspersing incident and Glammis, who was tried, condemned, and anecdote in his expository recital. Loved of wise men executed for "conspiring the king's death by James V was twice married; his first was the shade of my roof-tree. poison, and aiding and intercommuning with queen, the youthful and delicate Magdalene, The true word of welcome the Douglases, her uncles and brothers." died 7th July 1537. His second, Mary of was spoken in the door — Among the improvements originating in Guise, landed near St. Andrews in May, Dear days of old, James's love of justice, Mr. Paterson 1538, but she was married, according to our with the faces in the firelight, enumerates the edicts for the regulation and author, not in that year, as is generally Kind folks of old, purification of the inferior courts, as well as supposed, but, as the inscription in the ruins you come again no more. for the better education of the judges and of Falkland Palace testifies, in 1537; or, more executors of the law; the first printed acts of accurately, the stone-date refers to a proxy Home was home then, my dear, Parliament, which by the king's order were marriage in France, not to its celebration full of kindly faces, circulated among the sheriffs, that they might after the Queen's arrival at St. Andrews. Home was home then, my dear, be read to the people. Under his auspices, James himself died 13th December 1542, in happy for the child. too, the machinery of the law was amended, the thirty-first year of his age and the twenty- Fire and the windows bright and a regular record of the criminal court, ninth of his reign. glittered on the moorland; called the Books of Adjournal, was The defeat of Solway Moss, for which he Song, tuneful song, instituted. was himself responsible, appears to have built a palace in the wild. James also erected the first Register House broken his heart. His melancholy words, as that ever had existence in Scotland. Against he lay dying, with his thoughts wandering Now, when day dawns certain accusations the parsimony and back to the time when the daughter of Bruce on the brow of the moorland, persecutions attributed to James V, our brought to his ancestor the dowry of a Lone stands the house, author protests, maintaining that the king was kingdom, "It came with a lass and it will pass and the chimney-stone is cold. naturally liberal and generous, and defending with a lass," contrast sadly with these gay Lone let it stand, him against the allegations of Sir Walter rhymes of the gallant adventurer poet: now the friends are all departed, Scott and Lord Lindsay. In the Edzell case The kind hearts, the true hearts, Mr. Paterson states the facts in such a "He took a horn frae his side, that loved the place of old. manner as to place the transaction in a very and blew baith loud and shrill, different light from that represented by Lord And four-and-twentv belted knights Spring shall come, come again, Lindsay. James, he argues, in reality came skipping o'er the hill, calling up the moorfowl, conferred a favour on Dell, by sanctioning And we’ll gang nae mair a roving, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, the new investiture of the Crawford estates, Sae late into the nicht; bring the bees and flowers; by which the proper heirs were overleaped, And we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys, Red shall the heather bloom in consequence of their unnatural conduct, Let the moon shine ne'er so bright." over hill and valley, the king in pursuance of his policy of Soft flow the stream circumscribing the great baronies, stipulating Aye, the king had sung his last song; he was through the even-flowing hours. for the surrender of the earldom, its fiefs and never more to wander through that windy honours, on Edzell's succession. In this, as in pass, "sae late into the nicht," with the merry Fair the day shine other instances, it is not easy to pronounce moon gleaming over him, but to go down as it shone on my childhood -- any positive opinion on Mr. Paterson's into a darker deeper night, whither we all, Fair shine the day success. The evidence is not very kings and beggars, must one day repair to on the house with open door; conclusive, either way; and the facts may be join "The Gudeman of Ballangeich."  Birds come and cry there construed so as to accord either with his view and twitter in the chimney -- or that of Lord Lindsay. But I go for ever Still, if the king was somewhat rigorous in and come again no more. his exactions, his demands may have been Robert Louis Stevenson

The Scots Canadian 7 Directors of the Scottish James M. Main Malcolm M. Gollert John B. McMillan Studies Foundation: Dr. William Ross McEachern Helen Grant Mrs. Lois McRae President: David M. Hunter Joan and Don McGeachy Jon K. Grant Douglas and Ilse McTaggart Vice President: Maggie McEwan Alan McKenzie Hon. Edwin A. Goodman Q.C., P.C., Mr. Don McVicar Treasurer: David H. Thompson Mary MacKay MacMillan, FSA Scot O.C. Douglas A. McWhirter Secretary: John B. McMillan Margaret Nightingale William A. Goodfellow Mary Elizabeth Mick David Campbell C. Douglas Reekie Alan P. Gordon Peter Montgomery Dr. James Fraser T. Iain Ronald James M. Grant, Clan Grant Society William & Audrey Montgomery J Douglas Ross FSA Scot Sir Neil Shaw of Canada Allan D. Morrison Robert J. Smart Bruce Simpson Mary Gregor Madelein Muntz Honorary Directors: Harry S. Robert Smart Jane Grier David and Una Murray Ferguson, William Somerville Donald A. 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8 The Scots Canadian