in the reign of the renowned Hammerer of the Scotch. A victory achieved by Edward at Hallidon Hill in 1333, was followed by the surrender of Berwick. Four years later, after numerous engagements, the English laid siege to the castle of Dunbar, a strong fortalice placed on some rocky heights overlooking the German ocean, and approachable by land only at one point. At the time, the castle was held by the Countess of March, whose lord had embraced the cause of David Bruce. The countess was the daughter of Randolph, Earl of Moray, and a highspirited and courageous woman. From her complexion, she was usually known by the familiar title of Black Agnes. The castle, of which Agnes was now mistress, had been well fortified; and in her hands it held out bravely against Montague, Earl of Salisbury, with all the power he could direct against it. Cannon not having been yet invented, it was customary to attack forts of this kind with engines constructed to throw huge stones, and accordingly the English general employed this species of force to attack the castle. Agnes, confident of withstanding such attempts, is said to have treated them with contempt. While the English engineers were throwing stones into the fort, she went about with her maidens, and, in sight of the enemy, wiped with a clean towel the spots where the masses of stone had fallen. Enraged at this apparent unconcern, the earl commanded his men to bring forward a large engine, called the sow. a strong shed, rolled on wheels, underneath which the walls could be safely undermined with pickaxes. When Black Agnes observed this movement, she leant over the castle wall, and derisively addressed the earl in the following rhyme :—

"Beware, Montagow,

For farrow shall thy sow."

This was

The

On uttering this admonitory hint, she caused a huge fragment of rock to be hurled down on the back of the sow, which crushed it in pieces, killing the men beneath, and scattering all who were near it. "Said I not so? behold the litter of English pigs," was the ready jibe of the brave commandress of the castle. siege was ultimately abandoned, after being invested for nineteen weeks. Of Black Agnes many other traditionary stories are related, and the following rhyme is still preserved in commemoration of her prowess:—

"She kept a stir in tower and trench,

That brawling boisterous Scottish wench;
Came I early, came I late,

I found Agnes at the gate."

Having enjoyed a respite from active measures in consequence of Edward being embroiled with France, the Scotch rallied under manifold disasters, took a number of castles which had been wrested from them, chased Edward Baliol out of the country, and, in 1341, recalled David Bruce and his consort. Encouraged

by the apparently defenceless state of England, a Scottish army carried a retaliatory war into the enemy's kingdom. This proved a disastrous campaign. The Scotch suffered a severe defeat at Nevel's Cross, near Durham, October 17, 1346, their king being taken prisoner and led off to captivity in London. Again there were incursions of devastating armies into Scotland; but it would seem that about this time the English monarch became satisfied, that however much he could harass and impoverish Scotland, its conquest was hopeless. David was liberated on payment of a heavy ransom, after a captivity of eleven years; and he died at Edinburgh in February 1370-1.

David died childless, and the crown, according to previous arrangement, went to Robert, son of Walter, the Lord High Steward of Scotland, and of Marjory, eldest daughter of Robert Bruce; and he ascended the throne under the title of Robert II. From the dignity of Steward, which had been held by his ancestors, Robert adopted a surname, and was the first of the royal line of Stuarts. After this event, the English under Edward III., and his successor, Richard II., made several attacks on Scotland, but with various success. The effort at subjugation was nearly worn out; and finally, towards the close of the fourteenth century, it expired, the Scotch being left to govern their own country without further molestation.

CONCLUSION.

From the death of Alexander III. in 1286, Scotland may be said to have been kept in a state of almost constant war and civil distraction for a century. During this period of disorder the country was greatly impoverished; its agriculture and trade were ruined, its people barbarised, and every tendency to social improvement checked. Many of its towns had been several times burned; and in certain districts, where cultivation had ceased, the people died in great numbers of famine and other miseries. Arts which had flourished previous to this unhappy period were, at its conclusion, lost, and some hundreds of years elapsed before they were generally recovered.* To add to this catalogue of misfortunes, the long defensive war carried on by Scotland against England led to a spirit of enmity between the two nations, which has vanished only in recent times. And all this, as has been seen, arose out of one of the most unjust and unprovoked acts of aggression recorded in history. Yet the struggle which has been described led to lasting benefits. In the present day it would, indeed, be impossible to measure the value of the independence achieved by Wallace, Bruce, and their successors; for to it may be traced the peace and the prosperity

* Wheeled carriages were common in the rural parts of the country in the reign of Alexander III. After going completely out of use, they were reintroduced only in the course of the eighteenth century.

which Scotland now enjoys. With the highest respect for the English character, we feel impressed with the conviction that it is ill suited for allaying the prejudices, or acquiring the friendship, of a conquered people. Straightforward and well-meaning, it will accommodate itself in no respect to the character of the nation into which it is intruded. It has been shown that Edward meditated the entire eradication of Scottish institutions, without the slightest regard to their value, or the veneration in which they were held, and of planting on their ruins the institutions of England. No one can doubt that if he had effected this design, the Scotch, till the present time, would have been giving an unwilling submission to what they considered a foreign power, and taking every means to thwart and overthrow it.

Such a misfortune, not only for Scotland but for England also, was fortunately averted. When the proper time arrived, the two kingdoms were united on terms calculated to preserve the independence and self-respect of each, and to insure mutual assistance and good-will. Speaking of the accession of the house of Stuart to the proud sceptre of the Tudors, a preliminary to the union a century later, a historian (Tytler) observes :-"In this memorable consummation, it was perhaps not unallowable, certainly it was not unnatural, that the lesser kingdom, which now gave a monarch to the greater, should feel some emotions of national pride: for Scotland had defended her liberty against innumerable assaults; had been reduced in the long struggle to the very verge of despair; had been betrayed by more than one of her kings, and by multitudes of her nobles; had been weakened by internal faction, distracted by fanatic rage; but had never been overcome, because never deserted by a brave, though rude and simple people. Looking back to her still remoter annals, it could be said, with perfect historical truth, that this small kingdom had successfully resisted the Roman arms and the terrible invasions of the Danish sea kings; had maintained her freedom within her mountains during the ages of the Saxon Heptarchy, and stemmed the tide of Norman conquest; had shaken off the chains attempted to be fixed upon her by the two great Plantagenets, the first and third Edwards, and at a later period by the tyranny of the Tudors; and if now destined in the legitimate course of royal succession to lose her station as a separate and independent kingdom, she yielded neither to hostile force nor to fraud, but willingly consented to link her future destinies with those of her mighty neighbour : like a bride who, in the dawning prospect of a happy union, is contented to resign, but not to forget, the house and name of her fathers."

The two countries, now inextricably associated, and enjoying the blessings of international tranquillity, where is the Englishman, as well as the Scotsman, who does not sympathise in the struggles of the heroic William Wallace and Robert the Bruce?

HE records of every country abound in remarkable cases of persons being judicially put to death for crimes of which they were entirely innocent. A mistaken resemblance to the actual perpetrator, the fact of having been seen near the spot where the crime was committed, or some other suspicious circumstance, has contributed to bring the guilt and punishment on the wrong party. At one time cases of injustice were also committed by condemning individuals for murder when it was not proved that a murder had been perpetrated. The now well-recognised principle in criminal law, that no murder can be held as having been committed till the body of the deceased has been discovered, has terminated this form of legal oppression. Another, and perhaps one of the most common causes of injustice in trials of this nature, is the prevarication of the party charged with the offence. Finding himself, though innocent, placed in an awkward predicament, he invents a plausible story in his defence, and the deceit being discovered, he is at once presumed to be in every respect guilty. Sir Edward Coke mentions a melancholy case of this kind. A gentleman was charged with having made away with his niece. He was innocent of the crime; but having, in a state of trepidation, put forward another child as the one said to have been destroyed, the trick was discovered, and the poor gentleman was executed a victim of his own disingenuousness.

The following interesting cases of loss of life from too great a leaning on circumstantial or presumptive evidence, we select from various authorities, English and foreign.

WILLIAM SHAW.

IN the year 1721 there resided in Edinburgh an upholsterer named William Shaw, who had a daughter, Catherine Shaw, who lived with him. This young woman, it appears, encouraged the addresses of John Lawson, a jeweller, to whom William Shaw declared the most insuperable objections, alleging him to be a profligate young man, addicted to every kind of dissipation. He was forbidden the house; but the daughter continuing to see him clandestinely, the father, on the discovery, kept her strictly confined.

William Shaw had for some time urged his daughter to receive the addresses of a son of Alexander Robertson, a friend and neighbour; and one evening, being very urgent with her thereon, she peremptorily refused, declaring she preferred death to being young Robertson's wife. The father grew enraged, and the daughter more positive, so that the most passionate expressions arose on both sides, and the words barbarity, cruelty, and death, were frequently pronounced by the daughter. At length he left her, locking the door after him.

The greater number of the buildings in Edinburgh are tall and massive, divided into flats or floors, each inhabited by one or more families, all of whom enter by a stair leading to the respective floors. William Shaw resided in one of these flats, and a partition only divided his dwelling from that of James Morrison, a watch-case maker. This man had indistinctly overheard the conversation and quarrel between Catherine Shaw and her father, and was particularly struck with the repetition of the above words, she having pronounced them loudly and emphatically. For some little time after the father was gone out all was silent, but presently Morrison heard several groans from the daughter. Alarmed, he ran to some of his neighbours under the same roof; these entering Morrison's room, and listening attentively, not only heard the groans, but distinctly heard Catherine Shaw two or three times faintly exclaim, "Cruel father, thou art the cause of my death." Struck with this, they flew to the door of Shaw's apartment; they knocked-no answer was given. The knocking was repeated-still no answer. picions had before arisen against the father; they were now confirmed. A constable was procured and an entrance forced : Catherine was found weltering in her blood, and the fatal knife by her side. She was alive, but speechless; but on questioning her as to owing her death to her father, was just able to make a motion with her head, apparently in the affirmative, and expired. At this critical moment (as represented in the cut at the head of our paper) William Shaw returns, and enters the room: immediately all eyes are on him. Seeing his neighbours and a constable in his apartment, he appears much disordered;

Sus