Search for Wallace in The Scotch-Irish
Source Information: Hanna, Charles A. The Scotch-Irish: The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America Vol.1 New York, NY: G. P. Putnam, 1902.
CHAPTER X SCOTTISH ACHIEVEMENT
Do we speak of war, a thousand Scotch names rise above all the heroes: Wallace at Stirling; Bruce,at Bannockburn; Wolfe's Scottish soldiers at the Heights of Abraham; Forbes at Fort Duquesne; Stark at Bennington; Campbell at King's Mountain; Scott at Lundy s Lane; Perry on Lake Erie; Grant at Appomattox. Were not Wellington and Napier Scotch?
James I. was anxious to place a garrison there that would be able not only to shut the door, but to keep it shut, in the face of his French or Spanish enemies; and, accordingly, when an attempt was made at the Revolution to force the door, the garrison was there--the advanced outpost of English power--to shut it in the face of the planter's grandson, and so to save the liberties of England at the most critical moment in its history. One may see (as Hugh Miller did) in the indomitable firmness of the besieged at Deror the spirit of their ancestors under Wallace and Bruce, and recognize in the gallant exploits of the Enniskillen men under Gustavus Hamilton, routing two of the forces despatched to attack them, and compelling a third to retire, a repetition of the thrice-fought and thrice-won battle of Roslin ....
CHAPTER XI THE TUDOR-STUART CHURCH RESPONSIBLE FOR EARLY AMERICAN ANIMOSITY TO ENGLAND
But in a great body of the people outside of New England the causes were deeper and of more ancient origin. Their enmity to England and the English government dated far back from the beginning of history. It was not unlike the feeling of the Roman Catholic Irish in America toward England at the present day. The Scots were the hereditary foes of the English kings. Their battles with the English had made of the Scottish Lowlands one vast armed camp and battle-field during the larger part of a period of five centuries after the year 1000.13 Their forbears were "Scots who had wi' Wallace bled." They were children of the men who had fought the English at Stirling Bridge, at Bannockburn, and "on Flodden's dark field." Their fathers also had perished in countless numbers before the malignant fury of the Anglican Establishment. For worshipping God as their consciences dictated they had been hunted like wild beasts by the merciless dragoons of the bishops;
CHAPTER XII WHO ARE THE SCOTCH-IRISH?
The two counties which have been most thoroughly transformed by this emigration are the two which are nearest Scotland, and were the first opened up for emigrants. These two have been completely altered in nationality and religion. They have become British, and in the main, certainly Scottish. Perhaps no better proof can be given than the family names of the inhabitants. Some years ago, a patient local antiquary took the voters' list of county Down "of those rated above L12 for poor-rates," and analyzed it carefully. There were 10,028 names on the list, and these fairly represented the whole proper names of the county. He found that the following names occurred oftenest, and arranged them in order of their frequency: Smith, Martin, M'Kie, Moore, Brown, Thompson, Patterson, Johnson, Stewart, Wilson, Graham, Campbell, Robinson, Bell, Hamilton, Morrow, Gibson, Boyd, Smith, Martin, M'Kie, Moore, Brown, Thompson, Patterson, Johnson, Stewart, Wilson, Graham, Campbell, Robinson, Bell, Hamilton, Morrow, Gibson, Boyd, Wallace, and Magee. Smith, Moore, Boyd, Johnson, M'Millan, Brown, Bell, Campbell, M'Neill, Crawford, M'Alister, Hunter, Macaulay, Robinson, Wallace, Millar, Kennedy, and Hill. Ayrshire "Muir," and that the Annandale "Johnstones" have been merged by the writer in the English "Johnsons." One other point is very striking--that the great Ulster name of O'Neill is wanting, and also the Antrim "Macdonnel." . . . Another strong proof of the Scottish blood of the Ulstermen may be found by taking the annual reports presented to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, held in June, 1887. Here are the names of the men, lay and clerical, who sign these reports, the names being taken as they occur: J. W. Whigham, Jackson Smith, Hamilton Magee, Thomas Armstrong, William Park, J. M. Rodgers, David Wilson, George Macfarland, Thomas Lyle, W. Rogers, J. B. Wylie, W. Young, E. F. Simpson, Alexander Turnbull, John Malcolm, John H. Orr. Probably the reports of our three Scottish churches taken together could not produce so large an average of Scottish surnames.-- The Scot in Ulster, Edinburgh, 1888, pp. 103-105.
CHAPTER XIII SCOTLAND OF TO-DAY
In this district are to be found the chief evidences in Scotland of the birth or residence of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Dumbartonshire is the reputed birthplace of St. Patrick, Ireland's teacher and patron saint. Elderslie, in Renfrewshire, is said to have been the birthplace of Scotland's national hero, William Wallace. Robert Bruce also, son of Marjorie, Countess of Carrick and daughter of Nigel or Niall (who was himself the Celtic Earl of Carrick and grandson of Gilbert, son of Fergus, Lord of Galloway), was, according to popular belief, born at his mother's castle of Turnberry, in Ayrshire. The seat of the High Stewards of Scotland, ancestors of the royal family of the Stuarts, was in Renfrewshire. The paternal grandfather of William Ewart Gladstone was born in Lanarkshire. John Knox's father is said to have belonged to the Knox family of Renfrew-shire. Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire. The sect called the "Lollards," who were the earliest Protestant reformers in Scotland, appear first in Scottish history as coming from Kyle in Ayrshire, the same district which afterwards furnished a large part of the leaders and armies of the Reformation. The Covenanters and their armies of the seventeenth century were mainly from the same part of the kingdom. Glasgow, the greatest manufacturing city of Europe, is situated in the heart of this district.
CHAPTER XX FROM MALCOLM CANMORE TO KING DAVID
When David I., who married an English countess who had numerous vassals, ascended the throne in 1124, he is said to have been followed at successive periods, by no fewer than a thousand Anglo-Normans. During the reign of this monarch, Hugh de Morville, amongst others, came to Scotland, and, besides being appointed High Constable, was endowed with vast grants of land. He possessed the greater part of Cuninghame, and, under his auspices, a number of families, who afterwards rose to high feudal distinction, were settled in that district. The Loudoun family, who assumed the name of the lands as their patronymic, were Anglo-Normans. So were the progenitors of the Cuninghames. The Rosses were also vassals of Hugh de Morville. Godfrey de Ros acquired the lands of Stewarton from Richard de Morville. Stephen, the son of Richard, obtained lands in Cuninghame, which he called Stephen's-tun (Stephenston of the present day). The Lock-harts of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire are of Anglo-Norman descent. Simond, the son of Malcolm, who settled in Lanarkshire, held lands under the Stewart family in Kyle, which he called Syming-tun, now Symington. The Colvilles, who possessed Ochiltree for some time, were from England. The Mont-gomeries of Eaglesham, and subsequently of Eglintoun, were Norman, and vassals of Walter the High Steward, who obtained the greater part of Ren-frewshire. A brother of Walter is conjectured, upon good grounds, to have been the ancestor of the Boyds. The Stewarts were themselves Anglo-Nor-mans, as were also the Bruces of Annandale and Carrick. The Wallaces of Kyle are supposed to have been of Norman descent [very improbable], from one Eimerus Galleius, whose name appears as a witness to the charter of the Abbey of Kelso, founded by David I. That the progenitors of the Hero of Scotland came from England is further held to be countenanced by the fact that there existed in London, in the thirteenth century, certain persons of the name of Waleis; but none of our historians or genealogists have been able to trace the slightest family connection between them; neither is it known at what period, if Norman or English, they settled in Scotland. The first of the name on record is Richard Walense, who witnesses a charter to the monks of Paisley, by Walter the High Steward, before the year 1174. The name came to be afterwards softened to Waleys or Wallace. In the absence of direct proof to the contrary, it is not unreasonable to conjecture that the Wallaces were native Scots. Some consider them to have been Welsh, apparently without reference to the fact that the Alcluydensians are often confounded in history by the terms British and Welsh. Long after the
Alcluyd kingdom had been destroyed, the inhabitants -- the descendants of the Damnii--were known by the appellation of Walenses. It is therefore probable that the ancestors of Wallace adopted the patronymic of Walense, in the same way that Inglis is known to have been assumed from English, or Fleming from the Flemings. This is strongly countenanced by the fact that the name of the family was originally Walens. The coincidence is at all events curious, and not without interest. The property of Richard Walens may have been called Richardtun, in accordance with the prevailing Saxon custom of the time--not because he was himself of English extraction. The Flemings, who were all foreigners, came to be so numerous in Scotland that they were privileged to be governed by their own laws. The list of lowland clans, amounting in all to thirty-nine, if it is authentic, which is very doubtful, as given in the recently published MS. of Bishop Leslie, who wrote during the reign of Queen Mary, shows that the greater number were of Saxon or Norman extraction. The following is the list: Armstrong, Barclay, Brodie, Bruce, Colquhoun, Comyn, Cuninghame, Cranstoun, Crawford, Douglas, Drummond, Dunbar, Dundas, Erskine, Forbes, Gordon, Graham, Hamilton, Hay, Home, Johnstone, Kerr, Lauder, Leslie, Lindsay, Maxwell, Montgomerie, Murray, Ogilvie, Oliphant, Ramsay, Rose, Ruthven, Scott, Seton, Sinclair, Urquhart, Wallace, Wemyss.
CHAPTER XXI WILLIAM THE LION
It was the charter and feudal tenure which gradually converted the native proprietary of Scotia into "lairds of that ilk," henceforth undistinguishable amongst the general feudal baronage. At the battle of the Standard, Earl Malise of Strathern was the champion of the anti-feudal combatants. Forty years later his grandson, Gilbert, was as thoroughly a feudal baron as the latest Norman settler, granting charters sealed with the device of a mounted knight in armor, and with a novelty yet more unusual, a shield emblazoned with arms. It is scarcely possible to doubt that a similar change was in progress in many other parts of the kingdom besides Strathern. Not only in Scotland, but throughout Europe the shifting patronymic marks the prevalence of the early benefice, when all who claimed a provision in right of their birth and descent were known by the name of their immediate ancestors, the vier anen giving the title to the birthright which was subsequently founded on the charter. It was not until the benefice became the feud, after the temporary and renewable provision became the inalienable and hereditary property, that it conferred a more or less permanent name upon its owner, all early surnames being invariably "of that ilk "-- the proprietor being named from his property. At the opening of the twelfth century, or at any rate at the close of the eleventh, the territorial surname was unknown throughout Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the Tweed; and the same might also be said of England. Very few names, indeed, of this description were brought into England by the followers of the Conqueror,--none certainly existed before their arrival,--and wherever a Norman name is found that does not occur in Domesday, it may be safely assumed that, however old its standing, it represents a later emigrant from the Continental duchy rather than one of the combatants at Hastings. The descendants of the latter generally adopted the names of those properties in England which they had won with the sword. Many a Norman name penetrated into Scotland, the majority territorial, whether derived from English or Norman fiefs, which would seem to place their arrival in the reigns of David and William. Others again settled in Scotland before they had acquired a name of this description, the race of Flahald assuming a name from their hereditary office of steward--for the son of Walter Fitz Alan was known as Alan Fitz Walter-- whilst the appellation of Masculus, la Male, attached to a family of great importance in early times, seems to have been perpetuated with the old broad pronunciation under the form of Maule. The race often gave the name; Fleming and Inglis would have appeared in the charters as Flandrensis and Anglicus; the first ancestor of the great border clan of Scot must have stood out amongst the Saxons of the Lothians as Scotus, the Gael; whilst the name of Walensis, or le Waleys, given to the progenitors of Wallace, marks the forefathers of the great Scottish champion to have been Cumbro-Britons of Strathclyde. From the frequent occurrence of an addition, such as Flandrensis, to the name of the first recipient of a charter, it may be assumed, that in its absence, and where no district
CHAPTER XXIII WALLACE AND BRUCE
Not long afterwards, the peace of the newly established English dependency was disturbed by rumors of disorders in the west. It was said that one William Wallace, a native of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde,3 had there slain the sheriff of Lanark, a high officer of the English crown. Having committed some offence for which he became an object of suspicion to the English authorities, according to the legendary accounts, the sheriff of Lanark attacked his place of abode and killed his wife or mistress. Wallace is said to have retaliated by killing the sheriff, and thus to have become an outlaw. Associating with himself some friends of kindred spirit, he soon gave the English authorities more abundant cause for believing him to be a man of desperate character. Having received numerous accessions to his little band of warriors, and aided by the presence and support of a brave knight named Sir William Douglas, Wallace, in May, 1297, planned to capture the English High Justiciary, who was then holding his court at Scone (Perth). That official saved himself from being taken by a hurried departure from the country. Thereupon, a season of war and anarchy ensued in western Scotland. Armed bands ravaged the country, killing and. driving out the English officials; and, where there was show of success, storming and destroying their abodes. The insurrection seems to have arisen mainly in the western Lowlands, in that district comprising Galloway and Strathclyde, which had ever been the most turbulent and troublesome part of the kingdom south of the Highlands. Toward Galloway the most of the rebellious bands accordingly made their way. Many of the Scottish barons also
In William Wallace, however, his countrymen found the incarnation of all those noble and heroic traits apotheosized in the reputed character of the mythical Tell. Scorning submission to the English, resolutely determined to free his country from Edward's grasp, and perhaps lacking only the opportunity to mete out fitting punishment to those barons who had deserted their nation's cause, Wallace did not for a moment relax his efforts to make the revolution general, nor cease in his hostile operations against the invaders. Notwithstanding the defection of the barons, his army continued daily to increase in strength and numbers. He laid siege to the castle of Dundee. While there, he received intelligence of the English army's movement toward Stirling. Hastening with all his forces to the passage of the Forth, he there posted his troops on the north bank of the river and prepared to intercept the progress of the enemy. On September 12, 1297, the English approached, fifty thousand strong,6 and attempted to cross over on the long, narrow bridge which at that place spanned the channel. They were led by Hugh de Cressingham, King Edward's Treasurer for Scotland. A considerable body, consisting of about half the English force, soon passed the bridge, and then made ready to form on the other side. Wallace, awaiting this opportunity, instantly pounced down upon them with the Scots, cut off their communication with the other side, and at once charged on the divided body with all his forces. Taking them at such a disadvantage, his onslaught was irresistible and proved sufficient to carry the day. Cressingham was slain; his troops were mown down like blades of grass; and such as escaped death by the sword were pushed into the river and drowned. A panic seized the remainder of the English soldiers on the south bank of the river. They burned the bridge, abandoned their baggage, fled in terror to Berwick, hastened on into England, and Scotland was once more free.