Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/312

 when husbands win their hay,’ the more poetical date of the famous ballad—Hotspur fell on the Scottish camp by night, with the war-cry of his house, ‘A Percy!’ The Scotch, though surprised, were not unprepared. Their assailants were three to one, but the strength of their position, the too impetuous onslaught of Hotspur, and the personal courage of Douglas gave them the advantage. The earl, according to Froissart, who had conversed with eye-witnesses who fought on both sides, ‘being of great haste and hygh of enterprise, seying his men recule back to recover the place, and to showe knyghtly valour, tooke his axe in both his handes, and entered so into the presse that he made himself waye in such wyse that none durst approche ner hym, and he was so well armed that he bore well such strokes as he received. Thus he went ever forward like a hardie Hector, wylling alone to conquer the felde and to discomfyte his enemies, but at last he was encountered with three spears all at once. The one struke him on the shoulder, the other on the breste, and the stroke glinted down to his belly, and the thyrde struke hyme on the thye, and sore hurte with all three strokes so that he was borne per force to the erthe, and after that he could not be again released.’ The English did not know who it was they had struck down, and Douglas continued till his last breath to encourage his comrades. Sir John St. Clair his cousin having asked him ‘how he did, “Rycht well,” quoth the erle. But thanked be god, there hath been but a few of my ancestors that hath dyed in their beddes. Bot cosyn I require you thinke to revenge me, for I reckon myself bot deed, for my herte feintith oftten tymes. My Cosyn Walter and you I praye you rayse up again my banner which lyeth on the ground, and my Squyre Davye slayn; but, sirs, show neither to friend nor foe what case ye see me in, for if myne enemyes knew it they wolde rejoyse, and our frendes be discomfited.’ The two St. Clairs and Sir James Lyndsay, who was with them, did as they were desired, raised up his banner, and shouted his war-cry of ‘Douglas!’ The remainder of the battle, in which both Hotspur and his brother were taken prisoners, is beyond the life of Douglas, for he was dead before it ended, and what, according to Hume of Godscroft, was a prophecy in the dying man's mouth became a saying that ‘the victory was won by the dead man.’ Douglas was only thirty, according to the probable date of his birth, and having no legitimate issue the estates and earldom of Douglas went by the entail to Archibald the Grim, third earl of Douglas [q. v.], a natural son of the ‘Good’ Sir James Douglas.

The English ballad of ‘Chevy Chase’ and the Scottish of the ‘Battle of Otterburn’ have made the fame of the second Earl of Douglas second only to that of the comrade of Bruce, and the battle in which he fell is celebrated by Froissart as the best fought and most chivalrous engagement of the many he narrates. The Scottish poem is more in accord with history as handed down by the best authorities: for the English makes Percy the original assailant, in fulfilment of a vow, supposes both Percy and Douglas to have fallen, and represents the kings in whose reign the battle was fought as Henry VI and James I, instead of Richard II and Robert II. But the English version from Sydney's praise in his ‘Defence of Poetry,’ and Addison's critique in the ‘Spectator,’ Nos. 70 and 74, has gained a unique place as the representative of the ballads of the border, among the sources of English poetry.

[Froissart, iii. 119, 125. The family histories of the Douglases by Hume and Fraser give additional details. Pinkerton of modern historians gives the best narrative of the border wars and battle of Otterburn. The ballads are in Percy's Reliques, ed. Bohn, i. 2 et seq.]  DOUGLAS, JAMES, seventh Earl of Douglas, ‘the Gross’ or ‘Fat’ (1371?–1443), was brother of Archibald ‘Tyneman,’ the fourth earl [q. v.], and son of Archibald ‘the Grim,’ the third earl [q. v.] He first appears in history as Sir James Douglas of Balvenie, who in 1409 waylaid and killed Sir David Fleming of Cumbernauld on his return from accompanying to the Bass the young prince of Scotland, afterwards James I, when sent by his father, Robert III, out of Scotland, to escape from the plots of Albany and Douglas's brother, Archibald, the fourth earl. During the regency of Albany his name often appears as one of the nobles who were kept on the side of the regent by being allowed to prey upon the customs. He was one of the hostages for his brother the earl when an English prisoner after the battle of Homildon. In the beginning of the reign of James I he sat on the assizes which tried Murdoch, duke of Albany, and his sons on 24 and 25 May 1425. Several charters to him about this time prove the growth of his estates and the favour shown him by that king. One of these, dated 7 March 1426, confirmed his title to the castle and barony of Abercorn, Linlithgow. Another, 18 April 1426, confirmed the grant made to him by his brother Archibald, then deceased, of lands and baronies in the counties of Inverness, Banff, and Aberdeen, and the third in the same year, 11 May 1426, a grant of lands in Elgin, also the gift of his brother. In 1426 and 1427 he acquired estates in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, 