Chapter XII: Royal Patronage,
1373-1405
So far as giving was concerned, the times had become very evil. In 1403 we come to the last of many endowments. [32] Sir Hugh Walas, a descendant of the patriot, who was one of the esquires to the King, “for the safety of Robert, King of Scots, of good memory, deceased, and the souls of his ancestors, and for the safety of our Lord the King, and of all his successors, and for the safety of the donator's own soul, and all his ancestors and successors, with consent and assent of William Walas, his brother, gave, for the glory of God, the Virgin, St. Mirin and St. James of Passelet, and for the monks there, the ten merk lands of Thornle, lying within the Barony of Renfru and Sheriffdom of Lanark.” They are fair and fertile lands, yet unencroached upon by the fast-extending town of Paisley. They were the last gift of the faithful to the Convent, [33] and their confirmation by the King his last deed of kindness to the Abbey. He executed this confirmation three years before his death, at Rothesay, for the soul of his illustrious father and mother Elizabeth, and his charter is signed by Robert, Duke of Albany, [34] and James Douglas, his ally. [35] The former exercised a powerful influence over the King in his government of Scotland. He was a designing and unprincipled man, and two years before we find him in attendance on the King, he and the Douglas, who signs along with him, had caused or procured the murder in Falkland Palace, under most horrible circumstances, of the Duke of Rothesay, heir to the throne. The miserable King bitterly lamented the fate of his son, but dared not bring to justice the perpetrators of the crime. Accordingly, we find these ruffians in attendance upon him, and witnessing his charitable deed. There was but one life between Albany and the throne that of the young Earl of Carick, and the King resolved on sending this son to France, avowedly for his education, but in reality to shield him from the intrigues of his unscrupulous uncle. On his way thither he was captured by an English vessel, and thereafter imprisoned in the Tower of London. There is good reason for believing that Albany and the Douglases had to do with this imprisonment of the Prince. They did everything to prevent his release. It was the last drop of bitterness in the cup of King Robert. When the sad news was brought him he was at supper in his Castle of Rothesay. “Touched by grief,” says the old chronicle, “his bodily strength vanished, his countenance paled, and, borne down by sorrow, he refused, all food until at last he breathed forth his spirit to his Creator.” [36] He was buried in the Abbey of Paisley, [37] before the great altar, [38] the last of the Stewarts who were laid there. The Abbot received six stones of wax for performing his obsequies. [39] In his humility, the chronicle we have quoted tells us, the King deemed himself worthy of no such sacred resting-place. One day his Queen Anabella enquired of him wherefore, after the manner of his predecessors on the throne, he should not provide for himself a splendid monument, and fix on a laudatory epitaph to be inscribed upon it. The King, in his sorrow, is said to have thus made reply—“You speak as one of the foolish women, because if you consider well who and what I am ; what in nature but a corrupt seed—what in person but food of worms—what in life but the most miserable of men, you would not care to erect any proud monument. Those men who desire the pleasures of high station in this world may have glittering tombs, but I would desire to be buried in the depths of a dunghill, that my spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord. Bury me, therefore, I pray you, in such a dunghill, and write for me this epitaph—‘Here lies the worst king and most miserable man in the universe!’ ” [40] It is, perhaps, as pathetic an utterance on the vanity of earthly greatness as history records. Curiously enough his desire has found almost literal fulfilment. Robert III. is perhaps the only one of the Scottish Kings who has no monument over his grave. The only record of his place of burial is in the pages of the historian. The rank grass of the neglected and ill-kept churchyard waves over his resting-place, and the dust of the humblest mingles with his royal remains. Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas.
[41]
[32] Reg. de Pas., p. 79.
[33] There are one or two donations immediately prior to this. In 1403, on 5th January, John de Kelsow, son of the Lord of Kelsowland, bestows the land commonly called Langlebank, in the Parish of Largs—Reg. de Pas., p. 244. On May 10, 1399, Robert Portar, of Portarfield, gives an annual rent of sixteen pennies from himself, and confirms a donation by his father of twelve pennies from burgage property in the town of Renfrew.—Reg. de Pas., p. 374.
[34] Patre nostro germano. Reg. de Pas., p. 82.
[35] Domino de Dalkeith.
[36] Fordun by Goodall, Vol. II., p. 440.
[37] Ibid. Fordun gives this curious monastic verse on the subject of the King's death—
Quadringentesimo quinto, mile sibi juncto
A dato Christi anno mortem subit iste
Tertius Robertus, Aprilis quarto Kalendas
In Botha leto cessit, pausat Passleto,
Qui Rex Scotorum vivat in aede polorum.
[38] In Pasleto ante magnum altare tumulatur. Fordun by Goodall, Vol. IL, p. 440.
[39] Chamberlain Rolls, Vol. III., p. 153.
[40] Fordun by Goodall, Vol II., p. 440.
[41] The burying-place before the high altar has been appropriated by the parish gravedigger for the use of his family, by what authority I know not.