ALEXANDER THE CRUSADER.

AH then, St. Hubert, who so pleased as me,
Wandering at will beneath thy forest tree;
Or where the antlered herds at early dawn,
Graze the green wealth of many a flowery lawn;
Or listening, in thy chapel, legends old,
Of the brave knight, and of the spurs of gold,
By the grey Sacristan in mystery told!

Parnell.

HE history of the Abbey of Paisley is so completely

identified in its first centuries with that of the early Stewards, that we shall most truly follow the story of the old religious house through the fortunes of the family to whom it owed its foundation.

In 1246 there succeeded to the Stewartry, "Alexander the son of Walter." Alexander was then thirty-two years of age, being one year older than St. Louis of France, with whose adventures the future of the Steward's life is closely linked.

Of this saintly Louis of France, whom not only the decree of the pope Boniface Eighth, but the voice of

And

Christian Europe, canonized, with one accord, De Joinville and Matthew Paris have left us admiring records. Guizot, for many more readers than the ancient chronicles can reach, has outlined a happy picture of this same good heroic king.

His refined and delicate features, his brilliant complexion, his long fair hair, the personal beauty, the graceful presence of the king, perfectly typify that ideal character which gained wondering, admiring reverence even from the sons of the desert.

"Where gat he such rich sweetness for his brow?—
King, yet the crown upon his golden hair
Dimmed and outshone by some exceeding light-

An aureole shedding its Diviner gift

Upon Heaven's favourite son, Louis of France;
Prince among princes, yet a very dew

Of graciousness and pity on his lips!"

And in the chaste prose of Guizot, his latest biographer, a still fonder tribute is paid to this mediaval king.

"Born to a throne, a powerful monarch, a valiant soldier, and a noble knight, the object of devoted attachment to those about his person, and of admiring respect to those further removed from him, whether friends or enemies, these honours and pleasures failed either to dazzle or intoxicate him. They held the first place neither in his thoughts nor his actions. Before all things, and above all things, he desired to be, and was, a Christian,—a true Christian, guided and governed by the determination to keep the faith, and fulfil the law of Christianity. If he had been born in the lowest worldly estate; or if he had occupied a position in which the claims of religion would

have been most imperative; if he had been poor, obscure, a priest, a monk, or a hermit, he could not have been more constantly and passionately pre-occupied with the desire to live as Christ's faithful servant."

that those around "One of the ladies

Louis had been very ill; so ill, him thought he had breathed his last. watching him," says Joinville, "wished to cover his face, saying he was dead; but another lady on the opposite side of the bed would not allow it, for she said that the soul had not yet left the body. The king heard these ladies speaking, and by the grace of our Lord, he began to breathe again; he stretched out his arms and legs, and said, in a voice as hollow as the grave, 'The Dayspring from on high hath visited me; and, by the grace of God, recalled me from the dead."

And he sent that same hour for the bishops of Paris and Meaux, to affix to his weak shoulder the Cross, the sign of the Crusade. Blanche and Margaret, queen-mother and queen-consort, kneeling, implored him to wait, to take no such vow upon him in the midst of his feebleness and pain. They were devout queens, both; but the king was their dearest. "I will touch no food," said the king, "until I have received the Cross." And deeply moved he received it, kissed it, and laid it down very gently on his breast.

Three years elapsed before he could fulfil this vow. At length (his kingdom set in order, and Blanche, the queenmother, appointed Regent of France), on a June day, 1248, Louis went to St. Dennis, to take the oriflamme, and the pilgrim's wallet and staff. And in August of the same year, he set sail for Cyprus, the appointed rendezvous of

Crusaders, who hastened from all parts to join his standard. Among this crowd of crusaders, Alexander the Steward of Scotland emerges for the first time into a shadowy light.

The date is but two years later than that of his father's death, in which same year Alexander Second had concluded the truce of York.

King Alexander was wise and gentle and brave, no unworthy centemporary of the good monarch of France. "A devout, upright, and courteous person," says the oftquoted Matthew Paris, "justly beloved by all the English nation not less than by his own subjects." And there was peace in this year. No unsheathing of swords, north or south of the Tweed; no border forays to urge on, or to suppress; no flutter of lawless Highland tartan to call for a muster of Lowland lieges on the marches of Stirling or Argyle.

To the barons who loved war, and could find none at home, this Crusade proclaimed by St. Louis had a perfectly native charm. St. Louis himself recognised this, the worldly side of the Crusade, when his vassal Counts of Champagne and Brittany set earlier sail for Palestine.

And the Steward, having no monastic monastic vocation, yet the family traditions to maintain, not only for lack of nearer battle-fields, but because of the weird laid upon him, set his face, with military Europe, towards the Jerusalem tomb. In this compromise (altogether not of the nature of a compromise, for that is frequently a double despoiler, while this act of the Steward, on the contrary, unites all the prestige, glory, and enthusiasm of a great passion, and the strange, incongruous, intertwisted laurels to be gathered

name

from religion and war) he shall bear his own truthfully and bravely, as the Alnas and Walters of his race had done before him.

Alexander, possibly, with a certain bitterness and pride, may remember the life-disappointment of the good knight Walter, his father. That " That "for ever" in the new charter to the Gilbertine monks and nuns, may taunt him, as it did not taunt the devout founder who gave of his best to God, and perhaps took back, as from God's hand, meekly and patiently the rejected gift; and so possessed his soul more quietly, and received upon his spirit all the benign dews, without the pride of sacrifice.

But these dews are not for the son. The fair new-built cloisters of Dalmulin are deserted on the sea-shore. Already no psalm is chanted there, nor any mass said; the sea mews from Ailsa Craig flap their white wings; and the owlets cry at night, securely; and the thistle-down, wafted from the near sandy knolls, has blossomed into thorn and purple in the gardens of the monks and nuns. The Steward cannot ride south, of a morning, from his castle of Dundonald, but this deserted Dalmulin taunts him through his father's memory. No such gift of land shall he give; but the strength of his gauntleted hand, which cannot be flung back unregardfully by cowled monk or veiled nun.

So when Louis Ninth of France proclaims his first Crusade, and knights from all Christendom flock to join his standard, Alexander, the Lord High Steward, assumes the cross with the rest, and sets his house in order, as King Louis did his kingdom of France. His Castle of Dundonald claims his care; his sandy lordship of Kyle;