Stuart dynasty

6 The Stuart Dynasty.
Marjory his daughter, and other illustrious prisoners then
released from captivity in England. He then, having lost
his first wife, Alice, formed the attachment to Marjory Bruce
which led in 1315 to their marriage, the issue whereof became
entitled to the throne in his mother's right.*
Traditions of Walter and Marjory Stuart's residence at
Paisley live to this day, and in the centre of the semi-ruined
Abbey church may be seen the tomb of the " lass," as James
V. had it, with whom the crown came to the Stuarts. This
Princess was riding between Paisley and Eenfrew on Shrove
Tuesday, 1316, and falling from horseback fractured her
neck, the child, afterwards Robert II., coming into the world
by means of what is known as the Cesarean operation."}" In
the bitterness of this terrible sorrow, Walter Stuart went to
the Border wars, seeking to drown his grief by serving the
national cause. He survived his wife, formerly Marjory
Bruce, ten years, and died in 1326, aged thirty-three.
Sir Walter Scott has rendered apt testimony to the
bravery of Walter the sixth Steward % — a quality which
may be considered hereditary, as the course of this nar-
rative must show.
One of the results of Bannockburn seems to have been the
capture of Berwick by the Scots in 1318, a place of arms
which the English resolutely endeavoured to recapture,
encountering Walter Stuart as governor of the fortress, in
which capacity he displayed great courage, rushing through
the flames of a burning gate, and by his example rallying
the Scots, and saving the place.§
The child of Walter Stuart and Marjory Bruce was named
Bobert, and could not be considered as born to higher
destiny than that of his predecessors in the Stewardship,
because, although his contingent right to the succession had
been proclaimed at Bruce's suggestion shortly before the
national hero expired, yet his son David II., Marjory Bruce's
brother, having a piior claim, had all the world before him.
It could scarcely be expected that neither of this King's
wives — Joanna, Princess of England, and the mysterious
Margaret Logie — should bear children, but such was the
case ; and in consequence of this failure of issue, when David
* Douglas's ' Peerage,' vol. i. pp. 45-46.
f Crawford and Semple's ' History of Renfrewshire,' part i. p. 25.
t ' Tales of a Grandfather,' edition 1880, p. 55.
§ Sir David Dalrymple's (Lord Hailes) ' Annals of Scotland,' third edition,
1819, vol. ii. p. 112.