Tracts, legal and historical

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of Scotland — also the royal tressure — to his paternal
bearing, as is evident from original seals that are still
preserved in the archives of the family of Mar. What
is even more remarkable, he alone of all his family,
and indeed of the barons and nobility of Scotland, is
not to be found in the lists of those who swore fealty
to Edward I. Thus, in heart he was a true Scot-
tishman, and disdained an act which the heroic
Douglasses, and our first patriots did not scruple to
perform. Nay, in 1297, being imprisoned by Ed-
ward I., because he would not fight against his coun-
try, he would only purchase his freedom by becom-
ing an exile, and accepting service under the English
in their campaigns in France. 1
The author of the Memoirs was induced to make
his energetic appeal from a pious consideration, and
a duty imposed upon him out of regard to the me-
mory of an ancestor — To use his own words, " The
family of Rusky, the honours of whose eldest co-
heiress descended to Napier, flowed from Sir John
Menteith, second son of Walter Earl of Menteith,
who was third son of Walter High Steward of Scot-
land. This lineal ancestor of our philosopher has
been much and groundlessly maligned ; and, to re-
move an idle calumny from the honourable house of
Menteith, as to clear history of a blot and fable.
Who in his reminiscences of nursery lore, is un-
mindful of the Wallace wight, and his false friend
1 Rymer, Vol. ii. p. 782.