It merely shows us that our countrymen of that day were of those who “knew their rights, and, knowing, dared maintain them;” and was but a demonstration on a humbler, and, if you will, more sordid shape, of the same spirit that had swept away the Anglo-Norman invaders. The very first act which their chronicler records concerning his knightly friends, after he has exhausted his wrath against the hard and mercenary Scot, is thoroughly suggestive. Some of the knights tried other fields of adventure, “but the greater number returned to France, and were so poor they knew not how to remount themselves, especially those from Burgundy, Champagne, Bar, and Lorraine, _who seized the labouring horses wherever they found them in the fields_,” so impatient were they to regain their freedom of action. So ended this affair, with the aspect of evil auspices for the alliance. The adventurers returned “cursing Scotland, and the hour they had set foot there. They said they had never suffered so much in any expedition, and wished the King of France would make a truce with the English for two or three years, and then march to Scotland and utterly destroy it; for never had they seen such wicked people, nor such ignorant hypocrites and traitors.” But the impulsive denunciation of the disappointed adventurers was signally obliterated in the history of the next half-century. Ere many more years had passed over them, that day of awful trial was coming when France had to lean on the strong arm of her early ally; and, in fact, some of the denouncers lived to see adventurers from the sordid land of their contempt and hatred commanding the armies of France, and owning her broad lordships. It was, in fact, just after the return of Vienne’s expedition, that the remarkable absorption of Scotsmen into the aristocracy of France, referred to in our preceding paper, began to set in. This episode of the French expedition to Scotland, small though its place is in the annals of Europe, yet merits the consideration of the thoughtful historian, in affording a significant example of the real causes of the misery and degradation of France at that time, and the wonderful victories of the English kings. Chivalry, courage, the love of enterprise, high spirit in all forms, abounded to superfluity among the knightly orders, but received no solid support from below. The mounted steel-clad knights of the period, in the highest physical condition, afraid of nothing on the earth or beyond it, and burning for triumph and fame, could perform miraculous feats of strength and daring; but all passed off in wasted effort and vain rivalry, when there was wanting the bold peasantry, who, with their buff jerkins, and their bills and bows, or short Scottish spears, were the real force by which realms were held or gained.