Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[195] the Earl of Clarendon says: “The Scots put to death several persons of name who had followed the Marquis (of Montrose) and had been taken prisoners, among whom Sir Robert Spotswood was one, a worthy, honest, loyal gentleman, and as wise a man as that nation had at that time (whom the King had made secretary of the State of that Kingdom).”

She once read to me Sir Walter Scott's account of Sir Robert Spotswood's execution; and I well remember how her eyes indignantly flashed, when she came to Sir Robert's calm, but withering reply to the canting Puritan minister, who interrupted his last devotions. With the exception of some dim ancestral traditions of the old border Barons of Spotswood, and more especially of one William Spotswood, a man of great bravery, who accompanied King James IV in his unfortunate expedition into England in 1513, and poured forth his life's blood with his royal master on the fatal field of Flodden, my grandmother's family lore did not extend much beyond Sir Robert's father, Archbishop Spotswood, primate of Scotland, who crowned King Charles I.

To the philosophic student of history, and to him who holds the theory that both mental and physical characteristics are frequently hereditary for many generations, and that somtimes after the lapse of centuries there is an almost facsimile reproduction of some remote ancestor, this Brucean descent of General Lee will be of interest. I shall, therefore, present a genealogical chain connecting General Lee to Duncan, King of Scotland, not a link of which is doubtful, for each is proved by documentary evidence.

It is noticeable that many of the traits of character, such as military talents, pertinacity of purpose, loyalty of soul, and unselfish devotion to native land, so fully developed in General Lee, are seen, more or less distinctly marked, in all his ancestors of whom history has given us a picture.

I.--Buchanan in his History of Scotland, tells us that Duncan was of a gentle disposition, and gave early indications of his great popularity. In the most difficult times, when he had been appointed Governor of Cumberland by his grandfather, Malcolm II, of Scotland, and, by reason of the Danish troops spread everywhere, he could not obtain access to the King of England, of whom he held his Earldom in fief, yet he faithfully supported the English cause, until the whole of that kingdom being subdued, Canute undertook an expedition against him, and then at last he swore fealty to the Danes upon the same conditions as he had formerly done homage to the English. He was also popular in this that he administered justice with the greatest