Note 139 — Part III. Appendices. Historical Documents.

The removal of the royal residence from Edinburgh attracted to England Scotch courtiers and men of rank who made fortunes by King James's favour. On the other hand, the sons of the gentry and better classes, "whose trade had been war and battle," were deprived of employment by the general peace with England, and the Scottish nation felt at the same time the distress arising from an excess of population. "To remedy the last evil," says Sir Walter Scott, "the wars on the Continent afforded a resource peculiarly fitted to the genius of the Scots, who have always had a disposition for visiting foreign parts."