Chapter 109

211. Britanus. “Breton, whom our chroniclers call Barton,” says Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Life of Henry VIII, 1649, p. 15.

212. Another anticipation. Sir Thomas Howard became admiral only after his brother Edward’s death, in 1513. The expedition of the Howards against Barton appears to have been a private one, though with the consent of the king.

213. The commissioners met, and “the wrongs done unto Scotland many ways, specially of the slaughter of Andrew Barton and taking of his ships, were conferred,” but the commissioners of England would not consent to make any redress or restitution till after a certain date when they expected to know the issue of their king’s invasion of France. Hereupon a herald was sent to King Henry in France, with a letter from King James, rehearsing the great wrongs and unkindnesses done to himself and his lieges, and among these the slaughter of Andrew Barton by Henry’s own command, though he had done no offence to him or his lieges; and no satisfaction being obtained, the herald, according to his instructions, “denounced war to the king of England,” August, 1513. (Lesley, pp. 87–91.)

214.B633, “Lord Howard shall Earl Bury hight.” Admiral Thomas Howard, for his good service at Flodden and elsewhere, was created Earl of Surrey in 1514. Bury is, one would suppose, a corruption of Surrey, and if so, Surrey may have been the reading of earlier copies, and perhaps Thomas again, instead of Charles.

215. By reading midwinter inA173this difficulty would be removed.

216. These beams, Henry Hunt intimates in 32, would be dangerous to boarders, which is conceivable should they chance to hit the right heads; but they are evidently meant to be dropped on the adversary’s vessel, and this by a process which is not distinctly described, and was, I fear, not perfectly grasped by the minstrel. The veriest landsman must think that a magazine of heavy timbers stowed in either castle (there is an upper and a lower in the pictures of Henry VII’s Great Harry and of Henry VIII’s Grace de Dieu, and the lower is well up the mast) would not be favorable to sailing; but this is a minor difficulty. Stones and fire-balls were sometimes thrown from the topcastle, which, properly, should be a stage at the very tip of the mast, as we find it in old prints: see Nicolas’s History of the Royal Navy, II, 170. Stones and iron bars thrown from the high decks of Spanish ships did much harm to the English in a fight in 1372: Froissart, Buchon, V, 276. An intelligible way of operating the ancient “dolphins,” heavy masses of metal dropped from the end of a yard, is suggested in Graser, De veterum re navali, 1864, p. 82 f.

217. A better, but defective, copy is in the second volume of Chetham Miscellanies, edited by Dr J. Robson, 1855.

218. Harleian MS. No 3526, date of about 1636; a printed copy of 1664, from which the poem was edited by Weber, Edinburgh, 1808; a printed copy of 1755–62, from a different source, excellently edited by Charles A. Federer, Manchester, 1884. See further this last, pp. 134–37.

219. Articles of the bataill betwix the Kinge of Scottes and the Erle of Surrey in Brankstone Feld, the 9 day of September: State Papers, vol. iv, King Henry the Eighth, Part iv, p. 2, 1836.

220. Hall’s Chronicle, p. 564.

221. Who are celebrated also in three other pieces, ‘Scottish Field,’ ‘Bosworth Field,’ and ‘Lady Bessie:’ Percy MS., Hales and Furnivall, I, 212, III, 235, 321.

222. “He never loved thee, for thy uncle [that is, Sir William Stanley] slew his father” [the Duke of Norfolk]; which, however, is not true.

223. Sir Ralph Egerton is made marshal in st. 91; but this Rowland is really Ralph over again. Ralph was knighted at Tournay, and was granted the manor of Ridley in February of the next year.

224. “Where they lay a long time, and left the town as they found it:” Hall, p. 861.

225. .sp 1‘Where got thou these targits, Jony,That hings so low down by thy knee?’‘I got them, cukel king, in the field,Where thow and thy men durst not come see.’

225. .sp 1

‘Where got thou these targits, Jony,That hings so low down by thy knee?’‘I got them, cukel king, in the field,Where thow and thy men durst not come see.’

‘Where got thou these targits, Jony,

That hings so low down by thy knee?’

‘I got them, cukel king, in the field,

Where thow and thy men durst not come see.’

226. This copy I have in MS. and have not noted, neither can I remember, how I came by it, but it is probably a transcript from recent print. It diverges from the ordinary text more than any that I have seen. After 17 comes this stanza (cf. ‘Robin Hood rescuing Three Squires,’ No 140,B29):They took the gallows frae the slack,An there they set it on a plain,An there they hanged Johnnie Armstrong,Wi fifty of his warlike men.18–20, 23 are wanting. A “pretty little boy,” in what corresponds to 21, 22, says, ‘Johnnie Armstrong you’ll never see,’ and the lady ends the ballad with:If that be true, my pretty little boy,Aye the news you tell to me,You’ll be the heir to a’my lands,You an your young son after thee.

They took the gallows frae the slack,An there they set it on a plain,An there they hanged Johnnie Armstrong,Wi fifty of his warlike men.

They took the gallows frae the slack,

An there they set it on a plain,

An there they hanged Johnnie Armstrong,

Wi fifty of his warlike men.

18–20, 23 are wanting. A “pretty little boy,” in what corresponds to 21, 22, says, ‘Johnnie Armstrong you’ll never see,’ and the lady ends the ballad with:

If that be true, my pretty little boy,Aye the news you tell to me,You’ll be the heir to a’my lands,You an your young son after thee.

If that be true, my pretty little boy,

Aye the news you tell to me,

You’ll be the heir to a’my lands,

You an your young son after thee.

227. A tract on the extreme western border, beginning between the mouths of the Sark and Esk and stretching north and east eight miles, with a greatest breadth of four miles. The particulars of the boundaries are given from an old roll in Nicolson and Burn’s Westmorland and Cumberland, I, xvi, and as follows by Mr T. J. Carlyle, The Debateable Land, Dumfries, 1868, p. 1: “bounded on the west by the Sark and Pingleburn, on the north by the Irvine burn, Tarras, and Reygill, on the east by the Mereburn, Liddal, and Esk, and on the south by the Solway Frith.” The land was parted between England and Scotland in 1552, with no great gain to good order for the half century succeeding.

228. It has been maintained that there was a Gilnockie tower on the eastern side of the Esk, a very little lower than the Hollows tower. “We can also inform our readers that Giltknock Hall was situate on a small rocky island on the river Esk below the Langholm, the remains of which are to be seen:” Crito in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, March 8, 1773. “Many vestiges of strongholds can be traced within the parish, although there is only one, near the new bridge already described, that makes an appearance at this point, its walls being yet entire:” Statistical Account of Canoby, Sinclair, XIV, 420.Sir John Sinclair, 1795, says, in a note to this last passage, that the spot of ground at the east end of “the new bridge” is, “indeed, called to this day, Gill-knocky, but it does not exhibit the smallest vestige of mason-work.” Mr. T. J. Carlyle, The Debateable Land, p. 17, gives us to understand that the foundations of the tower were excavated and removed when the bridge was built; but this does not appear to be convincingly made out.

Sir John Sinclair, 1795, says, in a note to this last passage, that the spot of ground at the east end of “the new bridge” is, “indeed, called to this day, Gill-knocky, but it does not exhibit the smallest vestige of mason-work.” Mr. T. J. Carlyle, The Debateable Land, p. 17, gives us to understand that the foundations of the tower were excavated and removed when the bridge was built; but this does not appear to be convincingly made out.

229. The History of Liddesdale, Eskdale, Ewesdale, Wauchopedale, and The Debateable Land, by Robert Bruce Armstrong, 1883, pp 177 f, 227 f, 245, 259 f; Appendix, pp. xxvi, xxxi.

230. The Cronicles of Scotland, etc., edited by J. G. Dalyell, 1814, II, 341 ff. (partially modernized, for more comfortable reading).

231. Wherein, if this be true, John differed much from Sym.

232. Rerum Scoticarum Historia, 1582, fol. 163 b, 164.

233. History of Scotland, Bannatyne Club, 1830, p. 143.

234. Anderson’s History, MS., Advocates Library, I, fol. 153 f. Anderson flourished about 1618–35. He gives the year both as 1527 and 1528. Cited by Armstrong, History of Liddesdale, etc., p. 274 f. For what immediately follows, Armstrong, pp. 273, 279.

235. A place two miles north of Mosspaul, on the road from Langholm to Hawick.

236. Scott remarks that the “common people of the high parts of Teviotdale, Liddesdale, and the country adjacent, hold the memory of Johnie Armstrong in very high respect.” “They affirm, also,” he adds, “that one of his attendants broke through the king’s guard, and carried to Gilnockie Tower the news of the bloody catastrophe:” but that is in the English ballad,B20.

237. Dr Hill Burton has made a slight slip here, III, 146, ed. 1863; compare Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, I, 154.

238. He lived in the West March, if that helps to an explanation.

239. Found also in one copy of Hugh the Græme, Buchan’s MSS, I, 63, st. 15. Borrowed by Sir Walter Scott in The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I, ix.

240. See many cases in Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 210 f, to which may be added: Milà, Romancerillo, No 243, pp. 219–21; Briz, II, 222; Amador de los Rios, Historia de la Lit. Esp., VII, 449; El Folk-Lore Andaluz, 1882, pp. 41, 77; Almeida-Garrett, II, 56, note; Nigra, C. P. del Piemonte, No I, E-I, N, O; ‘Le serpent vert,’ Poésies p. de la France, MS., III, fol. 126, 508, now printed by Rolland, III, 10; Kolberg, Pieśni ludu polskiego, No 18, p. 208; Luzel, I, 81, II, 357, 515; Brewer, Dictionary of Miracles, pp. 205, 355 f.; Gaidoz, and others, Mélusine, IV, 228 ff., 272 ff., 298, 323 f., 405.

241. Grundtvig, No 84, ‘Hustru og Mands Moder,’ is not so good a case, though a boy just born announces that he will revenge his mother, because the boy is born nine years old; II, 412,D30,E18. This again in Kristensen, I, 202 f, No 74,B12,C11, and II, 113 ff, No 35,A18,B14,C11. The stanza cited by Dr Prior, I, 37, from ‘Hammen von Reystett,’ Wunderhorn, 1808, II, 179, is hardly to the purpose.

242. Jamieson cites the first two verses in The Scots Magazine, October, 1803, and says: Of this affecting composition I have two copies, both imperfect, but they will make a pretty good and consistent whole between them.

243. Burnet; Rapin-Thoyras, 1724, V, 401.

244. W. Patten, The Expedicion into Scotlande, etc., reprinted in Dalyell’s Fragments of Scottish History, pp. 51, 66.

245. Deceivin, Abbey, are of course savin misunderstood. One of the reciters ofD(42) gave ‘saving.’

246. History of the Reformation, Knox’s Works, ed. Laing, II, 415 f. Knox continues: “But yet was not the court purged of whores and whoredom, which was the fountain of such enormities; for it was well known that shame hasted marriage betwix John Semple, called the Dancer, and Mary Livingston, surnamed the Lusty. What bruit the Maries and the rest of the dancers of the court had, the ballads of that age did witness, which we for modesty’s sake omit.” This Mary Livingston is one of the Four Marys, but, as already said, is mentioned in versionFonly of our ballad.

247. “In this set of the ballad” [D], says Motherwell, “from its direct allusion to the use of the savin tree, a clue is perhaps afforded for tracing how the poor mediciner mentioned by Knox should be implicated in the crime of Mary Hamilton.” Maidment goes further: “The reference to the use of the savin tree in Motherwell induces a strong suspicion that the lover was a mediciner.” Maidment should have remembered that there is a popular pharmacopœia quite independent of the professional. No apothecary prescribes in ‘Tam Lin.’

248. In an extract from Gordon’s History of Peter the Great, Aberdeen, 1755, II, 308 f.

249. ‘Maid-of-Honor Hamilton,’ by M. I. Semefsky, in Slovo i Dyelo (Word and Deed), 1885, St Petersburg, 3d edition, p. 187. I am indebted to Professor Vinogradof, of the University of Moscow, for pointing out this paper, and to Miss Isabel Florence Hapgood for a summary of its contents.

250. The parentage of these was not ascertained. Some accounts make Mary Hamilton to have been Peter’s mistress: for example [J. B. Schérer’s], Anecdotes intéressantes et secrètes de la cour de Russie, London, 1792, II, 272 ff. See also Mélanges de Littérature, etc., par François-Louis, comte d’Escherny, Paris, 1811, I, 7 f. (The white gown with black ribbons is here.)

251. “Hamilton, imperturbable, niait. Menzikoff engagea l’empereur à faire une perquisition dans les coffres d’Hamilton, ou l’on trouva le corps du délit, l’arrière-faix et du linge ensanglanté.” Schérer, Anecdotes, p. 274.

252. Bedford and Randolph to the Council, Wright’s Queen Elizabeth, etc., p. 227; Burton, History of Scotland, IV, 145.

253. Ruthven’s Relation, p. 30 f, London, 1699.

254. The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 6; Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 105 f; Tytler’s History, VII, 83.

255. To save appearances, we may understand “old copies” to mean copies restored or brought nearer to what is imagined to have been the original form. The variations will be given in notes aspièces justificatives.

256. Sir Cuthbert Sharp, Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569, p. 202; a collection of many original papers pertaining to this rising, with much subsidiary information. But the story should be read in the eighteenth chapter of Mr Froude’s Reign of Elizabeth. Both works have been used herepassim; Froude in the edition of New York, 1870.

257. Northumberland, on being asked how much money he spent in the quarrel, says, “about one hundred and twenty pound.” The Queen’s proclamation, Nov. 24, declares that the earls were two persons as ill chosen for the reformation of any great matters as any could lie in the realm, for they were both in poverty, etc. Sharp, pp. 208, 66; also 290.

258. Sharp, p. 113.

259. The dun-bull of the Nevilles is given in Sharp, p. 87, andonegreyhound’s head, with what may pass for a golden collar, at p. 316; thethreedogs are not warranted. Percy’s half-moon is improperly mixed up with the banner of the five wounds in 31.

260. Sharp, pp. 92, 95, 97 f.

261. Sharp, pp. 114 f, 118. “My lord Regent convened with Martin Eliot that he should betray Thomas, Earl of Northumberland, who was fled in Liddesdale out of England for refuge, in this manner: that is to say, the said Martin caused Heckie Armstrong desire my lord of Northumberland to come and speak with him under trust, and caused the said earl believe that, after speaking, if my lord Regent would pursue him, that he and his friends should take plain part with the Earl of Northumberland. And when the said earl came with the same Heckie Armstrong to speak the said Martin, he caused certain light-horsemen of my lord Regent’s, with others his friends, to lie at await, and when they should see the said earl and the said Martin speaking together, that they should come and take the said earl; and so as was devised, so came to pass.” Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 154.

262. From a letter of January 6, we learn that the Earl of Northumberland was then in Edinburgh, attended by James Swyno, William Burton, and others. James Swyno is apparently the chamberlain of the ballad. Sharp, p. 139.

263. Lord Hunsdon, Sharp, p. 125.

264. Sharp, pp. 324–29. To whom the money went, if to anybody besides William Douglas, we are not distinctly told. Tytler intimates that Morton had a share: “this base and avaricious man sold his unhappy prisoner to Elizabeth,” VII, 395. There was baseness enough without the addition of avarice: “The Earl of Northumberland was rendered to the Queen of England, forth of the castle of Lochleven, by a certain condition made betwix her and the Earl of Morton for gold.... And indeed this was unthankfully remembered, for when Morton was banisht from Scotland he found no such kind man to him in England as this earl was.” Historie of King James the Sext, p. 106 f. Sir Richard Maitland, who spares Morton and Lochleven no epithets in his spirited invective against those who delivered the Earl of Northumberland, says that they “of his bluide resavit the pygrall pryce,” but does not charge Morton with an act of ingratitude.

265. Stanza 43 is corrupted.

266. Kirkpatrick Sharpe’s Historical Account of Witchcraft in Scotland, pp. 38–54, ed. 1884.

267.Rochholz, Schweizersagen aus dem Aargau, II, 162; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, p. 783 f, ed. 1876, and Saxo Grammaticus(p. 34, ed 1576, Holder, p. 66), quoted by Grimm. These citations are furnished by Liebrecht, Göttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1868, p. 1899, who finds hydromancy in st. 26, where, however, all that seems to be meant is that the mother would let her daughter seefromLochleven what was doing in London. Of dactyliomancy proper there is something in Delrio, IV, ii, 6, 4, 5, p. 547, ed. 1624.

268. Sharp’s Memorials, pp. 138, 142, 298 ff, 346 ff.

269. The most favorable interpretation has been given to ‘Now hath Armstrong taken.’ The meaning is rather, perhaps, that Armstrong has detained Neville and his followers.

270. 713. ‘spekest soe litle.’

271. This is the date given me. It is very near to that of the event.

272. Lieut.-Col. H. W. Lumsden has very kindly allowed me a discretional use of an unpublished paper of his upon the historical basis of this ballad, and I freely avail myself of his aid, all responsibility remaining, of course, with me.

273. The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 95 ff. The History of the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans, etc., p. 51 ff, in Miscellanea Scotica, vol. I. Diurnal of Occurrents, pp. 251, 253, 255.

274. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 255. What place is meant by Carrigill here is of no present consequence, since it was Towie that was burnt. Many writers, as Tytler, VII, 367, following Crawfurd’s spurious Memoirs, p. 240, 1706, make the number that perished in the housethirty-seven.

275. Journal of the Transactions in Scotland during the contest between the adherents of Queen Mary and those of her son, 1570, 1571, 1572, 1573, p. 302 f., Edinburgh, 1806.

276. History of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1666, p. 259.

277. “For many miserable months Scotland presented a sight which might have drawn pity from the hardest heart: her sons engaged in a furious and constant butchery of each other; ... nothing seen but villages in flames, towns beleagured by armed men, women and children flying from the cottages where their fathers or husbands had been massacred; ... prisoners tortured, or massacred in cold blood, or hung by forties and fifties at a time.” Tytler, VII, 370.

278. These are nearly the words of Lieut.-Col. Lumsden, upon whom I am very glad to lean. That Ker was a valuable officer is well known.

279. The History of the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans, p. 54 f.

280. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 304 f. Also The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 111.As to the ‘Bank of Fair,’ otherwise called Corrichie, the Earl of Huntly and two of his sons, John and Adam, were made prisoners at the battle there in 1562. The father, a corpulent man, “by reason of the throng that pressed him, expired in the hands of his takers.” John was executed, but Adam was spared because of his tender age. (Spottiswood, p. 187.)Tytler observes of Adam Gordon: “In his character we find a singular mixture of knightly chivalry with the ferocity of the highland freebooter.... Such a combination as that exhibited by Gordon was no infrequent production in these dark and sanguinary times.” VII, 367. But it would have been a good thing to cite other instances.

280. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 304 f. Also The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 111.

As to the ‘Bank of Fair,’ otherwise called Corrichie, the Earl of Huntly and two of his sons, John and Adam, were made prisoners at the battle there in 1562. The father, a corpulent man, “by reason of the throng that pressed him, expired in the hands of his takers.” John was executed, but Adam was spared because of his tender age. (Spottiswood, p. 187.)

Tytler observes of Adam Gordon: “In his character we find a singular mixture of knightly chivalry with the ferocity of the highland freebooter.... Such a combination as that exhibited by Gordon was no infrequent production in these dark and sanguinary times.” VII, 367. But it would have been a good thing to cite other instances.

281. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, II, 355 f., 420, 480, 720. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 350. Chronicle of Aberdeen, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, II, 53.

282. Register of the Privy Council, II, 199, 725; III, 10; V, 46, 187. Register of the Great Seal, No 1554, vol. V. Miscellany of the Spalding Club, III, 163. Historie of King James the Sext, pp 339 f., 342. The so-called ballad in Dalzell’s Scotish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, II, 347, which was in circulation as a broadside.

283. That a Margaret Campbell was the wife of John Forbes of Towie in 1556–63 appears from the Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, Nos 1124, 1404, 1469. But Lieut.-Col. Lumsden remarks that Sir John Campbell of Calder had no daughter of the name of Margaret, and that there is no record of such a marriage in the Cawdor papers. It may be observed in passing that Buchanan’s and Spottiswood’s error (as it seems to be) of substituting Alexander Forbes for John might easily arise, since, according to the Genealogy, John’s father, one of his brothers, a son, and a grandson, all bore the name Alexander.

284. “After making considerable researches upon the subject, I am come to the conclusion that it was Towie House that was burnt. Cargarf never was in possession of a Forbes.” (Joseph Robertson, Kinloch MSS, VI, 28.) What is said of Corgarf in the View of the Diocese of Aberdeen, 1732, Robertson, Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, pp. 611, 616, is derived from Lumsden. Robert Gordon, writing about 1654, says, “Non procul a fontibus [Donæ] jacet Corgarf, exigui nominis.” A description of the parish of Strathdon, written about 1725, in Macfarlane’s Geographical Collections, MS., says of Curgarf, “This is an old castle belonging to the earls of Mar, but nothing remarkable about it:” pp. 26, 616, of the work last cited. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland give no light; the older tells the story of Corgarf, the later of both Corgarf and Towie, and the one is as uncritical as the other.John Forbes of Towie (Tolleis) is one of a long list of that name in an order of the Lords of Council concerning an action of the Forbes clan against the Earl of Huntly in 1573; and in another paper, dated July, 1578, which has reference to the same action, the Forbeses complain that “sum of thair housiss, wyiffis and bairnis being thairin, were all uterlie wraikit and brount.” (Robertson, Illustrations, etc., IV, 762, 765.) Bearing in mind the latitude of phraseology customary in indictments, we are perhaps under no necessity of thinking that the atrocity of Towie was but one of several instances of houses burnt, wives (women) and bairns being therein. There may be those who will think it plausible that “Carrigill” in the Diurnal of Occurrents should be Corgarf, and that both were burnt.

John Forbes of Towie (Tolleis) is one of a long list of that name in an order of the Lords of Council concerning an action of the Forbes clan against the Earl of Huntly in 1573; and in another paper, dated July, 1578, which has reference to the same action, the Forbeses complain that “sum of thair housiss, wyiffis and bairnis being thairin, were all uterlie wraikit and brount.” (Robertson, Illustrations, etc., IV, 762, 765.) Bearing in mind the latitude of phraseology customary in indictments, we are perhaps under no necessity of thinking that the atrocity of Towie was but one of several instances of houses burnt, wives (women) and bairns being therein. There may be those who will think it plausible that “Carrigill” in the Diurnal of Occurrents should be Corgarf, and that both were burnt.

285. The making Gordon burn a house of the Hamiltons, who were of the queen’s party, is a heedless perversion of history such as is to be found only in ‘historical’ ballads. The castle of Hamilton had been burnt in 1570, “and the toun and palice of Hamiltoun thairwith,” more than a year before the burning of Towie, but by Lennox and his English allies. (Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 177.)“The old castle of Loudoun,” says the Rev. Norman Macleod, “was destroyed by fire about 350 years ago [that is, about 1500]. The current tradition regarding the burning of the old castle ascribes that event to the clan Kennedy at the period above mentioned, and the remains of an old tower at Achruglen, on the Galston side of the valley, is still pointed out as having been their residence.”

“The old castle of Loudoun,” says the Rev. Norman Macleod, “was destroyed by fire about 350 years ago [that is, about 1500]. The current tradition regarding the burning of the old castle ascribes that event to the clan Kennedy at the period above mentioned, and the remains of an old tower at Achruglen, on the Galston side of the valley, is still pointed out as having been their residence.”

286.F.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.G.1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 5, 6, 30, 20, 15, 16, 22, 24, 25, 26, 34, 35.

287. “At the queen last being at Stirling, the prince being brought unto her, she offered to kiss him, but he would not, but put her away, and did to his strength scratch her. She offered him an apple, but it would not be received of him, and to a greyhound bitch having whelps was thrown, who eat it, and she and her whelps died presently. A sugar-loaf also for the prince was brought at the same time; it is judged to be very ill compounded.” Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, May 20, 1567, p. 235: cited by Burton. Considering that the prince had only just passed his eleventh month, it would seem that the apple or the sugar-loaf might have served without any compounding.

288. Historie of King James the Sext, p. 165 ff; Tytler’s History, VIII, 35 ff; Burton, V, 163 ff.

289. Historie of King James the Sext, p. 246.

290. Spottiswood’s History, ed. 1666, p. 387. See also The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 246 ff.; Moysie’s Memoirs, p. 88 ff.; Birrel’s Diary, p. 26 f.

291. History of the Church of Scotland, published by the Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1844, V, 173; in Maidment’s Scotish Ballads and Songs, 1859, p. 8.

292. History of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1666, p. 389.

293. Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland, Thorpe, II, 611.

294.Carta Ioanni, filio natu maximo et heredi Andreæ Weymis de Myrecarny, et Margarete Weiksterne, sue sponse, Terrarum de Myrecarny, etc.Fife, 25 Decrs, 1594. Weymis de Myrecarny and Wemys de Logy are one, as appears by a charter of July 25, 1564. Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, Index, in the Signet Library, noted for me by Mr Macmath.

295. Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, V, 11. And again: 1594, April 13. Caution in £2000 by ——Wemys, apparent of that Ilk, for Johnne Wemyss, apparent of Logy, that he shall remain in ward with David Wemys of that Ilk till relieved.May 2. Caution in 300 merks by Johnne Wemys, younger of that Ilk, for Johnne Wemys of Logy, that he shall answer before the Privy Council at Edinburgh upon 22d instant “to sic thingis as salbe inquirit of him.”September 27. Sir Johnne Wemys of Tullibrek, Michaell Balfour of Monquhaine, and Andro Wemyss of Myrecairny, for Johnne Wemyss, son and apparent heir of Andro, £20,000, to go abroad by the 15th October next and not return without licence. Deleted by warrant subscribed by the king and treasurer-depute at Haliruidhous 20th February, 1594.Ib., pp 141 f., 144, 638. The entries in 1594 may have reference to later offences.

May 2. Caution in 300 merks by Johnne Wemys, younger of that Ilk, for Johnne Wemys of Logy, that he shall answer before the Privy Council at Edinburgh upon 22d instant “to sic thingis as salbe inquirit of him.”

September 27. Sir Johnne Wemys of Tullibrek, Michaell Balfour of Monquhaine, and Andro Wemyss of Myrecairny, for Johnne Wemyss, son and apparent heir of Andro, £20,000, to go abroad by the 15th October next and not return without licence. Deleted by warrant subscribed by the king and treasurer-depute at Haliruidhous 20th February, 1594.Ib., pp 141 f., 144, 638. The entries in 1594 may have reference to later offences.

296. Sir John Carmichael was appointed captain of the king’s guard in 1588, and usually had the keeping of state criminals of rank. Scott.

297. The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 303 f.; Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, V, 144.

298. Calendar of State Papers relating to Scotland, Thorpe, II, 611, No 6.

299. The History of the Feuds and Conflicts among the Clans, etc., p. 41 f, in Miscellanea Scotica, Spottiswood, ed. 1666, p. 390.

300. Lesley, History of Scotland, p. 235; Gregory, History of the Western Highlands, ed. 1881, p. 184; Browne, History of the Highlands, IV, 476. For the traditional story, Finlay, II, 95, note; Laing’s Thistle of Scotland, p. 107 f.; Whitelaw, p. 248.

301. “In the end of this year [1593] there fell out great troubles in the west marches. Some of the surname of Johnston having in the July preceding made a great depredation upon the lands of Sanwhare and Drumlanrig, and killed eighteen persons that followed for rescue of their goods,” etc. Spottiswood, p. 400, ed. 1666.

302. 37 does not come in happily. Scott put this stanza after 29, omitting ‘Sin’; but there is no rational sense gained, unless the Johnstones are supposed to deny the cattle-lifting. Admitting a bold anacoluthon in the first verse (a mixture of since—so and neither—nor), 37 might stand as and where it is. The Johnstones have done no wanton injury; they have only revenged in a proper way the death of the Galliard. But even then the Johnstones would be made to blink the Galliard’s horse-stealing.

303. As there was no great “routh” of Christian names among the clansmen of the borders, to-names became necessary for the distinction of the numerous Jocks, Christies, Watties and Archies. The name of parent, or of parent and grandparent, was sometimes prefixed, as John’s Christie, Agnes’ Christie, Peggie’s Wattie, Gibb’s Jack’s Johnie, Pattie’s Geordie’s Johnie; sometimes the place of abode was added, as Jock o the Side; sometimes there was distinction by personal peculiarities, dress, or arms, as Fair Johnie, Red Cloak, John with the Jack, etc., etc. See lists of all varieties in Mr R. B. Armstrong’s History of Liddesdale, etc., p. 78 f.

304. Ties them with St Mary’s knot: hamstrings them, says Caw, and say others after him. A St John’s knot is double, a St Mary’s triple. Observe that in 31 it is simply said that there is only one horse loose in the stable.

305. “The Armstrongs at length got Dick o the Cow in their clutches, and, out of revenge, they tore his flesh from his bones with red-hot pincers:” note in Caw’s Museum, p. 35. “At the conclusion of the ballad, the singer used invariably to add that Dickie’s removal to Burgh under Stainmuir did not save him from the clutches of the Armstrongs. Having fallen into their power, several years after this exploit, he was plunged into a large boiling pot, and so put to death. The scene of this cruel transaction is pointed out somewhere in Cumberland.” Chambers, Scottish Ballads, p. 55, note. No well-wisher of Dick has the least occasion to be troubled by these puerile supplements of the singers.

306. I am indebted to Mr R. B. Armstrong for all information not hitherto published.

307. “It was not unusual to call two sons by a favorite name, and the brother of Gilnockie would have probably called his sons by that name:” R. B. A.

308. “The place which is alluded to by Scott was pointed out to me about thirty years since. There then were the remains of a tower which stood on a small plateau where the Dow Sike and the Blaik Grain join the Stanygillburn, a tributary of the Tinnisburn. Some remains of the building may still be traced at the northern angle of the sheepfold of which it forms part. The walls that remain are 4 feet 3 inches thick, and measured on the inside about 6 feet high. They extend about 18 feet 6 inches in one direction and 14 feet in another, forming portions of two sides with the angle of the tower.... There must have been a considerable building of a rude kind.... This place, as the crow flies, is quite two miles and a quarter from Kershope-foot, and by the burn two miles and a half.... The Laird’s Jock’s residence is marked on a sketch map of Liddesdale by Lord Burleigh, drawn when Simon was laird of Mangerton. (Simon, son of Thomas, was laird in 1578–9.) It is also marked at the mouth of the Tinnisburn on a ‘platt’ of the country, of 1590.” R. B. A.

309. The Archbishop’s account is apparently based upon a more minute “relation of the maner of surprizeing of the Castell of Cairlell by the lord of Buccleugh,” given, from a manuscript of the period, in the later edition of the Minstrelsy, II, 32. There is another account of the rescue in The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 366 ff.

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