Marmion Part 39

line 329. Rocquet, a linen surplice.

line 344, 'Angus had strength and personal activity corresponding to his courage. Spens of Kilspindie, a favourite of James IV, having spoken of him lightly, the Earl met him while hawking, and, compelling him to single combat, at one blow cut asunder his thigh- bone, and killed him on the spot. But ere he could obtain James's pardon for this slaughter, Angus was obliged to yield his castle of Hermitage, in exchange for that of Bothwell, which was some diminution to the family greatness. The sword with which he struck so remarkable a blow, was presented by his descendant, James Earl of Morton, afterwards Regent of Scotland, to Lord Lindesay of the Byres, when he defied Bothwell to single combat on Carberry-hill.

See Introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border'--SCOTT.

Stanza XII. line 379. With the use of fall = befall cp. Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 7. 38:--

'No disgrace Shall FALL you for refusing him at sea.'

Stanza XIV. line. Saint Bride is Saint Bridget of Ireland, who became popular in England and Scotland under the abbreviated form of her name. She was 'a favourite saint of the house of Douglas, and of the Earl of Angus in particular.' See note to Clarendon Press 'Lay of Last Minstrel,' VI. 469.

line 437. 'This ebullition of violence in the potent Earl of Angus is not without its example in the real history of the house of Douglas, whose chieftains possessed the ferocity, with the heroic virtues, of a savage state. The most curious instance occurred in the case of Maclellan, Tutor of Bombay, who, having refused to acknowledge the pre-eminence claimed by Douglas over the gentlemen and Barons of Galloway, was seized and imprisoned by the Earl, in his castle of the Thrieve, on the borders of Kirkcudbrights.h.i.+re. Sir Patrick Gray, commander of King James the Second's guard, was uncle to the Tutor of Bombay, and obtained from the King a "sweet letter of supplication," praying the Earl to deliver his prisoner into Gray's hand. When Sir Patrick arrived at the castle, he was received with all the honour due to a favourite servant of the King's household; but while he was at dinner, the Earl, who suspected his errand, caused his prisoner to be led forth and beheaded. After dinner, Sir Patrick presented the King's letter to the Earl, who received it with great affectation of reverence; "and took him by the hand, and led him forth to the green, where the gentleman was lying dead, and showed him the manner, and said, 'Sir Patrick, you are come a little too late; yonder is your sister's son lying, but he wants the head; take his body, and do with it what you will.'-- Sir Patrick answered again with a sore heart, and said, 'My lord, if ye have taken from him his head, dispone upon the body as ye please;' and with that called for his horse, and leaped thereon; and when he was on horseback, he said to the Earl on this manner: 'My Lord, if I live, you shall be rewarded for your labours, that you have used at this time, according to your demerits.'

'"At this saying the Earl was highly offended, and cried for horse.

Sir Patrick, seeing the Earl's fury, spurred his horse, but he was chased near Edinburgh ere they left him; and had it not been his led horse was so tried and good, he had been taken."'--PITSCOTTIE'S History, p. 39.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XV. line 456. Cp. above, III. 429, and see As You Like It, i.

2. 222: 'Hercules be thy speed!' The short epistle of St. Jude is uncompromising in its condemnation of those who have fallen from their faith--who have forgotten, so to speak, their vows of true knighthood. It closes with the beautiful ascription--'To Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.' There is deep significance, therefore, in this appeal of the venerable and outraged knight for the protection of St. Jude.

line 457. 'Lest the reader should partake of the Earl's astonishment, and consider the crime as inconsistent with the manners of the period, I have to remind him of the numerous forgeries (partly executed by a female a.s.sistant) devised by Robert of Artois, to forward his suit against the Countess Matilda; which, being detected, occasioned his flight into England, and proved the remote cause of Edward the Third's memorable wars in France. John Harding, also, was expressly hired by Edward IV to forge such doc.u.ments as might appear to establish the claim of fealty a.s.serted over Scotland by the English monarchs.'--SCOTT.

line 458. It likes was long used impersonally, in the sense of it pleases. Cp. King John, ii. 2. 234: 'It likes us well.'

line 460. St. Bothan, Bythen, or Bethan is said to have been a cousin of St. Columba and his successor at Iona. His name is preserved in the Berwicks.h.i.+re parish, Abbey-Saint-Bathan's; where, towards the close of the twelfth century, a Cistertian nunnery, with the t.i.tle of a priory, was dedicated to him by Ada, daughter of William the Lion. There is no remaining trace of this structure.

line 461. The other sons could at least sign their names. Their signatures are reproduced in facsimile in 'The Douglas Book' by Sir William Eraser, 4 vols. 4to, Edin. 1886 (privately printed).

line 468. Fairly, well, elegantly, as in Chaucer's Prol. 94:--

'Well cowde he sitte on hors, and FAIRE ryde';

and in 'Faerie Queene,' I. i. 8:--

'Full jolly knight he seemed, and FAIRE did sitt.'

Stanza XVI. line 498. This line is a comprehensive description of a perfectly satisfactory charger or hunter.

line 499. Sholto is one of the Douglas family names. One of the Earl's sons, being sheriff, could not go with his brothers to the war.

line 500. 'His eldest son, the Master of Angus.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XVII. line 532. In Bacon's ingenious essay, 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' he states these as the three disadvantages of the qualities:--'The first, that Simulation and Dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark.

The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man almost alone to his own ends. The third, and greatest, is that it depriveth a man of one of the most princ.i.p.al instruments for action; which is trust and belief.'

Stanza XVIII. line 540. 'This was a Cistertian house of religion, now almost entirely demolished. Lennel House is now the residence of my venerable friend, Patrick Brydone, Esquire, so well known in the literary world. {4} It is situated near Coldstream, almost opposite Cornhill, and consequently very near to Flodden Field.'--SCOTT.

line 568. traversed, moved in opposition, as in fencing. Cp. Merry Wives, ii. 3. 23: 'To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse,' &c.

Stanza XIX line 573, 'On the evening previous to the memorable battle of Flodden, Surrey's headquarters were at Barmoor Wood, and King James held an inaccessible position on the ridge of Flodden- hill, one of the last and lowest eminences detached from the ridge of Cheviot. The Till, a deep and slow river, winded between the armies. On the morning of the 9th September, 1513, Surrey marched in a north-westerly direction, and crossed the Till, with his van and artillery, at Twisel Bridge, nigh where that river joins the Tweed, his rear-guard column pa.s.sing about a mile higher, by a ford. This movement had the double effect of placing his army between King James and his supplies from Scotland, and of striking the Scottish monarch with surprise, as he seems to have relied on the depth of the river in his front. But as the pa.s.sage, both over the bridge and through the ford, was difficult and slow, it seems possible that the English might have been attacked to great advantage while straggling with these natural obstacles. I know not if we are to impute James's forbearance to want of military skill, or to the romantic declaration which Pitscottie puts in his mouth, "that he was determined to have his enemies before him on a plain field," and therefore would suffer no interruption to be given, even by artillery, to their pa.s.sing the river.

'The ancient bridge of Twisel, by which the English crossed the Till, is still standing beneath Twisel Castle, a splendid pile of Gothic architecture, as now rebuilt by Sir Francis Blake, Bart., whose extensive plantations have so much improved the country around. The glen is romantic and delightful, with steep banks on each side, covered with copse, particularly with hawthorn. Beneath a tall rock, near the bridge, is a plentiful fountain, called St.

Helen's Well.'--SCOTT.

That James was credited by his contemporaries with military skill and ample courage will be seen by reference to Barclay's 's.h.i.+p of Fooles,' formerly referred to. The poet proposes a grand general European movement against the Turks, and suggests James IV as the military leader. The following complimentary acrostic is a feature of the pa.s.sage:--

'I n prudence pereles is this moste comely kinge; A nd as for his strength and magnanimitie C onceming his n.o.ble dedes in every thinge, O ne founde on grounde like to him can not be.

B y birth borne to boldenes and audacitie, U nder the bolde planet of Mars the champion, S urely to subdue his enemies eche one.'

line 583. Sullen is admirably descriptive of the leading feature in the appearance of the Till just below Twisel Bridge. No one contrasting it with the Tweed at Norham will have difficulty in understanding the saying that:--

'For a'e man that Tweed droons, Till droons three.'

Stanza XX. line 608. The earlier editions have vails, 'lowers' or 'checks'; as in Venus and Adonis, 956, 'She vailed her eyelids.' The edition of 1833 reads 'VAILS, contr. for 'avails.'

line 610. Douglas and Randolph were two of Bruce's most trusted leaders.

line 611. See anecdote in 'Border Minstrelsy,' ii. 245 (1833 ed.), with its culmination, 'O, for one hour of Dundee!' Cp. 'Pleasures of Hope' (close of Poland pa.s.sage):--

'Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return The Patriot Tell--the Bruce of Bannockburn!'

and Wordsworth's sonnet, 'In the Pa.s.s of Killicranky,' in which the aspiration for 'one hour of that Dundee' is prompted by the fear of an invasion in 1803.

Stanza XXI. line 626. Hap what hap, come what may. Cp. above 'tide what tide,' III. 416.

line 627. Basnet, a light helmet.

Stanza XXIII. line 682. 'The reader cannot here expect a full account of the Battle of Flodden: but, so far as is necessary to understand the romance, I beg to remind him, that, when the English army, by their skilful countermarch, were fairly placed between King James and his own country, the Scottish monarch resolved to fight; and, setting fire to his tents, descended from the ridge of Flodden to secure the neighbouring eminence of Brankstone, on which that village is built. Thus the two armies met, almost without seeing each other, when, according to the old poem of "Flodden Field,"--

"The English line stretch'd east and west, And southward were their faces set; The Scottish northward proudly prest, And manfully their foes they met."

The English army advanced in four divisions. On the right, which first engaged, were the sons of Earl Surrey, namely, Thomas Howard, the Admiral of England, and Sir Edmund, the Knight Marshal of the army. Their divisions were separated from each other; but, at the request of Sir Edmund, his brother's battalion was drawn very near to his own. The centre was commanded by Surrey in person; the left wing by Sir Edward Stanley, with the men of Lancas.h.i.+re, and of the palatinate of Chester. Lord Dacres, with a large body of horse, formed a reserve. When the smoke, which the wind had driven between the armies, was somewhat dispersed, they perceived the Scots, who had moved down the hill in a similar order of battle, and in deep silence. {5} The Earls of Huntley and of Home commanded their left wing, and charged Sir Edmund Howard with such success as entirely to defeat his part of the English right wing. Sir Edmund's banner was beaten down, and he himself escaped with difficulty to his brother's division. The Admiral, however, stood firm; and Dacre advancing to his support with the reserve of cavalry, probably between the interval of the divisions commanded by the brothers Howard, appears to have kept the victors in effectual check. Home's men, chiefly Borderers, began to pillage the baggage of both armies; and their leader is branded, by the Scottish historians, with negligence or treachery. On the other hand, Huntley, on whom they bestow many encomiums, is said, by the English historians, to have left the field after the first charge. Meanwhile the Admiral, whose flank these chiefs ought to have attacked, availed himself of their inactivity, and pushed forward against another large division of the Scottish army in his front, headed by the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, both of whom were slain, and their forces routed. On the left, the success of the English was yet more decisive; for the Scottish right wing, consisting of undisciplined Highlanders, commanded by Lennox and Argyle, was unable to sustain the charge of Sir Edward Stanley, and especially the severe execution of the Lancas.h.i.+re archers. The King and Surrey, who commanded the respective centres of their armies, were meanwhile engaged in close and dubious conflict. James, surrounded by the flower of his kingdom, and impatient of the galling discharge of arrows, supported also by his reserve under Bothwell, charged with such fury that the standard of Surrey was in danger. At that critical moment, Stanley, who had routed the left wing of the Scottish, pursued his career of victory, and arrived on the right flank, and in the rear of James's division, which, throwing itself into a circle, disputed the battle till night came on. Surrey then drew back his forces; for the Scottish centre not having been broken, and the left wing being victorious, he yet doubted the event of the field. The Scottish army, however, felt their loss, and abandoned the field of battle in disorder, before dawn. They lost, perhaps, from eight to ten thousand men; but that included the very prime of their n.o.bility, gentry, and even clergy. Scarce a family of eminence but has an ancestor killed at Flodden; and there is no province in Scotland, even at this day, where the battle is mentioned without a sensation of terror and sorrow. The English also lost a great number of men, perhaps within one-third of the vanquished, but they were of inferior note.--See the only distinct detail of the Field of Flodden in PINKERTON'S History, Book xi; all former accounts being full of blunders and inconsistency.

'The spot from which Clara views the battle, must be supposed to have been on a hillock commanding the rear of the English right wing, which was defeated, and in which conflict Marmion is supposed to have fallen.'--SCOTT.

Lockhart adds this quotation:--'In 1810, as Sir Carnaby Haggerstone's workmen were digging in Flodden Field, they came to a pit filled with human bones, and which seemed of great extent; but, alarmed at the sight, they immediately filled up the excavation, and proceeded no farther.

'In 1817, Mr. Grey of Millfield Hill found, near the traces of an ancient encampment, a short distance from Flodden Field, a tumulus, which, on removing, exhibited a very singular sepulchre. In the centre, a large urn was found, but in a thousand pieces. It had either been broken to pieces by the stones falling upon it when digging, or had gone to pieces on the admission of the air. This urn was surrounded by a number of cells formed of flat stones, in the shape of graves, but too small to hold the body in its natural state. These sepulchral recesses contained nothing except ashes, or dust of the same kind as that in the urn."--Sykes' Local Records (2 vols. 8vo, 1833), vol. ii. pp. 60 and 109.'

Stanza XXIV. line 717. 'Sir Brian Tunstall, called in the romantic language of the time, Tunstall the Undefiled, was one of the few Englishmen of rank slain at Flodden. He figures in the ancient English poem, to which I may safely refer my readers, as an edition, with full explanatory notes, has been published by my friend, Mr.

Henry Weber. Tunstall, perhaps, derived his epithet of undefiled from his white armour and banner, the latter bearing a white c.o.c.k, about to crow, as well as from his unstained loyalty and knightly faith. His place of residence was Thurland Castle.'--SCOTT.

Stanza XXV. line 744. Bent, the slope of the hill. It is less likely to mean the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s on the hill--also a possible meaning of the word--because spectators would see the declivity and not what was on it. For the former usage see Dryden, 'Palamon and Arcite,'

II. 342-45:--

'A mountain stood, Threat'ning from high, and overlook'd the wood; Beneath the low'ring brow, and on a BENT, The temple stood of Mars armipotent.'

line 745. The tent was fired so that the forces might descend amid the rolling smoke.

line 747. As a poetical critic Jeffrey was right for once when he wrote thus of this great battle piece:--