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HE train has left the hills of Braid; The barrier guard have open made (So Lindesay bade) the palisade,

That closed the tented ground; Their men the warders backward drew, And carried pikes as they rode through,

Into its ample bound.

Fast ran the Scottish warriors there,

Upon the Southern band to stare.

And envy with their wonder rose,
To see such well-appointed foes;

Such length of shafts, such mighty bows,
So huge, that many simply thought,
But for a vaunt such weapons wrought;
And little deem'd their force to feel,
Through links of mail, and plates of steel,
When rattling upon Flodden vale,
The cloth-yard arrows flew like hail.'

II.

Nor less did Marmion's skilful view
Glance every line and squadron through;
And much he marvell'd one small land
Could marshall forth such various band:

For men-at-arms were here,

Heavily sheathed in mail and plate,
Like iron towers for strength and weight,

On Flemish steeds of bone and height,

With battle-axe and spear.

Young knights and squires, a lighter train,
Practised their chargers on the plain,

1 This is no poetical exaggeration. In some of the counties of England, distinguished for archery, shafts of this extraordinary length were actually used. Thus, at the battle of Blackheath, between the troops of Henry VII., and the Cornish insurgents, in 1496, the bridge of Dartford was defended by a picked band of archers from the rebel army, "whose arrows, says Hollinshed,

were in length a full cloth yard." The Scottish, according to Ascham,

had a proverb, that every English archer carried, under his belt twenty-four Scots, in allusion to his bundle of unerring shafts.

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1 The most useful air, as the Frenchmen term it, is territerr; the cour bettes, cabrioles, or un pas et un sault, being fitter for horses of parade and triumph than for soldiers: yet I cannot deny but a demivolte with courbettes, so that they be not too high, may be useful in a fight or meslee; for, as Labroue hath it, in his Book of Horsemanship, Monsieur de Montmorency having a horse that was excellent in performing the demivolte, did, with his sword, strike down two adversaries from their horses in a tourney, where divers of the prime gallants of France did meet; for, taking his time, when the horse was in the height of his courbette, and discharging a blow then, his sword fell with such weight and force upon the two cavaliers, one after another, that he struck them from their horses to the ground."-Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life, p. 48.

He saw the hardy burghers there
March arm'd, on foot, with faces bare,'
For vizor they wore none,

Nor waving plume, nor crest of knight;
But burnish'd were their corslets bright,
Their brigantines, and gorgets light,
Like very silver shone.

Long pikes they had for standing fight,
Two-handed swords they wore,

And many wielded mace of weight,
And bucklers bright they bore.

III.

On foot the yeoman too, but dress'd
In his steel-jack, a swarthy vest,
With iron quilted well.

Each at his back (a slender store)

His forty days' provision bore,

As feudal statutes tell.

His arms were halbert, axe, or spear,2

A crossbow there, a hagbut here,

A dagger-knife, and brand.

The Scottish burgesses were, like yeomen, appointed to be armed with bows and sheaves, sword, buckler, knife, spear, or a good axe instead of a bow, if worth £100: their armour to be of white or bright harness. They wore white hats, i.e. bright steel caps, without crest or vizor. By an act of James IV., their weapon-schawings are appointed to be held four times a year, under the aldermen or bailiffs.

Bows and quivers were in vain recommended to the peasantry of Scotland, by repeated statutes; spears and axes seem universally to have been used instead of them. Their defensive armour was the plate-jack, hauberk,

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