day, when, whether as dedicated to Venus, with whom, Note 7. Introduction. --the towers of Franchémont. The journal of the friend to whom the Fourth Canto of the poem is inscribed, furnished me with the following account of a striking superstition. Note 9. Stanza xi. A bishop by the altar stood. The well-known Gawain Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, author of a Scottish metrical version of the Æneid, son of Archibald Bell-the-Cat, Earl of Angus. He was and of many other poetical pieces of great merit. had not at this period attained the mitre. Note 10. Stanza xi. -the huge and sweeping brand As wood-knife lops the sapling spray. He re << Passed the pretty little village of Franchémont Angus had strength and personal activity corre(near Spaw), with the romantic ruins of the old castle sponding to his courage. Spens of Kilspindie, a faof the counts of that name. The road leads through vourite of James IV, having spoken of him lightly, the many delightful vales, on a rising ground; at the ex- Earl met him while hawking, and, compelling him to tremity of one of them stands the ancient castle, now single combat, at one blow cut asunder his thigh bone, the subject of many superstitious legends. It is firmly and killed him on the spot. But ere he could obtain believed by the neighbouring peasantry, that the last James's pardon for this slaughter, Angus was obliged Baron of Franchémont deposited, in one of the vaults to yield his castle of Hermitage, in exchange for that of the castle, a ponderous chest, containing an immense of Bothwell, which was some diminution to the family treasure in gold and silver, which, by some magic spell, greatness. The sword with which he struck so was intrusted to the care of the devil, who is constantly markable a blow was presented by his descendant, found sitting on the chest in the shape of a huntsman. James, Earl of Morton, afterwards Regent of ScotAny one adventurous enough to touch the chest island, to Lord Lindesay of the Byres, when he defied instantly seized with the palsy. Upon one occasion, a Bothwell to single combat on Carberry-hill.—See priest of noted piety was brought to the vault: he used Introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, all the arts of exorcism to persuade his infernal majesty to vacate his seat, but in vain; the huntsman remained immovable. At last, moved by the earnestness of the priest, he told him, that he would agree to resign the chest, if the exorciser would sign his name with blood. But the priest understood his meaning, and refused, as by that act he would have delivered over his soul to the devil. Yet if any body can discover the mystic words used by the person who deposited the treasure, and pronounce them, the fiend must instantly decamp. I had many stories of a similar nature from a peasant, who had himself seen the devil, in the shape of a great cat.» Note 8. Stanza iv. The very form of Hilda fair, p. ix. Note 11. Stanza xiv. And hopest thou hence unscathed to go? No, by St Bride of Bothwell, no! Up draw-bridge, grooms,—what, warder, ho! 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 Bomby, 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 Kirkcudbright-shire. Sir Patrick Gray, << I shall only produce one instance more of the great commander of King James the Second's guard, was veneration paid to Lady Hilda, which still prevails even uncle to the Tutor of Bomby, and obtained from the in these our days; and that is, the constant opinion king a «< sweet letter of supplication,» praying the earl that she rendered, and still renders, herself visible, on to deliver his prisoner into Gray's hand. When Sir some occasions, in the abbey of Streanshalh, or Whitby, Patrick arrived at the castle, he was received with all where she so long resided. At a particular time of the the honour due to a favourite servant of the king's year (viz. in the summer months), at ten or eleven in household; but while he was at dinner, the earl, who the forenoon, the sun-beams fall in the inside of the suspected his errand, caused his prisoner to be led forth northern part of the choir; and 't is then that the spec- and beheaded. After dinner, Sir Patrick presented the tators, who stand on the west side of Whitby church- king's letter to the earl, who received it with great afyard, so as just to see the most northerly part of the fectation of reverence; «< and took him by the hand, abbey past the north end of Whitby church, imagine and led him forth to the green, where the gentleman they perceive, in one of the highest windows there, the was lying dead, and showed him the manner, and said, resemblance of a woman arrayed in a shroud. Though Sir Patrick, you are come a little too late; yonder is we are certain this is only a reflection, caused by the your sister's son lying, but he wants the head: take his splendour of the sun-beams, yet fame reports it, and it body and do with it what you will. Sir Patrick is constantly believed among the vulgar, to be an ap-answered again with a sore heart, and said, My lord, if pearance of Lady Hilda in her shroud, or rather in a ye have taken from him his head, dispone upon the glorified state; before which, I make no doubt, the pa-body as ye please: and with that called for his horse, pists, even in these our days, offer up their prayers with and leaped thereon; and when he was on horseback, as much zeal and devotion, as before any other image he said to the earl on this manner, My lord, if I live, of their most glorified saint.»-CHARLTON'S History of you shall be rewarded for your labours, that you have Whitby, p. 33. 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. Note 12. Stanza xv. A letter forged! St Jude to speed! Did ever knight so foul a deed? 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 assistant) 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 documents as might appear to establish the claim of fealty asserted over Scotland by the English monarchs. Note 13. Stanza xviii. Where Lennel's convent closed their march. 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. It is situated near Coldstream, almost opposite to Cornhill, and consequently very near to Flodden Field. Note 14. Stanza xix. The Till by Twisel Bridge. On the evening previous to the memorable battle of Flodden, Surrey's head-quarters 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 passing 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 passage, 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 struggling 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 passing 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. Note 15. Stanza xxiii. 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 counter-march, 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 Branksome, 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, The English army advanced in four divisions. On the 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. 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 Howard'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 intervals 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 have left the field after the first charge. Meanwhile many encomiums, is said, by the English historians, to 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 Lancashire archers. The King and Surrey, who 1 Lesquels Ecossois descendirent la montagne en bon ordre, en la manière que marchent les Allemans, sans parler, ni faire aucun bruit.» Gazette of the Battle, PINKERTON's History, Appendix, vol. II, p. 456. 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 their 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 nobility, 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 lost also 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 blunder 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. Note 16. Stanza xxiv. --Brian Tunstall, stainless knight. 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 reader; 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 cock about to crow, as well as from his unstained loyalty and knightly faith. His place of residence was Thurland Castle. Note 17. Stanza xxxv. View not that corpse mistrustfully, Defaced and mangled though it be; Nor to yon Border castle high Look northward with upbraiding eye. There can be no doubt that King James fell in the battle of Flodden. He was killed, says the curious French Gazette, within a lance's length of the Earl of Surrey; and the same account adds, that none of his division were made prisoners, though many were killed; a circumstance that testifies the desperation of their resistance. The Scottish historians record many of the idle reports which passed among the vulgar of their day. Home was accused, by the popular voice, not only of failing to support the king, but even of having carried him out of the field and murdered him. And this tale was revived in my remembrance, by an unauthenticated story of a skeleton, wrapped in a bull's hide, and surrounded with an iron chain, said to have been found in the well of Home Castle; for which, on inquiry, I could never find any better authority than the sexton of the parish having said, that if the well were cleaned out, he would not be surprised at such a discovery. Home was the chamberlain of the king, and his prime favourite; he had much to lose (in fact did lose all) in consequence of James's death, and nothing earthly to gain by that event: but the retreat, or inactivity, of the left wing, which he commanded, after defeating Sir Edmund Howard, and even the circumstance of his returning unhurt, and loaded with spoil, from so fatal a conflict, rendered the propagation of any calumny against him easy and acceptable. Other reports gave a still more romantic turn to the king's fate, and averred, that James, weary of greatness after the carnage among his nobles, had gone on a pilgrimage, to merit absolution for the death of his father, and the breach of his oath of amity to Henry. In particular, it was objected to the English, that they could never show the token of the iron belt; which, however, he was likely enough to have laid aside on the day of battle, as encumbering his personal exertions. They produce a better evidence, the monarch's sword and dagger, which are still preserved in the Heralds' College in London. Stowe has recorded a degrading story of the disgrace with which the remains of the unfortunate monarch were treated in his time.—An unhewn column marks the spot where James fell, still called the King's Stone. Note 18. Stanza xxxvi. --fanatic Brook The fair cathedral storm'd and took. This storm of Lichfield cathedral, which had been garrisoned on the part of the king, took place in the great civil war. Lord Brook, who, with Sir John Gill, commanded the assailants, was shot with a musketball through the visor of his helmet. The royalists remarked, that he was killed by a shot fired from St Chad's Cathedral, and upon St Chad's day, and received his death-wound in the very eye with which, he had said, he hoped to see the ruin of all the cathedrals in England. The magnificent church in question suffered cruelly upon this, and other occasions; the principal spire being ruined by the fire of the besiegers. Upon revising the Poem, it seems proper to mention the following particulars : The lines in page 75, Whose doom discording neighbours sought, Content with equity unbought; have been unconsciously borrowed from a passage in Dryden's beautiful epistle to John Driden of Chesterton. The ballad of Lochinvar, p. 92, is in a very slight degree founded on a ballad called «< Katharine Janfarie,>> which may be found in the « Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.»> The Lady of the Lake. IN SIX CANTOS. TO THE MOST NOBLE JOHN JAMES, MARQUIS OF ABERCORN, ETC. This Poem is Inscribed, BY THE AUTHOR. ADVERTISEMENT. THE Scene of the following Poem is laid chiefly in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, in the Western Highlands of Perthshire. The Time of Action includes Six Days, and the transactions of each day occupy a Canto. THE LADY OF THE LAKE. CANTO I. THE CHASE. HARP of the North! that mouldering long hast hung O minstrel harp, still must thine accents sleep? Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep, Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep? Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon, Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud Thine ardent symphony sublime and high ! Fair dames and crested chiefs attention bow'd; For still the burthen of thy minstrelsy Was knighthood's dauntless deed and beauty's match less eye. O wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand O wake once more! though scarce my skill command Yet if one heart throb higher at its sway, The wizard note has not been touch'd in vain. Then silent be no more! enchantress, wake again! The stag at eve had drunk his fill, And faint, from farther distance borne, II. As chief, who hears his warder call, The dew-drops from his flanks he shook; That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh; III. Yell'd on the view the opening pack, IV. Less loud the sounds of sylvan war And roused the cavern, where, 't is told, The noble stag was pausing now; But nearer was the copse-wood gray, VI. 'T were long to tell what steeds gave o'er, VII. Alone, but with unbated zeal, That horseman plied the scourge and steel; And all but won that desperate game; Nor farther might the Thus the margin of the lake, up Between the precipice and brake, O'er stock and rock their race they take. VIII. The hunter mark'd that mountain high, The lone lake's western boundary, For the death-wound, and death-halloo, There while, close couch'd, the thicket shed He heard the baffled dogs in vain IX. Close on the hounds the hunter came, X. Then through the dell his horn resounds, XI. The western waves of ebbing day |