Then said the justice, that gentil is and free,
Sir Simond Frizel the king's traiter hast thou be;
In water and in land that mony mighten see,
What sayst thou thereto how will thou quite be,
Do say,

So foul he him wist,

Nede war on trust

For to say nay.

With fetters and with gins* y-hot he was to draw

From the Tower of London that many men might know, In a kirtle of Burel, a selcouth wise,

And a garland in his head of the new guise.

Through Cheape

Many men of England

For to see Symond

Thitherward can leap.

Though he cam to the gallows first he was on hung,
All quick beheaded that him thought long;
Then he was y-opened, his bowels y-brend,+
The heved to London-bridge was send

To shende.

So evermore mote I the,

Some while weened he

Thus, little to stand.

† Burned.

He was condemned to be drawn.

Meaning, at one time he little thought to stand thus.

He rideth through the city, as I tell may,

With gamen and with solace that was their play,
To London-bridge he took the way,

Mony was the wives child that thereon lacketh-a-day, *

And said, alas !

That he was y-born

And so vilely forlorn

So fair man he was.+

Now standeth the heved above the tu-brigge,
Fast by Wallace sooth for to segge;

After succour of Scotland long may he pry,

And after help of France what halt it to lie,

I ween,

Better him were in Scotland,

With his axe in his hand,

To play on the green, &c.

The preceding stanzas contain probably as minute an account as can be found of the trial and execution of state criminals of the period. Superstition mingled its horrors with those of a ferocious state policy, as appears from the following singular narrative.

"The Friday next, before the assumption of Our Lady, King Edward met Robert the Bruce at Saint Johnstoune, in Scotland, and with his company, of which company King Ed

viz. Saith Lack-a-day.

†The gallant knight, like others in the same situation, was pitied by the female spectators as " a proper young man."

When Robert the Bruce saw

ward quelde seven thousand. this mischief, and gan to flee, and hov'd him that men might not him find; but S. Simond Frisell pursued was so sore, so that he turned again and abode bataille, for he was a worthy knight and a bolde of bodye, and the Englishmen pursuede him sore on every side, and quelde the steed that Sir Simon Frisell rode upon, and then toke him and led him to the host. And S. Symond began for to flatter and speke fair, and saide, Lordys, I shall give you four thousand markes of silver, and myne horse and harness, and all my armoure and income. Tho' answered Thobaude of Pevenes, that was the kinges archer, Now, God me so helpe, it is for nought that thou speakest, for all the gold of England I would not let thee go without commandment of King Edward. And tho' he was led to the king, and the king would not see him, but commanded to lead him away to his doom in London, on Our Lady's even nativity. And he was hung and drawn, and his head smitten off, and hanged again with chains of iron upon the gallows, and his head was set at London-bridge upon a spear, and against Christmas the body was burnt, for encheson (reason) that the men that keeped the body saw many devils ramping with iron crooks, running upon the gallows, and horribly tormenting the body. And many that them saw, anon thereafter died for dread, or waxen mad, or sore sickness they had."-MS. Chronicle in the British Museum, quoted by Rit

son.

Note XIV.

Was not the life of Athole shed,

To sooth the tyrant's sicken'd bed ?—P. 75

John de Strathbogie, Earl of Athole, had attempted to escape out of the kingdom, but a storm cast him upon the coast, when he was taken, sent to London, and executed, with eircumstances of great barbarity, being first half strangled, then let down from the gallows while yet alive, barbarously dismembered, and his body burnt. It may surprise the reader to learn, that this was a mitigated punishment; for, in respect that his mother was a grand-daughter of King John, by his natural son Richard, he was not drawn on a sledge to execution, "that point was forgiven," and he made the passage on horseback. Matthew of Westminster tells us that King Edward, then extremely ill, received great ease from the news that his relative was apprehended. "Quo audito, Rex Angliæ, etsi gravissimo morbo tunc langueret, levius tamen tulit dolorem." To this singular expression the text alludes.

Note XV.

And must his word, at dying day,

Be nought but quarter, hang, and slay !—P. 75. This alludes to a passage in Barbour, singularly expressive of the vindictive spirit of Edward I. The prisoners taken at the castle of Kildrummie had surrendered upon condition that they should be at King Edward's disposal. "But his will," says Barbour, was always evil towards Scottishmen." The

66

news of the surrender of Kildrummie arrived when he was in his mortal sickness at Burgh-upon-Sands.

"And when he to the death was near,
The folk that at Kyldromy wer
Come with prisoners that they had tane,
And syne to the king are gane.
And for to comfort him they tauld
How they the castell to them yauld:
And how they till his will were brought,
To do off that whatever he thought
And ask'd what men should off them do.
Then look'd he angryly them to,

He said, grinning," HANGS AND DRAWS."
That was wonder of sic saws,

That he, that to the death was near,
Should answer upon sic maner;
Forouten moaning and mercy.
How might he trust on him to cry,
That sooth-fastly dooms all things
To have mercy for his crying,
Off him that, throw his felony,
Into sic point had no mercy ?"

There was much truth in the Leonine couplet, with which Matthew of Westminster concludes his encomium on the first Edward:

"Scotos, Edwardus, dum vixit, suppeditavit,
Tenuit, afflixit, depressit, dilaniavit."-

Note XVI.

By Woden wild (my grandsire's oath.)—P. 75. The Mac-Leods, and most other distinguished Hebridean families, were of Scandinavian extraction, and some were late