139. Anglo-Norman tones. "Mr. Ellis, in his valuable Introduction to the Specimens of Romance, has proved . . . that the courts of our Anglo-Norman kings, rather than those of the French monarchs, produced the birth of romance literature. The story of Blondel, the famous and faithful minstrel of Richard I., needs no commentary."-SCOTT, Notes. 180. Windsor's oaks. Scott visited Ellis near Windsor. He composed part of Marmion at Ellis's home, but the allusion here is probably to his having read aloud two or three cantos of The Lay of the Last Minstrel to Mr. Ellis's family under one of the royal oaks in Windsor forest. CANTO FIFTH THE COURT 51. Forty days' provision. Each yeoman, or private, carried his own provisions. Each man of title provisioned his own immediate retinue. The king provided only for his own official family and guard. The modern commissary department had not been devised. When provisions gave out and could no longer be eked out by foraging, the army simply melted away. Each company or clan made its way home, living on the country it passed through. A long campaign with a considerable army was a military impossibility. See v. 1008. 84. Scarce caring. The element here described was at times another source of weakness. Many a half-won Border battle was lost again by eagerness to secure a bit of plunder to carry home as a trophy. See vi. 1006. 147. To wheel the bar. To curve the bar, to fashion it into a horseshoe. 172. That night with wassail. Compare Byron's subsequent account of the feast preceding the battle of Waterloo : "There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright Wassail — Anglo-Saxon waeshāl, be whole — health be to you, the ancient salutation, or toast, at a feast. Later, the feast itself. 262. To Scotland's court. See i. 264 and following. "King James's acquaintance with Lady Heron of Ford did not commence until he marched into England. Our historians impute to the king's infatuated passion the delays which led to the fatal defeat of Flodden. . . . That she came and went, however, between the armies of James and Surrey, is certain. Heron of Ford had been, in 1511, in some sort accessory to the slaughter of Sir William Ker of Cessford, Warden of the Middle Marches. Part of the pretence of Lady Ford's negotiations with James was the liberty of her husband."-Scorт, Notes. ... 270. Sent him a turquoise ring. “A turquoise ring— probably this fatal gift is, with James's sword and dagger, preserved in the College of Heralds, London."-SCOTT, Notes. 287. Lithgow, Linlithgow. 398. Archibald Bell-the-Cat. "Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, a man remarkable for strength of body and mind, acquired the popular name of Bell-the-Cat upon the following remarkable occasion: James the Third, of whom Pitscottie complains that he delighted more in music and 'policies of building,' than in hunting, hawking, and other noble exercises, was so ill advised as to make favorites of his architects and musicians, whom the same historian irreverently terms masons and fiddlers. His nobility, who did not sympathize in the king's respect for the fine arts, were extremely incensed at the honors conferred on those persons, particularly on Cochran, a mason, who had been created Earl of Mar; and seizing the opportunity, when, in 1482, the king had convoked the whole array of the country to march against the English, they held a midnight council in the church of Lauder for the purpose of forcibly removing these minions from the king's person. When all had agreed on the propriety of this measure, Lord Gray told the assembly the Apologue of the Mice, who had formed a resolution that it would be highly advantageous to their community to tie a bell round the cat's neck, that they might hear her approach at a distance; but which public measure unfortunately miscarried, from no mouse being willing to undertake the task of fastening the bell. 'I understand the moral,' said Angus, 'and, that what we propose may not lack execution, I will bell the cat.'" Scott supplements the foregoing by a considerable extract from Pitscottie, from which we understand that under the leadership of Angus, "the lords held them quiet till they caused certain armed men to enter the king's pallion, and two or three wise men to pass with them, and give the king fair pleasant words, till they laid hands on all the king's servants, and took them and hanged them before his eyes over the bridge of Lawder. Incontinent they brought forth Cochran, and his hands bound with a tow, who desired them to take one of his own pallion-tows and bind his hands, for he thought shame to have his hands bound with such tow of hemp, like a thief. The lords answered, he was a traitor, he deserved no better; and, for despight, they took a hair-tether, and hanged him over the bridge of Lauder, above the rest of his complices.' 399. Left the dusky vale. Angus was compelled to exchange the Hermitage for the less desirable but still magnificent castle of Bothwell. 413. Against the war. "Angus was an old man when the war against England was resolved upon. He earnestly spoke against that measure from its commencement, and on the eve of the battle of Flodden, remonstrated so freely upon the impolicy of fighting, that the king said to him, with scorn and indignation, if he was afraid, he might go home.' The Earl burst into tears at this insupportable insult, and retired accordingly, leaving his sons, George, Master of Angus, and Sir William of Glenbervie, to command his followers. They were both slain in the battle, with two hundred gentlemen of the name of Douglas. The aged Earl, broken-hearted at the calamities of his house and his country, retired into a religious R house, where he died about a year after the field of Flodden.”. SCOTT, Notes. 429. Tantallon hold. "The ruins of Tantallon Castle occupy a high rock projecting into the German Ocean, about two miles east of North Berwick. The building is not seen till a close approach, as there is rising ground betwixt it and the land. The circuit is of large extent, fenced upon three sides by the precipice which overhangs the sea, and on the fourth by a double ditch and very strong outworks. Tantallon was a principal castle of the Douglas family." -SCOTT, Notes. 440. A bevy. The party of the abbess and Clare were captured on their way from Lindisfarn to Whitby and were brought perhaps by sea to Leith, the port of Edinburgh. 615. A stranger maiden. Constance de Beverly. 678. These papers fell. See ii. 562. 735. This awful summons came. "This supernatural citation is mentioned by all our Scottish historians. It was, probably, like the apparition at Linlithgow, an attempt, by those averse to the war, to impose upon the superstitious temper of James IV." SCOTT, Notes. 766. Another spoke. The Palmer spoke when his name, De Wilton, was called. Note that the incantation of an evil spirit is broken by an appeal to the Saviour in this case but usually by an appeal to some saint. See iv. 442. 828-832. Jealousy. When Marmion and Wilton were rivals, Marmion felt no jealousy for he did not love, but his pride was hurt because Clara preferred De Wilton. His victory over Wilton was secured by such loathsome meanness that it almost led him to hate Clara, the innocent cause. Conquest is the subject of led. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SIXTH Richard Heber, a wealthy member of Parliament for Oxford University, was a confirmed antiquarian and bibliomaniac. His collection of books was valued at $900,000. During a winter spent at Edinburgh he became acquainted with Scott and, finding him engaged in bringing out the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Heber not only sent home for everything in his library of possible service, but plunged with ardor into the bookstalls of Edinburgh in search of trophies for Scott's use. Under these circumstances a warm friendship very naturally sprang up. Richard Heber is not to be mistaken for his half-brother, Bishop Heber, author of the wellknown missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains," etc. 7. At Iol (Jol, Yule). "The Iol of the heathen Danes (a word still applied to Christmas in Scotland) was solemnized with great festivity. The humor of the Danes at table displayed itself in pelting each other with bones: and Torfæus tells a long and curious story, in the history of Hrolfe Kraka, of one Hottus, an inmate of the court of Denmark, who was so generally assailed with these missiles, that he constructed, out of the bones with which he was overwhelmed, a very respectable entrenchment against those who continued the raillery. The dances of the Northern warriors round the great fires of pine-trees are commemorated by Olaus Magnus, who says, they danced with such fury, holding each other by the hands, that if the grasp of any failed, he was pitched into the fire with the velocity of a sling. The sufferer, on such occasions, was instantly plucked out, and obliged to quaff off a certain measure of ale as a penalty for 'spoiling the king's fire.'"' -SCOTT, Notes. 45. Post and pair. A popular game of cards. mean coarse. See dictionary. Vulgar does not 55. To part the squire and lord. In such a feast as is described in Canto First the salt was customarily placed on the table at a point between the guests of high and the guests of low degree. Hence the expressions above the salt and below the salt. 95. My great-grandsire. "Mr. Scott of Harden, my kind and affectionate friend, and distant relation, has the original of a poetical invitation, addressed from his grandfather to my relative, from which a few lines in the text are imitated. They are dated, as the |