syde Bray, did make so great muster toward us, which I did take then to be a number of tentes, when we came, we found it a linnen drapery, of the coarser cambryk in dede, for it was all of canvas sheets, and wear the tenticles, or rather cabayns and couches of their soldiers; the which (much after the common building of their country beside) had they framed of four sticks, about an ell long a piece, whearof two fastened together at one end aloft, and the two endes beneath stuck in the ground, an ell asunder, standing in fashion like the bowe of a sowes yoke; over two such bowes (one, as it were, at their head, the other at their feet) they stretched a sheet down on both sides, whereby their cabayn became roofed like a ridge, but skant shut at both ends, and not very close beneath on the sides, unless their sticks were the shorter, or their wives the more liberal to lend them larger napery; howbeit, when they had lined them, and stuff'd them so thick with straw, with the weather as it was not very cold, when they wear ones couched, they were as warm as they had been wrapt in horses dung.' 570. The staff, etc. The MS. reads here: "The standard staff, a mountain pine, That still in monument is shown." 578. The ruddy lion ramped in gold. For the red lion rampant in a field of gold, see on 141 above. 579. Lord Marmion, etc. The MS. reads: "Lord Marmion's large dark eye flash'd light, For glow'd with martial joy his heart, 597. Has blessed. As upon battle-day." The reading of all the eds. from the 1st down. = national prosperity. Peace and wealth is taken as a singular subject 598. 'Tis better, etc. The MS. reads: "'T is better sitting still at rest, Than rising but to fall. = And while these words they did exchange, As Lockhart remarks, "the poet seems to have struck his pen through the last two lines on conceiving the magnificent picture which replaces them in the text." 612. Height. Note the rhyme with state, and cf. that with plate and weight in v. 24-26 below; but in v. 43, 45 we find weight rhymed with fight. Scott is rather free in his rhymes. Cf. i. 183, 185, 410, 411, ii. ind. 118, 119, iii. 87, 88, etc. above. 614. The steep slope. That on which the "Old Town" of Edinburgh is built. 617. Mine own romantic town. The MS. has "Dun-Edin's towers and town." 619. On Ochil mountains. The highest of the Ochils rises 2,400 feet above the sea. 623. Berwick-Law. A hill, 640 feet high, immediately south of North Berwick. Cf. v. 836 below. 625. Firth. The reading of the 1st and other early eds. The recent ones all have "Frith." 632. Demi-volt. A movement to which horses were trained, the forefeet being raised in a particular manner. See on v. 32 below. 635. The Lindesay. Lockhart says that the MS. has “The Lion ; " but this is the reading of the 1st ed., as in 647 below, where Lockhart makes the same mistake. 646. Prime. The first canonical hour of prayer, or 6 A. M. 650. Saint Catherine's of Sienne. The MS. has "our Lady's of Sienne." St. Catherine of Siena (so called to distinguish her from the Catherines of Alexandria and Bologna) was one of the most noted of female saints. St. Rocque, or St. Roch, was a famous French saint. 652. To you, etc. The MS. reads: "To you they speak of martial fame, 655. Falkland-woods. In Fife, about 25 miles from Edinburgh. Here is still to be seen the ruined palace of the Scottish kings, who resorted thither for the sake of the chase. 663. Proof to. Proof against, as we should now say. 664. Halls. The MS. has "fanes." 669. Their larum. Most of the eds. misprint "the larum." 674. Dream, etc. The MS. has "Dream of a conquest cheaply bought." 679. Stowre. Battle, tumult. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 2. 7: "Then gan she wail and weepe to see that woeful stowre; Fairfax, Tasso, ii. 38: "That wonts in every warlike stour to win," etc. 680. In bower. In their chambers. See on i. ind. 321 above. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIFTH. George Ellis, Esq. (1745-1815), to whom this epistle is addressed, was an accomplished scholar and writer, the coadjutor of Canning and Frere in the Antijacobin, and editor of Specimens of Ancient English Romances. Many of his letters to Scott may be found in Lockhart's Life. 23. Darkling. In the dark (see on iii. 551 above) for lack of news from London. See p. 230 above. See ii. ind. I fol. above. 28. To seek our city home. 36. Ettrick, stripped, etc. 37. Caledonia's Queen, etc. The Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745 The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of 1 the city. Mr. Thomas Campbell proposed to celebrate Edinburgh under the epithet here borrowed. But the 'Queen of the North' has not been so fortunate as to receive from so eminent a pen the proposed distinction (Scott). 49. The studded gate. The heavy iron-studded gate which was closed at night, admittance being then allowed only at the wicket, or small door in the gate. This was not opened except after due parley; hence the churlishly. 57. Flinging thy white arms, etc. Scott says: "Since writing this line, I find I have inadvertently borrowed it almost verbatim, though with somewhat a different meaning, from a chorus in Caractacus:· "Britain heard the descant bold, She flung her white arms o'er the sea, 62. The Championess, etc. See Spenser, F. Q. iii. 9. 20 fol. 67. What time. See on i. 301 above. 69. When from the corselet's grasp relieved, etc. "Shee also dofte her heavy haberjeon, Cf. Spenser: Which the faire feature of her limbs did hyde," etc. 72. Aventayle. The ventail, or movable front of the helmet. 73. And down her shoulders, etc. Cf. Spenser: -"whenas vailed was her lofty crest, Her golden locks, that were in trammells gay 78. But looking, etc. every one her lov'd." Cf. Spenser: "Yet every one her likte, and 90. Battled. See on i. 4 above. 100. Voluntary line. Cf. iv. ind. 10 above. 106. Knosp. An architectural ornament resembling a bud, which the word literally means. III. In patriarchal times. See Gen. xviii. and xix. 118. To Henry, etc. Scott says here: "Henry VI., with his Queen, his heir, and the chiefs of his family, fled to Scotland after the fatal battle of Towton. In this note, a doubt was formerly expressed, whether Henry VI. came to Edinburgh, though his Queen certainly did, Mr. Pinkerton inclining to believe that he remained at Kirkcudbright. But my noble friend, Lord Napier, has pointed out to me a grant by Henry, of an annuity of forty marks to his Lordship's ancestor, John Napier, subscribed by the King himself, at Edinburgh, the 28th day of August, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, which corresponds to the year of God, 1461. This grant, Douglas, with his usual neglect of accuracy, dates in 1368. But this error being corrected from the copy in Macfarlane's MSS., p. 119, 20, removes all scepticism on the subject of Henry VI. being really at Edinburgh. John Napier was son and heir of Sir Alexander Napier, and about this time was Provost of Edinburgh." 1 Lowered, let fall. See on iii. 234 above. 120. Great Bourbon's relics, etc. "In January, 1796, the exiled Count d'Artois, afterwards Charles X. of France, took up his residence in Holyrood, where he remained until August, 1799. When again driven from his country by the Revolution of July, 1830, the same unfortunate Prince, with all the immediate members of his family, sought refuge once more in the ancient palace of the Stuarts, and remained there until 18th September, 1832" (Scott). 131. Than gaze, etc. The MS. has "Than gaze out on the foggy fen." 139. Whilere. Erewhile, a while ago. Cf. Milton, Ode on Circumcision, 10: "He who with all Heaven's heraldry whilere 140. Could win, etc. "Mr. Ellis, in his valuable Introduction to the Specimens of Romance, has proved, by the concurring testimony of La Ravaillere, Tressan, but especially the Abbé de la Rue, that the courts of our Anglo-Norman kings, rather than those of the French monarchs, produced the birth of romance literature. Marie, soon after mentioned, compiled from Armorican originals, and translated into Norman-French, or romance language, the twelve curious Lays, of which Mr. Ellis has given us a précis in the Appendix to his Introduction. The story of Blondel, the famous and faithful minstrel of Richard I., needs no commentary" (Scott). For royal, the 1st ed. has "Second." 141. For that. Because that. See on iv. 171 above. 147, 154. Oh! born, etc. Referring to Mr. Ellis's Specimens of Early English Poets and Early English Romances, the latter of which is alluded to by Scott in the note on 140 above. 180. Till Windsor's oaks, etc. "At Sunning-hill, Mr. Ellis's seat, near Windsor, part of the first two cantos of Marmion was written" (Lockhart). Ascot is in the same neighborhood. 185. The storied pane. Cf. Milton, Il Pens. 159: "storied windows richly dight." CANTO FIFTH. 2. The barrier-guard, etc. The MS. reads: "The barrier-guard the Lion knew, 6. And carried, etc. Advanced their pikes, and soon withdrew That closed the tented ground; And Marmion with his train rode through, 12. Such length, etc. their bows." This line is not in the 1st ed. The MS. has "So long their shafts, so large 18. The cloth-yard arrows, etc. "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 Holinshed, '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 " (Scott). 29. Practised their chargers, etc. The MS. has "There urged their chargers," etc. 32. To pass, to wheel, etc. Scott quotes Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life: "The most useful air, as the Frenchmen term it, is territerr; the courbettes, 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 usefull 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." 36. The hardy burghers. "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 armor to be of white or bright harness. They wore white hats, i. e. bright steel caps, without crest or visor. By an act of James IV., their weaponschawings are appointed to be held four times a-year, under the aldermen or bailiffs " (Scott). 41. Brigantines. Body armor composed of iron rings or small iron plates sewed upon canvas or leather, and covered with similar materials. The gorget was a piece of armor for the throat or neck. 45. And many, etc. The MS. reads: "And malls did many {wield of weight." 53. His arms, etc. "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 armor was the plate-jack, hauberk, or brigantine; and their missile weapons cross-bows and culverins. All wore swords of excellent temper, according to Patten; and a voluminous handkerchief round their neck, 'not for cold, but for cutting.' The mace also was much used in the Scottish army. The old poem on the battle of Flodden mentions a band 'Who manfully did meet their foes, With leaden mauls and lances long.' "When the feudal array of the kingdom was called forth, each man was obliged to appear with forty days' provision. When this was expended, which took place before the battle of Flodden, the army melted |