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atheists." But we learn from Lesley, that, however deficient in real religion, they regularly told their beads, and never with more zeal than when going on a plundering expedition.

Beneath their feet were the bones of the dead.
Ver. 7, p. 37.

The cloisters were frequently used as places of sepulchre. An instance occurs in Dryburgh abbey, where the cloister has an inscription bearing, Hic jacet frater Archibaldus.

So had he seen, in fair Castile,

The youth in glittering squadrons start; Sudden the flying jennet wheel,

And hurl the unexpected dart.-Ver. 8, p. 37.

"By my fayth," sayd the duke of Lancaster (to a Portugues squire,) " of all the feates of armes. that the Castellyans and they of your countrey doth use, the castynge of their dartes best pleaseth me, and gladly I wolde see it; for as I here say, if they strike one aryght, without he be well armed, the darte will perce him thrughe." "By my fayth, sir," sayd the squire, "yeu say trouth; for I have seen many a grete stroke given with them, which at one tyme cost us derely, and was to us great displea

sure; for at the said skyrmishe, Sir John Laurence of Coygne was stricken with a dart in such wise, that, the head perced all the plates of his cote of mayle, and a sacke stopped with sylke, and passed thrughe his body, so that he fell down dead." Froissart, vol. ii. ch. 44. darts was imitated in the de las canas, which the Spaniards borrowed from their Moorish invaders. A Saracen champion is thus described by Froissart: "Among the Sarazyns, there was a yonge knyghte called Agadinger Dolyferne; he was always wel mounted on a redy and a lyghte horse; it seemed whan the horse ranne, that he dyd flye in the ayre. The knyghte seemed to be a good man of armes by his dedes, he bare always of usage three fethered dartes, and rychte well he coulde handle them; and, according to their custome, he was clene armed with a long white towell about his heed. His apparell was blacke, and his own colour browne, and a good horseman. The Cryten men saye, they thoughte he dyd suche dedes of armes for the love of some yonge ladye of his countrey. And true it was, that he loved entirely the king of Thunes' daughter named the lady Azala ; she was inherytour to the realme of Thunes' after the discease of the kynge her father. This Agadinger was sone to the duke of Dolyferne. I can nat R

This mode of fighting with military game called Juego

telle if they were married together after or nat; but it was showed me that this knyghte, for love of the sayd ladye, during the siege, did many feats of armes. The knyghtes of Fraunce wolde fayne have taken hym; but they colde never attrape nor inclose him, his horse was so swyft, and so redy to his hand, that alwaies he scaped." Vol. ii. ch. 71.

Thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant chief of Otterburne.-Ver. 10, p. 38.

The famous and desperate battle of Otterburne was fought 15th August, 1388, betwixt Henry Percy, called Hotspur, and James earl of Douglas. Both these renowned champions were at the head of a chosen body of troops, and they were rivals in military fame; so that Froissart affirms, "Of all the bataylles and encounteryngs that I have made mencion of here before in all this hystory, great or smalle, this batayle that I treat of nowe was one of the sorest and best foughten, without cowardes or faynte hertes ; for there was neyther knyghte nor squyer but that dyde his devoyre, and fought hande to hande. This batayle was lyke the batayle of Becherell, the which was vailauntlye fought and endured." The issue of the conflict is well known: Percy was made prisoner, and the Scots won the day, dearly purchased by the

death of their gallant general, the earl of Douglas,

who was slain in the action.

rose beneath the high altar.

He was buried at Mel

"His obsequye was

done reverently, and on his body ladye a tombe of stone, and his baner hangyng over hym."-FROISSART, vol. ii. p. 161.

Dark knight of Liddesdale.-Ver. 10. p. 38.

William Douglas, called the knight of Liddesdale, flourished during the reign of David II. and was so distinguished by his valour, that he was called the Flower of Chivalry. Nevertheless, he tarnished his renown by the cruel murder of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, originally his friend and brother in arms. The king had conferred upon Ramsay the sheriffdom of Teviotdale, to which Douglas pretended some claim. In revenge of this preference, the knight of Liddesdale came down upon Ramsay, while he was administering justice at Hawick, seized, and carried him off to his remote and inaccessible castle of Hermitage, where he threw his unfortunate prisoner, horse and man, into a dungeon, and left him to perish of Hunger. It is said, the miserable cap tive prolonged his existence for several days by the corn which fell from a granary above the vault in

which he was confined.* So weak was the royal authority, that David, although highly incensed at this attrocious murder, found himself obliged to appoint the knight of Liddesdale successor to his victim, as sheriff of Teviotdale. But he was soon after slain, while hunting in Ettricke Forest, by his own godson and chieftain, William earl of Douglas, in revenge, according to some authors, of Ramsay's murder; although a popular tradition, preserved in a ballad quoted by Godscroft, and some parts of which are still preserved, ascribes the resentment of the earl to jealousy. The place where the knight of Liddesdale

* There is something affecting in the manner in which the old Prior of Lochlevin turns from describing the death of the gallant Ramsay, to the general sorrow which it excited:

To tell you thare of the manere,
It is bot sorrow for til here;
He was the grettast menyd man
That only cowth have thowcht of than,
Of his state, or of mare be fare ;

All menyt him, bath bettyr and war;
The ryche and pure him menyde bath,
For of his dede was me kil skath.

Some years ago, a person digging for stones, about the old castle of Hermitage, broke into a vault, containing a quantity of chaff, some bones, and pieces of iron; amongst others the curb of an ancient bridle, which the author has since given to the earl of Dalhousie, under the im pression, that it possibly may be a relique of his brave ancestor. The worthy clergyman of the parish has mentioned this discovery, in his statistical account of the parish of Castleton.

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