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NOTES

ON

CANTO FIFTH

The Bloody Heart blazed in the van,
Announcing Douglas, dreaded name!

Verse 4, p. 103.

THE chief of this potent race of heroes, about the date of the poem, was Archibald Douglas, seventh earl of Angus, a man of great courage and activity. The bloody heart was the well known cognizance of the house of Douglas, assumed from the time of the Good lord James, to whose care Robert Bruce committed his heart to be carried to the Holy Land.

Beneath the crest of old Dunbar,

And Hepburn's mingled banner's, come, Down the steep mountain glittering far, And shouting still "A Home! A Home !" Verse 4, p. 104.

The earls of home, as descendants of the Dunbars,

ancient earls of March, carried a llon rampant, are gent; but, as a difference, changed the colour of the shield from gules to vert, in allusion to Greenlaw, their ancient possession. The slogan or war-cry, of this powerful family, was, “A Home! A Home!" It was anciently placed in an escroll above the crest. The helmet is armed with a lion's head erased gules, with a cap of state gules, turned up ermine.

The Hepburns, a powerful family in east Lothian, were usually in close alliance with the Homes. The chief of this clan was Hepburn, lord of Hailes; a family which terminated in the too famous earl of Bothwell.

Pursued the foot-ball play-Ver. 6, p. 105.

The foot-ball was anciently a very favourite sport all through Scotland, but especially upon the Borders. Sir John Carmichael of Carmichael, warden of the middle marches, was killed in 1600, by a band of the Armstrongs, returning from a foot-ball match. Sir Robert Carey in his Memoirs, mentions a great meeting appointed by the Scottish riders, to be held at Kelso, for the purpose of playing at foot-ball, but which terminated in an incursion upon England. At present the foot-ball is often played by the inhab itants of adjacent parishes, or of the opposite banks of a stream. The victory is contested with the

atmost fury, and very serious accidents have sometimes taken place in the struggle.

'Twixt truce and war, such sudden change Was not unfrequent, nor held strange,

In the old Border-day.-Ver. 7, p. 106.

Notwithstanding the constant wars upon the Bor ders, and the occasional cruelties which marked the mutual inroads, the inhabitants on either side do not appear to have regarded each other with that violent and personal animosity which might have been expected. On the contrary like the out posts of hostile armies, they often carried on something resemb ling friendly intercourse, even in the middle of hostilities; and it is evident from various ordinances, against trade and intermarriages between English. and Scottish Borderers, that the governments of both countries were jealous of their cherishing too intimate a connection. Froissart says of both nations, that "Englyshemen on the one party, and Scottes on the other party, are good men of warre; for when they meet, there is a harde fight without sparynge. There is no hoo (truce) between them as longe as spears, swords, axes, or daggers will endure, but lay on eche upon other, and whan they be well beaten, and that the one par

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tye hath obtayned the victory, they than gloryfye so in theyre dedes of armes, and are so joyfull, that such as be taken they shall be ransomed, or that they go out of the felde; so that shortly eche of them is so content with other, that at their departynge, curtyslye they will say, God thank you. BERNER'S Frois sart, vol. ii, p. 153. The Border meetings of truce, which although places of merchandise and merriment, often witnessed the most bloody scenes, may serve to illustrate the description in the text. They are vividly pourtrayed in the old ballad of the Reidsquair. Both parties came armed to a meeting of the wardens, yet they intermixed fearlessly and peaceably with each other in mutual sports and familiar intercourse, until a casual fray arose.

Then was there nought but bow and spear,

And every man pulled out a brand.

In the 29th stanza of this canto, there is an attempt to express some of the mixed feelings, with which the Borderers on each side were led to regard their neighbours.

And frequent on the darkening plain,
Loud hollo, whoop, and whistle ran;
As bands their stragglers to regain,
Give the shrill watch-word of their clain.

Verse 8, p. 107.

Patten remarks, with bitter censure, the disorderly conduct of the English Borderers, who attended the Protector Somerset on his expedition against Scotland. "As we wear then a setling, and the tents à setting up, among all things els commendable in oure hole jorney, one thing semed to me an intollerable disorder and abuse; that whearas allweys, both in alle tounes of war, and in all campes of armies, quietnes and stilnes, without nois, is principally in the night, after the watch is set, observed (I nede not reason why,) our northern prikkers, the Borderers, notwithandyng, with great enormitie (as thought me,) and not unlike (to be playn) unto a masterles hounde howlyng in a hie wey when he hath lost him he waited upon, sum hoopynge, sum whistlyng, and most with crying, a Berwyke, a Berwyke! a Fenwyke, a Fenwyke! a Bulmer, a Bulmer! or so otherwise as theyr captains names wear, never lin'de these troublous and dangerous noyses all the nyghte longe. They said they did to finde their captain and fellows; but if the souldiours 'of our other countreys and sheres had used the same manner, in that case we shoold have oft tymes had the state of our camp more like the outrage of a dissolute huntyng, than the quiet of a well ordred armye. It is a feat of wan in mine opinion, that might right well be left. I could reherse causes (but yf I take it, they ar better

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