Part 51

449. Then faint afar. The MS. has "Faint and afar."

452. Lincoln green. See on i. 464 above.

462. We destined, etc. Cf. iv. 411 above.

465. Weed. Dress. See on iv. 506 above.

466. Boune. Ready. See on iv. 36 above.

479. Steel. Spur. Cf. i. 115 above.

485. Carhonie's hill. About a mile from the lower end of Loch Vennachar.

486. Pricked. Spurred. It came to mean ride; as in F. Q. i. 1. 1: "A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine," etc. Cf. 754 below.

490. Torry and Lendrick. These places, like Deanstown, Doune (see on iv. 19 above), Blair-Drummond, Ochtertyre, and Kier, are all on the banks of the Teith, between Callander and Stirling. Lockhart says: "It may be worth noting that the poet marks the progress of the King by naming in succession places familiar and dear to his own early recollections--Blair-Drummond, the seat of the Homes of Kaimes; Kier, that of the principal family of the name of Stirling; Ochtertyre, that of John Ramsay, the well-known antiquary, and correspondent of Burns; and Craigforth, that of the Callenders of Craigforth, almost under the walls of Stirling Castle;--all hospitable roofs, under which he had spent many of his younger days."

494. Sees the hoofs strike fire. The MS. has "Saw their hoofs of fire."

496. They mark, etc. The to of the infinitive is omitted in glance, as if mark had been see.

498. Sweltering. The 1st ed. has "swelling."

506. Flinty. The MS. has "steepy;" and in 514 "gains" for scales.

525. Saint Serle. "The King himself is in such distress for a rhyme as to be obliged to apply to one of the obscurest saints in the calendar" (Jeffrey). The MS. has "by my word," and "Lord" for Earl in the next line.

534. Cambus-kenneth's abbey gray. See on iv. 231 above.

547. By. Gone by, past.

551. O sad and fatal mound! "An eminence on the northeast of the Castle, where state criminals were executed. Stirling was often polluted with noble blood. It is thus apostrophized by J. Johnston:

'Discordia tristis Heu quotis procerum sanguine tinxit humum! Hoc uno infelix, et felix cetera; nusquam Laetior aut caeli frons geniusve soli.'

"The fate of William, eighth Earl of Douglas, whom James II. stabbed in Stirling Castle with his own hand, and while under his royal safe-conduct, is familiar to all who read Scottish history. Murdack Duke of Albany, Duncan Earl of Lennox, his father-in-law, and his two sons, Walter and Alexander Stuart, were executed at Stirling, in 1425. They were beheaded upon an eminence without the Castle walls, but making part of the same hill, from whence they could behold their strong Castle of Doune and their extensive possessions. This 'heading hill,' as it was sometimes termed, bears commonly the less terrible name of Hurly-hacket, from its having been the scene of a courtly amusement alluded to by Sir David Lindsay, who says of the pastimes in which the young King was engaged:

'Some harled him to the Hurly-hacket;'

which consisted in sliding--in some sort of chair, it may be supposed--from top to bottom of a smooth bank. The boys of Edinburgh, about twenty years ago, used to play at the hurly-hacket on the Calton Hill, using for their seat a horse's skull" (Scott).

558. The Franciscan steeple. The Greyfriars Church, built by James IV. in 1594 on the hill not far from the Castle, is still standing, and has been recently restored. Here James VI. was crowned on the 29th of July, 1567, and John Knox preached the coronation sermon.

562. Morrice-dancers. The morrice or morris dance was probably of Spanish (or Moorish, as the name implies) origin, but after its introduction into England it became blended with the Mayday games. A full historical account of it is given in Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare. The characters in it in early times were the following: "Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian (Robin's mistress and the queen or lady of the May), the fool, the piper, and several morris-dancers habited, as it appears, in various modes. Afterwards a hobby-horse and a dragon were added" (Douce). For a description of the game, see Scott's Abbot, ch. xiv., and the author's note. See also on 614 below.

564. The burghers hold their sports to-day. Scott has the following note here:

"Every burgh of Scotland of the least note, but more especially the considerable towns, had their solemn play, or festival, when feats of archery were exhibited, and prized distributed to those who excelled in wrestling, hurling the bar, and the other gymnastic exercises of the period. Stirling, a usual place of royal residence, was not likely to be deficient in pomp upon such occasions, especially since James V. was very partial to them. His ready participation in these popular amusements was one cause of his acquiring the title of the King of the Commons, or Rex Plebeiorum, as Lesley has latinized it. The usual prize to the best shooter was a silver arrow. Such a one is preserved at Selkirk and at Peebles. At Dumfries a silver gun was substituted, and the contention transferred to firearms. The ceremony, as there performed, is the subject of an excellent Scottish poem, by Mr. John Mayne, entitled the Siller Gun 1808, which surpasses the efforts of Fergusson, and comes near those of Burns.

"Of James's attachment to archery, Pitscottie, the faithful though rude recorder of the manners of that period, has given us evidence:

'In this year there came an ambassador out of England, named Lord William Howard, with a bishop with him, with many other gentlemen, to the number of threescore horse, which were all able men and waled [picked] men for all kind of games and pastimes, shooting, louping, running, wrestling, and casting of the stone, but they were well sayed [essayed or tried] ere they past out of Scotland, and that by their own provocation; but ever they tint: till at last, the Queen of Scotland, the King's mother, favoured the English-men, because she was the King of England's sister; and therefore she took an enterprise of archery upon the Englishmen's hands, contrary her son the King, and any six in Scotland that he would wale, either gentlemen or yeomen, that the Englishmen should shoot against them either at pricks, revers, or buts, as the Scots pleased.

'The King, hearing this of his mother, was content, and gart her pawn a hundred crowns and a tun of wine upon the English-men's hands; and he incontinent laid down as much for the Scottish-men. The field and ground was chosen in St. Andrews, and three landed men and three yeomen chosen to shoot against the English-men,--to wit, David Wemyss of that ilk, David Arnot of that ilk, and Mr. John Wedderburn, vicar of Dundee; the yeomen, John Thomson, in Leith, Steven Taburner, with a piper, called Alexander Bailie; they shot very near, and warred [worsted] the English-men of the enterprise, and wan the hundred crowns and the tun of wine, which made the King very merry that his men wan the victory.'"