Fu' fast behind his back, And down beneath his knee, Ah wae light on ye, Stobs! An ill death mot ye die! Ye're the first and foremost man And took my mare me frae; The lasses of Ousenam water Are rugging and riving their hair, And a' for the sake of Willie, His beauty was so fair: His beauty was so fair, And comely for to see, And drink will be dear to Willie, Note XXIII. Black Lord Archibald's battle laws, In the old Douglas day.—P. 134. The title to the most ancient collection of Border regulations runs thus: "Be it remembered, that, on the 18th day of December, 1468, Earl William Douglas assembled the whole lords, freeholders, and eldest Borderers, that best knowledge had, at the * A wretched pun on his antagonist's name. t college of Linclouden; and there he caused those lords and Borderers bodily to be sworn, the Holy Gospel touched, that they justly and truly, after their cunning, should decreet, decern, deliver, and put in order and writing, the statutes, ordinances, and uses of marche, that were ordained in Black Archibald of Douglas's days, and Archibald his son's days, in time of warfare; and they came again to him advisedly with these statutes and ordinances, which were in time of warfare before. The said Earl William, seeing the statutes in writing decreed and delivered by the said lords and Borderers, thought them right speedful and profitable to the Borders; the which statutes, ordinances, and points of warfare, he took, and the whole lords and Borderers he caused bodily to be sworn, that they should maintain and supply him at their goodly power, to do the law upon those that should break the statutes underwritten. Also the said Earl William, and lords, and eldest Borderers, made certain points to be treason in time of warfare to be used, which were no treason before his time, but to be treason in his time, and in all time coming." NOTES TO CANTO V. Note I. The Bloody Heart blazed in the van, Announcing Douglas, dreaded name!-P. 144. 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 good Lord James, to whose care Robert Bruce committed his heart, to be carried to the Holy Land. Note II. -The Seven Spears of Wedderburne.-P. 144. Sir David Home of Wedderburn, who was slain in the fatal battle of Flodden, left seven sons by his wife, Isabel, daughter of Hoppringle of Galashiels (now Pringle of Whitebank). They were called the Seven Spears of Wedderburne. Note III. And Swinton laid the lance in rest, That tamed of yore the sparkling crest Of Clarence's Plantagenet.-P. 144. At the battle of Beaugé in France, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry V., was unhorsed by Sir John Swinton of Swinton, who distinguished him by a coronet set with precious stones, which he wore around his helmet. The family of Swinton is one of the most ancient in Scotland, and produced many celebrated warriors. Note IV. Beneath the crest of old Dunbar, And Hepburn's mingled banners come, And shouting still," a Home! a Home !"-P. 145. The Earls of Home, as descendants of the Dunbars, ancient Earls of March, carried a lion rampant, argent; 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 escrol 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. Note V. Pursued the foot-ball play.-P. 147. 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 inhabitants of adjacent parishes, or of the opposite banks of a stream. The victory is contested with the utmost fury, and very serious accidents have sometimes taken place in the struggle. Note VI. 'Twixt truce and war, such sudden change Was not unfrequent, nor held strange, In the old Border day.-P. 148. Notwithstanding the constant wars upon the Borders, 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 outposts of |