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of Thirlestane immediately after 1542, and in the course of the sixteenth century. We thus further find, contrary to some absurd usages in modern times, that no part of the royal arms can be given to a subject without an express warrant from the Crown." &c.

It is difficult to say whether Mr Riddell intends, in the sentences quoted, to rate the good King William and his Lord Lyon, or merely to tache the shield of Thirlestane, whether to stamp as a forgery the old inventory referred to in the royal renewal, or the old warrant referred to by Pinkerton,-and whether he really concedes to the family the right which he calls a transcendent privilege, but which in his view of the facts would confer very little honour. Is this a charge of forgery, or a defence against it? Does the author of the Tracts reject the idea of any blunder in the inventory? Does he mean to say that, in the inventory, or in a copy of that, it was that Pinkerton detected a palpable error ? And how does he make out that a palpable error countenances the idea of forgery?

We have heard of an admirable attempt to forge a whole charter-chest, which for a time was successful. But the splendide mendax conception of manufacturing the Shakesperean papers, including complete plays newly discovered, was an effort, the anticipated reward of which might hold out a temptation, while the unparalleled genius of its execution all but justifies the lie. We have

The production of a charter-seal of the family immediately after 1542, bearing the augmentation, would be excellent evidence of the grant; but the converse by no means holds, as various circumstances might have prevented the chief of Thirlestane, or some of his descendants, from affording that evidence of the grant. Ancient seals are not mentioned in the renewal as part of the evidence. I am not aware of any seal of the family extant of the date.

heard of subordinate agents forging documents to assist a peerage claim without the connivance of principals, and the temptation there, too, is manifest. But such acts of deceit, as are pointed at by Mr Riddell's suspicions, only principals could have a motive for perpetrating. Now to concoct an old seal,-for the sake merely of establishing a male descent from Lennox, where a female descent which carried the fief was already admitted,―or to forge a warrant of arms, merely to establish the loyalty of a border chief, would be a luxury of deception, requiring more credulity to believe, than that Merchiston is come of Tudor, or that John of Thirlestane had, like the Roman knight, sacrificed himself, his horse and his arms, to close up a yawning gulf of rebellion. I shall here quote verbatim the warrant in Lord Napier's charter-chest; for neither Nesbit nor Sir Walter Scott have given it with precise accuracy. The former has omitted certain clerical blunders in the body of the instrument, which are material in a question of forgery, and in the notes to the Lay, the date, and also the signature of the King's secretary are misprinted.

66

"JAMES REX.

We, James, be the grace of God King of Scottis, considerand the faith and guid servis of of of right traist freind, John Scott of Thirlstane, qua cummand to our hoste at Sautra edge with three score and ten launcieres on horsback of his freinds and followers, and beand willing to gang with us into England, when all our nobles and others refuised, he was readdy to stake all at our bidding, for the quhilk cause it is our will, and we do straitlie command and charg our Lion Herauld and his deputis for the time beand, to give and to graunt to the said John Scott ane border of fleure de lises about his coatte of armor, sic as is on our royal banner; and

alsua ane bundell of launces above his helmet, with thir words, Readdy ay Ready, that he and all his aftercummers may bruik the samine, as a pledge and taiken of our guid will and kyndnes for his treue worthines. And thir our letters seen, ye nae wayes failzie to doe. Given at Fala Muire, under our hand and privy cashet the xxvii. day of July, ive, and xxxxii zeires.

66

By the King's Grace's special ordinance, "THO. ARSKINE. Indors.-"Edin. 14 January 1713, Registred conform to the Act of Parliament made anent probative writs, per M'Kaile, Pro'. and produced by Alexander Borthwick, servant to Sir William Scott of Thirlestane. M'L. I."*

If this be a forgery, it is a very strange one. Independently of the other considerations already offered, there are three facts which militate against such an idea. 1. The repetition of of of is the blunder of a transcriber, not of a forger; one of is probably a misreading for our. 2. The date is filled up in a different hand from the rest of the document, and is obviously an awkward attempt to copy ancient figurate expressions, which appear to be blundered, and were probably misread; a forger would have been more careful in this circumstance, and might have left the day of the month blank, as that frequently occurred in ancient authentic writs. The awkward imitation of the figures is the source, probably, of the blunder in the notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 3. A privy-seal is mentioned, yet there is no seal attached to this document, nor is there the slightest attempt made to give the appearance of

* Mr Riddell does not print this document, but gives bits of it, in a sentence of thirteen lines commencing with a royal nominative that never finds a verb.-See Tracts, p.

141.

one; a person feigning so deliberately would either not have mentioned a seal at all, or have given the indications, at least, of one. Moreover, this transcript (for it is obviously such) is written upon a small piece of parchment in a distinct old-fashioned hand, but possessing none of the characteristics of 1542, nor is the King's signature at the top at all like that of James V. This, too, must be observed, that King William's renewal makes no reference to it, but to good testimony, and an old inventory; and it is registered thirteen years after the date of that renewal, having probably been ill transcribed from the inventory in a state of decay. The ancient writs and evidents of the family of Thirlestane are lost, and I have not been able even to discover the old inventory. Whether that mentioned the circumstance of supporters, which the transcript warrant does not, it is impossible to say, we must in the meantime take the word of King William and his Lord Lyon for what Mr Riddell condemns as an "unauthorized interpolation of supporters.'

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When was the forgery committed? why? and by whom? Was it Sir Francis Scott who did it, or caused it to be done? He was a gentleman of unsullied honour, and high consideration in the country. Or does the charge of forgery point to some period more remote ?— haply to stalwart John of Fala himself, whom our antiquary may picture

"Now forging scrolls-now foremost in the fight,

Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace,
A mighty mixture of the great and base.”

It must be granted indeed to the learned author of the Tracts, that these moss-trooping Lords of St Mary in the forest were not immaculate, and a vague insinu

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ation or so of theft might have been more difficult to parry. But it was as "minions of the moon" that they sinned, and old Satchells tells us,

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Nightsmen at first they did appear,

Because moon and stars to their arms they bear."

Mr Riddell, we think, would have been much better employed in affording some elucidation of the interesting fact to which he slightly alludes,-that " the Scotts of Thirlestane, there is ground to conclude, are a branch of the Buccleuch family, from whom they may have sprung about the middle of the fifteenth century,"-than in his elaborate attempt to give weight to the hasty conjecture of Pinkerton. It is not in ratiocination from such premises that the learned antiquary is either valuable or formidable; but in his curious store of facts derived from a life devoted to genealogical researches. This cadency from Buccleuch is not recorded in the published genealogies of Thirlestane. It is on record, indeed, that Robert Scott of Thirlestane, Warden-depute of the west borders, and eldest son of the hero of Fala, married Margaret, daughter of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, and sister of that noted Sir Walter who took Kinmont Willy out of the castle of Carlisle, and blew a blast of defiance from its battlements against the Queen of England. In that very achievement, and in all the border chivalry of the period, the name of Howpaslot and Thirlestane is identified with that of Buccleuch.

"Then lightened Thirlestane's eye of flame,

His bugle Watt of Harden blew ;
Pensils and pennons wide were flung
To Heaven, the border slogan rung,
"St Mary for the young Buccleuch."

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