those splendid remains of antiquity, which are at present used as a fold for sheep, and wintering cattle; although, perhaps, there are very few ruins in Scotland which display so well the style and beauty of castle-architecture.'-SCOTT. The ruin is now carefully protected, visitors being admitted on application at Crichtoun Manse adjoining. Stanza XI. 1. 232. The castle of Crichton has a dungeon vault, called the Massy More. The epithet, which is not uncommonly applied to the prisons of other old castles in Scotland, is of Saracenic origin. It occurs twice in the "Epistolæ Itineraria" of Tollius. "Carcer subterraneus, sive, ut Mauri appellant, MAZMORRA," p. 147; and again, "Coguntur omnes Captivi sub noctem in ergastula subterranea, quæ Turca Algezerani vocant MAZMORRAS," p. 243. The same word applies to the dungeons of the ancient Moorish castles in Spain, and serves to show from what nation the Gothic style of castle building was originally derived.'-SCOTT. See further, Sir W. Scott's 'Provincial Antiquities,' vol. i. Stanza XII. 1. 249. He was the second Earl of Bothwell, and fell in the field of Flodden, where, according to an ancient English poet, he distinguished himself by a furious attempt to retrieve the day : "Then on the Scottish part, right proud, The Earl of Bothwell then out brast, His fatal fine in conflict found," &c. Edin. 1808.' SCOTT. 1. 254. 'Adam was grandfather to James, Earl of Bothwell, too well known in the history of Queen Mary.'-Scott. Stanza XIII. 1. 260. The Borough-moor extended from Edinburgh south to the Braid Hills. Stanza XIV. 1. 280. Scott quotes from Lindsay of Pitscottie the story of the apparition seen at Linlithgow by James IV, when undergoing his annual penance for having taken the field against his father. Some of the younger men about the Court had devised what they felt might be an impressive warning to the King against going to war, and their show of supernatural interference was well managed. Lindsay's narrative proceeds thus : 'The King came to Lithgow, where he happened to be for the time at the Council, very sad and dolorous, making his devotion to God, to send him good chance and fortune in his voyage. In this meantime, there came a man, clad in a blue gown, in at the kirk door, and belted about him in a roll of linen-cloth; a pair of broti. kings on his feet, to the great of his legs; with all other hose and clothes conform thereto; but he had nothing on his head, but syde' red yellow hair behind, and on his haffets,3 which wan down to his shoulders; but his forehead was bald and bare. He seemed to be a man of two-and-fifty years, with a great pike-staff in his hand, and came first forward among the lords, crying and sperring for the King, saying, he desired to speak with him. While, at the last, he came where the King was sitting in the desk, at his prayers, but when he saw the King, he made him little reverence or salutation, but leaned down groffling on the desk before him, and said to him in this manner, as after follows: "Sir King, my mother hath sent me to you, desiring you not to pass, at this time, where thou art purposed; for if thou does, thou wilt not fare well in thy journey, nor none that passeth with thee. Further, she bade thee mell 5 with no woman, nor use their counsel, nor let them touch thy body, nor thou theirs; for, if thou do it, thou wilt be confounded and brought to shame." 'By this man had spoken thir words unto the King's grace, the evening-song was near done, and the King paused on thir words, studying to give him an answer; but, in the meantime, before the King's eyes, and in the presence of all the lords that were about him for the time, this man vanished away, and could no ways be seen nor comprehended, but vanished away as he had been a blink of the sun, or a whip of the whirlwind, and could no more be seen. I heard say, Sir David Lindesay, Lyon-herauld, and John Inglis the marshal, who were, at that time, young men, and special servants to the King's grace, were standing presently beside the King, who thought to have laid hands on this man, that they might have speired further tidings at him: But all for nought; they could not touch him; for he vanished away betwixt them, and was no more seen.' Buchanan, in more elegant, though not more impressive language, tells the same story, and quotes the personal information of our Sir David Lindesay: 'In iis, (i. e. qui propius astiterant) fuit David 1 buskins. 2 long. 3 cheeks. 4 asking. 5 meddle. Lindesius, Montanus, homo spectatæ fidei et probitatis, nec a literarum studiis alienus, et cujus totius vitæ tenor longissime a mentiendo aberat; a quo nisi ego hæc uti tradidi, pro certis accepissem, ut vulgatam vanis rumoribus fabulam omissurus eram.”—Lib. xiii. The King's throne, in St. Catherine's aisle, which he had constructed for himself, with twelve stalls for the Knights Companions of the Order of the Thistle, is still shown as the place where the apparition was seen. I know not by what means St. Andrew got the credit of having been the celebrated monitor of James IV; for the expression in Lindesay's narrative, "My mother has sent me," could only be used by St. John, the adopted son of the Virgin Mary. The whole story is so well attested, that we have only the choice between a miracle or an imposture. Mr. Pinkerton plausibly argues, from the caution against incontinence, that the Queen was privy to the scheme of those who had recourse to this expedient, to deter King James from his impolitic war.' Stanza XV. 1.287. 'In Scotland there are about twenty palaces, castles, and remains, or sites of such, "Where Scotia's kings of other years" had their royal home. ... 'Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David, who bought the title of saint by his liberality to the Church, refers several of his charters to his town of Linlithgow; and in that of Holyrood expressly bestows on the new monastery all the skins of the rams, ewes, and lambs, belonging to his castle of Linlitcu, which shall die during the year. . . . The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so great a favourite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of the attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow and its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success in the neighbourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound bitch tied to a tree... The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings of four storeys high, with towers at the angles. The fronts with the square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases, are upon a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, S with a gallery for music. The King's wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over the walls, so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.'-SIR WALTER SCOTT's Provincial Antiquities.— Prose Works, vol. vii. p. 382. 1. 288. With ‘jovial June' cp. Gavin Douglas's 'joyous moneth tyme of June,' in prologue to the 13th Æneid, ekit to Virgill be Maphaeus Vegius,' and the description of the month in Lyndsay's ⚫ Dreme,' as : 'Weill bordourit with dasyis of delyte.' 1. 291. 'I am glad of an opportunity to describe the cry of the deer by another word than braying, although the latter has been sanctified by the use of the Scottish metrical translation of the Psalms. Bell seems to be an abbreviation of bellow. This silvan sound conveyed great delight to our ancestors, chiefly, I suppose, from association. A gentle knight in the reign of Henry VIII, Sir Thomas Wortley, built Wantley Lodge, in Wancliffe Forest, for the pleasure (as an ancient inscription testifies) of "listening to the hart's bell."-SCOTT. 1. 298. Sauchie-burn, where James III fell, was fought 18 June, 1488. James IV,' says Scott, 'after the battle passed to Stirling, and hearing the monks of the chapel-royal deploring the death of his father, he was seized with deep remorse, which manifested itself in severe penances.' See below, note on V. ix. 1. 300. When the King saw his own banner displayed against him, and his son in the faction of his enemies, he lost the little courage he ever possessed, fled out of the field, fell from his horse as it started at a woman and water-pitcher, and was slain, it was not well understood by whom.'-SCOTT. Stanza XVI. 1. 312. In the church of St. Michael, adjoining the palace, 1. 316. The earliest known mention of the thistle as the national badge is in the inventory of the effects of James III. Thistles were inscribed on the coins of the next four reigns, and they were accompanied in the reign of James VI for the first time by the motto Nemo me impune lacessit. James II of Great Britain formally inaugurated the Order of the Thistle on 29 May, 1687, but it was not till the reign of Anne, 31 Dec. 1703, that it became a fully defined legal institution. The Order is also known as the Order of St. Andrew.— See CHAMBERS's Encyclopædia. 1. 318. It was natural and fit that Lyndsay should be present. It is more than likely that he had a leading hand in the enterprise. As tutor to the young Prince, it had been a recognised part of his duty to amuse him by various disguises; and he was likewise the first Scottish poet with an adequate dramatic sense. 1. 336. See St. John xix. 25-27. Stanza XVII. 1. 350. The special reference here is to the influence of Lady Heron. See above, I. xvi. 265, and below, V. x. 261. Stanza XIX. The skilful descriptive touches of this stanza are noteworthy. Cp. opening passages of Coleridge's 'Christabel,' especially the seven lines beginning, 'Is the night chilly and dark?' Stanza XXI. 1. 440. Grimly is not unknown as a poetical adj. 'Margaret's grimly ghost,' in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle,' II. i, is a familiar example. See above, p. 194, 1. 25, ‘grimly voice.' For' ghast' as an adj., cp. Keats's Otho the Great,' V. v. 11, ' How ghast a train !' 1. 449. See below, V. xxiv, "Twere long and needless here to tell,' and cp. Æneid I. 341 :— 'Longa est iniuria, longae Ambages; sed summa sequar fastigia rerum.' Stanza XXII. 1. 461. See above, III. xxv. 503, and note. 11. 467-470. Rothiemurchus, near Alvie, co. of Inverness, on Highland Railway; Tomantoul in co. of Banff, N.E. of Rothiemurchus; Auchnaslaid in co. of Inverness, near S.W. border of Aberdeen; Forest of Dromouchty on Inverness border eastward of Loch Ericht; Glenmore, co-extensive with Caledonian Canal. 11. 477–480. Cp. the teaching of Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' and Christabel.' In the former these stanzas are specially notable :"O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware. The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea.' 1. 487. bowne = prepare. See below, V. xx, 'to bowne him for the war'; and 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' V. xx, 'bowning back to Cumberland.' Cp. Piers the Plowman,' III. 173 (C Text) :— 'And bed hem alle ben boun. beggeres and othere, To wenden with hem to Westemynstre.' |