The Lady of the Lake Chapter 39: Part 39

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.'" 571. Play my prize. The same expression occurs in Shakespeare, T. A. i. 1. 399: "You have play'd your prize." Cf. also M. of V. iii. 2. 142: "Like one of two contending in a prize," etc. 575. The Castle gates. The main entrance to the Castle, not the postern gate of 532 above. 580. Fair Scotland's King, etc. The MS. reads: "King James and all his nobles went... Ever the King was bending low To his white jennet's saddle-bow, Doffing his cap to burgher dame, Who smiling blushed for pride and shame." 601. There nobles, etc. The MS. reads: "Nobles who mourned their power restrained, And the poor burgher's joys disdained; Dark chief, who, hostage for his clan, Was from his home a banished man, Who thought upon his own gray tower, The waving woods, his feudal bower, And deemed himself a shameful part Of pageant that he cursed in heart." 611. With bell at heel. Douce says that "the number of bells round each leg of the morris-dancers amounted from twenty to forty;" but Scott, in a note to The Fair Maid of Perth, speaks of 252 small bells in sets of twelve at regular musical intervals. 612. Their mazes wheel. The MS. adds: "With awkward stride there city groom Would part of fabled knight assume." 614. Robin Hood. Scott says here: "The exhibition of this renowned outlaw and his band was a favorite frolic at such festivals as we are describing. This sporting, in which kings did not disdain to be actors, was prohibited in Scotland upon the Reformation, by a statute of the 6th Parliament of Queen Mary, c. 61, A. D. 1555, which ordered, under heavy penalties that 'na manner of person be chosen Robert Hude, nor Little John, Abbot of Unreason, Queen of May, nor otherwise.' But in 1561, the 'rascal multitude,' says John Knox, 'were stirred up to make a Robin Hude, whilk enormity was of mony years left and damned by statute and act of Paliament; yet would they not be forbidden.' Accordingly they raised a very serious tumult, and at length made prisoners the magistrates who endeavored to suppress it, and would not release them till they extorted a formal promise that no one should be punished for his share of the disturbance. It would seem, from the complaints of the General Assembly of the Kirk, that these profane festivities were continued down to 1592 (Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 414). Bold Robin was, to say the least, equally successful in maintaining his ground against the reformed clergy of England; for the simple and evangelical Latimer complains of coming to a country church where the people refused to hear him because it was Robin Hood's day, and his mitre and rochet were fain to give way to the village pastime. Much curious information on this subject may be found in the Preliminary Dissertation to the late Mr. Ritson's edition of the songs respecting this memorable outlaw. The game of Robin Hood was usually acted in May; and he was associated with the morrice-dancers, on whom so much illustration has been bestowed by the commentators on Shakespeare. A very lively picture of these festivities, containing a great deal of curious information on the subject of the private life and amusements of our ancestors, was thrown, by the late ingenious Mr. Strutt, into his romance entitled Queen-hoo Hall, published after his death, in 1808." 615. Friar Tuck. "Robin Hood's fat friar," as Shakespeare calls him (T. G. of V. iv. 1. 36), who figures in the Robin Hood ballads and in Ivanhoe. Scarlet and Little John are mentioned in one of Master Silence's snatches of song in 2 Hen. IV. v. 3. 107: "And Robin, Scarlet, and John." Scathelocke is a brother of Scarlet in Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd, which is a "Tale of Robin Hood," and Mutch is a bailiff in the same play. 626. Stake. Prize. 627. Fondly he watched, etc. The MS. reads: "Fondly he watched, with watery eye, For answering glance of sympathy, But no emotion made reply! Indifferent as to unknown | wight, Cold as to unknown yeoman | The King gave forth the arrow bright." 630. To archer wight. That is, to any ordinary archer. Scott has the following note here: "The Douglas of the poem is an imaginary person, a supposed uncle of the Earl of Angus. But the King's behavior during an unexpected interview with the Laird of Kilspindie, one of the banished Douglases, under circumstances similar to those in the text, is imitated from a real story told by Hume of Godscroft. I would have availed myself more fully of the simple and affecting circumstances of the old history, had they not been already woven into a pathetic ballad by my friend Mr. Finlay. [11] 'His [the King's] implacability [towards the family of Douglas] did also appear in his carriage towards Archibald of Kilspinke, whom he, when he was a child, loved singularly well for his ability of body, and was wont to call him his Gray-Steill. [12] Archibald, being banished into England, could not well comport with the humor