the claim of fealty asserted over Scotland by the English monarchs. der his thigh bone, and killed him on the spot. But ere he could obtain James's pardon for this alaughter, Angus was obliged to yield his castle 13. Where Lennel's convent closed their march.-P. 94. of Hermitage, in exchange for that of Bothwell, This was a Cistertian house of religion, now al which was some diminution to the family great- most entirely demolished. Lennel house is now ness. The sword, with which he struck so remark- the residence of my venerable friend Patrick Bryable a blow, was presented by his descendant, done, esquire, so well known in the literary world. James, earl of Morton, afterwards regent of Scot-It is situated near Coldstream, almost opposite to land, to lord Lindesay of the Byres, when he de- Cornhill, and consequently very near to Flodden fied Bothwell to single combat on Carberry-hill.See Introduction to the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, p. 9. 11. And hopest thou hence unscathed to go?- Up drawbridge, grooms,-what, warder, ho! field. 14. The Till by Twisel bridge.-P. 94. On the evening previous to the memorable battle of Flodden, Surrey's head-quarters were at Barmoor-wood, and king James held an inaccessible position on the ridge of Flodden-hill, one of the last and lowest eminences detached from the ridge This ebullition of violence in the potent earl of of Cheviot. The Till, a deep and slow river, windAngus is not without its example in the real his-ed between the armies. On the morning of the tory of the house of Douglas, whose chieftains pos- ninth September, 1513, Surrey marched in a northsessed the ferocity, with the heroic virtues, of a westerly direction, and crossed the Till, with his savage state. The most curious instance occurred van and artillery, at Twisel bridge, nigh where in the case of Maclellan, tutor of Bomby, who, that river joins the Tweed, his rear-guard column having refused to acknowledge the pre-eminence passing about a mile higher, by a ford. This moveclaimed by Douglas over the gentlemen and barons ment had the double effect of placing his army of Galloway, was seized and imprisoned by the between king James and his supplies from Scotearl in his castle of the Thrieve, on the borders land, and of striking the Scottish monarch with of Kirkcudbright-shire. Sir Patrick Gray, com- surprise, as he seems to have relied on the depth mander of king James the second's guard, was of the river in his front. But as the passage, both uncle to the tutor of Bomby, and obtained from over the bridge and through the ford, was difficult the king a "sweet letter of supplication," praying and slow, it seems possible that the English might the earl to deliver his prisoner into Gray's hand. have been attacked to great advantage while strugWhen sir Patrick arrived at the castle, he was gling with these natural obstacles. I know not if we received with all the honour due to a favourite are to impute James's forbearance to want of militaservant of the king's household; but while he was ry skill, or to the romantic declaration which Pitsat dinner, the earl, who suspected his errand, cottie puts in his mouth, "that he was determined caused his prisoner to be led forth and beheaded. to have his enemies before him on a plain field,” After dinner, sir Patrick presented the king's let-and therefore would suffer no interruption to be ter to the earl, who received it with great affecta-given, even by artillery, to their passing the river. tion of reverence; "and took him by the hand, The ancient bridge of Twisel, by which the and led him forth to the green, where the gentleman was lying dead, and showed him the manner, and said, Sir Patrick, you are come a little too late; yonder is your sister's son lying, but he wants the head: take his body and do with it what you will.' Sir Patrick answered again with a sore heart, and said, My lord, if ye have taken from him his head, dispone upon the body as ye please: and with that called for his horse, and leaped thereon; and when he was on horseback, he said to the earl on this manner, My lord, if I live, you shall be rewarded for your labours, that you have used at this time, according to your demerits. "At this saying the earl was highly offended, and cried for horse. Sir Patrick, seeing the earl's fury, spurred his horse, but he was chased near Edinburgh ere they left him; and had it not been his led horse was so tried and good, he had been taken."-Pitscottie's History, p. 39. English crossed the Till, is still standing beneath Twisel castle, a splendid pile of Gothic architecture, as now rebuilt by sir Francis Blake, bart. whose extensive plantations have so much improved the country round. The glen is romantie and delightful, with steep banks on each side, covered with copse, particularly with hawthorn. Beneath a tall rock, near the bridge, is a pienufuč fountain, called St. Helen's well. 15. Hence might they see the full array Of either host, for deadly fray.-P. 95. The English line stretch'd east and west, 12. A letter forged! St. Jude to speed! Did ever knight so foul a deed?-P. 94. Lest the reader should partake of the earl's astonishment, and consider the crime as inconsistent with the manners of the period, I have to remind him of the numerous forgeries (partly executed by a female assistant) devised by Robert of Artois, to forward his suit against the countess Matilda; The English army advanced in four divisions. On which, being detected, occasioned his flight into the right, which first engaged, were the sons of England, and proved the remote cause of Edward earl Surrey, namely, Thomas Howard, the admithe third's memorable wars in France. John Hard- ral of England, and sir Edmund, the knight maring, also, was expressly hired by Edward IV, to shal of the army. Their divisions were separated forge such documents as might appear to establish from each other; but, at the request of sir Edmund, 16. 17. View not that corpse mistrustfully, Nor to yon border castle high his brother's battalion was drawn very near to his was defeated, and in which conflict Marmion is own. The centre was commanded by Surrey in supposed to have fallen. person; and the left wing by sir Edward Stanley, Brian Tunstall, stainless knight.-P. 96. with the men of Lancashire, and of the palatinate Sir Brian Tunstall, called in the romantic lanof Chester. Lord Dacre, with a large body of guage of the time, Tunstall the undefiled, was one horse, formed a reserve. When the smoke, which of the few Englishmen of rank slain at Flodden. the wind had driven between the armies, was some- He figures in the ancient English poem, to which what dispersed, they perceived the Scots, who had I may safely refer my reader; as an edition, with moved down the hill, in a similar order of battle, full explanatory notes, has been published by my and in deep silence. The earls of Huntly and of friend Mr. Henry Weber. Tunstall perhaps deHome commanded their left wing, and charged sir rived his epithet of undefiled from his white arEdmund Howard with such success, as entirely to mour and banner, the latter bearing a white cock defeat his part of the English right wing. The about to crow, as well as from his unstained loyadmiral, however, stood firm; and Dacre, advanc-alty and knightly faith. His place of residence was ing to his support with the reserve of cavalry, prob- Thurland castle. ably between the intervals of the divisions commanded by the brothers Howard, appears to have kept the victors in effectual check. Home's men, chiefly borderers, began to pillage the baggage of Look northward with upbraiding eye,-P, 98. both armies; and their leader is branded, by the There can be no doubt that king James fell in Scottish historians, with negligence or treachery. the battle of Flodden. He was killed, says tho On the other hand, Huntley, on whom they bestowcurious French gazette, within a lance's length of many encomiums, is said, by the English histori- the earl of Surrey; and the same account adds, ans, to have left the field after the first charge. that none of his division were made prisoners, Meanwhile the admiral, whose flank these chiefs though many were killed; a circumstance that tes ought to have attacked, availed himself of their in-tifies the desperation of their resistance. The activity and pushed forward against another large Scottish historians record many of the idle reports division of the Scottish army in his front, headed which passed among the vulgar of their day. Home by the earls of Crawford and Montrose, both of was accused, by the popular voice, not only of whom were slain, and their forces routed. On the failing to support the king, but even of having carleft, the success of the English was yet more de- ried him out of the field and murdered him. And cisive; for the Scottish right wing, consisting of this tale was revived in my remembrance, by an undisciplined highlanders, commanded by Lenox unauthenticated story of a skeleton, wrapped in a and Argyle, was unable to sustain the charge of bull's hide, and surrounded with an iron chain, sir Edward Stanley, and especially the severe exe- said to have been found in the well of Home cas cution of the Lancashire archers. The king and tle; for which, on inquiry, I could never find any Surrey, who commanded the respective centres of better authority than the sexton of the parish their armies, were meanwhile engaged in close having said, that if the well were cleaned out, he and dubious conflict. James, surrounded by the would not be surprised at such a discovery. Home flower of his kingdom, and impatient of the gall- was the chamberlain of the king, and his prime ing discharge of arrows, supported also by his re-favourite; he had much to lose, (in fact did lose serve under Bothwell, charged with such fury, all,) in consequence of James's death, and nothing that the standard of Surrey was in danger. At that earthly to gain by that event: but the retreat, or critical moment, Stanley, who had routed the left inactivity of the left wing, which he commanded, wing of the Scottish, pursued his career of victory, after defeating sir Edmund Howard, and even the and arrived on the right flank, and in the rear of circumstance of his returning unhurt, and loaded James's division, which, throwing itself into a cir- with spoil, from so fatal a conflict, rendered the ele, disputed the battle till night came on. Surrey propagation of any calumny against him easy and then drew back his forces, for the Scottish centre acceptable: other reports gave a still more ro not having been broken, and their left wing being mantic turn to the king's fate, and averred, that victorious, he yet doubted the event of the field. James, weary of greatness after the carnage among The Scottish army, however, felt their loss, and his nobles, had gone on a pilgrimage to merit ababandoned the field of battle in disorder before solution for the death of his father, and the breach dawn. They lost, perhaps, from eight to ten thou- of his oath of amity to Henry. In particular, it was sand men, but that included the very prime of their objected to the English, that they could never nobility, gentry, and even clergy. Scarce a family show the token of the iron belt; which, however, of eminence but has an ancestor killed at Flodden; he was likely enough to have laid aside on the day and there is no province in Scotland, even at this of battle, as encumbering his personal exertions. day, where the battle is mentioned without a sen- They produce a better evidence, the monarch's sation of terror and sorrow. The English lost also sword and dagger, which are still preserved in the a great number of men, perhaps within one-third Herald's college in London. Stowe has recorded of the vanquished, but they were of inferior note. a degrading story of the disgrace with which the -See the only distinct detail of the field of Flod-remains of the unfortunate monarch were treated den in Pinkerton's History, book xi, all former in his time. An unhewn column marks the spot accounts being full of blunder and inconsistency. where James fell, still called the king's stone. The spot, from which Clara views the battle, must be supposed to have been on a hillock commanding the rear of the English right wing, which “Lesquels Ecossois descendirent la montagne en bon o dre, en la maniere que marchent les Allemans, sans parler, ni faire aucun bruit." Gazette of the Battle, Pinkerton's History, Appendix, vol. ii, p. 456. 13. fanatic Brook The fair cathedral storm'd and took.-P. 98. This storm of Litchfield cathedral, which had been garrisoned on the part of the king, took place in the great civil war. Lord Brooke, who, with sir John Gill, commanded the assailants, was shot with a musket-ball through the visor of his hal met. The royalists remarked, that he was killed by a shot fired from St. Chad's cathedral, and upon St. Chad's day, and received his death-wound in the very eye with which he had said, he hoped to see the ruin of all the cathedrals in England. The magnificent church in question suffered cruelly upon this, and other occasions; the principal spire being ruined by the fire of the besiegers. Upon revising the poem, it seems proper to mention the following particulars: The lines in page 68, Whose doom discording neighbours sought, have been unconsciously borrowed from a passage in Dryden's beautiful epistle to John Driden of Chesterton, The ballad of Lochinvar, p. 83, is in a very slight degree founded on a ballad called "Katherine Janfarie," which may be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." The Lady of the Lake. TO THE MOST NOBLE JOHN JAMES, MARQUIS OF ABERCORN, ETC. THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR. ADVERTISEMENT. The scene of the following poem is laid chiefly in the vicinity of Loch-Katrine, in the Western Highlands of Perthshire. The time of action includes six days, and the transactions of each day Occupy a canto. THE LADY OF THE LAKE. CANTO I. THE CHASE. HARP of the North! that mouldering long hast hung On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan's spring, And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung, Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep; Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep? Not thus, in ancient days of Caledon, Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud Thine ardent symphony sublime and high! O wake once more! how rude soe'er the hand I. THE Stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, As chief, who hears his warder call, Sprung from his heathery couch in haste. III. Yelled on the view the opening pack, Less loud t' Disturbed IV. THE LADY OF THE LAKE. ounds of sylvan war Leights of Uam-Var, And roused the cavern, where, 'tis told, For ere that steep ascent was won, The noble stag was pausing now, VII. Alone, but with unbated zeal, And all but won that desperate game; But thundering as he came prepared, There while, close couched, the thicket shed He heard the baffled dogs in vain IX. Close on the hounds the hunter came, X. Then through the dell his horn resounds, XI. The western waves of ebbing day For, from their shiver'd brows display'd, All twinkling with the dew-drops sheen, Boon nature scatter'd, free and wild, XIII. Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep XIV. The broom's tough root his ladder made, And mountains, that like giants stand, High on the south, huge Ben-venue Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled, A wildering forest feathered o'er From the steep promontory gazed How solemn on the ear would come XVI. "Blith were it then to wander here! Yet pass we that;-the war and chase XVII. But scarce again his horn he wound, Just as the hunter left his stand, And stood concealed amid the brake, She thought to catch the distant strain. And locks flung back, and lips apart, |