Note XII.

in proud Scotland's royal shield

The ruddy Lion ramp'd in gold.—St. XXVIII. P. 223. The well-known arms of Scotland. If you will believe Boethius and Buchanan, the double tressure round the shield, mentioned p. 199, counter fleur-de-lised, or, lingued and armed azure, was first assumed by Achaius, King of Scotland, contemporary of Charlemagne, and founder of the celebrated League with France; but later antiquaries make poor Eochy, or Achy, little better than a sort of King of Brentford, whom old Grig (who has also swelled into Gregorius Magnus,) associated with himself in the important duty of governing some part of the north-eastern coast of Scotland.

NOTES TO CANTO V.

Note I.

Caledonia's Queen is changed.-P. 235.

The Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745. The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of the city. My ingenious and valued friend, Mr Thomas Campbell, proposed to celebrate Edinburgh under the epithet here borrowed. But the "Queen of the North" has not been so fortunate as to receive from so eminent a pen the proposed distinction.

Note II.

Flinging thy white arms to the sea.-P. 236.

Since writing this line, I find I have inadvertently borrowed it almost verbatim, though with somewhat a different meaning, from a chorus in "Caractacus:"

Britain heard the descant bold,

She flung her white arms o'er the sea,

Proud in her leafy bosom to enfold

The freight of harmony.

Note III.

Since first, when conquering York arose,

To Henry meek she gave repose.-P. 239.

Henry VI., with his Queen, his heir, and the chiefs of his family, fled to Scotland after the fatal battle of Towton. In this note a doubt was formerly expressed, whether Henry VI. came to Edinburgh, though his Queen certainly did; Mr Pinkerton inclining to believe that he remained at Kirkcudbright. But my noble friend, Lord Napier, has pointed out to me a grant by Henry, of an annuity of forty marks to his Lordship's ancestor, John Napier, subscribed by the King himself, at Edinburgh, the 28th day of August, in the thirtyninth year of his reign, which corresponds to the year of God, 1461. This grant, Douglas, with his usual neglect of accuracy, dates in 1368. But this error being corrected from the copy in Macfarlane's MSS. p. 119, 120, removes all scepticism on the subject of Henry VI. being really at Edinburgh. John Napier was son and heir of Sir Alexander Napier, and about this time was Provost of Edinburgh. The hospitable reception of the distressed monarch and his family, called forth on Scotland the encomium of Molinet, a contemporary poet. The English people, he says,—

Ung nouveau roy créerent,
Par despiteux vouloir,
Le vicil en deboutérent,

Et son legitime hoir,
Qui fuytyf alla prendre
D'Escossé le garand,

De tous siecles le mendre,

Et le plus tollerant.

RECOLLECTION DES AVANTURES.

66

rature.

Note IV.

the romantic strain,

Whose Anglo-Norman strains whilere

Could win the Royal Henry's ear.-P. 240.

Mr Ellis, in his valuable Introduction to the "Specimens of Romance," has proved, by the concurring testimony of La Ravaillere, Tressan, but especially the Abbe de la Rue, that the courts of our Anglo-Norman Kings, rather than those of the French monarch, produced the birth of Romance liteMarie, soon after mentioned, compiled from Armorican originals, and translated into Norman-French, or romance language, the twelve curious Lays, of which Mr Ellis has given us a precis in the Appendix to his Introduction. The story of Blondel, the famous and faithful minstrel of Richard I., needs no commentary.

Note V.

The cloth-yard arrows flew like hail.—St. I. P. 248. This is no poetical exaggeration. In some of the counties of England, distinguished for archery, shafts of this extraordinary length were actually used. Thus, at the battle of Blackheath, between the troops of Henry VII. and the Cornish insurgents, in 1496, the bridge of Dartford was defended by a

picked band of archers from the rebel army,

66

"whose arrows,"

says Hollinshed, were in length a full cloth-yard." The Scottish, according to Ascham, had a proverb, that every English archer carried under his belt twenty-four Scots, in allusion to his bundle of unerring shafts.

Note VI.

To pass, to wheel, the croupe to gain,

And high curvett, 'hat not in vain

The sword-sway might descend amain

On foeman's casque below.-St. II. p. 249.

"The most useful air, as the Frenchmen term it, is terri"terr; the courbettes, cabrioles, or un pas et un sault, being "fitter for horses of parade and triumph than for soldiers : "yet I cannot deny but a demivolte with courbettes, so that "they be not too high, may be useful in a fight or meslee; "for, as Labroue hath it, in his Book of Horsemanship, Mon"sieur de Montmorency having a horse that was excellent in

performing the demivolte, did, with his sword, strike down "two adversaries from their horses in a tourney, where divers of the prime gallants of France did meet; for, taking "his time, when the horse was in the height of his courbette, "and discharging a blow then, his sword fell with such "weight and force upon the two cavaliers, one after another, "that he struck them from their horses to the ground."— Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life, p. 48.