Note XVIIS.
Perchance some form was unobserved,
Perchance in point of faith he swerred.-P. 274. It was early necessary for those who felt themselves obliged to believe in the divine judgment being enunciated in the trial by duel, to find salvos for the strange and obviously precarious chances of the combat. Various curious evasive shifts, used by those who took up an unrighteous quarrel, were supposed sufficient to convert it into a just one. Thus, in the romance of " Amys and Amelion," the one brother-in-arms, fighting for the other, disguised in his armour, swears that he did not commit the crime of which the Steward, his antagonist, truly, though maliciously, accused him whom he represented. Brantome tells a story of an Italian, who entered the lists upon an unjust quarrel, but, to make his cause good, fled from his enemy at the first onset. "Turn, coward !" exclaimed bis antagonist; "Thou liest," said the Italian, "coward am I none; and in this quarrel will I fight to the death, but my first cause of combat was unjust, and I abandon it." " Je vous laisse a penser," adds Brantome "s'il ny a pas de l'abus la." Elsewhere he says, very sensibly, upon the confidence which those who had a righteous cause entertained of victory; ." Un autre abus y avoit-il, que ceux qui avoient un juste subjet de querelle, et qu'on les faisoit jurer avant entrer au camp, pensoient estre aussitost vainqueurs, voire s'en assuroient-t-ils du tout, mesmes que leurs confesseurs, parrains et confidants leurs en respon
doient tout-a-fait, comme si Dieu leur en eust donné une patente; et ne regardant point à d'autres fautes passées, et que Dieu en garde la punition à ce coup là pour plus grunde, despiteuse, et exemplaire." -Discours sur les Duels.
Note XIX.
Dun-Èdin's Cross.-P. 279. The Cross of Edinburgh was an ancient and curious structure. The lower part was an octagonal tower, sixteen feet in diameter, and about fifteen feet high. At each angle there was a pillar, and between them an arch, of the Grecian shape. Above these was a projecting battlement, with a turret at each corner, and medallions, of rude but curious workmanship, between them. Above tliis rose the proper Cross, a column of one stone, upwards of twenty feet high, surmounted with an uni corn. This pillar is preserved at the House of Drum, near Edinburgh. The Magistrates of Edinburgh, in 1756, with consent of the Lords of Session, (proh pudor!) destroyed this curious monument, under a wanton pretext, that it encumbered the street; while, on the one hand, they left an ugly mass, called the Luckenbooths, and, on the other, an awkward, long, and low guard-house, which were fifty times more encumbrance, than the venerable and inoffensive Cross.
From the tower of the Cross, so long as it remained, the heralds published the acts of Parliament; and its scite, marked by radii, diverging from a stone centre, in the High Street, is still the place where proclamations are made.
Note XX. This awful summons came.-P. 281. This supernatural citation is mentioned by all our Scottish historians. It was probably, like the apparition at Linlithgow, an attempt, by those averse to the war, to impose upon the superstitious temper of James IV. The following account from Pitscottie is characteristically minute, and furnishes, besides, some curious particulars of the equipment of the army of James IV I need only add to it, that Plotcock, or Plutock, is no other than Pluto. The Christians of the middle ages by no means disbelieved in the existence of the heathen deities ; they only considered them as devils;* and Plotcock, so far from implying any thing fabulous, was a synonyme of the grand enemy of mankind. " Yet all their warnings, and uncouth tidings, nor no good counsel, might stop the king, at this present, from his vain purpose, and wicked enterprise, but hasted him fast
* See, on this curious subject, the Essay on Fairies, in the " Border Minstrelsy," Vol. II. under the fourth head; also Jackson on Unbelief, p. 175. Chaucer calls Pluto the " King of Faerie ;" and Dunbar names him " Pluto, that elrich incubus." If he was not actually the devil, he must be considered as the " prince of the power of the air." The most remarkable instance of these surviving classical superstitions, is that of the Germans, concerning the Hill of Venus, into which she attempts to entice all gallant kuights, and detains them in a sort of Fools' Paradise.
to Edinburgh, and there to make his provision and furnishing, in having forth of his army against the day appointed, that they should meet in the Burrow-muir of Edinburgh: That is to say, seven cannons that he had forth of the Castle of Edinburgh, which were called the Seven Sisters, casten by Robert Borthwick, the master-gunner, with other small artillery, bullet, powder, and all manner of order, as the master-gunner could devise.
" In this mean time, when they were taking forth their artillery, and the king being in the Abbey for the time, there was a cry heard at the Market-cross of Edinburgh, at the hour of midnight, proclaiming as it had been a summons, which was named and called by the proclaimer thereof, The Summons of Plotcock; which desired all men to compear, both Earl, and Lord, and Baron, and all honest gentlemen within the town, (every man specified by his own name,) to compear, within the space of forty days, before his master, where it should happen him to appoint, and be for the time, under the pain of disobedience. But whether this summons was proclaimed by vain persons, night-walkers, or drunken men, for their pastime, or if it was a spirit, I cannot tell truly; but it was shewn to me, that an indweller of the town, Mr. Richard Lawson, being evildisposed, ganging in his gallery-stair foreanent the cross, hearing this voice proclaiming this summons, thought marvel what it should be, cried on his servant to bring him his purse ; and when he had brought him it, he took out a crown, and cast over the stair, saying, I appeal from that summons, judgment, and sentence thereof, and takes me all whole in the mercy of God, and Christ Jesus his Son. Verily the author of this, that caused me write the manner of the summons, was a landed gentleman, who was at that time twenty years of age, and was in the town the time of the said summons; and thereafter, when the field was stricken, he swore to me, there was no man that escaped that was called in this summons, but that one man alone which made his protestation, and appealed from the said sựmmons; but all the lave were perished in the field with the king."
Note XX.
Fitz-Eustace bade them pause a while,
Before a venerable pile.-P. 286. The convent alluded to is a foundation of Cistertian nuns, near North Berwick, of which there are still some remains. It was founded by Duncan, Earl of Fife, in 1216.
Note XXI.
That one of his own ancestry
Drove the Monks forth of Coventry.-P. 290.
This relates to the catastrophe of a real Robert de Marmion,
in the reigu of King Stephen, whom William of Newbury de-
scribes with some attributes of my fictitious hero: " Homo
bellicosus, ferocia, et astucia, fere nullo suo tempore impar."
This Baron, having expelled the monks from the church of
Coventry, was not long of experiencing the divine judgment,