line 458. It likes was long used impersonally, in the sense of it pleases. Cp. King John, ii. 2. 234: ‘It likes us well.’
line 460. St. Bothan, Bythen, or Bethan is said to have been a cousin of St. Columba and his successor at Iona. His name is preserved in the Berwickshire parish, Abbey-Saint-Bathan’s; where, towards the close of the twelfth century, a Cistertian nunnery, with the title of a priory, was dedicated to him by Ada, daughter of William the Lion. There is no remaining trace of this structure.
line 461. The other sons could at least sign their names. Their signatures are reproduced in facsimile in ‘The Douglas Book’ by Sir William Eraser, 4 vols. 4to, Edin. 1886 (privately printed).
line 468. Fairly, well, elegantly, as in Chaucer’s Prol. 94:-
and in ‘Faerie Queene,’ I. i. 8:-
Stanza XVI. line 498. This line is a comprehensive description of a perfectly satisfactory charger or hunter.
line 499. Sholto is one of the Douglas family names. One of the Earl’s sons, being sheriff, could not go with his brothers to the war.
line 500. ‘His eldest son, the Master of Angus.’-SCOTT.
Stanza XVII. line 532. In Bacon’s ingenious essay, ‘Of Simulation and Dissimulation,’ he states these as the three disadvantages of the qualities:-’The first, that Simulation and Dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of round flying up to the mark. The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man almost alone to his own ends. The third, and greatest, is that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action; which is trust and belief.’
Stanza XVIII. line 540. ‘This was a Cistertian house of religion, now almost entirely demolished. Lennel House is now the residence of my venerable friend, Patrick Brydone, Esquire, so well known in the literary world. {4} It is situated near Coldstream, almost opposite Cornhill, and consequently very near to Flodden Field.’-SCOTT.
line 568. traversed, moved in opposition, as in fencing. Cp. Merry Wives, ii. 3. 23: ‘To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse,’ &c.
Stanza XIX line 573, ‘On the evening previous to the memorable battle of Flodden, Surrey’s headquarters 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 of Cheviot. The Till, a deep and slow river, winded between the armies. On the morning of the 9th September, 1513, Surrey marched in a north-westerly direction, and crossed the Till, with his van and artillery, at Twisel Bridge, nigh where that river joins the Tweed, his rear-guard column passing about a mile higher, by a ford. This movement had the double effect of placing his army between King James and his supplies from Scotland, and of striking the Scottish monarch with surprise, as he seems to have relied on the depth of the river in his front. But as the passage, both over the bridge and through the ford, was difficult and slow, it seems possible that the English might have been attacked to great advantage while straggling with these natural obstacles. I know not if we are to impute James’s forbearance to want of military skill, or to the romantic declaration which Pitscottie puts in his mouth, “that he was determined to have his enemies before him on a plain field,” and therefore would suffer no interruption to be given, even by artillery, to their passing the river.
‘The ancient bridge of Twisel, by which the 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 around. The glen is romantic and delightful, with steep banks on each side, covered with copse, particularly with hawthorn. Beneath a tall rock, near the bridge, is a plentiful fountain, called St. Helen’s Well.’-SCOTT.
That James was credited by his contemporaries with military skill and ample courage will be seen by reference to Barclay’s ‘Ship of Fooles,’ formerly referred to. The poet proposes a grand general European movement against the Turks, and suggests James IV as the military leader. The following complimentary acrostic is a feature of the passage:-
line 583. Sullen is admirably descriptive of the leading feature in the appearance of the Till just below Twisel Bridge. No one contrasting it with the Tweed at Norham will have difficulty in understanding the saying that:-
Stanza XX. line 608. The earlier editions have vails, ‘lowers’ or ‘checks’; as in Venus and Adonis, 956, ‘She vailed her eyelids.’ The edition of 1833 reads ‘vails, contr. for ‘avails.’
line 610. Douglas and Randolph were two of Bruce’s most trusted leaders.
line 611. See anecdote in ‘Border Minstrelsy,’ ii. 245 (1833 ed.), with its culmination, ‘O, for one hour of Dundee!’ Cp. ‘Pleasures of Hope’ (close of Poland passage):-
and Wordsworth’s sonnet, ‘In the Pass of Killicranky,’ in which the aspiration for ‘one hour of that Dundee’ is prompted by the fear of an invasion in 1803.