NOTES ON CANTO V. The Bloody Heart blazed in the van, Announcing Douglas, dreaded name !—St. IV. p. 144. The chief of this potent race of heroes, about the date of the poem, was Archibald Douglas, seventh Earl of Angus, a man of great courage and activity. The Bloody Heart was the well-known cognisance of the house of Douglas, assumed from the time of Good Lord James, to whose care Robert Bruce committed his heart, to be carried to the Holy Land. -The Seven Spears of Wedderburne.—St. IV. p. 144. Sir David Home of Wedderburn, who was slain in the fatal battle of Flodden, left seven sons by his wife, Isabel, daughter of Hoppringle of Galashiels (now Pringle of Whitebank). They were called the Seven Spears of Wedderburne. And Swinton laid the lance in rest, That tamed of yore the sparkling crest Of Clarence's Plantagenet.-St. IV. p. 144. At the battle of Bougé in France, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, brother to Henry V., was unhorsed by Sir John Swinton of Swinton, who distinguished him by a coronet set with precious stones, which he wore around his helmet. The family of Swinton is one of the most ancient in Scotland, and produced many celebrated warriors. Beneath the crest of old Dunbar, And Hepburn's mingled banners, come, 66 And shouting still, a Home! a Home!" St. IV. p. 145. The Earls of Home, as descendants of the Dunbars, ancient Earls of March, carried a lion rampant, argent; but, as a difference, changed the colour of the shield from gules to vert, in allusion to Greenlaw, their ancient possession. The slogan, 'or war-cry, of this powerful family was, a Home! a Home!" It was anciently placed in an escrol above the crest. The helmet is armed with a lion's head erased gules, with a cap of state gules, turned up ermine. The Hepburns, a powerful family in East Lothian, were usually in close alliance with the Homes. The chief of this clan was Hepburn, Lord of Hailes; a family which terminated in the too famous Earl of Bothwell. Pursued the foot-ball play.-St. VI. p. 147. The foot-ball was anciently a very favourite sport all through Scotland, but especially upon the Borders. Sir John Carmichael of Carmichael, warden of the middle marches, was killed in 1600 by a band of the Armstrongs, returning from a foot-ball match. Sir Robert Carey, in his Memoirs, mentions a great meeting, appointed by the Scottish riders, to be held at Kelso, for the purpose of playing at foot-ball, but which terminated in an incursion upon England. At present, the football is often played by the inhabitants of adjacent parishes, or of the opposite banks of a stream. The victory is contested with the utmost fury, and very serious accidents have sometimes taken place in the struggle. 'Twixt truce and war, such sudden change In the old Border day.-St. VII. p. 148. Notwithstanding the constant wars upon the Borders, and the occasional cruelties which marked the mutual inroads, the inhabitants on either side do not appear to have regarded each other with that violent and personal animosity which might have been expected. On the contrary, like the outposts of hostile armies, they often carried on something resembling friendly intercourse, even in the middle of hostilities; and it is evident, from various ordinances against trade and interinarriages between English and Scottish Borderers, that the governments of both countries were jealous of their cherishing too intimate a connection. Froissart says of both nations, that " Englyshemen on the one party, and Scottes on the other party, are good men of warre; for when they meet, there is a harde fight without sparynge. There is no hoo (truce) between them as longe as spears, swords, axes, or daggers, will endure, but lay on eche upon uther; and whan they be well beaten, and that the one party hath obtained the victory, they than gloryfye so in theyre dedes of armes, and are so joyfull, that such as be taken they shall be ransomed, or that they go out of the felde; so that shortly eche of them is so content with other, that at their departynge, curtyslye they will say, God thank you." BERNERS' Froissart, Vol. II. p. 153.—The Border meetings of truce, which, although places of merchandize and merriment, often witnessed the most bloody scenes, may serve to illustrate the description in the text. They are vividly pourtrayed in the old ballad of the Reidsquair. Both parties came armed to a meeting of the wardens, yet they intermixed fearlessly and peaceably with each other in mutual sports and familiar intercourse, until a casual fray arose : Then was there nought but bow and spear, In the 29th stanza of this Canto, there is an attempt to express some of the mixed feelings, with which the Borderers on each side were led to regard their neighbours. 3 And frequent, on the darkening plain, As bands, their stragglers to regain, Gave the shrill watch-word of their clan. St. VIII. p. 149. Patten remarks, with bitter censure, the disorderly conduct of the English Borderers, who attended the Protector Somerset on his expedition against Scotland. "As we wear then a setling, and the tents a setting up, among all things els commendable in our hole journey, one thing seemed to me an intollerable disorder and abuse: that whearas allweys, both in all tounes of war, and in all campes of armies, quietnes and stilnes, without nois, is, principally in the night, after the watch is set, observed (I nede not reason why), our northern prikkers, the Borderers, notwithstandyng, with great enormitie (as thought me), and not unlike (to be playn) unto a masterles hounde howlyng in a hie wey when he hath lost him he waited upon, sum hoopynge, sum whistlying, and most with crying, A Berwyke, a Berwyke! A Fenwyke, a Fenwyke! A Bulmer, a Bulmer! or so otherwise as theyr captains names wear, never lin'de these troublous and dangerous noyses all the nighte longe. They said they did it to finde their captain and fellows; but if the souldiers of our oother countreys and sheres had used the same maner, in that case we shoold have oft tymes had the state of our camp more like the outrage of a dissolute huntyng, than the quiet of a well ordred armye. It is a feat of war, in mine opinion, that might right well be left. I could |