Walter Scott - Marmion

line 190. Begunhas always been a possible past tense in poetry, and living poets continue its use. There is an example in Mr. Browning’s ‘Waring’:-

and Lord Tennyson writes:-

in the memorial verses prefixed to his brother’s ‘Collected Sonnets’ (1879).

line 205. Robert Lindsay of Pittscottie (a Fife estate, eastward of Cupar) lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, and wrote ‘Chronicles of Scotland’ from James II to Mary. Nothing further of him is known with certainty. Like the Lion King he was a cadet of the noble family of Lindsay, including Crawford and Lindsay and Lindsay of the Byres.

line 207. See above, IV. xiv.

line 212. John of Fordun (a village in Kincardineshire) about the end of the fourteenth century wrote the first five of the sixteen books of the ‘Scotochronicon,’ the work being completed by Walter Bower, appointed Abbot of St. Colm’s, 1418.

line 220. Gripple, tenacious, narrow. See ‘Waverley,’ chap. lxvii. -’Naebody wad be sae gripple as to take his gear’; and cp. ‘Faerie Queene,’ VI. iv. 6:-

line 225. They hide away their treasures without using them, as the magpie or the jackdaw does with the articles it steals.

Stanza I. line 6. Cp. Job xxxix. 25.

line 8. Terouenne, about thirty miles S. E. of Calais.

line 9. Leaguer, the besiegers’ camp. Cp. Longfellow’s ‘Evangeline,’ I. 5,―

Stanza II. lines 27-30. Cp. ‘Faerie Queene,’ III. iv. 7.:-

lines 34-6. The cognizance was derived from the commission Brace gave the Good Lord James Douglas to carry his heart to Palestine. The Field is the whole surface of the shield, the Chief the upper portion. The Mullet is a star-shaped figure resembling the rowel of a spur, and having five points.

line 45. Bartisan, a small overhanging turret.

line 46. With vantage-coign, or advantageous corner, cp. ‘Macbeth,’ i. 6. 7.

Stanza III. line 69. Adown, poetical for down. Cp. Chaucer, ‘Monkes Tale,’ 3630, Clarendon Press ed.:-

lines 86-91. Cp. Coleridge’s ‘Christabel,’ line 68.

Stanza IV. lines 106-9. Cp. ‘Il Penseroso,’ 161-6,-

See also Coleridge’s ‘Dejection,’ v.:-

line 112. ‘I shall only produce one instance more of the great veneration paid to Lady Hilda, which still prevails even in these our days; and that is, the constant opinion, that she rendered, and still renders herself visible, on some occasions, in the Abbey of Streamshalh, or Whitby, where she so long resided. At a particular time of the year (viz. in the summer months), at ten or eleven in the forenoon, the sunbeams fall in the inside of the northern part of the choir; and ‘tis then that the spectators, who stand on the west side of Whitby churchyard, so as just to see the most northerly part of the abbey pass the north end of Whitby church, imagine they perceive, in one of the highest windows there, the resemblance of a woman, arrayed in a shroud. Though we are certain this is only a reflection caused by the splendour of the sunbeams, yet fame reports it, and it is constantly believed among the vulgar, to be an appearance of Lady Hilda in her shroud, or rather in a glorified state; before which, I make no doubt, the Papists, even in these our days, offer up their prayers with as much zeal and devotion, as before any other image of their most glorified saint.” CHARLTON’S History of Whitby , p. 33.’-SCOTT.

Stanza V. line 131. What makes, what is it doing? Cp. Judges xviii. 3: ‘What makest thou in this place?’ The usage is frequent in Shakespeare; as e.g. As Yo Like It, i. I. 31: ‘Now sir! what make you here?’

line 137. Blood-gouts, spots of blood. Cp. ‘gouts of blood,’ Macbeth, ii. I. 46.

line 150. Shakespeare, King John, iv. 2. 13, makes Salisbury say that-

Stanza VI. line 174. Beadsman, one hired to pray for another. Cp. ‘Piers the Plowman,’ B, III. 40:-

Edie Ochiltree, the Blue-gown in ‘The Antiquary,’ belongs to the class called King’s Bedesmen, ‘an order of paupers to whom the kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinances of the Catholic Church, and who were expected in return to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state.’ See Introd. to the novel. Cp. also Henry V, iv. I. 315:-

Stanza VII. line 218. The Palmer’s dress is put off like the serpent’s slough. Cp. the Earl of Surrey’s Spring sonnet-

Stanza VIII. line 261. Featly, cleverly, dexterously. Cp. Tempest, i. 2. 380:-

Stanza IX. line 271. See Otterbourne, ‘Border Minstrelsy,’ i. p. 345. Douglas’s death, during the battle was kept secret, so that when his men conquered, as if still under his command, the old prophecy was fulfilled that a dead Douglas should, win the field.

line 280. James encamped in Twisel glen (local spelling ‘Twizel’) before taking post on Flodden.

line 282. The squire’s final act of qualification for knighthood was to watch by his armour till midnight. In his Essay on ‘Chivalry’ Scott says: ‘The candidates watched their arms all night in a church or chapel, and prepared for the honour to be conferred on them by vigil, fast, and prayer.’ For a hasty and picturesque ceremony of knighthood see Scott’s ‘Halidon Hill,’ I. ii.

Stanza XI. With the moonlight scene opening this stanza, cp. ‘Lay of Last Minstrel,’ II. i. Scott is fond of moonlight effects, and he always succeeds with them. See e.g. a passage in ‘Woodstock,’ chap. xix, beginning ‘There is, I know not why, something peculiarly pleasing to the imagination in contemplating the Queen of Night,’ &c.