NOTE P.

The Brooch of Lorn.-P. 419.

It has been generally mentioned in the preceding notes, that Robert Bruce, after his defeat at Methven, being hard pressed by the English, endeavoured, with the dispirited remnant of his followers, to escape from Breadalbane and the mountains of Perthshire into the Argyleshire Highlands. But he was encountered and repulsed, after a very severe engagement, by the Lord of Lorn. Bruce's personal strength and courage were never displayed to greater advantage than in this conflict. There is a tradition in the family of the Mac-Dougals of Lorn, that their chieftain engaged in personal battle with Bruce himself, while the latter was employed in protecting the retreat of his men; tha: Mac-Dougal was struck down by the king, whose strength of body was equal to his vigour of mind, and would have been slain on the spot, had not two of Lorn's vassals, a father and son, whom tradition terms Mac-Keoch, rescued him, by seizing the mantle of the monarch, and dragging him from above his adversary. Bruce rid himself of these foes by two blows of his redoubted battle-axe, but was so closely pressed by the other followers of Lorn, that he was forced to abandon the mantle, and brooch which fastened it, clasped in the dying grasp of the Mac-Keochs. A studded brooch, said to have been that which King Robert lost upon this occasion, was long preserved in the family of Mac-Dougal, and was lost in a fire which consumed their temporary residence.

The metrical history of Barbour throws an air of credibility upon the tradition, although it does not entirely coincide either in the names or number of the vassals by whom Bruce was assailed, and makes no mention of the personal danger of Lorn, or of the loss of Bruce's mantle. The last circumstance, indeed, might be warrantably omitted.

party, had scarce room to manage his steed. Here his three foes sprung upon him at once. One seized his bridle, but received a wound which hewed off his arm; a second grasped Bruce by the stirrup and leg, and endeavoured to dismount him, but the King, putting spurs to his horse, threw him down, still holding by the stirrup. The third, taking advantage of an acclivity, sprung up behind him upon his horse. Bruce, however, whose personal strength is uniformly mentioned as exceeding that of most men, extricated himself from his grasp, threw him to the ground, and cleft his skull with his sword. By similar exertion he drew the stirrup from his grasp whom he had overthrown, and killed him also with his sword as he lay among the horse's feet. The story seems romantic, but this was the age of romantic exploit; and it must be remembered that Bruce was armed cap-a-pie, and the as. sailants were half-clad mountaineers. Barbour adds the following circumstance, highly characteristic of the sentiments of chivalry. Mac-Naughton, a Baron of Cowal, pointed out to the Lord of Lorn the deeds of valour which Bruce performed in this memorable retreat, with the highest expressions of admiration. "It seems to give thee pleasure," said Lorn, "that he makes such havoc among our friends.""Not so, by my faith," replied Mac-Naughton; "but be he friend or foe who achieves high deeds of chivalry, men should bear faithful witness to his valour; and never have I heard of one, who, by his knightly feats, has extricated himself from such dangers as have this day surrounded Bruce."

NOTE Q.

Wrought and chased with fair device,
Studded fair with gems of price.-P. 419.

According to Barbour, the King, with his handful of followers, not amounting probably to three hundred men, encounter- Great art and expense was bestowed upon the fibula, or ed Lorn with about a thousand Argyleshire men, in Glen-Dou- brooch, which secured the plaid, when the wearer was a perchart, at the head of Breadalbane, near Teyndrum. The son of importance. Martin mentions having seen a silver place of action is still called Dalry, or the King's Field. The brooch of a hundred marks value. "It was broad as any orfe.d of battle was unfavourable to Bruce's adherents, who dinary pewter plate, the whole curiously engraven with vawere chiefly men-at-arms. Many of the horses were slain by rious animals, &c. There was a lesser buckle, which was the long pole axes, of which the Argyleshire Scottish had wore in the middle of the larger, and above two ounces weight; learned the use from the Norwegians. At length Bruce com- it had in the centre a large piece of crystal, or some finer manded a retreat up a narrow and difficult pass, he himself stone, and this was set all round with several finer stones of bringing up the rear, and repeatedly turning and driving back a lesser size."-Western Islands. Pennant has given an enthe more venturous assailants. Lorn, observing the skill and graving of such a brooch as Martin describes, and the workvalour used by his enemy in protecting the retreat of his fol- manship of which is very elegant. It is said to have belonged lowers," Methinks, Murthokson," said he, addressing one of to the family of Lochbuy.-See PENNANT's Tour, vol. iii. p. his followers, "he resembles Gol Mak-morn, protecting his 14. followers from Fingal."-" A most unworthy comparison," observes the Archdeacon of Aberdeen, unsuspicious of the future fame of these names; " he might with more propriety have compared the King to Sir Gaudefer de Layrs, protecting the foragers of Gadyrs against the attacks of Alexander."! Two brothers, the strongest among Lorn's followers, whose James Earbour calls Mackyn-Drosser, (interpreted Durward, or Porterson,) resolved to rid their chief of this formidable foc. A third person (perhaps the Mac-Keoch of the family tradition) associated himself with them for this purpose. They watched their opportunity until Bruce's party had entered a pass between a lake (Loch Dochart probably) and a precipice, where the King, who was the last of the

NOTE R.

Vain was then the Douglas brand

Vain the Campbell's vaunted hand.-P. 419.

The gallant Sir James, called the Good Lord Douglas, the most faithful and valiant of Bruce's adherents, was wounded

1 "This is a very curious passage, and has been often quoted in the Ossianic controversy. That it refers to ancient Celtic tradition, there can be no doubt, and as little that it refers to no incident in the poems published by Mr. Macpherson as trom the Gaelic. The hero of romance, whom Barbour thinks

a more proper prototype for the Bruce, occurs in the romance of Alexander, of which there is a unique translation into Scottish verse, in the library of the Honourable Mr. Maule, now Earl of Panmure."-See WEBER'S Romances, vol. i. Aşpendix to Introduction, p. lxxiii.

at the battle of Dalry. Sir Nigel, or Neil Campbell, was also in that unfortunate skirmish. He married Marjorie, sister to Robert Bruce, and was among his most faithful followers. In a manuscript account of the house of Argyle, supplied, it would seem, as materials for Archbishop Spottiswoode's His tory of the Church of Scotland, I find the following passage concerning Sir Niel Campbell:-"Moreover, when all the nobles in Scotland had left King Robert after his hard success, yet this noble knight was most faithful, and shrinked not, as it is to be seen in an indenture bearing these words:- Memorandum quod cum ab incarnatione Domini 1308 conventum fuit et concordatum inter nobiles viros Dominum Alexandrum de Seatoun militem et Dominum Gilbertum de Haye militem et Dominum Nigellum Campbell militem apud monasterium de Cambuskenneth 9° Septembris qui tacta suncia eucharista, mag-phen Kirkpatrick, styled in the Chartulary of Kelso (1278) noque juramento facto, jurarunt se debere libertatem regni et Robertum nuper regem coronatum contra omnes mortales Francos Anglos Scotos defendere usque ad ultimum terminum vitæ ipsorum. Their sealles are appended to the indenture in greene wax, togithir with the seal of Gulfrid, Abbot of Cambuskenneth."

able family of Kirkpatrick in Nithsdale. Roger de K. was made prisoner at the battle of Durham, in 1346. Roger de Kirkpatrick was alive on the 6th of August, 1357; for, on that day, Humphry, the son and heir of Roger de K., is proposed as one of the young gentlemen who were to be hostages for David Bruce. Roger de K. Miles was present at the parliament held at Edinburgh, 25th September, 1357, and he is mentioned as alive 3d October, 1357, (Fædera;) it follows, of necessary consequence, that Roger de K., murdered in June 1357, must have been a different person.'-Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 242.

NOTE S.

When Comyn fell beneath the knife
Of that fell homicide The Bruce.-P. 416.
Vain Kirkpatrick's bloody dirk,
Making sure of murder's work.-P. 419.

Every reader must recollect that the proximate cause of Bruce's asserting his right to the crown of Scotland, was the death of John, called the Red Comyn. The causes of this act of violence, equally extraordinary from the high rank both of the perpetrator and sufferer, and from the place where the slaughter was committed, are variously related by the Scottish and English historians, and cannot now be ascertained. The fact that they met at the high altar of the Minorites, or Greyfriar's Church in Dumfries, that their difference broke out into high and insulting language, and that Bruce drew his dagger and stabbed Comyn, is certain. Rushing to the door of the church, Bruce met two powerful barons, Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and James de Lindsay, who eagerly asked him what tidings? "Bad tidings," answered Bruce; "I doubt I have slain Comyn."-"Doubtest thou?" said Kirkpatrick; "I make sicker," (i. e. sure.) With these words, he and Lindsay rushed into the church, and despatched the wounded Comyn. The Kirkpatricks of Closeburn assumed, in memory of this deed, a hand holding a dagger, with the memorable words, "I make sicker." Some doubt having been started by the late Lord Hailes as to the identity of the Kirkpatrick who completed this day's work with Sir Roger, then representative of the ancient family of Closeburn, my kind and ingenious friend, Mr. Charles Kirkpatricke Sharpe, has furnished me with the following memorandum, which appears to fix the deed with his ancestor :

"The circumstances of the Regent Cummin's murder, from which the family of Kirkpatrick, in Nithsdale, is said to have derived its crest and motto, are well known to all conversant with Scottish history; but Lord Hailes has started a doubt as to the authenticity of this tradition, when recording the murder of Roger Kirkpatrick, in his own Castle of Caerlaverock, by Sir James Lindsay. 'Fordun,' says his Lordship, * remarks that Lindsay and Kirkpatrick were the heirs of the two men who accompanied Robert Brus at the fatal conference with Comyn. If Fordun was rightly informed as to this particular, an argument arises, in support of a notion which I have long entertained, that the person who struck his dagger in Comyn's heart, was not the representative of the honour

"To this it may be answered, that at the period of the regent's murder, there were only two families of the name of Kirkpatrick (nearly allied to each other) in existence-Ste

Dominus villa de Closeburn, Filius et hæres Domini Ade dle Kirkpatrick, Militis, (whose father, Ivone de Kirkpatrick, witnesses a charter of Robert Brus, Lord of Annandale, before the year 1141,) had two sons, Sir Roger, who carried on the line of Closeburn, and Duncan, who married Isobel, daughter and heiress of Sir David Torthorwald of that ilk; they had a charter of the lands of Torthorwald from King Robert Brus, dated 10th August, the year being omitted Umphray, the son of Duncan and Isobel, got a charter of Torthorwald from the king, 16th July, 13.2-his son, Roger of Torthorwald, got a charter from John the Grahame, son of Sir John Grahame of Moskessen, of an annual rent of 40 shillings, out of the lands of Overdryft, 1355-his son, William Kirkpatrick, grants a charter to John of Garroch, of the twa merk land of Glengip and Garvellgill, within the tenement of Wamphray, 22d April, 1372. From this, it appears that the Torthorwald branch was not concerned in the affair of Comyn's murder, and the inflictions of Providence which ensued: Duncan Kirkpatrick, if we are to believe the Blind Minstrel, was the firm friend of Wallace, to whom he was related :

Ane Kyrk Patrick, that cruel was and keyne,
In Esdail wod that half yer he had beyne;
With Ingliss men he couth nocht weyll accord,
Off Torthorowald he Barron was and Lord,
Off kyn he was, and Wallace modyr ner ;'-&c.
B. v.. v. 920.

But this Baron seems to have had no share in the adventures of King Robert; the crest of his family, as it still remains on a carved stone built into a cottage wall, in the village of Torthorwald, bears some resemblance, says Grose, to a rose.

"Universal tradition, and all our later historians, have attributed the regent's death-blow to Sir Roger K. of Closeburn. The author of the MS. History of the Presbytery of Penpont, in the Advocates' Library, affirms, that the crest and motto were given by the King on that occasion; and proceeds to relate some circumstances respecting a grant to a cottager and his wife in the vicinity of Closeburn Castle, which are certainly authentic, and strongly vouch for the truth of the other report. The steep hill,' (says he,) called the Dune of Tynron, of a considerable height, upon the top of which there hath been some habitation or fort. There have been in ancient times, on all hands of it, very thick woods, and great about that place, which made it the more inaccessible, into which K. Ro. Bruce is said to have been conducted by Roger Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, after they had killed the Cumin at Dumfriess, which is nine miles from this place, whereabout it is probable that he did abide for some time thereafter; and it is reported, that during his abode there he did often divert to a poor man's cottage, named Brownrig, situate in a small parcel of stoney ground, encompassed with thick woods, where he was content sometimes with such mean accommodation as the place could afford. The poor man's wife being advised to petition the King for somewhat, was so modest in her desires, that she sought no more but security for the croft in her husband's possession, and a liberty of pasturage for a

of nativity of John de Menteith, and may his name be struck out of the book of life." But John de Menteith was all along a zealous favourer of the English interest, and was governor of Dumbarton Castle by commission from Edward the First; and therefore, as the accurate Lord Hailes has observed, could not be the friend and confidant of Wallace, as tradition states him to be. The truth seems to be, that Menteith, thoroughly engaged in the English interest, pursued Wallace closely, and made him prisoner through the treachery of an attendant, whom Peter Langtoft calls Jack Short.

"William Waleis is nomen that master was of theves, Tiding to the king is comen that robbery mischeives, Sir John of Menetest sued William so nigh,

ment; because, according to Matthew of Westminster, he was considered not as a Scottish subject, but an Englishman. He was therefore taken to Dumfries, where he was tried, condemned, and executed, for the murder of a soldier slain by him. His brother, John de Seton, had the same fate at Newcastle; both were considered as accomplices in the slaughter of Comyn, but in what manner they were particularly accessary to that deed does not appear.

The fate of Sir Simon Frazer, or Frizel, ancestor of the family of Lovat, is dwelt upon at great length, and with savage exultation, by the English historians. This knight, who was renowned for personal gallantry, and high deeds of chivalry, was also made prisoner, after a gallant defence, in the battle of Methven. Some stanzas of a ballad of the times, which,

He tok him when he ween'd least, on night, his leman him for the sake of rendering it intelligible, I have translated out by,

That was through treason of Jack Short his man,
He was the encheson that Sir John so him ran,
Jack's brother had he slain, the Walleis that is said,
The more Jack was fain to do William that braid."

From this it would appear that the infamy of seizing Wallace, must rest between a degenerate Scottish nobleman, the vassal of England, and a domestic, the obscure agent of his treachery; between Sir John Menteith, son of Walter, Earl of Menteith, and the traitor Jack Short.

NOTE X.

Where's Nigel Bruce? and De la Haye,
And valiant Seton-where are they?
Where Somerville, the kind and free?
And Fraser, flower of chivalry?—P. 422.

When these lines were written, the author was remote from the means of correcting his indistinct recollection concerning the individual fate of Bruce's followers, after the battle of Methven. Hugh de la Haye, and Thomas Somerville of Lintoun and Cowdally, ancestor of Lord Somerville, were both made prisoners at that defeat, but neither was executed.

Sir Nigel Bruce was the younger brother of Robert, to whom he committed the charge of his wife and daughter, Marjorie, and the defence of his strong castle of Kildrummie, near the head of the Don, in Aberdeenshire. Kildrummie long resisted the arms of the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, until the magazine was treacherously burnt. The garrison was then compelled to surrender at discretion, and Nigel Bruce, a youth remarkable for personal beauty, as well as for gallantry, fell into the hands of the unrelenting Edward. He was tried by a special commission at Berwick, was condemned, and executed.

Christopher Seatoun shared the same unfortunate fate. He also was distinguished by personal valour, and signalized himself in the fatal battle of Methven. Robert Bruce adventured his person in that battle like a knight of romance. He dismounted Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, but was in his turn dismounted by Sir Philip Mowbray. In this emergence Seatoun came to his aid, and remounted him. Langtoft mentions, that in this battle the Scottish wore white surplices, or shirts, over their armour, that those of rank might not be known. In this manner both Bruce and Seatoun escaped. But the latter was afterwards betrayed to the English, through means, according to Barbour, of one MacNab, "a disciple of Judas," in whom the unfortunate knight reposed entire confidence. There was some peculiarity respecting his punish

of its rude orthography, give minute particulars of his fate. It was written immediately at the period, for it mentions the Earl of Athole as not yet in custody. It was first published by the indefatigable Mr. Ritson, but with so many contractions and peculiarities of character, as to render it illegible, excepting by antiquaries.

"This was before Saint Bartholomew's mass,

That Frizel was y-taken, were it more other less,
To Sir Thomas of Multon, gentil baron and free,
And to Sir Johan Jose be-take tho was he

To hand

He was y-fettered wele
Both with iron and with steel
To bringen of Scotland

"Soon thereafter the tiding to the king come,
He sent him to London, with mony armed groom,
He came in at Newgate, I tell you it on a-plight,
A garland of leaves on his head y-dight

Of green,

For he should be y-know,
Both of high and of low,

For traitour I ween.

"Y-fettered were his legs under his horse's wombe,
Both with iron and with steel maneled were his hond,
A garland of pervynk 1 set upon his heved,
Much was the power that him was bereved,
In land.

So God me amend,
Little he ween'd

So to be brought in hand.

"This was upon our lady's even, forsooth I understand,
The justices sate for the knights of Scotland,
Sir Thomas of Multon, an kinde knyght and wise,
And Sir Ralph of Sandwich that mickle is told in price,
And Sir Johan Abel,

Moe I might tell by tale
Both of great and of small
Ye know sooth well.

"Then said the justice, that gentil is and free,
Sir Simon Frizel the king's traiter hast thou be;
In water and in land that mony mighten see,
What sayst thou thereto, how wili thou quite thee,
Do say.

So foul he him wist,
Nede war on trust

For to say nay.

"With fetters and with gives 3 y-hot he was to-draw
From the Tower of London that many men might know,

1 Periwinckle.

2 Head.

3 He was condemned to be drawn.