In Scott’s ballad (Scrope speaks) (stanza vi.).
Before ye cross my castle yate,
I trow ye shall take fareweel o’ me.
Willie replies—
I never yet lodged in a hostelrie,
But I paid my lawing before I gaed.
In Satchells, Lord Scrope says—
“Before thou goest away thou must
Even take thy leave of me?”
“By the cross of my sword,” says Willie then,
“I’ll take my leave of thee.”
Now, had Scott been pirating Satchells, I think he would have kept “By the cross of my sword,” which is picturesque and probable, Willie being no good Presbyterian. In Otterburne, Scott, altering Hogg’s copy, makes Douglas swear “By the might of Our Ladye.”
It is a question of opinion; but I do think that if Scott were merely paraphrasing and pirating Satchells, he could not have helped putting into his version the Catholic, “‘By the cross of my sword,’ then Willy said,” as given by Satchells. To do this was safe, as Scott had said that Satchells does pirate ballads. On the other hand, Satchells, composing in black 1688, when Catholicism had been stamped out on the Scottish Border, was not apt to invent “By the cross of my sword.” It looks like Scott’s work, for he, of course, knew how Catholicism lingered among the spears of Bothwell, himself a Catholic, in 1596. But it is not Scott’s work, it is in Satchells. In both Satchells and the ballad, news comes to Buccleuch. Here Satchells again balladises—
“It is that way?” Buckcleugh did say;
“Lord Scrope must understand
That he has not only done me wrong
But my Sovereign, James of Scotland.“My Sovereign Lord, King of Scotland,
Thinks not his cousin Queen,
Will offer to invade his land
Without leave asked and gi’en.”
I do not see how Satchells could either invent or glean from tradition the gist of Buccleuch’s diplomatic remonstrances, first with Salkeld, for Scrope was absent at the time of Willie’s capture, then with Scrope. Buccleuch, in fact, wrote that the taking of Willie was “to the touch of the King,” a stain on his honour, says a contemporary manuscript. [135a]