“For the fair Queen of France
Sent him a turquois ring and glove,
And charged him, as her knight and love,
For her to break a lance;
And strike three strokes with Scottish brand,
And march three miles on Southron land,
And bid the banners of his band
In English breezes dance.
And thus, for France’s Queen he drest
His manly limbs in mailed vest.”
Marmion, canto v.
[111] He was afterwards Duke of Norfolk, and great grandfather of the Earl of Surrey, who was mentioned by me in p. 114. ante.
[112] It has been generally thought that James, forgetting both his own wife and the Queen of France, lost much time at Ford, in making love to a Lady Heron, while his natural son, the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s, was the paramour of Miss Heron the daughter. Dr. Lingard (History of England, vol. vi. p. 31. n.) seems inclined to doubt this tale, because James had only six days to take three castles and a fair lady’s heart. What time was absolutely necessary for these sieges and assaults, the learned Doctor has not stated. However, to speak seriously, the story has no foundation in truth; and it only arose from the beauty of Lady Heron, and the reputed gallantry of the Scottish King.
[113] Henry’s History of Great Britain, book vi. ch. 1. part ii. s. 1.
[114] Pitscottie, p. 116, &c.
[115] Pinkerton, book xii.
[116] So reported in the conversation of Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden.
[117] Thomson’s Seasons. Summer, l. 1511.
[118] The Arcadia was popular so late as the days of Charles I., as may be learned from a passage in the work of a snarling satirist, who wanted to make women mere square-elbowed family drudges. “Let them learn plain works of all kind, so they take heed of too open seaming. Instead of songs and musick, let them learn cookerie and laundrie; and instead of reading Sir Philip Sydney’s Arcadia, let them read the Grounds of Good Huswifery. I like not a female poetess at any hand.” Powell’s Tom of all Trades, p. 47.
[119] This was the honourable distinction of the Sidney family in general, as we learn from Ben Jonson’s lines on Penshurst.