Were the last words of Marmion.”
“The Lay of the Last Minstrel” is related in time to the middle of the sixteenth century; and the scene is laid in the border country of England and Scotland. It is sometimes claimed that poetry is not so much the outgrowth of monastic and studious seclusion as of stirring circumstances which inflame the imagination. Whether this is true or not, the principle finds proof in the border country of Scotland—a land of turmoil, poetry and song. On the English side of the border were strong and stately castles; on the Scottish side they were constructed for the most part on a limited scale. A few fortresses, like those of Jedburgh and Roxburgh, rivaled the Southron defences; but, after the usurpation of Edward the First, the Scots no longer attempted to defend their borders by strong places; they relied upon their own courage, and acted upon the familiar words of Douglas, that “they preferred to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.” In fact many of the strongest fortresses were torn down, and utterly demolished, that the enemy might not obtain a footing in the country. The south of Scotland was reduced to a waste desert. Even as late as the invasion of Cromwell the borders were left in this desolate condition. The Hall of Cessford, or of Branksome, was on the largest scale of the border fortresses in Scotland, but could not be compared with the baronial castles of the northern families of England.
The poem opens with a description of the customs of Branksome Hall, how nine and twenty knights, with as many attendant squires with belted sword and spur on heel,
“Quitted not their harness bright,
Neither by day nor yet by night;
They lay down to rest,
With corselet laced,
Pillowed on buckler cold and hard;
They carved at the meal
With gloves of steel,