728 His emys son. The mother of Douglas was Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander, the fourth High Steward, and her elder brother was Sir John Stewart, father of Alexander Stewart, of Bonkil. Cf. on 692. Thus Douglas and Sir Alexander were cousins.
BOOK X.
9 toward Lorn. Barbour’s chronology is here not specific, but he apparently places the expedition against Lorn in the late summer or autumn of 1308. So does Fordun (see on Bk. IX. 204). On the other hand, there exists a letter from John of Lorn to Edward II., clearly referring to the present expedition. Unfortunately, it is not dated further than as an acknowledgment of the receipt of the King’s letters of March 11. About that date, in 1308, Bruce must have been in the North, beyond the Mounth (see on Bk. IX. 204). On June 16, 1309, Alexander of Lorn and John are in council with Edward at Westminster (Bain, iii., No. 95). Meantime Alexander of Argyll is in the sederunt of Bruce’s first Parliament, March 16, 1309, at St. Andrews (Act. Parl. Scot., vol. i., p. 160). Either, then, Bruce’s expedition is to be placed in the spring and early summer of 1309, or, after the defeat at Loch Awe, John of Lorn held out during the winter, and Dunstaffnage fell at some date between March 11, 1308, and June 16, 1309.
14 twa thousand. In the letter referred to above, John of Lorn says that “Robert Bruce had approached his territories with 10,000 or 15,000 men, it was said, both by land and sea. He had no more than 800 to oppose him, 500 of these being in his pay to keep his borders, and the barons of Argyll gave him no aid.... He has three castles to guard, and a lake 24 leagues (miles) long on which he has vessels properly manned, but is not sure of his neighbours” (Bain, iii., No. 80). Lorn’s estimate of Bruce’s strength is clearly exaggerated. Hemingburgh similarly gives Bruce 10,000 men in his Galloway wanderings (ii., p. 265).
17 Ane evill place. From the description, the Pass of Brander through which the River Awe flows from Loch Awe to Loch Etive, a sea-loch. The Callander-Oban Railway follows this route. The Pass is three miles long.
27 Crechanben. Cruachan Ben, or Ben Cruachan, on the north side, 3,689 feet.
34-35 on the se ... with his galays. Skeat says this must be “Loch Etive, a sea-loch, not the inland Loch Awe, from which the ships could not have escaped.” He is thinking of line 130, but the flight there mentioned has no connection with the present case. Loch Etive is not “weill neir the pas” (35; cf. also 97, 98), but Loch Awe is, and we see from Lorn’s letter (note on 14) that he had ships on that loch. He says further that he “was on sick-bed” when he received Edward’s letters, “and had been for half a year”; which probably accounts for his presence in a galley, or large Highland row-boat, as the Marquis of Argyll was, for a like reason, when his forces were cut to pieces by Montrose at Inverlochy in 1645.
46 Williame Wisman. A “William Wysman” was made Edward’s Sheriff at Elgin in 1305 (Bain, ii., p. 458). The wife of “Monsieur William Wysman” was among the ladies captured in 1306, and was sent to Roxburgh (Foedera, ii., p. 1014). William Wyseman was at the St. Andrews Parliament, 1309 (Act. Parl. Scot., i., p. 160). It was a Moray name.
47 Schir Androu Gray. Ancestor of the Lords Gray. Sir Andrew Gray received from Bruce in 1315 the barony of Longforgan and other lands in Perthshire and Forfarshire, which had belonged to Edmond Hastings (Robertson’s Index, p. 26, No. 19; Crawford’s Peerage, p. 179, ed. 1716).
82 ane wattir. The River Awe. The river here is wide, deep, and broken by rapids.