223 callit his wayn. “Drove” or “urged forward” his waggon. The word occurs in this sense in the Wallace “Thir cartaris ... callyt furth the cartis weill” (Bk. ix. 717-8), where, as usual, the incident is borrowed from the Bruce. Cf. Burns: “Ca the yowes to the knowes.”
232 he leyt the gadwand fall. “He” is not Bunnock, but the driver, who drops his goad and cuts the trace.
254 hym rewardit worthely. According to Nisbet’s Heraldry, Bunnock is the same name as Binning, and the arms of Binning of Easter-Binning are “placed on the bend of a waggon argent”; and he gives as an explanation that “one of the heads of that family, with his seven sons, went in a waggon covered with hay, surprised and took the castle of Linlithgow, then in the possession of the English, in the reign of David II.” (I. 100, ed. 1816). The reference is clearly to the present incident, though “sons” is a later development, and the date is wrong. Jamieson is highly suspicious over the identification, and it seems, in fact, to be a case of ancestry manufacture.
265-6 Murref ... And othir syndri landis braid. “Murref” is English transcription of the Gaelic form, muiraibh, dative plural of muir, the sea. The grant to Randolph was most extensive, including lands from the mouth of the Spey to Lochaber and Mamore, and “the marches of northern Argyll,” and covering 2,550 square miles in Banff, Elgin, Nairn, and Inverness (Robertson’s Index of Charters, p. xlix; Rampini’s Moray and Nairn, p. 140).
324 Schir Peris Lumbard. Peter de Loubaud (Lybaud, Libaut) was constable of Edinburgh Castle and the peel of Linlithgow in March, 1312 (Bain, iii., No. 254). Edinburgh Castle was captured during Lent, 1314 (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 223; Fordun says March 14, 1314), by Randolph (Gesta Annalia, cxxx.); March 24, apparently, in Gesta Edw. de Carn. (p. 45), where it is said that Roxburgh and Edinburgh fell between February 29 and March 24, 1314. Hailes goes a year wrong in these dates, and Skeat adopts. For the intrusion of “m” before “b,” cf. Ferumbrace for Fierabras in Bk. III. 437.
327 mystrowit hym of tratory. So we have it in the Vita Edw. Sec. that Edinburgh Castle was captured “by the betrayal of a certain Gascon, who was known as Peter de Gavestone, to whom the King had committed the custody of the castle. He, a perjured traitor, adhered to Robert the Bruce, and betrayed the castle” (p. 199). Cf. on 766.
360-1 ledderis ... With treyn steppis, etc. Ladders of this sort are carefully described by the Carlisle friar as having been used at an unsuccessful siege of Berwick by Bruce in 1312. Two strong ropes were taken, of a length according to the height of the wall. These were knotted at intervals of a foot and a half; on these knots rested wooden (treyn) steps two and a half feet long by half a foot broad, sufficient for one man at a time, and every third step had a projection inwards, to keep the ladder out from the wall. At the top end was a curved iron (cf. “a cruk ... of iron”), one end of which, about a foot long, lay on the top of the wall, while the other hung down, was pierced with a hole, and had a ring on each side for the rope. In the hole a sufficiently long spear was inserted, by which the ladder was put in position by two men. When the Scots had placed two ladders for a night attack, a dog barked, and Berwick was saved, the Scots making off and leaving their ladders behind to be hung up in derision of the Scots by the garrison (p. 221).
372 on the fasteryn evyn. “Fastern’s Eve,” Shrove Tuesday, February 27, 1314. So, too, in Fordun (Gesta Annalia, cxxx.), and in Scalacronica, the night of Shrove Tuesday (p. 140); in Lanercost the capture is dated the day after, February 28, the first day of Lent, 1314 (p. 223). The castle was still in English hands on February 7, 1314 (Bain, iii., No. 352), but lost before May 29 (No. 358), in 1314 (894).
400 up thair ledderis set. “For James (Douglas) himself on a certain night secretly approached the castle (of Roxburgh), and placed ladders, which had been carried up in concealment (latenter) against the wall, and so by these ascended the wall,” etc. (Vita Edw. Sec., p. 200).
441 The custom. It was the custom to spend the day before the beginning of the fast of Lent in feasting and jollity. This practice continued in Scotland long after the Reformation, when Lent was no more observed. The Vita Edw. says that the garrison were sleeping or off their guard.