300 fled scalit. “They fled—how is unknown” (Annals, p. 345). The date is circa July 22, 1315.
313 Judas Machabeus. See note on Bk. I. 466.
329 Odymsy. “Fyn O’Dymsy” among those summoned to Bannockburn (Foedera, iii. 476). O’Dempsy was “dux Reganorum,” or chief of the Ui’ Riagain; Iregan in Queen’s County (Annals, p. 333). In the Annals of Clonmacnoise Bruce is taken north “by the procurement of O’Neal and Ulstermen” (p. 269).
332 To se his land. I.e., in Leinster. He, of course, takes them out of the way (cf. on 360).
337 A gret revar. Skeat holds that this is the Blackwater flowing into the southern end of Lough Neagh, which was the boundary between the English Pale and the independent country of the Tyrone O’Neils, and was of old known as the Avon More, “the great river.” But this is inconsistent with lines 369-371, where one of the rivers is the northern Bann, “ane arme of se,” and Skeat’s ingenious explanation of the latter phrase, taking sea = Lough, Beg or Neagh, is quite superfluous. In fact, he is astray as to vital details, as witness what is said on Thomas Dun (line 376). Barbour himself is unsatisfactorily vague in his geographical matter, and none of the Annals makes any mention of the trick here descanted upon, nor of the intervention of the pirate Thomas. But the main features can be found in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, pp. 269-271, and Annals of Loch Cé, 265-7. The Scots and the Ulster men (Antrim and Down) were at Innis Kaeyne (Innishkeen), seven miles west of Dundalk. The English marched to Louth, just south of them. The Scots retired through Ulster (Antrim and Down), not, as Skeat suggests, by the west shore of Lough Neagh, until they came to Coleraine, not far from the Bann estuary. Then they crossed the river by the bridge, which they broke down so that the English who followed them could not cross, and the Bann lay between the two armies. Thereupon the English plundered on the Ulster side, apparently among the sympathizers with the Scots, finally retreating to Connor (cf. lines 396, 460). In the interval must have occurred the attempted drowning out of the Scots and the passage back over the river by means of Thomas of Dun, who had sailed up the estuary of the Bann (line 371).
354 The ysche of a louch. “The outlet of a loch”; from the hurried nature of the operation necessarily a small loch or a narrow outlet; possibly, too, a loch since drained off. It cannot be Lough Beg, for that would be too far away for Thomas Dun. On the other hand, they must have been brought some distance up the west side of the Bann, for after they had crossed it was still not known where they were (line 386), and they soon got in touch with the English, who were ten miles from Connor, to which they afterwards retreated (460).
360 With mekill payne. To add to the difficulties of this passage, the misleading of the Scots seems to be claimed for the Lacys in the case regarding them (see on line 8). The Lacys explain that on the occasion on which they had a conference (parliamentaverunt) with Edward Bruce they, by their cunning (per eorum cautelam), led Edward Bruce with his army among the Irish who were felons to the King—that is, apparently, the North Ulster men (see on 337). Among them Edward Bruce marched for fourteen days, and lost a great number of men and horses on the march towards Leinster, to which he could have come in two days if he had been rightly directed (Chartularies of St. Mary’s, I., p. 408). It is scarcely likely that Edward Bruce was twice tricked in this way, and the Irishman, Dempsy or another, may have been the agent of the Lacys. But to be able to follow the whole operation we should require much more information than is available.
373 Ullister. Ulster in the ancient sense of Antrim and Down.
376 Thomas of Dun. Skeat compiles an hypothetical biography for this “scummar of the se,” but Thomas was an uncomfortably well-known personage. He was the most notorious pirate on the west coast, as John Crab was on the east (see Bk. XVII. 239). We learn from Bain’s Calendar that on September 12, 1315, Thomas Dun and others, “with a great ‘navye’ of Scots,” plundered a ship in Holyhead Harbour (No. 451). He kept on his depredations with a crew of Scots (No. 549; Patent Rolls, i., p. 696). He was captured in July, 1317, and gave information about an intended attack by the Earl of Moray on the Isle of Man (No. 562). Thereafter he disappears from notice, probably via the gallows. He was hovering about between Ulster and Scotland at this time, and Edward was ordering the Mayor and bailiffs of Drogheda to chase him (Hist. and Munic. Docts., Ireland, p. 377).