323 will off wane. See glossary, and note on Bk. II. 471.
339 Erle off Artayis. This is probably the Count Robert of Artois, who was a friend of Queen Isabella and her son Edward III. He was driven from France (Le Bel, i., chap. xix., and notes in ed. 1904). He wandered from place to place, after quarrelling with King Philip, for three years; then crossed to England, disguised as a merchant (1334), which fact Barbour probably has here in his mind (Mémoires de l’Académie Royale, vol. x., p. 635. Paris, 1733).
343 Catone sayis. Dionysius Cato, a writer of the fourth century. The reference is to his line, “To pretend foolishness is, at times, the highest wisdom” (Stultitiam simulare loco prudentia summa est. Disticha de Moribus, Bk. ii. xviii; Ed. Amsterdam, 1754, p. 178).
354 the byschop. William Lamberton. Edward sent to the Pope a lengthy list of charges against Lamberton, who had broken his most solemn oaths of fealty and shared in the “rebellions” against him. He had, when Chancellor of Glasgow, supported Wallace, and had himself chosen Bishop of St. Andrews, on Fraser’s death, without Edward’s consent. Then, with other lords, he went to France to do all the mischief he could there against Edward, and sent letters of encouragement to Wallace. After the suppression of the rising, he again submitted and took the oaths (see on 412), and was made chief of the Guardians of Scotland. He was suspected of complicity in the murder of Comyn (see on 611), and immediately supported Bruce. Arrested after Methven, he was imprisoned with Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, though not guilty of so many perjuries as he. These two bishops (with the other Scottish clergy), were the principal “abettors and maintainers” of Bruce’s rising (Palgrave, pp. 331-340; also Bain, ii., as indexed). Lamberton was released in 1308, on giving securities for good behaviour and swearing fealty to Edward II. (Bain, iii., No. 50). Thereafter he acted as a negotiator between England and Scotland (Bain, iii.). He was excommunicated, and was one of the four bishops (St. Andrews, Dunkeld, Aberdeen, Moray) summoned by the Pope in 1319 to answer for their support of Bruce (Lanercost, p. 423). He died some time before June, 1329 (Bain, iii., p. 316).
356 forouth him to scher. So did Chaucer’s Squire: “And carf biforn his fader at the table” (Prologue, 100).
381-2. But he wes nocht so fayr, etc. Cf. of Porrus, in the Alexander:
“Bot he was nocht so fare suthly,
That men need speke of him gretly,
For he was broun red in visage” (p. 176).
399 And wlyspit alsua. Guido delle Colonne says that Hector “stammered a little in his speech” (parum vero erat balbutiens in loquela. See on 525): and so in the Gest. Hystoriale of Hector, “a little he stotid” (stammered) (line 3881).
403 Till Ector. In the Alexander that monarch is the incomparable hero: