“Ane renk about him hes he made,
Quhair evir he straik nane him abade” (p. 145, 8-9).
and
“Ane renk about him hes he maid,
He sparit nane that him abaid” (p. 231, 20-21);
while we have a similar use in the Morte Arthure:
“Ryde thrughte all the rowtte, rerewarde and other,
Redy wayes to make, and rennkes full rowme.”
Another passage from the Alexander gives us the sense in the setting and phraseology of the passage on hand:
“The woundit gave cryis and granes,
Trumpettis and hornes blew atanes,
It seemit all the countre quok” (p. 412, 29-31).
Renk, then, has nothing to do with “rank,” but signifies “an open or clear space”; here “all the place about them quaked.” It is, in fact, our modern “rink,” and appears to be a form of “ring,” as in “prize-ring” (Skeat’s Etymol. Dict.). It has nothing to do with “range” in the sense of “rove,” as Mr. Amours thinks (Alliterative Poems, S.T.S.). H actually reads rinke.
415 hynt hys rengyhe. The account in Gray is that Bruce’s rein was seized by John de Haliburton, who let him go immediately when he saw who he was. The difficulty about recognition was due to the fact that Bruce showed no coat of arms, having on a white tunic (un chemys blank.—Scalacronica, p. 131). Hemingburgh says that all the mounted Scots, in their approach to Perth, had these white overalls (super omnia arma vestem lineam), so that they could not be identified (ii., p. 248).
438 corn-but. This reading for the obscure torn-but of E (t and c are often indistinguishable in MS.) and combat of H is due to Mr. George Neilson, basing on a passage in the Morte Arthure (Scottish Antiquary, July, 1902, p. 51). The “heathen king” is down with a mortal wound from Sir Cador, who exclaims: