“Thow has corne botte, sir kynge, there God gyfe the sorowe,
Thow killyde my cosyn, my kare is the less” (1837-8).
Though the general meaning of “revenge,” “tit-for-tat,” is clear, no satisfactory analysis of the phrase has been offered. Skeat and Gollancz think that the first part of the term is French—corne, a horn “as the symbol of pride”—and that the compound signifies “a requital for pride, a taking down.” The passages will scarcely bear this. Moreover, bōt is admittedly old English—“remedy, atonement”—and one shies at a solitary compound in such a case. Mann-bōt was a fine paid to the lord of a murdered man; brycgbot was a levy for the repair of bridges; corn-gesc(e)ot was a contribution of corn. Corn-bot may thus have been a fine for the destruction of corn, and have taken on a general sense of requital or revenge. It does not seem to require the force of a specially intense revenge (auserlessene busse. Holshausen), but appears to have been a slang term, whence its rare occurrence in literature. It is not given in the New English Dic. (See further Scottish Antiquary. June, 1903, pp. 121-123; Notes and Queries, 9 Series, x. 61, 115, 253).
463 Thomas Randell. He was given in ward to Sir Adam de Gordon to be kept till the King’s arrival in Inverkip Castle (Bain, ii., No. 1807). Gray says he was released at the instance of Gordon, when he remained English till his recapture (Scala., p. 131).
467 sum thai hangyt. See on 235, 239.
471 will of wane. “Astray in thought (weening); distracted, at a loss. Will = modern English wild, astray, bewildered (Icel. villr). Cf. in the Gest. Hystoriale: “All wery I wex and wyll of my gate” = out of my way (line 2369).
479 the Boroundoun. This name has puzzled editors and given rise to a good deal of conjecture. But a Sir Walter de Borondone was constable of Carstairs Castle in 1305-1306 (Bain, ii., No. 1880), and he is the same person as Sir Walter de Bourghdon, constable there in 1301-1302 (ibid., No. 1290), of Roxburghshire (ibid., p. 199). He was an English officer.
482 The Erle of the Levenax wes away. Fordun, however, says that Lennox and De la Hay alone followed Bruce, and became “his inseparable companions (comites individui) in every tribulation” (Gesta Annal., cxxi.). Cf. Bk. III. 591.
491 Schir Nele Cambell. Ancestor of the Campbells of Lochow, or Loch Awe, and so of the Argyll family. He married Mary Bruce, the King’s sister, but not, it would seem, before 1312 (Scots Peerage, i., p. 323; but see on xvi. 119). The grant of “Lauchaw” was to their son Colin (Robertson’s Index, pp. 16, 18).
494 the Month. “The mountain which is called the Mound, which stretches from the western to the eastern sea” (De Situ Albaniae, MS. Paris; cited in Historians of Scotland, Innes’ Essay, p. 412). The modern Grampians.
513 Nele the Bruys ... and the Queyn. Neil or Nigel (Nigellus) Bruce was the King’s brother. His Queen was Bruce’s second wife, a daughter of Richard de Burgh Earl of Ulster.