“Machina sum Scoto Borthuik fabricata Roberto.”
De or. mor. et reb. gest. Scot. p. 353. ed. 1578.
Page 187. v. 169. The Popes curse gaue you that clap]—clap, i. e. stroke. James died under a recent sentence of excommunication for infringing the pacification with England.
v. 170. Of the out yles the roughe foted Scottes] i. e. the rough-footed Scots of the Hebrides: the epithet rough-footed was given to them, because they wore, during the frost, a rude sort of shoe, made of undressed deer-skin, with the hairy side outwards; see MS. quoted in Pinkerton’s Hist. of Scotland, ii. 397.
v. 171. the bottes] i. e. the worms.
v. 172. dronken dranes]—dranes, i. e. drones. The Editor of Skelton’s Workes, 1736, printed “dronken Danes;” and Weber (Flodden Field, p. 276) proposes the same alteration; but though the Danes (as the readers of our early dramatists know) were notorious for deep potations, the text is right. Our author has again, in his poem Howe the douty Duke of Albany, &c.;
“We set nat a prane
By suche a dronken drane.”
v. 163. vol. ii. 72.
“Drane. Fucus.” Prompt. Parv. ed. 1499. And compare Pierce Plowman’s Crede;