[13] Dalrymple's Memoirs.
[14] This bloody deed, it must be confessed, was a dereliction and violation of all the strict laws of hospitality, which were so duly enforced in Scotland—which forbad a host to murder his guest. But we have detailed the savage character of Sir Robert Bruce, the hostility of the two clans, and the barbarism of the times; and have only to say, that "Exceptio probat regulam."
[15] Harquebuss, in the ancient statutes, is called also Arquebuse, Haquebut, or Hagbut; it is a hand-gun, or a fire-arm of a proper length to be borne in the arm. The word is formed of the French arquebuse, and that from the Italian, arcobusio, or arco abuso, of arco a bow, and busio, a hole; on account of the touch-hole in which the powder is put to prime it; and it is likewise so called because it succeeded the bows of the ancients.
The harquebuss is properly a fire-arm, of the ordinary length of a musket or fowling-piece, cocked usually with a wheel. Its length is forty calibers; and the weight of its ball one ounce seven-eighths; its charge of powder as much.
There is also a larger kind, called harquebuss a croc, used in war for the defence of places. The first time these instruments were seen was in the imperial army of Bourbon, when Bonnivet was driven out of the state of Milan. They are heavy and cumbersome.
[16] The "Mercurius Civicus, London's Intelligencer, or Truth impartially related from thence to the Kingdom, to prevent Misinformation." This public print, with the foregoing quaint title, was first published in 1643. Printed for Thomas Bates on Snow-hill.
[17] At the splendid entertainments of those days the confectioners were very solicitous to present these and similar fopperies on the tables of the great. Furnace the cook says, in Massinger's "New Way to pay old Debts,"
——"Since our master, noble Allworth, died,
Though I crack my brain to find out tempting sauces,
And raise fortifications in the pastry,