LORD MAXWELL’S LAST GOODNIGHT
The Text is from the Glenriddell MSS., and is the one on which Sir Walter Scott based the version given in the Border Minstrelsy. Byron notes in the preface to Childe Harold that ‘the good-night in the beginning of the first canto was suggested by Lord Maxwell’s Goodnight in the Border Minstrelsy.’
The Story.—John, ninth Lord Maxwell, killed Sir James Johnstone in 1608; the feud between the families was of long standing (see 3.4), beginning in 1585. Lord Maxwell fled the country, and was sentenced to death in his absence. On his return in 1612 he was betrayed by a kinsman, and beheaded at Edinburgh on May 21, 1613. This was the end of the feud, which contained cases of treachery and perfidy on both sides.
‘Robert of Oarchyardtoun’ was Sir Robert Maxwell of Orchardton, Lord Maxwell’s cousin.
‘Drumlanrig,’ ‘Cloesburn,’ and ‘the laird of Lagg’ were respectively named Douglas, Kirkpatrick, and Grierson.
The Maxwells had houses, or custody of houses at Dumfries, Lochmaben, Langholm, and Thrieve; and Carlaverock Castle is still theirs.
As for Lord Maxwell’s ‘lady and only joy,’ the ballad neglects the fact that he instituted a process of divorce against her, and that she died, while it was pending, in 1608, five years before the date of the ‘Goodnight.’
LORD MAXWELL’S LAST GOODNIGHT
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