[I have mony steads in the forest schaw,]
But them by name I dinna knaw."
The keys of the castell he gave the King,315
Wi' the blessing o' his feir ladye;
He was made sheriffe of Ettricke Foreste,
Surely while upward grows the tree;
And if he was na traitour to the King,
Forfaulted he suld never be.320
Wha ever heard, in ony times,
Sicken an outlaw in his degré,
Sic favour get befor a King,
As did the Outlaw Murray of the Foreste free?
[38]. Thomas Boyd, Earl of Arran, was forfeited, with his father and uncle, in 1469, for an attempt on the person of James III. He had a son, James, who was restored, and in favor with James IV. about 1482. If this be the person here meant, we should read, "The Earl of Arran his son was he." Glenriddel's copy reads, "a Highland laird I'm sure was he." Reciters sometimes call the messenger the Laird of Skene.—S.
[60]. Birkendale Brae, now commonly called Birkendailly, is steep descent on the south side of Minch-moor, which separates Tweeddale from Ettrick Forest; and from the top of which we have the first view of the woods of Hangingshaw, the Castle of Newark, and the romantic dale of Yarrow.—S.
[63], Scott, blows: Aytoun, bows.
[154]. This is a place at the head of Moffat-water, possessed of old by the family of Halliday.—S.
[173]. This family were ancestors of the Murrays, Earls of Annandale; but the name of the representative, in the time of James IV., was William, not Andrew. Glenriddel's MS. reads, "the country-keeper."—S.
[183]. Before the Barony of Traquair became the property of the Stewarts, it belonged to a family of Murrays, afterwards Murrays of Black-barony, and ancestors of Lord Elibank. The old castle was situated on the Tweed. The lands of Traquair were forfeited by Willielmus de Moravia, previous to 1464; for, in that year, a charter, proceeding upon his forfeiture, was granted by the crown to "Willielmo Douglas de Cluny." Sir James was, perhaps, the heir of William Murray. It would farther seem, that the grant in 1464 was not made effectual by Douglas; for another charter from the crown, dated the 3d February, 1478, conveys the estate of Traquair to James Stewart, Earl of Buchan, son of the Black Knight of Lorne, and maternal uncle to James III., from whom is descended the present Earl of Traquair. The first royal grant not being followed by possession, it is very possible that the Murrays may have continued to occupy Traquair long after the date of that charter. Hence, Sir James might have reason to say, as in the ballad, "The King has gifted my lands lang syne."—S.
[195], A ford on the Tweed, at the mouth of the Caddon Burn, near Yair.—S.