[147]. Cunningham, in his loose way, talks of several fragments which he had endeavored to combine, but can spare room for only one couplet:
Though lame of a leg and blind of an ee,
You’re as like William Wallace as ever I did see.
But this is the William of ‘The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter,’ No 110.
[148]. A 15, B 12, D 12, are somewhat corrupted. In F 14 Wallace says he never had a better bode. In E 10 Wallace’s reply is, Pay down, for if your answer be not good you shall have the downfall of Robin Hood; and in G 30, Tell down, and ye shall see William Wallace with the downcome of Robin Hood; that is, I suppose, you shall be knocked down as if by Robin Hood.
[149]. Post enim conflictum de Roslyn, Wallace, ascensa navi, Franciam petit, ubi quanta probitate refulsit, tam super mare a piratis quam in Francia ab Anglis perpessus est discrimina, et viriliter se habuit, nonnulla carmina, tam in ipsa Francia quam Scotia, attestantur. Scotichronicon, Goodall, II, 176, note.
[150]. “Thou hadst twenty ships hither, thou’st have twenty away,” B 37. It would be more in the ballad-way were the second twenty doubled.
[151]. In the London Athenæum, about twenty-five years ago, there was (I think) a story of an Englishman in Russia resembling Hugh Spencer’s. I have wrongly noted the number as 1871, and have not recovered the story after much rummaging. This ballad is not very unlike Russian bylinas.
[152]. Presbyteri, fratres et clerici, sutores et mechanici, Bower; agricolæ ac pastores, et capellani imbecilles et decrepiti, Knyghton; miseri monachi, improbi presbyteri, porcorum pastores, sutores et pelliparii, Chronicon de Lanercost; clericos et pastores, Walsingham, Hist. Angl.
[153]. It is very doubtful whether there was an Earl of Buchan in 1346. Henry de Beaumont, according to the peerages, died in 1341. He was an Englishman, had fought against the Scots at Duplin, 1332, and was after that in the service of Edward III.