In the latter years of the thirteenth century, Edward became involved in the Scottish wars; and the enmity of the two nations was manifested in multitudes of songs, of which the greater part are lost, although a few are preserved, and a fragment or two of others are found in the old historians. The following song, attributed in the several manuscripts to different writers, was (if we may judge by the number of copies which remain,) very popular. Different persons seem, from time to time, to have altered it and added to it. It appears to have been composed in 1298, soon after the sanguinary battle of Falkirk; but the latter stanzas, found only in one manuscript, have apparently been added at a somewhat later period.
SONG ON THE SCOTTISH WARS.
[MS. Cotton. Claudius, D. VI. fol. 182, vo; of the beginning of the fourteenth cent. (C. 1.)—MS. Cotton. Titus, A. XX. fol. 64, vo; of reign of Edw. III. (C. 2.)—MS. of Clare Hall, Cambridge, of fourteenth cent. (Cl.)—MS. Sloan. No. 4934, fol. 103, ro; a modern copy from a MS. not now known. (Sl.)—MS. Bodl. Oxfd. Rawl. B. 214, fol. 216, ro; of the fifteenth cent.]
Ludere volentibus ludens paro lyram;
De mundi malitia rem demonstro miram;
Nil quod nocet referam, rem gestam requiram;
Scribo novam satyram, sed sic ne seminet iram.
Ira movet militum mentes modernorum,
Dum inermes detrahunt factis fortiorum;