Take a thousand in calculation,
And the longest of the lyon,
Four crescents under one crowne,
With Saint Andrew's croce thrise,
Then threescore and thrise three:
Take tent to Merling truely,
Then shall the warres ended be,
And never againe rise.
In that yere there shall a king,
A duke, and no crowned king;
Becaus the prince shall be yong,
And tender of yeares.
The date, above hinted at, seems to be 1549, when the Scottish regent, by means of some succours derived from France, was endeavouring to repair the consequences of the fatal battle of Pinkie. Allusion is made to the supply given to the "Moldwarte" (England) by the fained "hart" (the Earl of Angus). The regent is described by his bearing the antelope; large supplies are promised from France, and complete conquest predicted to Scotland and her allies. Thus was the same hackneyed stratagem repeated, whenever the interest of the rulers appeared to stand in need of it. The regent was not, indeed, till after this period, created Duke of Chatelherault; but that honour was the object of his hopes and expectations.
The name of our renowned soothsayer is liberally used as an authority, throughout all the prophecies published by Andro Hart. Besides those expressly put in his name, Gildas, another assumed personage, is supposed to derive his knowledge from him; for he concludes thus:
"True Thomas me told in a troublesome time,
"In a harvest morn at Eldoun hills."
The Prophecy of Gildas.
In the prophecy of Berlington, already quoted, we are told,
"Marvellous Merlin, that many men of tells,
"And Thomas's sayings comes all at once."
While I am upon the subject of these prophecies, may I be permitted to call the attention of antiquaries to Merdwynn Wyllt, or Merlin the Wild, in whose name, and by no means in that of Ambrose Merlin, the friend of Arthur, the Scottish prophecies are issued. That this personage resided at Drummelziar, and roamed, like a second Nebuchadnezzar, the woods of Tweeddale, in remorse for the death of his nephew, we learn from Fordun. In the Scotichronicon, lib. 3, cap. 31. is an account of an interview betwixt St Kentigern and Merlin, then in this distracted and miserable state. He is said to have been called Lailoken, from his mode of life. On being commanded by the saint to give an account of himself, he says, that the penance, which he performs, was imposed on him by a voice from heaven, during a bloody contest betwixt Lidel and Carwanolow, of which battle he had been the cause. According to his own prediction, he perished at once by wood, earth, and water; for, being pursued with stones by the rustics, he fell from a rock into the river Tweed, and was transfixed by a sharp stake, fixed there for the purpose of extending a fishing-net:
Sude perfossus, lapide percussus et unda
Haec tria Merlinum fertur inire necem.
Sicque ruit, mersusque fuit lignoque perpendi,
Et fecit vatem per terna pericula verum.