The prophecies of Rymer, Bede, and Merlin.
Sir David Lindsay's Epistle to the King.
And we find, in Waldhave, at least one allusion to the very ancient prophecy, addressed to the countess of Dunbar:
This is a true token that Thomas of tells,
When a ladde with a ladye shall go over the fields.
The original stands thus:
When laddes weddeth lovedies.
Another prophecy of Merlin seems to have been current about the time of the regent Morton's execution.—When that nobleman was committed to the charge of his accuser, captain James Stewart, newly created Earl of Arran, to be conducted to his trial at Edinburgh, Spottiswoode says, that he asked, "Who was earl of Arran?" "and being answered that Captain James was the man, after a short pause he said, 'And is it so? I know then what I may look for!' meaning, as was thought, that the old prophecy of the 'Falling of the heart[46] by the mouth of Arran,' should then be fulfilled. Whether this was his mind or not, it is not known; but some spared not, at the time when the Hamiltons were banished, in which business he was held too earnest, to say, that he stood in fear of that prediction, and went that course only to disappoint it. But, if so it was, he did find himself now deluded; for he fell by the mouth of another Arran than he imagined."—Spottiswoode, 313. The fatal words, alluded to, seem to be these in the prophecy of Merlin:
"In the mouth of Arrane a selcouth shall fall,
"Two bloodie hearts shall be taken with a false traine,
"And derfly dung down without any dome."
To return from these desultory remarks, into which the editor has been led by the celebrated name of Merlin, the style of all these prophecies, published by Hart, is very much the same. The measure is alliterative, and somewhat similar to that of Pierce Plowman's Visions; a circumstance, which might entitle us to ascribe to some of them an earlier date than the reign of James V., did we not know that Sir Galloran of Galloway, and Gawaine and Gologras, two romances rendered almost unintelligible by the extremity of affected alliteration, are perhaps not prior to that period. Indeed, although we may allow, that, during much earlier times, prophecies, under the names of those celebrated soothsayers, have been current in Scotland, yet those published by Hart have obviously been so often vamped and re-vamped, to serve the political purposes of different periods, that it may be shrewdly suspected, that, as in the case of Sir John Cutler's transmigrated stockings, very little of the original materials now remains. I cannot refrain from indulging my readers with the publisher's title to the last prophecy; as it contains certain curious information concerning the queen of Sheba, who is identified with the Cumæan Sybil: "Here followeth a prophecie, pronounced by a noble queene and matron, called Sybilla, Regina Austri, that came to Solomon. Through the which she compiled four bookes, at the instance and request of the said king Sol. and others divers: and the fourth book was directed to a noble king, called Baldwine, king of the broad isle of Britain; in the which she maketh mention of two noble princes and emperours, the which is called Leones. How these two shall subdue, and overcome all earthlie princes to their diademe and crowne, and also be glorified and crowned in the heaven among saints. The first of these two is Constantinus Magnus; that was Leprosus, the son of Saint Helene, that found the croce. The second is the sixty king of the name of Steward of Scotland, the which is our most noble king." With such editors and commentators, what wonder that the text became unintelligible, even beyond the usual oracular obscurity of prediction?