490.  Torry and Lendrick.  These places, like Deanstown, Doune (see on iv. 19 above), Blair-Drummond, Ochtertyre, and Kier, are all on the banks of the Teith, between Callander and Stirling.  Lockhart says:  “It may be worth noting that the poet marks the progress of the King by naming in succession places familiar and dear to his own early recollections—­Blair-Drummond, the seat of the Homes of Kaimes; Kier, that of the principal family of the name of Stirling; Ochtertyre, that of John Ramsay, the well-known antiquary, and correspondent of Burns; and Craigforth, that of the Callenders of Craigforth, almost under the walls of Stirling Castle;—­all hospitable roofs, under which he had spent many of his younger days.”

494.  Sees the hoofs strike fire.  The Ms. has “Saw their hoofs of fire.”

496.  They mark, etc.  The to of the infinitive is omitted in glance, as if mark had been see.

498.  Sweltering.  The 1st ed. has “swelling.”

506.  Flinty.  The Ms. has “steepy;” and in 514 “gains” for scales.

525.  Saint Serle.  “The King himself is in such distress for a rhyme as to be obliged to apply to one of the obscurest saints in the calendar” (Jeffrey).  The Ms. has “by my word,” and “Lord” for Earl in the next line.

534.  Cambus-kenneth’s abbey gray.  See on iv. 231 above.

547.  By.  Gone by, past.

551.  O sad and fatal mound!  “An eminence on the northeast of the Castle, where state criminals were executed.  Stirling was often polluted with noble blood.  It is thus apostrophized by J. Johnston: 

         ’Discordia tristis
     Heu quotis procerum sanguine tinxit humum! 
   Hoc uno infelix, et felix cetera; nusquam
     Laetior aut caeli frons geniusve soli.’

“The fate of William, eighth Earl of Douglas, whom James ii. stabbed in Stirling Castle with his own hand, and while under his royal safe-conduct, is familiar to all who read Scottish history.  Murdack Duke of Albany, Duncan Earl of Lennox, his father-in-law, and his two sons, Walter and Alexander Stuart, were executed at Stirling, in 1425.  They were beheaded upon an eminence without the Castle walls, but making part of the same hill, from whence they could behold their strong Castle of Doune and their extensive possessions.  This ‘heading hill,’ as it was sometimes termed, bears commonly the less terrible name of Hurly-hacket, from its having been the scene of a courtly amusement alluded to by Sir David Lindsay, who says of the pastimes in which the young King was engaged: 

   ‘Some harled him to the Hurly-hacket;’

which consisted in sliding—­in some sort of chair, it may be supposed—­from top to bottom of a smooth bank.  The boys of Edinburgh, about twenty years ago, used to play at the hurly-hacket on the Calton Hill, using for their seat a horse’s skull” (Scott).

558.  The Franciscan steeple.  The Greyfriars Church, built by James iv. in 1594 on the hill not far from the Castle, is still standing, and has been recently restored.  Here James vi. was crowned on the 29th of July, 1567, and John Knox preached the coronation sermon.