to suppress it, and would not release them till they extorted a formal promise that no one should be punished for his share of the disturbance.  It would seem, from the complaints of the General Assembly of the Kirk, that these profane festivities were continued down to 1592 (Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 414).  Bold Robin was, to say the least, equally successful in maintaining his ground against the reformed clergy of England; for the simple and evangelical Latimer complains of coming to a country church where the people refused to hear him because it was Robin Hood’s day, and his mitre and rochet were fain to give way to the village pastime.  Much curious information on this subject may be found in the Preliminary Dissertation to the late Mr. Ritson’s edition of the songs respecting this memorable outlaw.  The game of Robin Hood was usually acted in May; and he was associated with the morrice-dancers, on whom so much illustration has been bestowed by the commentators on Shakespeare.  A very lively picture of these festivities, containing a great deal of curious information on the subject of the private life and amusements of our ancestors, was thrown, by the late ingenious Mr. Strutt, into his romance entitled Queen-hoo Hall, published after his death, in 1808.”

615.  Friar Tuck.  “Robin Hood’s fat friar,” as Shakespeare calls him (T.  G. of V. iv. 1. 36), who figures in the Robin Hood ballads and in Ivanhoe.  Scarlet and Little John are mentioned in one of Master Silence’s snatches of song in 2 Hen.  IV. v. 3. 107:  “And Robin, Scarlet, and John.”  Scathelocke is a brother of Scarlet in Ben Jonson’s Sad Shepherd, which is a “Tale of Robin Hood,” and Mutch is a bailiff in the same play.

626.  Stake.  Prize.

627.  Fondly he watched, etc.  The Ms. reads: 

    “Fondly he watched, with watery eye,
     For answering glance of sympathy,
     But no emotion made reply! 
     Indifferent as to unknown | wight,
     Cold as to unknown yeoman |
     The King gave forth the arrow bright.”

630.  To archer wight.  That is, to any ordinary archer.  Scott has the following note here: 

“The Douglas of the poem is an imaginary person, a supposed uncle of the Earl of Angus.  But the King’s behavior during an unexpected interview with the Laird of Kilspindie, one of the banished Douglases, under circumstances similar to those in the text, is imitated from a real story told by Hume of Godscroft.  I would have availed myself more fully of the simple and affecting circumstances of the old history, had they not been already woven into a pathetic ballad by my friend Mr. Finlay. [FN#11]