’The lords hearing the king’s complaint and lamentation, and also the great rage, fury, and malice, that he bure toward the Earl of Angus, his kin and friends, they concluded all and thought it best, that he should be summoned to underly the law; if he fand not caution, nor yet compear himself, that he should be put to the horn, with all his kin and friends, so many as were contained in the letters.  And further, the lords ordained, by advice of his majesty, that his brother and friends should be summoned to find caution to underly the law within a certain day, or else be put to the horn.  But the earl appeared not, nor none for him; and so he was put to the horn, with all his kin and friends:  so many as were contained in the summons, that compeared not, were banished, and holden traitors to the king.’”

159.  From Tweed to Spey.  From the Tweed, the southern boundary of Scotland, to the Spey, a river far to the north in Inverness-shire; that is, from one end of the land to the other.

170.  Reave.  Tear away.  The participle reft is still used, at least in poetry.  Cf.  Shakespeare, V. and A. 766:  “Or butcher-sire that reaves his son of life” (that is, bereaves); Spenser, F. Q. i. 3. 36:  “He to him lept, in minde to reave his life;” Id. ii. 8. 15:  “I will him reave of arms,” etc.

178.  It drinks, etc.  The Ms. has “No blither dewdrop cheers the rose.”

195, 196.  To see ... dance.  This couplet is not in the Ms.

200.  The Lady of the Bleeding Heart.  The bleeding heart was the cognizance of the Douglas family.  Robert Bruce, on his death-bed, bequeathed his heart to his friend, the good Lord James, to be borne in war against the Saracens.  “He joined Alphonso, King of Leon and Castile, then at war with the Moorish chief Osurga, of Granada, and in a keen contest with the Moslems he flung before him the casket containing the precious relic, crying out, ’Onward as thou wert wont, thou noble heart, Douglas will follow thee.’  Douglas was slain, but his body was recovered, and also the precious casket, and in the end Douglas was laid with his ancestors, and the heart of Bruce deposited in the church of Melrose Abbey” (Burton’s Hist. of Scotland).

201.  Fair.  The 1st ed. (and probably the Ms., though not noted by Lockhart) has “Gay.”

203.  Yet is this, etc.  The Ms. and 1st ed. read: 

    “This mossy rock, my friend, to me
     Is worth gay chair and canopy.”

205.  Footstep.  The reading of the 1st and other early eds.; “footsteps” in recent ones.

206.  Strathspey.  A Highland dance, which takes its name from the strath, or broad valley, of the Spey (159 above).

213.  Clan-Alpine’s pride.  “The Siol Alpine, or race of Alpine, includes several clans who claimed descent from Kenneth McAlpine, an ancient king.  These are the Macgregors, the Grants, the Mackies, the Mackinnans, the MacNabs, the MacQuarries, and the Macaulays.  Their common emblem was the pine, which is now confined to the Macgregors” (Taylor).