No More Learning

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CHAPTER V
THE EARLIEST SCOTTISH LITERATURE
BARBOUR, BLIND HARRY, HUCHOUN, WYNTOUN, HOLLAND
As has been indicated in the preceding chapter, it is probable
that, from a very early period in the English colonisation of Britain,
an English dialect was spoken from Forth to Tweed, which was,
in most respects, practically indistinguishable from that spoken
between the Tweed and the Humber. Even along the north-eastern
coast, English was soon the language of the little towns that traded
by sea. Before 1124, the communities of Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin,
Forres, Nairn and Inverness had formed themselves into a minia-
ture Hanseatic league, on which David I conferred sundry privi-
leges. The inland country behind these communities remained
for long in the hands of a Gaelic-speaking people. In the north
of Aberdeenshire there is evidence that the harrying of Buchan,
carried out by Robert the Bruce, in 1308, as part of his vengeance
on his enemies the Comyns, introduced the English language to the
inland districts, for in local documents the names of persons change
speedily after that date from Gaelic to English.
Of a Scottish literature before the wars of independence
there is no trace. In the period preceding the death of Alex-
ander III, in 1286, Scotland was so prosperous that it is difficult to
believe no such literature existed. But, as the dialect of Scotland
was not yet differentiated from that south of the Tweed, such
a literature, unless it took the form of chronicles or was of a
strictly local character, could not easily be identified. It is notice-
able that there is no lack of literature of which the scene is
connected with Scotland. The romance of Sir Tristram, which is
associated with the name of True Thomas, the mysterious seer of
Erceldoune, is preserved only in a dialect which is not Scots.
Though the Gawain cycle appears in different forms in different
dialects, all of them seem to be English. Yet Gawain, according


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Early Fragments
I01
to the legend, was prince of Galloway; and, as we shall see, there
is some reason to connect some of these poems with a Scottish
author. The contradiction, however, is more in appearance than
in reality. If these poems were composed by a Scottish author,
they were, undoubtedly, intended rather for recitation than for
reading; and, even if they were meant to be read, a southern
scribe would be certain to adapt the forms to his own dialect.
This adaptation might be either intentional or unintentional. If
intentional, the purpose would be to make the poem more easily
intelligible to southern readers; if unintentional, it would typify
the result which always ensues in all languages from the mechanical
copying of an alien dialect.
In the Scots dialect itself, the political separation brought
about by the wars of Wallace and Bruce produced considerable
changes. The oldest fragments of the dialect are to be found in
the phrases introduced for greater precision into the Latin laws
of David I and his successors. In these we hear of blodewit, styn-
gisdynt, herieth and so forth, for which, in the later Scots version,
are substituted bludewyt, stokisdynt, hereyelde. Till Scotland has
become again an independent kingdom, such words as these, and
the vernacular glosses on the hard words in a Latin lease, are all
that survive to us of the old Scottish tongue. Of early continuous
prose there are no remains. The earliest poetry extant appears in
the few musical and pathetic verses on the death of Alexander III,
which have been quoted a thousand times:
Quhen Alysandyr oure kyng was dedo
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away wes songoff ale and brede,
Off wyne and wax, off gamyn and gle;
Oure gold wes changyd into lede,
Cryst born into Vyrgynyté
Succoure Scotland and remede
That stad is in perplexyté.
Though preserved only by Wyntoun (c. 1420), they, no doubt,
are not far removed from the original form of a hundred and fifty
years earlier. In Fabyan's Chronicle are preserved some of the
flouts and gibes at the English, baffled in the siege of Berwick
and defeated at Bannockburn. But it is with Barbour, whose
poem The Bruce is the triumphant chronicle of the making of the
new kingdom of Scotland by Robert and Edward Bruce and the
great ‘James of Douglas,' that Scottish literature begins. As the
national epic, coloured, evidently, to a large extent by tradition,
1 abundance.


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102
The Earliest Scottish Literature
but written while men still lived who remembered Bannockburn
and the good king Robert, it is entitled to the first place, even
though conceivably some of the literature of pure romance be
not less old.
In John Barbour, the author of The Bruce, we have a typical
example of the prosperous churchman of the fourteenth century.
As we may surmise from his name, he had sprung from the
common folk. Of his early history we know nothing. We first
hear of him in 1357, when he applies to Edward III for a safe-
conduct to take him and a small following of three scholars to
Oxford for purposes of study. By that date, he was already arch-
deacon of Aberdeen, and, as an archdeacon, must have been at least
twenty-five years old. He probably was some years older. He
died, an old man, in 1396, and we may reasonably conjecture that he
was born soon after 1320. In those days there was no university
in Scotland, and it may be assumed that the archdeacon of
Aberdeen was, in all probability, proceeding in 1357 to Oxford
with some young scholars whom he was to place in that university;
for the Latin of the safe-conduct need not mean, as has often been
assumed, that Barbour himself was to 'keep acts in the schools. '
The safe-conduct was granted him at the request of 'David
de Bruys,' king of Scotland, at that time a captive in king
Edward's hands; and Barbour's next duty, in the same year, was
to serve on a commission for the ransom of king David Other
safe-conducts were granted to Barbour in 1364, 1365 and 1368; that
of 1365 allowing him to pass to St Denis in France, while, in 1368,
he was allowed to cross into France for purposes of study. In 1372
and 1373, he was clerk of the audit of the king's household; and, in
1373, also one of the auditors of the exchequer. By the early
part of 1376, The Bruce was finished; and, soon after, we find him
receiving by command of the king (now Robert II) ten pounds
from the revenues of the city of Aberdeen. In 1378, a pension
a
of twenty shillings sterling from the same source was conferred
upon him for ever-a benefaction which, in 1380, he transferred to
the cathedral of Aberdeen, that the dean and canons might, once a
year, say mass for the souls of his parents, himself and all the
faithful dead. With northern caution, he lays down careful regu-
lations as to how the dean is to divide the twenty shillings among
the staff of the cathedral, not forgetting even the sacrist (the
name still survives in Aberdeen) who tolled the bell. Other sums
were paid to Barbour by the king's order from the revenues of
Aberdeen, and, in 1388, his pension was raised by the king, ‘for his


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John Barbour
103
faithful service, to ten pounds, to be paid half-yearly at the
Scottish terms of Whitsunday and Martinmas. He died on
13 March 1396. Like Chaucer, he received from the king in
1380—1) the wardship of a minor, who lived in his parish of
Rayne in Aberdeenshire. On at least one of the many occasions
when he was auditor of the exchequer, Sir Hew of Eglintoun,
who, as we shall see, is also reputed a poet, served along with
him.
Such are the simple annals of John Barbour's life, as known
to us.
For thirty-eight years at least he was archdeacon of Aber-
deen, then, probably, one of the most prosperous towns in the
realm. Fortunately for itself, it was far removed from the border,
and had not suffered so severely as most towns in the wars of
liberation, though it had been visited by all the leading combat-
ants, by Wallace, by Edward I and by Bruce. The records of the
city, unfortunately, do not begin till a few years after Barbour's
death. There is, however, some reason to believe that Barbour
was not alone in his literary activity. To the same district and
to the same period belong the Lives of the Saints, a manuscript
discovered in the Cambridge University Library by Henry Brad-
shaw, who assigned the authorship to Barbour himself. From
Wyntoun we learn that Barbour was the author of other works
which are now lost. In many passages he refers to themes treated
of in a quasi-historical poem, The Brut, which clearly, in matter,
bore a close resemblance to Layamon's poem with the same title.
To Barbour, Wyntoun attributes, also, another lost poem, The
Stewartis Oryginalle, which carried back the genealogy of the
Stewart kings from Robert II of Scotland to Ninus who built
Nineveh—a tour de force excelled only by another Aberdonian,
Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais, who carried the
genealogy of his family back to Adam himself. It was perfectly
well known that the Stewarts were a branch of the ancient English
house of FitzAlan; but, in the bitter feeling against England
which by this time had come to prevail in Scotland, it was, no doubt,
desirable to find another and more remote origin for the Scottish
royal family. The feeling which led to the production of this fabu-
lous genealogy is vouched for by the author of the Lives of the
Saints already mentioned, who tells us, in the life of St Ninian,
that a paralytic English lord desired his squire, who had brought
home a Scot as prisoner, to put a knife in his mouth with the
blade outward, that he might ‘reave the Scot of his life. ' This
lord, having been dissuaded from his deed of murder, and
a


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104
The Earliest Scottish Literature
having listened to the advice of the prisoner that he should try a
visit to St Ninian's shrine as a cure for his paralysis, finds the cure
long in coming, and says that he might have known, if he had been
wise, that a Scotsman of Galloway, as Ninian was, would never
help an Englishman, and would prefer to make him ill rather
than assist him to recover. The genealogy survives for us in
the History of Hector Boece, where we are told that Fleance,
the son of Banquo, had a son Walter, who became steward
of Scotland—a genealogy which passed from Boece through
Holinshed to Shakespeare.
To Barbour also has been attributed a poem on the Siege of Troy,
translated from the popular medieval Latin Troy Book of Guido
delle Colonne, of which two considerable fragments are preserved
with Barbour's name in a manuscript in the Cambridge Univer-
sity Library. The second fragment is found also in a Douce MS
in the Bodleian Library. There is no doubt that these fragments,
which have been utilised to complete an imperfect copy of
Lydgate's translation of Guido, are in the same metre as The
Bruce, which is shorter than that of Lydgate. They are also, no
doubt, in Scots, but, in all probability, they are in the Scots of
the fifteenth, not of the fourteenth, century, and, in detail, do not
resemble Barbour's undoubted composition. More recently, and
with much more plausibility, George Neilson has contended
that The Buik of Alexander, a Scottish translation from two
French poems, is by the author of The Bruce. The similarities
of phraseology between The Buik of Alexander (which exists
only in a printed copy of about 1580, reprinted for the Ban-
natyne Club in 1831) and The Bruce are so numerous and so
striking that it is impossible to believe they are of independent
origin.
To return to The Bruce. This, the work by which the repu-
tation of John Barbour stands or falls, dates from his later
middle life. He must have been a man of between fifty and sixty
before it was finished. It is in no real sense a history, for Barbour
begins with the astounding confusion of Robert the Bruce with
his grandfather the rival of John Balliol in claiming the crown.
As Barbour's own life overlapped that of king Robert, it is im-
possible to believe that this is an accidental oversight. The story
is a romance, and the author treated it as such; though, strange to
say, it has been regarded from his own time to this as, in all details,
a trustworthy source for the history of the period. So confident of
this was Wyntoun, writing about a quarter of a century after


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Barbour's Bruce
105
Barbour's death, that he says he will lightly pass over the details
of Bruce's career because
The Archedene off Abbyrdene
In Brwyss his Buk has gert be sene,
Mare wysly tretyde in-to wryt
Than I can thynk with all my wyt.
Like any other hero of romance, Robert has no peer and no
superior, though inferior to him and to him only are two other
knights, James of Douglas and Edward Bruce. It is only natural,
therefore, that, when he fights against the English, the English
have much the worst of it, even when the odds are very much in
their favour. But, though Barbour is an ardent patriot, he does
his best to be fair, and, no doubt, the main historical events are
related with good faith and as accurately as tradition allowed.
The English are not all villains, the Scots are not all angels from
heaven. For Maknab the traitor, who betrayed Christopher Setoun
to the English, he reserves his bitterest indignation :
In hell condampnyt mot he be. iv, 26.
All Barbour's resources are lavished upon the characters of
king Robert and the good James of Douglas. Edward Bruce is a
fine warrior, but attains not unto these first two for lack of self
control (1x, 661 ff. , XVI, 391 ff. ). Had he had 'mesur in his deid' he
might have equalled any warrior of his time, always excepted
his brother anyrly1
To quhom, in-to chevelry,
I dar peira nane, wes in his day. IX, 664 ff.
Douglas, too, is noble, but he is a darker spirit than king
Robert and more cruel in his treatment of the English, for he
has greater wrongs to revenge. Nothing becomes him better than
his reply to king Robert's advice not to venture into Douglasdale:
Schir, neidwais I will wend
And tak auentur that God will giff
Quhether sa it be till de or liff. V, 242 ff.
Barbour does not often draw full length portraits of his heroes;
but, almost at the end of his poem, tells us how Douglas looked
and what were his chief characteristics (xx, 511 ff. ). The only
other with whom he deals as fully is Sir Thomas Randolph,
earl of Murray (x, 280 ff. ). In both cases he praises, above all
else, their hatred of treason (from which the Scots, both in the
wars of Wallace and of Bruce, had suffered so much) and their
love of loyalty. Douglas, he thinks, can be compared only with
I alone.
compare.


## p. 106 (#124) ############################################

106
The Earliest Scottish Literature
Fabricius, who scorned the offer of Pyrrhus's physician to poison
him.
The kindliness and humour of king Robert he illustrates by
numerous instances—his delaying the army, in order that a poor
laundress, too ill to be moved, may not be left behind to the mercy
of Irish savages (XVI, 270 ff. ); his modesty in declaring that he
slew but one foe while God and his hound had slain two (VII,
484); his popularity among the country folk, when, disguised, he
seeks a lodging and is told by the goodwife
all that traualand ere
For saik of ane ar velcom here,
and that one
Gud kyng Robert the Bruce is he
That is rycht lord of this ountre. VII, 243 ff.
On occasion Barbour displays a dry, caustic humour character-
istic of his country. Once on a time there were such prophets as
David, Samuel, Joel and Isaiah,
Bot thai prophetis so thyn are sawin
That thair in erd now nane is knawin. IV, 685 f.
Of king Edward he remarks that
of othir mennis landis large wes he. XI, 148.
When O’Dymsy let out a loch in Ireland upon Edward Bruce's
men, Barbour's comment is that though they lacked meat, they
were well wet (XIV, 366).
Barbour does not often moralise; but, here and there, he turns
aside from his narrative to express a general sentiment. The
most famous passage of this kind is that on Liberty which, to
Barbour, born when his country was just emerging from a life and
death struggle for its independence, must have had a vividness
beyond what the modern reader can realise. Truth to tell, the
.
passage reads better as an extract than in its original setting,
where it ends in a curious piece of medieval monkish casuistry.
A! fredome is a noble thing!
Fredome mayss man to haiff liking;
Fredome all solace to man giffis:
He levys at ess that frely levys!
A noble hart may haiff nane ese
Na ellys nocht that may him pless,
Gyff fredome failzhel; for fre liking
Is zharnyt2 our all othir thing.
Na he, that ay hass levyt fre
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte,
The angyr, na the wrechyt dome,
That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome;
; desired.
1 fail.


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Barbour's Bruce
107
Bot gyff he had assayit it
Than all perqueri he suld it wyty
And suld think fredome mar to pryss
Than all the gold in warld that is. I, 225 ff.
Less well known is his praise of love as that which
mony tyme maiss tender wychtis
Off swilk strenthtis, and swilk mychtis
That thai may. mekill paynys endur. 11, 522 ff.
The tears of joy with which Lennox and his men welcome
Bruce and his followers, whom they meet half-famished among the
hills after they believed them dead, lead the poet on to a curious
disquisition on what makes men and women weep (III, 596 ff. ).
But, generally speaking, these yuai are confined to a single
verse such as
Bot quhar god helpys, qubat may withstand ? I, 456.
The changes and chances of the long-continued war brought
home to him very vividly the fickleness of fortune
That quhile upon a man will smyle
And prik him syne ane othir qubile. XIII, 633 f.
Bot oft falzies the fulys thoucht
And wiss men's etling? cumis nocht
Til sic end as thai weyn alwayis.
A little stane oft, as men sayis,
May ger weltir ane mekill wane.
Na manis myoht may stand agano
The grace of God, that all thing steiris. XI, 21 ff.
Barbour was not of the order whose eye in a fine frenzy
rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. '
He was a God-fearing churchman and statesman, who thought it
well to put on record his country's deliverance, before, in the in-
glorious days of Bruce's successors, its memory should have perished.
And what he aimed at he achieved. Like Scott, whose poetry he
inspired, he finds his metre so facile that, at times, he falls into the
merest commonplace. The battle of Bannockburn occupies an
altogether disproportionate space in the poem. Nevertheless,
the description of the battle is Barbour's masterpiece. He must
often have talked with men who had fought at Bannockburn; he
obviously had a very clear conception of the manner in which the
day was lost and won. In his narrative he combines the qualities
which Matthew Arnold assigns to the highest epic style ; he is
rapid in movement, plain in words and in style, simple in ideas
and noble in manner. The only one of these characteristics which
can be disputed is the last. But the description which follows
1 thoroughly.
: endeavour.


## p. 108 (#126) ############################################

108
The Earliest Scottish Literature
speaks for itself. How it appealed to the most Homeric of
Barbour's admirers all readers of Scott's Lord of the Isles are
aware :
And quhen schir Gelis de Argente
Saw the king thus and his menze1
Schape theme to fle so spedely,
He com richt to the kyng in hy),
And said, 'schir, sen that it is swa
That 30 thusgat zour gat will ga,
Haffis gud day! for agane will I;
3heit fled I neuir sekirly,
And I cheiss heir to byde and de
Than till lif heir and schamfully fle. '
His brydill than but mair abaid 3
He turnyt, and agane he raid,
And on schir Eduard the Brysis rout
That was so sturdy and so stout,
As dreid of nakyn thing had he,
He prykit, cryand 'Argente! '
And thai with speris swa him met,
And swa feill speris on hym set,
That he and horss war chargit swa
That bath doune to the erd can ga;
And in that place than slayne wes he. XII, 299 ff.
Barbour's achievement in his age and circumstances is
very remarkable. This is more vividly realised, if his work be
compared with the other national epic, Blind Harry's Wallace,
which, in its own country, secured a more permanent and more
general popularity than The Bruce. Till into the nineteenth
century, one of the few books in every cottage was the Wallace.
The causes of this popularity are to be sought in the fact that
Wallace, being more genuinely a Scot than Bruce, as time went
on, came more and more to be regarded as the national hero, and
his exploits were magnified so as to include much with which
Wallace had nothing to do. The very defects of Harry's poem
commended it to the vulgar. It professes to be the work of a
burel man, one without special equipment as a scholar, though it
is clear that Harry could at least read Latin. While Barbour's
.
narrative contains a certain amount of anecdotal matter derived
from tradition, and, on some occasions, deviates from the truth of
history, it is, on the whole, moderate, truthful and historical.
Harry's work, on the other hand, obviously is little but a tradition
of facts seen through the mists of a century and a half. Historians
are unable to assign to the activity of Wallace in his country's cause
a space of more than two years before the battle of Falkirk in
1 following.
; in haste.
without more delay.
• In the eighteenth century modernised by Hamilton of Gilbertfield.


## p. 109 (#127) ############################################

Blind Harry's Wallace
109
1298. Harry, though nowhere consistent, represents his hero as
fighting with the English from his eighteenth year to his forty-
fifth, which is, practically, the period from the death of Alex-
ander III to the battle of Bannockburn. But Wallace was
executed in 1305. The contents of the work are as unhistorical
as the chronology. If Barbour took care, on the whole, that
Bruce should have the best of it, though recognising that he
suffered many reverses, Wallace's path is marked by uniform
success. Where Bruce slays his thousands, Wallace slays his ten
thousands. The carnage is indiscriminate and disgusting. But,
by the time that Wallace was composed, a long series of injuries
subsequent to the wars of independence had engrained an un-
reasoning hate of everything English, which it has taken centuries
of union between the countries to erase from the Scottish mind.
Hence, the very violence of Wallace commended it to its readers.
To the little nation, which suffered so severely from its powerful
neighbour, there was comfort amid the disasters of Flodden or
of Pinkie in the record of the doughty Wallace.
Of the author of this poem we know next to nothing. Accord-
ing to John Major (Mair) the historian, Wallace was written in
his boyhood by one Henry, who was blind from his birth, and
who, by the recitation of his poem in the halls of the great coram
principibus), obtained the food and clothing he had earned. The
date of the composition of the poem may be fixed, approximately,
with the clue supplied by Major, as 1460. In the treasurer's
accounts various payments of a few shillings are entered as having
been made to 'Blin Hary. ' The last of these payments is in 1492.
Harry probably died soon after. Sixteen years later, Dunbar,
in his Lament for the Makaris, enters him in the middle of his
roughly chronological list of deceased poets. From Major's account
it is clear that Harry belonged to the class of the wandering
minstrels who recited, like Homer of old, the deeds of heroes
to their descendants. In Scotland, when the descendants of the
heroes were no longer interested in such compositions, the bards
appeared before humbler audiences; and many persons still alive
can remember the last of them as, in the centre of a crowd of
applauding yokels, he recited his latest composition on some
popular subject of the day.
The sole manuscript of the poem, now in the Advocates' Library
at Edinburgh, was written in 1488 by the same John Ramsay who,
about the same time, wrote the two existing manuscripts of The
Bruce. That he was a more faithful transcriber than he generally
gets credit for having been, is shown by the well-marked differences
a


## p. 110 (#128) ############################################

IIO
The Earliest Scottish Literature
between the language of the two poems. While, in Barbour, hardly
a trace is to be found of the characteristic Scottish dropping of the
final ll in all, small, pull, full, etc. , we find this completely developed
in Wallace, where call has to rime with law, fall with saw, etc.
Here also pulled appears as powed, while pollis is mistakenly put
for paws and malwaris for mawaris (mowers). As Harry was
alive at the time when Ramsay wrote the manuscript, it may have
been written from the author's dictation. Be that as it may, there
is nothing in Harry, any more than in Homer, to show that the
author was born blind. On the contrary, some of his descriptions
seem to show considerable powers of observation, though the
descriptions of natural scenes with which he prefaces several of
the books are an extension of what is found, though rarely, in
Barbour (e. g. V, 1-13, XVI, 63 ff. ) and had been a commonplace
since Chaucer.
The matter of his poem he professes to have
derived from a narrative in Latin by John Blair, who had been
chaplain to Wallace and who, if many of Wallace's achievements
are well nigh as mythical as those of Robin Hood, was himself
comparable in prowess to Little John. He was, however, a modest
champion withal, for Harry tells us that Blair's achievements were
inserted in the book by Thomas Gray, parson of Liberton. The
book is not known to exist; but there is no reason to doubt that
it had once existed. According to Harry (xi, 1417), its accuracy was
vouched for by bishop Sinclair of Dunkeld, who had been an eye-
witness of many of Wallace's achievements. But, either the book
from which Harry drew was a later forgery, or Harry must have
considerably embroidered his original; it is inconceivable that
a companion of Wallace could have produced a story widely
differing in chronology, to say nothing of facts, from real history.
But, when the poem has been accepted as a late traditional
romance, founded upon the doings of a national hero of whom little
was known, Wallace is by no means without merit. Harry manages
his long line with considerable success, and so firmly established
it in Scotland that the last romantic poem written in Scots-
Alexander Ross's Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherde88-carries
on, after three centuries, the rhythm of Harry with the greatest
exactitude. There is no lack of verve in his battle scenes; but they
are all so much alike that they pall by repetition. The following
is typical (II, 398 ff. ). Longcastell (Lancaster), we are told,
Hynt out his suerd, that was of nobill hew,
Wallace with that, at hys lychtyn, him drew;
Apon the crag with his suerd has him tayne;
Throw brayne and seyne in sondyr straik the bayne.


## p. 111 (#129) ############################################

Blind Harry's Wallace III
The ferocity of Wallace is such that he says:
I lik bettir to se the Sothren de
Than gold or land that thai can giff to me. V, 397 f.
Harry feels that the fame of his hero is a little dimmed by the
fact that he belonged only to the ranks of the smaller gentry, but
at once proclaims, like a greater successor, that the 'rank is but the
guinea stamp,' and strengthens his case by the example of the
knights of St John at Rhodes:
Wallace a lord he may be clepyt weyll,
Thocht raryk folk tharoff haiff litill feill;
Na deyme na lord, bot landis be thair part.
Had he the warld, and be wrachit off hart,
He is no lord as to the worthiness;
It can nocht be, but fredome, lordlyknes.
At the Roddis thai mak full mony ane
Quhilk worthy ar, thocht landis haiff thai nane. VII, 397 ff.
In Harry we find the same dry humour as in Barbour; but here
it is of a grimmer cast when the English are in question. When
Wallace, to escape his enemies, had to disguise himself as a maid
spinning, Harry says quaintly
he sat still, and span full connandly
As of his tym, for he nocht leryt lang. I, 248 f.
When their enemies were upon them,
His falow Stewyn than thocht no tyme to bide. V, 154.
When Wallace set the Englishmen's lodging on fire,
Till slepand men that walkand1 was nocht soft VII, 440,
and on another occasion
Quhar Sotheroun duelt, thai maid thair byggyngis hayt.
IX, 1692
Even to Julius Caesar he applies a quip:
Gret Julius, that tribute gat off aw,
His wynnyng was in Scotland bot full smaw. VIII, 1339 f.
In his Chaucerian passages at the beginning of several books,
and in the apostrophe to Scotland in the last book (XI, 1109 ff. ),
Harry employs those 'aureate' terms which, through the following
century, were to be a snare to Scottish literature. But the use
of them proves that Harry was not, after all, a burel man. Here
and there he makes pretensions to classical learning, and, like
Barbour, occasionally refers to the heroes of old romance, to
1 waking
• made their buildings hot.


## p. 112 (#130) ############################################

II2
The Earliest Scottish Literature
Charlemagne at Roncesvalles, to king Arthur slaying the giant at
Mont St Michel, to the Alexander story of Gawdyfer at Gaddris,
also referred to by Barbour. He assumes that all men know
Barbour's book; though, curiously enough, the name of Wallace is
not once to be found in Barbour's poem. A still more recent writer
is probably referred to in the apologue of the owl in borrowed
plumes, which Stewart applies to Wallace, when angry because
Wallace refused to let him lead the vanguard. For, only a few
years before 1460, this story had been the subject of Holland's
Howlat.
With the Buke of the Howlat, which is the proper title of this
work, we pass from historical romance to the last type of the
romance proper, with its metre founded on the old alliterative long
line, but fashioned into an elaborate lyrical stanza of nine long
verses of four beats and four short verses of two beats. The scheme
is ababababcdddc, and no better example of its treatment in the
Howlat can be found than the second stanza:
This riche Revir dovn ran, but resting or rufi
Throwe ane forest on fold, that farly was fair
All the brayis of the brym bair branchis abuf,
And birdis blythest of ble on blossomes bair;
The land lowne was and lea, with lyking and luf,
And for to lende by that laike thocht me levar,
Becauss that thir hartes in heirdis couth hof,
Pransand and prunzeand, be pair and be pair.
Thus sat I in solace, sekerly and sure,
Content of the fair firth,
Mekle mair of the mirth,
Als blyth of the birth
That the ground bare.
This is the commonest form of the metre, found also in Golagros
and Gawane and in the Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathe-
lyne, and, with a slight modification, in Rauf Coilzear; while in
the Pistill of Susan the ninth line is replaced by a 'bob' of one
beat and two syllables like 'In Feere,' 'So sone,' etc.
The Howlat is preserved in two manuscripts, the Asloan, dating
from about 1515, and the Bannatyne, written in 1568. The poem
is between sixty and seventy years older than the earlier manu-
script. It was composed, as the author tells us in the last stanza,
in the 'mirthfull month of May' at Darnaway in the midst of
Moray:
Thus for ane Dow of Dunbar drew I this dyte,
Dowit with ane Dowglass.
* pause.
3 secluded and sheltered.
i abido.


## p. 113 (#131) ############################################

Holland's Howlat
113
In other words, it was written for Elizabeth Dunbar, Countess
of Moray in her own right, whose first husband was one of the
Douglas family that perished in the struggle with James II of
Scotland, his eldest brother being that earl whom the king stabbed
with his own hand. Pinkerton saw in the poem a satire on
James II, a view which was entirely founded on a misreading of
crovne for rovme in verse 984, and, with the restoration of the
true reading, the theory falls to the ground. The poem, which
introduces an elaborate account of the Douglas arms, must have
been written before the final disaster to the Douglases at Arkin-
holm in 1455; for the unfortunate countess, no doubt with the
intention of saving her lands, married, three weeks after the loss
of her first husband, the son of the earl of Huntly, who was on the
side of the king. As the arms of pope Nicholas V are described,
the poem must be later than 1447, and, probably, before the
murder of earl William by the king in 1452, as is shown by
Amours in his edition for the Scottish Text Society. There seems
to be no recondite meaning in the piece. The subject is the thrice-
told tale of the bird in borrowed plumes, which gives itself airs
and speedily falls to its former low estate. The owl, beholding him-
self in a river that flows through a fair forest, is disgusted with his
own appearance and appeals to the pope of the birds, the peacock,
against dame Nature. A summons is issued to the members of
the council to convene. The author shows considerable ingenuity
in finding names of birds and other words to suit his alliterative
verse, and some humour in the parts which he assigns to the
different birds. If it were necessary to search for hidden mean-
ings, one might suspect that there was a spice of malice in repre-
senting the deans of colleges by ganders, and the archdeacon, 'that
ourman, ay prechand in plane, Correker of kirkmen' by the claik,
which is the barnacle goose, but also a Scots word for a gossip.
It is a pretty fancy to make the dove 'rownand ay with his feir,
always whispering with his mate, a curate to hear whole confes-
sions. The author, who was of the secular clergy, may have been
well satisfied that
Cryand Crawis and Cais, that oravis the corne,
War pure freris forthward,
That, with the leif of the lard,
Will cum to the corne zard
At ewyn and at morn. 191 ff.
When all are met, the unhappy owl is commanded by the pope
to state his case; and, when this has been done, the pope calls upon
8
E. L. II.
CH. V.


## p. 114 (#132) ############################################

I14
The Earliest Scottish Literature
his councillors to express their opinions. They proceed to do so
in a manner with which Holland was no doubt familiar:
And thai weraly awysit, full of wirtewe,
The maner, the mater, and how it remanyt;
The circumstance and the stait all couth thai argewe.
Mony allegiance leile, in leid nocht to layne it,
of Arestotill and ald men, scharplie thai schewe;
The Prelatis thar apperans? proponit generale;
Sum said to, and sum fra,
Sum nay, and sum za;
Baith pro and contra
Thus argewe thai all.
Ultimately it is decided to consult the emperor-the eagle and
the swallow is despatched as herald with letters written by the
turtle, who is the pope's secretary. The herald finds him 'in
Babilonis tower,' surrounded with kings, dukes and other nobles,
who, as is explained afterwards, are the nobler birds of prey. The
specht or wood-pecker is the emperor's pursuivant and, as is the
manner of pursuivants, wears a coat embroidered with arms.
Then comes a long description of heraldic arms, including not only
the emperor's but also those of Nicholas V, of the king of Scot-
land and, in greatest detail, of the Douglas family. More than a
quarter of the poem is taken up with this dreary stuff, which was
very interesting, no doubt, to Holland's patroness, but which
ruins the poem as a work of art. The only interest it can have
for the general reader is that in it is contained a version of the
journey undertaken by the good Sir James with the heart of
Bruce, which may be regarded as the official Douglas version, and
which differs from that contained in the last book of Barbour's
Bruce. Here, Douglas is represented as having journeyed to
Jerusalem and as being on his way back when he perished fighting
against the Moors in Spain; but there is no reason to doubt the
correctness of Barbour's story that Douglas never travelled further
than Spain. The last third of the poem is occupied with a feast
to which the pope invited the emperor and his courtiers. The
bittern was cook, and the choir of minstrels consisted of the
mavis and the merle, ousels, starlings, larks and nightingales. We
have presented to us in full the hymn they sang in honour of
the Virgin Mary, and a whole stanza is occupied with the names
of the different musical instruments, which far outstrip shawms,
sackbut and psaltery in obscurity. The visitors are entertained
by the jay, who is a wonderful juggler. He makes the audience
i in language not to conceal it.
opinion.
• It is, however, noteworthy that Boece adopts this version and not Barbour's
a


## p. 115 (#133) ############################################

Huchoun of the Awle Ryale 115
see many wonderful things which do not really exist, among
others the emperor's horses led off to the pound by the corncrake,
because they had been eating of the corne in the kirkland. '
The rook appears as a 'bard owt of Irland,' reciting much un-
intelligible Gaelic gibberish—such Gaelic bards no doubt were
familiar enough at Darnaway in the fifteenth century-but is
ignominiously routed by the jesters, the lapwing and the cuckoo,
who then engage in a tussle for the amusement of the company.
After grace has been said by the pope, it is agreed, at dame Nature's
suggestion, that her supposed ill-treatment of the owl shall be
remedied by grafting on the owl a feather from each of the birds.
The owl, however, becomes so insolent in consequence, that Nature
takes all the feathers from him again, much to his sorrow.
David Laing and Amours have diligently collected the little
that is known as to the author of this jeu d'esprit. He is
mentioned in various documents connected with the church and
family of his patron. From these we learn that, in 1450, Richard
de Holand was rector of Halkirk, in Caithness, in 1451, rector of
Abbreochy in the diocese of Moray, and, like his contemporary
Henryson, a public notary. In 1453, he was presented by the pope
to the vacant post of chanter in the church of Moray. In 1457,
after the fall of the Douglases, we find him in Orkney where, in
1467, he demits the vicarage of Ronaldshay. He seems to have
joined the exiled Douglases in England, from which he was sent
on a mission to Scotland in 1480, and, in 1482, along with 'Jamis
of Douglace' (the exiled earl) and certain other priests 'and vther
sic like tratouris that are sworne Inglismen, and remanys in
Ingland,' he is excepted from a general amnesty.
Like this poem in form, but certainly of an earlier date, is a
series of romances which cluster about the name of 'Huchoun of
the Awle Ryale,' one of the most mysterious figures in our early
literature. The earliest mention of him is to be found in Wyn-
toun's Orygynale Cronykil, written about 1420. Wyntoun, in
describing king Arthur's conquests, remarks that 'Hucheon of the
Awle Realle In til his Gest Historyalle' has treated this matter.
Wyntoun feels it necessary to apologise for differing from Huchoun
in saying that Leo and not Lucius Iberius was the Roman Emperor
who demanded tribute from Arthur. He argues that he has good
authority on his side, nor is Huchoun to be blamed:
And men of gud discretioun
Suld excuss and loif Huchoun,
That cunnand wes in litterature.
8-2


## p. 116 (#134) ############################################

116
The Earliest Scottish Literature
He maid the Gret Gest of Arthure
And the Anteris of Gawane,
The Epistill als of Suete Susane.
He wes curyouss in his stile,
Faire and facund and subtile,
And ay to plesance and delite
Maid in meit metyre his dite,
Litill or ellis nocht be gess
Wauerand fra the suthfastnes 1.
The verses which follow are vital for deciding what the nature
of the Gest Historyalle or Gret Gest of Arthure was:
Had he callit Lucyus procuratour
Quhare he callit him emperoor,
It had mare grevit the cadeng
Than had relevit the sentens.
Clearly cadens is to be distinguished from rime, for, as
Wyntoun's example shows, procuratour and emperour might rime
together. The Gest Historyalle must, therefore, have been an
alliterative poem, and all authorities are now agreed that the
conditions are satisfied by the poem called Morte Arthure which
is preserved in the Thornton MS of Lincoln Cathedral. In the
Morte Arthure, not only is ‘Sir Lucius Iberius' called 'the
Emperour of Rome,' but the knights of the Round Table are
called Duszeperez (or some variant thereof), which is evidently
the origin of Wyntoun's Dowchsperys. As for the Epistill of
Suete Susane, there can be no doubt that it is the poem pre-
served in five MSS under that title (with variations of spelling).
What was the poem called the Adventure or Adventures of
Gawain, the other work of Huchoun mentioned by Wyntoun ?
For this place there are several pretenders, the most plausible
claim being, it seems, advanced for a poem surviving in three
curiously different versions, The Awntyrs off [of] Arthure at the
Terne Wathelyne, that is at Tarn Wadling, a small lake near
Hesket in Cumberland, on the road between Carlisle and Penrith.
As the story is mostly concerned with Gawain, his name might have
appeared in the title no less justifiably than Arthur's.
Of none of these poems in their extant forms can it be said that
the language is Scottish. Who, then, was Huchoun? Pinkerton,
in the end of the eighteenth century, was the first to suggest that
Huchoun was to be identified with the 'gude Sir Hew of Eglintoun,'
enumerated amongst other poets in Dunbar's Lament for the
1 Thus in the Wemyss MS (S. T. 8. 1906), v, 4329 ft. The Cottonian MS, also printed
in the 8. T. S. edition, besides other variants gives the poet's name as Hucheon and reads
a for the in 4332, Awntyr for Anteris in 4333, and in 4334 The Pistil als of Suet Susane.


## p. 117 (#135) ############################################

Huchoun of the Awle Ryale 117
Makaris. To this it has been objected that Huchoun is a familiar
diminutive, and that, if the poet was the well known Sir Hew of
Eglintoun, a statesman in the reigns of David II and Robert II,
who was made a knight in 1342, and, later in life, was married to
Egidia, step-sister of Robert II, Wyntoun was not at all likely
to talk of him as 'little Hugh' But George Neilson has shown
that the name Huchoun was employed in solemn documents even
of barons, and, therefore, might without disrespect be applied to a
knight who was a king's brother-in-law. The name Hucheon has
commonly survived in some districts as a surname, and must have
been much commoner earlier, as is shown by the names Hutchinson
and M‘Cutcheon, which are merely the Lowland and the Highland
forms of the same name. So far there is no difficulty. The ex-
planation of the phrase 'of the Awle Realle’ is more difficult, but
Neilson's argument for the old view that it is simply the Aula
Regis, an appropriate enough description for a knight who served
for a period as justiciar, seems much preferable to any other that
has been advanced. The more southern colouring of the dialect in
his works is not sufficient proof of his English origin, for, where
there are several manuscripts, the dialectal forms vary very con-
siderably. Moreover, it would be strange that so fertile a writer
should have no honour in the country of his birth, and should be
talked of with respect and reverence in a country which was
bitterly hostile. It is impossible here to enter fully into the
elaborate and ingenious argument by which Neilson, in his
Huchown of the Awle Ryale, not only supports the claim made
by Wyntoun, but attempts to annex a whole cycle of other poems,
which are ordinarily regarded as of English though anonymous
origin, and which are discussed elsewhere? For the present
purpose, it is sufficient to say that there seems good evidence for
the existence of a Scottish poet called Huchoun in the middle of
the fourteenth century, and that, in all probability, he is to be
identified with the statesman Sir Hew of Eglintoun, who was a
contemporary, perhaps a somewhat older contemporary, of Barbour,
who must have been at least twenty-one in 1342 when he was
knighted, and who died about the end of 1376 or the beginning of
1377. It is noticeable that, on a great many occasions, Sir Hew
of Eglintoun receives permission to travel to London under safe-
conduct-a fact on which Neilson founds a plausible argument that
he was a persona grata at the court of Edward III. This argu-
ment, if correct, would account for a more favourable attitude
· See volume 1, pp. 320 ft.


## p. 118 (#136) ############################################

118
The Earliest Scottish Literature
towards England in his works than appears in Barbour's In an
alliterative poem scribes might change dialectal forms at their will,
so long as they did not affect the alliteration or the number of
syllables. In the rimed poems here attributed to Huchoun it is
certain that the rimes are northern, though, in the fourteenth
century, there was no distinction well enough marked to form a
criterion of origin from north or south of the Border.
Panton and Donaldson, the editors for the Early English Text
Society of the interminable Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction
of Troy (it contains over 14,000 lines), were the first to point out
that this unrimed alliterative translation of Guido delle Colonne's
Hystoria Troiana must, from identity in style and phraseology, be
attributed to the same author as Morte Arthure, though it had
been copied from a Scottish original by a west midland scribe.
Their opinion has been developed and confirmed by Neilson's work
on Huchoun. As Morte Arthure is admittedly superior in execution
to the Gest Hystoriale and as, unless it had some source still un-
discovered or now lost, it is a very independent rendering of the
story of Arthur as related in Books ix and x of Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, it may be used to
illustrate the style of Huchoun. Morte Arthure begins with a
rude demand from Lucius Iberius, emperor of Rome, for tribute
from king Arthur. Arthur, after considering the matter with his
council, comes to the conclusion that he has more right to the
empire than Lucius has to tribute from him ; he will, therefore,
anticipate Lucius's threats of invasion by taking the field against
him. Accordingly, he appoints Mordred to rule in his absence and
charges him especially with the care of Waynour (Guinevere).
Arthur himself crosses the Channel with his host, and, after an
unpleasant dream, fights a great battle with a giant from Genoa
'engendered of fiends,' who lives on human flesh, has ravaged the
Cotentin and, last of all, has carried off and slain the Duchess of
Britanny. The author, who is excessively fond of alliteration, excels
himself, in his description of the giant, by carrying on alliteration
on the same letter through four consecutive verses; so that the
first twelve lines (1074–85) make three stanzas of this sort, of
which the last, as the least repulsive, may be taken as a specimen :
Huke-nebbyde as a hawke, and a hore berde 1
And herede to the hole eyghna with hyngande browes;
Harske as a hunde-fisch3, hardly who so luke3,
So was the hyde of that hulke hally4 al ouer.
hoary beard.
9 hairy to the hollow eyes.
rough as a dog-fish.
• wholly.


## p. 119 (#137) ############################################

Morte Arthure
119
Hardly has Arthur had time to thank Heaven for his success in
the combat, ere urgent messengers arrive from the marshal of
France to say that he must have help at once against the emperor,
who has entered the country and is carrying destruction far and
wide. Sir Boice, Sir Gawain, Sir Bedivere and some others are
bastily despatched to delay the emperor, who has brought with him
all the powers of eastern heathenesse; and these knights, with the
help of an ambuscade, win a victory. In the great battle which
follows many noble deeds are done; these are described with great
vigour. Arthur himself with Collbrande (Excalibur) has a short
way with his foemen :
He clekys owttel Collbrande, full clenlyche burneschte,
Graythes hym 2 to Golapas, that greuyde moste,
Kuttes hym even by the knees clenly in sondyre.
'Come down' quod the kynge, and karpe to thy ferys3!
Thowe arte to hye by the halfe, I hete the in trouthe!
Thou sall be handsomere in hye, with the helpe of my Lorde! ' 2123 ff.
The emperor himself perishes at the hands of Arthur, and his
knights, having slaughtered the paynim till they are tired, fall
upon the spoil, and help themselves, not only to 'hakkenays and
horses of armes,' but to all kinds of wonderful animals, 'kamells
and sekadrisses (whatever they may be), dromondaries,'
Moyllez5 mylke whitte, and mernayllous bestez
Elfaydes, and arrabys, and olyfauntez noble. 2287 f.
And thus
The roy ryall renownde, with his rownde table,
One the coste of Costantyne by the clere strandez
Has the Romaynes ryche rebuykede for euer. 2372 ff.
As a historical novel, which, in truth, it is, Morte Arthure passes
rapidly from one scene to another of a different kind. On the
battle follows the siege of Metz; on the siege, a single combat
between Gawain and Sir Priamus, whose genealogy is remarkable
his father
es of Alexandire blode, ouerlynge of kynges,
The vncle of his ayeles, sir Ector of Troye.
No sooner is Metz won with gallant chivalry than we are carried
over the Alps with Arthur, who advances into Tuscany and halts
in the Vertennon vale, the vines imangez. ' There the 'cunning-
est cardinal' invites him to Rome to help the pope and to be
crowned. But already fortune's wheel, which Arthur sees in a
1 lugs out.
y advances in fighting trim.
& talk to thy mates.
• presently.
mules.
grandfather.
6
6


## p. 120 (#138) ############################################

I 20
The Earliest Scottish Literature
dreadful dream, is on the turn. The king has passed the topmost
point of his glory, for Sir Cradok comes to tell that Mordred has
rebelled and has 'weddede Waynore. ' Forthwith the camp is
broken up, and they hurry homewards. Mordred's allies, the
Danes, meet them at sea and a great naval battle is admirably
described. The Danes are defeated, and, after landing, Gawain
meets Mordred in single combat and is slain. It is the wicked
Mordred himself who in admiration declares,
This was sir Gawayne the gude, the gladdeste of othire,
And the graciouseste gomel that vndire God lyffede,
Mane hardyeste of hande, happyeste in armes,
And the hendeste 2 in hawle vndire heuen riche. 3876 ff.
Arthur vows that he will never rest till Gawain's slayer be slain.
So the last battle is joined. Mordred keeps well behind his men
and changes his arms, but Arthur spies him and, after a great fight,
in which Arthur himself receives his death-wound, Mordred perishes
by Excalibur, a better death, says Arthur, than he deserved.
Arthur makes himself be carried in haste to the Isle of Avalon,
and, seeing there is no way but death, bequeaths the crown to
Constantine his cousin, orders Mordred's children to be slain and
makes a good end.
I foregyffe all greffe, for Cristez luf of heuen,
Zife Waynor bafe wele wroghte, wele hir betydde. 4324 f.
Like other poets, the author has drawn his battle scenes from
his own time. Neilson has shown that the battle in France is
arranged like Crecy, and argues ingeniously that the sea-fight is
a poetical version of that fought off Winchelsea in 1350, while
other indications, more or less uncertain, lead him to fix the date
of the poem as 1365.
The Pistill of Susan is only a versified form of The Story of
Susanna in the Apocrypha, a story which both literature and art
show to have been very popular at the end of the Middle Ages.
The author is able to tell the tale in twenty-eight stanzas of
thirteen lines. Like the later Holland, he discourages the reader
by the extraordinary amount of detail with which he feels it
necessary to describe the garden. The advantage of mentioning
every tree and every vegetable of which he had ever heard is that
he is thus able to exercise more ingenuity in alliteration. The
modern reader, however, hardly finds the same charm in
The persile, the pasnepe, porettiss to preve. . .
With rewe and rewbarbe, raylid on right. 107 f.
2 most courteous.
3 leeks.
1
man.


## p. 121 (#139) ############################################

The Epistill of Suete Susane
I 21
Stanza xx, which describes the meeting of Susanna and her
husband after she has been condemned, illustrates the versi-
fication and, if its form in the earliest (the Vernon) MS, of about
1380, be compared with that in the latest (the Ingilby), first
published in Amours's edition for the Scottish Text Society and
dating from about the middle of the fifteenth century, it will at
once be clear how much change in a literary work may take place
in a comparatively short time after the date of its composition.
The Ingilby manuscript, though later than the Vernon and more
corrupt, has, if Huchoun was a Scot, preserved the dialect better.