The Bruce 19Book 11 · According to the Annals, Edward Bruce cautiously or cleverly (part 3)
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Fiction · Historical Fiction
The Bruce 19
Book 11 · According to the Annals, Edward Bruce cautiously or cleverly (part 3)
BarbourEnglish
393 Balmeryne. A Moorish kingdom in Africa; or, more correctly, of the reigning dynasty, the Banu-Marin. In Chaucer’s Prologue it is “Belmarye” (line 57); in Froissart the name appears more correctly as Bellemarie (Johnes, ii., p. 484; Letten., I., p. 121, chap. xxxix.).
401 The vaward. In Le Bel (Froissart) Douglas betakes himself to one of the wings “the better to do his business and display his power” (son effort, p. 84).
402 the strangeris with him weir. So we gather also from Baker, whose informant served under Douglas. Cf. note on 167.
403 mastir of Saint Jak. The Master, or head, of the Order of St. James.
407 To mete their fayis. On March 25, 1330, at Tebas de Hardales, a strong town in Granada (Mariana, Bk. xv., ch. x., p. 255). Fordun, however, dates the battle August 25 (cxliv.).
*421-32 Bot ere they joyned, etc. See on these lines Appendix D.
431 So fer chassit. The account in Le Bel is to the effect that Douglas attacked prematurely, thinking that Alphonso was about to do so, and that he was being followed up. But Alphonso did not move for the reason, we learn from Mariana, that the frontal attack of Moorish cavalry was but a feint, and that the real attack, as the King said, was to be in the rear on the Christian camp (Le Bel, p. 84; Mariana, as cited). Alphonso was better acquainted than Douglas with the Moorish methods of fighting. Fordun’s narrative is that Douglas and his company were cut off by an ambuscade which, though superior in numbers, they readily attacked (Gesta Annalia, cxliv.).
440 That relyit. I.e., the Moors rallied. It was their usual tactics to attempt to draw after them a body of the enemy in pursuit, and then surround the pursuers.
467 ilkane war slayn thar. “Not a single one of them escaped, but they were all slain” (Le Bel, p. 84).
521 the leill Fabricius. Roman consul, 278 B.C. A traitor offered to poison Pyrrhus, but the Roman refused the proposal, and sent information to Pyrrhus (Plutarch).
585 the kirk of Dowglas. St. Brides, Douglas.
587 Schir Archibald his sone. Skeat, in his note on this passage, is all astray. He says that Douglas was never married, that he left only a natural son William, and that this Archibald was his third or youngest brother. But Sir William Fraser is of opinion that Sir James was married, though Sir Herbert Maxwell doubts, and certainly no record of it survives; but he was succeeded in the estates by William, while his brother Archibald “Tineman” (Loser) was killed at Halidon Hill in 1333. He, however, had another son, certainly illegitimate, the Archibald referred to here, who succeeded in 1388 as third Earl of Douglas, and died, after a varied career, in 1400 (Fraser’s Douglas Book, I., 188-9; Scalacronica; Maxwell’s History of the House of Douglas, i., p. 67 and 114-124; Acts Parl., i. 193-4; Reg. Mag. Sig., i., p. 177). Archibald was known as “the Grim.” Mr. Brown cites Fraser to the effect that Archibald erected the tomb “probably about the year 1390, after his succession as third Earl of Douglas” (Douglas Book, I., p. 181); and adds the proposition that he could not have done so before his succession, because, according to the Book of Pluscarden (1462), his friends “held him in small account because he was a bastard,” and because his succession to the estates was disputed (_Acts Parl. Scot., i., p. 194; The Wallace and Bruce_, pp. 154-5). Mr. Brown’s contention, therefore, is that the statement in the text could not have been penned by Barbour in 1375, and that it is not due to him, but to his redactor. The reasoning is not all conclusive; against the plain statement of Barbour there is only an assumption on Fraser’s part, and inferences on the part of Mr. Brown which are not necessarily contained in his premisses. Archibald was, no doubt, only a child when his father was killed; but he became Lord of Galloway in 1369, and Earl of Wigtown in 1372. What was there to prevent his erecting a tomb for his distinguished father, except a delicacy of feeling on the side of the “legitimates,” which is rather modern than late mediæval? Archibald bought his earldom, built and endowed a hospital near Dumfries, erected Thrieve Castle, and had extensive lands in various parts of Scotland, so that he must have been a man of considerable wealth, besides being, as Warden, the most important figure on the Border. Who or what was then to prevent him honouring the congenial memory of his great father before 1375-6?
600 Melros. Cf. note on 191-2.
604 And held the pure weill to warrand. I.e., “And carefully guarded or looked after the interests of the poor.”
609 poysonyt was he. Moray died at Musselburgh, July 20, 1332. Fordun says nothing of poisoning (Gesta Annalia, cxlvi.). But there appears to have been a popular story to this effect, to which, later, was added the detail that his poisoner was an English monk (Scotichr., ii., lib. xiii., ch. xix.). Moray died of the stone from which he suffered towards the close of his life; the rest Hailes considered “a silly popular tale” (Annals, vol. iii., App. 2).
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN
It will be noticed that the conception of this battle, alike as to position and tactics, elaborated in the notes in strict conformity with Barbour, differs entirely from that now universally accepted. The engagements of the first day (Sunday) were the outcome of attempts to clear the two paths of approach to Stirling--that through the New Park, and the other on the level below St. Ninians. Both failed, and the means by which their failure was brought about determined the operations of the following day (Monday). This main engagement, however, it has been hitherto held, took place on the banks of the Burn, below or in the neighbourhood of Brock’s Brae, with the Burn separating the forces. This is pure misconception. There can be no doubt that the battle was fought on a position roughly at right angles to this--on “the playne,” “the hard feld,” or level ground east of St. Ninians, reaching back into the angle formed by the Forth and the Bannock. The main data for such a conclusion are these: (1) The English passed the night on the Carse, having crossed the Bannock; (2) the Scots attacked early next morning, and to do this “tuk the playne,” leaving their camp-followers in the Park, so that they astonished the English by their audacity; (3) in the rout many English were drowned in the Forth and in the Bannock; (4) Edward II., unable to get away, fled to the castle; (5) so did many of his men, as the castle “_wes ner_.” These facts, fully substantiated from both sides, are wholly inconsistent with a site of battle south of St. Ninians, and fix its position between the Forth and the Bannock. Barbour’s “pools” are the “polles” in which, according to Hemingburgh, the English baggage was bogged and captured after the battle of Stirling Bridge. The English and French (and Irish) chroniclers invariably speak of the battle as that of “Stirling,” and Trokelowe calls it the Battle of Bannockmoor. For a full discussion of the matter, see my paper on “The Real Bannockburn” in Proceedings of the Glasgow Archæological Society, 1908-1909.
Vol. ii., p. 140.
APPENDIX B
BRUCE’S SPEECH AT BANNOCKBURN
BOOK XII. 210-327
It is the privilege of early historians to equip their leading personages with speeches, and in its pertinent, practical character the speech here provided for King Robert is a good example of such--so good, indeed, as to suggest the probability that Barbour is working up some transmitted material. There is on record another speech attributed to Bruce, which formed part of a Latin poem on Bannockburn by Abbot Bernard of Arbroath, Bruce’s Chancellor, portions of which are quoted in the Scotichronicon. This speech consists of twenty-five hexameter lines, and is a rhetorical flourish on Scottish liberty, the miseries inflicted by the English on the country, and the hapless condition of “mother Church,” closing in strains of ecclesiastical exhortation. Moreover, it immediately precedes the opening of the battle, while Barbour’s version is of the evening before. In the latter a special interest attaches to lines 263-268 and 303-317, which may be compared with the following extracts from a speech by Alexander the Great in The Vowes, one of the three romances which make up the Scottish Buik of Alexander, the translation of which from the French was probably the work of Barbour himself. Alexander says:
“Be thay assailyeit hardely,
And encountered egerly,
The formest cumis ye sall se,
The hindmest sall abased be.
Forthy I pray ilk man that he
Nocht covetous na yarnand be,
To tak na ryches that thay wald,
Bot wyn of deidly fais the fald;
Fra thay be winnin all wit ye weill
The gudis are ouris ever ilk deill;
And I quyteclame yow utrely
Baith gold and silver halely,
And all the riches that thaires is,
The honour will I have I wis.”
Lib. xii., chap. xxi.
See Appendix E.
P. 318.
To the same purport as these latter lines is a portion of a subsequent address; and lines 325, 334 find a similar parallel in:
“Thus armit all the nicht thay lay,
Quhile on the morne that it was day.”
Of the cardinal sentiment in the speech, the origin is probably to be found in the familiar story of the Maccabees, referred to more than once in The Bruce. Judas Maccabeus was one of the typical heroes of French romance, and had one metrical romance, at least, devoted to his career. And in 1 Maccabees, chap. iv., we have:
“17. (Judas) said to the people, Be not greedy of the spoils, inasmuch as there is a battle before us.
“18. And Gorgias and his host are here by us in the mountain; but stand ye now against our enemies, and overcome them, and after this ye may boldly take the spoils.”
P. 339.
P. 350, lines 12, 13.
Cf. also Neilson on The Real “Scots Wha Hae” in _Scottish
Antiquary_, vol. xiv., No. 53, July, 1899.
APPENDIX C
THE NUMBERS AT BANNOCKBURN
ENGLISH: One hundred thousand men and ma.
SCOTS: Thretty thousand, and sum deill mare.
These figures have given rise to much discussion, without any very certain result. Yet official data are not wanting--sufficient, at least, to check what is only another example of the wild conjectures of mediæval chroniclers when dealing with numbers. Hemingburgh gives Wallace at Falkirk “about three hundred thousand men”--rather more, probably, than the whole male population of Scotland. We need not be surprised, then, at how all such estimates shrink in the cold light of Exchequer figures.
II. p. 180.
Edward II. summoned all owing him military service, which corroborates the statement of the author of the Vita Edw. Sec. that “the King exacted from all the service due,” as well as that of Barbour--“of England hale the chivalry.” The Earls of Lancaster, Warenne, Arundel, and Warwick did not attend, for a particular reason, but sent their contingents. Now, by Mr. Round’s calculations, the whole number of knights’ fees in England did not exceed 5,000; Mr. Morris raises the figure to something short of 7,000. The important point is, however, that in practice the assessment was only a nominal or conventional one. Thus Gloucester, with 455 fees, was assessed at ten knights. Including all grades of horsemen, Mr. Morris puts “the maximum of the cavalry arm” at “about 8,000”; but, all things considered, no such number could ever take the field. Edward I. had summoned his full feudal array (omnes sui fideles) for the Falkirk campaign, and Hemingburgh says that, when counted, it came to 3,000 men on armoured horses (Barbour’s “helit hors”), and more than 4,000 on unarmoured horses--say, roughly, 7,000 in all. Mr. Morris, however, by a generous calculation from the rolls, arrives at 2,400 as the highest possible figure. Now, it is to be noted that the author of the Vita Edw. Sec., while lauding the size and magnificence of the host that went to Bannockburn, gives 2,000 men-at-arms as apparently the total of the cavalry, since he simply adds “a considerable body of footmen.” On the whole, 3,000 to 4,000 English horse is a higher limit for Bannockburn, when we consider all the difficulties of sufficient armour, remounts, and forage. Mr. Morris thinks 10,000 “impossible,” though he is here calculating on yards of frontage on a site where the battle was not fought. About 7,000 is Mr. Round’s free estimate, adopting Hemingburgh’s figure for Falkirk. Bain accepts Barbour’s 3,000 heavy horsemen, and suggests 10,000 light horse, but proceeds on no data. Mr. Oman calculates that “three thousand ‘equites coperti,’ men-at-arms on barded horses,” means, probably, 10,000 for the whole cavalry, but this traverses his Falkirk figures. England never put, nor could maintain, on the field such a mounted force, to say nothing of the difficulty of handling and manœuvring it.
Fœdera, iii., p. 464, etc.
P. 201.
Vita Edw., p. 201.
Feudal England, p. 292.
The Welsh Wars of Edward I., p. 41.
Welsh Wars, p. 59.
Ibid., pp. 81, 82.
II. p. 173.
Welsh Wars, p. 292.
Peditum turba copiosa, p. 201.
Engl. Hist. Rev., vol. xiv., p. 133. Cf. Appendix A.
Bannockburn in The Commune of London, p. 298.
Calendar, iii., p. xxi.
Art of War, p. 575 note.
For the foot we have, fortunately, exact figures in the Fœdera--21,540 men all told, which would include the archers. Only the northern counties--but not all--and Wales are drawn upon, as those of the south would be for a French campaign. Such had been the practice of Edward I., whose levies from the northern counties and Wales ranged from 29,400 foot in 1297 to 12,000 in 1301. Mr. Morris contends that not till 1322 were infantry drawn from all England for a Scottish campaign (as cited), but in this he is wrong. It was done by a special vote of Parliament, and according to a prescribed form, as early as March, 1316, when every township, with some special exceptions, furnished one soldier, and again in 1318. These are clearly new and special arrangements, and there is thus no reason to believe that the list in Fœdera, etc., is not complete, as Mr. Oman suggests, adding, accordingly, a southern contingent of about 30,000 men, though he doubts if “the extreme South” sent its full muster. This is quite gratuitous. Lord Hailes, too, contended that the official records are imperfect, and that the numbers given by Barbour “are within the limits of probability.” Bain’s authoritative reply is that, “as a rule, the writs were always enrolled, and the Patent Rolls of the time are not defective.” This, however, is not always true, and Bain, applying this principle absolutely, is once, at least, led to a wrong conclusion.
Vol. iii., p. 482, etc.; also in Rotuli Scotiæ, i., p. 127; and Parliamentary Writs, book ii., div. 2, p. 117.
Cf. Commune of London, p. 296; Engl. Hist. Rev., xiv., p.
133.
Bain, ii., Nos. 956, 1202, 1092, 1136.
Writs as cited, pp. 176, 177.
Trokelowe, p. 102; Rot. Scot., i., p. 183.
Art of War, p. 573 and note.
Annals, ii., p. 48.
Calendar, iii., p. xx.
See note on Book XVI., 285.
An important question now suggests itself, but no one has so far raised it: did the levies in these full numbers turn up? They are allotted in round figures: what proportion was actually furnished? That there would be some trouble in securing the conscripts is anticipated and provided for in severe measures for the contumacious. This was usual, and even the strong hand of Edward I. could not prevent men from deserting after they had received their wages. Here we have, also, a sufficient basis for an estimate. On May 12, 1301, Edward I. summoned for midsummer 12,000 men from nine of the counties included in the Bannockburn levy--York, as in that case, being assessed at 4,000. On July 12 we have the numbers from these counties as they appear on the pay-roll, when it is stated that they had contributed in proportions which give only 5,501 all told; York having sent only 1,193, and Northumberland, assessed at 2,700, providing the largest proportion--2,019. The numbers vary slightly on other days, but seem never to have exceeded, if they reached, 50 per cent. of the nominal levy. Mr. Morris works out the same result for the Caerlaverock Campaign of 1300. There are no grounds for assuming that things went differently in 1314, and thus over 21,540 men are reduced by about half. It is quite a fair conclusion that not more than 12,000 English foot--which exceeds the proportion above--were actually present at Bannockburn.
Writs, ii., p. 185.
Palgrave, cxxvii.; Welsh Wars, pp. 95, 98.
Bain, ii., No. 1202.
Bain, ii., 1229.
Welsh Wars, p. 301.
For the foreign contingents no figures exist. Bain thinks they were not “more than a few thousands.” The Gascon corps in the Falkirk army should have been 106 mounted men. The Hainault and Flanders auxiliaries who shared in the campaign of 1327 amounted to 550 men-at-arms, and were an expensive item. The Irish contingent which came to Edward I. in 1304 amounted at most, for a few weeks only, to 3,500 men, but to merely 361 in the army of 1300.
III., p. xxi.
Welsh Wars, p. 289.
Cf. Book XIX., 267 note.
Bain, ii., p. xxxix, note.
Welsh Wars, p. 301.
I would suggest, therefore, for the English army the following round numbers: 3,000 to 4,000 horse of all sorts, 12,000 English and Welsh foot, 3,000 (?) Irish, 1,500 (?) foreigners, or, in a lump sum, 20,000 men of all arms, to which must be added a crowd of non-combatants--servants, traders, and camp-followers generally. Bain (as cited) proposes 50,000; Round, 30,000; Oman, 60,000 to 70,000. I consider 18,000 to 20,000 the most probable range. With even the lower of these numbers, the English commanders in organization and commissariat would have rather more than they could manage.
Barbour’s figure for the Scottish army must be similarly reduced. More than 30,000 would be a huge proportion of the Scottish population of that time, especially as the whole does not seem to have been drawn upon, and of that, as Barbour insists, a good many were still hostile. William the Lion was credited in 1173 with a national host of 1,000 armoured horsemen, and 30,000 unarmoured footmen, and the latter unit is surely over the score. At Halidon Hill, 1333, the Scots are said to have had 1,174 knights and men-at-arms and 13,500 light-armed men or foot; and this chronicler consistently exaggerates. Yet these figures represent a united kingdom. Forty thousand at Bannockburn is the estimate for the Scots of the _Vita Edw._ writer, but the English writers, on their side, grossly overstate the numbers of the enemy, as witness what is said of Hemingburgh above. Bain’s figure of 15,000 to 16,000 is no doubt nearer the mark; “perhaps twenty-five thousand men in all” is Mr. Oman’s conjecture. Possibly 6,000 to 7,000 is as near as we can go, adopting Barbour’s ratio, which gives a proportion of 1 to 3 of the English army. The non-combatants here, too, would be numerous. Up to this time Bruce’s men in the field could be numbered only in hundreds, so that as many thousands would represent a very special effort. And note that after Murray’s success over Clifford nearly the whole Scots army gathered round him to see him and do him honour--a fact which is suggestive as to its size.
See note on 46.
Chronique de Jordan Fantosme, lines 328-9.
Hemingburgh, ii., pp. 308-9.
Art of War, p. 575.
XII. 159-164.
APPENDIX D
THE THROWING OF THE HEART
BOOK XX. *421-*432
These lines are found only in Hart’s printed edition. Pinkerton thought there was “no reason to view them as an interpolation,” and Jamieson regarded their agreement with the account in the Howlat “a strong presumption of authenticity.” By Skeat they were at first accepted as genuine, but afterwards, influenced by the reasoning on Barbour’s rhymes of P. Buss in Anglia, he surrendered them as an interpolation. In the passage of twelve lines three rhymes occur, which are unusual--more strongly, impossible--for Barbour on the basis of his admitted work. These are battell--tell, to be--de, ho--to. In the first case, Barbour, it is claimed, elsewhere always uses the “liquid” form bataill (battalyhe) to rhyme with another word of the same character as assaile or travaill (travailyhe). In the second, he “never rhymes be with de (correctly dey),” as Skeat puts it, for de (Icel. deyja) was still influenced by the terminal semi-guttural, giving it an “impure” sound, whereas “be,” with no ghostly after-sound, is quite “pure.” The final example brings together two different values of “o,” and, it may be added, in the four cases in which Barbour uses the word, it is in the form hoyne. These rhyme-tests had also been applied to the same result by Mr. W. A. Craigie.
See below.
First Series, vol. ix., 493-514.
But note battell, two syllables, in xiii. 395, 418; xiv. 175; and battell-stede (xiv. 301).
V. 602; vi. 564; x. 226; xiv. 152.
Scottish Review, 1893, p. 192 note.
With this conclusion Mr. Brown agrees, “although on slightly different grounds.” Hart’s edition, of course, takes a place in his general scheme of redaction. But he would “hesitate to reject the lines on the rimes alone,” and “The be, de test” seems to him “quite untrustworthy.” Skeat thinks it unanswerable. Mr. Neilson pleads “that this canon begs the whole question of the text of the Bruce ... first you find your canon; then you edit out of your text all that is disconform.” Arguing specially on its application to The Legends of the Saints, he points out that “There are not a few metrical and other solecisms in the Bruce,” and that the “exceptional e-rhyme” is the stamp of transition. It is to be observed also that Chaucer, Barbour’s contemporary, and more careful in such matters than he, rhymes ho, y-do in the Knight’s Tale. In the Alexander occurs the tell--battell rhyme. On the whole, the test is perhaps not so conclusive--out of Germany--as Skeat imagines. Further, from the indubitable reference in the Howlat to the Bruce, Neilson accepts the latter as the sole source of its digression, and the lines as therefore authentic.
P. 135.
P. 135.
Pref., liv.
John Barbour, p. 50.
The Scottish Antiquary, vol. xi., p. 107 note.
Group A, 2533-2534.
P. 308; 26, 27.
Chambers’s Cyclopædia of English Literature, i. 175.
If, however, what has already been said of the passages from Hart hold good, then this one must go with the rest. Fortunately, in this specific case that argument can be greatly strengthened, for the lines have never been tried by their relation to the context and their historic implications, and that obvious and indisputable test puts the question beyond doubt. They have but an outside connection with the narrative of Barbour, and otherwise are in flat contradiction thereto. So much is at once evident from the closing couplet:
“And took it up in gret daintie;
And ever in field this used he.”
Pref., pp. vi-viii.
It is a series of performances of this kind that is contemplated, not a single example, which is all that Barbour’s account gives room for. Douglas is credited with a habit of this sort, “ever in field”; while Barbour, like Froissart, knows of only one battle in which Douglas fought while bearing the heart of Bruce. Nor is Barbour likely to have omitted such a “point of chivalry” on the part of his twin hero, had a valid tradition of it existed in his day.
Cf. notes on Book XX. 393, 431.
The problem becomes clearer when we consider alternative and later accounts of the expedition of Douglas, for which see note on Book XX. 191, 192. Evidently the idea of his going to the Holy Land, as Froissart explains the commission, and as it occurs in Bower, gave an opening for embellishment, which expands in the hands of Boece to the extent of thirteen victories achieved by Douglas over the Turks! This, however, is only to give more precision to a composite account contained in the Buke of the Howlat of the middle of the fifteenth century, a poem written in glorification of the Douglases. The author, supposed to be Richard Holland, speaks of the great friendship Bruce had for Douglas: “Reid the writ of thar work to your witness”--a clear reference to the Bruce, especially as in xxxv. and xxxvi. he paraphrases the reply of Douglas to the King in Book XX. 223, 234. Thereafter, however, he strikes off from Barbour. Douglas goes to “the haly graif,” where--
In part; but see the reconciling passage in note on xx. 191-2.
Stanza xxxi.
“XXXVII.
“He gart hallowe the hart, and syne couth it hyng About his hals (neck) full hende (respectfully), and on his awne hart.”
But cf. xx. 307, where this comes before.
The story then proceeds:
“XXXVIII.
“Now bot I semble for thi saull with Sarasenis mycht,
Sall I never sene be into Scotland!”
An extension of the original commission, be it noted, and a motive for what follows:
“Thus in defence of the faith he fure to the fecht
With knychtis of Cristindome to kepe his command.
And quhen the batallis so brym, brathly and bricht,
War joyned thraly in thrang, mony thousand,
Amang the hethin men the hert hardely he slang,
Said: ‘Wend on as thou was wont,
Throw the batell in bront,
Ay formast in the front,
Thy fays amang;’
“XXXIX.
“‘And I sall followe the in faith, or feye to be fellit,--
As thi lege man leill, my lyking thow art.’
Thus frayis he the fals folk, trewly to tell it,
Aye quhile he coverit (recovered) _and come to the Kingis hart,
Thus feile feildis he wan, aye worschipand it_,
Throwout Cristindome kid (known)
War the dedis that he did,
Till on a time it betid
As tellis the writ.”
Cf. also xlii.
So we go back to Barbour (“the writ”), but in the final scene there is no mention of throwing the heart, any more than in the genuine Bruce, though it is stated that “His hardy men tuk the hart syne upon hand.”
XLI. Cf. Bruce, xx. 486, 487.
Obviously we have in these stanzas, and especially in the words underlined, the source of the lines in the Bruce, which are further in express contradiction to Barbour’s narrative, and have no place in it. The threefold argument leads inevitably to the one conclusion that these lines are an interpolation, and, as a corollary, that their source is the Howlat. Mr. Amours, in editing that poem, has gone so far as to say that this is “almost certain.” I would remove the qualification.
Ed. S.T.S.
Cf. also Preface, pp. vii-viii.
APPENDIX E
THE “ALEXANDER” AND THE “BRUCE”
_The Buik of the Most Noble and Vailyeand Conquerour, Alexander the Great_ is an anonymous Scots translation of three French romances in the Alexander cycle, dated, in a rhyming colophon, 1438, and published for the Bannatyne Club in 1831. Between this translation and the Bruce there is a remarkably intimate and undisguised connection, not only in spirit and method, but in “the diction as a whole, the choice of words and the arrangement of the sentences, (and) the abundant use of alliteration,” to such an extent that “in reading the _Buik of Alexander_ one would often think that he discerned the singer of the Bruce.” A few examples have been given in the notes, but for a full survey of this literary phenomenon the reader must go to the dissertation quoted from above, or to Mr. J. T. T. Brown’s _The Wallace and the Bruce Restudied_, pp. 100-112 (Bonn, 1900), or Mr. Neilson’s John Barbour, Poet and Translator (London, 1900), which is devoted to the subject; or, for the parallels in the Bannockburn account, to Mr. Neilson’s article on Barbour in Chambers’s _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, vol. i.
Untersuchungen über das schottische Alexanderbuch. Albert
Hermann, Halle, 1893, pp. 26, 27.
On the facts there is no dispute; for explanation three hypotheses have been put forward. Hermann, accepting the 1438 date, concludes that the translator of the Alexander was so familiar with the language of the Bruce--“here and there, indeed, knew it by heart” (stellenweise es wohl auswendig wusste)--that his translation was necessarily strongly influenced thereby. This is inadmissible; the French poems are earlier than the Bruce, and to these the links of connection ultimately go back. The relationship is really deeper than the mere language of the translation, as Hermann himself indicates. Mr. Neilson, accordingly, in a detailed and forcible argument, claims Barbour himself as the translator of the Alexander, arguing that, the literary proofs being so conclusive, the date given must be an error, “scribal or printer’s.” Given Roman numerals to begin with, such a slip is not in the least unlikely; variations of this sort occur in the Bruce itself, and 1438 may have been a misreading of 1338, or the date may be that of the scribe’s copy, not of the actual work. Mr. Neilson has an ingenious section on the wayward fortunes of dates. Thus, reversing Hermann’s thesis, he holds that “Barbour’s mind and memory had been steeped in the Alexander when he wrote the Bruce.” Mr. Neilson’s argument and conclusion are vigorously contested by Mr. Brown in a Postscript to the work cited. His more elaborate hypothesis is that David Rate translated the Alexander in 1437, and that “John Ramsay, Sir John the Ross, wishful to improve the plain song of John Barbour, used the translation of the Alexander extensively, taking freely whatever he required.” Mr. Brown’s negative criticism is independent of this proposition which is involved in his wider theory regarding the construction of the Bruce. The eclectic conclusion of the writer in the _Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ii., is: “Either the book (i.e., the Alexander_) is the work of Barbour preserved in a somewhat later form, or the author was saturated with Barbour’s diction, so that he continually repeats his phrases.”
As cited, p. 35.
As cited, p. 45.
Cf. p. 292.
Pp. 43-47.
P. 56.
P. 162.
P. 448.
In the dust of the conflict a crucial fact has gone unobserved--namely, that one of the parallel lines enumerated by Brown and Hermann appears in the portion of the Bruce incorporated in his own work by Wyntoun. _Here, then, we have a line of the alleged translation of 1438 occurring in the “Bruce” as it existed before 1420._ Thus the only outstanding difficulty of Mr. Neilson’s proposition disappears. The effect on the rival propositions is obvious.
The Bruce, I. 160; Alexander, 8, 8; Wyntoun, Book viii. chap. ii. 246; Brown, p. 110.
APPENDIX F
MR. BROWN’S “SOURCES” FOR THE “BRUCE.”
In pursuance of his “hypothesis of fifteenth-century redaction” of the Bruce, Mr. Brown applies what he claims to be “fair and ordinary tests” to six “selected examples,” in order to show that his hypothesis “has a basis in demonstrable fact.” I shall notice such of these very briefly, premising that I do not consider Mr. Brown’s use of his tests either “fair” or “ordinary.” So much, I think, will appear.
The Wallace and The Bruce Restudied, p. 92.
1. The Trojan War, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, and _King Arthur_.
(a) The only thing urged against the Trojan War passage is that it is in the suspicious company of the others, and these, Mr. Brown suggests, are derived from Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale, from which he produces a selection of lines to parallel those in the Bruce. It may be urged, at the outset, that two contemporary poets dealing with the same set of historical events are very likely to display similarities. As Chaucer himself begins by saying--
“The storie of Alisaundre is so commune,
That every wight that hath discrecioune
Hath herd somwhat or al of his fortune.”
I. 521-8.
Bruce, I. 529-548; Monk’s Tale, Group B., 3821-3908.
But even in Mr. Brown’s “selected” lines it is the divergencies rather than the similarities that stand out. Chaucer says nothing of “Babilony’s tour”; “his awyne hows” is no parallel to “of thyne owne folk”; and “Bot, ar he deit, his land delt he” has no equivalent whatsoever in the Monk’s Tale. Yet Chaucer has forty lines to Barbour’s eight. In fact, the “example” is a stock one, even to its phraseology, as witness these excerpts from sources half a century and more earlier than either poet: Commendatio Lamentabilis on Edward I. in 1307, “magnus Alexander ... Nam ille annos regnans duodecim veneno hausto vita defungitur (15); Vita Edwardi Sec. (c. 1326). Sed ille magnus Græcorum imperator Alexander, _totius orbis domitor, cum cunctas nationes orbis subicit, per familiares proditores toxicatus occubuit_.” Do such close parallels prove that either Barbour or Chaucer borrowed from chronicles which they never saw?
(b) Mr. Brown argues that the Julius Cæsar parallels are “not less remarkable for significant agreement, as regards the sequence of the narrative,” and that “so far as concerns the diction it (the Bruce passage) approaches even nearer the Chaucerian original.” But where Chaucer speaks of Cæsar conquering “thoccident” and “the orient,” Barbour enumerates the countries. Is this similarity of diction? According to Mr. Brown, he is giving “simply an expansion of the Chaucerian phrases.” Elsewhere, in such a case, Barbour is convicted of “summarising” or “assimilating,” here of “expanding.” This is Mr. Brown’s “fork” from which no author could escape. In twelve lines Barbour comments on Cæsar’s conquests, his imperial position, and his death, and in forty-eight Chaucer gives a detailed biography introducing Pompey, of whom Barbour says nothing, and Barbour is thereupon charged with following “the sequence of the narrative”--as if he could avoid doing so! That Cæsar by both poets is styled “Emperor” goes for nothing; that was the medieval way; as also was the statement that he was killed in “the Capitol,” as Shakespeare, too, believed. But the most striking note of difference remains. Barbour says of Cæsar--
“Hys eyn with his hand closit he,
For to dey with mar honeste.”
P. 98.
P. 99.
P. 97, note.
I. 548, 549.
Now Chaucer remarks: “Of honestee yet had he remembrance,” and Mr. Brown enrols the word “honestee” among the things “not to be explained either as commonplaces or as mere coincidences.” We see Barbour’s idea of his “honeste”; this is Chaucer’s:
“His mantel over his hypes casteth he
For no man sholde seen his privetee.”
3908.
P. 99.
3904-5.
Mr. Brown here seems to have followed Cæsar’s example and “closit hys eyn”!
(c) The only point made with regard to the Arthur lines is the calling of Lucius “Emperor,” and regarding this see my note on the passage. Geoffrey of Monmouth does the same. That Wyntoun corrects Huchown, and not Barbour, in this usage--well, Mr. Brown can make all he can of that. Barbour’s dozen lines on the familiar Arthur story is charged with being “an excellent summary of the Morte Arthure,” a poem of 4,364 lines! No “expansion” here!
I. 549-561.
P. 99.
2. The Alexander allusions in Bks. III., X. With reference to these see Appendix E. But why should Mr. Brown speak of “the famous grey palfrey of Lord Douglas” on the strength of one notice in Bk. II. 118? There is nothing to justify the epithet “famous”; and Ferrand was no more an unusual name for a “grey” horse than Blanchard for a white one. Bishop Lamberton might have had “a grey” as well as Eumynedus.
See note on passage.
3. The Ferumbras Romance. I have analyzed this passage in my notes to Bk. III., 435-462. Mr. Brown contends that the adoption of the form Ferumbras for the French Fierabras “points to a knowledge on the part of the Scottish poet” of either the Syr Ferumbras or the Sowdone of Babylone, in both of which this form occurs. It is possibly an adaptation of the spelling Fierenbras, which occurs in The Destruction of Rome and also in a fragment of the romance. But there is nothing more remarkable in Barbour’s intrusion of the “m” here than in his calling Lubaut or Lybaut, Lumbard in Bk. X. 324, or Capaneus, Campaneus. More significant is the name Lavyne for Balan, which is the normal form for all the existing texts, French and English, save the Sowdone, where we have Laban, Lavane and Lavyne, and The Destruction of Rome (French), which has Balan and Laban, the latter of which has given the spelling in “v.” Mr. Brown, however, rules out the Destruction for Barbour, as being “merely related to the Charlemagne cycle,” though Dr. Hausknecht accepts it as the original of the first part of the Sowdone. Why, then, should Barbour, too, not have known it? Mr. Brown’s conclusion is that the name, with other material, points to the whole passage being based on the Sowdone, and the Sowdone being post-Chaucerian--in which opinion he follows, and even goes beyond, Hausknecht--of the beginning of the fifteenth century, after Barbour’s death, it obviously follows that the lines cannot have been his work. Against this may be put Hausknecht’s own conclusion, to which Mr. Brown makes no reference: “It is worthy of notice that the account of the Fierabras romance, as given by Barbour, may be considered, on the whole, as identical with the subject of the French Fierabras or the English Syr Ferumbras, but not with the Sowdan, as there is no mention made of the combat before Rome, nor any trace of what makes up the first part of the Sowdan.” A few additional facts will substantiate Hausknecht’s statement.
E.E.T.S. The Sowdone of Babylone, Introd., pp. xxxi, xxxii.
See note.
II. 534.
P. 114.
As cited, p. xxv.
Pp. 115, 116.
P. ix, note. The italics are mine.
In the Sowdone the twelve peers are shut up in “Egrymor”; Barbour gives “bot eleven.” Mr. Brown says of the Bruce account that, “Every line is traceable in the Sowdone.” There is no trace of line 452, or of Lavyne’s “flot” in 456; Charlemagne, instead of “being joyful” at the news that his peers were alive, there bursts out in anger against the traitor Ganelon. Conclusive, on Mr. Brown’s own case, is the fact, noted by Hausknecht, that the relics mentioned by Barbour “differ from all other versions.” It is not “off the croice a gret party” in the Sowdone, but simply “the crosse, the crown, the nailes bente”; and there is no mention of “the sper.” Nothing is said of the cross in the Fierabras or the _Syr Ferumbras, and the Destruction_ has the crown of thorns, the cross, the nails, and the “signe” or shroud. Nor did Barbour invent “the sper,” for it is spoken of in this connection, though not in the final distribution, in the Provençal version of the Fierabras: “_e del fer d’una lansa_,” the spear-head. It would seem, then, that Barbour was using a version of the romance different, in certain particulars, from any we now possess. At any rate, Mr. Brown has to get round these awkward corners before he can transfix Barbour on Lavyne.
444.
P. 115, note.
“Genelyn,” 2843-6.
P. ix, note.
P. 461.
665.
Bruce, iii. 459.
Hausknecht, note to line 665.
Der Roman von Fierabras, Provensalisch, p. 5, line 15; Immanuel Bekker, Berlin, 1829.
4. The Tydeus Episode, Bk. VI. 179-268. It may be granted that Barbour here is not, as Skeat supposed, drawing directly on the Thebaid of Statius, even in memory. But then no more is Lydgate in his Story of Thebes; having used, according to Dr. Koeppel, some French prose epic based on the classical story, now lost, or giving in his poem “a transcript from a French rendering of Statius.” There was ample material, including even, as Gaston Paris has suggested, an abridgment of Statius in Latin prose. Mr. Brown contends that Barbour’s “redactor” borrowed from Lydgate. But here, again, the differences are sufficiently vital to thwart such a conclusion. “Betwix ane hye crag and the se” has no equivalent either in Statius or Lydgate, as is clear from Mr. Brown’s own citations; nor has the detail that the “gret stane ... throu the gret anciente, Wes lowsyt reddy for to fall,” for which Lydgate has:
“Beside he saw with water turned down
An huge stone, large, round, and square.”
c. 1420.
Brown, p. 117.
Gregory Smith, The Transition Period, p. 8.
P. 211.
P. 118.
Pp. 252-3.
Ed. 1598, fol. 381.
In an inductive literary argument differences must be accounted for as well as similarities, and any other possible sources must be satisfactorily eliminated. Opinions as to “the classical parsimony of independent translators” are purely speculative.
P. 119.
5. The Hannibal lines, Bk. III. 207-248.--Here Mr. Brown’s argument needs only to be summarily stated to show its inadequacy. Wyntoun borrowed from Barbour in some instances, but not in this; therefore, since there are similarities in the way the same story is told, the Bruce lines are drawn from the Cronykil. Wyntoun confesses to having translated from Orosius, Mr. Brown says through Martinus Polonus, and he follows his author closely. Barbour’s narrative is brief and, in several details, faulty, in which he diverges from both the Latin author and his Scots translator. The startling error in chronology, especially, “would not be readily made by one using Martinus at first hand,” but with the Cronikyl before him the writer was quite likely to do so! The peculiar “touches” in the Bruce passage are noted, but unexplained. It is assumed that “The agreement with Martinus is much too close for it to be considered to be written from memory;” and “there is nothing in Martinus that should lead us to expect independent translators to ascribe such a victory to God and in terms so similar:
“Bot throw Goddis gret powste.”
“Bot throw the mycht of Goddis grace.”
P. 125.
P. 126. See notes on passage.
P. 127.
P. 126.
Wyntoun.
The Bruce, &c., p. 126.
But the terms are not “similar,” and both are a mediæval rendering of divina miseratio in Orosius and Polonus. The whole argument in this connection is involved and haphazard. What is there illegitimate in the simple hypothesis that Barbour wrote from a well-stored but not perfectly accurate memory, and that Wyntoun preferred the first-hand to the second-hand source? So we explain both similarities and differences. Wyntoun’s lines are a plain following of his Latin author; Barbour’s a brief summary, with expansions and comments of his own leading up to the moral he wishes to enforce; and in this case Mr. Brown cannot point to a single line in common.
6. Froissart and the Bruce.--Here Mr. Brown prints his parallels in full, and the matter can be safely left to the judgment of the unprejudiced reader. It need only be remarked that Froissart (1) calls Douglas William instead of James; (2) sends the heart to the Holy Sepulchre; (3) makes Bruce choose Douglas; (4) embarks him at Montrose; (5) takes him to Sluys; (6) lands him at Seville: while Barbour (1) is right as to Douglas; (2) sends the heart against “Goddis fayis”; (3) makes the barons choose Douglas; (4) embarks him at Berwick; (5) says nothing of Sluys; and (6) lands him at Valentia. Of Barbour’s “motive” lines, of the repentance for blood-spilling and the saving of his sins, Froissart (or Le Bel) has no trace. The two narratives are independent, though, in their trend, alike.
Cf., however, on XX. 181.
171-177.
APPENDIX G
LANGUAGE AND ORTHOGRAPHY
The language of the Bruce is Northern English, the dialect spoken north of the Humber. Barbour himself calls it “Inglis” (Bk. IV. 253), and Scottish writers down to the sixteenth century do the same. The name “Scots” is therefore a term of pure convenience, signifying the English spoken within the political borders of Scotland, which continued to be an independent literary medium after the Northern English of England had ceased to be such, and had yielded place to the standard dialect of Chaucer and his successors. But the language of the Aberdeen Barbour is substantially that of the Yorkshire Richard Rolle.
The most obvious characteristic of the northern tongue is that in development it was far ahead of its southern contemporary, in so far as it had absolutely got rid of inflections, not even retaining the final e which casts its shadow over Chaucer. Where the final e occurs in the Bruce it is non-significant and unsounded. Like the variable spelling, it is the result of the writing of English by scribes accustomed to the sounds and orthography of contemporary French, which was rich in final e’s--a process which had seriously complicated the straightforward phonetic spelling of Old English. A peculiar Scots fashion, however, was the representation of the long vowels by a combination with y or i, sometimes in addition to a final e, which came to be regarded as the sign of a long vowel. Thus we have such groups as mar, mair, mayr: done, doyn, doyne. In these and similar cases y is simply an alternative form of i; at first it would be written before letters like m, n, u, where i, having no dot, might be mistaken for a part of the succeeding letter; then in practice the two would become interchangeable according to the caprice of the writer. In this matter the scribe of C is rather more regular than that of E. Now, such a diphthong as ai was in time reduced to a simple sound, when the i became superfluous, and came to be looked upon as a sign of length. With this function it was afterwards, at the pleasure of the writer, transferred to the company of other long vowels where there was no original diphthong. Thus we have the long vowel sound represented in three ways--simple, with following i (y), or with terminal e. In cases like tais, gais, however, the i is part of the termination of the present tense of the verb, of which Barbour is particularly fond.
Sounded as yet, like those of M.E., but in time to become silent. Anglo-French is Norman-French developed in England; it was closely related to Old French, familiar to the scribes through the romances.
Buss, Anglia IX., pp. 505-507. Cf. also Murray, _Dialect of the Southern Counties_, p. 53.
But while Scots--in the sense indicated above--had thus early parted with its inflections, it was, on the other hand, more conservative than the southern dialects in its treatment of the vowel sounds. It retained, for example, the Old English ā, which in Southern English was rounded into broad o (oa)--cf. ga, stane (O.E. or A.S. gan, stan) for go, stone. In the Bruce (X. 199; XII. 299) the rhyme more, before may show the rounding influence of r. Vowels in words of French origin show slight modification. Anglo-French nasal a before m, n tends to become au, whence daunger, etc., and o or u to become ou as in baroun, felloun. Ai and ei incline to merge in long e as feble (O.F. faible), and sesyt (O.F. seisir); but ai may also become a--e.g., tratour for O.F. traitor.
Buss, p. 509.
Aphæresis occurs in such shortened forms as stroy (destroy), semble (assemble), etc.
The following peculiarities may be noticed among the consonants:
ch sometimes = “tch” in middle and end of word--e.g., fech = fetch (II. 532).
h is silent in hoost, as in all Anglo-French words of Latin origin, and sometimes drops out--e.g., ost (II. 559, etc., O.F. ost), also in ayris (heirs, V. 520).
b in combination with m is dropped both in pronunciation and spelling. Cf. chamyr (II. 97), tumlit (IV. 182, etc.). C Hummyr for Humber; E Humbre (XV. 538).
d usually dropped after n--e.g., henmast = hindmost (XII. 268, etc.); sometimes intrusive--e.g., suddandly (VI. 11), but suddanly (VI. 220). In avantage, aventure from French the English d is intrusive.
f represents final ve in pruf or preif, leiff, driff, knaf, haf, etc., retaining the voiced sound (v) which it had in A.S. between vowels, and r l and vowels.
g in words of French origin has before e, i, the English sound = da(j), which was also then the French one--e.g., liege, jugis.
l as indicating merely a long vowel is unsounded in walknyt (VI. 296), walk (wake, VII. 179, etc.). So we have also falt (VI. 345, etc.) and fawt (III. 298); realte and reawte, etc. Skeat holds that the l in the first case represents but a way of writing the first k, so that the words should be wakk, etc., but this does not cover the second case.
S.T.S., I. lxxxix., and Glossary.
m and n are often interchanged, as in confort, manteme, etc.
ng becomes n before th as lenth, strenth, etc. Cf. also Grammar. The nasal ng may take the place of the liquid n, as in ryng (I. 78, etc.) for “reign” (Fr. regner). The French nasal nce is represented by ng or nch--e.g., Vallang (II. 201) or Vallanch (V. 472) for “Valence.”
r. Metathesis of r is very characteristic of the Northern dialect--e.g., fryst (first), brist (burst, A.S. berstan), tursit (O.F. trusser), etc.
s is changed to sch in schir, isch (issue), etc.; but on the other side we have sall, suld (shall, should) and Inglis.
z has in Fiz the Anglo-French sound ts, as in rats.
APPENDIX H
GRAMMAR
NOUNS
Singular--Possessive Case.--1. The inflected genitive or possessive is formed by adding ys or is; MS. E, on the whole, shows a preference for the former. Sometimes the final consonant is doubled. Cf. a manis hand (VII. 580), to mannys fude (X. 189).
