NOTES
ON
CANTO V.
The Bloody Heart blazed in the van,
Announcing Douglas, dreaded name!—St. IV. p. 130.
Announcing Douglas, dreaded name!—St. IV. p. 130.
The chief of this potent race of heroes, about the date of the poem, was Archibald Douglas, seventh Earl of Angus, a man of great courage and activity. The bloody heart was the well-known cognizance of the house of Douglas, assumed from the time of Good Lord James, to whose care Robert Bruce committed his heart, to be carried to the Holy Land.
Beneath the crest of old Dunbar,
And Hepburn's mingled banners, come,
Down the steep mountain glittering far,
And shouting still, "a Home! a Home!"— St. IV. p. 130.
And Hepburn's mingled banners, come,
Down the steep mountain glittering far,
And shouting still, "a Home! a Home!"— St. IV. p. 130.
The Earls of Home, as descendants of the Dunbars, ancient Earls of March, carried a lion rampant, argent ; but, as a diffe-
