had made offer of pardon to all who left the English interest and became true Scots:
He gart commaund, quha that his pes wald tak,
A fre remyt he suld ger to thaim mak,
For alkyn deid that thai had doyne beforn (vi. 322).
Now the very Act of 1482 referred to ordains general proclamation of an offer of pardon to the adherents of the rebel Douglas:
'And quhatsumevir persons that now assistis to the saide tratour Douglace that will within xxiiij dais cum to our soverane lord and bide at the faith and lawtee of his hienes sal have full remissioun and forgeifnes of all tressoun and other trespassis committit be thaim of tyme bigane'
(Acts of Parl. Scot. ii. 139).
Besides, the extreme hatred which Harry's poem manifests of Fehew, as well as the presence of Graystock[1] among the English leaders, is significantly accounted for by the fact that in 1482, when an English army invaded Scotland, 'the lefte wyng was guyded,' says the chronicler Edward Hall, 'by the lorde Fitz He we,' while 'the lorde Greystocke' was on the generalissimo's staff.[2]
The 'Revare Edward' of himself alone is conclusive of the date of Harry's poem, and is so much the more satisfactory in that respect as supplying the clearest possible explanation of the bitterness of spirit at the core of the poem, the malignant ruthlessness it displays towards Englishmen, and the glaring failure of the poet to redeem the hereditary sense of enmity by associating it with any generous note towards an enemy so worthy of the Scottish steel. In all these respects it is far as the poles asunder from Barbour's Bruce, which, never vindictive or savage, achieves its purpose
