Page:Marmion - Walter Scott (ed. Bayne, 1889).pdf/236

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
206
MARMION.

and it remains in that family, whose representative is Hereditary Champion of England at the present day. The family and possessions of Freville have merged in the Earls of Ferrars. I have not, therefore, created a new family, but only revived the titles of an old one in an imaginary personage.'—Scott.

'The last occasion on which the Champion officiated was at the coronation of George IV.'—'Notes and Queries,' 7th S. III, 236.

l. 161. mark, a weight for gold and silver, differing in amount in different countries. The English coin so called was worth 13s. 4d. sterling

l. 163. "This was the cry with which heralds and pursuivants were wont to acknowledge the bounty received from the knights. Stewart of Lorn distinguishes a ballad, in which he satirises the narrowness of James V and his courtiers by the ironical burden—

"Lerges, lerges, lerges, hay,
Lerges of this neu yeir day.
First lerges of the King, my chief,
Quhilk come als quiet as a theif,
And in my hand slid schillingis tway[1],
To put his lergnes to the preif[2],
For lerges of this new-yeir day."

'The heralds, like the minstrels, were a race allowed to have great claims upon the liberality of the knights, of whose feats they kept a record, and proclaimed them aloud, as in the text, upon suitable occasions.

'At Berwick, Norham, and other Border fortresses of importance, pursuivants usually resided, whose inviolable character rendered them the only persons that could, with perfect assurance of safety, be sent on necessary embassies into Scotland. This is alluded to in Stanza xxi. p. 25.'-Scott.

1. 165. Blazon'd shield, a shield with a coat of arms painted on it, especially with bearings quartered in commemoration of victory in battle. See below V. xv, VI. xxxviii, and cp. Tennyson, "The Lady of Shalott,' Part 3:—

l. 174. The Cotswold downs, Gloucestershire, were famous as a hunting-ground. Cp. Merry Wives of Windsor, I. i. 92, 'How


  1. two.
  2. proof.