Stanza I. 1. 18. 'This is no poetical exaggeration. In some of the counties of England, distinguished for archery, shafts of this extraordinary length were actually used. Thus, at the battle of Blackheath, between the troops of Henry VII and the Cornish insurgents, in 1496, the bridge of Dartford was defended by a picked band of archersfrom the rebel army, "whose arrows," says Holinshed, "were in length a full cloth yard." The Scottish, according to Ascham, had a proverb, that every English archer carried under his belt twenty- four Scots, in allusion to his bundle of unerring shafts.'—Scott.
Stanza II. 1. 32. croupe =(1) the buttocks of the horse, as in Chaucer's 'Fryars Tale,' l.7141, 'thakketh his horse upon the croupe'; (2) the place behind the saddle, as here and in “Young Lochinvar,' below, 351.
1.35. 'The Scottish burgesses were, like yeomen, appointed to be armed with bows and sheaves, sword, buckler, knife, spear, or a good axe instead of a bow, if worth £100: their armour to be of white or bright harness.They wore white hats, i.e. bright steel caps, without crest or visor. By an act of James IV their weapons chawings are appointed to be held four times a year, under the aldermen or bailiffs.'—Scott.
1. 33. “ The most useful air, as the Frenchmen term it, is territerr, the courbettes, cabrioles, or un pas et un sault, being fitter for horses of parade and triumph than for soldiers: yet I cannot deny but a demivolte with courbettes, so that they be not too high, may be useful in a fight or meslee; for, as Labroue hath it, in his Book of Horsemanship, Monsieur de Montmorency having a horse that was excellent in performing the demivolte, did, with his sword, strike down two adversaries from their horses in a tourney, where divers of the prime gallants of France did meet; for, taking his time, when the horse was in the height of his courbette, and discharging a blow then, his sword fell with such weight and force upon the two cavaliers, one after another, that he struck them from their horses to the ground.'—Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life, p. 48.—Scott.
1.35. 'The Scottish burgesses were, like yeomen, appointed to be armed with bows and sheaves, sword, buckler, knife, spear, or a good axe instead of a bow, if worth£100: their armour to be of white or bright harness. They wore white hats, i.e. bright steel caps, without crest or visor. By an act of James IV their weapons chawings are appointed to be held four times a year, under the aldermen or bailiffs.'—Scott.
11. 40–46. Corslet, a light cuirass protecting the front of the body; brigantine, a jacket quilted with iron (also spelt 'brigandine'); gorget, a metal covering for the throat; mace, a heavy club, plain or spiked, designed to bruise armour.
