For battle by the busy groom prepar'd:
Rustling of harness, rattling of the shield,
Clattering of armour furbish'd for the field,' &c.
l. 157. following = feudal retainers.—Scott. To the poet's explanation Lockhart appends the remark that since Scott thought his note necessary the word has been completely adopted into English, and especially into Parliamentary parlance.'
l. 166. Scott says:—' In all transactions of great or petty importance, and among whomsoever taking place, it would seem that a present of wine was a uniform and indispensable preliminary. It was not to Sir John Falstaff alone that such an introductory preface was necessary, however well judged and acceptable on the part of Mr. Brook; for Sir Ralph Sadler, while on an embassy to Scotland in 1539-40 , mentions, with complacency, 'the same night came Rothesay (the herald so called) to me again, and brought me wine from the King both white and red.'—Clifford's Edition, p. 39.
l. 168. For weeds see above, I. Introd. 256.
Stanza VII. l. 172. For wassell see above, I. xv. 231; and cp. 'merry wassail' in 'Rokeby,' III. xv.
l. 190. Cp. above, IV. Introd. 3.
1. 200. An Elizabethan omission of relative.
Stanza VIII. The admirable characterisation, by which in this and the two following stanzas the King, the Queen, and Lady Heron are individually delineated and vividly contrasted, deserves special attention. There is every reason to believe that the delineations, besides being vivid and impressive, have the additional merit of historical accuracy.
l. 213. piled = covered with a pile or nap. The Encyclopædic Dict., s.v., quotes: 'With that money I would make thee several cloaks and line them with black crimson, and tawny, three piled veluet.'—Barry: Ram Alley, III. i
l. 221. A baldric (remotely from Lat. balteus, a girdle) was an ornamental belt passing over one shoulder and round the other side, and having the sword suspended from it. Cp. Pope's Iliad, III. 415:
Sustained the sword that glittered at his side.'
See also the 'wolf-skin baldric' in 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' III. xvi.
Stanza IX. l. 249. Few readers need to be reminded of this belt, to the weight of which James added certain ounces every year that he lived. Pitscottie founds his belief that James was not slain
