PREFACE
Mr. Cockerell suggested that the editing should be handed over to Swinburne. "Oh, no!' answered Morris, "that would never do. He would be writing-in verses that no one would be able to tell from the original stuff!" The ballads we publish to-day will show the complete justice of Morris's remark.
There is not much to be said with regard to the individual ballads or their sources in history. So far as can be discovered, no ancient ballad of "Lord Soulis" exists, but the hero, in whose legend Sir Walter Scott took a vivid interest, was a historical personage. The family name recurs frequently in the records of Scottish charters granted during the fourteenth century, and we are told that William, Lord Soulis, was one of the most powerful barons in the southwest of Scotland. He was of royal descent, and in pursuance of his claim to the Scottish throne, he conspired against Robert the Bruce. This plot was discovered by the acuteness of Lady Strathern. Lord Soulis was arrested at the head of a troop at Berwick in 1320, and, his life being spared by the King, his estates were forfeited and he was secretly confined for the rest of his years in the royal castle of Dumbarton, Probably owing to his disappearance, a legend grew up that Lord Soulis had been ignominiously executed with the King's connivance, and it was generally
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