"--_Birrell, apud
Dalyell_, p. 30. Such is the difference betwixt the narrative of
the courtly archbishop, and that of the presbyterian burgess of
Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 29: This rencounter took place at Humbie, in East Lothian.
Bothwell was attended by a servant, called Gibson, and Cessford by one
of the Rutherfords, who was hurt in the cheek. The combatant parted
from pure fatigue.]
[Footnote 30: Sir Walter Raleigh, in writing of Essex, then in prison,
says, "Let the queen hold _Bothwell_ while she hath him."--_Murdin_,
Vol. II. p. 812. It appears, from _Crichton's Memoirs_, that
Bothwell's grandson, though so nearly related to the royal family,
actually rode a private in the Scottish horse guards, in the reign of
Charles II.--_Edinburgh_, 1731, p. 43.]
While these scenes were passing in the metropolis the borders were
furiously agitated by civil discord. The families of Cessford and
Fairnihirst disputed their right to the wardenry of the middle
marches, and to the provostry of Jedburgh; and William Kerr of Ancram,
a follower of the latter, was murdered by the young chief of Cessford,
at the instigation of his mother.--_Spottiswoode_, p. 383. But
this was trifling, compared to the civil war, waged on the western
frontier, between the Johnstones and Maxwells, of which there is
a minute account in the introduction to the ballad, entitled,
"_Maxwell's Goodnight_.
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