--_Knighton_, Lib. III. cap.
8.
_I wish him dool and pyne_.--P. 26. v. 3.
Thus, Spenser, in _Mother Huberd's tale_--
Thus is this ape become a shepherd swain,
And the false fox his dog, God give them pain!
_Who, marching forth with false Dunbar,
A ready welcome found_.--P. 26. v. 4.
These two lines are modern, and inserted to complete the verse.
Dunbar, the fortress of Patrick, Earl of March, was too often opened
to the English, by the treachery of that baron, during the reign of
Edward I.
_They laid their sowies to the wall_,
_Wi' many a heavy peal_.--P. 27. v. 4.
In this and the following verse, the attack and defence of a
fortress, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is described
accurately and concisely. The sow was a military engine, resembling
the Roman _testudo_. It was framed of wood, covered with hides, and
mounted on wheels, so that, being rolled forwards to the foot of the
besieged wall, it served as a shed, or cover, to defend the miners, or
those who wrought the battering ram, from the stones and arrows of the
garrison. In the course of the famous defence, made by Black Agnes,
Countess of March, of her husband's castle of Dunbar, Montague, Earl
of Salisbury, who commanded the besiegers, caused one of these engines
to be wheeled up to the wall.
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