: for Godscroft, in treating of
this battle, mentions its having been the subject of popular song,
and proceeds thus: But that, which is commonly sung of the _Hunting of
Chiviot_, seemeth indeed poetical, and a mere fiction, perhaps to stir
up virtue; yet a fiction whereof there is no mention, either in the
Scottish or English Chronicle. Neither are the songs, that are made of
them, both one; for the _Scots song made of Otterbourne_, telleth
the time, about Lammas; and also the occasion, to take preys out of
England; also the dividing the armies betwixt the earls of Fife
and Douglas, and their several journeys, almost as in the authentic
history. It beginneth thus;
"It fell about the Lammas tide,
"When yeomen win their hay,
"The doughty Douglas 'gan to ride,
"In England to take a prey."--
GODSCROFT, _ed. Edin_. 1743. Vol. I. p. 195.
I cannot venture to assert, that the stanzas, here published, belong
to the ballad alluded to by Godscroft; but they come much nearer to
his description than the copy published in the first edition, which
represented Douglas as falling by the poignard of a faithless
page. Yet we learn, from the same author, that the story of the
assassination was not without foundation in tradition.--"There are
that say, that he (Douglas) was not slain by the enemy, but by one of
his own men, a groom of his chamber, whom he had struck the day before
with a truncheon, in ordering of the battle, because he saw him make
somewhat slowly to.
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