of Buccleuch employed the services of
the younger sons and brothers only of his clan, lest the name should
have been weakened by the landed men incurring forfeiture. But he
adds, that three gentlemen of estate insisted upon attending their
chief, notwithstanding this prohibition. These were, the lairds
of Harden and Commonside, and Sir Gilbert Elliot of the Stobbs, a
relation of the laird of Buccleuch, and ancestor to the present Sir
William Elliot, Bart. In many things Satchells agrees with the ballads
current in his time, from which, in all probability, he derived most
of his information as to past events, and from which he sometimes
pirates whole verses, as noticed in the annotations upon the _Raid of
the Reidswire_. In the present instance, he mentions the prisoner's
_large spurs_ (alluding to the fetters), and some other little
incidents noticed in the ballad, which was, therefore, probably well
known in his days.

[Footnote 158: The bishop is, in this last particular, rather
inaccurate. Buccleuch was indeed delivered into England, but this was
done in consequence of the judgment of commissioners of both nations,
who met at Berwick this same year. And his delivery took place, less
on account of the raid of Carlisle, than of a second exploit of the
same nature, to be noticed hereafter.]

All contemporary historians unite in extolling the deed itself as
the most daring and well-conducted atchievement of that age. "_Audax
facinus cum modica manu, in urbe maenibus et multitudine
oppidanorum munita, et callidae: audaciae, vix ullo obsisti modo
potuit_."--_Johnstoni Historia, Ed. Amstael. p_. 215. Birrel, in his
gossipping way, says, the exploit was performed "with shouting and
crying, and sound of trumpet, puttand the said toun and countrie in
sic ane fray, that the like of sic ane wassaladge wes nevir done since
the memory of man, no not in Wallace dayis."--_Birrel's Diary_, April
6, 1596. This good old citizen of Edinburgh also mentions another
incident which I think proper to insert here, both as relating to the
personages mentioned in the following ballad, and as tending to shew
the light in which the men of the border were regarded, even at this
late period, by their fellow subjects. The author is talking of the
king's return to Edinburgh, after the disgrace which he had sustained
there, during the riot excited by the seditious ministers, on December
17, 1596. Proclamation had been made, that the Earl of Mar shou