command, led forth to the
court-yard and beheaded. When the repast was finished, the king's
letter was presented and opened. "Sir Patrick," says Douglas, leading
Gray to the court, "right glad had I been to honour the king's
messenger; but you have come too late. Yonder lies your sister's son,
without the head: you are welcome to his dead body." Gray, having
mounted his horse, turned to the earl, and expressed his wrath in a
deadly oath, that he would requite the injury with Douglas's heart's
blood.--"To horse!" cried the haughty baron, and the messenger of
his prince was pursued till within a few miles of Edinburgh. Gray,
however, had an opportunity of keeping his vow; for, being upon guard
in the king's anti-chamber at Stirling, when James, incensed at the
insolence of the earl, struck him with his dagger, Sir Patrick rushed
in, and dispatched him with a pole-axe. The castle of Thrieve was the
last of the fortresses which held out for the house of Douglas, after
their grand rebellion in 1553. James II. writes an account of the
exile of this potent family, to Charles VII. of France, 8th July,
1555; and adds, that all their castles had been yielded to him,
_Excepto duntaxat castro de Trefe, per nostres fideles
impraesentiarum obsesso; quod domino concedente in brevi obtinere
speramus.--Pinkerton's History, Appendix_, Vol. I. p. 486.--See
_Pitscottie's History, Godscroft, &c._

_And most part of his friends were, there_,--P. 269. v. 3. The
ancestor of the present Mr. Maxwell of Broomholm is particularly
mentioned in Glenriddell's MS. as having attended his chieftain in his
distress, and as having received a grant of lands, in reward of this
manifestation of attachment.

_Sae now he's o'er the floods sae gray_.--P. 269. v. 3.

This seems to have been a favourite epithet in old romances, Thus in
_Hornchilde_, and _Maiden Rimuild_,

Thai sayled ower the _flode so gray_,
In Inglond arrived were thay,
Ther him levest ware.

THE LADS OF WAMPHRAY.

The reader will find, prefixed to the foregoing ballad, an account
of the noted feud betwixt the families of Maxwell and Johnstone.
The following song celebrates the skirmish, in 1593, betwixt the
Johnstones and Crichtons, which led to the revival of the ancient
quarrel betwixt Johnstone and Maxwell, and finally to the battle of
Dryffe Sands, in which the latter lost his life. Wamphray is the name
of a parish in Annandale. Lethenhall was the abode of Johnstone