[446] what the devil is that thou tearest?
[465] The Court of Session had been established by James V. in May, 1532. The Seinzie was the older ecclesiastical consistory, or bishops’ court.
[468] _i.e._ in panniers, the ancient means of carriage.
[471] Ayrshire cattle were, to judge from this reference, as much esteemed in the sixteenth century as they are in the nineteenth.
[474] Formerly the fine paid the feudal superior for relief from armed service; afterwards a fine of the best chattel, exacted by the landlord on the death of a tenant.
[478] The reference here, says Laing, is to the _cors present_, or funeral gift to the clerk, the exaction of which had become a heavy grievance to the poor.
[488] The retailing of papal indulgences, here satirized by Lyndsay, was one of the chief abuses against which Luther had raised the indignation of Germany.
[501] See introduction to King James the Fifth, p. 143.
[523] _At the horne_, proclaimed rebel. Outlawry was proclaimed with three blasts of a horn. In 1512 Gavin Douglas was one of a great assize which passed an Act anent “the resset of Rebellis, and Personis being at our souerane Lordis horne.”
[549] Laing quotes from the chartulary of Newbattle a grant by Seyer de Quency, lord of the manor of Tranent, of a coal-pit and quarry on the lands of Preston; which shows mining and quarrying to have been industries there as early as 1202.
[552] a Scots plack equalled the third of a penny.
Musing and marvelling on the miserie Frome day to day in erth quhilk dois incres, And of ilk[556] stait the instabilitie Proceding of the restless besynes Quhare-on the most part doith thair mynd addres Inordinatlie, on houngrye covatyce, Vaine glore, dissait, and uther sensuall vyce:
Bot tumlyng in my bed I mycht nocht lye; Quharefore I fuir[557] furth in ane Maye mornyng, Conforte to gett of my malancolye, Sumquhat affore fresche Phebus uprysing, Quhare I mycht heir the birdis sweitlye syng. In-tyll ane park I past, for my plesure Decorit weill be craft of dame Nature.
Quhow I resavit confort naturall For tyll discryve[558] at lenth it war too lang; Smelling the holsum herbis medicinall, Quhare-on the dulce and balmy dew down dang[559], Lyke aurient peirles on the twistis[560] hang; Or quhow that the aromatic odouris Did proceid frome the tender fragrant flouris;