--_Erest in weyr to Sanct Jhonstoun couth fair._--V. 1697.
_Neirest but weir_, &c. Edit. 1594. This makes nonsense of the passage, and has been an early alteration. Wallace did not go _nearest_ to Perth, but went to the town itself. The meaning must be, “In the earliest part of spring.” V. VEIR, Etym. Dict.
_The barge_, be that, _with a full werlik far, &c._--V. 136.
The barge _began_ with ane full weirlyke fair.
The language is defective as in MS. But _began_ is scarcely the term that we could suppose the Minstrel to use. He would more probably have said;
The barge, be that, _com_ with full werlik far.
I have therefore adhered to the reading of MS. borrowing the word in brackets in the next verse, from the edition quoted above.
“_For my trespas I wald mak sum ramed._” _Wallace wyst weyll, thocht he war brocht to ded;_ _And off his lyff sum reskew mycht he mak._--V. 153.
The passage, as here given from the MS., is evidently deficient in sense. It is given more intelligibly in Edit. 1594.
For my trespas I wald mak sum remeid, Monie saikles I haue gart put to deide. Wallace wist weill, thocht he to deith was brocht, Fra thame to chaip on na wyse micht he nocht. And of his lyfe sum reskew micht he mak, Ane better purpois syne sone than can he tak.
_Ane Skelton than kepyt the careage,_ A Brankstewat _that was his heretage._--V. 625. MS.
_All Brankistnahait_ haill, that was his heritage.
_A Brankstewat_ seems an error for _All Brankstewat_. Both in MS. and in editions, the name has been evidently corrupted. I suspect that it ought to be _Branthwaite_. For the Skeltons were a family of considerable antiquity in Cumberland. John de Skelton was knight of the shire in the reign of Edward II. _Armathwaite_ was the designation of their property. But Richard Skelton, sheriff of Cumberland, in the reign of Henry VI., lived at _Branthwaite_. _Brankistnahait_, and _Brankistewat_, have been originally _Brankisthwaite_. _Thwaite_ forms the termination of many local names in the north of England. Grose explains it; “The shelving part of the side of a mountain.” Hutchinson’s account corresponds: “Down the river of Dudden stands the manor of _Thwaites_, between the river and the mountains, and the ancient seat of Joseph Thwaites of Ulnerigg, Esq., and the place being a stony mountainous country, is not everywhere altogether fit for tillage, meadow, and pasture. But in several parts and pieces, as they are marked by nature, differing in form and quality of soil, or otherwise, by the inhabitants inclosed from the barren wastes of the fells; such pieces of land are now, and were of old, called _Thwaites_ in most places of the shire, sometimes with addition of their quality, as Brackenthwaite, of ferns; Swithwaite, of rushes; Stonythwaite, of stones; _Brentwaite_, of its steepness; Brunthwaite, of burnt with the sun, &c.” Hist. of Cumberland, I. 531, 532. 494.
