J. F. Campbell Collection > Minstrelsy of the Scottish border > Volume 1

TTIE SCOTTISH RORDEE. 19
" in tcrritorio suo de Thirlestane." Sir William is suppo-
sed to have died about 1315 — Crawford's Peerage.
Such were the heroes of the ballad. The castle of
Thirlestane is situated upon the Leader, near the town
of Lauder. Whether the present building, which was
erected by Chancellor Maitland, and improved by the
Duke of Lauderdale, occupies the site of the ancient
castle, I do not know ; but it still merits the epithet of
a " darksome house." I find no notice of the siege in
history; but there is nothing improbable in supposing,
that the castle, during the stormy period of the Baliol
wars, may have held out against the English. The crea-
tion of a nephew of Edward L, for the pleasure of slay-
ing him by the hand of young Maitland, is a poetical
licence ;* and may induce us to place the date of the
composition about the reign of David II., or of his suc-
cessor, when the real exploits of Maitland, and his sons,
were in some degree obscured, as well as magnified, by
the lapse of time. The inveterate hatred against the
English, founded upon the usurpation of Edward I.,
glows in every line of the ballad.
Auld Maitland is placed, by Gawain Douglas, Bishop
of Dunkeld, among the popular heroes of romance, in
his allegorical Palice of Honour : t
* Such liberties with the genealogy of monarchs were common to
romancers. Henry the Minstrel makes Wallace slay more than one
of King Edward's nephews ; and Johnie Armstrong claims the merit
of slaying a sister's son of Henry VIII.
•j- It is impossible to pass over this curious list of Scottish romances
without a note ; to do any justice to the subject would require an