But June is to our Sovereign dear
The heaviest month in all the year:
Too well his cause of grief you know,
June saw his father's overthrow.1
Woe to the traitors, who could bring
The princely boy against his King!
Still in his conscience burns the sting.
In offices as strict as Lent,

King James's June is ever spent.2

XVI.

"When last this ruthful month was come, And in Linlithgow's holy dome

The King, as wont, was praying;

silvan sound conveyed great delight to our ancestors, chiefly, I suppose, from association. A gentle knight in the reign of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas Wortley, built Wantley Lodge, in Wancliffe Forest, for the pleasure (as an ancient inscription testifies) of "listening to the hart's bell."

1 The rebellion against James III. was signalised by the cruel circumstance of his son's presence in the hostile army. When the king saw his own banner displayed against him, and his son in the faction of his enemies, he lost the little courage he had ever possessed, fled out of the field, fell from his horse as it started at a woman and water-pitcher, and was slain, it is not well understood by whom. James IV., after the battle, passed to Stirling, and hearing the monks of the chapel-royal deploring the death of his father, their founder, he was seized with deep remorse, which manifested itself in severe penances. See a following note on stanza ix. of canto v. The battle of Sauchie-burn, in which James III. fell, was fought 18th June,

1488.

2 MS. "In offices as strict as Lent,

And penances his Junes are spent."

While, for his royal father's soul,

The chanters sung, the bells did toll,
The Bishop mass was saying-

For now the year brought round again1
The day the luckless King was slain —
In Katharine's aisle the Monarch knelt,
With sackcloth-shirt, and iron belt,

And eyes with sorrow streaming;
Around him in their stalls of state,
The Thistle's Knight-Companions sate,
Their banners o'er them beaming.
I too was there, and, sooth to tell,
Bedeafen'd with the jangling knell,
Was watching where the sunbeams fell,
Through the stain'd casement gleaming;
But, while I mark'd what next befell,

It seem'd as I were dreaming.
Stepp'd from the crowd a ghostly wight,
In azure gown, with cincture white;
His forehead bald, his head was bare,
Down hung at length his yellow hair.
Now, mock me not, when, good my Lord,
I pledge to you my knightly word,
That, when I saw his placid grace,
His simple majesty of face,
His solemn bearing, and his pace

So stately gliding on,

Seem'd to me ne'er did limner paint
So just an image of the Saint,

Who propp'd the Virgin in her faint, —
The loved Apostle John!

XVII.

"He stepp'd before the Monarch's chair,
And stood with rustic plainness there,
And little reverence made;

Nor head, nor body, bow'd nor bent,
But on the desk his arm he leant,
And words like these he said,

In a low voice, - but never tone 1

So thrill'd through vein, and nerve, and bone:

'My mother sent me from afar,

Sir King, to warn thee not to war,

Woe waits on thine array!
If war thou wilt, of woman fair,2
Her witching wiles and wanton snare,
James Stuart, doubly warn'd, beware:
God keep thee as he may !'-

The wondering Monarch seem'd to seek
For answer, and found none;

And when he raised his head to speak,

1 MS.

2 MS.

The monitor was gone.

"In a low voice-but every tone

Thrill'd through the listener's vein and bone."

-"And if to war thou needs wilt fare

Of wanton wiles and woman's

Of woman's wiles and wanton

}

snare."

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