An Antiquary's Notes. 397 



To 8 captains of twenty of the ditchers each getting 3d a day 



for 6 days, 12s. 

 Item, 60 men working under them at 2d a day for 5 days, 50s. 

 Item, women working under them at i|d a day for the same 



time, ;Q^ 7s 6d. 

 Item, 2 porters at 3d a day, 2s 6d. 

 Item, to 17 porters at 2d a day, 14s 2d. 



The entire cost of all the operations on this pay-sheet was 

 ;^45 8s o^d, and the " prob " put opposite each summation 

 shows that the account was as carefully checked as it was care- 

 fully made out. In mediasval fortification as in the fortifications 

 of the present day, the ditches were reckoned of chief account 

 among the elements of defence. The works at Linlithgow are a 

 sufficient example. A few stone quarries, a handful of masons, a 

 gang of wood-cutters, and another of carpenters did their part. 

 The number of ditchers, however, is decisive of the extent to 

 which the simple element of the ditches must have predominated 

 in the work. The account, you will notice, proved to be a much 

 more permanent affair than the English possession of the place. 



The Death of Comyn — An Early English Version. 



The second item of my Notes is concerning the slaughter of 

 Comyn. I hope that some day this society or some other society 

 elsewhere may take up the full story of this event and endea- 

 vour, by a critical examination of all the authorities, to present 

 a collated account. I do not for one moment profess to offer 

 you that to-night. I have many notes made with the view to 

 attempting it some day, but what I want to do now is to give you 

 a copy of an early English account of the incident. It is a 

 transcript made from a manuscript in the Hunterian Library at 

 Glasgow of a passage from a "Brut of Engelond," belonging to 

 the fourteenth century, and is on the whole a very faithful render- 

 ing of an Anglo-French original, dating from before 1340. You 

 will agree with me that in respect of quaintness of language and 

 circumstance of narration the English account is one not to be 

 lightly set aside. It begins with the rubric: — 



" Howe Robert the Brus chalenged Scottlond. And after 

 this Robert the Brus Earle of Carrike sente bi his lettres to Erles 

 and baronns of Scottlonde that thei scholde come to him to Scone 

 in the morwe after conception of oure lady ffor heige nedis of 



