Excursion on Wednesday, August \ZtTi. 17 



exception, tliat of Knowle. The liorn was entered as a cognizance, 

 but that he could not wholly endorse. 



Three swords, said to belong- to Robert Bruce, Wallace, and to 

 Black Douglas, were then shown the company, and Mr. Tucker 

 remarked that nothing could be more ungracious, but he could not 

 conscientiously say those swords were of that period. There was no 

 reason why the family should not have inherited \ki& personnel oi the 

 Bruces as well as the name, and it was very likely such swords were 

 lost or stolen, and replaced by others ; but these were certainly not 

 of the date o£ Bannockburn, though they might be that of Flodden. 

 Moreover, he thought that, like the Queen in Hamlet, they " do 

 protest too much,^' they were bedizened with heraldry which was 

 not common in Scotland for personal devices at that time. Much 

 was stuck upon the sword, and the arms of Scotland was on Bruce^s 

 sword, though this was never worn by Bruce. They were sixteenth 

 century and not fourteenth century swords. 



The noted tenure horn, formed by the hollowed tusk of an elephant 

 with enamelled figures of the chase, was next exhibited, and Mr. 

 Tucker said it was of German workmanship, of the cinque cento 

 period, and certainly earlier than the leather strap attached to it. 

 This belt was bedizened with the Murray arms, and Randolph 

 Murray was a nephew of Bruce. He believed the horn came from 

 Wolf hall originally, and was the badge of wardenship of the forest. 

 It was ascribed to the period of the Bruce, but was certainly not of 

 that period. 



Lord Ailesbury remarked that he could get nobody to blow the 

 horn but his son Lord Frederick, who made an awful yell issue from 

 it. He had tried the bandmaster, who could make nothing of it. 

 When George IIL came to Savernake on leaving it he said to his 

 grandfather, the Earl of Ailesbury, whose portrait they saw at the 

 end of the room, " My Lord you have forfeited your property, you 

 have not blown the horn.^' His grandfather replied, "Well, sire I 

 ■ couldn't get anybody to get any sound out of it.-"^ The Kino- for- 

 gave him, but should Her Majesty ever favour him with a visit he 

 would certainly get somebody to blow the horn. 



Shortly after the party left the building, and proceeded to " the 



VOL. XIX. — NO. LV. C 



