Notes on Branxholme. By W. Eliott Lockhart. 457 



" Nine-and-twenty knights of fame 



Huiig their shields in Branksome-Hall ; 

 Nine-and-twenty squires of name 



Brought them their steeds to bower from stall ; 

 Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 

 Waited, duteous, on them all ; 

 They were all knights of mettle true, 

 Kinsmen to the hold Buccleuch. 



Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 

 With belted sword, and spear, on heel : 

 They quitted not their harness bright, 

 Neither by day, nor yet by night ; 



They lay down to rest, 



With corslet laced, 

 Pillow'd on buckler cold and hard ; 



They carved at the meal 



With gloves of steel, 

 And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd. 



Ten squires, ten yeomen mail-clad men, 



Waited the beck of the warders ten ; 



Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight, 



Stood saddled in stable day and night, 



Barbed with frontlet of steel, 1 trow, 



And with Jedwood-axe at saddle bow ; 



A hundred more fed free in stall : — 



Such was the custom of Branksome-Hall." 1 

 As a natural consequence of such expenditure, coupled with the 

 purchase of more properties, Buccleuch's affairs became tempor- 

 arily embarrassed. Like his father he preferred a stirring- life ; 

 and in 1(527, he also entered the service of the States General, 

 and acquired a high reputation, but was recalled from Holland 

 in 1631 by King Charles I., and was intrusted with some special 

 service. He was residing at Branxholme in the autumn of 1632, 

 and two quaint payments appear in the chamberlain's accounts for 

 August of that year, which are illustrative of his musical taste, 

 "to a little boy of the house of Thirlestane, that sung to his 

 Lordship at the ' Dovecot ' at Branxholm, and to three English 

 pjqoers at Branxholm."'- 



He returned to the Netherlands, and from a letter to Ins sister 

 Lady Ross, of 4th Oct. 1633, it appears he was then on active 

 service ; but he must have left very shortly afterwards, as his 



1 Linj of the Last Minstrel, Canto T., m.. rv., V. 

 - ScotU of Buccleuch, i., p. 2.58. 



2v 



