Statements concerning Sir Walter Scott. 289 



as Dunfermline was the royal burying-place, both before and 

 after his time, it is possible that the splendid muster at 

 Caldenlee, for an invasion of England — even allowing for 

 exaggeration, and the fact that nothing particular was 

 accomplished — may account for his partiality to the neigh- 

 bourhood. 



In spite of Sir Walter's generally' very correct views as 

 to early Scotch history, there was much less known, or in 

 print, about it in his time than now. His leaving Lass- 

 wade and coming to Ashiesteel was by no means voluntary, 

 but for the greater convenience of county business ; and the 

 only place in the immediate neighbourhood, which seems to 

 have touched his imagination, was Elibank Tower, as the 

 scene of the marriage of his ancestress, Muckle-mouthed Meg. 



The assassination of the Knight of Liddesdale, in the 

 valley of the Peel burn, at a spot little more than a mile 

 from Ashiesteel, was an event of historical importance. 

 Besides all the causes of quarrel his own family are said 

 to have had against him, William Douglas had made a 

 private treaty with Edward III. to do everything in his 

 power to forward the English claims on Scotland, short of 

 bearing arms against it. 



This seems strange in ,,a warrior who had kept the English 

 forces at bay for years ; but he had been taken prisoner, 

 and imprisonment was apparently what he could not endure. 

 However secret the terms of his release may have been, it 

 must have been seen that he was acting in the English 

 interests. 



Again, in spite of Sir Walter's strange hallucination about 

 the knocker at Traquair, about seven miles from Ashiesteel, 

 neither he nor Lockhart ever mentions it in print, even in 

 connection with the Bradwardine bears. And yet it is not 

 only one of the oldest inhabited houses in Scotland, but an 

 undoubted Queen Mary locality. Lockhart appears never to 

 have been at Ashiesteel, but to have seen it from the other 

 side of the river. He must have been at the Lasswade 

 house, from the particular he mentions of the view from 

 the garden. It is of the distant Peeblesshire hills. It is 

 a very pretty place still. 



It ought not to be omitted tliat the Ettrick shepherd was 

 actually herd at Elibank at one time, and in that capacity 



LL 



