PART II

The use which some of the Latin chroniclers and verse-makers make of the words _caudatus_ and _cauda_ suggests that the former of these may have been intended to bear the sense of "cowed" or "coward", and the latter to symbolize the evil qualities, more particularly, perhaps, the treachery ascribed to the English. Thus, in Matthew of Paris, one, at least, of Count Robert's insulting outbursts, though hardly both, remains perfectly intelligible even if a figurative rather than a literal meaning be given to the epithet.[337] And, again, when John Oxenedes, in his account of the battle of Lewes, fought, in 1264, between Henry III and the Barons, under Simon of Montfort, places it in immediate juxtaposition to "full of guile", "false", "unstable", and "dispirited", it seems more natural to interpret it as a reference to a moral defect than to take it as a taunt at a physical deformity.[338] As regards the substantive, a symbolical sense, not, indeed, excluding the primary meaning, but rather taken in combination with it, is obviously consistent with the anonymous poetaster's advice to "cut off that poisonous tail".[339] And the _Annales Gandenses_, the most noteworthy chronicle of the closing years of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, whilst doubtless alluding to the popular belief in a real caudal appendage worn by Englishmen, seem to employ the word metaphorically in the passage which records the incendiarism and the looting by which the troops of Edward I disgraced themselves in Ghent, where they had been cordially received and hospitably entertained by the inhabitants in 1298. "The English, like the most ungrateful men that they were," says the Minorite author, "dragging after them their habitual tail, and eager to plunder the town of Ghent and to slay those that resisted them, set fire to it in four places, at the four corners, so to speak, in order that the people of Ghent, whilst endeavouring to extinguish the conflagration, should be less careful about the custody of their property."[340] In the _Eulogium Historiarum_, too, there is a passage where the word _cauda_ occurs in such a connection as to make it quite clear that the literal acceptation would be out of place, the more so, indeed, from the circumstance that the "tail" is bestowed, not on an Englishman, but on a Scot, and on a Scot no less genuine than Robert the Bruce. Referring to the capture and punishment of the Scottish King's adherents, the chronicler adds that Bruce himself found safety in flight and concealment, but that this did not in the least trouble Edward, who, now that his enemy's tail was completely cut off, was quite willing that he should wander about, wherever he found it easiest to save his life.[341] And if, in this instance, the amputation of the tail is a figure of speech intended to convey the notion of reducing to powerlessness, it might be argued, with some show of reason, that, even when applied to Englishmen, as in the lines which exultingly proclaim how the French King made them harmless by submitting them to similar treatment, the expression does not necessarily imply the actual possession of a real tail. This would add yet another passage to those which, if they stood by themselves, would justify some hesitation in accepting them as proofs of a serious conviction as to the alleged anatomical peculiarity of Englishmen. But when the fullest allowance has been made for all of them, they do not appreciably affect the evidence of the many witnesses who not only testify to the general acceptance of the phenomenon as an actual fact, but are also ready with a reason for its cause and an explanation of its origin. The first of these in age, and by no means the least in point of standing and respectability, is the biographer Goscelin. He is said to have been born at or near Terouanne, and was originally a monk in the monastery of St. Bertin, but was brought over to England, possibly as early as 1053, by Hermann, Bishop of Salisbury. Being a monk at Canterbury, he became interested in the founder of the see, and not only drew up an account of the translation of Augustine, a ceremony at which he was present, but also wrote a life of the Saint. He professes to have based this work on older records; and it may be assumed that it embodied local tradition as it existed prior to the Norman Conquest. It consists of two versions of the story of the life of the Apostle of England. One of them, known as the _Historia Minor Sancti Augustini_, is brief and compendious. The other, or _Historia Major_ as it is called, which enjoys the distinction of having been selected by the Bollandists for inclusion in their Acta Sanctorum, whilst identical with it in substance, has that greater fulness of details which its title suggests.

Both texts relate an incident which is said to have taken place in the province of Dorset, in a little village which, for its heathenish impiety, is likened to the nether regions themselves. There, the devil-inspired inhabitants not only refused to give the messenger of the Gospel a hearing, but also raised a very storm of mocking and contumely against the Saint and his companions. In their shameless audacity, they fastened the tails of sea-fish to the garments of the holy men. Indignant at this sacrilegious outrage, the Spirit of the Lord, through the mouth of Augustine, condemned those who had committed it to perpetuate in themselves and in all their posterity the ignominy to which they had submitted the saints of God.[342]

Shorn of its miraculous and spiteful sequel, and presented in a form to which critical history is not compelled to raise objection, the same episode reappears about the middle of the twelfth century, that is, approximatively, a hundred years later, in the _Gesta Pontificum_ of William of Malmesbury. The chronicler narrates how, at Cerne, in Dorsetshire, the infuriated inhabitants, at the instigation of the Evil One, attacked Augustine and his brethren, and expelled them from their midst, after having heaped insults upon them, and how they carried the indignity of their conduct so far as to fasten the tails of ray-fish, or skate, to the clothes of the holy missionaries. The attitude which William of Malmesbury credits Augustine with assuming in the circumstances seems less in keeping with what we elsewhere read of the Saint's temper than does the vengeful sentence which Goscelin makes him pronounce against the offenders. William says of him that, for Christ's sake, he bore their affronts patiently, modestly, and even joyfully, and shaking against them the dust of his feet, retired a distance of some three miles, as a precaution against further irritating the insane anger of the poor people.[343]

When next the story of the insult offered to Augustine reappears, the Divine vengeance, which Goscelin hardly does more than suggest, is unhesitatingly asserted, and is recorded with a fullness of details such as medieval credulity would readily accept as evidence of a genuine miracle. The writer to whom we owe the legend in this complete form is Robert Wace, of Jersey, the Anglo-Norman poet and author of the _Brut_, a rhymed chronicle written but a few years, probably not more than a decade, after William of Malmesbury's _Gesta Pontificum_. Differing from his predecessors who referred to a small village as the scene of the incident, Wace lays it in Dorchester itself, although the conduct which he attributes to its inhabitants seems in keeping with rural coarseness rather than with the more refined civilization of a county town:

"Saint Austine came and to the heathen folk He preached God's law. Full earnestly he spoke; But they, as men by nature vile and naught, Were careless of the holy truths he taught; And even as he stood before them, there, --One sent by God, God's precepts to declare-- They fastened to his garments tails of ray, And with those tails they drove the Saint away. Then Austine prayed that, for His servant's sake, The judgment of the Lord might overtake The impious scoffers and His wrath proclaim Against the men who did the deed of shame. And so it was and shall be through all time, In punishment of their detested crime: For, sooth to say, to every man among The rabble rout by whom the tails were hung There grew a tail; and thus, for evermore This token of disgrace the tailards bore; And all their progeny, from sire to son, Have suffered for the deed which then was done; And so 'tis now, for all the kith and kin Are tailards, too, in memory of the sin Incurred by those who, lewd and reprobate, Defiled the friend of God with tails of skate."[344]

Some fifty years after Robert Wace wrote his _Brut_, Layamon translated, or rather, paraphrased and expanded the poem. In this Old English version of it, St. Augustine's adventure is enriched by the addition of further details. Layamon's most interesting contribution to the history of the development of the legend consists of the information that an exaggerated notion as to the extent of the Saint's vengeance had, by this time, got abroad, and that foreigners now credited all Englishmen indiscriminately with the tails which the transgressors themselves and their posterity had alone been condemned to bear. That those tails were called "muggles", and that the men whom they disgraced were nicknamed "mugglings", are further circumstances for the knowledge of which we are indebted to Layamon. And the fact that, whilst one manuscript of his poem follows Wace with regard to the locality of the incident, another transfers it from Dorchester to Rochester, suggests a desire on the part of the scribe to exonerate the West Country, with which he may possibly have been connected.[345] In Sir F. Madden's prose rendering of the old English _Brut_, the whole episode is thus given:

"And so St. Austin drew southward, so that he came to Dorchester; there he found the worst men that dwelt in the land. He told them God's lore, and they had him in derision; he taught them Christendom, and they grinned at him. Where the Saint stood, and his clerks with him, and spake of Christ, as was ever their custom, there they approached to their injury, and took tails of rays and hanged them on his cope, on each side. And they ran beside, and threw at him with the bones, and afterwards attacked him with grievous stones. And so they did him shame and drove him out of the place. To St. Austin they were odious, and he became exceeding wroth; and he proceeded five miles from Dorchester, and came to a mount that was mickle and fair; there he lay on his knees in prayer and called ever toward God, that he should avenge him of the cursed folk, who had dishonoured him with their evil deeds. Our Lord heard him, in heaven, and sent his vengeance on the wretched folk that hanged the rays' tails on the clerks. The tails came on them--therefore they be tailed! Disgraced was all the race, for muggles they had; and in each company men call them mugglings, and every freeman speaketh foul of them, and English freemen in foreign lands have a red face for the same deed, and many a good man's son, in strange lands, who never came there nigh, is called base."[346]

The same occurrence is related in the English prose version of the _Brut_, with the addition of aggravating circumstances of violence and contumely. But what imparts special interest to the passage is the mention of the ingenious means adopted for the purpose of evading the hereditary curse:

"And in the menewhile that the peple turnede ham to God, seynt Austyn came to Rochestre and there prechede Goddis worde. The paynnemys therefor him scornede and caste uppon hym reyghe tayles, so that al his mantel was hongede ful of reyghe tailes; and for more despite thai keste uppon hym the guttis of reyghes and of other fysshe, wherefore the good man seynt Austyn was sore anoyede and grevede, and prayede to God that alle the childerne that shulde be borne afterward in that citee of Rochestre muste have tayles. And wherre the kyng herde and wiste of this vengaunce that was falle thurghe seynt Austynus praier, he lette make one howse in the honoure of God, wherein wymmen shulde have hire childerne, at the brugges ende: in whiche howse wymmen yette of the citee be delyveride of child."[347]

The _Story of Inglande_, written by Robert Manning of Brunne, in 1338, contains a section which has the marginal summary, "Qua de causa Anglici vocantur Caudati". In his explanation of the reason why Englishmen are called "tailards", Manning closely follows Wace, some of whose lines, indeed, he translates with literal accuracy. He closes his narrative of the incident, however, in the same manner as does Layamon, with a protest against the unfairness of attributing to all Englishmen indiscriminately the degrading stigma inflicted on a few only of his countrymen:

"But there he stod them to preche And ther savacion for to teche; Byhynd hym on his clothes they henge Righe taillis on a strenge. When they had don that vyleny They drof hym thenne wyth maistri; Fer weys they gan hym chace; Tailles they casten in hys face. Thys holy man God bisought, For they hym that vileny wrought, That on them and on al their kynde Tailled alle men schulde hem fynde; And God graunted al that he bad, For alle that kynde tailles had-- Taillis hadde and tailles have; Fro that vengaunce non may them save; For they wyth tailles the goodeman schamed, For tailles al Englische kynde ys blamed; In manie sere londes seyd Of tho tailles we have umbreyde."[348]

The Bibliothèque Nationale possesses a manuscript,[349] which is ascribed by experts to the fourteenth century, and in which the legend of St. Augustine and the tails--no longer those of ray-fish, however--supplies materials for a quaint satire against the inhabitants of Rochester. It begins with a mock-serious discussion as to the species of animals to which they belong. That they are not men is quite clear, for they have tails, and Aristotle has conclusively established that men have no tails. And yet those strange animals have something human about them, too--they reason and have laws. For all that, however, there remains the stern fact that they bear tails, and this quite precludes the possibility of classing them as perfect human beings. In the course of the satire reference is naturally made to the outrage of which St. Augustine was the victim. After giving an account of the saint's mission to England, the anonymous author continues: "As he went about from city to city, preaching, it happened that he preached in the city which is called Rochester. But, whilst he was preaching, the inhabitants of the city flocked together about him, and, deeming his words to be lies, subjected him to many insults. After reviling him with opprobrious words, they fastened tails of swine and of cows to the skirt of his garments, spat into his face, and drove him out of the city."[350] The saint prayed that they who had insulted him might be punished, to the end that the divinity of his mission should be brought home to them. At the conclusion of his prayer, he wept bitterly, but was comforted by receiving the assurance that his petition would be granted. And so, God, wishing to avenge the insult done to Him and to his servant, ordained that all who, from that time, might be born in the city of Rochester, should have tails, after the fashion of swine. And nothing could be done to prevent their having tails. From that day to this, the natives of Rochester have been tailed, and they shall remain tailed for ever. It is consequently evident that they are not human beings. Amongst the inconveniences resulting from this peculiarity of theirs, is that of not being able to sit down when they are angry; for, at such a time, their tails stand erect, as is the case with other animals.[351]

During the fourteenth century, too, the myth, in its restricted and local form, makes its appearance in Continental literature, other than that of France. It is referred to by Fazio degli Uberti, an Italian poet who lived between 1326 and 1360, and whom D. G. Rossetti deals with and translates in his work _Italian Poets chiefly before Dante_. In a description of England which Fazio gives in the _Ditta Mondo_, he says:

"Now this I saw not; but so strange a thing It was to hear, and by all men confirmed, That it is fit to note it as I heard, To wit, there is a certain islet here Among the rest where folk are born with tails,-- Short as are found in stags and suchlike beasts".[352]

Fazio is probably Boccaccio's authority for the statement, unaccompanied with any further details, however, that "certain Englishmen were born with tails".[353]

The chronicle which is commonly known as Alexander of Essebye's, and which exists in manuscript only, has been quoted as briefly stating that "when fish tails were despitefully thrown at him by certaine men of Dorsetshire", St. Augustine "was so furiously vexed therewith that he called upon God for revenge and He forthwith heard him and strake them with tails for their punishment". Greater interest attaches to the story as told in the English version of the _Golden Legende_. Though not less credulous than were his predecessors as to the punishment inflicted on the impious people who insulted the saint, the writer who interpolated the narrative--for it does not appear in the Latin original--prepares the way of the sceptic by limiting the duration of the penalty, and by testifying with an earnestness suggestive of personal knowledge to the immunity of some, at least, of those who were believed to be stricken for the transgression of their forefathers:

"After this Saynt Austyn entryd into Dorsetshyre and came into a towne whereas were wycked peple and refused his doctryne and prechyng utterly, and droof him out of the towne, castyng on him the tayles of thornback or like fisshes, wherefor he besought Almyghty God to shewe his jugement on them, and God sente to them a shameful token, for the children that were borne after in that place had tayles, as it is said, tyl they had repented them. It is sayd comynly that thys fyl at Strode in Kente; but, blessyd be God, at this day is no such deformyte."[354]

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the legend of the tails had undergone important modifications. The original account of the outrage and of its punishment was still current; but, by the side of it, there existed several versions which affected not merely the circumstances of time and place, but also the individuality of the persons concerned in the incident. We are indebted to Walter Bower, who expanded and continued Fordun's _Scotichronicon_, for an interesting passage in which the old story and its subsequent variants are presented together. The Scottish chronicler, taking Wace's narrative as his starting-point, relates that when St. Augustine was preaching the word of life to the heathen, amongst the West Saxons, in the county of Dorset, he came to a certain town where no one would receive him or listen to his preaching. They opposed him rebelliously in everything, contradicted all he said, did their utmost to distort his actions, on which they put sinister interpretations, and, impious to relate, carried their audacity so far as to sew and hang fish tails to his garments. But what they intended as an insult to the holy father brought eternal disgrace on themselves and on their posterity, and opprobrium on their unoffending country. He smote them in the hinder parts and cast lasting shame upon them by causing similar tails to grow both on their own persons and on those of their offspring. And here the Abbot of Inchcolm becomes particularly interesting by reason of the wholly new information which he imparts. He states that there was a special name for the punitive tail. "Such a tail," he says, "is called Mughel by the natives, in the language of their country; and because of this, the place where St. Augustine was thus insulted received the name of Muglington, that is, the town of the Muglings, and still bears it at the present day." It is to be regretted that the topographical indication is not more definite. The modern map of England knows no Muglington. Wherever it may have been, it would seem that it did not stand alone as a monument of St. Augustine's power and spite. According to Bower, it is also related that a similar indignity was done to him in the province of Mercia, by the inhabitants of a town called Thamewyth. But they were not allowed to go unpunished either; for, "as is known to all", they were put to shame by the infliction of the like opprobrious punishment.

It is from its concluding part, however, that Bower's account derives its chief importance and its value as a contribution to the history of the development of the myth. "Something similar," he says, "happened at a later period, during the exile of St. Thomas, Primate of England, when the people of Rochester, intending it as an insult to him, docked his horse's tail. But their iniquitous action was foiled of its purpose and recoiled on themselves; for it was found that thenceforth all the children born in that place were tailed."[355] From this we first learn that a new character had by this time assumed a part in the story. Hitherto, the responsibility for having endowed Englishmen with tails had rested with St. Augustine alone. And his monopoly of the doubtful honour had endured through four centuries. Henceforth, though he was not to disappear altogether, he was to have a rival.

In the case of Becket, as in that of his predecessor, there was a basis of historical fact on which to build up a legend.

The chroniclers Ralph de Diceto, Roger de Hoveden, and both William and Gervase of Canterbury,[356] who record the murder of Becket, and whose proximity, in point of time, to the events that took place on those memorable December days of the year 1170, gives them indisputable authority, all agree in narrating, with such slight variations in matters of detail as serve to show that they did not merely repeat each other, an incident which happened to the Archbishop shortly before his death. They state that Robert Broc, a groom of the royal bedchamber, who, together with Nigel de Sacheville, incumbent of Harrow, was solemnly excommunicated by the Primate, on Christmas day, had cut off the tail of Becket's horse, as an insult to its owner. According to the two brother-monks, the Archbishop made direct reference to this indignity in his interview with the four conspirators, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton. "The tail of a mare in my service," he said, "has been shamefully cut off, as if I could be disgraced by the docking of a brute beast."[357] It was not, however, for this cowardly and contemptible act of spite that Broc was excommunicated, but because, being a layman, he had appropriated ecclesiastical revenues. And, though William of Canterbury records that the very dogs refused to be fed by the hand of the man whom the Prelate had banned, neither he nor any of the other chroniclers refers to the infliction of tails on him or his posterity. It was only at a later date, and when Broc had been lost sight of, as the perpetrator of the outrage, that the miraculous punishment was thought of.

Although there is the evidence of Bower to show that, in his day, Becket's name had already begun to be connected with the legend of the tails, Augustine still continues to hold his own through the whole of the first half of the sixteenth century. It is he who figures as the hero, or the victim, in the account given by John Major, an account which is noteworthy by reason of the very cautious spirit in which it is written. It may be said to mark the beginning of a transition from unquestioning credulity to uncompromising scepticism. It also seems to imply that, so far as the author's reading of the chroniclers extended, he found the English, if not yet ready to deny the supernatural punishment of the insult offered to the saint, at least convinced that it had not been perpetuated through the ages. The chapter in which Major recapitulates the old story, is mainly devoted to the outward form and appearance of the English, and contains a great deal about "skiey influence". Thus, it comes of "skiey influence" that close by the Arctic pole people are of foul aspect. And, if in some parts of Africa men are born with the head of a dog, "this, too, is a matter of skiey influence and carries with it no other influence". After this preamble the author proceeds to relate the conversion of Kent--how Augustine laboured so strenuously that, in a short space of time, he brought to the faith the king himself and almost the whole people; how, passing on to Rochester, he began there, too, to preach the word of God; and how the common people derided him, and threw fish tails at the holy man. "Wherefore Augustine made his prayer to God that, for punishment of this sin, their infants should be born with tails, to the end they might be warned not to contemn the teachers of divine things. And, for this reason, as the English chroniclers relate, the infants were born with tails; but for a time only, and to the end that an unbelieving race might give credence to their teacher, was this punishment inflicted." The Scots and the Gauls, it is true, "assert the opposite". But, Major "cannot agree with them". And, further, the phenomenon having been only temporary, he gives it as his opinion that it had "very little to do with the skiey influence".[358]

Nicole Gilles whose "very elegant and copious annals of Gaul" were published in 1531, being a French chronicler, is one of those who believe that the divine anger has not ceased to manifest itself, and that the descendants of the men of Dorchester, who mocked and derided St. Augustine, still have "tails behind, like brute beasts, and are therefore called tailed Englishmen". It is worthy of notice that, owing, doubtless, to the misreading of some Latin text and to the intelligible confusion of _raia_ or _raria_, both of which are used to translate "rayfish", with the more familiar _rana_, Gilles makes the impious Dorchestrians hang frogs--"des _raynes_ ou grenouilles"--to St. Augustine's garments.[359]

Bellenden, who belonged to the next generation, took the liberty of introducing the Augustinian myth into his Scottish prose rendering of Hector Boece, although there was nothing in the Latin original to justify him in doing so.

"Quhen this haly man, Sanct Austine, wes precheand to the Saxonis in Miglintoun," he says, "thay wer nocht onlie rebelland to his precheing, but in his contemptioun thay sewit fische talis on his abilyements. Otheris alliegis thay dang him with skait rumpillis. Nochtheless, this derisioun succedit to thair gret displesoure: for God tuke on thaim sic vengeance, that thay and thair posteritie had lang talis mony yeris eftir. In memorie heirof, the barnis that are yit borne in Miglintoun hes the samin deformite, but the wemen havand experience thairof fleis out of this toun in the time of thair birth and eschapis this malediction be that way."[360]

Bower and the prose _Brut_ are obviously the authorities for Bellenden's statements, and it is not without interest to note that whilst drawing from the latter his knowledge of the subterfuge by means of which cunning mothers might secure for their children immunity from the consequences of the saint's vindictiveness, it is from his Scottish predecessor that he takes the name of the town which witnessed the affront, and in which the punishment was perpetuated. And the question arises whether the chronicler's apparently deliberate choice of Miglinton is to be taken as evidence that a place bearing that name, or rather nickname, really existed.

Though Dunbar's brief reference to the insult offered to St. Augustine proves nothing beyond his acquaintance with the legend, it may be quoted, for the sake of completeness. It occurs in the _Flyting with Kennedy_, at whom his adversary flings the jeer,

"he that dang Sanct Augustine with an rumple Thy fowll front had".[361]

The Frenchman Génébrard is the last of those who, as long as the story continued to be accepted or, at least, not openly scouted, connected it with Augustine. He confines himself to recording the outrage, and to stating, with due caution, that, because of it, the people of Dorchester "are said to have had tails like beasts". His own belief in the prodigy does not appear to have been very firm.[362]

Of those who, after Bower, present St. Thomas as the central figure in the incident, the first in date is a foreigner, Wilwolt of Schaumburg. This German gentleman errant visited England about the end of the fifteenth century, and an account of his travels was published in 1507. He appears to have been greatly impressed by the story of St. Thomas of Candlwerg, as he calls him, and relates how "he left behind him a wonderful token which will perhaps endure to the day of judgment". On one occasion, he says, riding like a pious and upright man, on his little ass, the holy man came to a certain village where he stopped to take some food. Here the country folk made fun of his lowly mount, and cut off the poor ass's tail. Thereupon, the dear saint complained to Almighty God, and prayed to such purpose that, even to this very day, all the boys that are born in that village bring with them into the world little tails rooted to their hinder parts. From this circumstance has arisen the byword which so greatly annoys the English: "Englishman, show your tail!" And continues Wilwolt, "I should like to see the foolhardy man who dared to call out, 'English tailard' in that same village. He would have to take himself off very quickly if he did not wish to be beaten to death." The German traveller also learnt how, at the right moment, women could avert from the expected child the grievous consequences of its forefathers' fault. They only had to cross the water and go into the next village.[363]

Another and better known foreigner, no less a personage, indeed, than Polydore Vergil, continues, at the same time that he considerably restricts, the legend of the tails. As narrated by him in the _Anglica Historia_, published in 1534, Becket's misadventure appears to have been one of the minor incidents in the quarrel between him and the king. It had become known that Henry had been moved to exclaim, "Wretched me! Can I not have peace in my own kingdom because of one priest? Is there none of all my subjects who will rid me of that annoyance?" And there were not wanting evil men who understood this to mean that, in his heart, he desired the death of the Archbishop who, in consequence, began to be generally neglected, despised, and hated. Such was the position of affairs when Thomas one day came to Stroud, on the Medway, near Rochester. There, the inhabitants, anxious to inflict some insult on the good father, now that he was in disgrace, did not hesitate to cut off the tail of the horse on which he was riding. By this act, however, it was on themselves that they brought lasting shame. For, by the judgment of God, it happened that the descendants of the men who had perpetrated this outrage were born with tails, like brute beasts. But if the learned Italian was superstitious enough to believe in the miraculous punishment of an offence which, at its worst, involved far less moral guilt than was incurred by the murderers of Becket, against whom no divine retribution was recorded, he was too intelligent not to see the absurdity of making it perpetual, and of inflicting it on the community at large, as earlier chroniclers had done. He admitted that the mark of infamy had not survived the family of the immediate offenders.[364]

The next and last writer of what may be called the period of credulity, though that credulity had begun to wane long before it reached its vanishing phase in him, was Guillaume Paradin, of Cuiseaux. He confesses to a suspicion that what tradition has handed down concerning the tails of Englishmen is mere nonsense, and apologizes for reproducing it, on the score that English chroniclers themselves report it quite seriously. The Becket legend which he thus introduces affords him an opportunity of adapting to the English the words of the Royal prophet, "He smote them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual shame"; and of perpetrating, at their expense, some doggerel lines of which he has the good sense not to acknowledge the authorship:--

Of old, some Britons docked the tail Of Becket's nag, they say, And that is why all Englishmen Have short tails to this day.[365]

By the middle of the sixteenth century, saints had ceased to command the same popular reverence as before, and their alleged miracles were put by many on the same level as the myths of antiquity. There is, consequently, from that date onwards an absolute change in the tone and temper of those who allude to the legend of the tails. Most of them, indeed, do so for the sole purpose of denying the miracle and of sneering at those who superstitiously gave it credence. The first and not least indignant of the denunciators is John Bale, Bishop of Ossory. After indicating the discrepancy between John Capgrave and Alexander of Esseby--that is, Ashby--who record that, "for castynge of fyshe tayles at thys Augustine, Dorsett shyre men had tayles ever after", and Polydore Vergil, who "applyeth it unto Kentysh men at Stroude, by Rochester, for cuttynge of Thomas Beckett's horse's tayle", the author of the _Actes of Englysh Votaryes_ says: "Thus hath England, in all other landes, a perpetual dyffamy of tayles by their wrytten legendes of lyes, yet can they not wele tell where to bestowe them trulye".[366] In another passage he inveighs still more bitterly against "the Spiritual Sodomytes" who "in the legends of their sanctyfied sorcerers", have "dyffamed the Englyshe posteryte with tayles", and to whom it is due "that an Englishman now cannot travayle in any other lande by way of merchandyce or anye other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most contumelyousslye throwne in his teeth, that all Englishmen have tayles". And concludes the Bishop in his wrath, "that uncomlye note and report have the nacyon gotten without recover, by these laysye and idell lubbers, the munkes and the prestes, whiche coulde fynde no matters to advance their canonysed Cayns by, or their Sayntes (as they call them) but manyfest lyes and knaveryes".[367]

Bale's _Actes_ appeared in 1546. Seventy years later, William Lambarde published a _Perambulation of Kent_. Coming to Stroud, in this topographical and historical account of his native county, he eagerly avails himself of the opportunity offered him to record his protest against the attribution of tails, not only to the natives of that locality, but to the Kentish men generally, and that--unkindest cut of all--by their own fellow countrymen. He is evidently acquainted with several versions of the story; but whilst denouncing the authors of all of them, he is particularly incensed against Polydore, whom he quite unjustly accuses of "lashing out further" than his authorities, and of endeavouring "to outly the lowdest Legendaries". It is bad enough that "the whole English nation should be earnestly flowted" with the "dishonourable note" of having tails; but what Lambarde obviously finds it more difficult to bear, and makes Polydore responsible for, is that "Kentish men be heere at home merily mocked". In his most entertaining contribution to the history of the legend, the Kentish apologist says:

"A name, or family of men, sometime inhabiting Stroude (saith Polydore) had tailes clapped to their breeches by Thomas Becket, for revenge and punishment of a dispite done to him, in cutting of the taile of his horse. The author of the new Legend saith, that after St. Thomas had excommunicated two Brothers (called Brockes) for the same cause, that the Dogges under the table would not once take bread at their hands. Such (belike) was the vertue of his curse, that it gave to brute beasts, a discretion and knowledge of the persons, that were in danger of it. Boetius (the Scotishe chronicler) writeth, that the lyke plague lighted upon the men of Midleton in Dorsetshire: who because they threwe Fish tailes in great contempt at Saint Augustine, were bothe themselves and their posteritie, stricken with tailis, to their perpetual infamy and punishment. All whiche their reportes (no doubt) be as true, as Ovides Historie of Diana, that in great angre bestowed on Actæon a Deares head with mighty anthlers.

"Much are the Western men bound (as you see) to Polydore, who taking the miracle from Augustine, applieth it to S. Thomas, and removing the infamous revenge from Dorsetshire, laieth it upon our men of Kent. But little is Kent, or the whole English nation beholding, either to him, or his fellowes, who (amongst them) have brought upon us this ignominie and note with other nations abrode, that many of them believe as verity, that we have long tailes and be monsters by nature, as other men have their due partes and members in usual number. Polydore (the wisest of the companye) fearing that issue might be taken upon the matter, ascribeth it to one speciall stocke and family, which he nameth not, and yet (to leave it the more uncertain) he saith, that, that family is worne out long since, and sheweth not when; he goeth about in great earnest (as in sundrie other things) to make the world beleave he cannot tell what: he had forgotten the Lawe whereunto an Hystorian is bound, 'Ne quid falsi audeat, ne quid veri non audeat'. That he should be bold as to tell the trueth, and yet not so bolde as to tell a lye."

To his credit, however, Lambarde does Polydore the justice of admitting that his history, "without all doubt", is "a worthy work", in places not blemished with such follies. But, seeing that he does insert them often and without discretion, he must be read with great suspicion and wariness. "For, as he was by office Collector of the Peter pence to the Popes gaine and lucre, so sheweth he himselfe throughout by profession, a coveteous gatherer of lying fables, fained to advance the Popish religion, kingdome and myter."[368]

In the seventeenth century, the story of the tails, which, by that time, however, had ceased to be attributed to Englishmen at large and were humorously regarded as distinctive of Kentish men alone, was incidentally referred to by several poets. It supplied Sir John Mennis, the author of _Musarum Deliceæ_, with a coarse joke. Andrew Marvel, in his _Loyal Scot_, cites it in illustration of the danger incurred by provoking the anger of a prelate:--

"There's no 'Deliver us' from a Bishop's wrath: Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales, Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales; For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tails."[369]

In Drayton's _Polyolbion_, the "Blazons of the Shires", as set forth by Helidon, open with the lines:

"Kent first in our account, doth to itself apply (Quoth he) this Blazon first, 'Long tails and Liberty!'"[370]

Butler, in his _Hudibras_, has a couplet which declares that:

tails by nature sure were meant As well as beards, for ornament.

According to an annotator, "Mr. Butler here alludes to Dr. Bulwer's _Artificial Changeling_", where, besides the story of the Kentish men, near Rochester, who had tails clapped to their breeches by Thomas à Becket, he gives an account, on the authority of "an honest young man of Captain Morris's company in Lieutenant-General Ireton's company", of how "at Cashell in the County of Tipperary, in the province of Munster, in Carrick Patrick church, seated on a hill or rock, stormed by the Lord Inchequine, and where were neare 700 put to the sword and none saved but the Mayor's wife and his son, there were found among the slain of the Irish, when they were stript, divers with tailes near a quarter of a yard long. The relator being very diffident of the truth of this story, after enquiry was ensured of the certainty thereof by forty souldiers, that testified upon their oaths that they were eyewitnesses, being present at the action." With such testimony in support of his assertion that "the rump bone among brutish and strong-docht nations doth often spread out with such an excrescence or beastly emanation", Dr. Bulwer is not disinclined to believe in the possession of tails by the inhabitants of Stroud.

In the _Church History of Britain_ by Dr. Bulwer's contemporary, Thomas Fuller, modern scepticism again asserts itself. Quoting from Hierome Porter, in the _Flowers of the Lives of the Saints_, to the effect that when the villagers in Dorsetshire beat Augustine and his fellows, and in mockery fastened fish tails at their backs, in punishment hereof, "all that generation had that given them by nature, which so contemptibly they fastened on the backs of these holy men", Fuller adduces this to show that "most of the miracles assigned unto Augustine, intended with their strangeness to raise and heighten, with their levity and absurdity do depress and offend, true devotion". In equal contempt of those who relate such a story as that of the Dorsetshire folk and of those who accept it, the author exclaims, "Fie for shame! He needs an hard plate on his face that reports it, and a soft place in his head that believes it".[371]

In his _Worthies of England_, the same writer discusses at some length the origin of the nickname applied to the Kentish men. "Let me premise," he says, "that those are much mistaken, who first found the proverb on a miracle of Austin the Monk, for the scene of this lying wonder was not laied in any part of Kent, but pretended many miles off, nigh Cerne in Dorsetshire." His own opinion is that the saying is "first of outlandish extraction and cast by Forrainers as a note of disgrace on all the English, though it chanceth to stick only on the Kentish men at this day". In support of this view, Fuller relates the incident of the quarrel "betwixt Robert, Brother of Saint Louis, King of France and our William Longspee, Earle of Salisbury". Continuing his disquisition he says:--

"Some will have the English so-called from wearing a pouch or poake (a bag to carry their baggage in) behind their backs, whilst probably the proud Monsieurs had their lacquies for that purpose; in proof whereof, they produce ancient Pictures of the English Drapery and Armory, wherein such conveyances doe appear. If so, it was neither sin nor shame for the common sorte of people to carry their own necessaries; and it matters not much whether the pocket be made on either side, or wholly behind. If any demand how this nickname (cut off from the rest of England) continues still entailed on Kent. The best conjecture is, because that County lieth nearest to France, and the French are beheld as the first founders of this aspersion. But if any will have the Kentish men so-called from drawing and dragging boughs of trees behind them, which afterwards they advanced above their heads, and so partly cozened, partly threatened, King William the Conqueror to continue their ancient customes; I say, if any will impute it to this original, I will not oppose."[372]

The incident upon which Fuller bases the explanation which he considers most plausible, without, however, expressing himself dogmatically with regard to it, is related by the chronicler Willam Thorne, and also forms the subject of an old ballad quoted by Thierry. So modern an historian as Lappenberg thinks that "perhaps the tradition is not unfounded, that the Kentish army, advancing under the covering of branches from the trees, might have appeared to the enemy as a wood, until, standing in face of them and casting down their leafy screen, they at once appeared threatening with sword and spear". Freeman rejects the story altogether. But even its truth, which Fuller may be excused for accepting, would hardly support his theory. The only credit which it deserves is perhaps the negative one of being a little less fanciful than that put forward by Fynes Moryson, who states that "the Kentish men of old were said to have tayles, because trafficking in the Low Countries, they never paid full payments of what they did owe, but still left some part unpaid".[373]

The author of the early sixteenth-century _Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow_, contributes no less than three other explanations, of which one bears considerable resemblance to that favoured by Fuller. After relating how he dropped into an alehouse, whilst travelling in "that noble county of Kent", he continues:--

"The ale being good, and I in good company, I lapt in so much of this nappy liquor, that it begot in mee a boldnesse to talk and desire of them to know what was the reason that the people of that country were called Long-tayles. The hoast said, all the reason that ever he could heare was, because the people of that country did use to goe in side-skirted coates. There is (sayd an old man that sat by) another reason that I have heard: that is this. In the time of the Saxons' conquest of England there were divers of our countrymen slaine by treachery, which made those that survived more carefull in dealing with their enemies, as you shall heare. After many overthrowes that our countrymen had received by the Saxons, they dispersed themselves into divers companies into the woods, and so did much damage by their suddaine assaults to the Saxons, that Hengist, their king, hearing the damage that they did (and not knowing how to subdue them by force) used this policy. Hee sent to a company of them and gave them his word for their liberty and safe returne, if they would come unarmed and speake with him. This they seemed to grant unto, but for their more security (knowing how little hee esteemed oaths or promises) they went every one of them armed with a shorte sword, hanging just behind under their garments, so that the Saxons thought not of any weapons they had: but it proved otherwise, for when Hengist his men (that were placed to cut them off) fell all upon them, they found such unlooked a resistance that most of the Saxons were slain, and they that escaped, wond'ring how they could do that hurt, having no weapons (as they saw), reported that they strucke downe men like lyons with their tayles; and so they, ever after, were called Kentish Long-tayles. I told them this was strange, if true, and that their countries honor bound them more to believe in this, than it did me. Truly, Sir, said my hoastesse, I thinke we are called Long-tayles, by reason our tales are long, that we use to passe the time withall, and make ourselves merry."

Du Cange considered the problem more seriously, without, however, being able to find a satisfactory solution. He suggests that the epithet "tailed" may have been applied to Englishmen because of the excess to which they carried the fashion of wearing toes of extravagant length to their shoes, but admits that the explanation does not greatly appeal to him. With still more diffidence he hints at the possibility of considering the Latin "caudatus" as equivalent to either "foppish" or "cowardly". But whilst none of the cited instances of its use justifies the former of these interpretations, there are only a very few of them that can be strained into imparting even slight plausibility to the latter. Neither does there appear to be anything to support Professor Wattenbach's suggestion that Englishmen may have been called "tailed" because of the way in which they wore their hair. Finally, a work entitled _England under the Normans_ has a chapter on the measurement of land, in which the author states that "there was a mile peculiar to Kent, as well as a customary field admeasurement", and that "these 'long tales' are possibly the 'long tails' of which the county used to be so proud". The history of the medieval myth does not lead to the belief that either Englishmen generally, or, as here stated, Kentishmen in particular, ever looked upon the nickname otherwise than as an insult.

The attempts that have been made to fix upon some actual fact as originating the attribution of tails to Englishmen seem as uncalled for as most of them are fanciful and absurd.[374] They are all based on the hypothesis that the epithet "caudatus", "coué", and "tailard" was first applied for some reason other than the belief in the existence of a tail, and that only subsequently, if, indeed, ever, was it taken literally. But our investigation has proved that there is nothing to warrant this assumption. It has been shown that, on the contrary, the actual monstrosity was accepted as a fact from the outset. Nor does it seem impossible to explain how this came about. Given the insult offered to St. Augustine, about which there is no room for scepticism, it only requires a knowledge of the medieval spirit to account for the sequel. Impressed by the sanctity of the apostle of England and by the greatness, or, indeed, the divinity of his mission, the early biographer looked upon it as inevitable that the sacrilege of those who dishonoured him should draw down upon them the wrath of Heaven. Was not the disrespect of the children who called the Prophet "bald head" visited upon them? The conviction that this should be the case easily led to the assumption that it was. And a very slight effort of imagination sufficed to devise a punishment suited to the offence. It was suggested by the very nature of the impious deed. And what, to the chronicler, seemed the application of an obvious principle--that the transgression should fall back upon the transgressor--was accepted by the credulity of the age. Then there was the animosity of other nations, of France in particular, and of Scotland, her ally. If, at home, the manifestation of divine anger and of saintly power was thought to be limited to the kith and kin of the offenders, such nicety of distinction was ignored abroad. It suited the enemies of England that all Englishmen should be "tailards", and "tailards" they were universally and indiscriminately called.

FOOTNOTES: for THE "LONG-TAIL" MYTH

[291] Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_, pp. 171-2.

[292] Communicated by Professor Wattenbach, of Berlin, to the _Anzeiger für Kunde der Deutschen Vorzeit_, 1874.

[293]

Anglicus a tergo caudam gerit: est pecus ergo; Cum tibi dicit "Ave", sicut ab hoste cave.

[294] La diversité des contrées excitait entre eux des dissensions, des haines et des animosités virulentes, et ils se faisaient impudemment les uns aux autres toutes sortes d'affronts et d'insultes. Ils affirmaient que les Anglais étaient buveurs et coués.--_Jacques de Vitry_, Traduction Guizot, p. 292.

[295] Mirum est quomodo non erubescunt fieri similes jumentis insipientibus, ut videantur animalia caudata; nec sufficit eis honor creacionis, quod est quod inter cetera animalia eas Deus fecit sine cauda. In hoc caudatae contumeliam Deo faciunt, cujus opus imperfectum et insufficiens, quantum in ipsis est ostendunt, dum creacioni suae caudas addunt. Item, mirum est quod non erubescunt esse caudatae, cum Anglici erubescunt caudati vocari.--_Tractatus de Diversis Materiis praedicalibus_, Société de l'Histoire de France, vol. 60, p. 234.

[296] Tota injuriarum de rege Anglorum et caudatis suis ultio quaeritur; Graeculi enim et Siculi omnes hunc regem sequentes Anglos et caudatos nominabant.--_Richard of Devizes_, English History Society, p. 20.

[297] _Richard Coer de Leon_, Weber's Metrical Romances, vol. ii, 31.

[298] P. 83.

[299] _Ibid._

[300]

. . . la Grifonaille De la vile et la garçonaille, Gent estraite de Sarazins, Ramponouent noz pelerins; Lor deiz es oilz nos aportouent E chiens pudneis nus apelouent E chascon jor nos laidissouent E nos pelerins mordrissouent E les jetouent es privees Dont les oevres furent provees. --Monument. Germ., vol. xxvii, p. 535.

[301] P. 95.

[302]

Rex in Rupella regnat, et amodo bella Non timet Anglorum, quia caudas fregit eorum.

[303]

Ad nostras caudas Francos, ductos ut alaudas Perstrinxit restis, superest Lincolnia testis.

[304] Fertur etiam comes Atrabatensis super his dixisse cum cachinno, "Nunc bene mundatur magnificorum exercitus Francorum a caudatis".--Matthew Paris, vol. v, 134.

[305] Comes Atrabatensis rapiens verbum ab ore ejus, more Gallico reboans et indecenter jurans, audientibus multis, os in haec convitia resolvit, dicens, "O timidorum caudatorum formidolositas, quam beatus, quam mundus praesens foret exercitus, si a caudis purgaretur et caudatis".--_Id._, vol. v, p. 151.

[306] Erimus, credo, hodie, ubi non audebis caudam equi attingere.--_Ibid._

[307] According to another account, based on Joinville's narrative, Artois "was slain in the town, and his surcoat with the royal French lilies was exhibited to the Moslems as a proof that the King of the Franks had fallen".--Oman, _The Art of War in the Middle Ages_, p. 346.

[308] The authorities for this incident are:--

(I) _Rishanger_, "Tunc accesserunt ad Philippum, Regem Franciae, quibus grata fuit regni turbatio; et ejus bilem contra Anglicos commoverunt, dicentes turpe fore sibi, gentique suae, ut a caudatis taliter tractarentur", p. 130-1.

(II) _The Chronicle of Lanercost_, "Hoc anno orta est guerra in Neustria inter Francos et Anglos, apud Depe, dum cives illius loci inhumane Portuenses nostros caede et rapina afficiunt, occasione unius rudentis, quinimmo elatione sui principis provocati, videlicet, Karoli fratris Regis Franciae, qui odium conceperat gentis nostrae, eo quod non potuit fratrem proprium regno supplantare, Regis Edwardi consilio fulcitum in hoc parte. Nam, ut virus conceptum evidentius evomeret, multas peregrinis et scholasticis irrogavit molestias, quosdam etiam pauperes suspendio trucidavit, et canes vivos, eorum ut reputabat similes, lateribus eorum appendit", p. 150.

(III) Henri Knighton, "Et cum (Normanni) die quadam sex naves anglicanas obvias habuissent, easdem hostiliter aggressi, duas ex ipsis continuo perimerunt, suspendentes homines in navibus ad trabes navium suarum, et sic per mare navigantes, nullam faciebant differentiam inter canem et Anglicum", vol. i, p. 336.

[309]

Hoc quatuor cullos Gallorum tempore pullos Vincent caudati, pro caudis improperati.

[310] Wright, _Political Poems and Songs_ (Rolls Series), vol. i.

[311]

O gens Anglorum, morum flos gesta tuorum, Cur tu Francorum procuras damna bonorum, Servorum Christi, quos tractas crimine tristi? Et servant isti fidem quam bis renuisti; Sub specie casti fraudem tu semper amasti. Scindas annosam caudam quam fers venenosam, Exaudi praesto tu praesul et memor esto: Qui te caudavit Deus ipsum sanctificavit. --Wright, op. cit. vol. ii, p. 127-8.

[312]

Le Roy Engloys se faisoyt appeler Le roy de France, par s'appellation; A voulu hors du pays mener Les bons Françoys horz de leur natyon. Or est il mort à Sainct Fiacre en Brye. Du pays de France ils sont tous deboutez: Il n'est plus mot de ces Engloys couez. Mauldicte en soyt tres toute la lignye. --Chanson xiv, Edit. L. Du Bois, p. 173.

[313] "Arrière, Englois coués, arrière." The poem was discovered by M. Paul Meyer, and published in _Romania_, 1892, p. 51.

[314] (Les Anglais) s'en alèrent à Rouen par eaue et par terre. Et a leur département, firent lesdiz Parisiens grand huée, en criant: "A la Keuwe!"--Chap. 198: De l'an 1436.

[315]

Le noble roy me voulut bailler garde, Pour me garder que point ne fusse prise, Que refusay, disant que n'avoye guarde, Et que j'avois guect et arrière garde, Pour desrompre des couez l'entreprise. --Arch. du Nord de la France, nouv. ser., i, 376.

[316]

Incontinant vous gaignerez la guerre Contre le roy coué, vostre adversaire. --_Poés. fr. des XV^e et XVI^e Siècles_, vol. ii, p. 80.

[317]

Allez, infectz, gloutons, puans, punais, Godons couez, que jamais ne vous voye. --_Ibid._, p. 82.

[318]

Car leur grandeur est droite orribleté Quant on les voit aler par le chemin, Mais leur queue mettent comme un mastin Soubz leur jambes, que rumeur leur commande. --_OEuvres complètes_ (Société des Anciens Textes), vol. v, p. 20.

[319]

RONDEL

(Les Anglais out une queue)

Certres plus fors sont les Anglès Que les Françoiz communement.

Les Françoiz portent petit fès; Certres plus fors sont les Anglès.

Car deux tonneaux portent adès Et une queue proprement.

Certres plus fort sont les Anglès Que les Françoiz communement. --_OEuvres_, vol. iv, p. 130.

[320] _OEuvres_, vol. v, p. 48.

[321] _OEuvres_, vol. v, p. 80.

[322]

Hé! cuidez vous que je me joue, Et que je voulsisse aller En Engleterre demourer? Ils ont une longue coue.--Chanson xviii, p. 177.

[323]

Ce Cat nonne vient de Calais, Sa mère fut Cathau la Bleue; C'est du lignage des Anglois, Car il porte très longue queue.

--Du Cange, sub voce _caudatus_.

[324]

Si acquerrez loz, Rides, angelotz, L'or, la chair, et l'os Des Angloys couez.

[325] Je scay que je suis monstré au doigt par les rues depuis que je chargeay si bien les Anglois couez qui descendoient et prenoient terre à Dieppe.

--Act II, sc. 6.

[326]

Les goîtres et les écrouelles, Après que des Anglois quouez Nos corbeaux furent engouez, Ont été mis par rouelles. --_Rome Rid._, st. xcvi.

[327] La plupart des Anglais ont le bout de l'os sacrum, que l'on nomme coccyx, qui leur avance, ce qui fait une espèce de queue.--Quoted by Godefroy sub voce _coé_.

[328]

Sunt praedicti clerici nuncii caudati, De terra perfidiae falsa procreati.--Lib. ix, cap. 32.

[329] Venit exercitus multus a rege Scotorum missus, mille quingenti equitantium et XL millia peditum, per clivum montis descendens ex opposito de Dunbar, praeparatus ad bellum per turmas suas. Quod cum vidissent novi castrenses, et ex visione tali jam laeti effecti, mox eorum vexilla in propugnasculis castri erexerunt, clamantes ad nostras et eos probrose vocantes canes caudatos et talia quaeque, insuper comminantes in mortem et caudarum abscisionem.

--Hemingburgh, II, 103.

[330] Cumque venissent in mora juxta Anandiam, ecce incolae ejusdem provinciae adunati venientes improperabant eis, vocantes eos canes caudatos, et prae paucitate eos contemnentes, eo quod pedestres sui longe fuerant ab eis separati.

--_Id._, II, 146-7.

[331] (Scoti) quasi securi, non posuerunt de nocte vigiles, sed cum jocunditate vinum bibentes, propter paucitatem partis adversae eam parvipendio habuerunt, depromentes cantus et dicentes quod-- Anglici caudati pro caudis vituperati.

De caudis eorum, ut dixerunt, funes sibi facerent ad seipsos Anglos in crastino vinciendos.--Bower, II, 304-5. _The Book of Pluscarden_ represents the Scots as saying "quod Anglicos caudatos per eorum caudas ad suspendium traherent".--Lib. ix. cxxvii.

[332] Bower, loc. cit.

[333]

Caude causantur, regnarunt, apocopantur, Privantur caude, fas fandi, "Scotia plaude". --Wright, _Political Songs_, p. 375.

[334] Ross, _The Book of Scottish Poems_, vol. i, p. 173.

[335]

Anglicus a tergo caudam gerit; est pecus ergo. Anglice caudate, cape caudam, ne cadat a te. Ex causa caudae manet Anglica gens sine laude.

[336] Skelton, vol. iii, p. 186 _et seq._

[337] See above, p. 262.

[338] Illo tempore baronibus illuxerat dies sanctificatus, ibi quicunque fugerat Anglicus est caudatus, plenus versutiis, fallax et instabilis et exanimatus.--P. 223.

[339] See above, p. 266.

[340] Anglici enim, sicut ingratissimi homines, ... consuetam trahentes caudam, et villam dictam spoliare cupientes et sibi resistentes trucidare, eam in quatuor locis, quasi in quatuor angulis, incenderunt, ut sic Gandenses nitentes ignem exstinguere, circa custodiam bonorum suorum essent minus cauti.--P. 7.

[341] Prostrati sunt autem omnes Scotti et per undique sparsi ac desolati, decollati, incarcerati, suspensi, distracti, destructi, membratim separati, nisi ille solus fugitivus Robertus le Bruys, qui in latibulis circumvagat, sicut latro vel vispilio. Rex vero de eo nihil curans ipsum permittit errare ubicumque melius vitam suam possit salvare, quia cauda sua penitus amputatur.--Vol. iii, p. 191.

[342] As Goscelin is the first writer in whom there occurs mention of the insult offered to St. Augustine and of its punishment, and as it consequently seems to be with him that the "tail" myth originated, both his versions of the incident are here given:--"Hinc divertens dux verbi Domini, successit tandem cuidam profanae villulae in Provincia quae dicitur Dorseta; ubi daemoniaca plebicola Sanctos Dei omnibus opprobriis ac ludibriis dedecoravere; adeo ut (quod etiam referri injuria est) productas piscium caudas ingererent. Unde indignatus Spiritus Domini in hujus auctores sceleris et in omnem progeniem illorum suum dedecus per os Augustini vatis perpetualiter sententiavit; et pravis propriam ignominiam, Sanctis vero perennem gloriam refudit" (_Anglia Sacra_, II, p. 67).--"Cumque (Augustinus) provinciam quae Dorsete appellatur, attigisset, et ubique ut Angelus Domini reciperetur, simulque auditorum fide quos pasceret pasceretur, incidit in quamdam villam, velut in tartaream Plutonis sedem. Ibi plebs impia, tenebris suis excaecata, et divinam lucem exosa, non solum audire nequibat vivifica documenta, verum tota ludibriorum et opprobriorum tempestate in Sanctos Dei debacchata, longe proturbat eos ab omni possessione sua; nec manu pepercisse creditur effraenis audacia. At Dei nuntius, juxta Dominicum praeceptum et apostolorum exemplum, excusso etiam pulvere pedum in eos, dignam suis meritis sententiam (non maledicentis voto, quia omnium salutem optabat; sed divino judicio et Eliae typo) atrocibus injecit, quatenus Sanctorum contemptores tam in ipsis quam in omnibus posteris suis, debita poena redargueret, qui vitae mandata repulissent. Fama est, illos effulminandos, prominentes marinorum piscium caudas Sanctis appendisse; et illis quidem gloriam sempiternam peperisse, in se vero ignominiam perennem retorsisse, ut hoc dedecus degeneranti generi, non innocenti et generosae imputetur patriae" (Bollandists, _Acta Sanctorum_, vol. for May, p. 375).

[343] "Aggrediuntur ergo virum et sotios furiatis mentibus incolae, et magnis dehonestatum injuriis, ita ut etiam caudas racharum vestibus ejus affigerent, impellunt, propellunt, expellunt. Patienter ille et modeste gaudensque pro nomine Jhesu contumeliam tulit, et, ne magis miserorum irritaret insaniam, excusso pedum in eos pulvere, longe quasi miliariis tribus recessit."--_De Gestis Pontificum_, lib. ii, § 84.

[344]

Sains Augustins les sermona Et la loi Deu lor preeça. Cil furent de male nature Que de lor sermon n'orent qure. La ou li sains lor sermonoit Et la loi Deu lor anonçoit, A ses dras de tries lor pendoient Keues de raies qu'il avoient; Od les keues l'on envoièrent Et bien longement le cachièrent. Et il proia nostre signor Que d'icele grant deshonor Et de cele grant avilance Ait en ax s'ire et demostrance. Et il si orent voirement Et aront pardurablement, Car trestot cil qui l'escarnirent Et qui les keues li pendirent Furent coë et coës orent, Ne onques puis perdre ne's porent. Tot cil ont puis esté coé, Qui furent de tel parenté; Keues ont de tries en la car, En ramanbrance de l'escar Qu'il firent al Deu ami Qui des keues l'orent laidi. --Wace, _Brut_, ll. 14165 _et seq._, B. M. copy, vol. ii, p. 251.

[345] The obnoxious tail appears to have been passed on to Cornwall. In his _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, Mr. Baring Gould states that, as a child, he firmly believed, on the authority of his nurse, that all Cornishmen were born with tails. It required the solemn assurance of a native to convince him of the contrary.

[346] Lines 29,544 _et seq._

[347] Early English Text Society, Part I, p. 97.

[348] Lines 15,193-15,212.

[349] Printed by Wright in his _Reliquiae Antiquae_.

[350] "Cumque de civitate in civitatem praedicando transiret, contigit ut in civitate quae Roucestria dicitur semel praedicaret. Ipso autem praedicante, concives civitatis accesserunt, et verba ejus mendacia reputantes, multa ei obprobria intulerunt. Post multorum vere obprobriorum angustiam, caudas porcorum et vaccarum fimbreis vestimentorum ejus alligantes, in faciemque ejus conspuentes, ipsum de civitate ejicerunt."

[351] "Volens igitur Deus de obprobrio sibi servoque suo illato vindictam assumere, instituit ut omnes qui ex tunc in civitate Roucestriae nascerentur caudas ad modum porcorum haberent.... Non tamen potuit auferri quin caudas haberent; ex tunc enim et adhuc et in aeternum existent caudati.... Quod autem univoce homines non sunt, ex quo caudas habent manifestum est.... Cum igitur caudas habent, contigit ut cum irascuntur caudas erigunt, quapropter cum irascuntur sedere nequeunt."

[352]

I' nol vidi, ma tanto mi fu nova Cosa ad udir, e per tutti si avvera, Che di notar, come l'udii, mi giova, Che fra le altre una isoletta v'era, Dove con coda la gente vi nasce Corta, qual l'ha un cervo o simil fera. --Lib. iv, cap. 23.

[353] Quoted by Godefroy, _Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française_, from Boccace, Nobles malh., vi, 9, f. 153, ed. 1515.

[354] _The Lyf of Saynt Austyn_, Golden Legende, clxxxiiii, ed. 1483.

[355] "Cum apud occidentales Saxones, in pago Dorsetensi, beatus Augustinus verbum vitae gentilibus praedicaret, venit in vicum quendam, ubi eum nemo suscipere vel ejus praedicationem audire voluit. Sed cùm in omnibus ei rebelles existerent, et cunctis quae ab eo dicebantur contradicerent, et omnia sinistrâ interpretatione obnubilare conarentur, quod dictu nefandum est, caudas piscium in ejus vestibus suere et supendere non timuerunt. Sed quod ipsi in Sancti patris injuriam facere crediderunt, sibi et suis posteris in dedecus sempiternum, et innocenti patriae verterunt in opprobrium. Nam percussit eos in posteriora, opprobrium sempiternum dans illis, ita ut in partibus pudendis, tam in ipsis quàm eorum successoribus, similes caudae nascerentur. Vocatur autem hujusmodi cauda ab indigenis patriâ linguâ Mughel; unde et villa, in qua beato Augustino hujusmodi irrogata est injuria, nomen sortita est Muglington, id est villa Muglingorum, usque in praesentem diem. Fertur etiam quòd, eorum exemplo, in provincia Merciorum, in villa quae Thamewyth dicitur, beato viro ab incolis loci simile dedecus factum fuerit; sed non impune: quia tam ipsi quam eorum posteri, sicut omnibus notum est, pari poena et opprobrio verecundati sunt. Simile postea accidit tempore exilii beati Thomae primatis Angliae, quod ad ejus opprobrium, ut aestimabant, sed mentita est iniquitas sibi, illi de Rocestria deturpaverunt et absciderunt caudam caballi ejus; unde et posteri eorum illic nati inventi sunt caudati."--_Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon cum Supplementis et Continuatione Walteri Boweri_, lib. ix, cap. 32; ed. Edin., 1747.

[356] Ralph de Diceto, i, 342; Roger de Hoveden, ii, 14; Gervase of Canterbury, i, 225; William of Canterbury, _Materials for History of Thomas Becket_, i, 130.

[357] Jumentum in nominis mei contemptum, tanquam in diminutione bestiae dehonestari possim, cauda truncatum est.

[358] B. ii, c. ix.

[359] "En l'an cinq cens iiii^{xx}xix, Sainct Augustin fut par Saint Grégoire, lors pape de Romme, envoyé en Angleterre pour prescher et publier la foy de Jesu-christ, et à sa prédication se firent baptizer Eldret, roy d'Angleterre, et sa gent. Et advint que ledit Sainct Augustin alla pour prescher en ung territoire qu'on appelle Dorocestre, auquel lieu les gens d'icelluy territoire, par mocquerie et dérision luy attachèrent à ses habillemens des raynes ou grenouilles. Et depuis ce temps, par pugnition divine, ceulx qui naissoient audit territoire out des queues par derrière comme bestes brutes, et les appelle on Anglois couez."--_Les très élégantes et copieuses Annales ... des Gaules_; ed. 1531, fol. 27.

[360] Bellenden's Boece, B. ix, c. 17.

[361] Dunbar's Poems, ii, p. 15.

[362] "Cum Augustinus juxta Dorocaestriam predicaret, gentes illius loci caudas Rariarum vestibus illius appendebant. Hinc ipsi et eorum posteri caudas sicut pecudes referuntur habuisse."--Ed. 1609, B. M. copy.

[363] "Nit unbillich wirt der selbig lib heilig (Sant Thomas von Candlwerg) wert gehalten, zu dem das man in seiner heiligen legend, lumpartica historia, wie eins reines säligen lebens er gewesen, hat er auch ein merklich zaichen, das vielleicht bis an den jüngsten tag wert, hinter im verlassen; den in seinem leben reit er auf ein zeit als ein gerechter, frommer man, auf seinem eslein, auf ein dorf zu essen. In dem spotteten die baurn seiner reuterei und schnitten seinem esl den schwanz ab. Darumb beklagt sich der lib heilig, das noch auf den heutigen tag alle die knaben, die in dem dorf geboren werden, schwenzlein, das sie zegelein nennen, ob dem hindern an der wurzln an die welt bringen. Daraus ist das sprichwort entsprungen, das die Englosen hoch vertreust: Engelman, den sterz her! Und ich wolt den fraidigen gern sehen, der in dem selben dorf 'Englsterz' schreien dörft. Er müst sich kurz austreen, wolt er nit erschlagen werden. Wölicher frauen aber, der lust oder zeit in irer geberung wirdet, das sie nit mer, dan über das wasser, in das ander dorflein kumbt, gebürt ir kint an (ohne) schwanz."--_Die Geschichten und Taten Wilwolts von Schaumburg_, in the Publications of the Stuttgart Literary Society, vol. for 1859, p. 78.

[364] "Haec et talia eiusmodi ita regem Henricum moverunt, ut ira vehementer accensus, aliquando exclamavit: 'Me miserum, non possum in meo regno pacem cum uno sacerdoti habere? Nec quisquam meorum omnium est, qui hac molestia liberare velit?' Ex huiusmodi vocibus, fuerunt improbi nonnulli, quibus visa est occulta voluntas regis esse, ut Thomas è medio tolleretur, qui propterca velut hostis regis habitus, jam tum coepit sic vulgo negligi, contemni, ac odio haberi, ut cum venisset aliquando Strodum, qui vicus situs est ad ripam Medueiae fluminis, quod flumen Rocestriam alluit, eius loci incolae cupidi bonum patrem ita despectum ignominia aliqua afficiendi, non dubitarint amputare caudam equi, quem ille equitaret, seipsos perpetuo probro obligantes; nam postea, nutu Dei, ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere, qui id facinus fecissent, nati sint instar brutorum animalium caudati. Sed ea infamiae nota jampridem una cum gente illa eorum hominum, qui peccarint, deleta est."--Ed. 1610, p. 214.

[365] "_Anglos quosdam caudatos esse._ Suspicabar quod de Anglorum caudis traditur, nugatorium esse, nec hoc meminissem loco, nisi ipsi Anglicarum rerum conditores id serio traderent: nasci videlicet homines, instar brutorum animalium caudatos apud Strodum Angliae vicum, ad ripam fluvii Medueiae, qui Roffensem, sive Rocestrensem agrum alluit. Narrantque ejus vici incolas, jumento quod D. Thomas Canthuariensis episcopus insideret, per ludibrium caudam amputasse, ob idque divina ultione adnatas incolis ejus loci caudas, ut in hos fatidici regis carmen torqueri possit: 'Percussit eos (inquit) in posteriora eorum, opprobrium sempiternum dedit illis'. De hujusmodi caudis quidam in hunc modum lusit:--

Fertur equo Thomae caudam obtruncasse Britannos, Hinc Anglos caudas constat habere breveis."

--_Angliae Descriptionis Compendium, per Gulielmum Paradinum Cuiselliensem_, 1545, p. 69.

[366] Ed. 1546, pp. 29-30.

[367] Pp. 76-77.

[368] Ed. 1576.

[369] P. 91.

[370] Song 23.

[371] _Church History_, p. 67.

[372] P. 63.

[373] _Itinerary_, vol. iii, p. 53.

[374] As bearing out this opinion, the following passage from Tylor's _Primitive Culture_ may be quoted: "But these apparently silly myths have often a real ethnological significance. When an ethnologist meets, in any district, with the story of tailed men, he ought to look for a despised tribe of aborigines, outcasts, or heretics, living near or among a dominant population who look upon them as beasts, and furnish them with tails accordingly.... The outcast race of Cagots, about the Pyrenees, were said to be born with tails; and in Spain the medieval superstition still survives, that the Jews have tails, like the devil, as they say. In England the notion was turned to theological profit by being claimed as a judgment on wretches who insulted St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Canterbury."--Vol. i, pp. 346-7.

INDEX

Act for Staying of Unlawful Conventions within Burgh, first applied in Glasgow, 262. Adrian, St., Martyr of the May, 156-8. Ailsa Craig, invasion of, 225-35. Alexander II, imposes fines for abstention from military service, 268. Amlaiph and Imhar, lay siege to Strathclyde, 200. Archbishops of Glasgow, temporal superiors, 253. Army, the old Scottish, 267-89. -- earliest enactment for organization of, 267. -- statute fixing fines for remaining away from King's host, 268. -- Robert Bruce's statute concerning military service, 268-9. -- James I encourages archery, 269. -- his enactments concerning military equipment, 270-1. -- military training organized, 273. -- hand-guns introduced, 274-5. -- Act concerning, 276. -- army of Scotland to be unhorsed, 277-8. -- military drill organized, 278. -- arms and accoutrement at close of 16th century, 279-80. -- main object of Scottish army, 282. -- expenses of campaign, how defrayed, 283. -- transport service, 283-4. -- foreign service, 284-5. -- military service on the Border, 285. -- Commissariat, 286. -- military service under Charles I, 287. -- Act dealing with desertion, 289. -- Act establishing pensions, 289. Artois, Count Robert of, and English "tailards", 299-300. Augustine, St., and "Longtail" myth, 325-38, 341, 342, 343.

Balfour, Andrew, proprietor of May Island, 178. Balfour, Sir Michael, obtains monopoly for supply of arms, 281-2. Barclay, Hugh, Laird of Ladylands, 225-31. -- abandons Presbyterianism, 225. -- excommunicated, 226. -- apprehended by Andrew Knox, 226-7. -- taken to Edinburgh, 227. -- no evidence against him, 228. -- transferred to Glasgow, 229. -- escapes to the Continent, 229. -- reported to be lurking in Glasgow, 229. -- banded with Papists, 230. -- his plot to capture Ailsa Craig, 230. -- lands on the Craig, 231-2. -- his death, 231. Beaueyr, William of, his gift to Monks of May, 163. Beaugué, Jean de, his description of May Island, 154. Becket, his connection with "Longtail" myth, 339, 348. -- insulted by Robert Broc, 340. Beton, Andrew, romance of his courtship of Mary Seton, 73-7. Beton, Mary, 61-8. -- parentage, 61. -- her portrait, 62. -- Thomas Randolph in love with her, 62-3. -- as Queen of the Bean, 63. -- Buchanan's verses in praise of her, 64-5. -- most scholarly of four Marys, 65. -- Mary Stuart's intended bequest of books to her, 65. -- married to Ogilvie, of Boyne, 66. -- marriage contract, 66-7. -- gifts to her from Queen, 67. Black, David, and James VI, 212. Boece, Hector, his description of May Island, 156. Borders, pacified by James VI, 213-14. Boyd, Robert, of Badinhaith, inhabits Castle on Little Cumbrae, 248. -- projects a harbour, 248. -- inhabitants of Little Cumbrae hostile to him, 249. Bruce, Robert, at Dumbarton Castle, 201-2. -- enactment of, concerning military service, 268-9. -- "testament" of, 277 _n._ Buccleuch meets Salkeld on a day of truce, 238. -- protests against violation of truce, 239. -- gets his signet ring conveyed to Will Armstrong, 239. -- communicates with Armstrong's friends at a horse-race, 239. -- organizes and heads an attack on Carlisle Castle, 240-1. -- his action popular in Scotland, 241. -- Robert Bowes demands that he should be delivered over to England, 241. -- defends himself at Convention of Estates, 241. -- offers to submit his case to Commissioners, 242. -- commanded to ward by James VI, 245. -- surrenders into English custody, 246. -- presented to Elizabeth, 246. Buchan, Earl of, his donation to Monks of May, 163. Buchanan, reads Livy with Mary Stuart, 10. -- verses in praise of Mary's lettered Court, 31. -- his verses on the Four Marys, 31, 32, 33, 34. -- to Mary Fleming, 38. -- to Mary Beton, 64, 65. -- tutor to James VI, 211. -- his _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_, 211.

Carlyle, "Jupiter", his account of destruction of Chapel of Loretto, 152. Carstairs and Covenanters imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, 208. Christening of James VI, practical joke at, 290. Clifford, Lord Robert, devastates Annandale, 317. Colquhoun, stratagem of Laird of, to recover Dumbarton Castle, 202. -- origin of family motto, 202. Colville, Robert, exposes sham miracle at Loretto, 148-9. Commissariat of Scottish Army, 286. Crawfurd, Thomas, of Jordanhill, captures Dumbarton Castle, 205-7. Cumbrae, raid on the Smaller, 247-52. -- Castle built by the Boyds, 248. -- inhabited by Robert Boyd of Badinhaith, 248. -- looted by the Montgomerys, 249. -- inventory of articles in several rooms of Castle, 250-1. -- gifted by Mary Stuart to Mary Livingston, 55. Cunningham, proprietor of May Island, sets up first lighthouse, 178.

David, King, founds monastery on May Island, 160. -- said to have granted monastery to monks of Reading, 160. Days of truce on the Border, 238. Desertion, Act dealing with, 289. Douchtie (Duthie) founds the Chapel of Laureit, 143. -- charter confirming grant of land to him, 143. Dryburgh, House of, and Monks of May, 167. Dues for upkeep of May light, 179-82. Dumbarton, rock of, 199-208. -- and Treaty of Union, 199. -- early fort on, 199-200. -- besieged by Norsemen, 200. -- and Edward I, 200-1. -- Wallace's sword kept in Castle, 201. Dumbarton recaptured with the help of Laird of Colquhoun, 202. -- held by the Parson of Kincardine, 203. -- held by Earl of Lennox, 204. -- besieged and taken by Royal forces, 204. -- besieged by Regent Murray, 205. -- captured by Thomas Crawfurd of Jordanhill, 205-7. -- captured for Covenanters by Provost Sempill, 207. -- used as a prison, 208. Dunbar, Castle taken by English, 316-7. Dundemore, Sir John de, and Monks of the May, 164. Dupplin, Battle of, 318.

Edinburgh and St. Giles, 190-7. Eggou Ruffus, gives land to Monks of May Island, 163. Elizabeth, Queen, and Mary Stuart, 1, 6, 7, 20. -- writes to Morton concerning burial of Secretary Maitland, 46-7. -- replies to Queen of Scots concerning _Maister Randolphe's Fantasie_, 101-2. -- writes to James VI demanding the delivery of Buccleuch, 241. Elphinstone, Sir George, nominated Provost of Glasgow by Lennox, 254. -- appeals to the King, 256. -- elected Provost by colleagues, 256. -- attacked by Stewarts of Minto, 260-2. -- warded in Glasgow Castle, 262. -- suit brought against him by Stewarts of Minto, 265. Enactments concerning archery, 269, 273, 274. Englishmen as "tailards" (longtails, coués, caudati), references to, at christening of James VI, 290. -- in anonymous medieval poem descriptive of national characteristics, 293. -- in Jacques de Vitry, 293. -- in Etienne de Bourbon, 294. -- in Richard of Devizes, 295. -- in romance of _Richard Coer de Leon_, 296-7. -- in _Monument. Germ._, 297 and _n._ -- in _Chronicle of Lanercost_, 288-9, 302. -- in Matthew of Paris, 299-300. -- in Rishanger, 302. -- in Henry Knighton, 302. -- in John of Bridlington, 302-3. -- in connection with invasion of France by Henry V, 304. -- in Olivier Basselin, 304-5, 312. -- in Ballade on Jeanne d'Arc, 305. -- in Monstrelet, 305. -- in _Dépucellage de la ville de Tournay_, 306. -- in _Courroux de la Mort contre les Anglois_, 306, 307. -- in Eustache Deschamps's works, 307-12. -- in Jean Molinet's poems, 313. -- in Crétin, 313. -- in Larivey's _Les Tromperies_, 313. -- in Saint-Amant's _Rome Ridicule_, 314. -- in Conrart, 314. -- in Bower, 315-16. -- in Hemingburgh, 316-17, 318. -- in Bower, 318. -- in anonymous political song, 319. -- in _Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_, 319-20, 344. -- in Skelton, 320-1. -- in John Oxenedes, 322. -- in _Annales Gandenses_, 323.

Feuds, measures against them taken by James VI, 214. Fitz-Michael, John, his liberality to Monks of May, 162. Fleming, Lord, besieged in Dumbarton Castle, 205. Fleming, Mary, 35-48. -- related to Mary Stuart, 35. -- as Queen of the Bean, 36-8. -- courted by Sir Henry Sidney, 38. -- courtship of, by Secretary Maitland, 39-41. -- marries Maitland, 42. -- with Mary Stuart on morning of Bothwell's trial, 43. -- sends ring to Mary at Lochleven, 43. -- is asked for by Mary at Sheffield, 44. -- death of her husband, 44. -- appeals to Elizabeth for burial of husband's body, 45-6. -- subjected to petty annoyances by Morton, 47. -- obtains reversion of husband's forfeiture, 48. Football and golf cried down to encourage archery, 273. Forret, John, proprietor of May Island, 178.

Ghent, looted by English, 323. Gilbert of St. Martin, his gift of land to Monastery on May Island, 163. Giles, St., feast of, 190. -- history of, 192-3. -- parish church of Edinburgh dedicated to, 193. -- relic of, 193-4. -- statue of, destroyed, 194-6. Glasgow, Riotous, 253-266. -- position of, amongst Scottish burghs at beginning of 17th century, 253. -- nomination of its Provost and selection of Bailies, 253-4. -- Sir George Elphinstone of Blythswood appointed Provost of, 254. -- Ludovic, Duke of Lennox, and Town Council of, 254-5. -- appeal of Town Council to Privy Council, 256. -- full liberty in election of Magistrates secured, 256. -- Sir George Elphinstone elected Provost by Town Council, 256. -- Stewarts of Minto oppose new system of election, 257-8. -- riotous proceedings of partisans of Stewarts of Minto, 259. -- Sir George Elphinstone attacked, 260-2. -- Act for Staying of Unlawful Conventions within Burgh first applied, 263. -- decision of Privy Council in the matter of issue between Sir George Elphinstone and the Stewarts, 264-5. Golf and football "cried down" to encourage archery, 273. Gospatric, Earl, his liberality to Monks of May, 161. Grames, the, act as Buccleuch's agents, 239. Guernsey, medieval cry of "la Coue" still heard in, 315. Guinegate, Battle of, 307.

Hand-guns (hagbuts and culverins) introduced in Scottish army, 274-6. Helena, St., builds church at Nazareth, 141. Henry V, invasion of France by, 304. Hind, as sinister supporter in Edinburgh coat of arms, origin of, 192. "Horners", measures against them taken by James VI, 213.

James I and archery, 269. -- and military equipment, 270-1. James IV, visits May Island, 174-6. James V, sanctions foundation of shrine of Loretto, 143. -- his pilgrimages and gifts to the shrine, 143-4. -- introduces "small artillery", 274. James VI, as statesman, 209-16. -- Macaulay's estimate of, 209. -- Professor Masson's, 209-10. -- and Maitland of Thirlstane, 210. -- his idea of kingship, 210-11. -- and Buchanan, 211. -- dexterous management of circumstances and inflexibility of purpose, 212. -- checks lawlessness and rebellion, 213. -- enforces the law against "horners", 213. -- puts down hereditary feuds, 213. -- establishes flying police, 213. -- pacifies the Border, 213. -- as absentee King, 215. -- and the Union of England and Scotland, 215. -- Bacon's estimate of, 215. -- as poet, 216-24. -- Barnfield on, 216. -- Harvey on his _Lepanto_, 217. -- Vaughan on, 217. -- quoted in Allott's _England's Parnassus_, 217. -- in Bodenham's _Garden of the Muses_, 217. -- Jonson's epigram on, 217. -- Sir John Beaumont's estimate of, 218. -- his _Reulis and Cautelis to be Observit and Eschewit in Scottis Poesie_, 218. -- his first verses, 219-20. -- his _Lepanto_ quoted, 220-1. -- his _Dreame on his Mistris my Ladie Glammes_ quoted, 221. -- his sonnet to his son Henry, 222. -- his sonnet on Sicily, 223. -- his punning rhymes, 224 _n._ -- his objection to chess, 19. -- writes to Elizabeth complaining of Will Armstrong's capture, 242. -- complains to Elizabeth of Spenser's reflections on his mother, 245.

Jenye, Thomas, author of _Maister Randolphe's Fantasie_, 128.

Ker, George, apprehended by Andrew Knox, 228. Kinmont Willie, story of Ballad of, 237-46. -- taken prisoner by Thomas Salkeld, 238-9. -- rescued by Buccleuch, 240. Knox, Andrew, hunts down "practising Papists", 226. -- apprehends Ladylands, 226-7. -- apprehends George Ker, 228. -- occupies Ailsa Craig, 231. -- incurs ill-will by his action, 235. -- proclamation on his behalf, 235. Knox, John, his reference to Mary Stuart's voice, 8. -- records introduction of Masques at Court, 17. -- his account of Court scandal, 26-27. -- his calumnious charge against Mary Livingston, 51. -- his account of destruction of statue of St. Giles, 194-6.

Lamberton, William, purchases priory of May from Abbot of Reading, 170. Lamont, Allan, proprietor of May Island, 178. Learmonth, Patrick, first lay proprietor of May Island, 177-8. Ledes, Alexander de, Governor of Dumbarton Castle, 200. _Lepanto_, poem by James VI, 216, 217, 220-1. Lewes, Battle of, 322. Life at Scottish Court, 17-18. Lighthouse on Isle of May, 187-9. Lincoln, epigram on Battle of, 298-9. Livingston, Mary, 49-60. -- parentage, 49. -- Mary Stuart's gifts to her, 50, 53. -- married to James Sempill of Beltreis, 50. -- Knox's calumnious assertion concerning her, 51. -- wedding, 53-5. -- Queen's wedding gifts to her, 55. -- at Holyrood on night of Rizzio's murder, 55. -- Queen's intended bequests to her, 55-6. -- enters Edinburgh with Mary, after Carberry, 56-7. -- accused by Lennox of having royal jewels in her possession, 57-8. Longsword, William, and "tailard" gibe, 299-300. "Longtail Myth", Story of the, 290-360. -- origin of, as given by Goscelin, 325-6. -- in William of Malmesbury's _Gesta Pontificum_, 327. -- in Robert Wace's _Brut_, 328-9. -- in Layamon, 329-331. -- in English prose version of _Brut_, 331-2. -- in Robert Manning's _Story of Inglande_, 332-3. -- in Latin satire against inhabitants of Rochester, 333-4. -- in Fazio degli Uberti's _Ditta Mondo_, 335. -- in Boccaccio, 335. -- in Alexander of Essebye (Ashby), 336. -- in English version of _Golden Legende_, 336. -- in Walter Bower, 337-9. -- in John Major, 341-2. -- in Nicole Gilles, 342. -- in Bellenden, 343. -- in Dunbar, 344. -- in Génébrard, 344. -- in Wilwolt of Schaumburg, 344. -- in Polydore Vergil's _Anglica Historia_, 346-7. -- in Guillaume Paradin, 347-8. -- denounced as ridiculous by John Bale, 349. -- by William Lambarde, 349-352. -- by Thomas Fuller, 354. -- explanation of, suggested by Fuller, 355. -- by Fynes Moryson, 356. -- by the author of _Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Goodfellow_, 356-7. -- by Du Cange, 358. -- by Professor Wattenbach, 358. -- by the author of _England under the Normans_, 358. -- further suggestion as to origin of, 359-60. Loreto in Italy, 141. -- Legend and Cult of our Lady of, 141-2. -- origin of name, 142. -- wealth of, 142. -- statue of Our Lady of, carried off by the French, 142. Loretto (Laureto, Laureit), chapel of, founded by Thomas Douchtie, 143. -- patronized by James V, 143-4. -- healing power attributed to, 145. -- alleged imposture at, 148-52. -- destruction of, 147, 152. Ludovic, Duke of Lennox, heritable right of appointing Provost and Bailies of Glasgow granted to, 254. -- nominates Sir George Elphinstone Provost, 254. -- delegates his authority to Sheriff, 254. -- grants "exercise of the offices" of Glasgow to Stewarts of Minto, 255. Lyndsay, Sir David, his lines on shrine and hermit of Loretto, 144-5.

_Maister Randolphe's Fantasie_, 91-128. -- analysis of poem, 103-128. -- authorship of, 128. Maitland, Secretary, courts and marries Mary Fleming, 39-42. -- death of, 44. Maitland of Thirlstane and James VI, 210-11. Malcolm, the King's Cupbearer, and Monks of May, 167-8. Marie, Ballad of the Queen's, question of its authenticity, 26-7. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1-23. -- her beauty, 3-4. -- her portraits, 4-5. -- her complexion, 5. -- her eyes, 6. -- her hair, 6-7. -- wears wigs, 7. -- her hands, 7. -- her voice, 7-8, 19. -- her stature, 7. -- her figure, 8. -- a precocious child, 8. -- her Latin discourse, 9. -- her books, 11, 14. -- her knowledge of Greek, 11. -- of Spanish and Italian, 12. -- of English, 12-13. -- her love of French poetry, 15. -- as a writer of French poetry, 15-16. -- anagrams on her name, 16. -- handwriting, 16-17. -- fond of amusements, 17-18. -- dancing, 18. -- plays the lute and virginals, 19. -- plays chess, tables, and cards, 19. -- her puppets, 19. -- fond of fancy-work, 19-20. -- as a sportswoman, 20. -- fond of dogs, 20-21. -- hawking, archery, pallmall, and golf amongst her pastimes, 21-2. -- her courage, 22-3. -- sails from Dumbarton, 28-9. -- makes her will, 41, 55. -- bequests to her Marys, 41-2. -- enters Edinburgh after Carberry, 56-7, 70. -- favours Andrew Beton's courtship of Mary Seton, 73-6. -- complains to Queen Elizabeth of a book written against her, 91-2. Marys, the four, 25-34. -- their popularity, 25. -- their family names, 25-6. -- sail from Dumbarton with Mary Stuart, 28-9. -- Leslie's mention of them, 28, 30. -- figure in masques, 31-2. -- Buchanan's verses to them, 32-4. -- courted for their influence with Mary Stuart, 34. May, the Isle of, 153-89. -- description of, 153-6. -- and St. Adrian, 156-9. -- monastery on, 160. -- grants and donations to monks, 160-3. -- litigations of monks with rival claimants, 163-7. -- plundered by Swein, 169. -- monastery sold to Bishop of St. Andrews, 170-2. -- severance of connection between Scottish "cell" of, and English monastery of Reading, 172. -- Mary of Gueldres at, 174. -- royal visits to, 174-6. -- pirates about, 176. -- used for quarantine, 177. -- lay proprietors of, 177-8. -- first lighthouse on Scottish seaboard, 178-80. -- new lighthouse built in 1816, 184-5. -- visited by Sir Walter Scott, 185-6. -- modern lighthouse, 187-9. Menteith, Sir John, Governor of Dumbarton Castle, 201. Military training organized in Scotland, 273. Montchrestien, Anthoine de, of doubtful nobility, 129. -- his education, 129. -- encounter with Baron de Gouville, 130. -- marries a rich widow, 130. -- publishes tragedy of _Sophonisbe_, 130. -- publishes his "Stuart" tragedy, _l'Escossoise_, 130. -- kills his adversary in a duel, 130. -- retires to England, 131. -- presents his tragedy to James VI, 131. -- returns to France, 131. -- writes the first treatise on political economy, 131. -- joins Protestant party, 131-2. -- is shot in encounter with Catholics, 132. Mungo, St., and Glasgow, 191.

"Ochtyern", meaning of, 268. -- fine imposed on, for neglect of military service, 268. _OEconomie Politique, Traicté de l'_, published by Montchrestien, 131. Ogilvie, Alexander, of Boyne, marries Mary Beton, 66-7. -- the Jesuit, imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, 208. Oman, Mr., his estimate of Bruce's "Testament", 277 _n._ Origin, traditional, of "Longtail" myth, 325-6, 327, 328-9, 329-31, 331-2, 332-3, 333-4, 335, 336, 337-9, 341-2, 343, 344, 345, 346-7, 348-9, 349-352, 354. -- suggested, 355, 356, 356-7, 358, 359-60.

Paris, evacuated by English, in 1436, 305. Patrick, chaplain of Dunbar, action raised against, by Monks of May, 165. Pensions established in Scottish army, 289. Poitiers, Battle of, 303. Preston of Gortoun gives relic of St. Giles to Edinburgh Parish Church, 193-4. Priory of Pittenweem or May, 173.

Randolph, Thomas, his description of life at Scottish Court, 17. -- account of Court scandal, 27 _n._ -- account of Maitland's courtship of Mary Fleming, 39-41. -- reports intended marriage of Mary Livingston, 50-51. -- in love with Mary Beton, 62-3. -- at Scottish Court, 92-5. -- accused of writing a satire against Queen Mary, 95. -- his denial, 95-8. Reading, monks of, and May Island, 160, 166, 170-2. Richard I, his followers jeered at as "tailards", 295, 296-7. Rochelle, la, epigram against "tailards" on taking of, 298. Rodorcus, King, reigns on the Rock of Clyde, 200. Roland, a carpenter, warns Bruce of Menteith's intended treachery, 202. Ronsard, Mary Stuart's admiration of, 15. Row, reference to shrine of Loretto in his history, 145. -- his account of alleged sham miracle at Loretto, 148-9. Ryderchen, obtains possession of stronghold of Dumbarton, 200.

Salkeld, Thomas, takes Willie Armstrong of Kinmont prisoner, 238-9. Santa Casa removed by angels from Nazareth into Dalmatia, 141. Scone, Brethren of Scone and Monks of May, 166. Scott, John, the Fasting Man, 146-7. Scott, Miss, of Scotstarvit, improves May light, 182. Scott, Sir Walter, visits May Island, 185-6. Segrave, Nicholas de, Governor of Dumbarton Castle, 200. Sempill, James, of Beltreis, marries Mary Livingston, 50. -- his parentage, 52. -- imprisoned by Lennox, 57. -- sent to England as hostage, 58. -- incurs enmity of Morton, 59. -- put to the boot, 59. -- death, 60. Sempill, Provost of Dumbarton, gets possession of Castle for Covenanters, 207. Seton, Mary, 69-78. -- finest busker of hair, 7, 71. -- parentage, 69. -- enters Edinburgh with Mary Stuart after Carberry, 70. -- at Lochleven, 70. -- with Mary Stuart during captivity, 71-2. -- romance of Andrew Beton's courtship of her, 73-7. -- retires to Abbey of St. Peter's, Rheims, 77. -- last memorial of her, 77-8. Sheep, on May Island, 154. Sibbald, his account of May Island, 154. Song of Mary Stuart, 79-90. -- attributed to Mary by Brantôme, 79-81. -- discovery of manuscript copy by Dr. Galy, 82. -- "Song" composed at Court in honour of Mary Stuart, part of the original poem, 83. -- additional stanzas, 83. -- internal evidence of Brantôme's authorship, 84-6. -- the whole poem restored, 86-90. Stevenson, Robert, suggests improvement of May light, 183. Stewarts of Minto and Town Council of Glasgow, 257. -- organize opposition to extension of municipal liberty, 257-8. -- head a tumultuous demonstration, 259. -- attack Sir George Elphinstone, 260-2. -- charged to enter ward in Dumbarton, 262. -- ward changed to Perth and Dundee, 262. -- suit brought against them by Sir George Elphinstone, 264. "Stuart" tragedy, the first, 129-140. -- published in 1601, 130. -- presented to James VI, 131. -- analysis of tragedy, 132-40. Students, English, at Paris university jeered at as "tailards", 293. Swave, Peder, his account of John Scott, the Fasting Man, 147 _n._ Swein, Asleif, plunders Monastery of May, 169.

Thenaw, St., legend of, 159. Tournay, besieged by English in 1513, 306. Transport service in old Scottish army, 283-4. Treason of Dumbarton, 205. Tullibardine, Marquis of, and Jacobites imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle, 208. Twelfth-night or Feast of the Bean at Scottish Court, 36.

Ulster, Annals of, record siege of Dumbarton, 200. Union of England and Scotland projected by James VI, 215. University of Paris, students of in 13th century, 255. University of St. Andrews, Mary's intended bequest of books to, 65.

Value of furniture in Castle on Little Cumbrae, 250-2. "Victual", meaning of, 280. Vuillequot ("Billy"), name applied by French to Englishmen generally, 272.

Walker, Gavin, Chaplain of Loretto, restores ground granted for shrine, 152. Wapenshaws, established, 267. -- James I's enactment concerning, 270. -- during 15th and 16th centuries, 272. -- evidence of their unpopularity, 272, 279. Wells on May Island, 155. William, King, confirms grants to Monks of May Island, 160. -- and military service, 268. Wreck of frigates _Nymphen_ and _Pallas_, 183. Wyntoun, Andrew, his account of martyrdom of St. Adrian, 158-9. -- his lines referring to the Parson of Kincardine's seizure of Dumbarton Castle, 203.

Yeomen, equipment of in old Scottish army, 274. -- divided into three classes, 271.