A SCOT TO JEANNE D'ARC
Jeanne d'Arc is said to have led a Scottish force at Lagny, when
she defeated the Burgundian, Franquet d'Arras. A Scottish artist
painted her banner; he was a James Polwarth, or a Hume of Polwarth,
according to a conjecture of Mr. Hill Burton's. A monk of
Dunfermline, who continued Fordun's Chronicle, avers that he was
with the Maiden in her campaigns, and at her martyrdom. He calls
her Puella a spiritu sancto excitata. Unluckily his manuscript
breaks off in the middle of a sentence. At her trial, Jeanne said
that she had only once seen her own portrait: it was in the hands
of a Scottish archer. The story of the white dove which passed
from her lips as they opened to her last cry of Jesus! was reported
at the trial for her Rehabilitation (1450-56).
ONE OF THAT NAME.
Two archers of the name of Lang, Lain, or Laing were in the French
service about 1507. See the on the Scottish Guard, by Father
Forbes Leith, S. J.
THY CHURCH UNTO THE MAID DENIES.
These verses were written, curiously enough, the day before the
Maiden was raised to the rank of 'Venerable,' a step towards her
canonisation, which, we trust, will not be long delayed. It is not
easy for any one to understand the whole miracle of the life and
death of Jeanne d'Arc, and the absolutely unparalleled grandeur and
charm of her character, without studying the full records of both
her trials, as collected and published by M. Quicherat, for the
Societe de l'Histoire de France.
HOW THEY HELD THE BASS.
This story is versified from the account in Memoirs of the Rev.
John Blackader, by Andrew Crichton, Minister of the Gospel. Second
Edition. Edinburgh, 1826. Dunbar was retained as a prisoner, when
negotiations for surrender, in 1691, were broken off by Middleton's
return with supplies. Halyburton was, it seems, captured later,
and only escaped hanging by virtue of the terms extorted by
Middleton. Patrick Walker tells the tale of Peden and the girl.
Wodrow, in his Analecta, has the story of the Angel, or other
shining spiritual presence, which is removed from its context in
the ballad. The sufferings from weak beer are quoted in Mr.
Blackader's Memoirs. Mitchell was the undeniably brave Covenanter
who shot at Sharp, and hit the Bishop of the Orkneys. He was
tortured, and, by an act of perjury (probably unconscious) on the
part of Lauderdale, was hanged. The sentiments of the poem are
such as an old cavalier, surviving to 1743, might perhaps have
entertained. 'Wullie Wanbeard' is a Jacobite name for the Prince
of Orange, perhaps invented only by the post-Jacobite sentiment of
the early nineteenth century.
BRITANNIA
ROUSSEAU'S DELIGHT.
The pervenche, or periwinkle.
A TOAST
One of the college bells Of St. Salvator, mentioned by Ferguson, is
called 'Kate Kennedy'; the heroine is unknown, but Bishop Kennedy
founded the College. 'Kate Kennedy's Day' was a kind of carnival,
probably a survival from that festivity.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT.
As a matter of fact the Haunted House Committee of the Society for
Psychical Research have never succeeded in seeing a ghost.
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