proverb, denoting a powerful and
turbulent demagogue[30].

[Footnote 28: Spottiswoode says, the king awaited this charge with
firmness; but Birrell avers, that he fled upon the gallop. The same
author, instead of the firm deportment of James, when seized by
Bothwell, describes "the king's majestie as flying down the back
stair, with his breeches in his hand, in great fear."--_Birrell, apud
Dalyell_, p. 30. Such is the difference betwixt the narrative of
the courtly archbishop, and that of the presbyterian burgess of
Edinburgh.]

[Footnote 29: This rencounter took place at Humbie, in East Lothian.
Bothwell was attended by a servant, called Gibson, and Cessford by one
of the Rutherfords, who was hurt in the cheek. The combatant parted
from pure fatigue.]

[Footnote 30: Sir Walter Raleigh, in writing of Essex, then in prison,
says, "Let the queen hold _Bothwell_ while she hath him."--_Murdin_,
Vol. II. p. 812. It appears, from _Crichton's Memoirs_, that
Bothwell's grandson, though so nearly related to the royal family,
actually rode a private in the Scottish horse guards, in the reign of
Charles II.--_Edinburgh_, 1731, p. 43.]

While these scenes were passing in the metropolis the borders were
furiously agitated by civil discord. The families of Cessford and
Fairnihirst disputed their right to the wardenry of the middle
marches, and to the provostry of Jedburgh; and William Kerr of Ancram,
a follower of the latter, was murdered by the young chief of Cessford,
at the instigation of his mother.--_Spottiswoode_, p. 383. But
this was trifling, compared to the civil war, waged on the western
frontier, between the Johnstones and Maxwells, of which there is
a minute account in the introduction to the ballad, entitled,
"_Maxwell's Goodnight_." Prefixed to that termed "_Kinmont Willie_"
the reader will find an account of the last warden raids performed
upon the border.

My sketch of border history now draws to a close. The accession of
James to the English crown converted the extremity into the centre of
his kingdom.

The east marches of Scotland were, at this momentous period, in a
state of comparative civilization. The rich soil of Berwickshire soon
invited the inhabitants to the arts of agriculture.--Even in the days
of Lesley, the nobles and barons of the Merse differed in manners
from the other borderers, administered justice with regularity, and
abstained from plunder and depredation.--_De moribus Scotorum_, p.
7.