Stanza XX. line 608. The earlier editions have vails, 'lowers' or 'checks'; as in Venus and Adonis, 956, 'She vailed her eyelids.' The edition of 1833 reads 'VAILS, contr. for 'avails.' line 610. Douglas and Randolph were two of Bruce's most trusted leaders. line 611. See anecdote in 'Border Minstrelsy,' ii. 245 (1833 ed.), with its culmination, 'O, for one hour of Dundee!' Cp. 'Pleasures of Hope' (close of Poland passage):-- 'Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return The Patriot Tell--the Bruce of Bannockburn!' and Wordsworth's sonnet, 'In the Pass of Killicranky,' in which the aspiration for 'one hour of that Dundee' is prompted by the fear of an invasion in 1803. Stanza XXI. line 626. Hap what hap, come what may. Cp. above 'tide what tide,' III. 416. line 627. Basnet, a light helmet. Stanza XXIII. line 682. 'The reader cannot here expect a full account of the Battle of Flodden: but, so far as is necessary to understand the romance, I beg to remind him, that, when the English army, by their skilful countermarch, were fairly placed between King James and his own country, the Scottish monarch resolved to fight; and, setting fire to his tents, descended from the ridge of Flodden to secure the neighbouring eminence of Brankstone, on which that village is built. Thus the two armies met, almost without seeing each other, when, according to the old poem of "Flodden Field,"-- "The English line stretch'd east and west, And southward were their faces set; The Scottish northward proudly prest, And manfully their foes they met."