A collection of ancient and modern Scottish ballads, etc

41
fires, ten thousand horsemen could be assembled in a
single day. At a distance from the Court, they seldom
interfered in its intrigues, and despised its enmities,
but when called on by their sovereign to join the na-
tional standard, they cheerfully obeyed the summons; and
on every occasion where their services were required,
proved their superiority to the hastily-raised levies from
the other parts of the kingdom. They were formed into
numerous clans or families, which ranged themselves
under the protecting banners of their more powerful
chiefs, whose fortunes they followed with the greatest
fidelity ; for, notwithstanding their roving life, they were
warm and devout in their attachments, and entered into
a quarrel for their relations and friends, or revenged an
injury done them, merely because they were their kins-
men.
Such was their general character, the effects of lawless and
unrestrained passions, and of the feeble government of
a country which had to contend with nobles, ready in-
deed to repel foreign invasion, but ambitious, turbulent,
and unruly. Although different Scottish monarchs had
attempted to break the hands which linked many of
the nobles to each other, yet none of them had greater
cause to lower their power than James V. During his
^ nonage the state was torn by their dissensions, but no
sooner did he effect his escape from the vassalage under
which he was held by the Earl of Angus and his brother
Geor^ge Douglas, than he set about the reformation ef
abuses in his kingdom with a spirit that manifested his
determination of eradicating them After banishing the
Douglasses, James turned his attention to the admini-
strating of justice on the borders, and aware that the en-
ormities conimitLed by the clans could not be suppressed
d3
—