Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/117

 appointment whereby perhaps may hang a tale. For from 1483, or a little before it, the Ruthven family appear, as they did for long hereditarily afterwards, as sheriffs of Perth —1483, a date therefore of critical account, when aligned with a yet more decisive index of time next to be mentioned.

A singular epithet of abuse is used by Wallace to King Edward in answer to Edward's summons of Wallace to his presence:

Here is a decisive clue not only to the date of the poem, but also to the conditions which inspired its production. The proof has all the force of statute, for it is an Act of the Scottish Parliament. In 1481 war had broken out with the old enemy the English, under Edward IV, and in March, 1482, the Scots passed a most energetic enactment, denouncing the iniquity of 'the Revare Edward calland him king of Ingland', and particularly the breach of truce committed by 'the saide Revare Edwarde throu birnand averice and for fals reif and conqueist nocht dredand God nor the effusioun of cristin blude.'

Just before the 'Reivar' episode in the poem, Wallace