Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/431

 by the late ingenious Mr Strutt, into his romance entitled Queen-hoo Hall; published after his death, in 1808.

The Douglas of the poem is an imaginary person, a supposed uncle of the Earl of Angus. But the king's behaviour during an unexpected interview with the Laird of Kilspindie, one of the banished Douglasses, under circumstances similar to those in the text, is imitated from a real story told by Hume of Godscroft. I would have availed myself more fully of the simple and affecting circumstances of the old history, had they not been already woven into a pathetic ballad by my friend Mr Finlay.

"His (the king's) implacability (towards the family of Douglas) did also appear in his carriage towards Archibald of Kilspindy, whom he, when he was a child, loved singularly well for his ability of body, and was wont to call him his Gray-Steill. Archibald being banished into England, could not well comport with the humour of that nation, which he thought to be too proud, and that they had too high a conceit of