Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/416

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342


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VHL NOV. 2, 1907.


' Maid Marian.'

"He who calls Robin Robert of Huntingdon, or salutes him by any other title except plain Robin Hood ; or who calls Marian Matilda Fitzwater, or salutes her by any other title except plain Maid Marian ; and so for all others shall forfeit a mark.

Every forester shall, to the extent of his power,

aid and protect maids, widows, and orphans, and all weak and distressed persons whomsoever : and no woman shall be impeded or molested in anyway.

All other travellers shall be invited to partake of

Robin's hospitality, and if they come not willingly,

they shall oe compelled All usurers, monks,

courtiers, shall be rightfully despoiled. Postmen, carriers and market-folk, farmers and millers shall pass without let or molestation."

Towards the close of ' Maid Marian ' a difference from the play makes itself noticeable, for Prince John is unsuccessful in his designs on Marian, and all ends well ; whereas in the tragedy she is finally poisoned in Dunmore Priory at the instigation of her royal lover.

If Peacock was considerably indebted, as can be seen from the above, to Munday and Chettle, Tennyson, in his turn, owed some- thing to Peacock. It is impossible here to dwell at any length upon the slight resem- blance between Peacock's tale and Tenny- son's ' Foresters,' but the following passages the first taken from ' The Foresters,' and the other from ' Maid Marian ' may be given as showing that Tennyson was not quite unconscious of his predecessor's novel :

' The Foresters,' Act I. sc. i.

Sir Richard. I know not if I will let thee go.

Marian. I mean to go.

Sir Richard. But if I barred thee up in thy chamber, like a bird in a cage.

Marian. Then I would drop from the casement, like a spider.

Sir Richard. But I would hoist the drawbridge, like thy master.

Marian. And I would swim the moat, like an otter.

Sir Richard. But I would set my men-at-arms to oppose thee, like the Lord of the Castle.

Marian. And I would break through them all, like the King of England.

' Maid Marian,' chap. iv.

" Well, father," added Matilda, " I must go to the woods."

"Must you?" said the baron; "I say you must not."

' But I am going," said Matilda.

' But I will have up the drawbridge," said the baron.

' But I will swim the moat," said Matilda.

' But I will secure the gates," said the baron.

'But I will leap from the battlement," said Matilda.

" But I will lock you in an upper chamber," said the baron.

" But I will shred the tapestry," said Matilda, " and let myself down."

" But I will lock you in a turret," said the baron,


"where you shall only see light through a loop- hole."

"But through that loophole," said Matilda, ' will I take my flight, like a young eagle from its- aerie."

A. B. YOUNG.


THE WARDLAW FAMILY.

(Concluded from ante, p. 266.)

WHAT became of Torrie after this I do- not know, and therefore return to the Balmule-Pitreavie line, the first known ancestor of which was

I. Cuthbert Wardlaw, in Balmule. In the Peerages he appears as Sir Cuthbert Wardlaw of Balmule, the eighth successive knight of his family (!), second son of Sir Andrew Wardlaw of Torrie (who never existed) and his wife Catherine Dalgleish (m. 1578). He first appears in 1579 as a tenant in Balmule, which belonged to James Wemyss and Mariot Taily his spouse, on resignation of James Smeaton. His relationship with the Torrie family remains to be proved, but as his descend- ants were allowed the quartered coat of Wardlaw and Valloniis by the Lyon office in 1672-8, he was presumably a younger son of one of the Barons of Torrie, possibly of the Henry Wardlaw who succeeded 1558. He is named in 1589 (eleven years after his alleged parents were married) with Henry and Thomas his sons (' Reg. Rec.'), and again 16 June, 1599, with Catherine Dal- gleish his spouse and Nicol their son. He was still alive 19 Sept., 1601, when he signs the will of Katherine Dalgleish, his son Robert's wife, but was dead before 18 Feb., 1621. A George Wardlaw was his sub- tenant in Balmule.* Cuthbert m. before 1561 Catherine Dalgleish, this being apparently the first of the many intermarriages between the Wardlaws and Dalgleishes. She, " wife to late Cuthbert Wardlaw in Balmule," d. 18 Feb., 1621 (Dunfermline Reg.). They had issue: (1) Nicol, of whom presently. (2) Sir Henry, 1st Baronet, of whom after his brother. (3) Robert, called by Play- fair " of Touch and Whitfield," b. 23 Mar. r 1567/8. He m. 1st, shortly before 20 Dec., 1600, Katherine, dau. of Robert Dalgleish,


  • A George Wardlaw, called by Playfair brother

of Andrew Wardlaw of Torrie, is said to have m., 10 June, 1576, Agnes Mitchell, and to have had Nicol, b. 1582, and Cuthbert, b. 1585, who m., 18 Feb., 1606, Margaret Galridge with issue. These- Christian names point to his having been a brother of Cuthbert W. m Balmule, and he was probably the sub-tenant named above.