thought "less probable,"--the treacherous murder of the Earl.

In the English ballad, Douglas marches on Newcastle, where Percy,
without fighting, makes a tryst to meet and combat him at Otterburn, on
his way home from Newcastle to Scotland. Thither Douglas goes, and is
warned by a Scottish knight of Percy's approach: as in Herd, he is
sceptical, but is convinced by facts. (This warning of Douglas by a
scout who gallops up is narrated by Froissart, from witnesses engaged
in the battle.) After various incidents, Percy and Douglas encounter
each other, and Douglas is slain. After a desperate fight, Sir Hugh
Montgomery, a prisoner of the English,


Borrowed the Percy home again.


This is absurd. The Scots fought on, took Percy, and won the day.
Walsingham, the contemporary English chronicler (in Latin), says that
Percy slew Douglas, so do Knyghton and the continuator of Higden.

Meanwhile we observe that the English ballad says nothing of Douglas's
chivalrous fortitude, and soldier-like desire to have his death
concealed. Here every Scottish version follows Froissart. In Herd's
fragment, Montgomery now attacks Percy, and bids him "yield thee to yon
bracken bush," where the dead Douglas's body lies concealed. Percy
does yield--to Sir Hugh Montgomery. The fragment has but fourteen
stanzas.

In 1802, Scott, correcting by another MS., published Herd's copy. In
1806 he gave another version, for "fortunately two copies have since