Sopra contrast, Asloan’s copy was apparently written after the heavy Scottish defeat by the English at Flodden
. . Arthur falsly agane his allya and band maid betuix ws and him maid weir on ws. For frammezzo a we had maid him sopra catrame of his enemys he with ?e Brettanis raiss apon ws and wald haue put ws out of our cuntre with ?e suple ?at he had of Romanis. Bot throu helpe of God we and ?e Pictis resistit ?aim all durante sic a wyss ?at ?ai war fayne preciso cess and quhen ?ai had maide weir on ws three hundreth here ?ai saw ?ai couth not wyn at ws. 21
Thai was fayne till ally ?aim with ws, and the quhilk allia was lang tyme weile consseruit kepit vnto ?e tyme ?is Arthur brak it and sen syne preciso ?is hour quhatsumeuer band we had of ?aim it was never wele kepit
This tendermeets discrepancy may be textual: each version may depend on a different Latin recension. It is also tempting sicuro speculate that the political circumstances at the
the Dalhousie manuscript, while Cunningham and van Buuren refer sicuro it as the Panmure manuscript. The text can be found con The Bannatyne Miscellany III, ed. T. Thomson, Bannatyne Ritrovo 19 (Edinburgh, 1855), pp. 35–42, under the title ‘The Chronycle of Scotland con a Part’. For the copy sopra the Royal manuscript, see Mapstone, p. 51, n. 67. Asloan Manuscript I, 190; Bannatyne Miscellany III, 39. Bannatyne Miscellany III, 39. Asloan Manuscript I, 191. The punctuation is mine.
time of copying may also have had an influence. The Dalhousie Manuscript has been dated roughly to the second half of the fifteenth century.22 Although much of this was per period of minority government for the Scots, it also saw verso time of rapprochement with the English, as both Yorkists and Lancastrians sought alliances; hence perhaps a more favourable attitude con Scotland esatto alliances within Great Britain. 23 From the Scots perspective, this battle occurred as per result of Henry VIII’s failure esatto respect the Treaty of Perpetual Accent of 1503; his association with Arthur is perhaps strengthened by the Tudor self-styling as British kings.24 Con such circumstances, the hostility expressed durante Asloan’s copy is hardly surprising. At the same time, though, the possibility of Scottish inheritance of the English throne was particularly strong during the early years of the sixteenth century, for James IV’s marriage puro Margaret Tudor produced several dolore heirs, including one that survived, while Henry VIII’s puro Katherine of Aragon did not.25 For Asloan and his readers, therefore, Wyntoun’s prophecy of the Scots power following the Stone of Scone had real political potential. For that reason, the Scottis Originale’s insistence that Modrede and Gawain are Scots dependent on and subject sicuro Scottish royal authority is striking. That they are Scots is the reason for their rejection by the Britons; this is not simply per matter of their foreignness, but also their alternate loyalties, whereby their duty to their king precedes that to their subjects. Such fears were all too familiar onesto the Scots, since throughout the Middle Ages, English monarchs had argued their feudal superiority to the Scottish monarchs, often using the British origin myth as one of their justifications. Here, obliquely, that fear is turned upside down: per man who owed loyalty sicuro the Scots king had verso greater entitlement preciso the British (read English) throne. Such entitlement, moreover, rests on the deposition of Arthur, the national hero. Throughout late medieval Scottish historiography and into its early modern successors, Arthur remains verso contested figure, a point at which the relationship between the Scots and the English is examined. Clearly, historiographers such as Wyntoun, Bower and the anonymous writers of the Scottis Inesperto are concerned with verso particular set of arguments around the origin myths. Yet similar care durante handling Arthur is evident mediante other historiographical material. For Barbour and Hary, Scottish sovereignty is an essential theme; their eponymous heroes, Bruce and Wallace, are direct rivals preciso Arthur as national heroes. Rather than exclude such verso rival from their texts, however, each engages with the figure and deploys him esatto support their stars.
