The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume II. The End of the Middle Ages.
§ 12. Historical and Patriotic Verse
Of historical and patriotic verse there is little. the fragment of the Ring of the Roy Robert(ascribed to Dean David Steill in the Maitland folio) recalls Bruce in metre and Wallace in sentiment. In the Talis of the Fyve Bestis, the second or “Hartis Tale” is devoted to praise of Wallace for his defence of Scotland “fra subiectioun of Saxonis blud”; and, in the Scots recension of the Nine Nobles the last in the list of great men is Robert the Bruce, who “venkust the mychty Kyng | Off England, Edward, twyse in fycht.” There is, too, in the Maitland folio, a short defnece of the Scots, which is an extract from Wyntoun’s Chronicle. The plea for the peasant, familiar in the fabliaux of Rauf Coil[char]ear and John the Reeve, in Lyndsay’s John the Commonweill, and in the prose Complaynt of Scotlande, is represented here and there, as in John Uponlandis Complaint and Few may fend for falsett.