accompanying engraving. Both externally and internally, the Castle is remarkable for the regularity of its architecture, and the fine finish of the work. Although there is nothing ornamental in its general character, there are here and there, in the interior, small encrustations of gothic tracery and moulding, of extreme beauty and delicacy, and singularly in contrast with the huge proportions of the general design. In the large and stately stone hall, there is a great fireplace, of fine proportions and richly ornamented, and at the opposite extremity there is a canopied niche of great beauty. On the vault work of this hall, there can still be traced the remains of some old fresco painting, evidently of a gothic character. The hall has contained memorable guests, for it was here that Queen Mary spent her latest days, not, properly speaking, of peace, for already had her worst mental conflicts begun, but of freedom from captivity and pursuit. The Queen and Bothwell were, after their fatal marriage, sojourning in the Castle, as guests of the Lord Borthwick, when the insurrection of 1567 broke out. On the 11th of June, Morton and other Barons, attended with several hundreds of horsemen, surrounded the tower. Bothwell, who, conscious of guilt and impending peril, had got early notice of their intention, made his escape with a few attendants before their arrival. The insurgents had not yet apparently resolved to seize the Queen's person, for she did not fly with Bothwell; but two days later, the rumours afloat induced her to escape secretly from the Castle "in men's clothes, booted and spurred." When she turned her back upon the hospitable mansion of one of the most worthy and honest of her retainers, she bade farewell for ever to freedom, safety, and repose. An isolated chamber of very small dimensions is still shewn as the apartment which tradition assigns to-the Queen.

The date of the erection of Borthwick Castle is pretty precisely known. Though the Scottish Barons were not in the practice of acknowledging the right of the Crown to interfere with their private fortifications, a license to build this tower was obtained by Sir William de Borthwick from James I., dated 2nd June 1430, which is still preserved. There are few historical incidents connected with the building, save those already mentioned, down to the time of the Protectorate. The Lord of so massive a structure thought he might safely bid defiance to artillery, and refused to open his gates to Cromwell. The Protector, in a very laconic letter, dated 18th November, 1650, told him, "If you necessitate me to bend my cannon against you, you must expect what I doubt you will not be pleased with."* The artillery had not long played on the walls from the rising grounds on the south-east, when the unfitness of the old strongholds to resist the new instruments of destruction was fully felt, and the castle was surrendered. To this day, while all the rest of the tower is of smooth, clean ashler work, the portion on which Cromwell's artillery played shews a large mass of the surface stone work peeled off. The title of Borthwick has remained in abeyance since the seventeenth century. The Castle is the property, by purchase, of Mr. Borthwick of Crookston, a gentleman connected by descent with its former owners.

* Scott's Provincial Antiquities, Prose Works, vii. 311.