remarkable occasion, which, though it leads us a little from our present purpose, may serve to enliven a dull series of dates and antiquarian deductions.

Alexander, Duke of Albany, brother of James III., and one of the most remarkable characters in his day, is painted by old Lindsay of Pitscottie in colours proper to the feudal prince. "He was hardy and manly, and wise, so that they (the Lords and barons of Scotland) stood in more awe of hira than of the king's grace, for his manhood. This Alexander was of a mid stature, broad shouldered, and well proportioned in all his members, and specially in his face; that is to say, broad-faced, red-nosed, great eared, and of very awful countenance, when he pleased to show himself to his unfriends." We may add from history, that he was as ambitious as he was bold and manly, and exercised in the realm an authority almost equal to that of the sovereign.

A character like the Duke of Albany was easily rendered suspected to a prince of a jealous and timid disposition like James III., who, moved by the insinuations of favourites, and, as it is said, by dread of a prophecy, that he was to fall by means of his nearest of kin, resolved on the destruction of his brother. More than once a reconciliation was patched up between them; and on one of these occasions, James III., having mounted a hackney to ride from the castle to Holyrood Abbey, refused to move on till his brother had mounted behind him, when they rode on the same horse down the High Street of the metropolis, an edifying spectacle of fraternal concord, which, however, did not long remain unbroken. In consequence of new suspicions, or the revival of old griefs betwixt the brothers, Albany was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh, and his death was privately determined by the king at the instance of these plebeian favourites, to whom this weak prince resigned the management of his power and of his conscience.

The imprisoned duke received information of the designs of his brother through the following stratagem.-A vessel from France arrived in the roads of Leith, and sent ashore two small casks of choice wine for the use of the imprisoned prince. These passed through the guards without suspicion, and reached the duke's hands in safety. The prince, with his chamberlain (Scotticé, chamber-chiel), was confined in a tower or apartment which arose from the northern verge of the rock on which Edinburgh Castle is founded, where the height of the precipice seemed to bar all possibility of escape. But the means for surmounting this obstacle were afforded by the contents of the barrels, one of which, besides wine, contained a coil of ropes, and a letter, enclosed within a cake of wax, warning the Duke of Albany that his life depended on his immediately breaking from his confinement.

His scheme was quickly formed, and daringly executed.

The captain of the castle, after he had gone his rounds, was invited into the Duke's apartment to partake of a collation, and to play at dice with his princely captive, as well as to taste the excellent wine with which the duke had recently been supplied. He came accordingly, with three attendants, who were heartily plied with wine, while the duke engaged the officer in a game of tables. The game interested the officer deeply, and the heat of the fire and rapid supply of wine diminished his caution so much, that the duke struck him to the heart with a whinger ere he was aware that violence was intended. His three attendants, disordered with liquor, and taken by surprise, shared the same fate; four men being thus assaulted and slain by two. The duke cast their bodies upon the ample grate, in which a large fire was burning. The keys, which were at the captain's belt, supplied them with the means of escaping from the strong room to the battlements. The chamberlain then essayed to descend by means of the rope which had been provided; but, as it proved several yards too short, he fell, and broke his leg in the fall. The sheets on the duke's bed supplied the means of lengthening the rope, and he himself descended without injury. Notwithstanding the exigence of the moment, he scorned to leave his faithful domestic to the fate which awaited him when his master's escape was discovered; but, taking him upon his back, transported him to a place where he might be safely concealed, and then completed his own escape by going down to the sea-coast, where a skiff lay ready to carry him on board the French vessel.

According to most authorities, and especially to that of Lesley, the Duke of Albany landed at his Castle of Dunbar, and put it in order of defence, then proceeded to France, where he afterwards married the Duchess of Bouillon, and resided in that kingdom until 1482.

Meanwhile his Castle of Dunbar was besieged by the royal army, under the command of Lord Evandale, then chancellor. The place does not appear to have made a strenuous resistance on this occasion; but by a singular fatality, three knights, and one of distinction, amongst the besiegers, the Lairds of Luss and Craigie-wallace, with Sir William Shaw of Sauchie, were killed by the same canon-ball. The garrison of the castle, and other aiders of the Duke of Albany, Home of Polwarth, Andrew Jackson, David Chirnside, and others, who, by their names, seem to belong to the Merse or East-Lothian, were declared forfeited by parliament, 1480.

In 1482, the Duke of Albany left France for England, and by a disgraceful league with the English monarch, who promised him a dependent sceptre, and a dilapidated kingdom, when their joint arms could subdue it, entered Scotland, and took possession of Berwick. Here a peace was patched up between the nations, by the terms of which Albany, renouncing his more ambitious pretensions, was restored to his Scottish domains, and amongst others to the possession

of Dunbar Castle. But he had not been in Scotland many months ere the nobility, suspecting his views, compelled him to a second flight. On this occasion, which occurred in 1483, Albany left his Castle of Dunbar in the hands of an English garrison, who defended it vigorously and successfully against the efforts of the Scottish, then much disanited, to wrest it from their hands. On the 21st September, 1484, a truce of three years was concluded betwixt England and Scotland, in which a singular clause respected Dunbar. That fortress and its garrison were to have for six months the full benefit of the cessation of arms; but the king of Scotland was to be at liberty, within six weeks after the lapse of that term, to notify to the King of England his intention that Dunbar should no longer be comprehended within the pacification, and, having done so, was to be at liberty to recover that important possession by force, if he could. Such was the weakness of King James III., that he could not avail himself of this provision until the midst of the winter of 1485-6, when, advancing to Dunbar in the depth of winter, he once more restored that important place to its native sovereign.

It was the general policy of Scotland that very few castles should be maintained on the frontiers, both because the poverty of the kingdom was unequal to sustaining adequate garrisons, and because, as we observe in the history of Dunbar, they often fell into the hands of an enemy better skilled than the Scottish in the art of attacking and defending strong places. In the spirit of this policy, and moved by late events, an Act of Parliament was passed in 1488, which directs the Castle of Dunbar to be casten down and utterly destroyed, in such manner as to render it incapable of repairs in time to come, "because," said the statute, "it has done great skaith in time by gone, and it were great danger to the realme if it were negligently keeped in future."

It does not appear that this ordinance was carried into execution till near a century afterwards. Dunbar is one of the royal castles in which James IV. infefts his bride, Queen Margaret of England, in security of her marriage contract.

Dunbar is not much mentioned in history after the surrender in F486, until the minority of Queen Mary. From the account of Patten, it would seem that Somerset, during the invasion of Scotland in 1547, passed the castle under the fire of some of its artillery, from which he experienced no damage.

During the eventful regency of Mary of Guise, Dunbar, garrisoned by her French troops, was a cause of great jealousy to the Lords of the Congregation, and their allies of England. By the final treaty betwixt these parties, in 1560, it is agreed that all the French soldiers were to be dismissed, excepting sixty to garrison Inchkeith, and as many in Dunbar; and it is especially stipulated, that the new

works which had been added to the fortress should be demolished without delay.

In the year 1567, the unfortunate Queen Mary had conferred the keeping of this important place on the object of her misplaced favour, the too celebrated Bothwell, in part the recompense of his "great service and exorbitant expenses," and also because his friends, kinsmen, tenants, and servants, dwelt for the most part adjacent to the said castle and strength of Dunbar. For maintaining this service, she assigns the crown lands of Easter and Wester Barnes, the lands of Newtoun-Leyis, the lands called Waldaue, the lands of Rig and Fluris, the lands of Myreside, with the links, coning-yairs, etc., the mill called Brandsmyth, the mill called West Barnes Mill, with the mill lands of both, ten pounds of annual rent, to be taken out of the lands of Lochend, with all and sundrie lands and profits besides belonging to the keeping of the said castle.

Thus governed and endowed, Dunbar Castle twice received the unhappy Mary. After the death of Rizzio, she fled to this stronghold, where she was speedily joined by such a number of her friends as gave her a temporary ascendency over the actors in that cruel tragedy. Hither she fled with her ill-chosen husband, Bothwell, when, nearly surprised, she made her escape from Borthwick Castle, in the disguise of a page, and, closely pursued by Lord Home, with difficulty found refuge within its walls. Here also she assembled, by proclamation, the unwilling and faint-hearted army by which she was deserted at Carberry-hill, when she was compelled to surrender herself prisoner, and was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle.

The place was, even after this event, for a short time defended by the Laird of Whitelaw, whom Bothwell had left in charge; but the garrison being in despair of obtaining relief, and the regent having, with his usual decisive celerity, brought cannon from Edinburgh to batter the place, Dunbar surrendered for the last time, was dismantled, and the artillery carried to Edinburgh.

The Earl of Moray and the Parliament now resumed the policy of James IV.'s reign, and among other particulars referred to the Lords of the Articles, they are required to consider what order shall be taken anent the manner of demolishing the Castle of Dunbar and the Inche, and to consider the 15th act of King James the Fourth, touching Dunbar. On the margin of the record is an imperfect note of the following purport: 26th December, 1567. Ordains the Inche and Dunbar to be demolished and taken down, in respect of K. Jas" There are obvious reasons why the regent held it more politic to carry on the demolition as if in execution of an ancient statute, than to take the odium of it on his own government. There ean be no doubt that the castle was at this time completely de

stroyed, and that nothing, save the present vestiges, were left of its ancient strength.

In the year 1581, among a number of grants excepted by James VI. from the general revocation of his Deeds of gift made through importunity, mention is made of the "forthe of Dunbar granted to William Boncle, burgess of Dunbar." This probably referred to the site of the fortress, and perhaps some grounds adjacent, allowed in gratuity to some citizen of the burgh.

TANTALLON CASTLE.

THE ruins of Tantallon, or Temptallon, according to the more ancient orthography, occupy a promontory which projects from the rocky coast of East-Lothian, and, hanging over the German Ocean just at the entrance of the Frith of Forth, forms a grand feature] in the general picture as a vessel enters the estuary. The castle is situated about two miles from the little town of North Berwick, and commands a view of the wild and romantic rock called Bass, which, till the time of the Revolution, was also the site of a fortress, strong in its insular situation and the inaccessible cliffs of the islet; long the hereditary castle of the ancient family of Lauder; then a crown fortress, and chiefly used as a state prison.

The ruins of Tantallon, though with little magnificence of architecture, have, from their extent, the strength of their original construction, and their striking situation, overhanging the billows of a wide and often troubled ocean, an imposing effect on the imagination. From the land side they are scarce visible, until the curious visitor, surmounting a height which conceals them, finds himself close under the external walls. This circumstance, which would render the castle an easy conquest since modern improvements in the art of war, took nothing in ancient times from its supposed impregnability. When the beseiger appeared in front of the only side of Tantallon which is not secured by the sea, he found opposed to him a strong curtain, flanked by towers of a massive construction, and had to pass two ditches, the inner of uncommon depth, ere he could approach the guarded entrance, while, in his attack, he lay fully exposed to the arrows and shot of the defenders.

In form the fortress is an irregular hexagon, occupying the whole promontory with strong walls and high towers, and turrets designed to flank them; and in the interior is, as usual, a keep, or Gothic citadel, with many other buildings of great size and extent, and vaults beneath them for receiving provisions, and often, doubtless, for se