BOTIIWELL CASTLE. BLANTYRE PRIORY. 137 



Combien de souvenirs ici sont retraces ! 



J'aime a voir ces glacis, ces angles, ces fosses, 



Oes vestiges epars des sidges, des bataillcs, 



Ces boulets qu'arreta 1'epaisseur des murailles. 



J'aime a me rappeler ces fameux diflirends 



Des peuples et des rois, des vassaux et des grands." . . . 



" Ces spectres, ces lutins rodant dans les tenebres : 

 Vieux recits, dont le charme, amusant les bameaux, 

 Abrtge la veillee, et suspend les fuseaux. . . . 



" Ici, du haut des tours, plus d'une tendre amante 

 Suivait son jeune amant dans la lice sanglante; 

 La, nos gais troubadours, et nos vieux romanciets, 

 Cele'braient la tendresse et les exploits guerriers ; 

 La, nos fiers paladins, u la gloire fideles, 

 Combattaient pour leur Dieu, leurmonarque etleurs belles. 

 Je crois les voir encore, et reve tour a tour, 

 De joiites, de tournois, cle feerie et d'amour.' 



These buildings compiling at once a palace and a fortress covered, in 

 ancient times, a wide extent of ground ; and what still remains of their past glory 

 measures two hundred and thirty-four feet in length, by ninety-nine in breadth. 

 The walls are remarkable for their massive solidity, fifteen feet thick, and, 

 where the severed fragments scattered round their base attest the force of the 

 sudden bolt, the besieger's mine, or the levelling effects of time, the single masses 

 cohere as if composed of one block, thereby evincing the extraordinary quality 

 of the mortar in which they were originally imbedded. 



The court is wide and capacious ; and in the east and west ends of the 

 building apartments, as well as the mutilated walls and narrow windows of the 

 family chapel, are still to be seen. In one of the towers, two of which are 

 nearly entire, is an old draw-well, bored to a considerable depth in the solid 

 rock. By a flight of steps the traveller may still ascend to the battlements 

 of one of the highest towers, which overlooks the river at an immense 

 depth below, and commands a beautiful prospect.* 



The first possessor of the barony of Bothwell was a Walter Olifard, from whom 

 it descended by an heiress to the Morays of Bothwell, and again iu the same 

 manner, in 1370, came into possession of the Douglases.-}- During his military- 

 occupation of the country, Edward I. resided for some time in this castle ; and on 



A short distance from Bothwell, " Tinto Tap," the hill celebrated in one of Burns' popular lyrics, forms 

 a prominent feature in the landscape, while Benlomond rises in colossal majesty in tile back ground. 



t Craignethan Castle, the property of Lord Douglas, but formerly a stronghold of the Hamilton family, 

 is generally understood as the Tillietudlem so well pictured in the " Tales ol my Landlord." In this 

 fortress the unfortunate Queen Mary found a temporary asylum from her persecutors, after her escape from 

 Lochleven Castle. 



VOL. II. N N 



