HAILES CASTLE. — HADDINGTON. 57 



delay — though delay itself would have insured the surrender of Cromwell, by 

 completely cutting oif his supplies — they descended the hill in the easy order 

 of men who had nothing to fear, and by their want of discipline, rendered 

 their superior force an encumbrance. This the experienced eye of Cromwell 

 instantly detected, and continuing to watch their movements, he exclaimed in 

 exulting phrase, " The Lord hath delivered them into our hands !" — a prediction 

 which was too speedily verified in the slaughter, capture, or dispersion of the 

 entire army. 



The road through Linton, the modern Prestonkirk, crosses, and, for a con- 

 siderable way, skirts the river Tyne, whose classic banks are diversified with 

 much fine scenery, and embellished with stately mansions. In one of these, 

 Hailes Castle, the earls of Bothwell and Morton are said to have conspired 

 the death of the unhappy Darnley — a deed which was perpetrated two months 

 thereafter, under such atrocious circumstances. The castle was demolished in l^ter 

 times by Cromwell, and at last came into the possession of lord Hailes, whose 

 work, " The Annals of Scotland," will transmit his name to the latest posterity. 

 Haddington, the county town, is a place of great antiquity, well built, and 

 agreeably situated on the banks of the Tyne, which divides it into nearly 

 equal parts ; but which, on more than one occasion, has inundated and destroyed 

 great part of the town and suburb of Nungate. 



Of its architectural features, the most ancient and attractive is the Franciscan 

 church, invested in former times with so much sacred splendour, as to justify 

 its epithet of Lucerna Laudonice — the lamp of Lothian. 



In 1244, a remarkable conflagration laid the town in ashes — remarkable, 

 because, in the same night, the towns of Roxburgh, Stirling, Lanark, Perth, 

 Forfar, Montrose, and Aberdeen, were visited by a similar calamity — a fact 

 which involves much reasonable suspicion as to its cause. But at that period, 

 when the domestic edifices were constructed principally of wood, and thatched 

 with straw, or heath, calamities by fire were of frequent recurrence. In those 

 days, the destruction of a town was only the work of an hour ; a circumstance 

 which was readily taken advantage of on any sudden invasion. Eleven years 

 later, the town, monastery, and church of the Franciscans, were again burnt 

 to the ground by Edward III., but against whom, as it was believed, the 

 vengeance of heaven manifested itself in the wreck of his fleet, as it approached 

 the Scottish shore, freighted veith supplies for his army. But another and 

 better cause is assigned, namely, that " Our Lady" of Whitekirk — having 

 been plundered of her jewels by some sacrilegious stragglers from the ships, 

 raised a storm suflficient to strand the royal navj' — and no wonder, for where — 



Q 



