22 SCOTLAND ILLUSTRATED. 



levying a heavy tax for the purpose of fitting out a new crusade, Hugh, bishop of 

 Durham, was delegated on the part of England to see the same carried into effect 

 in Scotland. On reaching the frontier, the prelate was met at Birgham* by "William 

 the Lion, attended by a numerous retinue of bishops, earls, barons, and many 

 other vassals of the crown ; and after some conference, in which the English 

 ambassador was informed, that the clergy and laity could not be persuaded to 

 furnish the tenth demanded, the interview closed. Here also, in March, 1290, 

 when Edward I. had obtained from Pope Nicholas IV. a dispensation for the 

 marriage of his son. Prince Edward, with Queen Margaret of Scotland, a great 

 assembly of the Scotch estates took place for the purpose of expressing by letter 

 their satisfaction at the approaching match — provided security were given them 

 by Edward, relative to certain matters connected with the existing state of the 

 country. Another assembly, vested with still greater powers, was held in the 

 same place in July ; but the premature death of the young queen in one of the 

 Orkneys, during her passage from Norway, cancelled all further negotiation, and 

 defeated a measure which had appeared so desirable to many as a guarantee for 

 the independence of Scotland.f 



About a mile north of the village is an ancient cross, consisting of a column 

 inserted through a base or pedestal into the earth, but without date or 

 inscription.^ The local tradition is, that a governor of Hume castle was killed 

 on the spot : and the place where it stands was, till lately, called Deadriggs, in 

 consequence of a battle, in which the slaughter, according to tradition, was so 

 great that the Liprick, a rivulet close by, ran with blood for twenty-four hours ! 



About three miles to the north-west, Hume Castle presents a commanding 

 feature in the landscape ; and, although chiefly modern, and reconstructed on the 

 ruins of the ancient family fortress of that name, the effect in the distance is bold 

 and picturesque. Its embattled outline, and other feudal accompaniments, are in 

 good tkste and strict keeping with the wild scenery by which it is flanked, and 

 the many warlike associations with which its beacon towers are connected. In 

 the disturbed periods of Border history, nothing could have been better planted 

 either as a watch-tower or a place of strength. 



* Ben. Petrol, p. 5H. Rymer, torn. ii. p. 44-8. t Ridpatli, pp. lOl — 16C. 



I The north face presents the sculpture of a cross, Calvary, with tlie upper part surrounded by a kind 

 of shield ; and on the west an escutcheon and St. John's cross — the south similar to the west, but with the 

 addition of a double-handled sword — the east, a circular expansion at top, with a cross ; and below, the 

 naked figure of a man and a greyhound. It is by some conjectured to h.ive been raised in memory of one 

 of the Percy family ; but Mr. Robertson refers it, more plausibly, to the close of the second crusade, and 

 supposes it to have been erected in honour of the father of Sir John Soules, viceroy to John Baliol. — 

 Statist. Eccles. 



