"^6 Faiuside or Falside Castle. [Sess. 



ascertained, and no further doubt existed, Hamilton, like a man, 

 went to Fawside and apologised to the widow for slaying lier 

 husband, and tried to make amends for what had been done in 

 hot haste. To their honour no fresh outbreak of the kind ever 

 took place again, so far as we can hear. Let us hope that 

 before any dispute on so trivial a matter took so serious a turn, 

 they would weigh the evidence better than they had done 

 before. 



Seven years have come and gone, and during that time the 

 inmates of Fawside, and those near them, I doubt not plodded 

 on their way quietly and cheerily, tending their flocks, sowing 

 their seed, and reaping their harvests. There was nothing to 

 disturb them. But the time did come when the sound of trum- 

 pet and roll of cannon were again heard. The crown of England 

 was worn at the time by Edward VI. Negotiations had been 

 made for the marriage of the young Queen Mary of Scotland 

 with Edward ; but these failing, war was proclaimed to compel 

 the Scotch to submit. Accordingly an army crossed the Borders 

 and marched on Edinburgh, Somerset being the Protector dur- 

 ing the English minority, and the Earl of Arran Eegent during 

 the Scotch. The Scotch sent an army to meet the invaders, 

 and both met about two miles from Musselburgh, on the ridge 

 of ground just above Pinkie and close to Fawside. It was just 

 seven years since old Fawside lost his life at Preston, and one 

 could have wished he had lived to this time. On the 9th Sep- 

 tember 1547 a renewal of hostilities took place ; it was but the 

 precursor of the more bloody battle of the morrow. If more 

 bloody, it was less fierce than that waged in 1540. The com- 

 batants were the English and Scotch ; then it was between two 

 kinsmen and neighbours. The English the next day renewed 

 the fight, and as both parties waxed hotter and hotter in the 

 fray, the scene lay in time around the castle, which at length 

 had to stand a siege. On the ramparts might be seen the re- 

 tainers and body-guard doing what was in their power to beat 

 back their foes. Commanded by Lady Fawside, the widow of 

 the same old Fawside, as each charge of the English was made 

 she and her followers would stoop and throw over volleys of 

 large stones, working considerable havoc on those beneath, while 

 others would occasionally make a sortie from the gate. This 

 continued till the English, tired of the siege, set the castle on 



