112 Rev. John Walker on Greenlaw. 



burgh of the whole county of Berwick." And, although 

 in 1661, immediately on the restoration, when the lands of 

 Hume of Spott, had been seized by the creditors of that 

 family, a private bill was passed through parliament, making 

 Dunse the chief burgh of the county, and afterwards, in 1670, 

 there was an act which divided the honours of Dunse with 

 Lauder ; yet, on the revolution, the parliament of Scotland 

 (anno 1696) repealed the acts of 1661 and 1670, and declared 

 the town of Greenlaw to be the head burgh of the shire of 

 Berwick — a position which, though sometimes menaced, it 

 has retained since that time. 



Previously to 1696, the baronies of Greenlaw and White- 

 side had passed from the Humes of Spott, into the posses- 

 sion of the family of Marchmont, created at the revolution 

 Baron Polwarth and subsequently Earl of Marchmont, a 

 branch of the Wedderburn Humes by the heiress of John 

 de Polwarth and the Countess Ida, whom we find, by the 

 Liber de Melrose, to have been in possession of Polwarth in 

 the 12th century, and they are still in the occupation of the 

 descendant of that old family. Sir Hugh Hume Campbell, 

 Bart., of Marchmont. 



The barony of Halyburton also appears to have remained 

 long in the family of that Saxon knight whom the first Cos- 

 patrick placed or confirmed in the possession of it, although 

 they ceased, at an early period of their occupation, to make 

 it their usual residence. About the middle of the thirteenth 

 century Philip de Halyburton married the daughter and 

 heiress of De Vaux, of Dirlton. This De Vaux, like his 

 chief the Earl of Dunbar, of a Cumberland family, was 

 descended from Hubert de Vallibus or De Vaux, Hubert of 

 the Gills, or Gillsland, and along with two brothers who 

 took the name of Gillsbie, or Gillespie, is said, in a manu- 

 script topographical and family history of Cumberland, 

 which I have seen, and which was written by Mr Denton, a 

 Tower lawyer, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, to have passed 

 to the Court of Scotland in Cospatrick's train. When the 

 struggle came between the Earls of Douglas and Dunbar as 

 to Avhose daughter should be the wife of the unfortunate 

 Prince of Scotland, the Halyburtons and Humes deserted 

 the cause of their feudal superior, and under the patronage 

 of Douglas their fortunes prospered. On the final ruin 

 of the Earl of Dunbar, they were both received to hold 

 their lands immediately from the crown, and some time after- 

 wards (in 1440 and 1473) were created Lords of Parliament. 



