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Notes on "A Mapp of King Charles his Campe or Leaguer^* 

 at the Birks, near Berwick, May, June, 1639. By Robert 

 Chambers, LL.D. {Plate XIV.) 



In a work devoted to Border matters, it cannot he inappropri- 

 ate to notice the site of the camp occupied by Charles I., when 

 endeavouring to overawe the Scottish covenanters ; more 

 especially as it happens to have been denoted to us, with 

 curious local detail, by a rare engraving of the celebrated 

 Hollar, who seems to have followed the royal army. His 

 Majesty's camp or leaguer on that occasion was upon an open 

 tract of slightly undulating ground, on the right or English 

 bank of the Tweed, opposite to Paxton, and extending south- 

 ward very nearly to a farm house called the Birks, which still 

 exists. An army raised by the covenanters, under the com- 

 mand of General Alexander Leslie, had advanced to Dunglass, 

 when the king approached the Border with an army of about 

 sixteen thousand men, thinking to terrify the Scotch into 

 obedience without stroke of sword. Unfortunately for his 

 calculations, his troops were ill affected to his objects, — were, 

 on the contrary, inclined to sympathise with the Scotch, — 

 while the covenanting army was of fully equal numbers, and 

 animated by strong religious and patriotic feelings. He had 

 not taken up his ground at the Birks more than five days, 

 when it pleased him to send a large detachment, under the 

 Earl of Holland, to break up a party of the covenanters at 

 Kelso. It failed miserably, and performed an inglorious 

 retreat. 



Leslie then called in the Kelso party, and planted the 

 whole of his troops, upwards of twenty thousand in number, 

 on the top of Dunse Law, (June 5), ready to oppose the king 

 if he should enter Scotland in force. Hearing of this move- 

 ment, the king took a prospect-glass, and, walking down to 

 the side of the Tweed, there, to his great surprise, beheld the 

 army on Dunse Law, five or six miles distant, and, probably, 

 from that moment began to feel that he was not to accomplish 

 his purpose by arms. As is well known, he came to a pacifi- 

 cation with the Scottish leaders, (June 18), and immediately 

 thereafter broke up his camp. 



In Hollar's print, we find the camp of a square form, in an 

 angle of the Tweed, which bounds it on the north and west. 

 The east boundary extends backwards from the Ord houses, 

 near which there is a sort of quay for the landing of provi- 

 sions from Berwick, and a ford, which had temporarily got 



