JOURNAL OF JOHN ASTON, 1639 87 



[May] 30. Soe upon the Thursday following being the 30th 

 of May the king's pavillion was pitched ; and hee himself 

 went to lodge in the army, and continued in it from that 

 time till it broke up. 



Barwick : — Hath beene the ould partition wall betweene 

 the two kingdomes, and, since the union. King James cashiered 

 the garrison and slighted the woorkes, much against the 

 mindes of some English, especially one, Captain [a space is 

 left here'\, who wrote a witty discourse how necessary it was 

 to maintaine a garrison still there, and did allmost prophecy 

 the rebellion of the Scotts in future times. The scituation 

 heerof is readily knowne by all ; it stande on the further side 

 Tweede, and hath a stone bridge leading to it of 15 arches. 

 The haven, at high water, will receive a shipp of great burden, 

 but 'tis a towne of noe trade, because it affoords noe commodities 

 for transportation ; fishing is theire best, but they wholly 

 necglect it, except only for salmon, which is very plentifull. 

 The sea lyes open to them to the east, and, flowing up two 

 or three miles above their bridge, is a good defence to that 

 side of the towne. The building is very meane, yet it hath 

 good stoore of houses in it, and one poore chappell on the 

 north east side. It had a faire church in it but, during the 

 enmity betweene the two nations, it was taken downe, for feare 

 of battering, and this chappell built of the materialls and some 

 part of the walls. There was aunciently a castle on the north 

 west side of the towne, but King James bestowed it on the 

 earle of Dunbarr,'^^ ■v^rho began to build a stately house in the 

 very place where the auncient castle stood, out of its ruins 

 and left it unfinished. The seate serves properly for a defence 

 to the towne still, and soe it was now used, there being two 

 bulwarkes made upon the side walls by filling their inward 

 parts with earth, on the one was three iron peeces mounted, 

 on the other two. The castle hath a very deepe dry ditch 

 about it and a gate over it leading it out of the towne. 



^2 Cf. " Notes on Berwick Castle and the Modern Owners thereof," 

 by William Maddan, History of the Berivickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 Vol. XIX., p. 348. 



