390 A Mid'Lothian Burn. [Sess. 



for the same " to Halton, for the purpose of briDging the 

 Douglas to reason. Here the Earl of Bothwell spent the 

 night before his abduction of Mary of Scots. In 1653 the 

 house and lands passed by marriage to Charles Maitland, 

 younger brother of the Duke of Lauderdale, and his successor 

 as earl, and for over a hundred years it remained one of the 

 chief possessions of the Lauderdale family. These were the 

 palmy days of Halton, when the Earls of Lauderdale vied 

 in hospitalities with the Earls of Hopetoun. In 1792 the 

 eighth Earl — Citizen Maitland as he was termed — sold the 

 house and lands to the Scotts of Scotstarvet for £84,000 — a 

 small part of its value ; and they, again, sold the house to 

 Dr Davidson, of the Tolbooth Church and of Muirhouse, for 

 £14,000. The property was acquired in 1870 by the Earl 

 of Morton. 



Much could be told of Halton and its owners, but we must 

 hasten on. 



The lands of Dalmahoy, originally belonging to the Dal- 

 mahoys of that ilk, about the middle of the seventeenth 

 century passed into the hands of the Dalrymples, and were 

 purchased from them by James, Earl of Morton, about the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century. On our way to the 

 mansion-house we pass the private chapel and burial-ground 

 of Dalmahoy, where is seen a rudely-incised cross, to which 

 neither record nor tradition attaches, save that it was re- 

 moved from Hatton grounds last generation. 



Among the historic relics of the Morton family, the house 

 contains — the original Scottish Parliamentary Bible which 

 belonged to the Eegent Morton ; the Warrant for the confine- 

 ment of Mary, Queen of Scots, in Lochleven Castle ; and the 

 five keys of the castle thrown into the loch when Mary 

 escaped. Among the paintings may be seen portraits of the 

 Eegent and of Queen Mary ; and the needlework on the 

 staircase is said to have been wrought by the royal prisoner 

 in the island castle. 



Adjacent to the house there is a loch of considerable 

 dimensions whose overflow acts as a feeder to our burn. 

 We have, perhaps, stayed away too long from the banks of 

 the stream wandering in the fields of history, but having paid 

 such tribute to the past, let us resume our journey. It may 



