When the border-line of England was advanced farther northwards than in the time of David, the possession of Roxburgh Castle, known later as "The Castle of Marchmound," was usually one of the most keenly contested points in the warfare between the two kingdoms. It was while laying siege to it that James II. lost his life, and so commanding was its position and occupation that it was finally thought the best policy to throw it down. It was costly to keep, and hazardous to be in the hands of an enemy. Something of it survived in the beginning of the century. The site of so much splendour, and the scene of so many valiant struggles, is now marked by bits of broken wall here and there, but mostly by green and shapeless mounds :— "Crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees One moss-clad ruin rise between the trees The still green trees whose mournful branches wave The Castle of Peebles stood on the highest point of the peninsula between the Tweed and the Eddleston, at the head of the High Street, and a little behind the site of the present parish church. The site, flanked by the Peebles Water on the north and west, and the Tweed on the south with its guarded bridge, was a very strong one. The castle was already built in the time of David I. William the Lion, between 1165 and 1199,2 gives to the Abbey of Kelso "the chapel of the Castle of Peebles, with the carucate of land belonging to it, and with the 1 Leyden, Scenes of Infancy, Part iii. 58. 2 Confirmatio Regis Willelmi super Donationibus antecessorum suorum— Liber de Calchou, Carta 13. redditus of ten shillings of the 'ferme' of the burgh, which King David my grandfather assigned to the same chapel for perpetually celebrating in it divine service for the soul of Earl Henry my father." The monks are laid under an obligation of erecting there a suitable and fair chapel (pulcram capellam), and finding for it seemly ecclesiastical decorations (honesta ornamenta ecclesiastica), and a perpetual chaplain. 1 Edward I. garrisoned the Castle of Peebles in 1297-98. He was at Peebles in August 1301. Sir William de Durham, Sheriff of Peebles, held the town for the English king with four men-at-arms in 1302. On 12th June 1334, Edward Baliol granted to Edward III., in pledge, "Villam et Comitatum de Pebles." The omission of " castrum here, while it occurs in the particulars of the grant of the other places namedsuch as Berwick - on - Tweed, Roxburgh, Jeddeworthe, Edinburgh, Dumfries-may be taken to imply that at this date the Castle of Peebles was demolished, or at least no longer of service as a stronghold. Curiously enough, Baliol, under the orders of the English king, was at Peebles, 29th December of this year; and the Earl of Moray and others having fled from the district, the English party burnt and destroyed everything in their way, and then returned to Carlisle.2 It seems probable, however, that the Castle of Peebles was among those that had before this date been dismantled-though not wholly destroyed-by Robert Bruce, in accordance with his policy of leaving no strongholds likely to be of 1 Rhymer, Fadera, ii. 888; Cal. Doc. Scotland, iii. 1127. use to the southern invader. In 1439, August 12, a deed of David Hay, Lord Yester, dated "apud Castrum de Peblis," is confirmed by the king. I should add that the Castle of Neidpath, mentioned in 1492, but probably older, ought not to be confounded with the original Castle of Peebles. The eminence on which Neidpath stands never belonged to the burgh, and never was called the Castlehill. It formed part of the lands of Jedderfield (Jedworthfield), the hereditary appanage of the Sheriff of Peeblesshire. In the year 1610, John, Lord Hay of Yester, was served heir to his father, James, Lord Hay of Yester, "in the lands of Jedburghfield, with the office of Sheriff of Peiblis and the Castle of Nidpath, of the old extent of five merks." It was never flanked by any mill belonging to the burgh. No mill-lade was ever cut along its south side. It never paid ferme to the Crown, and it was never feued out by the burgh; while all these things apply to the Castlehill of Peebles. In 1465, James le Vache (Veitch) got a grant of land at "the Est end under the Castlehill, and upon the South side." These lands were held until very recent times by his successors, and they were on the side of the site of the present parish church. The only ground on which this supposition has been made is that, apparently after the destruction of the castle on the Castlehill of Peebles,-in so far at least as it was available as a stronghold,— the Castle of Neidpath was spoken of in formal documents by the Sheriff, its owner, as "the Castle of Peebles." This, of course, it was in a judicial sense. It was the place from which documents were issued by the Sheriff of Peebles for the time; but this does not prove that Neidpath was the original Castle of Peebles, and that these two castles had not a separate existence. The Rental Book of the Earl of Tweeddale from 1671 to 1685 is even dated " Peebles Castle." Unless there had been still surviving some old fragment of the keep, to which the tenants might resort, the other castle, superseding the original, would be called "Peebles Castle." There is a precisely analogous case in Glasgow. We know that the Bishop's Castle of Glasgow stood on the Castlehill at the head of the High Street, and that he also occupied the Castle of Lochwood in the parish of Monkland. And we find that, in dating papers from Lochwood, the Bishop more than once calls it "The Castle of Glasgow." The old remains of the Castle of Peebles-foundations and some mounds-were swept away on the occasion of the building of the parish church in last century. Since that date, the traces of the original castle have been entirely ob literated. The Castle of Traquair still stands, incorporated with more modern yet still ancient additions. The old castle forms the northern portion of the present building. This picturesque mansion, with its varied additions through Scottish story, is one of the oldest homesteads on the Borders, and in itself an epitome of the past. From the oldest portion of it the kings of Scotland, from David I. to Alexander III., have dated charters. The castle of the royal forest, in the green and well-watered valley of the Quair, was the favourite residence of those early kings especially William the Lion in the peaceful and prosperous time ere It the dark troubles of the War of Independence. was visited by Edward I. and Edward II. of England. Mary Stuart and Darnley, after their marriage, spent some days there in August 1566, when there was some coarse and unseemly speech to the Queen by her consort, who was rebuked for it by his host the laird. And Montrose, after riding across Minchmuir on a September day from the disaster at Philiphaugh, paid a brief visit to the house on his rapid flight up the Tweed to Peebles and Biggar. In the time of Bruce Sir James of Douglas held the house and lands, and they passed through several hands, among others, William de Moravia, possibly the Outlaw of the ballad, to a James Stewart, son of James, Earl of Buchan. This first Stewart of Traquair had a charter of the lands in 1491, and was among the slain at Flodden. From this old mansion, out to her grave the a few years ago, was carried last direct descendant of the line that held it for more than four hundred years, and in whose veins ran the blood of the Lady Jane Beaufort, whom the youthful James I. saw from the narrow bole of the tower of Windsor, as a moving vision in the garden among the trees, with, as he says "Beautee eneuch to make a world to dote." Its guardian bears, and the mystery of its long-closed gate and grass-grown avenue, remain to attract and stimulate the fancy. These were the chief seats of royalty from the time of David I., and even before it, until the death of Alexander III. From these castles were issued many of the most |