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Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I

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avaliers were committed prisoners to his care, and remained there till the pacification of Berwick. On the 19th of November, King Charles?s birthday, a great portion of the curtain-wall, which was very old, fell with a crash over the rocks ; and the insurgents rejoiced at this event as boding evil to the royal cause. After the pacification, the Castle, with thirty others, was restored to the king, who placed therein a gamson, under Sir Patrick Ruth- ? made from the gate. Batteries were thrown up at nearly the same places where they had been formed in Kirkaldy?s time, Ruthven refused to give the Estates the use of the regalia. Under Colonel Hamilton, master of the ordnance, the batteries opened with vigour, while select musketeers were ?told ofT,? to aim at individuals on the ramparts. Most bitter was the defence of Ruthven, whose cannonade imperilled the whole city THE REGENT MORTON. (Fmm an &ag?awing 6v Hoabmken.) ven (previously Governor of Ulm under the great Gustavus), who marched in, on the 25th February, 2640, with drums beating and matches lighted. As the magistrates refused to supply him with provisions, and raised 5bo men to keep a watch upon his garrison, this testy veteran of the Swedish wars fired a few heavy shot at random on the city, and on the renewal of hostilities between Charles and the Scots, Leslie was ordered by the Parliament, on the 12th June, to reduce the fortress. Xuthven?s reply to a summons, was to open fire with guns and matchlocks in every direction, and a sortie, under Scrimgeour, the constable, was and the beautiful spire of St Giles?s ; while poor people reaping in the fields at a distance were sometimes killed by it. The Covenanters sprung a mine, and blew up the south-east angle of the Spur; but the rugged aspect of the breach was such that few of their officers seemed covetous of reading a forlorn hope, especially as old Ruthven, in his rich armour and plumed hat, appeared at the summit heading a band of pikes. At last the Laird of Drum and a Captain Weddal, at the head of 185 men, under a murderous matchlock fire, made a headlong rush, but ere they gained the gap, a cannon loaded
Volume 1 Page 52
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Volume 1 Page 53
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