soldiers of the garrison made a fruitless defence
till the 6th of June, 1296, when they were compelled
to capitulate-the weather being intensely
sultry and the wells having dried up. In accordance
with Edward?s usual sanguinary policy, the
whole garrison was put to the sword with ruthless
cruelty, and Walter de Huntercombe, a baron of
Northumberland, was made governor of the new
one; but in the next year Wallace with his patriots
swePt like a torrent over the Lowlands.
Victorious at Stirling,
in particular, he slew
Cressingham, and recaptured
all the fortresses
- Edinburgh
among them. Scotland
was cleared of the
English ; but the invasion
of I zg8 followed ;
Wallace was betrayed,
and too well do we
know how he died.
The year 1300 saw
?Johan de Kingeston,
Connestable et Gardeyn
du Chaste1 de Edenburgh,?
and four years
afterwards he was succeeded
by Sir Piers
de Lombard, a brave
Robert Bruce was
now in arms. He in
turn had became conqueror
; he invaded
England in 1311, and
by the following year
had re-captured nearly
every castle but that of
. knight of Gascony.
was made on the night of the 14th of March-which
proved dark and stormy-at the most difficult
part of those precipitous blxffs which overhang the
Princes? Street Gardens, where a fragment of ruin,
named Wallace?s Cradle, is still visible. Under his
guidance, with only thirty resolute men, Randolph
scaled the walls at midnight, and, after a fierce
resistance, the garrison was overpowered. There
are indications that some secret pathway, known to
the Scottish garrison, existed, for during some
CHANCEL ARCH OF ST. MARGARET?S CHAPEL.
Edinburgh, the reduction of which he entrusted to
the noble Sir Thomas Randolph of Strathdon,
Earl of Moray, who has been described as ?a
man altogether made up of virtues.?
The English or Norman garrison suspecting
the fidelity of Sir Piers, placed him in a dungeon,
and under a newly-elected commander, were prepared
to offer a desperate resistance, when a romantic
incident restored the Castle to the king
of Scotland.
Among the soldiers of Randolph was one named
William Frank, who volunteered to lead an escalade
up a steep and intricate way by which he had been
accustomed in former years to visit a girl in the
city of whom he was enamoured. Frequent use had
made him familiar with the perilous ascent, and it
-
operations in 1821
traces were found of
steps cut in the rock,
about seventyfeetabove
the fragment named
? Wallace?s Cradle ?-
a path supposed to
have been completcd
by a movable ladder.
Sir Piers de Lombard
(sometimes called Leland)
joined King
Kobert, who, according
to Barbour, created him
Viscount of Edinburgh;
but afterwards suspecting
him of treason, and
?that he had an English
hart, made him to
be hangit and drawen.?
To prevent it from
being re-captured or
r e-ga rri son e d, R a ndolph
dismantled the
Castle, which for fourand-
twenty years afterwards
remained a desolate
ruin abandoned
to the bat and the owl.
shattered walls afforded While in this state its
shelter for a single night, in 1335, to therouted
troops of Guy, Count of Namur, who had landed
at Berwick, and was marching to join Edward
III., but was encountered on the Burghmuir by
the Earls of Moray and March, with powerful
forces, when a fierce and bloody battle ensued.
Amid it, Richard Shaw, a Scottish squire, was
defied to single combat by a Flemish knight in a
closed helmet, and both fell, each transfixed by the
other?s lance. On the bodies being stripped of
their armour, the gallant stranger proved to be
a woman ! While the issue of the battle was
still doubtful, the earls were joined by fresh
forces under Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie,
William Douglas, and Sir David de Annan. The
