nearly to the muzzle with musket-balls was depressed
to sweep it, and did so with awful effect.
According to the historian of the ? Troubles,?
twenty men were blown to shreds. Weddal had both
thighs broken, and Somerville, with a few who were
untouched, grovelled close under the wall, where
Ruthven, who recognised him as an old Swedish
comrade, besought him to retire, adding, ? I derive
no pleasure in the death of gallant men.? Of the
whole escalade only thirty-three escaped alive, and
of these many were wounded, a result which
cooled the ardour of the besiegers; but after a
three months? blockade, finding his garrison few,
and all suffering from scurvy, and that provisions
and ammunition were alike expended, on the 18th
September, after
a blockade of
five months in
all, during which
1,000 men had
been slain, he
marched outwith
the honours of
war (when so ill
with scurvy that
he could scarcely
walk) at the head
.of seventy men,
with one drum
beating, one
standard flying,
matches lighted,
2nd two pieces
.of cannon, with
balls in their
muzzles and the
port-fires blazing at both ends. They all sailed for
England in a king?s ship. Ruthven fought nobly
for the king there, and died at a good old age in
1651, Earl of Forth and Brentford. Argyle, the
Dictator of Scotland, in the autumn of 1648 invited
Oliver Cromwell to Edinburgh, and entertained
him with unwonted magnificence in the
great hall of the Castle ; afterwards they held many
meetings in Lady Home?s house, in the Canongate,
where the resolution to take away the king?s
fife was discussed and approved of, for which the
said Dictator afterwards lost his head.
The next important event in the history of
5? The steep, the iron-belted rock,
Where trusted lie the monarchy?s last gems,
The sceptre, sword, and crown that graced the brows
Since Fergus, father of a hundred kings,?
I was in the days of Cromwell.
Scotland, after the coronation of Charles II., that I
On tidings reaching
the former was advancing north at the head of an
army, the Parliament ordered the Castle to be put
in a state of defence. There were put therein a
select body of troops under Colonel Walter
Dundas, 1,000 bolls of meal and malt, 1,000 tons
of coal, 67 brass and iron guns, including Mons
Meg and howitzers, 8,000 stand of arms, and a
vast store of warlike munition.
According to the superstition of the time the
earth and air all over Scotland teemed with strange
omens of the impending strife, and in a rare old
tract, of 16j0, we are told of the alarm created in
the fortress by the appearance of a ?horrible
apparition ? beating upon a drum.
On a dark night the sentinel, under the shadow
of the gloomy
half-moon, was
alarmed by the
beating of a
drum upon the
esplanade and
the tread of
marching feet, on
which he fired
his musket. Col.
Dundas hurried
forth, but
could see nothing
on the bleak
expanse, the site
of the now demolished
Spur.
The sentinel was
truncheoned,
and another put
in his Dlace. to
COVENANTERS? FLAG.
(Fmnz tAe Altts~rrm ofthe societu of Antiq~n&~ d.yco*la&.)
A I whom the same thing happened, and he, too, fired
his musket, affirming that he heard the tread
of soldiers marching to the tuck of drum. To
Dundas nothing was visible, nothing audible but
the moan of the autumn wind. He took a
musket and the post of sentinel. Anon he heard
the old Scots march, beaten by an invisible
drummer, who came close up to the gate; then
came other sounds-the tramp of many feet and
clank of accoutrements ; still nothing was visible,
till the whole impalpable array seemed to halt
close by Dundas, who was bewildered with consternation.
Again a drum was heard beating the
English, and then the French march, when the
alarm ended ; but the next drums that were beaten
there were those of Oliver Cromwell.
When the latter approached Edinburgh he
found the whole Scottish army skilfully entrenched
parallel with Leith Walk, its flanks protected by
