354 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hawthornden.
walls seven feet thick, and the remains of a banqueting-
hall with large windows, and walls five
feet thick.
The more modern house of the seventeenth century,
which has been engrafted on this fortress
(probably destroyed by the English in 1544 or
I 547) measures ninety feet long, with an average
breadth of twenty-three feet, and exhibits the usual
crowstepped gables, massive chimneys, and small
windows of the period.
In the days of the War of Independence the
Castle of Hawthornden belonged to a family called
Abernethy. It was then the stronghold of Sir
Lawrence Abernethy (the second son of Sir William
Abernethy of Saltoun), who, though a gallant
soldier, was one of those infamous traitors who
turned their swords against their own country, and
served the King of England.
He it was who, on the day Bannockburn was
fought and when Douglas was in hot pursuit of the
fugitive Edward II., was met, at the Torwood, with
a body of cavalry hastening to join the enemy, and
who added to the infamy of his conduct by instantly
joining in the pursuit, on learning from Douglas
that the English were utterly defeated and dispersed.
Three-and-twenty years after, the same traitor,
when again in the English interest, had the better
of the Knight of Liddesdale and his forces five in
one day, yet was at last defeated in the end, and
taken prisoner before sunset. All this is recorded
in stone in an inscription on a tablet at the west
end of the house. At this time, 1338, Sir Alexander
Ramsay of Dalhousie, emulating the faith and
valour of Douglas, at the head of a body of knights
and men-at-arms, whom his fame and daring as a
skilful warrior had drawn to his standard, sallied
from his secret stronghold, the vast caves of Hawthornden,
and after sweeping the southern Lowlands,
penetrated with fire and sword into Englaod ;
and, on one occasion, by drawing the English into an
ambush near Wark, made such a slaughter of them
that scarcely one escaped.
For these services he received a crown charter
from David II., in 1369, of Nether Liberton, and
of the lands of Hawthornden in the barony of
Conyrtoun, Edinburghshire, ? quhilk Lawrence
Abernethy foris fecit? for his treasons ; but, nevertheless,
his son would seem to have succeeded.
In after years the estate had changed proprietors,
being sold to the Douglases; and among the slain
at Flodden was Sir John Douglas of Hawthornden,
with his neighbour, Sir William Sinclair of Roslin.
By the Douglases Hawthornden was sold to
.the Urummonds of Carnock, with whom it has
since remained ; and the ancient families of Abernethy
and Drummond became, curiously enough,
united by the marriage of Bishop Abernethy and
Barbara Drummond.
The most remarkable member of this race was
William Drummond (more generally known as
? Hawthornden ?), the historian of the Jameses,
the tender lover and gentle poet, the handsome
cavalier, whom Cornelius Jansen?s pencil has portrayed,
and who died of a broken heart for the
execution of Charles I. .
His history of the Jameses he dedicates, ? To the
Right Honorable my very good Lord and Chiel,
the Earl of Perth,? but it was not published till
after his death.
The repair of the ancient house in its present
form took place in 1638 and 1643, as inscriptions
record.
Few poets have enjoyed a more poetical home
than William Drummond, whose mind was, no
doubt, influenced by the exquisite scenery amid
which he was born (in 1585) and reared. He has
repaid it, says a writer, by adding to this lovely
locality the recollections of himself, and by the
tender, graceful, and pathetic verses he composed
under the roof of his historical home.
He came of a long line of ancestors, among
whom he prized highly, as a member of his family,
Annabella Drummond, queen of King Robert 111.
Early in life he fell in love with a daughter of
Cunninghame of Bames, a girl whose beauty and
accomplishments-rare for that age-he has recorded
in verse.
Their weddingday was fixed, and on its eve she
died. After this fatal event Drummond quitted
Hawthoroden, and for years dwelt on the Continent
as a wanderer; but the winter of 1618 saw
him again in his sequestered home by the Esk,
where he was visited by the famous Ben Jonson,
who, it is said, travelled on foot to Scotland to see
him. At the east end of the ruins that adjoin the
modern mansion is a famous sycamore, called One
of the Four Sisters. It is twenty-two feet in circumference,
and under this tree Drunimond was
sitting when Jonson arrived at Hawthornden. It
would seem that the latter had to fly from England
at this time for having slain a man in a duel.
Reference is made to this in some of Drummond?s
notes, and a corroboration of the story is given by
Mr. Collier, in his ?? Life of AIleyn I? the actor, and
founder of Dulwich College.
Jonson stayed same weeks at Hawthornden,
where he wrote two of the short pieces included in
his ? Underwoods? and ? My Picture left in
Scotland,? with a . lang inscription to his. host.
