* * * * * [Sidenote: JULY 4.] As a specimen of how nobles possessing castles acted towards meaner men who had fallen under their displeasure--James, Lord Hay of Yester, was charged before the Privy Council with having, on the ... day of June previous, gone to the house of ... Brown of Frosthill, and taken him forth thereof, and carried him to his ‘place of Neidpath,’ where ‘he put him in the pit thereof, and detenes him as captive, he being his majesty’s free subject ... having committit nae crime nor offence, and the said lord having nae power nor commission to tak him.’ The king had granted letters charging Lord Yester to liberate Brown, and that they should both come before him; and this had been of none effect. The matter being now before the Council, and a procurator having appeared for Brown to explain that he was still a prisoner at Neidpath, while Lord Yester made no appearance, officers were charged to go and denounce the latter as a rebel if he should refuse to obey the king’s command, Brown having meanwhile given surety to the extent of two hundred pounds that he should be ready to answer any accusation that might be brought against him.--_P. C. R._ * * * * * [Sidenote: 1594. JULY.] Robert Logan of Restalrig is one of the darkest characters of this bloody and turbulent time. A few years later, he was plotting with the Ruthvens of Gowrie for an assault upon the king. So early as February 1592-3, he was denounced for trafficking with the turbulent Bothwell. In June of this year, he was again denounced, and for a more serious matter--his sending out two servants, Jockie Houlden and Peter Craik, to rob travellers on the highway, near his house of Fast Castle in Berwickshire. They had attacked Robert Gray, burgess of Edinburgh, as he was passing the Boundrod, near Berwick, and taken from him nine hundred and fifty pounds, besides battering him to the peril of his life.--_P. C. R._ His residence, as is well known, was a fortalice perched on an almost inaccessible crag overhanging the waves of the sea, with black cliffs above, below, and nearly all round--perhaps the most romantically situated house in our ancient kingdom. Here, it is known, Logan had Bothwell for his occasional guest.