In the Border CountryCrockett, W. S. (William Shillinglaw)
History
In the Border Country
Crockett, W. S. (William Shillinglaw)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
to the Covenanting struggle.
So near the Border, Coldstream had at one time a considerable notoriety
for its runaway marriages, the most notable of which was Lord Brougham's
in 1819. Within an easy radius of Coldstream are Wark Castle, the mere
site of it rather--where in 1344 Edward III. instituted the Order of the
Garter; Twizel Bridge, with its single Gothic arch, cleverly crossed
by Surrey and his men (it is the identical arch) at Flodden, that
darkest of all dark fields for Scotland,
"Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield."
Of Norham Castle, frowning like Carlisle, to the North, and set down as
it were to over-awe a kingdom, Scott's description is always the best.
Ladykirk Church was built by James IV. in gratitude for his escape from
drowning while fording the Tweed. Last of all, we reach Berwick, at one
period the chief seaport in Scotland--a "second Alexandria," as was
said, now the veriest shadow of its former self. Christianized towards
the close of the fourth century, according to Bede, as a place rich in
churches, monasteries and hospitals, Berwick held high rank in the
ecclesiastical world. Its geographical position, too, as a frontier town
made it the Strasburg for which contending armies were continually in
conflict. Century after century its history was one red record of strife
and bloodshed. Its walls, like its old Bridge spanning the Tweed, were
built in Elizabeth's reign, and its Royal Border Bridge, opened to
traffic in 1850, was happily characterised by Robert Stephenson, its
builder, as the "last act of the Union."
PLATE 18
THE REMNANT OF
WARK CASTLE
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH
PAINTED BY
JAMES ORROCK, R.I.
(_See pp. 39 and 92_)
[Illustration]
IV. "PLEASANT TEVIOTDALE"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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