cotynnally to Inhabyte or plenyshe w’thin the saide grounde of Kydland, and especially in wynter tyme.” These reasons were given by the people of “Cockdale” in the neighbouring valley, to account for the desolation of Kidland, which lay open on the northward to attacks from the Scots, and had no defence on the south from the rievers of Redesdale. The inhabitants of Coquetdale seem to have been a right valiant and hardy fraternity, honest and fearless, well able to give good blows in defence of their possessions, for it is left on record that “the people of the said Cock-dayle be best p’pared for defence and most defensyble people of themselfes, and of the truest and best sorte of anye that do Inhabyte, endlonge, the frounter or border of the said mydle m’ches of England.” The traces of these days of raid and foray are to be found in abundance all over Coquetdale, as indeed all over Northumberland, in pele-tower and barmkyn, fortified dwelling and bastle house. Harbottle Castle would have a good deal to tell, could it only speak, of siege and assault from the day when, “with the aid of the whole county of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham,” it was built by Henry II., until, after the Union of the Crowns, it shared the fate of many of the Border strongholds, and fell into gradual decay, or was used as a quarry from which to draw building material for new and modern mansions. At Rothbury, a pele-tower has formed the dwelling of the Vicars of that town from the time that any mention of Whitton Tower is to be found, it being first noticed as “Turris de Whitton, iuxta Rothebery.” Rothbury itself occupies quite the finest situation of any of the Northumbrian towns. Others, besides it, lie on the banks of a pretty river; others, too, possess fair meadows and rich pastures; but none other has the combination of these attractive features with the finer surroundings of hill, crag, and moorland as picturesquely beautiful as those of Rothbury. In the old church here Bernard Gilpin, “the Apostle of the North,” often preached; and even the fierce rival factions of the Borderland were so influenced by the gentle, yet fearless preacher, that they consented to forego their usual pleasure of “drawing” whenever they met one of a rival family, at least so long as Gilpin dwelt among them, and especially to refrain from showing their hostility in church.