In 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, its walls were at length laid low by James IV., but not until the famous cannon “Mons Meg”—still, I believe, to be seen at Edinburgh Castle—had been brought against it. One of the cannon-balls fired from “Mons Meg” was found, and is still kept with others at the Castle. It is said that the Scots were told of the weakest spot in the fortifications by a treacherous inmate of the castle, who doubtless expected a rich reward for his information. Indeed, the ballad of “Flodden” says he came for it; but the valiant and chivalrous king would give him no reward but that which he said every traitor deserved—a rope. Afterwards the castle was restored once more, but its more stirring days were over; and, to-day, it stands a shattered but dignified ruin, overlooking the tranquil river and peaceful woodlands which once echoed so continuously to the clash of arms and the shouts of besiegers and besieged. The village of Norham was in Saxon days known as Ubbanford—the Upper Ford of two that were available in those days on the Tweed. There was a church here, too, in Saxon times, for Bishop Ecfrid built one about the year 830, and in it was buried the Saxon king Ceolwulf who became a monk: the present church has a good deal remaining of the one built on the same site by Bishop Flambard, about the same time as the castle. Earl Gospatric, whom William the Conqueror made Earl of Northumberland in return for a considerable sum of money—doubtless thinking that to give a Northumbrian the Earldom would reconcile the North to his rule—is buried in the church porch. Gospatric joined in the resistance of the North to William, but returned to his allegiance later. The Market Cross of Norham stands on the original base. From Norham to Tweedmouth the river sweeps forward between picturesque ever-widening banks, and often hidden by a leafy screen, past the village of Horncliffe, beneath the Union Suspension Bridge, one of the first erected of its kind, until at length its bright waters lave the historic walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and in the quiet harbour there meet the inrushing tide from the North Sea. CHAPTER IX. DRUM AND TRUMPET. “The history of Northumberland is essentially a drum and trumpet history, from the time when the _buccina_ of the Batavian cohort first rang out over the moors of Procolitia down to the proclamation of James III. at Warkworth Cross”—_Cadwallader J Bates_. This sentence of the historian of Northumberland sums up the story of our northern county no less admirably than tersely, and it would be difficult to find one which should more clearly bring before us the whole atmosphere of north-country history and north-country doings for many centuries.