The Holbrook news., 1911-11-17

ancient fortress. From here James II. was carried of by his mother in a chest in order to save him from a fac tion of the nobles who wanted the control of the kingdom. Here took place the treacherous slaughter of the two young Douglases, which gave rise to the lines:
 Edinburgh castillo, town and tower,
 God grant thou sink for sin;
 And that even for the black dinous
 Earl Douglas gat therein
 The Douglases had come to the cas- tie by invitation, and were banquet ing with the king, when suddenly the Black Bulls Head" the signal of death, was set on the table The king Games II.) tried to save the youths, but Livingstone and Crichton, who were responsible for the plot, had them carried to the courtyard and be- headed.
 With the exception of St Margaret's chapel and the portion of the castle in which Queen Mary's rooms are sit uated, the buildings on the Castle Rock are subsequent to this period All earlier buildings 1other than those mentioned) were destroyed at the time of this siege - ?. Charles I. slept in the castle on the night before his coronation as king of the Scots in Holyrood, and from here he rode in state down the High street and the Canongate to the Chapel Royal on the morning of the cere- mony. He also held his coronation banquet in the great hall of the castle.
 BesIeged by Cromwell.
 A few years later the castle was be- sieged by Cromwell At the revolu- tion of 1888 it held out for James. But the tables were turned in I745, when the garrison fired on the troops of Prince Charles Edward. Although Prince Charlie held state at Holyrood, the castle continued to be occupied by the government troops, and every now and again the Jacobites were re- minded of the fact. Not much dam- age was done, but imbedded in the wall on the Castlehill Is one of the last balls fired from this ancient fort ress.
 The Scottish regalia-the crown, the sword of state and the scepter- which were used at the coronation of the Scottish kings down to that of Charles 1. in Holyrood and Charles IL at Scone (the last coronation in Scot land) are preserved in the castle, where for many years they were hid den away until, largely through the efforts of Sir Walter Scott, they were discovered.
 The Castlehill was long used for executions, and it has been estimated that about 2.000 persons were burned here for witchcraft. Among them were several persons of distinction.
 At a.later date the soil of the Cas- tlehill was, by a curious legal fiction, held to be the soil of Nova Scotia. Those who were created baronets of Nova Scotia and who received grants of land there had to have "seisin," but it was felt to be a rather big undertaking to cross the Atlantic for the purpose. The device adopted saved this. Between 1925 and 1649 over sixty baronets of Nova Scotia took "seisin" here of the lands which had been granted to them in America
 There is a tradition (Robert Louis Stevenson f1tly characterizes it as "a silly story'D of subterranean pas sage between the castle and Holyrood and of a piper who volunteered to ex- plore it and never returned. Similar legends are common in Scotland l There is said to be passage between the abbey and the cliffs at Arbroath; and a lost piper figures in that story, foo Secret Dassa1es are said tO ex- | ist between the castle and the cathe- dral in St. Andrews, and also in con nection with Elgin cathedral