With schort awiss on to the wall him bar;
Thai kest him our out of that bailfull steid,
Off him thai trowit suld be no mor ramede,
In a draff myddyn, quhar he remannyt thar.—B. II. 252.
The building still bears his name, and appears to be the very same as it was in his time. It has been more fully brought into notice by the allusion of a poet, who, whatever were his defects, had power to stamp a deathless name on the subject of his muse, although it had not been otherwise entitled to this distinction.
The drowsy Dungeon-clock had number’d two,
And Wallace-Tower had sworn the fact was true.
Burns’s Brigs of Ayr.
“In one of the hills above Wandel mill there is Wallace’s Camp, so called from that great Scotch warrior, who encamped here.” The walls of the castle of Lamington “still remain some stories high, very thick and strong. It was built by a laird of Lamington, of the ancient and honourable name of Baillie, with whom the aforesaid Sir William Wallace was allied by marriage; in proof of which, and as a piece of curiosity, Wallace’s chair is now in Bonnington, in the possession of Lady Ross Baillie, the representative of the family of Lamington, being removed from the tower of that place. The chair is remarkably broad and stout.” P. of Lamington, Stat. Acc. VI. 557, 558. V. Note on B. VI. 47, above, p. 374, &c.
I have seen this chair at Bonnington, which is of oak, the posts of it at least, and otherwise corresponding with the description given in the Statistical Account. I am informed that there is a rock in the Pap Craig, a part of Tinto, which is still called Wallace’s Chair; and that another in the parish of Symington bears the same name, in a place called the Castlehill.