The grateful Sir William erected a chapel to St. Katherine, at the spot, to commemorate the saint’s intervention.
One more tale of Roslin remains to be told. Not far away, on Roslin Moor, occurred one of the famous battles of Scottish history. There were really three battles, all fought in one day, the 24th of February, 1303. Three divisions of the English army, consisting of thirty thousand men, were successively attacked by the valiant Scots with only ten thousand men, who, after overpowering the first division, attacked the second, and then the third, defeating all three in the same day.
And so, with history and legend, poetry and romance, real life and fiction, the glory of nature’s art and the achievements of human handicraft all happily intermingled in our thought and blended into one pleasant memory, we brought to its close our walk through the valley of the Esk, from Hawthornden to Roslin Glen.
[2] Maitland’s History of Scotland.
[3] From an old manuscript, in the Advocates’ Library, collection of Richard Augustine Hay.
[4] Britton’s Architectural Antiquities.