Of the loch itself there is not much to say, after it has been told that it is dominated on the north by the gentle and verdant declivity of Glower-o'er-em or Bonnytoun Hill, on the summit of which is an elegant open gothic cross to the memory of Adrian Hope, a soldier of note who fell in the Indian mutiny. An exceedingly pleasant hour or two may be spent boating on the loch. On the level sward to the left of our view, the Linlithgow youth may be seen practising the game of cricket, for which use of the palace precincts leave is given. The palace grounds are open to the public, the building being in government hands, and, it is believed, swallowing up the whole rent of the small farm adjoining in the plasterers account for maintenance of the extensive ruins.
Within those walls the beautiful Mary Queen of Scots was born in 1542, and the room is shown, roofless and bare, as are other apartments of more or less interest. The newest part of the structure is on the north side, which is also the most ruinous, for when Hawley's dragoons, in 1746, set fire to the palace, the wooden floors here proved of course more easily destroyed than the vaulted and tiled floors in the older parts.
The porch, it may be mentioned, is copied at Abbotsford, and the fine fountain which stands in ruins in the courtyard has been reproduced in fac-simile at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. Leading to the palace from the town, the church door being also within it, is a fine gateway, with sculptured panels shewing the four knightly 'Orders' held by James V., namely, the Thistle, the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and St. Michael. The town of Linlithgow is a quiet, decayed county town, famous in history for the assassination of Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, in the High Street, and once distinguished by its singularly copious water supply from wells or springs, some of which still run on the streets, though most are now led into pipes for a general supply.
[CORRA LINN.]
The old rhyme has it that three of the finest rivers in Scotland set out to run a race, with varying fortunes:—
'The Tweed, the Annan and the Clyde,
A' took their rise out o' ae hill side,
Tweed ran, Annan wan,
Clyde fell and brak its neck o'er Corra Linn.'
As an actual fact those three rivers find their head waters within a very narrow space. Annan, with the shortest course, falls into the Solway Firth; Tweed, getting many famous waters to strengthen its current, the Gala, the Yarrow, the Ettrick and the Teviot, rolls its noble course to the Border city of Berwick, and runs into the German Ocean. The Clyde, after surviving its leap over Corra Linn and other falls, becomes the great highway for ships at Glasgow, and has the most useful, as well as the most romantic career of the three.