“Where, with the rock’s wood-cover’d side
Were blended late the ruins green,
Rose turrets in fantastic pride,
And feudal banners flaunt between.
“Where the rude torrent’s brawling course
Was shagged with thorn and tangled sloe,
The ashlar buttress braves its force,
And ramparts frown in battled row.”
A hundred years later, when Cadzow was already abandoned and in decay, the victorious Covenanting force which had defeated the dragoons of Claverhouse at Drumelog, on the dreary moorland slopes near the sources of the Avon, marched down this waterside—the Evandale of “Old Mortality”—on their way to make their bold but luckless attempt on Glasgow. Soon after they were back again in this neighbourhood in force, preparing to resist, with what disastrous results is well known, the passage of Monmouth’s Royalist troops across Bothwell Brig:—
“Where Bothwell Bridge connects the margin steep,