Maitland Club > Miscellany of the Maitland Club > Volume 3, Parts 1 and 2

COUNTESS OF DEVONSHIRE. 351
had now entered, was early closed by a disastrous death. " August the
" thirtieth, having dyned very jovially with such gentlmen and officers
" as wer about him, after dinner he was going downe staires, reading
" a letter which he had newly receaved, when behold, upone a soddaine,
" the whole house," [Dunglass Castle,] "is suddenly blowne upp with
" one blast of gunnepoulder. All who wer within, except some fewe,
" were instantly killed with the ruine of the house; amongst thes the
" Earle himselfe : the forpairte of the castell was overthrowne, and by
" its fall overwhelmed a number of souldiours and others who wer
" standing in the castell yard (or closse) ; to the number of above ane
" hundereth persons perished within and without the castell. It was
" never perfectly knowne how it fell out. Ther was a pairt of the
" Scottish magazine of poulder lying in the vaults of the castell which
t' gave the blast ; but who fyred it none can tell." — Gordons Hist, of
Scots Affairs, III. p. 261-2. — [Spalding Club.]
In the Diary of Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Bart., Advocate to
King Charles I., the following notice occurs : — " Dunglas blowin up —
" 30 August 1640 being Sounday, at nycht, a part off the place of
" Dunglas wes blowin up with powder and thairin diet Erl Hadingtoun,
" Robert his brother, Cornel Alexander Erskin, Reidhous, Gogar,
" Inglistoun ; and Sir Gideon Baillie and Prestoungrange, hurt."
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