Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/46

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and sixty-four feet in length. It was begun in the reign of James I. but such was the poverty of the period, or the indolence of the workmen, that up- wards of twenty-four years elapsed before it was compleated. The disbursements were then found to have amounted to 15,0001.

The revolutions, you know, which this town experienced were numberless-, nor could it be con- sidered as secure property to the English crown, until the. union with the sister kingdom of Scot- land precluded all future disputes between the two nations. Originally annexed to the crown of Scot- land by the gallantry of Gregory, who took it from the Danes in the 9th century, it continued there, (with the exception of being for a short time added to the see of Durham) till the reign of William the Lion. This prince, as we have be- fore seen, having been taken prisoner by the Eng- lish forces before Alnwick-Castle, was content to purchase his freedom by the surrender of Berwick, together with all the principal forts of his king- dom, to Henry II. ; a shameful contract, afterwards abrogated on payment of ten thousand marks to Richard I. the successor of Henry. King John, in his Scotch expedition, possessed himself of it, and not content with almost exterminating the inhabitants, burnt the town itself tq the ground. The bloody

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