Bothwell Castle

©William Cameron/Roy Williamson

        I learned this many years ago from Nick Apollonio, who learned it from an album by the Corrie Folk Trio with Paddie Bell. The poem was written in the mid-nineteenth century by William Cameron; the melody is a new one written by Roy Williamson. In the notes to the Corrie's album, W. Gordon Smith wrote: "The ballad seems not only to be mourning the death of the last of the great family of Douglas, one of the noblest names in Scottish history, but also the passing of an old way of life, the old culture of Scotland." (GB)

Old Bothwell Castle, ages gone
Have left thee mould'ring and alone,
While noble Douglas still retains
Thy verdant halls and fair domains.

Oh, where are now thy martial throng,
Thy feasting hoard and thy midnight songs?
Bold warriors all who lined thy walls
Will rise no more when battle calls.

No Saxon foe may storm thy walls
Nor riot in thy regal hulls;
Long, long has left bold Wallace's shade,
Aye, and broken now his battle blade.

Old Bothwell Castle's ruined towers
Stand lone among yon woody bowers;
Old ivy binds her mould'ring walls,
Aye, and ruin reigns in Bothwell's halls.

Bothwell Castle is recorded on the CD Minneapolis Concert