this
parish--that of Embleton; the group of buildings known as Dunston Hall,
or Proctor's Steads, is supposed to have been his birthplace, and a
portrait of the learned doctor is to be seen there.

Dunstanborough Castle stands in lonely grandeur on great whinstone
crags, close to the very edge of the sea, and on the first sight of it,
Keats' wonderful lines spring involuntarily to the lips:--

"Magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn."

Forlorn, indeed, though not in exactly the sense conveyed by the poem,
is this huge fortress now; it abides, says Freeman, "as a castle should
abide, in all the majesty of a shattered ruin." The primitive cannon of
the days of the Wars of the Roses began to shatter those mighty walls,
and, unlike Bamborough, it has never been strengthened since. Simon de
Montford once owned this estate, and the next lord of Dunstanborough was
a son of Henry III., to whom Earl Simon's forfeited estate was given.
His eldest son, Thomas of Lancaster, took part with the barons in
bringing the unworthy favourite of Edward II., Piers Gaveston, to his
death. Under the King's anger, Lancaster went away to his Northumbrian
estate, and began to build this mighty fortress, though he already owned
the castles of Kenilworth and Pontefract. In the Wars of the Roses,
Dunstanborough Castle was taken and retaken no less than five times, and
Queen Margaret found refuge here, as well as at Bamburgh; but apart from
these occasions, Dunstanborough has not taken nearly so great a part in
either local or national history as the other Northumbrian castles of
Bamburgh, Warkworth, and Alnwick, though greater in extent than any of
them. In 1538 an official report describes "Dunstunburht" as "a very
reuynous howse"; and the process of dilapidation was soon aided by
enterprising dwellers in the neighbourhood using the stones of the
forsaken castle to build their own homesteads.

From the castle northward curves Embleton Bay, in which, after having
been buried in the sand for ages, a sandstone rock was uncovered by the
tide, having on its surface, chiselled in rough but distinct lettering,
the name "Andra Barton." Sir Andrew Barton, daring Scottish sea-captain
and fearless freebooter, was slain in a sea-fight off this part of the
coast, in the days of Henry VIII., by the sons of Surrey, one of whom,
Sir Thomas Howard, was Lord Admiral at the time, and so, in a measure,
responsible for th