y and Mowbray of Barnbogle (now
Dalmeny) surety for Queen Mary's half-brother, the Lord Robert Stewart,
who vainly warned Darnley to escape from Kirk o' Field. Lord Robert was
then confined by the Regent Morton in Linlithgow, and Logan with the rest
was surety in 10,000_l._ that he would not attempt to escape. Later,
Logan was again surety that Lord Robert would return after visiting his
dominions, the Orkney Islands. {153}

Logan, though something of a pirate, was clearly a man of substance and
of a good house, which he strengthened by alliances. One of his wives,
Elizabeth Macgill, was the daughter of the Laird of Cranstoun Riddell,
and one of her family was a member of the Privy Council. From Elizabeth
Logan was divorced; she was, apparently, the mother of his eldest son,
Robert. By the marriage of an ancestor of Logan's with an heiress of the
family of Hume, he acquired the fortress and lands of Fastcastle, near
St. Abbs, on the Berwickshire coast. The castle, now in ruins, is the
model of Wolfscrag in 'The Bride of Lammermoor.' Standing on the actual
verge of a perpendicular cliff above the sea, whence it is said to have
been approached by a staircase cut in the living rock, it was all but
inaccessible, and was strongly fortified. Though commanded by the still
higher cliff to the south, under which it nestled on its narrow plateau
of rock, Fastcastle was then practically impregnable, and twenty men
could have held it against all Scotland. Around it was, and is, a
roadless waste of bent and dune, from which it was severed by a narrow
rib of rock jutting seawards, the ridge being cut by a cavity which was
spanned by a drawbridge. Master of this inaccessible eyrie, Logan was
most serviceable to the plotters of these troubled times.

His religion was doubtful, his phraseology could glide into Presbyterian
cant, but we know that he indifferently lent the shelter of his fastness
to the Protestant firebrand, wild Frank Stewart, Earl of Bothwell (who,
like Carey writing from Berwick to Cecil, reckons Logan among Catholics),
or to George Ker, the Catholic intriguer with Spain. Logan loved a plot
for its own sake, as well as for chances of booty and promotion. He was
a hard drinker, and associate of rough yeomen and lairds like Ninian
Chirnside of Whitsumlaws (Bothwell's emissary to the wizard, Richard
Graham), yet a man of ancient family and high connections. He seems to
have been intimate with the family of Si