Description:

Newark Castle was built in the early 15th century by Archibald Douglas, besieged by the English in 1547 and burnt in 1548. After the battle of Philiphaugh on the 13^th of September 1645, when an army of Covenanters, commanded by General David Leslie, defeated the Royalists under Montrose, prisoners (most of them women) were kept captive here. Despite having been promised quarter, the soldiers, their camp followers, women and children were taken to a field nearby (now known as ‘Slain Mens Lea’) and, at the fanatical instigation of the Presbyterian ministers accompanying the covenant army, were shot, stabbed, slashed or bludgeoned to death.