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. Although they had been promised mercy, the soldiers, along with their camp followers, women, and children, were taken to a nearby field (now called ‘Slain Mens Lea’) where, spurred on by the fervor of the Presbyterian ministers with the covenant army, they were shot, stabbed, slashed, or beaten to death.