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Tous les autres exemplaires orlginaux sont filmis en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la derni^re image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbols —^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent dtre filmfo A des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en has, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 1 t 3 1 2 3 4 f 6 (^ W^rio // ¥ MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH IN THE OLDEN TIME A N.W E0m0K^W.TH „T.»SrV. ALTERATIONS AKO A.D.TXOHS A« o W.TH FRKSH IHnSTRATrOKS PHOU TH. AUTHORS DRAW.NOS >->. ■ ft V I '.n L•.^ < r 1 ^_ ■J) > W o 00 o O X 2^ u z < • j u |Hemorial0 of €binburg!) 3^ tfie Blben Cime -/■ BY SIR DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E. PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO AUTHOR OF ' PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND,' ETC. SECOND EDITION VOLUME I EDINBURGH & LONDON: ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 1891 it J 7/ UPWARDS of half a century has elapsed since the work was begun with pen and pencil which finally assumed form as the Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time. Buildings which had survived from elder centuries, and perpetuated associations of the Scottish capital with national history, were being rapidly effaced in the progress of civic improvements ; and thus a collection of drawings of its picturesque features acquired ere long a factitious value as memorials of a vanished past. From those, accordingly, the illustra- tions were selected ; and additions have been made to them in the present edition from the same source, with the aid of some of the novel processes introduced in recent years. When the plans were matured for thus preserving some record of Old Edinburgh in this its latest transitional stage, a publisher was found who undertook to carry them out on the terms of sharing with the author profit or loss. The work was published accordingly ; accounts were rendered, and I paid my share of the reported deficit, interleaved a copy, and from time to time made notes with a view to a second edition. As I had furnished the text, supplied all the drawings — the originals of which are still in my possession, — and also drawn nearly the whole of the vignette illustrations on the wood, not only without receiving any remuneration, but had also borne my share of the loss on the first edition, it never occurred to me to doubt that the copyright remained under my control. It was there- fore with no less surprise than mortification that I learned, in 1872, VJ PREFACE of the issue of a reprint of m/ work without my being even afforded the opportunity of amending the text. I had been for years in " another world," and my literary affairs were being administered as those of one who had died intestate. The work of revision, which was thus rendered abortive, had brought me anew into pleasant correspondence with antiquarian friends, and enabled me to turn to account the fruits of much independ- ent research. The late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe amused himself with annotating, and occasionally illustrating with pencilled sketches, a set of proof sheets, from which I have since borrowed for my Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh. Abundant materials had thus been accumulated for a revised text when I obtained sight of the reissue with this note appended to my old preface : " This edition is an exact reprint of the original work, with the exception that where buildings have been removed, or other alterations made, the fact is stated, either in a footnote or otherwise." One specimen of such editorial revision may suffice. On p. 394 Trinity College Church is referred to as " the beautiful edifice which stood at the foot of Leith Wynd" But only a few lines later the reader is told that " as it now stands, it consists of the choir and transepts," etc. Then, to bring this curious record up to the editor's ideal of consistent lucidity, a footnote is added which states that the church " is now being rebuilt on a new site, the stones having been almost entirely preserved " ; which, alas, every reader knows to be wide indeed of the actual fact. Among the varied experiences of a long life, not the least curious has been this participation in those of a deceased author. My volumes have been a free common for poachers. I have not only seen my drawings reproduced — with a difference, as the heralds say, — and my woodcuts employed, without acknowledgment, to illustrate the writings of other authors ; but they have even appropriated my blunders ! Some of the results might almost merit a place among the curiosities of literature. Beguiled by the conjunction of the arms of Robert, Duke of Albany, the son of Robert II, with those of Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas, the brother-in-law of the ill-fated PREFACE Vll David, Duke of Rothesay, first noted by me as occurring on the same pillar in the north-west aisle of St. Giles's Collegiate Church : I was tempted to weave a romance, in which I gave the name of the Albany Chapel to the beautiful aisle with its two bays and finely groined roof; and suggested its origin as possibly an expiatory act of the two nobles for their reputed share in the murder of the Duke of Rothesay. Maturer reflection satisfied me of the inconsistency of such an avowal of guilt with their known course of action. But though the old text has been amended in the present edition, the fancy of my youth meets me on all hands as well-accredited history, receiving not only prominence, but dramatic amplification, from successive appropriators. The historian of S^. Giles, Church, College, and Cathedral, dis- cusses the probabilities of the story as a current tradition, and after noting the ominous conjunction of the arms of Albany and Douglas sculptured on the pillar, he adds, "It is conjectured that these chapels were built by them in expiation of the crime " : though, as he suggests, more probably only to win the favour of the Church. But, dealing with the conjecture as of genuine antiquity, he adds, " these chapels still bear the name of the Albany Aisle," as though that were a designation as familiar to the student of the Registrum Cartarum Ecclesie Sancti Egidii de Edinburgh as the Holy Blood Aisle, or the Chapels of St. Eloi and St. John the Evangelist. Dr. William Chambers, in his historical sketch of the cathedral appended to the "St. Giles's Lectures" of 1881, adopts the legend without any qualifying doubt. " The aisle," says he, " takes its name from Robert, Duke of Albany, the second son of King Robert II, who* having been entrusted with the custody of his nephew David, Duke of Rothesay, cruelly starved him to death in a dungeon in the Castle of Falkland, 1402. Though escaping punishment for this atrocious act, Albany and his prime associate, Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas, seem to have been haunted with a consciousness of guilt ; " and so the chapel and the heraldic bearings of its sculptured capital are once more adduced in evidence. It is instructive to trace the successive stages of this evolutionary VIU PREFACE I y;f process; for it is easy to see how, in the absence of our tell-tale printing press, conjecture could grow to surmise, and fancy develop into tradition ; and so the story, embalmed in the uncritical pages of some monkish chronicler, be transferred from thence to those of the modern historian, and become a fairly accredited " fact." The legend of " The Albany Aisle," fashioned out of its heraldic sculpturings, is no older than the year 1847. But, introduced as it has been to the historic muse by such reputable sponsors, there seems little to prevent this immature fancy taking its place among well-accredited traditions, if not, indeed, well-established facts ; while admirers of the beautiful aisle derive fresh zest from the assurance the church's historian gives them of " this remarkably fine pillar surviving as a memento of a terrible tragedy in Scottish history, and of the remorse which it occasioned ! " Some of the stages through which productions of my pen and pencil have thus passed in their adaptation to rival pages of " original " research are not without a touch of comedy. But one appropriation has a unique character that gives it a claim to pre-eminence. Sundry pieces of verse, dealing with local historical associations, find a place in my Remmiscences of Old Edinbrirgh, as well as in a little volume entitled Spring Wild Flowers. It was a pleasant recreation, while groping among old chartularies, burgh records, and dusty parchments of all sorts, to weave some prosaic allusion into a * ballad romance. The idea has been more fully realised in the present edition ; and sundry " Old - Edinburgh ballads " from the same mint relieve the monotony of antiquarian narrative. But also, the masquerading of "the marvellous boy" of Bristol, re- animating with the pen of " Rowley " the church of St, Mary Redcliffe with Canynge, Lydgate, and others of the times of " The Roses," had taken strong hold of my fancy ; and has since been dealt with in Chatterton : a biographical study. Defaced and disenchanted as St. Giles's then seemed, beyond hope of restoration, the traditions of older centuries lingered around the desecrated fane. Why not re- animate the past, and people it anew with the men of a more brilliant PREFACE IX age than the closing years of the Lancastrian dynasty. Had it not its own chivalrous era of the Flodden King, with Dunbar and Kennedy ; the Scottish Caxton, Chepman ; or, best of all, its own provost, Gawin Douglas, a truer poet than Lydgate ? Hence the ballad of " The Flodden Dead Mass," inserted in the first edition in a footnote, as best befitting what made no pretence to historic or traditionary basis. But, not a little to my surprise, I find this sport of early fancy promoted to the text of the history of S/. Giles\ Edinburgh : Churchy College, and Cathedral, in company with the genuine legends of Flodden which we owe to the pen of Lindsay of Pitscottie. After an allusion to the warning given to James IV by the mysterious apparition that intruded on his devotions in the choir of Linlithgow Church, and the vision of the ghostly heralds on the Cross of Edinburgh, the historian of St. Giles's produces, as un- surpassed in picturesqueness by either of those old familiar legends, " the romantic story which has been located within the walls of St. Giles's. Whether it be founded on legend as old as the time of Flodden, or is altogether of more modern origin, is," he says, "of little moment." It is impossible to read without surprise this naive avowal of uncertainty as to the source of the ballad thus coupled with the choicest of old Edinburgh legends ; for the historian of St. Giles's repeatedly quotes the Memorials of Edinburgh, or refers to the book in his footnotes. That he should prefer the anglicised version which, as I learned from his reference, is to be found — of all odd places to look for a stray ballad — in Walcott's Ancient Church of Scotland, is a matter of taste which I need not discuss. But for his note I should have remained in ignorance of its introduction there with even more appreciative laudation, but also with the like ignoring of its source. It would be ungracious to quarrel with critics who offer in compensation for the "little moment" they attach to the author's claims such flattering estimate of his work. But, not content with its appropriation, they have made it their own somewhat after the PREFACE ill fashion in which another reverend editor dealt with the contents of the famous folio MS. readapted to the taste of a fastidious age in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. After such mutilation as, with the help of a broken nose and fractured limbs, has before now trans- formed some very mediocre piece of sculpture into a prized antique torso, the remainder is tricked out with sundry amazing " improve- ments," and elucidated with glossaries, in which both editors are chiefly successful in proving their ignorance of the Scottish ver- nacular which they undertake to interpret and reform. It is not often that a deceased author — or one as good as dead — is thus permitted to " revisit the glimpses of the-moon." The sight of his own obsequies proved too much for Charles V when he witnessed their anticipatory celebration in the monastery of S. Yuste. But my experiences far exceed those of the great emperor. Not only have self-appointed executors dealt with my affairs as those of one long gone to " another world " ; but the resurrectionists, following in their wake, have given me the rare chance of witnessing my own anatomising on the dissecting table. Perhaps the " Frankenstein" reanimated after such novel fashion may have an interest of its own for a younger generation. It is, at any rate, no mere galvanising of the old corpse. The present edition has been carefully revised. Few pages remain without some emendation ; considerable portions, embody- ing the results of later research, have been entirely rewritten ; and additions of some interest have been made to the illustrations. In one respect, however, \ have adhered to the old text. In most cases an author welcomes the opportunity of revision to bring down his work to the latest date. But any such attempt here would be little else than a tale of erasure and defacement. Some notice of such changes could not be avoided. But, as a whole, the ; volumes are the record of Old Edinburgh as it lives in the memory of a few survivors of the past generation. ^Tis Sixty Years Since was the title of Scott's Waverley ; and it may not be uninteresting to a new generation to look through older eyes on the Edinburgh of fifty years \. PREFACE ii XI ago, while the West Bow and the Castle Hill, Blackfriars' and St. Mary's Wynds, Blyth's Close, St. Ninian's Row, and many another vanished nook of picturesque aspect or historic interest, still remained. Since the appearance of the first edition the palace of Mary of Guise ; the haunted dwelling of Major Weir ; the lodging of Bishop Both- well, associated with one of the tenderest of old Scottish ballads ; Robert Gourlay's historic mansion, alternately abode of nobles, foreign ambassadors, and other honoured guests, and place of durance of men of historic note, throughout the sixteenth century ; and that of Sir Thomas Hope, no less rich in memories of some of the foremost men of the succeeding age : have all disappeared. The beautiful Collegiate Church of Mary of Gueldres has given place to a railway station ; and St. Margaret's Well, with the legendary virtues of St. Triduana's healing fountain, has suffered a like fate. In truth, the intervening years since these Memorials first appeared have witnessed a crusade against nearly all that remained of Scott's "own romantic town." On the northern slope of the ridge along which the High Street runs, Cockburn Street has displaced the old closes and wynds between the Cross and the Tron ; and Jeffrey Street has still more effectually completed the work of destruction eastward to the Nether Bow. The great fire of 1824 left few traces of elder centuries on the southern slope between St. Giles's and the Tron ; but farther eastward the destruction of Blackfriars' Wynd has effaced a thoroughfare only secondary in picturesque attractions and historic interest to the quaint old West Bow. The reader needs no chronicler to tell him that all are gone. But it may be pleasant to have them recalled with the aid of pen and pencil ; and so be enabled still to look on them with the help of older eyes. Hence I have adhered as far as possible to the original date of narration , and, unless otherwise indicated, when noteworthy localities or buildings are spoken of as still existing, or periods are antedated from the present time, the " now " is that of 1847, and not of 1890. But, happily, the picturesque beauty of site which gives so unique a character to the Scottish capital is indestructible ; and the sacrifice xii PREFACE of SO much of its inheritance from elder centuries has begot a spirit of reverence, along with some sense of the irreparable loss. The venerable mother church of St. Giles has, through the liberality of the late William Chambers, been restored internally to somewhat of its ancient beauty ; and the name of William Nelson will be had in loving remembrance by later generations, who will inherit his bequest of the health-giving fountain, the renovated temple, and garden of St. Bernard's Well. To the tasteful liberality of the same benefactor are due the novel charm and revived associations of the Argyle Tower, and the grand old banquet-hall of the Castle in which the boy-king, James II, was welcomed by the acclaim of the Estates of the realm after the assassination of the royal poet, James I. The fine open-timbered roof has been revealed anew under which kings and nobles feasted through long generations ; till, with the changing vicissitudes of time, the Earl of Leven entertained the Protector Cromwell in the same banquet-hall where, only a few years before, Charles I. had held high festival at his coronation. With the Castle thus restored, in part at least, to its older integrity, and with Holyrood, our mother kirk of St. Giles, the manse of John Knox, and the Parliament House of the later Stuarts, left to her, the Scottish capital still retains links of rare interest with the past ; as in its unique surroundings, with its Calton Hill, its Arthur's Seat, Duddingstone Loch, and St. Anthony's Well, it preserves charac- teristic features that time cannot efface. In the preface to the first edition it was a pleasant duty to record my obligations to friends and fellow-workers for valued aid in my researches. They included Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., the Editor of Kirkton and Law, and the friend of Scott ; Dr. David Laing, Dr. Robert Chambers, James Drummond, R.S.A., William Douglas, the Rev. John Sime, W. B. D. D. Turnbull, and others. I should add John Hill Burton, whose later sug- gestions I have turned to account. But of the old kindly circle not one survives ; and with them he too is gone to whom, in grateful affection, it was a privilege to dedicate my first literary K PREFACE XIII effort. In preparing this new edition I have been indebted to Robert Crawfurd Walker, Esq., F.S.A.Scot., for valuable sug- gestions relative to some of the heraldic decorations which furnish a clue to the original occupants of historic mansions ; and to Peter Miller, Esq., F.S.A.Scot, for kind services in reference to evidence derived from early title-deeds and burgh records. My thanks are also due to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland for the use of several woodcuts executed from my own drawings to illustrate a communication in the Society's Proceedings on the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity ; and to my friend Mr. David Douglas, who kindly contributes the facsimile of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's amusing reminiscence of the old Town Guard, as sketched by him on one of the annotated proof-sheets of my first edition. And so, having been thus at length permitted to wind up my own literary affairs, I wish the reader a friendly farewell. D. W. Toronto, 30M September 1890. ' m iry CONTENTS VOLUME I Ndie. — U\ Part I. of ihis work the incidents are related in chronological order ; and in Part II. according to a systematic arrangement indicated in the headings of the successive chapters. PART I— HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS CHAPTER I ICAKLIIiST TKADITIONS OF KUINBURUH History of Edinburgh included in that of its Castle and Abbey, page l — Origin of the town and significance of its name, l — Natural features of site and early notices of Castle, 2 — Eviilence of Roman occupation, 3 — Definite history dates from Malcolm III, 3 — Foundation of Abbey of Holyrood, 5 — Legend of the White Hart, 6 — David I. earliest resident monarch of Castle, 6 — Town and Castle sur- rendered to Edward I. (1291), 7 — Edinburgh during time of the Bruce, 8— Parliament of disinherited barons (1333), 9 — Battle of Borough-muir, 9 — Incident of Ramsay and followers in c.tves at Haw- thornden, 10 — Castle recovered l)y Bullock's ingenious stratagem, 10 — David II makes extensive additions to Castle and dies there (1371), 11 — Edinburgh up to this time but a village, 11 —National manners at this period, 12. Old-Edinburgh Ballads- I. "Queen Margaret," 13. CHAPTER II ACCESSION OF THE STUARTS TO DEATH OF JAMES HI New era in history of Edinburgh begins with accession of Robert II, first of the Stuarts, 16 — Com- mencement of intercourse with France, 17 — First Parish Church of St. Giles destroyed, 17 — Remains of Norman doorway, 17 — Henry IV attempts siege of Castle (1400), 18— Style of domestic building, time of James I. (1430), 19 — Manners of the age, 20— Coronation of James II at Holyrood, 21 — Boy King, James II, confined in the Castle and adventurous escape, 22 — Murder of Douglas in the Castle, 23 — The old wall, 23— Marriage of James II and Mary, daughter of Duke of Gueldres, 24 — Foundation of Church and Hospital of the Holy Trinity, 24 — Henry VI (of England's) residence in Grassmarket, 25 — Marriage and coron.ition of James HI and Margaret, Princess of Denmark, 25 — James III a captive in Edinburgh Castle, 26 — Grant of the Golden Charter and Blue Blanket, 27— Privileges conferred on Edinburgh by James III, 28. Old-Edinburgh Ballads— II. "The Twa Queens," 29. xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER III FROM THE ACCESSION OK JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLOUDKN James IV crowned at Edinburgh (1488), 32 — Royal Tournaments held near Grassmarkct, 32 — Gawin Douglas, poet, a resident of Edinburgh at this time, 33— Visit of I'erkin Warbeck (1495), ,'54— First Palace of Holyrood, 34 — Dunbar and Kennedy, poets, 35— James meets his bride at Dalkeith Castle, 36 — Crafts of the Period, 39 — Progress of Arts and Letters, 39 — Printing introduced into Scotland (•507 )> 40 — General Synod of Clergy (1511), 41 — Birth of James V at Linlithgow, 41 —Preparations for Battle of Flodden, 42. Old-Edinburgh Ballads— IIL "The Flodden Dead Mass," 44. CHAPTER IV FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V Defence of the town after Battle of Flodden, and extended city enclosed within walls, 47 — Duke of Albany takes up his residence at Holyrood as Regent, 48 — "Cleanse the Causeway," 50 — Sports of James V, 51 — ^James V, solemn entry into city (1524), 52 — Turbulence of the nobles, 53 — Lindsay's Complaint of the Papingo, 53 — Premonitory reforming doctrines, 54 — Establishment of the College of Justice (1537), 54 — ^James's marriage with Princess Magdalen of France, 54 — Queen's premature death, 55 — First mourning dresses worn, 55 — Lady Glamis burnt alive on Castle Hill, 56 — Champion fight at Holyrood, 58-rArrival of Mary of Guise (the new queen, 1538), 58 — Earliest Scottish drama played at Linlithgow (1539), 58— Death of James V at F"alkland, 58. Old-Edinburgh Ballads— IV. " Maye Marion," 60. CHAPTER V FROM THE DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY Cardinal Beaton nominated Regent. 64 — Burning of the town by the Earl of Hertford (1544), 66 — John Knox's return to Scotland, 76 — sumptuous banquet given to the Danish ambassador, 77 — Image of St. Giles thrown into the North Loch, 78 — Issue of Knox's famous Blast, 80 — Destruction of ecclesi- astical buildings, 81— Assault by Queen's French soldiers, 83 — Batteries on Leith Links, 85 — Death of the Queen Regent (1560), 87 — Parliament assembled in Edinburgh, 87 — Confession of Faith drawn up, 87 — Corn market removed to the Grassmarket, 88 — Markets and open shops prohibited on Sundays, 88 — Queen Mary lands at Leith (1561), and takes up her residence at Holyrood, 89 — Knox's interview with Queen Mary, 90— Mary's public entry into her capital (1561), 90 — F'irst coach brought into Scotland, 90 — Erection of the Tolbooth, 92 — Earl of Mar's marriage in St. Giles's Church, 93 — Change in Arms and Burgh Seal, 94 — Serious street affrays, 94 — Mary's first presence at the Parliament, 95 — Attacks on the priests, 95 — Darnley proclaimed King at the Market Cross (1565), 96 — Assassination of David Rizzio, 97 — Queen Mary's Bath, 99 — Birth of James VI (1566) in the Castle, 100 — Murder of Lord Darnley, loi — Bothwell's ravishment of the Queen and her surrender to Lord Morton at Carberry Hill, loi — The Black Turnpike, 102 — Mary's farewell to Holyroo 152 159 I6S 167 1 75 176 183 184 i8s 189 191 192 198 199 200 203 204 212 223 228 231 238 245 256 274 Ancient Plan. BIRD'S EVIi VIEW OF EDINBURGH IN 1647, By James Gordon of Roth i em ay. *,y MEMORIALS OF etJinbutsD in tfte j©ltien Ctme CHAPTER I EARLIEST TP EDITIONS [E history of Edin- burgh, down to a com- paratively recent era, is included in that of its castle and abbey. Around the protecting citadel the first rude huts of our forefathers gathered and continued to improve; until, amid the security of more peaceful times, the Abbey of the Holyrood reared its consecrated walls, and absorbed to itself much of the wealth and the learning, many of the virtues, and doubtless also some of the vices, of the wild races that peopled the fertile Lothians. It is unnecessary to follow the disquisitions of zealous antiquaries respecting the origin of Edinburgh, or the significance of its name. They have been successively referred to Saxon, Pict, and Gael ; and in each case, with sufficient Vignette — Ancient carved stone over entrance to the Ordn.ince Oflice, Etlinburgh Castle. VOL. I n MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH f I ingenuity, only to leave the subject more involved. It is vain to expect that the first rude gathering of the hamlet, the nucleus of the future capital, should leave its traces in surviving records or tradition. Yet the origin of Edinburgh is manifest still in the ineffaceable records which surround it ; and nearly all that tradition could have preserved of its infant history may be traced by the intelligent eye in the natural features of its site. In the midst of a fertile country, and within easy distance of a navi- gable estuary of the sea, rises a bold, precipitous cliff, towering upon three of its sides, an inaccessible natural fortress, to the height of three hundred feet above the plain. In immediate connection with this, a sloping hill formed at once the natural approach to the castle, and a site protected on one side by a marsh and lake, and on all but one by steep approaches, admitting of ready defence and security from surprise. Here is a situation, planned as it were by the hand of Nature, to offer to the wandering tribes of early Caledonia the site for their capital : when every one's hand was against his brother, and war was deemed the only fitting occupation of men. Nor was it until the union with England had made the rival sisters, " like kindred drops, to mingle into one," that Edina ventured forth from her stronghold. But in addition to the natural obscurity of an infant city, the history of Edinburgh, as of Scotland, is involved in more than usual uncertainty, even down to a period when both should fill an important page in the annals of the British Isles, owing to the repeated destruction of the national records under Edward I, and in subsequent invasions ; leaving its historian dependent for much of his material on dubious tradition, or on information obtained indirectly in the pursuit of other investigations. The earliest notices refer almost exclusively to the Castle, which has been occupied as a fortified station as far back as tradition extends. The chroniclers, indeed, are minute enough in day and date, could we only render them implicit credence. Stow, for example, in his Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles^ dates its origin precisely 989 years before Christ. " Ebranke," says he, " the sonne of Mempricius, was made ruler of Britayne ; he had, as testifieth Policronica, Ganfride, and other twenty-one wyves, of whom he receyved twenty sonnes and thirty daughters ; whyche he sente into Italye, there to be maryed to the blood of the Troyans. In Albanye (now called Scotlande) he edified the castell of Alclude, which is Dumbritayn ; he made the castell of Maydens, now called Edenbrough ; he made also the castell of Banburgh in the 23d yere of his reign. He buylded Yorke citie, wherein he made a temple to Diana and set there an Arch-flame ; and there was buried, when he had reigned 49 years." Edinburgh is surrounded, even now, by the evidences of the presence EARLIEST TRADITIONS $. of the Romans in its vicinity. At the mouth of the Esk was one import- ant Roman town and harbour, where the discovery of inscribed altars, baths, and coins has repeatedly attested the presence there of the masters of the world. On the west another maritime station, at the mouth of the Almond, has been even more abundant in the disclosures of its Roman origin. Within the area of Edinburgh itself Roman coins and pottery have been recovered in recent years ; and by this and other evidence we are able to trace the great military road of the Roman conquerors, in its northward course from the Eildon Hills, over the low ground between the Castle and the Calton Hill ; and there branching off, on the one hand through St. Ninian's Row to Cramond, and on the other, by the North Back of the Canongate, and "The Fishwives' Causeway" — as the Roman road near Jock's Lodge is popularly styled — to the Roman town and port of Inveresk.^ With such unmistakable evidence of the presence of the Romans in its neighbourhood, it is incredible that the peculiar advantages of the Castle rock, the insulated ridge, and the protective marshes and lochs with which they were then surrounded, could have been overlooked either by natives or invaders. Camden, accordingly, refers to "The town of Eaden, commonly called Edenborow, the same undoubtedly with Ptolemy's XTparoTreBov HrepoiTov, i.e. Castrum Alatum " ; and this idea of the learned author of the Britannia, after being long set aside, has bee- revived with favour in our own day. Sir Robert Sibbald was the first of Scottish antiquaries to place a Roman colonia at Edinburgh, " the Caer- Eden mentioned in the ancient authors " ; and his successors now incline to recognise in the singular features of the landscape, amid which undoubted Roman traces have been disclosed, the Winged Camp of the old geo- grapher Ptolemy. As to the Caer-Eden, it is assumed to be the Celtic synonym for the Edwinesburg of the seventh century, derived from Edwin of Northumbria, the reputed founder of Edinburgh. But the Celtic is the older form ; and the Northumbrian Edwin may be no more than an ety- mological offspring of the native Eden, or Edin, the Dunedin of Celtic times. It is not till the arrival in Scotland of the fugitive Saxon princess, Margaret, the grand-daughter of Edmund Ironside, and her marriage to Malcolm III, that the history of Edinburgh assumes an aspect of definite detail. The Saxon maiden brought with her the famous Black Rood, which became the national palladium, till in 1346 David II "violated the peace of St. Cuthbert," and Scotland saw the last of the relic at Neville's Cross. The stronghold on the summit of the Castle rock formed a safer abode for the royal family than the palace at Dunfermline ; and there • Vide Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 52-62. 4 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH still stands the oratory of Saint Margaret, which, notwithstanding evid- ences of later date in its chancel arch, is believed to have been the scene of some of the closing incidents in the life of the good Queen.* Malcolm Canmore and his eldest son Edward were both slain at the siege of Alnwick Castle, on the 13th of November 1093; and, as we read in Turgot's lifj of Queen Margaret, on the fourth day after the King's death, before the fatal news reached her, "the Queen went into her Oratory to hear Mass " ; and having partaken of the sacrament she returned to her bed. There she asked to have the Black Rood brought to her ; and was still grasping the prized relic in her hands, when her younger son entered, bringing the tidings of his father's death. The news was fatal ,.0 her. The cha;nber in which the touching scene occurred must have occupied the site of the Argyle battery, and adjoined the north wall of St. Margaret's Chapel. It is referred to in a charter of Alexander III of the year 1278, which was confirmed and ratified by the King "at the Maiden Castle of Edinburgh, in oui chamber which is called the chamber of the blessed Queen Margaret." ^ In the reign of Alexander I, at the beginning of the twelfth century, the next distinct notices of Edinburgh as a royal residence occur; while in that of David, the youngest of Margaret's sons, the Abbey of the Holy Rood, styled by Fordun "Monasterium Sancta; Crucis de Crag," from its site under the shelter of Salisbury Crags, was founded in 1128, as a house of canons regular of the rule of St. Augustin. The earliest gifts of its founder to his new mor-^stery were the church of the Castle, and that of St. Cuthbert, immediately adjacent, with all their dependencies ; among which, one plot of land belonging to the latter is meted by " the fountain which rises near the corner of the King's garden, on the road leading to St. Cuthbert's Church."" According to Father Hay's apocryphal account, certain nuns attached to the roya) chapel, and from whom the Castle derived the name of Castrum Puellarum, " were thrust out by St. David, and in their place the canons introduced by the Pope's dispense, as fitter to live among souldiers. They continued in the Castle dureing Malcolm the Fourth his reign ; upon which account we have severall charters of that king granted, apud Monasterium Sanctae Crucis de Castello Puellarum. Under King William (the Lion), who was a great benefactor to Holyrood-housc, I fancie the canons retired to the place which is now called the Abbay." ■* As to the ' Fit/e "Notice of St. Margaret's Chapel, lulinburgh C'nstlo," liy the Aulhor {Proceedings S.A. Scotland, New Series, vol. ix. p. 291). ' Kegist. de Duufcrmelyne, pp. 52, 53. " LHur Caiiariiiii Saiuiic Cfuds, p. xi. * Father Hay, iMd. xxii. Richard Augustin Hay, canon of St. Genevieve, at Paris, and pro- spective Abbot of Ilolyrood at the Revolution, though an iniluslrlouH nnli(|iinry, seems to have had no better authority for this nunnery than the misleading name Cast mm J'itt'//tiriiiii. EARLIEST TRADITIONS f name of the abbey of David I, it scarcely admits of doubt that it is the expression of his reverent piety for the Black Rood, the special object of devotion of his saintly mother, the good Queen Margai t The situation of the Abbey of Holyrood, in a sheltered valley between the Calton Hill and Salisbury Crags, referred to in its appellation of " Monasterium Sanctae Crucis de Crag," is highly characteristic of the choice of site of many an old monastery, such as that which suggested Byron's satirical allusion to the founders of his own patrimonial Newstead — " Because the monks preferred a hill behind To shelter their devotions from the wind." It seems probable that the site had already attracted some Culdee fraternity at an earlier date. A curious seal attached to one of the earliest charters of the Abbey represents a primitive little church, seemingly of wood, with a round tower, the work of a much earlier period than that of David I. It is, perhaps, the sole memorial of the older Celtic familia, or Christian community, established by the first missionaries to the Picts, in the glades of Drumselch forest.^ If so, this was not the only Culdee monastery suppressed, or absorbed into the new foundation of David I. The royal founder aimed in all ways at securing an ample provision for his Canons of St. Augustin. The charter of foundation of the Abbey, besides conferring valuable revenues, derivable from the general resources of the royal burgh of Edinburgh, gives them a right to dues to nearly the same amount from the royal revenues at the port of Perth, the more ancient capital of Scotland ; justifying the quaint irony of his royal descendant, James I, that " he was an soir sanct for the crown." ^ By another important grant of this charter, liberty is given to the canons to erect a burgh between the Abbey and the town of Edinburgh, over which they are vested with supreme rule, with right of trial by duel, and by fire and water ordeal. Hence the origin of the burgh of Canon- gate, afterwards the seat of royalty, and the residence of the Scottish nobility, as long as Scotland retained either to herself In the same charter, also, the first authentic notices of the parish church of St. Cuthbert's and the chapelries of Corstornhine and Liberton are found, by which we learn that that of St. Cuthbert's had already, at this early date, been endowed with very valuable revenues ; while it confirms to its dependency at Liberton certain donations which had been made to it by " Macbeth of Libberton," in the reign of David I, erroneously styled by Arnot,'' Macbeth the Usurper. ' Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. Fig. 1 86. - Bellenden, lib. xii. ch. 17. Sir D. Lindsay's Satyre of the Estaitis, ed. 1806, vol. i. p. 67. •' Arnot, p. 5. Macbeth of Liberton's name occurs as a witness to several royal charters of MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH The well-known legend of the White Hart probably had its origin in some real occurrence, magnified by the superstition of a rude and illiterate age ; though there is reason to doubt its having preceded the name of the abbey to which it is assumed to have given rise. Lord Hailes, indeed, styles it " a fiction more recent than the days of Boece." But that is a mistake. Boece does not refer to it. But the figure of the stag and cross occurs on the seal of Abbot Patrick in 1425. According to the ancient legend. King David, in the fourth year of his reign, was residing at the Castle of Edinburgh, then surrounded by " ane gret forest, full of hartis, hyndis, toddis, and sic like manner of beistis " ; and on the Rood Day, after the celebration of mass, he yielded to the solicitations of the young nobles in his train, and set forth to hunt, notwithstanding the earnest dissuasions of a holy canon, named Alkwine. " At last, quhen he vves cumyn throw the vali that lyis to the eist fra the said castell, quhare now lyis the Cannongait, the staill past throw the wod with sic noyis and dyn of bugillis, that all the bestis wer raisit fra thair dennis." The King, separated from his train, was thrown from his horse, and about to be gored by a hart " with auful and braid tyndis," when a cross slipped into his hands, at sight of which the hart fled away, and the King was thereafter admonished, in a vision, to build the abbey on the spot.^ The account is curious, as affording a glimpse of the town at that early period, contracted within its narrow limits, and encircled by a wild forest, the abode alone of the fox and the hind, where for centuries the busy scenes of a royal burgh, and some of the most important events in Scottish history, have been enacted. David I. seems to have been the earliest monarch who permanently occupied the Castle as a royal residence : an example which was followed by his successors, down to the disastrous period when it was surrendered into the hands of Edward I. ; so that, with the reign of this monarch, in reality begins the history of Edinburgh, as still indicated in vestiges that survive at the present day. After the death of David I, we find the Castle successively the royal residence of his immediate successor, Malcolm IV, and of William, surnamed the Lion, until his defeat and capture by Henry H of England, when it was surrendered, with other principal fortresses of the kingdom, in ransom for the King's liberty, and held by an English garrison for nearly twelve years. In the year 1215 Alexander II, the son and successor of William, convened his first Parliament at Edinburgh ; and during the same reign still further importance was given to the rising town by a Provincial Synod held in it by Cardinal I'Aleran, legate from Pope Gregory IX. The revenues of Alexander could not rival the costly foundat'wii- of his great- David I. [1124-53]. Vide Liber Cart. Sancta Cruets, pp. 8 and 9. Macbeth the Usurper was slain 1056. , ' Jhid. p. xii. ; Bellenden, xii. i6, EARLIEST TRADITIONS - .f grandfather, David I. ; but he founded eight monasteries of the Mendicant Order in different parts of Scotland, one of which, the monastery of the Black Friars, or the order of St. Dominic, founded in 1230, stood nearly on the site of the old High School, immediately to the east of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary-in-the-Field, better known as the Kirk-o'- Field, where the University buildings now stand. His son and successor, Alexander HI, having been betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Henry HI of England, seven years before, their nuptials were celebrated at York in the year 125 1. Arnot tells us "the young Queen had Edinburgh Castle appointed for her residence " ; but it would seem to have been more in the character of a stronghold than a palace ; for, whereas the sumptuousness of her namesake, the Queen of Malcolm Canmore, while residing there, excited discontent in the minds of her rude subjects, the young Queen complained of it as " a sad and solitary place, without verdure, and, by reason of its vicinity to the sea, unwholesome ; that she was not permitted to make excursions through the kingdom, nor to choose her female attendants ; and lastly, that she was excluded from all conjugal intercourse with her husband, who by this time had completed his fourteenth year." " Redress of her last grievance," Dalrymple adds, "was instantly procured, redress of her other grievances was promised." Shortly after, the Castle was surprised by Alan Dureward, Patrick Earl of March, and other leaders, while their rivals were engaged in preparation for holding a Parliament at Stirling, and the royal pair were liberated from durance. During the remainder of the long and prosperous reign of Alexander HI, the Castle of Edinburgh continued to be the chief place of royal residence, as well as for holding his courts for the transaction of judicial affairs.^ It was also during his reign the safe depository of the principal records and of the regalia of the kingdom.^ From this time onward, through the disastrous wars that ultimately settled the Bruce on the throne and established the independence of Scot- land, Edinburgh experienced its full share of the national sufferings and temporary humiliation. In June 1291 the town and Castle were surrendered into the hands of Edward I. HoUinshed relates that he came to Edinburgh, where " he planted his siege about the castell, and raised engines which cast stones against and over the walls, sore beating and bruising the buildings within ; so that it surrendered by force of siege to the King of England's use, on the 1 5 daie after he had first laid his siege about it." ^ He was in Edinburgh again on 8th July 1292; in May 1296 he received within the church in the Castle the unwilling submission of many magnates of the kingdom, acknowledging him as Lord Paramount ; and on the 2 8th of ' Wyntoun, bk. vii., c. x., 1. 108, 142 ; Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 586. « JMa. p. 587, •' Chronicles, 1586, vol. iii. p. 300. 8 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH August following, William de Dederyk, alderman of Edinburgh, with the whole community of the town, swore fealty to the usurper. Few occurrences of importance in connection with Edinburgh are recorded immediately after the final triumph of the Bruce, though, on the 8th March 1327, the Parliament held its sittings in the Abbey of Holyrood,* and there also his sixteenth and last Parliament assembled in March 1328. From glimpses we are able to obtain from time to time, it may be inferred that Edinburgh then occupied a very secondary station among the towns of Scotland. When, for example, after the death of Margaret, the Maid of Norway, a general Parliament was summoned by Edward to be held at Perth, for the settlement of Scotland, sheriffs are appointed for each of twenty-one burghs named, while Edinburgh is grouped with Haddington and Linlithgow, under " Ive de Adeburgh " ; ^ and the recapture of the Castle on two successive occasions by Edward obtains but a passing notice amid the stirring interest of the campaigns of Bruce. Sculptured Stone from Edinburgh Castle, now in the Antiquarian Museum. Towards the close of 1 3 1 2, when the persevering valour of Robert the Bruce and the imbecility of Edward II had combined to free nearly every stronghold of Scotland from English garrisons, we find the Castle ot Edin- burgh held for the English by Piers Leland, a Gascon knight ; but when Randolph, the nephew of the Bruce, laid it under strict blockade, the garri- son, suspecting his fidelity, thrust him into a dungeon, and prepared, under a newly-chosen commander, to hold out to the last. Matters were in this state when by a romantic incident this important fortress was wrested from the English garrison. William Francis, a Scottish soldier, whose father had been keeper of the Castle, volunteered to guide the besiegers by a steep and intricate path up the cliff, by which he had been accustomed in former years to escape during the night, to enjoy the society of a fair maiden of the neighbouring town of whom he was enamoured. Under his guidance, accordingly, Randolph, with thirty men, scaled the Castle walls at midnight ; and, after a determined resistance, the garrison was overpowered. The fortress was immediately dismantled. Barbour, who is the chief authority for the history of this period, says — ' Ads of Parliixmeiit of Scotland, vol. i. fol. Hailes' Annals, vol. i. p. 285. l-t EARLIEST TRADITIONS . (j , " Tha send word to the king n than, // And tald how the castell was tane, v . And he in hy is thiddir gane / / ' With mony men in cumpany, And gert myn doun all halely Baith tour and wall richt to the ground." ' In the commencement of the following reign, during the unfortunate minority of David II, the usurper Edward Baliol held a Parliament at Edinburgh, loth February 1333, consisting of what are known as the dis- infterited barons, with seven bishops, among whom are named William of Dunkeld and Maurice of Dunblane, the Abbot of Inchaffray ; who there agreed to the humiliating conditions proposed by Edward III. It is even aflfirmed by Tyrrel, though disproved by later authorities, that Edward attended in person, and received the homage of Baliol as Lord Paramount of Scotland. But two years later Leland informs us of his residence at Edinburgh from the 1 6th to the 26th September, when "he received the homage of Robert, sunne to the doughter of Robert Bruse, King of Scotland." Soon after this return of Edward to Scotland, Guy, Count of Namur, landed at Berwick, with a considerable body of men-at-arms, to the assist- ance of the English ; and marching upon Edinburgh, its castle being at that time dismantled and ruinous, he was encountered on the Borough-muir by the Earls of Moray and March with a powerful force, when a fierce and bloody battle ensued. In accordance with the chivalrous notions of the times, Richard Shaw, a Scottish esquire, was challenged to single combat by a knight in the train of the Count of Namur, when, after a brave encounter, each fell, transfixed by the other's spear. On the bodies being afterwards stripped of their armour, the chivalrous stranger proved to be a woman, who, from some undiscovered cause, had perilled her life in this romantic and fatal enterprise. While victory seemed inclining to the enemy, the opportune arrival of William de Douglas with a reinforcement deter- mined the fortune of the day. The Count's forces gave way and retreated, though still in order, and fighting gallantly with the pursuing enemy. Part of them, retreating through St. Mary's Wynd, were met there by a body of Scots headed by Sir David de Anand, and suffered great slaughter. The few who escaped joined the remainder of their company, that had effected a retreat to the Castle rock, then dismantled and defenceless ; and there piling up a temporary rampart with the dead bodies of their horses, they made a last attempt to hold out against the Scottish forces. But thirst and hunger compelling them to capitulate on the following day, they were suffered by the Earl of Moray to depart, on promising not to bear arms against David in the Scottish wars. In the following year the Castle was rebuilt by ' Barbour's Bruce, Ixxxv. 12. lO MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ! If f I r- f > Edward, and put in a state of complete defence, as one of a chain of fortresses by which he hoped to hold the nation in subjection ; but while Edinburgh thus remained in the hands of the English, the adjacent country was filled with predaiory bands of Scots, ever ready to take them at advantage. Alexander Ramsay, in particular, after having succeeded, with a band of only forty resolute men, in raising the siege of Dunbar, concealed himself and his followers in the caves excavated in the cliffs beneath the romantic house of Hawthornden,^ and so ingeniously constructed for conceal- ment as to elude the vigilance of the most cunning enemy to whom the secret was unknown. The entrance is still shown in the side of the draw- well, which served at once to cloak its purpose and to secure for the hiders a ready supply of water. From thence they sallied out, from time to time, as occasions offered, and not only harassed the enemy in the neighbouring capital, but extended their inroads even into Northumberland.'* In 1341 the Castle was recovered from the English by an ingenious stratagem, planned by William Bullock, who had previously held the castle of Coupar for Baliol. Under his directions, one Walter Cursy of Dundee received into his ship two hundred Scots, under the commtind of William de Douglas, Frazer, and Joachim of Kinbak, and casting anchor in Leith Roads, he presented himself to the governor of the Castle as master of an English vessel, just arrived with a valuable cargo of wines and provisions on board, which he offered to dispose of for the use of the garrison. The bait took ; and the pretended trader appeared at the Castle, according to appointment, early on the following morning, attended by a dozen armed followers, dis- guised as sailors. Upon entering the Castk ihey contrived to overturn their casks and hampers, so as to obstruct the closing of the gates, and instantly slew the porter and guard. At an appointed signal, Douglas and his men sprang from their concealment in the immediate neighbourhood, and, after a fierce conflict, overpowered the garrison and took possession of the Castle in the name of David II. In the following month the young King, with his consort Johanna, landed from France, and within a short time the English were expelled from Scotland. When, a few years after- wards, the disastrous raid of Durham terminated in the defeat of the Scottish army and the captivity of the King, in the treaty entered into for his ransom the merchants and burgesses of Edinburgh, along with those of Aberdeen, Perth, and Dundee, are held bound for themselves, and all the other merchants of Scotland, for its fulfilment. A Parliament was held at * On the gable of the old house at Hawthornden, the well-known residence 01 the poet and historian, is a tablet erected by Bishop Abernethy Drummond, with the following inscription : " To the memory of Sir Lawrence Abernethy of Hawthornden, 2d son of Sir William Abernethy of Salton, a brave and gallant soldier, who, at the head of a party, in 1338, conquered Lord Douglas five times in one day, yet was taken prisoner before sunset." — Fordun, lib. xiii. c. 44. * Wyntoun, bk. viii., c. xxxviii., 1. 105 ; Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 290, EARLIEST TRADITIONS The Castle, from n map engraved in 1575, showing King David's Tower. Edinburgh in 1357, for final adjustment of the terms of the roywl ransotfl> where the Regent Robert, the Steward of Scotland (afterwards King Robert II), presided ; and, in addition to the clergy and nobles, delegates were present from seventeen burghs, among which Edinburgh appears for the first time placed at the head. David II resided during his latter days in the Castle, to which he made extensive additions, enlarging the fortifications so recently rebuilt, and adding in particular an extensive build- ing, afterwards known by the name of "David's Tower," which stood for two hundred years, till battered to pieces in the minority of James VI. Here he died on the 2 2d February 1371, in the 47th year of his age, and was buried in the church of the Abbey of Holyrood, before the high altar. With the death of this unfortunate prince terminated the direct line of the Bruce ; and with it, too, may be considered to close the first epoch in the history of the Scottish capital. As yet Edinburgh was only the occasional seat of the Parliaments, and the temporary residence of the sovereign ; with many characteristics of a frontier town, ever on the watch to repel the approach of foreign invaders, or with resolute endurance to stand the first brunt of the Southron's hostile inroads. Abercromby ^ says of it at this time : " Edinburgh was then but a small burgh, or rather, as Walsingham calls it, a village, the houses of which, because they were so often exposed to incursions from England, being thatched for the most part with straw and turf ; and when burnt or demolished, were with no great difficulty repaired. The strength of the Castle, the con- venience of the Abbey, the fruitfulness of the adjacent country, and its no great distance from the borders, made after kings chuse to reside for the most part, to hold their Parliaments, and keep their courts of justice in this place." The mode of defence of the citizens corresponded with the character of their habitations. When an overwhelming host crossed the borders, and poured down in irresistible fury upon the neighbouring Lothians, like the > Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 189. la MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Borderers of later times, they drove off their cattle, concealed their more bulky wealth, and even carried away the straw roofing of their houses, as some security against a conflagration,^ leaving the enemy to wreak their futile vengeance upon the walls, that could be again replaced, to satisfy their simple wants, almost ere the retreating foe had reached their homes. Yet they never failed to retaliate ; and no sooner had the invaders been starved into a retreat from the deserted plains, than the burghers of the smoking hamlet were at their heels ; and, as Abercromby adds, " conformably to their usual custom, followed the enemy into his own country, and never put up their swords till by a retaliating invasion they had made up for their losses." To complete the view of national manners at this early period, we add the lively picture of Froissart," which, notwithstanding the peculiarities incident to a foreigner's description of habits altogether strange to him, exhibits traits, some of which may still be found under comparatively slight modifica- tions, after all the changes that five centuries have produced. " The Scots," says he, "are bold and hardy, and much inured to war; they bring no carriages with them, on account of the mountains they have to pass, neither do they carry with them any provisions of bread or wine ; they have no occasion for pots or caldrons, for they dress the flesh of their cattle in the skins, after they have taken them off, and being sure to" find plenty of them in the country they invade, they carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle, each man carries a broad plate of metal,' and he trusses behind him a bag full of meal. They place this plate over the fire, mix with water their oatmeal ; and when the plate is heated, put a little of the paste upon it, and make a thin cake, like a cracknell or biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs ; it is therefore no wonder that they should perform a longer day's march than any other soldiers ! " ' ^fl«//(7/j'««iV««// I MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH " Sae sain ye me wi' the sign o' His rood Wha bare for us the wound, And cam' to open the prison yett For the captive in dungeon bound ; But curse them wi' candle, book, an' bell, Wha raided our Scottis ground." " God's curse on Gospatrick, the merciless ; On the Red King and his freme ; But MacAlpin's heir, my wedded lord, I dreamed an eerie dream ; For Edward, our son, in winding sheet Sped by like the levin's gleam. " Like a whaup o' the whirlwind he glinted past Wi' moan and eldritch shriek, Warning me that my King lay smoured 'Mang the corpses his vengfu' wreak Had piled in the moat o' Alnwick tower. Be pitiful, Mary meek." He's press'd his lips on her lily-white brow. On the missal in her hand ; He's shouted the slogan " Albanich ! " Answered back frae ilk maormor's band, Young Edward has mounted his shaggy colt An' they're aff to Northumberland. The glamour o' death was on her face As she lay in dolour there ; St. Cuthbert's servant plied his beads Wi' eident psalm and prayer : — When the death-thraw came to Turgot's turn He bless'd God he'd been there. Mirror o' wives ; the mother o' kings : Christ's almoner ; to try By the fellowship of His suffering then In death's hour of agony. The vision of carnage and widowhood Was voiced in her parting cry. " Now bring to me the sain'd Black Rood, King Edward's gift of price ; Where the Lord o' life, in His agony. Is carved wi' rare device ; And a fragment o' the rood o' God In the blessed fertour lies." But her face was wan wi' the pallor o' death ; Her anguish was hard to dree. " O sinfu' soul, unworthy all Christ's precious rood to see ; By the blood that drapt fra' His pierced hands His mercy bide wi' me. QUEEN MARGARET " But mayhap afore yon sun has set Ahint the night's rud pall, A vvaestraik waur than ages past On Scotland's realm may fall, For a swaith like yon bloody set o' sun Bydes Canmore's funeral. " So, holy Father, chaunt, I pray. The penitential psalm ; And commend my parting soul to Christ, Unworthy that I am ; For a time of woful trouble has come. And I'd call upon His name. " O mak my covenant safe and sure Wi' oblation and sacrifice. When He gathers His saints fra' earth and sea And the dead in Christ arise, O wofu' sinner that I be, Christ save me at God's assize." But wha is this sae ghastly, wan, Stands by the bed o' death ? " Doul and wae, my son, for the errand you went ; But spare na the fatefu' breath ; By this holy cross, by our bond o' blood, I've looked on the gory wraith. "All laud and praise to God o' might ! Be pitiful to me. May the anguish o' this parting hour Be for shrift and purity ; Frae the blighting stain o' mortal sin Christ's ain blood wash me free. " By Thy death that gies the sinner life O Christ, deliver me ! " — She cried : and the soul, in its anguish, freed Frae flesh's captivity. Looked in the face of the Crucified And felt it satisfy. They bore in secret through the mist That shrouded scaur and hill ; And laid her by the altar there In Dunfermline's Abbey aisle ; But the sainted Queen in her people's hearts Lives on for Scotland's weal. •5 i I CHAPTER II ACCESSION OF THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES HI The old High Street, looking east. 'iTH the accession of Robert II, the first of the Stuarts, a new era begins in the history of Edinburgh. From that time may be dated its standing as the chief burgh of Scotland, though it did not as- sume the full benefits arising from such a position till the second James ascended the throne. It may, indeed, be emphatically termed the capital of the Stuarts ; it rose into importance with their increasing glory ; it shared in all their triumphs ; it suffered in their disasters ; and with the extinction of their line it seemed to sink from its proud position among the capitals of Europe, and to mourn the vanished glories in which it had taken so prominent a part. The chapel of Holyrood, in reality the nave of the ancient Abbey church, neglected and forgotten by their successors, was left to THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES MI 17 tumble into ruin ; and grass grew on the unfrequented precincts of the Palace, where Mary Stuart had basked in the brief splendour of her first welcome to the halls of her fathers, and endured the assaults of the rude barons and reformers, with whom she waged so unequal a contest. During the reigns of the earlier Stuarts, the relative positions of Scotland and England continued to preserve more of the character of an armistice in time of war than any approach to settled peace ; and in the constant incur- sions which ensued, Edinburgh experienced a renewal of the evils formerly resulting from its exposed position. In i383Mve find King Robert II holding his court there, and receiving the ambassador of Charles VI of France, with whom he renewed the league entered into with his predecessor. From this time so constant an intercourse was maintained between the two courts, that the manners of the people, as well as the style of building of the Scottish capital, were formed on the I'Vench model : traces of which were abundant in the last century, and are not quite extinct even in the present day. Immediately thereafter, in 1384, Edinburgh is found in the hands of the English. The Scots, under the Earls of Douglas and March, having begun war with great success, the Duke of Lancaster, at the head of " an army almost innumerable," as Walsingham styles it, passed the Border and marched straight to Edinburgh. The city lay at his mercy, but he spared it from destruction, in grateful remembrance of his hospitable entertainment by the monks of Holyrood, while an exile from the English Court. The Scots showed little appreciation of his forbearance in the reprisals with which they, as usual, followed him immediately on his retreat to England, so he returned the following year and laid it in ashes. It was in this incursion that the first edifice of St. Giles's was destroyed : at this time only a parish church, originally in the patronage of the Bishop of Lindisfarn, from whom it passed to the Abbot of Dunfermline. Yet, from remains of the original church, which survived till near the close of last century, it would seem to have been a building enriched in the best style of early Norman architecture. A rare engraving from a drawing by John Armour, a drawing- master who continued to reside in Milne Square till 1 801, is reproduced in the accompanying plate. It shows a deeply recessed and elaborately carved Norman doorway, which stood under the third window from the west on the north side of the church, till its destruc- tion about the year 1798, in the same reckless manner as so many other relics of antiquity have been swept away by our local authorities. The ancient church was doubtless on a much smaller scale than its successor, as suited the limits of the town, thus described by Froissart in his account of the reception of De Kcnnc, the Admiral of France, who came to the assist- ' Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 185. VOL. I C ^il ,1 i8 MEMORIALS OF EDINMIUKGH ■ (■ h.' ance of Robert II at this time : — " Edinburgh, though the kynge kepte there his chefe resydence, and that is Parys in Scotland ; yet it is not like Tourney or Valenciennes, for in all the tovvnc is not foure thousande houses ; therefore it behoved these lordes and knyghts to be lodged about in the villages." ^ The reception they met with was in keeping with their lodging. We are told the Scots " dyde murmurc and grudge, and sayde, Who the devyll hath sent for them ? cannot we mayntaync our warre with Englande well ynoughe without their helpe ? They understand not us, nor we theym ; therefore we cannot speke toguyder. They wyll annone ryflle, and eat up alle that ever we have in this countrey ; and doo us more dispytes and damages than thoughe the Englysshemen shulde fyght with us ; for thoughe the Englysshe brinne our houses, we care lytcU therefore ; we shall make them agayne chepe ynough ! " In the succeeding reign, at the close of 1 390, we again find the am- oassadors of Charles VI at the Scottish Court, where they were honourably entertained ; and witnessed, in the Castle of Edinburgh, the King's putting his hand and seal to the treaty of mutual aid and defence against the English, which had been drawn up in the previous reign. Shortly after this Henry IV of England renewed the old claim of supremacy over Scotland ; and in pur- suance of this wrote letters to the Scottish King, and to the nobles and prelates, requiring them to meet him at Edinburgh by the 23d of August, in order to pay the homage due to him as their superior and direct lord.^ The Lancastrian king, with a well-ordered and numerous army, crossed the Border, and was at Edinburgh before the day he had appointed, as appears from a letter written by him to the King of Scots, dated at Leith, 21st August 1400." While there, the Duke of Rothesay, who then held the Castle of Edinburgh, sent him a challenge to moot him where he pleased, with a hundred nobles on each side, and so to determine the quarrel. But King Henry was in no humour to forego the advantages he already pos- sessed, at the head of a more numerous army than Scotland could raise ; and so, contenting himself with a verbal equivocation in reply to this knightly challenge, he sat down with his numerous host before the Castle, till (with the usual consequences of the Scottish reception of such invaders) cold, rain, and absolute dearth of provisions compelled him to raise the inglorious siege arid hastily recross the Border, without doing any notable injury either in his progress or retreat. During the minority of James I, the royal poet, and his tedious captivity of nineteen years in England, Edinburgh continued to partake of all the un- certain vicissitudes of the capital of a kingdom under delegated government, though still prosperous enough to contribute 50,000 merks towards the payment of his ransorii. When at length he did return, to enter on the cares ' Lord Berners' Froissart, - Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 200. " //'/(/. p, 215. Almoiir tii-c.i i:fj W. Forrest 1837 I'diliHil or the mirth onliy to ik' piirish Jiirlcoi' Eellnbiir^ wlii.-h w«» takim down in rppairing that pairt of S'GilrB callr-a Haddow's Hole. THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES III 19 of royalty, his politic plans for the control of the Highland clans, added to the remoteness of Perth from the English border, led to the almost constant assembly of the Parliaments, as well as his own frequent residence, there. Yet, in 1430, we find him in Edinburgh, attended by his Queen and Court, as appears from accounts of the surrender of Donald of the Isles. At this time the rebellious chief, having made a vain attempt to hold out against the measures of the King, wrote to his friends at court to mediate a peace ; but finding their efforts unavailing, he came privately to Edinburgh,* where, having watched a fit opportunity, when the King and Queen were in the church of Holyrood Abbey at divine service he presented himself before the sanctuary of the high altar with his body nearly uncovered, and kneeling, with the point of his sword in his own hand, he presented the hilt to the King, intimating that he put his life at his Majesty's mercy. At the request of the Queen, King James granted him his life, but confined him in Tantallon Castle. His imprisonment, however, seems to have been brief, and the reconciliation, on the King's part at least, sincere and effectual ; for the Queen having shortly after this given birth to two sons, — Alexander, who died soon after, and James, the second monarch of the name, — the King not only libe- rated him, with many other prison- ers, but selected him to stand spon- sor for the royal infants at the font. The style of domestic building prevalent at this period appears to have been of the same rude character as already described at an earlier date' Ancient Houses near the Kirk-of-FieW, from a map 1575. and repeated enactments occur, intended to avert the conflagrations to which the citizens were liable. In the third Parliament of this reign a series of stringent laws was passed, requiring the magistrates to keep " siven or aught twenty fute ledders, as well as three or foure sayes to the comoun use, and sex or maa cleikes of iron, to draw down timber and ruiffes that ' Martial_Achievements, vol. ii. p. 289. 20 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH are fired." And, again, " that na fire be fetched fra ane house til ane uther within the town, hot within covered weshel or lantherne, under the paine of ane unlaw ; " * from all which it would seem that the houses were still mostly wooden tenements, thatched with straw. The nobility had not yet begun to build mansions for residence in the capital while attending on the Court, but continued to lodge in hostelries, or to take up their abode in the monasteries, according to the fashion of the times. By another enactment, all travellers are forbid to lodge with their friends when they visit the borough, but in the " hostillares ; bot gif it be the persones that leadis monie with them in companie, that sail have friedome to harberie with their friends : swa that their horse and their meinze be harberied and ludged in the commoun hostillaries ; " and burgesses are forbid to harbour their friends under pain of forty shillings. In this and the following reign, occur successive sumptuary laws, which give considerable insight into the manners of the age. All save knights and lords, of at least 200 merks yearly rent, are prohibited from wearing silk or furs of various descriptions ; " and none uther were borderie, pearle, nor bulzeone, bot array them in honest arraiments, as serpes, beltes, broches, and cheinzies." While again, in the fourteenth Parliament of James II, held at Edinburgh in 1457, the ladies seem to have called down such re- strictions upon them in an especial manner by their love of display. It is there required of the citizens " that they make their wives and dauchters gangand correspondant for their estate ; that is to say, on their heads short curches, with little hudes ; and as to their gownes, that na women weare mertrickes nor lettcis, nor tailes unfitt in length, nor furred under, bot on the Halie-daie. And, in like manner, the barronnes and other puir gentlemen's wives. That na laborers nor husbandmen weare on the warke daye, bot gray and qiihite ; and on the Halie-daie, bot lichtblew, greene, redde, and their wives richt-swa ; and courchies of their awin making, not exceeding the price of xl pennyes the cine." On the 2 1st of February 1438 James I, the poet, the soldier, and the statesman, fell by the hands of rebel assassins in the Blackfriars' Monastery at Perth, spreading sorrow and indignation over the kingdom. Within less than forty days thereafter the chief conspirators had been apprehended and brought to Edinburgh for trial. The meaner sort were left to the hang- man ; but for their titled leaders the ingenuity of a barbarous age was exercised to devise r ^i^el and exquisite tortures to satisfy the indignation of tha people. Sir Robert Graham and some of his accomplices were executed at Stirling. The Earl of Athole, with his grandson and others of the chief conspirators, suffered at Edinburgh. Robert Stewart, Earl of Athole, a son of Robert II by his second marriage with Euphemia Ross, on the ' Scots Acts, 121110. 3rd and 4th Parliaments, James I. THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES III 31 the presumption of the illegitimacy of the children of her predecessor, Elizabeth Mure, had some pretence to the succession. But he was a very old man, and is supposed to have been a mere tool in the hands of his ambitious grandson. He admitted that he had known of the purpose of the conspirators, but denied all part in the assassination. The plea was wholly vain. His sufferings were prolonged through three days ; on the second of which he was elevated on a pillar at the Cross to the gaze of the people, and with a hot iron coronet crowned in derision as the King of Traitors. On the third day he was dragged on a hurdle through the High Street to the place of public execution, where, after further indignities, he was at length beheaded, and his head exposed on a spear at the Cross : the body being quartered and sent to the four chief towns of the kingdom. A contemporary account of the murder and the subsequent tortures and execution of the assassins, written by an eye-witness, fortunately exists. He expresses his loyal detestation of the crime of the regicides ; but yet speaks with a sense of shuddering horror of the cruelties they endured. There is also the report of a foreign witness of rare eminence, .^neas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II. He was at this time resident in Edin- burgh, as Papal nuncio for Scotland, and witnessed, as Abercromby says, " with some horror, but more admiration," * these cruel executions. The comment of the Italian ecclesiastic was " that he was at a loss to determine whether the crime of the regicides, or the punishment inflicted on them by the justice of the nation, was the greatest." King James II was only six years old when the officers of state called a Parliament in his name, which accordingly met on the 20th of March 1437, in the Castle of Edinburgh ; and, as may be assumed, in the Great Banquet Hall, which, after long defacement and degradation, has been restored to its original condition. After the condemnation of the regicides the youthful sovereign, attended by the three estates, was conducted in state to Holyrood Abbey, and there crowned with great magnificence : the first of the Scottish kings thus associated in birth and royal honours with the capital of the kingdom. The assassination of James I. exercised an important influence on Edin- burgh. The wild Highlanders beyond the Tay had been the ready tools of Athole and Graham ; and thus, if Perth presented the advantages of a royal residence remote from the English border, it was exposed to the worse dangers of a savage frontier. Far back as record or tradition extended, the Kings of Scotland had been inaugurated at Scone ; nor had the removal of the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, by Edward I. robbed the Abbey of Scone of its special sanctity. But the murder of James I. broke the charm. The royal city on the Tay was deserted for the lowland capital ; the Abbey of ' Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 310. I i i-i 22 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Ilolyrood became the scene of regal consecration, with every magnificence of rite and ceremonial that could add a guarantee to the Crown ; and Edinburgh permanently assumed its rank as the Scottish metropolis. But it was hard to find a place of safety for the boy on whom the crown of Scotland had devolved under such tragic circumstances. During the two succeeding years he continued to reside in the Castle, under custody of the Chancellor Crichton, greatly to the displeasure of the Queen and her party, who thus found him placed beyond their control. There followed, accordingly, one of those romantic adventures so characteristic of the repeated minorities of the Scottish Jameses. The Queen visited Edinburgh, professing great friendship for the Chancellor and a longing desire to see her son. By this means she won the goodwill of the old statesman, and obtained ready access, with her retinue, to visit the Prince in the Castle, and take up her abode there. At length, having lulled suspicion, she gave out she had made a vow to pass in pilgrimage to the IV/iite Kirk of Brechin, for the health of her son ; ^ and bidding adieu to the Chancellor over night, with many earnest recommenda- tions of the young King to his fidelity and care, she retired to her devotions, having lo depart at early dawn. On being left at liberty, the King was cautiously pinned up among the linen and furniture of his mother, and so conveyed in a chest to Leith, and from there by water to Stirling, into the hands of Sir Archibald Livingstone. Immediately thereafter the latter raised an army and laid siege to the Chancellor in the Castle of Edinburgh; but the wary statesman, having lost the control of the King, effected a com- promise with his opponent, and delivering the keys into the King's own hands, they both supped with him the same night in the Castle, and, on the following day, he confirmed the one in his office of Chancellor and the other in that of Guardian of his person. This state of affairs did not con- tinue long, however, for Sir Archibald Livingstone having quarrelled with the Queen, the King was shortly afterwards again carried off and restored to the guardianship of the Chancellor in the Castle of Edinburgh. His increasing years, however, seem to have led to his enjoying greater liberty of person, as well as deference to his opinion. Under the guidance of the Bishops of Aberdeen and Moray, then residing in Edinburgh, a conference was held in the church of St. Giles between him and his rival guardians, which, from their mutual enmity to the Earl of Douglas, again led to an amicable arrangcm'^nt, the King making choice of Edinburgh Castle as the place where he should continue to reside. No sooner were the rival statesmen reconciled, than they consulted together to secure the overthrow of the Douglas. To have openly proceeded against him as a criminal, while at the head of his numerous forces, would only have proved the occasion of a civil war. He was accordingly invited to * Lindsay of I'itscottie, vol. i. p. 7. THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES III as Edinburgh, with the most flattering assurances of friendship. On the way the Chancellor met him at Crichton Castle, where he was entertained with ev'jry mark of hospitality. He rode thereafter to the Castle of Edinburgh, accompanied by his brother and Sir Malcolm Fleming of Cumbernauld ; they were received with every show of welcome, and admitted to the same table with the King ; but, towards the close of the entertainment, a bull's head, the well-known symbol of destruction, was set before them. They recognised the fatal signal and sprang from the board, but being surrounded by armed men, they were led forth, in defiance of the tears and entreaties of the young King, and immediately beheaded " in the back court of the Castle, that lyeth to the west " ; ^ or, according to Balfour, in the great hall of the Castle.^ In the year 1753 some workmen, digging for a foundation to a new storehouse within the Castle, found the golden handles and plates of a coffin, which were supposed to have belonged to that in which the Earl of Douglas was interred.^ From a protest afterwards taken by the son of Sir Malcolm Fleming against the sentence of his father, as being unwarrantable and illegal, as well as from the fact of no attempt being made to bring the Chancellor to trial for the deed when the Douglas faction prevailed, there would seem to have been some form of trial, and a sentence of condemnation pronounced, with the assumed authority of the King.'' The popular estimation of the deed may be inferred from the rude rhymes quoted by Hume of Godscroft: — " Edinburgh Castle, towne and tower, God grant thou sinke for sinne ; An' that even for the black dinner Earle Douglas gat therein." The Chancellor continued to maintain possession of the Castle, even when the Douglas party succeeded in obtaining the guardianship of the young King and used the royal authority for demanding its surrender. Here he held out during a siege for nine months, till he succeeded in securing satisfactory terms for himself ; while of his less fortunate coadjutors some only redeemed their lives with their estates, and the others, including three members of the Livingstone family, were all tried and beheaded within its walls. The increasing importance which the loyal capital was now assuming speedily drew attention to its exposed situation. In the reign of Robert II the singular privilege had been conceded to the principal inhabitants of building dwellings within the Castle. But this probably implied no more than within the ancient outworks repeatedly refe"red to in early charters as " the wall of old called ' the King's wall.' " This appears to have been an extensive outwork, built at some undetermined date ; it may be as early as to * History of the Douglasses, 1643, P- 'SS- ' Arnot, p. II. ' Balfour's Annals, vol. i. p. 169. * Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 330. 24 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH the reign of Malcolm Caninorc. It passed along the southern slope a little below the ridge on which the High Street stands, enclosing the high ground immediately to the cast of the Castle rock. In a communication to the Society of Antiquaries in 1887 Mr. Peter Miller advanced reasons for the belief that at that early period the northern side of the ridge was a steep cliff, furnishing sufficient natural defence, and so accounting for the absence of a wall there. But in 1450, immediately after the battle of Sark, the town was enclosed in the mural defences that, in 151 3, were superseded by the more extended Fiodden Wall. The important position which the town now held may be inferred from the investment in the following year of Patrick Cockburn of Newbigging, provost of Edinburgh, in the Chancellor's office as governor of the Castle ; as well as his appointment along with other com- missioners, after the defeat of the English at the battle of Sark, to treat for the renewal of a truce. To this the young King, now about twenty years of age, was the more induced from his anxiety to sec his bride, Mary, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Gueldres, whose passage from the Netherlands was only delayed till secure of hindrance from the English fleet. She accordingly arrived in Scotland, accompanied by a numerous retinue of princes, prelates, and noblemen, who were enter- tained with every mark of royal hospitality, and witnessed the solemnisation of the marriage, as well as the coronation of the young Queen thereafter, both of which took place in the Abbey of Holy rood. The first result of this marriage seems to have been the rebellion of the Earl of Douglas, who, jealous of the influence that the Lord Chancellor Crichton speedily acquired with the Queen, proceeded to revenge his private quarrel with fire and sword. In the beginning of the following year a Parliament assembled at Edinburgh, the first enactments of which were directed against encroachments on the royal prerogative. The Douglas's furtlier deeds of blood and rapine, at length closed by a hasty blow of the King's dagger in Stirling Castle, as well as the death of the monarch himself shortly after, by the bursting of the Lyon, a famous cannon, at the siege of Roxburgh Castle, in the year 1460, belong rather to Scottish history; but the latter event is intimately associated with the subsequent founding at Edinburgh, by the Queen Dowager, of the collegiate church and hospital of the Holy Trinity, and the interment of the royal foundress there. At this time Henry VI, the exiled King of England, with his heroic Mary of Cjucldres' Arms, from her seal. Jl H ^ ^ H O w o 3 o o f THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES HI 25 Queen and son, sought shelter at the Scottish Court, where they were fitly lodged in the monastery of the Greyfriars, in the Grassmarket ; and so hospitably entertained, that in requital thereof he granted a charter, empowering the free citizens to trade to any part of England, subject to no other duties than those payable by the most highly favoured natives ; in acknowledgment, as he states, of the humane and honourable treatment he had received from the provost, ministers, and burgesses of Edinburgh. Lord Napier also pointed out to Sir Walter Scott a grant by King Henry to his ancestor John Napier, Provost of Edinburgh in 1470, of an annuity of forty marks. The deed is subscribed by the King's own hand, and dated at Edinburgh, the 28th day of August, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, i.e. A.D. 1 46 1.* Abercromby, after detailing various negotiations that ensued, adds : " These transactions being completed, the indefatigable Queen of England left the King, her husband, at his lodgings, in the Gray-Friers of Edinburgh, where his own inclinations to devotion and solitude made him choose to reside, and went with her son into France. " ^ As to King Henry's charter to the city and his annuity to its provost, as the house of Lancaster never regained the crown, they survived only as honourable acknowledgments of the citizens' hospitality. In 1469 the Scottish capital again witnessed a royal marriage and coronation : Margaret, Princess of Denmark, having landed at Leith in the month of July of that year, where she was received with every demonstra- tion of welcome. The courtly historians of the period describe her as winning the favour of both Prince and people by a beauty and grace rarely equalled among the ladies of the age ; Lindsay of Pitscottie adds : " The gentlevoman being bot twelff yeires of age at the tyme. " ^ The alliance was further rendered acceptable to the nation by the royal bridegroom, King James HI, having "gatt with the King of Denmarkis dochter, in tocher guid, the landis of Orkney and Zetland." To all this we may add, from Abercromby ^ — " The very sight of such a Queen could not but endear her to all ranks of people, who, to congratulate her happy arrival, and to create in her a good opinion of themselves and the country, entertained her and her princely train for many days, with such variety of shows, and such delicious and costly feasts, that Ferrerius, a foreigner, who had seen all the gallantry and pomp of the Courts of France and Savoy, tells us that no pen can describe them so much to the advantage as they deserve." These joyous proceedings speedily gave place to others of a very different character. The historians, in accordance with the credulity of the times, have preserved the tradition of numerous prophecies and omens, wherewith the king was forewarned of the troubles that awaited him, and ' Maniiion, Note, Canto v. ^ Pitscottie, vol. i. p. 176. " Martial Aihicvements, vol ii. p. 386. ■• jMaitial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 407. 26 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH :;? til \ tl I his jealousy excited against his brothers. The youngest of them, the Earl of Mar, was committed a prisoner to Craigmillar Castle, from whence he was afterwards permitted to remove to the Canongate, when suffering under a violent fever, of which he died suddenly under the care of the King's physician, not without suspicion of foul play. After his death some reputed witches were tried at Edinburgh, and condemned to the stake for plotting the death of the King ; and these, according to the historians of the time, confes-sed that the Earl had dealt with them to have him taken away by incantation : " For the King's image being framed in wax, and with many spells and incantations baptized, and set unto a fire, they persuaded themselves the King's person should fall away as it consumed. " ^ Again, in 148 1, we find the King a captive in the Castle of Edinburgh, which served alternately as a palace and a prison down to the accession of James VI to the English throne ; and often, indeed, fulfilled the double pur- pose at once. He appears to have been held in a sort of honourable durance there by his rebellious barons ; having, according to Drummond, " all the honour which appertained to a prince, save that he could not come abroad, and none were permitted to speak unto him except in the audience of his lord-keeper ; his chamber doors were shut before the setting of the sun, and long after the rising opened ; such who only heard of him could not but take him to be a free and absolute Prince, yet when nearly viewed he was but a king in phantasy, and his throne but a picture ! " But, at the same time, there lay within its dungeons his own prisoner, the Earl of Douglas : to whom in this extremity he at last made unsuccessful overtures of reconciliation. The King having at length appealed to Edward IV of England, the Duke of Gloucester marched to Edinburgh at the head of ten thousand men, and encamped with them on the Borough-moor, at the very time when the rebellious barons were assembled in council in the Tolbooth. Here the Duke of Albany, who continued to assume a very specious show of loyalty, joined them, attended by the Duke of Gloucester and about a thousand English and Scottish gentlemen ; and the parties having come to terms, two heralds-of-arms were commanded to pass with them, to charge the captain of the Castle to open the gates, and set the King's grace at liberty ; who, if Lindsay is to be relied upon, somewhat contrary to our modern notions of kingly dignity, forthwith " lap on a hackney to ride down to the Abbay : but he would not ride forward, till the Duik of Albanie his brother lap on behind him ; and so they went down the geat to the Abbey of Hallyruid hous, quhair they remained ane long tyme in great mirrines ; " ^ and, as Aber- cromby adds, he " would needs make him Si partner in his bed, and a comrade at his table." On the following day William Bcrtraham, the provost of * Drummond of Hawthorii'len, p. 48. - Pitscottie, vol. i. p. 200. .f^'f \ THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF JAMES III 27 Edinburgh, and with him the whole fellowship of merchants, burgesses, and community of the said town, loyally and generously obliged themselves to repay to the King of England, under certain circumstances, the dowry to his daughter, the Lady Cecilia ; or otherwise " undertook for the King of Scotland, their sovereign Lord, that he should concur in his former obliga- tions, provided he or they, the said provost and merchants, were informed of the King of England's pleasure by the next feast of All Saints ; " which obligations they afterwards fulfilled, repaying the money, amounting to 6000 merks sterling, upon the demand of Garter King-of-arms, the King of England's messenger. In acknowledgment of this loyal service, the King granted to the city a deed, in 1482, by which the provost and bailies were created sheriffs within all the bounds of their own territories, and rewarded with other important privileges contained in that patent, which is known by the name of the Golden Charter. ^ He also conferred upon the craftsmen the famous banner, long the rallying-point of the burgher ward in every civil commotion or niuster for war, still preserved by the incorporated trades of Edinburgh, and known by the popular title of the Blue Blanket. The history of this famous banner has been written by Alexander Pennycuik, an enthusiastic guild brother of the last century, who begins the record — " When the Omnipotent Architect had built the glorious fabric of this world ! " and after recording for the consolation of his brother craftsmen that " Adam's eldest son was educate a plowman, and his brother a grazier," with many other flattering instances of " God's distinguishing honour put upon trades- men," he tells that the order of the Blue Blanket was instituted by Pope Urban II about 1200, and so is older than any order of knighthood in Europe. According to this author, vast numbers of Scottish mechanics, having followed to the Holy War, took with them a banner bearing the inscription — " /// bona voluntatc tua edificenter inuri Jerttsalevi" which they styled the banner of the Holy Ghost, though from its colour familiarly called " The Blue Blanket " ; and this, on their return, they dedicated to St. Eloi's altar in St. Giles's Church. Whatever foundation there may be for this remoter origin, it is undoubted that James III, in requital of the eminent services of the burghers, confirmed them in many privileges, and bestowed on them this ensign, with their heraldic bearings embroidered by the Queen's own hands. It has ever since been kept in the charge of the kirk-master or deacon-convener of the crafts for the time being ; every burgher, not only of the capital, but of Scotland, being held bound to raliy at the summons when it is unfurled. During this and succeeding reigns the Parliaments continued to assemble generally at Edinburgh, although Stirling Castle was the favourite residence of James HI, when he retired from the cares of state; and there he found • Druinmond tf Hawthoruden, p. 52. 28 MEMORIALS OF EDINDURCH opportunity for displaying that love for " building and trimming up of chapels, halls and gardens," ^ with which Drummond somewhat ungraciously charges him, as a taste that usually pertains to the lovers of idleness. His love of display seems to have been shown on every opportunity during his residence at Edinburgh ; and, according to the same authority, he acquired a character for devotion by his habit of riding in procession from the Abbey of Holyrood to the churches in the high town every Wednesday and Friday. King James the Third was slain on the 8th of June 1488, by his own rebellious nobles, on the field of Stirling, near the scene of Scotland's greatest victory under the Bruce. Whatever view the historian may take of this monarch's character and influence on the nation, he contributed more than any other of the Stuart race towards the permanent prosperity of the Scottish capital. By favour of his charters, its local jurisdiction was left almost ex- clusively in the hands of its own magistrates. On them were conferred ample powers for enacting laws for its governance, with authority in life and death : an independence which was afterwards maintained, amid many dangers, down to the period of the Union. By his charters also in their favour, they obtained the right to all the customs of the haven and harbour of Leith, with the proprietorship of the adjacent coast, and of all the roads leading thereto; as well as many special privileges conferred on the craftsmen, which they were not slow to protect from encroachment ; as his descendant James VI points out to his son Prince Henry, in the Basilicon Doron : " The craftsmen think we should be content with their work, how bad soever it be ; and if in any thing they be controulcd, up goes the Blue Blanket ! " ' Ilawthornclen, |). 61, Bishop Kennedy's Arms, from tliu Choir of .Si, (jilcu's Church. J THE TWA QUEENS at Jl OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS II. THE TWA QUEENS Queen Mary, ye Duik of Guilirlandis dochter, spousit in the yeir of God M. CCCC.XLIX, to Kyng James ye Secund. Hyr unerdyng fra hyr awn college be:yde Edenbiirgh ijukilk she hyr sell fundi t biggit and dotit. Also of aiic -wha would fain half usurpit hir rights ; and of ye tiua valiand knichtis wha discomfilit ye samen. There lived a Queen in the Olden Time, And a pious Queen was she ; And she vowed a vow that a kirk she'd build, An' wi' provost and prebends it should be filled, An' wi' priest an' sacrist an' singer skilled, All in the North Countrie. This pious Queen it chanced her — As wha will not, — to dee ; An', for a' her tokens o' pietie, Folk vowed sair penance she maun d ee, ' For they ca'd her nae better than sht hould be. All in the North Countrie. But the priests they chaunted the haly mass, And the clerks they sang, perdie ; '' An' ilk prebend the De profundis said. As wi' haly water he sprynkeled The through-stane whar the Quene was laid, ' All in the sacristie. And years gaed bye, and changes wore, An' times nane thought to see ; There cam' a demon, the Demon o' Steam, The Dragon o' Wantly was naething to him ; He gobbled doun churches like strawberries and cream, Or a caup o' flummerie ! This truculent Demon a longing took, \, hen hungry he chanced to be, To mak' a snack o' her pious bones, — Kirk, transepts, vestry, steeple, and roans He'd swallow, and mak' nae bones o' the stones ; All in the sacristie. But, as good luck would have it, there chanced the while Ane pious fraternitie ; An auld-warld, monkish race o' freres, Wha ilka lang-kisted bane reveres As a saunted relic o' bye-gane years, All in the North Countrie. i j0 ( MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH And they vowed a vow, an' they sain'd a sign, An' they swore fu' piouslie ; , An' never a man o' them a' was afear'd, For they grippit the Demon by his beard, An' they howkit the Quene fra the mouldy yird, All in the sacristie. An' they dighted their specs, an' they rubbit their een, An' they vowed the Quene was she ; And they took a cast o' her pious skull, And they kisted her banes in a leaden shell. And they eirded her under a velvet pall, A' in the Rood Abbey. The Demon had set his heart on her banes, And an angry demon was he ; He took the auld kirk in his hungry maw. An' he crunched it doun betwixt tooth and jaw, An' he lickt his chops, and chuckled haw ! haw ! We shall see — what we shall see ! For it chanced 'mang the auld-warld dead were laid In the kirk fu' peacefullie, He tum'd up whar ance the altar stood, Wi' its mystic host and its haly rood. Some rotten banes lapp'd in lead and wood, Forenent the sacristie. An' fu' loud he shriekit an elrisch laugh, An' revenged he wad be ; He sent in haste for the Quene's Remembrancer An' bad him cook up the banes instanter. An' swear them to ilk antiquarian vaunter The Quene's banes in veritie. The Quene's Remembrancer he cam' hot haste. An' wi' him ilk antiquarie ; The curator look'd red, the treasurer look'd blue. The secretary sniffed, but he only said. Whew ! And the president groaned out, What shall we do ? For it stinkit maist villainouslie ! Next there cam' in hot haste, as best he might. The corresponding secretarie, An' he stood bolt up, like an innocent man. For he suddenly remembered, — let wha will ban, — He never had believed the auld Quene was the one, Frae the first he never had ; not he 1 Besides 'twas as plain as a beggar's pike-staff — As he presently cam' to see, — That a pious Quene i - mouldie bed, Was always known by b '.app'd in lead ; Though such logic 'tis c in made some sliake their head Baith in North an Sou.h Countrie. ; \ '1 ■< 1 THE TWA QUEENS 31 By good luck there chanced, on the nonce, riding by, ■ , ' Twa knichts o' the lancet, perdie ; I warrant at the sight the secretarie. Vice-president, treasurer, and all, you might see Look as though such lead-logic they thought might weigh Somewhat short o' the veritie. There was John o' the Bone, a right good sir. And Sir James o' Midwiferie ; The tanc, a bright, fat, fodgle chield, Wi' somewhat o' rare auld Grose's build ; The tother was lang as his lance, afield Baith knights o' g- io (i- zee. The Demon, aghast, belched smoke and steam At the threat o' sic enmitie ; But on catching a glower o' their dauntless een, He lookit first red, then yellow and green. Till at last in a fit o' o'ermaisterfu' spleen. He dwam'd awa utterlie. They prickit his hyde, and vowed wi' the banes That pushionit he should be ; They took up the skull, and the one said, faugh ! A Queue ! quoth the other, sic a Queue I ne'er saw — As he thrust a thigh-bane in the Demon's maw, — But the Queue o' Bedlamie 1 The Demon he groaned, and coughed, and choked. And sputtered maist furiouslie ; But some that were there, I can warrant you, Durst scarce show their faces, they looked sae blue. And the secretary vowed, and vice-president too, 'Twas the rarest mare's nest ever on view All in the North Countrie. Moral Now all you antiquaries beware how you swear To a Quene's identitie, Unless, in the case it should chance, indeed, That the ladye turns up well lapp't in lead, With a crook in her spine and a cleft in her head. Which, as everybodie knows, are the marks agreed For a Quene in the North Countrie. Note. — On the demolition of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity in 1848, the remains of the royal foundress, Mary of Gueldres, the Queen of James H, were sought for, and deposited in the royal vault at Holyrood. The subsequent discovery of a lead coffin in the choir, also containing a female skeleton, gave rise to an amusing controversy, some account of which will be found in Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh, vol. ii. pp. 15-32. In the height of the contention of wits, the ballad of " The Twa Queens " was produced at a conversazione of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, engrossed on parch- ment, and illuminated in the style of the fifteenth century, having just been "found under ye altar stane of ye Queenys College of ye Halie Trinitie beside Edinburgh ! " CHAPTER III FROM THE ACCESSION OF TAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN The Castle from the West Port, about 1640. AMES IV was crowned at Edinburgh, June 1488, under very inauspicious circumstances. His youth seemed to hold out a very unpromising future under the guidance of such counsellors as had already made him their tool on the field of Stirling. Yet his rule of twenty-five years is rendered brilliant by literary achievements of rare value, and by romantic incidents which have acquired fresh interest from their revival in modern literature. During this reign Edinburgh became celebrated as the scene of knightly feats of arms. "In this country," says Arnot, "tournaments are of great antiquity ; they were held in Edinburgh in the reign of William the Lion, and in those of many of the succeeding Princes. The valley or low ground lying between the wester road to Leith and the rock at Lochend was bestowed by James II on the community of Edinburgh, for the special pur- pose of holding tournaments and other martial sports." ^ The favourite scene of royal tournaments, however, was a spot of ground near the King's Stables, immediately to the west of the Grassmarket, and overlooked from * Arnot, p. 71. I JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 33 I the windows of the great hall in the Castle. Here James the Fourth, in particular, often assembled his lords and barons, by proclamation, for joust- ing ; offering such meeds of honour as a spear headed with gold, and the like favours, presented to the victor by the King's own hand ; so that " the fame of his justing and turney spread throw all Europe, quhilk caused many errand knyghtis cum out of vther pairtes to Scotland to seik justing, becaus they hard of the kinglie fame of the Prince of Scotland. Bot few or none of thame passed away vnmached, and oftymes overthrowne." * One notable encounter is specially recorded, which took place between Sir John Cockbewis, a Dutch knight, and Sir Patrick Hamilton. " Being assembled togidder on great horsis under the Castle wall, in the barrace," the Scottish knight's horse having failed him in the first onset, they encountered on foot, continuing the contest for a full hour, till the Dutchman being struck to the ground, the King cast his hat over the Castle-wall as a signal to stay the combat, while the heralds and trumpeters proclaimed Sir Patrick the victor. But it is not alone by knightly feats of arms, and the rude chivalry of the middle ages, that the court of James the Fourth is distinguished. The Scottish capital, during his reign, was the resid- ence of men high in every department of learning and the arts. Gawin Douglas, the poet, after- wards Bishop of Dunkeld, the author of The Palice of Honour, and the translator of Virgil's ^neid into vigorous Scottish verse, v^as at this time Provost of the collegiate church of St. Giles, and dedicated his poem to' the " Maist gracious Prince ouir Souerain James the Feird, Supreme honour renoun of cheualrie." Dunbar, who is styled by Ellis " the greatest poet that Scotland has produced," was in familiar attendance on the Court ; and Kennedy, " his kindly foe," Sir John Ross, " Gentill Roull of Corstorphine," and others afterwards enumer- ated by Dunbar in his Lament for the Makaris, all added to the lustre of the era. Many characteristic and very graphic allusions to the manners of the age have been preserved in the poems that still exist, affording curious insight into the Scottish capital of the Jameses. Indeed, the local and descriptive references, often quaint and amusing, occur in their most serious pieces, as in Kennedy's Passioun of Christ : — North-east Pillar, St. Giles's Choir. ' Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 246. VOL. I D I 34 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH " In the tolbuth then Pilot enterit in, Callit on Christ, and sperit gif he was King ? ' And in Dunbar's Droichis part of the play : ' — " My name is Wei-TH, thairfor be blytb, I come heir comfort yow to kyth ; Supposs that wretchis wryng and wryth. All darth I sail gar de ; For sekerly, the trcuth to tell, I come amang yow heir to duel! ; Fra sound of Sanct Oclis bell Nevir think I to fid. " Quharfor in Scotland come I heir. With yow to byde and perscveir. In Edinburgh, (juhar is meriast cheir, Plesans, disport and play ; Quhilk is the lampe, and A per sc, Of this regioun, in all degrd, Of wclefair, and of lionjstd, Renoune, and riche aray." In the year 1495 Edinburgh was visited by the famous Perkin Warbeck,^ the reputed Duke of York murdered in the Tower. He arrived with a rich equipage and a gallant train of followers, and was received by the King with every token of sincerity, as the unfortunate Richard Plantagenet, son of King Edward IV. It is not easy now to decide whether the King was really imposed on by his specious tale, or was solely actuated by reasons of state policy. He undoubtedly espoused his cause with zeal ; involving, as it did, not only a breach with his intended father-in-law, Henry VII, but the immediate prospect of a war with England ; and, moreover, testified the sincerity of his partisanship by giving him in marriage his own kinswoman, the Lady Catherine Gordon, whose beauty long after procured her at the English Court the name of the White Rose. The policy of the English monarch speedily won over his future son-in-law, and negotiations were renewed for the marriage of James with the Princess Margaret. At the same time messengers arrived at Holyrood Palace, bea ng, as a gift from Pope Julius II to the Scottish King, a sword and diadem wrought with flowers of gold, consecrated by his Holiness on Christmas Eve ; ^ the former of which is still preserved among the Scottish regalia in Edinburgh Castle. The King now actively occupied himself in preparations for the recep- tion of his bride, and set earnestly to v ork " for the bigging of a palace beside the Abbay of Haly Croce." ^ The only part of his work now left is a portion of the " for-yet " or vaulted gatewaj' to the Abbey Court, the south wall and other remains of which may be seen in the Court-house of >' ' Dunlmr's Poems, vol. ii. p. 41 •' Ilawlhoriulcn, p. 66. - Martial Aihicvcinculs, vol. ii. p. 506. ■* I.ibcr Caitaiuin ^aiicttc Cnia's, I'rt'f. 58. JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 35 the Abbey, with the indications of the arches of its groined roof still visible on the outer wall. It was erected in 1502 by Walter Merlioun ; and an accurate view of it is given here, from a dratving* ascribed by Dr. David Laing to Thomas or Paul Sandby, and executed shortly before its demolition in 1753- Gavvin Douglas undoubtedly owed his favour at Court, as well as the friendship and patronage of the Queen, to his learning and talents. Kennedy, too, seems to have been a constant attendant at Court ; while Dunbar was on the most intimate footing with his royal master, and employed by him on confidential missions to foreign courts. In 1501 he visited England Vaul' ed Gateway to the Abbey Court, Holyroud. with the ambassadors sent to conclude the negotiations for the King's marriage, and to witness the ceremony of afifiancing the Princess Margaret in January following. He figures more than once in the privy expenses of Henry VII as the recipient of the royal largess, under the title of "The Rhymer of Scotland." On the 9th of May 1503, as he notes in the closing stanza of The Thrissill and the Rois, he penned that beautiful allegory which commemorates in noblest verse the royal union out of which was at length to come that of the rival kingdoms whose emblems are impersonated in Iis lines. At length, on the 7th of August, the Queen, who had attained the mature age of fourteen years, made her public entrance into Edinburgh, amid every demonstration of national rejoicing, A minute account of her reception has been preserved by John Young, Somerset Herald, her attendant, ' Su])]!. to Dunbar's Poems, p. 302. 36 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH and an eye-witness of the whole ; which exhibits, in an interesting light, the wealth and refinement of the Scottish capital at this period.* The King met his fair bride at the castle of Dalkeith, where she was hospitably enter- tained by the Earl of Morton; and having greeted her with knightly courtesy, and passed the day in her company, he returned " to hys bed at Edinborg, varey well countent of so fayr meetyng." The Queen was attended on her journey by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Durham, the Earl ot Surrey, and a numerous and noble retinue : and was received, on her near approach to Edinburgh, by the King, richly apparelled in cloth of gold, the Earl of Bothwell bearing the sword of state before him, and attended by the principal nobility of the court.^ The King, coming down from his own horse, " kyssed her in her litre, and mounting on the pallefroy of the Qwene, and the said Qwene behind hym, so rode thorow the towne of Edenburgh." On their way they were entertained with an apposite scene of romantic chivalry : a knight-errant rescuing his distressed ladye-love from the hands of her ravisher. The royal party were met at the entry to the town by the Grey Friars, whose monastery in the Grassmarket they had to pass, bearing in pro- cession their most valued relics, which were presented to the royal pair to kiss ; and there- after they were stayed at an embattled barrier, erected for the occasion, at the windows of which appeared " angells synging joyously for the com- ynge of so noble a ladye," while another angel presented to her the keys of the city. As the young Queen passed up the quaint old avenue of the West Bow, where the inner port of the ancient city wall stood midway, the houses were gaily decorated, the windows being hung with tapestry, and filled with " lordes, ladyes, gentylwomen and gentylmen ; and in the churches of the towne, bells rang for myrthe," Within the city they were received by the chapter and prebendaries of St. Giles's Church, headed, as we may presume, by their provost, the poet Gawin Douglas, all in richest vestments, and bearing the arm of their patron saint, which was presented to their majesties to kiss ; while the good city vied with the ecclesiastics in pageants and quaint mysteries, suited to the auspicious occasion. Nigh to the Cross, at which a fountain flowed with wine, whereof all might drink,' they were received by Paris and the rival goddesses, " with Mercure that gafife him the apylle of gold for to gyfie to the most fayre of the thre." Farther on was the salutation of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin ; while on another gate, probably the Netherbow, appeared the four virtues. Justice treading Nero ' Leland's Colledanea, vol. iv. pp. 287-300. - IHd. p. 287. ^ //vV/. p. 289. Ancient Padlock, dug up in Grey friars Churchyard, 1841. JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 37 under her feet ; Force, bearing a pillar, and beneath her Holofernes, all armed ; Temperance, holding a horse's bit, and treading on Epicurus ; and Prudence triumphing over Sardanapalus : while the tabrets played merrily as the royal procession passed through, and so proceeded to the Abbey. There they were received by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, accompanied by a numerous retinue of bishops, abbots, and other ecclesiastics, in their official robes, and conducted to the high altar, at which they knelt, while the Te Denm was sung, and then passed through the cloisters into the Palace. In the great chamber (the hangings of which represented the history of Troy, and the windows filled with the arms of Scotland and England, and other heraldic devices, in coloured glass) were m;.ny ladies of great name and nobly arrayed ; and the King letting go '.he Queen, till she had kissed all the ladies, the Bishop of Moray rirtcd vT- Master of the ceremonies, naming each as she saluted her : — " After she had kyssed tl; m all, ♦^he kyng kyssed her for her labour, and so took her again wit'' low ccitesay and bare hcd, and brought hyr to hyr chammer, and kysseH '),.r agayn, and so took his levc right humble 1 " "The eighth day of the said month, c civ man apointcu himself richly for the marriage, the ladies nobly aparelleJ, sc "ne in gowns of cloth of gold ; others of crimson, velvet, and black ; others of satin, tynsell, and d 'tr sk, and of chamlet of many colours ; hoods, chains, and collars upon their necks. . . . The Kynge sat in a chayre of cramsyn velvett, the pannells of that sam gylte, under hys cloth of astat of blew velvet fygured of gold ; " with the Archbishop of York at his right hand, and the Earl of Surrey on his left ; while the Scottish bishops and nobles led the Queen from her chamber, " :rowned with a varey ryche crowne of gold, garnished with pierry and perles, to the high altar, where the marriage was solemnised by the Archbishop of Glasgow, amid the sound of trumpets and the acclamation of the noble company." At the dinner which followed, the Queen was served at the first course wit*- " a wyld borres hed gylt, within a fayr platter," followed by sundry other i;'y.-.dlly queenly dishes. The chamber was adorned with hangings of red and blue, with a canopy of state, of cloth of gold. " Ther wer also in the sain chammer a rich bed of astat, and the Lord Gray served the King ./ith water for to wash, and the Earle of Huntley berred the towalle ! " The commons testified their sympathy by bonfires and other tokens of public rejoicing ; while dancing, music, and feasting, with coursing, joustings, and the like pastimes of the age, were continued thereafter during manydtys; "and that done, every man went his way," the Earl of Surrey, with the chivalry of Enp;land, to bide their next meeting on the field of Flodden. The court to which the English princess had come could compare Hi^ 38 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH favourably in all that pertained to knightly chivalry, or minstrel lay, with that of her royal father. The poet who had borne so prominent a part in the negotiation of the marriage, and had celebrated it in a poem which still commands admiration by the rare beauty of its allegory, was in special favour at the court of his sovereign. " At this time Dunbar appears to have lived on terms of great familiarity with the King, and to have participated freely in all the gaieties and amusements of the Scottish Court ; his sole occupation being that of writing ballads on any passing event, and thus contributing to the entertainment of his royal master."* From several of his writings, as well as from " The Flyting " with his poetic rival Walter Kennedy, many curious local allusions may be gleaned. One satirical poem, an address To the Merchants of Edinburgh, is particularly interesting for the singularly vivid picture which it furnishes of the Scottish capital at this period.^ " The principal streets crowded with stalls ; the confused state of the different markets ; the noise and cries of the fishwomen, and of other persons retailing their wares round the Cross ; the booths of traders crowded together ' like a honeycomb ' near the church of St. Giles, which was then, and continued till within a very recent period to be, disfigured with mean and paltry buildings, stuck round the buttresses of the church ; the outer stairs of the houses projecting into the street ; the swarm of beggars ; the common minstrels, whose skill was confined to one or two hackneyed tunes : all together form the subject of a highly graphic and interesting delineation." " Quhy will ye, Merchants of renoun. Let Edinburgh, your noble toun, For lak of reformation The common profit tyne and fame } Think ye nocht shame. That ony other region Sail with dishonour hurt your name ! " Your stinkand scule that standis dirk, Holds the light from your Parroche Kirk ; Your forestairs makis youi houses mirk, Lyk nae country but here at hame : Think ye nocht schame, Sae little policie to work In hurt and sclander of your name ! " At your high Cross, quhair gold and silk Sould be, thair is but curds and milk ; And at your Trone but cjkill and wilk ; Pansches, pudings of Jok and Jame : Think ye nocht schame. Sen as the world sayis that ilk In hurt and sclander of your name ! ' Dunb.ir, by D. Laing, 1834, vol, i. p. 23. Ibid. p. 32. JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 39 " Your common Menstrals have no tone, But, Now the day dawis, and Into June ; Cuninger men maun serve Sanct Cloun, And never to other craftis clame : Think ye nocht schame. To hold sic mowes on the moon. In hurt and sclander of your name I " Tailors, Soutters, and craftis vyll. The fairest of your streets dois fyll ; And merchandis at the Stinkand Styll Are hampert in ane hony came : Think ye nocht schame, That ye have neither witt nor vvyle To win yourself ane better name ! " Your Burgh of beggars is ane nest. To shout thai swenyours will nocht rest ; All honest folk they do molest, Sa piteouslie they cry and rame ; Think ye nocht schame, That for the poor hes no thing drest, In hurt and sclander of your name ! " In Gawin Douglas's Prologue to the Eighth Book of the /Eneid, there is another admirable satire on the manners of the times, but the allusions are more general in their application. Again, in Dunbar's Tydingis fia the SessioHH, where a countryman tells his neighbour, " I come of Edinburgh fra the Sessioun," the picture of the city, its litigious spendthrifts, its " tods in lamb-skins," hypocritical friars, cut-throats, pick-purses, gallows-doomed knaves, and dainty young monks paying their devout intercession to the women, is a satire equally lively and pungent. In his Remonstrance to the King there occurs an inventory of the various royal servitors, affording a curious insight into the crafts of the period, including — " Cunyouris, carvouris, and carpentaris, Bcildaris of barkis, and ballingaris ; Masounis, lyand upon the land, And schip wrichtis hewand upone the strand ; Glasing wrichtis, goldsmythis, and lapidaris, Pryntouris, payntouris, and potingaris ;" etc. The introduction of printers into the list shows the progress literature was making at this time. The King himself unquestionably exercised a great influence on the progress of arts and letters. He is described in a letter of the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Puebla, as speaking the French, German, Memish, Italian, and Spanish languages ; familiar with Latin, and also with " the language of the savages who live in some parts of Scotland ; and on the islands," well read in the Bible and other devout books, and 40 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH familiar with many Latin and French historians.^ So early as 1490 the Parliament enjoined the education of the eldest sons of all barons and free- holders in the Latin language, as well as in science and jurisprudence ; but it was not till 1507 that the art of printing was introduced into Scotland, under the royal auspices, when a patent was granted to Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar, conferring on them the exclusive privilege of printing there. Some of Dunbar's own poems seem to have been among the first productions that issued from their press, and now form rare and highly valued reliques. It affords evidence of the wealth of the old merchant by whose co-operation the printing press was thus introduced, that, in the year 1 5 13. Walter Chepman founded a Chaplainry at the altar of St. John the Evangelist, on the southern side of St Giles's Church, and endowed it with an annuity of twenty-three marks.^ But, perhaps, the most lively characteristics of the times occur in " The Flytings " of Kennedy and Dunbar, in which many local and personal allusions are to be found. These poems constitute a literary duel, carried on in a serif;s of pungent satires, wherein each depicts his rival in the most ridiculous characters, and often in the coarsest language. This literary gladiatorship originated in no personal enmity, but seems to have been a friendly trial of wit for the amusement of the Court. A few extracts, in connection with our local history, will suffice, as specimens of these singular effusions. Dunbar addresses Kennedy^ — " Thou brings the Carrick clay to Edinburgh Cross, Upon thy buitings hobbland hard as horn, Strae wisps hing out quhair that the wats ar worn ; Come thou again to skar us with thy straes, We sail gar skale our Schulis all thee to scorn, And stane thee up the calsay as thou gaes. " The boys of Edinburgh, as the bees out thraws, And crys out ay, Heir cums our awin queer Citrk ! Then fleis thou like a houlat chast with craws, Quhyle all the bitches at thy buitings bark. Then cartings cry, Keip curches in the merk, Our gallows gapes, lo ! quhair ane graceless gaes : Anither says, I see him want a sark, I red ye, Kimmer, tak in your lining dais. " i iien rins thou down the gate with gild of boys, And all the town-tykes Lingand at thy heels ; Of lads and louns, ther ryses sic a noise, Quhyle runsys rin aw.iy with cairt and wheels, And cadger's avers, cast baith coals and creils, * Bergenroth's Himancas J'a/ers, 169. '^ M.iitland, p. 271. ' These extracts from " The Klyting " are taken, with a few verbal exceptions, from Ramsay's Evergreen, as a modernised version more easily understood by the general reader. JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN . 41 For rerd of thee, and rattling of thy butes. Fish wyves cry, Fy, and cast down skulls and skeils, Some clashes thee, some clods thee on the cutes." A still more pungent allusion to the fraternity of fishwives occurs in the DeviPs Inquest, by the same author, and would seem to afford historical evidence that the ancient characteristics of that hardy race are still aptly represented in their descendants. Kennedy replies in equally caustic terms, ransacking history for delin- quencies of the Dunbars, with which to brand their namesake ; and thus advises him : — " Pass to my Commissar and be confest, Befor him cour on knees, and cum in will ; And syne gar Stobo for thy life protest ; Renounce thy rymcs, baith ban and burn thy bill, Heive to the Heaven thy hands and hald thee still. Do thou not thus, Brigane, thou sail be brint. With pik, tar, fyre, gun-powder, and lint. On Arthur-sate, or on ane higher hill ! " It may surprise us that this poetic warfare, though begun in play, did not end in earnest feud, from the zeal with which it is conducted ; yet the poets seem to have remained to the last good friends ; and in the Lament for the Makaris, Dunbar bewails the approaching death of his rival, as a friend and brother. But we must leave these merry pastimes of the Court and its minstrels, which seem like a glimpse of some lively comedy enacted to music of the olden time ; and pass on to the more stirring events that ended in " Flodden's bloody rout." The main historical incidents that preceded that disastrous field belong not to our subject, even if they were less familiar than they are to the general reader. But among those that possess a local interest may be mentioned the General Synod of the Clergy, which assembled by permission of the King in the Blackfriars monastery at Edinburgh in 15 11. There, in presence of the Pope's nuncio, Bagimond's roll was revised, and all benefices above forty pounds sterling yearly value held bound to pay a certain sum to the Pope ; the King, however, reserving to himself the right of making still larger demands when needed. The Queen had already given birth to two sons at Hoiyrood Palace, both of whom died in infancy ; and in i 5 1 2 her third son, who succeeded to the throne as James V, was born at Linlithgow ; when the King, seduced by the romantic challenge of the Queen of France, " To ride, for her sake, three feet on English ground," forgot his fair young Queen and infant son, and in defiance of every argument and artifice that his nobles could adopt to win him from his purpose, flung away the fruits of a prosperous reign in one unequal contest. According to the exaggerated chronicles of the time, 42 MEMORIALS OF EDlNnUIUllI I a hundred thousand fighting men mustered on the Horough moor ; and the exquisite picturings in Scott's Mannion have made the scene familiar to every fancy. But Lindsay of Pitscottie's account of llic warnings that preceded the departure of the Scottish army from the capital, refers to incidents too intimately associated with our local history to be omitted here. They have, indeed, all the romance of supernatural interventions, and yet are probably in the main strictly true. Sage courtiers, as is believed, with the connivance of the Queen, strove to influence King James through his superstitious fears. He had already been warned against the war by an apparition of St. John at Linlithgow; "yet this but hasted him fast to ICdinburgh, to make him ready, and to make provision for himself and his army against the day appointed. That is, he had seven great cannons out of the Castle of Edinburgh, called the Seven Sisters, castcn by Robert Horthwik, tht' master gunner ; furnished with powder and lead to them at their pleasure ; and in the meantime they were taking out the artillery, the King himself being in the Abbey, there was a cry heard at the Market-cross of Edinburgh, about midnight, proclaiming, as it had been a summons, which was called by the proclaimer thereof the summon of Plotcok, desiring all earls, lords, barrons, gentlemen, and sundry burgesses within the town, to compear before his master within forty days ; and so many as were called, were designed by their own names. But whether this summons was proclaimed by vain persons, night walkers for their pastime, or if it was a spirit I cannot tell. But an indvveller in the town, called Mr. Richard Lawsoun, being evil dis- posed ganging in his gallery- stair foment the Cross, hearing this voice, thought marvel what it should be : So he cried for his .servant to bring him his purse, and took a crown and cast it over the stair, saying, ' I, for my part, appeal from your summons and judgment, and take me to the mercy of God.' Verily, he who caused me chronicle this was a sufficient landed gentleman, who was in the town in the meantime, and was then twenty years of age ; and he swore after the field there was not a man that was called at that time that escaped, except that one man that appealed from their judgment." ' We have been somewhat amused to find The Floddcn Dead Mass, a ballad from our own pen, which was introduced in a footnote in our first edition, reproduced — not without some very questionable emendations — in Dr. J. Cameron Lees's St Cilis\ lidinlmrgh : Church, College, and Cathedral It is there coupled with I'itscottie's genuine legends in this ingenious fashion : " But none of these legends are more picturesque than the romantic story which has been located within the walls of St. Giles. Whether it be founded on legend as old as the time of Flodden, or is altogether of more modern origin, is of little moment ; it is equal in its weird character to either of those we have named." The fancy is ' riiscf^'.Ic, vol. i, J). 2O6 »i JAMES IV TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN 43 that Gawin Douglas, the Provost of St. Giles's, awaking from a troubled sleep on the night when the dead lay round their King on Flodden Field, enters the church just as midnight is clanged from the church tower, and witnesses their gathering to the ehich mass at its high altar. All warnings, supernatural or otherwise, had proved vain. Neither these, nor the entreaties of his Queen, who urged that "she had but one son to him, quilk was over weak ane warrand to the realme of Scotland ! " could turn back the King from his rash purpose. In defiance, as it seemed, alike of earth end heaven, the gallant, but headstrong and devoted monarch led forth the flower of Scottish chivalry to perish with him on the bloody field of Flodden. The body of the King having fallen into the hands of the victors, he was believed by many to have gone on his intended pilgrim- age to the Holy Land ; and popular tradition continued long after to regard him as another King Arthur, or Sebastian, who was yet to return in the hour of danger, and right the nation's wrongs. Ij City Cross, 44 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS III. THE FLODDEN DEAD MASS Gawain Douglas, Provost of the Collegiate C/mrch of St. Giles, on the night when darkness had settled over Flodden's bloody field, where his two elder brothers lay among the slain, awaking from fore- boding dreams, enters the church, and as the belltolls midnight is suddenly aware of a supernatural vision. The unshriven dead, who had that day fallen around their king, assemble before the high altar to celebrate their dead-mass. Gawn Douglas rase frae a dead-troth sleep, Teenefu' wi' eerie dreams ; Queen Margaret in Halyrood waukt to weep, Sin' their maister a leman's tryst will keep Ayont Tweed's border streams. It is na ae day, but only ten. Sin' Sanct Giles's quire had rung Wi' the high mass an' the haly sign, An' the aisles wi' the tramp o' stalwart men That their Nunc Dimittis sung. But only ten sin' prince and peer. An' churl, an' burger bauld. In mauger o' hell's or heaven's forbear, Had hight to ride, wi' helm an' spear. Three yards on Ynglish mould : When Douglas sought nigh the noon o' night The altar o' gude Sanct Giles, Up the haly quire, whar the glimmerand light O' the Virgin's lamp gae the darkness sight To fill the eerie aisles. Belyve, as the boom o' the mid-mirk hour Rang out wi' clang an' mane ; Clang after clang frae Sanct Giles's tower, Whar the fretted ribs like a bourtree bower Mak' a royal crown o' stane : Or the soimd was tint — 'fore mortal e'e Ne'er saw sic sight I trow ; Shimmering wi' light ilk canopy. Pillar an' ribbed arch, an' fretted key, Wi' a wild uneardly low. An' Douglas was ware that the haly pile Wi' a strange kent thrang was filled, — Earls Angus an' Crawford, an' bauld Argyle, Huntly an' Lennox, an' Home the while, Wi' niony ma' noble styled. <^^ THE FLODDEN DEAD MASS An' priests stood up in cope and stole, In mitre an' abbot's weede ; An' James y'wis abone the whole, Led up the kirk to win assoyl Whar the elrisch -.nass was said. Let the mass be sung for the unshriven dead ! — Their dead keep tryst around ; — As grim an' stalwart, in mouldy weed, Priest after priest, up the altar lead. Where James his forbear found. Let the dead's mass sing ! said Inchaflfrey's priest- Dead threep na to the dead ; Now peace to them wha tak' their rest, A' smoured in bluid, on Flodden's breast ! — Christ's peace ! — Gawn Douglas cried. Gane was the thrang fra the glynierand aisle, As he groped to the kirkyard boun'; But or the mornin' sun 'gan smile, 'Twas kent a woman was Scotland's mail, A wean wore Scotland's crown. 4S .r CHAPTER IV I FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V James the Fifth's Tower, Holyrood, previous to 1554. HE ready voice of rumour preceded the more certain news of the disastrous field of Flodden, H and filled the Scottish capital with dismay : already sufficiently overcast by the prevalence of the plague, which continued to haunt the city during this eventful year. Its provost, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, was among the nobles in the royal train, and the magis- trates had marched at the head of their trusty burghers to the field. Both were involved in the general overthrow ; but, fortunately for the country, the wisest precautions had been adopted to provide for such a contingency. The provost and bailies " in respect ♦^hat they were to pass to the army, chose and left behind thame George of Touris, president for the provost, and four others for the bailies, till have full jurisdictioun in their absence."' ' Registers of the City — Lord I lailes' Remarks FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 47 The battle of Flodden was fought on the 9th of September 15 13, and on the following day, with the first rumours of the disaster, those magistrates issued a proclamation, couched in simple terms, yet exhibiting such firmness as showed them well fitted for the trying occasion. It begins " For sa meikle as thair is ane greit rumbcr' now laitlic rysin within this toun, tueching our Soverane Lord and his army, of the quilk we understand thair is cumin na veritie as yet, quhairfore we charge straigtlie, and commandis that all maner of personis, nyhbours within the samen, have reddy their fensible geir and wapponis for weir, and compeir thairwith to the said president's, at jowing of the comoun bell, for the keeping and defens of the toun against thame that wald invade the samyn."- It likewise warns weomen not to be seen on the street, clamoring and crying, but rather to repair to the church, and offer up prayers for the national welfare. All the inhabitants, capable of bearing arms, were thus required to be in readiness ; twenty-four men (the origin of the old town-guard) were appointed as a standing watch ; and ;^500 Scots was forthwith ordered to be levied for purchasing artillery and fortifying the town. We have already described the line of the first circumvallations, erected in the reign of James II ; but the narrow limits had speedily proved too confined for the rising capital ; and now, with the dread of invasion by a victorious enemy in view, the inhabitants of the new and fashionable suburb of the Cowgate became keenly alive to their exposed position beyond the protecting shelter of the city wall. The necessity of enclosing it seems to have come upon the citizens in the most unexpected manner ; and they no doubt repented the luxury and taste for improvement which had led them so far out into the unprotected country. But the warning was not lost on their successors. They certainly did retrieve their native character for prudence, as scarcely a house arose beyond the second wall for two hundred and fifty years ; and if Edinburgh increased in any respect, it was by build- ing on the garden grounds and public streets, or piling new flats on the dwellings within the Ancient Royalty, and adding to the height rather than to the extent of the city. Th'=^ utmost energy was displayed in supplying the needful defences. The farmers of the Lothians lent their labourers and horses to the national work ; and the citizens rivalled one another in their zeal for the fortification of the capital agamst the dreaded foe, " our auld inymis of Ingland." In an incredibly short time the extended city was enclosed within defensive walls, with ports, battlements, and towers, superficial indeed, even as compared with the older city wall, yet effective as a protection against the military engineering of the age. Considerable portions of this wall have re- mained to the present time, exhibiting abundant tokens of the haste with * Rumour. -' Lord Hailcs' Remarks, p. 147. 1 48 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH which it was erected ; as well as preserving, in the name of the Flodden wall, by which it is still known, another proof of the deep impression that disastrous field left on the popular mind. Fortunately for Scotland, Henry VIII was too deeply engrossed with the French war to follow up the advantage he had gained ; and Queen Margaret, who now assumed the government in name of her infant son, having appealed to his generosity, towards a widowed sister and nephew, he willingly secured the neutrality of the Scots by a peace. The nation now experienced all the evils of a long minority. The Queen having speedily wedded Archibald Douglas, the young Earl of Angus, she thereby forfeited the regency ; and from this time, till the King asserted his independence, the people knew scarcely any other rule than the anarchy of rival factions. The Earl of Arran, upon the marriage of the Queen, marched to Edinburgh, numerously attended by his kinsmen and friends, and laid claim to the regency, as nearest of blood to the King. The Earl of Angus followed him thither, attended by above five hundred armed retainers, ready to assert his claims against every opponent ; and the High Street of Edinburgh became the chief battlefield for the regency, and with it the possession of the young prince, in whose name the successful aspirant for supremacy was prepared to gratify his utmost vengeance on his rivals. In the dilemma in which the nation was now placed, the Estates turned for aid to John, Duke of Albany, a courtier of France, the son of a younger brother of James III who had retired thither in the previous reign, under somewhat equivocal circumstances. The younger duke, now Admiral of France, arrived in Scotland early in the summer of i 5 i 5, with a band of French courtiers and adventurers, very hateful ere long to the Scots, and presently assumed the regency. His foreign training and associations had kept him aloof from the fiactions into which the nation was divided ; and his acceptance of the government was regarded with favour by many of the nobility and commoners as a remedy for the prevailing anarchy. He was accordingly welcomed on his arrival, and, as an old diarist says, " wes ressauit with greit honour, and convoyit to Edinburgh with ane greit cumpany, with greit blythnes and glore, and thair wes constitute and maid governour of this realme ; and sone thairefter held ane Parliament, and ressauit the homage of the lordis and thre estaittis ; quhair thair wes mony thingis done for the weiU of this cuntrey. Evill doaris wes punnesit ; amang the quhilkis ane Petir Moffet, ane greit rever and theif, wes heidit, and for exampill of vtheris, his head wes put on the West Port of Edin- burgh." * The Duke took up his residence at Holyrood, and seems to have immediately proceeded with the enlargement of the Palace, in continuation o*" the works which the late King had carried on till near the close of his ' Diurnal of Occttrrents, p. 5. » ■^ w J BLACKFRIAR'S WYND. 1837. w 'i i FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 49 life. Numerous entries in the Treasurer's accounts for the year 1515-16 furnish evidence of the building being then in progress. The new governor, after having made a tour of the kingdom, and adopted many stringent measures for strengthening his party, returned to Edinburgh, and summoned a convention of the nobility to meet him in the Abbey of Holyrood. But already the Lord Chamberlain had fallen out of favour, and " Prior John Hepburn of St. Andrews clamb next the Governor, and grew great in the Court, and remembered of old malice and envy betwixt him and the Humes." ^ Lord Hume, who had been the sole means of the Duke of Albany's elevation to the regency, was suddenly arrested by his orders, along with his brother William. An old annalist states that " the Ducke of Albany tooke the Lord Houme, the chamberlane, and wardit him in the auld toner of Holyrudhouss, which was founded by the said Ducke," ^ an allusion confirming the previous account of the new works in progress at the palace. A series of charges was preferred against the brothers, of which the most remarkable is the accusation by the Earl of Murray, the natural son of the late King, that the Lord Chamberlain had caused the death of his father, " who, by many witnesses, was proved to be alive, and seen to have come from the battle of Flowden." ' They were both condemned to be beheaded, and the sentence immediately thereafter put in execution, " and their heads fixt on the Tolbooth of Edinburgh." * The country was at this time divided between the Douglas or Angus party and the Hamiltons ; and Edinburgh became the scene of a succession of faction fights, rising at times almost to the dignity of civil war. In the year 1520 the Earl of Arran, who had held the office of provost during the previous year, attempted to coerce the citizens in their choice of a chief magistrate. They immediately shut the city gates upon him and his followers, and a scuffle ensued in which one of the deacons of the crafts was slain. But the fiercest and most sanguinary tumult was the result of an attempt by the Earl and other nobles of the west to surprise the Earl of Angus. The Douglas had at his back a body of rough borderers inured to fighting and disposed to look with contempt on any burgher force. The Arran faction resolved to avail themselves of the hatred engendered against these raiders ; and a party of their leaders, assembled in secret conclave in the monastery of the Blackfriars, determined to make Angus their prisoner. Gawin Douglas, now Bishop of Dunkeld, and interested in the proceedings by his relationship to the Earl of Angus, strove to become a mediator ; and it was on this occasion that his well-known repartee to the Archbishop of Glasgow was made. The residence of the Bishop of Dunkeld was on the south side of the Cowgate, from whence he had to proceed but a little way ' Marjoribank's Annals, Liber. Cart. p. Ixxi. » Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 296. ' Ilawthomden, p. 85. « Crawford's Lives, vol. i. p. 324. Balfour's Ann, vol. i. p. 245. VOL. I E 50 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH to that of Archbishop Beaton, at the foot of the Blackfriars' Wynd.^ There he appealed to him, as a minister of peace, to use his influence with his friends to compromise their differences, and prevent, if possible, the blood- shed that must otherwise ensue. The Archbishop excused himself on various grounds, protesting, on his conscience, that he could not help it. At the same time striking his breast in the vehemence of his asseveration, he betrayed the presence of a concealed coat of armour : whereupon Douglas retorted : " How now, my lord, methinks your conscience clatters ! " The Scottish word has a double meaning, implying not only such a clattering sound as the concealed breast-plate gave forth ; but also the indiscreet tell- tale of a tattler. The conspirators were unaware of the strength of the Douglases. A furious battle of the barricades ensued, much after the fashion of later Parisian civic warfare, which remains famous in old Edinburgh annals by the quaint name of " Cleanse the Causeway." Drummond has furnished a graphic account of the contest. The recent slaughter of one of their deacons had embittered the citizens against Arran and his faction ; and as Angus and his followers mustered on the street, they were furnished with long spears and pikes, handed to them by the citizens from their windows. Thus hastily armed, they invested part of the town, and barricaded some of the wynds with carts and other impediments that lay at hand. Whilst the strife was at its height, William Douglas, brother of the Earl of Angus, Sir David Hume of Wedderburn, George Hume, and others of their party, forced the Netherbow Port, made their way through the throng that crowded the street, and drove their rivals to flight after a furious encounter. " The Master of Montgomery, eldest son to the Earl of Eglinton, Sir Patrick Hamilton, brother to the Earl of Arran, with almost fourscore more, are left dead upon the place. The Earl himself findeth an escape and place of retreat through a marsh upon the north side of the town ; the Chancellor and his retinue took sanctuary in the Dominican Friars ; " ^ the said Chan- cellor being none other than Archbishop Beaton, whose conscience had so recently been appealed to in proof of his peaceful inclinations. He owed his life to the good Bishop of Dunkeld ; for, as Pitscottie narrates, " Bishop James Beatoun fled to the Black Frear Kirk, and thair was takin out behind the alter, and his rockit rivin aff him, and had beine slaine, had not beine Mr. Gawin Dowglas requeisted for him, saying it was shame to put hand in ane consecrat bischop. So he was saiff at that tyme." And so " as the Douglases keiped both the gaitt (/>. the street) and their honouris," it received its name of Cleanse the Causeway.^ Some days afterwards, as Drummond relates, " the Humes, well-banded and backed with many nobles and gentlemen of 't^ ' Crawford's Lives, vol. i. p. 96. ^ Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 288. - Hawthornden, p. FROM THE BATTLE OF FLOUDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 51 their lineage, took the Lord Hume's and his brother's heads from the place where they had been fixt, and with the funeral rites of those times interred them in the Black Friars." Throughout the minority of James V the capital continued to be dis- turbed by similar outbreaks of turbulence and riot, from the contentions of the nobility and their adherents, and especially from the struggles of the rival Earls of Angus and Arran. In order to suppress this, the town council augmented the salary of the provost, and appointed a guard to wait upon him, but altogether without effect on the lawless spirits of the nobles. During this time the young monarch resided chiefly in the Castle of Edinburgh, pursuing his education under the tuition of Gawin Dunbar, after- wards Archbishop of Glasgow ; and his sports with the aid of his faithful page, David Lindsay : the Lord Lyon, and still more, the vigorous satirist of a later date : heedless of the tumultuous scenes of the neighbouring capital, and seemingly but little thought of by either of the rival leaders who were struggling for mastery. His tutor was compelled to defray, from his own purse, the necessary repairs of the royal apartments devoted to their use ; while such was the straitened means of the young King, that he was indebted at one time to the kindness of his natural sister, the Countess of Morton, for a new doublet and a pair of hose. Sir David Lindsay has furnished, in his Complaynt, a lively description of their pastimes at this period, in which he reminds him that among the first words he lisped were play Davy Lindsay : — " How as ane chapman beris his pack, I bure thy Grace upon my back : And sumtymes, stridhngis, on my nek, Dansand with mony bend and bek : The first sillabis that thow did mute, Was pa, Da, Lyn ; upon the Uite Than playit I twentie springis perqueir, Quhilk was greit plesour for to heir ; Fra play, thow leit me never rest, Bot gynkertoun thow luffit ay best ; And ay, quhen thow come fra the scule. Then I behufifit to play the fule : Thow hes maid lordis, schir, be Sanct Geill, Of sum that hes nocht servit so weill." ' Though placed within the Castle for safety, the King was not entirely confined to its straitened bounds. When not prevented by the disturbed state of the town and neighbourhood, he was not only permitted to ride forth in the intervals of his studies, but occasionally took up his residence both at Craigmillar and Dalkeith. ' Sir D. Lindsay's Poems, 1806, vol. i. p. 257. 1» MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Shortly after the period referred to, the Duke of Albany quitted the kingdom for the last time, and the King, who had been removed to Stirling, to be out of reach of the Queen's party, was brought to Holyrood, attended by a numerous train of nobles, and at the mature age of twelve invested with the full powers of royalty, as the only means of terminating the frightful anarchy that prevailed. On the 2 2d of August 1524 "he maid his solempnit entree with the lordis in the tolbuytht of Edinbrughe, with sceptour, croune, and sword of honour ; " ^ and his sports with his favourite page were exchanged for a grave attempt to play at kingship. Sir David Lindsay alludes to this in his Complaynt^ and pictures with lively satire the obsequious courtiers joining in the diversions of the juvenile King. " Imprudently, lyke witles fulis, Thay ti;ke the young Prince fra the sculis, Quhare he, under obedier i , Was leirnand vertew, and science, And haistely pat in his hand The governance of all Scotland. * * ♦ * " Schir, sum wald say, your majestie Sail now gae to your libertie ; , Ye sail to na man be coarcit. Nor to the scule na mair subjectit ; We think thame varrey naturall fulis. That lernis over meikle at the sculis : V " Ilk man efter thair qualitie, Thay did solist his majestie, Sum gart him ravell at the rakket. Some harlit him to the hurly hakket. And sum to schaw thair courtlie corsis, Wald ryid to Leith, and rin thair horsis." Pitscottie tells with great naivete that " the King and the lordis remained in Edinburgh and Hallirudhouse the space of ane yeir, with great triumph and merrines, quhill at the last thair vaiked ane benefice quhilk pat thame all at variance for the dispositioun of the same." '-^ And so, after dividing with more or less success the patronage of the crown, the nobles parted in greater disagreement than ever ; " bot Bischope James Bcatoun remained still in Edinburgh, in his awin ludging, quhilk he biggit in the Fricris Wynd." " The nominal rule of the youthful sovereign proved of little avail to stay the turbulence of his nobles. Angus again seized the government, nominating his uncle, Archibald Douglas, provost of Edinburgh ; and such was the power he possessed, that, under his protection, the assassins of M'Lellan of Bombie, who was slain in open day at the door of St. Giles's ' Diurnal 0/ Oaut nuts, p. 9. '•* Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 312, * Ilmi. p. 313. FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 53 V^ m Church, walked with impunity about the stre(,ts. The Queen herself deemed his safe-conduct necessary, while she resided in Edinburgh, though the Parliament was sitting there at the time ; and so the King returned again to honourable durance in the dilapidated palace of the Castle, or only made his appearance to act as the puppet of his governor. Arran and his faction took advantage of this condition of things to demand that the Parlia- ment should assemble within the Castle, to secure them against popular coercion ; but Angus, and a numerous body of the nobles, and others, protested " that the Parliament be kept in the accustomed place, and that the King be conveyed along the High Street, and in triumph shown to his own people." This being denied them, they surrounded the Castle with two thousand men in arms, completely preventing the supplies of the garrison ; those in the Castle retaliated by firing on the town ; but their differences were happily accommodated, and " the King in magnificence and pomp is convoyed from the Castle to his Palace at Holyroodhouse, and the Estates assemble in the wonted place of the town of Edinburgh."^ The Earl of Lennox assembled a nume ous body of adherents in the following year, 1526, and marched towards Edinburgh to the rescue of the King ; but Angus not only caused the provost to ring the alarm bell and raise the town in his defence, but he persuaded the King, though much against his will, to head the burgher force against his own friends. "Then the King caused sound his trumpettis, and lap upoun hors, and caused ring the commoun bell of Edinburgh, commanding all manner of men to follow him ; so he isched forth at the Wast Port, and the tounes of Edinburgh and Leith with him, to the number of thrie thousand men, and passed fordwards with thame," but only to iril /e in time to witness the death of the Earl of Lennox, and the complete •'-comfiture of his party. Frequent attempts vver ".ade ♦:hereafter for the King's delivery from such thraldom ; but that \ Inch ro many had failed in securing, he at length effected by his r-.vn addres^ r.u.' vigour, and with only two attend- ants made his escape .Vom the Di'Uglas faction, at Falkland, to Stirling Castle. Shortly aftp.v Ihi?, he repaired to Edinburgh, whither he summoned his barons to advise with i.i'n, and, with a degree of decision far beyond his years, proceeded to assert his own independence and authority. One of the acts of Parliament, against them "quha cummis and burnis folkes in their housis," 2 exhibits in a startling light the violence prevailing at the period. The year 1530 is assigned as the date of Lindsay's famous satire, T/ic Complaint of the Papiiigo, or king's parrot, which may be regarded as the first note of the reforming movement b\' him of whom Pinkerton has said, " In fact. Sir David was more the reformer of Scotland than John Knox ; for he had prepared the ground, ard John only sowed the seed." The 1 Ilawthornden, p. 93. - Scots Af/s, 121110, vol. i. p. 201, 1 54 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH farewell of the Papingo to the capital is couched in terms the more flattering, as coming from so keen a satirist — " Adew Edinburgh, thou heich tiiumphaiul touii, Within quhose boundis, richt blythful liavp I bene, Of trew merchandis, the rule of tliis rcKioini, Most reddy to ressavc Court, KiuK, anil Qucnc ; Thy policie, and justice, may be sene, Were devotioun, wysedom, and honcslie. And credence, tint, they micht be found in thcc." Various notices occurring about this period exhibit the first symptoms of the reforming doctrines showing themselves in Edinburgh : e.g. in the Diurnal of Occnrrents for 1532, "In this zcir was anc grcit objuratioun of the favouraris of Mertene Lutar, in the Abbay of llalyrudhous." ' About the same period it records the destruction of nearly tho whole town by an accidental fire. This same year the nobles assembled at Edinburgh at the King's summons, with their followers, to the number of twelve thousand, for the famous hunting match in which Johnnie Armstrong, the Border reiver, renowned in song and story, was hanged, " to daunton the theives of Tividaill and Annandaill."- Notice has already been taken of Dunbar's allusions to the Court of Session in the former reign, but now, in 1537, the King instituted the College of Justice and established the Coiut on a permanent footing, with the confirmation of Pope Clement VII." This event is one of the most important in the history of Edinburgh, on which, from that time, both its prosperity and its metropolitan claims have more depended than on any occurrence in its history ; and, from the ready means of redress it afforded to the inhabitants against the • irbulent nobles of the period, it made the town a place of greater resort than it had ever before been. The King now, with the self-reliance and energy that marked his character, after negotiating for the hand of various noble ladies in marriage, set sail from Leith, accompanied by a large fleet and a numerous retinue, and arriving at the French Court, he wooed and won for himself the Princess Magdalen, eldest daughter of I-Vancis I. On the 29th of May the royal pair landed at Leith, amid every display of welcome ; and after tarrying for a few days at the Palace of Holyrood, till the preparations of the citizens were completed, the Queen matle her entry in state into the capital, with processions of great magnificence, and such displays of loyal attachment as testified the hearty welcome of the people. The gentle young Queen seems to have given "her hand with her heart in it" to her royal lover. So soon as she stept on the SccUtish shore, she knelt and * Diurnal of Ou line Ills, p. 15. - I'ilNCollii', vul, ii. p. 342. " Ilawthornden, p. 99. Scots Ad'', 121110, vdl, i, p, 217. 11 FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 55 kissed the ground, praying for all happiness to her adopted country and people ; ^ but ere six weeks had elapsed, the pomp of worldly honour that had greeted her arrival was called to follow the young bride to the tomb. She was buried in the royal vault in Holyrood Abbey, near to King James II, with the greatest mourning Scotland ever, till that time, was participant of^ Buchanan, who was an eye-witness, says it was the first instance of mourning-dresses being worn by the Scots ; and " triumph and mirrines was all turned into deregies and souU massis, verrie lamentable to behold." •' Sir David Lindsay, in a poem of singular inequality, has expressed his Deploratioun of the Deith of Quene Magdalene. He thus apostrophises " Crewell Deith " : — " Theif ! saw tliow nocht the greit preparatyvis Of Edinburgh, the nobill famous toun, Thow saw the pepill, lauboring for thair lyvis, To mak tryumphe, with trump, and clarioun ; Sic plesour was never into this regioun, As suld haif bene the day of hir entrace, With greit propynis,* gevin till hir Grace. " Thow saw makand right costlie scaffalding, Depaintit weill, with gold, ind asure fyne, Reddye preparit for the upsetting, With fontanis, flowing water cleir, and wyne, Disagysit folks,'' lyke creaturis divyne. On ilk scaffold, to play ane syndrie storie, Bot, all in greiting turnit thow that glorie. " Provest, baillies, and lordis of the toun. And princis of the preistis venerabill, Full plesandlye in thair processioun, Widi all the cunnyng clerkis honorabill ; The herauVlis, with their awful vestimentis, With maseris <* upon ather of thair handis. To rewle the press, with burneist silver wandis. " Syne, last of all, in ordour tryumphali, That maist illuster Princes honorabill, With hir the lustye ladyis of Scotland, Quhilk sulde haif bene ane sicht maist delectabil : Hir rayment to rehers, I am nocht habill, Of golde, and perle, and precious stonis brycht, Twinklyng lyke sterris in ane frostie nycht. " Under ane pale of golde scho suld haif past. Be burgeis borne, clothit in silkis fyne. ' Ilawthornden, p. 104. * Presents. = //>iJ. ^ Disguised folk or actors. '■' Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 374. * Macers. 56 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH IS The greit maister of housholde, all their last With him, in ordour, all the kingis tryne, ^ Quhais ordinance war langsum to defyne ; On this maner, scho passing throw the toun, Suld haif resavit mony benisoun. " Thou sulde haif hard the ornate oratouris, Makand her Hynes salutatioun, Baith of the clergy, toun, and counsalouris. With mony notabill narratioun ; Thow sulde haif sene hir Coronatioun, In the fair abbay of the Haly Rude, In presence of ane myrthfull multitude. " Sic bankctting, sic awfull tournaments, On hors, and fute, that tyme quhilk f ii!J haif bene, Sic chapell royali, with sic instrum its. And craftye musick, singing fron the splene, In this cuntre was never hard, nor sene : Bot, all this greit solempnilli. nd gam, Tumit thow hes in requiem cekrnam." James, though without doubt sincerely attached to his queen, very speedily after his bereavement r)egan to look about him for another to supply her place. Ambassador; were again despatched to the French Court ; and while they were negotiating his alliance with Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the Duke of Guise, the Scottish capital became the scene of events little in harmony with the general character of this monarch. Groundless charges of treason were concocted, seemingly by the malice of private enmity, in consequence of which John, son of Lord Forbes and chief of his name, was convicted of having conspired the King's death. He was beheaded and quartered on the Castle Hill, and his quarters exposed on the principal gates of the city. This execution was followed in a few days by a still more barbarous d_ed of like nature. The Lady Glamis, sister of the Earl of Angus, convicted, as it would seem, by the perjury of a disappointed suitor, on the ..tiarge of a design to poison the King, and of the equally hateful crime of being of the blood of the Douglases, was condemned to be burned alive. The sentence was carried into execution on the Castle Hill, and in si^ht of her husband, tl en a prisoner in the Castle ; who, either in desperation at the cruel deed or in seeking to effect his escape, was killed in falling over the Castle rock. The horror of such barbarous events is somewhat relieved by an ordeal of a different nature, which immediately followed them, and, as told by Drummond, seems a grave; satire on the knightly prowess of the age. " Upon the like suspicion," says he, " Drumlanrig and Hempsficld, ancient barons, having challenged others, had leave to try the verity by combat. The lists were designed by the King (who was a spectator and umpire of their valour), FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 57 at the Court of the Palace of Holyrood-House. They appeared upon the day, armed from head to foot, like ancient Paladines, and after many enter- changed blows, to the disadvantage of their casks, corslets, and vantbraces, when the one was become breathless, by the weight of his arms and thunder of blows, and the other, who was short-sighted, had broken his ponderous sword, the King, by heraulds, caused separate them, with disadvantage to neither of these champions ; and the verity which was found was that they dared both fight in close arms ! " ^ In the month of June 1538 the new Queen, Mary of Guise, destined to enact so prominent a part in the history both of the city and kingdom, was welcomed home with costly gifts and every shew of rejoicing, and " on Sanct Margarete's day thairafter, sho maid her entres in Edinburgh, with greit trivmphe, and als with ordour of the hail nobillis ; hir Grace come in first, at the West Port, and raid doun the hie gait to the Abbay of Halyrudhous, with greit sportis playit to hir Grace throw all the partis of the toun."^ Pitscottie adds that " the Queine was richlie rewairdit and propyned by the proveist and tounschip, both with gold and spyces, wynes, and curious playes made to her by the said toun ; " '^ and, indeed, such was the zeal of the good town to testify its gratulations on the King's speedy escape from widowhood, that we find, shortly after, " the city cash had run so low as to render it necessary for the council to mortgage the northern vault of the Netherbow Port for the sum of 1 00 merks Scots, to repair the said port or gate withal." From this state of exhaustion they do not seem to have again recovered during the King's lifetime, as in 1541, the year beiore his death, they had to borrow from him 100 merks Scots, to put the park walls of Holyrood in repair : a duty that seems to have been somewhat unreasonably imposed on the town. In the year i 5 39 Sir David Lindsay's Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, the earliest Scottish drama, if we except the Religious Mysteries, that we have any account of, was represented for the first time at Linlithgow, at " the feaste of the epiphane," in presence of the Court. At a later date it was " playit beside Edinburgh, in presence of the Queen Regent, and ane greit part of the nobilitie, with ane exceiding greit nowmber of pepill ; lestand fra nyne houris afore none, till six houris at euin," — an extent of patience in the audience that implies no slight degree of entertainment. The extreme freedom with which t/ic Pardoner and others of the dramatis persona; deal with the clergy, and the alleged corruptions of the Church, may excite surprise that this satire should have obtained, thus early, so willing an audience. Dr. Irving has inferred from this that th.=^ King was better inclined to a reformation than is generally supposed ;* but the more ' Ilawlhorndcn, p. 105. - Diurnal of Oaiir'cnts, p. 22. ' Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 37S. ■* Dissertation on the early Scottish Drama. Lives of Scot. Poets, vol. i. p. 209. mustmm 8/ 1 '■• 58 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH fl probable explanation is to be sought for in the favour of the author at court. Not long after, Killor, a blackfriar, wrote a drama on the Passion of Christ, which was performed before the King on Good Friday morning. In this the author indulged in the same freedom ; but he was condemned to the flames. In the seventh Parliament of this reign, held at Edinburgh in March 1540, a curious and interesting act was passed " tuitching the bigging of Leith Wynde," wherein " it is ordained that the Provost, Baillies, and Council of Edinburgh, warne all manner of persones, that hez ony landes, biginges, and waistes, upon the west side of Leith Wynde, that they within zeir and day, big and repaire, honestlie, their said waistes and ruinous houses, and gif not, it sail be leifful to the saidis proveste and baillies to cast down the said waiste landes, and with the stutife and stanes thereof, bigge ane honest substan- tious wall, fra the Porte of the Netherbo\^' to the Trinitie College. And because the easte side of the saide Wynde perteines to the abbot and con- vente of Halyrude-house, it is ordained that the baillies of the Cannongate garre sik like be done upon the said east side." ^ Although all the Parlia- ments during this reign assembled at Edinburgh, the Palace of Holyrood was only the occasional residence of James V. Yet he seems to have dili- gently continued the works begun there by his father, and tradition still assigns to him the erection of the north-west towers of the Palace, the only portion of the original building that has survived. On the bottom of the recessed panel of the north' tower, within the memory of old citizens, could be traced, in raised Roman letters, gilt, the words — lACOBVS REX SCOTORVM. The latest occurrence of local interest in the lifetime of this monarch is thus recorded in the Diurnal of Occumnts — " Upon the last day of Februar, their was ane certaine of persones accusit of heresie in abbay kirk of Haly- rudhous ; and thair was condempnit twa blackfreris, ane Channon of Sanct Androis, the vicar of Dollour ; ane preist, and ane lawit man that duelt in Stirling, were brynt the same day on the Castell Hill of Edinburgh." '" Thus briefly is recorded an occurrence, which yet is the pregnant forerunner of events that crowd the succeeding pages of Scottish history, till Mary Stuart forfeited the throne. Our subject does not require us to deal further with the character of James V, or the general events of his reign. He died at Falkland on the 14th of December i 542, and his body was thereafter conveyed to Edinburgh, where his faithful servitor and friend. Sir David Lindsay, must have directed the mournful ceremony that laid his royal master by the side of Queen Magdalen, his first young bride, in Holyrood Church. The sumptuous display that can neither lighten grief nor ward off death, attended, as usual, on the last rites. From the household books of the Cardinal Beaton, we ' Scots Acts, i2mo, vol. i. p. 248. - Diurnal cf Occurreiits, p. 23. FROM THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO THE DEATH OF JAMES V 59 learn that he rpent " for a manual at the King's funeral, los. ; for a mitre of white damask, 42s. ; for four mourning garments, ;^3 : 1 8 : 10," wherewith to officiate in the final services of the Church when they committed the remains of his royal master to their last resting-place. Of the general manners of the age, considerable insight may be obtained from the acts of the Parliaments held during this reign, regulating inn- keepers and travellers, bailies, craftsmen, judges, and beggars, all of whom are severally directed in their callings with careful minuteness. But the satires of Sir David Lindsay are still more pointed and curious in their allusions. His Supplication to the Kingis grace in Contcmptioiin of Syde Taillis attacks a fashion that had excited the satiric ire of Dunbar, as well as the graver but less effectual censures of the Parliament ; and already, in this early poem, he begins to touch with sly humour on the excesses of the clergy, even while dealing with his lighter theme. Though Bishops, he says, — with seeming commendation, — for the dignity of their office, have men to bear up their tails, yet that is no reason " That every lady of the land Suld have hir taill so syde trailland ; Quhare ever they go, it may be sene. How kirk and calsay they soup dene." Yet shortly after he adds : — " I trow, Sanct Bernard, nor Sanct Blais, Gart never man beir up their claes, Peter, nor Paulc, nor Sanct Andrew, Oart never beir up their taillis, I trow." The whole poem evidently depicts the extravagance of an age when the clown trod on the noble's heel. Nuns, and milkmaids, and burghers' wives are alike charged with the fashionable excesses that neither satire nor sump- tuary laws proved able to suppress. Norman Capital, from Holyrood Abbey, 6o MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH «!■: IH ^. ;' ■pr^' |! ' OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS IV. MAYE MARION O MIKLE turns up atween lip and caup, 'Tween the lyk-wake and nurse's croon, The bride that laughed when the sun rase up Grat sair or that sun gaed doun ; An' sae it befell on ae lang summer-day To Lord James and Maye Marion. Lang, lang had he courted Marion, He lo'ed her better nor life ; But she had spoken a word in jest Had bred them bitter strife ; An' ho's vowed proud Marjory Forrester Shai' be his wedded wife. " Gae bring to me my siller kaim ; Kain; out my yellow hair, An' busk me in my best attire Or I to kirk repair. Mak' haste, bower-maid, or my fause love Will wed or I win there. " Now, bydes he for his weddin' tryst At our mother-kirk Sanct Geile ? Or wons he at the Holyrood, Or St. Anton's on the hill. Or at our Lady Kirk-o'-Field ? Gude yeoman, to me tell ; " Or a* Sc. Roque's, in the iloroughmuir Wood, Or St. Ringan's in the hollow ?" — " O, he is gane to Corstorphine Kirk, Whar eidunt you maun follow ; For its na ae hour, but only three, Sin' I heard Lord Forrester's hollo. " His four bauld sons rade him beside. His daughter them between ; The siller that hung at her bridle-reins Wad been ransom for a queen ; But I'd ware ae winsome glint o your e'e For a' her siller shene." I MAYE MARION The wedding wons at Corstorphine Kirk, The clcadin' the bride had on Shimmered wi' pearls to her waist sae jimp, And Jewells that on her shon ;— Lord James wad gi'en a' for ae kindly look Fra the e'e o' Marion. Proud Marjory looked at her brithers four, They were stalwart knights to see ; But the bridegroom was a comelier knight Than a' that companie. Had it no been for his wae wan look And the saut tear in his e'e. The pr' '' has chaunted the holy mass, }' ioin'd their hands as anc ; Prouu jory's ta'en the wedding vows Tho' the bridegroom answers nane ; The fingers that held her lily hand Were cauld as the dead's through stane. " Now wha are ye would glamour our bride Wi' sic wae and tearless een ? And what would ye at the Forresters' kirk Or the wedding guests hae gane ? " " O wae betide the ill-waled words That cam' true love between ! " I cam' na to glamour your braw wed bride Wi' my wae and tearless e'e ; Nor to ware ae word on an eident guest O' your wedding companie ; But I cam', Lord James, to gie you back Love-tokens ance dear to me ; " To gie ye back the gowden ring We broke in the Roslin wood, And the bonnet-piece o' siller fine We dipp'd in the warslin flood, And the troth, wi' ae kiss o' your faithless mou', Ance plighted by a' maist good. " 'Twas a lightsome word fra a mirthfu' heart That bred sae mickle pain ; 'Twas a fickle troth, sae soon forgat For ae proud word come and gane : — But Marjory, ill was't a woman's part To come true love atween. " But walth gang wi' ye, my false, fain love ; And mirth wr" your bride sae slee ; Weel marrow false friend and lover fain Ilk other's companie ; Yet I wad na ware on warst waled foe What either has done to me." «l ,.*^„.. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) v.. 1.0 I.I IIhb 2.5 2.2 L25 iU 11.6 - 6" 7] / f %^^;^ *>."i M 0> '^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MSSO (716)872-4503 6a MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH She's mounted her eident dapple steed - And aff wi' the tear in her e'e ; ** The drumly Leith was rowing deep, And the kelpie's shriek was hie ; — O wae betide the frusch sauch wand Sac fecklessly gied way. Maye Marion was dround or the laverock left The sun in the lift o'er head, And lang or it sank in a low'ring west Her fause lover shared her bed ; They've laid them thegither in haly earth E'en as though they had been wed. There's preaching for fausehood and pride, Marjor>', 'Mang the mouls where thae twa are lain ; But soundly they sleep in the auld kirk's shade, As nae ill them cam' atween ; I ' Baith kindly byde, happ'd by ae gowan'd sod. For ilk spring to renew its green. Note. — The Forresters were among the most ancient of the burgher noblesse of the Scottish capital not unlike the patrician citizens of mediaeval Florence. Adam Forrester appears in A.D. 1373 on the roll of civic dignitaries under the old Anglo-Saxon designation of Eolderman. His descendants were lords of the manor of Corstorphine, and the founders of its ancient Collegiate Church, where their knightly effigies still lie recumbent on their altar-tombs. Their lodging in the High Street gave its name to Forrester's Wynd ; but the Signet Library, and the open area now adorned with the Buccleuch statue, have usurped the site of the old wynd and its burgher mansion. ,-/-■' \\ / ■> ' n II \- CHAPTER V FROM THE DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY tal the I'ere heir : its uch The Black Turnpike. HE death of James V again involved the Scottish nation in all the evils of a pro- tracted minority, ag- gravated by defeat and internal discord. The fatal event of Flodden had placed the crown of Scotland on his brow at the early age of eighteen months ; and he again bequeathed its onerous dignities to the unfortunate Mary, then only an infant of a few days old, the sole heir of his crown, and of more than all his misfortunes. With a sad presentiment of the future, the broken-hearted monarch received on his deathbed the intelligence that his Queen had given birth to a daughter in Linlithgow Palace, and exclaimed in the bitterness of his heart, " It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass !" "Woe is me!" exclaimed Henry VHI, when the news of the King's death reached the English Court, " for I will never have any King in Scot- land so set to me again, nor one whom I favoured so well ! " Yet the 64 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH advantages that such an occurrence afforded were not lost sight of by that wily monarch. His recent success had placed a number of the Scottish nobility in his power. These he now sought to secure to his interests by granting them their freedom, and loading them with costly gifts ; and from this time until the accession of James the Sixth to the crown of England, an English party continued to be maintained among the Scottish nobility, the ready tools of their country's enemies. One of the most eminent Scotsmen of this period was the celebrated Cardinal Beaton. As head of the Scottish clergy, he was naturally opposed to the entire system of policy pursued by Henry VHI ; and he was mainly instrumental in preventing the promised interview between James V and the English monarch at York, and thereby bringing on the war, the disas- trous issue of which is justly considered to have occasioned James's death. This sudden event, as it overturned many of the schemes of the Cardinal, set him only the more zealously to devise others. Immediately thereafter he produced a will of the late King, and had it proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh, in which he was nominated Regent, with three of the nobility as his assistants. Historians are generally agreed as to the forgery of this will ; yet the Earl of Arran, who, next to the infant Mary, was heir to the crown, cheer- fully acquiesced in its arrangement, and showed himself willing to co-operate with the Cardinal in his ambitious designs. A numerous party of the nobility, however, to whom the Cardinal was an object of detestation, as his projects were altogether incompatible with their own selfish views, soon wrought upon the imbecile Earl to desert his faction. While the matter v/as still in suspense, the opportune arrival of the liberated prisoners, now in the pay of the English monarch, completed his overthrow ; and, notwith- standing his having already assumed the regency, the Cardinal was set aside, and the Earl of Arran elected in his stead. The grand scheme of the English monarch, from the failure of which originated all the enmity he manifested towards Scotland, was the promo- tion of a marriage between his son, afterwards Edward VI, and the young Queen of Scotland. On the 8th of March 1548 a Parliament assembled at Edinburgh, to which the English monarch sent an ambassador with offers of lasting peace, should they comply with his proposed alliance. The Cardinal, who saw in this the certain downfall of the Church, brought the whole influence of the clergy, as well as that of the Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, to bear against it, but at the moment without effect. The Cardinal, by a vote of Parliament, was committed a prisoner to Dalkeith Castle, under the care of Lord Seton, and everything was forthwith settled with England on the most friendly terms. About the same time Contareno, patriarch of Venice, arrived at Edin- ijrawn py ^jruM, Inuctt'. z/ur'.' I'v i,u\':u/n Si'rrgst, HOLYROOD CHAPEL. ENTRANCE TO THE ROYAL VAULT. i 1 \^ s^ li DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 65 burgh as the Papal legate, commissioned to use all his influence to prevent the proposed alliance between the Scottish Queen and Prince Edward of England ; and bearing the amplest promises of assistance from the Pope, in case of a rupture with that crown. " After he had been courteously and splendidly entertained at Edinburgh by persons of the greatest rank, he departed in the beginning of March, and was so well pleased with the reception he had met with, that wherever he went afterwards, he spoke of the magnificent civilities of the Scottish nation." ^ Bishop Lesley thus records a costly entertainment furnished to him, with quaint show of extravagance, by the Earl of Murray, possibly in the old house in Croft-an-righ, immedi- ately to the north of Holyrood Abbey, in part, at least, of a date coeval with the legate's visit. " The Earle of Murray makand him the banquet in his house, although he had great store of all kind of silver wark, yet nottheless, for the greater magnificence, he set forth ane cupboard furnished with all sorts of glasses of the finest chrystal that could be made ; and to make the said patriarch understand that there was great abundance thereof in Scot- land, he caused one of his servants, as it had been by sloth and negligence, pull down the cupboard cloth, so that all the whole christenings suddenly were cast down to the earth and broken ; wherewith the patriarch was very sorry, but the Earl suddenly caused bring another cupboard, better furnished with fine chrystal nor that was ; which the patriarch praised, as well for the magnificence of the Earl, as for the fineness of the chrystal, affirming that he never did see better in Venice, where he himself was born." ^ The legate exercised considerable influence over the Queen Dowager, and on his de- parture transferred his legatine power to Cardinal Beaton. Meanwhile, the people were filled with the utmost joy at the prospect of peace; the uncertainty which had prevailed for so many years having nearly destroyed trade. The merchants bestirred themselves immediately with the liveliest zeal ; and every seaport of the kingdom exhibited active symptoms of preparation for renewing the commercial intercourse, so long interrupted, with England. Edinburgh alone fitted out twelve large vessels, and despatched them laden with the most valuable merchandise. But the Cardinal soon regained his liberty, and, aided by the Queen Dowager with the contributions of the clergy, who voted him not only money, but even the silver vessels of their churches, he speedily set at nought all the amic- able arrangements with the English monarch ; and the numerous fleets of merchantmen that had so recently sailed for the English seaports were there seized, their merchandise confiscated, and the crews declared prisoners of war. But the first use the Cardinal made of his recovered power was to turn his arms against his rivals at home. The Earl of Lennox having appro- VOL. I * Bishop Keith's History of Scotlana, 1845, vol. i. p. 96. ' Bishop Lesley's History of Scotland, Ban. Club, p. 179. i I ,; I !( '■ «6 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH priated the larger portion of thirty thousand crowns sent by the King of France to aid the efforts of the Catholic party, the Cardinal persuaded the facile Regent to raise an army to proceed to Glasgow, where Lennox then lay in the Bishop's Castle ; but he, immediately summoning his own friends and vassals to his standard, marched to Leith at the head of an army of ten thousand men, from whence he sent a message to the Cardinal at Edinburgh, intimating that he desired to save him such a journey, and would be ready to meet him any day he chose, in the fields between Edin- burgh and Leith. Thus were the nobles of Scotland divided into rival factions, bent only on each other's overthrow, when, on the ist of May 1544, an armament, consisting of two hundred sail, commanded by Dudley, Lord I'lsle, then High Admiral of England, which had been prepared by Henry to send against the French coast, made its appearance in the Firth of Forth ; and so negligent had the Cardinal proved in providing against the enemy, whom he excited to this attack, that the first notice he had of their intentions was the disembarkation of the English forces, under the command of the Earl of Hertford, at Newhaven, and the seizure of the town of Leith.* The Cardinal immediately deserted the capital and fled in the greatest dismay to Stirling. The Earl of Hertford demanded the unconditional surrender of the infant Queen, and being informed that the Scottish capital and nation would suffer every disaster before they would submit to his ignominious terms, he marched immediately with his whole forces upon Edinburgh. The citizens being taken by surprise, and altogether un- prepared for resisting so formidable a force, sent out a deputation, with Sir Adam Otterburn, the provost, at its head, offering to forsake their dwellings and deliver up the keys to the commander of the English army, on condition that they should be permitted to carry off their effects, and that the city should be saved from fire. But nothing would satisfy the English general but an unconditional surrender of life and property. He .tiade answer that his commission extended to the burning and laying waste the country, unless the governor would deliver the young Queen to his master. The provost replied : " T/ien it were better the city should stand on its defence^ An immediate attack was thereupon made. The English army entered by the Watergate without opposition, assaulted the Netherbow Port, and beat it open on the second day, with a terrible slaughter of the citizens. They immediately attempted to lay siege to the Castle. " Seeing no resistance, they hauled their cannons up the High Street, by force of men, to the Butter-Trone, and above, and hazarded a shot against the fore entrie of the Castle. But the wheel and axle-tree of one of the English cannons was broken, and some of their men slaine by a shot of ordnance out of the * Bishop Lesley's History of Scotland, Ban. Club, p. 179. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 67 Castle ; so they left that rash enterprise." * Baffled in their attempts on the fortress, they immediately proceeded to wreak their vengeance on the town. They set it on fire in numerous quarters, and continued the work of devastation and plunder till compelled to abandon it by the smoke and flames, as well as the continual firing from the Castle. They renewed the work of destruction on the following day ; and for three successive days they returned with unabated fury to the smoking ruins, till they had completely effected their purpose. The Earl of Hertford then proceeded to lay waste the surrounding country with fire and sword. Craigmillar Castle, which was surrendered on the promise of being preserved scatheless,^ was immediately devoted to the flames. Roslyn Castle shared the same fate. Part of the army then proceeded southward by land, burning and destroying every abbey, town, and village, between the capital and Dunbar. The remainder of the army returned to Leith, which they plundered and set on fire in many places ; and then embarking their whole force, they set sail for England. This disastrous event forms an important era in the history of Edin- burgh. If we except portions of the Castle, the churches, and the north- west wing of Holyrood Palace, scarcely a single building anterior to this date exists in Edinburgh. One ancient mansion in Sandilands' Close, described in a later chapter as possibly that of the good Bishop Kennedy, bears evidence in its structure of an older date ; while the adjoining mansion of John de Hope appears to have been erected soon after the sack of 1 544. Another ancient building, the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, founded by the widowed Queen of James H, the oldest part of which bore the date 1462, was swept away by the operations of the North British Railway in 1845.^ Such were the means adopted by Henry VHI to secure the hand of the Scottish Queen for his son, a method somewhat analo^*;vs to the system of wooing practised with greater success on his own behalf. The nation, torn at this time by rival factions, and destitute of any leader or guide, could only submit in passive indignation to his ruthless vengeance. Yet the Scots, with their usual pertinacity, shortly after mustered about thirteen hundred men, who " raid into England and burnt and herjit certaine townes on the bordouris vnto Tilmouth"; and, on the 12th of July following, the Earl of Angus was proclaimed lieutenant, and commanded the realm to follow him on an hour's warning, " with foure dayis victuall, to pass on their aid enemies of Ingland." * > Calderwood's History, Woclrow Soc, vol. i. p. 177. - Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 32. * A remarkably interesting view of Edinburgh previous to its destruction at this period is still jireserved in the British Museum ; a careful fac-simile of this is given in a volume of the Bannatyiie Club's Miscellany, some account of which will be found in a later part of this work. * Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 33. 68 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH During the following year, 1545-46, Edinburgh Castle was for a brief period the scene of Wishart's imprisonment, after his seizure by the Earl of Bothwell and delivery into the hands of Cardinal Beaton at Elphinstone Tower : an ancient keep, situated in East Lothian, about two miles from the village of Tranent. Tradition still points out a wretched dungeon, under the great hall of Elphinstone, as the place of the Scottish martyr's imprisonment, as well as the room in which the Cardinal slept at the same period. The death of Henry VIII in 1547 tended to accelerate the renewal of the project for enforcing the union of the neighbouring kingdoms, by the marriage of his son with the Scottish Queen. Henry, on his death- bed, urged the prosecution of the war with Scotland ; and the counsellors of the young King Edward VI lost no time in completing their arrangements for the purpose. The Scottish Court was at this time at Stirling, but the council made the most vigorous preparations for the defence of the kingdom. A proclamation was issued on the 1 6th of March, requiring all the lieges to be ready, on forty days' warning, to muster at their summons, with victuals for one month; and on the 2Sth of May this was followed by another order for preparing beacon fires on all the high hills along the coast, to give warning of the approach of the enemy's fleet. The more urgently to summon the people to arms, the Earl of Arran adopted an expedient seldom resorted to except in cases of imminent peril. He caused the Fiery Cross to be borne by the heralds throughout the realm, summoning all men, as well spiritual as temporal, between sixty and sixteen, to be ready to repair to the city of Edinburgh, well bodin in feir of weir, at the first notice of the English ships.* In the beginning of September the Earl of Hertford, now Duke of Somerset, and Lord Protector of England during the minority of his nephew Edward VI, again entered Scotland at the head of a numerous army ; while a fleet of about sixty sail co-operated with him by a descent on the Scottish coast. At his advance he found the Scottish army as- sembled in great force to oppose him, whereupon he wrote to the Governor of Scotland, offering for the sake of peace that, while he still insisted on the hand of the Queen for his royal master, he would agree to conditions by which she should remain within Scotland until she were fit for marriage. The Scottish leaders were resolute in rejecting this alliance with England, at whatever cost. No party in Scotland could be expected to accept it on such terms ; but the national antagonism, which had been embittered through so ;nany generations, was now intensified in the ruling party by the new element which the ecclesiastical revolution in England had introduced. In proof of this novel element, which was thenceforth to play so prominent a part in the national struggles, the Scottish army included a > Keith's History, vol. i. p. 128. Tytler, vol. vi. p. 23. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 69 on of his large body of priests and monks, who marched under a white banner bear- ing a female kneeling before a crucifix, her hair dishevelled, and with the motto : " Afflict.-c Ecclesiae ne obliviscaris." Preparatory to determining their differences by force of arms, the Earl of Huntly made offer to the English leader to decide the issue by single combat ; but this he rejected, and after skirmishing for several days with varied success, in the neighbourhood of Prestonpans, where the English army was encamped, — a scene long after- wards made memorable by the brief triumph of Mary's hapless descendant. Prince Charles Edward, — the two armies at length came to a decisive engagement on Saturday, the loth of September 1547, long after known by the name of " Black Saturday." ^ The field of Pinkey lies about six miles distant from Edinburgh, and so near to the sea, that the English ships did great injury to the Scottish army as they marched to battle. The stately mansion of Pinkey House, formerly the residence of the abbots of Dunfermline, still remains in perfect preservation, in the immediate vicinity of the scene where the battle was fought, The Scots were at first victorious, and succeeded in driving back the enemy and carrying off the royal standard of England ; but, from want of cavalry, they were unable to follow up their advantage, and being at length thrown into disorder by the enemy's men-at-arms, consisting principally of a body of mounted Spanish carabineers in complete mail, they were driven from the field, after a dreadful slaughter, with the loss of many of their nobles and leaders, slain or taken prisoners. Immediately after the battle, the English advanced and took the town of Leith, where they tarried a few days, during which the Earl of Huntly and many other Scottish prisoners of every degree were confined in St. Mary's Church while treating for their ransom.^ They also made an unsuccessful attempt on Edinburgh, whose provost had fallen on the field ; but finding the Scottish nation as resolute as ever in rejecting all terms of accommodation, they again pillaged and burnt the town of Leith, spoiled the Abbey of Holyrood, off which they tore the leaden roof, and re- embarked on board their fleet. They wreaked their vengeance on some defenceless fishing towns and villages along the coasts of the Firth, and then returned to England, where Archbishop Cranmer prepared a general thanks- giving to be used throughout all the churches in the kingdom, for the great victory God had vouchsafed them over their enemies I So differently are the same actions estimated, according as our interests are affected. The Queen Dowager availed herself with promptitude and success of the unanimous popular feeling of indignation. She summoned the nobility to Stirling, and urged on them the immediate assembly of another army. It was determined to despatch ambassadors to France with a request for ' Diurnal of Occurnnts, p. 44. » Bishop Lesley's History, p. 199. 70 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH I' > 1/ i'\, instant aid ; and at a council held shortly after, it was resolved to send the young Queen, then a beautiful child in her sixth year, to the French Court, where she could pursue her education free from the dangers to which she was liable in a country divided by rival factions and exposed to almost constant war. By their victory at the battle of Ancrum, the Scots in some degree retrieved their ground ; and they were shortly afterwards gratified by the opportune arrival in the Firth of Forth of Andr^ de Montalembert, Lord d'Ess^, as ambassador from the French monarch, with a fleet of six score sail, bringing a reinforcement of eight thousand French and one thousand Dutch troops, which were disembarked at Leith on the i6th of June 1 548, along with a numerous train of artillery.^ Monsieur d'Ess^ was the bearer of assurances of further aid, in troops, money, and arms, from the French King ; and a proposal that the ancient amity of the two nations should now be confirmed by a marriage between his son, the Dauphin, and the Scottish Queen, whose education meanwhile he offered to superintend with the utmost care and affection. It need not be wondered at that an alliance proposed in so very different a manner from the last was promptly acceded to by the Scottish Parliament. The Earl of Huntly, it is said, when desired, after he had been taken prisoner, to use his influ- ence in favour of the marriage with Edward VI, replied that however he might like the match, he liked not the manner of wooing ! ^ Shortly after, Monsieur Villegagnon set sail with four galleys from Leith, and passing round the north of Scotland, received the youthful Queen on board at Dumbarton. She was accompanied by her governors, the Lords Erskine and Livingstone, and her natural brother, the Lord James, afterwards the famous Regent Murray, then in his seventeenth year. Along with her also embarked the Queen's four Marys, famous in Scottish song, selected as her playmates from the families of Livingstone, Fleming, Seaton, and Beaton. " What bruit," says Knox, in referring to them, " the Maries, and the rest of the dancers of the Court had, the ballads of that age doe witness." ^ The English government, on learning of this design, fitted out a fleet to intercept the Queen, but the squadron fortunately escaped every danger, and cast anchor in the harbour of Brest on the 13th of August 1548. The slow recovery even of the chief towns of the kingdom from such repeated ravages is apparent from the fact that Monsieur d'Ess^, the French commander, on returning from the south, undertook the fortification of Leith ; but such was its ruinous state, from its frequent burnings, that no lodging could be found there for his men, and they were forced to seek accommodation in the neighbouring villages.* The fortification of Leith, * Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 46. Tytler, vol. vi. p. 51. " Keith's History, Note, vol. i. p. 133. ' Knox's History of the Reformation, pp. 373-4. See Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border for the old ballad, " The Queen's Marie." * Bishop Lesley, p. 216. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY yt however, exercised a most important influence upon the seaport. People crowded from all parts to shelter themselves under the protection of its garrison ; and it speedily thereafter became a place of great importance, when the conclusion of peace with England permitted the rival factions into which the kingdom was already divided to gain head, and assume form and consistency. Maitland furnishes a detailed account of the fortifications, which had five ports, only one of which, called St. Anthony's Gate, he was able to identify with cer- tainty.* This port stood at the north-west corner of St. Anthony's Wynd ; and some remains of the ancient bastion by which it was protected may still be seen in a neighbouring garden. It de- rived its name from its vicinity to the preceptory of St. Anthony, an account of which, as well as of its ancient dependency on Arthur's Seat, will be found on a later page. We introduce here the view of a curious house, the date of erection of which may be referred to this period. It stood on the west side of the Kirkgate, and was only taken down in 1845. It bore the inscription over the doorway, boldly cut in old English letters — and above it a niche, in which there had doubtless been a statue of the Virgin and Child. Local tradition pointed it out as a chapel founded by Mary of Guise, but apparently without any sufficient evidence. The English, before their last departure from Leith, had erected fortifica- tions on the neighbouring island of Inchkeith, and left there a strong garrison, composed in part of a troop of Italian mercenaries in their pay, by whom it was held to the great detriment of vessels navigating the Firth. But now, as soon as Monsieur d'Essd had got the fortifications of Leith in ' Maitland, p. 486. n MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ;■• ■n a state of forwardness, a general attack was made upon Inchkeith, on Corpus Christi Day, 1549,^ by a combined force of Scotch and French troops, who embarked at break of day, in presence of the Queen Dowager. After a fierce contest, the enemy were expelled from their stronghold, and compelled to surrender at discretion, with the loss ci their leader and above three hundred slain.^ The island continued from that time to be held by a French garrison, on behalf of the Queen Dowager, until her death in 1560; and remains of the old fortifications are still visible. But the Scottish nation were not long in experiencing the usual evils consequent on the employment of foreign troops. An illustration of the popular estimation of such allies has already been given ; ^ and the gratitude of the common people on the present occasion does not seem to have been in any degree more sincere. Heartburnings and animosities had already been manifested during the campaign, and they at last broke out into open tumult in the capital. " There chanced," says Bishop Lesley (who has furnished the most detailed account of the transaction), " to fall out not a little piece of trouble in Edinburgh, betwixt the Scotch and Frenchmen, by reason that a French soldier fell at quarelling with a Scotsman upon the High Street, and after words they can'e to blows, so that divers Scotsmen coming to the fray, would have had the Frenchman to prison ; but divers of the French soldiers being also present, would not suffer them to take him with them ; whereupon the captains being advertised, come with all speed to the highway. The Laird of Stenhouse (James Hamilton), being the Captain of the Castle and provost of the town, comes likewise with a company to put order thereto. The French soldiers being so furious that they shot their harquebusses indiferently at all men, wherewith there were sundry slain, both men, weomen, and children ; among the which the fore- said provost of Edinburgh was slayn, and Master William Stewart, a gentleman of good reputation, with sundry others ; whereby the whole people conceived a great grudge and hatred against the Frenchmen and for revenge thereof there was many Frenchmen slain at Edinburgh at sundry times thereafter."* Calderwood further states that the Frenchmen were driven by the citizens from the Cross to Niddry's Wynd-head, where they rallied and were joined by a number of their fellow-soldiers ; they were again compelled to retreat, however, till, on their reaching the Nether Bow, the whole body of French troops encountered the provost and citizens ; and there the provost, his son, and various other of the citizens, women as well as men, were slain. The French troops kept possession of the town from five to seven at night, when they retired to the Canongate.* To appease the matter, the Frenchman, chief beginner of the business, was hanged the same ' Bishop Lesley, p. 228. " Diurtial of Oattrrents, p. 48. ^ Chap. ii. p. 18. .* Bishop Lesley, p. 217. " Calderwood's History, vol. i. p. 258. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 73 day at the place where the quarrel first began : a very unpropitious state of things, as the only alternative seemingly left to the Scots to another English harrying. But a peace was at length concluded with England ; the latter abandoning the projects of alliance, which had been attempted to be enforced with such relentless barbarity during a nine years' war. In the year 1551 the Queen Dowager returned from a visit to the French Court ; and immediately thereafter, on the 29th of May, a Parliament was held at Edinburgh, and another in the month of February following, at both of which enactments were passed which furnish evidence of the state of the country at the period, and afford curious insight into the manners of the age. One of them, " anent the annuelles of landes burnt be our auld enemies of England, within the burgh of Edinburgh and other burghs," ^ was enacted at the suit of the Archbishop of St. Andrews and the Provost and Bailies of Edinburgh to settle disputed claims of the clergy. Others, designed to correct prevailing vices or extravagances of the age, interfered with a high hand, even to the "ordouring of everie mannis house," and regulating with rigid economy the number of dishes at each man's table, according to his degree. But the most interesting is that against printing without license, from the light it throws on the variety and character of the writings then issuing from the press, and already strongly influencing the public mind. "That na prenter presume to prent ony buikes, ballattes, sanges, blasphemationes, rime, or tragedies, outher in Latine or English toung," without due examination and license granted, under pain of confis- cation of goods, and banishment of the realm for ever.^ Sir David Lindsay had already published his Tragedie of the Cardinal ; and it seems to have been about this time that he put forth The Historie and Testament of Squyer Meldrum, one of his most pleasing poems, though in some parts exhibiting a license, as to incident and language, common to the writers of that age. This poem is the versification of a romantic incident which occurred under his own observation during the unsettled period, in the earlier years of the minority of James V (August i 5 i y)? The rank of the poet, and the influ- ence he enjoyed during the previous reign, had continued to protect him from all interference ; nor was it till the accession of Elizabeth to the throne of England, and the changes that followed thereon, that the clergy at length denounced his writings as the fruitful source of heresy. The object of the Queen Dowager, in her recent visit to France, had been mainly to secure the interest of that Court in procuring for herself the office of Regent. The Earl of Arran, who still held that office, seems to have been altogether deficient in the talents requisite for his responsible position. Swayed alternately by whichever adviser chanced to hold his confidence, his government was at once feeble and uncertain. No sooner had the Queen > Scots Acts, vol. i. p. 271. ' Ibid. p. 286. ' Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 305. W [ni l . 1 1 .^ • ,, He me absolvit for ane plack, ' • . \ :,-_ " _ ,, Thocht he with me na price wald mak ; ^. ^ ' ' ■ \' •. And mekil Latine he did mummill ; — ' ^ ' ,, ■ ' * " I heard a thing bot hummill bummill." ' ' " ' The poet was already in his grave when his writings were condemned. The last years of his life had been spent in retirement, and the exact time of his death is unknown ; but Henry Charteris, the famous printer, • Tytler, vol. vi, pp. 109, no. ' Fitscottie, vol. ii. p. 526. ' Calderwood, vol. i. p. 438, O I— ( I \ I H H :i^ M ra ^ 1— 1 Q K^ f^ W w >> o H en hj til f> > M 1— 1 DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 8i / who published Lindsay's works in 1568, says that "shortly after the death of Sir David they burnt auld Walter Mill." This occurred in 1558.' ." The reforming party now proceeded to those acts of violence which led to the destruction of many of the finest ecclesiastical buildings throughout Scotland. The Queen Regent, on learning of their proceedings at Perth and elsewhere, wrote to the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, requiring them to defend the town, and not suffer the Earl of Argyle and the Con- gregation to enter ; offering the aid of her French troops for their defence. Dut this the magistrates declined, declaring that the entire populace were prepared to favour that party, and could not be restrained by them. Upon receiving this reply, the Regent withdrew with her French guard from Holy- rood Abbey, and retreated towards Dunbar. The magistrates, though unable to resist this popular movement, exerted themselves to the utmost to restrain its violence. They sent a deputation to the leaders of the reforming party, entreating them to spare both their churches and religious houses : the former to be continued in use as places of Pro- testant worship, and the latter as seminaries of learning. They also placed a guard of sixty men for the protection of St. Giles's Church, and as a further security removed the carved stalls of the choir within the safer shelter of the Tolbooth.^ Yet their efforts were attended with very partial success. Upon the first rumour of the approach of the Earl of Argyle, the populace attacked both the monasteries of the Black and Grey Friars, destroying everything they contained, and leaving nothing but the bare walls standing.^ When the Earl of Argyle entered the town with his followers, they immediately proceeded to the work of purification, as it was styled. Trinity College Church, and the prebendal buildings attached to it, were assailed, and some parts of the latter pulled down ; and both St. Giles's Church and St. Mary's, or the Kirk-of-Field, were visited, their altars overthrown, and the images destroyed and burnt. They visited Holyrood Abbey, throwing down the altars, and otherwise defacing the church. They at the same time carried off the coining irons of the mint, compelling the treasurer to deliver up to them a considerable sum of money in his hands.* The Regent, finding herself unable to resist this formidable party by force, entered into negotiations with them. Commissioners from both parties met ; a mutual accommodation was agreed on, and signed by the Earl of Arran and Monsieur d'Oysel on the 25th of July, at Leith Links ; and immediately thereafter the Queen Dowager returned and took up her residence in Holyrood Palace. One of the chief clauses in this agreement required the dismissal of the French troops ; and, with a special view to the * Chalmers's Sit D. Lindsay, vol. i. p. 42, Keith, vol. i. p. 156. ' Mnitlnntl, i). 16. ^ Calderwood, vol. i. p. 475. * Bishop Lesley, p. 275. VOL. I G MEMORIALS OF EDINnURGH I > I U m enforcement of this, an interview took place on the following day, between the Earls of Arran and Huntly, and some of the leaders of the Congregation, including the Earls of Argyle and Glencairn, and the Lord James Stuart. The place of meeting was the Quarry Holes, or, as it is not inappropriately styled by the writers of the time, the Quarrel Holes : a famous place of meeting for duels and private rencontres, at the east end of the Calton Hill, not far fro'm Holyrood Palace. There the two first-named earls engaged that, should the Regent fail to fulfil the conditions of agreement, and especi- ally that of the dismissal of the French troops, they would willingly join forces with the leaders of the Congregation to enforce their fulfilment.* Although the main body of the reformers had withdrawn from Edin- burgh, some of the leaders continued to reside there, and the people refused to yield up St Giles's Church to be again used for the service of the mass, in spite of every effort of the Regent to recover it. One means resorted to for driving the Protestant congregations from St. Giles's Church illustrates its condition then, and long afterwards. Carved stalls within the choir accommodated the ecclesi- astics and nobles ; but the great central area and the aisles were still unencumbered with galleries or pews ; and the city dames were contented with such portable stools as that with which, at a later date, Jenny Geddes did such execution in another ecclesiastical struggle, of Corbel, old south door, which St. Giles's was the arena. But both parties were St. Giles's. still inclined to temporise, and strove to avoid any direct collision. The French soldiers accordingly made the church aisles their place of promenade during the time of service, to the great disturbance of the congregation. But though the preacher, Mr. Willock, denounced them in no measured terms from the pulpit, and publicly prayed God to rid the land of such locusts, the people prudently avoided an open rupture, "except that a horned cap was taken off a proud priest's head, and cut in four quarters, because he said he would wear it in spite of the Congregation." ^ In September 1559 Sir Ralph Sadler arrived at Berwick from Queen Elizabeth, and entered into secret negotiations with the reformers. Pre- parations for war were now diligently pursued by both parties. The Queen Regent had already received a reinforcement of a thousand French troops, who disembarked at Leith in the end of August, and, with their aid, she proceeded to enlarge and complete the fortifications of that port, while she renewed her entreaties to the French Court for further assistance. Shortly after the Bishop of Amiens arrived at Edinburgh as legate from the Pope, and earnestly laboured to reconcile the reformers to the Church ; but any * Bishop Keith, vol. i. p. 224. * Calderwood, vol. i. p. 502. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 83 i \. influence he might possibi}- have had was destroyed by the discovery that he had arrived in company with a second body of French auxiliaries. The Congregation ^ length marched to Edinburgh, towards the end of October, with a force amounting to twelve thousand men, resolved to dis- lodge the French garrison from Lei»h ; and the same day the Regent hastily retreated from Holyrood Palace, and took up her residence witjiin the pro- tection of its fortifications. The Congregation proceeded in the most system- atic manner. Committees were chosen for the direction of civil and religious affairs, and a letter was addressed to the Queen Regent, demanding the dis- missal of all foreigners and men-at-arms from Leith. To this she replied, with dignity, that their letter appeared rather as coming from a prince to his subjects than the reverse ; and referred them for further answer to the Lord Lyon Herald, by whom the letter was sent* The Queen's messenger found the Lords of the Congregation assembled in the Tolbooth, seriously debating the proposal of Lord Ruthven that she should be deposed from the regency. The reformed preachers joined in the discussion, denouncing her as an obstinate idolatress ; and a message was at length returned by the Lord Lyon, intimating to her that they suspended her, in the name of their sovereign, from the office of Regent. In furtherance of their plans, a herald was sent to summon all French and native soldiers to depart from Leith within twelve hours ; and little regard being paid to their orders, immediate preparations were made for the assault. Scaling ladders were hastily prepared in the aisles of St. Giles's Church, which so offended the preachers, as an act of sacrilege, that they weakly prognosticated failure to the whole enterprise. The prophecy wrought its own fulfilment, for the troops were so intimidated thereby that, upon marchmg to the attack, they forsook their artillery on the first sally of the enemy, and retreated so precipitately to Edinburgh that the foot were trampled down by the horsemen in their eagerness to enter the city gates. The French pursued them to the middle of the Canongate, and up Leith Wynd, slaying indiscriminately women and children, as well as men, and plundering the houses exposed to their fury. The Queen Regent watched them from the ramparts of Leith ; and welcomed them, with ill-judged mirth, as they returned victorious, laden with the homely booty they had acquired in the action. " One brought a kirtle, another a petticoate, the third a pott or panne." Such was the panic at this period among the undisciplined rabble, who formed the main force of the Congregation, that their flight was with difficulty restrained on their reaching the West Port, at the opposite extremity of the city.^ A second contest, arising from an attempt by the French troops to intercept a convoy carrying provisions into Edinburgh, was equally unfortunate. The forces of the Congregation, headed by the Lord ' Keith, vol. i. p. 230. 2 Calderwood, vol. i. p. 550; Knox, pp. 195-197. 84 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH i I James, got entangled in a morass at Restalrig. Haliburton, Provost of Dundee, one of the best of their leaders, fell in the action ; and though they '•etreated at length with small loss, they were so completely disheartened that they precipitately deserted the town that same night. The. Regent immediately returned to the capital ; all who were in any way implicated in the reforming movements were compelled to flee, and the best houses in the town were conferred on her French soldiers as a reward for their services. Each party again turned for security to foreign aid. Towards the close of the year both leaders were anxiously watching for the first appearance of their allies' fleets. The French commander at length hailed with delight the appearance of several large vessels bearing up the Forth, which he at once decided to be the promised French fleet ; nor was he disabused of his error till he beheld his own victualling transports seized by them, and the English flag hoisted in their rigging. In the beginning of the following year, i 560, the Lords of the Congrega- tion united their forces with the English, for the purpose of expelling the French garrison from Leith. The Council of Edinburgh manifested their sympathy by contributing the sum of sixteen hundred pounds Scots to maintain four hundred men for one month, for the reduction of that town.^ The English force landed and took up their station around Restalrig Church, casting up trenches and securing themselves from the danger of surprise.^ The forces of the Congregation had now acquired both experience and discipline, and with the aid of such auxiliaries the tables were speedily turned. The French troops began the attack by a sudden sally on the camp at Restalrig. The English auxiliaries were taken at a disadvantage ; but they speedily rallied, and chased them to the walls of Leith, killing above three hundred, though with a still greater loss to themselves. In order more closely to press the siege, they removed their camp, a few days after, to Pilrig, a rising ground still known by that name, lying directly between Edinburgh and Leith.^. .' t ; 1 • . The united forces continued to press the siege. Early in May a general assault was made, but the scaling ladders were discovered to be too short, when applied to the walls, and the besiegers were driven back with great slaughter. The ordnance of the French garrison were mounted along the walls, and on every available point within the town of Leith. A battery that was erected on the tower of the preceptory of St. Anthony proved particularly annoying and destructive to the besiegers ; and as they were unable, from their distance, to produce any effect on it, they advanced their cannon to the Links of Leith, where they threw up mounds of earth and erected a battery of eight guns. With these they kept up so constant and destructive a firing that, in a few days, they not only dismounted the ' Maitlanci, p. 19. - Diurnal of Occurrenls, p. 57. ^ Ibid. p. 58. X • tn •H M ^ O '^ c. ^ 1-3 Kj w CO *— 1 w o ^—4 W W a "pa o 131 v.- DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 85 ordnance placed by the French in the steeple, but greatly injured it and the adjoining buildings.^ On the 14th of April, being Easter Sunday, a constant firing was kept up by the assailants, particularly at St. Mary's Church, where the people were assembled for divine service, so that a bullet was shot through the great east window, passing right over the altar, during the celebration of high mass, and just before the elevation of the host. Two of the mounds thrown up by the besiegers on this occasion still remain on Leith Links almost directly opposite the east end of the church. One of them is on the extreme east side of the links ; the other, which lies considerably nearer the High School, is locally designated the Giant's Brae. As there existed, till very recently, no houses between the church and these open downs on which the batteries were erected, it must have Iain com- pletely exposed to the fire of the besiegers. Some obscurity exists in the narratives of the different historians of this period, as to which church is spoken of. Bishop Lesley mentions their having "shot many great schottis of cannonis and gret ordinances at the parrishe kirk of Leyth and Sanct Anthoneis steple." St. Mary's Church was not converted into the parish church until the destruction, at a later period, of that of Restalrig, to which Leith was parochially joined ; but its position agrees so well with the accounts of the siege that there can be no doubt it is intended by this designation. As all the historians, however, unite in speaking of St. Anthony's steeple as that whereon the French garrison had erected their ordnance, there seems no reason to question that it was the tower of the preceptory, and not that of the present parish church, as the editor of Keith's History suggests.^ But the two towers stood at no great distance from each other, and no vestige of either has existed for centuries. The site of the preceptory of St. Anthony was on the west side of the Kirkgate, a little to the south of St. Mary's Church, and consequently nearer to St. Anthony's port, but both buildings were in an angle of the city wall, and exposed to a double fire. " The Englishmen," says Holinshed, " lagging on the south side of the town beside Mount Pellam, battered with their great artillery at the parish church of Leith, and at St. Anthony's steeple, on which the Frenchmen had laid certain pieces of artillery, and at length broke it down.'"* The choir of St. Mary's Churcn was grieatly injured, if not reduced to ruin, at the same period. On the 2 2d of April Monluc, Bishop of Valence, arrived as a com- missioner from the Court of France, and attempted to mediate between the Regent and the Lords of the Congregation. He entered into communica- tion with the reformers and their allies, and spent two days in the English ' Bishop Lesley, p. 285. ' Keith, 1844, Spottiswood Soc, vol. i. p. 271. Wodrow Afiscellany, vol. i. p. 84. ^ Holinshed, v. p. 601. 86 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH l'>\ m camp ; he thereafter passed to the Queen Regent, who had taken up her residence in Edinburgh Castle ; but all attempts at reconciliation proved ineffectual, as the assailants would accept no other terms than the demoli- tion of the fortifications of Le.'^h and the dismissal of all French troops. Meanwhile the Queen Regent lay in the Castle of Edinburgh, suffering alike from failing health and anxiety of mind. Her life was now drawing to a close, and she repeatedly sought to bring about a reconciliation between the contending parties, that she might, if possible, resign the sceptre to her daughter free from the terrible rivalry and contentions which had embittered the whole period of her regency ; but her French advisers prevented her closing with the sole proposal on which the leaders of the Congregation at length agreed to acknowledge her authority, namely, that all foreign troops should immediately quit the realm. When the Queen Regent found her end approachinr,, she requested an interview with the Lords of the Congregation. The Duke of Chatelherault, the Earls of Argyle, Marischal, and Glencairn, with the Lord James, immediately repaired to the Castle, where they were received by the dying Regent with such humility as deeply moved them. She extended her hand to each, and with tears besought their forgiveness, whereinsoever she had offended them. She expressed deep grief that matters should ever have come to such extremities ; ascribing it to the influence of foreign counsels, which had compelled her to act contrary to her own inclinations. The scene was so affecting that all present were moved to tears. At the request of the barons she received a visit from John Willock, with whom she con- versed for a considerable time. He besought her to seek mercy alone through the death of Christ, urging her at the same dme to acknowledge the mass as a relic of idolatry. She assured him that she looked for salva- tion in no other way than through the death of her Saviour ; and without replying to his further exhortation she bade him farewell.' The Queen Regent died on the following day, the lOth of June 1560. The preachers refused to permit her to be buried according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Her body was accordingly placed in a lead coflRn, and kept in the Castle till the 9th of October, when it was transported to France, and buried in the Benedictine monastery at Rheims, of which her own sister was then Abbess. Both parties were now equally inclined to peace ; and accordingly, within a very short time after the death of the Regent, Cecil, the able minister of Queen Elizabeth, repaired to Edinburgh, accompanied by Sir Nicholas Wotton. Here they were met by the Bishops of Valence and Amiens, and other French commissioners, and a treaty was formally con- cluded, and signed, by which, through the diplomatic skill of Cecil, the ' Calderwood, vol. i. p. 5S9 ; Keith, vol. i. p. 280. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 87 objects aimed at by Queen Elizabeth, as well as the real interests of the Congregation, were completely secured, notwithstanding the (ec:\t re- monstrances of the French commissioners. A separate convention, agreed to at the same time, bound the French garrison to remove all the artillery from the ramparts of Leith, completely to demolish its fortifications, and immediately thereafter to embark for France. On the 19th of July — the third day after the embarkation of the French troops at Leith, and the departure of the English forces on their march homeward — a solemn public thanksgiving was held by the reforming nobles, and the great body of the Congregation, in St. Giles's Church, and thereafter the preachers were appointed to some of the chief boroughs of the kingdom ; Knox being confirmed in the chief charge at Edinburgh. A Parliament assembled in Edinburgh on the ist of August, the proceedings of which were opened with great solemnity. The lesser barons, from their interest in the progress of the reformed doctrines, claimed the privilege, which they had long ceased to use, of sitting and voting in the Assembly of the Three Estates. This led to the accession of about a hundred vote-^. iearly all of them adhering to the Protestant party. After the discussion of some preliminary questions, — particularly as to the authority by which the Parliament was summoned, — Maitland was ap- pointed their " harangue maker " or speaker, and they proceeded to choose the Lords of the Articles. Great complaint was made as to the choice falling entirely on those well affected to the new religion, particularly among the Lords spiritual, some of whose representatives were mere lay- men : but altogether without effect. " This being done," says Randolph, in a letter to Cecil, " the Lords departed, and accompanied the Duke as far as the Bow, — which is the gate going out of the High Street, — and many down unto the palace where he lieth : the town all in armour, the trumpets sounding, and all other kinds of music such as they have. . . . The Lords of the Articles sat from henceforth in Holyrood House, except that at such times as upon matter of importance the whole Lords assembled them- selves again, as they did this day, in the Parliament House." ^ The Parliament immediately proceeded with the work of reformation. A Confession of Faith was drawn up, and approved of by acclamation, embodying a summary of Christian doctrine in accordance with the views of the majority; and this was followed by a series of acts rendering all who refused to subscribe to its tenets liable to confiscation, banishment, and even death. Ambassadors were despatched to England with proposals of marriage between the Earl of Arran, eldest son to the Duke of Chatel- herault, and Queen Elizabeth ; while Sir James Sandilands, grand prior of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, was sent to France to carry an » US. Letter St. P. Off., 9th August, 1560, Tytler. 88 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH account of their proceedings to the Queen. The latter met with a very cool reception. He was, however, entrusted with a reply from the Scottish Queen, which, though it refused to recognise the assembly by which he was sent as a Parliament, was yet couched in conciliatory terms, and intimated her intention to despatch commissioners immediately to convene a legal Parliament. But before Sir James arrived at Edinburgh, the news reached him of the death of her royal consort, Francis II, an event which caused the utmost rejoicing among the party of the Congregation. The three estates immediately assembled at Edinburgh, and appointed the Lord James, the chief leader of the Congregation, ambassador to the Scottish Queen, to invite her return to her own dominions ; but ere his departure four commissioners arrived, with assurances of her intention of speedily returning home, and meanwhile bearing a commission to certain of the leading men of Scotland authorising them to summon a Parliament. A curious illustration of the conflicting elements at work in this period of change is furnished by a riot of grave character which originated in the zeal of the reformers for the enforcement of discipline against immoral delinquents. "That the work of reformation might not be retarded in Edinburgh, Sanderson, deacon of the fleshers, or butchers, was, by the Council, ordered to be carted for adultery." ^ This the trades resented, as a general insult to their body, and assembling in a tumultuous manner, they broke open the prison and released him from durance. The magistrates thereupon applied to the Privy Council for aid against the rioters. A number of the craftsmen were committed prisoners to the Castle, and the corpora- tions so intimidated that they made humble supplication to the council for release of their brethren, promising all obedience and submission to the magistrates in time coming. Upon this the craftsmen were released, and the oflfending deacon, it may be presumed, was duly carted according to order. The magistrates the same year removed the corn market from the corner of Marlin's Wynd Cowgate (where Blair Street now is), to the cast end of the Grassmarket, where it continued to be held till the present century. At the same time, they forbade the continuance of a practice that then prevailed of holding public markets on the Sundays, and keeping open shops and taverns during divine service, under the pain of corporal punishment.'^ The enforcement of some of the more stringent enactments that had been introduced for the reformation of manners gave rise to another and more serious tumult. Notwithstanding the acts already referred to, the people still attempted the revival of some of their ancient games. On tl.-- 2 1st of June a number of the craftsmen and apprentices united together for the purpose of playing Robin Hood : " which enormity was of many years * Council Register, 221I November 1560; Maillaml, p. 20. ' Ibid, ,. DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 89 left off, and condemned by statute." The magistrates interfered, and took from them some weapons and an ensign. This the populace keenly resented, and the city gates were held by the mob and numerous acts of violence com- mitted. The magistrates, to appease them, restored the banner and other spoils ; but, watching a favourable opportunity, they seized on James Gillon, a shoemaker, one of the ringleaders of the mob, tried him on the charge of stealing ten crowns, and condemned him to be hanged. The deacons of the crafts used all their influence with the magistrates to obtain his pardon, but in vain. A deputation from the same body waited on John Knox, and besought his influence on behalf of the offender, but he refused " to be a patron to their impiety." A gallows was erected below the Cross, and all preparations completed for the execution, when the rioters resumed their weapons, broke down the gallows, and put the magistrates to flight ; pursu- ing them till they took refuge in a writer's booth. There they were held captive, while the mob proceeded to assault the Tolbooth within sight of them. They broke in the door with sledge-hammers, and set Gillon and all the other prisoners at liberty. On their departure the magistrates took refuge in the Tolbooth, and thence fired on them on their return from an attempt to pass out by the Nether Bow Port ; meanwhile, the deacons of the corporations were summoned to the rescue of the Provost and Bailies, " but they past to their four-hour's penny, or afternoon's pint," returning for answer, that since they will be magistrates alone, let them rule alone I The Provost was compelled at last to seek the mediation of the governor of the Castle ; but the rioters did not disperse, nor permit the magistrates to escape from durance, until after nine o'clock at night, when a public proclamation was made at the Cross, engaging that they should not pursue any one for that day's work.^ The 19th of August 1561 is a day memorable in the civic history and in all the later associations of the Scottish capital. On that day Queen Mary landed at Leith, where she was received by the Lord James, her natural brother, and many of the chief nobility, and conveyed in state to the abbey of Holyrood House. On the news of her arrival, the nobility and leaders, without distinction of party, crowded to Edinburgh to congratulate her on her return to her native land, and tender their homage and service ; while the people testified their pleasure by bonfires and music, and other popular demonstrations of rejoicing. Magnificent entertainments were pro- vided by the town, as well as by the chief nobility, and everything was done on her arrival to assure her of the perfect loyalty and affection of her subjects ; yet, if we may believe Brantome, an eyewitness, the Queen could not help contrasting, with a sigh, the inferiority of the national displays to ' Diumal of Oc-uneiiis, pp. 284, 285 ; Kiiox's History of the Reformation, 410, p. 253, where the culprit is styled Balon. MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH l( the gorgeous pageants with which she had been familiar at the Court of France.^ Contrary to what had been anticipated, the Queen received the Lord James into special favour, and admitted him to the chief control in all public affairs ; but, notwithstanding the countenance shown to him, and other leaders of the Congregation, the religious differences speedily led to dissen- sions between the Queen and the people. Moderation and compromise were the only possible means of peace ; but these were the last things dreamt of on either side. All toleration had been denied to those who still adhered to the old faith ; and both priests and laymen were strictly enjoined by the magistrates of Edinburgh to attend the services of the Protestant churches. Some of them, instead of joining in the worship, had availed themselves of this compulsory attendance to unsettle the faith of recent converts, on which account they were ordered by proclamation to depart from the city within forty-eight hours. The Queen remonstrated without effect, and the pro- clamation was renewed with increased rigour ; whereupon she addressed a letter to the Council and community of Edinburgh, commanding them to assemble in the Tolbooth and choose other magistrates in their stead. The council obeyed her commands, without waiting to learn whom she would recommend for their successors : a procedure which excited her indignation little less than the contempt of the magistrates she had deposed.^ Shortly after this Knox visited the Queen at Holyrood, and had a long interview with her, during which he moved her to tears by the vehemence of his exhortations. The Lord James and other two courtiers were present, but they withdrew so far as to permit of perfect privacy in this first con- ference between the reformer and Queen Mary. The interview was long, and the Queen sufficiently patient under his very plain-spoken rebukes and exhortations, but they parted in the same mind as they had met ; each of them disclosing opinions involving the causes of the collision that speedily followed. The Queen soon after made a progress to the north, and on her return to Edinburgh preparations for welcoming her were organised on a scale of costly magnificence, though not without accompaniments sufficiently moni- tory of the temper and whole tendencies of the age. The young Queen made her public entry to her capital on the 2d September 1561. She left the Palace of Holyrood, " and raid be the lang gait on the north syid of the said burgh," along the modern line of Princes Street. According to a note in the Memorie of the Somervillcs, the first coach brought into Scotland was one " brought by Alexander, Lord Seatone, when Queen Mary came from P'rance." But on this, as on other State occasions, she rode on horseback. She appears to have entered the Castle precincts by a triumphal arch, " ane • Brantome, vol. ii. p. 123 ; Tytler, vol. vi. ^ Council Register, 8th October 1561 ; M.iitland, p. 21. ' ■ f DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QU' " ^ MARY 9' ' <. .■ ' zet made to hir," at the Well House Tower, from whence she ascended by the ancient kirk road vvhicl wound down the Castle bank to St. Cuthbert's Church. The chief of the nobility rode in her train, and at noon the whole party dined in the great banquet-hall of the Castle. Thereafter she rode down to the outer gato on the Castle Hill, where a band of fifty young men received her in the garb of Moors, dressed in yellow taffeta, with black visors on their faces, in their mouths rings, and garnished " with untellable precious stones and infinite chains of gold." Sixteen of the most honourable citizens, clad in velvet gowns, with coats and doublets of crimson satin, bore a canopy of fine purple velvet, lined with red taffeta, under which Her Highness rode ; and an endless succession of pageants and allegories — quaintly narrated in minutest detail by the old diarist — greeted her progress through the town. The most costly arrangements had been made for her reception. All the citizens were required to appear in gowns of fine French satin and coats of velvet, and the young men to devise for themselves some fitting habiliments of taffeta, or other silk, to convey the Court in triumph. The propyne, or gift of the citizens, was borne on a cart, in sight of the Queen, in a rich coffer, with certain bairns, fittingly attired, as its custodians. At the Butter Tron, at the head of the Lawnmarket, was a triumphal arch, on the which were certain bairns singing in the maist heavenly wise ; and suspended from the arch was a cloud, opening with four leaves, in the which was ane bonny bairn. As the Queen passed through the archway the cloud opened, and the bairn descended, as it had been an angel, and delivered to Her Highness the keys of the town, together with a Bible and psalter covered with fine purple velvet. Much else of the like kind followed. At the Tolbooth, the City Cross, the Salt Tron — where the Tron Church now stands — and at the Nether Bow, angels, allegorical virgins, and fanciful impersonations of all sorts, had each some special welcome or apt lesson to impart. Some of these were such as made it the wisest policy of the Queen to leave them uninter- preted ; for ingenuity had been racked to devise masques and allegories significantly suited to the times. The spouts of the Cross ran freely with wine, and the pledging of the Queen's health and smashing of the glasses made a loyal diversion untempered by hidden meanings. But a significant mystery followed at the Tron, in which Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were burnt while offering strange fire upon the altar, as a warning of God's vengeance against idolaters ; and an allegorical dragon blazed into destruc- tive conflagration on a scaffolding at the Nether Bow Port : the symbol of the fate of the ancient Church to which the hapless Queen was to cling till she herself perished on the scaffold in the hall of Fotheringay. A still more significant interlude had been provided for Her Majesty's benefit, in which a priest was to have been burnt at the altar while elevating the host ; but the Earl of Huntly persuaded them, with some difficulty, to content themselves 92 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH with the less obtrusive allegory ; and so the Queen passed forth into the Canongate. All the public way through which the procession had to pass was adorned with splendid hangings and devices ; and the Nether Bow Port, where Her Highness bade adieu to her entertainers and received the pro- pyne of the citizens, for which they had expended two thousand merks, was decorated for the occasion in the most costly fashion.^ The ancient Tolbooth, or " Pretorium," as it is styled in the early Acts of tne Scottish Parliaments, had fallen at this time into a very decayed and ruinous condition. The Queen addressed a letter to the Town Council, bear- ing date the 6th of February 1 56 1, charging the Provost, Bailies, and Council to take it down with all possible diligence, and provide meanwhile sufficient accommodation elsewhere for the Lords of the Session and others ministering justice. The proceedings of the Town Council are replete with allusions to the many difficulties they had to encounter in raising money and providing materials for the new building. The master of the works is ordered " ^yf the tymmer of the Auld Tolbuith will serve for the wark of the New Tolbiiith, to tak the same as ma serve." In consequence of the proceedings, in obedi- ence to this order, the renters of the neighbouring booths appear with rio very gentle remonstrance against him, complaining "that presentlie the maister of wark was takand away the jeists above their buthis, quhilk jeists had been bocht be thame, and laid thair, and wes thair awin propir guddis." The magistrates seem to have pacified them with a promise of replacing, at some indefinite period, " als money als gud jeistis " as had been taken away.' Materials and money continued equally difficult to be obtained ; the master of the works had again to have recourse for stones to the old build- ing, although the magistrates were anxious, if possible, to preserve it. On the 5th of March 1562 an order appears for taking the stones of the chapel in the Nether Kirkyard. This supplies the date of the utter demolition of the Chapel of the Holy Rood, as it was styled, which had most probably been spoiled and broken down during the tumults of 1 5 59. It stood between the present Parliament House and the Cowgate ; and there, on the 1 2th of August 1528, Walter Chepman, the Scottish Caxton, founded a chaplainry at the altar of Jesus Christ crucified, where prayers were specially to be offered for the soul of his royal master, James IV, and for those of the nobles and others slain with him at Flodden, This chaplainry he endowed with his tenement in the Cowgate.^ In the month of April the Council are threatened with the entire removal of the courts to St. Andrews, for want of a place of meeting in Edinburgh. \ } ' Diurnal of Oaurrcnts, p. 67 ; Council Register, 3d Sept. 1561 ; Keith, vol. ii. pp. 81, 82 ; Knox's Hist. vol. ii. p. 288 ; Merries' Mem. p. 56. " Council Register, lotli Feb. 1561, etc. ; Maitland, pp. 21, 22; Chambers's Minor Antiquities, pp. 141-149. ' Council Register, Maitland, p. 183. . rr d o W W H O O H a M ♦ i 1 DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 93 This is toUowecl by forced taxation, borrowing money on the town mills, threats from the builder to give up the work " because he had oft and diverse t>'mes requyrit money, and could get nane," and the like, for some years follo\v mg, until the magistrates contrived at length, by some means or other, to complete the new building to the satisfaction of all parties. During this interval the Town Council held their own meetings in the Holy-Blood Aisle in St. Giles's Church, until apartments were provided for them in the New Tolbooth, which served alike for the meetings of the Parliament, the Court of Session, and the Magistrates and Council of the burgh. The New Tolbooth, thus erected with so much difficulty, was not the famous Heart of Mid- Lothian, but a more modern building attached to the south-west corner of St. Giles's Church, immediately to the north of the lobby of the Signet Library. In February 1561 the Lord James, newly created Earl of Mar, was publicly married to Lady Agnes Keith, daughter of the Earl Marischal, in St. Giles's Church. They received an admonition " to behave themselves moderately in all things," but this did not prevent the event being celebrated with such dis- play as gave great offence to the preachers. A magnificent banquet was given on the occa- sion, with pageants and masque- rades, which the Queen honoured with her presence. Randolph, the ambassador of Queen Eliza- beth, was also a guest, and thus writes of it to Cecil : " At this notable marriage, upon Shrove Tuesday, at night, sitting among the Lords at supper, in sight of the Queen, she drank unto the Queen's Majesty, and sent me s, Giles— from the Common Seal of the City of Edinburgh, the cup of gold, which weigheth 'S^S' eighteen or twenty ounces." The preachers denounced with vehemence the revels and costly banquets on this occasion, inveighing with peculiar energy against the masking, a practice, as it would seem, till then unknown in Scotland.^ The reformation of religioti continued to be pursued with the utmost zeal. The Queen still retained the service of the mass in her own private chapel, which stood at the south side of the old palace, entirely apart from ' Knox's Hist. p. 276 ; Tytler, vol. vi. p. 301. 94 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH the Abbey church. Here, therefore, it might have seemed reasonable that she should be permitted to enjoy thf" services of religion according to the faith in which she had been reared. But the mass, however privately per- formed, gave great offence to the preachers, who had succeeded in entirely banishing it from the churches. The arms and burgh seal of Edinburgh previous to this period contained a representation of the patron saint, St. Giles, with his hind ; but by an act of the Town Council, dated 24th June I 562, the idol was ordered to be cut out of the town's standard, and a thistle to be substituted in its place, though the saint's fawn has been restored as one of the supporters of the city arms. This year is notable in the history of the town for proceedings which ultimately led to the founding of important civic institutions. The Council made application to the Queen to grant them the grounds belonging to the Black Friars, lying to the south, between the Cowgate and the town wall, to build an hospital thereon for the poor ; and also the Kirk-of-Field, with all the adjoining buildings and ground, where the College now stands, to erect there a public school ; together with their revenues for endowing the same. They also besought her to grant them the yards and site of the Grey Friars' monastery, " being somewhat distant from the town," for the purpose of a public burial-place. The Queen, in reply, granted the last request, appointing the Grey Friars' yard to be devoted to the use of the town, for the specified purpose ; and for the rest, she engaged, so soon as sufficient funds were secured for building the hospital and school, that she would provide a convenient site for them. The whole, however, were at length made over to the magistrates in the year 1566 for the purposes specified. An act of violence perpetrated at this time by the Earl of Bothwell, with the aid of the Marquis d'Elboeuf and Lord John Coldingham, once more illustrates the civic brawls, in which the nobility were chief actors, and which so frequently ended in open warfare on the High Street. They broke open the doors of Cuthbert Ramsay's house, in St. Mary's Wynd, during the night, and made violent entry in search of his daughter-in-law, Alison Craig, with whom the Earl of Arran was believed to be enamoured. A strong remonstrance was presented to the Queen on this occasion, beseeching her to bring the perpetrators to punishment ; but the matter was hushed up, with promises of amendment. Emboldened by their impunity, Bothwell and his accomplices proceeded to further violence. They assembled in the public streets during the night, with many of their friends. Gavin Hamilton, Abbot of Kilwinning, who had joined the reform- ing party, resolved lO check them in their violent proceedings. He accordingly armed his servants and retainers, and sallying out to oppose them, a serious affray took place between the Cross and the Tron ; shot DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 95 and bolts flew in every direction ; the burghers were mustered by the ringing of the town bells, and rival leaders were sallying out to the assist- ance of their friends, when the Earls of Murray and Huntly, who were then residing in the Abbey, mustered their adherents at the Queen's request, and put a stop to the tumult. Bothwell afterwards successfully employed the mediation of Knox to procure a reconciliation with Gavin Hamilton, the Earl of Arran, and others of his antagonists.^ The 26th of May 1563 has a special interest in the annals of Edin- burgh. The Parliament met there on that day ; and as Queen Mary was then for the first time present at the assembly of the estates, its proceedings were conducted with unusual pomp. The Queen rode in procession to the Tolbooth, in robes of state, with the crown, sceptre, and sword borne before her, escorted by a brilliant cavalcade, and was hailed with loyal greetings as she passed along the High Street. The hall was crowded with the nobles and other members, and glittered with the gay trappings of the royal household and the splendour and beauty of the court that surrounded the throne. The Queen opened the proceedings with an address which won popular favour, no less than her extreme beauty, so that the people were heard to exclaim " God save that sweet face ! Did ever orator speak so sweetly ? " On three succeeding days she rode thus gaily attended to the Tolbooth, greatly to the dissatisfaction of the preachers, who spoke boldly " against the superfluities of their clothes," and at length presented articles for regulating apparel and reforming other similar enormities.^ In the following month of August a serious disturbance occurred, in consequence of the Queen's domestics at Holyrood being found, during her absence at Stirling, attending mass in her private chapel. Patrick Cranston, " a zealous brother," as Knox styles him, entered the chapel, and finding the altar covered, and a priest ready to celebrate mass, demanded of them how they dared thus openly to break the laws of the land. The magistrates were summoned, and peace restored with difficulty. A much more serious display of popular intolerance was exhibited in the year 1565. The period appointed by the ministers of the Congregation for the celebra- tion of the communion chanced to fall at the season of Easter ; and as it seems to have been at all times regarded as a peculiar aggravation of the crime of " massing " when it was done at the time of administration of the sacrament, the indignation of the reformers was greatly excited by the customary Easter services of the Roman Catholics. A party, accordingly, headed by one of the Bailies, seized on Sir James Tarbat, a Catholic priest, as he was riding home after officiating at the altar. He was imprisoned in the Tolbooth, along with several of his assistants ; but the populace, * Knox's Hist, pp. 279, 280; Keith, vol. ii. p. 130. " Knox's Hist. p. 295 ; Keith, vol. ii, p. 199. MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ■/ not content to abide the course of law, brought him forth, clothed in his sacerdotal garments, and with the chalice secured in his hand. He was placed on the pillory at the Market Cross, and exposed for an hour to the pelting of the rude rabble ; the boys serving him, according to Knox, with his Easter-eggs. He was brought to trial with his assistants on the following day, and convicted of having celebrated mass, contrary to law. He was again exposed for four hours on the pillory, under the charge of the common hangman, and so rudely treated that he was reported to be dead. The Queen, justly exasperated at this cruel and insulting pro- ceeding, appealed to her friends throughout the country to niarch with their adherents to Edinburgh, to reduce its citizens to a sense of duty ; but the magistrates having sent a humble representation to her of their loyalty and desire to stay the popular violence, she contented herself with requiring the immediate liberation of the prisoners. Shortly after, however, she ordered the Provost to be degraded from his office, and another to be elected in his stead.^ On the 28th of July 1565 Darnley was proclaimed King at the Market Cross of Edinburgh. The banns had already been published in the usual form in the Canongate Kirk,^ and on the following day, being Sunday, at six o'clock in the morning, he was married to the Queen, in the royal chapel of Holyrood House, by the Dean of Restalrig. At the Palace rejoicing and costly banquets were prolonged for several days, while the people were treated with public sports.^ The marriage, however, excited the strongest displeasure of the reformers, Knox regarded it with especial indignation, and in one of his boldest and most vehement harangues, in St. Giles's Church, challenged the nobles and other leaders of the Congregation, for betraying the cause of God by their inaction. " I see," said he, suddenly stretching out his arms, as if he would leap from the pulpit, and arrest the passing vision, " I see before me your beleaguered camp, I hear the tramp of the horsemen as they charged you in the streets of Edinburgh ; and most of all is that dark and dolorous night now present to my eyes, in which all of you, my Lords, in shame and fear, left this town, God forbid I should ever forget it ! " He concluded with solemn warning against the royal marriage, and the judgments it involved. Such was his vehemence, says Melvil, that " he was like to ding the pulpit in blads, and flee out of it ! " * This freedom of speech gave general offence, and Knox was summoned before the Queen. He came to Court after dinner, and was brought into her cabinet by Erskine of Dun, one of the superintendents of the kirk ; but ' Knox's Hist. pp. 325, 326. '^ "The Buick of the Kirk of the Canagait, July 1565;" Edin. Mag., Oct. 1817, p. 33, apud Chalmers. " Chahners's Queen Mary, vol. i. p. 146. ■• Melvil's Diaiy, p. 26 ; Tytler, vol. vi. p. 330. ^ o CO i- ^ CO O M O w III o Pi DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 97 o CO 00 9 o O o ii. the presence of royalty was no restraint on the vehement reformer. She wept as she listened to his bold harangues ; and he left her at length, as she yielded anew to a passionate flood of tears. As he passed from the outer chamber, he paused in the midst of a gay circle of the ladies of the royal household, in their gorgeous apparel, and addressed them in a grave style of banter on the pitj^ that the silly soul could not carry all these fine garnishings with it to heaven ! Queen Mary dried her tears, and took no further notice of this interview ; but Knox must have been regarded amid the gay haunts of royalty, at Holyrood, like the death's head which stimu- lated while it cast a gloom over the merriment of an old Egyptian feast. The Queen's marriage to Lord Darnley was indeed fatal to her future happiness. He was fully three years younger than she, of royal blood, and a near heir to the crown, but in all other respects unworthy of her regard. He seems to have been made the complete tool of the designing nobles ; and with him another remarkable character appears, the incidents of whose brief career are intimately associated with the ancient palace, and the still older abbey amid the ruins of which his ashes lie. David Rizzio came to Scot- land, according to Buchanan, in the train of Moretti, the Piedmontesc ambassador, in 1561; and was admitted into the Queen's service in con- sequence of his varied accomplishments, but especially because of his skill in vocal and instrumental music. Familiar as he was with the languages, and probably the courts, of Europe, it is no wonder that the Queen used him, as Knox says, " for secretary in things that appertained to her secret affairs in France or elsewhere." If we are to credit accounts believed at a later period, Rizzio was not only old, but ugly and deformed. His social stand- ing, at any rate, was equivocal, and his confidential relations with the Queen — though so naturally accounted for by his possessing many requisites peculiarly fitting him for the duties of her private secretary — were well cal- culated to irritate jealous courtiers. We have to picture the acute, wily Italian flitting about the scenes which he still seems to haunt, and rousing the ire of the imbecile Darnley, and the rude nobles who chiefly associated with him, by the stealthy address with which he outwitted their schemes, and retained his influence with the Queen. Adept as he was in all Machiavellian arts, and confident in the favour of his royal mistress, he failed to realise the danger of his position. He was master of the Queen's secret correspond- ence, and fancied he might set at nought the most powerful of her nobles. He little knew the character of the Scottish Court. On the 9th of March 1566 the Queen was at supper in her cabinet, at Holyrood House, in company with the Countess of Argyle and Lord Robert Stuart, her natural sister and brother, Beaton of Creich, Arthur Erskine, and David Rizzio, when Darnley conducted a body of armed assassins into his apartments in the north-west tower of the Palace, immediately below those of the Queen, VOL. I H 98 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH and communicating with them by a private staircase. He ascended the stair alone, and throwing back the tapestry that concealed the doorway, entered the small closet, still pointed out in the north-west turret, where the Queen and her guests were seated at supper. He threw his arm round her waist, and seated himself beside her at the table ; where " Signer Davie " sat clad in " a night-gown of damask, furred, with a satin doublet and hose of russet velvet," and with his cap on in the presence of his royal mistress. Darnley entered into friendly talk with the Queen, when Lord Ruthven, a man of tall stature, clad in complete armour, and pale and ghastly from the effects of disease, burst like a frightful apparition into the room. The Queen, now far advanced in pregnancy, sprang up in terror, and commanded him instantly to depart ; but the torches of his accomplices already glared in the outer chamber ; and Darnley, though he affected ignorance of the whole proceedings, sat scowling with looks of hate on their intended victim. The other con- spirators crowded into the little room ; and Ruthven, drawing his dagger, attempted to lay hold of Rizzio, who sprang behind the Queen and wildly besought her to save his life. Ker of Fawdonside, one of the conspirators, held his pistol to the Queen's breast, threaten- ing her life if she gave any alarm. Darnley at length interfered, and grasped her in his arms ; and George Douglas, snatching Darnley's own dagger from him, struck at the wretched Italian over the Queen's shoulder. He was then dragged through the adjoining chamber to the outer entrance, where the Earl of Morton and his associates rushed in and struck their daggers into his body, leaving a pool of blood, the marks of which, according to popular Queen Mary's Bath. tradition, still remain, and are pointed out by the keeper to credulous visitors. The Earl of Morton, who had kept guard, with one hundred and sixty followers, in the outer court of the Palace, while the assassins entered to complete their murderous purpose, was commanded to secure the gates of the Palace ; but the chief actors in the deed contrived to elude the friendly t V i s i DEAi i OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY 99 guards, and leaping over a window on the north side of the Palace, they fled across the garden and escaped by a small lodge, shown in the accom- panying woodcut, known by the name of Queen Mary's Bath. A dagger richly inlaid with gold, found under the roofing of this antique building towards the end of last century, was supposed to have remained there from the flight of the murderers of Rizzio. A flat stone, with some nearly obliterated carving upon it, is pointed out in the passage leading from the present quad- rangle to the chapel of Holyrood Palace, as covering the remains of Rizzio.^ It forms a portion of the flooring of the ancient Abby cloisters included in the modern portion of the Palace when it was rebuilt by Charles II. As Sir James Melvil was passing the outer gate of the Palace on the following morning, the Queen observed him, and, throwing open the window of her apartment, implored him to warn the citizens and rescue her from the traitors' hands. On the news being spread, the common bell was rung, and the Provost, with some hundred armed citizens, rushed into the outer court of the Palace, and demanded the Queen's release. Darnley appeared at the window in her stead, and desired them to return home, assuring them that he and the Queen were well and merry. The Provost sought to see the Queen herself, but Darnley commanded their immediate departure on his authority as King.^ She was deterred by the most violent threats from holding any communication with the chief magistrate and citizens ; and they, finding all their efforts vain, at length retired.^ The Queen succeeded soon after in detaching her imbecile husband from the conspirators, and escaping from the Palace in his company at midnight, they fled together to Seaton, and thence to Dunbar. They returned to the capital within five days, but the Queen feared again to trust herself within the bloody precincts of the Palace. She took up her residence in the house of a private citizen in the High Street, and from thence she removed, a few days afterwards, to another still nearer the Castle ; in all probability the old palace of her mother in Blyth's Close.* Lord Ruthven, who had risen from his sick-bed to perpetrate the infamous deed of Rizzio's murder, fled thereafter to Newcastle, and died there. Only two of the humbler actors suffered for the crime : Thomas Scott, sheriff*-depute of Perth for Ruthven, and Henry Yair, one of his retainers. The head of the former was set on the tower of the Palace, and that of the other on the Nether Bow Port. The period of the Queen's accouchement now drew near, and she gladly adopted the advice of her Council to take up her residence within the Castle of Edinburgh. There, in a small apartment, still pointed out to visitors, ' Chalmers's Queen Mary, vol. ii. p. 163. ' Knox, p. 341. 3 The Queen's Letter, Keith, vol. ii. p. 418. ^ Letters of Randolph to Cecil, Wright's Queen Elizabeth and her Times, vol. i. p. 232. lOO MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH / ■•■-' James VI first saw the light on the morning of the 19th of June 1566. A tablet over the entrance to the royal apartments, inserted probably in anticipation of the King's visit to his ancient kingdom in 1 6 1 6, bears the cypher of Darnley and Mary, with the date of the year rendered memor- able by the birth of a prince in whom the crowns of Scotland and England were at length united. The room in which the infant, destined to be the supplanter of Queen Mary and the successor of Queen Elizabeth, was born has undergone little alteration since that time. It is of irregular shape and very limited dimensions, though forming part of the more ancient buildings often before used as a royal residence, and in one of the apartments of which the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, expired only six years previous. The greatest joy and triumph prevailed in Edinburgh on the announce- ment of the birth of an heir to the throne. A public thanksgiving was offered up on the following day in St. Giles's Church ; and Sir James Melvil posted with the news to the English Court with such speed, that he reached London on the fourth day thereafter, and spoiled Her Majesty's mirth for one night, at least, with the "happy news." ^ The birth of a son to Darnley produced little change on his licentious course of life. By his folly he had already alienated from him the interests and affections of every party ; and the conspirators who had joined with him in the murder of Riz:::c had already resolved on his own destruction, when he was seized with the smallpox at Glasgow. He was removed to Edinburgh, and lodged in the mansion of the provost of the collegiate church of St. Mary-in-the-Fields, as a place of good air. This house stood near the site of the present north-west corner of Drummond Street. On Gordon's map of the city, executed in 1647, the ruins are indicated as they existed at that period.^ Here the Queen more than once visited Darnley. She spent the evening of the 9th of February 1567 with him, and only left a*^ eleven o'clock, along with several nobles who had accompanied her, to be present at an entertainment at Holyr^od House. The Earl of Bothwell, whose lawless ambition mainly instigated the assassination, had obtained a situation for one of his menials in the Queen's service, and by this means he was able to obtain the keys of the provost of St. Mary's house, and cause counterfeit impressions to be taken.' He had been in company with the Queen at a banquet given to her by the Bishop * Keith, vol. ii. p. 434. - Robertson's Hist. vol. ii. p. 354. ' Laing, vol. ii. p. 296. .\- < DEATH OF JAMES V TO THE ABDICATION OF QUEEN MARY loi • < of Argyle, and learning that she must return to Ilolyrood that night, he immediately arranged to complete his murderous scheme. Shortly after nine o'clock at night Bothwell left the lodging of the Laird of Ormiston in company with several of his own servants, who were his sole accomplices. They passed down the Blackfriars' Wynd, entering the gardens of the Dominican monastery by a gate in the enclosing wall opposite the foot of the wynd, and by a road nearly on the line of what now forms the High School Wynd they reached the postern in the town wall which gave admission to the lodging of Darnley. Bothwell joined the Queen, who was then visiting her husband, while his accomplices were busy arranging the gunpowder in the room below ; and after escorting her home to the Palace, he returned to complete his purpose. It is further noteworthy, as an evidence of the simple manners of the period, that when Bothwell's servants returned to his residence near the Palace, after depositing the powder in Darnley's lodging, they saw the Queen — as one of them after- wards stated in evidence — on her way back to Holyrood " gangand before them with licht torches as they came up the Black Frier Wynd." ^ So that it would appear she returned quietly home, with her few attendants, through the wynd and down the Canongate at that late hour, without exciting among the citizens any notice of the presence of royalty. A loud explosion about two o'clock in the morning, while it shook the whole town and startled the inhabitants from their sleep, satisfied the con- spirators that their plot had succeeded. An arch still exists in the city wall, behind the Infirmary, described by Arnot as the doorway leading into the provost's house. In a contemporary drawing of the locality at the time of the murder, preserved in the State Paper Office (a facsimile of which is engraved in the Registrnm Doiniis de Soltre), the ruins of the provost's house seem to extend nearly to the projecting tower. After the murder of Darnley the hapless Queen took refuge in the Castle, and only left it on the urgent remonstrance of her Council, who dreaded injury to her health from her "close and solitary life." On Saturday, the 1 2th of April, the Earl of Bothwell was arraigned in the Tolbooth on the charge of the murder, but no evidence appeared against him, and he was acquitted. It is not our province to follow out the narrative of his forcible ravishment of the Queen, her marriage to Bothwell, and the fatal consequences in which she was thereby involved. On the 1 5th of June 1567 she surrendered to the Earl of Morton at Carberry Hill, near Musselburgh. It was late in the evening before Queen Mary entered Edinburgh ; but she was recognised as she passed along the streets, and assailed with insulting cries from the rude populace. She was lodged in the town house ' Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. i. part ii. p. 493, ros MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH 1 of the Provost, Sir Simon Preston. According to the narrative of Arch- bishop James Beaton, " thay lugit hir Majestie in the provest's luging, foment the croce, upon the north syd of the gait ; " * and this is confirmed by old title-deeds, which determine its site at the entrance to the Exchange. But tradition had long assigned the Black Turnpike, on the south side of the street, as the scpnc of her reception. This ancient building stood to the west of the Tron Church, occupying part of the ground now left vacant as the entrance to Hunter Square. Maitland describes it as a " magnificent edifice, which, were it not partly defaced by a false wooden front, would appear to be the most sumptuous building perhaps in Edinburgh." The view on page 63 shows it to have been a stately and imposing pile of un- usual extent among the " lands " in the old High Street. At the time ol its demolition, in 1788, it was believed to be the most ancient house in Edinburgh.^ The captive Queen passed the night in a small apartment, the window of which looked to the street ; and the first thing that met her eye on looking forth in the morning was a large banner, " stented betwixt two spears," whereon was painted the murdered Darnley, with the words, " Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord." Some of the rabble assailed her with insulting cries, but the citizens displayed their ancient standard, the Blue Blanket, and ran to arms for her deliverance ; and had not the confederates removed her to Holyrood, on pretence of restoring her to liberty, she might probably have been safe for a time under her burgher guards. The confederate lords, as soon as they had Queen Mary safely lodged in Holyrood, formed themselves into a council, and at once drew up and signed an order for her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle. It was in fact only giving effect to their previous resolutions. The same night she was hastily conveyed from the Palace, disguised in mean attire, and com- pelled to ride a distance of thirty miles to the scene of her captivity. On that night — the i6th of June 1567 — the Queen bade a final farewell to the Palace of Holyrood and to Scotland's crown. Her further history docs not come within the province of our memorials ; though her memory still dwells amid these ancient scenes, and the stranger can never tread the ruined aisles of the old abbey church without some passing thought of the gifted and lovely but most unfortunate daughter of James V, Mary Queen of Scots. ' Laing, ii. 113. " Vide " Legeml of the Rlack Turnpike," l)y the Author {ProcedUiigs .S.A, Scotland, vol. xi., N.S.) .C\ QUEEN MARY m OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS V. QUEEN MARY Lord Jem Chryst, that cronnit was with thorite. Preserve the Birth guhais Badgie heir is borne. And send Hir Sonne successione to Reigne still Lang in this Realme, if that it he Thy will ; A Is grant, O Lord, quhatever of Hir proceed Be to Thy Honer and Prais. Sobied. 19th IVNII, 1566. ■ Inscription in the chamber in the Castle of Edinburgh where Queen Mary gave birth to James VI. " ' It came wi' a lass ! ' did he say ? I gie to the land a son. O Blessed Mary, whose name I bear, And the good saints ilka one ; Be your benison on the royal bairn, And lighten the course he maun run. " O Fortune, aye wayward and cruel, A thorny road is mine. Alack for the sunny vale of Seine With the fruit o' its luscious vine ; You beguiled me with its tempting grape. And put henbane in the wine. " Cradled in royal state. Graced wi' my Marys three ; There was Mary Seaton, Mary Beaton, Mary Livingston, and me ; Nae lilies in King Henry's maze Fairer than mine could be. " Queen o' my ain countrie, 1 shared a Consort's throne ; O wae for the thrust of Montgomery's lance Beguiled me wi' that crown ; And wae for the deathlier ravisher Made me a widow lone. " For I dream'd an eerie dream : A Queen in envious pride. ■r c 104 III MEMORIALS OF EDlNnURGM VVi' glance o' dour and spitcfu' gleam Stood ever at my side, Till the cauld edge o' the headsman's axe Seemed o'er my throat to glide. " The gleam o' a setting sun Gilds a' yon I'entlands wide ; But deceitful is their panoply As the dream of the mirthfu' bride, Wha recks na o' the bridegroom Death That lies at her other side. " A bride, a queen, and then Widow, and queen, and wife ; I dreamt last night the babe I bore Rose up in fretfu' strife ; And Rizzio by him, gashed and wan. Clung to me for his life. " God help me ! wed to a fool, Thrall to ilk traitor knave ; The cry for vengeance rises aye Frae Holyrood's gory pave ; The ghastly vision o' that hour Will haunt me to my grave. " O the vine-clad glades of France, Round my heart wi' their tendrils curl ; For blythesome then was this spirit o' mine As the rapture o' the merle. The hours danced by in their mazy round Careless as sea-stored pearl. " The sun shines still by the Seine, Hut its panzies, where are they ? Specr for the frosty rime at noon, Or the gloamin' of yesterday. O Fortune ! smile on the land, And this baby boy, its stay. " By the boast o' his line o' sires On Lyon's scroll displayed ; By the Poet-King and his dainty Quair ; By Flodden's direfu' raid ; But wae for the rout o' Solway Moss An' the orphan lass it made. " For I dream'd of another King ; And it seem'd my baby boy — O Blessed Mary ! by thy dear Son, Can it be that a mother's joy Wi' sword-pierce wound the breast he suck'd And breed her sore annoy ? QUEEN MARY " For the vision will come back ; And still it seems mine own, A heartless son, and a ruthless Queen That drag me frae the throne ; A headsman's axe and bloody weeds, And the wail o' a dying moan." Alack for Carberry Hill ! For Lochleven's dreary pile ! For Langside's fatal field o' strife. And a heartless woman's guile ! Traitress and victim o' Fotheringay Lie in Westminster aisle. The iron-hearted Queen That bigot Spain defied. And her hapless Stuart rival Are slumbering side by side. As though weeping children gathcr'd round The bed where either died. 105 I J CHAPTER VI FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II i lURING the long minority that succeeded the forced abdication '•of Queen Mary, the residence of the boy - king was almost entirely at Stirling ; and Edinburgh ceased to be enlivened with the presence of royalty, though it was still the scene of many of the principal events con- nected with the national history of the period. Immediately on the departure of the Queen from Holyrood, diligent search was made throughout the city for the murderers of Darnley. Sebastian, a French attendant of the royal household, and Captain William Blackadder, were seized and lodged in the Tolbooth ; and, as appears by the record of the Privy Council,^ three others ' Keith, vol. ii, p. 652. ■ ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 107 were shortly afterwards placed in durance on this charge. Sebastian con- trived to escape, but the others were ordered " to be put in the irins and tormentis, for furthering of the tryall of the veritie " ; and although they persisted in denying all knowledge of the crime, they were drawn backward on a cart to the Cross, and there hanged and quartered on the 24th of June 1567.^ The magistrates of Edinburgh had obtained from Queen Mary a ratification of their long-coveted superiority over the town of Leith ; but they had never been able to avail themselves of it to any practical end. They now took advantage of the general confusion to assert their claims ; and accordingly, on the 4th of July, the Provost, Bailies, and Deacons mustered the whole burgher force of the city, armed and equipped in war- like array, and marched at their head to the Links of Leith. From thence the magistrates proceeded to the town, and " held ane court upon the Tolbuyth stair of Leith, and created bailies, sergeants, clerks, and demstars, and took possession thereof by virtue of their infeftment made by the Queen's grace to them."^ The superiority thus established continued to be maintained, often with despotic rigour, until the independence of Leith was secured by the Borough Reform Bill of 1833. On the 2 2d of August the Earl of Murray was invested with the dignity of Regent, and proclamation of the same made at the Cross of Edinburgh with great magnificence and solemnity. In his strong hand the sceptre was once more swayed with such vigour as checked the turbulent factions and restored, to a great extent, tranquillity to the people. But his regency was of brief duration ; he fell by the hand of an assassin in the month of January 1570, and the Earl of Lennox succeeded to his office. He lies buried in the south transept of St. Giles's Church, and a monument erected to his memory remained a point of peculiar attraction until its demolition during the alterations effected on the building in 1829. For- tunately the most important feature of the memorial, an engraved brass, was preserved, and has been replaced on the restored monument. It was executed, as appears from accounts preserved in the charter- room of Donibristle, by James Gray, goldsmith ; and bears this inscription from the pen of George Buchanan : * JACOBO STOVARTO MORAVIVE COMITI, SCOTI/E PROREGI ; . VIRO, ^TATIS SU/E, LONGE OPTIMO : AB INIMICIS, OMNIS MEMORI/E DETERRIMIS, EX INSIDIIS EXTINCTO, CEU PATRI COMMUNI, PATRIA MCERENS POSVIT. On either side are the figures of Religion and Justice, the latter with ' liirrell's Diary, pp. 10, 11. Calderwood's Hist, vol. ii. p. 526. Diiirual of OaiirreutSf p, 117. io9 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH broken sword and sceptre, and with her balance at her feet. The mottoes are : PiETAS sine vindice luget, and jus exarmatum est. The whole is surmounted with the Regent's arms couche, and the motto : SALUS per CHRISTUM. Mainly through the persevering exertions of Dr. David Laing, this interesting historical monument was reinstated in the south aisle, where for three centuries and a half it had been regarded with special veneration as " the good Regent's tomb." The Castle, at this time, was held by Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, who still adhered to the Queen's party ; and he abundantly availed himself of the unsettled state of affairs to strengthen his position. He had seized all provisions brought into Leith, and raised and trained soldiers, with little interruption. On the 28th of March 1571 he took forcible possession of St. Giles's Church, and manned the steeple to keep the citizens in awe ; ^ again, on the i st of May, the Duke of Chatelherault having entered the town with three hundred men, the men of war in the steeple " slappit all the pendis of the kirk, for keeping thairof aganis my Lord Regent," and immediate preparations were made for the defence of the town. Troops crowded into the city, and others mustered against it, the Regent being bent on holding a Parliament there. The Estates accordingly assembled in the Canongate without the walls, but within the liberties of the city, which extended to St. John's Cross ; and a battery was erected for their protection " upon the Dow Craig abone the Trinity College, beside Edinburgh, to ding and seige the north-east quarter of the burgh." ^ The place indicated is obviously that portion of the Calton Hill where the house of the governor of the jail now stands, a most commanding position for the purpose in view. From this an almost constant firing was kept up on the town during the sittings of the Parliament. The opposite party retaliated by erecting a battery at the Blackfriars (the old High School Yard), from which they greatly damaged the houses in the Canongate ; while the Nether Bow Port was built up with stone and lime, the more effectually to exclude the Estates from their usual place of meeting. Diligent preparations were made for the defence of the town after the Parliament had withdrawn. On the 6th of June commandment was given "by the lords of the nobility in Edinburgh, to tir and tak down all the tymmer work of all houses in Leith Wynd and Sanct Mary's Wynd, hurtful to the keiping of this burghe." Again, on the 8th, they caused the doors and windows of all the tenements on the west side of St. Mary's Wynd to be " biggit up and closit," as well as other great preparations for defence. On the 20th of June three pieces of brass ordnance were mounted on St. Giles's steeple, and the holders of it amply supplied with provisions and ammunition for its defence. All the wallij, fosses, and ports • Diurnal of Oicurrents, p. 202. '■' //'/(/. p. 213. td W t?d W I ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 109 were again " newlie biggit and repaint " ; and, within a few days after, the whole merchants and craftsmen remaining in the burgh mustered to a " wappin-schawing " in the Greyfriars' churchyard and engaged to aid and assist the captain of the Castle in the service of the Queen.^ When all other means failed, an ingenious plot was devised for taking the Nether Bow Port by a stratagem, nearly similar to that by which the Castle was recovered in 1341,^ but the ambush was discovered by chance, and the scheme, happily for the citizens, defeated. Immediately thereafter " the lords and captain of the Castle causit big ane new port at the Nether boll, within the auld port of the same, of aisler wark, in the maist strenthie maner ; and tuik, to big the samyn with, all the aisler stanis that Alexander Clerk haid gadderit of the kirk of Restalrig to big his hous with." ^ This interesting notation supplies the date of erection of the second Nether Bow Port, and accounts for its position behind the line of the city wall ; as the original gate in continuation of St. Mary's Wynd would have to be retained and defended, while the new works were going on within. On the earlier site, but, we may presume, to some extent at least with these same materials, the famous old " Temple Bar of Edinburgh " was again rebuilt, in the form represented in the engravings, in the year 1606. At a still later date the same parties, in their anxiety to defend this important pass, "causit all the houssis of Leith and Sanct Marie Wyndis heidis to be tane doun ! " The Earl of Mar was no less zealous in his preparations for its assault. He caused trenches to be cast up in the Pleasance, for nine pieces of large and small ordnance, and mounted others on Salisbury Crags, "to ding Edinburgh with," so that the poor burghers of that quarter had special reason for wishing the siege to draw to a close. Provisions failed, and all fresh supplies were intercepted ; military law prevailed in its utmost rigour, and the sole appearance of the citizens enjoying a moment's ease occurs in the statement that " nochttheles the remaneris thairin abaid patientlie, and usit all plesouris quhilkis were wont to be usit in the moneth of Maij in aid tymes, viz. Robin Hude and Litill Johne." This state of anarchy w; > at length brought to a close ; and on the 27th of July 1572 the whole artillery about the walls, on the steeple head of St. Giles's, and the Kirk-of-Field, were removed to the Castle ; and the Cross being most honourably hung with tapestry, a truce was pro- claimed by the heralds, with sound of trumpets, and the hearty congratula- tions ot the people.* In the month of August Knox returned to Edinburgh, after an absence oi nearly two years. His life was drawing rapidly to a close, and on the November 1572 he expired, in his sixty-sevcnt 54th 1 Diurnal of Ocitirrcnts, pl). 220, 226, 251. ^ Diurnal of Occnrrents, p. 241. year, h - Ante, p. 10. ■» //'/(/. p. 308. body ,! ii no MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH was interred in the churchyard of St. Giles's, and was attended to the grave by a numerous concourse of people, including many of the chief nobility. The simple ^loge pronounced by the Regent over his grave has been remembered by its pointed force : " There lies he who never feared the face of man." The old churchyard has long since been paved, and converted into the Parliament Close, and all evidence of the spot lost. It cannot but excite surprise that no effort should have been made to preserve the remains of the reformer from such desecration, or to point out to posterity the site of his grave. If the tradition mentioned by Chambers^ may be relied upon, that his burial-place was a few feet from the front of the old pedestal of King Charles's statue, the change in the position of the latter must have placed it directly over the grave : perhaps as strange a monument to the great apostle of Presbyterianism as fancy could devise ! On the death of the Earl of Mar, Morton was elected Regent, and the brief truce brought to a close. Within two days thereafter Kirkaldy sallied out of the Castle towards evening, and set fire to the houses on the south side of the Castle rock ; a strong wind was blowing at the time from the west, and the garrison of the Castle kept up a constant cannonade, to prevent any succour being attempted, so that the whole mass of houses was burnt down eastward to Magdalen Chapel : a piece of useless cruelty that gained him many enemies, without answering any good purpose. The English Queen now sent Sir William Drury, with a body of troops and a train of artillery, to assist the Regent in reducing the Castle, the last stronghold of the adherents of Queen Mary. The fortress was gallantly defended by Sir William Kirkaldy, and the siege is one of the most memorable in its history. The narrative of an eye-witness is given in Holinshed's Chronicles, and shows, even by its exaggerated descriptions, the difficulties experienced by the besiegers. It is understood to have been written by Thomas Churchyard, the poet, who was present at the siege ; and has been reprinted in the Bannatyne Miscellany, accompanied by a remarkably interesting bird's-eye view of the town and Castle, engraved, as is believed, from a contemporary sketch. In anticipation of the siege, the citizens erected scver.il strong defences of turf and faggots, so as to protect the church and Tolbooth. One is especially mentioned in the Diurnal of Occnrrents as " biggit of diffet and mik,^ betuix the thevis hoill, and Bess Wynd, tua cln-thick, and on the gait betuix the auld tolbuyth, and the vther syid tua speir heicht."^ About three weeks later, on the 17th of January, "the nobility, with my Lord Regent, passed through St. Giles's Church, at a: .trance made through the Tolbooth wall to the laigh council-house of th . own, on the west side of * Tiadiliom, vol. ii. p. 195. " I.e. turf and mud. ' Diurnal of Occtirrents, p. 322. ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II in the Tolbooth, and there choose the Lords of the Articles, and returned the same way. The Earl of Angus bore the crown, the Earl of Argyle the sceptre, and the Earl of Morton the sword of honour. These were made of brass, and double overgilt with gold, because the principal jewels were in the Castle of Edinburgh, and might not be had!' ^ So effectual did the ramparts " of diffet and mik " prove, that the Parliament assembled as safely in the Tolbooth, and the people went as quietly to church, as at any time before the war began.^ The brave captain. Sir William Kirka! W (■ Grange, was already short of provisions when the siege commenced, and all further supplies were then completely cut off; yet he held out gallantly for thirty-three days, until reduced to the last extremities, and threatened with the desertion and mutiny of his men. The garrison did not despair until the besiegers had got possession of the spur, within which was the well on which they mainly depended for water. This battery stood on the esplanade, nearest the town, as may be seen in the view given at the head of Chapter III, and was demolished in the year 1649, by order of the Commi:tee of Estates. Holinshed mentions also the spring at the Well-House Tower, under the name of " St. Margaret's Well, without the Castle, on the north side," by which some of the garrison suffered owing to its being poisoned by the enemy. This ancient spring, which still flows at the foot of the Castle rod . was restored as an ornamental fountain with a basin of gray granite, in 1873, at the cost of the officers of the 93d Highlanders, then garrisoning the Castle, from a design furnished by James Drummond, R.S.A. The only well that remained within the Castle was completely choked up with the ruins ; and so great was the general devastation that, when a parley was demanded, the messenger had to be lowered over the walls by a rope.^ The brave commander was delivered up by the English general to the vindictive power of the Regent ; and he and his brother James, along with two burgesses of the city, were ignominiously " harlit in cartis bakwart " to the Cross of Edinburgh, and there hanged and quartered,* and their heads exposed upon the Castle wall.* The Regent put the Castle into complete repair, and committed the keeping of it to his brother, George Douglas of Parkhead. He was at the same time Provost of the city, though he was speedily thereafter deprived of the latter office. Morton was now firmly established in the regency, and proceeded immediately to such acts of rapacity and injustice as rendered his government odious to the whole nation, until the nobles at last united with the people in deposing him. He succeeded, however, in speedily regaining sufficient influence to secure the custody of the King's person. 1 Diurnal of Occun-ents^ p. 324. = "Journal of the Siege," Bamiatyne Misc. vol. ii. p. 74. " Ibid. p. 76. * Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 335. " Hist, of James the Sext, p. 145. 112 MEMORIALS OF EDINBUR'^' • : I ,1 The loyalty which the citizens of Ediniiuigh displayed at various times, until the King's full assumption of the reij s of government, obtained from him special acknowledgments of gratitu 'I 1 I 114 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH The royal couple next made their grand entry to the capital, \he manner of approaching which from the Palace is worthy of notice, as a key to the usual route pursued on similar occasions. The ancient gate, half-way up the West l?ow, on the line of the oldest city wall, usually styled the Over Bow, was the principal port, the Temple liar of the Scottish capital, where all special State entries took place and formal receptions were made by the civic authorities. Otherwise the Nether Bow Port was the one which lay nearest the Palace, and formed the direct access to the city. The Queen's progress is thus described : " At her comming to the south side of the yardes of the Canogit, along the parke wall, being in sight of the Castle, they gave her thence a great voley of shot, with their banners and ancient displays upon the walls. Thence she came to the West Port,"' where she was received with a Latin oration. The royal procession must therefore have skirted along the whole line of the more modern city wall, where Lauriston now is. At the Over Bow they were welcomed with even more than the usual costly display. The same variety of allegories and ingenious devices had been prepared. An angel presented the keys to Her Majesty ; she rode in a chariot drawn by eight horses decorated with velvet trappings richly em- broidered with gold and silver ; and was attended by sixty youths, as Moors, with chains about their necks, and gorgeously apparelled with jewels and ornaments of gold. The Nine Muses received her at the Butter Tron with very excellent singing of psalms. At the Cross she had another " verie good psalme," and then entered St. Giles's Church, where a sermon was preached before their Majesties. Numerous allegories, goddesses, Christian virtues, and the like, followed. Indeed, from the inventory furnished by a poet of the period, the wide range of classic fancy would seem to have been ransacked for the occasion — " To recrcat hir hie renoun, Of curious things thair wes all sort, The stairs and houses of the toun With Tapestries were spred athort, (^uhair Histories men iiiicht behauld, With Images and Anticks auld. * ♦ ♦ * " It written wes with stories mac. How Venvs, with a thundring thud, Inclos'd Achates and Enae, Within a mekill mistie clud : And how fair Anna, wondrous wraith, Deplors hir sister Dmos daith. * * * * " IxiON that the quheill dois turne In Hell, that ugly hole, so mirk ; ' Marriage of James VI, Battn. Cliih, p. 30, \ I ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES U 115 And Erostratvs quha did buinc / The costly fair Ephesian Kirk : And Hliaoks, quho falls in soun With drawing buckets up and down. Hi * * * " All curious pastimes and consaits, Cud be iniaginat be man, VVes to be sene on Edinbur};h gaits, Fra time that bniuitie began : Ye might half hard on eureie streit, f Trim melodie and music swcit." ' And so the poet wends his patient way through thirty-four stanzas of like quaint description. At the Nether Bow, after a representation of marriage had been enacted before them, there was let down to the Queen, by a silk string, from the top of the Port, a box covered with purple velvet, with Iler Majesty's initials wrought on it in diamonds and precious stones, as a parting gift from the good town. More very good psalms followed, and so the royal pair rode home to the Palace, well pleased, it is to be hoped, with the day's proceedings." A few days after the magistrates entertained the Danish nobles and ambassadors, with their numerous suites, at a splendid banquet, " maid at the townis charges and expensis, in Thomas Aitchisoun's, master of the Cunzie hou.s, lugcing at Todrik's Wynd fute": a well-known building, the massive polished ashlar front of which still presents a prominent object amid the faded grandeur of the Cowgate. The records of the Town Council contain some curious entries regarding this feast. The wine and ale seem to have formed nearly as important an item in the account as they did in Falstaff's tavern bills ! My Lord Provost undertakes to provide " naiprie " on the occasion, and, if needs be, to advance ' ane hunder pund or mair, as thai sail half ado " ; and the treasurer is directed " to agrie with the fydleris at the bankit, and the samen sail be allowit in his compts." '' The Lord High Treasurer's accounts are equally minute, testifying to the truth of James's aphorism on the occasion, that " a King with a new married wife did not come hame every day ! " c.^, " Item, be his Grace precept and special command, twentie-thrie elnis and ane half reid crammosie velvet, to be jowppis and breikis to his Majesties four laquayis. Item, for furncssing of fyftene fedder beddis to the Densis [Danes] within the Palice of Ilalierudhous fra the fourt day of Maij 1590 to the auchtene day of Julij ; takand for ilk bed, in the nicht, tua schilling ! " etc. ; the whole winding up with an item to James Nisbet, jailer of the Tolbooth, for his expenses in keeping sundry witches there, by His Majesty's orders. ' Description of the Queen's Kntry into Eilinl)urgh by John Bvrel, Watson's Coll. of Sioh Poems. - Ill si. of /iinics I lie .S,:\/. \i\\ 3S-42. ■' Acls of Town Council, apiid Marriage of James XT, y. 35. M i ! Ii6 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Few incidents which are very closely connected with Edinburgh occurred during the remainder of the King's life until his accession to the English throne. In 1596, owing to a disagreement between him and the clergy, a tumult was excited, which greatly exasperated him, so that he ordered the Parliament and the Courts of Justice to be removed from thence ; and even listened to the advice of several of his nobles, who recommended him utterly to erase the city from the face of the earth, and erect a column on the site of it, " as an infamous memorial of their detestable rebellion ! " The magis- trates tendered the most humble offers of submission, but King James — who, with all his high notions of prerogative, enjoyed very little of the real power of a king so long as he remained in Scotland — was very willing to make the most of such an occasion as this, and remained for a time inexorable. They were required to surrender themselves prisoners at Perth ; and one of them having failed to appear, the town was denounced, the inhabitants declared rebels, and the city revenues sequestrated to the King's use. The magistrates at length went in a bodv to the Palace of Holyrood, and, kneeling before him, made offer r,' such concessions as the indignant monarch was pleased to accept. One of the conditions bound them to deliver up, for the King's sole use, the houses in their kirkyard, occupied by the town ministers, which was accordingly done ; and on the site of them the Parliament House, which still stands (though remodelled externally), was afterwards built. They also agreed to pay to him the sum of twenty thousand merks ; and so at length all difficulties were happily adjusted between them, and the city restored to its ancient privileges. After the execution of the famous Earl of Gowrie and his brother at Perth, their bodies were brought to Edinburgh and exposed at the Market Cross, hung in chains. From that time James enjoyed some years of tranquillity, living at Holyrood and elsewhere, in such homely state as his revenues would permit ; and when the extravagance of his Queen — who was a devoted patron of the royal goldsmith, George Heriot — or his own narrow means, rendered his household somewhat stinted, he was accustomed to pay a condescending visit to some of the wealthier citizens in the High Street of Edinburgh. An interesting old building, called Lockhart's Court, Niddry's Wynd, which was demolished in constructing the southern approach to the town, was especially famous as the scene of such civic entertainment of royalty. We learn from Moysie's Memoirs of James's residence there in 1591, along with his Queen, shortly after their arrival from Denmark, and their hospitable reception by Nicol Edward, a wealthy citizen who was then Provost of Edinburgh.' His visits, also, to George Heriot were of frequent occurrence ; and, as tradition reports, he made no objection to occasionally discussing a * Moysie's Memoirs, \i, 182, ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 117 flagon of wine in the goldsmith's booth at the west end of St. Giles's Church, which was only about seven feet square.' The death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 produced a lively excitement in the minds of both King and people. The anticipation of this event had gradually prepared, and in some degree reconciled, the latter to the idea of their King going to occupy the throne of " their auld enemies of England " ; but its injurious influence on the capital could not be mistaken. On the 31st of March the news was proclaimed at the city Cross by the Secretary Elphinstone, and Sir David Lindsay, younger, the Lyon King. King James, before his departure, attended public service in St. Giles's Church, where he had often before claimed th.: right of challen[;ing the dicta of the preachers from the royal gallery. An immense crowd assembled on the occasion, and listened with deep interest to a discourse expressly addressed to His Majesty on the important change. The King took ;'. in good part, and on the preacher concluding, he delivered a farew ;u address to the people; many of whom were greatly affected at the ^i aspect of their King's departure, he promised them that he would defend thrir faith unchanged, and revisit his Scottish capital evf ;. ;hree years. .ic committed his children, whom he left behind, to the csre of the Earl of Mar, and others of his most trusty nobles, and took his departure for England on the 5th of April 1603. The accession of James to the English thrr c i)rodured, at the time, no other change on Edinburgh than the removal of the Court and some of the chief nobility to London. The King continued to manifest a lively interest in his ancient capital ; in 1608 he wrote to the magistrates, guarding them in an unwonted manner against countenancing any interfer- ence with the right of the citizens to have one of themselves chosen to fill the office of Provost. In the following year he granted them duties on every tun of wine, for sustaining the dignity of the civic rulers ; he also empowered the Provost to have a swor/^ borne before him on all public occasions, and gave orders that the mr.;:;;-t:,Ates should be provided with gowns, similar to those worn by the aldermen of London. It is very characteristic of King James that, not content with issuing his royal mandate on this important occasion, he forwarded them two ready-made gowns as patterns, lest the honou'-aljle Corporation of the Tailors of Edin- burgh should prove unequal to the di'ty.'^ At length, after an absence of fc>urteen years, the King intimated his gracious intention of 1/onouring the capital of his ancient kingdom with a visit. He accordingly arrived there on the i6th of May 161 7, and was received at the West Port by the magistrates in their official robes, attended by the chief citizens habited in velvet. The town-clerk delivered an address 1 Chambers's Traditions, vol. ii. p. 210. - Council Register, 7th September 1609. i Ii8 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH replete with the most extravagant flowers of rhetoric, wherein he blessed God that their eyes were once more permitted " to feed upon the royal countenance of our true phcvnix, the bright star of our northern firnament. . . . Our sun (the powerful adamant of our wealth), by whose removing from our hemisphere we were darkened ; deep sorrow and fear possessed our hearts ; the very hills and groves, accustomed before to be refreshed with the dew of your Majesty's presence, not putting on their wonted apparel, but with pale looks representing their misery for the departure of their royal King. ... A King in heart as upright as David, wise as Solomon, and godlie as Josias ! " In like eloquent strains the orator proceeded through a long address, after which the King and nobility were entertained at a sumptuous banquet, where the city presented His Majesty with the sum of ten thousand merks, in double golden angels, tendered to him in a gilt basin of silver.* The King had been no less anxious than the citizens " to let the nobles of Ingland knaw that his cuntrie was nothing inferior to thers in anie respect." By his orders the Palace was completely repaired and put in order, and the Chapel " decorit with organis, and uthir tcmporall policie," while a ship laden with wines was sent before him " to lay in the cavys of his Palicis of Ilalyruidhous, and uther partis of his resort." " The royal favourite, Villicrs, Uukc of Ikickingham, and Dr. Laud, Archdeacon of Hunt- ingdon and King's chaplain, were of the party ; and it was on this occasion the latter is reported to have said, with grief of heart, that there was no rr jgion at all among the Scots, that he could see ! But one of the special . jjects of this visit of Laud and his royal master was to amend this very defect. A Parliament was held at Edinburgh, wherein the King availed himselt of the popular feeling excited by his presence to secure the first steps in his favourite project for restoring Episcopal government to the Church ; and so, amid mingled laudations and regrets, he at length bade farewell to his Scottish subjects in September 1617, aiul little occurred to disturb the tranquillity of Edinburgh during the remainder of his reign. The following year is memorable for a more truly illustrious visitor than King James. It was in 161 8 that Ben Jonson payed his famed visit to Scotland, and made doubly sacred to the Muses that bower of Hawthorn- den — " Where Jonson sat in Drummond's classic shade." Sir William Nisbet of the Dean was then Provost of Edinburgh, and under his guidance the great English dramatist was entertained at a public banquet, and presented in all due form with his credentials as a burgess and guild-brother of the city. In the same year the Common Council purchased the elevated ground lying to the south of the city, denominated the High * Maitland, p. 60, . '-^ Hisl. of James the Sc.xt. ji. 395. ..*, '« i- I n tite mi$d- es^travagatti fitejKKefs of rhetoric^ whewrfn he blessed their cycH ^.t/to am-K ^mm;- p^fmiti«d "to fewl upon the loyal >f e«r true i&eml:, t^-; brtfjit sgstr erf" >a«f= w©rthcrn,firnamcnt, ■ sv whcise removing ■ ■ d fear possessed ■ t(j be refreshed ■ I) tlicir wontcrf '■ ; the departure of »!>*■! (the powertui jdU4ai«:nt erf e*itf • '. • 'v hemisphere we svmc tlAik-m'tdi • ' •':.'. :-i;eart^-: ; tb.e r'r-r«,-' hWis mid gtitvm, ««.•■ iVifh iht' ' , .Vla3est3,''9 presffiHC-; ■ikH>«»*'-i:, but w\ib pai*? looks reprcsetttin," ife: • tht'is- royal Kin^. ... A King in Ittisit ".*- Sf>iojnon, and gt>dtic as Josiasl" In \!k. ittsi wcliir temporall policic," while a ship laden nith wine? wM .wti^^i |)*'«>'i« Jtsiri ir; j^y hi the cavj's of hm FaUiils pf TIalyruidhous, and ullu-r jmrts ^ tM-Ant j*s»at' r "I'm;- royal fov»>^t>te, V;lii«}s, I)uk.o of Buckingliaii!, and IH, Land. Archdeacon of iiunt- is'^doji mf «*w" rritft* ; .m«*^ H- ■'*;>^. <»«' *!>.&■■? ^»fj'!»^W> the httei- is reporSii}4 *h Ifc- reiigion at ;d' .. i.«. .,j*i>uM objects fef ih- . ;. , ; .irm:f}d thin ve'y defesrt A I'ArSbm-efti ■ft^'v {M4 ,*t EUmburgb, wherein the Kin;^ availed himseh of the popular feeling excited by his presence to secwt tJw fif^t steps in his favourite "project for restoring Kpiscopa! government to the Church ; and so, amid mingk;d laudations and regrets, he at length bade farewell to his Scottish subjects in September 1617, and little occurred to ilisturb the tranquillity of Edinburgh during the remainder of his rei|;n. The foUovvinjf vftar is mcmoifble for a more' tnilj' illustrious visitor tl^w King jamea It wsi.* in toiS th*t H«n j >rjv >• ;«. >rti hi;= Htitied visit to iH'M?*snd, and made dattWy ■«**. d U> tM H'v, ■.ii-.i iitiwer of Hawthorn - "Where limsoji sai m liv^'Xi-i-^^ »>A\ V iu "iK-jtit Sir Witiiftsft >.*ritict of the Dean wu'^ »^-j! I'm-' «■,* >; luh ibur^(h, and under his guidiitK*- -f* fj-i^At Kngij.sli dr,ih>'J. '. "■". > nt£'rt,'iin( d at a public banquet, an^ pi .'**#; t^'.i ir ftlt liue Skiu'n t^^.h ^ •• ff-fk-nti-iis a.-, a burgess and guild-brother 'A ibr .{?|, In th« t..':j^ via 1 ■ C'tumou Council purchased the elevated giound 1>>*^ fa the soi,;h •■ 1 iJ^, denominated tJie High 1 Maitlaod, p. wj, - h' .. • /«i;.'w'«'. ii 395. --«» ' ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 119 Riggs, on part of which Heriot's Hospital was afterwards built, and the latest extension of the city wall then took place. A portion of this wall still forms the western boundary of the Hospital grounds, terminating at the head of the Vennel in the only remaining tower of the ancient wall. The accession of Charles T. was marked by demands for heavy con- tributions, for the purpose of fitting out ships and erecting forts for securing the coasts of the kingdom. The Common Council of Edinburgh entered so zealously into this measuie that the King addressed to them a special letter of thanks ; and as a further proof of his gratitude, he presented the Provost with a gown, to be worn according to King James's appointment, and a sword to be borne before him on all public occasions. The citizens were kept for several years in anticipation of another royal visit, which was at length accomplished in 1633. The same loyalty was displayed as on similar occasions in the reception of the King. The poet, Drummond of Hawthornden, was appointed to address him, and did so in a speech little less extravagant than that with which the town-clerk had hailed his royal father's arrival. The orator's poetical skill was next called into requisition. The King was received at the West Port by the nymph Edina, and again at the Over l?ow by the Lady Caledonia, each of whom welcomed him in copious verse, attributed to Drummond's pen. The members of the college added their quota ; and Mercury, Apollo, Endymion, the Moon, and a whole host of celestial visitants, made trial of the royal patience in lengthy rhymes ! Fergus 1. received the King at the Tolbooth, and " in a grave speech gave many paternal and wholesome advices to his royal successor " ; and at the Tron, Mount Parnassus was erected, " with a great variety of vegetables, rocks, and other decorations peculiar to mountains," and crowded with all its ancient inhabitints. The whole fantastic exhibition cost the city upwards of £4 1 ,000 Scottish money ! ^ The most interesting feature on the occasion was a series of the chief works of Jamesone, the famous Scottish painter, with which the Nether Bow Port was adorned. This eminent artist, who had been a pupil of Reubens and a fellow-student of Vandyke, continued to reside in Edinburgh till his death in 1644. He was buried in the Grey friars' churchyard, but without a monument, and tradition has failed to preserve any record of the spot. This hearty reception of Charles I. by the citizens of Edinburgh was followed by his coronation on the i8th of June, in the Abbey Church of 1 lolyrood, with the utmost splendour ; but the King was not long gone ere the discontents of the people were manifested by murmuring and complaints. Under the guidance of Laud, Charles had resolved to carry out the favourite project of his father for the complete establishment of Episcopacy ' Maitland, pp. 63-69. tao MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH if in Scotland ; but he lacked the cautious prudence of James, no less than the wise counsellors of Elizabeth. He erected Edinburgh into a separate diocese, taking for that purpose a portion of the ancient metropolitan see of St. Andrews, and appointed the Collegiate Church of St. Giles as its cathedral. The new service-book, which had been expressly prepared for the use of the Scottish Church, was, after considerable delay, produced there on Sun- day, 23d July 1637. The Dean, in his surplice, ascended the reading-desk, and opened the service-book. The church was crowded on this memorable Jenny Geddcs's Stool, occasion. The Lord Chancellor, the Lords of the Privy Council, the Judges and Bishops, and a vast multitude, filled the aisles.^ But no sooner did the Dea commence the unwonted service, than the utmost confusion and uproar prevailed. The Bishop called to him to proceed to the collect of the day, — " De'il colic the wame o' thee ! " exclaimed Jenny Geddes, as the dean was preparing to proceed ; and hurling the cutty stool, on which she sat, at his head, " Out," cried she, " thou false thief, dost thou say mass at my lug ? " 2 Dr. Lindsay, the Bishop of Edinburgh, now attempted t^ quell the tumult ; he ascended the pulpit, and reminded the people of the sanctity of the place ; but this only increased their violence. The Archbishop of St. Andrews and the Lord Chancellor interfered with as little effect ; and when the magistrates at length succeeded, by flattery and threats, in clearing the church of the most violent of the audience, they renewed their attack from the outside, and assaulted the church with sticks and si^ncs, shouting mean- while, Pa/>e, Pa/>e, Antichrist, pull him down ! The Bishop was assaulted by them on his leaving the church, and with great difficulty succeeded in reaching his house in the High Street. The access to the first floor was, according to tiie old fashion still common in that locality, by an outside stair. As he was endeavouring to ascend this, one of the rabble seized his gown and nearly pulled him backward to the street. An old song is believed to have been written in allusion to this affray, of which only one verse, referring to this scene, has been preserved — " Put the gown upon the bishop, That's his miller's-due o' knaveship ; Jenny Geddes was the gossip, Put the gown upon the bishop." ' Maitlaml, p. 71. " D. Laing, apud Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 137. ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 121 The poor Bishop at length reached the top of the stair ; but there, when he flattered himself he was secure of immediate shelter, he found, to his inconceivable vexation, that the outer door was locked ; and he had again to turn round and try, by his eloquence, to mollify the wrath of his unre- lenting assailants. Often did he exclaim, in answer to their reproaches, that " he had not the wyte of it," but all in vain ; he was hustled down again to the street, and was only finally rescued, when in danger of his life, by the Earl of Wemyss, his next-door neighbour, who sent a party of servants to his aid, and had the unfortunate prelate brought to the shelter of the Earl's own mansion.^ In the Greyfriars' Church the service-book met with a similar reception, while most of the other clergy prudently delayed its use, till they should see how it was relished by the people. But so effectually were bishops, church -dignitaries, and all who took a part in this abortive inauguration of the Scottish service-book, pelted by the excited mob, that this memorable day was afterwards distinguished by the name of Stoncy Sunday? "The immortal Jenet Geddis," as she is styled in a pamphlet of the period, survived long after her heroic onslaught on the Dean of Edin- burgh. She kept a cabbage -stall at the Tron Kirk as late as 1661, and, notwithstanding the scepticism of some zealous investigators, the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland still show, in their museum, her formidable weapon, the cutty stool, with which this heroine struck the initial stroke in the great civil war.* The multitudes of all ranks who speedily assembled in Edinburgh determined to unite for mutual protection. They formed a league for the defence of religion, each section being classified according to their rank, and thus arose the famous committees called the four Tables. On the royal edict for the maintenance of the service-book being proclaimed at the Market Cross on the 2 2d February 1638, a solemn protest was read aloud by some of the chief noblemen deputed for that purpose ; and five days afterwards between two and three hundred clergymen and others assembled at the Tailors' Hall (a fine old building, still existing in the Cowgate, of which a view is given on a later page), and took into consideration the Covenant that had been drawn up. This important document was presented to a vast multitude, who as- sembled on the following day in the Greyfriars' Church and churchyard. It was solemnly read aloud, and after being signed by the nobles and others in the church, it was laid on a flat tombstone in the churchyard and eagerly subscribed by men of all ranks. The parchment on which it was engrossed was four feet long, and when there was no longer room on either side for signature, the people subscribed their initials round the margin. The same ' Chambers's Rebellions in Scotland, vol. i. \\ 66. '^ Arnot, p. 109. " Edinhufgh'sjoy, etc., 1661 ; Chambers's J/Z/w;' .^ ;///' I 124 MEMORIALS OF EDr;iJURGH 'I \ its banks. Roscburn House, an interesting old mansion, where Cromwell is said to have passed the night while the army lay encamped in its neighbour- hood, still remains, bearing the date 1562 over its principal entrance. In levelling one of the neighbouring mounds some years since, several stone coffins were found and a large quantity of human bones, evidently of an age remote from that of Cromwell ; but the tradition of the neighbouring hamlet is that they were the remains of some of Cromwell's troopers. Our in- formant, the present intelligent occupant of Roseburn House, mentioned the curious fact that among the remains dug up were the bones of a human leg, with fragments of a wooden coffin or case, of the requisite dimensions, in which it had evidently been buried apart. A donation to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1782 recalls the associations of the same vener- able mansion with historical events of a later date. It is a warrant under the assumed privy seal of Prince Charles Edward, dated at Holyrood the 26th of October 1745, directed to George Auld at Roseburn, near Colt- bridge, requiring him to grind all the broadswords that shall be brought to him : the claymores of the Highland host of Falkirk and Prestonpans. The victory of Dunbar at length placed the southern portion of Scotland completely in the power of Cromwell, at the very moment when he was preparing to abandon the enterprise and embark his troops for England. The magistrates, as well as the ministers and the principal inhabitants, having been involved in the movements of the defeated party, either deserted the town or took refuge in the Castle, on the approach of the victorious General. On the 7th of September 1650 he entered Edinburgh at the head of his army, and took possession of it and of the town of Leith. The capital was now subjected to martial law. The most rigid regulations were enforced, such as, " that upone ony allarum no inhabitant luik out of his hous upone payne of death, or walk on the streets after top- tow, upone payne of imprissonement." ^ Yet the peaceable inhabitants found no great reason to complain of his civic rule ; justice seems to have been impartially administered, though often with much severity, and the most rigid discipline was enforced on the English troops. "Upon the 27th of September," says Nicoll, " by orders of the General Cromwell, thair wes thrie c f his awin sodgeris scurged by the provest Marschellis men, from the Stone Chop to the Neddir Bow, and bak agane, for plundering of houssis within the toun ; and ane uther sodger maid to ryde the Meir at the Crocc of Edinburgh, with ane pynt stop about his neck, his handis bund behind his back, and musketis hung at his feet, the full space of twa hours, for being drunk." ^ The same punishment of riding the mare remained in force, as a terror to evildoers, till the destruction of the old citadel of the town-guard, and all its accompaniments, in the year 1785. ' NicoU's Diary, p. 30. - Ibid. p. 33. See the Wooden Mare in the view, ante, p. 63. ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 125 The General again took up his residence in " the Earl of Murrie's house in the Canntgate," and his soldiers were quartered in the Palace, and billeted about the town, while actively engaged in the siege of the Castle. The guard -house was in Dunbar's Close, a name which it is believed to retain from the quarters it then furnished to the victors of Dunbar. Tradition points out a handsome old house, still remaining at the foot of Sellars' Close, as the occasional lodging of Cromwell. It is a fine antique mansion with two terraced roofs at different elevations, guarded by a neatly coped parapet wall, and forms a prominent feature in the view of ^he Old Town from the north. Its terraced roofs offered the special attraction that they commanded an extensive view of the Forth, where the English fleet then lay. The preachers were invited by Cromwell to leave the Castle and return to their pulpits, but they declined to risk themselves in the hands of the " sectaries " ; and their places were accordingly filled, sometimes by the iiidepcndent preachers, but oftener by the soldiers, who unbuckled their swords in the pulpit, and wielded their spiritual weapons, greatly to the satisfaction of crowded audiences, " many Scots expressing much affection at the doctrine, in their usual way of groans ! " * Cromwell himself is said, by Pinkerton, to have preached in St. Giles's churchyard, while David, the second Lord Cardross, was holding forth at the Tron.^ On the I 3th of November the Palace of Holyrood was accidentally set on fire by some of the English troops who were quartered there, and the whole of the ancient palace destroyed, with the exception of the north-west towers finished by James V. The troops, thus deprived of a lodging, appear to have been quartered in some of the deserted churches. Nicoll mentions, immediately after the notice of this occurrence in his diary, that " the College Kirk, the Gray Freir Kirk, and that kirk callit the Lady Ycsteris Kirk, the Hie Scale, and a great pairt of the College of Edinburgh, wer wasted ; their pulpites, daskis, lofti. , saittes, and all their decormentis, wer all dung doun to the ground by these Inglische sodgeris, and brint to asses." Accommodation was at length found for them in Heriot's Hospital, then standing unfinished, owing to the interruption occasioned by the war ; and it was not without considerable difficulty that General Monk was persuaded, at a later period, to yield it up to its original purpose, on suit- able barracks being provided elsewhere. The siege of the Castle was vigorously prosecuted ; Cromwell mustered the colliers from the neighbouring pits, and set them to work a mine below the fortifications, the opening of which may still be seen in the freestone rock, on the south side, near the new Castle road. The commander of the ' Cromwelliana, apud Carfylc's Letters, etc., vol. i. p. '■^ Pinkerlon's Scottish Gallery, Lord Cardross. J6i. - J J ■ .MW fsm urn »_.j >'»w^ ^ — 126 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH fortress had not been at the first very hearty in his opposition to Cromwell ; and finding matters growing thus desperate, he came to terms with him, and saved the Castle from being blown about his ears by resigning it into the General's hands. One of the earliest proceedings of the new garrison was to clear away the obstructions that had afforded shelter to themselves in their approaches during the siege. " Considering that the Wcy-hous of Edinburgh was ane great impediment to the schottis of the Castell, the .samyn being biggit on the hie calesy ; thairfoir, to remove that impediment. General Cromwell gaif ordouris for demolisching of the Wey-hous ; and upone the last day of December 1650 the Englisches began the work, and tuik doun the stepill of it that day, and so continued till it wes raised." ' We learn, from the same authority, of the reconstruction of this building after the Restoration. " The Wey-hous, quhilk wes demoleist by that traitour Cromwell, at his incuming to Edinburgh, eftir the feght of Dumbar, began now to be re-edified in the end of August 1660, but far inferior to the former condition."- The cumbrous and ungainly building thus erected is shown in Plate XIX, along with the lofty gables of the antique houses which then occupied the site of the Assembly Hall. The new Weigh House remained an encumbrance to the street, at the head of the West Bow, till 1822, when it was hastily pulled down, to widen the approach to the Castle, preparatory to the public entry of George IV. When the authority of the English Parliament was completely established in Edinburgh, the leaders of the army proceeded to arrange matters according to their own views. General Lambert applied to the Town Council " to appropriate to him the East Kirk of Edinburgh, being the special kirk, and best in the town, for his exercise at sermon." The request was granted, and the pulpit of St. Giles's choir was thereafter occupied by " Weill giftit " captains, lieutenants, and troopers, as well as occasional English ministers ; while others of the troopers taught in the Parliament House,* and like convenient places of assembly. The citizens of Edinburgh were alarmed at this time by the settlement of a number of English families in Lcith, and proposals for the fortification of the town, that threatened them with the loss of their highly prized claim of superiority. The question afforded matter for appeal and tedious litiga- tion ; and the rights of Edinburgh were only secured to them at last on condition of their contributing ;^5ooo sterling towards the erection of a citadel at the port. The fortification which was erected in consequence of this arrangement was almost entirely demolished shortly after the Restoration, to the great satisfaction of the jealous citizens of Edinburgh, who seemed to dread no ' Nicoll's Diary, p. 40. - Ihiil. p. 300. ■' Ihid. p. 94. V Ml :at DUNBAR'S CLOSE. HIGH STREET. (■; ACCESSION OF JAMES VI TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES II 127 enemy so much as the rival traders of the neighbouring port. The cemetery belonging to the ancient chapel and hospital of St. Nicolas was included within its site, and some of the old tombstones removed to the burying- ground at the river-side. One small fragment of the citadel still remains on the north side of Couper Street, of which we furnish a view. Many still living can remember it to have stood on the beach, though now a wide space intervenes between it and the new docks ; and the Mariners' Church, as well as a long range of substantial warehouses, have been erected on the recovered land. So acceptable had the sway of the Lord Protector become to the civic rulers of Edinburgh, notwithstanding the heavy taxes with which they were burdened for the maintenance of his army and the general expenses of the Government, that they commissioned a large block of stone, Citadel, Leitli. for the purpose of erecting a colossal statue of His Highness in the Parlia- ment Close. The block had just been landed on the shore of Leith, when the news arrived of Cromwell's death. Monk altered his policy, and the magistrates not only found it convenient to forget their first intention, but, with politic pliability, some years after they erected the fine equestrian statue of Charles H which still adorns that locality. The rejected block lay neglected on the sands at Leith, though all along known by the title of Oliver Cromwell, till in November 1788 Mr. Walter Ross, the well-known antiquary, had it removed, with no little difficulty, to the rising ground now occupied by Ann Street, nearly opposite St. Bernard's Well. The block was about eight feet high, intended apparently for the upper half of the figure. The workmen of the quarry had prepared it for the chisel of the statuary by giving it, with the hammer, the shape of a monstrous 128 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH mummy, and there stood the Protector, like a giant in his shroud, frowning upon the city ; until, after the death of Mr. Ross, his curious collection of antiquities was scattered, and his estate disposed of in building lots. ^ When the ground had been laid out into its present arrangement of streets and crescents, the embryo mummy of the Protector was replaced at the end of Ann Street, overhanging the Water of Leith ; but, either designedly or by accident, it was shortly afterwards precipitated down the steep bank and broken in pieces. General Monk, commander-in-chief of the army in Scotland, having resolved on the course which led to the restoration of Charles II, proceeded to arrange matters previous to his march for London. He summoned commissioners of the counties and boroughs to assemble at Edinburgh on the 15th of November 1659; and after having communicated his in- structions to them, he received a special address of tl viks from the magis- trates for his services rendered to the city during his residence in Scotland. On the I ith of May, in the following year, the magistrates sent the town- clerk to Charles at Breda, to express their joy at the prospect of his restora- tion. Their messenger paved the way to the royal favour by the humble presentation of "a poor myte of ;^iooo, which the King did graciously accept, as though it had been a greater business ! " The " happy restoration " was celebrated in Edinburgh with bonfires, banquets, ringing of bells, firing of cannon, and sundry special accompani- ments ; though some difficulty was experienced in reconciling the soldiers to the unwonted task of firing the Castle guns on such an occasion of national rejoicing.^ Tuesday the 19th of June 1660 was the day of universal thanksgiving. First came the sermons, devoutly inculcating the right divine of kings. After sermon, tables were set forth at the Cross, loaded with sweetmeats of every kind. The spouts of the Cross, as Nicoll records, ran all the time with abundance of claret ; and three hundred dozen glasses were broken, and scattered through the streets by the en- thusiastic loyalists. Bacchus also, being set upon a puncheon of wine on the front of the Cross, was not idle. Finally, " in the end of this solemnity the effigy of that notable tyrant and traitor, Oliver, being set up on a pole, and the Devil upon another, upon the Castle Hill, it was so ordered by means of fireworks, that the Devil did chase that traitor, and pursued him still, till he blew him into the air " ; so that it was fortunate the block of stone so recently landed at Leith had not assumed its purposed form of a colossal statue of His Highness in the Parliament Close. • CalcJonian Mercury, loth November 1788. "^ Nic.oH's Diary, p. 283 I • f THE WEST BOW 129 A- VOL. I OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS VI. THE WEST BOW O CIVIC haunt of the Olden Time, Cumbered with memories quaint and rare, Come, tell a tale of thy early prime ; Of blood-feud, passion, and burghers' scare ; Or picture for us in dainty rhyme A royal pageant and princess fair. '; Thou'rt done with time thyself; so wale From olden stores that alone are thine, Be it deed of strife, or tristful tale ; Civic revel with song and wine ; Or where legend and myth by turns prevail As drowsy fancy may chance incline. For varying years through sun and rain. Through changing race, and rule, and creed. Have sped their fitful course amain. Nor spared the imprint of Time's tread ; The living tide of dying men That up your steep rude ..auseway sped. And all the while, old King's ] i^iway, Your gate has rv/unj^ 01 ^.i -nit hLrtre, For sovereigns tended with .:ray That haloed them 'ikf gilded fri'it,e ; While stalwart burghers stoud at bay To watch the co l^'.3r fawn and cnr.gj j Or mitred cardinals Hiat roci.>, Proud legates of the Church's head, Where Covenant leaguers since have strode With new crusading banners spread ; Till every paving of your road Re-echoed some historic tread. Ghosts of old centuries wander by O'er the ghostly highway is not now. Who rides like cresl of the wave flunt high To wanton in the noontide glow ? The Flodden King with his bride comes iiit-ii, Threading the bends of the vanished L.ow ; •JO MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH i \ "r. I 11 • I' ) Blending " The Thrissle and the Rois," The Tudor flower that England rears, Thrcined o'er the lily ; from all foes '''enc'd by the thistle's bush of spears. Alack for love and beauty, as she goes Veil'd in their guise into the darker years. Up your throng'd highway Banquo's line Once more in mystic vision come ; And one, young, widowed, Queen benign, Enchanting as June's early bloom, Rides on unwitting of the fatal sign : Bright meteor flashing into gloom. O princes ! who would seek a throne To be the sport of Fortune's spite ; And sit above the crowd, alone, A flattered, friendless, weary wight ; To learn, too late, how little can atone For all its thorns, that crown so bright. O quaint old street in antique guise, Gabled, and carved on oaken beam, Devoutly graven with maxims wise. And blazon'd with heraldic gleam ; Like some rare bird of paradise Flaunting its glories through our dream ; Boastful with memories of kings. Of civic pomp and revelry ; Regardless of the stain that clings From martyrs of youi gallows tree, Marshal your motley roll that brings Ruthven, or Cromwell, or Dundee ; Or — dire nightmare — the Wizard's ghost, With headless steeds and flaming car ; Or Porteous and the vengeful host Surging along your thoroughfare, A weltering mob in direful boast A righteous deed of wrong to dare. Even so the generations wane Faring along life's chequered ways ; As golden sunsets melt in rain, And dawn's gay hues disperse in haze, Like that weird, fateful, motley train. The pageant of your olden days. •f 'i >l CHAPTER VII HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION '^T^HE restoration of Cliarlcs to his 1. father's throne was nowhere more joyously regarded than in the ancient capital of the Stuarts. A Parliament was shortly afterwards asscn:ibled, at which the Earl of Middleton j-resided as Commissioner from the King, and the ancient riding of Parliament from the Palace of Holyrood to the Tol- booth was revived with more than usual pomp and display. Some of the acts of this Parliament were of a sufficiently arbitrary and nuoi t-ant character, but it more concerns our present subject that the Charter of Confirmation granted to Edinburgh was ratified, and the city's power of regality over the Canongatc confirmed. One of the first proceedings of this Parliament was to revoke the attainder of the Marquis of Montrose, and order his dismembered body to 132 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH I be honourably buried. On Monday, 7 tli January 1661, according to Nicoll, the Magistrates and Council of Edinburgh caused the timber and slates nearest to that part of the Tolbooth where the Marquis's head was pricked and fixed to be taken down, and made a large scaiifold there, whereon were trumpeters and others standing uncovered, and waiting till his corpse was brought in from the Borough Muir. Meanwhile, a procession, composed of the chief nobility and magistrates, attended by the burgesses in arms, proceeded to the Borough Muir, where the Marquis's remains were taken up from his ignominious grave, put into a coffin, and borne back to Edinburgh, under a rich canopy of velvet, amid music and firing of guns, and every demonstration of triumph. The procession stopp' d at the Tolbooth until the hea i •, ?." taken down and placed beside the body, after which the coffin was dep Sited in the Abbey Church of Holyrood.^ Other r' tions of the body wzri: afterwards collected and restored to the coffin, ar.a on the iith of May lollowing, the mutilated remains of the great Marquis were brought back '"roir: fhe Abbey in solemn funeral procession, and deposited in a vault in the southeast side of St. Giles's Church, "at the back of the tomb where ivis grand ■^j': was buried." Nico ) fiirnishes a minute account of the [iroceedings on this occasion. The whole line of street from the Palace to Si. Giles's Church was guarded by the burghers of Edinburgh, Canongatc, Portsburgli, and Potterrow, all in armour, and with thei/ banners displayed. Twenty-six young boys, clad in deep mourning, bore his arms, and were followed by the magistrates and all the members of Parliament, in mourning habits. The pall was borne by some of the chief nobility, and the Karl of Middleton, His Majesty's Commissioner, followed as chief mourner." The re-establishment of Episcopacy, in defiance of the solemn engage- ments of the King, put a speedy close to the lejoicings of the Scottish nation. The magistrates jf Edinburgh, however, proved sufficiently loyal and complying. On the day of His Majesty's coronation the Cross was adorned with flowers .ind branches of trees, and wine was freely distributed from thence by Bar :iius and his train. After dinner the magistrates walked in procession to the Cross, "and there drank the King's health on their knees, and at sundry other prime parts o'i the city." ^ One of the first proceedings of the dominant party was the tria' and execution of the Marquis of Argyle, who was condf-nined, in defianc-,. of every principle of justice, by judges not less deeply in. plicated than himself in the acts for which he was brought to trial. Argyle exhibited the utmost serenity and cheerfulness after his condemnation. He was beheaded by the famous Scottish guillotine called the Maiden, and his head was exposed on the west end of the Tolbooth, on the same spike from which that of Montrose ' NicoW's Diaiy, \\ 317. - //'/ ! f, W 5 t?i w w U IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) z ^ 1.0 I.I l^m |2.5 ^ -.n mil 2.0 ■^i; 1.8 IL25 i_U 11.6 / f Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WIST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)872-4503 H * < f HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION ^37 ' ( ti ■' \ The harmony of the Court of Holyrood was, however, occasionally interrupted by unwelcome popular demonstrations. A custom had long prevailed in Edinburgh of annually burning the Pope in effigy on Christmas Day ; but the magistrates, justly conceiving that such a procedure was little calculated to afford satisfaction to the Duke, determined to prevent its recurrence during his stay in Edinburgh. The populace, however, were not then impressed with such respect for civic enactments as the modern system of police has produced ; and a marvellous change had come over the tone of popular sympathies since the loyal demonstrations of 1 660, when the Devil chased the usurper Cromwell about the Castle Hill, and blew him into the air. The students of the University took up the matter, and were joined in their plans by the boys of the High School. A solemn oath was sworn among them to have His Holiness burnt in defiance both of Duke and magis- trates. The military were called out, but, as Fountainhall narrates, " all this did not divert the designe, but, by a witty stratagem, the boyes carried a portrait to the Castlehil (as if this blind had been the true one, and they had intended to carry it in procession doune the streets and performe ther ceremony and pageantrie in the Abbey Court over against the Duke of Albanies windows), which made all the forces draw up at the West Bow head, and in the Grasse Mercat, leist the boyes should escape by coming doune the South Back of the Castle. Thus having stopped all avenues, as they thought, thir boyes escaped by running doune vennells leading to the North Loch side, and other boyes carried the true effigies from the Grammar SchooU yeard to the head of Blackfreirs Wind, and that on the Hy-Street, first clodded the picture with dirt, and then set fyre to the pouder within the trunk of his body, and so departed." The wrath of the authorities was excited to the utmost. The streets were cleared by the military, and some of the most active ringleaders taken captive ; but the populace rose in defence of the students, and finished the day's work by burning the Provost's house at Priestfield to the ground. The students, as the most zealous movers in this tumult, were first visited with the wrath of offended authority. The College gates were ordered to be closed, and the collegians to remove to the distance of fifteen miles from the* city; but when the excitement abated they were again restored to their wonted privileges. The year 1682 is rendered notable in civic annals by the bursting of the famous old cannon, Mons Meg, in firing a salute in honour of the Duke of York, shortly before his return to England : an event not unnaturally regarded as of ill omen. The Duke took his departure in great state, leaving the citizens of Edinburgh to resume their quiet decorum, unseduced by the example of the Court. The elder gentry of the last age continued to cherish a pleasant remembrance of his visit, and to tell with delight of the gaiety and brilliancy of the Court at Holyrood House. The intelligence •38 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Ih of the death of his royal brother, Charles II, reached Edinburgh on the 6th of February 1685. The chancellor and other officers of state, with the Privy Council, the Lords of Session, the Magistrates, and many of the chief nobility, proceeded to the Cross, accompanied by the Lyon King-at-arms and his heralds, and proclaimed James Du!:e of York King, by his Scottish title of James VII. In April, on the assembling of Parliament, an act was passed for the confirmation of the Protestant religion, and fresh tests were enacted for its protection ; but the action of the King speedily showed how little he was disposed to respect such laws. The populace anew took advantage of the excitement. A rabble of apprentices and others watched the return of some of the chief officers of state from public attendance at mass. The chancellor's lady and other persons of distinction were insulted, and the utmost indignation aroused in the minds of those dignitaries against the populace. A baker who had been active in the riot was apprehended and tried before the Privy Council. He was condemned to be publicly whipped through the Canongate ; but the populace rescued him from punishment, chastised the executioner, and kept the town in a state of uproar and commotion throughout the night. The military were at length called out, and fired on the rioters, by which three of them lost their lives. Two others were apprehended, and afterwards convicted, seemingly on very insufficient evidence, one of whom was hanged and the other shot. In July 1687 the King wrote to the Privy Council "that the Abbey Church was the chapel belonging to his Palace of Holyrood House, and that the Knights of the noble order of the Thistle, which he had now erected, could not meet in St Andrew's Church,* being demolished in the rebellion, as they called our Reformation, and so it was necessary for them to have this church ; and the Provost of Edinburgh was ordained to see the keys of it given to them.'"^ Some opposition was made to this by the Bishop of Edinburgh, but it was conceded ; and the inhabitants of the Canongate, whose parish church it had been, were ordered to seek accommodation in Lady Yester's Church till better could be provided. The Canongate Church was shortly afterwards built from funds that had been left by Thomas Moodie, a citizen of Edinburgh, for the purpose of providing an additional place of worship. The Abbey Church of Holyrood was now magnificently fitted up with richly carved stalls for the Knights of the Thistle. " An altar, vestments, images, priests, and their apurtents," arrived at Leith, by the King's yacht, from London, for the purpose of completing the restoration of the Abbey to its ancient uses. A college of priests was established in Holyrood, and daily service performed in the chapel. Fresh riots were the consequence of this last procedure, and two of those who had been most ' I.e. the Cathedral of St. Andrews, " Fountainhnll, vol. i. p. 466, HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION 139 zealous in testifying their abhorrence of such religious innovations were executed, while others were publicly whipped through the streets. The fall of the ancient house of the Stuarts was now rapidly approaching. The feeble representative of that long line of kings was already anticipating an invasion from Holland. In the month of September 1688 orders were issued for raising the militia, and these were speedily followed by others for erecting beacons along the coast. But James, who, by his rashness, had forced on the crisis, was the first to desert his own cause, and the Scottish Parliament, with more consistency than that of England, declared that he had forfeited the throne. The news of the arrival of the Prince of Orange filled the Presbyterian party in Scotland with the utmost joy. The Earl of Perth, who was chancellor, hastily quitted Edinburgh, and the mob made it the signal for an attack on Holyrood Chapel. A body of a hundred men defended it with firearms, which they freely used against their assailants, killing twelve of them and wounding many more. But this only increased the fury of the mob ; the armed defenders were at length overpowered, and the chapel delivered up to their will. The magnificent carved stalls, which had just been completed, and all the costly fittings of the chapel, were reduced to an unsightly heap of ruins. Other act? of violence were perpetrated by the rioters ; and the students again testified their zeal by marching in triumphal procession to the Cross, with bands of music, and the College mace borne before them, and there again burning the effigy of the Pope. On the assembly of the Parliament, the Bishop of Edinburgh prayed for the welfare and restoration of King James, and the adherents of Episcopacy generally maintained their fidelity to the exiled Prince, thereby effectually contributing to the restoration of Presbytery as the national religion, and the expulsion of the recently created bishops from their sees. On the 1 1 th of April 1688 William and Mary were proclaimed at the Cross as King and Queen of Scotland. The Castle was still held by the Duke of Gordon for King James. Viscount Dundee, after a conference with its commander, in which he endeavoured to induce the Duke to accompany him to the Highlands, engaged him to hold out that fortification, while he went north to raise the friends of the exiled King. This incident furnished to Sir Walter Scott the hint for his fine cavalier song of The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee. According to the song, after bearding the Lords of Convention in the Parliament Close, Dundee rides up the High Street, down the West Bow, and so through the Grassmarket to the West Port. But his actual route was by the Nether Bow Port, which placed him at once beyond the city walls. Thence he rode down Leith Wynd, and by the Lang Gait, a narrow road on the line of Princes Street, and so to the north. Scott's ballad has the fine ring of a genuine Jacobite song — . 140 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH " Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat ; But the provost, douce man, said 'just e'en let him be, The gude town is weel quit o' that deil o' Dundee.' " The citizens were filled with the utmost alarm. The drums beat to arms, and a body of troops, which the Duke of Hamilton had quartered in the city, was called out to pursue Dundee ; but no serious consequences resulted. The Duke of Gordon, being almost destitute of provisions, at length yielded up the Castle on the 13th of June 1689: the last considerable place of strength that had remained in the interest of the exiled monarch. In 1695 the grand national project of the Darien expedition was set on foot, and a company formed for establishing a settlement on the isthmus of The Darien House. Darien, and fitting out ships to trade with Africa and the Indies, The highest anticipations were excited by this project. The sum of ;£^400,ooo sterling was speedily subscribed, and a numerous body embarked for the new settlement. When intelligence reached Edinburgh that the company had effected a landing at Darien, and successfully repelled the attacks of the Spaniards, thanksgivings were offered up in all the churches, and a general illumination made throughout the city. The mob further testified their joy by securing the city ports ; and then, setting fire to the old Tolbooth door, they liberated the prisoners incarcerated for printing seditious publications. The indignation of the populace was no less vehement on the failure of this national project than their joy at its first success. The prison was again forcibly opened, the windows of all obnoxious citizens were broken ; and such violence was shown that the Commissioner and officers of state HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION 141 were compelled to leave the city for some days, to escape the vengeance of the infuriated multitude. The old Darien House still stands within the extended line of the city wall, near the Bristo Port, a melancholy and desolate-looking memorial of that unfortunate enterprise. It is a substantial and somewhat handsome structure, in the French style, with the high pitched roof which prevailed in the reign of William III. In its later days it was abandoned to the purposes of a pauper lunatic asylum, and is popularly known by the name of Bedlam. A melancholy association attaches to a more modern portion of it, towards the south — shown on the right hand in the accompanying woodcut^as having been the scene where the poet Fergusson, that unhappy child of genius, so wretchedly terminated his brief career. The building bears, on an ornamented tablet above the main entrance, the date 1698, surmounted by a sun-dial. The only relic of its original grandeur that has survived its adaptation to later purposes is a handsome and very sub- stantial stone balustrade, which guards the great stair leading to the first floor. A remarkable course of events followed on the failure of the Darien scheme, illustrative of the curious relations still subsisting between two dis- tinct kingdoms bound together as yet by the mere tie of a common sovereign. They were attended with riots of the same desperate character as those commonly perpetrated by the populace of Edinburgh when under the influence of unusual excitement. In 1702 a vessel belonging to the East India Com- pany, which entered the Firth of Forth, was seized by the Scottish Govern- ment, by way of reprisal for the unjust detention in the Thames of one belonging to the Scottish African Company. In the course of a full and legal trial the captain and crew were convicted, in a very singular manner, of piracy and murder committed on the mate and crew of a Scottish vessel in the East Indies. The evidence, however, appeared to some influential parties insufficient to justify their condemnation, and the utmost excitement was created by attempts to procure a pardon for them. The report having been circulated that a reprieve had been granted, the mob assaulted the lord chancellor while passing the Tron Church in his carriage on his return from the Privy Council. The windows were immediately smashed ; the chancellor was dragged out and thrown upon the street, and with great difficulty rescued from the infuriated multitude by an armed body of his friends. The tumult was only appeased at last by the public execution of the seamen. In the Parliament which assembled in June 1705 the first steps were taken in Scotland with a view to the Union between the two kingdoms. The period was peculiarly unfavourable for the accomplishment of a project against which so many prejudices were arrayed. The popular mind was already embittered by antipathies and jealousies excited by the recent failure I.! 142 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH of the favourite scheme of colonisation ; and the plan for a Union was almost universally regarded as an attempt to sacrifice their independence, and establish English supremacy. No sooner, therefore, were the articles made public, in the month of October 1 706, than a universal uproar ensued. The outer Parliament House and the adjoining close were crowded with an excited multitude, who testified their displeasure at the Duke of Qucensberry, the Commissioner, and all who favoured the Union. On the 73d of the month the populace proceeded to more violent acts of hostility, till they had the city completely at their mercy, and were only prevented blocking up the ports by the Duke ordering out the military to take possession of the Nether Bow Port and other important points in the city. The Commissioner and all who abetted him were kept in terror of their lives. Three regiments of foot were en constant duty ; guards were stationed in the Parliament Close and the Weigh-house, as well as at the Nether Bow ; a strong battalion protected the Abbey ; a troop of horse-guards regularly attended the Commissioner ; and none but members were allowed to enter the Parliament Close towards evening on such days as the House was sitting. His Grace the Commissioner walked from the Parliament House between a double file of musketeers to his coach, which waited at the Cross ; and he was driven from thence at full gallop to his residence at the Palace, hooted, cursed, and pelted by the rabble. The mob were fully as zealous in the demonstration of their goodwill as of their displeasure. The Duke of Hamilton, whose apartments were also in the Palace, was an especial object of favour, and was nightly escorted down the Canongate by several hundreds of them, cheering him and com- mending his fidelity. On one of these occasions, after seeing the Duke home, the excited rabble proceeded to the house of the city member, Sir Patrick Johnston, formerly in great favour when Provost, and he narrowly escaped falling a victim to their fury.^ Fortunately, however, for Scotland, the popular clamour was unavailing for the prevention of tlio Union of the two kingdoms ; though the corrupt means by which many of the votes in Parliament were secured was sufficient to justify any amount of distrust and opposition. A curious ornamental summer-house, still standing in the pleasure-grounds attached to Moray House, in the Canongate, is the place where the Commissioners met to affix their signatures to the Treaty of Union. But the mob, faithful to the last in their resolution to avert what was then regarded as the surrender of national independence, pursued them to this retired rendezvous ; and that important national act is believed to have been finally signed and sealed in a " laigh shop," or cellar, No. 177 High Street, nearly opposite to the Tron Church.^ This interesting locality, , ' Lockhart's ^ifew. 1799, pp. 222-229; Smollett's /Tu/. p. 469; Arnot, p. 189. ■' * Ta/es of a Grandfather, vol. vi. p.. 372. .. \ • . HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION m .. \ \ • which still remains, had formed one of the chief haunts of the unionists during the progress of that measure, and continued to be known, almost to our own day, by the name of the Union Cellar. On the i6th of January 1 707 the Scottish Parliament assembled for the last time in its old hall in the Parliament Close, and having finally adjusted the articles of Union, it was dissolved by the Duke of Queensberry, the King's Commissioner. The general discontent which resulted from this measure, and the irrita- tion produced by the presence of English tax-gatherers, were influential in directing anew the thoughts of the people to the exiled family of the Stuarts. Edinburgh, however, took no share in the rising of 171 5. The magistrates exerted themselves to put the city in an effective state of defence. The walls and gates were repaired and fortified. The sluice at the east end of the North Loch was dammed up, and trenches made at various accessible points. The city guard was augmented, the trained bands were armed, and four hundred men ordered to be raised and maintained at the city's expense. These measures saved the capital from any share in this rash enterprise, beyond an ineffectual attempt upon the Castle. A party of the insurgents marched towards Edinburgh, but finding it vain lO attempt an assault, they repaired to Leith, and fortified the citadel. Thi;> they were speedily com- pelled to evacuate, on the approach of the Duke of Argyle's forces ; and after a feeble struggle, this ill-concerted rising was suppressed. The year 1736 is rendered memorable in the annals of the city by the most celebrated of all its popular revolts — the famous Porteous mob. The accounts already furnished of some of the serious tumults that have from time to time occurred in the Scottish capital suffice to show the daring character of the populace, and their hearty co-operation in such deeds of violence. Yet the cool and determined manner in which that act of popular vengeance was effected has probably never been surpassed. The memorials of Edinburgh would be incomplete without some ::otice of it ; but its incidents have been rendered so familiar by the stri !•?■ narrative of Scott (in its most important features strictly true), that a \ :ry brief sketch will suffice. Captain John Porteous, the commander of the city guard, having occasion to quell some disturbances at the execution of one Andrew Wilson, a smuggler, rashly ordered his soldiers to fire among the crowd, by which six were killed and eleven wounded, including females, some of them spec- tators from the neighbouring windows. Porteous was tried and condemned for murder, but reprieved by Queen Caroline, who was then acting as Regent, in the absence of her husband, George II, at Hanover. The people, who had regarded Wilson in the light of a victim to the oppressive excise laws and other fruits of the hated Union, were exasperated at the pardon of one who had murdered so many of their fellow-citizens, and determined that he should not escape. Many people, it is said, assembled 144 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH 'if: from the country to join in the enterprise. The leaders were disguised in various ways, some of them in female attire ; but Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, who had been familiar in his early days with those who spoke of the deed as one of comparatively recent occurrence, rejected with scorn the idea that it was the work of an ordinary Edinburgh mob. He thus recalled for me his early reminiscences : " From many old persons I have heard that people of high rank were concerned in the affair. My great-grand- father. Lord Alva, told my grandfather that many of the mob were persons of rank, some of them disguised as women : Lord Haddington for one, in his cook-maid's dress. I have been told that my great-grand- father, Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, had a hand in it, as other people of quality unquestionably had. I have often since suspected, from words let fall by my grandfather, and still more from hints of my aunt. Lady Murray of Clermont, that my grandfather knew more about the whole affair than he cared to tell. The upper ranks of society then had a strong power over the lower, wholly unknown now. On this head I could mention many things scarcely to be believed." Mr. Sharpe also maintained the truth of the familiar tradition that a guinea was left in the booth of the West Bow from whence the rioters procured the halter ; and ridiculed the idea that an ordinary Edinburgh mob, even if beset with the whim of maintaining a character for honesty, could have found among the entire rabble a guinea to spare. " More like a pund Scots, or twal pennies sterling ! " A curious allusion made by the celebrated Home Tooke, when defending himself, before Lord Mansfield, on his trial for libel in 1777, furnishes independent confirmation of Mr. Sharpe's opinion. Lord Mansfield's services had been engaged on behalf of the city and its magistrates, when they were threatened with ignominious pains and penalties at the instigation of the indignant Queen Caroline ; and he must therefore have learned much that would be confidentially communicated to the counsel for the defence. Knowing this. Home Tooke says : " I shall not trouble you to repeat the particulars of the affair of Captain Porteous at Edinburgh. These gentlemen are so little pleased with military execution upon themselves, that Porteous was charged by them with murder ; he was prosecuted, convicted, and when he was reprieved after sentence, the people of the town executed that man them- selves, so little did they approve of military execution. Now, gentlemen, there are at this moment people of reputation, living in credit, making fortunes under the Crown, who were concerned in that very fact, who were concerned in the execution of Porteous." The mob, thus reinforced, surprised the town-guard, armed themselves with their weapons, and then forcing the door of the Tolbooth by setting it on fire, they dragged from thence the object of their vengeance, and led him to the scene of his crime, the ordinary place of execution in the Grass- uiRcmnnmumewow I: : > I > / • « ! y I < o to M w H CO <: o p4 CO I— 1 o Eh I O o w o < PH CO o R H r (' r/f HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION '45 k ■' i: market. It was intended at first to have erected the gallows and executed him there with greater formality ; but the ringleaders found this project attended with too serious a loss of time, and he was hastily suspended from a dyer's pole, over the entrance to Hunter's Close, in the south-east corner of the Grassmarket As soon as their purpose was effected, the rioters threw away their weapons and quietly dispersed. Notwithstanding the most searching investigations instituted, and the imprisonment of various persons on suspicion of being concerned in this violent deed, no one was convicted for it ; nor was any discovery ever made concerning its perpetrators. The order, determined resolution, and single- ness of purpose with which it was effected, as well as the secrecy so success- fully maintained, led even at the time to the supposition that its leaders must have been of a higher rank than those usually concerned in popular tumults. But if the story of an aged citizen who survived to our own day is to be credited, the leader of the Porteous mob was a mere baker's appren- tice, named Alexander Bichmond, the son of a respectable nurseryman at Foulbriggs, near the West Port, a wild and daring lad, who took a prominent share in all the riotings of the period. On the night of Porteous's execution, according to the narrator, he was sent early to bed, and deprived of his clothes by his father, who dreaded that he would involve himself in the threatened revolt. But the lad got hold of his sister's garments, and in that guise joined the mob and took a leading part in breaking into the Tolbooth. Proclamations were issued against him at the time as a suspected party, on which he went to sea, and after an absence of many years returned to Leith, where he became master of a merchant vessel. Richmond disclosed his share in the Porteous mob to a few trustworthy friends, among whom was the narrator of this account. He made money in his new mode of life, and his heirs in the female line are still alive.^ Such is one modern story, sustained by no fresh disclosures, and, at best, probably ascribing to a minor actor an undue share in the daring deed. Queen Caroline was highly exasperated on learning of this act of con- tempt for her exercise of the royal prerogative. The Lord Provost was imprisoned, and not admitted to bail for three weeks. A bill was brought into Parliament, and carried through the House of Lords, for incapacitating him from ever holding any magisterial office in Great Britain, and for con- fining him in prison a full year. This bill also enacted the demolition of the Nether Bow Port, and the disbanding of the city-guard. The Scottish members, however, exerted themselves effectually in opposing this unjust measure when it was sent down to the House of Commons. By their means it was shorn of its most objectionable clauses, and the whole com- muted to a fine of ;^2000, imposed on the city for behalf of the captain's ' Illustrations of Geikie's Etchings, p. 8. VOL. I . L / I ■ J «# MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH .y widow. Even when thus modified, the bill was only carried by the casting vote of the chairman, and Porteous's widow, on account of previous favours shown her by the magistrates, accepted ;£^i 500 in full. From this period till the eventful year 1745 nothing remarkable occurs in the history of Edinburgh. On the report of the i.^nding of Prince Charles, the city-guard was increased, and a portion of the royal troops brought to the neighbourhood of the city. The town walls were hastily repaired, and ditches thrown up for additional defence. Upon the approach of the Pr'nce's forces, which had crossed the Forth above Stirling, the King's troops, aiong with the city-guard, were posted at Corstorphine and Coltbridge, and a volunteer force was raised to aid in repelling the rebels. But citizens and soldiers were alike lukewarm in the Hanoverian cause, or terror-stricken at the sight cf the Highland host. The poet, John Home, the author of Douglas, was among the volunteers, and displayed ah exceptional courage and resolution on the occasion. But a hastily-mustered, ill-appointed militia could make no head against the wild clansmen, flushed with recent victory. The whole force iied precipitately on their appearance, and communicated such a panic to the citizens that, when they assembled in St. Giles's Church, and it was debated whether they should stand on their defence or not, only three or four voices answered in the affirmative. But while the citizens were still undetermined as to the terms of capitulation, the Nether Bow Port was unwarily opened to let a coach pass out, on which a party of Highlanders, who had reached the gate undiscovered, rushed in, and took possession of the guard-house. The young Chevalier speedily followed. The Highland army encamped in the royal park, in the neighbourhood of Duddingston ; Charles Edward took up his abode in Holyrood Palace ; and the heralds were required to publish at the Market Cross the commission of regency which the Prince had received from his father. This was accordingly done with all the usual ceremonies attending royal proclamations. Multitudes of the inhabitants now flocked to the neighbouring camp, attracted by the novelty of the sight ; while the Palace was crowded by numbers of the better class of citizens, who hastened to testify their fidelity to the exiled family. They were received by the Prince with the utmost afTfability ; but this did not prevent him issuing an order requiring the inhabitants of the town and county of Edin- burgh to deliver up their arms at the Palace, and the city to furnish a great variety of stores for the use of the army, under pain of military execution in case of failure. The supplies were furnished accordingly, and the city gratified with the Prince's gracious promise of payment so soon as the troubles should be over. The Castle, however, was held by General Guest, a stanch adherent of the Government ; and on the Highlanders appearing in the city he displayed the royal standard and fired some cannon to warn them not to approach the fortress. \ ; " \ ; HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION 147 I c The Highlanders, thus amply supplied, marched to Preston, about nine miles to the eastward of the capital, where they defeated and put to rout the royal forces, under the command of Sir John Cope. The dragoons fled from the field without halting till they reached Linlithgow ; and their baggage, artillery, and military chest fell into the Prince's hands, who returned to the Palace of Holyrood in triumph. Notwithstanding the irregular character of the Highland army, they behaved, in general, with great order and modera- tion ; and such was the simplicity of the poor Highlanders, even in rapine, that some of them are reported to have presented their pieces at passengers, and on being asked what they wanted, they replied " a penny," with which they went away perfectly satisfied.* The Prince intimated, on his return to Edinburgh, that the ministers should have full liberty to continue their usual duties on the following day, which was Sunday ; the only requirement being that, in the prayers for the royal family, no names should be specified. Only one city minister, named Hog, availed himself of this permission, and lectured in the forenoon in the Tron Church. But the Rev. Neil M'Vicar of St. Cuthbert's was of the true old Covenanting type, not to be intimidated by the near neighbourhood of the Jacobite forces. He sent word to the commander of the Castle of his intention to continue the usual services of the day, and proceeded to his pulpit at the appointed hour. The church was crowded with an unusually numerous auditory, among whom he recognised many Jacobites, as well as some Highland soldiers, attracted by the report of his intentions and the knowledge of his intrepid character. He prayed, as usual, for King George by name, and then added, — "and as for this young man who has come among us seeking an earthly crown, we beseech thee that he may obtain what is far better, a heavenly one ! " When this was reported to Prince Charles, he is said to have laughed, and expressed himself highly pleased at the courage and charity of the minister.^ For some days after the battle of Prestonpans the communication be- tween the town and the Castle remained uninterrupted. But the Highlanders who kept guard at the Weigh-house having received orders to prevent all further intercourse with the fortress, the governor retaliated by threatening to cannonade the town. Messengers were immediately despatched by the Lord Provost to the Palace, informing the Prince of the danger to which the city was exposed ; but the governor having waited in vain for an answer, a severe cannonading at last took place, killing and wounding several of the inhabitants, besides damaging many of the houses nearest the Castle, and spreading such consternation that a great portion of the citizens were pre- pared for immediate flight. The consequences that were apprehended from such proceedings were, however, happily averted by a proclamation of the ' Sects A fa^. vol. vii. p. 442. - Hist, of the West Kirk, p 119. I# MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Prince, declaring the infinite regret he felt at the many murders committed on the inhabitants by the commander of the garrison ; and that he had ordered the blockade of the Castle to be taken off, and the threatened punishment of his enemies to be suspended, when he found that thereby innocent lives could be saved. Shortly pfter this the Prince left Edinburgh, on his route to England, at the head of an army of about five thousand men. He was followed, on his return northward, by the Duke of Cumberland, who, on his arrival in Edinburgh, occupied the same apartments in the Palace which had so recently been appropriated to the use of the Prince ; and during his stay there the paintings of the Scottish monarchs, in the great gallery, were slashed and otherwise defaced by the English soldiers. The Caledonian Mercury of 1 7th February 1 746 contains a notice of a grand ball given by the Duke at Holyrood Palace. The ball was led off by the Prince of Hesse and Mrs. Gordon of Ellon, " Queen of the ball." The company included the Earls of Crawford, Hume, and Glencairn, Lords Somerville, Belhaven, and Lord Mark Ker, the Countess of Glencairn, Lady Somerville, the daughters of the Duke of Athol, with those of the Lord Justice-Clerk, and many a fair lady, doubtless, who had greeted Prince Charles with no unfriendly eye. The final overthrow of the Highland army at Culloden was celebrated at Edinburgh by a characteristic triumph, in full accordance with the mag- nanimity of the Duke, who claimed the entire credit of a victory achieved rather by the policy of Duncan Forbes of Culloden. Fourteen of the standards that had been taken from the insurgents were burnt at the Market Cross with every mark of contempt. They were ignominiously carried thither by chimney sweepers, with the exception of the Prince's own standard, which was borne by the common hangman ; and as each was thrown into the fire, the heralds proclaimed the name of the commander to whom it had belonged ! The usual election of magistrates having been prevented by the presence of the Highland army, they were chosen in the following year by virtue of a royal mandate. The new Council testified their loyalty to the Hanoverian dynasty by voting the freedom of the city to the Duke of Cumberland, and presenting to him the charter of citizenship in a massive gold box, embossed with the city arms, and having the Duke's own arms, with a suitable inscrip- tion, engraved within. The overthrow of Prince Charles was followed by fines, imprisonment, confiscation, and a general persecution of " Papists, Jacobites, Episcopals, and disaffected persons." The Lord Provost, Archibald Stewart, who was regarded with peculiar jealousy, on account of the city having fallen into the hands of the Highland army without any attempt at defence, was subjected to a long trial, in which it was shown that the great extent and very dilapidated condition of the walls, as well as the manifest luke- warmness of a large portion of the inhabitants towards the reigning family, \'; HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION 149 rendered the defence of the town for any length of time, against a victorious army, impossible. The trial lasted from the 27th of October till the 2d of November, when the Provost was acquitted by a unanimous verdict of the jury. This was regarded as a triumph by the Jacobite party, and a public meeting was announced for the following evening in the Baxters' Hall ; but the magistrates took alarm at the proposal, and it was summarily interdicted. The house of Provost Stewart was a curious ancient building in the West Bow, with its main entrance at the foot of Donaldson's Close. Built as it was, on the steep slope of the hill, it was only one storey high, in addition to the attics, on the north side, while on the south it presented a lofty front to the Bow. This building stood immediately to the west of Free St. John's Church. It is described by Chambers ^ as being of singular con- struction, and as full of curious little rooms, concealed closets, and secret stairs as any house that ever had the honour of being haunted. The north wall, which still remains built into the range of shops forming the new terrace, stood long exposed to view, affording abundant evidence of this. Little closets and recesses are excavated, almost like a honeycomb, out of the solid rock behind, most of which, however have been built up in adapt- ing it to its new purpose. " In one of the rooms," says Chambers, " there was a little cabinet about three feet high, which any one not acquainted with the mysterious arcana of ancient houses would suppose to be a cupboard. Nevertheless, under this modest, simple, and unassuming disguise was con- cealed a thing of no less importance and interest than a trap stair." ^ This ingeniously-contrived passage communicated behind with the West Bow ; and it was believed to have afforded, on one occasion, a safe and unsuspected exit to Prince Charles and some of his principal officers, who were enjoying the hospitality of the Jacobitical Provost, when an alarm was given that a troop of the enemy from the Castle were coming down the close to seize them. This curious building derives an additional interest from its last occupant, James Donaldson, the wealthy printer, from whose bequest the magnificent hospital that bears his name has been erected on the fine terrace overlooking the Water of Leith, at the west end of the new town. Our historical sketch of the ancient capital of Scotland has mainly embraced the period during which the Stuart race filled the throne, and made it the arena of many of the most prominent incidents in their history ; and with this closing scene in the narrative of their illustrious line it may fitly end. The associations with which the local antiquities of Edinburgh still abound will afford abundant opportunity for treating of events and characters of a later date, as well as for a more detailed consideration of some of those that have already been alluded to in this introductory sketch. * Chambeid's Traditions, vol. i. p. 143. ^ Ibid. p. 144. I50 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH i • I ■ I I ! The appearance which Edinburgh presented at this period, as well as the character and manners of its inhabitants, can be realised with difficulty by those of the present generation. Its general features had undergone little change since the departure of the Court to England in 1603. The extended wall, erected in the memorable year 1 5 1 3, still formed the boundary of the city, with the exception of the enclosure of the High Riggs, as already described, on the south. The ancient gates remained, kept under the care of jealous warders, and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as when the dreaded inroads of the Southron, with fire and sword, summoned the burgher watch to guard their walls. The Nor' Loch still formed the northern fosse of the city ramparts. The West Bow wound, with quaint, picturesque turnings, down the steep slope, with a pier of the ancient Over Bow remaining at its narrowest angle ; and at the foot of the High Street the lofty tower and spire of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, surmounting the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, interposed between the city and the ancient burgh of Canongate. This handsome structure was rebuilt in its latest form in 1 606, nearly in a line with St. Mary's and Leith Wynds, and about fifty yards farther eastward than the older erection, already mentioned. It was by far the most conspicuous and important of the six gates which gave access to the ancient capital ; and was regarded as an object in the maintenance and protection of which the honour of the city was so deeply involved, that, as we have seen, its demolition was one of the penalties by which the Government sought to revenge the slight put upon the royal prerogative by the Porteous mob. In style of architecture it bore considerable resemblance to the ancient Porte St. Honor^ of Paris, as represented in old engravings ; and it was most probably constructed in imitation of some of the old gates of that capital, betwt.'en which and Edinburgh so constant an intercourse was maintained at a somewhat earlier period. When the destruction of this, the main port of the city, was averted by the strenuous patriotic exertions of Scottish peers and members of Parliament, it was regarded as a national triumph ; but unhappily, towards the middle of the last century, a mania seized civic rulers throughout the kingdom for sweeping away all the old rubbishy as the ancient fabrics that adorned the principal towns were contemptuously styled. The Common Council of London set the example by obtaining an Act of Parliament in 1 760 to remove their city gates ; and, only four years afterwards, the Town Council of Edinburgh demolished the Nether Bow, one of the chief ornaments of the city, which, had it been preserved, would have been now regarded as a peculiarly interesting relic of the olden time. The ancient clock, which was removed from the tower, was afterwards placed in that of the old Orphan's Hospital, and continued there till the demolition of the latter building in 1 845. H HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION It is worthy of remark, however, that the destruction of the Nether Bow was not the earliest symptom of such improved taste in our civic dignitaries. Their first step towards " enlarging and beautifying'' the city was the removal of the ancient Cross, an ornamental structure, possessed of the most interesting local and national associations. Repeated references in the foregoing pages serve to indicate the important offices assigned to it on many occasions of national rejoicing, and of venge- ance on doomed victims of the State. From its platform royal accessions and the most solemn denunciations of the law were pro- claimed. Before the introduction of the printing press all Acts of Parliament and other matters of public interest were similarly announced ; and from thence the spectre heralds, with ghostly trumpets and illusive blazonry, gave forth their bootless warning to the Flodden King and his nobles, when the Scottish host was mustering on the Borough Muir for that fatal field. A writer in the Scots Magazine for March 1756 states that on the demolition of this interesting national monument " the beautiful pillar which stood in the middle fell and broke to pieces, by one of the pulleys giving way." But Lord Somerville secured the broken shaft, along with its elaborately sculptured capital ; and clasping the pieces together with iron, replaced it on a rudely constructed rubble base on his estate at Drum. Four of the grotesque heads in basso relievo, which surmounted the arches of the octag- onal substructure, were also rescued by Mr. Walter Ross, and built into his tower at Deanhaugh. On the demolition of the latter in 1 8 1 4 they were secured by Sir Walter Scott, along with the sculptured stone basin which on festive occasions flowed with wine ; and they are now among the antique remains by means of which the great romancer strove to engraft on Abbots- ford some genuine features of an elder age. He had already pronounced the minstrel's malediction on the head of the dull destroyer : " Dun Edin's Cross, a pillar'd stone, Rose on a turret octagon ; But now is razed that monument Whence royal edict rang, And voice of Scotland's law was sent In glorious trumpet clang. The Capital of the City Cross. I ! , ( i 152 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH O ! be his tomb as lead to lead, , • Upon its dull destroyer's head ! — A minstrel's malison is said." ^ But happily the good taste of a better age has redeemed the city from the " minstrel's malison," so righteously pronounced on the vandals who wrought its overthrow. The style of the elaborately sculptured capital proves it to be of a much earlier date than the restoration of 161 7 ; and admits of no doubt that it is the crowning feature of the ancient City Cross from which the phantom heralds summoned King James and his nobles, with their dread warning, on the eve of Flodden's bloody rout. The well- interior of thu Tower in tliu Vennul. directed zeal of a few intelligent appreciators of the value of this historic monument — foremost among whom were the late David Laing and James Drummond, R.S.A. — secured the removal of the pillar to a site within the rail of St. Giles's Cathedral ; and since then it has been reinstated on nearly its old site, with the substructure restored, by the liberality of The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, M.P., a lineal descendant of the old burgess of 163 1, whose mansion of polished ashlar, with its shields carved with his initials, T. G., and his merchant's mark, still stands in the Lawnmarket, a genuine specimen of the civic architecture of the time of James VI. Of the city wall large portions have been demolished from time to time, owing to the extension of the town and the many alterations that have been made on the older portions of it, so that only a few scattered fragments remain. These, however, are sufficient to show the nature of the ancient HISTORICAL INCIDENTS AFTER THE RESTORATION m :o fortifications. No part of the earlier wall, erected under the charter of James II in 1450, is now visible, if we except the fine old ruin of the Well- house Tower, at the base of the Castle rock, which formed a strong protec- tion at that point, where the overhanging cliff might have otherwise enabled an enemy to approach under its shelter. A fragment of this early wall, about fifty feet long, and twenty feet in height, was exposed in 1832, about ten feet south from the Advocates' Library,* when digging for the founda- tions of a new lock-up house in connection with the Parliament House ; and in 1845 another considerable portion was disclosed to the east of this, on the site of the old Parliament Stairs, in making the more recent additions to the same building. Both of these fragments have been closed over by the new buildings, and may again be brought to light in far distant cen- turies, strange to the eyes of some younger generation as the mammoth to the men of our own day. The next addition to the fortifications of the city was the well-known Flodden wall, reared, as already described, by the terrified citizens in i S i ^.^ Of this there still remains the large portion forming the north side of Drummond Street ; an interesting little fragment at the back of the Society at Bristo Port, curiously pierced for windows and other openings ; and lastly, the old tower in the Vennel, the interior of which, with its embrasures and loopholes, is shown in the accompanying woodcut. We have already detailed the circumstances attendant on the erection of the wall in Leith Wynd, by virtue of an Act of Parliament in 1540.'' Maitland describes another addition in 1560, extending from thence to the end of the North Loch, at the foot of Halkerston's Wynd.* The southern wall of the west wing of Trinity Hospital included part of this ancient defence. It stood about six feet south from the present retaining wall of the North British Railway, in the Physic Gardens,* and was a piece of such substantial masonry that its demolition, in 1845, was attended with great labour, requiring the use of wedges to break up the solid mass. In 1591 the citizens were empowered by Parliament to raise money on all lands and rents within Edinburgh, towards strengthening the town, by an addition of height and thickness to its walls, with forcing places, bulwarks, or flankers, etc. ; ^ and finally, the Common Council having, in 1 6 1 8, bought from Tours of Innerleith ten acres of land at the Greyfriars' Port, they immediately ordered it to be enclosed with a wall, a considerable portion of which forms the western boundary of the Heriot's Hospital grounds, while the southern parapet and iron rail mark the line of another portion destroyed within the memory of some of our older citizens. It only remains to be added that * Minor Antiquities, j). 73. ^ Ante, p. 47. ^ Ante, p. 58. •' Maitland, p. 20, where it is defined as at the foot of Libberton's Wynd, but this is obviously an error, " So called from having long been the site of the Botanical Gardens. " Maitland, p. 45. «54 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH the last attempt made to render those walls an effective defence was in the memorable year 1745 ; with how little success has already been narrated. From the evidence brought out in the course of Provost Stewart's trial, they seem to have been, at that period, in a most ruinous condition, and it is improbable that any subsequent efforts were made to arrest their decay. The changes wrought upon the town itself, during the same period, are no less remarkable. Owing to its peculiar situation, crowning the ridge of the hill on the highest point of which the Castle is perched, and sloping off to the low grounds on either side, its limits seemed to our ancestors to be defined almost beyond the possibility of enlargement. The only approach to the main street from the west, previous to the commencement of the North Bridge in 1765, was up the steep and crooked thoroughfare of the West Bow, by which kings and nobles so often entered in state ; and from thence it extended, in unbroken continuity, to St. Mary's and Leith Wynds. The remainder of the street, through the Canongate, has fortunately, as yet, escaped the revision of " improvements commissioners," and still presents many antique features, awaking associations of the period when the Scottish nobility resided there, in close vicinity to the Palace. A few years, however, have sufficed to do the work of centuries in the demolition of time-honoured fabrics, and the remodelling of others in a fashion too often little less thoroughly effacing every feature of historic significance. The Parliament Close, with its irregular but picturesque facade, in the old Scottish baronial style, and the ancient Collegiate Church of St. Giles (which on that side at least was ornate and unique), have been remodelled according to the -newest fashion ; and, to ccnplete the change, the good old name of Close, pleasantly associated with the cloistral courts of the cathedrals and abbeys of England, has been replaced by the modern, and, in this case, inappropriate one of Square. In full accordance with this is the more recent substitution of the name of North British Close for that of Halkerston's Wynd which commemorated the old Scottish architect, John Halkerstone, master of the fabric of Trinity College Church. Modern imitations of the antique, such as Cockburn Street, which we owe to the good taste of Henry Lord Cockburn, preserve the picturesque character of the old town ; but no skill of modern architecture can supply an equivalent for the interesting associations that lingered about many an ancient nook pertaining to times when Edinburgh was the arena of so much that is memorable in the national history. i HNIIi ST. ANTHONY'S WELL m \ ■ OLD-EDINBURGH BALLADS VII. ST. ANTHONY'S WELL In fancy, I climbed the height Whence the hoar walls look down, Where St. Antnony's fane, in the pale moonlight. Stands ruggedly gaunt, like a ghostly sprite Brooding over the town ; Where the stream of the sainted well Flows from the rock beneath, Pure as before such ruin fell On the shattered walls of its hermit's cell In days of a simpler faith. Were they happier then than now ? Unquestioning, credulous, gay ; There was ardour and truth in the lover's vow. There were hearts and passions as fondly aglow In that olden time, as to-day. Life then was, what it is still, A jumble of pleasures and sorrow ; The oceanward course of a tiny rill ; A daylight dreaming that works its will 'Twixt a yesterday and a to-morrow ; A rivulet shaping its course In the rifts that by chance befell ; From hopes to regrets, from desire to remorse ; A bubbling, babbling, wayward force. Like the stream of this sainted well : Onward and downward amain. Through life's coursing shadows and light ; With its toil and strife for men. Its love for woman, and then Its quiet rest in the night. And has life no sunshine now ? Day's glow, and then night star-crowned ; And time, with the harvests that ages sow, Gathering aye as the ages grow ; And eternity beyond. IS6 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Beyond I and here life and time, With goals for which ages have striven ; The triumphs of mind, and thoughts that climb. And soar to the conquest of heights sublime : Earth's future first, and then heaven. Content thee, then, though the glow And the stars of a new world's sky No moss-grown shrines of thy childhood know. Nor sainted founts of the past, that flow Where life's later pathways lie. Life's mom has long passed away. Its noon speeds with flashing light ; The sober evening replaces the day ; And the gloaming along life's westering way Fades on towards the shadows of night. There are founts of faith run dry ; Ruined hopes moss-grown in decay ; Buried loves whose memories will not die.; And cherished idols that broken lie, Strewing life's checkered way. Yet fancy will haunt the height Crowned by that ancient fane. Where in life's young dream, with a heart still light, I looked forth on a world so gloriously bright I shall never look on again. |i '■ END OF PART I. li ; / \ I .,.',, y MEMORIALS OF €hinf)uxs\^ in t|)e ^ihtn Zimt PART II / LOCAL ANTIQUITIES AND TRADITIONS EDINBURGH Install'd on hilU, her head neare starrye faowrei, Shines Edinburgh, proud of protecting powers : Justice defends her heart ; Religion east With temples ; Mars with towres doth guard the west ; Fresh Nymphes and Ceres serving, waite upon her ; And Thetis, tributarie, doth her honour. The sea doth Venice shake ; Rome Tiber beates : Whilst She hot scomes her vassall watteres' threats. For scepter no where standes a towne more fitt, Nor place where towne, world's Queene, may fairer sitt. Bot this Thy praise is, above all most brave. Mo man did e'er diffame Thee bot a slave. Drummond o/ HatvlhorniieH, From the Latin of Dr. Arthur Johnstone. f I THE TOWN The ihady lane, the hedgerow, and the wood, And ripening fields have won the poet'i heart. Until the love of Nature Is a part Of his soul's being ; yet own I the mood That seeks out nature in the crowded mart, Nor thinks the poet's teaching unwithstood, Because, within the thicker solitude Of peopled cities, fancy plays its part. " Man made the town," and therefore fellow-man May gamer there, within its dusky lanes Of pent-up life, an airy empyrean, Dwelling apart, In sympathy, where wanes The light of present being, while the vast " Has been " awakes again,— the being of the past. ST. GILES'S Hoar relic of the past, whose ancient spire Climbs heavenward amid the crowded mart. Keeping as 'twere within the city's heart. One shrine where reverent thoughts may yet retire ; And dreaming fancies, from the world apart. Wander among old tales of which thou art Sole relic. Is it vain that we inquire Somewhat of scenes where thou hast borne a part ? Mine own St. Giles t Old fashions have gone by, And superstitions,— even of the heart. Thyself hast changed some wrinkles for a smart New suit of modern fashion. To my eye The old one best beseemed thee, yet the more Cling I to what remains, the soul of yore. 11 y CHAPTER I THE CASTLE Edinburgh Castle, from a drawing by T. Sandby, about 1750, 'T^HE historical incidents already narrated X exhibit the Castle of Edinburgh as the nucleus round which the town gradually arose. Notwithstanding the numerous sieges which it has stood, the devastations to which it has been subjected by successive conquerors, and, above all, the total change in its defences consequent on the alterations introduced in modern warfare, it still contains remains of an earlier date than are to be found elsewhere in the ancient capital. The main portion of the fortifications, however, must be referred to a period subsequent to the siege in 1572, when the Castle was surrendered by Sir William Kirkaldy, after it had been reduced nearly to a heap of ruins. In a report furnished to the Board of Ordnance, from documents preserved in that department, it appears that, in 1574 (only two years after the siege), the governor, George Douglas of Parkhead, repaired the walls, and built the half-moon battery on the site, and doubtless in part with the materials, of David's Tower, which was demolished in the course of the 106 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH siege.* Tradition affixes the Protector's name to a small tower, with crow- stepped gables, built to the east of the great draw-well, and forming the highest point of this battery. It is, without doubt, a building erected before Cromwell's time, and to all appearance coeval with the battery ; but its commanding position and extensive view are not unlikely to have attracted his notice. Considerable portions of the western fortifications, the parapet wall and port-holes of the half-moon battery, and the ornamental coping and embrasures of the north and east batteries, as well as the house now occupied by the barrack sergeant, are of a later date. The building last mentioned, situated immediately to the north of the grand parade, bears a close re- semblance in its general style to the Darien House, erected in 1698, and the whole may be referred to nearly the same period, towards the close of William Ill's reign. Very considerable alterations have been made from time to time on the approach to the fortress from the town. The present broad esplanade was formed chiefly with the rubbish removed from the site of the Royal Exchange, the foundation of which was laid in 1753. In the very accurate view of the Castle furnished by Maitland from a drawing by T. Sandby, which represents it previous to this date, there is only a narrow roadway, evidently of artificial construction, raised nearly to the present level, which may probably have been made on the destruction of the Spur, an ancient battery that occupied a considerable part of the Castle Hill, until it was demolished by order of the Estates of Parliament, 2d August 1649.^ The previous level had evidently been no higher than the bottom of the present dry ditch. The curious bird's-eye view of the Castle taken in 1573 (a fac- simile of which is given in the second volume of the Bannatyne Miscellany), and all the earlier maps of Edinburgh, represent the Castle as rising abruptly on the east side ; and in that of 1575 the entrance appears to be by a long flight of steps. It may be due to this, that in the representa- tions of the fortress, as borne in the arms of the burgh, a similar mode of approach is generally shown.' Immediately within the drawbridge there formerly stood an ancient and highly ornamented gateway, near the barrier guard-room. It was • MS. Report, R. M'Kerlie, Ordnance Office, wherein it is further stated that — "In 1575, the Citadel contained eight distinct Towers, fronting the old town and south-west, and twelve buildings were outside the Citadel but within the walls, eight of which were in a castellated form." - Bannatyne Misc. vol. ii. p. 398. •' In the survey of the Castle, taken for Sir William Drury in 1572, the following description occurs: — " On the fore parte estwardc, next the towne, stands like iij"" foote of the haulc, and next unto the same stands Davyes Towre, and from it a courten, with vj cannons, in loopes of stone, lookinge in the streatwardi? ; and bchynd the same standes another tcare of ordinance, lyke xvj foote clym above the other ; and at the northe endc stands the Constal)!es Towre ; and in the bottom of the same, is the way into the Castle, with xl" steppes." The number of the steps is in another hand, the MS. being partially injured. — Bann. Misc. vol. ii. p. 69. THE CASTLE i6i of adorned with pilasters, and very rich mouldings carried over the arch, and surmounted with a curious piece of sculpture, in basso relievo, set in an oblong panel, containing a representation of the famous cannon, Mons Meg, with groups of other ancient artillery and military weapons. This fine old port was only demolished in the beginning of the present century, owing to its being found too narrow to give admission to modern carriages and waggons, when the present plain and inelegant gateway was erected on its site. Part of the curious carving alluded to has since been placed over the entrance to the Ordnance Office, in the Castle, and the remaining portion is preserved in the Antiquarian Museum.^ Immediately to the west of this another ancient ornamented gateway still exists. Along the deeply arched vault which leads to the Argyle Battery may be traced the openings for two portcullises and the hinges of several successive gates that formerly guarded this important passage. In Sandby's view, already referred to, from which the vignette at the head of this chapter is copied, this gateway is shown as finished with an embattled parapet and a flat roof, on which a guard could be stationed for its defence. It was subsequently disfigured by the erection over it of an additional building, of a very unornamental character, intended for the use of the master carpenter. But since the original issue of this work it has been restored, with great taste, at the cost of the late William Nelson of Salisbury Green. The apartment immediately above the archway is a place of peculiar interest, as the ancient state prison of the Castle. Within this gloomy stronghold both the Marquis and the Earl of Argyle were confined previous to trial ; and here also many of lesser note have been held in captivity at different periods, down to the eventful year 1746, when some of the noble adherents of the house of Stuart, along with others of humble birth, were imprisoned in it. Here also the fair Jacobite rebels are said to have been confined, one of whom. Lady Ogilvie, made her escape in the dress of a washerwoman, brought by Miss Balmain, who remained in her stead, and was ultimately allowed to go free. The last state prisoners lodged in this stronghold were Watt and Downie, accused of high treason in 1794, the former of whom was condemned and executed. The only other objects of interest in the outer fortress are the governor's house, a building probably erected in the reign of Queen Anne ; and the armoury, immediately behind it, where a well-appointed store of arms is preserved, along with some relics of ancient warfare. In the exterior fortifications, to the west of the armoury, may still be traced the arch of the ' Vuk pp. I ami 8 for views of these stones. They were preserved and placed in their present situations through the good taste of R. M'Kerlie, Esq., of the Ordnance Office, to whose recollections of the old gateway, when an officer in the garrison in 1800, wc arc mainly indebted for the above description. VOL. I M tSs me:/Iorials of Edinburgh ancient postern. Here Viscount Dundee held his conference with the Duke of Gordon, when on his way northward to raise the Highland clans in favour of King James ; while the Convention, assembled in the Parliament House, were proceeding to settle the crown upon William and Mary. Quitting the town by the Nether Bow Port, with only thirty of his dragoons, he rode down Leith Wynd, and along the Long-Gate, a road nearly on the present line of Princes Street, while the town was beating to arms to pursue him. Leaving his men at the Kirk-brae-head — the peculiar features of which as a brae, or knoll, overlooking the ancient church of St. Cuthbert, have been wellnigh effaced by the filling up of the ravine in levelling the Lothian Road — he clambered up the rock to the postern, and urgently besought the Duke to accompany him to the Highlands and summon his vassals to rise on behalf of King James. The Duke, however, preferred to hold out the Castle for the Convention ; and Dundee hastily pursued his way to Stirling. On this same site the ancient postern probably stood through which the body of Queen Margaret was secretly conveyed in the year 1093, while the fortress was besieged by Donald Bane. The most interesting buildings, however, in the Castle are to be found on the loftiest and least accessible part of the rock. Here, on the very edge of the precipitous cliff, overhanging the old town several hundred feet below, the ancient royal palace is reared, forming the south and east sides of a large quadrangle called the grand parade. The chief portion of the southern side of this square consists of a large ancient edifice, long converted into an hospital for the garrison, but which had been originally the great hall of the palace, and the scene of some of the most notable incidents referred to in previous chapters. Notwithstanding the changes to which it had been sub- jected in adapting it to its later use as a hospital, some traces of its ancient grandeur remained. At the top of the principal staircase a finely sculptured but somewhat mutilated corbel showed a female face of very good propor- tions, ornamented on each side with a volute and thistle. On this still rests the original beam ; and on either side are smaller beams let into the wall with shields carved on their fronts. Notwithstanding their defacement, they afforded evidence of the existence formerly of a fine hall of noble proportions, and of rare historical interest, which has been reinstated nearly in its original integrity, since the first issue of this work, by the same generous donor to whom the restoration of the Argyle Tower is due.^ The great hall, as it is * In the Treasurer's accounts various items ocrur, relating to the royal apartments in the Castle ; e.g. A.D. 1516, " for trein werk (timber work) for The Great Haw Windois in the Castell ; gret gestis, doubill dalis, etc., for the Myd Chamer ;" and again, "to Robert Balye for fluring of the Lordis Haw in Davidis Tower of the Castel in Edr" — Pitcairn's Crim. Trials, Appendix. The Hall is also alluded to in the survey of 1572, and its locality described as "On the south syde wher the haule is," etc. — Bann. Misc. vol. ii. p. 70, In a series of "One hundred and fifty select views, by P. Sandby," published by Boydell, there is one of Edinburgh Castle from the south, dated 1779, in which two of the THE CASTLE 463 ptle; Istis, Haw lided |c. — by," "the styled in the Treasurer's accounts, measures eighty-four feet in length by thirty-two in breadth. It is designated by Maitland, in 1 75 3, " a large ancient edifice, formerly the Parliament House." Here, according to the traditions of that day, assembled some of the earlier meetings of the Scottish Estates ; as undoubtedly did the first Parliament of James H, held at Edinburgh the 20th of March 1437. It met in the Castle, and there, with great acclaim, declared the accession of the boy — then only six years old — to the vacant throne. But the great hall is memorable for other historic incidents referred to in previous pages. There, according to the grim legend of early chroniclers, the bull's head was placed before the young Earl of Douglas as the symbol of his last meal. In this hall coronation and other royal banquets were held; the last of them in 1633, when Charles I. visited the ancient capital of the Stuarts, and was crowned at Holyrood. The same hall witnessed strangely different festivities, when in 1 648 the Earl of Leven feasted the Lord Protector Cromwell, Sir Arthur Hazlerig, and other dignitaries of the Commonwealth. The walls and fine timber roof of this hall remained, at the date of our first edition, hidden by modern unsightly partitions. The view from the windows on this side of the palace is scarcely surpassed by any other in the capital. Immediately below are the picturesque old houses of the Grassmarket and West Port, crowned by the magnificent towers of Heriot's Hospital. From this abyss the hum of the neighbouring city rises, mellowed by the distance into one pleasing voice of life and industry ; while beyond a gorgeous landscape is spread out, reaching southward to the ancient landmarks of the kingdom, guarded on the far east by the old keep of Craigmillar Castle, and on the west by Merchiston Tower. Between them is still seen the wide expanse of the Borough Muir, on which the fanciful eye of one familiar with the national history will summon up the Scottish host marshalling for southern war ; as when the gallant Jameses looked forth from those same windows, and watched the feudal array gathering around the standard of " the Ruddy Lion," pitched in the " Bore Stane," still remaining at the Borough Muir Head. Immediately to the east of the great hall are the royal apartments. The windows in this part of the quadrangle have been large, though now partly built up ; and near the top of the building a sculptured shield, much defaced, seems to bear the Scottish Lion, surmounted by a crown. The tablet over the arch of the old doorway, sculptured with the monogram H and M inwrought with the letter A, for Henry and Mary, and the date 1566, commemorates great hall windows remain ; they are lofty, extending through two stories of the building, as now arranged, and apparently divided by stone muUions. The coping, supported on stone corbels, still remains, as in the earliest views. The Aula Kegis, or Great Hall, after being lost sight of, and forgotten by successive generations, has been restored at the cost of Mr. William Nelson. But the donor of this generous gift to his native city died in 1887, while the work was still in progress. t64 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH f ,1 lil! ii the birth of James VI on the 19th June of that year. The chamber which was the scene of this important event is singularly irregular in form and circumscribed in dimensions, its greatest length being little more than eight feet. The walls were panelled with wainscot ; but it was abandoned for yeai's as a drinking-room to the canteen, during which it was greatly mutilated and disfigured. It has been restored nearly to its original condi- tion with wainscotting of a similar character procured from the Guise Palace in Blyth's Close. The original ceiling remains intact, wrought in ornamental oaken panels, with the initials I. R. and M. R., surmounted with the royal crown, in alternate compartments ; and the wall is still decorated with the Scottish arms, and the commemorative inscription mentioned by Maitland : ILotli 3t8u Cijrgst, t^at trountt iuas (uttf) Cljornsr, )|rrscrbe tlje ^irt{j qutjats Batigtc I)cfr is boxnt, 9nli smti ^it Sonne succrssionr, to iSttignr sttllr, ILang in ti)is ISitalmt, it tljat it bt €l)g iuill. 9l8 grant, © iLort, qufjat rSjtr of Jjir procftli, 13e to srds Jt^ontr, anii ^cmt, sobtclr. 19th IVNII, 1566. A considerable part of the east and north fronts of the ancient royal palace seems, from the dates on them, as well as from the general style of the building, to have been erected in the year 1616, in anticipation, as we may presume, of the long-promised royal visit which was accomplished in the following year. The appearance, however, o*" many portions of the interior leave no room to doubt that the works of that date were only the partial remodelling of a more ancient fabric. Some of the stone panels on the east front are wrought in beautiful Elizabethan ornaments ; and on one of them the regalia has been sculptured in high relief, thougn unfortunately some chance shot, in one of the later sieges of the Castle, has greatly mutilated the sculpture. The turrets at the angles of the building, as well as the clock tower in the quadrangle, were originally covered with ogee lead roofs, as shown in Gordon's view of 1 640, similar to that still remaining on the turret staircase at the north end. Immediately underneath the grand hall and the paved court of the quadrangle, two tiers of large and strongly vaulted bomb-proof vaults extend, communicating with a wide arched passage entered from the west side. The small loophole that admits light into each of them is secured by three ranges of iron bars ; and a massive iron gate closes the entrance to the steep flight of steps that gives admission to the dreary dungeons. Within these gloomy abodes the prisoners were confined during the last French war, above forty of them sleeping in a single vault. The woodcut shows one of these, as it still exists, with the wooden framework that sustained the hammocks of the prisoners. Immediately below Queen Mary's Room there is another curiously vaulted j1 THE CASTLE 165 dungeon, partly excavated out of the solid rock, and retaining the staple of an iron chain, doubtless used for securing the limbs of some wret'^hed captive in ancient times. No date can with any certainty be assigi.v^ to those massive foundations of the Castle, though they undoubtedly belong to a remote period of its history. In making some repairs on the west front of the royal apartments in the year 1830, a curious discovery was made. Nearly in a line with the crown- French Prisoners' Vault in the Castle. room, and about six feet from the pavement of the quadrangle, the wall was observed, when struck, to sound hollow, as though a cavity existed at that place. It was accordingly opened from the outside, when a recess was discovered, measuring about two feet six inches by one foot, and containing the remains of a child, enclosed in an oak coffin, evidently of great antiquity, and very much decayed. The remains were wrapped in a cloth, believed to be woollen, very thickly woven, so as to resemble leather, and within this were the decayed fragments of a richly embroidered silk covering, with two initials wrought upon it, one of them distinctly marked I. This interesting discovery was reported at the time to Major-General Thackary, then commanding the Royal Engineers, by whose orders the remains were again restored to their strange place of sepulture. It is vain now to attempt a solution of this i66 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH mysterious discovery, though it may furnish the novelist with material on which to found a thrilling romance. Within this portion of the old palace is the crown-room where the ancient regalia of Scotland is kept. The apartment is a massive bomb- proof vault, and contains, along with these national treasures, the old iron- bound oak chest in which they were found in the year 1 8 1 8. The crown is popularly referred to the era of the Brvcc, but later research fails to confirm this ; and the graceful arches of gold v.cre not added till the reign of James V. It was further completed by the substitution of the present cap of crimson velvet by James VII in 1685 ^ for the older purple one, which had suffered during its concealment in the civil wars. Next in interest to the crown is the beautiful sword of state, presented by Pope Julius II to James IV. The scabbard is richly wrought with filigree work of silver, representing oak boughs adorned with leaves and acorns — an oak-tree being the heraldic device of that warlike pontiff. In addition to the finely proportioned sceptre, surmounted with figures of the Virgin, St. Andrew, and St. James, which was made for James V, those interesting national relics are accompanied by the royal jewels, bequeathed by Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, to George IV, including the George and collar of the Garter, presented by Queen Elizabeth to James VI ; the badge of the Thistle of the same monarch, containing a portrait of Anne of Denmark ; and the coronation ring of Charles I. The north side of the grand parade now consists of a plain and un- interesting range of barracks on the site occupied till the middle of last century by a church of great antiquity. It is described by Maitland as " a very long and large ancient church, which," says he, " from its spacious dimensions, I imagine that it was not only built for the use of the small garrison, but for the service of the neighbouring inhabitants, before St. Giles's Church was erected for their accommodation."-' Unfortunately, that laborious and painstaking historian furnishes no account of the style of architecture by which to judge of its date. A church, which may have been the little chapel of St. Margaret, though its chancel arch can scarcely be assigned to an earlier date than the reign of her youngest son, is men- tioned in his charter of Holyrood, as " the church of the Castle of Edin- burgh." " A larger church, the chapel of St. Mary, is referred to in a roll of 133 s, when the Castle was held by Sir Thomas Roscclin for Edward III, as well as in subsequent notices of the same period, as the "great Chapel." But in June 1336, in the accounts of Sir John Stirling, the subsequent ' Vide Nisbet, ii. jit. iv. p. 41. - Maitland, p. 145, ; vide " Notice of .St. Margaret's Chapel, Eilinbiirgh Castle," rrocccdiiigs of S.A. Scotland, New heries, vol. ix. p. agi, for the Author's later researciies. ^ Liliei- Cart arum, pp. 3-7. THE CASTLE i«7 of custodian, an entry appears for glazing four windows in St. Margaret's Chapel, and also for a leaden gargoil. * This places beyond doubt that the small chapel still standing is the one dedicated to the sainted queen. Some idea of the aspect of St. Mary's Chapel may be gathered from old drawings. It forms a prominent object in Sandby's view of the Castle from the east, where the small windows suggest the idea of Norman work, possibly of the time of Alexander III, by whom the church in the Castle was confirmed to the Abbey of Holyrood. But the chapel of St. Mary was at least partially rebuilt towards the close of the reign of David II. In 1595 the following entry regarding this chapel occurs in the records of the Presbytery of Edinburgh : — " Anent the desyre of James Reid, constable of the Castell of Edinburgh, in effect craving that, seing thair was ane paroche kirk within the said Castell, command wald be given to John Brand to baptese the barnis borne in the Castell. The Presbyterie understanding that the kirk thair of is unreparitt, willis the said constable to repair the same, and to dedicatt it for na uther use bot for preiching. Thairefter his desyre sal be answerit." ^ Eight years after- wards, it appears, from the same records, that the question of its being a parish was disputed, and still under discussion ; and there is no evidence of its being again used as a place of worship. When Maitland wrote, the old church was divided by floors, and converted into an armoury and storehouse ; and soon after his time it must have been entirely demolished. But happily the earlier and greatly more interesting ecclesiastical edifice still remains, though its existence had been lost sight of, till the author discovered it in 1845 in the course of his investigations preparatory to this work. Its external appearance, though little calculated to excite attention, leaves no reason to doubt that the original walls remain. It is a little private oratory originally attached to the royal lodging in the Castle, and measures only fifteen feet ten inches, by ten feet four inches within the nave. At the east end there is a neatly carved round-headed chancel arch, separating it from an apse with a plain alcoved ceiling. It is decorated with the usual Norman zigzag mouldings, and finished by a trigonal hood-moulding ornamented on its intermediate ' Calendar in, ji. 2l6 ; J. llain, F.S.A. Scot., Procet'diiigs, Ni-w Series, vol. xi. p. 92. " IVodrow Misc. vol. i. p. 463. Mouldings of the Chancel Arch of St. Margaret's Chapel. 1 68 MEMORIALS OF EDINIIURC.H »1 1 h i > I . i face with a border of lozenge-shaped ornaments, the pattern of which is curiously altered as it approaches the spring of the arch. No traces of ornament are now apparent within the chancel, a portion of the building usually so highly decorated ; but the space is so small that the altar, with its customary appendages, would render any further embellishment immaterial. A broken stone projecting from the south wall may have been a piscina. Two pillars, probably with plain cylindrical shafts, originally supported the arch on each side. The base of one of these pillars, with its hollow socket, first directed our attention to the little church, owing to a description re- ceived of it as a font in a cellar near the garrison chapel. The double- cushion capitals of the Norman shafts also remained ; though when we first obtained access to it the opening of the arch was closed in with a rude brick partition in order to adapt the chancel to its modern use as a powder magazine. The windows of the chapel had all been built up, but sufficient remained to show their form as plain and round-headed, with very narrow openings. The original doorway was also built up, and its external archi- tectural features effaced ; but its form could be seen internally in the north wall. The church thus brought to light on the summit of the Castle rock takes a foremost place in interest, no less than in probable date, among the antiquities of Edinburgh. When discovered, it was divided into two stories by a floor which concealed the chancel arch, and effectually obscured the ecclesiastical character of the building. Since then it has been restored internally with careful attention to the preservation of every original feature. It thus appears there were two ancient churches in the Castle of Edin- burgh : the little chapel in which Queen Margaret deposited her most prized relic, the Black Rood, with its fragment of the true cross ; and the larger building which continued down to the eighteenth century to form the north side of the great quadrangle. By a charter of King Robert II, dated in the last year of his reign, an annual revenue of eight pounds, out of the great customs of the burgh of Edinburgh, is granted to Geoffrey Lyttystcr, chaplain, and to his successors, serving the chapel of St. Margaret the Queen in the Castle of Edinburgh. This grant was confirmed by his successor ; but he transferred the services of the chaplain from the chapel of St. Margaret the Queen to the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin, in the same castle ; * which, as appears from a roll of the period when the Castle was held for Edward III, had then been restored from a roofless condition of ruin, and converted to use as a granary.^ The little oratory on the summit of the rock was no doubt reserved for the garrison chaplain. A curious refer- ence to its ancient pictorial decorations occurs in Barbour's Bruce. The poet narrates the romantic incident, already referred to, of the surprise of the ' Regist. Magiii Sigilli, p. 197. -' Catenday III, \\ 216. THE CASTLE 169 Castle by William Francis in i 3 1 2 ; and then he proc s to state that this event had been long before revealed in vision to the "good holy queen," and she had caused it to be painted upon the walls of her chapel, where it still remained in Barbour's days : " Scho in hir chapell Gert wele be portrait anc castell, Ane leddir up to the wall standand, And ane man tharapon clymand, And wrat owth him as aid men sais, In French : gardys vous de fransais."1 The description is interesting as showing the kind of allegorical decorations executed on the chapel wall about 1380, when the poet wrote. The little chapel still standing on the High Battery, which occupies the loftiest summit of the Castle rock, probably received the addition of its present chancel arch from David I, Queen Margaret's youngest son. It is in the same style as the earliest portions of Holyrood Abbey, begun in the year I 128 ; and it is worthy of remark that many of the most interesting ecclesiastical edifices in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, including Holyrood Abbey, and the parish churches of Duddingston, Ratho, Kirkliston, and Ualmeny, all still retain remains of that era.^ The garrison chapel was a modern building, though including in its walls masonry of considerable antiquity." Immediately north of its site is the King's Bastion, or mortar battery, upon which is placed the famous old cannon, MoNS Meg. This ancient national relic, which is curiously con- structed of iron staves and hoops, was removed to the Tower of London in 1754, in consequence of an order from the Board of Ordnance to the governor to send thither all unserviceable cannon in the Castle. It lay there for seventy years, until it was restored to Scotland by George IV in 1829, mainly in consequence of the intercession of Sir Walter Scott. The form of its ancient wooden carriage is represented on the sculptured stone, already described, over the entrance of the Ordnance Office ; but that having broken down shortly after its return to Scotland, it has been mounted on a modern carriage of cast-iron. On this a series of inscriptions embody the usually received traditions as to its history, which derived the name from its supposed construction at Mons, in Flanders. The name, however, is ' Barbour's Bruce, Ixxxv. i6o. '^ In "The inventarc of golden and silver werk being in the Castell of Edinburgh," 8th Nov. 1543, ihc following items occur : — " The Chapell geir of silver ouregilt, ane crocc of silver with our Lady and Sanct John, — Tua chandleris, — ane chalice and ane patine, — ane halie waiter fatt," — etc. etc., all "of silver ouregilt. Chapell geir ungilt. Ane croce of silver, — tua chandleris of silver, — ane bell of silver, — ane hallie waiter fatt, with the stick of silver, — ane caise of silver for the mess breid, with the cover," etc. Iiiveiilory of Royal IVanirope, etc., 410, Edinburgh, 1815, p. 1 12. ^ The chaiiel here referred to stood immediately to the east of St. Margaret's chapel, bhickiiig up its chancel window. It was demolished soon after the discovery of the latter. I70 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ! I probably of local origin, and simply signified Big Meg. The evidence for the native workmanship of Mons Meg was first communicated in a letter from that diligent antiquary, Joseph Train, to Sir Walter Scott; and shows, accord- ing to the local traditions of Galloway, that this huge piece of ordnance was presented to James II in 1455 by the M'Lellans, when he arrived with an army at Carlingwark, to besiege William Earl of Douglas in the Castle of Threave. Sir Walter welcomed the tradition as a veritable fact, and thus un- hesitatingly attests the Scottish pedigree of Mons Meg in his reply : " You have traced her propinquity so clearly, as henceforth to set all conjectures aside." * The high estimation in which this cannon was anciently held appears from numerous notices of it in early records. Mons Meg was taken by order of James IV from Edinburgh Castle on loth July 1489, to be employed at the siege of Dumbarton, on which occasion there is an entry in the treasurer's books of eighteen shillings for drink-money to the gunners. The treasury records again notice her transportation from the Castle tc the Abbey of Holyrood durii.g this reign, apparently at a period of nation^ii festivity. Some of the entries on the occasion are curious, such as — " to the menstrallis that playit befoir Mons down the gait, fourteen shillings ; eight elle of claith, to be Mons a claith to cover her, nine shillings and fourpence," etc. In the festivities celebrated at Edinburgh by the Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, on the marriage of her daughter, Queen Mary, to the Dauphin of France, Mons Meg testified with loudest acclaim the general joy. The treasurer's accounts contain the following item on the occasion : — " By the Queenis precept and speciale command, to certane p_^ onaris for thair laubouris in the mounting of Mons furth of her lair to be schote, and for the finding and carying of hir bullet after scho wes shot, frae Weirdie Mure,'^ to the Castell of Edinburgh," etc. In the list of ordnance delivered by the governor to Colonel Monk, on the surrender of the Castle in 1650, Meg^ receives, with all due prominence, the designation of "the great iron murderer, Muckle Meg."^ This justly celebrated cannon, after sustaining for centuries, in so creditable a manner, the dignity of her pre-eminent greatness, at length burst in 1682, in firing a royal salute to the Duke of York, afterwards James VII, a circumstance that did not fail to be noted at the time as an evil omen.* On her restoration to Edinburgh, in 1829, she was again received with the honours accorded to her in ancient times, and was attended in grand procession, with a military guard of honour, from Leith to her old quarters in the Castle. '' ' Contemporaries vf Btirns. Joseph Train, p. 200. For further evidence, sec ///Vtoj 0/" Crt/Zorooj', Appendix, vol. i. pp. 25-38. - Wardie is fully two miles north from the Castle, near Granton. ^ Provincial Antiquilks, p. 21. •* Fountainhall's Chron,, Notes, No. i. ^ A curious piece of br.iss ordnance, now preserved in the Antitiuarian Museum, is worthy ol notice here from its connection with Edinburgh. It was found on the battlements of Bhurtpore, when taken l«l. THE CASTLE li* Near the battery on which this ancient relic now stands is situated '" postern gate, as it is termed, which forms the western boundary of the inner fortification, or citadel of the Castle. Immediately without this, the highest ground was known, till the erection of the new barracks, by the name of Hawk-Hill,' and doubtless indicated the site of the falconry in earlier times, while the Castle was a royal residence. Numerous entries in the treasurers' books attest the attachment of the Scottish kings to the noble sport of hawking, and the high estimation in which the birds were held. On the northern slope of the esplanade, without the Castle wall, there still exists a long low archway, like the remains of a subterranean passage or covered way to the eastern fort, or spur, which was demolished by order of the Estates in 1 649. The walls are of rubble-work, and the arch neatly built of hewn stone. This, which was popularly known as the Lion's Den, was believed to have been a place of confinement for some of these animals, kept, according to ancient custom, for the amusement of the Scottish monarchs. Storer, in his description of the West Bow, mentions a house " from which there is a vaulted passage to the Castle Hill," as a thing then (18 1 8) well known, the house being reported to have afforded in earlier times a place of meeting for the Council. This tradition of an underground way from the Castle is one of very old and general belief; and the idea was further strengthened by the discovery, about the beginning of the present century, of remains of a subterranean passage, crossing below Brown's Close, Castle Hill." At the bottom of the same slope, on the margin of the hollow that once formed the bed of the North Loch, stand the ruins of an ancient outwork called the VVellhouse Tower, which dates as early at least as the erection of the first town wall in 1450. It formed one of the exterior works of the Castle, and served, as its name implies, to secure to the garrison comparatively safe access to a spring of water at the base of the precipitous rock. During the siege of the Castle in 1573, Caldcrwood notes that " Captain Mitchell was laid, with his band, at St. Cuthbert's Kirk, to stop the passage to St. Margaret's Well." * Some interesting discoveries were made relative to this fortification in the year 1 82 1, during operations preparatory to the conversion of the North Loch into pleasure grounds. The removal of a quantity of rubbish brought another covered way to light, leading along the southern wall of the tower to a strongly fortified doorway, evidently intended as a sally-port, and by Lord Combermeic, and bears the inscription — Jacohus Montkitii me fkcit, EDiNiiuur.ii, Anno Dom. 1642. ' Kincaid, p. 137. "The Governor appointed a centinell on tlie Hauke Hill, to give notice so soon as he saw the mortar piece fired." — Siege of the Castle, 1689. Baiiti. Club, p. 55. - Chambers's Tradilioiis, vol. i. p. 156. ^ Calderwood's Hist., Wodrow Soc, vol. iii. p, 281. Iff MEMORIALS OF EDINHURGH !'^ ; i towards which the defences of the tower were principally directed. The walls arc here of very great thickness, and pierced by a square cavity in the solid mass, for the reception of a sliding beam to secure the door, while around it arc the remains of various additional fortifications to protect the covered way. "During the same operations, indications were discovered of a path- way up the cliff, partly by means of steps cut in the shelving rod--, and probably completed by movable ladders and a drawbridge communicating with the higher story of the VVcllhousc Tower. About seventy feet above, a small building oii an apparently inaccessible projection of the cliff is popularly known as "Wallace's Cradle,"' an obvious corruption of the name of the tower below. It would seem to have formed a part of the access from the Castle to the ancient fountain at its base. In excavating near the tower, and in the neighbourhood of the sally-port, various coins were found, including those of Edward III and of Cromwell. There were also some foreign coins, and one of Edward I, many fragments of bombshells, a shattered skull, and other indications of warfare. The coins are now in the Antiquarian Museum, and are interesting from some of them being of a date considerably anterior to the supposed erection of the tower." The ancient fortifications formed, at this part, an advanced wall of the Castle, the charge of which was probably committed entirely to the garrison. The wall, after extending for a short way from the VVellhousc Tower along the margin of the Loch, was carried up the Castle bank, and thence over the declivity on the south, until it again took an easterly direction towards the ancient Over Bow Port, at the first turning of the West Bow, so that the whole of the esplanade was separated from the town by this defence. In the highest part of the wall a gate which served as a means of communica- tion with the town by the Castle Hill was styled the Barrier Gate. This outer port was temporarily restored for the reception of George IV, on his visit to the Castle in the year 1822 ; and was again brought into requisition in 1832, in order completely to isolate the garrison during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera. Previous to the enclosure and planting of the Castle bank and the bed ' The following extracts from the Diurnal of Occurrents, pp. 332, 333, in reference to the siege of the Castle by Sir William Drury, in 1 573 {ante, p. 1 10), embrace various interesting allusions to the local detail: — " Wpoun the xxij day of Maij, the south quarer of the toure of the Castell, callilt Dauids toure, fell throw the vehement and continuall schuting, togidder with some of the foir wall, and of the held wall besyd Sanct Margaretis zet. *' Wpoun the xxiiij day, the eist quarter of the said tour fell, with the north quarteris of the port culzeis ; the tour als callit W.-iUace tour, with some mair of the foir wall, notwithstanding the Castell men kust thair hand with schutting of small artailzerie. . . . Wpoun the xxvj day, the haill cumpanyis of Scotland and Ingland, being quietlie convcnit at vij houris in the mornyng, past with ledders, ane half to the blockhous, the viher half to Sanct Kalherins zet, on the west syd, quhair the syid wes schote doun." The Castle was at length rendered by Sir William Kirkaldy on the 29th of the month. " Archico/o^'ia Sioliia, vol. ii. pp. 469-477. THE CASTLE '73 of th • '.ncicnt North Loch, the esplanade was the principal promenade of the citizens. In an act passed in the reign of Queen Anne, for the better keeping of the Lord's Day, the Castle Ilill is specially mentioned, along with the King's Park and the Pier of Lcith, as the most frequent scene of Sunday promcnad- ings th. . then excited the stern rebukes of the clergy. A road led from the top of the bank, passing in an oblique direction down the north side, by the Wellhouse Tower, to St. Cuthbert's Church, some indications of which still remain. This church road had existed from a very early period, and is mentioned in the charter of David L to Holyrood Abbey, in the description of the lands lying under the Castle. In an old song, entitled " The Young Laird and Edinburgh Katy," to which Allan Ramsay added some verses, the laird addresses his mistress — " My dear, quoth I, thanks to the night That never wisht a Lover ill ; Since yc're out of your Mither's sight, Let's take a walk up to the Hill." In a footnote, the poet adds — "the Castle Hill, where young people frequently take the air on an evening," but the local allusions of the earlier stanza are not carried out in his additions. The Castle Hill was very often made the scene of public executions, and was particularly famous for the burning of witches, and those convicted of unnatural crimen. In the reign of James IV, in 1538, John, Lord Forbes, was beheaded here, and a few days afterwards, the Lady Glamis, sister of the Earl of Angus, was burnt alive, on a charge of high treason. Here, also, during the following reign, Foret, the Vicar of Dollar, and several others of the earliest reformers, perished at the stake. The Diurnal of Occnrrents records many other executions, such as : "September ist, i 570, thair wcr tua personis brint in the Castell Hill of Edinburgh, for the committing of anc horrible sinne." Birrell again mentions, e.g., July 1605, "Henry Lourie brunt on the Castell Hill for witchcraft, committed and done by him in Kyle ;" and in NicoH's Diary, from 1650 to 1667, including the period of the Commonwealth, executions on this spot occur with painful frequency, as, on the 15th of October 1656, when seven culprits, including three women, were executed for different crimes, two of v.'hom were burnt. Again, " 9th March 1659, thair wer fyve wemen, witches, bri;it on the Castcl Hill for witchcraft, all of them confessand thair covenant- ing with Satan, sum of thame renunceand thair baptismc, all of thame oft tyines dancing with the Devil!." In the reign of Charles I. a novel character was assigned to it. The Earl of Stirling having obtained leave to colonise Nova Scotia, and sell signiories with the honour of the baronetage, to two hundred colonists, the difficulty of inleoffing the knights in their remote possessions was overcome by a royal mandate converting the soil of the Castle Hill of fM •74 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Edinburgh, for the time being, into that of Nova Scotia, and the new baronets were accordingly invested with their honours on this spot. Since Allan Ramsay sang the praises of the Castle Hill as a favourite walk of the citizens, it has undergone great changes. The northern slope of the bank, now enclosed and laid out in garden walks, must have formed a pleasant place of recreation in its rough natural state, before the steep and narrow access to the Castle was converted into the present broad esplanade ; and the effect of the fortress must have been more striking when isolated by the ravine which then separated it from the town. The removal of the ancient roadway which led to St. Cuthbert's Church greatly interfered with the convenience of dwellers in the upper town, while it cut off the population of St. Cuthbert's hamlet from all ready access to the town. Projects for its restoration were repeatedly suggested, one of which formed the most noticeable feature in an ingenious model of Edinburgh constructed about the middle of last century, of which an account is preserved in Cough's British Topography} It was no doubt furnished to him by his friend George Paton, to whom we shall have repeated occasion to refer. He thus proceeds : " A model of Edinburgh was executed by the late Mr. Gavin Hamilton, bookseller ; it was most accurately done with his intended improvements of carrying a street of gentle ascent from the Grassmarket in a line up to the west end of the Lucken- booths, for which purpose he could shift the representation of the houses, and lay open his plan to public view. This finished work cost him some years' labour, and was shown in a room of the Royal Infirmary in 1753 and 1754 ; but after his death it was neglected, and destroyed for firewood. His proposals, like other commodious, salutary, and beneficial projects for the improvement of the place, were rejected ; as was likewise the scheme of an entry into the High Street of Edinburgh from St. Cuthbert's, or West Church, along the hill-side by south and west of the Castle, which by a gradual ascent might be completed at no very considerable sum, to facilitate the easier conveyance of carriages from the south and west than by the West Bow, a most inconvenient and steep height for horses with coals and other articles for the citizens' use : this might terminate the head of the causeway on the Castle Hill." The enclosing and planting of the Castle banks have been carried out as part of the scheme which converted the unwholesome marshes of the old Nor' Loch into a beautiful public garden. ' Gough's British Topography, vol. ii. p. 674. CHAPTER II king's staules, castle barns, and castle hill ■li*on1ii ir^A Lintel from the Guise Palace, BIyth's Close, PREVIOUS to the discovery of gunpowder, and while its destructive powers remained only very partially understood, the vicinity of the Castle seems to have been eagerly selected as a desirable locality for the erection of dwellings, that might thus in some degree share in the protec- tion which its fortifications secured to those within the walls ; and we find, accordingly, in its immediate neighbourhood, considerable remains of ancient grandeur. Before examining these, however, we may remark, that a general and progressive character prevails throughout the features of our domestic architecture, many of which are peculiar to Scotland, and some of them only to be found in Edinburgh. Various specimens of the rude dwellings of an early date remain in the Grassmarket, the Pleasance, and elsewhere, which, though more or less modified to adapt them to modern habits and manners, still retain the main primitive features of a substantial stone ground-floor, surmounted with a second story of wood, generally approached by an outside stair, and exhibiting irregular and picturesque additions, stuck on, like the clusters of 176 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ' 'i ( i 1, ■ ! swallows' nests that gather round the parent dwelling, as the offshoots of the family increase and demand accommodation. In buildings of more pretension, the character of the mouldings and general form of the doorway, the ornaments of the gables, the shape of the windows, even the pitch of the roof, and, what is more interesting than any of those, the style and character of the inscriptions so generally placed on them, all afford tests as to the period of their erection, fully as definite and trustworthy as those that mark the progressive stages of the ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Ages. An early form of the crow-stepped gable presents a series of pediments surmounting the steps, occasionally highly ornamented, and always giving a rich effect ; as on the fine old building of the Mint, in the Cowgate, which bears the date 1574 over its principal entrance, while its other ornaments are similar to many of more recent date. The corbie, or crow-step, as it is called, from the old French term corbcaiix, was an important architectural feature in buildings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In many of the older houses, the arms, initials, the merchant mark, or some other device of the owner, are to be found carved on the lowest step, even where the buildings are so lofty as to place this almost out of sight. The dormer window, surmounted with the thistle, rose, fleur-de-lis, etc., and the high-peaked gable to the street, are no less familiar features in our older domestic architecture. Specimens, also, of windows originally divided by stone mullions, and with lead casements, still remain in the earliest mansions of the higher classes : and within are stone recesses or niches frequently of a highly ornamenUl character, the use of which has excited considerable discussion among antiquaries. A later form of window has the upper part glazed and a carved wooden transom dividing it from the under half, which is closed with shutters, occasionally adorned on the exterior with a variety of carved ornaments. Towards the close of Charles II's reign a new order of architec- ture was adopted, engrafting the mouldings and some of the characteristic features of the Italian style upon forms that previously prevailed. The Golfer's Land in the Canongate is an early specimen of this. The gables are still steep, and the roofs of a high pitch ; and while the front assumes somewhat of the character of a pediment, the crow-steps are retained on the side gables ; but these features soon after disappear, and give way to a regular pediment, surmounted with urns and the like ornaments. A very good specimen of this later style remains on the south side of the Castle Hill, and other examples occur in various parts of the old town. The same district presents good specimens of the old wooden-fronted lands, with their fore KINGS STABLES, CASTLE UARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 177 stairs and handsome inside turnpike from the first floor, the construction of which Maitland aflirms to be coeval with the destruction of the extensive forests of the Borough Muir, in the reign of James IV. Other picturesque specimens of the same style of building in this locality, which were demolished to make way for the New College, are shown on the plate. Those various features of the ancient domestic architecture of the Scottish capital will come under review in describing buildings most worthy of notice that still remain, or have been demolished during the present century. umes m the gular good , and istrict fore Immediately below the Castle rock, on its south side, an ancient appendage of the royal palace of the Castle still retains the name of the King's Stables, although no hoof of the royal stud has been there for centuries. This district lies without the line of the most ancient town wall, and was therefore not only in an exposed situation for the royal stables, but the approach from the Castle must have been by a very circuitous route, although it was immediately overlooked by the windows of the royal apart- ments. It seems probable that the earliest buildings on this site were erected in the reign of James IV, when the low ground to the westward was the scene of frequent tiltings and of magnificent tournaments, the fame of which spread throughout Europe, and attracted the most daring knights-errant to that chivalrous monarch's court.^ Considerable accommodation would be required for the horses and attendants on these occasions, as well as for the noble combatants, among whom the King was no idle spectator ; but the buildings reared for those public combats were probably only of a temporary nature, as they were left without the extended wall built at the commence- ment of the following reign. Maitland, however, mentions a chapel dedi- cated to the Virgin Mary, the remains of which were visible in his time (1750) at the foot of the Chapel Wynd ; and Kincaid,- who wrote towards the close of the century, speaks of them as still there ; but nothing but the name of the Wynd, which formed the approach to the chapel, survives to indicate its site. This may be presumed to have stood at the point of junction of Chapel Wynd and the Lady's Wynd, both evidently named from their proximity to the same chapel. In this locality James IV was wont to preside at the joustings of the knights and barons of his court, and to present the meed of honour to the victor ; or, as in the famous encounter already related, between Sir Patrick Hamilton and a Dutch knight, to watch the combat from the Castle walls, and from thence to act as umpire of the field. The greater portion of the ancient tilting ground remained unenclosed when Maitland wrote, and is described by him as a pleasant green, about one hundred and fifty yards long, and fifty broad, adjoining the chapel of the Virgin Mary, on the west. * ^itte, p. 33. 2 Maitland, p. 172 ; Kincaid, p. 103. VOL. I N ffiSi^fllil^ ttfte^^tf^ f'tt^ i -1 >\ 178 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH But this " pleasant green " is now crowded with slaughter-houses, tan-pits, and dwellings of the humblest description. In the challenge, in i 571, between Alexander Stewart, younger, of Garlies, and Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange, the place of combat proposed is "upon the ground the baresse be-west the West Port of Edinburgh, the place accustomed, and of old appointed, for triell of suche maters." * The exact site of this spot is now occupied in part by the western approach, which crosses it beyond the bridge immediately below the Castle rock. It is defined in one of the title-deeds of the ground, acquired by the City Improvements Commission, as " All and haill these houses and yards of Orchardfield, commonly called Living- ston's Yards, comprehending therein, that piece of ground called the Barras." The interest attaching to those scenes of ancient feats of arms has been preserved by successive events almost to our own day. In 1661, the King's Stables were purchased by the Town Council for ;^iooo Scots, and the admission of James Boisland, the seller, to the freedom of the city.^ The right, however, of the new possessors, to whom they would seem to have been resold, was made a subject of legal investigation at a later date. Fountain- hall records, i ith March 1685, a reduction pursued by the Duke of Queens- berry, as constable and captain of the Castle of Edinburgh, against Thomas Boreland and the other heritors and possessors of the King's Stables, alleging that they were a part of the Castle. The proprietors claimed to hold their property by virtue of a " fue " granted in the reign of James V. But the Judges decided that, unless the defenders could prove a legal dissolution of the royal possession, they must be held as the King's Stables, belonging to the Castle, and accordingly annexed to the Crown. Thomas Borcland's house still stands ^ immediately behind the old Corn Market. It is a substantial erection, adorned with picturesque gables and dormer windows, which form a prominent feature in the oft-repeated view of " the Castle from the Vennel " ; and fr. .n the date, 1675, which appears over the main doorway, we may presume that this mansion, then so recently erected, had its full influence in directing the attention of the Duke of Oiieensberry to this pendicle of the royal patrimony. It bears over the entrance, in addition to the date, the initials T. B. and V. B., and above them, boldly carved, the loyal inscription : FEAR GOD HONOR THE KING. The owner must have regarded the concessions demanded from him on behalf of royalty, so speedily thereafter, as a somewhat freer translation of his motto than he had any conception of, when he inscribed it where it should ' Calderwood's History, Wod. Soc. vol. iii. p. io8. ^ Coun, Keg. vol. xx. p. 268, aptid Kinc.iid, p. 103. * Disposition of House in Portsburgh, Council Charter Room, ' \ I KING'S STAHLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 179 daily remind him of the duties of a good subject. Several of the neighbour- ing houses may, with little hesitation, be referred to an earlier date than this. Their latest reflection of the privileges of royalty has been that of affording sanctuary for a brief period to debtors : a right of protection pertaining to the precincts of royal residences now entirely fallen into desuetude there, though affirmed to have proved available for this purpose within the memory of some aged neighbours.^ A little to the west, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Canal Basin, is a place still bearing the name of the Castle Barns. It is described by Maitland as for the accommodation of the Court when the King resided in the Castle, and no doubt occasionally sufficed for such a purpose ; but the name implies its having been the grange or farm attached to the royal residence ; and this is further confirmed by earlier maps, where a considerable portion of ground, lying on both sides of the Lothian Road, is included under the term. But the most interesting portion of Edinburgh connected with the Castle is its ancient approach. Under the name of the Castle Hill is included not only the broad esplanade extending between the fortifications and the town, but also a considerable district formerly bounded on the south by the West Bow, and containing many remarkable and once patrician alleys and mansions, the greater portion of which have disappeared in the course of the extensive changes effected of late years on that part of the town. A singularly pictur- esque and varied mass of buildings forms the nearest portion on the south side of the approach ; though there existed formerly a house between this and the Castle, as delineated in Gordon's map. This group, bounded on the east by Brown's Close, includes houses of various dates and styles, all exhibiting considerable remains of former magnificence. The house that now forms the south-west angle towards the Castle Hill bears, on the pediment of a dormer window facing the Castle, the date 1630, with the initials A. M. M. N. ; and there still remains, sticking in the wall, a cannon ball, said to have been shot from the Castle during the cannonade of 1745. Through this land ^ an alley called Blair's Close leads by several curious windings into an open court behind. At the first angle a handsome Gothic doorway of elaborate workmanship meets the view, forming the entry to a turnpike stair. It is surmounted by an ogee arch, in the tympanum of which is somewhat rudely sculptured a coronet with supporters, — " two deer- hounds," says Chambers, " the well-known supporters of the Duke of Gordon's arms." ^ This accords with the local tradition, which states it to have been 1 Chambers's Traditions, vol. i. p. 99. - The term Land in this, and similar instances, is used according to its Scottish acceptation, and signifies a building of several stories of separate dwellings, communicating by a common stair. ^ Traditions, vol. i. p. 153. ' II t8o MEMORIALS OF EDINRURGH 11 the town mansion of that noble family ; but the style of this doorway, and the substantial character of the whole building, leave no room to doubt that it is an erection of a much earlier date. Tradition, however, which is never to be despised in questions of local antiquity, proves to be correct. In one of the titles to the property now in the possession of the City Improvements Commission, indorsed " Disposition of House be Sir Robert Baird to William Baird, his second son, 1694," it is thus defined : " All and hail that my lodging in the Castel Hill of Edinburgh, formerly possessed by the Duchess of Gordon," who resided there while the Duke held the Castle for James II or VII. This appears, from the date of the disposition, to have been the first Duchess, Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk. She retired to a convent in Flanders during the lifetime of the Duke, but afterwards returned to Edinburgh, where she principally resided till her death, which took place at the Abbey Hill, in 1732, sixteen years after that of her husband. In 171 1 Her Grace excited no small stir in Edinburgh, by sending to the Dean and Faculty of Advocates " a silver medal, with a head of the Pretender on the one side, and on the other the British Isles, with the word Reddite." On the Dean presenting the medal, the propriety of accepting it was keenly discussed, when twelve only, out of seventy-five members present, testified their favour for the House of Hanover by voting its rejection.^ The most recent of the interior fittings of this mansion appear old enough to have remained from the time of its occupation by the Duchess. It is finished throughout with wooden panelling, and one large room, overlooking the Castle esplanade, is decorated with rich carvings, and with a landscape in oil (one of old Norie's pictorial adornments), filling a panel over the chimney- piece, and surrounded by an elaborate piece of carved wood -work, still exhibiting traces of gilding. An explosion of gunpowder, which took place in the lower part of the house in 181 1, attended with loss of life, entirely destroyed an ancient fireplace of remarkably beautiful Gothic design. The old town mansions of the grandees of last century are frequently decorated with oil paintings, chiefly landscapes, let into the panels of the room, in the style of the Duchess's drawing-room in Blair's Close. The best of them are the work of James Norie, a house decorator of that period. Pinkerton, in the introduction to his Scottish Gallery, remarks : " Norie's genius for landscapes entitles him to a place in the list of Scottish painters." His name appears among the subscribers to Allan Ramsay's handsome quarto volume of poems IT 1 72 1, along with that of John Smibert, a painter of some note, and a personal friend of the poet. Notwithstanding the comparatively modern character of the wains- cotting and paintings of the old mansion in Blair's Close, the house retains unequivocal remains of a much earlier period. The sculptured door- * Douglas's Peerage, vol. i. p. 654. KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL i8i in the are the ipes oor- way in t.ie close, forming the original main entrance to the whole building, would of itself justify us in assigning its erection to the earlier part of the sixteenth century. It very nearly corresponds with the entrance to the turnpike stair ot an ancient mansion on the west side of Blackfriars' Wynd, which appears, from the title-deeds of a neighbouring property, to have been the residence of the Earls of Morton. In the latter example, the heraldic supporters, though equally rudely sculptured, present more dis- tinctly the same features as those which adorn the doorway in the Castle Hill, and both are clearly intended for unicorns. The adoption of the royal supporters may have been an assumption of the Regent Morton in virtue of his exercise of the functions ot royalty ; in which case the building on the Castle Hill might also be his, and deserted by him from its dangerous proximity to the Castle, when held by his rivals. This, however, is mere conjecture. A note in the Diurnal of Occurrents, 20th November 1572, states : " In this menetyme, James Erie of Mortoun, regent, lay deidlie seik ; his Grace was lugeit in Williame Craikis lugeing on the south syid of the trone, in Edinburgh." The south front of the building is finished with a parapet, adorned with gargoils in the shape of cannon ; and on the first floor, in Blair's Close, there still remains an ancient fireplace with carved Gothic pillars, and other- wise similar in design to several in the Guise Palace, Blytii's Close, but of such huge old-fashioned dimensions that the whole is now enclosed, and forms a roomy coal-cellar, after having been used as a bedcloset by the previous tenant, in these degenerate days. This house has apparently been of special note in early times from its substantial magnificence. It is described in one of the deeds as " that tenement or dwelling-house called the Sclate House of old, of the deceased Patrick Edgar," a definition repeated in several others, evidently to dis- tinguish it from its humble thatched neighbours, " lying on the south side of the High Street of Edinburgh, near the Castle wall, between the lands of the deceased Mr. A. Syme, advocate, on the east; the close of the said Patrick Edgar on the west," etc. It is alluded to in the Diurnal of Ocairrents, 7th September 1570, where the escape of Robert Hepburn, younger of Wauchtoun, from the Earl of Morton's adherents, is described. It is added : — " He came *o the Castell of Edinburgh, quhairin he was ressauit with great difficultie ; for when he was passand in at the said Castell zett, his adversaries were at Patrik Edgar his hous end." * Again the old diarist tells us that " the capitane of the Castell of Edinburgh feit ane hundreth suddartis, and held ane gaird hous in Patrik Eggaris land, at the Castell Hill, and maid capitane James Melvill thair capitane." ^ This mansion was latterly possessed by the Newbyth family, by whom it was 1 Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 186. * Ibid. p. 199. t83 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH II I ,' held for several generations ; and here it was that the gallaat Sir David Baird was born and brought up. It is said also to have been afterwards possessed by the ancient family of the Nisbets of Dirleton, and by Gordon of Braid ; but, if so, it must have been as tenants. But there is undoubted evidence of its occupation by one to whom a far higher interest attaches than any mere social distinction. Here resided Alison Cockburn, the authoress of the more modern version of " The Flowers of the Forest," as well as of other songs, both plaintive and humorous, including her spirited satire of Prince Charles's proclamation, the " Clout the Cauldron," which exposed her to some danger during the occupation of Edinburgh by the Prince's Highland host in 1745. In the later years of her widowhood she resided in Crichton Street, in the then fashionable neighbourhood of George Square ; and she now lies interred near by in Buccleuch Churchyard. The tombstone of the poetess is in the north-east corner of the old burying- ground, where also the poet Blacklock, and the scholar and antiquary Dr. Alexander Adam, lie interred. The house in the Castle Hill was sold by the Bairds of Newbyth, from whom the close derived its name, to A. Brown, Esq., of Greenbank, from whom it passed successively to his sons, Colonel George Brown, and Captain James Brown, commander of the ship Alfred, in the East India Company's service. From these later owners. Brown's Close, where the modern entrance to the house is situated, derives its name. Webster's Close, the name by which Brown's Close was formerly known, was derived from the residence there of Dr. Webster, the originator of the Widows' Scheme of the Church of Scotland, long one of the ministers of the Old Tolbooth Kirk, and a man of mark in his day. He was the son of a clergyman who shared in the sufferings of the persecuted Presbyterians under the later Stuarts and closed his long career in better times as minister of the church to which his son succeeded. The younger Webster, while in his earlier charge as minister of Culross, was solicited to press the suit of a gentleman who had in vain besought the hand of Miss Mary Erskine, a young lady of fortune, nearly related to the Dundonald family. The fair lady remained immovable, but naively remarked that had he pleaded as well for himself he might have been more successful. The hint was taken, and when, in 1737, the Tolbooth congregation called him to fill the charge formerly held by his father, his marriage to Miss Erskine speedily followed. He was a man of fine commanding figure and very pleasing manners ; and with a lady of birth and refinement presiding at his table, his house became noted for its genial hospitality. Dr. Webster combined what would now seem the incongruous elements of a highly popular evangelical divine, with the manners and accomplishments of a man of the world, and a wit of rare convivial powers. In an age when hard drinking was habitual with all classes, his powers of endurance enabled him KING'S STABLES, CASTLE liARNS, AND CASTLE HILL '83 to enjoy sodjety with impunity. The story is told of a friend overtaking him towards dawn, as he was making his way up the Lawnmarket to Webster's Close, not without symptoms of recent conviviality. " Eh, Doctor, what would the auld wives o' the Tolbooth say if they saw you now ? " was the salutation of his friend. " Tut, man ! " retorted the Doctor, drily, " they wadna believe their een ! " Dr. Webster enjoyed great popularity and influence in his day. He entertained Dr. Johnson at his table during his visit to Edinburgh ; and on him the Doctor relied, as his letters show, for information relative to the Scottish Highlands, when he undertook the narrative of his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. A handsome old land, standing to the east of Brown's Close, presents a polished ashlar front to the street, ornamented with string courses, and surmounted by a fine range of dormer windows, with finials of various design. Over the main entrance, in Boswell's Court, there is a shield bear- ing a fancy device, with the initials T. L., and the inscription, O " LORD • IN • THE • IS • AL • MI • TRAIST. In a compartment on the left of the shield are also the initials I. L., R. W. ; a similar compartment on the right is now defaced. To the east of this, adjoining the Assembly Hall, a tall narrow land forms the last remaining building on the south side of the Castle Hill. In the style of its architecture it differs from any of the neighbouring houses, presenting a pedi- ment in front, surmounted with urns, and otherwise adorned according to the fashion that prevailed during the earlier part of the last century. This house, as appears from the title-deeds, was built by Robert Mowbray, Esq., of Castlewan, in 1740, on the site of an ancient mansion belonging to the Countess Dowager of Hynd- ford. The keystone of the centre window in the second floor is ornamented with a curiously inwrought cipher of the initials of Robert Mowbray, its builder. From his possession it passed into that of William, the fourth Earl of Dumfries, who succeeded his mother, Penelope, Countess of Dumfries in her own right, and afterwards, by the death of his brother, became Earl of Stair : a combination of titles that afforded the wits of last century a favourite source of jest in the supposed rencontres of the two noble Earls. The mansion appears to have passed into this nobleman's possession very shortly after its erection, as among the titles there is a declaration by William, Earl of Dumfries, of the date 20th March 1 747, " that the back laigh door or passage on the west side of the house which enters to the garden and property belonging to Mr. Charles Hamilton Gordon, advocate, is ane entry of mere tolerance given to me at the pleasure of the owner," etc. The Earl was succeeded in it by his widow, who, exactly within year and day of his death, married the Honourable Alexander Gordon, son of 1 84 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH !■■ / J the second Earl of Aberdeen ; who, on his promotion to the bench in 1784, assumed the title of Lord Rockville, from his estate in East Lothian. He was the last titled occupant that inhabited this once patrician dwelling of the old town, and the narrow alley that gives access to the court behind accordingly retains the name of Rockville Close. Within this close there is a plain substantial land now exposed to view by the Castle Road, originally possessed by Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Hyndford, and sold by her in the year 1740 to Henry, the last Lord Holyroodhouse, who died at his house in the Canongate in 1755.* Various ancient closes, and very picturesque front lands that formed the continuation of the southern side of the Castle Hill, were swept away to give place to the new western approach and the Assembly Hall. One of these, Ross's Court, contained " The great Marquis of Argyle's house in the Castlehill," described by Creech, in his Fugitive Pieces, as inhabited, at that degenerate period, by a hosier at a rental of £12 per annum. Another of them, Kennedy's Close, though in its latter days a mean and dirty alley, possessed some interesting remains of earlier times. It probably derived its name from a recent occupant, a son of Sir Andrew Kennedy of Clowburn, Baronet ; but both from the antique character, and the remains of faded grandeur in some of its buildings, it had doubtless afforded residences for some old nobles of the Court of Holyrood. The front land was said to have been the town mansion of the Earls of Cassillis. It was adorned at the entrance to the close with a handsome stone architrave, supported on two spiral fluted pillars, and presented a picturesque wooden front to the street. Within the close there was another curious old wooden-fronted land, which tradition reported as having been at one period a nonjurant Episcopal chapel. An inspection of this building during its demolition served to show that, although the fabric wa.? of substantial and carefully finished stone-work, the wooden front was an integral part of the original design. The main beams of the house, of fine old oak, were continued forward through the stone wall, so as to support the wood-work beyond ; and this was further confirmed by the existence of a large fireplace on the outside of the stone wall : an arrangement which may still be seen in a similarly constructed land at the head of Lady Stair's Close, and probably in others. Within this house there was a beautifully sculptured Gothic niche, shown here as it existed, in a somewhat mutilated stnte, when the house was taken down. This we presume to have been what Arnot alludes to as one of the private oratories existing in his time in which " the baptismal fonts are still remaining." It is described by him as a building nigh the Weigh-house, on the south side of the Castle Hill, which had been set apart for devotion. "^ This idea of these niches having been originally intended for baptismal ' Douglas's Peerage, ■ Arnot, p. 245. 1 KING'S STABLES, CASTLE 15ARNS, AND CASTLE HILL tS$ on jn.2 mal fonts has been repeated by subsequent writers on the antiquities of Edinburgh, although the fitness of such an appendage to a private oratory seems very c;uestionable. From our own observation wc arc inclined to believe that in the majority of cases, these niches were simply ornamental recesses or ambries. Similar niches, or ambries, when they are met with in the chancels of churches, were for the purpose of containing the sacred utensils ; but in dwell- ing-houcos they were doubtless mere cupboards. This is confirmed from their most common occurrence at the side of the fireplace, and the base in nearly all of them being a flat and generally projecting ledge. " We doubt not," Arnot adds, " but that many more of the present dwelling-houses in Edinburgh have formerly been consecrated to religious purposes ; but to dis- cover them would be much less material than difficult ! " It may reasonably be regretted that one who professed to treat of our local antiquities should have dismissed in so summary a manner this interesting portion of his subject, for which, as he acknowledges, he possessed facilities now beyond \"tur reach. A house of a very different appearance from any yet described stands prominently on the north Castle bank, and associates the surrounding district with the name of Scotland's great pastoral poet, Allan Ramsay. The house is of a fantastic shape, but it occupies a position that could not readily be surpassed in any city in Europe as the site of a " Poet's Nest." It is surrounded by a beautiful garden, and though now in the very heart of the city, it still commands a magnificent and varied prospect, bounded only on the distant horizon by the Highland hills. At the time of its erection it was a suburban retreat, uniting the attractions of a country villa with easy access to the centre of the city. We have been told by a gentleman of antiquarian tastes, from information communicated to him nearly fifty years before, that Ramsay applied to the Crown for as much ground from the Castle Hill as would serve him to build a cage fcv his bitrd, meaning his wife, to whom he was warmly attached, and hence the octagon shape it assumed, not unlike an old parrot cage ! If so, she did not live to share its comforts, her death having occurred in 1743. Here the poet retired in his sixtieth year, anticipating the prolonged enjoyment of its pleasing seclusion. He had already exhausted his energies in the diligent pursuit of business ; but he spent in this lovely retreat the chief portion of the last twelve years of his life in ease and tranquil enjoyment, though interrupted towards its close by a painful malady. He was cheerful and lively to the last, and his I'fi ■ 86 MEMORIALS OF EDINIIURGH hi powers of conversation were such, that his company was eagerly courted by all ranks of society ; yet he delighted in nothing so much as being sur- rounded by his own family and their juvenile companions, with whom he would join in their sports with hearty life and good-humour. The poet was extremely proud of his new mansion, and appears to have been somewhat surprised to find that its fantastic shape excited the mirth rather than the admiration of his fellow-citizens. The wags of the town compared it to a goose pie ; and on his complaining of this one day to Lord Elibank, his lordship replied, " Indeed, Allan, when I see you in it, I think they are not far wrong ! " On the death of Allan Ramsay, in 1757, he was succeeded in his house by his son, the eminent portrait painter, who added a new front and wing to it, and otherwise modified its original grotesqueness ; and since his time it was the residence of the Rev. Dr. Baird, late Principal of the University. Some curious discoveries made in its immediate neighbourhood, in the life- time of the poet, are thus recorded in the Scots Magazine for 1754 : "About the middle of June, some workmen employed in levelling the upper part of Mr. Ramsay's garden, in the Castle Hill, fell upon a subterraneous chamber about fourth!,! V feet square, in which were found an image of white stone, with a crown upon its head, supposed to be the Virgin Mary ; two brass candlesticks ; about a dozen of ancient Scottish and French coins, and some other trinkets, scattered among thi' rubbish. By several remains of burnt matter, and two cannon balls, it is guessed that the building above ground was destroyed by the Castle in some former confusion." This we incline to think may have formed a portion of the ancient church of St. Andrew, of which so little is known ; though, from Maitland's description, the site should perhaps be looked for somewhat lower down the bank. It is thus alluded to by him ; " At the southern side of the Nordloch, near the foot of the Castle Hill, stood a church, the remains whereof I am informed were standing within these few years, by Professor Sir Robert Stewart, who had often seen them. This I take to have been the church of St. Andrew, near the Castle of Edinburgh, to the Trinity Altar in which Alexander Curor, vicar of Livingston, by a deed of gift of the 20th December 1488, gave a perpetual annuity of twenty merks Scottish money." ^ In the panelling of the reservoir, which stands immediately to the south of Ramsay Garden, a hole is still shown, which is said to have been occasioned by a shot in the memorable year 1745. The ball, after being long preserved in the house, was ultimately presented to the late Professor Playfair. An old stone land at the corner of Ramsay Lane, on the north side ot the Castle Hill, presents a picturesque front to the main street, surmounted with a handsome double dormer window. On its eastern side, down Pipe's * \[aitlan(1, p. 206. KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 187 ipes Close, there is a large neatly moulded window, exhibiting the remains of a stone muUion and transom ; and, in the interior of the apartment, directly opposite to this, arc the defaced remains of a large Gothic niche, the chief ornamental portions of which now visible arc two light and elegant buttresses at the sides, affording indications of its original style of decoration. Tradition assigns this house to the Lairds of Cockpen, including, we are bound to believe, the redoubted hero of Scottish song. There is reason indeed to believe that Ramsay Lane had its present name before the days of the poet, having derived it from this mansion of the Ramsays of Cockpen.^ Among the chief magistrates of the city, one of this name occupies a prominent place as a loyal cavalier in troublous times. In the year 1650, the line of provosts is interrupted, as that of kings had already been, and there appears instead, " a committee of Englishmen." Then comes, for the next three years, and a fourth re-election, Archibald Tod, a provost, we may presume, of temper suited to the times. But, in 1654, he is displaced during his term of office by Andrew Ramsay, who in the following year appears as Sir Andrew, continues to occupy the civic chair till 1657, and then reappears after the glorious restoration as one whom King Charles specially delighted to honour. His second term of office extends from 1662 to 1673, so that during sixteen years in all he filKi.i this high office; and, while holding it, succeeded in winning for it special honours. It appears from Fountainhall's Decisions, that " the Town, in a competition betwixt them and the College of Edinburgh, got a letter from the King in 1667, by Sir Andrew Ramsay, then their provost's procurement, determining their provost should have the same place and precedency within the town precincts that was due to the Mayors of London or Dublin, and that no other provost should be called Lord Provost but he." '^ Here, therefore, is a Ramsay, of whom, whether or not he were actual Laird o' Cockpen, it might well be said — " He's proud an' he's great, His mind is ta'en up wi' things o' the state !" The last occupants of gentle blood whose names appear among the successors to the Ramsays' town lodging are mentioned by Chambers as " two ancient spinsters, daughters of Lord Gray." Over the main entrance of the next land there is a defaced inscription, with the date 1621. The house im- mediately below this is worthy of notice, as a fine specimen of an old wooden- fronted land, with the timbers of the gable elegantly carved. During the early 'part of the last century this formed tl:c family mansion of David, third Earl of Leven, on whom the title devolved after being borne by two successive Countesses in their own right. He was appointed Governor of Edinburgh ' The Luirds of Cockpen were a branch of the Ramsays of Dalhousic ; Douglas's Peerage, vol. i. p. 404. Maitlanil in his list of Streets, etc., mentions a Ramsay's Close, without indicating it on the map. '^ Fountainhall's Decisions, vol. i. p. 400. *■ 1 88 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ■ Castle by William and Mary, on its surrender by the Duke of Gordon, in 1 689 ; and shortly after he headed his regiment, and distinguished himself at the battle of Killiecrankie — by running away ! To the east of this there formerly stood, at the head of Sempill's Close, another wooden-fronted land, ornamented with a curious projecting porch at the entrance to the close, and similar in general style to those lying immediately to the east of it, which were taken down in 1845. It hung over the street, story above story, each projecting farther the higher it rose, as if in defiance of all laws of gravitation, until at length it furnished unquestionable evidence of its great age by literally tumbling about the ears of its poor inmates, happily without any of them suffering very serious injury. Immediately behind the site of this house stands a fine old mansion, at one time belonging to the Sempill family, whose name the close still retains. It is a tall substantial building, with a projecting turnpike stair, as shown in the accompanying woodcut, over the entrance to which is the inscription, PRAISED BE THE LORD MY GOD, MY STRENGTH, AND MY REDEEMER. ANNO DOM. 1638, and a device like an anchor, entwined with the letter S. Over another door, which gives entrance to the lower part of the same house, is the inscription, SEDES MANET OPTIMA CCELO, with the date and device repeated. On the left of the first inscrip- tion there is a shield, bearing^party per fesse, in chief three crescents, a mullet in base. The earliest titles of the property are wanting, and we have failed to discover to whom these arms belong. The house was purchased by Hugh, twelfth Lord Sempill, in 1 743, from Thomas Brown and Patrick Manderston, two merchant burgesses, who severally possessed the upper and under portions of it. By him it was converted into one large mansion, and apparently an additional story added to it, as the outline of dormer windows may be traced, built into the west wall. Lord Sempill, who had seen considerable military service, commanded the left wing of the royal army at Culloden. He was succeeded by his son John, thirteenth Lord Sempill, who, in 1755, sold the family mansion to Sir James Clerk of Pennycuik. The ancient family of the Sempills is associated in various ways with Scottish song. John, son of Robert, the third lord, married Mary Livingston, one of " the Queen's Maries." Their son. Sir James, a man of ability and great influence in his day, was held in high estimation, and employed as ambassador to England in 1599; he was the author of the clever satire entitled, " A Picktooth for the Pope ; or the Pack-man's Paternoster, set downe in a Dialogue betwixt a I'ack-man and a Priest." The work is now very scarce. A polemical work by the same author, entitled Sacrilege Sacredly Handled (London, 161 9), contains in the preface the following quaint allusion to his name : " A sacred and high subject seemeth to require a sacred pen- man too ; True. And though I be not of the tribe of Levi, yet I hope of the 1:^ i KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 189 tents of Sent, how Simple soever." His son followed in his footsteps, and produced an " Elegy on Habbie Simson, the piper of Kilbarchan," ' a poem of great vigour and much local celebrity ; while his grandson, Francis Sempill of Beltrees, is the author both of the fine old song, " She rose and let me in," and of a curious poem preserved in Watson's Collection, entitled " Banishment of Poverty," written about 1680. It contains some interesting local allusions, and, among others, the following, to the mansion of a noble relative, which would appear at that time to have been at Leith — " Kind Widow Caddel sent for me To dine, as she did oft, forsooth ; But oh, alas, that might not be, Her house was ov'r near the Tolbooth. " I shpt my page, and stoui'd to Leith, To try my credit at the wine, But foul a dribble fyl'd my teeth, He catch'd me at the Coffee-sign. I staw down through the Nether- Wynd, My Lady Semple's house was near. To enter there was my design, Where Poverty durst ne'er appear. " I din'd there, but I baid not lang, My Lady fain would shelter me ; But oh, alas, I needs must gang. And leave that comely company. Her lad convoy'd me with her key. Out through the garden to the fiels, But I the Links could graithly see, My Governour was at my heels." ^ Lord SempiU's House, Castle Hill. There is a tradition in the family that Lady Sempill, having been a Catholic, the mansion was at that period a favourite place of resort for the Romish priests then visiting Scotland in disguise, and that there existed a concealed passage — apparently alluded to in the poem — by which they could escape on any sudden surprise. To the east of SempiU's Close, there stood, till recently, an ancient and curious land, possessing all the characteristics of those already alluded to as the earliest houses remaining in Edinburgh. It consisted only of two stories, V' \ the * Watson's Collection of Scots Poems, 1706, part i. p. 32. - Ihiil. p. 14. I90 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH I '. and Its internal arrangements were of the simplest description. The entire main floor appeared to have formed originally a single apartment, with a huge fireplace at the west end, and a gallery added to it by the timber projection in front. The hearthstone was raised above the level of the floor, and guarded by a stone ledge or fender, similar in character to a fireplace of the thirteenth century still existing at St. Mary's Abbey, York. This room was lighted by a large dormer window in the roof, in addition to the usual windows in front ; and in the thickness of the stone wall, within the wooden gallery, there were two ornamental stone ambries, with projecting sculptured sills, and each closed by an oak door richly carved with dolphins and other ornamental devices.^ The roof was high and steep, and the entire appearance of the building singularly picturesque. We have been the more particular in describing it, from the interest attaching to its original possessors. It is defined, in one of the title-deeds of the neighbouring property, as "that tenement of land belonging to the chaplain of the chaplainry of St Nicolas's Altar, founded within the College Church of St. Giles, within the brugh of Edinburgh " ; it is now replaced by a plain, unattractive modern building.^ The most interesting portions of this district, however, or perhaps of any other among the private buildings in the old town, were to be found within the space including Todd's, Nairn's, and Blyth's Closes, nearly the whole of which have been swept away to provide a site for the New College. On the west side of Blyth's Close there existed a remarkable building, some portion of which still remains. This the concurrent testimony of tradition and internal evidence pointed out as having been the mansion of Mary of Guise, the Queen of James V and the mother of Queen Mary. There was access to the difierent apartments, as is usual in the oldest houses in Edinburgh, by various stairs and intricate passages ; for no feature is so calculated to excite the surprise of a stranger, on his first visit to such substantial mansions, as the numerous and ample flights of stone stairs, often placed in immediate juxtaposition, yet leading to different parts of the building. Over the main doorway there is the inscription, in bold Gothic characters, iLQU0 ^OtlOt ^00. with the royal initials I. R., at the respective ends of the lintel. On a shield, placed on the right side, the monogram of the Virgin Mary is sculptured, while a corresponding shield on the left, now greatly defaced, most probably bore the usual one of our Saviour.^ On the first landing of the principal stair a small vestibule gave entrance to an apartment, originally of large dimensions, though for many years sub- ,. d < 1^. • For the description of the interior of this .incient building we are mainly indebted to the Rev. J. Sime, chaplain of Trinity Hospital, whose uncle long possessed the property. A very oblique view of the house appears in Storer's I/igA Street from the Castle Parade, plate i. vol, ii. * For a minuter description of this curious old house see Ri.m'"isceiices of Old Edinburgh, vol, i. p, ii8. '' Vignette at the head of the chapter. .:n ¥, \ / ^.' n \ KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 191 \^ I , • \ divided into various rooms and passages. On entering this apartment, a remarkably rich Gothic niche stood on the right side, attached to a large and elaborately moulded stone fireplace. But it differed from all other niches similarly placed, in having a regular basin and drain, like the true ecclesiastical piscina attached to the altar in many ancient churches. Its position, at the side of a large and handsome fireplace, seems to indicate ^ j that it was designed solely for domestic pur- poses. There were, in all, seven sculptured recesses, of different sizes and degrees of ornament, throughout the range of buildings known as the Guise Palace and Oratory. On the demolition of the royal mansion, a gold ring of curious antique workmanship was discovered, and passed into the hands of C. K. Sharpe, Esq. The hoop was sur- rounded with an inscription in characters of the fifteenth century, much defaced, but including the sacred monogram. A stone setting had fallen out, and showed a sharp gold wire projecting from the centre of the socket, illustrating the mode of setting by the jewellers of the period. Various remains of fine wood carving have from time to time been removed from different parts of this building. A large and well-executed oaken front of a cupboctrd in the apartment below the one last referred to, with the panels wrought in elegant and varied designs, was transferred to the collec- tion of Mr. C. K. Sharpe. In another room on the same floor an interesting relic of this ^""«"' ^^irved Doorway, Uuise Palace, class formed one of the chief ittractions to antiquarian visitors ; and was prized even by the ordinary tourist from its supposed embodiment of the portraits of Mary of Guise and her royal consort. In reality, it differed in style from the oaken carvings undoubtedly pertaining to the Regent's palace, and showed that another mansion of some noble or wealthy burgess of the sixteenth century had beea built in immediate proximity to that of the Queen. This was an elaborately carved door, shown in the accompanying woodcut, and now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries. It is divided by framework — greatly mutilated by its adaptation to some narrower doorway than that for which it was originally designed — into four panels, of which the i 1 •■i it 192 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH : two upper ones are filled with heraldic and elaborate ornamental devices, while the lower ones contain male and female heads, boldly carved in high relief. It is an amusing illustration of the ready co-operation of fancy and tradition to find Dr. Robert Chambers, in his Traditions of Edinburgh, saying of these carved heads, " That of the King bears a strong resemblance to the common portraits of James V, and has all that free carriage of the head, and elegant slouch of the bonnet, together with the great degree of manly beauty, with which this monarch is usually represented. In the Queen's portrait we have the head and bust of a female, about forty years of age, dressed in a coif or antique head-dress " ; but in her case the author acknowledges the absence of such female beauty as should form the counter- Ancient sculptured Lintel, Blyth's Close. poise to that discerned by him in the kingly portraiture.^ The heraldic devices which accompany these heads seem to refute this pleasant fancy. On the shield, above the male head, is an eagle displayed with expanded wings, grasping a star in the left foot, and with a crescent in base. The other shield bears a deer's head erased. But while these armorial bearings suggest no relation to James V or the Queen Regent, they leave no room to doubt that the carved door was originally executed for one of the mansions in Blyth's Close. The same arms impaled on one shield, with the initials A. A. and the date 1557, were sculptured over the north doorway of the building on the east side of the close, as represented above. They mark the lodging of Alex- ander Achison, burgess of Edinburgh, ancestor of the Viscounts Gosford of Ireland, and of Sir Archibald Achison, the host of Dean Swift at Market Hill. The old burgess acquired the estate of Gosford in East Lothian, from whence his descendants took their title by a charter of Queen Mary, dated 1561. In the Registrum Magni Sigilli, in 1575, a charter is recorded of Alexander Aitchison of Gosford, and Helen Reid his wife, whose arms are impaled with her husband's on the sculptured shield, and carved on the panel of the old door. The inscribed ..... ■ with its armorial sculpture, had ' Chambers's Traditk rol. i. p. 80. / ^ / !, I 1.. f^ Ul CO p Cd O CU H W S W ^ r^) o M H W ^ fc< H <; w H H K IMG'S STAPLES, CASTI.K BARNS. AND, CAKTLL HT1,» '93 P O W M w 00 !5 o M i! b<'fn removed from !>.-« arifc«'^»<*l position to heighten the doorway, for th? purpost, oi convf .. part of the deserted inansioii into a s-tabk, ;ind was built izito a .i^iiatcly adjacent ; but it.'i mouldings corresponded with the uid«3 t>, "vay from \vhici\ it had Ix-cn talvCiK and the high land was rent i«p 'ft?oii^li the whole o( its north front, owing to its abstraction. Thi.>' i^Jittor- of the palace buildin;.^'". formed a sort of gallery, extt;iv!"'t. -.rross tlie noJth end of the whole ranfjt, anvl i»t';rnally affording coinr -ii from tifK^se in Todd's and Nairn's Cla^rrs Kind that on the west side oi Hlyth's CI»(«*« id h'ni^t; dtmen- .sions, and several of them of einbofhU* tksin^t is*i gt^i?«lii*5 .•vo{>ittt';fs;t. One of these, with its fine tjoth- < ■ f^tM ''^^ixi uir\-.,ii.s.\ T 'Hi '"' .- 'sv ,i'iv. ':U-5»^V f'^j*; chist(:rv;d piHa?s wc't^- s •• i«' : ^ the h'.tUvW "•nouUiinjjs, and 4 > • • *{ t'le side, entirely differing in t'orm :)•■: •■• V . -I'vl f-i , ■,! -!(i; ai! others that wc fxainihed, in the apparent remains of a stoup <.>r hollow basin, the projirrtlng- front of which had been mutilated. ,\n engraving of this apartment .sh'»ws it in the dilapidated state in which it existed in its latter days, widi the larj^e fire- place concealed, al! but ona clustered pillar, by a wpodcn partition. It had been fini.sb.oil witli higldy carvetl t>niaracntal work, considerable portions of which were only removed d few years previ'.nis to the de.stniction of die \viiole builtling. One bcfjutiful frasi'Ti rnt of thir^ .:^.*.d by Mr. <" K Sharpie, CV>VVirV*tt;:,-> ,A' ■ • • ■ ■■•■ -'■ '•■ ■ - " " ^ ^:\.lu<:-vi :;:'... lt\:i *-C.f-V — . . ,-, ■:! IU-: pafu;is-siy f--.- ijy ='l^«'^^- ».■- ,j^;iris-t^^ i^i' iiiti^iH^/im- •ftnAmiriil. The dcnv^'jtion v:f -ni.* jk-*)^*? :Ji- iJ^ij l>r:">5|hx it.» kyht si LiM'k'US ;un.'dl (y>t\- (.oaicd i-hi«jnb<*f on thtr first 3oof, Hi'htcd by a very n^rro'-v apcflu;"e kxikinfT ir>?f* ^^aj-"*.*':* Cy^"^^ ^ K^ '-wtrniv:*,. tc it had been by a tiovable puiiel in" • •(.:<■ pi;*:fi!ft- i^4f> ' ' nft.''»f««'>V;,i J?c."t*5;s t.t a nj»rroiv flight of stei>s in- geniou':>l,v '.vfAUi- M.«;y.'... ■,h^' •wiitf''; -i, -vf^t^v'ci^ii* ?j.*«^ avul thereby eftectnall)' preventing any suspicion- ^rt-;? ;•■•-■ 5l<. tisc modern occupants. A noUier apartment ifi this hou.se. sxi ti?*- '^«i»y 0at a.s the fine Gothic fin- plare described above, was called the Quv-'.-fi'> f'ead Iv0<;in, where the nobie occupants of the aian.sion wore .said to have iasn h\ «tAtc ere their rcnirival to their final resting-place. The tradition i.s probably traceable to the fact tl\;it tin; vxali.s of t.hc ro«i>;"> hnvl been painted black, to aiiapi it to sonic purpO!>e for which it had h'r4?n %i:\ apart, and the more recent^jpat.s of whft^ wash very imperfecr.l\ ve^t<-d ifr» lugubrious ,xs[H?ct. The .style of the (lUiftg.^, vol i i1 1-' 1 '■ 1 ;■. ' «> » ,.v::- ---:-,-^; c '■^.■ '^^iA ->.;;'^^ v,.i- .iiiiiiif EH'; ' 1 ! 1 *• 4 ,.■ ■j: ii? i;. ,v' :;jf. - \ KING'S STABLES, CASTLE I5ARNS, AND CASTLE HILL «93 P o been removed from its original position to heighten the doorway, for the purpose of converting this part of the deserted mansion into a stable, and was built into a wall immediately adjacent ; but its mouldings corresponded with the sides of the doorway from which it had been taken, and the high land was rent up through the whole of its north front, owing to its abstraction. This portion of the palace buildings formed a sort of gallery, extending across the north end of the whole range, and internally affording communication from those in Todd's and Nairn's Closes, and that on the west side of Blyth's Close, with the oratory or chapel on the east side of the latter. The demolition of those buildings brought to light many interesting features of their original character. The whole had been originally fitted up in a highly ornate style ; the fireplaces especially were of large dimen- sions, and several of them of elaborate design and graceful proportions. One of these, with its fine Gothic niche at the side, has been already described. Another in Todd's Close was of a still more beautiful design. The clustered pillars were adorned with roses and quatrefoils in the hollow mouldings, and it also had a very rich Gothic niche at the side, entirely differing in form from the former, and indeed from all others that we examined, in the apparent remains of a stoup or hollow basin, the projecting front of which had been mutilated. An engraving of this apartment shows it in the dilapidated state in which it existed in its latter days, with the large fire- place concealed, all but one clustered pillar, by a wooden partition. It had been finished with highly carved ornamental work, considerable portions of which were only removed a few years previous to the destruction of the whole building. One beautiful fraj^ment of this, acquired by Mr. C. K. Sharpe, consisted of a series of oak panellings about eight feet high, divided into four compartments by five terminal figures in high relief, and the panels all richly finished in different pa'.terns of arabesque ornament. The demolition of this house in 1845 brought to light a curious small con- cealed chamber on the first floor, lighted by a very narrow aperture looking into Nairn's Close. The entrance to it had been by a movable panel in the room just described, affording access to a narrow flight of steps in- geniously wound round the wall of a turnpike stair, and thereby effectually preventing any suspicion being excited by the appearance it made. The existence of this mysterious chamber was unknown to the modern occupants. Another apartment in this house, on the same flat as the fine Gothic fire- place described above, was called the Queen's Dead Room, where the noble occupants of the inansion were said to have lain in state ere their removal to their final resting-place. The tradition is probably traceable to the fact that the walls of the room had been painted black, to adapt it to some purpose for which it had been set apart, and the more recent coats of white- wash very imperfectly veiled its lugubrious aspect. The style of the fittings VOL. I O M '94 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH of this room, however, and indeed of the greater portion of the building, was evidently long posterior to the date of erection, and a panel over the mantelpiece was filled with a landscape, painted in the manner of old Norie. The inhabitant of this part of the house, when we last visited it, was a respectable old dame, who kept her share of the palace in a remarkably clean and creditable condition, and took great pride in pointing out its features to strangers. She professed an intimate knowledge c<" the original uses of the several portions of the house, and showed a comfortable-looking room on the first floor, commanding a very fine view to the north, as the Queen's bedroom. Two round -arched or waggon-shaped ceilings were brought to view in the progress of demolition, richly decorated with painted devices, in a style corresponding with the date of erection, and both concealed by flat plaster ceilings constructed below them. One of those, shown in the accompanying plate in its last stage of dilapidation, had been lighted by windows ranged along each side of the arched roof, and in its original state must- have formed a lofty and elegant chamber. The roof was of wood, and had been painted in rich arabesques and graceful designs of flowers, fruit, leaves, etc., surrounding panels with inscriptions in Gothic letters. On one portion, all that could be r-.ade out was, |Je '^tbbiU^ Of JC HfS^tiOtUJ* On another was perfectly defined the following metrical legend — (Cif goto int. sgn afatttit br, ®t[) Ban sag (it|)tsst cbm goto to me Sibitl) ge biap, toaltt gofn ti)airtn, Embrace gt trutJj, abantiobn The last word, obviously fei(n, had been curiously omitted, and a dash substituted for it, as though for a guess or puzzle. In the centre of this roof there was a ring, apparently for the purpose of suspending a lamp, and in one of the walls a niche with a trefoil arch slightly ornamented. The whole appeared to have been originally wainscotted, and was probably completed with a carved oaken mantelpiece. The stone fireplace was of large dimensions but entirely without ornament, and in no way corresponded with the style of finish otherwise prevailing in the apartment, although its size and massive construction proved it to be a portion of the original fabric. Another ceiling of a similar form, in a room adjoining this, on the west side of Blyth's Close, was adorned with a variety of emblematic designs, most of which occur in Paradin's Emblems (published at Lyons in i 5 5 7) or in the TraicU des Devises Royales ; although some of them are not to be found in either of these works, — such as a hand amid flames, holding up a dagger, with the motto: Agere et pati fortia ; a branch covered with apples: Ab insomni non custodita dragoni ; two hands out of a cloud, one holding a sword, and the other a trowel : In utnimqiie paratus ; a royal orb, surmounted with the cross, and entwined with snakes : In cnice ttita quies ; and a hand *■ •*' --n -^ "ir '""-'"' ca; KING'S STADLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL '95 a ted ind II out of a cloud, holding a pair of balances on the point of a sword : Quis levior ? aii plus ponderi addit solum. This species of emblematic device was greatly in vogue in the sixteenth century, and various illustrative works of similar character still exist in the libraries of the curious. Among further devices on this ceiling may be mentioned an ape crushing her offspring in the fervour of her embrace, with the motto : Ccecus amor prolis ; a serpent among straw- berry plants : Latet anguis in Herba ; a porcupine with apples on its spikes : Magnum vectigal parsimonia, etc. The devices were united by a series of ornamental borders, and must have presented altogether an exceeai»igly lively and striking appearance when the colours were fresh and the other decorations of the chamber in harmony therewith. A few items from the " Collection of Inventories" help us to realise the specific character of fhe decorations and furnishing of the walls. "The Quec Regentis movables, A.D. 1561. Item, ane tapestrie maid of worsett mixt with threid of gold of the historic of the judgment of Salamon, the deid barne and '.he tva wiffis. Item, ane tapestrie of the historic of the Creatioun, cortening n , ne pecep ane of the King Roboam, contening foure peces ; ane other of little 'lamon," etc. " Of Rownd Gloibbis and Paintrie, Item, twa gloibbis, the t i^ )t the heavin, the uther of the earth. Sex cartis of sundrie cuntrei<^ Twa paintit bi. idis, the ane of the muses, and the uther of crotescqi t •>< conceptis. ;".acht paintit broddis of the Doctouris of Almaine." ^ Another interesting feature in the decoration of this once magnificent mansion was the heraldic carvings with which the oaken ceilings in some of the rooms were adorned, and which sufficed to place its original occupancy by the Queen Regent beyond all question. These included the armorial bearings of the Duke of Chatelherault, with his initial: I. H. ; those of France, with the initials H. R. ; and, lastly, those of Guise, impaled with the Scottish Lion, and having the Queen Regent's initials, M. R. The first of these occupied the centre of a large entablature in the ceiling of the outer vestibule of the apartment where the elegant Gothic niche stood, to which we have given the name of a piscina ; and those of France were in the same position in the floor above. These devices wci '^^terly so obscured with dirt and whitewash as to appear merely rude pL.t . ornaments ; but on their removal they proved to be very fine and carefully finished carvings in oak, retaining marks of the colours with which they had been blazoned. Their heraldic bearings are not only interestit;;^, as confirming the early tradition, first mentioned by Maitland, of thi.s having been the residence of Mary of Guise, but they afford a very satisfactory clue to the period of her abode there. James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, wis created Duke of Chatelherault in the year 1548, but not fully confirmed in the title till 155 i, when it was con- ceded to him as part of his reward for resigning the regency to the Queen • A Collection of Inventories, etc. 1815, pp. 126, 130. 196 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH i Dowager ; and that same year she returned from France to assume the government. The death of Henry II of France occurred in 15 59, just about the period when the complete rupture took place between the Regent and the Lords of the Congregation, after which time her chief place of residence was in Leith, until her last illness, when she took up her abode in the Castle of Edinburgh, where she died. The interval between these dates entirely coincides with that period of her history when she might be supposed to have chosen such a residence within the city walls, and near the Castle, while the burning of the capital and Palace by the English army in 1544 was of so recent occurrence, and the buildings of the latter were probably only partially restored.^ In olden times the closes and wynds were the abodes of rank and gentility, while the burgher citizens occupied the dwellings and booths on the main streets. With its northern windows commanding a view of the Forth, and its gardens on the sloping terrace overlooking the Nor' Loch, the old Guise palace doubtless formed a civic residence amply according with the dignity of its royal occupant. Long after the days of the regency it continued to be a fitting mansion for nobles and grandees in attendance on the Court or Parliament. Yet ere its demolition it had been transferred to the meanest tenants, and its apartments had become repulsive as the abodes of squalid poverty. ' No allusion occurs in any of the historians of the period, in confirmation of the tradition. "The Queen Dowager," says Calderwood, a.d. 1554, "came from the Parliament Hous, to the Palace of llalyrudhous, with the honnours borne before her," [vol. i. p. 283] on which Knox remarks that, "It was als seemelie a sight to see the crowne putt upon her head, as to see a saddle putt upon the backe of an unrulic kow ! " This, however, and similar allusions to her going to the Palace on occasions of state, cannot be considered as necessarily inconsistent with the occupation of a private mansion. The title- deeds of the property which we have examined throw no light on this interesting question. They are all comparatively recent, the earliest of them bearing the date of 1622. Some curious information about the household of Mary of Guise is furnished in the selections from the register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, ai)pended to Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, e.g. 1538. " Item, for iiij elnis grcne veluet, to be ye covering of ane sadill to the fule," Again, " for vij elnis, J^ elne grene birge satyne, to be the Qucnis fule ane gounc . . . zallow birgc satyne, to be hir ane kirtill . . . blaid black gray, to lyne ye kirtill," etc., and at her coronation in 1540, " Item, deliuerit to ye Frenchc telzour, to be ane cote to Serrat, the Quenis fule," etc. Green and yellow seems to have been the Court Fool's livery. This is one of the very few instances on record of a female buffoon or fool for the amusement of the Court. The Queen's establishment also included a male and female dwarf, whose dresses figure in these accounts, alongside of such items as — " For vj elnis of Parise blak, to be Maister George Balquhannane ane goune, at the Quenis Grace entre in Edinburghe." "To Janet Douglas, spous of David Lindesay, of the Monthe xl. li." "To the pow-penny, deliuerit to David Lindesay, Lyoune herald, on the Quenis [Magdalen] SauU-Mes and Dirige," etc. The following items from the Treasurer's accounts show the existence of similar servitors in Queen Mnry's household : — " 1 562, Paid for ane cote, hois, lynyng and making, to Jonat Musche, fule, ^^ : S : 6. 1565, For grene plading to mak ane bed to Jardinar, the fule, with white fustiane, feddirs, etc. Ane abulzenient to Jaquelene gouernance de la Jordiner. 1566, Ane garniet of reid and yellow to be ane gowne, hois, and cote, to Jane Colquhoim, fule. 1567, Ane abulzenient of braid inglis yellow, to be cote and breikis, — also sarkis, — to James Geddie, fule." Subsequent entries show that Queen Mary had a female fool, called " Nicolau, the Queen's Grace fule," who would appear, from the following item, to have l)een retained in the service of the Regent after the Queen's flight to England : — " 1570, The first day of August, be the Regents g. speciale command, to Nichola the fule, to mak hir expensis and fraucht to France, ;f 15." u o w o o w o w t^ r ?d o C/3 o / KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 197 In acco dan'.e with the traditions of the locality, we have described the property in Todd's Close as part of the Guise Palace, with which there existed an internal communication. It appears, however, from the title- deeds of the property, that this portion of the range of ancient buildings formed, either in the Regent's time or almost immediately afterwards, a distinct mansion occupied by Edward Hope, son of John de Hope — the ancestor of the celebrated Sir Thomas Hope and of the Earls of Hopetoun — who came from France in 1537 in the retinue of Magdalen, Queen of James V. The earliest title-deeds are wanting which would fix the date of its acquirement by Edward Hope, and determine the question as to whether he succeeded the Queen in its occupancy, or was its first possessor. Edward Hope was one of the most considerable inhabitants of Edin- burgh in the reign of Queen Mary, and the old mansion retained abundant evidence of the adornments of a wealthy citizen's dwelling. He appears to have been a great promoter of the Reformation, and was accordingly chosen in 1560 as one of the commissioners for the metropolis to the first General Assembly.^ Again, we find him in the following year incurring Queen Mary's indignation, as one of the magistrates of Edinburgh most zealous in enforcing " ths status of the toun " against any " masse-moonger, or obstinat papist, that corrupted the people, suche as preests, friers, and others of that sort, that sould be found within the toun." The Queen caused the Provost, Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, along with Edward Hope and Adam Fullerton, " to be charged to waird in the Castell, and commanded a new electioun to be made of proveist and bailHffes " ; but after a time her wrath was appeased, and civic matters left to take their wonted course.'^ The old mansion is replete with historic interest. Within this house, in all probability, the Earls of Murray, Morton, and Glencairn, John Knox, Erskine of Dun, with Lords Boyd, Lindsay, and other leading men of the reforming party, assembled and matured plans, the final accom- plishment of which led to results of such vast importance to the nation. The circumstances of that period may also suggest the probable use of the secret chamber previously described, which was discovered at the demolition of the building. The close continues to bear the name of Edward Hope's through all the title-deeds down to a very recent period ; and in 1622 it appears by these documents to have been in the possession of Henry Hope, grandson of the above, and younger brother of Sir Thomas ; from whom, also, there is a disposition of a later date, entitled " by Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, Knight Baronet, His Majesty's Advocate," resigning all right or claim to the property in favour of his niece. Christian Hope. This appears to have been a daughter of his brother Henry, who was little less celebrated in his own ' Calderwood's Hist., Woil. Soc, vol. ii. p. 44. - /hid. vol. ii. p. 155 ; ante, p. 90. I i : 1 98 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH l< time than the eminent lawyer. He was the progenitor of the Hopes of Amsterdam, " the merchant-princes " of their day, surpassing in wealth and commercial enterprise any private mercantile company ever known. From Henry Hope the house passed by marriage and succession through several hands, until in 1 69 1 it lapsed to James, Viscount Stair, in lieu of a bond for the sum of " three thousand guilders, according to the just value of Dutch money," probably some transaction with the great house at Amsterdam. The property was transferred by him to his son Sir David Dalrymple, who in 1702 sold it to John Wightman of Mauldsie, afterwards Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and the founder of the school recently rebuilt in Ramsay Lane, that still bears his name. In its latter days it shared the fu.te of most of the patrician dwellings of the old town : its largest apartments were subdivided by flimsy partitions into numerous little rooms, and the old mansion furnished latterly a squalid abode for a host of families of the very humblest ranks of life. The external appearance of this interesting range of buildings is more easily described with the pencil than the pen. The front to the Castle Hill presented a fine group of overhanging gables, and also showed a curious feature that attracted considerable notice, at the entrance to Todd's Close ; where, owing to the construction of the overhanging timber fronts, the whole weight of the buildings on each side seemed to be borne by a single slender stone pillar, of neat proportions, though exhibiting abun- dant evidence of age and long ex- posure to violence. The buildings already described in Blyth's Close stood upon the west side. Those on the east side pre- sented characteristics little less note- worthy, though the records of their history and early occupants no longer survive. They were specially notable for certain features suggest- ive of the mansion of some high dignitary of the Church, or an ec- Large Gothic Niche, Biyths Close. clesiastical institution, with its own chapel and altar. About half-way down the close, and directly opposite the main entrance on the west side, a projecting turnpike-stair gave access to a vestibule on the first floor, which formed only a small portion of what had originally been a large and magnificent apartment. KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 199 This we conceive to have been what Maitland describes as " the chapel or private oratory of Mary of Lorraine." ^ Immediately on entering from the stair a large doorway appeared on the left hand, which had apparently given access to a gallery leading across to the palace on the opposite side of the close. Beyond this there was a niche placed, as usual, at the side of a large and handsome fireplace, with clustered Gothic pillars, of the same form as those already described in other parts of the building. The carved lintel, or arch-head, was gone, but its side mouldings and base corresponded with those of the sculptured ambries in the Guise palace. But the centre of the opposite wall was occupied by a large elaborately sculptured niche, shown in the woodcut on opposite page. The figure of an angel bearing a shield was wrought in the centre of the tracery, and the whole of the ornamentation was in the richest style of decorated Gothic. This beautiful ambry stood wholly apart from any fireplace, and, in all prob- ability, served as a credence table or other appendage to the altar of the chapel. This " chapel or priv- ate oratory " of the Regent was occupied as a schoolroom about the middle of last century by a Jewel-box of Mary of Guise. teacher of note, named Mr. John Johnstone. " When he first resided in it there was a curious urn in the niche and a small square stone behind the same, of so singular an appearance that, to satisfy his curiosity, he forced it from the wall, when he found in the recess an iron casket, about seven inches long, four broad, and three deep, having a lid like that of a caravan-trunk, and secured by two clasps falling over the keyholes, and communicating with some curious and intricate machinery within." ^ The casket recovered under such circumstances, and assumed to have been the jewel-box of Mary of Guise, was subsequently obtained from a relative of the discoverer by )r Robert Chambers, and presented to Sir Walter Scott. It is now at Abbotsford. Portions of another curious relic, found near the same spot, and presented by E. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., to the Society of Antiquaries, are thus described in the list of donations for 1829 : — "An infantine head and hand in wax, being all that remained of a little figure of the child Jesus, discovered in May 1828 in a niche carefully walled up in the chapel of the house formerly occupied by Mary of Lorraine, in Blyth's Close, Castle Hill." Considerable fragments of fine carving in oak remained in the chapel ' Maitlantl, p. 206. "^ Traditions, vol. i. p. 85. I MO MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH till within a few years ago. One specimen in particular, acquired by C. K. Sharpe, Esq., presents a richly carved and beautiful design of grapes and vine leaves, surmounted by finials. Other portions of the same decorations have been adopted by the Duke of Sutherland, as models for the carved work introduced by him in the interior fittings of Dunrobin Castle. The windows of the chapel were very tall, narrow, and singularly irregular in their height. Their jambs were splayed externally on the north side, as is not uncommon in the narrow closes of the old town, to catch every ray of light ; and they exhibited the remains of stone mullions with which they had been originally divided. In the east wall of this building, which still stands, a curious staircase. T.:n'*rsrrr::r«:w«t:j!Ct*Hi;;sr^ Ancient Niches, Blyth's Close. built in the thickness of the wall, afforded access from the chapel to an apartment below, where there was a draw-well of fine clear water, with a raised parapet of stone surrounding it. Immediitely to the north of this, on the same floor, there was another room with interesting remains of former grandeur ; the fireplace was in the style of Gothic design already described, and at the left side stood a handsome niche, with a plain ambry immedi- ately adjoining it, as shown in the accompanying woodcut. The entrance to this portion of the palace was locked and cemented with the rust of years ; the door leading to the inner staircase was also built up, and it had remained in this deserted state during the memory of the oldest of the neighbouring inhabitants ; excepting that " ane sturdy beggar " lived for some time rent free in one of the smaller rooms, his only mode of ingress or egress being by the dilapidated window. The same difficulties had to be surmounted in obtaining the sketch from which the accompanying vignette is given. KING'S STAHLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 20 1 In the highest floor various indications of the same elaborate style of decoration were visible, as have been already described in the ceilings of the palace. A curious fragment of painting, filling an arch on one of the walls, was divided into two compartments by ornamental borders. The picture on the left represented a young man kneeling before an altar, on which stood an open vessel amid flames, while, from a dark cloud overhead, a hand issued, holding a ladle as if about to dip it into the vessel. A castellated mansion, with turrets and gables in the style of the sixteenth century, appeared in the distance ; and on the top there was inscribed on a scroll the words Demum purgabitvr. In the other compartment, a man of aged and venerable aspect was seen, who held in his hands a heart, which he appeared to be offering to a figure like a bird, with huge black wings. Above this were the words . . . Impossibile est. The whole apartment had been decorated in the same style, but only very slight remains of this were traceable on the walls. On the removal of the lath and plaster from the ceilings of the lower rooms, the beams, which were of solid oak, and the under sides of the flooring above were all covered with ornamental devices ; those on the main beams being painted on three sides, and divided at short distances by fillets or bands of various patterns running round them, as shown in the woodcut at the end of this chapter. The description given of those ancient buildings will amply bear us out in characterising them as among the most interesting civic remains that old Edinburgh possessed. Here we have satisfactory evidence for believing that the widow of James V took up her residence during the first years of her regency. In those chambers, in all probability, the leading churchmen and Scottish nobles who adhered to her party have met in grave deliberation to resist the earlier movements that led to the Reformation. Through this mean and obscure alley, ambassadors and statesmen of England and France, and the messengers of the Scottish Queen, made their way to the presence of the Queen Reg'^nt, and were received with fitting dignity in its once splendid halls ; while within the long-desecrated fane royal and noble worshippers have knelt around its altar, gorgeous with the impo.Jng ceremonial of the Catholic Church. It is a dream of times long gone by, of which we would gladly have retained some such memorial as the dilapidated mansion afforded ; but time and modern changes have swept over its old walls with ruthless hand, and this description of vanished splendour and final decrepitude alone remains. There has yet to be described the fine old stone land at the head of lilyth's Close, which occupied a prominent place among the characteristic features of the Castle Hill, with the inscription LAVS DEO and the date I 591 wrought in antique iron letters on its front. The most ancient por- tions of the interior seem as early in character as those already described; and >■ ( V. I il ! I I J. 202 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH I indeed the part extending into the close has apparently been built along with the mansion of the Queen Regent. It is a good specimen of the abode of wealthy burghers of the regency. The earliest titles preserved are two contracts of alienation, bearing date 1590, by which the upper and under portions of the land are severally disposed of to Robert M'Naught and James Rynd, merchant burgesses. The building at that period was probably a timber-fronted land, similar to those adjoining it. Immediately thereafter, as appears from the date on the outer wall, the handsome polished ashlar front which still remains had been erected at their joint expense. In confirmation of this, there is sculptured under the lowest crow-step, at the west side of the building, a shield bearing an open hand, in token of amity, as we presume, with the initials of both proprietors. In an apartment on the second floor of this house, an arched and painted ceiling framed in oak was accidentally discovered, elaborately decorated with a series of sacred paintings of a very curious and interesting character. A large circular compartment in the centre contains the figure of our Saviour, with a radiance round his head, and his left hand resting on a royal orb. Within the encircling border are these words, in gilded Roman letters on a rich blue ground, Ego sum via Veritas et vita, 14 Johne. The paintings in the larger compartments represent Jacob's Dream ; Christ asleep in the storm ; the Baptism of Christ ; and the Vision of Death from the Apocalypse, surmounted by the symbols of the Evangelists. The distant landscape of the Lake of Galilee in the second picture presents an amusing anachronism. It consists of a view of Edinburgh from the north, termin- ating with Salisbury Crags on the left and the old Castle on the right ! This pictorial license affords a clue to the probable period of the work, which must have been executed within less than a dozen years after the renovation of the old land in 1591. The steeples of the Nether Bow Port and the old Weigh-house are introduced : the first of which was erected in the year 1 606, and the latter taken down in 1 660. The fifth picture, and the most curious of all, exhibits an allegorical representation, as we con- ceive, of the Christian life. A ship of antique form is seen in full sail, bearing on its pennon and stern the sacred symbol, IHS. A crowned figure stands on the deck, looking towards a burning city in the distance, and above him the word V^. On the mainsail is inscribed CARITAS, and over the stern, which is in the fashion of an ancient galley, SAPIENCIA. Death appears as a skeleton, riding on a dark horse amid the waves immedi- ately in front of the vessel, armed with a bow and arrow which he is pointing at the figure in the ship ; while a figure, similarly armed and mounted on a huge dragon, follows in its wake, entitled tersecutio, and above it a winged demon, over whom is the word diabolus. The stern is surmounted by an ornamental lantern with a cross on top, and inscribed n KING'S STABLES, CASTLE BARNS, AND CASTLE HILL 203 with the words VERBUM DEI. Thus beset with perils there is r^en in the sky a radiance surrounding the Hebrew word rnn* ; and from this symbol of the Deity a hand issues, taking hold of a line attached to the stern of the vessel. The whole series is executed with great spirit, though now much injured by damp and decay. The broad borders between the pictures are decorated with every variety of flowers, fruit, harpies, birds, and fancy devices ; and divide the ceiling into irregular square and round compartments, with raised and gilded stars at their intersections. This remarkable painting which we have endeavoured to describe possesses peculiar interest as a specimen of early Scottish art. It embodies, though under different forms, the leading features of the immortal allegory con- structed by John Bunyan for the instruction of a later age. The Christian appears fleeing from the City of Destruction, environed still by the perils of the way, yet guided through all the malignant opposition of the powers of darkness by the unerring hand of an over- ruling Providence. These paintings were concealed, as in similar examples previously described, by a modern flat ceiling. Another curious relic of the decorations of this apartment, consisting of a group of musicians, which was rescued from destruction by Mr. G. K. Sharpe, may possibly have been one of the " paintit broddis," mentioned among " the Quene Regentis Paintrie." One of the band is playing on a lute, another on a horn, etc., and all with their music books before them. Fragments of a larger but much ruder copy of the same design were discovered on the demolition of the fine old mansion of Sir William Nisbet of the Dean in 1845, which bore above its main entrance the date 16 14. Other portions of the interior had been renewed at a later period, and exhibited the panelling and decorations in common use during the last century. i i i\ Painterl Oak Beam from the Guise Chapel. < !j : ■ - CHAPTER III THE LAWNMARKET MANY citizens still living can remember when the wide thoroughfare, immediately below the Castle Hill, used to be covered with the stalls and booths of the " lawn merchants," with their webs and cloths of every description, giving that cen- tral locality all the appearance of a fair. But this, with other old customs, has passed away, and the name alone remains to preserve the memory of former usages ; although such was the importance of this locality in former times, that its occupants had a club of their own, styled "the Lawnmarket Club," which was cele- brated in its day for the earliest possession of all important news. The old market-place was bounded on the west by the Wcigh-housc, or " butter trone," as it is styled in some of the title-deeds of the neighbouring buildings, and on the east by the ancient Tolbooth, and formed in early times the only open space of any great extent, with the single ex- ception of the Grassmarket, that existed within the town walls. The Wcigh-house, a clumsy and inelegant building, already alluded to, ' Vu/e p. 126. , (iladstone's Land, I.awnmaikct. THE LAWNMARKET 205 occupied the centre of the street, at the head of the West Bow. It was rebuilt in the year 1660, on the site of a previous erection, which is shown in Gordon's map of 1646, with a steeple at the eas*^^ end, and appears, from contemporaneous accounts, to have been otherwise of an ornamental character. The only decorations on the latter building consisted of a rudely executed ogee pediment over the doorway, surmounted by three ti(tn weights, and containing the city arms. On Queen Mary's entry to Edinburgh in 1561 this was the scene of some of the most ingenious displays of civic loyalty. Her Majesty dined in the Castle, and a triumphal arch was erected at the " butter-trone," from which a choir of hildren greeted her with anthems sung " in the maist heavenly ways." There also the keys of the city were presented to her by "ane bony barne that descendit doun fra a cloudc, as it had bene ane angell," with the addition to the wonted gift of a Bible and Psalm Book ; which contemporary historians hint were received with no very good grace.^ Cromwell established a guard in the same old building while the Castle was held out against him in 1650, and prudently levelled it with the ground on gaining possession of the fortress, lest it should afford the same cover to his assailants that it had done to himself The later erection proved equally serviceable to the Highlanders of Prince Charles in 1745, when they attempted to blockade the Castle, and starve out the garrison by stopping all supplies. The first floor of the large stone land in front of Milne's Court at the latter date was occupied as the residence and guard -room for the officers commanding the neighbouring post ; and the dislodged occupant — a zealous Whig — took his revenge on them after their departure by advertising for the recovery of missing articles abst cted by his compulsory guests. The court immediately behind appears to have been one of the earliest attempts to substitute an open square of some extent for the narrow closes that had so long afforded the sole places of town residence for the Scottish gentry. The main access is adorned with a Doric entablature bearing the date 1690. The principal house which forms the north side of the court has a handsome entrance, with neat mouldings rising into a peak in the centre, like a very flat ogee arch. This style of ornament, which frequently occurs in buildings of the * AnU; p. 91. " Quhen hir grace come fordwart to the butter trone of the said burgh, the nobiHtic and convoy foirsaid precedand, at the quhilk butter trone thair was ane port made of tymber, in maist honourable maner, cullorit with fyne cullouris, hungin with syndrie amies ; upon the quhilk port was singand certane barneis in the maist hevinlie wyis ; under the quhilk port thair wes ane cloud opynnand with four Icvis, in the quhilk was put ane bony barne. And quhen the quenes hienes was cumand throw the said port, the said cloud opynnit, and the barne discendit doun as it had bcene ane angell, and deliuerit to her hienes the keyis of the toun, togidder with ane Bybill and ane I'salnie Buik, couerit with fyne purpourit veluot ; and efter the said barne had spoken some small speitches, he deliuerit .nlsua to her hienes thre writtingis, the tennour thairof is vncertane. That being done, the barne ascendit in the cloud, and the said clud stekit ; and th-rirefter the qucnis grace come doun to the tolbuith." — Diurnal of Occurmtts, p. 68. ' i I I! 306 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ; ' I t ■* r i ,: same period, seems to mark the handiwork of Robert Milne, the builder of the most recent portions of Holyrood Palace, and seventh Royal Master Mason : whose uncle's tomb, erected by him in the Grey friars' church- yard, records in quaint rhymes these hereditary honours — " Reader, John Milne, who niaketh the fourth John, And, by descent from father unto son, Sixth Master-Mason to a royal race ' Of seven successive kings, sleeps in this place." The houses forming the west side of the court are relics of a much earlier period, perpetuating some of the features of a particularly narrow close transformed by the march of improvement in the seventeenth century. The most northerly of them long formed the town mansion of the lairds of Comiston, in whose possession it still remains. The one to the south, though only partially exposed, presents a singularly picturesque aspect. Dormer windows rise above the roof, and a bold projection, supported on an ornamental stone corbel, admits of a very tall window at an oblique angle below it, evidently constructed to catch every stray gleam of light, ere the narrow alley gave way to the improvements of the royal master- mason. Over the entrance to the stair is the inscription, Blcssit .be. God. in.al.his. Giftis, with the date 1580. The east side is substantially built of hewn stone ; but the south front, looking directly down the old West Bow, is a picturesque timber facade with irregular gables, each story thrusting its beams farther into the street than the one below it. Here the removal of the plaster ceiling on the second floor showed the beams decorated with Renaissance ornamentation, painted in distemper, and the under side of the flooring resting on them divided into long panels. Within these were depicted various animals surrounded by conventional foliage. This ancient dwelling is of special local interest. One of its earliest proprietors appears from the titles to have been Bartholomew Somerville, merchant burgess : the most conspicuous among those generous citizens to whose liberality we are mainly indebted for the establishment of the University of Edinburgh on a lasting basis. " In December [1639] following," says Craufurd, " the Colledge received the greatest accession of its patrimony which ever had been bestowed by any private person. Mr. Bartholomew Somervale (the son of Peter Somervale, a rich burgess, and sometime Baylie), ' having no children, by the good counsel of his brothers-in-law, Alex. Patrick, and Mr. Samuel Talfar, mortified to the College 20,000 merks, to be employed for maintenance of an Professor of Divinity, and 6000 merks for buying of Sir James Skeen's lodging and yaird, for his * Over the doorway of Peter Somerville's house in the West Bow were his arms, initials, and the date 1602. THE LAWN MARKET 307 dwelling." ' This worthy citizen was succeeded in the old tenement by Sir John Harper of Cambusncthan. Immediately to the east of Milne's Court is a more modern quadrangle of the same class, associated in various ways with some of the most eminent men who have added lustre to the later history of the Scottish capital. To this once fashionable and aristocratic quarter David Hume removed in 1762 from his previous place of residence in Jack's Land, Canongatc. Here also, and in the same house, lioswell resided when he received and entertained I'aoli, the patriot Corsican chief, in 1771, and the still more illustrious Dr. Johnson, when he visited Edinburgh on his way to the western islands. Entering by a narrow alley which pierces the line of lofty houses along the Lawnmarket, the visitor finds himself in a large quadrangle surrounded by high and substantial buildings, which have evidently fallen to the lot of humbler inhabitants than those for whom they were erected. These courts, walled off by intervening houses from the main street, were in the Scottish metropolis, like the similar edifices of the French nobility, frequently designed with the view of protecting those who dwelt within from the un- welcome intrusion of cither legal or illegal force. But James's Court scarcely dates back to times so lawless, having only been erected by a wealthy citizen in 1727, on the site of various ancient closes containing the residences of judges, nobles, and dignitaries of note in their day, the most eminent of whom was the celebrated lawyer. Sir John Lauder, better known by his judicial title of Lord Fountainhall. This interesting locality is thus described by the latest biographer of David Hume : — " Entering one of the doors opposite the main entrance, the stranger is sometimes led by a friend wishing to afford him an agreeable surprise, down flight after flight of the steps of a stone staircase, and when he imagines he is descending so far into the bowels of the earth, he emerges on the edge of a cheerful crowded thoroughfare, connecting together the old and new town ; the latter of which lies spread before him : a contrast to the gloom from which he has emerged. When he looks up to the building containing the upright street through which he has descended, he sees that vast pile of tall houses standing at the head of the Mound which creates astonishment in every visitor of Edinburgh. This vast fabric is built on the declivity of a hill, and thus one entering on the level of the Lawnmarket is at the height of several stories from the ground on the side next the new town. I have ascertained," he adds, " that by ascending the western of the two stairs facing the entry of James's Court, to the height of three stories, we arrive at the door of David Hume's house, which, of the two doors on that landing-place, is the one towards the left." ^ ' Ciaufurd's Hist, of the University, p. 136. Vide "Description of an old timber building in the Lawnmarket, Edinburgh," by J. M. Dick-Peddie {Proceedings S.A. Scotland, vol. vi. New Series, p. 461;). - Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 136. !li i J 2o8 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH During Hume's absence in France, this dwelling was occupied by Dr. Blair ; and on his leaving it finally for the house he had built for himself in St. Andrew Square, at the corner of St. David Street, James Boswell became his tenant. Thither, in August 1773, Boswell conducted Dr. Johnson, from the White Horse Inn, Boyd's Close, Canongate, then one of the chief inns in Edinburgh ; where he had found him in a violent passion at the waiter, for having sweetened his lemonade without the ceremony of a pair of sugar- tongs. The doctor, in his indignation, threw the lemonade out of the window, and seemed inclined to send the waiter after it. Mrs. Sharpe of Hoddam, the mother of the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., was present at a tea-party in James's Court on the occasion of the doctor's arrival in town, and Mr. Sharpe's notes of her recollections of that evening now lie before us. The distinguished stranger was, not unnaturally, judged of solely by what transpired at that social gathering, where he treated Boswell's guests much in the fashion he was wont to conduct himself towards that worshipful satellite. The impression produced on Mrs. Sharpe was summed up in the very laconic sentence in which Mrs. Boswell had then given utterance to her opinion, that he was " a great brute ! " She specially resented his treatment of her husband ; and indeed Boswell notes, with his usual naivete, that his wife told him, with natural asperity : " I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a man led by a bear ! " Margaret, Duchess of Douglas, was one of the party, " with all her diamonds." She was, according to Mr. Sharpe, somewhat noted among those of her own rank for her ostentation and her illiteracy. Dr. Johnson describes her as "an old lady who talks broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, and is scarce understood by her own countrymen." Nevertheless he reserved his attentions during the evening almost exclusively for the Duchess. Mr. Sharpe adds : " The pity was that they did not fall out. The doctor missed the rebuffs of Lady Margaret, who could be uncommonly vulgar, and my mother's most humorous recollec- tions of the scene were the efforts of Boswell, as their go-between, to translate the unintelligible gaiic/uric of her ladyship into palatable commonplaces for his guest's car." A young fellow present, — Mr. Sharpe thought Andrew Nairnc, a lawyer, — retorted on some remark expressive of the doctor's idolisation of a duchess by commending Pope as a poet with sufficient self-respect to " Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star." A Johnsonian duello followed, in which the most his mother remembered was that the young lawyer stood his ground in spite of the doctor's " No, sir ! " His uncouth habits and overbearing manner were not likely to be under great restraint at Boswell's tea-table ; and the character thus assigned to him is confirmed by the lively letters of Captain Topham, who visited Edinburgh in the following year. He describes the reception of the doctor, THE LAWNMARKET 209 by all classes, as having been of the most flattering kind, and he adds : " From all I have been able to learn, he repaid all their attention to him with ill- breeding ; and, when in the company of the ablest men in this country, his whole design was to show them how little he thought of them." ' Lord Stowell, who was Johnson's travelling companion, related that the doctor was treated by the Scottish literati with a degree of deference bordering on pusillanimity. But he notes as an exception the celebrated advocate, Mr. Crosby (the original of Pleydell, in Guy iMaiiueriiig), whom he charac- terises as an intrepid talker, and the only man who was prepared to " stand up" to Dr. Johnson. It is well that one or two were found thus ready to display some independence, for it is manifest that the traveller was little disposed to adapt himself to the society into which he was thus thrown. On one occasion, at a party where Hume was present, the offer of a mutual friend to introduce him to the philosopher was met with his abruptest " No, sir ! " It is not therefore without reason that Mr. Burton questions if Johnson would have been able to " sleep o' nights," had he learned that he had been entrapped into the arch-infidel's very mansion ! - In Hume's day the North Loch lay directly below the windows of his house, with gardens extending to its margin and a fine open country beyond, diversified with woodland and moor, where now the modern streets of the Scottish capital cover a space vastly exceeding its whole ancient boundaries. Hume appears to have derived great pleasure from the magnificent prospect which his elevated residence secured to him ; yet, although he writes to Dr. Robertson in 1759, "I have the strangest reluctance to change places," he was nevertheless one of the earliest to emigrate beyond the North Loch. In I 770 he commenced building his new house, the first erected in South St. David Street, and the one in which he died. Boswell, as we have seen, succeeded him in the old dwelling, and he was followed in its occupancy by the Lady Wallace, Dowager, relict of Sir Thomas Wallace of Cragie.^ The ' TQ^\\am'& Lelten, London, 1776, p. 139. - We have adhered in tliis lo the biographer of Hume, who assigns the same lioiisc to both. It is certain that Hmvc had a tenant of the name of liosweli, and as the house below was a large residence, consisting of two flats, the probability of Boswell occupying the single flat seems confirmed by the fact that he "regretted sincerely that he had not also a room for Mr. .Scott," afterwards Lord Stowtll, who had accompanied the doctor from Newcastle to the White Horse Inn, Edinburgh. Ur. Johnson's evidence, however, conlr.idicls this. " Boswell," he writes, "has very handsome and spacious rooms, level with the ground at one side of the house, and on the other four stories high," — a remark oily explicable, on this idea, by supposing him to refer to the peculiar character of the building, as described above. ■' So late as 1771, his brother, Joseph Ilume, Esq., ofNincwells, occupied a fashionable residence in the fifth fl.1t of an old house that stood at the junction of the Lawnmarket with Melbourne Place. The following notice of the residence of Lady Ninewclls, the grandmother, as we presume, of Hume, occurs in a series of accounts of a judicial sale of property in Parliament Close, in the year 1680 : — ' ' The house presently possest be the Lady Ninewclls, being the fourth storie above the entrie from the long transs of the tenement upon the e.ist side of the kirk-heugh, consisting of four fire rowmes, with ane sellar, at a yearly rent of ane hundred fourtie and four pounds Scotts." VOL. I P 2IO MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH floor b.-^low was the property of Andrew Macdowal, Esq., advocate, author of the Institutional Law of Scotland, a ponderous mass of legal learning, in three folio volumes. On his elevation to the bench in 1755, under the title of Lord Bankton, in order to adapt the flat in the Lawnmarket to his increased dignity and rank, he purchased the one below, on a level with the court, and united the two by an elegant internal stair of carved mahogany, which has since been displaced by a more homely substitute, on the conver- sion of the old judge's dwelling into a printing-office. Immediately to the east of the lofty range of buildings forming the Lawn- market front of James's Court, houses of an early date and varied character again occur. The first of these, represented at the head of the chapter, is a tall, narrow stone land, adorned according to the style prevailing at the close of the sixteenth century. The house, which belonged of old to Sir Robert Bannatyne, chaplain, was purchased in 163 i by Thomas Gladstone, merchant burgess, and has acquired a novel interest from I'v popular assumption that he is an ancestor of the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, who, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, characteristically produced his"Juventus Mundi : the Gods and Men of the heroic age " as a specimen of official recreation. The old burgess appears to have built the present stone front. On a shield below the crow-steps of the west gable are the initials T. G. and B. G., while a corresponding shield to the east bears a curious device, not unlike an ornamental key, with the bit in the form of a crescent. Many such fancy devices occur on the older buildings in Edinburgh, the only probable explanation of which appears to be that they are merchants' marks. This house is alluded to in the divisions of the city for the sixteen companies formed in 1634, in obedience to an injunction of Charles I, where the second division, on the north side of the Castle Hill, terminates at " Thomas Gladstone's Land." ' Previous to the opening of Bank Street, Lady Stair's Close, the first below this old building, was the chief thoroughfare for foot passengers taking advantage of the half-formed earthen mound to reach the new town. It derives its name from Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Stair, who, as the wife of the Viscount Primrose, is associated with one of the most romantic traditions of old Edinburgh. Scott has made the incidents of Lady Primrose's singular story the groundwork of " Aunt Margaret's Mirror," perhaps the most striking of all his briefer tales ; while the scarcely less interesting materials preserved by the latest survivors of the past generation form some of the most attractive pages of Chambers's Traditions. This story, with nearly all the marvellous features of Aunt Margaret's tale, received universal credit from ti''e contemporaries of the principal actors in its romantic scenes, as well as from many of the succeeding generation. ' Maitland, p. 285. THE LAWNMARKET 211 at in The Countess Dowager of Stair was long looked up to as the leader of fashion ; and an admission to her select circle was courted as one of the highest objects of ambition among the smaller gentry of the period. " My mother's sister, Lady Murray of Clermont," writes Mr. C. K. Sharpe, " told me that when she went to visit the Dowager, her stair was so narrow that she had to tilt her hoop. But that was a common occurrence in the old town closes ; and ladies' hoops were constructed like the graith of Milton's devils, when the crowd of them swarmed, and got jammed in Mulcibcr's Close : the giants shrank and collapsed like my lady's hoop and fardingale." One cannot help smiling now at the idea of the leader of fan in the Scottish capital condescendingly receiving the I'/ite of fashionable society in the second flat of a common stair in a narrow close of the old town ; yet such were the habits of Edinburgh society in the eighteenth century, at a period when the distinctions of rank and fashion were guarded with a degree of " jealousy of which we have little conception novr. A characteristic sample of the manners of the period is furnished in the evidence of Sir John Stewart of Castlemilk, in the celebrated Douglas Cause, affording a peep into the interior of Holyrood Palace about the middle of last century. Sir John Stewart states that, being on a visit to the Duke of Hamilton at his lodgings in the Abbey, the Countess of Stair entered the room, seemingly in a very great passion, holding in her hand a letter from Thomas Cochrane, Esq., afterwards Earl of Dundonald, to the Duke of Douglas, in which he affirmed that the Countess of Stair had declared that, to her knowledge, the children said to be those of Lady Jane Douglas were fictitious ; whereupon the Countess struck the floor three times with a staff which she had in her hand, and each time that she struck the floor she called the writer a damned villain, which her ladyship said was his own expression in his letter to the Duke, '.i'e on fancy the stately old lady in her high-heeled shoes and '.oop, Pcu-ishint, her cane, and crushing the obnoxious letter in her hand, as she ti/pi^ed tj .'_-. author the elegant epithet of his own suggestion.^ In the same close which b'~ars her lad^ ^h'p's name also resided the celebrated bibliographer and artiqvipiv- Mi George Paton, the friend and correspondent of Lord Hailes, Gough, i^ishop Percy, Ritson, George Chalmers, Pennant, Herd, and, indeed, of nearly all the most eminent venerators of antiquity during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Two small volumes of the Paton Correspondence — now rare and valuable — have been published, which serve to show the very high estimation in which he was held as a literary antiquary, and the numerous contributions furnished by him to some of the most eminent works of that claas, only a small portion of which has been acknowledged by the recipients. George Paton was a man ' Proof for Douglas of Douglas, Esq., defender, ac. Douglas Cause. 212 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH of extreme modesty and diffidence ; a bachelor of retiring and taciturn inclinations ; yet he was neither illiberal nor unsocial in his habits. His time, his knowledge, and his library were all at the service of his friends ; and though not only temperate, but abstemious In his tastes, his evenings were generally spent with Herd, and other kindred spirits, at Johnnie Dowie's Tavern, in Libberton's Wynd, the well-known rendezvous of the Scottish literati during that period. He was methodical in all his habits. The moment eleven sounded from St. Giles's steeple, his spare figure might be seen emerging from the wynd head ; and the sound of his cane on the pavement of Lady Stair's Close gave the signal to his housekeeper for his admittance. This interesting old Edinburgh cliaractcr bears in many respects a resemblance to the more celebrated "Elia" of the East India House. He obtained a clerkship in the Custom-Housc, the whole emolu- ments of which, after an augmentation for many years' service, never exceeded ;^So ; and yet with this narrow income he contrived to amass a collection of books and manuscripts rarely equalled by a single individual. On his death in the year 1 807, at the advanced age of eighty -seven, his valuable library was sold by auction, occupying considerably more than a month in its disposal ; and its treasures were strenuously contended for by the chief bibliopolists assembled from distant parts of the kingdom. Ancient Lintd, LaJ» Stair's Close. The old mansion, in Lady Stair's Close, bears over its entrance this pious inscription, " feare the loud and depart from evill," with the date 1622, and the arms and initials of its original proprietor, Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, the ancestor of the present Lord Gray, and of Gcida or Egidia, his wife, sister of Sir John Smith of Grothill, Provost of Edinburgh. Sir William was a man of great influence and note. By virtue of a patent granted by Charles I, the ancient title of Lord Gray reverted to his family ; but he devoted himself to commerce, and became one of the most extensive Scottish merchants of his day, improving and enlarging the foreign trade of his country and acquiring great wealth to him.self On the breaking out of civil commotions, he adhered to the royal party, and shared in its misfortunes. He was fined by the Parliament 100,000 merks for corresponding with Montrose, and imprisoned first in the Castic and afterwards in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, till the penalty was modified to 35,000 merks, which was H THE LA VVN MARKET 213 instantly paid.^ Other and still more exorbitant exactions followed, until his death in 1648, which was believed to have been accelerated by his share in the troubles of the period. Other cares, however, besides those attendant on civil strife, embittered the latter years of the noble merchant. From Sir Thomas Hope's diary, 12th May 1645, we learn that "a dauchter of Sir William Grayis departit off the plaig, quhilk put us all in greit fear." ' So that the old mansion in Lady Stair's Close retains, among its other interesting associations, this memorial of the terrible plague of 1645, the last and most fatal visitation of tlat dreadful scourge, which, like its first recorded appear- ance in 1 5 I 3, — the memorable year of Flodden, — followed in the wake of a disastrous war, while the city was awaiting in terror the victorious forces of Montrose. The " Statuts for the Baillies of the Mure,"^ first enacted in 1567, were renewed with various modifications at this period, sealing up the houses where " the angel of the pestilence " had stayed his boding flight, and forbidding to his victims the rites of .sepulture with their kindred. One interesting memorial of the stern rule of " the Baillies of the Mure," during this terrible year, remains in a field to the east of Warrender House, Bruntsfield Links, a central spot in the old Borough Moor. Here, amid the luxuriant pasturage of the meadow, and within sight of the busy capital, a large flat tombstone may be seen, time-worn, and gray with the moss of age ; it bears on it a skull, surmounted by a winged sand-glass, and a scroll inscribed mors pace . . Jiora cceli ; and underneath a shield surmounted by the letter M, bearing a saltier with the initials I. R. and the date of the fatal year 1645. The M. over the shield in all probability indicates tlat the deceased had taken his degree of Master of Arts. A scholar, therefc're, and perhap'. one of noble 'jirth, has won the sad pre-eminence of slumbering in unconsecrated ground, and apart from the dust of his fathers, to recall the terrors of the plague to other trcncrations. The lady of Sir William Gray appears to have long survived her husband, as, in the writs of some neighbouring properties, the old alley is styled Lady Gray's Close. The Countess of Stair's house, we may add, is proved, from the titles, to have been the upper story, " immediately above the dwelling- house which pertained to the heirs of David Gray, merchant burgess," 1 Wood's Peerai^i', vol. i. p. 672. - Sir Thomas Hope's Diary, Bann. Club, p. 219. ■' " Statuts for ihc Baillies of the Mure, aiitt ordering; tlic Pest. For oriloiiriiig of the said niiire, and popill infcclil thaiiupoun, for cleiif^oing of houssis within the toun,'' &c. "That the Thesaurer causs in.ak for everie ane of the liaiUies, Clengcrs, and lierears .if the deid, ane gown of gray, with .Sanct Androiss corss, f|ulutc behind and before ; and to everie ane of thanie, ane staff, with ane qidiite clayth on the end, quhairby thay may be knawin quhairever thay pass. That thnir be maid twa clois beris with foiire feet, colorit over with blak, and ane quhite cross, with ane bell to be hung in upfiun the side of the said beir, quilk sail niak warning to the pepill. . . . Tlia^ with all deligence possible, sa sonc as ony houss sail be infectil, the haill houshald, with their gudds, be depescit towert the mure, the deid burict, and with like deligence the houss clengit," lic. — Council Register, 1568. Maitland, p. 31. , 214 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ii^ doubtless a descendant of its builder ; and her successor is a Lady Clestram, the relict of some worthy laird, whose honours did not prove strong enough to overcome the ec/di of a countess's n^me. The buildings in the adjoining close are of an older date ; but while the memories of nobles or grandees, who formed its earlier occupants, have faded away, their place is amply filled by more recent associations with names yielding in interest to none with whose memories the localities of Edinburgh are linked. Here, in the year 1786, the poet Burns — ^just snatched from exile by the generous intervention of the blind bard, Dr. Blacklock — found his way fresh from the plough to his friend Richmond, a writer's apprentice ; and accepted the offer of a share of his room and bed, in the house of Mrs. Carfrae, Baxter's Close, Lawnmarket.^ In the first stair to the left, on entering the close, and on the first floor, is the poet's lodgiin^. The tradition of hi.i lesidence there has passed through very few naraiors. The pre- decc/'^^or of the present tenant (a respectable widow, v '.10 has occupied the house for many years) learned it from Mrs. Carfrae ; and the poet's rc^m is poiute*! out, with its window looking into Lady Stair's Close. From this is:idgi \; he sallied forth to take his first glance at the romantic capital of his country, to every association of which his heart responded with such entb'^j.i ai.tic ardour. He made his way ft. the Canongate churchyard, and scarcl'.ed out the neglected grave of the poet Fergus^on, over which ere long he erected the memorial stone that, with renovated features, still marks the spot. He next si->ught the shop where Allan Ramsay's Scottish Pastoral issued from the poet's own hands, and on entering reverently uncovered his head as in a temple of the muses. When he was afterwards introduced to William Creech, the successor of Ramsay as its tenant, Creech recognised the poet as a stranger who had previously visited " Creech's Land " and inquired if this had been the shop of the author of The Gentle Shepherd. The house thus associated with Burns as his first Edinburgh lodging is an ancient and very substantial building, with large and neatly moulded windows, retaining the marks of their old stone mullions and lead casements. In one tier in particular, the winduws placed one above another, and only separated at each story by a nar»'c-Af lintel or transom, present the appearance cf one long and narrow \v udow from top to bottom of the lofty land. P'rom this ancient dwelling, when Burns had maHe his way into Edinburgh society, he issued to dine or sup with the maj. nates uf the land; and, " when the company arose in the gilded and illumiucitcd rooms, somi of fhc fair guests — perhaps " Her Grace, Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies, And gild our chamber cei'ings as they pass"— took the hesitating arm of the bard, went smiling to her coach, waved a ' Allan Cvuiningham's Burns, vol. i, p. 115. THE LAWN MARKET 215 graceful good-night with her jewelled hand, and, departing to her mansion, left him in the middle of the street, to grope his way through the dingy alleys of the ' gude town,' to his obscure lodging, with his share of a deal table, a sanded floor, and a chaff bed, at eighteenpence a week." ' So writes Allan Cunningham. The poet's lodging, however, is no such dingy apart- ment as this description implies ; it is a large and well-proportioned room, neatly panelled, according to a fashion by no means antiquated then ; and if he was as well boarded as lodged, the hardy ploughman would find his independence exposed to no insurmountable temptations, for all the grandeur of the old Scottish duchesses, most of whose carriages were only sedan chairs, unless when they preferred the more economical conveyance of " a gude pair of pattens ! " Over the doorway of the old house, immediately opposite to -Burns's lodging in Baxter's Close, there is a curious and evidently ancient lintel, a relic of some more stately mansion of the olden time. It bears a shield, now much defaced, surmounted by a crown, and above this a cross, with the figure of a mitred abbot or bishop leaning over it. The initials A. S. and E. I. are placed on either side ; and above the whole, in antique Gothic letters, is the inscription, BLISSIT • BE • THE • LORD ■ in • HIF • GIFTIS • FOR ' NOV * AND • EVIR. We are inclined, from the appearance of this stone, to assign to it an earlier date than that of any other inscription in Edinburgh. The house into which it is built is evidently a much later erection, and no clue is furnished from its titles as to any previous building on the site. It passed by inheritance in the year 1 746 into the possession of Martha White, only child of a wealthy burgess, whose gold won for her, some few years later, the honours of Countess of Elgin and Kincardine, governess to Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales, anH the parentage of sundry honourable Lady Marthas, Lord Thomases, and tie like. While the poet Burns was sharing his friend Richmond's lodgings in Baxter's Close, there dwelt, imniediately to the east, in Wardrop's Court, a young artist, Alexander Nasmyth, who subsequently bore a prominent part among those who originated the Scottish school of the Allans, Raeburn, Wilkie, Harvey, and others of like well-earned fame. The sympathy of genius soon brought poet and painter together. Burns paid repeated visits to Nasmyth's studio ; until at length the young painter gave practical evidence of his admiration, by painting gratuitously the portrait which adorns the Edinburgh edition of the poet's works. James Beugo, an equally enthusiastic young engraver, transferred it to copper on the same liberal terms, adding to its value by getting the poet to sit to himself repeatedly v/hcn finishing it ; and thereby producing what is justly valued as in some respects a more authentic and faithful likeness than any of his painted ^ Allan Cunningham's Bunts, vol, i. p. 131. ^h I mi%m 3l6 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH portraits. The enthusiastic appreciation which those young artists thus manifested for the Ayrshire peasant surpasses, in its self-sacrifice, anything that his titled patrons lavished on him ; and when we bear in view the close proximity of the poet's lodging and the painter's studio, it requires no effort of imagination to picture the occupation of the poet's mornings ; for it has been remembered that, when the sittings were done, painter and poqt used to ramble together to Arthur's Seat, where Burns's special delight was to climb to the summit, and look from thence on the grand panorama of the Forth and Fifeshire Hills, the Pentlands, Grampians, Ben Ledi, Ben Lomond, and the rich expanse of the Carse and Lothians between. Returning, in our topographical survey, to review the venerable fabrics of the Lawnmarket : on the south side an ancient land in Johnston's Close, immediately behind the West Bow, exhibits an unusually picturesque char- acter in its gloomy interior, abounding with arched recesses and corbelled projections, scattered throughout in the most irregular fashion ; and with narrow windows, thrust into the oddest corners, or even above the very cornice of the ceiling, in order to catch every wandering ray of borrowed light, amid the jostling of its pent-up neighbourhood. A view of the largest apartment is given, by some mistake, in the Abbotsford edition of the VVavcrley Novels, under the name of " Hall of the Knights of St. John, St. John's Close, Canongate" We have failed in every attempt to obtain any clue to the early history of the building thus associated with this ancient order of soldier-priests. In the first and smaller court of Riddle's Close, immediately to the east of this, a lofty land with a projecting turret stair bears the date 1726, although a portion of the building to the south belongs to a much earlier period. This lofty tenement derives an interest from the fact of its having been the first residence of David Hume as an independent householder in Edinburgh, adding another link to the associations with which the Lawn- market abounds in connection with the great philosopher. He removed thither from Ninewells in 1751, from whence he writes shortly after to Adam Smith, " Direct to me in Riddal's Land, Lawnmarket." He thus facetiously describes to the great political economist his own first attempts at domestic economy : — " I have now at last — being turned of forty, to my own honour, to that of learning, and to that of the present age — arrived at the dignity of being a householder. About seven months ago I got a house of my own, and completed a regular family, consisting of a head, viz. myself, and two inferior members — a maid and a cat. My sister has since joined me, and keeps me company. With frugality I can reach, I find, cleanliness, warmth, light, plenty, and contentment. What would you have more? Independence ? I have it in a supreme degree. Honour ? That is not altogether wanting. Grace ? That will come in time. A wife ? That is THE LAWNMARKET 217 none of the indispensable requisites of life. Books ? That is one of them, and I have more than I can use." ^ The titles of this property include a curious identification of the house of the famous wizard of the neighbouring Bow, in " an express servitude upon the tenement of land called Major Weir's Land, sometime belonging to James Riddle of Caister, in the county of Norfolk, in England ; that the same shall not be built higher than it is at present, lest it may anywise hurt or prejudice the said subject." A com- parison of dates shows that Hume commenced his History of England in Riddle's Land, though the bulk of it was written after his removal to Jack's Land, Canongate. An interesting mansion, of a much earlier date, but of equally lofty character, occupies the opposite side of this narrow court. Entering the doorway under a corbelled angle, which adapts the projecting staircase to its narrow site, the visitor ascends a substantial stone stair to a broad landing on the second floor. Here the stair seems to terminate, but, on proceeding along the dark passage a little way, he will be surprised to stumble on another stair, equally substantial, though somewhat narrower, rather puzzling him to conjecture by what species of substructure it reaches a foundation on terra firma. Without ascending this second stair, however, he will reach a large apartment, now occupied as a bookbinder's workshop, although retaining the proscenium and other requisites for dramatic exhibitions : this having been used at one time as a public theatre. On passing through this, an inner room is reached, which retains an exceedingly interesting series of decorations of an earlier period, still in tolerable preservation. The ceiling, which is richly ornamented in stucco, in the style that prevailed during the reign of Charles H, has a large circle in the centre, containing the royal crown, surrounded by alternate roses and thistles, and with the date 1678. The remainder of the ceiling is arranged in circular and polygonal compartments, with the Scottish Lion Rampant, and the Lion Statant Gardant as in the English crest, alternately. The walls of this apartment are panelled in wood, and decorated in the very richest style of old Norie's art ; justifying his claim to rank among the landscape painters of Scotland. Every panel in the room, on shutters, walls, and doors, contains a landscape, some of them executed with great spirit. Even the keystone of an arched recess has a mask painted on it ; and the effect of the whole is still beautiful.^ This fine old mansion was originally the residence of Sir John Smith of Grotham, Provost of Edinburgh, who, in 1650, was one of the Commissioners chosen by the Committee of State to convey the loyal assurances of the nation to Charles II at Breda ; taking with them, at the same time, " the ' Burton's Life of Hume, vol. i. p. 377. " For the later fate of those paintings, vide "James Norie, Painter," Edinburgh, privately printed, 1890, p. 8. I 3l8 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH iv. Covenant to be subscryvit by his Majestic." So recent, we may add, has been the desertion of this locality by the wealthier citizens, that Professor Pillans, who succeeded to the Chair of Humanity in the University of Edinburgh in 1820, and filled it for nearly half a century, w.is born and brought up within the same ancient dwelling. He claimed kin to Lord Brougham through his mother's family, and belonged to the early group of Edinburgh reviewers whose trenchant criticisms exercised so great an influence on the literatutt. of the past generation. To this he owed the questionable distinction of a niche in the pillory of Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, where Caledonia's Goddess characterises the band of " the critic clan"— " Scott may perchance his name and influence lend, And paltry Pillans shall traduce his friend." The satirist's envenomed sting left a lifelong sense of oddly-mingled vanity and ire ; and the annual reassembling of his students was the favourite occasion for a renewal of the professor's protest against the base insinuation. The inner court, of which we furnish an engraving, is a neat, open paved square, that still looks as though it might afford a fitting residence for the old courtiers of Holyrood. The building which faces the visitor on passing through the second large archway is an object of special local importance, as the residence of Bailie Macmoran, a magistrate of Edinburgh and a citizen of note in the reign of James VI, whose tragic fate has given a certain tnduring interest to his name. In this old civic mansion, as we learn from Birreli's Diary, on the 2d of May 159}, the Duke of Holstein was entertained at a banquet, '^iven at thr expense of the town, in Macmoran's lodging ; cind "the King's Majesty and the Queen being both there, there was great solemnity and me.riness at the said banquet." ^ The Bailie himself doubtless took a prominent part in the reception of their Majesties and the honoured gniest in his own lodging. Within a brief period thereafter he was called to interfere in his official capacity at a famous barring-out by the High School hoys ; and the youthful rebels carrying their resistance to the utmost ex- tremity, the Bailie was shot dead in the old High School Yards. The same contemporary diarist already referred to tells us, " there was ane number of schollaris, being gentlcmens bairns, made a muitinie." The youth who fired the rash shot was William Sinclair, a son of the Chancellor of Caithness, " a gentleman's bairn." On learning of the Bailie's death, as Birrell narrates, "presently the haill townsmen ran to the schooll, and tuik the said bairns, and put yame in the Tolbuith ; bot the haill bairns were letten frie without hurte done to yame for ye same, within ane short tyme yairafter."^ The chief culprit was allowed to escape with the rest of the juvenile rebels, his father's power and influence being too great to suffer the law to take its ' Fragment of Scot, Hist. Birrell, p. 46. - Birreli's Diary, p. 35 ; NicoU's Diary, p. 4. i lUDDLE'S CLOSE. LAWN MARKF.T. !-■ M r. t E M /vC"M: R A N 'S H U o F' iC^% ^.^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 4p i/.. 1.0 I.I 1^ iZ^ |2.5 US Kii 12.2 ^ 1^ 120 1.8 L25 ill 1.4 IIIIII.6 7^ <% % 7 '>> '^ 7 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STRf ET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716)872-4503 \ iV 1^ SJ c V 6^ ^"4^ ^ < V // M i I U THE LAWNMARKET 219 course. Until the demolition of the Old High School, in 1777, the boys used to point out what was called the Bailie's Window, being that through which the fatal shot had been Bred. The Bailie's initials, I. M., are visible over either end of the pedi- ment that surmounts this old mansion, and the court is styled, in all the earlier titles of this old property, Macmoran's Close. After passing through several generations of the Macmorans, the house was acquired by Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik. By him it was sold to Sir Roderick Mackenzie of Preston Hall, appointed a Senator of the College of Justice in 1 702, who resided in the upper part of the house, at the same time that Sir James Mackenzie, Lord Royston, third son of the celebrated Earl of Cromarty, " one of the wittiest and most gifted men of his time," occupied the lower flat. Here, therefore, we may presume his witty and eccentric daughter, Anne, was bom and brought up. This lady, who married Sir William Dick of Prestonfield, carried her humorous pranks to an excess scarcely conceivable in our more decorous days ; sallying out occasionally in search of adventures, like some of the maids of honour of Charles the Second's Court,^ dressed in male costume, with her maid for a squire, and outvying them in the extra- vagance of her proceedings. She seems indeed to have possessed more wit than discretion. Some of her poetical lampoons were privately printed by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in a rare though well-known little volume, entitled " A Ballad Book," and furnish curious specimens of the notions of delicacy at the period. Half a dozen more Provosts, Baronets, and Lords of Session might be mentioned as the old occupants of this aristocratic quarter ; but it will probably interest the reader more to learn that " the laigh tenement of land " was " sometime possessed by Jean Straiton, relict of the deceased Mr. David Williamson, Minister of the Gospel at the West Kirk," — the well-known " Daintie Davie " of Scottish song, who, if tradition has not wronged him, had " worn out six wives," ere Jean Straiton, the seventh, contrived to survive him. He was one of the ejected ministers in 1665, and was restored, to the great joy of the parishioners, in 1689, although the Duke of Gordon, then under siege in the Castle, contrived to keep him out of his church for six months, and left the ancient fabric well-nigh reduced to ruins ere he sur- rendered the fortress.2 His grave is still pointed out in the churchyard of St. Cuthbert's, though there is no other inscription than his initials on the enclosing wall to mark the spot where he is laid. The accompanying engraving renders a detailed description of the ancient court unnecessary. One feature, however, is worthy of notice, viz. the antique carved oak shutters with which the lower half of one of the windows is closed. Each shutter is decorated with the " linen pattern," as it is called : a kind of • Grammont Memoirs. " f/ist. of West Kirke, pp. 76-84. J- 220 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ornamentation in common uje on the stall-work of Tudor churches ; and the window, with its carved transom and lower muUion, forms the best specimen of this obsolete fashion now remaining in Edinburgh. To the east of this antique court stood the old town residence of the Buccleuch family, entering from Fisher's Close, demolished about 1835, to make way for Victoria Terrace ; and immediately beyond, in Brodie's Close, there still remains, in the Roman Eagle Hall, c^n interesting specimen of the highly decorated saloon of earlier days. This will be treated of in another chapter ; but the same old close — ere the besom of modern " improvement " swept over it with indiscriminate destruction — contained various dwellings, associated with the memories of some of Edinburgh's worthiest citizens in " the olden time." On the east side of an open court, immediately beyond the Roman Eagle Hall, stood the ancient mansion of the Littles of Craigmillar, bearing on a large moulded and deeply recessed stone panel the name of one of the old city worthies : WILLIAME • i 570 "LITIL, and on six shields, underneath as many crow-stepped gables, were the initials V. L., boldly cut in various forms. William Little and his brother Clement may justly be considered, along with James Lawson, the colleague and successor of Knox, the true founders ^ of " King James College " ; that royal pedant having in reality bestowed little more on the- University than a charter and his name 1 In 1580 Clement Little, advocate and commissary of Edinburgh, dedicated all his books, con- sisting of three hundred volumes, " for the beginning of ane library," — the undoubted foundation of that magnificent collection which the College now possesses. This generous gift was bestowed during his lifetime, and the volumes "were put up in Mr. James Lawson 's galery, an part of the lodgings appoynted for the ministry, situated where the Parliament House is now found." ^ James Lawson is well known for his uncompromising resistance to the schemes of King James for " re-establishing the state of bishops, flatt contrare the determination of the kirk." On the assembly of the Estates for this purpose in 15 84, the King sent word to the magistrates to seize and imprison any of the ministers who should venture to speak against the pro- ceedings of the Parliament. James Lawson, however, with his colleague Walter Balcanquall, nothing daunted, not only preached against these proceedings from the pulpit, but the latter appeared along with Mr. Robert Pont at the Cross, on the heralds proceeding to proclaim the Act, and publicly protested, and took instruments in the name of the kirk of Scotland against them, in so far as they prejudiced the former liberties of the kirk. " Arran made manie vowes that if Mr. James Lawson's head were as great as an hay stacke, he would cause it to leap from his hawse ! " ^ Both he and his colleague were accordingly compelled to make a precipitate flight to ' Bower's /Iii(. of the University, vol. i. p. 69. "^ Craufurd's Hist. p. 20. ' Calderwood, vol. iv. p. 295. THE LAWNMARKET **t England, where James Lawson died the same year, leaving, in memory of his reception among strangers of his own faith, and of the fidelity of his colleague, these curious bequests : " To the French Kirk at London, three angells, to be distributed to their poore. Item, To Maistresse Vannoll, who keeped me in my sicknesse, an angell. Item, I will that my loving brother, Mr. James Carmichaell, sail daw a rose noble instantlie, and deliver it to my deere brother and loving friend Mr. Walter Balcanquall, who hath beene so carefull of me at all times, and cheefelie in time of this my present sicknesse ; to remaine with him as a perpetuall tokin and rememberance of my speciall love and thankfull heart towards him." ^ Walter Balcanquall returned after a time to his charge. Two years later, in 1586, we find him preaching before the King, " in the Great Kirk of Edinburgh," when " the King, after the sormoun, rebooked Mr. Walter publiclie from his seat in the loaft, and said he would prove there sould be bishops ! " The royal arguments were not altogether thrown away, as it would seem. Young Walter, son of the good man, — having probably listened to this rebuke from " the minister's pew," — afterwards became the well-known Dr. Balcanquall, Dean of Durham and Rochester, " special favorite to King James VI and King Charles I ; " to ^vhom his relative, George Heriot, committed the entire regulation and oversight of his magnificent foundation.^ Clement Little also bore his share in the troubles of the period. On the 28th of April 1572 proclamation was made at the Cross "that Mr. Robert Maitland, Dene of Aberdene, ane of the senatouris of the College of Justice, and Mr. Clement Littill and Alexander Sim, advocattis, commissaris of Edinburgh, wes present in Leith, partakaris with the King, and rebellis to the Quene and her lieutennentis, thairfoir dischargit thame of thair oflfices, in that pairt for euver." ^ The proclamation would appear, however, to have led to no consequences of very permanent import. The son and namesake of the first William Little was Provost of Edin- burgh in I 591, and helped to complete the work which his father and uncle had so well begun. On the election of a librarian, in the year 1647, we find the magistrates showing a grateful sense of their obligations to those noble benefactors of the town, by appointing a descendant of theirs to the office. " Many favoured Mr. Thomas Speir, son of an honest family, laureat at the Lambas preceeding, especially in regard of his grandfather, William Little, Provost, a most especial friend to the Colledge, and his grand-uncle, Mr. Clement Little, commissary of Edinburgh, who gave the first being to the library."* The house, although occupied towards the close of last century as the Sheriff-clerk's chambers, remained an entailed property in the possession of * Calderwood's Hist. vol. iv. p. 206. ^ Dr. Steven's Memoir of G. Heriot, Appendix, p. 148. ' Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 295. ■* Craufurd's /^«/. p. 159. I tm MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Clement Little's descendants, and on its demolition the principal carved stones were transported to the garden at Inch House. According to the traditions of last century, as Creech informs us in his Fugitive Pieces, this interesting old mansion formed the residence of Cromwell during part of the time he resided in Edinburgh,^ possibly while engaged in the siege of the Castle. This close, which bears, in the earlier titles of property, the name oi its old residenters, appears in Edgar's map of 1742 as Lord CuUen's Close. Here, at the close of the seventeenth century, resided that eminent lawyer and judge. Sir Francis Grant of CuUen, who in 1689 almost singly swayed the whole Scottish nation, when vacillating between feudal obligations due to the old line of kings and their sense of violated rights by its latest represent- ative ; and to whose influence was mainly owing the happy consistency of the Scottish Parliament in their declaration that King James had, by his own act, forfeited his throne, and left it vacant. He was raised to the bench in 1 709, yet, though thus acute on other people's matters. Lord Cullen was so utterly regardless about his own, that his more shrewd and calculating spouse was accustomed to have all questions relating to his own property represented to him in the form of a " case " ; and having. obtained his opinion as a lawyer, she took the advice for her direction, without troubling him with further information as to whom it concerned. His friend, Wodrow, has recorded in his history the closing scene of his life — a scene which we may associate with the ancient alley that bore his name : — " Brother," said he to one who informed him of his mortal illness, " you have brought me the best news ever I heard ! " And the historian adds, in figurative depiction, " That day when he died was without a cloud ! " '^ The transition is great from this single-minded and upright judge to the next occupant who gave his name to the close, which it still retains — that of William, oi', as he was more generally called. Deacon Brodie. This notorious character, who was executed at the Old Tolbooth on the i st of October 1788, resided in the mansion which had previously been the abode of such very different persons. Nor was it an unsuitable dwelling for one who stood high in repute as a wealthy and substantial citizen, until the daring robbery of the Excise-office in Chessels's Court, Canongate, brought to light a long- continued system of housebreaking, scarcely ever surpassed in reckless audacity.' The principal apartmient in the house was lofty and elegant in its proportions. A large arched window gave light to it from the west, and a painting on the panelling, representing the Adoration of the Wise Men, was ascribed to Alexander Runciman's pencil. 1 Edinburgh Fugitive Pitces, p. 64. * A son of the celebrated Dr. Cullen, who assumed the same judicial title as Sir Francis Grant, on his elevation to the bench in 1796, resided in the house, still standing, at No. 5 Argyle Square. * For a particular account of this worthy, see Kay's Portraits, ist ed. vol. i. 256. 5 ■ 1 O h H U > w hi iz| > b O 1^ !2i 1-' o 03 t* Oi o en W If. It ■ i'i THE LAWNMARKET 223 We have endeavoured thus far to conduct the reader through this portion of the ancient capital, pointing out the various associations calculated to excite sympathy or interest in connection with its time-honoured scenes. But all other objects of attraction to the local historian yield in importance to those of the Old Bank Close, the site of which was very nearly that of the present western paving of Melbourne Place. The antique mansion which formed the chief building in this close excited very general attention from the time that it was exposed to view in opening up the approach to George IV. Bridge, until its demolition in 1834 to make way for the central buildings of Melbourne Place. It stood immediately to the east of William Little's Land, in Brodie's Close, from which it was only partially separated by a very narrow gutter that ran between the two houses, leaving them united by a mutual wall at the north end. This ancient building was curiously connected with a succession of eminent and influential men, and with important hiitorical events of various eras, from the date of its erection until a comparatively recent period. " Gourlay's House " — for so it continued to be called, nearly to the last — was erected in 1569, as appeared from the date on it, by Robert Gourlay, burgess, on the site, and, partly at least, with the materials, of an old re- ligious house. Little further is known of its builder than the fact that he had been a wealthy and influential citizen, who enjoyed the favour of royalty, and made the most of it too, notwithstanding the pious averment sculptured over his door, O LORD IN THE is AL MY TRAIST.* This appears no less from numerous grants of privileges and protections of rights, among the writs and evidents of the property attested by King James's own signature, than by the very obvious it ..lousy with which his favour at Court was regarded by his fellow-citizens. One of those royal mandates, granted by the King at Dumfries, 2 1st June 1588, sets forth " Lyke as ye said Robert Gourlay and Helen Cruik, his spouse, has raisit ane new biggin and wark upon ye waste and ground of their lands and houses foresaid, wherein they are quarelled and troubled for enlarging and outputing of ye east gavill and dyke of their said new wark, on with ye bounds of ye auld bigging foundit and edified there- * On the demolition of the building, the words " C Lord," which extended beyond the lintel of the door, were found to be carved on oak, and so ingeniously let into the wall that this had escaped observation. One could almost fancy that the subservient courtier had .found his abbreviated motto liable to a more personal construction than was quite agreeable. / Ancient Corbel from the Old Bank Close. 224 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH upon, of design, and presumed to have diminished and narrowit ye passage of ye foresaid transe callit Mauchains Close* We, therefor give and grant special liberty to accomplish the foresaid bigging," etc. This royal mandate not seeming to have produced the readj- acquiescence that was doubt- less anticipated, King James in the following August assumes the imperative mode — "Whereas the said Robert Gourlay is quarelled and troubled for diminishing of ye breid and largeness of ye passage thereof, by use and wont ; albeit ye said vennel be na common nor free passage, lyke as ye same hath not been this long time bygane, being only ane stay hill besouth ye said new wark, and nevir calsayit nor usit as ane oppen and comoun vennall, lyke as na manner of persones has now, nor can justlie plead ony richt or entrie to ye said vennal, q"' be all lawis inviolable observit in tymes bygane has pertainit, and aucht to pertene to US ;" and to make sure of the matter this time, His Majesty sums up by authorising the building of a dyke across the close, " notwithstanding that ye said transe and vennall have been at ony time of before, repute or haldin ane comoun and free passage I " The result of this mandate of royalty would appear to have been the erection of the house at the foot of the close — the only other building that had an entrance by it — apparently as a dwelling for the younger John Gourlay, and thus converting a public thoroughfare into his own private court. This ancient edifice possessed a national interest as having been the place where the earliest banking institu- tion in Scotland was established. The Bank of Scotland, or, as it was more generally styled by our ancestors, the Old Bank, continued to carry on all its business within this narrow alley until the completion of the fine building in Bank Street, to which it removed in 1805. The house bore the date 1588, the same year as that of the royal mandates authorising its erection, and on a stone panel, on its north front, a symbolic device was sculptured represent- ing several stalks of wheat growing out of bones, with the motto, SPES ALTERA vnJE. The same ingenious emblem of the resurrection may still be seen on the fine old range of buildings opposite the Canongate Tolbooth. In the second book of charters of the Canongate Council House an entry records the gift by Adam, Bishop of Orkney, to Robert Gourlay, messenger, "our familiar servitor," of the ofiice of messenger, or officer at arms, to the Abbey, with a salary of forty pounds and other perquisites ; and in the registers of the Burgh for September 1 5 80 is this entry : " The ■ In the earlier part of the same writ, the property is styled " ye lands of umq'° Alexander Mauthane and now of ye said Robert Gourlay." We learn from Maitland that in the year 151 1 "the Town Council twoards inlarging the said Church of St. Giles, bought of Alexander Mauchanes four lands or tenements, in the Booth-raw," or Luckenbooths. — Maitland's Hist. p. 180. This can scarcely be doubted to be the samr individual. In 1558 James Mowbray, the lineal descendant of Sir Robert Barton of Over Barntou.i, disposed of the Barony of Barntoun to one Mr. Alexander Mauchan, Advocate, by whom it was sold, about 1680, to Sir James Elphinstone, third son of Robert, third Lord Elphinstone. Vide Wood's Parish of Cramand, p. 52. THE LAWNMARKET 325 quhilk day, Robert Gourlaw was maid burges swome and admittit gratis at the requciHt of my Lord Halyruidhous." ^ Another notice which occurs in Caldcrwood'o History is worth extracting, for the illustration it affords of the extensive jurisdiction the Kirk was disposed to assume to itself in his day over one who had himself carried matters with so high a hand over the King's lieges. " About this time Robert Gourlay, an elder of the Kirk of Edinburgh, was ordcanned to mak his publict repentance in the kirk upon Friday, the a 8th May [1574], /\ WiUuun K-m-A. GOSFOED'S CLOSE. TAKKtl DOWIT 1835. t:-. S( si tl ri tl ? P a G 1 t( tl . F S( a V tallK«'.'.**f**^!J i THE LAWNMARKET ^33 sculptured and inscribed lintel of the sixteenth century. Three boldly-cut shields were placed above the edge mouldings, on the centre one of which the Crucifixion was executed with considerable skill. The shield to the right bore a boar's head erased, with two crescents in chief; and the one to the left a saltier, a bar in pale intersecting a small saltier in the middle chief point. On the two ends of the lintel were the initials M. T., and over all the inscription in ornamental characters : — SOLI • DEO • HONOR • ET GLORIA. This we have little doubt indicated the lodging of Mungo Tennant, burgess of Edinburgh, who, says Nisbet, " had his seal appended to a reversion of half the lands of Leny, the fourth of October 1542"; though in his description of the seal the charges on the shield are reversed.' Francis Tennant, probably a relative of this burgess, and, according to Nisbet, sometime provost of Edinburgh, was a zealous adherent of Queen Mary, and as such was taken prisoner while fighting for the Queen's party in 1571. We furnish a view of the old burgher's house as it latterly existed, with numerous additions of various dates and styles, some of which tended to increase the picturesqueness of the whole. In the underground story there was a strongly arched cellar, in the centre of the floor of which a concealed trap-door was discovered admitting to another still lower down, cut out of the solid rock. Vague traditions, the inventions, doubtless, of vulgar fancy, were reported as to its having been a place of torture ; there is much greater probability that it was used, if not indeed constructed, by smugglers as a convenient receptacle for concealing their goods, at a period when the North Loch afforded ready facilities for getting wines and other forbidden articles within the gates ; and enabled " an honest man to fetch sae muckle as a bit anker o' brandy frae Leith to the Lawnmarket, without being rubbit o' the very gudes he'd bought and paid for, by a host of idle English gaugers I " 2 Directly over the trap-door an iron ring was fastened into the arch of the upper cellar, apparently for the purpose of letting down weighty articles into the vault. It still remains, buried beneath the roadway leading to George IV Bridge. On the first floor of this mansion, as Chambers informs us, the last Earl of Loudon, together with his daughter, the Marchioness of Hastings, used to lodge during their occasional visits to town. In 1794 the Hall and Museum of the Society of Antiquaries^ were at the bottom of this close, where the accommodations were ample, but in an alley so narrow that it was soon after deserted, owing to the impossibility of reaching the entrance in a sedan chair, the usual fashionable conveyance at that period. This did not, however, prevent the Antiquaries being succeeded by Dr. Farquharson, an eminent physician. Indeed the whole neighbour- hood was the favourite resort of the most fashionable and distinguished * Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. i. p. 146. ' Heart of Midlothian, Flumdamas loquitur. ' Kincaid's Traveller's Companion, 1794. f 1 '34 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH among the resident citizens, and a perfect nest of advocates and Lords of Session. On tlie third floor of the front land, Lady Catharine and Lady Ann Hay, daughters of the Marquis of Tweeddale, resided ; and, so late as 1773, it was possessed, if not occupied, by their brother, George, Marquis of Tweeddale. On the west side of the County Hall there still exists a part of the " transs" of Libbcrton's Wynd, but all other remains have been swept away in the pro- gress of civic improvements some of the results of which have already been recorded. This wynd formed, at one period, one of the principal thoroughfares for pedestrians from the fashionable district of the Cowgatc to the "High Town." Its features did not greatly diiifer from those of many other of the old closes, with its substantial stone mansions eked out here and there by irregular timber projections, until the narrow strip of sky overhead had wellnigh been blotted out by their overhanging gables.* The most interesting feature in the wynd was Johnnie Bowie's Tavern, already alluded to, — the Mermaid Tavern of Edinburgh during the last century, — whither the chief wits and men of letters were wont to resort, in accordance with the habits of society at that period. Here Fergusson the poet, David Herd one of the earliest collectors of Scottish songs, " antiquarian Paton," Lord Monboddo, Henry Mackenzie, with others of greater note in their own day than now — peers, Lords of Session, and leading advocates, inhabitants of the neighbouring fashionable district, — were wont to congregate. Martin, a fashionable portrait painter of the last century, instituted a club here, which was quaintly named after the host, Doivay College, and thither his more celebrated pupil, Sir Henry Racburn, often accompanied him in his younger days. But, above all, this was the favourite resort of Robert Burns, where he spent many jovial hours with Willie Nichol and Allan Masterton, — the " blithe hearts " of his most popular song, — and with his city friends of all degrees, during his first visit to Edinburgh. John Dowie was a sober and respected citizen, who amassed a considerable fortune, and left his only son a major in the army. His portrait, engraved in the Scots Magazine, shows a shrewd, jovial face, surmounted by the characteristic three-cocked hat of his day, and with rotund proportions worthy of the host of " Doway College." On his death the old place of entertainment acquired still greater note, under the name of Burns's Tavern. The narrow room was visited by strangers as the scene of the poet's most frequent resort ; and at the period of its demolition, in 1834, it had taken a prominent place among the lions of the old town. The house had nothing remarkable about it as a building. It bore the date of its erection, 1728, and in the ancicnt titles, belonging to a previous building, it is described as bounded on the south by " the King's auld wall." This ancient thoroughfare appears to have retained its original designation, while ' A very charaetcriHtic view of this wynd, from the Cowgatc, is given among Geikie's Etchings. THE LAWN MARKET Hi> closes immediately adjoining were receiving new names with accommodating facility on every change of occupants. Libberton's Wynd is mentioned in a charter granted by James III in the year 1477, and in late years its name occurred in nearly every capital sentence of the criminal court : the last permanent place of public execution, after the demolition of the Old Tolbooth, having been at the head of the wynd. The victims of the law's highest penalty, within the brief period alluded to, offer few attractions to the antiquarian memorialist, unless the pre-eminent infamy of the " West Port murderers," Burke and Hare — the former of whom was executed on this spot, — be regarded as establishing their claim to rank among the celebrated characters of Edinburgh. The jockets of " the fatal tree " were removed, along with objects of greater interest and value, in completing the approach to the new bridge. Carthrae's, — latterly styled Turk's Close, — Forrester's, and Beth's Wynds, all once stood between Libberton's W)md and St. Giles's Church, but every vestige of them had been swept away years before the later work of destruc- tion was projected. Forrester's Wynd was evidently a place of note in earlier times, and frequent allusions to it occur in some of the older diaries ; e.g. "Vpoun the nynt day of Aprile, the zeir of God 1566 zeris, Johne Sinclare, be the mercie of God bischope of Brechin and Dean of Restalrig, deceissit in James Mosmanis hous in Frosteris Wynd, ane honest and cunning letterit man, and president of the college of justice the tyme of his deceiss, etc."^ In 1572 Mr. Henry Killigrew, the ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, arrived at Edmburgh to congratulate the Earl of Morton on his accession to the regency, when he "depairtit to David Forrestaris lugeing above the Tolbuith." "^ Another diarist records, in describing the firing of the town by the garrison of the Castle, under Sir William Kirkaldy, in the same year, " the fyre happit fra hous to hous throw the maisterie of ane grit wynd, and come eist the gait to Bess Wynd at the kirk end of Sanct Geill," ^ in consequence of which "ther wes ane proclamatioun maid, that all thak houssis suld be tirrit,'* and all hedder stakis to be transportit at thair awine bounds and brunt ; and ilk man in Edinburgh to haue his lumes full of watter in the nycht, wnder the paine of deid." This notice furnishes a very graphic picture of the High Street in the sixteenth century, with the majority of the buildings on either side covered with thatch, the main street encumbered by piles of peat and other fuel, accumulated before each door, for the use of the inhabitants ; and, from amid these, we may add, the stately ecclesiastical edifices of the period, and the substantial mansions of the nobility, towering with all the more imposing effect, in contrast to their homely neighbourhood. * Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 98. ' Diurnal of Occurrents, Part II. p. 326. ^ Crawfurd's Memoirs, p. 244. * I.e. All thatched houses should be unroofed. 836 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH The venerable alley called Bess or Beth's Wynd, after suffering greatly from the slow dilapidation of time, was nearly destroyed by successive fires in the years 1786 and 1788. On the latter occasion it was proposed to purchase and pull down the whole of its buildings, extending from the Lawn- market to the Cowgate, in order to open up the Parliament House.' This was not effected, however, till 1 809, when the whole were swept away in preparing the site for the Advocates' Library. " All the houses in Beth's Wynd," says Chambers, "were exceedingly old and crazy; and some mysterious-looking cellar doors were shown in it, which the old wives of the wynd believed to have been kept shut since the time of t/ie plague." The same superstitious belief was prevalent in regard to some grim uninhabited dwellings in Mary King's Close, part of which still remain. A strange account of the ghosts and apparitions which haunted this old close is given by Mr. George Sinclair, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and afterwards minister of Eastwood, Renfrewshire, in his Satan's Invisible World Displayed. This strange farago of credulity and superstition was published in 1685 ; and Mr. C. K. Sharpe informed us that in his own younger days it was hawked about the streets by ballad-sellers and ginger wives ; and so was familiar to most children, himself among the number. Another old citizen described to us his visits to the close, along with his companions, when a schoolboy. The most courageous of them would approach the dread abodes of mystery, and after shouting through the key- hole or broken window-shutter, they would run off with palpitating hearts, — " Like one, that on a lonesome road ' Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head ; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread." The popular opinion was, that if these houses were opened, the imprisoned pestilence would burst out, spreading disease and death through the land. A house at the head of Beth's Wynd, fronting the Old Tolbooth, was the residence of Mr. Andrew Maclure, writing-master, one of the civic heroes of 1745. He joined the reluctant corps of volunteers who marched to meet the Highland army on its approach towards Corstorphine, but they had scarcely left the town walls a mile behind, when their courage failed them, and they marched hastily home again, without having even seen the enemy. This corps of martial burghers became a favourite butt for the Jacobite wits ; and, among other proofs of their self-devoted zeal, it transpired that the gallant penman had secured within his waistcoat the professional breastplate of a quire of paper, and prepared himself for his expected fate by affixing thereon a label inscribed, " This is the body of Andrew Maclure, let it be ^ Caltdonian Mercury, 17th January 1788. ^ THE LAWNMARKET 237 ly es to a- is in 's le le le d e n ', 'e s 1 r 1 1 decently interred," In the hope that he might thereby lae secure of Christian burial I ' So long as Edinburgh continued to be the seat of the Scottish Parlia- ment, its vicinity to the Parliament House led to the selection of the Lawn- market as n favourite place of residence, as appears from numerous passing allusions to the old nobility, though the particular houses referred to cannot now be traced, Defoe, for example, — who was resident in Edinburgh at the period, — tells us in his history of the Union, that on the 28th October 1 706, the Parliament sat late, and the Parliament Close was so full of people, waiting the results of their decision, that the members could scarcely get out. On this occasion, the Duke of Hamilton, the popular favourite, who was usually conducted in triumph by the mob to his lodgings in the Abbey, " on leaving the house was carried up to the Lawnmarket, and so to the lodgings of the Duke of Atholl ; " who was appointed, as Lockhart tells us, In the place of the Duke of Queensberry at the beginning of this session of Parliament ; the latter wishing to see the course of public affairs before he ventured himself to face the difficulties of that period, " and therefore he sent the Duke of Atholl down as Commissioner ; using him as the monkey did the cat, in pulling out the hot roasted chestnuts." ^ Here also tradition pointed out the old land still standing at the head of Johnston's Close, as the house of the city member. Sir Patrick Johnston, which was attacked and gutted by the same excited mob, in their indignation at his favouring the unpopular measure of the Union. ^ ' Adjoining Mr. Maclure's house was the Baijen Hole, an'ancient and once celebrated baker's shop I The epithet occurit in Crawfurd's History of the University of Edinburgh, as applied to the junior class of Ktudentfi, whoxe pntronnge, above a century ago, of a famed species of rolls manufactured there, under the name of Soiiltr's Clods, had doubtless led to this title for the place, which resembled the laigh shops HtiU remaining underneath the oldest houses of the High Street. The Bejaune is the old Parisian term for the University freshman, qui vulgo Bejauni appellebantur, as a statute of the University of Paris of the year 1314 lays. It has now disappeared from the nomenclature of the University of Edinburgh, but It still lurvlvei at Aberdeen. ' Lockhart's Memoirs, p. 139. CHAPTER IV THE TOLBOOTII, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE I North side of the Tolbooth. THE grim and massive prison of the old Scottish capital, which had degenerated to that base office, after having served for the hall of the national Parliaments, for the College of Justice founded by James V, and for some of the earliest assemblies of the kirk, has, in our own day, acquired a popular interest, and a notoriety wide as the diffusion of English literature, under its latest name of " the Heart of Mid-Lothian." Such is the power of genius, that the association of this ancient fabric with the assault of the Porteous mob, and the captivity of the " Effie Deans " of the novelist's fancy, has been able to confer on it an interest, even in the minds of strangers, THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 339 which all that occurred during the eventrul reigns of our own James's, the tumults of Mary's brief reign, and the civil commotions of that of her son, had failed to excite in the minds of Scotsmen. The site of the Tolbooth was in the very heart of the ancient capital. Hemmed in as it was on ;.'! sides, it might have occurred to a fanciful mind that the antique fabric had been dropped whole and complete into the midst of the pent-up city. It stood at the north-west corner iil' St. Giles's Church, so close to that ancient building as only to leave a narrow footpath beyond its projecting buttresses ; while the tall and gloomy pile extended so far into the main street that a roadway of fourteen feet in breadth was all that intervened between it and the lofty range of buildings on the opposite side. There was thus the open area of the Lawnmarket, and then a long, narrow close leading to the High Street : the battlefield of the famous " Cleanse the Causeway " and. many another early feud. We cannot better describe the old Tolbooth than in the lively narrative of Scott, written about the time of its demolition — " The prison reared its ancient front in the very middle of the High Street, forming the termination to a huge pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths, which, for some inconceivable reason, our ancestors had jammed into the midst of the principal street of the town, leaving for passage, a narrow way on the north ; and on the south, into which the prison opens, a crooked lane, winding betwixt the high and sombre walls of the Tolbooth and the adjacent houses on the one side, and the buttresses and projections ot the old cathedral upon the other. To give some gaiety to this .sombre passage, well known by the name of the Krames, a number of little booths or shops, after the fashion of cobblers' stalls, were plastered, as it were, against the Gothic projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders had occupied every * buttress and coigne of vantage,' with nests bearing the same proportion to the building as the martlet's did in Macbcth's Castle." The most prominent features in the south front of the Tolbooth, as shown in the accompanying plate, were two projecting turret staircases. A carved Gothic doorway, with a decorated ogee arch, the tympanum of which was divided into three compartments with richly cusped tracery, and surmounted by a niche, gave entrance to the building at the foot of the eastern tower. On its demolition in 1 8 1 7, this was removed by Sir Walter Scott to Abbotsford, and there converted to the humble office of giving access to his kitchen court. Mr. C. K. Sharpe adds drily, in his marginal notes to our former edition : " I remember well the doorway. It was younger than the rest of the build- ing. This I remarked to Sir Walter Scott, who was then in possession of the stones, and had small thanks for my pains ! " Some account has already been given, in our brief sketch of the period of Queen Mary,* of the mandate issued by her in 1 561, requiring the ' Ante, p. 92, 340 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH rebuilding of the Tolbooth, and the many difficulties that the city had to encounter in satisfying this royal command. The letter sets forth that " The Queiny's Majestie, understanding that the Tolbuith of the Burgh of Edinburgh is ruinous and abill haistielie to dekay and fall doun, quhilk will be warray dampnable and skaythfull to the pepill dwelland thairabout . . . without heistie remeid be providit thairin. Thairfor hir Heines ordinis ane masser to pass and charge the provest, baillies, and counsale, to caus put workmen to the taking doun of the said Tolbuith, with all possible deligence." " In obedience to the Queen's command," says Maitland, " the Tolbpoth was taken down." ^ It has already been shown, however, in the earlier allusions to the subject, that this is an error. The new building was erected entirely apart from it, adjoining the south-west corner of St. Giles's Church, and the eastern portion of the Old Tolbooth bore incontestable evidence of being the work of an earlier period than the date of Queen Mary's mandate. The ancient prison of Edinburgh had its east and WEST ENDS known to the last by these same distinctive appellations that mark the patrician and plebeian district's of the British metropolis. The line of division is apparent in our engraved view, showing the western and larger portion of the building constructed of coarse rubble work, while the earlier edifice, at the east end, was built of polished stone. This distinction was still more apparent on the north side, which, though much more ornamental, could only be viewed in detail, owing to the narrowness of the street, and has not, so far as we are aware, been represented in any engraving.^ It had, on the first floor, a large and deeply splayed square window, decorated on either side with richly carved Gothic niches, surmounted with ornamental canopies of varied designs. A smaller window on the floor above was flanked with similar decorations, the whole of which may have been originally filled with statues. Maitland mentions, and attempts to refute, a tradition that this had been the mansion of the provost of St. Giles's Church, but there seems little reason to doubt that it had been originally erected as some appendage to the church. The style of ornament was entirely that of a collegiate building attached to an ecclesiastical edifice. It was, in all probability, built shortly after the year 1466, when a charter was granted by King James III, erect- ing St. Giles's into a collegiate church ; and may have included a chapter- house for the college, the convenient dimensions of which would lead to its adoption as a suitable place of meeting for the Scottish Parliaments. The date thus assigned to the most ancient portion of the " Heart of Mid-Lothian " receives considerable confirmation from the style of the building ; but Parlia- • Maitland, p. 21. '^ We have drawn the view at the head of the chapter from a slight sketch taken, shortly before its demolition, by Mr. D. Somerville ; with the assistance of an ingenious model of St. Giles's Church and the surrounding buildings, made by the Reverend John Sime about the year 1805, to'which we were also partly indebted for the south view of the same building. > / t} V _ > s d e - ^»L ^" ir»T«v THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 241 ments had assembled in Edinburgh long before that period. Three, at least, were held there during the reign of James I, and when his assassination at Perth in 1437 led to the abandonment of the Fair City as the capital of the kingdom, the first general council of the new reign took place in the Castle of Edinburgh. The scene of this memorable meeting of the three Estates doubtless was the Great Hall which (after long defacement and obscuration, until its very existence was lost sight of) has been restored to all its ancient magnificence while the pages of this later edition were passing through the press. The next Parliament of James II was summoned to meet at Stirling, in the month of March of the following year ; but another was held in November, " in Pretoria burgi de Edinburgh." The same Latin term is repeated in the minutes of another Assembly of the Estates held there in 1449. The old Scottish name appears for the first time in 145 i, in "the parlcament of ane richt hie and excellent prince, and our soverane lorde, James the Secunde, be the grace of Godc, King of Scotts, haldyn at Edinburgh the begunyn in the Tolbuth of the samyn." ^ A much older and probably larger erection must therefore have existed on the site of the western portion of the Tolbooth, the ruinous state of which at length led to the royal command for its demolition in 1561 ; — not a century after the date we are disposed to assign to the oldest portion of the building that remained till 181 7, — and which, though decayed and time-worn, was so far from being ruinous even then that it proved a work of great labour to demolish its solid masonry. In a charter granted to the town by James III in 1477 the market for corn and grain is ordered to be held "fra the Tolbuth up to Libertones Wynde," ^ and we learn from the Diurnal of Ocairrcnts that " the tour of the Auld Tolbuyth wes tane doun in i 5 7 1 ." * The first allusion indicates the same site for the Tolbooth at that early period as it occupied to the last, and seems to confirm the idea suggested as to the earlier fabric. The name Tolbooth literally signifies tax-house,* and the existence of a building in Edinburgh erected for this purpose might be referred, with every prob- ability, to even an earlier period than the reign of David I, who bestowed considerable grants on his monastery of the Holy Cross, derivable from the revenues of the town. From the anxiety of the magistrates to retain the rents of their " laigh buthis " in this ancient building, another site was chosen in 1561 for the New Tolbooth, a little to the south of the old one ; * ^rts of Scottish Pafliamciils, folio, vol. ii. ^ Maitland, p. 8. ^ Diurnal of Occurrcitts, p. 252. ■• " Mr. George Rams.iy, minister at Laswaiil, te.iching in Edinburgh [1593], cliargeil the Lords of the Colledge of Justice with selling of justice. He said they sold in the Tolbuith, and tooke payment at home, in their chambers : that the place of their judgement was justlie called Tol-lniitli, becaus there they tookc toll of the subjects." — Calderwood's Hist. vol. v. p. 290. For this he was summoned before the judges, but was dismissed after some contention. VOL. I R ^. "•■.. \, s '^ '•■■- \ \ \ \ \\\\\\ \ \ \\ \ '■■■ \ '\ \ 1^1 \ \ \ '\;v "'^: — T"";; — •>, \' \ -K \ \ \ "■'. "\ kj44A^AA" . Hurt' inn> pi*ri . It .te nid/r k-ll i\ff t.tftli wy.v '■-* k .1; rniUn- .-,•«■ .' Jh.' hrk inlh.- .40/1 kU m J%f jrftit Ivri ,r .S' bi/£v n .'«,■ *-,». LM '■■^ Jhr '^fi^ liTK ."r ^rt-iif rfvr ^tW w// M.' Am../ r/if .n, ,.U4, S .Ituty (/ th j'UkM hriyami J'rfifr nilf ^yii^rA-> S.Rg^jns riJwi>s.^'r tin .^■' AjjA t"nU'\T.*'.tfi6f mv ,r^^//^.r- A/A H.* .Httl Ttuiiixt . r*.- nm,tm.-nt /."u* t .W .'tt' 'xJnnrfA f.^Aad .'^' w.//t.M ./' -Tin.* aflV >>«^^ "Am (Af i.njr itiJf iV //<• m tA- lumA-r ,'t' inMuOm X l.thf'fH.m* mmf jif' . Kuffrn f^yn ^t< .\ri\MM vyn ^^- /hJM't* .'4'** ■ V./T^ J wyrt .% <'/■;• »ym .V*\VlT".W Vj-** H^fh Hew ._L w A A H .luiiii«i..n. K4l-i\nil(fh It UnJoi. 343 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH and some ten years later, as appears from the old diarist, the tower was at length demolished, and also probably the whole of the ancient edifice. One of the carved stones from the more modern portion of the building — apparently the centre crow-step that crowned the gable — was transferred, among other relics of similar character, to the nursery of Messrs. Eagle and Henderson, Leith Walk. It bore on it the city arms, sculptured in high relief, and surmounted by an ornamental device with the date 1641. The style of the new building, though plain and of rude workmanship, corre- sponded with this date, being that Wi.ich prevailed towards the close of Chnrlcs the I'irst's reign. The unsettled state of the country at that period, and the heavy exactions to which Edinburgh had been subjected, both by the King and the Covenanting leaders, abundantly account for the plain character of the later building. The only ornaments on the north side consisted of two dormer windows rising above the roof, with carved finials ; and the plain string-courses marking the several stories. The ornamental north gable of the ancient portion of the building appears to have been the place of exposure for the heads and dismembered limbs of the numerous victims of the sanguinary laws of Scotland in early times, In the year 1581 the head of the Earl of Morton "was sett upon a prick, on the highest stone of the gavell of the Tolbuith, toward the publict street;" and the same point — after doing the like ignominious service to many of inferior note, — received in 1650 the head of the gallant Marquis of Montrose. It remained exposed there throughout the whole period of the Commonwealth, and was taken down at length, shortly after the Restoration, with every demonstration of national honour ; and committed, along with the other portions of his body, to the tomb of his ancestors in the south transept of St. Giles's Church. The north gable was not, however, long suffered to remain unoccupied. On the 27th of May 1661 — little more than four months after the tardy honours paid to Montrose, — the Marquis of Argyle was beheaded at the Cross, and " his held affixt uponc the held of the Tolbuith, quhair the Marques of Montrois wes affixit of bcfoir." * The ground floor of this ancient part of the Tolbooth was known by the name of the Purses, by which it is often alluded to in early writings. In the ancient titles of a house on the north side of the High Street it is described as " that Lodging or Timber Land, lying in the burgh of Edinburgh, forgainst the place of the Tolbooth, commonly called the poor folks' Purses." In the trial of William Maclauchlane, a servant of the Countess of Wemyss, who was apprehended almost immediately after the Porteous mob, one of the witnesses states that " having come up Beth's Wynd, he tried to pass by the Purses on the north side of the prison ; but there perceiving the backs of a row of armed men, some with staves, others with guns and Lochaber I > NicoU's Btaiy, p. 335. THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 243 axes, standing across the street, who, he was told, were drawn "p as a guard there, he retired again." The crime sought to be proved agaii* laclauchlane was his having been seen taking a part with this guard, armed with a Lochaber axe. Another witness describes having seen some of the magistrates going up from the head of Mary King's Close towards the Purses on the north side of the Tolbooth, where they were stopped by the mob and com- pelled to make a precipitate retreat. This important pass thus carefully guarded on the memorable occasion of the Porteous riot derived its name from having been the place where the ancient fraternity of Blue Gozvns, the King's faithful bedemcn, received the royal bounty presented to them on each King's birthday in a leathern purse, after having attended service in St. Giles's Church. For many years previous to the destruction of the Old Tolbooth this distribution was transferred to the Canongate Kirk aisle, where it took place annually on the morning of the Sovereign's birthday at eight o'clock. After a s<;rmon, preached by the royal almoner or his deputy, each of the bedemen received a roll of bread, a tankard of ale, and a web of blue cloth sufficient to make him a new gown, along with a leathern purse of curious and soirewhat complicated workmanship, which only the initiated could open. This purse contained his annual alms or pension, consisting of as many pence as the years of the King's age. The origin o\ this fraternity is undoubtedly of great antiquity. Bedemen, appointed to pr.iy for the souls of the King's ancestors and successors, were attached to royal foundations. They are mentioned about the year 1226, in the Chartulary of Moray,^ and many curious entries occur with reference to them in the treasurers' accounts previous to the Reformation. The number of these bedemen is increased by one every royal birthday, as a penny is added to the pension of each : an arrangement evidently devised to stimulate their prayers for long life to the reigning Sovereign, no less than for peace to the souls of those departed. ^ It used to be a very interesting sight, on a fine summer morning — for more than one generation on the 4th of June, the birthday of George III, — between seven and eight o'clock, before the Canongate Kirk bell began to * statist. Ace. xiii. 412. - The following items appear in the Account of Sir Robert Melvill, Treasurer-Depute of King James VL " Junij 1590. Item, to Mr. Peter Young, Elimosinar, twentie four gownis of blew clayth, to be gevin to xxiiij auld men, according to the yeiris of his hienes age. . . . Item, twentie four pursis, and in ilk purse twentie four schiling." Again in "Junij 1617, To James Murray, merchant, for fyftene scoir sex einis and ane half elne of blew claith, to be gownis to fyftie ane aigeit men, according to the yeiris of his majesteis age. Item, to the workmen for careing of the gownis fra James Aikman, tailyeour, heis hous, to the palace of Halyrude hous," etc. From this last entry the distribution would appear to have been anciently made at the Palace ; and this practice was resumed after the Restoration, as appears from an entry in NicoU's Diary, p. 291 : " The pure pepill of Scotland, quha wer in use to be clothed with blew gownis, resavit their pensiounes this yeir 1660, upone the 29 day of Maij, being the Kinges birthday, at the Church of Halyrudhous." 244 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH ring for the appointed s-^rvice, to see the strange groups of Blue Gotvns of all ages, from forty-five to ninety and upwards, assembling in front of the kirk. Venerable- looking men, bent with the weight of years, — whose tartan or hodden-gray told of the remote districts from whence they had come, — some lame, others blind, led by a boy or a wife, or perhaps by a rough Highland dog, looking equally strange on the streets of the ancient burgh ; and all clad in their monastic-looking habits, with large badges on their breasts. It was curious thus to see pilgrims from the remotest parts of Scotland and the Isles — the men of another generation, — annually returning to the capital, and each contriving to arrive there on the very day of the King's birth and bounty The reverend almoner, however, could scarcely h?,/e had a more inattentive congregation : a fact probably in some degree to be accounted for by many of them understanding nothing but Gaelic. At the close of the sermon the bread and ale were distributed, along with their other perquisites, and thereafter the usual benediction closed the services of the day ; though generally before that point was reached the bedcmen had disappeared : each one off to wend his way homeward, and to " pass and repass," as his badge expressly bore, till the return of the annual rendezvous. Shortly after the accession of her present Majesty, whose youth had such an economic effect on the royal bounty, this curious relic of ancient alms- giving was shorn of nearly all its most interesting features. Certain members of the Canongate kirk-session, it is said, were scandalised at the exhibition of the butt of ale at the kirk vestry door ; and possibly also at its exciting so much greater interest with the Queen's bedemen than any other portion of the established procedure. Whatever be the reason the ai t. ial church service has been abandoned ; the royal almoner's name no longer appears in the list of Her Majesty's Scottish household ; and the whole business is now managed in the most matter-of-fact and commonplace style at the Exchequer Chambers in the Parliament Square, not far from the ancient scene of this annual distribution of the royal bounty. At the west end of the Tolbooth a modern addition existed, as appears in our engraving, rising only to the height of two stories. This was occupied as shops, while the flat roof formed a platform whereon all public executions took place, after the abandonment of the Grassmarket as the place of execution in the year 1785. The west gable of the old building bore the appearance of rude and hasty construction ; it was without windows, notwith- standing that it afforded the openest and most suitable aspect for light, and seemed as if it had been so left for the purpose of future extension. The apartments on the ground floor of the main building were vaulted with stone, and the greater part of them latterly fitted up for shops ; until, on the demo- lition of the citadel of the old town-guard in 1785, those on the north side were converted into a guard-house for the accommodation of that veteran TIIK TOLHOOTH, LUCuENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 245 corp.s. Ah to the old civic guard, with their muskets, Lochabcr axes, and military uniform, they were a relic of times when the walled city wanted defenders ajjainst foes from without, rather than maintainers of civic order. They were, at best, a poor substitute for the constable with his baton ; and latterly became the objects of a general contempt, graphically embodied in the accompanying reproduction of a pencilled reminiscence by the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpc on a proof sheet of the first edition of these Memorial volumes. Underneath the sketch he has written, " Two of the Town Guard as I remember them basking in the sun, half drunk, on a bench at the Tolbooth." />^^ ly ^'-^H/ LA)^) Previous to the extension or re- building of the west portion of the Tolbooth it had furnished accommodation for the wealthiest traders of the city ; and there also some of the most imposing displays took place on Charles I. visiting his northern capital in 1633. "Upon the west wall of the Tolbooth," says an old writer,^ " where the Goldsmiths' shops do stand, there stood anc vast pageant, arched above, on ane large mab the pourtraits of a hundred and nine kings of Scotland. In the cavity of the arch. Mercury was represented bringing up Fergus the first king of Scotland in ane convenient habit, who delivered to his Majesty a very grave speech, contain- ing many precious advices to his royal successor." The goldsmiths' shops were latterly removed into the Parliament Close ; but George Heriot's booth remained at the west end of St. Giles's Church till the year 1809, when Ikth's Wynd and the adjoining buildings were demolished. A narrow passage led between the church and an ancient three -storied tenement adjoining the New Tolbooth, or Laigh Council House, as it was latterly called ; and the centre one of the three booths into which it was divided, measuring about seven feet square, was viewed with interest as the workshop of the founder of Heriot's Hospital, where both King James and his Queen paid frequent visits to the royal goldsmith. On the demolition of this ancient fabric the tradition was confirmed by the discovery of George Heriot's name carved on the stone lintel of the door. The forge and bellows, as well as a stone crucible and lid, supposed to have belonged to its famed old burgess, were discovered in clearing away the ruins of the old building, and arc now carefully preserved in the Hospital museum. The associations connected with the ancient Tolbooth described above ' Vide CampbelVs Journey, vol. ii. p. 122. 346 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH are almost entirely those relating to the occupants whom it held in durance in its latter capacity as a prison. The eastern portion, indeed, had in all probability been the scene of stormy debates in the earlier Scottish Parlia- ments ; and of deeds even ruder than the words of the turbulent barons. There also the College of Justice, founded by James V in 1532, held its first sederunt : the earliest statutes of the Court requiring that " all the lordis sail entre in the Tolbuth and counsal-houss at viij howris in the mornyng, dayly, and sail sit quhill xi howris be strikin." All those, however, had ceased to be thought of for centuries previous to the demolition of the tall and gloomy prison ; though even in its degradation it was connected with historical characters of no mean note, having been the final place of captivity of the Marquises of Montrose and Argyle * and others of the later victims of civil strife. The main floor of the more ancient building in Ics latter days formed the common hall for all prisoners, except those in irons, or incar- cerated in the condemned cells. It had an old oak pulpit of curious con- struction, for the use of any one who took upon him the duties of prison chaplain, and which tradition — as usual with most old Scottish pulpits, — affirmed to have been occupied by John Knox. Here also were inscribed on a wooden panel the following homely rhymes, which have been traced to an English poet of the seventeenth century — " A prison is a house of care, A place where none can thrive ; A touchstone true to try a friend, A grave for men alive. Sometimes a place of right, Sometimes a place of wrong. Sometimes a place for jades and thieves, And honest men among." The room immediately above the common hall ma)- be presumed to have been "the upper chamber of the Tolbooth,"'^ in which James V held his first council after escaping in 1528 from his durance in Falkland Palace in the hands of the Douglas faction. Its later use was as a dungeon for the worst felons, whose security was further ensured by an iron bar placed along the floor. Here also the condemned criminal generally spent the last wretched hours of life, often chained to the same iron bar, and surrounded with the reckless and depraved, whose presence forbade a serious thought. It was indeed among the worst features of this miserable abode of crime that its dimensions entirely precluded classification. It had no open area attached to it to which the prisoner might escape for fresh air, or even a glimpse of the light of day, and no solitary cell whither he might withdraw to indulge in the luxury of solitude and quiet reflection. Dante's memor- 1 NicoU's Diary, p. 334. * Chalmers's Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 614. THE TOLDOOTH, LUCKENDOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 247 able inscription for the gates of hell might have found a scarcely less appro- priate plc»v.e over its gloomy portal — " All hope abandon, ye who enter here I " We must refer the reader to Chambers's Tmditions for much that is curious aiK amusing among the legends of the Tolbooth, gathered from the talcs of its old inmates, or the recollections of aged citizens. One of its most distinguishing traits, which it might be supposed to retain as an heir- loom of its former more dignified uses, was a total suspension of its retentive capabilities whenever any prisoner of rank was committed to the custody of its walls.^ A golden key, doubtless, was sometimes effectual in unlocking its ponderous bars ; but when this was provided against, other means were discovered for eliciting the convenient facility of " knowing those who ought to be respected on account of their rank." It is no less worthy of note that occasions occurred in which the Tolbooth proved the only effectual road to freedom for some of the most notorious offenders, when seeking to elude the emissaries of justice. An old lady, to whose retentive memory we owe some interesting recollections of former times, — when, as she was wont to say, she used to g.ither gowans on the banks of the Nor' Loch, and take a day's ramble in Bearford's Parks,'' — related the following as a tradition she had heard in early youth. When Mitchell the fanatic preacher, who shot the Bishop of Orkney in I C68, at the head of Blackfriars' Wynd, in an attempt to assassinate Archbishop Sharp, so strangely eluded the strict search made for him, he effected his escape by taking refuge in the Tolbooth, to which ingress, in its latter years at least, was never very difficult. The city gates were shut at the time, and none allowed to go out without a passport signed by one of the magistrates ; but it will readily be believed that the Tolbooth might be overlooked in the most vigilant pursuit after one who was to be consigned to it the instant he was taken. There is, at any rate, nothing improbable in the story, not- withstanding its resemblance to a later occurrence in the same reign, when Robert Ferguson, a notorious character known by the name of " the Plotter," was searched for in Edinburgh under somewhat similar circumstances, as one of the conspirators implicated in the Rye- House I'lot. It was almost cetainly known that he was in the town, and the gates were accordingly cloLPj ; but he also availed himself of the same ingenious hiding-place, and quietly withdrew after the whole town had been .searched for him in vain. Another similar escape is mentioned in The Minor Antiqniiks^ where the ' "The Viscount of Frendracht (of the surname of Creightoun), hU liriilhcr licinK prissoncr in the Tolbuith of Edinburgh for murther, and once p.innclt befoir the Criininiill Judge, uscnpit, being clothed in ane womanes apperell, upone the ^-ih vint day of Junij [1664], being .ScUirdny, nlwut sex houris at evin, in fair day licht." — NicoU's Diary, p. 414. = The site of George Street, and the adjoining parts of the New Town. 248 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Highlands were scoured by the agents of Government in search for a gentleman concerned in the rebellion of 1745, while he was quietly taking his ease in " the King's Auld Tolbooth." We are indebted to the notes of .Mr. C. K. Sharpe for a story of escape of a different kind. In 1770 his uncle Alexander, tenth Earl of Eglinton, was shot by Mungo Campbell, son of old Provost Campbell of Ayr, an exciseman by profession and a poacher from choice. He was tried and condemned for the murder, and duly incarcerated in the Tolbooth dungeon to await his execution. But the Earl was unpopular. He was the youngest of a large family, the only son, born after the old Earl had threatened to divorce his Countess rather than that his title and estates should pass to a collateral heir. Susannah, Countess of Eglinton, was even in her old age noticeable for her tall commanding figure and personal charms. Mr. Sharpe recalled the impression made on him when a boy by witnessing her dance a minuet at a ball in Holyrood House, in a large hoop and a suit of black velvet trimmed with gold. Her daughters inherited her fine bearing and personal beauty ; but, like Milton's Eve, she might be called " the fairest of her daughters." It is of them that Hamilton of Bangour thus writes — " After thy image formed, with charms like thine Or in the visit or the dance to shine ; Thrice happy who succeed their mother's praise, The lovely Eglingtoune of other days." The Countess had borne seven daughters when the old Earl, who had had two wives before her, spoke of separation. She was well content, she said, pro- vided she got back what she brought with her. He was ready in response with every guarantee for pecuniary settlements. " Na, na," said the Countess, " that's a sma' return. Gic me back my youth, beauty, and virginity, and tak for your Countess wha ye will." She was a blue-stocking, a patron of the Muses, and one of their early favourites. Sir John Clerk of Pennycuik, author of the fine Scottish song " O, merry may the maid be That marries wi' the miller ! " wooed Miss Susan Kennedy, the future Countess, in verse ; and her father. Sir Archibald Kennedy, an old persecutor of the Stuart times, sought advice of Lord Eglinton. His answer was, " Bide a wee. Sir Archie, my lady's very sickly ! " The hint was sufficient to cause the rejection of the Baronet of Pennycuik ; and in due time the Earl himself carried off" the prize. She was long the leader of beauty and fashion in the circles of Old Edinburgh ; and showed her Cavalier leanings by patronising the Jacobite poets a .d acknowledging their flattering tributes. Ramsay dedicated to her the music of his first book of songs ; and a print at the THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 249 beginning, representing a lady playing on a harpsichord, was believed by Mr. Sharpe to be intended for a portrait of her. Such was the lady who was left a widowed Countess with a large family of beautiful daughters, and the little Earl, who had come at last, after his father had despaired of an heir. Born under such circumstances, he was trained almost from his cradle to all the honours of the earldom. The dowager was led in state to the head of the table by the boy-Earl ; his sisters were taught to address him with all the formality of polite society and courtly etiquette. The dowager would preside in state, like an old feudal seigneur, to hear a formal complaint against his lordship for damaging the nose of my Lady Kirsty's wax-doll ; and would arraign a servant for any neglect of style or title, as if the rights of pit and gallows still survived in all their pristine force. Thus trained from childhood as a being of another order than that of ordinary humanity, it is not to be wondered that the Earl grew up with all the absolute self-will of a feudal lord, combined with eccentricities which would have placed ordinary mortals in danger of an asylum for lunatics. The slovenly husbandry of his Ayrshire tenants prov^okcd him beyond endurance. When remonstrance failed he would summarily transpose a couple of farmers, in spite of every local attachment. In this and other ways he aimed at promoting the good of his tenants, without the slightest reference to their own wishes ; and hence the sympathies of the Whiggish farmers of Kyle were with the murderer rather than his victim, when Mungo Campbell shot him dead while laughing at the exciseman who had made an awkward fall. Campbell was believed to have cheated the hangman by committing suicide in the Tolbooth cell. But the traditions of the Eglinton family, as narrated to Mr. Sharpe in his younger days, included a belief in the intervention of the Whiggish Argyles for the escape of the assassin. A drunken soldier had hung himself from the stanchions over the main door ; a bribe and promise of immunity secured the connivance of the gaoler ; and when the coffin was brought for the dead soldier, Mungo Campbell took his place, and was safely conveyed in it past the Tolbooth gate, and beyond Jack Ketch's reach. There were quaint family traditions, probably the inventions of a later date, of the scared sexton and his fellows as Mungo forced the coffin-lid and vanished as speedily as if he had been the actual ghost their terror conceived him to be. The previous narrative suffices to show the varied associations of historical and personal interest that pertain to the Old Tolbooth. But the romance to which its world-wide interest is due gathers around an imaginary inmate, the Effie Deans of Scott's marvellous creative genius. From among the actual female inmates of this house of care two may be selected who contrast with one another no less strikingly in their crimes than in their fate. 250 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH In the year 1726 great interest was excited by a trial for forgery, in which Mr. George Henderson, a wealthy Edinburgh merchant, was accused of forging a bill upon the Duchess of Gordon for ^^58, which he had indorsed to Mrs. Macleod, the wife of a wig-maker in Leith. Respectable citizens declared on oath that they were present when Henderson signed the bill, and had affixed their names to it in his presence as witnesses ; others had seen him on the same evening, a little above the Canongate Cross, in com- pany with Mrs. Macleod, dressed, as they noted, in " dark coloured clothes, and a black wig." So conclusive did the whole evidence appear that the Lord Advocate, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, presented himself before the court on the last day of the summer session and demanded the prisoner's conviction by a decree of the judges. By the most strenuous exertions of counsel and friends the cause was delayed till the winter session, and meanwhile the Lord Advocate, when going north to Culloden, stopped at Kilravock to inspect a new house that a friend was having built. One of the carpenters employed on the house, an intelligent and expert workman named David Household, could nowhere be found on the proprietor inquiring for him to furnish some information ; this casual incident led to inquiries, and at length to the discovery of a most ingenious and complicated system of fraud practised by Mrs. Macleod with the aid of Household, whom she had dressed up in her own husband's black coat and wig, and bribed to personate the merchant who so narrowly escaped conviction and execution. So deeply was the Lord Advocate impressed with the striking nature of the case that he often afterwards declared, had Henderson been executed in accordance with his official desire, "he would have looked upon himself as guilty of murder." On Household being shown to the witnesses, attired in his former disguise, they at once det'cted the fraud. Henderson was released, and Mrs. Macleod put on trial in his stead. From the evidence produced it appeared that this ingenious plot had been concocted for the pious purpose of raising, on the credit of the bill, a small sum to release her husband from prison ; but the detection of its forgery involved the disclosure of a long course of fraud. She was found guilty, and executed on the 8th of March following. If Mrs. Macleod had shown art in contriving and executing this fraud, she displayed no less fortitude in meeting her fate. She went to the place of execution dressed in a black robe and petticoat with a large hoop, a white fan in her hand, and a white sarcenet hood on her head, according to the fashion of the times. When she came upon the scaffold, she put off the ornamental parts of her attire, pinned a handkerchief over her breast, and put the fatal cord about her neck with her own hands. She maintained the same courageous deportment to the last, and died denying her guilt.* • Araot's Criminal Trials, p. 317. / . THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 251 ■ No prisoner incarcerated within the Old Tolbooth ever excited a greater degree of interest in the minds of contemporaries than the one whom we present in contrast to the last : Katharine Nairn, the daughter of Sir Robert Nairn, Bart., of Dunsinnane, who was brought to trial on the Sth of August 1765. She was accused and convicted of poisoning her husband, with the aid of his own brother, her associate in other crimes. The marriage appears to have been one of those unequal matches, by which the happiness of woman is so often sacrificed to schemes of worldly policy. The victim, to whom she had been married in her nineteenth year, was a man of property, and advanced in life. Popular indignation was so strongly excited at the report of the deeds she had perpetrated that she was with difficulty rescued from the mob on being first brought to Edinburgh ; yet her presence so wrought on the fickle populace that her guilt was soon forgot in the sympathy excited by her youthful appearance. Both she and her paramour, who was an officer in the army, were condemned ; and the latter was executed in the Grassmarket, in accordance with his sentence, after he had been three times respited through the interest of his friends. Meanwhile the fair partner of his guilt obtained a reprieve in consequence of her pregnancy ; and only two days after her accouchement, she composedly walked out of the Tolbooth, disguised in the garments of Mrs. Shields, the midwife who had been in attendance on her, and added to her other favours this extra-professional delivery. In her confusion she knocked, or rather, as our informant says, risped at Lord Alva's door, in James's Court, mistaking it for that of her father's agent ; but the footboy, who opened the door with a candle in his hand, had been present at the trial, and immediately raised the hue and cry, while she took to her heels down a neighbouring close. She was concealed for some time in the immediate neighbourhood of the prison, in a cellar attached to the house of her uncle (who was afterwards promoted to the Bench under the title of Lord Dunsinnane), about half way down the old back stairs of the Parliament Close. Our informant, Mr. C. K. Sharpe, added, when relating it, that he was himself indebted to Mrs. Shields for his first entrance on " the stage of life " ; and the old lady when narrating her succesful jail delivery used to hint, with a very knowing look, " that there were other folk besides her could tell the same tale " ; meaning, as was surmised, that neither the turnkey nor the Lord Advocate were quite ignorant of the exchange of midwives at the time. Katharine Nairn at length effected a safe flight, disguised in an officer's uniform. She was conducted to Dover in a post-chaise, under the care of the late Mr. James Bremner, Solicitor of Stamps, who was at that time one of her uncle's clerks, He was kept in constant dread of discovery during the journey, owing to the extreme frivolity of her conduct ; and experienced no little relief when he parted with her on board the packet bound for Calais. ■A. < 252 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH From France she escaped to America, where she is said to have married again, and died at an advanced age, surrounded by a numerous family : a strilion, could escape the fury of the Reforming mobs of '559'^ The niclie, however, remained an interesting memorial of other times, till it fell a sacrifice to the tasteless uniformity of modern beautificrs in 1829. The New Tolbooth, or Council House, has already been frequently alluded to. It was attached to the west wall of St. Giles's Church, and at some early period there had existed a means of communication between the two. An arch that remained built up in the party wall showed where the passage was to which reference is made in the Diurnal of Occurrents when the Regent Morton and the nobles passed from the church to the Laigh Council House in i 573 to choose the Lords of the Articles. A covered way led through the building into the Parliament Close, forming the only access to the latter from the west. From the period of its erection in the reign of Queen Mary the Scottish Parliaments and the College of Justice assembled there, until their sittings were transferred to the fine hall which still remains in Parliament Square. On the desertion of the New Tolbooth by the Scottish Estates and Courts of Law, it was devoted to the deliberations of the civic councillors, until the erection of the Royal Exchange provided enlarged accommodation. The Laigh Hall, where assemblies both of the Kirk and Estates had often been held, was a large and handsome room with 1 "The poore made havocke of all goods moveable in the Blacke and Gray friers, and left nothing but bare walls ; yea, not so muche as doore or window, so that the Lords had the lesse to doe when they came. After their coming .ill monuments of idolatrie within the toun, and in places adjacent, were suppressed and removed." — 29th June 1359. Calderwood's Hist, vol. i. p. 475. 'h\ THE TOLnOOTH, LUCKEN BOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 261 -'' . a ceiling wrought in panels with rich pendants from their centres, and finished with emblazonry and gilding. On its demolition some interesting and valuable relics of early decoration were brought to light. The walls had been originally panelled with oak, and when, at a later period, this came to be regarded as old-fashioned, the antique panelling was concealed behind a coating of lath and plaster. The compartments of the walls are believed to have been filled with a series of portraits, but unfortunately little attention was paid to the old building at the period of its destruction, and we are only aware of one painting that has been preserved. There is much probability in favour of this being an original portrait of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise. It is well painted on an oak panel, and in fine condition, though when discovered it was almost completely obscured by smoke and dirt. When first discovered it was supposed to represent Anne of Denmark, the consort of James VI ; it was accordingly assumed that it must have been accompanied by a portrait of James. Nor is it at all improbable that other valuable pictures may have been thrown aside and destroyed with the discarded panelling. This curious portrait passed into the possession of Alexander Mackay, Esq., of Blackcastle. It represents the Queen in a high- bordered lace cap and rufif, such as both she and her daughter are usually painted with. The details of the lacc-work are elaborately rendered, and the expression of countenance is dip>'..cd and very pleasing. On the painting being cleaned an ingenious monogram was brought to light, burned into the back of the panel, composing the word Makia, and leaving little doubt of the genuineness of the portrait, which has passed through no picture-dealer's hands. To this ancient building belong many of the later historical associations that have been referred by some of our local historians to its predecessor. It was from one of its windows that the affrighted monarch James VI attempted, in vain, to appease the enraged citi/.cns in 1596, when, "had they not been restrained by that worthy citizen, John Watt, the deacon- convener, who, at this dangerous juncture, assembled t le crafts, they would undoubtedly have forced the door, and probably have destroyed the King and all that were with him."^ The tumult api)ears to have resulted in mutual distrust, which was taken advantage of by .some designing meddlers to set the Court and citizens at variance. The Kirk and King were at the time nearly at open strife, and Mr. Robert Hrucc was preaching to a select audience in St. Giles's Church, preparatory to framing " certain articles for redresse of the wrongs done to the Kirk," while the King was sitting in the neighbouring Tolbooth, "in the seate of J'liticc among the Lords of the Sessioun," seemingly thinking of nothing less than the granting of any such requests. While the Commissioners went to the Tolbooth to make their wishes known to the King, " Mr. Michaell Cranstoun, then a veric fordward ' Maitland, p. 48. 262 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH i minister," profitably employed the leisure of the congregation by reading to them " the Historie of Haman and Mordecai, and snche other places of Scripture. ... In the meane tyme, there ariseth a rumour in the toun, that the King had givin no good answere to the Kirk ; and in the Tolbuith, that the toun was in armes, before there was anie suche thing. But it fell furth so immediatelie ; for a messinger of Satan, suborned by some of the cubicular courteours, came to the kirk doore, and cried, ' Fy ! save your- selves ; ' and ranne to the streets, crying, ' Armour ! armour ! "" The consequences are readily conceivable ; friends and enemies rushed together to the Tolbooth, and so thoroughly terrified the King that he speedily after forsook the capital, and vowed in his wrath that he would erase it from the face of the earth ! - The last Parliament at which royalty presided was held in the same New Tolbooth, immediately after the coronation ot Charles I, July 1633, and this was in all probability the latest occasion on which the Scottish Estates assembled in the ancient edifice, as the more modern Parliament House that still exists was then in course of erection. From this period the New Tolbooth was used exclusively for the meetings of the Town Council, by whom it had been erected, and it was latterly known only by the name of the Council Chambers. Thither the unfortunate Earl of Argyle was brought from the Castle preparatory to his execution on the 30th June 1685, and from thence his farewell letter to his wife is dated. Fountainhall tells us : " Argile came in coach to the Toune Counsell, and from that on foot to the scaffold with his hat on, betuixt Mr. Annand, Dean of Edinburgh, on his right hand — to whom he gave his paper on the scaffold, — and Mr. Laurence Charteris, late professor of Divinity in the College of Edinburgh. He was somewhat appaled at the sight of the Maiden, — present death will danton the most resolute courage, — therfor he caused bind the napkin upon his face ere he approached, and then was led to it." * Notwith- standing this incident mentioned by Fountainhall, who in all probability witnessed the execution, it is well known that Argyle exhibited unusual composure and self-possession on the occasion. The Maiden was erected, according to ancient custom in cases of treason, at the Cross, so that the Earl would have only a few paces to walk through the Parliament Close from the Council Chambers to reach the fatal spot. As a more recent association with both the earlier and later uses of this building, Maitland mentions that it was the repository wherein were kept the sumptuous robes anciently worn by the city representatives in Parliament, together with the rich trappings and accoutrements for their horses, which were used in the grand state calvacade at the opening of the Scottish Legislature, styled " the riding of Parliament." * * Calderwood's /^/V/. vol. v. p. 513. ^ Fountainhall, Historical ObseiTcr, p. 193. " Ante, p. 116. * Maitland, p. 180. l THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 263 The Parliament Close, which lies to the south of St. Giles's Church, has passed through a series of stranger and more remarkable vicissitudes than any other portion of the old town. Could an accurate narrative now be given of all the circumstances accompanying those successive changes, it would suffice to associate this narrow spot with many of the most memorable events in Scottish history, till the adjournment of its last Parliament there on the 2 2d of -April 1707. While St. Giles's was the small and solitary parish church of the ancient unwalled town, there was the burial-place for " the rude forefathers of the hamlet," and so it continued to be till the end of the sixteenth century. Down to that period the site of the present courts was occupied in part by the collegiate buildings for the residence of the prebendaries and other clergy that officiated at the numerous altars founded at different times in St. Giles's Church. The whole of the remaining portion lay open towards the south, extending in successive terraces to the Cowgate ; and the greater part of it appears to have remained in this condition till the latter end of the seventeenth century. In the nether kirkyard, between St. Giles's Church and the Cowgate, stood the ancient chapel of the Holy Rood till the Reformation, when it appears to have been demolished and its materials used in building the New Tolbooth. Doubtless the erection of the latter building, where all the great civic and national assemblies of the period took place, must have had considerable influence in leading to the abandon- ment of the old churchyard of St. Giles as a place of burial. While its area continued enclosed with ecclesiastical buildings, and stood apart from the great thoroughfares of the town, it must have been a peculiarly solemn and fitting place of sepulture. But when the readiest access to the New Tolbooth was through the open churchyard ; and instead of some old monk or priest treading among its grassy hillocks it became the lounge of grooms and lackeys waiting on their masters during the meetings of Parliament, or of quarrelsome litigants, and the usual retainers of the law, during the sessions of the College of Justice : all idea of sacredness must have been lost. Such appears to have been the case, from the fact that no record exists to show any formal abandonment of it as a churchyard. Queen Mary granted the gardens of the Greyfriars' monastery in the year i 566 to be used as a ceme- tery ; and from that period the old burial-place seems to have been gradually forsaken, until the neglected graveyard was at length paved over, and the citizens forgot that political intriguers and litigants were wrangling above their fathers' graves. One of the latest notices of the ancient churchyard occurs in Calderwood's narrative of the memorable tumult of 1596 described above, though the name probably remained long after it ceased to be used as a cemetery. On that occasion " the noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, that were in the kirk, went forth at the alarum, and were likewise in their armes. The Earl of 264 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH '; i! ., ■ f } i I r; * 268 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH removal of Lord Edmonston from the Bench, in consequence of his opposi- tion to the royal inclinations in one of his votes as a judge, Swinton, the once resolute declaimer against the encroachments of royalty, was selected as the most pliant successor that could be found. The poor King, James VII, displayed at all times little judgment in the choice of his friends, and in this case his selection appears to have been peculiarly unfortunate. The Revolution ensued immediately after Swinton's elevation to the Bench, and if Lord Balcarras's account is to be believed, the new judge took a leading share in some of the strangest proceedings that followed. The mob signalised the dethronement of the King by an assault on the Abbey Chapel, in which several of them were killed and wounded by the guard who wen; stationed to defend it. On the following day Lord Mersington headed a rabble, accompanied by the Provost and magistrates, and renewed the attack on Captain Wallace and his men. The guards were speedily put to flight, and my lord and the rest of the rioters completely gutted the chapel, which had been fitted up in the most gorgeous and costly fashion. Balcarras styles Lord Mersington " The fanatical Judge," and, according to his description, he figured on the occasion girt with a broad buff-belt, with " a halbert in his hand, and as drunk as ale and brandy could make him." ^ He was the only judge on the Bench at the Revolution that was reappointed by the new Government. On the third floor, in the eastern turnpike of the back land. Sir David Home, Lord Crossrig, resided : one of the first judges nominated after the Revolution, and shortly afterwards knighted by King William. The judicial report of tenants and valuations exhibits a curious assemblage of occupants, from the renters of garrets and laigh houses " beneath the grund," at the annual rate of twelve pounds Scots, to my Lord Crossrig, who pays three hundred pounds Scots for his flat, and share of the common stair ! The Laird of Merchistoun, Lady Hartfield, Sir James Mackenzie, Sir Patrick Aikenhead, Commissar Clerk, Lady Harviston, Lady Colston, with bailies, merchants, and humble craftsmen, all figure in the impartial articles of sale, sharing together at their several elevations, above and below ground, the numerous lodgings of this populous hive. While the sale of the property was going on, " the Great Fire " suddenly took place, and made a settlement of all valuations and purchases by reduc- ing the whole lofty range to a heap of ruins. " The fire broke out in the lodgeing immediatly under the Lord Crossrig's lodgeing, in the Meal Mercat of Edinburgh, while part of his familie were in bed, and his Lordship going * Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, p. 432. In contrast to this account we may add the notice of his death by Sir James Stewart, Lord Advocate, in a letter to Carstairs. "On Tuesday last, the Lord Mersington dined well with a friend in the Merse, and went well to bed, but was found dead before four in the morning, his Lady in be '- him, who knew nothing of his dying. A warning stroke. He was a good man, and is much regrettev THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 269 to bed ; and the allarum was so sudden, that he was forced to retire in his night cloaths, with his children half naked ; and that when people were sent into his closet to help out with his cabinet and papers, the smoke was so thick, that they only got out a small cabinet with great diflficulty. But albeit, his papers were lying on the floor, or hung about the walls of his closet in pocks, yet they durst not stay to gather them up, or take them, though they were desired to do it, so that that cabinet, and Alexander Christie, his servant's lettron, which stood near the door of his lodging, with some few other things, was all that was got saved, and the rest, even to his Lordship's wearing cloths, were burnt." ^ A very lively and graphic account of this conflagration or " epitome of dissoli " . " as it is there styled, is furnished in a letter written at the time of it£. occurrence by the celebrated Duncan Forbes of Culloden to his brother Colonel Forbes, wherein Lord Crossrig figures in a special manner. It is dated, " Edinburgh, 6th February 1 700," and thus describes the event : " Upon Saturday's night, by ten a clock, a fyre burst out in Mr. John Buchan's closet window, towards the Mcall Mercate. It continued whill eleven a clock of the day, with the greatest frayor and vehemency that ever I saw fyre do, notwithstanding that I saw London burne. Ther are burnt, by the easiest computation, betwixt 3 and 400 familys ; all the pryde of Eden' is sunk ; from the Cowgate to the High Street, all is burnt, and hardly one stone left upon another. The Commissioner, President of the Pari', Pres' of the Session, the Bank, most of the Lords, Lawyers, and Clerks, were all burnt, and many good and great familys. It is said just now, by S' John Cochran, and Jordan-hill, that ther is more rent burnt in this fyre then the whole city of Glasgow will amount to. The Parliament House very hardly escapt ; all Registers confounded ; Clerks Chambers, and processes, in such a confusion, that the Lords and Oflicers of State, are just now mett at Rosse's Taverne, in order to adjourne- ing of the Sessione by reason of the dissorder. Few people are lost, if any att all ; but ther was neither heart nor hand left amongst them for saveing from the fyre, nor a drop of water in the cisternes ; twenty thousand hands flitting ther trash they know not wher, and hardly twenty at work. These babells, of ten and fourteen story high, are down to the ground, and ther fall's very terrible. Many rueful spectacles, such as Corserig naked, with a child under his oxter, happing for his lyfife ; the Fish Mercate, and all from the* Cow Gate, to Pett Street's Close, burnt ; The Exchange, waults, and coal cellars under the Parliament Close, are still burneing." ^ Lord Crossrig 1 Act. Pari. vol. X. p. 284. 2 Culloden Papers, p. 27. In a pasquinade in Wodrow's Collections, purporting to be " A Letter from the Ghost of Sir William Anstruther of that ilk, once senatour of the CoUedge of Justice," to his former colleagues, and dated " Elysian Fields, 27 January 1711," E. Lauderdale and Lord Crossrig are the only Lords of Session he meets with " in the agreeable aboads " ; a compliment to the latter somewhat marred by the known character of his associate. i I. 370 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH • ■ ♦ ^ . . I I;' had a wooden leg, which explains the allusion to h's "happing for his lyffe." This is referred to in T/ie Assembly, or Scotch Reformation, a licentious play from the pen of Dr. Pitcairn, writttn in 1692 : "Act IV. Sc. 4. The Parliament Close. Enter Will, a discreet smart gentleman, and Frank, his comerade, discoursing. People passing by. Will '. . . Seest thou that dark, gloomy-ey'd fellow with the woocen leg ? He may be called a crooked justice indeed, for his mind is as deformed as his be / ; he's a true emblem of the whole bench. In short, Sir, Ihat judicature which was so famous for justice and literature when you went abroad, is now patch'd up of a pack of country lairds, and old, senseless, greedy, covetous clerks, with two or three pick'd advocates, who are purely led by their interest and humour.' " Among other renters of the numerous lodgings into which the lofty old lands were divided, the Faculty of Advocates are named as occupying one in " the Exchange Stairs " for their Library, at the yearly rent of two hundred and forty pounds Scots. Within this the nucleus of the valuable Library now possessed by them had been formed, on the scheme suggested by its founder. Sir George Mackenzie, "that noble wit of Scotland," as Dryden terms him, whose name, while it wins the respect of the learned, is still coupled among the Scottish peasantry with that of " the bluidy Claver's," and mentioned only with execrations, for the share he took, as Lord Advo- cate, in the persecution of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles II. Under his direction and influence the fines of recusant members were set apart for the formation of a library, and a few years afterwards their collection was greatly augmented by a gift of rare and costly books from William, first Duke of Queensberry. It was probably regarded as a righteous end of collections formed by such means that this conflagration scattered and nearly destroyed the accumulations of twenty years. In the Coltness Collections a reference to the fire occurs, and it is stated : "There all Baillie Thomas Robison's welth had been laid out in sumptuous houses, and from these buildings he is designed in his vain-glorious monument yet standing in Grayfreirs Church, urbis Edince ornator, si non conditor ; yet in one night and a day all was consumed, and his family rouened. . . . This burning was by the populace called a remarkable judgement, because Baillie Robeson, in his oflice as youngest magistrate, it fell to his share to attend the execution of the .sentence of the Restoration Parliament, in ignominiously burning the Natlbn- all Covenants at the publick cross of Edinburgh, by the hand of the common executioner ; and it was remarked that this man's high sumptuous tenements were burnt, and none else ; and the fyer stoped at the place of execution. ... To conclude, this was perhaps the greatest conflagration could have happened in any city, by the vast hight of houses, for the highest plnicle was called Babylon, being backward fiften storeys high from the THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 271 foundation, and all was ane immense heap of combustable matter upon a small foundation, and made a prodigious blaze." ^ It would seem, however, from the documents of sale above referred to, that the bailie's creditors must have been the chief sufferers by this " remarkable judgement." By the strenuous exertions of Mr. John Stevenson, advocate, then Keeper of the Advocates' Library, some of its literary treasures were saved ; and the result was the removal of the Library to safer and more permanent quarters below the Parliament House, where it has ever since continued, though with extensive additions, corresponding in some partial degree to its increasing importance. These lower apartments, gloomy as they now look, when contrasted with the libraries that have been erected above, are associated with names of no mean note in Scottish literature. There Thomas Ruddiman and David Hume successively presided in the office of keeper, since filled by Dr. Irvine, the biographer of Buchanan, and author of the Lives of Scottish Poets. Within the same hall Dr. Johnson was received by some of the most eminent men of the last century during his visit to Edinburgh in 1773, and the richly-stored recesses of the Library will ever be associated with the literary labours of Hailes, Tytler, Burton, Scott, Cockburn, Jeffrey, Carlyle, and others of those distinguished men who have given to Old Edinburgh its later attribute as Modern Athens. The creditors of 1698, who were baulked of their expected returns in the very midst of their exertions to dispose of the lands in the Old Parliament Close, appear, from the documents already referred to, to have proceeded immediately after the fire with the sale of the site. In the accounts consequent on the latter transaction new characters appear, and among the rest, Robert Mylne, the royal Master Mason, who is due " for the area of the houses in the Parliament Closs," a sum, thus imposingly rendered in Scots money, .£^60,600 : 00 : od. No time appears to have been lost in rebuilding the houses so unexpectedly demolished. The Royal Exchange, which bore its name cut in bold relief over the doorway, had on it the date 1 700, and the adjacent buildings towered again to an altitude of twelve stories towards the south, maintaining their pre-eminence as the loftiest lands in Edinburgh. On the east side an open piazza, decorated with pilasters and a Doric entablature, formed a covered walk for pedestrians ; and the whole produced a stately and imposing effect, which some of our readers can still remember. The aristocratic denizens of the former buildings returned again to the accommodation provided for them in the Parliament Close ; and with them too came the renters of laigh stories and garrets, to complete the motley population of the lands, as they were then subdivided in the old town of Edinburgh. An amusing illustration of this is furnished in the trial of William Maclauchlane for his share in the Porteous mob. \\ Coltncss Collections, Maitland Club, p. 48. -ny 4.1 ■ u 373 MEMORIALS OF EDINDURGH He was footman to the Countess of Wemyss, who resided in a fashionable flat in the Parliament Close, and on the forenoon of the ev-^ntful 7th of September 1736 he was despatched on an errand to Craigiehall, from whence he did not return till the evening. The libel of His Majesty's Advocate sets forth, that having delivered his message " the pannel went from my Lady Wemyss' house to John Lamb's alehouse in the same stair," from whence he issued shortly after in a jovial state, attracting everybody's notice by his showy livery during the stirring scenes of that eventful night, in which he mingled, perfectly oblivious of all that was being enacted around him ; and running a very narrow risk of being made the scapegoat of the imbecile magistracy, who only wanted a decent pretext for sacrificing a score of blackguards to the manes of Porteous and the wrath of Queen Caroline. The close connection into which the noble family of Wemyss were thus brought with the Porteous mob, as well as their near vicinity to the chief scene of action, naturally produced a strong impression on the younger members of the family. They had probably been aroused from their beds by the shouts of the rioters assembling beneath their windows, and the din of their sledge-hammers thundering on the Tolbooth door ; and when the rest of the town was settl'ng down again into its ordinary habits, after the recent commotion, they were anew alarmed by the apprehension ot William. He was to all appearance an honest enough serving-man according to the fashion of the times, whose worst fault was a relish for John Lamb's ale that lay so temptingly at hand ; but he suddenly found the unenviable honour thrust upon him of being accused as the arch-conspirator against the good city and its liege lady. The event was like to have proved fatal to the family in more ways than one, for not long after the great-grandfather of the present Earl, then a boy, proceeded along with his sisters to get up a representation of the stirring scenes of the Porteous mob ; and the young romps having duly broken into the prison and carried off the supposed culprit, they got so thoroughly into the spirit of their dramatic sport that they hung up their brother over a door, and had wellnigh finished their play in dire tragedy. During the greater part of last century, and down to the dest. -^lion of the old buildings in 1824, the north-east corner of the Parliament Close was occupied as John's Coffee-house ; where, as Defoe tells us, the opponent; of the Union used to meet to discuss the proceedings that were going on in the neighbouring Parliament House, and to concoct fr'ish means of opposition to that odious measure. It was also the favourite r jsort of the lawyers and judges of last century for professional consultation.s, as well as for their meridian, or tzual' hours, as the mid-day glass of whisky was called, which formed the indispensable refreshment of all classes at that period. In a note to Allan Ramsay's familiar epistle he illustrates his remark, " frae the gill- TMK TOLI30OTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 273 bells to the drum," by this characteristic explanation : " from half an hour before twelve at noon, when the music bells begin to play, frequently called the (,'ill-bclis, from people's taking a wheting dram at that time, to ten o'clock at night, when the drum goes round to warn sober folks to «,all for a bill." Such were the habits of " sober folks," during the eighteenth century, when every citizen had his chosen howff for daily resort, and when lawyers and clients, merchants, traders, and men of all degrees, transacted business and .spent many of their leisure hours at the club or in the tavern. The more UHUal places of resort, however, even among the most reputable citizens, were to be found down the wynds and closes of the High Street. John Dowie's famous tavern has vanished, along with the old wynd ; but one or two of the haunt.s of bygone generations still exist, and keep alive some of their favourite customs, known only to a few survivors of last century, or to the favoured proteges whom they have initiated into the mysteries practised by their forefathers I Currie's tavern in Craig's Close, once the scene of meeting of various clubs, and a favourite resort of the merchants in the neighbourhood of the Cross, still retains a reputation among certain antiquarian bibbers for an old-fashioned luxury known by the name oi pap-tn : a strange compound of small beer and whisky, ctirried, as the phrase is, with a little oatmeal ! On the south side of the Parliament Close, near to John's Coffee-house, was the banking-house established by Sir William Forbes, the well-known author of the Life of Dr. Beattie, as well as of other works ; and one of the most benevolent and public-spirited citizens of whom Edinburgh ever had to boast. Though descended from the ancient Lords Pitsligo, attainted for their fidelity to the Stuarts, he commenced life as an apprentice with the noted bankers, Messrs. Coutts, and on their final establishment in London he founded the banking company long known by his name. So successful was he in life that he accomplished his long-cherished purpose of recovering the attainted estates of the Barony of Pitsligo, which are now possessed by his descendants. Adjoining the banking-house of this eminent citizen, John Kay, the ingenious delineator of" Edinburgh Characters," kept the small print shop where he vended his portraits and caricatures during nearly the whole of his career as an artist. His windows were filled with his newest etchings, and formed a centre of attraction to the numerous loungers of the Close, some of the most noted among whom, both lawyers and clients, were the frequent subjects of his pencil. An ancient thoroughfare led from the centre of this range of buildings to the Cowgate by a broad flight of steps, latterly call-J the Back Stairs, of which we furnish a view, showing an earlier stage of the great south window of the Parliament Hall, with the remains of still older windows, surmounted with sculptured pediments in the same style as the whole exterior of the original building. It i.s occasionally called by writers of last century the New Stairs, but a VOL. 1 T f:? !i I 874 MEMORIALS OF EDINUURGH passage of some kind undoubtedly led through the nether kirkyard to the Cowgatc at an early period, affording ready access from that fashionable suburb to the collegiate church of St. Giles and the centre of the High Town. For this the Parliament Stairs were probably substituted about 1636, and continued from that time to form a convenient communica- tion between the High Street a."ion, he learned that one of the professors, who kept a Polar bear, had applied to the magistrates for stones to erect a bear's house within the College quadrangle, and he accordingly obtained a gift of these old rubbish for the purpose. The bailie gave the carter a fee to turn his horse's head and deposit them at his own villa near Trinity, from whence he sent him back with his cart full of stones equally well adapted for the professor's b "f's house. The Great Hall measures 122 feet I 1- by 49 broad, and although the windows have been altered, its curious, open-timbered oak roof remains, springing from a series of grotesquely sculptured corbels. Long after it had been forsaken by the Scottish Eotatcs it retained the high throne at its southern end, where the Soverefgr;, cr his Commissioner, was wont to preside over their deliberations, and on either side a range of benches for the nobles and barons, with lower ones in the centre for the commissioners of burghs : the Scottish Estates having formed to 'he last only one deliberative assembly. Without this area a pulpit was erected for sermons to the Parliament : the i I' 276 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH same, we believe, that is now preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries under the name of "John Knox's pulpit." Along the walls there hung a series of portraits of sovereigns and eminent statesmen, some of them the work of Sir Godfrey Kneller, but these were among the first of its decorations that disappeared, having, it is said, been bestowed by Queen Anne on her secretary, the Earl of Mar.^ Others, however, of those paintings adorned the walls within the recollection of our older citizens, and are now, we believe, at Holyrood House. Portions also of early decorations, including fragments of ancient tapestry, the hangings in all probability that were put up during the Protectorate, were only removed towards the close of last century. Nicoll tells us " The Preses and the remanent memberis of the great counsall did caus alter much of the Parliament Hous, and did caus hing the Over hous with riche hingeris, in September 1655, and removit these roumes thairintill appoyntit for passing of the billis, and signeting of letters. So wes .^.Iso the Lower Hous, diligatlie hung." ^ Nor should we omit to mention the Creed and Ten Commandments, once so appropriately sus- pended on the walls, and mentioned in a MS. volume of last century as " taken down when the Court was repaired." ^ Those decorations have been replaced by statues of Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President Blair, son of the poet. Lord Melville, Lord Chief Baron Dundas, Lord Jeffrey, and Lord Cockburn. But, superior as those sculptured marbles undoubtedly are, as works of art, to the paintings and tapestry they replaced, the cold beauty of the marble — even though wrought by the chisels of Roubillac, Chantrey, Brodie, and Steell, — very imperfectly supplied the place of the luscious colour- ing of Kneller, or even the faded antique needle-work, which helped to harmonise the walls with the grotesque yet rich effect of the old oak roof. P A happily since then the portraits of royalty have been, not inaptly, ^placed by those of eminent judges and members of the bar. To a stranger visiting the Scottish capital few of its public buildings are calculated to excite a more lively interest than the scene of its latest legislative assemblies ; for while this shares with the deserted Palace and the degraded mansions of the old town many grand and stirring associa- tions, it still forms the Hall of the College of Justice, founded by James V : at once the arena of the leading Scottish nobles and statesmen of the last two centuries, and the scene of action of many of the most eminent men of a later day. Beneath the old roof, thus consecrated by historic memories, the first great movements of the civil war took place ; and the ' Miitot Antiquities, p. 187. The following arc mentioned in Brown's Slranget's Guide for 1820: — "The outer hall is ornamented by full-length portraits of King William III, Queen Mary his consort, and Queen Anne, all ilone by Sir Godfrey Kneller ; also of George I, John Duke of Argylo, and Archibald Duke of Argyle, by Mr. Aikman of Carney," * Nicoll's Diary, p. 162. ^ Supplement to Court of Session Garland, p. 4 IX THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 277 successive steps in that eventful crisis were debated with a zeal commen- surate with the important results involved, and with no less fiery ardour than that which characterised the bloody struggles they heralded. Here Montrose united with Rothes, Lindsay, Loudon, and others of the Covenant- ing leaders, in maturing the bold measures that formed the basis of our national liberties ; and within the same Hall, only a few years later, he sat with the calmness of despair to receive from the lips of his old compatriot, Loudon, the barbarous sentence which was executed with such savage rigour. When the overthrow of the Scottish army at Dunbar at length laid the capital at the mercy of Cromwell, new scenes were enacted within the Parliament House : " witness sindry Englisch trouperis quha oppinlie taught there." ^ If Pinkerton ^ is to be believed, even the General, Cromwell, occasionally laid aside the temporal for the spiritual sword within the same august arena, to the great scandal of the Presbyterian citizens, who were horrified to find that " men war not aschamed to tak upone thame the functione of the ministrie, without a lauchfuU calling." But while such novelties were being enacted in the great Hall, the " laich Parliament Hous " was crowded with Scottish prisoners, and the building was strictly guarded by bands of the same English troopers, equally ready to relieve guard on the outer parade or to take their turn within, where " Fulpit drum ecclesiastic Was beat with fist instead of a stick." But Scottish strongholds proved insufficient for the detention of their old masters under the care of such novel foreign jailers. On the 1 7th of May 1654 the prisoners in the "laich Parliament Hous " effected their escape by cutting a hole in the floor of the great Hall above, and all but two got clear off. Only ten days afterwards Lord Kinnoull, and several other prisoners, were equally successful in getting out of the Castle, by letting themselves down over the rock with their sheets and blankets cut into strips ; and others confined in the Canongate Tolbooth effected, by like means, a similar jail delivery for themselves.^ When a better understanding had been 1 Nicoll's Diary, p. 94. '•' Ante, p. 125. ^ The Scottish prisoners would seem to have been better acquainted with tlie secrets of their own strongholds than their English jailers. Nicoll remarks, " It was a thing admirable to considder how that the Scottis prissoneris being so closlie keepit heir within the Castle of Edinburgh, and in the laich r.arliament Hous, and within the Tolbuith of the Cannogait, and daylie and nychtlie attendit with a gaird of sodgeris, sould sa oft escaip imprissoniTient. And now laitlie, upone the 27 day of Maij 1654, being Settirday at midnicht, the Lord Kynnoull, the Laird of Lugtoun, ane caliit Marschell, and another callit Hay, by tlie moyen of one of the Inglische centric escapit furth of the Castell of Edinburgh being lat doun be thair awin bedscheittis and blankettis, hardlie knut. All these four, with ane of the Inglische centric escapit. Thair was ai c uther prcttie gentill man, and a brave sodgcr, essaying to do the lyke, he, in his doungoing, fell and brak his neck, the knotis of the scheitis being maid walk by the former persones wecht that past doun before him." — Nicoll's Diary, p. 128. 278 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH established between the Protector and his Scottish subjects, the old Hall was restored to more legitimate uses. There, in the following year. General Monk and the leaders of the Commonwealth were feasted with lavish hospitality ; and the courts of law resumed their sittings, with an impartial regard for justice scarcely known in Scotland before. Then came the " glorious Restoration," under the auspices of the once republican general ; and the royal commissioner, the Duke of York, was feasted in the old hall, with his fair princess and daughter, attended by the beauty and chivalry of Scotland, anxious to efface all memory of former doing in the same place. But, mortifying as was the scene of Scotland's sons held captive in her own capital by English jail'^rs, darker times were heralded by this vice-regal banquet, when the Duke presided, along with Dalziel and Claverhouse, in the same place, to try by torture the passive heroism of the confessors of the Covenant ; and the astute lawyer Sir George Mackenzie played the part of King's advocate with such zeal as won for him the popular title, which still survives all others, of " bluidy Mackenzie." It was in the lower hall, now so long dedicated to the calm seclusion of literary stud)-, that the scenes were witnessed when the noble, the enthusiastic, and despairing were alike prostrate at the feet of tyrants, or subjected to cruel tortures by their merciless award. There Guthrie and Argyle received the barbarous sentence of their personal enemies without form of trial ; and hundreds of less note courageously endured the fury of the persecutors, while Mercy and Justice tarried at the door. A glimpse at the procedure of this Scottish Star Chamber, furnished by Fountainhall in his account of the trial of six men in October 1681, " on account of their religion and fanaticism," may suffice for a key to the justice administered there. Garnock, one of the prisoners, having railed at Dalziel in violent terms, " the General in a passion, struck him with the pomel of his shable on the face, till the blood sprang." ^ With such men for judges, and thnmbekins, boots, and other instruments of torture as the means of eliciting the evidence they desired, imagination will find it hard to exceed the horrors of this infamous tribunal. An interesting trial is mentioned by Fountainhall as having occurred in 1685.^ Richard Rumbold,one of Cromwell's old Ironsides, and implicated with Argyle in Monmouth's rash schemes, was brought up, accused of sharing in the Rye House Plot. He had defended himself so stoutly against great odds that he was only taken when completely disabled by wounds, and the Court was hastily summoned to sit on the following morning, " that he might not preveen tht public execution by his death." The evidence was found insuflficient to convict him of taking part in the Rye House Plot ; and the King's advocate proceeded accordingly to lead other accusations of treason ' Fountainhall's />(;^/j-w/w, vol. i. \t. 159. - Iliid. vol. i. p. 365. '/ l1 THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 279 against him. imong which he charged him as having been one of the masked executioiicrs who beheaded Charles I. He appears to have been a man of resolute courage, and a determined republican. He denied having been the King's executioner, but readily admitted that he was on guard at the scaffold as one of Cromwell's troopers, and that he had served as a lieutenant in his army at Dunbar, Worcester, and Dundee. •' Being asked if he owned the present king's authority, he craved leave to be excused, seeing he need neither offend them, nor grate his own conscience." He was executed the same afternoon, with peculiar barbarity, and his quarters sent to be exposed in some of the chief towns of Scotland, his head being reserved to grace the West Port of Edinburgh. But the day of retribution came ; the Prince of Orange landed in England, and the feeble representative of the Stuarts was the foremost to desert his own failing cause. From the close of 1688 till March 1689, when a Convention of the Scottish Estates was summoned to meet, Edinburgh was almost left to the government of the rabble. The sack of Holyrood, already described, completely established the superiority of the Presbyterian party ; and they signalised their triumph by assaulting the houses of the wealthy Catholics, who resided chiefly in the Canongate, which they '^rabbled" as the phrase was gutting and sometimes setting them on fire. When at length the Convention met, the adherents of the exiled King crowded to the capital in hopes of yet securing a majority in his favour. Dundee openly marched into the town with a train of sixty horse ; while the Whigs with equal promptitude, but secretly, gathered an armed body of the persecuted Presbyterians, whom they concealed in garrets and cellars, ready to sally out at a concerted signal and turn the scales in favour of their cause. The sumptuous old oaken roof of the Parliament Hall then witnessed as stirring scenes as ever occurred in the turbulent minorities of the Jameses within the more ancient Tolbooth. Dundee arose in his place in the Convention and demanded that all strangers should be commanded to quit the town, declaring his own life and those of others ot the King's friends to be endangered by the presence of banded assassins. On his demand being rejected he indignantly left the assembly ; and the Con- vention, with locked doors and the keys on the table before them, proceeded to judge the government of King James, and to pronounce his crown forfeited and his throne vacant, beneath the same roof where he had so often sat in judgment on the oppressed. While Dundee was mustering his dragoons for the rising of the North, the affrighted citizens were beating to arms to pursue him ; and the armed Covenanters were sallying from their hiding- places to strike for liberty against the oppressor, on the same streets where they had not openly been seen for years, unless when dragged to torture and execution. Meanwhile the Convention sternly bent themselves to the great question at issue, expecting every moment that the Duke of Gordon would \ 28o MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Pi! open fire on them from the Castle guns and compel them to adjourn. It must be regarded as proving how thoroughly the cruel wrongs which the Scottish Covenanters suffered at the hands of their persecutors during the reign of Charles II were accredited to the active agents in their execution, that the statue of that " Monarch of Misrule " survived the rabblements of this period, and still graces the area of the Parliament Close. The Old Parliament House witnessed thenceforth more legitimate .scenes. The name, which still survives all other memorials of Scottish sovereignty, recalls the time when " the honours " of the kingdom were laid on the table, and the Lord High Commissioner occupied the throne as the representative of majesty ; while the eloquent Belhaven, the astute and wary Lockhart, and the nervous Fletcher, pleaded for the ancient privileges of their country, and denounced the measure that was to close its Legislative Hall for ever. Many an ardent patriotic heart throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily assembled in the Parliament Close to watch the decision of the Scottish Estates on the detested scheme of Union with England. Again and again its fate trembled in the balance ; but, happily for Scotland, English bribes outweighed the mistaken zeal of Scottish patriotism and Jacobite intrigue united against the measure. On the 25th of March 1707 the Treaty of Union was ratified by the Estates, and on the 2 2d April following the Parliament of Scotland adjourned, never again to as'^emble. The Lord Chancellor Seafield, chief agent in this closing scene of our national legisla- ture, exclaimed on its accomplishment, with heartless levity^ " There is an end of an auld sang " ; but the people brooded over the act as a national indignity and wrong ; and the legitimave line of their old Scottish kings anew found favour in their eyes, and became the centre of hope to many who mourned over Scotland as a degraded province of her ancient southern rival. Since then the venerable Hall retains only such associations as belong to men eminent for learning or high in reputation among the members of the College of Justice. Duncan Torbes, Lord Karnes, Monboddo, Hume, Erskine, Mackenzie, and indeed nearly all the men of note in Scottish literature, — if we except her divines, — have formed a part of the busy throng that give life and interest to Scotland's Westminster Hall. Our own generation has witnessed there Cockburn, Brougham, Horner, Jeffrey, and Scott, sharing in the grave offices of the Court, or taking a part in the broad humour and wit for which the members of " the Faculty " are celebrated ; and still the visitor to this learned and literary lounge cannot fail to be gratified while watching the different groups who gather in the Hall, and noting the lines of thought or humour and the variety of physiognomy of the wigged and gowned loiterers of the Law Courts. Among the more homely associations of the Old Parliament Close the festivities of the King's birthday demand a special notice, as perhaps the i^*«f^t!afttm*tsm?«i»^^ THE TOLBOOTH, LUCKENBOOTHS, AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE 281 most popular of all the long-cherished customs of our ancestors, which the present generation has beheld gradually expire. It was usual on this annual festival to have a public repast in the Parliament Hall, where tables were laid out at the expense of the city, covered with wine and confections ; and the magistrates, judges, and nearly all the chief citizens assembled for what was styled " the drinking of the King's health." On the morning of this joyous holiday the statue of King Charles was gaily decorated with flowers by the " Auld Callants" as the Mves of Heriot's Hospital are still termed, who claimed this office by long prescription and their acknowledged skill in the art, acquired in the annual custom of decking their own founder's statue. This formed one of the chief attractions to the citizens throughout the day, as well as to the numerous rustic visitors who crowded into the capital on the occasion to witness or share in the fun. Towards the afternoon the veteran corps of the city guard was called out to man the eastern entrance into the Parliament Close while the guests were assembling for the civic entertainment ; and thereafter to draw up in front of the great Hall, and announce with a volley to the capital at large each loyal toast of its assembled rulers. Never did forlorn hope undertake a more desperate duty ! The first volley of these unpopular guardians of civic order was the signal for a frenzied assault on them by the whole rabble of the town, commemorated in Fergusson's lively address to the muse on the " King's Birthday." Dead dogs and cats, and every offensive missile that could be procuted for the occasion, were now hurled at their devoted heads ; and when at last they received orders to march back again to their old citadel in the High Street, the strife became furious. The rough old veterans dealt their blows right and left with musket and Lochaber-axe wielded by no gentle hand ; but their efforts were hopeless against the spirit and numbers of their enemies, and the retreat generally ended in an ignominious rout of the whole civic g!!ard. All law, excepting mob law, was suspended during the rest of the evening, the windows of obnoxious citizens were broken, the effigies of the most unpopular public men frequently burnt ; and for more than half a century the notorious Johnny Wilkes, the editor of the North Briton, and . the favourite of the London apprentices, was annually burnt in effigy at the Cross and other prominent parts of the town. Previous to the remodelling of the Parliament House, while yet the old close reared its huge massy piles of stone high above the neighbouring buildings, and the ancient church retained its venerable though somewhat dilapidated exterior, the aspect of this quadrangle must have been peculiarly imposing ; and such as we shall look for in vain among the modern erections of the capital. Had indeed the southern side of St. Giles's Church been restored, in the true sense of that term, instead of being remodelled, and nearly every genuine antique feature effaced, it would have been a singularly VOL. I T 2 282 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH interesting memorial of the successive extensions of the collegiate church throughout the fifteenth century. But it would be folly, after recording so many changes that have passed over this locality at successive periods, to indulge in the vain regret that our own day has witnessed another revolution as sweeping as any that preceded it : obliterating many features of the past, and resigning it anew to the slow work of time to restore for other generations the hues of age that best comport with its august and venerable associations. ' • ' . END OF VOLUME I Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh // \- fFILSON'S MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH Criticisms of the New Edition " We are heartily glad to see that Messrs. Black are re-issuing in monthly parts Sir Daniel Wilson's charming work. . . . This new and revised edition embodies the results of careful study and correspondence on the part of the author with the ablest authorities on the history and local antiquities of Edinburgh. In fact, the alterations on the original text are so numerous as to render it to a large extent a new work. It need hardly be said that paper, print, and illustrations are good." — Publishers' Circular. "This new and 'greatly amended' edition of a work first begun 'with pen and pencil' upwards of fifty years ago by the venerable president of the University of Toronto is bound to receive a very hearty welcome. In another direction Sir Daniel Wilson's name as an anti- quary was long ago established by his ' Prehistoric Annals of Scotland ' and his ' Prehistoric Man,' and no one who has become acquainted with the present work, either in the original edition or through the medium of an edition published more recently, against the author's urgent protest, needs to be told how intimate was his knowledge of the Edinburgh of his youth, now greatly changed in many of its more characteristic architectural features, nor how graphically he has depicted these with his pencil, while sketching the old life of Edin- burgh, including that which touched his own time as well as the life of the remoter past, with equal felicity. With revision so extensive as, in the author's own words, ' to render it to a large extent a new work,' the introduction of fresh illustrations, and the spirited action of the publishers in producing the work in handsome form, the ' Memorials ' will be in every way a very attractive possession." — Aberdeen Free Press. " The work has been greatly revised and amended by its author, who says that ' few pages remain without some emendation ; considerable portions, embodying the results of later research, have been entirely re-written ; and additions of some interest have been made to the illustrations.' The work has been regarded for half a century as of standard value ; and in its new form this value will be greatly increased. It is satisfactory to think that Sir Daniel Wilson still lives hale and vigorous, and has accomplished the task of revision. His Introduction is amusing in its references to those who have made use of former editions of his book, but have spoilt their appropriations in the course of convey- ance. It also shows how historical myths grow. The publishers are issuing the book in handsome style, and with beautifully finished illustrations." — Inverness Courier. " The work is one which the bibliophile will value as much for its material excellence as the antiquary for its quaint lore." — Glasgoiv Herald. "The book is being produced in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired." — Scotsman. " This welcome reprint," — Notes and Queries.