PASADENA PUBLIC LIBR.^RY Given byJars-...Clieatfir...F.....Eric-SDn o j}wiNo...^MX.'A^3.....v.f.l. ^-^h Me'n Nc,..5.?lQ?3. V 21 WARNING Every person who maliciously cuts, tears, defaces, breaks or injures any book, map. chart, picture, en- graving, statue, coin, model, apparatus, or other work of literature, art, mechanics, or object of curiosity, deposited in any public library, gallery, museum or collection is guilty of a misdemeanor. 6m 9-29-38 Penal Code of California, 1915, Section 623. CASSELL'S Old and New Edinburgh: Its History, its People, and its Places. IHiistraicti faij tuimerntis ^tiji-auings. By JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF '-MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH CASTLE," ETC. Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. iVE IV YORK. .Do OCT 1 7 '39 y ■> X u c .-1 o X H O < D S D D X u a o w CASSELL'S Old and New Edinburgh Its History, its People, and its Places. BY JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF "memorials OF THE CASTLE OF EDINBURGH," " BRITISH liATTLES ON LAND AND SEA," ETC. §lXwsfrafc6 In? nujncrous @ngrax>tJigG. VOL. I. Cassell, Petter. Galpin & Co. LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK. [all rights reserved.] SRLf oc/i1oS.l5^ CONTENTS- Introcuction PAGE I CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC EDINBURGH. The Site before the Houses— Traces of Early Inhabitants— The Caledonian Tribes— Agriccla's Invasion— Subjection of the Scottish Lowlands -The Ron-.an Way— Edinburgh never occupied permanently- Various Roman Remains : Urns, Coins, Busts ; Swords, Spears, and other Weapons— Ancient Coffins— The Camus, or Cath-stjne- Origin of the name " Edinburgh"— Dinas-Eiddyn-The battle of Catraeth 9 CHAPTER II. THE CASTLE OF EDINBURGH. Of its Origin and remoter History— The Legends concerning it— Ebranke— St. Monena— Defeat of the Soxons by King Bridei— King Edwin— King Grime- The Story of Grime and Bertha of Badlieu— The Starting point of authentic Edinburgh History— St. Margaret —Her Piety and amiable Disposition— Her Chapel— Her Death— Restoration of her Oratory— Her Burial— Donald Bane— King David I. — The Royal Gardens, afterwards the North Loch ■ . M I I CHAPTER III. CASTLE OF EDINBURGH [continued). The Legend of the White Hart— Holyrood Abbey founded— The Monks of the Castrum Puellarum— David I.'s numerous Endowments— His Death — Fergus, Lord of Galloway, dies there— William the Lion — Castle Garrisoned by the English for Twelve Years— The Castle a Royal Residence— The War of the Scottish Succession— The Castle in the hands of Edward L— Frank's Escalade— The tortress Dismantled — Again in the hands of the English— Bullock's Stratagem for its Re-capture — David's Tower 21 CHAPTER IV. CASTLE OF EDINBURGH (continued). Progress of the City— Ambassador of Charles VI.— Edinburgh burned— Henry IV. baffled— Albany's Prophecy— Laws regarding the Building of Houses — Sumptuary Laws, 1457 — Murder of James I. — CoronationofJamesII.— Court Intrigues — Lord ChancellorCrichton — Arrogance of the Earl of Douglas -Faction Wars— The Castle Besieged— " The Black Dinner "—Edinburgh Walled— Its Strength —Bale-fires . 26 CHAPTER V. EDINBURGH CASTLE {continued). James III. and his haughty Nobility— Plots of the Duke of Albany and Earl of Mar— Mysterious Death of Mar— Capture and Escape of the Duke of Alb.any— Captivity of James III.— Richard of Gloucester at Edinburgh— The "Golden Ch.Trter " of the City— "The Blue Blanket"— Accession of James IV.— Toum.aments— " The Seven Sisters of Bothwick "— The " Flodden Wall "—The Reign of James V. — "Cleanse the Causeway !"— Edinburgh under the Factions of Nobles— Hertford Attacks the Castle— Death of iMary of Guise- Queen Mary's .Apartments in the Castle— Birth of James VI. 32 CHAPTER VI. EDINBURGH CASTLE (continued). The Siege of 1573— The City Bombarded from the Castle— Elizabeth's Spy— Drury's Dispositions for the Siege— E.vecution of Kirkaldy— Repair of the Ruins — Execution of Morton— Visit of Charles I.— Procession to Holyrood — Coronation of Charles I. — The Struggle against Episcopacy — Siege of 1640 — The Spectre Drummer— Besieged by Cromwell— Under the Protector — The Restoration— The Argyles — The Accession of James VII. — Sentence of the Earl of Argj le — His clever Escape — Imprisoned four yea's later — The Last Sleep of Argyle— His Death— Torture of Covenanters— Proclamation of William and Mary— The Si'ge of 1689— Interview between Gordon and Dundee— The Cas'le invested — Brilliant Defence— Capitulation of the Duke of Gordon — The Spectre of Claverhouse . 47 OCT 1 7 '39 '?'>'"m'>vi OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. CHAPTER VII. EDINBURGH CASTLE (concluded). ^^^^ ITie Torture of Neville Payne— J.icobite Plots— Entombing the Regalia— Project for Surprising the Fortress— Right of Sanctuary Abolished —Lord Drummond's Plot— Some Jacobite Prisoners— " Rebel Ladies "—James Macgregor- The Castle Vaults— Attempts at Escape- Fears as to the Destruction of the Croun, Sword, and Sceptre— Crown-room opened in 1791- Again in 1S17, and the Regalia brought forth — Mens Meg— General Description of the whole Castle 66 CHAPTER VIll. THE CASTLE HILL. The Esplanade or Castle Hill— The Castle Banks— The Celtic Crosses -The Secret Passage and Well house Tower—The Church on the Castle Hill— The Reservoir— The House of Allan Ramsay— Executions for Treason, Sorcery, &c.— The Master of Forbes— Lady Jane Douglas-Castle Hill Promenade— Question as to the Proprietary of the Esplanade and Castle Hill 79 CHAPTER IX. THE CASTLE HILL {concluded). Dr. Guthrie's Original Ragged School— Old Houses in the Street of the Castle Hill— Duke of Gordon's House, Blair's Close— Webster's Close Dr, Alex. Webster — Boswell s Court — Hyndford House — Assembly Hall — Houses of the Marquis of Argyle, Sir Andrew Kennedy, the Earl of Cassillis, the Laird of Cockpen— Lord Scrapie's House— Lord Semple— Palace of Mary of Guise— Its Fate .... S7 CHAPTER X. THE LAWNMARKET. The Lawnmarket — ii'/jr/i— The Weigh house — Major Somerville and Captain Crawford — Anderson's Pills — Mylne's Court — James's Court — Sir John Lauder— Sir Islay Campbell— David Hume—" Corsica" Boswell— Dr. Johnson— Dr. Blair—" Gladstone's Land "—A Fire in 1771 94 CHAPTER XI. THE LAWNMARKET (continited). Lady Stair's Close — Gray of Pittendrum-" Aunt Margaret's Mirror" — The Marshal Earl and Countess of Stair —Miss Ferrier — Sir Richard Steele — Martha Countess of Kincardine— Burns's Room in Baxter's Clo-e— The Bridges' Shop in Bank Street— Bailie MacMorran's Story— Sir Francis Grant of CuUen 102 CHAPTER XII. THE LAWNMARKET (continued). The Story of Deacon Brodie— His Career of Guilt — Hangcl on his own Gibbet — Mauchine's Close, Robert Gniirlay's House and the other Old Houses therein— The Bank of Scotland, 1695- Assassination of Sir George Lockhart— Taken Red Hand— Punishment of Chiesly 112 CHAPTER XIII. THE LAWNMARKET (concluded). Cosford's Close-Thc Town House of the Abbot of Cambuskcnneth— Tennant's House- Mansion of the Hays— I.ibcrton's Wynd— Johnnie Dowie's Tavern- Burns and His Songs— The Place of Execution— BirthpLice of "The M.ui of Fcelins"' The Mirror Club— Forrester's Wynd— The Heather Stacks in the Houses— Peter Willi imson—Bcith's Wynd— Habits of the Lawiunark^l Woollen Traders— " Lawnmarket Gazettes"— Melbourne Place— The County Hall— The Signet .and Advocates' Libr.irics 'iS CHAPTER XIV. THE TO L BOOTH. Memorials of the Heart of Midlolhi.an, or Old Tolboolh— Sir Walter .Scott's Description— The Early Tollmolh- The " Robin Hood ' Disturbances— Noted Prisoners Entries from the Records— Lord Burleigh's Attempts at Escape — The I*orteous Mob -The Stories of Kathcrinc Nairiic and of James Hay — The 'I'own Guard— The Royal Bedemien '23 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILBS. p^^jj. St. Giles's Church— The Patron Sahit— Its Origin and early Norman style— The Renovation of 1829 — History of the Structure— Procession of the Saint's Relics- The l^rcston Relic— The Chapel of the Duke of Albany— Funeral of the Re^^ent Morray— The "Gudc Regent's Aisle" — The Assembly Aisle Dispute between James VI. and the Church Party— Departure of James VI. — Haddo's Hole— The NapicrTomb— The Spire and Lantern— Clock and Bells— The Krames— Restoration of 1878 Ij8 CHAPTER XVI. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. GILES'S. St. Giles's Churchyard— The Maison Dievi— The Clam-shell Turnpike— The Grave of Knox— The City Cross— The Summons of Pluto — Executions: Kirkaldy, Gildcroy, and others — The Caddies — The Dyvours Stane — The Luckenbooths — The Auld Kirk Style — Byre's Lodging — Lord Coalstoun's Wig— Allan Ramsay's Library and " Creech's Land " — The Edmburgh Halfpenny I48 CHAPTER XVI L THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE. Site of the Parliament House — The Parliament Hall — Its fine Roof — Proportions — Its External Aspect of Old — Pictures and Statues — The Great South Window — The Side Windows — Scots Prisoners of War — General Monk Feasted — A Scene with Gen. Dalyell — The Fire of 1700— Riding of the Parliament— The Union— Its dire Effects and uUimate good Results— Trial ol Covenanters 157 CHAPTER XVIII. THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE (continued). The Faculty of Advocates— The Writers to the Signet— Solicitors before the Supreme Court— The First Lords of Session— The Law Courts— The Court of Session : the Outer and Inner Houses— College of Justice — Supreme Judicature Court — Its Corrupt Nature— How Justice used to be defeated— Abduction of Lord Durie— Some Notable Senators of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries : Lords Fountainhall, Covington, Monboddo, Karnes, Hailes, Gardenstone, Arniston, Balmuto, and Hermand loo CHAPTER XIX. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE. Probable Extinction of the Court of Session — Memorabilia of the Parliament Close and Square- Goldsmiths of the Olden Time— George Heriot— His Workshop — His Interview with James VI. — Peter Williamson's Tavern — Royal Exchange — Statue of Charles II. — Bank of Scotlana^ The Fire of 1700 — The Work of Restoration — John Row's Coffee-house — John's Coffeehouse — Sylvester Otway — SirW. Forbes's Bank — Sir Walter Scott's Eulogy on Sir William Forbes — John Kay's Print-shop— The Parliament Stairs — James Sibbald — A Libel Case — Fire in June. 1824— Dr. Archibald Pitcairn — The " Greping Office "—Painting of King Charles's Statue White -Seal of Arnauld Lammius 174 CHAPTER XX. THE ROYAL EXCHANGE— THE TRON CHURCH-THE GRE.\T FIRE OF NOVEMBER, 1824. The Royal Exchange — Laying the Foundation Stone— Description of the Exchange —The Mysterious Statue — The Council Chamber — Convention of Royal Burghs : Constitution thereof, and Powers— Writers' Court — The *' Star and Garter " Tavern — Sir Walter Scott's Account of the Scene at Cleriheugh's— Lawyers' High Jinks— The Tron Church— History of the Old Church— The Great Fire of 1824— Incidents of the Conflagration— The Ruins Undermined— Blown up by Captain Head of the Engineers .... loj CHAPTER XXI. THE HIGH STREET. A Place for Brawling— First Paved and Lighted— The Meal and Flesh Markets— State of the Streets— Municipal Regulations 16th Century— r»/3( Wynd Provost Edward's House — Lockhart's Court~St. Mary's Chapel—Masonic Lodge Meetings— Viscountess Glenorchy— The Story of Lady Grange— St. Cccili.i'a Hall— Its Old-fashioned Concerts— The Belles of the Eighteenth Century— The Name Niddry , 246 CHAPTER XXX. Tl I i'". H K;I I STKICET {continued). Dickson*' and Cant's C!o«s— The House of the " Scottish Hogaith " and the Knight of Tillyholc— Roschaugh's, or Strichcn's, Close— House of the Abholn of Mctrosc— Sir George Miickenzic of RoschauKh— Lady Anne Dick — Lord Strichen— The Manners of 1730— Provost Grieve- Juhn Dhu, Corporal of the City Cuatd — Lady Lovat's Laud— W.itter Chapman, Printer— Lady Luvat 253 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXI. ALLEYS OK Tllli HIGH STREET (continued). p^P,, BIackrri.trs Wynd— The Grant of A'cxander II.— Bolhwcll sl.-iys Sir William Stewart— Escape of Archbishop Sharpc— Camcronian Meeting- house— The House of the Regent Morton— Catholic Chapels of the Eighteenth Century— Bishop Hay— " No Popery" Kiols— Baron Smith's Chapel— Scottish Episcopalians — House of the Prince of Orkney- Magnificence of Earl William Sinclair— Cardinal beaton's House- The Cardinal's Armorial Bearings— Historical Associations of his House— Its Ultimate Occupants— The United Industrial School 258 CHAPTER XXXII. ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued). Toddrick's Wynd— Banquet to the Danish Ambassador and Nobles- Lord Leven's House in Skinner's Close— The First Mint Houses— The Mint— Scottish Coin — Mode of its Manufacture— Argyle's Lodging— Dr. Cullen— Elphinstone's Court— Lords Loughborough and Stonefield— Lord Selkirk— Dr. Rutherford, the Inventor of Gas 266 CHAPTER XXXIII. ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (concluded). The House of the Earls of Hyndford— The Three Romps of Monreith— Anne, Countess of Baicarris— South Foulis' Close-The " End- mylie's Well "—Fountain Close— The House of Bailie FuUerton- Purchase of Property for the Royal College of Physicians— New Episcopal Chapel— Tweeddale Close— The House of the Marquis of Tweeddale— Rise of the British Linen Company— The Mysterious Murder of Begbie— The World's End Close— The Stanfield Tragedy-Titled Residenters in Old Town Closes 274 CHAPTER XXXIV. NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL. Lord Cockbum Street- Lord Cockburn— The Scotsman Newspaper— Charles Maclaren and Alexander Uussel— The Queen's Edinburgh Rifle Brigade-St. Giles Street— Sketch of the Rise of Journalism in Edinburgh— The Edinburgh Coiirnttt—The Daily Re-oiciu - Jeffrey Street — New Trinity College Church ^°- CHAPTER XXXV. NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL (concluded). Victoria Street and Terrace— The India Buildings— Mechanics' Subscription Library— George IV. Bridge— St. Augustine's Church— Martyrs' Church-Chamber of the Highland and Agricultural Society- Sheriff Court Buildings and Solicitors' Hall— Johnstone Terrace— St. John's Free Church— The Church of Scotland Training College 29 1 CHAPTER XXXVI. ST. MARY'S WYND. St. Mary's Wynd and Street — Sir David Annand — St. Mary's Cistercian Convent and Hospital — Bolhwell's Brawl in 1562— The Cowgate Port — Rag Fair — The Ladies of Traquair— Ramsay's " White Horse " Inn — Pasquale de Paoli — Ramsay Retires with a Fortune — Boyd's "White Horse" Inn— Patronised by Dr. Johnson — Improvements in the Wynd — Catholic Institute — The Oldest Doorhead in the City 297 CHAPTER XXXVII. LEITH WYND. Leith Wynd— Our Lady's Hospital— Paul's Work— Th- Wall of 1540— Its F.1II in 1854- The " H.ippy Land "—Mary of Gueldres-Trinity College Church— Some Particulars of its Charter— Interior View- Decorations— Enlargement of the F.^Ublishment- Privileges of its Ancient Officers -The Duchess of Lennox-Lady J.ine Hamilton— Curious Remains -Trinity Hospital— Sir Simon Preston's "Public Spirit"— Becomes a Corporation Charity- -Description of Buildings— Provision for the Inmates— Lord Cockbum's Female Pensioner— Demolition of the Hospital— Other Ch.(rities TpO CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE WEST BOW. The West Bow— Quaint Ciaracter of its Houses— Its .Modern Aspect— Houses of the Templar Knights— The Bowfoot Well— The Bow Port— The Bow-head- Major Weir's Land— History of M.ajor Thomas Weir— Personal .Appearance— His Powerful Prayer,;- I'he " Holy Sisters"- The Bowhead Saints— Weirs Reputed Comp.-ict with the Devil -Sick-bed Confession— Arrest— Search of his House— Prison Confessio»— Trial of Him and His Sister Grizel— Execulion-Wliat was Weir ?— His Sis'er undoubtedly Mad -Terrible Reputation of the House— Untenanted for upwards of a Cen'ury— Patullo's Experience of a Cheap Lodging— Weir's Land Improved (^ut of Existence — Hall of the Knights of St. John— .\ Mysterious House— Somerville M.uision— The .Assembly Rooms-Opposed by the Bigotry of the Times— The L.ady-Directress— Curious Regulations 309 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. CHAPTER XXXIX. THE WEST BOW {conclud d.) ^.^^ ^ ' PAGE Hand to Hand Combat in the Bow— Murder in 1605 in the Bow— The House of Lord Ruthven— The Hidden Sword— Processions in the Bow — The Jacobite Prisoners — House of Provuit Stewart— A Secret Entertainment to Prince Charles— Donaldson the Printer— State of Printing and Publishing in his Day— The Edinburgh Wf/z/e-W/Vr- Splendid Fortune of his Descendant— Town House of the Napiers of Wrightshouse— Trial of Barbara Napier for Witchcraft— Clockmaker's Land — Paul Romieu — The Mahogany Land- Duncan Campbell, Chirurgeon — Templar Houses . 3^5 CHAPTER XL. EDINBURGH IN 1745. Provost Stewart— Advance of the Jacobite Clans— Preparations f jr Defence— Capture of the City— Lochiel's Surprise— Entrance of Prince Charles— Arrival at Holyrood— James VI IL Proclaimed at the Cross- Conduct of the Highland 'Iroops in the City— Colquhoun Grant— A Triiunphal Procession— Guest's Council of War— Preston's Fidelity 3^2 CHAPTER XLI. EDINBURGH IN 1745 {concluded). General Guest's " Bravery "—Popularity of the Prince — Castle Blockaded— It Fires on the City— Leith Bombarded— End of the Blockade —Departure of the Highland Army for England— Prisoners in the Castle— Macdonald of Teindreich— Duke of Cumberland in Edinburgh— Burning of the Standards 3^9 CHAPTER XLII. THE NORTH BRIDGE. The New Town projected by James VII. — The North Bridge and other Structures by the Earl of Mar, 1728 — Opposed in 1759— Foundation Stone Laid — Erection Delayed till 1765 — Henderson's Plan — William Mylne appointed Architect — Terms of the Contract — Fall of the Bridge- Repaired and Completed — I'he Upper and Lower Flesh- Markets— Old Post Office — Adam Black — Ann Street — The Ettrick Shepherd and the " Noctes"— The Bridge Widened 334 CHAPTER XLIII. EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE. Dingwall's Castle— Whitefield's " Preachings "—History of the Old Theatre Royal— The Building- David Ross's Management— Leased to Mr. Foote— Then to Mr. Digges— Mr. Moss— Mrs, Yates— Next Leased to Mr. Jackson— The Siddons F«r(7?r— Reception of the Great Actress— Mrs. Baddeley— New Patent— The Playhouse Riot— "Tlie Scottish Roscius "—A Ghost— Expiry of the Patent . . . 340 CHAPTER XLIV. EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE {continued). Old Thcnire Royal— Management of Mr. Henry Siddons— Mr. Murray— Miss O'Neill— Production of Kob Roy~W\-^\i of George IV. to the Theatre- E- inburgh Theatrical Fund — Scott and his Novels— Retirement of Mr. Murray— The Management of Mr. antl Mrs, Wyndhnm— The Closing Night of the Theatre 34^ CHAPTER XLV. EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (contiitued). Mcmorahilb nf the Ocncral Posl Office— First Postal System in Scotland— First Communication with Ireland— Sanctions civcn by the Scottish Parliament- Expenses of the Estalipshnicnl at various Periods— The Horse Posts^Violation nf Letter P.ags—CaMiallicsof the Period - The First Slaee Coach-Peter Williamson -The Various Post OITice Duildlngs- The Waterloo Place Onicc-Royal Arms Kemovcd— New OBicc liuill-Stafr and Fiscal Details 353 CHAl'TKR XLVI. EAST SIDIC OF THE NORTH BRIDGE [mnciitda/). The Old Orphan Hospital- Its Foundation, Object, and Removal — I-ady Glcnorchy's Chapel— Her Disputes with the Presbytery- Dr. Sncll Jones -Demolition of the Chapel and School— Old Physic Gardens Formed— The Gardens— Sir Andrew IJalfour— James Siuhcrland — Inundated in 1689— Suthcrland'A Efforts to Improve the Gardens - Professor Hope 359 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER XLVll. MOULTRAY'S HILL— HER MAJESTY'S GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE. p^^.^, Thi: Monltrays of that Ilk -Village of Moullr.iy's Hill— The Chapel of St. Ninian— St. James's Square— Bunker's Hill— Mr. Dundas— Robert Biini.'s House— State of the Scottish Records- Indifference of the Government in 1740— The Register House built— Its Ohjects and Size— Curious Documents preserved iu this House— The Office of Lord Clerk Register— The Secretary's Register— The Register of Sasines— The Lyon King of Arms— Sir D.ivid Lindesay— Sir James Balfour— Sir Alexander Erskine— New Register House— Great and Privy Seals of Scotland — The Wellington Statue 3^4 CHAPTER XLVIH. THE SOUTH BRIDGE. Marlin's Wynd— Legend of the Pavior- Peebles Wynd — The Bridge Founded—Price of Sites — Laing's Book Shop— The Assay Office and Goldsmith's Hall— Mode of Marking the Plate— The Corporation, and old Acts concerning it — Hunter's Square — Merchant Company's Hall — The Company's C'harter — "The Stock of Broom" — Their Monopoly and Progress— The Great Schools of the Merchant Company — The Chamber of Commerce — Adam Square — .^darn's Houses — Dr. Andrew Duncan — Leonard Horner and the Watt Institution — Its Progress and Vitality 373 CHAPTER XLIX. THE PLE.\SANCE AND ST. LEONARDS. The Convent of St. Mary — Friends' Buiial Place — Old Cliirurgeon's Hall — Surgeon's Square — " Hamilton's Folly " — The Gibbet— Chapel and Hospital of St. Leonard — Davie Deans' Cottage — The " Innocent Railway " — First Public Dispensary 3"2 KEYS OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIOxNS. THE ULl) CHLIRCll OK ST. CUTHUERT's AND THK, NOKTII LOCH (after Clcrk of EliUll).—FlOllUspu\c. Keys of the City of Edinburgh .... Paul's Work Illustrated Heading The " xMaiden " The " White Horse" Inn Fac-simile of a View of Edinburgh in 1544 Common Seal of Edinburgh Counter Seal of the Above John Kay (1786) Urn found at the Dean The Roman Road, near rortobello— The " Fishwives' Causeway '....... Arthur's Seat, from St. Leonards .... The Arms of the City of Edinburgh .... Fac-simile of a View of the Old Town, from a house- top at the Tron Church Bird's-eye View of the Castle and City of Edinbuigh St. Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh Castle . Dungeons in the Castle, below Queen Mary's Room . Chancel Arch of St. Margaret's Chapel "Wallace's Cradle," Edinburgh Castle . Edinburgh Castle, as it was before 1573 Ruins of the Well-house Tower .... The Royal Lodging or Palace, from the Grand I'arade Prospect of Eossession of the Society of Antiquaries o/ Scotland,) by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three were daughters of noblemen, clothed in velvet and silks, with their chains of gold and other orna- ments, and was attended by 200 riding gentle- men in all journeys ; and if it happened to be dark when she went to Edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot of the Blackfriars Wynd, eighty lighted torches were carried before her." Here, in later years, was often seen one who was to write of all these things as no man ever wrote before or since — a little lame boy, fair-haired and blue-eyed, named Walter Scott, limping to school with satchel on back, and playing, it might be, " the truant," with Skene, Graham Dalzell, or others, who in future days were to add to the literary glory of their country and the intel- lectual supremacy of their native city. In Liberton's Wynd we shall visit Dowie's Tavern,. one of the most popular in its day, the resort of the Lords of Session on leaving Court, and, more than all, the resort of Robert Burns, who may have indited there some of his famous letters to- " Clarinda," at her abode in Alison Square — Burns, " the burly ploughman from Ayr- shire, with swarthy features and wonderful black eyes," who stood reverently bare- headed by the then unmarked grave of Fergusson in the grass - grown Canongate churchyard. Again shall be seen the city girt by its lofty- walls and those embattled gates, which were seldom without a row of human heads on iron spikes — the grisly relics of those who were too often the victims of dire misrule — with the black kites, then tlie chief scavengers in the streets, hovering about them. In the steep and quaint West Bow — now nearly all removed — dwelt the Wizard, Weir of Kirkton,. who perished at the stake in 1670, together with his sister and the wonderful walking-stick, which was surmounted by a carved head, and performed his errands. His lofty mansion, long the alleged abode of spectres, and a source of terror to the neighbourhood, was demolished only in the spring of 1S7S. OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LTntroduction In that ancient street, long deemed the grand entrance to Edinburgh, we shall see once more the long lines of gilded sedans, attended by linkmen and armed servants, escorting belles and beaux, powdered and patched, proceeding in state to the old Assembly Room ; and also the monarchs who have entered the city by that remarkable route, ascending it in succession, surrounded by all their bravery : James VI. and his bride, Anne of Den- market like a human surge, and strung him up to a dyer's pole. In the old city there is not a street wherein blood has not been shed again and again, in war and local tumult, for it is the Edinburgh of those days when the sword was never in its scabbard ; when to settle a quarrel a la mode d' Edimlwttrg was a European proverb ; when the death-bed advice of Bruce was carried out, and truces were mark; stately Charles I., .ilong with his muird cku _, _ - _ ^ _ ^ in their vel- vet doublets with gilded partisans ; Oliver Cromwell, with his grim Ironsides; Charles II., before Dunbar was fought and lost ; and, lastly, James VII. of Scot- land, when Duke of Albany and High Com- missioner to the Parliament. IDown that steep street went a horde of unfor- tunates in early times to the place of doom ; thus, it had acquired a peculiar character, till the hand of improvement changed it ; and in later years down it came a victim of another kind, the frantic .Tnd shrieking Porteous, borne by that infuriated mob, which spread over all the spacious Grass- made, but seldom peace, with England ; and when it has been said that many a Scottish mother had never a son left to lay her head in the grave, for in foreign war or domestic feud all had gone before her to the land of the leal. But there w-as much of the Spartan spirit in the Scottish matron of those and later times — a feeling that is embodied in the well-known Jacobite song, in which one of these mothers is made to say : — " I once had sons, I now li.ie nane, I bore them, toiling sairlie ; Ihit I would bear tliem a' ag.iin, To lose them a' for Charhe ! " We are told that when David Home of Wed- derburn, fiither of the historian of the Douglases, died, in 1574, of consumption, in his fiftieth year, he was the first of his race who had died a Introduction. 1 THE OLD TOWN. Q < .J o H < M S >< n > M X H O - 5 s < -. §1 &. .1: 0. >: «:i o S u. - o! S O V. ij ^ SI He b % O ^ >: I PS s «>: w a 4-0! X o D > o J OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Introiauction. natural death — all the rest having lost their lives ' in defence of their country." If we turn to Holyrood, what visions and memo- ries must arise of Knox, standing grim and stern before his queen, in his black Geneva cloak, with I his hands planted on the horn handle of his long walking-cane, daringly rebuking her love of music ] and dancing — unbending, unyielding, and unmelted, by either her exalted rank, her beauty, or her ] tears ; and of that terrible night in the Tower of James V., when sickly Ruthven, looking pale as a spectre under the open visor of his helmet, drew back with gauntleted hand the ancient arras as the assassins stole up the secret stair, — and then Rizzio, clinging wildly to the queen's skirt, and dying beneath her eyes of many a mortal wound, with Darnley's dagger planted in his body ; of Charles Edward, in the prime of his youth and comeliness, already seeing the crown of the Stuarts upon his exiled father's head, surrounded by exul- tant Jacobite ladies, with white cockades on their bosoms, and dancing in the long gallery of the kings to the sound of the same pipes that blew the onset at Falkirk and CuUoden ! A very few years later, and Boswell, and Dr. Johnson in his brown suit with steel buttons, might have been seen coming arm-in-arm from the White Horse Hostel in Boyd's Close — the burly lexicographer, as his obsequious follower tells us, grumbling and stumbling in the dark, as they proceeded on their way to the abode of the latter in James's Court ; but his visit to Scotland compelled the pedant, who trembled at the Cock Lane ghost and yet laughed at the idea of an earthfjuake in Lisbon, to have, as Macaulay says, " a salutary susjiicion of his own deficiencies, which seems on that occasion to have crossed his mind for the first time." In yonder house, in Dunbar's Close, the Iron- sides of Cromwell had their guard-house ; and on the adjacent bartizan, that commanded a view of all the fields and farms to the north, in the autumn evenings of 1650, the Protector often sat with -Matliew 'I'liomlinson, Monk, and Ireton, each smoking their yards of clay and drinking Scottish ale, or claret, and expounding, it might be, texts of .Scripture, while their batteries at tjie Lang-gate and Hcriot's Hosj)ital threw shot and shell at tlie Castle, then feebly defended by the treacherous Dundas, from whom the Protector's gold won what, he himself admitted, steel and shot might never have done, the fortress never before being so strong as it was tlien, witli all its stores and garrison. And in that wynd, to which, in perishing, he gave his name, we shall see the sturdy craftsman Halkerston fighting to the death, with his two-handed sword, against the English invaders. Turn which way we may in Edinburgh, that stirring past attends us, and every old stone is a record of the days, the years, and the people, who have passed away. In a cellar not far distant the Treaty of l^nion was partly signed, in haste and fear and trembling, while the street without rang with the yells and opprobrious cries of the infuriated mob ; and after that event, by the general desertion of the nobility, came what has been emphatically called the Dark Age of Edinburgh — that dull and heartless period wjien grass was seen to grow around the market- cross, when a strange and unnatural stillness — the stillness of village life — seemed to settle over every one and everything, when the author of " Louglas "' was put under ban for daring to write that tragedy, and when men made their last will and testament before setting out by the stage for London, and when such advertisements appeared as that which we find in the Edinburgh Courant for 7th March, 1 76 1 — "A young lady who is about to set out for London in a post-chaise will be glad of a com- panion. Enquire at the publisher of this paper ; " — when Edinburgh was so secluded and had sucli little intercourse with London, that on one occasion the mail brought but a single letter (for the British Linen Company), and the dullness of local life received a fillip only when Admiral de Fourbin was off the coast of Fife, or the presence of Thurot the corsair, or of Paul Jones, brought back some of the old Scottish spirit of the past. The stately oaks of the Burghmuir, under which Guy of Namur's Flemish lances fled in ruin and defeat before the Scots of Douglas and Dalhousie, have long since passed awa)-, and handsome modern villas cover all the land to the base of the bordering hills ; but the old battle stone, in whicli our kings planted their standards, and which marked the Campus Martins of the Scottish hosts, still lingers there on the south ; and the once lonely Figgatemuir on the east, where the monks of Holyrood grazed their flocks and herds, and where ^\'allace mustered his warriors prior to the storming of Dunbar, is now a pleasant little water- ing place, which somewhat vainly boasts itself " the Scottish Brighton." The remarkable apjicarance and construction of old lulinburgh — towering skyward, storey upon storey, with all its black and bulky chimneys, crow- stepped gables, and outside stairs — arise from the circumstance of its having been twice walled, and the necessity for residing within these barriers, for jirotection in times of foreign or domestic war. Thus, what Victor Hugo says of the Paris of I'hilip' Inlrodiicliou.] THE NEW TOWN. Augustus seems peculiarly applicable to the Edin- burgh of James V., and still more to that of James II. " He imprisoned Paris in a circular chain of great towers, high and solid," says the author of " Notre Dame ; " " for more than a century after this the houses went on pressing upon each other, accumulating and rising higher and higher. They got deeper and deeper; they piled storeys on storeys ; they mounted one upon another ; they shot up monstrously tall, for they had not room to grow breadthwise ; each sought to raise its head above its neighbour to have a little air ; every open space became filled up, and disappeared. The houses at length leaped over the wall of Philip Augustus, and scattered themselves joyously over the plain. Then they did what they liked, and cut themselves gardens out of the fields." And of the old walled city the well-known lines of Scott are most apposite : — " Such dusky gi'andeur clothed the height. When the huge castle holds its state, And all the steep slope down, Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, Piled deep and massy, close and high, Mine own romantic town ! " New Edinburgh appeals to us in a different sense. It tells peculiarly in all its phases of modern splendour, wealth, luxury, and all the arts of peace, while " in no other city," it has been said, " will you find so general an appreciation of books, arts, music, and objects of antiquarian interest. It is peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and counting-house. It is a Weimar with- out a Goethe — Boston without its twang." This is the Edinburgh through the noble streets of which Scott limped in his old age, white-haired and slow, leaning often on the arm of Lockhart or the grey-plaided Ettrick Shepherd ; the Edin- burgh where the erect and stalwart form of the athletic " Christopher North," with his long locks of grizzled yellow — his "tawny mane," as he called them — floating on the breeze, his keen blue eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy, his left hand planted behind his back, and his white neck- cloth oft awry, strode daily from Gloucester Place to the University, or to " Ebony's," to meet Jeffrey, Rutherford, Cockburn, Delta, Aytoun, Edward Forbes, and Carlyle ; the Edinburgh where Simpson, the good, the wise, and the gentle, made his dis- covery concerning chloroform, and made his mark, too, as " the grand old Scottish doctor," whose house in Queen Street was a focus for all the learned and all the literati of Europe and America — the Edinburgh of the Georgian and Victorian age. We propose to trace the annals of its glorious University, from the infant establishment, founded by the legacy of Robert Bishop of Orkney, in 1581, and which was grafted on the ancient edifice in the Kirk-of-Field, and the power of which, as years went on, spread fast wherever law, theology, medicine, and art, were known. The youngest and yet the noblest of all Scottish universities, enrolling yearly the greatest number of students, it has been the alma mater of many men, who, in every department of learning and literature, have proved themselves second to none ; and from the early days when Rollock taught, to those when it rose into repute as a great school of medicine under the three Munroes, who held with honour the chair of anatomy for 150 years, and when, in other branches of knowledge, its fame grew under Maclaurin, Black, Fergusson, Stewart, Hamilton, Forbes, Syme, and Brewster, we shall trace its history down to the present day, when its privileges and efficiency were so signally aug- mented by the Scottish University Act of 1S58. Nor shall we omit to trace the origin and de- velopment of the stage in Edinburgh, from the time when the masks or plays of Sir David Lind- say of the Mount were performed in the open air in the days of James V., " when weather served," at the Greenside-well beneath the Calton Hill, and the theatre at the Watergate, when " his Majesty's servants from London " were patronised by the Duke of Albany and York, then resident in Holyrood, down to the larger establishments in the Canongate, under the litigious Tony Aston, and those of later years, which saw the perform- ances of Kean, Kemble, and Mrs. Siddons, and the production of the ^^'averley dramas, under the auspices of Terry, who, as Scott said, laughingly, had " terrified " his romances into plays. Arthur's Seat and the stupendous craigs, the name of which is so absurdly and grotesquely corrupted into "Salisbury," alone are unchanged since those pre-historic days, when, towering amid the wilderness, they overlooked the vast forest of oaks that stretched from the pastoral hills of Braid to the sea — the wood of Drumsheugh, wherein roamed the snow-white Caledonian bull, those ferocious Caledonian boars, which, as Martial tells us, were used to heighten the torments of unhappy sufferers on the cross ; the elk the stag, and the wolf; and amid which rose the long ridgy slope — the Edin — that formed the site of the future old city, terminating in the abrupt bluft" of the Castle rock. There, too, rose the bare round mass of the Calton, the abode of the fox and hare, and where the bustard had its nest amid the gorse; 8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Introductioa. and here and there were sedgy pools and lonely tarns, where the heron fished and waded, with the great sheet of the South Loch, where now the Mea- dows lie ; and there, too, was Duddingston, but in size twice the extent we find it now. Of all these hills have looked on since the Roman altars of Jove smoked at Inveresk and Cramond, of all the grim old fortress on its rock and St. Giles's Gothic and imperial crown have seen, we shall en- deavour to lay the won- drous story before our readers. The generations of men are like the waves of the sea ; we know not whence they come or whither they go ; but generation after generation of citizens shall Banquo's spectral line of Dinas-Eiddyn, with their glittering torques, armlets, and floating hair ; the hooded Scoto-Saxons of Lo- thian and tlie Merse, with ringed byrnes and long battle-axes ; the steel-clad knights of the Bruces and the Jameses ; merchants and burghers in broad- cloth ; monks, abbots, and nuns ; Templars on their trial at Holyrood for sor eery and blasphemy ; Knights - hospitallers and hermits of St. Anthony ; the old fighting merchant mariners of Leitli, such as the \Voods, the Bartons, and Sir Alexander Mathie- son, " the king of the sea ; " witches and wizards perish- ing in llie flames at the Grassmarket or the Gallow- Ice ; the craftsmen in arms, with their Blue Banner COMMON SEAL OF EDIN liURGH.* (After Henry Laing.) pass before us like kings ; the men of displayed ; stout and true Covenanters borne forth in groups to die at the gallows or in the Grey- friars churchyard, where stands the tomb which tells us how 1 8,000 of them perished as " noble mar- tyrs for Jesus Christ ; " cavaliers in all their bravery and pride, and in the days of their suffering and downfall ; the brawling gallants of a century later, who wore lace ruffles and rapiers, and " paraded '"' their opponents on the smallest provocation in the Duke's Walk behind Holy- rood ; the grave senators and jovial lawyers of the last centur)', who held their " high jinks " in dingy taverns near the Parliament House; and many of the quaint old citizens wlio figure in the valuable repertory of Kay : — all shall pass in review before us, and we shall touch on ^ them one and all, as we think of them, tenderly and kindly, as of those who are long since dead and gone— gone to their solemn account at the foot of the Great White Throne. In picturesque beauty the capital of Scodand is se- cond to none. "What the tour of Europe was ne- cessary to see, I find con- gregated in this one city," said Sir David Wilkie. "Here alike are the beau- ties of Prague and of Salz- burg, the romantic sites of Orvieto and Tivoli, and all the magnificence of the Bays of Naples and Genoa. Here, indeed, to the pain- ter's fancy may be found Cajiitol and the Grecian COUNTER SEAL OF TUK AllOVEt t..\/t,-r Iteilry Laiiig.) • The device of tlic common seal represents .1 castle triple-towered, the gates thrown open. In each of the towers is the head of a soldier. Foliage appears at the lower part and sides of the seal, .'wd above the towers may he seen a crescent and a midlct. The Icttcrinf; is "SlGll.- li;m communs ul'rgi us cDiNiaiiiic." realised the Acropolis." Roman t A full length figure of St. Giles standing within a Gothic porch in pontifical vestments but without a mitre; in his right hand he holds a crozier, and in Ids left a book. At each side is a short slaflf termi- nating in a flcur de-Iis. branches of foliage ornament the lower part and sides of the design. 'I'he lettering is " luinui singno CKKUATts (COtiDli lIKN'Nl) GNO." {FtOm (I DOiUltttflt dntcd Ijgz). r'rchisloric Edinburgh] THE ROMANS IN NORTH BRITAIN. JOHNTKTAY JOHN KAY (17S6). {,FiH simile 0/ the Port) ait ctchcii ly hiiinci/.) CHAPTER I. PREHISTORIC EDINBURGH. The Site before the Houses— Traces of Early Inhabitants— The Caledonian Tribes— Agricola's Invasion — Subjection of the Scottish Lowlands — The Roman Way — Edinburgh never occupied permanently — Various Roman Remains : Urns, Coins, Busts ; Swords. Spears, and other Weapons — .Ancient Coffins— The Camus, or Cath-stone— Origin of the name " Edinburgh"— Dinas-Eiddyn— The Battle of Catraeth. 0.\ the arrival of .\gricola's Roman army in the Lothians, about the year a.d. So, the Ottadeni ap- pear, according to Chalmers, to have occupied the whole extent of coast from the Tyne to the Firth of Forth, including, that is, a part of Nor- thumberland and Roxburghshire, the whole of the Merse, and Haddingtonshire. The Gadeni, whose territory lay in the interior country, parallel and contiguous to that of the Ottadeni, had all the land from the Tyne to the south of the Forth ; they held, namely, the western parts of Northumberland, Roxburghshire, the whole of Falkirk, Tweeddale, and much of the Lothians. These were two of the twenty-one Caledonian tribes who were connected by such slight ties as scarcely to enjoy a social state, and who then occupied the whole of Northern Britain. That these Ottadeni and Gadeni were well armed, and resisted bravely, the number of camps and battle-stones scattered throughout the country amply attests ; and it is not improbable that the site of Dalkeith {Dalcath, or the field of battle) may have seen some struggle with Agricola's Roman, Batavian, and Tungrian cohorts. It was not until the year 83 that Agricola re- solved to penetrate into the districts beyond the F"orth, as he dreaded a more united resistance from the Caledonian tribes, who had hitherto been hostile to each other. Guided by the information of naval officers who had surveyed the coast, his army crossed the Forth at Inchgarvie, and landed at the north ferry, from whence he proceeded to fight his way towards the Grampians ; but it was not until the year 140 that the Scottish Lowlands were entirely subjected to Roman sway, by Lolllus Urbicus, whose legions have left so many rough- hewn votive altars and graven memorials of the Valens VicTRix, witli devotional dedications, OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Prehistoric Edinburgh. Imperatori CiESARi. Tito. CElio. Hadkiano. Anton'ino. Aug. Pio. Patri. Patri.e. Although the Roman miUtary causeway — of which some fragments still remain— from Brittano- dunum to Alterva {i.e. from Dunbar to Cramond) ' passed close to it, the Castle rock never appears to have become a Roman station ; and it is suf- ficiently curious that the military engineers of the j invaders should have neglected such a strong and natural fortification as that steep and insulated | mass, situated as it was in Valcntia, one of their six provinces in Britain. Many relics of the Romans have been turned ^ up fron: time to time upon the site of Edinburgh, I but not the slightest trace has been found to indicate ' that it was ever occupied by them as a dwelling- j place or city. Yet, Ptolemy, in his " Geogi'aph)-," speaks of the place as the Casti-um alatiim, "a winged camp, or a height, flanked on each side by successive heights, girded with intermediate valleys." Hence, the site may have been a native fort or hill camp of the Ottadeni. When cutting a new road over the Calton Hill, in I Si 7, a Roman urn was found entire; another (supposed to be Roman), eleven and a half inches in height, was found when digging the foundation of the north pier of the Dean Bridge, that spans a deep ravine, through which the Water of Leith finds its way to the neighbouring port. In 17S2 a coin of the Emperor Vespasian was found in a garden of the Pleasance, and is now in the Museum of Antiquities ; and ROMAN URN loiNn AT THE DEAN, ^hcn cxcavatiug in il'roiii the Autiy U'aiier H. Paton, R S.A.) Other relics of the unwritten ages exist near Edinburgh in the shape of battle-stones ; but many have been removed. In the immediate neigh- bourhood of the city, close to the huge m.onolith named the Camus Stone, were two very large conical cairns, named Cat (or Cat/i) Stones, until demolished by irreverent utilitarians, who had found covetable materials in the rude memorial stones. Underneath these cairns were cists containing human skeletons and various weapons of bronze and iron. Two of the latter material, spear-heads, are still preserved at Morton Hall. Within the grounds of that mansion, about half a mile distant from where the cairns stood, there still stands an ancient monolith, and two larger masses that are in its vicinity are not improbably the relics of a ruined cromlech. " Here, perchance, has been the battle- ground of ancient chiefs, contending, it may be, with some fierce invader, whose intruded arts startle us with evidences of an antiquity which seems primeval. The locality is peculiarly suited for the purpose. It is within a few miles of the sea, and enclosed in an amphitheatre of hills ; it is the highest ground in the immediate neighbour- hood, and the very spot on whicli the warriors of a retreating host might be expected to make a stand ere they finally betook themselves to the adjacent fastnesses of the Pcntland Hills." * On the eastern slope of the same hilt there was found a fln^ilar relic of a later period, which merits special notice from its peculiar character- istics. It is a bronze matrix, bearing the device of a turbancd head, with the Icf-end Soi.oMoM Bar Isaac round it in Hebrew characters ; and by some it has been supposed to be a talisman or magical signet. (" Prchist. Ann. Scot.") The origin of the name "Edinburgh" has proved the subject of much discussion. The prenomen is a very common one in Scotland, and is always descriptive of the same kind of site — a slope. Near Lochearnhead is the shoulder of a hill called Edi!!-3,-Q\\\Y>, "the slope of the repulse," ha\ing reference to some encounter with the Romans ; and EJin-3.\wp\e is said to mean "the slope of the retreat." There are upwards of twenty places having the same descriptive prefix ; and besides the instances just noted, the following examples may also be cited : — Edincoillie, a " slope in the wood," in Morayshire ; Edinmore and Edinbeg, in Bute ; Edindonach, in Argyllshire ; and Edinglassie, in Aberdeenshire. Nearly every historian of Edin- burgh has had a theory on the subject. Arnot suggests that the name is derived from Dunedin, " the face of a hill ; " but this would rather signify the fort of Edin; and that name it bears in the register of the Priory of St. Andrews, in 1107. Others are fond of asserting that the name was given to the town or castle by Edwin, a Saxon prince of the seventh century, who " repaired it ;" consequently it must have had some name before his time, and the present form may be a species of corruption of it, like that of Dryburgh, from Darraih-hniach, " the bank of the grove of oaks." Another thcor\', one greatly favoured by Sir Walter Scott, is that it was the Dinas Eiddyn (the slaughter of whose people in the sixth century is lamented by Aneurin, a bard of the Ottadeni) ; a ])lace, however, which Chalmers supposes to be elsewhere. The subject is a curious one, and Prehistoric Edinburgh. 1 DINAS EIDDYN. 13 J •Mm K(:''.::'l 'X; i,v ;ii ,1: Ml I pir'' '' ** Mlv u OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Prehistoric Edinburgh, well worth consideration ; but, interesting as it is, it need not detain us long here. In the " Myrvyian, or Cambrian Archseology," a work replete with ancient lore, mention is made of Caer-Eiddyn, or the fort of Edin, wherein dwelt a famous chief, Mynydoc, leader of the Celtic Britons in the fatal battle with the Saxons under Ida, the flame-bearer, at Catraeth, in Lothian, where the flower of the Ottadeni fell, in 510; and this is believed to be the burgh subsequently said to be named after Edwin. In the list of those who went to the battle of Catraeth there is record of 300 warriors arrayed in fine armour, three loricated bands (i.e., plated for defence), with their commanders, wearing torques of gold, " three adventurous knights," with 300 of equal quality, rushing forth from the summits of the mighty Caer-Eiddyn, to join their brother chiefs of the Ottadeni and Gadeni. In the "British Triads" both Caer-Eiddyn (which some have supposed to be Carriden), and also Dinas-Eiddyn, the city of Eiddyn, are re- peatedly named. But whether this be the city of Edinburgh it is exceedingly difficult to say; for, after all, the alleged Saxon denominative from Edwin is merely conjectural, and unauthenticated by remote facts. From Sharon Turner's " Vindication of Ancient British Poems," we learn that Aneurin, whose work contains 920 lines, was taken prisoner at the battle of Catraeth,-' and was afterwards treacherously slain by one named Eiddyn ; another account says he died an exile among the Silures in 570, and that the battle was lost because the Ottadeni " had drunk of their mead too profusely." The memory of Mynydoc Eiddyn is preserved in a beautiful Welsh poem entitled " The Drinking Horn," by Owain, Prince of Powis. The poem is full of energy. " When the mighty bards of yore Awoke the tales of ancient lore, What time resplendent to behold, Flashed the bright mead in vase of gold ! The royal minstrel proudly sung Of Cambria's chiefs when time was young; How, with the drink of heroes flushed, Brave Catraeth's lord to battle rushed. The lion leader of the strong. And marshal of Galwyiada's throng ; The sun that rose o'er Itun's bay Ne'er closed on such disastrous day ; There fell Mynydoc, mighty lord, Beneath stern Osway's baneful sword ; Yet shall thy praise, thy deathless name. Be woke on harps of baidic fame, Sung by the Cymri's tuneful train, Aneurin of celestial strain." Daniel Wilson, one of the ablest writers on Scottish antiquities, says that he thinks it useless "to follow the fanciful disquisitions of zealous antiquarians respecting the origin and etymology of Edinburgh ; it has successively been derived, both in origin and in name, from Sa.xon, Pict, and Gael, and in each case with sufficient ingenuity to leave the subject more involved than at first." But while on this subject, it should be borne in mind tliat the un- fortunate destruction of the national records by the invaders, Edward I. and Oliver Cromwell, leaves the Scottish historian dependent for much of his material on tradition, or information that can only be obtained with infinite labour; though it may no doubt be taken for granted that even if these archives had been preserved in their entirety tl.ey could scarcely have thrown much, if any, light upon the quastio vexata of the origin of the name of Edinburgh. CHAPTER IL THE C.\STLE OF EDINBURGH. Of its Origin and remoter History — The Legends concerning it — Ebrankc — St. Monena — Defeat of the .Saxons by King Pridei— King Edwin — King Grime — The Story of Grime and Bertha of Badlieu — The Starting-point of .autheiuic Edinburgh History — St. Margaret — Her Piety and amiable Disposition — Her Cliapel — Her Death — Restoration of her Oratory — Her Burial — Donald Bane — King David 1. — The Royal Gardens, afterwards the Nortli I.ocli. After the departure of the Romans the inhabitants of Northern Britain bore the designation of Picti, or Picts ; and historians are now agreed that these were not a new race, btit only the ancient Cale- donians under a new name. The most remote date assigned for the origin * The famous Catrait, or Picls-work-ditch, i« supposed to have had some connection with this battle of Catraeth. (Girald. Cainbrensis, II.) of the Castle of Edinburgh is tliat astounding announcement made in Stow's "Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles," in which he tells us that " Ebranke, the sonne of Mempricius, was made ruler of Britaync ; he had, as testifieth Policronica, Ganfride, and others, twenty-one wyves, of wliom he receyved twenty sonnes and thirty daughters, which he sent into Italye, there to be maryed to •Ihi: Castle. I Till': MAIDENS' CASTLE." 15 the blood of the Trojans. In Albanye (now called Scotland) he edified the Castell of Alclude, which is Dumbreyton ; he made the Castell of Maydens, now called Edinburgh ; he also made the Castell of Uanburgh, in the twenty-third year of his reign." All these events occurred, according to Stow, in the year 989 before Christ ; and the information is quite as veracious as much else that has been written concerning the remote history of Scotland. P'rom sources that can scarcely be doubted, a fortress of some kind upon the rock would seem to have been occupied by the Picts, from whom it was captured in 452 by the Saxons of Northum- bria under Octa and Ebijsa ; and from that lime down to the reign of Malcolm II. its history exhibits but a constant struggle for its possession between them and the Picts, each being victorious in turn ; and Edwin, one of these Northumbrian invaders, is said to have rebuilt it in 626. Terri- tories seemed so easily overrun in those times, that the latter, w^ilh the Scots, in the year 638, under the reign of Valentinian I., penetrated as far as London, but were repulsed by Theodosius, father of the Emperor of the same name. This is the Etlwin whose pagan high-priest Coifi was converted to Christianity by Paulinus, in 627, and who, ac- cording to Bede, destroyed the heathen temples and altars. A curious and very old tradition still exists in Midlothian, that the stones used in the construction of the castle were taken from a quarry near Craigmillar, the C;'rt4''"''"'^''''^''''^ of antiquity. Camden says, "The Britons called it Castel Mynedh Agnedli — the maidens' or virgins' castle — because certain young maidens of the royal blood were kept there in old times." The source of this oft-repeated story has probably been the assertion of Conchubhranus, that an Irish saint, or recluse, named Monena, late in the fifth century founded seven churches in Scodand, on the heights of Dun Edin, Dumbarton, and elsewhere. This may have been the St. Monena of Sliabh-Cuillin, who died in 518. The site of her edifice is supposed to be that now occupied by the present chapel of St. Margaret — the most ancient piece of ma- sonry in the Scottish capital ; and it is a curious circumstance, with special reference to the foble of the Pictish princesses, that close by it (as re- corded in the Caledonian Mercury of 26th Sep- tember, 1S53), when some excavations were made, a number of human bones, apparently all of females, were found, together with the remains of se\-eral coffins. " Castriim Puellarum" says Chalmers, " was the learned and diplomatic name of the place, as a])pears from existing charters and documents ; Edinburgh, its vulgar appellation ;" while Buchanan asserts that its ancient names of the Dolorous Valley and Maiden Castle were borrowed from ancient P'rench romances, "devised within the space of three hundred years " from his time. l"he Castle was the nucleus, so to speak, around which the city grew, a fact that explains the triple towers in the arms of the latter — three great towers connected by a curtain wall — being the form it presented prior to the erection of the Half-Moon Battery, in Queen Mary's time. Edwin, the most powerful of the petty kings of Northumberland, largely extended the Saxon con- quests in the Scottish border counties; and his possessions reached ultimately from the waters of Abios to those of Bodoria — i.e., from Humber to Forth ; but Egfrid, one of his successors, lost these territories, together with his life, in battle with the Pictish King Bridei, or Brude, who totally defeated him at Dun-nechtan, with terrible slaughter. This was a fatal blow to the Northumbrian monarch)', which never regained its previous ascendenc)-, and was henceforth confined to the country south of Tweed. Lodonia (a Teutonic name signifying marshes or borders) became finally a part of the Pictish dominions, Dunedin being its stronghold, and both the Dalriadic Scots and Strathclyde Britons were thus freed from the inroads of the Saxons. This battle was fought in the year 6S5, the epoch of the bishopric of Lindisfarne, and as the Church of St. Giles was a chaplainry of that ancient see, we may infer that some kind of town — of huts, doubtless— had begun to cluster round the church, which was a wooden edifice of a primitive kind, for as the world was expected to end in the year 1000, sacred edifices of stone were generally deemed unnecessary. From the time of the Saxon expulsion to the days of Malcolm 11. — a period of nearly four hundred years — everything connected with the castle and town of Edinburgh is steeped in obscurity or dim tradition. According to a curious old tradition, preserved in the statistical account of the parish of Tweed- muir, the wife of Grime, the usurper, had her residence ■ in the Castle while he was absent fighting against the invading Danes. He is said to have granted, by charter, his hunting seat of Polmood, in that parish, to one of his attendants named Hunter, whose race were to possess it while wood grew and water ran. But, as Hogg says in his "Winter Evening Tales," "There is one remarkable circumstance connected with the place that has rendered it unfamous of late years, and seems to justify an ancient prediction that the hunters of Polmood were iircer io prosper P i6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. Leaving his queen in the then soHtary Castle, Grime (who, according to Buchanan, began his reign in the year 996) often pursued the pleasures of the chase among the wilds of Polraood, in the neighbourhood of which he saw a woman of great beauty, named Bertha, of Badlieu, whose charms soon proved more at- tractive than the pursuit of the wild boar or Caledonian bull, and he became her captive — her lover. In process of time a son was the result of their intimacy, and the forgotten queen, though residing quietly in solitude at Edinburgh, re- solved on deadly vengeance. Selecting a time when Grime was again fighting the Danes, she dispatched to Badlieu cer- tain assassins, who murdered Bertha, her aged father, and infant son, and, bury- ing them in one grave, heaped above it a rough tumulus, which still marks the spot. Full of remorse and fear, the queen died before the return of Grime, who, after defeating the Danes, and destroying their galleys, hastened to Badlieu, where I HE ARMS Cil '1111, CUY nF lIlIMirKGH {Front Edmonson's ^^ Heraldry") probably a remnant of Edwin's departed power; and from this period begins the authentic his- tory of Edinburgh and its castle, as from that time it continued to be almost permanently the residence of the early and later monarchs and their officers of state. The history of Edinburgh Castle is much associated with the memory of St. Margaret, the pious and beautiful queen of Malcolm III. (the successor of Macbeth) who often resided in it, and ultimately died in a tower on the west side of the rock, which bore her name till it was demolished in the siege of 1573. In recording her de- mise, ancient chroniclers have not failed to add much that is legendary to the truth, and this invests the solemn event with a peculiar charm. The grand-niece of Edward the Confessor, she had fled from her own country on the usurpation of Harold, but was wrecked on the Forth, at the place still called Queensferry. She and her retinue were hospitably entertained by Malcolm III., who had formerly, in the huge grave alone awaited him. In a gust of morbid hor- ror the half-bar- barian prince commanded the tumulus to be opened, that he might behold the remains of those who had perished ; and from that mo- ment he lost all relish for life, and plunging in- to a war with Malcolm, his successor, was deserted in battle by his warriors, taken captive, and, after having his eyes put out, died in grief and misery in the eighth year of his reign. He was succeeded, in 1004, by Malcolm II., who had Lothian formally ceded to him by Eadulf- Cudel, Earl of Northumberland, who had pre- viously exercised some right of vassalage over it, F.\C-SIMILIC OK A VltW OK THE OLD TOWN, FROM A HOUSKTOP AT THE TRON CHURCH. {Sketched hy Alexander Runeiman on tlie I'ack of a />laying-card.) his exile, been treated with kindness at the Saxon court of England, and who married her at Dunfermline. Malcolm was the son of Dun- can, whom Mac- beth %\t\i ; and Shakspere, in his tragedy, must have been al- luding to St. Margaret when he wrote of her as the mother, instead of the wife, of Malcolm, in the lines spoken by Macdufif, Macbeth^ Act iv., scene 3 ; — " The queen lliat liore thee, Oftener upon her knees lli.in on hci feet, Died every day she lived." In 10S7 William Rufus made war on Scotland, and, taking the castle of Alnwick by surprise, wantonly put its garrison to the sword. Malcolm. The Castle] MALCOLM in. T7 •>, D z o w i8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. a brave prince, demanded instant restitution, and, at the head of an arm}-, laid siege to the Normans in the border stronghold. At this time the winter snow was covering all the vast expanse of leafless forest, and the hills — then growing only heath and gorse — around the Castle of i Edinburgh ; and there the queen, with her sons Edmond, Edgar, and David, and her daughters Mary and Matilda (surnamed the Good, afterwards queen of Henry I. of England), were anxiously waiting tidings from the king and his son Edward, who had pressed the siege of Alnwick with such severity that its garrison was hourly expected to surrender. A sore sickness was now preying on the wasted frame of the queen, who spent her days in prayer for the success of the Scots and the safety of the king and prince. All old historians vie with each other in praise of the virtuous Margaret. " \\'hen health and beauty were hers," says one WTiter, " she devoted her strength to serve the poor and uncultivated people whom God had committed to her care ; she fed them with her own hand, smoothed their pillow in sick- ness, and softened the barbarous and iron rule of their feudal lords. No wonder that they regarded her as a guardian angel among them." " She daily fed three hundred," says another authority, "waiting upon them on her bended knees, like a housemaid, washing their feet and kissing them. For these and other expenses she not only parted with her own royal dresses, but more than once she drained the treasury." Malcolm, a Celt, is said to have been unable to read the missals given him by his fair-haired Saxon, but he was wont to kiss them and press them to his heart in token of love and respect. In the castle she built the little oratory on the very summit of the rock. It stands within the citadel, and is in perfect preservation, measuring about twenty-six feet long by ten, and is spanned by a finely ornamented apse arch that springs from massive capitals, and is covered with zig-zag mould- ings. It was dedicated to her in after years, and liberally endowed. '■ There she is said to have prophetically an- nounced the surprise of the fortress in 131 2, by causing to be painted on the wall a representation of a man scaling the Castle rock, with the inscrip- tion underneath, ' Gardcz-7\'us Francois,' a jjredic- tion which was conveniently found to be verified when the Castle was retaken from the English by William Frank (or Francis) and Earl Randolph ; though why the Saxon saint should ]irfi]ihcsy in I'rench we are left to conjecture." Connected with the residence of Edgar Athe- ling's sister in Edinburgh Castle there is another legend, which states tliat while there she com- missioned her friend St. Catharine — but which St. Catharine it fails to specify — to bring her some oil from Mount Sinai ; and that after long and sore travel from the rocks of Mount Horeb, the saint with the treasured oil came in sight of the Castle of Edinburgh, on that ridge where stood the Church of St. Mary, built by Macbeth, baron of Liberton. There she let fall the vessel con- taining the sacred oil, which was spilt ; but there sprang up in its place a fountain of wonderful medicinal efficacy, known now as the Balm Well of St. Catharine, where the oil — which practical folk say is bituminous and comes from the coal seams — may still be seen floating on the limpid water. It figured long in monkish legends. For ages a mound near it was alleged to be the tomb of St. Catharine ; and close by it James I Y. erected a beautiful little chapel dedicated to St. Margaret, but long since demolished. During the king's absence at Alnwick, the queen, by the severity of her fastings and vigils, increased a heavy illness under which she laboured. Two days before her death, Prince Edgar, w-hom some \vriters call her brother, and others her son, arrived from the Scottish camp with tidings that Malcolm had been slain, with her son Edward. " Then," according to Lord Hailes, who quotes Turgot's Life of St. Margaret, " lifting up her eyes and hands towards heaven, she said, ' Praise and blessing be to Thee, Almighty God, that Thou hast been pleased to make me endure so bitter anguish in the hour of my departure, thereby, as I trust, to purify me in some measure from the corruption of my sins ; and Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, who through the will of the Father, hast enlivened the world by Thy death, oh, deliver me ! ' While pronouncing 'deliver me' she expired." This, according to the Bishop of St. Andrews, Turgot, previously Prior of Durham, was after she had heard mass in the present little oratory, and been borne to the tower on the west side of the rock ; and she died holding in her hand a famous relic known as "the black rood of Scotland," which according to St. yElred, " was a cross an ell long, of pure gold and wonderful workmanship, having thereon an ivory figure of our -Saviour marvellously adorned with gold." This was on i6th of November, 1093, when she was in the forty-seventh year of her age. Unless history be false, with the majesty of a queen and the meekness of a saint Margaret possessed a beauty that falls but seldom to tlic lot of women ; and in her time she did nnu li to soften the The Castle.] ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEIL. 19 barbarism of the Scottish court. She was magnifi- cent in her own attire ; she increased the number of persons in attendance on the king, and caused Jiim to be served at table in gold and silver plate. She was canonised by Innocent IV. in 1251. For several ages the apartment in which she expired was known as " ye blessit Margaret's chalmer" {i.e., ■chamber). A fountain on the west side of the fortress long bore her name; and a small guard- house on the western ramparts is still called the 'Queen's, or St. Margaret's, Post. The complete restoration of her oratory (says an Edinburgh Courant of 1853) "has been effected in a very satisfactory manner, under the superin- tendence of Mr. Grant. The modern western entrance has been built up, and an ancient one •re-opened at the north-west corner of the nave. Here a new doorway has been built in the same ■style with the rest of the building. The three small round-headed windows have been filled with stained glass — the light in the south side of the apse representing St. Margaret, the two in the side of the nave showing her husband, King Malcolm Canmore and their son St. David, and the light in the west gable of the nave having a cross and the sacred monogram with this in- scription : — " HiMC cedicula olim Bcutcc Alargarda Jiegince Scotice, qua obiit M.XCIII., ingratcB patria ncgligentia lapsa, Victoria Regiiue prognatcc atis- piciis rcsiituta, A.D. M.DCCCLIII." St. Margaret had scarcely expired, when Bishop Turgot, her children, and the whole court, were filled with terror, on finding the fortress environed by an .army composed of fierce western Highlanders, "clad in the dun deer's hide, striped breacan, and hau- berks (or lurichs) of jingling rings," and led by Donald Bane, or the fair-haired, the younger brother ■of Malcolm III., wlio had fled to the Hebrides, as the latter did to England, on the usurpation by Macbeth. PASADENA PUBLIC LIBRARY Without opposition he had himself proclaimed king, and promised to give the Hebrides and other isles to Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, for as- sistance if it were required. He had resolved to put the orphan children of Malcolm to death, but believing that egress from the fortress on the steep could only be had by the :gates facing the little town, he guarded them alone. The children thus escaped by a western postern, •and fled to England, where they found jirotection with their uncle, Edgar Atheling. The two prin- cesses were afterwards married : Mary to Eustace, ■Count of Boulogne, the great Crusader ; and Matilda to Henry of England — a union extremely .popular with the Saxon people. By the same postern Turgot and others carefully and reverently conveyed the body of the queen, and carried it " to Dunfermline, in the woods; and that Heaven might have some share in protecting remains so sacred, the legendaries record that a miraculous mist arose from the earth, concealing the bishop, the royal corpse, and its awe-stricken bearers, from the half-savage Donald and his red- haired Islesnien, and did not pass away until they had crossed in safety the Passagium Rcgina:, or Queen's Ferry, nine miles distant, where Margaret had granted land for the maintenance of a passage boat " — a grant still in force. She was buried at Dunfermline, under the great block of grey marble which still marks her grave ; and in the sides thereof may yet be seen the sockets of the silver lamps which, after her canoni- sation, burned there until the Reformation, when the Abbot of Dunfermline fled to the Castle of Edin- burgh with her head in a jewelled coffer, and gave it to some Jesuits, who took it to Antwerp. From thence it was borne to the Escurial in Spain, where it is still preserved by the monks of St. Jerome. Her son Edgar, a prince of talent and valour, recovered the throne by his sword, and took up his residence in the Castle of Edinburgh, where he had seen his mother expire, and where he, too, passed away, on the 8th of Januar)', 1107. Tlie register of the Priory of St. Andrews, in recording his demise, has these words : — " Moiiuiis in Dun- Ediii, est sepulttis in Dnnfcrmii/ig." On his death-bed he bequeathed that part of Cumberland which the kings of Scotland possessed to his younger brother David. Alexander I., sur- named " the Fierce," eldest brother of the latter, was disposed to dispute the validity of this dona- tion ; but perceiving that David had won over the English barons to his interest, he acquiesced in this partial dismemberment of the kingdom. It is in the reign of tliis monarch, in tlie first years of the twelfth century, that the first notices of Edinburgh as a royal city and residence are most distinctly found, while in that of his suc- cessor, David I., crowned in 11 24, after being long resident at the court of his sister Matilda, where, according to Malmesbury, " his manners were po- lished from the rust of Scottish barbarity," and where he married Matilda daughter of \\'altheof. Earl of Northumberland, we discover the origin of many of the most important local features still surviving. He founded the abbey of Holyrood, called by Fordun " Moiiastcrium Sandce Crucis de Crag." This convent, tlie precursor of the great abbey, he is said to have placed at first within the Castle, and some of the earliest gifts of its saintly OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. founder to his new monastery were the churches of St. Cuthbert and of the Castle, among which one plot of land belonging to the former is marked by " the fountain which rises near the king's garden, on the road leading to St. Cuthbert's church," i.e., the fountain in the \\'ell-house Tower. This valle\' — the future North Loch — was then Castle, where, in the twenty-first year of his reign, he granted a charter to the Abbey of Kelso, the witnesses to which, apud Castrum Puellarum, were John, Bishop of Glasgow ; Prince Henry, his son ; \\'illiam, his nephew ; Edward, the Chancellor ; " Bartlioloinco filio Coinitis, et Williclino f rater ejus; Jordano Ha\'rumj" Hugo de Morville, the ST. MARGARETS CHAPEL, EDINBURGH CASTLE. the garden, which Malcolm, the son of Pagan, cul- tivated for David IL, and wliere tournaments were he-Id, " while deep pools and wide morasses, tangled wood and wild animals, made the rude diverging pathways to the east and westward extremely dan- gerous for long after, though lights were burned at the Hermitage of St. Anthony on the Crag and the spire of St. John of Corstorphin, to guide the unfortunate wight who was foolhardy enough to travel after nightfall." In 114.} we find King David resident in the ' constable ; Odenell de UmphravlUe ; Robert Bruce ; ' William of Somerville ; David de Oliphant ; and j William of Lindsay. I The charter of foundation to the abbey of j Hol>Tood— which will be referred to more fully in , its place — besides conferring valuable revenues, derivable from the general resources of the city, j gave the monks a right to dues to nearly the same amount from tlie royal revenues of the port of Perth, which was the more ancient capital of Scotland. The Castle] KING DAVID I. 21 DU.NGEO.NS IN THE CASTLE UELOW QUEEN MARY S ROu.M. CHAPTER III. CASTLE OF EDINBURGH— (tw;i'/«wu'.) The I egend of the White Hart— Holyrood Abbey founded— The Monks of the Castrum Puellarum— David I.'s numerous Endowments— His Death— Fergus, Lord of Galloway, dies there— William the Lion— Castle Gaitisoued by the English for Twelve Years- The Castle a Royal Residence— The War of the Scottish Succession— The Castle in the hands of Edward I.— Frank's Escalade— The Fortress Dismantled — Again in the hands of the English — Bullock's Stratagem for its Re-capture— David's Tower. '• The well-known legend of the A\'hite Hart," says Daniel Wilson, " most probably had its origin in some real occurrence, magnified by the supersti- tion of a rude and illiterate age. More recent ob- servations at least suffice to show that it existed at a much earlier date than Lord Hailes referred it to." It is recorded that on Rood-day, the 14th of September, in the harvest of 11 28, the weather being fine and beautiful, King David and his courtiers, after mass, left the Castle by that gate before which he was wont to dispense justice to his people, and issued forth to the chase in the wild country that lay around — for then over miles of the land now covered by the new and much of the old city, for ages into times unknown, the oak-trees of the primeval forest of Drumsheugh had shaken down their leaves and acorns upon the wild and now e.xtinct animals of the chase. And here it may be mentioned that boars' tusks of most enor- mous size were found in 1846 in the bank to the south of the half-moon battery, together with an iron axe, the skull and bones of a man. On this Rood-day we are told that tlie king issued from the Castle contrary to the advice of his confessor, Alfsvin, an Augustinian monk of great sanctity and learning, who reminded him that it was the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and should be passed in devotion, not in hunting ; but of this advice the king took no heed. Amid the dense forest and in the ardour of the chase he became separated from his train, in " the vail that lyis to the eist fra the said castell," and found himself at the foot of the stupendous crags,, where, "under the shade of a leafy tree," he was almost immediately assailed by a white stag of gigantic size, which had ber-n maddened by the pursuit, " noys and dyn of bugillis," and which, OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. according to Bellenden, was now standing boldly at bay, and, with its branching antlers, put the life of the pious monarch in imminent jeopardy, as he and his horse were both borne to the ground. ^^"ith a short hunting-sword, while fruitlessly en- deavouring to defend himself against the infuriated animal, there appeared — continues the legend — a silver cloud, from the centre of which there came forth a hand, which placed in that of David a sparkling cross of miraculous construction, in so far that the material of which it was composed could never be discovered. Scared by this interposition, the white stag fled down the hollow way between the hills, but was afterwards slain by Sir Gregan Crawford, whose crest, a stag's head erased with a a cross-crosslet between the antlers, is still borne by his descendants, the Crawfords of Kilbirnie, in memory of that eventful day in the forest of Drumsheugh. Thoughtful, and oppressed with great awe, the king slowly wended his way through the forest to the Castle ; but the wonder did not end there, for when, after a long vigil, the king slept, there ap- peared by his couch St. Andrew, the apostle of Scotland, surrounded by rays of glory, instructing him to found, upon the exact spot where he had been miraculously saved, a twelfth monastery for the canons regular of St. Augustine ; and, in obe- dience to this vision, he built the noble abbey of Holyrood, " in the little valley between two mountains" — i.e., the Craigs and the Calton. Therein the marvellous cross was preserved till it was lost at a long subsequent period ; but, in memory of St. David's adventure on Rood-day, a stag's head with a cross between the antlers is still borne as the arms of the Canongate. Alfwin was appointed first abbot, and left a glorious memory for many virtues.* Thougli nobly endowed, tliis famous edifice was not built for several years, during which the monks were received into the Castle, and occupied buildings which had been previously the abode •of a community of nuns, who, by permission of Poi)e Alexander III., were removed, the monks, as Father Hay tells us, being deemed "as fitter to live among soldiers." Abbot William appears, in 1 152, as second superior of the monks in the Castrum rucllarum, where they resided till 1176. A vehement dispute respecting the payment of tithes having occurred between Robert bishop of St. Andrews and Gaufrid abbot of Dunfermline, it was decided by the king, (////(/ Custellitm Puellarum, in presence of a great convention, con- ' McmutiulA of Kiliiibiirgh Caslic." sisting of the abbots of Holyrood and Stirling, Gregory bishop of Dunkeld, the Earls of Fife and March, Hugo de Morville the Lord High Con- stable, William Lord of Carnwarth, David de Oliphant a knight of Lothian, Henry the son of Swan, and many others, and the matter in debate was adjudicated on satisfactorily. David — " sair sanct for the crown " though King James I. is said to have styled him — was one of the best of the early kings of Scotland. " I have seen him," remarks Aldred, •' quit his horse and dismiss his hunting equipage when any, even the humblest of his subjects, desired an audience ; he sometimes employed his leisure hours in the culture of his garden, and in the philosophical amusement of budding and engrafting trees." In the priory of Hexham, which was then in Scottish territory, he was found dead, in a posture of devotion, on the 24th of May, 11 53, and was succeeded by his grandson Malcolm W. who, though he frequently resided in the Castle, con- sidered Scone his capital rather than Edinburgh. In 1 153 he appointed Galfrid de Melville, of j Melville in Lothian, to be sheriff of the fortress, and became a great benefactor to the monks within it. In 1 160, Fergus, Lord of Galloway, a turbulent thane, husband of the Princess Elizabeth daughter of Henry I. of England, having taken arms against the Crown, was defeated in three desperate battles by Gilbert de Umfraville ; after which he gave his son Uchtred as a hostage, and assumed the cowl as an Augustine friar in the Castle of Edinburgh, where — after bestowing the priory of St. Marie de Trayll as a dependant on Holyrood — he died, full of grief and mortification, in iiOi. Malcolm died in 1165, and was succeeded by William the Lion, who generally resided at Had- dington ; but many of his public documents are dated [ " Apiid Moiiasteriiim Siiiiet(e Cnieis de Castellol' In 1174 the Castle fell, for the first time, I into the hands of the English. William the Lion having demanded the restitution of Northumber- land, Henry of ICngland aftected to comply, but afterwards invaded Scotland, and was repulsed. I In turn William entered England at tlic head of I 80,000 men, who sorely ravaged the northern j counties, but being cnjitured by treachery near Alnwick, and treated with wanton barbarity and indecency, his vast force dispersed. A ransom of I ;^ioo,ooo — an enormous sum in those days — was demanded, and the Castle was given, with some others, as a hostage for the king. Fortunately, ' however, that which was lost by the chances of war was (juickly restored by more pleasant means, The Castle. 1 THE CASTLE A ROYAE RESIDENCE. 23 for, a matrimonial alliance having been concluded between Ermengarde de Beaumont (cousin of Henry) and King Vv'illiani, the Castle was thriftily given up as part of her dowry, after having had an English garrison for nearly twelve years. Alexander H., their son, convened his first parliament in Edinburgh in 1215. Alexander HI., son of the preceding, having been betrodied to Margaret daughter of Henry HI. of England nine years before their nuptials were celebrated at York in 1242, the queen, according to Arnot, had Edinburgh Castle appointed as her resi- dence ; but it would seem to have been more of a stronghold than a palace, as she complained to her father that it was a " sad and solitary place, without verdure, and, by reason of its vicinity to the sea, unwholesome ;" and " that she was not permitted to make excursions through the kingdom, nor to choose her female attendants." She was in her sixteenth year. Walter Earl of Menteith was at this time governor of the fortress, and all the offices of the city and of the nation itself were in the hands of his powerful family. Many Englishmen of rank ac- companied the young queen-consort, and between these southern intruders and the jealous Scottish nobles there soon arose disputes that were both hot and bitter. As usual, the kingdom was rent into two powerful factions — one secretly favouring ' Henry, who artfully wished to have Scotland under liis own dominion ; another headed by Walter Comyn, John de Baliol, and others, who kept possession of Edinburgh, and with it the persons of the young monarch and his bride. I'hese patriotically resisted the ambitious attempts of the King of England, whose emissaries, on being joined by the Earls of Carrick, Dunbar, and Strathearn, and Alan Dureward, High Justiciary, while their rivals were preparing to hold a parliament at Stirling, took the Castle of Edinburgh by surprise, and liberated the royal pair, who were triumphantly conducted to a magnificent bridal chamber, and afterwards had an interview with Henry at Wark, in Northumberland. During the remainder of the long and prosperous reign of Alexander HI. the fortress continued to be the chief place of the royal residence, and for holding his courts for the transaction of judicial affairs, and much of the public business is said to have been transacted in St. Margaret's chamber. In 1 2 78 William of Kinghorn was governor, and about this period the Castle was repaired and strengthened. It was then the safe deposit of the principal records and the regalia of the kingdom. And now we approach the darkest and bloodiest portion of the Scottish annals ; when on the death of the Maid of Norway (the little Queen Margaret) came the contested succession to the crown between Bruce, Baliol, and others ; and an opportunity was given to Edward I. of England of advancing a claim to the Scottish crown as absurd as it was baseless, but which that ferocious prince prosecuted to the last hour of his life with unexampled bar- barity and treachery. On the nth of June, 1291, the Castle of Edin- burgh and all the strongholds in the Lowlands were unwisely and unwarily put into the hands of the crafty Plantagenet by the grasping and numerous claimants, on the ridiculous pretence that the sub- ject in dispute should be placed in the power of the umpire ; and the governors of the various fort- resses, on finding that the four nobles who had been appointed guardians of the realm till the dispute was adjusted had basely abandoned Scotland to her fate, they, too, quietly gave up their trusts to Edward, who (according to Prynne's " History ") appointed Sir Radulf Basset de Drayton governor of Edinburgh Castle, with a garrison of English .soldiers. According to Holinshed he personally took this Castle after a fifteen days' siege with his warlike engines. On the vigil of St. Bartholomew a list was drawn up of the contents of the Treasury in the Castra de Edinbiirg; and among other religious regalia we find mentioned the Black Rood of Scotland, which St. Margaret venerated so much. By Edward's order some of the records were left in the Castle under the care of Basset, but all the most valuable documents were removed to Eng- land, where those that showed too clearly the ancient independence of Scotland were carefully destroyed, or tampered with, and others were left to moulder in the Tower of London. On the 8th of July, 1292, we find Edward again at Edinburgh, where, as self-styled Lord Paramount, he received within the chapel of St. Margaret the enforced oath of fealty from Adam, Abbot of Holy- rood; John, Abbot of Newbattle ; Sir Brian le Jay, Preceptor of the Scottish Templars ; the Prior of St. John of Jerusalem ; and Christina, Prioress of Emanuel, in Stirlingshire. Bnice having refused to accept a crown shorn of its rank, Edward declared in favour of the pitiful Baliol, after which orders were issued to the captains of the Scottish castles to deliver them up to John, King of Scotland. Shame at last filled the heart of the latter ; he took the field, and lost the battle of Dunbar. Edward, reinforced by fifteen thousand Welsh and a horde of Scottish traitors, appeared before Edinburgh Castle; the 24 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. soldiers of the garrison made a fruitless defence till the 6th of June, 1296, when they were com- pelled to capitulate— the weather being intensely sultrj' and the wells having dried up. In accord- ance with Edward's usual sanguinary policy, tlie whole garrison was put to the sword with ruthless cruelty, and Walter de Huntercombe, a baron of Northumberland, was made governor of the new one ; but in the ne.\t year ^^■allace with his pa- triots swept like a torrent over the Lowlands. Victorious at Stirling, in particular, he slew Cressingham, and re- captured all the for- tresses — Edinburgh among them. Scot- land was cleared of the English ; but the inva- sion of 1298 followed; Wallace was betrayed, and too well do we know how he died. The year 1300 saw "Johan de Kingeston, Connestableet Gardeyn du Chastel de Eden- burgh," and four years afterwards he was suc- ceeded by Sir Piers de Lombard, a brave knight of Gascony. Robert Bruce was now in arms. He in turn had became con- ([ueror ; he invaded England in 131 1, and by the following year had re-captured nearly every castle but that of Edinburgh, the reduction of whicii he entrusted to the noble Sir Thomas Randolph of Strathdon, Earl of Moray, who has been described as " a man altogether made up of virtues." The English or Norman garrison suspecting the fidelity of Sir Piers, placed him in a dungeon, and under a newly-elected commander, were pre- pared to offer a desperate resistance, when a ro- mantic incident restored the Castle to the king of Scotland. Among the soldiers of Randolph was one named William Frank, wiio volunteered to lead an escalade up a bteejj and inlri< ate way by which he had been accustomed in former years to visit a girl in the city of whom he was enamoured. Frequent use had made him familiar with the perilous ascent, and It CllANCEI, ARCH OF ST. MARGARETS CHAPEL. was made on the night of the 14th of March — which proved dark and stormy — at the most difftcult part of those precipitous bluffs which overhang the Princes' Street Gardens, where a fragment of ruin, named Wallace's Cradle, is still visible. L" nder his guidance, with only thirty resolute men, Randolph scaled the walls at midnight, and, after a fierce resistance, the garrison was overpowered. There are indications that some secret pathway, known to the Scottish garrison, existed, for during some operations in 1821 traces were found of steps cut in the rock, about seventy feet above the fragment named •• \Vallace's Cradle " — a path supposed to have been completed by a movable ladder. Sir Piers de Lombard (sometimes called Le- land) joined King Robert, who, according to Barbour, created him Viscount of Edinburgh; but afterwards suspect- ing him of treason, and " that he had an Eng- lish hart, made him to be hangit and drawen." To prevent it from being re-captured or re-garrisoned, Ran- dolph dismantled the Castle, which for four- ind-twenty years after- wards remained a de- solate ruin abandoned to the bat and the owl. While in tliis state its shattered walls afforded shelter for a single night, in 1335, to the routed troops of Guy, Count of Namur, who had landed at Berwick, and was marching to join Edward III., but was encountered on the Burghmuir by the Earls of Moray and March, with powerful forces, when a fierce and bloody battle ensued. Amid it, Richard Shaw, a Scottish squire, was defied to single combat by a Flemish knight in a closed helmet, and both fell, each trans/ixed by the otlier's lance. On the bodies being stri])ped of their armour, the gallant stranger proved to be a woman ! \N'hile the issue of tlie battle was still doubtful, the earls were joined by fresh forces under Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, William Douglas, and Sir David dc Annan. Tlie The Castle.] BULLOCK'S STRATAGEM. '5 Count's troops, chiefly cavalry, now gave way, but still fighting with the dogged valour of Walloons. Part of them that fled by St. Mary's Wynd were nearly cut to pieces by Sir David de Annan, who led his men battle-a.\e in hand. The few that escaped him joined others who had reached the Castle. There they slaughtered "^^v^^ ~~' their horses, made a rampart of the j^i»~ -,»=^ bodies, and fought bcliind it with an energy born of despair, till hun- ger and thirst on the following day compelled them to capitulate, and the Earl of Mo- ray suffered them to depart on giv- ing oath never again to beararms against David IL of Scotland. In 1867 a great (| u a n t i t y of bones — the relics of this conflict — were discovered about five feet below the surface, on the northern verge of the Burghmuir, where now Glengyle Terrace is built, and were decently re-interred by the authorities. In 1336 Edward III., still prose- cuting the cause of the minion Baliol against King David, re-fortified the ruin ; and on the 15th June Sir John de Kingeston was again appointed its governor ; but he had a hard time of it ; the whole adjacent country was filled by adven- turous bands of armed Scots. The most resolute and active of these was the band of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, whose place of retreat was in the caves beneath the romantic house of Haw- tliornden, then the abode of a traitor named Abernethy, and which are so ingeniously con- structed as to elude the vigilance of the most cunning enemy to whom the secret is unknown. The entrance is still seen in the side of the deep draw-well, which served alike to cloak their pur- pose and to secure fur the concealed a ready supply of pure water. From this point Ramsay often extended his ravages into Northumberland. Covered with -•'*" _ glory and honour, the noble King Robert, the skil- ful Randolph, and the chivalrous Sir James Douglas, had all gone down to the silent tomb ; but other heroes succeeded them, and valiant deeds were done. The Scots thought of nothing but battle ; the plougli was allowed to rust, and the earth to take care of itself. By 1337 the English were again almost en- tirely driven out of Scotland, and the Castle of Edinburgh was re-captured from them through art ingenious strata- gem, planned by AVilliam Bullock, a priest, who had been captain of Cupar Castle for Baliol, "and was a man very bra\e and faithful to the Scots, and of great use to them," according to Buchanan. Lender his directions, Walter Curry, of Dundee, received into his ship two hundred select Scottish soldiers, led by William Douglas, Sir Simon Eraser, Sir John Sandilands, and Bullock also. Anchoring in Leith Roads, the latter presented himself to the governor as master of an English ship just arrived with wines and provisions, which he offered to sell for the use of the garrison. The bait took all the more readily that the supposed captain had closely shaven himself in the Anglo-Norman fashion. On WALLACES CRADLE, EDINBURGH CASILE. 26 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. the following day, accompanied by twelve armed men, disguised as seamen, with hoods over their helmets, he appeared at the Castle gates, where they contrived to overturn their casks and hampers, so as to prevent the barriers being closed by the guards and warders, who were instantly slain. At a given signal — the shrill blast of a bugle-horn — Douglas and his companions, with their war-cry, rushed from a place of concealment close by. Sir Richard de Limoisin, the governor, made a bitter resistance, but was overpowered in the end, and his garrison became the prisoners of David II., who returned from France in the following month, accompanied by his queen Johanna ; and by that time not an Englishman was left in Scotland. But miserable was the fate of Bullock. By order of a Sir Da\id Berkeley he was thrown into the castle of Lochindorb, in Morayshire, and deliberately starved to death. On this a Scottish historian remarks, " It is an ancient saying, that neither the powerful, nor the valiant, nor the wise, long flourish in Scotland, since envy obtaineth the mastery of them all." When, a few years afterwards, the unfortunate battle of Durham ended in the defeat of the Scots, and left their king a prisoner of war, we find in the treaty for his ransom, the merchants of Edinburgh, together with those of Perth, Aberdeen, and Dundee, binding themselves to see it paid. In 1357 a Parliament was held at Edinburgh for its final adjustment, when the Regent Robert (afterwards Robert II.) presided; in addition to the clergy and nobles, there were present delegates from seventeen burghs, and among these Edinburgh appeared at the head for Ihe/rj-/ time. In 1365 we find a four years' truce with Eng- land, signed at London on the 20th May, and in the Castle on the 12th of June; and another for fourteen years, dated at the Castle 28th October, 1371- So often had the storm of war desolated its towers, that the Castle of Edinburgh (which became David's favourite residence after his re- turn from England in 1357) was found to require extensive repairs, and to these the king devoted himself. On the cliff to the northward he built "David's Tower," an edifice of great height and strength, and therein he died on the 22nd Feb- ruary, 1370, and was buried before the high altar at Holyrood. The last of the direct line of Bruce — a name inseparably connected with the military glory and independence of Scotland — David was a monarch who, in happier times, would have done much to elevate his people. The years of his captivity in England he beguiled with his pencil, and in a vault of Nottingham Castle " he left behind him," says Abercrombie, in his " Martial Achievements," " the whole story of our Saviour's Passion, curiously engraven on the rock with his own hands. For this, says one, that castle became as famous as formerly it had been for Mortimer's hole." It was during his reign that, by the military ingenuity of John Earl of Carrick and four other knights of skill, the Castle was so well fortified, that, with a proper garrison, the Duke of Rothesay was able to resist the utmost efforts of Henry IV., when he besieged it for several weeks in 1400. The Castle had been conferred as a free gift upon Earl John by his father King Robert, and in con- sequence of the sufferings endured by the inhabi- tants when the city was burned by the English, under Richard II., he by charter empowered the citizens to build houses within the fortress, free of fees to the constable, on the simple understanding that they were persons of good fame. CHAPTER IV. CASTLE OF KDlNBVRGU—icon/inueii). frogroi of the Cily— Anili.TSsador of Charles VI.- ICdinburgh bumcd— Henry IV. b.idled— Albany's Prophecy— Laws regarding the Huildinc of Homes— Sumplu.nry Laws, 1457— Murder of James 1.— Coronalion of James II.— Court Intrigues— Lord Chancellor Crichton^ Arrogance of the Karl of iJouglas- l-aetion Wars The Cxstle Hesiegcd— " The Diack Dinner "— Edinburgh walled— Its Strength— l).-ilc-rires. The chief characteristic of liie infant city now was that of a frontier town, ever on the watch to take arms against an invader, and resolute to resist him. Walsingham s|)caks of it as a village ; and in 1385 its population is supposed to have barely exceeded 2,000 ; yet Eroissart called it the Paris of Scot- land, though its central street presented but a meagre line of thatched or stanc-sclatcd houses, few of which were more than twenty feet in lieight. l''roissarl numbers them at 4,000, whicli would give a greater population than has been alleged. With the accession of Robert II. — the first of the The Castle.] THE DUKE OF ROTHESAY. 27 Stuart monarchs — a new era began in its history, and it took a standing as the chief burgh in Scotland, the relations of which with England, for generations after, partook rather of a vague pro- longed armistice in time of war than a settled (leace, and thus all rational progress was arrested or paralysed, and was never likely to be otherwise so long as the kings of England maintained the insane pretensions of Edward I., deduced from Brute the fabulous first king of Albion ! In 1383 Robert II. was holding his court in the Castle when he received there the ambassador of Charles VI., on the 20th August, renewing the ancient league with France. In the following year a truce ended ; the Earls of March and Douglas began the war with spirit, and cut off a rich convoy on its way to Ro.xburgh. This brought the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Buckingham before Edinburgh. Their army was almost innumerable (according to Abercrombie, following Walsingham), but the former spared the city in remembrance of his hospitable treatment by the people when he was among them, an exile from the English court — a kindness for which the Scots cared so little that they followed up his retreat so sharply, that he laid the town and its great church in ashes when he re- turned in the following year. In 1390 Robert III. ascended the throne, and in that year we find the ambassadors of Charles VI. again witnessing in the Castle the royal seal and sig- nature attached to the treaty for mutual aid and defence against England in all time coming. This brought Henry IV., as we have said, before the CasUe in 1400, with a well-appointed and numerous army, in August. From the fortress the young and gallant David Duke of Rothesay sent a herald with a challenge to meet him in mortal combat, where and when he chose, with a hundred men of good blood on each side, and determine the war in that way. " But King Henry was in no humour to forego the advantage he already possessed, at the head of a more numerous army than Scotland could then 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 and rain, and absolute dearth of provisions, compelled him to raise the inglorious siege, and hastily re-cross the borders, without doing any notable injury either in his progress or retreat."* When unable to resist, the people of the entire town and country, who were not secured in • Wilson's " Memorials." [ castles, resorted to the simple expedient of driving ' off all the cattle and sheep, provisions and goods, even to the thatch of their houses, and leaving nothing but bare walls for the enemy to wreak their vengeance on; but they never put up their swords till, by a terrible retaliating invasion into the more fertile parts of England, they fully made up for their losses. And this wretched state of affairs, for nearly 500 years, lies at the door of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings. The aged King Robert III. and his queen, the once beautiful Annabella Drummond, resided in the Castle and in the abbey of Holyrood alternately. We are told that on one occasion, when the Duke of Albany, with several of the courtiers, were con- versing one night on the ramparts of the former, a singular light was seen afar off at the horizon, and across the starry sky there flashed a bright meteor, carrying behind it a long train of sparks. " Mark ye, sirs ! " said Albany, " yonder prodigy portends either the ruin of a nation or the downfall of some great prince ;" and an old chronicler omits not to record that the Duke of Rothesay (who, had he ascended the throne, would have been David III.), perished soon after of famine, in the hands of Ramornie, at Falkland. Edinburgh was prosperous enough to be able to contribute 50,000 merks towards the ransom of James I., the gifted author of " The King's Quhair" (or Book), who had been lawlessly captured at sea in his boyhood by the English, and was left in their hands for nineteen years a captive by his designing uncle the Regent Albany ; and though his plans for the pacification of the Highlands kept him much in Perth, yet, in 1430, he was in Edinburgh with Queen Jane and the Court, when he received the surrender of Alexander Earl of Ross, who had been in rebellion but was defeated by the royal troops in Lochaber. As yet no Scottish noble had built a mansion in Edinburgh, where a great number of the houses were actually constructed of wood from the adjacent forest, thatched with straw, and few were more than two storeys in height ; but in the third Parliament of James I., held at Perth in 1425, to avert the conflagrations to which the Edinburghers were so liable, laws were ordained requiring the magistrates to have in readiness seven or eight ladders of twenty feet in length, with three or four large saws, for the common use, and six or more " cliekes of iron, to draw down timber and ruiffes that are fired ;" and that no fire was to be con\-eyed from one house to another within the town, unless in a covered vessel or lantern. Another law forbade people on visits to live with their friends, but to 28 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle. resort to " hostillaries," for the encouragement of the latter. During the reign of James I. and his successor laws were passed against excess in dress ; and it has been said that, though edicts were passed for ever)-thing in Scotland, even to the shape of a hoods ; " and as to their gownes, that na woman weare mertrickes nor letteis, nor tailes unfit in length, nor furred under, but on the Halie-daie ;" and that no labourers nor husbandmen were to wear anything on work-days but grey and white ; and even on holidays but light blue, green, red, EDI.Nl;l.:HGll CASTI.E, AS IT WAS BEFORE THE SIEGE OF 1573. woman's cap, it was perhaps the most lawless land in Europe. All save those who possessed 200 merks of yearly rent were forbidden to wear "silk or furs, or bordcrings of pearl or bullion ; and the feminine love of display attracted the attention of Parlia- ment at Edinburgh in 1457. It was ordained that citizens should make their wives and daughters api)ear in costumes suitable to their estate and position ; on their heads short curches with little and their wives the same ; the curches of the latter to be of their own making, and not to exceed the price " of xl jjcnnyes tlie elne." By the same laws, advocates who spoke for money in Parliament were ordained " to have habits of grene, of the fassoun of a tuneike, and the sleeves to be oppin as a tabert." From the date of the cruel assassination of James I. — the poet, soldier, and lawgiver— may be considcrc; lay a small vessel laden with Gascon wine, by which he might and also a strong roije, with a waxen roll enclosing an unsigned letter, urging, " that he should lose no time in cscapin^', as the king's minions had resolved that he should die ere the morrow's sun set," but that the boats of the French vessel would await him at the harbour of Leith. EDINBURGH CASTI.E IN 1647. {I- ro:ii Gordon .y Kolin,-may i SlLip.) 'tv W V 3^^ a ■*?■■ 'i 42 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Edinlurgh Castle. Stirling had been paying bis addresses to a girl possessed of great attractions, daughter of Richard Lawson of the Highriggs, Provost in 1504 (and whose house there was removed only in 1S78), but proving less successful than Meldrum of the Binns — whose feats of chivalry have been sung by Lindesay of the Mount — he attacked the latter at the head of fifty horse, near the Rood Chapel in Leith Loan, though his rival had only eight fol- lowers, and a mortal combat with sword and axe ensued. Meldrum unhorsed Sir Lewis, and would have slain him had not his faithful henchman, by interposing, received the sword-thrust in his own heart. The prowess of Meldrum's troopers is evinced from the fact that they slew twenty-six of Stirling's men, but the former was left for dead, covered with wounds ; " yet," saith Pitscottie, " be the mychtie power of God he escaped death, and lived fiftie years thairaftir." The Chevalier de la Beaute, the detested Lieutenant-Governor under Albany, at the head of the mounted French gen- darmerie, pursued Stirling to the Peel of Linlith- gow. He stormed it, and sent this fiery lover to the Castle of Edinburgh, where he was sentenced to death, but was pardoned and set free, while the chevalier was soon after slain by Home of Wedderburn, who knitted his head to his saddle- bow. During this time little James V. resided perma- nently in the Castle, pursuing his studies under the tuition of Gawin Dunbar, afterwards Archbishop of Glasgow, all unconscious of the turmoils in pro- gress everywhere, and so completely forgotten by the actors in them, that his sister, the Countess of Morton, with her friends, had, more than once, to repair the royal apartments and replenish his wardrobe. Though placed in the fortress for security, he was permitted to ride abroad on a litde mule that was kept for his use, but always under escort of Albany's guards, clad in scarlet doublets slashed with black, and armed with partisan and dagger. Dread of a pestilence which broke out in the garrison caused his removal to Craigmillar, where, by the courtesy of Lord Erskine, his mother was permitted to visit him, till the other guardians, hostile to English intlu- ence and suspicious of her power, removed him to his former residence. James is said to have de- lighted in conversing with the soldiers, and when handling their swords and hackbuts his clieeks were seen to flush and his eyes to sparkle with the ardour of a brave boy when contemplating military objects. When .Albany returned from visiting France, in 152 1, the queen-dowager, Beaton, and so many others came in his train to Holyrood, that Angus, who had quarrelled with Margaret, and was the sworn foe of them all, quitted the city, and was exiled for tumults he had excited during the absence ot the Regent. As the only means of terminating the frightful anarchy that prevailed, it was resolved to invest James, now in his twelfth year, with full sovereign power ; and thus, on the 22nd August, 1524, he made his solemn entry into the Tolbooth, preceded by the crown, sceptre, and sword of state. The irrepressible Angus, backed by the Doug- lases, seized the government in the following year, scaled the city walls on the night of the 24th November, beat open the ports, and fairly cap- turing Edinburgh, made a Douglas Provost thereof. .\nd such was the power he possessed, that the assassins of M'Lellan of Bombie — who was slain in open day at the door of St. Giles's church — walked with impunity about the streets ; while the queen herself deemed his safe-conduct necessary while she resided in Edinburgh, though Parliament was sitting at the time ; and so the king returned again to honourable durance in the dilapidated palace of the Castle, or only put in an appearance to act as the puppet of his governor. At this crisis Arran and his faction demanded that Parliament should assemble in the Castle-hall as a security against coercion ; but Angus vowed that it should continue to meet in its usual place ; and as the king was retained within the Castle, he cut off" all communication between it and the city with 2,000 men, on whom the batteries opened ; but eventually these differences were adjusted, and the luckless young king was permitted to attend Parliament in state. On All Saints' Day a thunderbolt struck a turret of David's Tower, and hurled some fragments down the rocks, setting fire to the apartments of Margaret, who narrowly escaped with her life. In 1526, John Earl of Lennox, at the head of numerous forces, marched towards Edinburgh, intent on rescuing the king from the intolerable thraldom of Angus ; but the latter caused his namesake the Provost to ring the alarm bell, display the banner of the city, and put it on its defence. He did more. He compelled James to lead out the citizens against his own friends. He issued forth by the West Port, at the head of all the men of Edinburgh and Leith, but came in time only to witness Uic death of Lennox in the battle of Linlithgow Bridge, wliere he was cruelly slain by Sir James Hamilton, after he had sur- rendered his sword to tlie Laird of Pardowie. Queen Margaret, who had now divorced Angus, Edinturgh Castle] HERTFORD'S INVASIONS. 43 and married Henry Stuart Lord Methven, on finding that tlie former was about to seize her dower-lands, fled, with her third husband and all his vassals, to the Castle of Edinburgh, and, joining her son, prepared to resist to the last ; but Earl Archibald only laughed when he heard of it ; and, displaying his banner, invested the fortress at the head of his own vassals and those of the Crown. Margaret found that slie dared not disobey, and her soldiers capitulated. Bathed in tears, on her knees, at tlie outer gate, quailing under the grim eye of one who was so recently her husband, at his command she placed the keys " in the hands of her son, then a tall and handsome youth, imploring pardon for her husband, for his brother Sir James Stuart, and lastly for herself Angus smiled scornfully beneath his barred helmet at her constrained submission, and haughtily directed the Lord Methven and others to be im- prisoned in the towers from which they had so lately defied him." In 1528, James, at last, by a midnight flight with only two attendants, escaped the Douglas thrall, and fled to Falkland Palace, after which event, with a decision beyond his years, he proceeded to assert his own authority, and summoned the estates to meet him at Stirling. The Douglases were de- clared outlaws and traitors, whereupon Angus and all the barons of his name fled to England. On the death of James V., in 1542, the Regent Arran thoroughly repaired the Castle, and appointed governor Sir James Hamilton of Stanehouse, a gal- lant soldier, who proved worthy of the tmst reposed in him when, in 1544, Henry VIII., exasperated at the Scots for declining to fulfil a treaty, made by an English faction, affiancing the young Queen Mary to his only son Edward, sent the Earl of Hertford with an army, and 200 sail under Dudley Lord ITsle to the Forth, with orders, so characteristic of a ferocious despot, " to put all to fire and sword ; to burn Edinburgh, raze, deface, and sack it ; to beat down and overthrow the Castle ; to sack Holyrood and as many towns and villages as he could; to sack Leith, burn, and subvert it, and all the rest ; putting man, woman, and child, to fire and s\vord, without exception."* Hertford suddenly landed with 10,000 men near an old fortalice, called the Casde of Wardie, on the beach that bordered a desolate moor of the same name, and seized Leith and Newhaven. Cardinal Beaton and the Regent Arran lay in the vicinity with an army. The former proposed bat- tle, but the latter, an irresolute man, declined, and • Tytler. retired in the night towards Linlithgow with his hastily levied troops. Lord Evers, with 4,000 horse, had now joined the Englisli from Berwick, and Hertford arrogantly demanded the instant surrender of the infant queen ; and being informed that the nation would perish to a man rather than submit to terms so ignominious, he advanced against Edinburgh, from whence came the Provost, Sir Adam Otterburn, to make terms, if possible ; but Hertford would have nothing save an unconditional surrender of life and property, together with the little queen, then at Stirling. " Tlien," said the Provost, " 'twere better that the city should stand on its defence ! " He galloped back to put himself at the head of the citizens, who were in arms under the Blue Blanket. The English, after being repulsed with loss at the Leith Wynd Port, entered by the ^Vater Gate, advanced up the Canongate to the Nether Bow Port, which they blew open by dint of artillery, and a terrible slaughter of the citizens ensued. AH re- sisted manfully. Among others was one named David Halkerston of Halkerston, who defended the wynd that for 300 years boie his name, and perished there sword in hand. Spreading through the city like a flood, the English fired it in eight places, and as the High Street was then encumbered with heavy fronts of ornamented timber that erst had grown in the forest of Drumsheugh, the smoke of the blazing mansions actually drove the invaders out to ravage the adjacent country, prior to which they met with a terrible repulse in an attempt to attack the Castle. Four days Hertford toiled before it, till he had 500 men killed, an incredible number wounded, and some of his guns dismounted by the fire of the garrison. Led by Stanehouse, the Scots made a sortie, scoured the Castle hill, and carried off Hertford's guns, among which were some that they had lost at Flodden. The English then retreated, leaving Edinburgh nearly one mass of blackened ruin, and tlie whole country burned and wasted for seven miles around it When, three years after, the same unscrupulous leader, as Duke of Somerset, won that disastrous battle at Pinkie — a field that made 360 women of Edinburgh widows, and where the united shout raised by the victors as they came storming over Edmondston Edge was long remembered — Stane- house was again summoned to surrender ; but though menaced by 26,000 of the English, he maintained his charge till the retreat of Somerset. Instead of reconciling the Scots to an alliance with England — in those days a measure alike unsafe and unpalatable — all this strengthened the 44 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. fEdlnburgh Castle, old one with France. So their young queen was betrothed to the Dauphin, aiid 6,000 French au.\iharies came to strengthen the power of Mary of Guise, widow of James V., who was appointed Regent during the minority of her infant daughter. During the year 1545-6, the Castle was for a brief period the scene of George Wishart's captivity. Mary of Guise w^as imprudent, and disgusted the haughty nobles by bestowing all places of trust upon Frenchmen, and their military insolence soon roused the rage of the people, who were at all sword in hand, and the ports closed upon them and well guarded. On March 28, 1559, Mary of Guise, with a sorely diminished court, took up her residence in the fortress ; she was received with every respect by Lord Erskine, who, as the holder of the Queen's garrison, was strictly neutral between the contend- ing parties. The Reformers were now in arms with the English auxiliaries, so the French, who had waged war through all Fife and the Lothians, were compelled to keep within the ramparts of Leith, JOHN DUKE Ol- AL1,A\\, AND QUEEN .MARGARET.* (Fnm a Pic/iire irt /•Mi,ii.."i , .tl.ir.juis 0/ D„te.) times impatient of restraint. Thus fierce brawls ensued, and one of these occurred in the city in 1554, between an armourer and a French soldier; a quarrel having arisen concerning some repairs on the wheel-lock of an arquebuse, the latter, by one blow of his dagger, struck the former dead in his own shop. The craftsmen flew to arms ; the soldier was joined and rescued by his countrymen ; and a desperate conflict ensued with swords, pikes, and Jedwood axes. Sir James Hamilton of Stane- house, who was now Provost of the city as well as governor of the Castle, marched at once to aid the citizens. He was slain in the mdcc, and left lying on the causeway, together with his son James and many more ; but the French were driven out the operations against which the fair Regent, though labouring under a mortal illness, which the cares of state had aggravated, watched daily from the summit of David's Tower. Her illness, a virulent dropsical affection, increased. She did not live to see the fall of Leith, but died on the loth of June, 1560. Her death-bed was peaceful and affecting, and by her own desire she was attended by Knox's parti- cular friend, John Willox, an active ■ preacher of the Reformation. Around her bed she called the • Pinkcrton is of opinion that this pilinting was a species of satire directed at the intrigues of the persons depicted. The fiKlire behind the (Juecn is believed to be that of a Scots Guard ; and the butterfly, inkstand, dice, and other minute accessories, are all supposed to have n s'^nificance tliat would be readily understood at the time when the pit ture was painted. Edinburgh Castle] KIRKALDY OF GRANCxE. 4V Rothesay might be baptised in Protestant form. 'I'he queen only replied by placing the child in his arms. Then the aged minister knelt down, and prayed long and fervently for his happiness and ])rosperity, an event which so touched the tender Mary that she burst into tears ; however, the prince was baptised according to the Roman ritual at Stirling on the 5th of December. The birth of a son produced little change in Darnley's licentious life. He perished as history records ; and on Bothwell's flight after Carberry, and Mary's captivity in Lochleven, the Regent Moray resolved by force or fraud to get all the fortresses into his possession. Sir James Balfour, a minion of Bothwell's — the keeper of the famous silver casket containing the pretended letters and sonnets of Mary— surrendered that of Edinburgh, bribed by lands and money as he marched out, and the celebrated Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange was appointed governor in his place. That night the fated Regent Moray entered with liis friends, and slept in the same little apartment wherein, a year be- fore, his sister had been delivered of the infant now proclaimed as James VI. ; but instead of keeping his promise to Balfour, Moray treacherously made him a prisoner of state in the Castle of St. Andrews. CHAPTER VI. EDINBURGH CASTLE— (c,7«///««-,/). The Siege of 1573 — The City Bombarded from the Castle— Elizabeth's Spy — Drury's Dispositions for the Siege— Execution of Kirkaldy — Repair of the Ruins — Execution of Morton — Visit of Charles 1. — Procession to Holyrood— Coronation of Charles I. — The Struggle against Episcopacy— Siege of 1640— The Spectre Drummer— IJesieged by Cromwell— Under the Protector— The Restoration — The Argyles — The Accession of James VU —Sentence of the Earl of Argyle — His clever Escape— Imprisoned four years later — The Last Sleep of Argyle— His Death— Torture of Covenanters— Proclamation of William and Mary — The Siege of i68g— Interview between Gordon and Dundee— The Castle invested — Biilliant Defence— Capitulation of the Duke of Gordon— The Spectre of Claverhouse. Mauy escaped from Lochleven on the 2nd of May, 1568, and after her defeat fled to England, the last country in Europe, as events showed, wherein she should have sought refuge or hospitality. After the assassination of the Regent Moray, to iiis successor, the Regent Morton, fell the task of subduing all who lingered in arms for the exiled queen ; and so well did he succeed in this, that, save the eleven acres covered by tire Castle rock of Edinburgh, which was held for three years by Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange with a garrison resolute as himself, the whole country was now under his rule. Kirkaldy, whose services in France and else- where had won him the high reputation of being " the bravest soldier in Europe," left nothing un- done, amid the unsettled state of affairs, to strengthen his post. He raised and trained soldiers without opposition, seized all the provisions that were brought into Leith, and garrisoned St. Giles's church, into the open spire of which he swung up cannon to keep the citizens in awe. This was on the 28th of March, 1571. After the Duke of .Chatelherault, with his Hamiltons — all queen's men — marched in on the ist of May, tlie gables of the church were loopholed for arquebuses. Im- mediate means were taken to defend the town against the Regent. Troops crowded into it; others were mustered for its protection, and this state of affairs continued for fully three years, during which Kirkaldy baffled the efforts of four succes- sive Regents, till Morton was fain to seek aid from Elizabeth, to wrench from her helpless refugee the last strength that remained to her ; and most readily did the English queen agree thereto. A truce which had been made between Morton and Kirkaldy expired on the ist of January, 1573, and as the church bells tolled six in the morning, the Castle guns, among which were two 48-pounders, French battardes, and English culverins or 18- pounders (according to the " Memoirs of Kirkaldy"), opened on the city in the dark. It was then full of adherents of James VI., so Kirkaldy cared not where his shot fell, after the warning gun had been previously discharged, that all loyal subjects of the queen should retire. As the 'grey winter dawn stole in, over spire and pointed roof, the can- nonade was chiefly directed from the eastern cur- tain against the new Fish Market ; the baskets in which were beaten so high in the air, that for days after their contents were seen scattered on the tops of the highest houses. In one place a single shot killed five persons and wounded twenty others. Selecting a night when the wind was high and blowing eastward, Kirkaldy made a sally, and set on fire all the thatched houses in West Port and Castle A\'ynd, cannonading the while the unfor- tunates who strove to quench the flames that rolled away towards the east. In March Kirkaldy reso- lutely declined to come to terms with Morton, though earnestly besought to do so by Henry Killigrew, who came ostensibly as an English envoy, but in 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Edinburgh Castle. reality as a spy from Elizabeth. " He was next visited, in a pretended friendly manner, by Sir William Drur}% Elizabeth's Marshal of Berwick, rhe same who built Drury House in Wych Street, London, and who fell in a duel with Sir John Burroughs about precedence, and from whom Dniry Lane takes its name. When about to enter the the Castle gate, an English deserter, who had enlisted under Queen >Liry, in memory of some grudge, was about to shoot him with his arquebuse, began to invest the Castle with his paid Scottish companies, who formed a battery on the Castle hill, from wliich Kirkaldy drove them all in rout on the night of the isth. On the following day, Sir William Drury, in direct violation of the Treaty of Blois, which declared " that no foreign troops should enter Scotland," at the head of the old bands of Berwick, about 1,500 men, marched for Edinburgh. A trumpeter, on tlie 25th of April, summoned Kirkaldy to surrender ; but he replied ROOM IN EDINBURGH CASTl.F. IN WHICH J,\MES VI. WAS HORN. when he was seized, and given up by Sir William Kirkaldy. This courtesy was ill-requited by his visitor, whose sole object was to note the number.* of his garrison and cannon, the height and strength of the walls, &c." In anticipation of a siege, the citizens built se\eral traverses tu save the High Street from being enfiladed ; one of these, formed between the Thieves' Hole and Bess Wynd, was two ells in t1)icknes.s, composed of turf and mud ; and another near it was two spears high. In the city, the Parliament assembled on the 17th of January, with a sham regalia of gilt brass, as Kirkaldy had ihe crown and real regalia in the Castle. When joined by some English pioneers, Morton by hoisting, in place of the St. Andrew's ensign, a red flag on David's Tower as a token of resistance to the last. Five batteries had been erected against him by the 15th of Maj'. These were armed with thirty guns, including two enormous bombardes or loo-pounders, which were loaded by means of a crane ; a great carthoun or 48-pounder ;■ and many i8-pounders. There was also a movable battery of falcons. Under the Regent Morton, the first battery was on the high ground now occupied by the Heriot's Hosjjital; the second, under Drury, opposed to St. Margaret's Tower, was near the Lothian Road ; the third, under Sir George Carey, and the Edinbursh Oastlc] KIRKALDY'S SURRENDER. 49 fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near St. Cuthbert's church ; while the fifth, under Sir Thomas Sutton, was on the Hne of Princes Street, and faced King David's Tower. All these guns opened simultaneously on Sunday, the 17th of May, by salvoes; and the shrieks of the women in the Castle were distinctly heard m the camp of the Regent and in the city. 'I'he tire was maintained on both sides with un- abated vigour — nor were the arquebuses idle — till the 23rd, when Sutton's guns having breached sieged depended chiefly for water. This great battery then covered half of the Esplanade. Holinshed mentions another spring, St. Margaret's Well, from which Kirkakly's men secretly obtained water till the besiegers poisoned it ! By this time the survivors were so e.xhausted by toil and want of food as to be scarcely able to bear armour, or work the remaining guns. On the 28th Kirkaldy requested a parley by beat of drum, and was lowered over the ruins by ropes in his armour, to arrange a capitulation ; but Morton would hear ANCIENT POSTERN AND fl RRET NEAR THE QUEEN 's PObT David's Tower, tlie enormous mass, with all its guns and men, and with a roar as of thunder, came crashing over the rocks, and masses of it must have fallen into the loch 200 feet below. The Gate Tower with the portcullis and Wallace's Tower, were battered down by the 24th. The guns of the queen's garrison were nearly silenced now, and cries of despair were heard. The great square Peel and the Constable's Tower, with the curtain between, armed with brass cannon — edifices of great antiquity — came crashing down in succession, and their debris choked up the still existing draw- wells. Still the garrison did not quite lose heart, until the besiegers got possession of the Spur, within which was the well on which the be- of nothing now save an unconditional surrender, so the red flag of defiance was pulled down on the following day. By the Regent's order the Scottish companies occupied the breaches, with orders to exclude all Englishmen. "The governor delivered his sword to Sir A\'illiam Drury on receiving the solemn assurance of being restored to his estate and liberty at the intercession of Queen Elizabeth. The remnant of his garrison marched into the city in armour with banners displayed ; there came forth, with the Lord Home, twelve knights, 100 soldiers, and ten boys, with several ladies, in- cluding the Countess of Argyle." The brave com- mander was basely delivered up by Drury to the vindictive power of the Regent ; and he and his so OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. "brother Sir James, with two burgesses of the city, were drawn backwards in carts to the market cross, where they were hanged, and their heads were placed upon the ruined castle walls. Within the latter were found twenty-two close carts for ammunition, and 2,400 cannon balls. The whole garrison were thrust into the dungeons of adjacent castles in the county ; and four sol- diers — Glasford, Stewart, Moftat, and Millar — "de- clared traitors " for having assisted Kirkaldy " in the demolishing and casting down of the bigginis, showting great and small peissis, without fear of God or remorse of conscience." had to do public penance at one of the doors of St. Giles's for three days " cleid in sack cleith."* The Regent made his brother, George Douglas of Parkhead (one of the assassins of Rizzio), governor, and he it was who built the present half- moon battery, and effected other repairs, so that a plan still preserved shows that by 1575 the for- tress had in addition thereto eight distinct towers, facing the town and south-west, armed by forty pieces of cannon, exclusive of Mons Meg, arque- busses, and cut-throats. Over the new gate Morton placed, above the royal arms, those of his own family, a fact which was not forgotten when he lost his head some years after. In 1576, Alexander Innes of that ilk being summoned to Edinburgh concerning a lawsuit with a clansman, Innes of Pethknock, met the latter by chance near the market cross — then the chief promenade — and amid high words struck him dead with his dagger, and continued to lounge quietly near the body. He was made prisoner in the Castle, and condemned to lose his head ; but pro- cured a remission from the corrupt Regent by relinquishing one of his baronies, and gave an entertainment to all his friends. " If I had my foot once loose," said he, vauntingly, " I would fain see if this Earl of Morton dare take possession of my land!" This, though a jest, was repeated to Morton, who retained the bond for the barony, but, according to the history of the Innes family, had the head of Innes instantly Kruck off within the fortress. So odious became the administration of Morton that, in 1577, James VI., though only twelve years of age, was prevailed upon by Argyle and Athole to summon the peers, assume the government, and dismiss Morton, an announcement made by heralds at the cross on the 12th of Marcli, under three salutes from the new half moon ; but it was not until many scuffles with the people, culminating in Keith's " Register"; " M^itKind Club iMisceIl.»ny." a deadly brawl which roused the whole city in arms and brought the craftsmen forth with morions, plate sleeves, and steel jacks, and when the entire High Street bristled with pikes and Jedwood axes, that Parkhead, when summoned, gave up the for- tress to the Earl of Mar, to whom the Earl of Mor- ton delivered the regalia and crown jewels, conform- ably to an ancient inventory, receiving in return a pardon for all his misdemeanours — a document that failed to save him, when, in 1580, he was con- demned and found guilty of that crime for which he had put so many others to death — the murder of Darnley — and had his head struck off by the "Maiden," an instrument said to be of his own adop- tion, dying unpitied amid the execrations of as- sembled thousands. Calderwood relates that as he was being conducted captive to the Castle, a woman, whose husband he had put to death, cursed him loudly on her bare knees at the Butter Tron. His head was placed on a port of the city. From this period till the time of Charles I. little concerning the Castle occurs in the Scottish annals, save the almost daily committal of State prisoners to its dungeons, some of which are appalling places, hewn out of the living rock, and were then destitute nearly of all light. From one of these, Mowbray of Barnbougle, incarcerated in 1602 for slaying a servant of James VT. in the palace of Dunfermline, in attempting to escape, fell headlong through the air, and was dashed on the stony pathway that led to the Royal Mews 300 feet below. His body was quartered, and placed on the Cross, Nether Bow, Potter Row, and West Ports. In May, 1633, Charles I. visited the capital of his native country, entering it on the 16th by the West Port, amid a splendour of many kinds ; and on the 17th, under a salute of fifty-two guns, he proceeded to the Castle attended by sixteen coaches and the Horse (Juards. He remained in the royal lodgings one night, and then returned to Holyrood. On the 17th of June he was again in the Castle, when the venerable Earl of Mar gave a magnificent banquet in the great hall, where many of the first nobles in Scotland and England were, as Spalding states, seated on each side of Charles. To that hall he was conducted next morning, and jilaced on a throne under a velvet canopy, by the Duke of Lennox, Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland. The peers of the realm then entered in procession wearing their crimson velvet robes, each belted with his sword, and with his coronet borne before him. The Chancellor, Viscount Dupplin, addressed him in the name of the Parliament. Charles was then conducted to the gate, from whence began a procession to Holyrood; Edinburgh L'abtl: CORONATION OF CHARLES I. 51 and long it was since Edinburgh had been the scene of anything so magnificent. Every window was crowdu;! with eager faces, and every house was gay with flowers, banners, and tapestry. " Mounted on a roan horse, and having a saddle of rich velvet sweeping the ground, and massive with pasements of gold, Alexander Clark, the Provost, appeared at the head of the bailies and council to meet the king, while the long perspective of the crowded street ( then terminated by the spire of the Nether Bow) was hned (as Spalding says) by a brave company of soldiers, all clad in white satin doublets, black velvet breeches, and silk stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, and bands. These gallants had dainty muskets, pikes, and gilded partisans. Six trumpeters, in gold lace and scarlet, preceded the procession, which moved slowl}- from the Castle gate, "IT Then came the lords in their robes of scarlet erniined and laced, ridingjwith long foot-man- tles; the bishops in their white rochets and lawn sleeves looped with gold ; the viscounts in scar- let robes; Had- dington bearing the Privy Seal; Morton the Treasurer's golden mace, with its globe of sparkling beryl ; the York and Norroy English kings- at-arms with their heralds, pursuivants, and trum- peters in tabards blazing with gold and embroidery; Sir James Balfour, the Scottish Lion king, pre- ceding the spurs, sword, sceptre, and crown, borne by earls. Then came the Lord High Constable, riding, with his baton, supported by the Great Chamberlain and Earl Marshal, preceding Charles, who was arrayed in a robe of purple velvet once worn by James IV., and having a foot-cloth em- broidered with silver and pearls, and his long train upborne by the young Lords Lome, Annan, Dal- keith, and Kinfauns. Then came the Gentlemen Pensioners, marching with partisans uplifted ; then the Yeomen of the Guard, clad in doublets of russet velvet, with the royal arms raised in em- bossed work of silver and gold on the back and breast of each coat — each company commanded by an earl. The gentlemen of the Scottish Horse Guards were all armed a la cuirassier, and carrieil swords, petronels, and musketoons." ENTABL.VrURE .\BOVE THE GATEWAV, EPIXIIURGH CASTLE. But most of the assembled multitude looked darkly and doubtfully on. In almost every heart there lurked the secret dread of that tampering with the Scottish Church which for years had been conspicuous. Charles, with great solemnity, was crowned king of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, by the Bishop of St. Andrews, who placed the crown upon his head; and on the iSth July he left Edinburgh on his return to London. Under the mal-influence of the zealot Laud ruin and civil war soon came, when Episcopacy was imposed upon the people. A committee of Covenanters was speedily formed at Edinburgh, and when the king's commissioner arrived, in 1638, he found the Castle beset by armed men. His efforts at mediation were futile ; and famous old " Jentiy Geddes " took the initiative by dashing her stool at the Dean's head in St. Giles's church. But Jenny's real name is now- said to have been Barbara Hamilton. All Scotland was up in arms against Episcopacy. A\"ar was resohed on, and with a noble ardour thousands of trained Scot- tish officers and soldiers, wlio had been pushing their fortune by the shores of the Elbe and the Rhine, in Sweden and Germany, came pouring home to enrol under the banner of the Covenant ; a general attack was concerted on every fortress in Scotland ; and the surprise of Edinburgh was. undertaken by the commander of the army. Sir Alexander Leslie of Balgonie, Marshal of Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus — a soldier second to none in Europe. This he achieved successfully on the evening of the 2Sth March, when he blew in the barrier gate with a petard. The Covenanters rushed through the Spur sword in hand, and the second gate fell before their sledge-hammers, and then Haldane of Gleneagles, the governor, gave up his sword. That night Leslie gave the Covenanting lords a banquet in the hall of the Castle, whereon they hoisted their blue standard with the motto, " For an oppressed kirk and broken Covenant.'' Mon- trose's regiment, 1,500 strong, replaced the garrison ; Lord Balmerino was appointed governor, and many OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Edinburgh Castle. cavaliers were committed prisoners to his care, and remained there till the pacification of Berwick. On the 19th of November, King Charles's birth- day, a great portion of the curtain-wall, which was ver)' old, fell with a crash over the rocks ; and the insurgents rejoiced at this event as boding evil to the royal cause. After the pacification, the Castle, with thirty others, was restored to the king, who placed therein a garrison, under Sir Patrick Ruth- made from the gate. Batteries were thrown up at nearly the same places where they had been formed in Kirkaldy's time. Ruthven refused to gi\e the Estates the use of the regalia. Under Colonel Hamilton, master of the ordnance, the batteries opened with vigour, while select muske- teers were " told off," to aim at individuals on the ramparts. Most bitter was the defence of Ruth- ven, whose cannonade imperilled the whole city IIIF. RIX.F.NT MORTON. {Fn?'' .M' r t^T^r^- !i mm^ -At ^^J ^-^^iS -n-T-^...,^^-, fi^ i'-'l^^ ^ H 6 a: D D o 54 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. nearly to die muzzle with musket-balls was de- pressed to sweep it, and did so with awful effect. According to the historian of the " Troubles," twenty men were blown to shreds. \Veddal had both thighs broken, and Somerville, with a few who were untouched, grovelled close under the wall, where Ruthven, who recognised him as an old Swedish comrade, besought him to retire, adding, " I derive no pleasure in the death of gallant men." Of the whole escalade only thirty-three escaped alive, and of these many were wounded, a result which cooled the ardour of the besiegers ; but after a three months' blockade, finding his garrison few, and all suffering from scurvy, and that provisions and ammunition were alike expended, on the iSth September, after a blockade of five months in all, during which 1,000 men had been slain, he marched out with the honours of war (when so ill with scurvy tliat he could scarcely walk) at the head of seventy men, with one drum beating, one standard flying, matches lighted, aiid two pieces of cannon, with balls in their muzzles and the port-fires blazing at both ends. They all sailed for England in a king's ship. Ruthven fought nobly for the king there, and died at a good old age in 1651, Earl of Forth and Brentford. Argyle, the Dictator of Scotland, in the autumn of 1648 in- vited Oliver Cromwell to Edinburgh, and enter- tained him with unwonted magnificence in the great hall of the Castle ; afterwards they held many meetings in Lady Home's house, in the Canon- gate, where the resolution to take away the king's life was discussed and approved of, for wliicli the said Dictator afterwards lost his head. The ne.xt important event in the history of " The steep, Ihe iron-belted rock, Where trusted lie the monarchy's List gctns, The sceptre, sword, and crown that graced tlie brows Since Kergus, fatlier of a Imndrcd kings," was in the days of Cromwell. On tidings reaching Scotland, after the coronation of Charles H., that {From tht the former was advancing north at the head of an army, the Parliament ordered the Castle to be put in a state of defence. There were put therein a select body of troops under Colonel Walter Dundas, 1,000 bolls of meal and malt, 1,000 tons of coal, 67 brass and iron guns, including Mons Meg and howitzers, 8,000 stand of arms, and a vast store of warlike munition. According to the superstition of the time the earth and air all over Scotland teemed with strange omens of the impending strife, and in a rare old tract, of 1650, we are told of the alarm created in the fortress by the appearance of a " horrible apparition " beating upon a drum. On a dark night the sentinel, under the shadow of the gloomy ^ "" \ half-moon, was alarmed by the beating of a drum upon the esplanade and the tread ot marching feet, on which he fired his musket. Col. Dundas hur- ried forth, but could see noth- ing on the bleak expanse, the site of the now de- molished Spur. The sentinel was trunch eon ed, and another put in his place, to whom the same thing happened, and he, too, fired his musket, affirming that he heard the tread of soldiers marching to the tuck of drum. To Dundas nothing was visible, nothing audible but the moan of the autumn wind. He took a musket and the post of sentinel. Anon he heard the old Scots march, beaten by an invisible drummer, who came close up to the gate ; then came other sounds — the tramp of many feet and clank of accoutrements ; still nothing was visible, till the whole impalpable array seemed to haU close by Dtmdas, who was bewildered with con- sternation. .Again a drum was heard, beating the English, and then the French march, when the alarm ended ; but the next drums that were beaten there were those of Oliver Cromwell. AVhen the latter approached Edinburgh he found the whole Scottish army skilfully entrenched l)arallel willi Leith Walk, its flanks protected by covenanter's flag. ^Iiisciim 0/ the Socicfy of Antiquaries of Scotlatid.) EdinViirsli OiMic.l OLIVER CROMWKLL IN KDIXBURCH. 55 guns and howitzers on tlie bastions of the latter and the Calton Hill. The sharp encounter there, and at St. Leonard's Hill, in both of which he was completely repulsed, are apart from the history of the fortress, from the ramparts of whicli the young king Charles H. witnessed them; but the battle of Dunbar subsequently placed all the south of Scotland at the power of Cromwell, when he was in desperation about returning for England, the Scots having cut off his retreat. On the 7th September, 1650, he entered Edinburgh, and placed it under martial law, enforcing the most rigid regu- lations ; yet the people had nothing to complain of, and justice was impartially administered. He took up his residence at the Earl of Moray's house — that stately edifice on the south side of the ■Canongate — and quartered his soldiers in Holyrood and the city; but his guard, or outlying picket, was in Dunbar's Close — so named from the victors of Dunbar ; and tradition records that a handsome old house at the foot of Sellars Close was occasionally occupied by him while pressing the siege of the Castle, which was then full of those fugitive preachers whose interference had caused the ruin of Leslie's army. AVith them he engaged in a curious polemical discussion, and is said by Pink- erton to have preached in St. Giles's churchyard to the people. To facilitate the blockade he de- molished the ancient Weigh House, which was not replaced till after the Restoration. He threw up batteries at Heriot's Hospital, which Avas full of iiis wounded ; on the north bank of tlie loch, and the stone bartisan of Davidson's house on the Castle Hill. He hanged in view of the Castle, a poor old gardener who had supplied Dundas with some information ; and during these operations, Nicoll, the diarist, records that there were many slain, " both be schot of canoun and musket, as weell Scottis as Inglische." Though the garrison received a good supply of provisions, by the bravery of Captain Augustine, a German soldier of fortune who served in the Scottish army, and who hewed a passage into the fortress through Cromwell's guards, at the head of 120 horse, Dundas, when tampered with, was cold in his defence. Cromwell pressed the siege with vigour. He mustered colliers from the adjacent country, and forced them, under fire, to work at a mine on the south side, near the new Castle road, where it can still be seen in the freestone rock. Dundas, a traitor from the first, now lost all heart, and came to terms witli Cromwell, to whom he capitulated on the 12th of December, 1650.* ' The articles of the treaty and the Hst of the captured gun^ are given at length in Ealfoui's "Annals." Exactly as St. Giles's clock struck twelve the garrison marched out, with drums beating and colours flying, after which the Castle was garrisoned by " English blasphemers " (as the Scots called them) under Colonel George Fenwick. Cromwell, in reporting all this to the English Parliament, says : — " I think I need say little of the strength of this place, which, if it had not come as it did, would have cost much blood. ... I must needs say, not any skill or wisdom of ours, but the good will of God hath given you this jjlace.'' By the second article of the treaty the records of Scotland were transniitted to Stirling, on the capture of which they were sent in many hogsheads to London, and lost at sea when being sent back. Dundas was arraigned before the Parliament, and his reputation was never freed from the stain cast upon it by the capitulation ; and Sir James Balfour, his contemporary, plainly calls him a base, cowardly, " traitorous villane ! " Cromwell defaced the royal arms at the Castle gate and elsewhere ; yet his second in command, Monk, was feted at a banquet by the magistrates, when, on the 4th May, 1652, he was proclaimed Protector of the Commonwealth. At first brawls were frequent, and English soldiers were cut off on every available occasion. One day in the High Street, an officer came from Cromwell's house "in great chafe," says Patrick Gordon, and as he mounted his horse, rashly cried aloud, " With my own hands I killed the Scot to whom this horse and these pistols belonged. Who dare say I wronged him ?" " I dare, and thus avenge him ! " exclaimed one who stood near, and, running the Englishman through the body, mounted his horse, dashed through the nearest gate, and escaped into the fields. For ten years there was perfect peace in Edin- burgh, and stage coaches began to run every three weeks between it and the " George Inn, without Aldersgate, London," for ^£4 los. a seat. Lambert's officers preached in the High Kirk, and buft-coated troopers taught and expounded in the Parliament House ; and so acceptable became the sway of the Protector to civic rulers that they had just pro- posed to erect a colossal stone monument in his honour, when the Restoration came ! It was hailed with the wildest joy by all the Scottish people. The cross of Edinburgh was garlanded with flowers ; its fountains ran with wine ; 300 dozen of glasses were broken there, in drinking to the health of His Sacred Majesty and the perdition of Cromwell, v.ho in efligy was con- signed to the devil. Banquets were given, and salutes fired from the Castle, where Mons Meg was 56 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. discharged by the hand of the Major-General com- manding. From the " Arch^eologia Scotica " we cull the following curious anecdote : — Soon after the death of Cromwell, in 1660, the English Council, sus- pecting General Monk's fidelity, sent an order to remove him from the head of their forces in .Scotland. Their ordinary special messenger, who had usually borne such messages, was entrusted received it, concealed its nature, and at once began his march southward, with the army of Scotland, to accomplish the Restoration. When the Puritan gunners in the Castle were ordered to fire a salute in honour of that event, an old " saint " of Oliver's first campaigns bluntly re- fused obedience, saying, " May the devil blaw me into the air gif I lowse a cannon this day ! If I do, some man shall repent it ! " Then, according to SOUTH SIDE OF EDINBURGH CASTLE. (After SUzer.) with this one, wliich he was ordered not to deliver to Monk, but to (Colonel New- man) the Governor of Edinburgh Cas- tle. It chanced that the principal servant of the former met, near the Canon- gate-liead, his old friend the messenger, whom he accosted with cordiality. " How conies it," lie asked, " that you go in this direction, and not, as usual, to the General at Dalkeith ? " " Because my despatches are for tlie Castle." With ready wit the servant of Monk suspected that something was wrong, and proposed they should have a bottle together. The messenger partook freely ; the servant purloined the despatch ; Monk Nicoll, he was forced to discliarge a gun, which burst, and verifying his words, " shuites his bellie from him, and blew him quyte over the Castle wall, in the sichte of niony pepill." On the 3rd of January, 1661, Scottish companies were enlisted under the Earl of Middleton to re-garrison the fortress, wherein the first Marquis of Argyle was committed to prison, having been sent from the Tower on the accusation of " complying with Cromwell in the death of Charles I." Thus he found himself a captive in the dungeons under the same hall in which he had feasted the Protector, and where he could lieAr the salutes fired as the remains of his rival Montrose were laid in the church of St. Giles. He was brought to trial in the Parliament House, where Middleton, with fierce e.\ultation, laid before the peers certain letters written by the Marquis to Cromwell, all expressive of attachment to him personally and Edinburgh Castle.] THE MARQUIS OF ARGYLE. 57 3 58 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. politically. These documents had been perfidiously sent to Scotland by General Monk. The marquis was condemned to die the death of a traitor. From the Castle he begged in vain a ten days' respite, that he might crave pity of the king. " I placed the crown upon his head," said he, mourn- fully, " and this is my reward ! " An escape was planned. He lay in bed for some days feigning illness, and the Marchioness came in a sedan to visit him. Being of the same stature, he assumed her dress and coif; but when about to step into the sedan his courage failed him, and he abandoned the attempt. The night before execution he was removed to the most ancient prison in Edinburgh — an edifice in Mauchine's Close, long since removed, where the Marchioness awaited him. "The Lord will requite it," she ex- claimed, as she wept bitterly on his breast. " For- bear, INLargaret,' said he, calmly, "I pity my enemies, and am as content in this ignominious prison as in yonder Castle of Edinburgh." With his last breath he expressed abhorrence of the death of Charles L, and on the 27th May his head was struck from his body by the Maiden, at the west end of the Tolbooth. By patent all his ancient earldom and estates were restored to his son, Lord Lome, then a prisoner in the Castle, wlicre on one occasion he had a narrow escape, when playing " with hand bullets " (bowls ?) one of which, as Wodrow records, struck him senseless. On the 30th May, 1667, the batteries of the Castle returned the salute of the English fleet, which came to anchor in the roads under the pennant of Sir Jeremiah Smythe, who came thither in quest of the Dutch tlect, which had been bom- barding Burntisland. Lames Duke of Albany and York succeeded the odious Duke of Lauilerdalc in tlie administration of Scottish affairs, and won the favour of all classes, while he resided at Holyrood awaiting the issue of the famous Bill of Exclusion, which would deprive liim of the throne of England on the demise of his brother, and hence it became his earnest desire to secure at least Scotland, the hereditary kingdom of his race. On his first visit to the Castle, on 30th October, 1680, Mons Meg burst wlien the guns were saluting — a ring near the touch-hole giving way, wliich, saith Fountainhall, was deemed by all men a bad omen. His lordship adds that as the gun was charged by an English gunner, hence " the Scots resented it extremely, thinking he might, of malice, have done it purposely, they having no cannon in all England so big as she." During the duke's residence at Holyrood a splendid court was kej)! there. The rigid decorum of Scottish manners gratiually gave way before the aftability of such entertainers as the Duchess. Mary d' Este of Modena, and the Princess Anne, " and the novel luxuries of the English court formed an attraction to the Scottish grandees. Tea was introduced for the first time into Scotland on this occasion, and given by the duchess as a great treat to the Scottish ladies. Balls, plays, and masquerades were also attempted ; but the last proved too great an innovation on the rigid man- ners of that period to be tolerated." The accession of King James VH. is thus re- corded by Lord Fountainhall (" Decisions," vol. i.) : — "Feb. 6th, 16S5. The Privy Council is called extraordinary, on the occasion of an express sent them by his royal highness the Duke of Albany, telling that, on Monday the 2nd February, the king, was seized with a violent and apoplectic fit, which stupefied him for four hours ; but, by letting twelve ounces of blood and applying cupping-glasses to^ his head, he revived. This unexpected surprise put our statesmen in a hurly-burly, and was followed by the news of the death of his Majesty, which happened on the 7 th of February, and came home to us on the loth, in the morning ; whereupon a theatre was immediately erected at the cross of Edinburgh, and the militia companies drawn out in arms : and, at ten o'clock, the Chancellor, Treasurer, and all the other officers of State, with the nobility, lords of Privy Council and Session, the magistrates and town council of Edinburgh, came to the cross, with the lion king-at-arms, his heralds and trumpeters ; the Chancellor carried his own purse, and, weeping, proclaimed Jnmcs Dtikc of Albany the only and nndoiibted king of this realm, by the title of James VII., the clerk registrar reading the words of the Act to him, and all of them swore fiith and allegiance to him. Then the other jmo- claniation was then read, whereby King James VH. continued all offices till he hail more time to send down new conniiissions Then the Castle shot a round of guns, and sermon began, wherein Mr. John Robertson did regret our loss, but desired our tears might be dried up when we looked upon so brave and excellent a successor. The Privy Council called for all the seals, and broke them, appointing new ones with the name of James VH. to be made." In i68[ the Earl of .\rgyle was committed to the Castle for the third time for declining the oath required by the obnoxious Test Act as Commis- sioner of the Scottish Treasury ; and on the 12th of December an assize brought in their verdict, by the Marquis of Montrose, his hereditary foe, finding him guilty " of treason and leasing telling," for Edinburgh Castle.] THE EARL OF ARGYLE. 59 which he received the sentence of death. His guards in the Castle were doubled, wliile additional troops were marched into the city to enforce order. He despatched a messenger to Charles II. seeking mercy, but the warrant had been hastened. At six in the evening of tiie 2olh December he was informed that next day at noon he would be con- veyed to the city prison ; but by seven o'clock he had conceived — like his father — a plan to escape. I^ady Sophia Lindsay (of Balcarres), wife of liis son Charles, had come to bid him a last farewell ; on her departure he assumed the disguise and office of her lackey, and came forth from his prison at ■eight, bearing up her long train. A thick fall of snow and the gloom of the December evening rendered the attempt successful ; but at the outer .gate the sentinel roughly grasped his arm. In •agitation the earl dropped the train of Lady Sophia, who, with singular presence of mind, fairly slapped his face with it, and thereby smearing his features with half-frozen mud, exclaimed, "Thou careless loon 1 '' Laughing at this, the soldier permitted them to pass. Lady Sophia entered her coach; the earl sprang on the footboard behind, and was rapidly driven from the fatal gate. Disguising liimself com- pletely, he left Edinburgh, and reached Holland, then the focus for all the discontented spirits in Britain. Lady Sophia was committed to the Tolbooth, but was not otherwise punished. After remaining four years in Holland, he returned, and •attempted an insurrection in the west against King James, in imison with that of Monmouth in England, but was irretrievably defeated at Muir- ■dykes. Attired like a peasant, disguised by a long beard, he was discovered and overpowered by three militiamen, near Paisley. "Alas, alas, unfortunate Argyle ! " he exclaimed, as they struck him down ; then an officer. Lieutenant Shaw (of the house of Greenock), ordered him to be bound hand and foot and sent to Edinburgh, where, by order of the Secret Council, he was ignominiously conducted through the streets with his hands corded behind him, bareheaded, escorted by the horse guards, and preceded by the hangman to the Castle, where, for •a third time, he was thrust into his old chamber. On the day he was to die he despatched the fol- lowing note to his son. It is preserved in the Salton Charter chest : — " Edr. Castle, 30th June, '85. " De.\re J.^mes, — Learn to fear God ; it is the only way to make you happie here and hereafter. Love and respect my wife, and hearken to her advice. The Lord bless. lam your loving father, Argvle." The last day of his life this unfortunate noble passed pleasantly and sweetly ; he dined heartily, and, retiring to a closet, lay down to .sleep ere the fatal hour came. At this time one of the Privy Council arrived, and insisted on entering. The door was gently opened, and there lay the great Argyle in his heavy irons, sleeping tlie placid sleep of infancy. " The conscience of the renegade smote him," says Macaulay ; " he turned sick at heart, ran out of the Castle, and took refuge in the dwelling of a lady who lived liard by. There he flung himself on a couch, and gave himself up to an agony of remorse and shame. His kinswoman, alarmed by his looks and groans, thought he liad been taken with sudden illness, anil begged him to drink a cup of sack. ' No, no,' said he, ' it will do me no good.' She prayed him to tell what liad disturbed him. ' I have been,' he said, ' in Argyle's prison. I have seen him within an hour of eternity sleeping as sweetly as ever man did. iJut as for //le : '" At noon on the 30th June, 1685, he was escorted to the market cross to be "beheaded and have his head affixed to the Tolbooth on a high \m of iron." When he saw the old Scottish guillo- tine, under the terrible square knife of which his father, and so many since the days of Morton, had perished, he saluted it with his lips, saying, " It is the sweetest maiden I have ever kissed." " My lord dies a Protestant!" cried a clergyman aloud to the assembled thousands. " Yes," said the Earl, stepping forward, " and not only a Protestant, but with a heart-hatred of Popery, Prelacy, and all sujjer- stition." He made a brief address to the people, laid his head between the grooves of the guillotine, and died with equal courage and coinposure. His head was placed on the Tolbooih gable, and his body was ultimately sent to the burial-place of his family, Kilmun, on the shore of the Holy Locli in Argyle. While this mournful tragedy was being enacted his countess and family were detained prisoners in the Castle, wherein daily were placed fresh victims who were captured in the \\'est. Among these were Richard Rumbold, a gendeman of Hertford- shire, who bore a colonel's commission under Argyle (and had jslanted the standard of revolt on the Castle of Ardkinglass), and Mr. William Spence, styled his " servitour." Both were treated with terrible severity, especially RumboUl. In a cart, bareheaded, and heavily manacled, lie was conveyed from the AN'ater Gate to the Castle, escorted by (Graham's City Guard, with drums beating, and on the 28th of June he 6o OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ediuburgli Castle. was hanged, drawn, and quartered, at the Cross, where his heart was torn from his breast, and exhibited, dripping and reeking, by the execu- tioner, on the point of a plug-bayonet, while he exclaimed, " Behold the heart of Richard Rum- bold, a bloody English traitor and murderer ! " According to ^Vodrow and others, his head, after being placed on the West Port, was sent to London on the 4th of August, while his quarters were gib- beted in the four principal cities in Scotland. Mr. William Spence was put to the torture by the Privy Council concerning his master's affairs, and the contents of several letters in cypher. After that he was put in the hands of Sir Thomas University of Edinburgh, and Moderator of the General Assembly ; but such barbarities soon brought their own punishment ; the Revolution came, and with it the last actual siege of the Castle of Edinburgh. On tidings of William's intended invasion the whole standing forces of Scotland marched south, to form a junction with the English on Salisbur)' Plain, where they conjointly deserted King James. The Castle at this crisis had been entrusted by the latter to the Duke of Gordon, a Roman Catholic, who vowed to preserve it " for the king, though the Prince of Orange should obtain possession of every other fortress in the kingdom.'' "MONS MEG," EIII.NUUKGU CASTLE. Dalyell, Colonel of the Scots Greys, a grim old veteran, whose snow-white vow-beard had never been cut since the death of Charles I., and by whom, says Fountainhall, " with a hair-shirt and pricking (as the witches are used), he was kept five nights from sleep, till he was half distracted." .\fter being thumb-screwed till his hands wort- hopelessly crushed, he was again flung into the Castle, where perhaps the most pleasant sounds he heard were the minute guns, about Michaelmas, s.ijuting tlie Cf)rpse of his "persecutor" (Dalyell, who died suddenly) as it was passing through the West Port, with six field-pieces, the whole of the Scottish forces in Edinburgh, with his horse, baton, .iml nrinonr, to tlie family vault near Abercorn. Spence ultimately read the cyphers, whicii led to the capture, ca))tivity in the Castle, and torture no less than twenty times, of the famous William Carstairs, of that ilk, afterwards Principal of the As an examjile of how the people were imposed upon in those days, wlien rumours were easily cir- culated and difficult of contradiction, we may here quote an anonymous broadsheet, which was then hawked about the streets of London and other places in England : — " A //■!/(■ relation of ///■• horrid and bloody massacre ill Scotland " By the Irish Papists ; who landed sixty miles from Edinburgh, putting all to fire and sword in their way to that city. " Bammk, Da. ^■s>■d, 1688. "Sir, — Vcsteriiiglil vc li.-iil the s-id and surprising ncw^, l)y an Express of llie Council of Scotland to our (lovernoiir, that about 20,000 Irisli were landed in Scotland, about sixty miles from Kdinburgli, putting all to fire and sword, to wliom the Apostate Chancellor of tliat Uingdom will join with the rest of the bloody Papists there. And truly, sii', that liing a w 00 o s o a b o n ;« 5 Edinburgli Castle.] THE CASTLE UNDER REPAIR. 6S For nearly four-and-twenty hours on both sides the fire was maintained with fury, but slackened about daybreak. " In the Castle only one man was killed — a gunner, whom a cannon ball had cut in two, through a gunport, but many were weltering in their blood behind the woolpacks and in the trenches, wliere the number of slain the siege. Though emaciated by long toil, starva- tion, and gangrened wounds, the luckless soldiers were cruelly treated by the rabble of the city. The capitulation was violated; Colonel Winram was seized as a prisoner of war, and the duke was placed under close arrest in his own house, in Blair's Close, but was released on giving his parole -f^Ji^^^^ ' INNER G.\TEW.VV OF THE C.\S 1 LE. amounted to 500 men." This enumeration pro- bably includes wounded. On the 13th of June the duke pulled down the king's flag, and hoisted a white one, surrendering, on terms, by which it was stipulated that the soldiers should have their full liberty, and Colonel Winram have security for his life and estates ; while Major Somerville, at the head of 200 bayonets, took all the posts, except the citadel. The duke drew up his forlorn band, now reduced to fifty officers and men, in the ruined Grand Parade, and thanking them for their loyal services, gave each a small sum to convey him home; and as hands were shaken all round, many men wept, and so ended 9 not to serve against William of Orange. He died in the year 17 16, at his residence in the citadel of Leith. The Castle was once more fully repaired, and presented nearly the same aspect in all its details as we find it to-day. The alterations were con- ducted under John Drury (chief of the Scottish Engineers), who gave his name to one of the bas- tions on the south : and Mylne's Mount, anotlier on the north, is so named from his assistant, Robert Mylne, king's master-mason and hereditar)' master- gunner of the fortress ; and it was after this last siege that the round turrets, or echauguettes, were added to the bastions. 66 OLD AXD NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. About tliis time a strange story went abroad concerning the spectre of Dundee ; the terrible yet handsome Claverliouse, in his flowing wig and glittering breastplate, appearing to his friend the Earl of Balcarres, then a prisoner in the Castle, and awaiting tidings of the first battle with keen anxiety. About daybreak on the morning when Killie- crankie was fought and lost by the \\lllianiites, the spectre of Dundee is said to have come to Bal- carres, and drawing back the curtains of his bed, to have looked at him steadfastly and sorrowfully. " After this " (says C. K. Sharpe, in a note to ' Law's Memorials '), " it moved towards " the mantelpiece, remained there for a short time in a leaning posture, and then walked out of the chamber without uttering one word. Lord Balcarres, in great surprise, though not suspecting that what he saw was an apparition, called out repeatedly on his friend to stop, but received no answer, and subsequently learned that at the very moment the shadow stood before him Dundee had breathed his last near the field of Killiecrankie." CHAPTER VIL EDINBURGH CASTLE {concluded). The Torture of Xeville Payne— J.-icobite Plots — Entombing the Regalia— Project for Surprising the Fortress — Right of Sanctu.iry Abolished — Lord Drummond's Plot — Some Jacobite Prisoners — "Rebel Ladies" — James Macgregor — The Castle Vaults — .Attempts at Escape — Fears as to the Destruction of the Crown, Sword, and Sceptre — Crown-room opened in 1794 — Again in 1817. and the Regalia brought forth — Mons Meg— General Description of the whole Castle. .\moxg the many unfortunates who have pined as prisoners of state in the Castle, few suffered more than Henry Neville Payne, an English gentleman, who was accused of being a Jacobite conspirator. About the time of the battle of the Boyne, when the Earl of Annandale, Lord Ross, Sir Robert Montgomerie of Skelmorlie, Robert Fergusson " the plotter," and others, were forming a scheme in Scotland for the restoration of King James, Payne had been sent there in connection with it, but was discovered in Dumfriesshire, seized, and sent to Edinburgh. Lockhart, the Solicitor- General for Scotland, who happened to be in London, coolly wrote to llie Earl of Melville, Secretary of State at Edinburgh, saying, " that there was no doubt that he (Payne) knew as much as would hang a thousand ; but except you put him to the torture, he will shame you all. Pray you, put him in such hands as will have no pity on him!"* The Council, however, had anticipated these amiable instructions, and Payne had borne torture to extremity, by boot and thumb-screws, without confessing anything. On the loth of December, under express instruction signed by King William, and countersigned by Lord Melville, the process was to be repeated ; and this was done in the presence of the Earl of Crawford, " with all the severity," he reported, " that was consistent with humanity, even unto that pitch that we could not l)rescrve life and have gone further, but without the least success. He was so manly and resolute under his sufferings that such of the Council as were not • Melville's CoiTCspondence, acquainted with the evidence, were brangled, and began to give him charity that he might be innocent. It was surprising that flesh and blood could, without fainting, endure the heavy penance he was in for two hours." This unfortunate Englishman, in his maimed and shattered condition, was now thrown into a vault of the Castle, where none had access to him save a doctor. Again and again it was repre- sented to the " humane and pious King William " that to keep Payne in prison " without trial was con- trary to law;" but notwithstanding repeated petitions for trial and mercy, in defiance of the Bill of Rights, William allowed him to languish from year to year for ten years ; until, on the 4th of February, i7or, he was liberated, in broken health, poverty, and premature old age, without the security for reappearance, which was customary in such cases. Many plots were formed by the Jacobites — one about 1695, by Eraser of Beaufort (the future Lovat), and another in 1703, to surprise the Castle, as being deemed the key to the whole kingdom — but without success ; and soon after the Union, in 1707, its walls witnessed that which was deemed " the last act of that national tragetly," the entombing of the regalia, which, by the Treaty, " are never more to be used, but kept constantly in the Castle of lulinburgh." In presence of Colonel Stuart, the constable ; Sir James Mackenzie, Clerk of the Treasury ; William Wilson, Deputy-Clerk of .Session — the crown, sceptre, sword of state, and Treasurer's rod, were solemnly deposited in their usual receptacle, the crown-room, on the 26th of March. "Animated by the same glow of patriotism that fired the Edinburgh Castle.) ABOLITION OF THE RIGHT OF SANCTUARY. ('1 bosom of Belhaven, tlie F.arl Marischal, after having opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be present at this degrading ceremony, and was repre- sented by his proxy, Wilson, the Clerk of Session, who took a long protest descriptive of the regalia, and declaring that they should remain within the said crown-room, and never be removed from it without due intimation being made to the Earl Marischal. A copy of this protest, beautifully illu- minated, was then deposited with the regalia, a linen cloth was spread over the whole, and the great oak chest was secured by three ponderous locks ; and there for a hundred and ten years, amid silence, obscurity, and dust, lay the crown that had sparkled on the brows of Bruce, on those of the gallant Jameses, and on Mary's auburn hair — the symbols of Scotland's elder days, for which so many myriads of the loyal, the brave, and the noble, had laid down their lives on the battle-field — neglected and forgotten." Just four months after this obnoxious ceremony, and while the spirit of antagonism to it rose high in the land, a gentleman, with only thirty men, under- took to surprise the fortress, which had in it now a party of but thirty-five British soldiers, to guard the equivalent money, ;^400,ooo, and a great quantity of Scottish specie, which had been called in to be coined anew. In the memoirs of Kerr of Kerrsland we are told that the leader of this projected surprise was to appear with his thirty followers, all well armed, at noon, on the esplanade, which at that liour was the chief lounge of gay and fashionable people. Among these they were to mingle, but drawing as near to the barrier gate as possible. While affecting to inquire for a friend in the Castle, the leader was to shoot the sentinel ; the report of his pistol was to be the signal on which his men were to draw their swords, and secure the bridge, when a hundred men who were to be concealed in a cellar near were to join them, tear down the Union Jack, and hoist the colours of James VIII. in its place. The originator of this daring scheme — whose name never transpired — having commu- nicated it to the well-known intriguer, Kerr of Kerrsland, while advising him to defer it till the chevalier, then expected, was off the coast, he secretly gave information to the Government, which, however, left the fortress in the same defenceless state. Again, in 1708, another plan to seize it was organised among the Hays, Keiths, and Murrays, whom the now repentant Cameronians promised to join with 5,000 horse and 20,000 foot, to the end that, at all hazards, the Union should be dissolved. On tidings of this, the Earl of Leven, governor of the Castle, was at once despatched from London to put it in a state of defence ; but the great magazine of arms, the cannon, stores, and 495 barrels of powder, which had been placed there in 1706, had all been removed to England. " But," says a writer, " this was only in the spirit of centralisation, which has since been brought to such perfection." In 1708, before the departure of the ileet of Admiral de Fourbin wutli that expedition which the appearance of Byng's squadron caused to fail, a plan of the Castle had been laid, at Versailles, before a board of experienced engineer officers, who unanimously concluded that, with his troops, cannon, and mortars, M. de Gace would carrj- the place in a few hours. A false attack was to be made on the westward, while three battalions were to storm the outworks on the east, work their way under the half-moon, and carry the citadel. Two Protestant bishops were then to have crowned the prince in St. Giles's church as James VIII. " The equivalent from England being there," says an officer of the expedition, "would have been a great supply to us for raising men (having about 400 officers with us who had served in the wars in Italy), and above 100 chests in money." Had M. de Gace actually appeared before the fortress, its capture would not have cost him much trouble, as Kerrsland tells us that there were not then four rounds of powder in it for the batteries ! On the 14th of December, 17 14, the Castle was. by a decree of the Court of Session, deprived of its ancient ecclesiastical right of sanctuary, derived from and retained since the monastic institution of David I., in 11 28. Campbell of Burnbank, the storekeeper, being under caption at the instance" of a creditor, was arrested by a messenger-at-arms, on which Colonel Stuart, the governor, remember- ing the right of sanctuary, released Campbell, ex- pelled the official, and closed the barriers. Upon this the creditor petitioned the court, asserting that the right of sanctuary was lost. In reply it was asserted that the Castle was not disfranchised, and "that the CasUe of Edinburgh, having anciently been castrum piicllarum, was originally a religious house, as well as the abbey of Holyrood." But the Court decided that it had no privilege of sanctuary "to hinder the king's letters, and ordained Colonel Stuart to deliver Burnbank to a messenger." Burnbank was a very debauched character, wlio is frequently mentioned in Penicuick's satirical poems, and was employed by " Xicoll Muschat of ill memorie," to seduce the unfortunate wife whom he afterwards murdered where the cairn stood in the Queen's Park. When the severities exercised by George I. upon the Scottish Jacobites brought about the insurrection 68 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. of 1 7 1 5, and the Castle was filled with disaffected men of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time when its garrison was the 25 th, or old regiment of Edinburgh, was formed by Lord John Drummond, son of the Earl of Perth, with eighty men, mostly Highlanders, and all of resolute courage. All these — among whom was a Captain McLean, who had lost a leg at Killiecrankie, and an Ensign Arthur, late of the Scots Guards — were promised commis- sions under King James, and 100 guineas each, if abreast, had been constructed, and all was prepared, when the plot was marred by — a lady ! In the exultation he felt at the approaching capture, and the hope he had of lighting the beacon which was to announce to Fife and the far north that the Castle was won, Ensign Arthur unfolded the scheme to his brother, a physician in the city, who volunteered for the enterprise, but most pru' denlly told his wife of it, and she, alarmed for his safety, at once gave information to the Lord Justice KuiAL I.UDGINi; A.M) II A 1.1 -.MUO.N UAlTl.kV. the event succeeded ; and at that crisis — when Mar was about to fight the battle of Sheriffmuir— it might have put him in possession of all Scotland. Drummond contrived to suborn four of the garrison — a sergeant, Ainslie, to whom he promised a lieutenancy, a corporal, who was to be made an ensign, and two privates, who got bribes in money. On the night of the 8th September, when tlie troops marched from the city to fight the Earl of Mar, the attempt was made. The chosen time, near twelve o'clock, was dark and stormy, and the modus ppnaitdi was to be by escalading the western walls, near llic ancient arched ])ostern. A ladder, equijiped with great hooks to fix it to the cope of the bastion, and calculated to admit four men Clerk, Sir Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, who in- stantly put himself in communication with Colonel Stuart. Thus, by the time the conspirators were at the foot of the wall the whole garrison was under arms, the sentinels were doubled, and the ramparts patrolled. The first party of forty men, led by the resolute Lord Drummond and the wooden-legged McLean, had reached the foot of the wall unseen ; already the ladder had been secured by Sergeant Ainslie, and the escalade was in the act of ascending, with ])istols in their girdles and swords in their teetli. when a Lieutenant Lindesay passed with his ]ialrol, and instantly gave an alarm ' The ladder and all on it fell heavily on the rocks below. A sentinel Edinburgh Castle. J JACOBITE PRISONERS. 69 fired his musket ; the startled Jacobites fled and dispersed, but, the city gates being shut, many of them were captured, among others old McLean, who made a desperate resistance in the West Port with a musket and bayonet. Many who rolled down the rocks to tiie roadway beneath were severely injured, and taken by the City Guard. A sentinel was bound hand and foot and ttir'Swn into the Dark Pit (one of the lowest dungeons on the Among these the Edinburgh Courant records, on the lotli of January, 1743, the demise therein of Macintosh, of IJorlum, in his 80th year, after a captivity of fifteen years, for iiarticijtation in the rising of 17 15; and for twelve months, in 1746, there were confined in a small, horrid, and un- healthy chamber above the portcullis, used for many a year as " the black hole " of the garrison, the Duchess of Perth and Viscountess Strathallan, IHE CROWN-ROOM, EDINliUP.GII CASTLE. south) where he confessed the whole plot ; the corporal was mercilessly flogged ; and Sergeant Ainslie was hanged over the postern gate. Colonel Stuart was dismissed ; and Brigadier Grant, whose regiment was added to the garrison, was appointed temporary governor. From this period, with the exception of a species of blockade in 1745, to be related in its place, the history of the Castle is as uneventful as that of the Tower of London, save a visit paid to it in the time of George I., by Yussuf Juniati, General and (lOvernor of Damascus. i\Iany unfortunate Jacobites have suftered most protracted periods of imprisonment within its walls. with her daughters, the Ladies Mary and Amelia, who were brought in by an escort of twenty dragoons, under a ruftianly quartermaster, who treated them with every indignity, even to tearing tlie wedding- ring from Lady Strathallan 's finger, and stripping her daughters of their clothes. During the long year these noble ladies were in that noisome den above the gate, they were witliout female attendance, and under the almost hourly surveillance of the ser- geants of the guard. The husband of the countess was slain at the head of his men on the field of CuIIoden, where the Jacobite clans were overcome by neither skill nor valour, but the sheer force of numbers and starvation. 70 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle, Among Other "rebel ladies" confined in the Castle was the Lady Ogilvie, who made her escape in the disguise of a laundress, a costume brought by Miss Balmain, who remained in her stead, and who was afterwards allowed to go free. In 1752 the Castle received a remarkable prisoner, in the person of James Miior Macgregor of Bohaldie, the eldest of the four sons of Rob Roy, who had lost liis estate for the part he had taken in the recent civil strife, "and holding a major's commission under the old Pretender." Robin Dig Macgregor, his younger brother, having conceived that he would make his fortune by carrying off an heiress — no uncommon event then in the Highlands — procured his assistance, and with a band of Macgregors, armed with target, pistol, and claymore, came suddenly from the wilds of Arroquhar, and surrounding the house of Edinbellie, in Stirlingshire, the abode of a wealthy widow of only nineteen, they muffled her in a plaid, and bore her off in triumph to the heath-clad hills, where Rowardennan looks down upon the Gairloch and Glenfruin. There she was married to Robin, who kept her for three months in defiance of several parties of troops sent to recover her. From his general character James Mhor was considered as the chief instigator of this outrage, thus the vengeance of the Crown was directed against him rather than Robin, " who was con- sidered but a half-wild Highlandman ; " and in virtue of a warrant of fugitation issued, he was arrested and tried. The Lords of Justiciary found him guilty, but in consequence of some doubts, or informality, sentence of death was delayed until the 20th of November, 1752. In consequence of an expected rescue — meditated by Highlanders who served in the city as caddies, chairmen, and city guards, among whom Mac- gregors bravery at Prestonpans, seven years be- fore, made him popular — he was removed by a warrant from the Lord Justice Clerk, addressed to General Churchill, from tlie Tolbooth to the Castle, there to be kept in close confinement till his fatal day arrived. But it came to pass, that on the i6th of No- vember, one of his daughters — a tall and very handsome girl — had the skill and courage to dis- guise herself as a lame old cobbler, and was ushered into his prison, bearing a pair of newly- soled shoes in furtherance of her scheme. The sentinels in the adjacent corridors heard Lady Bohaldie scolding the supposed cobbler with con- siderable asperity for some time, with reference to the imlifTercnt manner in which his work had been executed. Meanwhile her husband and their daughter were quickly changing costumes, and the former came limping forth, grumbling and swearing at his captious employers. " An old and tattered great-coat enveloped him ; he had donned a leather apron, a pair of old shoes, and ribbed stockings. A red night-cap was drawn to his ears, and a broad hat slouched over his eyes." He quitted the Castle undiscovered, and left the city without delay ; but his flight was soon known, the city gates were shut, the fortress searched, and every man who had been on duty was made a prisoner. A court-martial, consisting of thirteen officers, sat for five days in the old barracks on this event, and its proceedings ended in cashiering two oflicers wlio had commanded the guards, reducing to the ranks the sergeant who kept the key of Bohaldie's room, and flogging a warder ; but Bohaldie escaped to France, where he died about the time of the French Revolution in extreme old age. In 1754 Robin Oig was executed in the Grassmarket, for the abduction of Jean Kay, the widow : the charge was far from being sufficientl)- proved. In April, 1 75 1, Tliomas Ogilvie of Eastmilne (who had been a Jacobite prisoner since 1749) was killed when attempting to escape from the Castle, " by a net tied to an iron ring ; he fell and fractured his skull," on the rock facing Livingstone's Yards, — the old tilting ground, on the south side of the Castle rock. This was a singularly unfortunate man in his domestic relations. His eldest son was ' taken prisoner at Carlisle, and executed there with the barbarity then usual. His next son, Thomas, was poisoned by Iiis wife, the famous and beautiful j Katlierine Nairne (who escaped), but whose para- mour, the third son, Lieutenant Patrick Ogilvie of the 89th or old Gordon Highlanders (disbanded in 1765), was publicly hanged in the Grassmarket. I In July, 1753, the last of tliose who were tried for loyalty to the House of Stuart was placed in the Castle — Archibald Macdonald, son of the aged Cole Macdonald of Barrisdale, who died a captive there in 1750. Arraigned as a traitor, this unfor- tunate gentleman behaved with great dignity before I the court ; lie admitted that he was the person ; accused, but boldly denied the treason, and as- j serted his loyalty to his lawful king. " On the 30th March he was condemned to die ; but the vengeance of the Government had already been glutted, and after receiving various successive rc- ])ricves, young Barrisdale was released, and per- mitted to return to the Western Isles." From this period till nearly the days of Waterloo the Castle vaults were invariably used in every war Edinburgh C;i^tlc.] THE REGALIA. 71 as a receptacle for French prisoners. They are deep, dark, and horrible dungeons, but many of the names anil initials of the luckless inmates, and even the games with which they sought to lighten their tedious days, were long discernible on the walls and rock. So many as forty men sometimes slept in one vault. Immediately below the room in which James VI. was born is one curiously- arched dungeon, partly — like others — excavated from the solid rock, and retaining an iron staple, to which, doubtless, the limbs of many an unfor- tunate creature were chained in " the good old times " romancists write so glibly of The origin of all these vaults is lost in antiquity. There prisoners have made many desperate, but in the end always futile, attempts to escape — par- ticularly in 1 761 and in 181 1. On the former occasion one was dashed to pieces ; on the latter, a captain and forty-nine men got out of the fortress in the night, by cutting a hole in the bottom of the parapet, below the place commonly called the Devil's Elbow, and letting themselves down by a rope, and more would have got out had not the nearest sentinel fired his musket. One fell and was killed 200 feet below. The rest were all re-captured on the Glasgow Road. In the Grand Parade an octngon tower of con- siderable height gives access to the strongly vaulted crown room, in which the Scottish regalia are shown, and wherein they were so long hidden from the nation, that they were generally believed to have been secretly removed to England and 1 destroyed ; and the mysterious room, which was ' never opened, became a source of wonder to the ! soldiers, and of superstition to many a Highland sentinel when pacing on his lonely post at night. I On the 5 th of November, 1794, in prosecuting a search for some lost Parliamentary records, the crown-room was opened by the Lieutenant- Governor and other commissioners. It was dark, being then windowless, and filled with foul air. In the grated chimney lay the ashes of the last fire and a cannon ball, which still lies where it had fallen in some past siege ; the dust of eighty-seven years lay on the paved floor, and the place looked grim and desolate. Major Drummond repeatedly shook the oak chest ; it returned no sound, was supposed to be empty, and stronger in the hearts ! of the Scots waxed the belief that the Government, in wicked policy, had destroyed its contents ; but murmurs arose from time to time, as the years went on, and a crown, called that of Scotland, was ac- tually shown in the Tower of London ! At length, in 1817, ten years after the death of Cardinal York, the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., issued a warrant to the Scottish officers of state and other officials, to open the crown-room, in order that the existence of the regalia might be ascertained; and measures taken for their preservation. In virtue of this warrant there met, among others, in the governor's house, the Lord President of the Court of Session, the, Lord Justice Clerk, the Lord Chief Commissioner of the Jury Court, the Lord Provost, the Commander-in-chief, and Sir Walter Scott, whose emotions on this occasion may be imagined. " It was with feelings of no common anxiety that the commissioners, having read their warrant, pro- ceeded to the crown-room, and, having found all there in the state in which it had been left in 1794, commanded the king's smith, who was in attendance, to force open the great chest, the keys of which had been sought for in vain. The general impression that the regalia had been secretly removed weighed heavily on the hearts of all while the labour pro- ceeded. The chest seemed to return a hollow and empty sound to the strokes of the hammer ; and even those whose expectations had been most sanguine felt at the moment the probability of bitter disappointment, and could not but be sensible tliat, should the result of the search confirm those fore- bodings, it would only serve to show that a national aftront — an injury had been sustained, for which it might be difficult, or rather impossible, to obtain redress. The joy was therefore extreme when, the ponderous lid of the chest having been forced open, at the expense of some time and labour, the regalia were discovered lying at the bottom covered with linen cloths, exactly as they had been left in 1707, being no years before, since they had been surren- dered by William the ninth Earl Marischal to the custody of the Earl of Glasgow, Treasurer-Deputy of Scotland. The reliques were passed from hand to hand, and greeted with the afiectionate re\-erence which emblems so ^-enerable, restored to public view after the slumber of more than a hundred years, were so peculiarly calculated to excite. The discovery was instantly communicated to the public by the display of the royal standard, and was greeted by the shouts of the soldiers in garrison, and a vast multitude assembled on the Castle hill ; indeed the rejoicing was so general and sincere as plainly to show that, however altered in other respects, the people of Scotland had lost nothing of that national enthusiasm which formerly had dis- played itself in grief for the loss of those emblematic honours, and now was expressed in joy for their recovery." Covered with glass and secured in a strong iron 72 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Edinburgh Castle. cage, the regalia now lie on a white marble table in the crown-room, together with four other me- morials of the House of Stuart, which belonged to the venerable Cardinal York, and were deposited there by order of King William in 1S30. These are the golden collar of the Garter presented to James VI. by Elizabeth, with its appendage the George; the order of St. Andrew, cut on an onyx and having on the reverse the badge of the Thistle, which opens with a secret spring, revealing a beau- The ancient crown worn by Robert I. and his successors underwent no change till it was closed with four arches by order of James V., and it is thus described in the document deposited with the Regalia in the crown-room, in 1707 : — "The crown is of pure gold, enriched with many precious stones, diamonds, pearls, and cu- rious enamellings. It is composed of a fillet which goes round the head, adorned with twenty-two large precious stones. Above the great circle there IIIL i;li^.\LIA uI .sluIL.\.\:j. (/ cTi.i'.iVi ) tiful miniature of Anne of Denmark, and, lastly, the ancient ruby ring which tlie kings of -Scotland wore at their coronation. It was last used by the imhappy Charles I., and, after all its wanderings with his descendants, is now in its old receptacle, together with the crown, sceptre, sword of state, and the golden mace of Lord High Treasurer. The mace, like the sceptre, is surmounted by a great crystal beryl, stones doubtless of vast anti- quity. The " great beryl " was an amulet which had made part of the more ancient sceptre of the Scottish kings, and such beryls are supposed by some to have been the official badge of the arch Druid. Such arc still known among the Highlanders by the title of Clach-bhuai, or " stone of power." is a small one formed with twenty points, adorned witli the like number of diamonds and sapphires alternately, and the points tipped with great pearls; the upper circle is elevated with ten crosses floree, each adorned in the centre with a great diamond betwixt four great pearls placed in tlie cross, one and one, and these crosses floree are interchanged with ten high fleurs de lys, all alternately with the great pearls below, which top the points of the second small circle. From the upper circle proceed four arches, adorned with enamelled figures, which meet and close at the top surmounted by a mond of gold, enamelled blue semee, powdered with stars, crossed and enamelled with a large cross ])atcc, adorned in the extremities witli great iiearls, and Edinburgh Cattle] CROWN-ROOM. 73 c.S i H ■H ■So «i = -^ O O o - ^Xl rtj -T_Q XI ■ - I '• '-I '.T = - -;s"o Si.5=-2^ I I Z C i OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Eilinburgh Castle, cantoned with other four in the angles. The tiar, or bonnet, was of purple velvet; but, in 1685, it got a cap of crimson velvet, adorned with four plates of gold, on each of them a great pearl, and the bonnet is trimmed up with ermine. Upon the lowest circle there are eight small holes, two and two, on the four quarters of the crown, which were for lacing or tying thereto diamonds or precious stones. The crown is 9 inches in diameter, 27 inches about, and in height from the under circle to the top of the cross patee 6^ inches. " The sceptre : its stem or stalk, which is of silver double overgilt, is two feet long, of a he.xagon form, with three buttons or knobs ; betwixt the first button and the second is the handle of a hexagon form, furling in the middle and plain. Betwixt the second button and the third are three sides engraven. From the third button to the capital the three sides under the statues are plain, and on the other three are antique engravings. Upon the top of the stalk is an antique capital of leaves embossed, the abacus whereof arises round the prolonged stem, surrounded with three little statues; between every two statues arises a rullion in the form of a dolphin ; above the rullions and statues stands another hexagon button, with oak leaves under every corner, and down it a crystal (beryl?) globe. The whole sceptre is in length 34 inches." The statues are those of the Virgin, St. Andrew, and St. James. The royal initials, J. R. V. are engraved under them. If James V. had this sceptre made, the metallic settings of the great beryl belong to some sceptre long anterior to his time. " The sword is in length 5 feet ; the handle and pommel are of silver overgilt, in length 15 inches. The pommel is round and somewhat flat on the two sides. The traverse or cross of the sword, which is of silver overgilt, is in length 17 1 inches ; its form is like two dolphins witli their heads joining and their tails ending in acorns ; the shell is hanging down towards the point of the sword, formed like an e'scalop flourished, or rather like a green oak-leaf. On the blade of the sword are indented with gold these letters — Julius II. P. The scabbard is of crimson velvet, covered witli silver wrought in philagram-work into branches of the oak-tree leaves and acorns." Such are the Scottish regalia, which, since the destruction of those of England by Cromwell, arc the only ancient regal emblems in Orcat Britain. The sword of state is of an earlier date than the rod of the sceptre, being jiresented by the warlike Pope Julius to James IV. with a consecrated hat in 1507. The keys of St. Peter figure prominently among the filagree work. After the fall of the Castle of Dunottar, in 1651, the belt of the sword became an heirloom in the family of Ogilvie of Barras. The great pearl in the apex of the crown is alleged to be the same which in 1620 was found in the burn of Kellie, a tributary of the Ythan in Aberdeenshire, and was " so large and beautiful that it was esteemed the best that had at any time been found in Scotland." Sir Thomas Menzies, Provost of Aberdeen, obtaining this precious jewel, presented it to James VI., who in requital "gave him twelve or fourteen chaldron of victuals about Dunfermline, and the custom of certain merchant goods during his life." * Before quitting the Castle of Edinburgh, it is im- possible to omit some special reference to ]\Ions Meg — that mighty bombard which is thirteen feet long and two feet three and a half inches within the bore, and which was long deemed by the Scots a species of palladiuiii, the most ancient cannon in Europe, except one in Lisbon, and a year older than those which were made for jMahoniet II. Not a vestige of proof can be shown for the popular error that this gun was forged at Mons, while un- varying tradition, supported by very strong corro- borative evidence, proves that she was formed by Scottish artisans, by order of James II., when he besieged the rebellious Douglases in the castle of Thrieve, in Galloway, during 1455. He posted his artillery at the Three Thorns of the Carlinuark, one of which is still surviving ; but their fire proving ineffective, a smith named M'Kim, and his sons, offered to construct a more efficient piece of ord- nance. Towards this the inhabitants of the vicinity contributed each a gtn/J, or iron bar. Tradition, which never varied, indicated the place where it was forged, a mound near the Three Thorns, and when the road was formed there, that mound was dis- covered to be a mass of cinders and the iron de'bris of a great forge. To this hour the place where the great gun was posted is named A'/zt'c/^'-OJiuw/!. Only /7i'(7 of Meg's bullets were discharged before Thrieve surrendered, and it is remarkable that both have been found there. " The first," says the A'iTC Slntistical Account, "was, towards the end of the last century, picked out of the well and delivered to Gordon of Greenlaw. The second was discovered in 1 84 1, by the tenant of Thrieve, when removing an accumulation of rubbish." It lay in a, line direct from Knock-cannon to the breach in the wall. To reward M'Kim James bestowed upon him the forfeited lands of Mollance. The smith is said to have named the gun after his wife ; and the con- " Succinct Survey of Aberdeen, 1685.' Edinbiirgli Ca&tlc] MONS MEC;. 75 traction of the name from Mollance to Moiur, or Afons Meg, was ciiiite natural to the Scots, who sink the I's in all similar words. The balls still preserved in tlie Castle of Edinburgh, piled on each side of the gun, are exactly similar to those found in Thrieve, and are of Galloway granite, from the summit of the Binnan Hill, near the Carlinwark.* Andrew Symson, whose description of Galloway was written i8o years ago, records " that in the isle of Thrieve, the great gun, called Mounts Mci;, was wrought and made." This, though slightly incorrect as to actual spot, being written so long since, goes to prove the Scottish origin of the gun, which bears a conspicuous place in all the treasurer's accounts ; and of this pedigree of the gun Sir Walter Scott was so convinced that, as he wrote, " henceforth all conjecture must be set aside." In 1489 the gun was employed at the siege of Dumbarton, then held for James III. by his adherents. In 1497, when James IV. invaded England in the cause of Perkin Warbeck, he con- ■veyed it with his other artillery on a new stock made at St. Leonard's Craig ; and the public accounts mention the sum paid to those who brought " hame Monsc and the other artailzerie from Dalkeith." It was frequently used during the civil war in 157 1, and two men died of their exer- tion in dragging it from the Blackfriars Yard to the Castle. On that occasion payment was made to a j person tlirough whose roof one of the bullets had fallen in mistake. In Cromwell's list of captured guns, in 1650, mention is made of "the great iron I murderer, Meg ;'' and Ray, in his '' Observations " 1 on Scotland eleven years after, mentions the " great | old iron gun which they call Mounts Meg, and | some ' Meg of Berwick.' '" A demi-bastion near the Scottish gate there bears, or bore, the name of 1 Megs Mount, which in those days was the term for 1 a battery. Another, in Stirling, bore the same name ; hence we may infer that the gun has been in both places. It was stupidly removed in mistake, among unserviceable guns, to the Tower of London in 175S, where it was shown till 1829, when, by the patriotic exertions of Sir Walter Scott, it was sent home to Edinburgh, and escorted from Leith back to its old place in the Castle by three troops of cavalry and the 73rd or Perthshire regiment, with a band of pipers playing at the head of the pro- cession. We are now in a position to take a brief but comprehensive view of the whole Castle, of which we have hitherto dealt in detail, and though we must go over the same ground, we shall do so at ' History of Galloway. SO rapid a rate that such repetition as is un- avoidable will be overlooked. In the present day the Caslle is entered by a barrier of pali- sades, beyond which are a deep ditch and draw- bridge protected by a ti:lc-d(-pont, flanked out and defended by cannon. ^Vit!^in are two guard- houses, the barrier and the main, the former a mean-looking edifice near which once stood a grand old entrance-gate, having many rich sculp- tures, an entablature, and a pediment rising from pilasters. Above the bridge rises the great half- moon battery of 1573, and the eastern curtain wall, which includes an ancient peel with a corbelled rampart. The path, which millions of armed men must have trod, winds round the northern side of the rock, passing three gateways, the inner of which is a deep-mouthed archway wherein two iron portcullises once hung. This building once termi- nated in a crenelated square tower, but was some years ago converted into a species of state prison, and black-hole for the garrison ; and therein, in 1792, Robert Watt and David Downie, who were sentenced to death for treason, were confined ; and therein, in times long past and previous to these, pined both the Marquis and Earl of Argyle, and many of high rank but of less note, down to 1747. Above the arch are two sculptured hounds, the supporters of the Duke of Gordon, governor in 168S, and between these is the empty panel from which Cromwell cast down the royal arms in 1650. Above it is a pediment and little cornice between the triglyphs of which may be traced alternately the star and crowned heart of the Regent Morton. Beyond this arch, on the left, are the steps ascending to the citadel, the approaches to which are defended by loopholes for cannon and musketry. On the right hand is a gun batter}-, named from John Duke of Argyle, commander- in-chief in Scotland in 1715 ; below it is Robert Mylne'sbattery, built in 1689; and on the acclivity of the steep hill are a bomb-proof powder maga- zine, erected in 1746, the ordnance office, and the house of the governor and storekeeper, an edifice erected apparently in the reign of Queen Anne, having massive walls and wainscoted apart- ments. In the former is a valuable collection of fire-arms of every pattern, from the wheel-lock petronel of the fifteenth century down to the latest rifled arms of precision. There, also, is the armoury, formed for the reception of 30,000 rifle muskets, several ancient brass howitzers, several hundred coats of black mail (most of which are from the arsenal of the knights of Malta), some forty stand of colours, belonging 76 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. to extinct Scottish regiments, and various weapons from the field of CuUoden, particularly the Doune steel pistolSj of beautiful workmanship, worn by Highland gentlemen. Near this rises the Hawk Hill, where kings and nobles practised falconry of old ; on the left is the Gothic arch of the citadel ; and on the right rises the great mass of the hideous and uncomfort- able infantry barracks, erected partly on the archery butts, in 1796, and likened by Sir Walter Scott to a vulgar cotton-mill. This edifice is 1 50 feet long, and four storeys high to the westward, where it rises on a massive arcade, and from its windows can be had a magnificent prospect, extend- ing almost to the smoke of Glasgow, and the blue cone of Ben Lomond, fifty miles distant. On the south-west is Drury's gun-battery, so named from the officer of Scottish Engineers who built it in 1689, and in its rear is the square prison- house, built in 1840. Passing through the citadel gate, we find on the left the modern water-tank, the remains of the old shot-yard, the door of which has now disappeared ; but on the gablet above it was a thistle, with the initials d.g.ii.s. Here is the king's bastion, on the north-west verge of the ■citadel, and on the highest cliff of the Castle rock. Here, too, are St. Margaret's Chapel, which we have already described, !Mons Meg, frowning, as of old, from the now-ruinous mortar battery, and a piece of bare rock, the site of a plain modern ■chapel, the pointed window of which was once conspicuous from Princes Street, but which was demolished by Colonel Aloodie, R.E., in expecta- tion that one more commodious would be erected. But many years have since passed, and this has never been done, consequently there is now no chapel for the use of the troops of any religious denomination ; while the office of chaplain has also been abolished, at a time when Edinburgh has been made a depot centre for Scottish regi- ments, and in defiance of the fact that the Castle is under the Presbytery, and is a parish of the city. 'l"hc ])latform of the halfmoon battery is 510 feet above the level of the Fortli. It is armed with old 18 and 24 pounders, one of which is, at one p.m., fired by electricity as a CHEST ].N WHICH THE KE0AI,1.\ \\T Kl: lol NI). time-gun, by a wire from the Calton Hill. It is furnished with a lofty flagstaff", an iron grate for beacon fires, and contains a draw-w-ell no feet deep. From its massive portholes Charles II. saw the rout of Cromwell's troops at Lochend in 1650; and from there the Corsican chief Paoli in 1771, the Grand Duke Nicholas in 18 19, George IV. in 1 82 2, Queen Victoria, and many others of note, have viewed the city that stretched at their feet below. Within this battery is the ancient square or Grand Parade, where some of the most interesting buildings in the Castle are to be found, as it is on the loftiest, most precipitous, and inaccessible portion of the isolated rock. Here, abutting on the very verge of the giddy cliff, overhanging the Grassmarket, several hundred feet below, stands all that many sieges have left of the ancient royal palace, forming the southern and eastern sides of the quadrangle. The chief feature of the former is a large battlemented edifice, now nearly destroyed by its conversion into a military hospital. This was the ancient hall of the Castle, in length 80 feet by 33 in width, and 27 in height, and lighted by tall mullioned windows from the south, wherein Parliaments have sat, kings have feasted and revelled, ambassadors been received, and treaties signed for peace or war. Some remains of its ancient grandeur are yet discernible amid the new floors and partitions that have been run through it. At the summit of the principal stair- case is a beautifully-sculptured stone corbel repre- senting a well-cut female face, ornamented on each side by a volute and thistle. On this rests one of the original beams of the open oak roof, and on each side are smaller beams with many sculptured shields, all deficed by the whitewash of the barrack pioneers and hospital orderlies. " The view from the many windows on this side is scarcely sur- passed by any other in the ca])ital. Immedia- tely below are the pic- turesque old houses of the Grassmarket and A\'est Port, crowned by the magnificent towers of Heriot's Hospital. l'"rom this deep abyss tlie lium of the neigh- bouring city rises up, mellowed by the dis- tance, into one pleasing voice of life and indus- try ; while far beyond a Edinburgh Casllc] THE ROYAL LODGING. 77 ,gorgeous landscape is spread out, reaching almost to the ancient landmarks of the kingdom, guarded on the far east by the old keep of Craigmillar, and on the west by Merchiston Tower." Besides the hall in this edifice there was another in the fortress ; for among the items of the High Treasurer's ac- counts, in 15 1 6, we find for llooring the Lord's have died. It is a handsome edifice, repaired so lately as 161 6, as a date remains to show ; but its octagonal tower, square turrets and battlements, were probably designed by Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, the architect to James V. A semi- octagonal tower of considerable height gives access to the strongly vaulted and once totally dark room tDlNDUKGH, IKjM TML KINO a lA^IIjN, I'^Jj (Jy../ Z„ Hall in David's Tower, io.v., and other payments for woodwork in the " Gret Ha' windois in the Castell, gret gestis and dowbill dalis for the myd chalmer, the king's kechin, and the New Court kechin in David's Toure," and for the Register House built in 1542 by "John Merlyoune," who fn-st paved the High Street by order of James V. On the east side of the square is the old palace, or royal lodging, in which many stirring events have happened, many a lawless deed been done, where the longest line of sovereigns in the Bri- tish Isles dwelt, and nianv have been born and in which the regalia— or all of it that the greedy James VI. was unable to take with him to England — lay so long hidden from view, and where they are now exhibited daily to visitors, who number several thousands every week. The room was greatly improved in 1848, when the ceiling was repaired with massive oak panelling, having shields in bold relief, and a window was opened to the square. Two barriers close this room, one a grated door of vast strength like a small portcullis. In this building Mary of Guise died in 1560, and a doorway, bearing the date of 1566, gives 78 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle. entrance to the apartment in whicli her daughter was delivered of James YI. It was formerly part of a large room which, before being partitioned, measured 30 by 25 feet. On the nth of February, 1567, after the murder of Darnley, Mary retired to this apartment, where she had the walls hung with black, and remained in strict seclusion until after the funeral. Killigrew, who came from Elizabeth with letters of condolence, on his in- troduction found " the Queen's Majesty in a dark chamber, so that he could not see her face, but by her words she seemed very doleful." In 1849, ^'■' antique iron chisel, spear-shaped, was found in the fireplace of this apartment, which was long used as a canteen for the soldiers, but has now been renovated, though in a rude and inelegant form. Below the grand hall are a double tier of strongly-vaulted dungeons, entered by a passage from the west, and secured by an intricate an-ange- ment of iron gates and massive chains. In one of these Kirkaldy of Grange buried his brother David Melville. The small loophole that admits light into each of these huge, vaults, whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, is strongly secured by three ranges of iron bars. Within these drear abodes have captives of all kinds pined, and latterly the French prisoners, forty of whom slept in each. In some are still the wooden frames to wliicli their hammocks were slung. Under Queen Mary's room there is one dungeon excavated out of the solid rock, and having, as we have said, an iron staple in its wall to which the prisoner was chained. The north side of the quadrangle consists now of an unhiteresting block of barracks, erected about the middle of the eighteenth century, and altered, but scarcely improved, in 1 860-2, by the Royal En- gineers and Mr. Charles W. Billings. It occupies the site, and was built from the materials, of what was once a church of vast dimensions and unknown an- tiquity, but the great western gable of which was long ago a conspicuous feature above the eastern curtain wall. By Maitland it is described as " a very long and large ancient church, which from its spacious dimensions I imagine that it was not only built for the use of the garrison, but for the service of the neighbouring inhabitants before St. Giles's church was erected for their accommodation." Its great font, and many beautifully carved stones were found built into the barrack wall during recent alterations. Jt is supposed to have been a church erected after the death of the jiious Queen Margaret, and dedi- cated to her, as it is mentioned by David I. in his Holyrood charter as "the churcli of the Castle of Edinburgh," and is again confirmed as such in the charter of Alexander III. and several Papal bulls, and the " paroche kirk within the said Castell," is distinctly referred to by the Presbytery of Edin- burgh in I595-''' In 1753 it was divided into tlu-ee storeys, and filled with tents, cannon, and other mu- nitions of war. A winding stair descends from the new bar- racks to the butts, where the rock is defended by the western wall and Bute's Battery, near which, at an angle, a turret, named the Queen's Post, occupies the site of St. Margaret's Tower. Fifty feet below the level of the rock is another guard- house and one of the draw-wells poisoned by the Knglish in 1572. Near it is the ancient postern gate, where Dundee held his parley with the Duke of Gordon in 1688, and through which, perhaps, St. Margaret's body was borne in 1093. From thence there is a sudden ascent by steps, behind the banquette of the bastions and near the principal magazine, to Mylne's Mount, where there is another grate for a bale-fire to alarm Fife, Stirling, and the north. The fortifications are irregular, furnislied throughout with strong stone turrets, and prepared for mounting about sixty pieces of cannon. Two door-lintels covered with curious sculptures are still preserved : one over the entrance to the ordnance office represents Mons Meg and other ancient cannon ; the other a can- noneer of the sixteenth century, in complete armour, in the act of loading a small culverin. The Castle farm is said to have been the ancient village of Broughton, which St. David granted to the monks of Holyrood ; the Castle gardens we have already referred to ; and to the barns, stables, and lists attached to it, we shall have occasion to refer elsewhere. The Castle company was a corjis of Scottish soldiers raised in January 1661, and formed a permanent part of the garrison till 1818, when, with the ancient band of Mary of Guise, which garrisoned the Castle of Stirling, they were in- corporated in one of the thirteen veteran battalions embodied in that year. Tlic Castle being within the abrogated parisii of Holyrood, has a burial-place for its garrison in the Canongate churchyard ; but dead have been buried widiin the walls frequently during sieges and blockades, as in 1745, wlien nine- teen soldiers and three women were interred on the summit of the rock. 'J"he Castle is capable of containing 3,000 in- fantr\' ; but the accommodation for troops is greatly neglected by Government, and the barracks have Wodrow'.s " Miscclliiny." The Castle Hill] THE BLEW STONE. 79 been characterised as •' liovels that arc a disgrace to Europe.'' In lists concerning the Castle of Edinburgh, the first governor appears to have been Thomas de Cancia in 1147 ; the first constable, David Kincaid of Coates House, in 1542 ; and the first .State jiri- soner warded therein Thomas of Colville in 12 10, for conspiring against William the Lion. \Vc may fittingly take leave of the grand old Castle in the fin^ Edinburgh " : — lines of Burns's " Address to ' There, watching high the least alarms, Thy rough, iii'.le foilress gleams afar ; Like some bold vet'ran, grey in arms. And marked wiili many a seamy scar ; The pond'rous wall and massy bar. Grim rising o'er the nigged rock, Have oft witlistood assailing war, And oft repelled ih' invader's shock." ■"The Casde Hill," says Dr. Chambers, "is partly an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the garrison, and partly a street, the upper portion of that vertebral line which, under the names of Lawn- market, High Street, and Canongate, extends to Holyrood Palace ;" but CHAPTER VHL THE CASTLE HILL. The Esplanade or Castle Hill— Castle Banks— The Celtic Crosses— The Secret Passage and Well-house Tower— The Church on the Castle Hill— The Reservoir — The House of Allan Ramsay— Executions for Treason, Sorcery, &c.— The Master of Forbes— Lady Jane Douglas— Castle Hill Promenade— Question as to the Proprietary of the Esplanade and Castle Hill. " ArchKologia Scotica," which contains an " Elegie on the great and famous Blew Stone which lay on the Castle Hill, and was interred there." On this relic, probably a boulder, a string of verses form the doirgerel elesry : — „ , , , „ . , ^'^ •'-' " Our old Blew Stone, tint s dead and gone. His marrow may not be; Large, twenty feet in length he was, His bulk none e'er did ken ; Dour and dief, and run with grief, \Vhen he preser\'ed men. Behind his back a batterie was. Contrived with packs of- woo. Let 's now think on, since he is gone, We 're in the C.istle's view." it is with the Esplanade and banks we have chiefly to deal at present. Tliose who now see the Esplanade, a peace- ful open space, 510 feet in length by 300 in breadth, with the squads of Highland soldiers at drill, or the green bank that slopes away to the north, covered with beautiful timber, swarm- ing in summer with lit- tle ones in care of their nurses, can scarcely realise that thereon stood the ancient Spur, before which so many men have perished sword iri hand, and that it was the arena of so many revolting executions by the a.xe and stake, for treason, heresy, and sorcery. It lay in a rough state till 1753, when the earth taken from the foundations of the Royal Exchange was spread over it. and the broad flight of forty steps which gave access to the drawbridge was buried. The present ravelin before the half-moon was built in 1723 ; but alterations in the level must have taken place prior to that, to judge from RUNIC CK' As I 11. l;ANK. The woolpacks evi- dently refer to the siege of 1689. The Esplanade was improved in 1S16 by a parapet and railing on the north, and a few years after by a low wall on the south, strengthened by alternate towers and turrets. A bronze statue of the Duke of York and Albany, K.G., holding his marshal's baton, was erected on the north side in 1839, and a little lower down are two Celtic memorial crosses of remarkable beauty. The larger and more ornate of them was erected in 1S62, by the ofticers and soldiers of the 7Sth Ross-shire High- landers, to the memory of their comrades who fell during the revolt in India in 1857-8; and the 8o OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hilt. smaller cross was raised, " In memory of Colonel Kenneth Douglas Mackenzie, C.B., who served for forty-two years in the 92nd Highlanders — who saw much of service in the field, and deserved well of his country in war and in peace. . . . Died on duty at Dartmoor, 24th August, 1873." On the green bank behind the duke's statue is a Two relics of great antiquity remain on this side of the Castle bank — a fragment of the secret passage, and the ruins of the Well-house tower, which, in 1450, and for long after, guarded the pathway that led under the rock to the church ol St. Cuthbert. Within the upper and lower portion of this tower, a stair, hewn in the living rock, was EDINBURGH CASTLE, l-ROM IHi; KKNG's MKWS, 1S25. (A/lcr Ewbank.) very curious monumental stone, which, however, can scarcely be deemed a local anticiuity— thougji of vast age. It was brought from the coast of Sweden by Sir Alexander Seton, of Preston, many years ago. On it is engraved a serpent encircling a cross, and on the body of the former is an inscrip- tion in runes, signifying — Ari engraved this stone in memory OF HiALM, HIS Father. God hei.p his soui. ! found a few years ago, buried under a mass of rubbish, among which was a human skull, shattered by concussion on a step. ]\Iany hupian bones lay near it, with various coins, chiefly of lulward I. and Edward IH. ; others were Scottish and foreign. Many fragments of exploded bombs were found among the upper layer of rubbish, and in a breacli of the tower was found imbedded a 48-pound shot. At certain seasons, woodcock, snipe, and water-ducks arc seen hovering near The Castle Hill. 1 TIIK WELL-HOUSE TOWER. 82 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LThe Castle Hill. the ruins, attracted by the dampness of the soil, where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet eastward of the tower there was found in the bank, in 1820, a large coffin of thick fir containing three skeletons, a male and two females, supposed to be those of a man named Sinclair and his two sisters, who were all drowned in the loch in 1628 for a horrible crime. Eastward of this tower of the isth century are the remains of a long, low archway, walled with rubble, but arched with well-hewn stones, popularly known as "the lion's den," and which has evidently fomied a portion of that secret escape or covered way from the Castle (which no Scottish fortress was ever without), the tradition concerning which is of general and very ancient belief; and this idea has been still farther strengthened by the remains of a similar subterranean passage being found below Brown's Close, on the Casde Hill. At the highest part of the latter stood the ancient barrier gate of 1450, separating the fortress from the city. This gate was temporarily replaced on the occasion of the visit of George IV. in 1822, and by an iron chevaux de frise — to isolate the 82 nd Regiment and garrison generally — during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera, ten years subsequently. There stood on the north side of the Castle Hill an ancient church, some vestiges of which were visible in Maitland's time, in 1753, and which he supposed to have been dedicated to St. Andrew the patron of Scotland, and which he had seen referred to in a deed of gift of twenty merks yearly, Scottish money, to the Trinity altar therein, by Alexander Curor, vicar of Livingstone, 20th December, 1488. In June, 1754, when some workmen were levelling this portion of the Castle Hill, they discovered a subterranean chamber, fourteen feet square, wherein lay a crowned image of the Virgin, hewn of very white stone, two brass altar candlesticks, some trinkets, and a few ancient Scottish and French coins. By several remains of burnt matter and two large cannon balls being also found there, this edifice was supposed to have been demolislied during some of the sieges undergone by the Castle since the invention of artillery. And in December, 1849, when the Castle Hill was being excavated for the new reservoir, several finely-carved stones were found in what was understood to be the foundation of this chapel or of Christ's Church, which was commenced there in iC>37, and liad actually proceeded so far that Gordon of Rothie- may shows it in Jiis map with a high-pointed spire, but it was abandoned, and its materials used in the erection of the present church at the Tron. Under all this were found tiiose j^rehistoric human remains referred to in our first chapter. This was the site of the ancient water-house. It was not until 1621 that the citizens discovered the necessity for a regular supply of water beyond that which the public wells with their water-carriers afforded. It cannot be supposed that the stagnant fluid of the north and south lochs could be fit for general use, yet, in 1583 and 1598, it was proposed to supply the city from the latter. Eleven years after the date above mentioned, Peter Brusche, a German engineer, contracted to supply the city with water from the lands of Comiston, in a leaden pipe of three inches' bore, for a gratuity of ^50. By the year 1704 the increase of population rendered an addi- tional supply from Liberton and the Pentland Hills necessary. As years passed on the old water-house proved quite inadequate to the wants of the city. It was removed in 1849, and in its place now stands the great reservoir, by which old and new Edin- burgh are alike supplied with water unexampled in purity, and drawn chiefly from an artificial lake in the Pentlands, nearly seven miles distant. On the outside it is only one storey in height, with a tower of 40 feet high ; but within it has an area no feet long, 90 broad, and 30 deep, containing two millions of gallons of water, which can be distributed through the entire city at the rate of 5,000 gallons per minute. Apart from the city, embosomed among trees — ■ and though lower down than this reservoir, yet perched high in air — upon the northern bank of the Esplanade, stands the little octagonal villa of Allan Ramsay, from the windows of \\-liich the poet would enjoy an extensive view of all the fields, farms, and tiny hamlets that lay beyond the loch below, with the vast panorama beyond — the Firth of Forth, with the hills of Fife and Stirling. " The sober and industrious life of this exception to the race of poets having resulted in a small competenc)-, he built this oddly-shaped house in his latter days, designing to enjoy in it the Horatian quiet he had so often eulogised in his verse. The story goes," says Chambers in his " Traditions," " that, showing it soon after to the clever Patrick Lord Elibank, with much fussy interest in its externals and accom- modation, he remarked that the wags were already at work on the subject— they likened it to a goose- pie (owing to the roundness of the shape). ' Indeed, Allan,' said liis lordship, 'now I see you in it I think the wags are not far wrong.' " Ramsay, the author of the most perfect pastoral poem in the whole scope of British literature, and a song writer of great nicril, was secretly a Jacobite, tliough a regular attendant in St. Giles's Church. Opposed to the morose manners of his I The Castle Hill.l THE MASTER OF FORBES. 83 time, he delighted in music and the theatre, and it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led him, in 1725, to open a circulating library for the diffusion of fiction among tlie citizens of the time. Three years subseejuently, in the narrow-minded spirit of " the dark age " of Edinburgh, the magis- trates were moved to action, by the fear this new kind of reading miglit have on the minds of youth, and actually tried, but without effect, to put his library down. Among the leaders of these self- constituted guardians of morality was Erskine Lord Grange, whose life was a scandal to the age. In 1736 Allan Ramsay's passion for the drama prompted him to erect a theatre in Carrubber's Close ; but in the ensuing year the act for licensing the stage was passed, and the magistrates ordered the house to be shut up. By this speculation he lost a good deal of money, but it is remarked by his biographers that this was perhaps the only unfortunate jiroject in which he ev.er engaged. His constant cheerful- ness and great conversational powers made him a favourite with all classes ; and being fond of children he encouraged his three daughters to bring troops of young girls about his house, and in their sports he mingled with a vivacity singular in one of his years, and for them he was wont to make dolls and cradles with his own hands. In that house on the Castle bank he spent the last twelve years of a blameless life. He did not give up his shop — long the resort of all the wits of Edinburgh, the Hamiltons of Bangour, and Gilbert- field, Gay, and others — till 1755. He died in 1757, in his seventy-second year, and was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where a tomb marks his grave. " An elderly female told a friend of mine," says Chambers, " that she remembered, as a girl, living as an apprentice with a milliner in the Grassmarket, being sent to Ramsay Garden, to assist in making dead-clothes for the poet. She could recall, however, no particulars of the same, but the roses blooming in the death-chamber." The house of the poet passed to his son, Allan, an eminent portrait painter, a man of high culture, and a favourite in those circles wherein Johnson and Boswell moved. He inherited considerable literary taste from his father, and was the founder of the "Select Society" of Edinburgh, in 1754, of which all the learned men there were members. By the interest of Lord Bute he was introduced to George III., when Prince of Wales, whose portrait he painted. He enlarged the house his father built, and also raised the additional large edifices to the eastward, now known as Ramsay Gardens. The biographers of the painter always assert that he made a romantic marriage. In his youth, when teaching drawing to the daughters of Sir Alexander Lindesay, of Evelick, one of them fell in love with him, and as the consent of the jiarents was impossible then, they were secretly united in wedlock. He died at Dover in 17S4, after which the property went to his son. General John Ramsay (latterly of the Chasseurs Britanniques), who, at his death in 1S45, left the proiierty to Murray of Hen- derland, and so ended the line of the author of " The Gende Shepherd." Having thus described the locality of the Esi)la- nade, we shall now relate a few of the terrible episodes — apart from war and tumult — of which it has been the scene. In the reign of James V. the Master of Forbes was executed here for treason. He and his father had been warded in the Castle on that charge in 1536. By George Earl of Huntly, who bore a bitter animosity to the house of Forbes, the former had been accused of a design to take the life of the king, by shooting him with a hand-gun in Aberdeen, and also of being the chief instigator of the mutiny among the Scottish forces at Jed- burgh, when on the march for England. Pro- testing his innocence, the Master boldly offered to maintain it in single combat against the earl, who gave a bond for 30,000 merks to make good his charge before the 31st of July, 1537. But it was not until the nth of die same month in the fol- lowing year that the Master was brought to trial, before Argyle, the Lord Justice General, and Huntly failed not to make good his vaunt. Though the charges were barely proved, and the witnesses were far from exceptionable, the luckless Master of Forbes was sentenced by the Com- missioners of Justiciary and fifteen other men of high rank to be hanged, drawn, beheaded, and dis- membered as a traitor, on the Castle Hill, which was accordingly done, and his quarters were placed above the city gates. The judges are supposed to have been bribed by Huntly, and many of the jury, though of noble birth, were his hereditary enemies. His father, after a long confinement, and under- going a tedious investigation, was released from the Casde. But a more terrible execution was soon to follow — that of Lady Jane Douglas, the young and beau- tiful widow of John Lord Glammis, who, with her second husband, Archibald Campbell of Skipness, her son the little Lord Glammis, and John Lyon an aged priest, were all committed prisoners to the Castle, on an absurd charge of seeking to compass the death of the king by poison and sorcery. " Jane Douglas," says a writer in " Miscellanea Scotica," " was the most renowned beauty in Britain 84 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. |Thc Castle Hill. at that time. She was of ordinary stature, but her mien was majestic ; her eyes full, her face oval, her complexion delicate and extremely fair ; heaven designed that her mind should want none of those perfections a mortal creature can be capable of; her modesty was admirable, her courage above what could be expected from her sex, her judgment tuted Court of Justiciary, extremity of agony com- pelled them to assent to whatever was asked, and they were thus condemned by their own lips. Lady Jane was sentenced to perish at the stake on the Castle Hill. Her son, her husband, and the old friar were all replaced in David's Tower, where the first remained a prisoner till 1542. MEMORIAL CROSS TO solid, and her carriage winning and affable to her inferiors." One of the most ardent of her suitors, on the death of Glammis, was a man named William Lyon, who, on her preferring Campbell of Skipness, vowed by a terrible oath to dedicate his life to revenge. He thus accused Lady Jane and the three others named, and though tlicir friends were inclined to scoff at the idea of treason, the artful addition of " sorcery " was suited to the growing superstition of the age, and steeled against them the hearts of many. Examined on the rack, before the newly-consti- I liS, ESl'LANAPE, EDINBURGH CASTI.E. Mercy was implored in vain, and on tlie 17th of July — three days after the execution of the Master of Forbes — the beautiful and unfortunate Lady Jane was led from the Castle gates and cliained to a stake. " Barrels tarred, and faggots oiled, were piled around her, and she was burndd to ashes within view of her son and husband, who beheld the terrible scene from the tower that overlooked it." On the following night Campbell, fren/.icil by grief and despair, attempted to escape, but fell over the rocks, and was found next morning dashed out The Caslle Hil EXECUTIONS THERE. 85 ^ * y M ►J a ^ •J a. 86 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hill. of all human shape at the foot of the cliff. James V. was struck with remorse on hearing all this terrible story. He released the friar ; but, singular to say, William Lyon was merely banished the kingdom ; while a man named Mackie, by whom the alleged poison was said to be prepared, was shorn of his ears.* On the last day of February, 1539, Thomas Forret, Vicar of Dollar, John Keillor and John Beveridge, two black-friars, Duncan Simpson a priest, and a gentleman named Robert P'orrester, were all burned together on the Castle Hill on a charge of heresy ; and it is melancholy to know that a king so good and so humane as James V. was a spectator of this inhuman persecution for religion, and that he came all the way from Linlithgow Palace to witness it, whither he returned on the 2nd oi March. It is probable that he viewed it from the Castle walls. Again and again has the same place been the scene of those revolting executions for sorcery which disgraced the legal annals of Scotland. There, in 1570, Bessie Dunlop " was worried " at the stake for simply practising as a "wise woman" in curing diseases and recovering stolen goods. Several others perished in 1 590-1 ; among others, Euphemie M'Calzean, for consorting with the devil, abjuring her baptism, making waxen pictures to be enchanted, raising a storm to drown Anne of Denmark on her way to Scotland, and so forth.t In 1600 Isabel Young was "woryt at a stake" for laying sickness on various persons, "and thereafter burnt to ashes on the Castle Hill."| Eight years after, James Reid, a noted sorcerer, perislied in the same place, charged with prac- tising healing by the black art, " whilk craft," says one authority, " he learned frae the devil, his master, in Binnie Craigs and Corstorphine, where he met with him and consulted with him divers tymes, whiles in the likeness of a man, whiles in the likeness of a horse." INIoreover, he had tried to destroy the crops of David Liberton by putting a piece of enchanted flesh under his mill door, and to destroy David bodily by making a picture of him in wax and melting it before a fire, an ancient superstition — common to the Western Isles and in some parts of Rajpootana to this day. .So great was the horror these crimes excited, tJiat he was taken direct from the court to the stake. During the ten years of the Commonwealth executions on this spot occurred with appalling frequency.§ On the 15th October, 1656, seven • Tytlcr, "Crin1in.1l Trial*," &c. &c. ] Spotswood, " Miscellany.*' X " Diurnal of Occurrcnls.' 5 Pitcairn. culprits were executed at once, two of whom were burned ; and on the 9th March, 1659, " there were," says Nicoll, "fyve wemen, witches, brint on the Castell Hill, all of them confessand their covenant- ing with Satan, sum of thame renunceand thair baptisme, and all of them oft tymes dancing with the devell." During the reign of Charles I., when tlie Earl of Stirling obtained permission to colonise Nova Scotia, and to sell baronetcies to some 200 sup- posed colonists, with power of pit and gallows over their lands, the difficulty of enfeoffing them in possessions so distant was overcome by a royal mandate, converting the soil of the Castle Hill for the time being into that of Nova Scotia ; and between 1625 and 1649 sixty-four of these baronets took seisin before the archway of the Spur. When the latter was fiirly removed the hill became the favourite promenade of the citizens ; and in June, 1709, we find it acknowledged by the town council, that the Lord's Day " is profaned by people standing in the streets, and vaguing (w) to fields, gardens, and the Castle Hill." Denounce all these as they might, human nature never could be altogether kept off the Castle Hill ; and in old times even the most respectable people promenaded there in multitudes between morning and evening service. In the old song entitled " The Young Laird and Edinburgh Katie," to which Allan Ramsay added some verses, the former addresses his mistress : — " Wat ye wha I met yestreen, Coming iloon the street, my jo ? My mistress in her tartan screen, Fu bonny, braw, and sweet, my jo ! ' My dear,' quo I, ' thanks to the night, That never wished a lover ill, .Since ye're out o' your mother's siglit. Lei's tak' a walk up to //if Hill.'" In 1S58 there ensued a dispute between the magistrates of Edinburgh and tlie Crown as to the proprietary of the Castle Hill and Esplanade. The former asserted their right to the whole ground claimed by the board of ordnance, acknowledging no other boundary to the possessions of the former than the ramparts of the Castle. This extensive claim they made in virtue of the rights conferred upon them by the golden charter of James VI. in 1603, wherein they were gifted with "all and whole, the loch called the North Loch, lands, pools, and marisches thereof, the north and south banks and braes situated on the west of the burgh, near the Castle of Edinburgh, on both sides of the Castle from the public highway, and that part of Tlie Castle HUM ■nil-: RAGGED SCHOOL. 87 the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill to- wards the north, to the head of the bank, and so going down to the said North Loch," &c. This right of proprietary seems clear enough, yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown, and found that "all the ground adjacent to the Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and the north and south banks or braes,'' belonged, "jure corona:, to Her Majesty as part and pertinent of the said Castle." CHAPTER IX. THE CASTLE HILL {coiicli(ded). . Guthrie's Original Ragged School— Old Houses in the Street of the Castle Hill— Duke of Gordon's House, Blair's Close— Webster's Close I>r. Alex. Webster — IJosweU's Court — Hyiidford House — Assembly Hall — Houses of the Mar(iuis of Argyle, Sir Andrew Kennedy, the Earl of Cassillis, the Laird uf Cuckpeii- Lord Semple's House — Lord Semple— Palace of Mary of (Julse— Its Fate. On the north side of this thoroughfare — which, witliin 150 years ago, was one of the most aristocratic quarters of the old city — two great breaches have been made : one when the Free Church College was built in 1846, and the other, a little later, when Short's Observatory was built in Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged School, which owes its existence to the philan- thropic efforts of the late Dr. Guthrie, who, with Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took so leading a part in the non-intrusion controversy, which ended in the disruption in 1843 and the institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1847 Guthrie's fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf of the homeless and destitute children, the little street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged Industrial School, which has been productive of incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of a good common and Christian education, by train- ing them in habits of industry, enabling them to earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for the duties of life. All children are excluded who attend regular day-schools, whose parents have a regular income, or who receive support or education from the paro- chial board; and the Association consists of all sub- scribers of loj". and upwards per annum, or donors of ;^5 and upwards ; and the general plan upon which this ragged school and its branch establish- ment at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows, viz.: — "To give children an adequate allowance of food for their daily support ; to instruct them in reading, writing, and arithmetic ; to train them in habits of industry, by instructing and employing them in such sorts of work as are suited to their years ; to teach them the truths of the Gospel, making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive food as on other days, and such religious instruction as shall be arranged by tiie acting committee," which consists of not less than twelve members. To this most excellent institution no children are admissible who are above fourteen or under five years of age, and they must either be natives of Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months prior to application for admission, though, in special cases, it may be limited to six. None are admitted or retained who labour under infectious disease, or whose mental or bodily constitution renders them incapable of profiting by the institution. All must attend church on Sunday, and no formula of doctrine is taught to which their parents may object ; and children are excused from attendance at school or worship on Sunday whose parents object to their attendance, but who undertake that the children are otherwise religiously instructed in the tenets of the communion to which they belong, provided they are in a condition to be entrusted with the care of their children. Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views of Dr. Guthrie, and most ably have they been carried out. According to the Report for 1879 — which may be taken as fairly typical of the work done in this eminently useful institution — there was an average attendance in the Ramsay Lane .Schools of 216 boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department comprises carpentry, box-making, slioemaking, and tailoring, and the net profits made by the boys in these branches amounted to ^^182 14^-. ■5^^'. Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys was estimated at ^130, and the girls, equally industrious, did work to the value (including the washing) of ^109 7^. Full of years and honour. Dr. Thomas Guthrie died 24th Februar)', 1873. Memories of these old houses that have passed away, yet remain, while on the opposite side of the 88 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hill. Street some are unchanged in external aspect since the days of the Stuarts. On the pediment of a dormer window of the house that now forms the south-west angle of the Street, directly facing the Castle, and overlooking arch, within which, is a large coronet, supported by two deerhounds, well known features in the Gordon arms. Local tradition universally affirms this mansion to have been the residence of the dukes of that title, which was bestowed on the house THE C.'^STLE HILL, 1845. the steep flight of steps that descend to Johnston Terrace, we find a date 1630, with the initials A. M.— M. N., and in the wall below there still remains a cannon ball, fired from the half-moon ' during the blockade in 1745. Through this build- ing there is a narrow alley named Blair's Close — so narrow indeed, that amid the brightest sunshine [ there is never in it more than twilight — giving ac- cess loan open court, at the first angle of which is a handsome Gotliic doorway, surmaiintcd by an ogee of Huntly in 16S4; but the edifice in question evidently belongs to an anterior age ; and tiie old tradition was proved to be correct, when in a dis- position (now in jiossession of the City Improve- ment Commission) by Sir Robert Baird to his son William, dated 1694, he describes it as "all and hail, that my lodging in the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, formerly possessed by the Duchess of Gordon." The latter was Lady h'lizabcth Howard, daugh- The Castle Hill.) THE DUKE OF GORDON'S HOUSE. 89 ter of the Duke of Norfolk and wife of Duke George, who so gallantly defended the Castle against the troops of William of Orange ; during the lifetime of the duke she retired to a IJelgian •convent, but afterwards returned to the old mansion in Edinburgh, where she frequently resided till iier death, which took place at the abbey in 1732, life, destroyed utterly the ancient Gothic fireplace, which was very beautiful in its design. This house is mentioned in the " Diurnal of Occurrents" as being, in 1570, the residence of Patrick Edgar ; and after it passed from the Gor- dons it was possessed by the family of Newbyth, who resided in it for several generations, and ^». ALLAN RAMSAY'S HOUSE. sixteen years after that of the duke at Leith. The internal fittings of the mansion are in many respects' unchanged since its occupation by the duchess. It is wood-panelled throughout, and one large room which overlooks the Esplanade is decorated with elaborate carvings, and with a large painting over the mantelpiece the production of Norrie, a famous house-decorator of the eighteenth century, whose genius for landscapes entitles him to a place among Scottish painters. An explosion of gunpowder which took place in the basement of the house in 181 1, attended with serious loss of 13 : therein, on the 6th December, 1757, was born the gallant Sir David Baird, Bart., the hero of Seringapatam and conqueror of Tippoo Saib ; and therein he was educated and brought up. Re- turning years after, he visited the place of his birth, which had long since passed into other hands. Chambers relates that the individual then occujiy- ing the house received the veteran hero with great respect, and, after showing him through it, ushered him into the little garden behind, where some boys were engaged in mischievously throwing cabbage stalks at the chimneys of the Grassmarket. On go OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hil one going plump down a vent they set up a shout of joy. Sir David laughed, and entreated the father of the lads " not to be too angry ; he and his brother." he added with some emotion, "when CANNON B.1LL IN \V.\LL OF HOUSE IN CASTLE HILL. living here at the same age, had indulged in pre- cisely the same amusement, the chimneys then, as now, being so provokingly open to attacks, that there was no resisting the temptation." From the Bairds of Newbyth the house passed to the Browns of Greenbank, and from them, Brown's Close, where the modern entrance to it is situated, derives its name. On the same side of the street Webster's Close served to indicate the site of the house of Dr. Alexander Webster, appointed in 1737 to the Tolbooth church. In his day one of the most popular men in the cit}', he was celebrated for his wit and social qualities, and amusing stories are still told of his fondness for claret. With the as- sistance of Dr. \\'allace he matured his favourite scheme of a jjcrpctual fund for the relief of widows and cliildren of the clergy of the Scottish Church; and when, in 1745, Edinburgh was in possession of the Jacobite clans, he displayed a striking proof of his fearless character by employ- ing all his elof|uence and influence to retain the people in their loyalty to the house of Hanover. He had some pretension to the character of a poet, and an amatory piece of his has been said to rival the effusions of Catullus. It was written in allu- sion to his marriage with Mary Erskine. There is one wonderfully impassioned verse, in which, after describing a process of the imagination, by which he comes to think his innamorata a creituic of more than mortal purity, he says that at length he clasps- her to his bosom and discovers that she is but a woman after all ! " Wlien I see thee, I love thee, but hearing adore, I wonder and think you a woman no more. Till mad with admiring;, I cannot contain, And, kissing those lips, find you woman again ! " He died in January, 1784. Eastward of this point stands a very handsome old tenement of great size and breadth, presenting j a front of polished ashlar to the street, surmounted I by dormer windows. Over the main entrance to j Boswell's Court (so named from a doctor who re- sided there about the close of the last century) there is a shield, and one of those pious legends so peculiar to most old houses in Scottish burghs. O . Lord . in . the . is . al . mi . traist. And this edifice uncorroborated tradition asserts to have been the mansion of the Earls of Bothwell. A tall narrow tenement immediately to the west of the Assembly Hall forms the last ancient build- ing on the south side of the street. It was built in 1740, by Mowbray of Castlewan, on the site of a venerable mansion belonging to the Countess Dowager of Hyndford (Elizabeth daughter of John Earl of Lauderdale), and from him it passed, about 1747, into the possession of William Earl of Dumfries, who served in the Scots Greys and Scots Guards, who was an aide dc camp at the battle of Dettingen, and who succeeded his mother, Penelope, countess in her own right, and afterwards, by the death of his brother, as Earl of Stair. He was suc- ceeded in it by his widow, who, witliin exactly a year and day of his death, married the Hon. Alexander Gordon (son of the Earl of Aberdeen), who, on his appointment to the bench in 17S4, assumed the title of Lord Rockvilie. He was the last man of rank who inhabited this stately old mansion ; but the narrow alley which gives access to the court behind bore the name of Rockvilie Close. Within it, and towards the west there towered a tall substantial edifice once the residence of the Countess of Hyndford, and sold by her, in 1740, to Henry Bothwell of Glen- corse, last Lord Holyroodhouse, who died at his mansion in the Canongate in 1755. The corner of the street is now terminated by the magnificent hall built in 1S42-4, at the cost of ^16,000 for the accommodation of the General Assembly, which sits here annually in May, pre- sided over by a Commissioner, who is always a Scottish nobleman, and resides in Holyrood Palace, where he holds royal state, and gives levees in the gallery of the kings of Scotland. The octagonal The Castle Hil LORD SEMPLE. or spire which surmounts the massive Gothic tower at the main entrance rises to an altitude of 240 feet, and forms a point in all views of the city. Many quaint closes and picturesque old houses were swept away to give place to this edifice, and to the hideous western approach, which weakened the strength and destroyed the amenity of the Caslle in that (luarter. Among these, in Ross's Court, stood the house of the great Manjuis of Argyle, which, in the days of Creech, was rented by a. hosier at £,\2 per annum. In another, named Kennedy's Close — latterly a mean and stpalid alley — there resided, until almost recent times, a son of .Sir Andrew Kennedy of Clowburn, Bart., whose tide is now extinct ; and the front tenement was alleged to have been the town residence of those proud and fiery Earls of Cassillis, the " kings of Carrick," whose family name was Kennedy, and whose swords were seldom in the scabbard. Here, too, stood a curious old timber-fronted " land," said to have been a nonjurant Episcopal chapel, in which was a beautifully sculptured Gothic niche with a cusped canopy, and which Wilson supposes to have been one of the private oratories that Arnot states to have been existing in his time, and in which the baptismal fonts were then re- maining. On the north side of the street, most quaint was the group of buildings partly demolished to make way for Short's Observatory. One was dated 162 1 ; another was very lofty, with two crowstepped gables and four elaborate string mouldings on a smooth ashlar front. The first of these, which stood at the corner of Ramsay Lane, and had some very ornate windows, was universally alleged to be the town residence of that personage so famous in Scottish song, the Laird of Cock pen, whose family name was Ramsay (being a branch of the noble fomily of Dalhousie) and from whom some affirm the lane to have been called, long before the days of the poet. By an advertisement in the Edinburgh Coii- raiit for January, 1761, we find that Lady Cockpen was then resident in a house " in the Bell Close," the north side of the Castle Hill, the rental of which was ^\\ los. The last noble occupants of the old mansion were two aged ladies, daughters of the Lord Gray of Kinfauns. The house adjoining bore the date as mentioned, 1621 ; and the one below it was a fine specimen of the wooden-fronted tenements, with the oak timbers of the projecting gable beauti- fully carved. During the early part of the iSth century this was the town mansion of David third Earl of Leven, who succeeded the Duke of Gor- don as governor of the Castle in 16S9, and belied his race by his cowardice at Killiecrankie. " No doubt," wrote an old cavalier at a later period, "if Her Majesty Queen Anne had been rightly in- formed of his care of the Castle, where there were not ten barrels of powder when the Pretender was on the coast of Scotland, and of his courteous be- haviour to ladies — particularly how he horsewhipped the Lady Mortonhall — she would have made him a general for life." * Close by this edifice there stands, in Semple's Close, a fine e.\ample of its time, the old family mansion of the Lords Semple of Castlesemple. Large and substantially built, it is furnished with a projecting octagonal turnpike stair, over the door to which is the boldly-cut legend — Praised be the Lord my God, my Strength AND MY Redeemer. Anno Do.m. 1638. Over a second doorway is the inscription — Sedcs, Manet optima Ccelo, with the above date repeated, and the coat of arms of some family now unknown. Hugh eleventh Lord Semple, in 1743 purchased the house from two merchant burgesses of Edin- burgh, who severally possessed it, and he converted it into one large mansion. He had seen much military service in Queen Anne's wars, both in Spain and Flanders. In 17 18 he was major of the Cameronians ; and in 1743 he commanded the Black Watch, and held the town of Aeth when it was besieged by the French. In 1745 he was colonel of the 25th or Edinburgh Regiment, and commanded the left wing of the Hanoverian arniy at the battle of Culloden. Few families have been more associated with Scottish song than the Semples. Prior to the acquisition of this mansion their family residence appears to have been in Leith, and it is referred to in a poem by Francis Semple, of Belltrees, written about 16S0. The Lady Semple of that day, a daughter of Sir Archibald Primrose of Dalmeny (ancestor of the Earls of Rosebery), is tradition- ally said to have been a Roman Catholic. Thus, her house was a favourite resort of the priesthood then visiting Scotland in disguise, and she had a secret passage by which they could escape to the fields in time of peril. Anne, fourth daughter of Hugh Lord Semple, was married in September, 1754, to Dr. Austin, of Edinburgh, author of the well-known song, " For lack of gold," in allusion to Jean Drum- * "Miscellanea Scotica." 92 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hill. mond, of Megginch, who jilted him for the Duke of Athol. " For lack of gold she left me, O! And of all that's dear bereft me, O! For Athol's Duke She me forsook, And to endless care has left me, O ! " The Doctor died in 1774, in his house at the north- west corner of Brown Square ; but his widow survived him nearly twenty years. Her brother John, twelfth Lord Semple, in 1755 sold the up her residence for a few days after the murder of Eizzio, as she feared to trust herself within the blood-stained precincts of the palace. Over its main doorway there was cut in old Gothic letters the legend Laiis honor Deo, with I. R., the initials of King James V., and at each end were shields having the monograms of the Saviour and the Virgin. The mansion, though it had been sorely changed and misused, still exhibited some large and handsome fireplaces, with beautifully clustered pillars, and seven elaborately sculptured THO.MAS GUTHRIE, D.I). /I family mansion to Sir James Clerk of Penicuik, well-known in his time as a man of taste, and the patron of Runciman the artist. An ancient pile of buildings, now swept away, but which were accessible by Blyth's, Tod's, and Nairne's Closes, formed once the residence of Mary of Lorraine and Guise, widow of James V., and Regent of Scotland from 1554 to 1560. It is conjectured that this palace and oratory were erected immediately after the burning of Holyrood and the city by the English in 1544, when the widowed queen woujd naturally seek a more secure habitation within the walls of the city, and close to the Castle guns. In this edifice it is supposed that Mary, her daughter, after succeeding in de- taching the imbecile Darnlcy from his jiarty, look stone recesses, with much fine oak carving in the doors and panels that are still preserved. Over one of the former are the heads of King James V., with his usual slouched bonnet, and of his queen, wliose well-known beauty certainly cannot be traced in this instance. A portion of this building, accessible by a stair near the head of the close, contained a hall, with other ajiartments, all remarkable for the great height and beauty of their ceilings, on all of which were coats armorial in fine stucco. In the de- corated chimney of the former were the remains of one of those chains to whicli, in Scotland, the jioker and tongs were usually attached, to prc\-ent their being used as weapons in case of any sudden (luarrel. One chamber was long known as the The Caslle Hill.] THE GUISE PALACE. 95 queen's Dtid-rooin, wliere the individuals of the royal establishment were kept between their death and burial. In 182S there was found walled up in the oratory an infantine head and hand in wax, being all that remained of a l>anil>i/io, or figure of the child Jesus, and now preserved by the Society of Antiquaries. The edifice had many windows on the northern side, and from these a fine view spent her youth in the proud halls of the Guises in Picardy, and had been the spouse of a Lon- gueville, was here content to live — in a close in Edinburgh ! In these obscurities, too, was a government conducted, which had to struggle with Knox, Glencairn, James Stewart, Morton, and many other powerful men, backed by a popular sentiment which never fails to triumph. It was DUKE OF Gordon's house, bl.\ir's close, castle hill. must have been commanded of the gardens in the immediate foreground, sloping downward to the loch, the opposite bank, with its farm-houses, the Firth of Forth, and Fifeshire. " It was inter- esting," says tlie author of " Traditions of Edin- burgh," " to wander through the dusky mazes of this ancient building, and reflect that they had been occupied three centuries ago by a sovereign princess, and of the most illustrious lineage. Here was a substantial monument of the connection between Scotland and France. She, whose an- cestors owned Lorraine as a sovereigntv, who had the misfortune of Mary (of Guise) to be placed in a position to resist the Reformation. Her own character deserved that she should have stood in a more agreeable relation to what Scotland now venerates, for she was mild and just, and sincerely anxious for the welfare of her adopted country. It is also proper to remember on the present occasion, that in her Court she maintained a decent gravity, nor would she tolerate any licentious practices therein. Her maids of honour were always busied in commendable exercises, she herself being an example to them in virtue, piety, and modesty. 94 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle Hill. When all is considered, and we further know that the building was strong enough to have lasted many more ages, one cannot but regret that the palace of Mary de Guise, reduced as it was to vile- ness, should not now be in existence. The site having been purchased by individuals connected with the Free Church, the buildings were removed in 1846 to make room for the erection of an aca- demical institution, or college, for that body." The demolition of this mansion brought to light a concealed chamber on the first floor, lighted by a narrow loophole opening into Nairne's Close. The entrance had been by a movable panel, affording ac- cess to a narrow flight of steps wound round in the wall of the turnpike stair. The existence of this mysterious chamber was totally unknown to the va- rious inhabitants, and all tradition has been lost of those to whom it may have afforded escape or refuge. The Duke of Devonshire possesses an undoubted portrait of Mary of Guise. It represents her with a brilliantly fair complexion, with reddish, or auburn hair. This is believed to be the only authentic one in existence. That portrait alleged to be of her in the Trinity House at Leith is a bad copy, by Mytens, of that of her daughter at St. James's. Some curious items connected with her Court are to be found in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer, among them are the following : — - At her coronation in 1540, "Item, deliverit to ye French telzour, to be ane cote to Serrat, the Queen's fule," &c. Green and yellow seems to have been the Court fool's livery ; but Mary of Guise seems to have had a female buffoon and male and female dwarfs: — "1562. Paid for ane cote, hois, lyning and making, to Jonat Musche, fule, £,4 55-. 6d. ; 1565, for green plaiding to make ane bed to Jardinar the fule, with white fustione fedders," &c. ; in 1566, there is paid for a garment of red and yellow, to be a gown " for Jane Colqu- houn, fule;" and in 1567, another entry, for broad English yellow, " to be cote, breeks, also sarkis, to James Geddie, fule." The next occupant of the Guise palace, or of that portion thereof which stood in Tod's Close, was Edward Hope, son of John de Hope, a French- man who had come to Scotland in the retinue of Magdalene, first queen of James V., in 1537. It continued in possession of the Hopes till 1691, when it was acquired by James, first ^'iscount Stair, for 3,000 guilders, Dutch money, probably in con- nection with some transaction in Holland, from whence he accompanied ^Villiam of Orange four years before. In 1702 it was the abode and pro- perty of John Wightnian of Mauldsie, afterwards Lord Provost of the city. From that period it was the residence of a succession of wealthy burgesses — the closes being then, and till a comparatively recent period, exclusively occupied by peers and dignitaries of rank and wealth. Since then it shared the fate of all the patrician dwellings in old Edin- burgh, and became the squalid abode of a host of families in the most humble ranks of life. CHAPTER X. THE LAWNMARKET. The Lawnmarkct— ^/s/i— The Wcigh-house — M.ijor Somervillc .ind Captain Crawford— Anderson's Pills— Mylne's Court— James's Court- Sir John Lauder— Sir Islay Campbell— David Hume— " Corsica" Boswell— Dr. Johnson— Dr. Blair— " Gladstone's Land"— A Fire in 1771. The Lawnmarket is the general designation of that jKirt of the town which is a continuation of the High Street, but lies between the head of the old West Bow and St. Giles's Church, and is about 510 feet in length. Some venerable citizens still living can recall the time when this spacious and stately thoroughfare used to be so co\'ered by the stalls and canvas booths of the " lawn-merchants," with their webs and rolls of cloth of every description, that it gave the central locality an appearance of something between a busy country fair and an Indian camp. Like many other customs of the olden time this has passed away, and tlie name alone remains to indicate the former usages of the jilarc, although th.c imimrtancc of the street was such that its occupants had a community of their own called the Lawnmarket Club, which was famous in its day for the earliest possession of I'jnglish and foreign intelligence. Among other fashions and customs departed, it may be allowable here to notice an adjunct of the first-floor dwellings of old Edinburgh. The means of bringing a servant to the door was neither a knocker nor bell, but an apparatus peculiar to Scotland alone, and still used in some parts of Fife, called a r/j/, which consists of a slender bar of serrated or twisted iron screwed to the door in an upright position, about two inches from it, and furnished with a large ring, by which the bar could be rasped, or rispcd, in such a way as secured at- tention. In many instances the doors were also furnished with two eyelet-holes, tlirougli which the The Lawnmarkct.l MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 95 visitor could be fully vised before admission was accorded. In many other instances the entrances to the turnpike stairs had loopholes for arrows or musketry, and the archways to the closes and wynds had single and sometimes double gates, the great hooks of which still remain in some places, and on which these were last hung in 1745, prior to the occupation of the city by the Highlanders. The Lawnmarket was bounded on the west by the Butter Tron, or Weigh-house, and on the east by the Tolbooth, which adjoined St. Giles's, thus forming in earlier times the greatest open space, save the Grassmarket, within the walls. The Weigh- house, built on ground which was granted to the citizens by David II., in 1352, was a clumsy and hideous edifice, rebuilt in 16C0, on the site of the previous building, which Gordon of Rothiemay, in his map of 1647, shows to have been rather an ornate edifice, two storeys in height, with a double outside stair on the south side, and a steeple and vane at the east end, above an archway, where enormous quantities of butter and cheese were continually being disposed of In 1640 the Lawnmarket was the scene of a remarkable single combat, of which we have a very clearly-detailed account in " The Memoirs of the Somervilles." In that year, when Major Somer- ville of Drum commanded the garrison of Cove- nanting troops in Edinburgh Castle, a Captain Crawford, who, though not one of his officers, deemed himself privileged to enter the fortress at all times, walked up to the gates one morning, and, on finding them closed, somewhat peremptorily demanded admission. The sentinel within told him that he must " before entering, acquaint Major Somerville with his name and rank." To this Crawford replied, furiously, " Your major is neither a soldier nor a gentleman, and if he were without this gate, and at a distance from his guards, I would tell him that he was a pitiful cullion to boot ! " The irritated captain was retiring down the Castle Hill, when he was overtaken, rapier in hand, by Major Somerville, to whom the sentinel had found means to convey the obnoxious message with mischievous precision. " Sir,'" said the major, " you must permit me to accompany you a little way, and then you shall know more of my mind." " I will wait on you where you please," replied Crawford, grimly ; and they walked together in silence to the south side of the Greyfriars churchyard, at all times a lonely place. "Now," said Somerville, unsheathing his sword, " I am without the Castle gates and at a distance from my guards. Draw and make good your threat ! " Instead of defending himself like a man 1 of honour, Crawford took off his hat, and begged pardon, on which Somerville jerked his long bowl- hilted rapier into its sheath, and said, with scorn, " You have neither the discretion of a gentleman, nor tlie courage of a soldier ; begone for a coward and fool, fit only for Ijedlam ! " and he returned to the Castle, accompanied by his officers, who had followed them to see the result of the quarrel. It is said that Crawford had been offended at not being invited to a banquet given in the Castle by Somerville to old General Ruthven, on the day after the latter surrendered. As great liberties were taken with him after this in consequence of his doubtful reputation for courage, he resolved, by satisfaction demanded in a public and desper- ate manner, to retrieve his lost honour, or die in seeking it. Thus, one forenoon, about eleven o'clock, when the Major was on his way to visit General Sir Alexander Leslie, and proceeding down the spacious Lawnmarket, which at that hour was always thronged with idlers, he was suddenly confronted by Captain Crawford, who, unsheathing both sword and dagger, exclaimed, "If you be a pretty man — dnnc ! " With a thick walking cane recently presented to him by General Ruthven, the Major parried his onset and then drew his sword, which was a half-rapier slung in a shoulder- belt, and attacked the Captain so briskly, that he was forced to fall back, pace by pace, fighting des- perately, from the middle of the Lawnmarket to the goldsmiths' booths, where Somerville struck him down on the causeway by the iron pommel of his sword, and disarmed him. Several of Somerville's soldiers now came upon the scene, and by these^ he would have been slain, had not the victor pro- tected him ; but for this assault upon a superior officer he was thrown into prison, where he lay for a year, heavily manacled, and in a wretched con- dition, till Somerville's wife, who resided at the Drum House, near Gilmerton, and to whom he had wTit- ten an imploring letter, procured his liberation. Here in the Lawnmarket, in the lofty tenement dated 1690, on the second floor, is the "shop" where that venerable drug, called the " Grana Ano-elica," but better known among the cpuntry people as "Anderson's Pills," are sold. They took their origin from a physician of the time of Charles I., who gave them his name, and of whom a long account was given in the University Magazine, and locally their fame lasted for nearly 250" years. From his daughter Lilias Anderson, the patent, granted by James VII., came "to Thomas Weir, chirurgeon, in Edinburgh," who left the secret of preparing the pills to his daughter, Mrs. Irving, who died in 1S37, at the age of 96 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarket. ninety-nine. Portraits of Anderson and his daugh- ter, in Vandyke costumes, the former with a book in his hand, and the latter with a pill the size of a walnut between her fingers, are still preserved in the house. It was in 1635 that the Doctor first tablature, bearing the date 1690, is the main en- trance to this court, the principal house of which, forming its northern side, has a very handsome doorway, peaked in the centre, like an ogee arch, with ornate mouldings that mark the handiwork of l.L. ([-rjin UK Li. cJ in 1S45.) made known the virtues of his pills, which is really a good form of aloetic medicine. In Mylne's Court, on the north side of the Lawn- market, we find the first attempt to substitute an open square of some space for the narrow closes which so long contained the town residences of the Scottish noblesse. Under a Roman Doric en- thc builder, Robert IMylne, who ercc'tcd tlie more modern portions of Holyrood Palace — tlie seventh royal master-mason, whose uncle's tomb, on the cast side of the Grcyfriars churchyard, bears that he— " sixth mnslcr-masoii to a royal race, Of seven successive kings, sleeps in this place." The Lawntnarket.J JAMES'S COURT. 9'/ The edifice that forms the west side of Myhie's Court belongs to an earlier period, and had once been the side of the close. The most northerly portion, which presents a very irregular but most picturesque facade, with dormer windows above the line of the roof, was long the town mansion of the Lairds of Comiston. Over the entrance is a very common Edinburgh legend, Blissit . be . God in . al. his . Giftis, and the date, 1 580. Bartholomew Somerville, a merchant and burgess, was one of the earliest inhabitants of this edifice, and his name appears con- spicuously among those to whose liber- ality Edinburgh was indebted for the es- tablishment of her University on a last- ing basis. Here also resiiled Sir John Har- per of Cambusnethan. In I 7 I o. Lord Fountainhall reports a case connected with this court, in which Bailie Michael Allan, a proprietor there, endeavoured to prevent the entrance of " heavy carriages,'' which damaged his cellar under the pend •thereto. The last person of rank resident here was Lady Isabella Douglas, who had a house on the west side of it in 1761. Robert, the son of Mylne, the builder, who was born in 1734, settled in London as an architect, and his plan for con- structing a bridge at Blackfriars was preferred to those of twenty other candidates,* and on its com- pletion he was appointed surveyor of St. Paul's Cathedral, with a salary of ^300 per annum. Eastward of Mylne's Court is James's Court, a more modern erection of the same kind, associated, in various ways, with some of the most eminent men in the Scottish capital ; for here resided David Hume, after his removal from Jack's Land in the Canongate, in 1762 ; in the same house afterwards dwelt Boswell, and here he wel- comed Paoli, the Corsican chief, in 1771, and the THE ORATORY OF MARY OF GUISE. 13 "Old and New London," vol, i., pp. 205-6. still more illustrious Dr. Johnson, when, in 1773, he was on his way to tlie Western Isles. James's Court occupies the site of some now forgotten closes, in one of which dwelt Sir John Lauder, afterwards Lord Fountainhall, author of the famous " Decisions " and other works. At the trial of the Earl of Argyle, in 1681. for an alleged illegal construction of the Test, Lauder acted as counsel for that unfortunate nobleman, together with Sir George Lockhart and six other advocates. These having all signed an opinion that his explana- tion of the Test con- tained nothing trea- sonable, were sum- moned before tiie Privy Council, and after being examined on oath, were dis- missed with a warn- ing and censure by the Duke of Albany. Though it is so long ago as September, 1722, since Lord Fountainhall died, a tradition of his resi- dence has come down to the present time. " The mother of the late Mr. Gilbert Innes of Stow," says Cham- bers, "was a daughter of his lordship's son, S'r Andrew Lauder, and she used to de- scribe to her children the visits she used to pay to her vener- able grandfather's house, situated, as she said, where James's Court now stands. She and her sister always went with their maid on the Saturday afternoons, and were shown into a room where the aged judge was sitting — a room covered with gilt leather, and containing many huge presses and cabinets, one of which was ornamented with a death's head at the top. After amusing themselves for an hour or two with his lordship the)- used each to get a shiUing from him, and retire. ... It is curious to think that the mother of a gentleman living in 1S39 (for only then did Mrs. Innes of Stow leave this earthly scene) should have been familiar with a lawyer who entered at the bar soon after the Restoration (166S), and acted as counsel for the unfortunate Earl of Argvie in 16S1 — a bein^ 98 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarket. of an age as different in everj^ respect from the present as the wilds of North America are different from the long-practised lands of Lothian or Devon- shire." In James's Court was the residence of Sir Islay Campbell, Lord President, whose mother was Helen Wallace, a daughter of the house of Ellerslie. Ad- OAK nnOR, FROM THK GULSK PAI.ACK. (A'r.'W l!tc On'^iiinl in the Scottish Aiitigrinrini: Miisriiw.) mittcd to tlie bar in 1 757, he was one of the counsel for the defender in the famous Douglas case, and, on tlie decision of the House of Lords being given, he jiosted to I'",dinburgh ere the mail could arrive, and was the first to announce to the crowds assem- bled at the Cross the great intelligence. " Douglas for ever I " he cried, waving his hat in the air. A shout from the people responded, and, untrac ■ ing the horses from his carriage, they drew it in triumj)!! to his liousc in James's Court, probably the .same in which his father, who was long one of the principal clerks of .Session, resided. This court is a well-known pile of building- which rises to a vast height at the head of the Earthen Mound, and was erected between 1725 and 1727 by James Brownhill, a speculative builder, and for years after it was deemed a fashionable quarter, the denizens of which were all persons of good position, though each occupied but a flat or floor ; they clubbed in all public measures, kept a secretary to record their names and proceedings, and had balls and parties among themselves ; but among the many local notables who dwelt here the names of only three, Hume, Boswell, and Dr. Blair, are familiar to us now. Burton, the biographer of the historian of England, thus describes this great fabric, the western portion of which was destroyed by fire in 1858, and has erected on its site, in the old Scottish style, an equally lofty .structure for the Savings B.ank and Free Church oflices ; con- sequently the houses rendered so interesting by the names of Hume, Blair, Johnson, and Boswell, are among the things that were. " Entering one of the doors opposite to the main entrance, the stranger is sometimes led by a friend, wishing to afford him an agreeable surprise, down flight after flight of die 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 be- fore him in a contrast to the gloom from which he has emerged. \\'hen 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 storeys from the grounil on the side next the New Town. I have ascertained that by ascending the western of the two stairs facing the entry of James's Court to the height of three storeys we arrive at the door of David Hume's house, which, of the two doors on th.it landing place, is the one towards the left." The first fi.xed residence of David Hume was in Riddell's Land, Lawnmarket, near the head of the West Bow. From thence lie removed to Jack's Land, in the Canongate, where nearly the whole of his "History of England" was written; and it is somewhat singular that Dr. Smollett, the continuator of that work, lived some time after in his sistci's house, exactly opposite. The great historian and philosopher dwelt but a short time in James's Court, when he went to France as Secretary to the Em- bassy. During his absence, which lasted some The L-nvniiLirket.] DR. JOHNSOxN. 99 j'ears, his house was rented by Dr. Blair ; but amid the gaieties of Paris bis iiiiiid would seem to iiave reverted to his Scottish home. '• I am sensible I that I am misiiiaced, and I wish twice or thrice i a-day for my easy-ciiair, and my retreat in James's Court," he wrote to his friend Dr. Fergusson ; then he added, as Burton tells us, " Never think, ■dear Fergusson, that as long as you are master of your own fire.side and your own time, you can be unhappy, or that any other circumstance can add ' to your enjoyment." " Never put a fire in the south room with tiie red paper," he wrote to Dr. Blair ; " it is so warm of itself, that all last winter, which was a very severe one, I lay with a single blanket, and frequently, upon coming in at midnight starving with cold, I have sat down and read for : an hour as if I had a stove in the room." One of his most intimate friends and correspondents while in France was Mrs. Cockburn of Ormiston, ; authoress of one of the beautiful songs called " The ' Flowers of the Forest," who died at Edinburgh, ' 1794. Some of her letters to Hume are dated in 1764, from Baird's Close, on the Castle Hill. About the year 1766, when still in Paris, he began to think of settling there, and gave orders to sell iiis house in James's Court, and he was only pre- vented from doing so by a mere chance. Leaving the letter of instruction to be posted by his Parisian landlord, he set out to pass his Christmas with I the Countess de Boufflers at L'Isle Adam ; but a : snow storm had blocked up the roads. He re- turned to Paris, and finding that his letter had not ' yet been posted, he changed his mind, and 1 thought that he had better retain his flat in James's ; •Court, to which he returned in 1766. He soon after left it as Under-Secretary of State to General ■Conway, but in 1769, on the resignation of that Minister, he returned again to James's Court, with ■what was then deemed opulence — ;^i,ooo per an- num — and became the head of that brilliant circle ■of literary men who then adorned Edinburgh. "I am glad to come within sight of you," he wrote to Adam Smith, then busy with " The Wealth of Nations " in the quietude of his mother's house, 1 " and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows ; ' but I wish also to be on speaking terms with you." In another letter he speaks of " my old house in James's Court, which is very cheerful and very elegant, but too small to display my great talent for cookery, the science to which I intend to addict the remaining years of my life." Elsewhere we shall find David Hume in a more I fashionable abode in the new town of Edinburgh, and on his finally quitting James's Court, his house there was leased by James Boswell, whose character is thus summed up by Lord Macaulay : — " Servile and impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with family jjride, and eternally blus- tering about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdrop])er, a common butt in the taverns of London ; so curious to know everybody who was talked about that, Tory and High Churchman though he was, he manoeuvred for an introduction to Tom Paine ; so vain of the most childish distinctions, that when he had been to Court he drove to the ofifice where his book was printing, without changing his clothes, and summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword. .Such was this man, and such he was content to be." He was the eldest son of .■\lexander Boswell, one of the Judges of the Court of Session, a sound scholar, a respectable and useful country gentle- man, an able and upright judge, who, on his elevation to the Bench, in compliance with the Scottish custom, assumed the distinctive title of Lord Auchinleck, from his estate in Ayrshire. His mother, Eupham Erskine, a descendant of tiie line of Alloa, from the House of Mar, was a woman of exemplary piety. To James's Court, Boswell, in August, 1773, conducted Dr. Johnson, from the \\'hite Horse Hostel, in St. Mary's ^\'ynd, then one of the principal inns of Edinburgh, where he found him storming at the waiter for having sweet- ened his lemonade without using the sugar-tongs. " Johnson and I," says Boswell, " walked arm-in- arm up die High Street to my house in James's Court, and as we went, he acknowledged that the breadth of the street and the loftiness of the build ■ ' ings on each side made a noble appearance." "My wife had tea ready for him," lie adds, " and we sat chatting till nearly two in the morning." It would appear that before the time of the visit — which lasted over several days — Boswell had removed into a better and larger mansion, immediately below and on the level of the court, a somewhat extraordinary house in its time, as it consisted ot two floors with an internal stair. Mrs. Boswell, who was Margaret Montgomer\-, a relation of tlie P^arl of Eglinton, a gentlewoman of good breeding and brilliant understanding, was disgusted with the bearing and manners of Johnson, and expressed her opinion of him that he was " a great brute ! " And well might she think so, if Macaulay's de- scription of him be correct. "He could fast, but when he did not fast he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling in his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks ; he scarcely ever took wine ; but when he drank it, he drank it greedily and in large OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarlcet. tumblers. Everything about him — his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eyes, his in- satiable appetite for fish sauce and veal pie with plums, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his saw a man led by a bear I " So romantic and fervid was his admiration of Johnson, that he tells us he added ^500 to the fortune of one of his daughters, Veronica, because when a baby she was not frightened by the hideous visage of the lexico- grapher. iC li ,!■ MIM I S lii il >h, ' \M I I mil. midnight disputations, his contortions, his mut- terings, his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence and his insolence, his fits of tempes- tuous rage," kc, all served to make it a source of wonder to Mrs. Boswell that her husband could abide, much less worsliip, such a man. Thus, she once said to him, with extreme warmth, " I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before Among those invited to meet him at James's Court was Margaret Duchess of Douglas, a lady noted among those of her own rank for her illi- teracy, and whom Johnson describes as "talking broad Scotch with a paralytic voice, as scarcely understood by her own countrymen ; " yet it was remarked that in that which we would term now a spirit of "snobbery," Johnson reserved his atten- tions during the whole evening exclusively for the Tlic l,;uvnm;iikct.l JAMES BOSWELL. duchess. A daughter of Douglas of Mains, she was the widow of Archibald Duke of Douglas, who died in 1761. While on this visit, Patrick Lord Elibank, a learned and accomplished noble, addressed a letter to him, and they afterwards had various conver- saiions on literary subjects, all of which are duly On one occasion he was in a large party, of which David Hume was one. A mutual friend proposed to introduce him to the historian. " No, sir ! " bellowed the intolerant moralist, and turned away. Among Boswell's friends and visitors at James's Court were Lords Kames and Hailes, the annalist of Scotland ; Drs. Robertson, Blair, and MARY OK GLISK. {Front the Portrait In the possession of the Duke 0/ Dezmiilii recorded in the pages of the sycophantic Boswell. Johnson was well and hospitably received b}- all classes in Edinburgh, where his roughness of manner and bearing were long proverbial. " From all I can learn," says Captain Topham, who visited the city in the following year, " he repaid all their attention to him with ill-breeding ; and when in the coinpany of the ablest men in this countn- his whole design was to show them how little he thought of them." Beattie, and others, the most eminent of his countrymen ; but his strong predilection for London induced him to move there with his family, and in the winter of 1786 he was called to the English bar. His old house was not imme- diately abandoned to the plebeian population, as his successor in it was Lady Wallace, dowager of Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and mother of the unfortunate Captain William Wallace of the isth Hussars, whose involvement in the affairs of the OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The I.awnmarket. Duke of York and Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke made some noise in London dining the time of the Regency. The house below those occupied by Hume and by Boswell was the property and resi- dence of Andrew Macdowal of Logan, author of the " Institutional Law of Scotland," at'terwards elevated to the bench, in 1755, as Lord Bankton. In another court named Paterson's, opening on the Lawnmarket, Margaret Countess Dowager of Glasgow was resident in 1761, and for some years before it. Her husband, the second earl, died in 1740. One of the handsomest old houses still existing in tlie Laivnmarket is tlie tall and narrow tenement of polished ashlar adjoining James's Court. It is of a marked character, and highly adorned. Of old it belonged to Sir Robert Bannatyne, but in 1631 was acquired by Thomas Gladstone, a merchant burgess, and on the western gable are the initials of himself and wife. In 1634, when tlie city was divided for the formation of sixteen comi)anies, in obedience to an injunction of Charles I., the second division was ordered to terminate at " Thomas Gladstone's Land," on the north side of the street. In 177 I a dangerous fire occurred in the Lawn- market, near the head of the old Bank Close. It was first discovered by the fiames bursting through the roof of a tall tenement known as Buchanan's. It baffled the efforts of three fire-engines and a number of workmen, and some soldiers of the 22nd regiment. It lasted a whole night, and created the greatest consternation and some loss of life. " The new church and weigh-house were opened during the fire," says the Stv/s Magazine of 1771, "for the reception of the goods and furniture belonging to the sufferers and the inha- bitants of the adjacent buildings, which were kept under guard." Damage to the extent of several thousand pounds was done, and among those who suffered appear the names of General Lockhart of Carnwath ; Islay Campbell, advocate ; John Bell, W..S. ; and Hume of Ninewells ; thus giving a sample of those who still abode in the Lawnmarket. CHAPTER XL THE LAWNMARKET [continufii). Ladj' .^lair*s Close— Gray of Pittendrum— " Aunt Margaret's Mirror"— The Marshal Earl and Countess of Stair— Miss Fcrrier— Sir Richard Steele— Martha Countess of Kincardine — Burns's Room in Baxter's Close — The Bridge' Shop in Bank Street — Bailie MacMorran's .Story — Sir Francis Grant of CuUen. Prior to the opening of Bank Street, Lady Stair's Close, the first below (Gladstone's Land, was the chief thoroughfare for foot passengers, taking ad- vantage of the half-formed Earthen Mound to reach the New Town. It takes its name I'rom Elizabeth Countess Dowager of Stair, who was long looked lip to as a leader of fashion in Edinburgh, admis- sion to her select circle being one of the highest objects of ambition among the lesser gentry of her day, when the distinctions of rank and family were guarded with an angry jealousy of which we have but little conception now. Lady Stair's Close is narrow and dark, for the houses are of great Jieight ; the house she occupied still remains on the west side thereof, and was the scene of some romantic events and traditions, of which Scott made able use in his " .\unt Margaret's Mirror," ere it be- came the abode of the widow of the Marshal Earl of Stair, who, wiien a little boy, had the misfortune to kill his elder brother, the Master, by the accidental tlischarge of a pistol; after which, it is said, that his mother could never abide him, and sent him in his extreme youth to serve in Flanders as a volunteer in the Cameronian Regiment, under the Earl of Angus. The house occupied by Lady Stair has over its door the pious legentl — " Feare the Lord and depart from crill" with the date 1622, and the initials of its founder and of his wife — Sir William Gray of Pittemlrum, and Egidia Smith, daughter of Sir John Smith, of Grothall, near Craigleith, Provost of Edinburgh in 1643. Sir William was a man of great influence in the time of Charles I. ; and though the ancient title of Lord Gray reverted to his family, he devoted himself to commerce, and became one of the wealthiest Scottish merchants of that age. But troubles came upon him ; he was fined 100,000 merks for corresponding with Montrose, and was imprisoned, first in the Castle and then in the Tolbooth till the mitigated i^eiialty of 35,000 merks was paid. Otlier exorbitant exactions follow ed, and these hastened his death, which took place in 1648. Three years before that event, his daugliter Lady Stair's Close] rilK MAGIC MIRROR. 103 died, in tlie old house, of the plague. His widow survived liim, and the street was named Lady Gray's C'losc till the advent of Lady Stair, in whose time the house had a terraced garden that descended towards the North Loch. Lady Eleanor Campbell, widow of the great marshal and diplomatist, John Earl of Stair, was by paternal descent related to one of the most celebrated historical figures of the seventeenth century, being the grand-daughter of the Lord High Chancellor Loudon, whose talents and influence on the Covenanting side procured him the enmity of Charles I. In her girlhood she had the misfortune to be imited to James Viscount Primrose, of Castlefield, who died in 1706, a man of dissipated habits and intolerable temper, who treated her so barbarously that there were times when she had every reason to feel that her life was in peril. One morning she was dressing herself before her mirror, near an open window, when she saw the viscount suddenly appear in the room behind her with a drawn rapier in his hand. He had softly opened the door, and in the mirror she could see that his face, set white and savage, indicated that he had nothing less than murder in his mind. She threw herself out of window into the street, and, half-dressed as she was, fled, with great good sense, to Loid Primrose's mother, who had been Mary Scott of Thirlstane, and received protection ; but no attempt was made to bring about a reconciliation, and, though they had four children, she never lived with him again, and soon after he went abroad. During his absence there came to Edinburgh a certain foreign conjuror, who, among other occult powers, professed to be able to inform those present of the movements of the absent, however far they might be apart ; and the young viscountess was prompted by curiosity to go with a lady friend to the abode of the wise man in the Canongate, wear- ing over their heads, by way of disguise, the tartan plaid then worn by women of the lower classes. After describing the individual in whose move- ments she was interested, and expressing a desire to know what he was then about, the conjuror led her before a large mirror, in which a number of colours and forms rapidly assumed the appearance of a church with a marriage party before the altar; and in the shadowy bridegroom she instantly recognised her absent husband ! She gazed upon the delineation as if turned to stone, while the ceremonial of the marriage seemed to proceed, and the clergyman to l)e on the point of bidding the bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly a gentleman in whose face she recognised a brother of her own, came forwanl, and paused. His face assumed an expression of wrath ; drawing his sword he rushed upon the bridegroom, who also drew to defend himself ; the whole phantasmagoria then became tumultuous and indistinct, and faded com- jjletely away. When the viscountess reached home she wrote a minute narrative of the event, noting the day and hour. This narrative she sealed up in presence of a witness and deposited it in a cabinet. Soon after this her brother returned from his travels abroad — which brother we are not told, and she had three : Hugh the Master of Loudon, Colonel John Campbell of Shankeston, and James, who was Colonel of the Scots Greys, and was killed at Fontenoy. She asked him if he heard aught of the viscount in his wanderings. He answered, furiously, " I wish I may never again hear the name of that detestable personage mentioned ! ' On being questioned he confessed to " having met his lordship under very strange circumstances." While spending some time at Rotterdam he made the acquaintance of a wealthy merchant who had a very beautiful daughter, an only child, who, he informed him, was on the eve of her marriage with a Scottish gentleman, and he was invited to the wedding as a countryman of the bridegroom. He went accordingly, and though a little too late for the commencement of the ceremony, was yet in time to save an innocent girl from becoining the vic- tim of his own brother-in-law. Viscount Primrose ! Though the deserted wife had proved her willing- ness to believe in the magic mirror, by having committed to writing w^hat she had seen, yet she was so astonished by her brother's tidings, that she nearly fainted ; but something more was to be learned still. She asked her brother on what day the circumstance took place, and having been informed, she gave him her key, and desired him to bring to her the sealed paper. On its being opened, it was then found, that at the very moment when she had seen the roughly-interrupted nuptial ceremony it had actually been in progress. Primrose died, as we have said, in the year before the Union. His widow was still young and beautiful, but made a resolution never again, after her past experience, to become a wife ; but the great Earl Stair, who had been now resident some twenty }ears in Edinburgh, and whose public and private character was irreproachable, earnestly sued for her hand, )-et she firmly announced her intention of remaining unwedded ; and in his love and des- peration the Earl bethought him of an expedient indicative of the roughness and indelicacy of the age. By dint of powerfully bribing her household he got himself introduced over-nicjht into a small 104 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lady Stair's Close. room where she was wont to say her prayers — such private oratories being common in most of the Edinburgh houses of the time — and the window of which overlooked tlie High Street. Thereat he showed himself, en dcshahilk, to the people passing, an exhibition which so seriously aftected the repu- with violence. Once — we regret to record it of so heroic a soldier — when transported beyond the bounds of reason, he gave her a blow on tlie face with such severity as to draw blood ; and then, all unconscious of wliat he had done, fell asleep. Poor Lady Stair, overwhelmed by such an insult, -^^■^s lilt l.AUNMAKkll, I'Kw.M 1 1 1 1-. s i 1 K uv I 1 1 li W Kir.lI-lUirsF., 1825. (A/lcr E-.u!;iuk.) tation of the young widow, that she saw the neces- sity of accepting him as her husband. Lady Eleanor was happier as Countess of Stair than she had ever been as Viscountess Primrose ; but the Earl had one failing — a common one enough among gentlemen in those days— a dispo- sition to indulge in tlie bottle, and then his temper was by no means improved ; thus, on coming home he more than once treated the Countess and recalling perhaps mucli that she had endured with Lord Primrose, made no attempt to bind uji the wound, but threw lierself on a sofa, and wept and bled till morning dawned. When the Earl awoke, her bloody and dishevelled aspect filled him with horror and dismay. "What has hap- pened ? How came you to be thus ?" he exclaimed. She told him of his conduct over-night, which filled him with shame — such sliame and compunction, Lady Stair's Close.] MARSHAL STAIR. i°S that he made a vow never again to take any species of drink, unless it had first passed through her hands ; and this vow he kept religiously till the day of his death, which took place on the 9th April, 1747, at Qucensberry House in the Canon- gate, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. He was General of the Marines, Governor of Minorca, Colonel of the Greys, and Knight of the Thistle. He was buried in the family vault at Kirkliston, and his funeral is thus detailed in the Scots Maga- zine for 1747 : — when the procession began, as a signal to the garrison in the Castle, when the flag was half hoisted, and mitiute guns fired, till the funeral was clear of the city. With much that was irreproachable in her charac- ter, Lady Stair was capable of ebullitions of temper, and of using terms that modern taste would deem objectionable. The Earl of Dundonald had stated to the Duke of Douglas that Lady Stair had expressed her doubts concerning the birth of his nephew — a much-vexed question, at this time before the THE LA.WNMAKKET, FROM ST. GILLS " I. Six baton men, two and two. 2. A mourn- ing coach with four gentlemen ushers and the Earl's crest. 3. Another mourning coach with three gentlemen ushers, and a friend carrying the coronet on a velvet cushion. 4. Six ushers on foot, with batons and gilt streamers. 5. The corpse, under a dressed canopy, drawn by six dressed horses, with the Earl's achievement, within the Order of the Thistle. 6. Chief mourners in a coach and six. 7. Nine mourning coaches, each drawn by six horses. 8. The Earl's body coach empty. 9. Carriages of nobility and gentry, in order of rank." A sky-rocket was thrown up in the Canongate 14 House of Lords and Court of Session. In sup- port of what he stated, Dundonald, in a letter to the Lord Justice Clerk, gave the world leave to deem him " a damned villain " if he spoke not the truth. Involved thus unpleasantly with the ducal house of Douglas, Lady Stair went straight to Hol>TOod Palace, and there, before the Duke, the Duchess, and their attendants, she said that she " had lived to a good age, and never, until now, got entangled in any scandal." She then struck the floor thrice with her cane, each time calhng the Earl of Dundonald " a damned villain," after which she withdrew, swelling with rage ; but Lady Mary Wordey Montagu mentions in her io6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. f Baxter's Close. " Letters," that the Countess of Stair was subject to hysterical fits — the result perhaps of all she had undergone as a wife. After being long the queen of society in Edinburgh, she died in November, 1759, twelve years after the death of the Marshal. She was the first person in the city, of her time, who had a black domestic servant. Another dowager, the Lady Clestram, succeeded her in the old house in the close. It was advertised for sale, at the upset price of ^£'250, in the Edinburgh Advertiser of 1789; and is described as "that large dwelling-house, sometime belonging to the Dowager Countess of Stair, situated at the entry to the Earthen Mound. The sunk storey consists of a good kitchen, servants' rooms, closets, cellars, &c. ; the second of a dining and bed rooms ; the third storey of a dining and five bed rooms." It has long since been the abode of the humblest artisans. The parents of Miss Ferrier, the well-known novelist, according to a writer in Temple Bar for November, 1878, occupied a flat in Lady Stair's Close after their marriage. Mrs. Ferrier (iiee Coutts) was the daughter of a farmer at Gourdon, near Montrose, and was a woman of remarkable beauty, as her portrait by Sir George Chalmers, Bart, (a native of Edinburgh) in 1765 attests. At the time of her marriage, in 1767, she had resided in Holyrood with her aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Mait- land, widow of a younger son of Lord Lauderdale; and the flat the young married cou|ile took in the old close had just been vacated by Sir James I'ulteney and his wife Lady Bath. When Sir Richard Steele, of the Spectator, visited Edinburgh, in 1 7 1 7, on the business of the Forfeited Estates Conmiission, wc know not whether he resided in Lady Stair's Close, but it is recorded that he gave, in a tavern there, a whimsical supper, to all the eccentric-looking mendicants in the city, gi\ing them the enjoyment of an abundant feast, that he might witness their various oddities. Richard Sheils mentions this circumstance, and adds that Steele confessed afterwards that he had " drunk enough of native drollery to compose a comedy." Upper Baxter's Close, the adjoining alley, is associated with the name of Robert Burns. There the latter, in 1786, saved from a heartless and hopeless e.\ile by the generosity of the blind poet, Dr. Blacklock, came direct from the plougji and the banks of his native Ayr, to share the humble room and bed of his friend Richmond, a lawyer's clerk, in the house of Mrs. Carfrae. But a few weeks before poor Bums had made arrangements logo to Jamaica as joint overseer on an estate; but tile publication of iiis jioems was deemed such a success, that he altered his plans, and came to Edinburgh in the November of that year. In one of the numbers of the Lounger appeared a review of the first (or Kilmarnock) edition of his poems, written by Henry Mackenzie, who was thus the means, together with Dr. Blacklock, of kindly bringing Burns before the learned and fashionable circles of Edinburgh. His merited fame had come before him, and he was now caressed by all ranks. His brilliant conversational powers seem to have impressed all who came in contact with him as much as admiration of his poetry. Under the patronage of Principal Robertson, Professor Dugald Stewart, Henry Mackenzie, author of the " Man of FeeHng," and Sir John Whiteford of that ilk, but more than all of James Earl of Glencairn, and other eminent persons, a new edition of his poems was published in April, 1787 ; but amid all the adulation he received he ever maintained his native simplicity and sturdy Scottish independence of character. By the Earl of Glencairn he was in- troduced to the members of the Caledonian Hunt, and he dedicated to them the second edition ol his poems. In verse he touchingly records his gratitude to the earl : — ' ' Tlie bridegroom may forget the bride Was made his wedded wife yestreen ; The monarch may forget the crown That on his head an liour lias been ; Tlie mother may forget the child That smiles sae sweetly on her knee ; But I'll remember thee, Glencairn, And all tliat thou hast done for me ! " Burns felt acutely tlie death of this amiable and accomplished noble, which occurred in 1791. The room occupied by Burns in Baxter's Close, I and from which he was wont to sally forth to dine and sup with the magnates of the city, is still pointed out, with its single window which opens into Lady Stair's Close. There, as Allan Cunningham records, he had but " his share of a deal table, a sanded floor, and a chaff bed, at eighteenpence a week." According to the same biographer, the impres- sion which Burns made at first on the fair, the titled, and the learned, of Edinburgh, "though lessened by intimacy on the part of the men, remained unimpaired on that of the softer sex till his dying day. His company, during the season of balls and festivities, continued to be courted by all who desired to be reckoned gay or polite. Cards of invitation fell thick on him ; he was not more welcomed to the plumed and jewelled groups whom her fascinating Grace of (Gordon gatliured about her, than he was to the grave d vines and polished scholars who assembled Baxter's Close.] ROBERT BURNS. 107 in the rooms of Stewart, Blair, or Robertson. . . . But Edinburgh offered tables and entertainers of a less staid character, when the glass circulated with greater rapidity, when wit flowed more freely, and when there were neither high-bred ladies to charm conversation within the bounds of modesty, nor serious philosophers nor grave divines to set a limit to the licence of speech or the hours of enjoyment. To those companions, who were all of the better classes, the levities of the rustic poet's wit and humour were as welcome as were the tenderest ol his narratives to the accomplished Duchess of Gordon or the beau- tiful Miss Burnet of Monboddo ; theyraised a social roar not at all classic, and demanded and provoked his sal- lies of wild humour, or indecorous mirth, with as much delight as he had witnessed among the lads of Kyle, when, at mill or forge, his humorous sallies abounded as the ale flowed." While in Edinburgh Burns was the frequent and welcome guest ot John Campbell, Pre- centor of the Canon- gate Church, a famous amateur vocalist in his time, though forgotten now ; and to him Burns applied for an introduc- tion to Bailie Gentle, to the end that he might accord his tribute to the memory of the poet, poor Robert Fergusson, whose grave lay in the adjacent churchyard, without a stone to mark it. Bailie Gende expressed his entire concurrence with the wish of Burns, but said that " he had no power to grant permission without the consent of the managers of the Kirk funds." " Tell them," said Burns, " it is the Ayrshire ploughman who makes the request." The authority was obtained, and a promise given, which we believe has been sacredly kept, that the grave should remain inviolate. I.ADY STAIR s CLOSE. After a stay of six months in Edinburgh, Burns set out on a tour to the south of Scotland, accom- panied by Robert Ainslie, W.S. ; but elsewhere we shall meet him again. Opposite the house in which he dwelt is one with a very ancient legend, Blissit . be . the . Lord . in . all . His .gift is . iwv . a?id . evir. I n 1746 this was the inheritance of Martha White, only child of a wealthy burgess who became a banker in London. She became the wife of Charles ninth Earl of Kincardine, and after- wards Earl of Elgin, " undoubted heir male and chief of all the Bruces in Scotland," as Douglas records. The countess, who died in 1 810, filled, with honour to herself, tlie office of governess to theunfortunate Princess Charlotte of A\'ales. One of the early breaches made in the vicinity of the central thoroughfare of the city was Bank Street, on the north (the site of Lower Baxter's Close), wherein was the shop of two eminent cloth merchants, David Bridges and Son, which became the usual resort, of the whole literati of the city in its day. David Bridges junior had a strongly de- veloped bias towards literary studies, and, according to the me- moirs of Professor Wil- son, was dubbed by the Blackwood wits, " Director- General of the Fine Arts." His love for these and the drama was not to be controlled by his connec- tion withn^ ji^antile business ; and while the senior partner devoted himself to the avocations of trade in one part of their well-known premises, the younger was employed in adorning a sort of scncttiin, where one might daily meet Sir Walter Scott and his friend Sir Adam Fergusson (who, as a boy, had often sat on the knee of David Hume), Professor • Tradition points to the window on the immediate right fmarked *) IS that of the room occupied by Bums. loS OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. l^Bank Sirert. Wilson, J. G. Lockhart, Sir David Wilkie, and other eminent men of the day. His writings, spread over the periodical literature of his time — particularly the Edinburgh Magazine and Annual Register — are very numerous, and he was the first among modern Scotsmen who made art the subject and study had suggested, it is not to be wondered at that in exercises of this sort he took particular delight and obtained great excellence. He was secretary of the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh. The establishment of the Bridges is thus re- ferred to in Peter's " Letters to his Kinsfolk": — I.J) lluUSE, LAWNMAKKET. of systematic criticism ; and from the purity and clearness of his style, his perfect knowledge of the subject, and the graceful talent he possessed of mingling illustration with argument, lie imparted an interest to a subject, which, to many, might appear otherwise unattractive. And wlieu it is con- sidered that it was to the acting of the great Mrs. Siddons, jcihn Keniljle, Kean, and Miss O'Neil, that he had to ajiply those rules which his taste " Wastle immediately conducted me to this dilet- tanti lounge, saying, that here was the only place wlicre I might be furnished with every means of satisfying my curiosity. On entering, one finds a very neat and tasteful-looking shop, well-stocked with all the templing diversities of broad-clotli and bombaseens, silk stockings and spotted handker- chiefs. A few sedate-looking old-fashioned cits are probably engaged in conning over the lulinburgh BanV Street { DAVID RRinORS. 109 newspapers of the day, and perhaps discussing viordiciis the great question of Burgh Reform. . . . After waiting for a few minutes, the younger partner tips a sly wink across his counter, and beckons you to follow him through a narrow cut in its famous Hercules, the Dancing Fawn, the Lao- coon, and the Hermaphrodite, occupy conspicuous stations on the counters, one large table is entirely covered with a book of Canova's designs. Turner's ' Liber Studiorum,' and such like manuals : and in L L\l biuNt _\NL mahogany surface, into the unseen recesses of the establishment. A few steps downward, and in the dark, land you in a sort of cellar, below the shop proper, and here by the dim religious light, which enters through one or two well-grated peeping holes, your eyes soon discover enough of the furniture of the place to satisfy you that you have reached at last the sanctum sanctorum of the fine arts. Plaster of Paris casts of the head of the the corners where the little light there is streams brightest, are placed, upon huge piles of corduroy and kerseymere, various wooden boxes, black, brown, and blue, wherein are locked up from all eyes, save those of privileged and initiated freciuenters of the scene, various pictures and sketches, chiefly by living artists, and presents to the proprietor. Mr. Bridges, when I asked him on my first visit what mightbe the contents ofthesemysteriousreceptacles, OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Riddeirs Close. made answer in a true technico-Caledonian strain — ' Oo, Doctor Morris, they are just a wheen bits, and (added he, with a most knowing com- pression of his lips) let me tell you what, Doctor Morris, there's some no that ill bits among them.' One proved to be an exquisitely finished sketch by Sir William Allan, ' Two Tartar robbers divid- ing their spoil.' This led to a proposal to visit the artist's atelier, and we had no great distance to walk, for Mr. Allan lives in the Parliament Close, not a gun-shot from where we were." Mr. Bridges married Flora Macdonald of Scalpa (sister of the heroic Sir John Macdonald, whose powerful hand, with a few of the Scots Guards, closed the gates of Hougomont), and died in November, 1840. One of the finest specimens of the wooden- fronted houses of 1540 was on the south side of the Lawnmarket, and was standing all unchanged, after the lapse of more than 338 years, till its demolition in 1878-9 (see the engraving after Ewbank's view of it, p. 104). "As may be ob- served, its north front, each storey of which advances a little over that below, is not deficient in elegance, there being Doric pilasters of timber interspersed with the windows of one floor, ami some decorations on the gable presented to the street. The west front is plainer, in consequence apparently of re- pairs ; but we there see the covered space in fiont of the place for merchandise on the ground floor." A little east of the building, in the first or smaller part of Riddell's Close, which, like all others on the south side, ran down towards the Cow- gate, a lofty tenement towers upward, with a turret stair, dated 1726. This was the first residence of David Hume, and there it was he wrote the first pages of his History. In 1751 he came hither from his paternal place Ninwells, near Dunse, and soon after lie wrote to Adam Smith : — " Direct to me in Riddell's Land, Lawnmarket. . . . I have now at last, being turned 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 iiouse of my own, and completed a regular family, consisting of a head — myijelf — and two inferior members, a maid and a cat. My sister has just joined me, and keeps me company. With frugality, I can reach, I find, cleanliness, warmth, light, plenty, and contentment." In the following year he succeeded Ruddiman as Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates. On the opposite side of this small dark court is a more ancient house, having a curious wainscoted room, the ceiling, walls, and every panel of which are elaborately decorated in Norrie's style of art ; and therein abode Sir John Smith of Grothall (already mentioned). Provost of Edinburgh, and whose name was long borne by the alley. He was one of the commissioners chosen, in 1650, to convey the loyal assurances of the realm to Charles II. and Breda, and to have the Covenant duly subscribed by him. In the inner part of Riddell's Close stands the house of Bailie John Macmorran, whose tragic death made a great stir at its time, threw the city into painful excitement, and tarnished the reputa- tion of the famous old High School. The conduct of the scholars there had been bad and turbulent for some years, but it reached a climax on the iSth of September, 1595. On a week's holiday being refused, the boys were so exasperated, being chiefly " gentilmane's bairnes," that they formed a compact for vengeance in the true spirit of the age ; and, armed with swords and pistols, took possession at midnight of the ancient school in the Blackfriars Gardens, and declining to admit the masters or any one else, made preparation to stand a siege, setting all authority at defiance. The doors were not only shut but barricaded and strongly guarded within ; all attempts to storm the boy-garrison proved impracticable, and all efforts at reconciliation were unavailing. The Town Council lost patience, and sent Bailie John Macmorran, one of the wealthiest merchants in the city (though he had begun life as a servant to the Regent Morton), with a posse of city officers, to enforce the peace. On their appearance in the school-yard the boys became simply outrageous, and mocked them as " buttery carles," daring any one to approach at his peril. " To the point likely to be first attacked," says Steven, in his history of the school, " they were observed to throng in a highly excited state, and each seemed to vie with his fellow in threatening instant death to the man who should forcibly attempt to displace tliem. William Sinclair, son of the Chancellor of Caithness, had taken a conspicuous share in this barring out, and he now appeared foremost, encouraging his confederates," and stood at a window overlooking one of the entrances which the Bailie ordered the officers to force, by using a long beam as a battering ram, and he had nearly accomplished his perilous purpose, when a ball in the forehead from Sinclair's pistol slew him on tlie spot, and he fell on his back. Panic-stricken, tlie boys surrendered. Some effected their escape, and others, including Sinclair and the sons of Murray of Springicdale, and Pringle of Whitebank, were thrown into prison. Macmor- I Little's Close] FISHER'S AND LITTLE'S CLOSES. ran's family were too ricli lo be bribed, and clamoured that they would have blood for blood. On the other hand, " friends threatened death to all the people of Edinburgh if they did the child any harm, saying they were not wise who meddled with scholars, especiaWy i^e;it/eme)t's smis," and Lord Sinclair, as chief of the family to which the young culprit belonged, moved boldly in his behalf, and ]irocured the intercession of King James with the magistrates, and in the end all the accused got free, including the slayer of the Bailie, who lived to become Sir William Sinclair of Mey, in 1631, and the husband of Catharine Ross, of Balnagowan, and from them the present Earls of Caithness are descended. When the brother of the Queen Consort, the Duke of Holstein, visited Edinburgh in March, 1593, and as Moyse tells us, "was received and welcomed very gladly by Her Majesty, and used every way like a prince," after sundry entertain- ments at Holyrood, Ravensheugh, and elsewhere, a grand banquet was given him in the house of the late Bailie Macmorran by the city of Edin- burgh. The King and Queen were present, " with great solemnity and merriness," according to Birrel. On the 3rd of June the Duke embarked at Leith, under a salute of sixty pieces of cannon from the bulwarks, and departed with his gifts, to wit — 1,000 five-pound pieces and 1,000 crowns, a hat and string valued at 12,000 pounds (Scots?), and many rich chains and jewels. The Bailie's initials, I. M., are on the pediments that ornament his house, which after passing through several generations of his surname, be- came the residence of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. " By him," says Wilson, " it was sold to Sir Roderick Mackenzie, of Preston Hall, appointed a senator of the College of Justice in 1702, who resided in the upper part of the house at the same time that Sir John Mackenzie Lord Royston, third son of the celebrated Earl of Cromarty, one of the wittiest and most gifted men of his time, occupied the low flat. Here, in all probability, his witty and eccentric daughter Anne was born and brought up. This lady, who married Sir William Dick of Prestonfield, carried her humorous pranks to an excess scarcely conceivable in our decorous days ; sallying out occasionally in search of adventures, like some of the maids of honour of Charles II. 's Court, dressed in male attire, with her maid for a squire. She seems to have possessed more wit than discretion." Riddell's Close was of old an eminently aristocratic quarter. Lower down the street Fisher's Close adjoined it, and therein stood, till 1835, the residence of the ducal house of Buccleuch, which was demolished in that year to make way for Victoria Terrace. On the east side of an open court, beyond the Roman Eagle Hall — a beautiful specimen of an ancient saloon — stood the mansion of William Little of Craigmillar (bearing the date 1570), whose brother Clement was the founder of the university library, for in 1580, when commissary of the city, he be- queathed " to Edinburgh and the Kirk of God," all his books, 300 volumes in number. These were chiefly theological works, and were transferred by the town council to the university. Clement Little was not without having a share in the troubles of those days, and on the 28th of April, 1572, with others, he was proclaimed at the market cross, and deprived of his office, for rebellion against Queen Mary ; but the proclamation failed to be put in force. His son was Provost of the city in 1591. Clement and William Little were buried in the Greyfriars' churchyard, where a great-grandson of the latter erected a tomb to their memory in 1683.* Little's Close appears as Lord Cullen's in Edgar's map of 1742, so there had also resided that famous lawyer and judge. Sir Francis Grant of Cullen, who joined the Revolution party in 1688, who distin- guished himself in the Convention of 1689 by his speech in favour of conferring the crown of Scotland on William and Mary of Orange, and thus swayed the destinies of the nation. He was raised to the bench in 1 709. His fwend Wodrow has recorded the closing scene of his active life in this old alley, on the 1 6th of March, 1726. "Brother," said the old revolutionist, to one who informed him that his illness was mortal, " you have brought me the best news ever I heard ! " " And," adds old Robert Wodrow, " that day when he died was without a cloud." • Menteth's " Theatre of Mortality." Edin., 1704. OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Brodie'i. Close. CHAPTER Xn. THE LAWN MARKET {coiitumed). The Story of Deacon Brodie — His Career of Guilt— Hanged on his own Gibbet— Mauchine's Close, Robert Gourlay's House and the other Old Houses therein — The Bank of Scotland, 1695 — Assassination of Sir George Lockhart — Taken Red Hand — Punishment of Chiesly. From such a character as Sir Francis Grant of CiiUen, a single-minded and upright man, the transition is great indeed to the occupant who gave his name to the next close — a name it still William Brodie, Deacon of the Wrights and Masons of Edinburgh, was the son of Convener Francis Brodie, who had an extensive business as a cabinet maker in the Lawnmarketj and in 1781 PLAN OF EDINBURGH, FROM THE CASTLE TO ST. CILES's. {From Gordon (if RothUmny's Ma/,.) 9, The High Street from the Castle ; lo, The Weighhouse ; 15, Horse Market Street ; 16, Slrai^iht (or West) Bow ; 34, Currcr's Close * 35, Libcrton's Wynd ; 36, Foster's Wynd ; /, The Kirk in the Qistle Hill. retains — a notorious character, wlio liad a kind of dual existence, for he stood high in repute as a pious, wealthy, and substantial citizen, until the daring robbery of the Exci.se Office in 1788 brought to light a long-continued system of secret house- breaking and of suspected murder, unsurpassed in the annals of cunning and audacity. the former was elected a Deacon Councillor of the city. He had unfortunately imbibed a taste for gambling, and became expert in making that taste a source of revenue; thus he did not scruple to have recourse to loaded dice. It became a ruling passion with him, and he was in the habit of re- sorting almost nightly to a low gambling club, kept Brodie's Close.] DEACON BRODIE. "3 by a man named Clark, in the Fleshmarket Close. He had the tact and art to keep his secret profligacy unknown, and was so successful in blinding his fellow-citizens that he continued a highly reputable member of the Town Council until within a short period of the crime for which he was executed, and, according to "Kay's Portraits," it is a singular fact, that little more than a month previously he there were committed a series of startling rob- beries, and no clue could be had to the perpetrators. Houses and sho[)s were entered, and articles of value vanished as if by magic. In one instance a lady was unable to go to church from indisposition, and was at home alone, when a man entered with crape over his face, and taking her keys, opened her bureau and took away her money, while she re- BAILIE MACMURRAN 3 HOUSE. sat as a Juryman in a criminal case in that very court where he himself soon after received sentence of death. For years he had been secretly licentious and dissipated, but it was not until 1786 that he began an actual career of infamous crime, with his fellow-culprit, George Smith, a native of Berk- shire, and two others, named Brown and Ainslie. He was in easy circumstances, with a flourishing business, and his conduct in becoming a leader of miscreants seems unaccountable, yet so it was. In and around the city during the winter of 1787 16 mained panic-stricken ; but as he retired she thought, '•'surely that was Deacon Brodie !" But the idea seemed so utterly inconceivable, that she preserved silence on the subject till subsequent events transpired. As these mysterious outrages continued, all Edinburgh became at last alarmed, and in all of them Brodie was either actively or passively con- cerned, till he conceived the — to him — fatal idea of robbing the Excise office in Chessel's Court, an undertaking wholly planned by himself He visited the ofiice openly with a friend, studied the details of the cashier's room, and observing the key of the 114 OLD AND NKW EDINBURGH. [Brodie's Close. outer door hanging from a nail, contrived to take an impression of it with putty, made a model there- from, and tried it on the lock by way of experiment, but went no further then. On the 5th of March, Brodie, Smith, Ainslie, and Brown, met in the evening about eight to make the grand attempt. The Deacon was attired in black, with a brace of pistols ; he had with him several keys and a double picklock. He seemed in the wildest spirits, and as they set forth he sang the well-known ditty from the " Beggar's Opera" — ' ' Let us take the road, Hark ! I hear the sound of coaches! The hour of attack approaches ; To your arms brave boys, and load. "Seethe ball I hold; Let chemists toil like asses — Our fire their fire surpasses, And turns our lead to gold!" The office was shut at night, but no watchman came till ten. Ainslie kept watch in Chessel's Court, Brodie inside the outer door, when he opened it, while .Smith and Brown enlurcd the cashier's room. All save the first car- ried pistols, and Brodie had a whistle by which he was to sound an alarm if necessary. In forcing the second or inner door. Brown and Smitli had to use a crowbar, and the coulter of a ]jlough which they had previously stolen for the jjurjiose. Their faces were craped ; they had with them a dark lantern, and they burst open every desk and press in the room. While thus engaged, Mr. James Bonnar, the deputy-solicitor, returned unexpectedly to the office at half-past eight, and detection seemed imminent indeed ! " The outer door he found shut, and on opening it a man in black (Brodie) hurriedly passed him, a circimistance to which, not having the slightest suspicion, he paid no attention. He went to his room up-stairs, where he remained only a few minutes, and then returned, shutting the outer door huhiiid hitn. Perceiving lliis, Ainslie became alarmed, gave a signal and retreated. Smith and Brown did not observe the call, but thinking themselves in danger when they heard Mr. Bonnar coming down-stairs, they cocked their pistols, de- termined not to be taken." Eventually they got clear off with their booty, which proved to be only sixteen pounds odd, when they had expected thousands I They all separated — Brown and AinsHe betook themselves to the New Town, Brodie hurried home to the Lawnmarket, changed his dress, and proceeded to the house of his mistress, Jean ^^'att, in Liberton's Wynd, and on an evening soon after the miserable spoil was divided in equal proportions. By this time the town was alarmed, and the police on the alert. Brown {alias Humphry Moore), who proved the greatest villain of the whole, was at that time under sen- tence of transpor- tation for some crime committed in his native country, England, and having seen an advertisement offering reward and pardon to any per- son who should discover a recent robbery at the shop of Inglis and Horner, one of the many transactions in which Brodie had been engaged of late with Smith and others, he resolved to turn king's evidence, and on the very evening he had secured his share of the late transaction he went to the Procurator Fiscal, and gave information, but omitted to men- tion the name of Brodie, from whom he expected to procure money for secrecy. He conducted the i)olice to the base of the Craigs, where they found concealed under a large stone a great num- ber of keys intended for future operations in all directions. In consequence of this, Ainslie, Smith and his wife and servant, were all arrested. Then Brodie fled, and Brown revealed the whole alfair. Mr. Williamson, king's messenger for Scotland, traced the Deacon from point to point till he reached Dover, where after an eigliteen days' pursuit he acmorran's housl. Brodie's CIosc.^ THE EXECUTION. "5 disappeared; but by a sort of fatuity, often evinced by persons similarly situated, lie gave clues to his own discovery. He remained in London till the 23rd of March. He took his passage on board the Leith smack Endeavour for that port, disguised as an old man in bad health, and under the name of John Dixon ; but on getting out of the Thames, according 'to some previous arrangement, he was landed at Flushing, and from thence reached Ostend. On board the smack he was rash enough to give in charge of a Mr. Geddes letters addressed to three persons in Edinburgh, one of whom was his favourite mistress in Cant's Close. Geddes, full of suspicion, on reaching Leith gave the docu- ments to the authorities. Mr. Williamson was once more on his track, and discovered him in Amster- dam, through the treachery of an Iri.shman named Daly, when he was on the eve of his departure for America; and on the 27th of August, 1788, he was arraigned with Smith in the High Court of Jus- ticiary, when he had as counsel the Hon. Henry Erskine, known then as " Plead for all, or the poor man's lawyer," and two other advocates of eminence, who made an attempt to prove an alibi on the part of Brodie, by means of Jean Watt and her servant, but the jury, with one voice, found both guilty, and they were sentenced to be hanged at the west end of the Luckenbooths on the ist October, 1788. Smith was deeply aftected; Brodie cool, determined, and indifferent. His selfpossession never forsook him, and he spoke of his approaching end with levity, as "a leap in the dark," and he only betrayed emotion when he was visited, for the last time, by his daughter Cecil, a pretty child of ten years of age. He came on the scaffold in a full suit of black, with his hair dressed and powdered. Smith was attired in white linen, trimmed with black. "Having put on white night-caps," says a print of the time, " Brodie pointed to Smith to ascend the steps that led to the drop, and in an easy man- ner, clapping him on the shoulder, said, ' George Smith, you are first in hand.' Upon this Smith, whose behaviour was highly penitent and resigned, slowly ascended the steps, followed by Brodie, who mounted with briskness and agility, and examined the dreadful apparatus with attention, particularly the halter destined for himself;" and well might he do so with terrible interest, as he was to be the first to know the excellence of an improvement he had formerly made on that identical gibbet — the substitution of what is called the drop, for the ancient practice of the double ladder. The ropes proving too short, Brodie stepped down to the platform and entered into easy conversation with his friends. This occurred no less than three times, while the great bell of St. Giles's was tolling slowly, and the crowd of spectators was vast. Brodie died without either confessing or denying his guilt ; but the conduct and bearing of Smith were very different. In consequence of the firmness and levity of the former, a curious story became quickly current, to the effect that in the Tolbooth he had been visited by Dr. Pierre Degraver, a French quack, who undertook to restore him to life after he had hung the usual time, and that, on the day before the exe- cution, he had marked the arms and temples of Brodie, to indicate where he would apply the lancet. Moreover, it was said that havirg to lengthen the rope thrice proved that they had bargained secretly with the execu- tioner for a short fall. When cut down the body was instantly given to two of his own workmen, who placed it on a cart, and drove at a furious rate round the back of the Castle, with the idea that the rough jolting might produce resuscitation ! It was then taken to one of his workshops in the Lawnmarket, where Degraver was in attendance ; but all attempts at bleeding failed ; the Deacon was gone, and nothing remained but to lay him where he now lies, in the north-east comer of the Chapel-of ease burying-ground. His dark lantern and sets of false keys, presented by the Clerk of Justiciary to the Society of Antiquaries, are still preserved in the city. He had at one time been Deacon Convener or chief of all the trades in the city, an office of the highest respectability. His house in Brodie's Close is still to be found in nearly its original state: the first door up a turnpike stair ; and this door, remarkable for its elaborate workmansliip, is said to have been that of his own ingenious hand. The apartments are all decorated ; and the principal one, LANTERN AND KEYS OF DEACON BRODIE. {Ffv/fi Mt* Scottish Antiquarian Jllnsenm.) it6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Mauchine's Close, which is of great height, contains a large painting had an audience of his Majesty ; with him there over the stone fireplace of the Adoration of the Wise Men. A few steps from this was the old Bank Close (so-called from the Bank of Scotland having been in it), a blind alley, composed wholly of solid, handsome, and massive houses, some of which were of great antiquity, and of old named Hope's Close, from the celebrated Sir Thomas Hope, King's Advocate in the time of Charles I., prior to whom it had borne the name of Mauchine's Close, about the year 15 ii. Here, on the site of the present Melbourne Place, stood a famous old mansion, almost unique even in Edinburgh, named Robert Gourlay's House, with the legend, above its door, "O Lord in the is al my traist 1569"; and it is somewhat singular that the owner of this house was neither a man of rank nor of wealth, but simply a mes- senger-at-arms belonging to tlie Abbey of Holyrood, an office bestowed upon him by the Commen- dator, Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. In 1574 Robert Gourlay was an elder of the kirk, and in that year had to do his public penance therein "for transporting wheat out of the countrie." In 1581, when the Re- gent Morton was about to suffer death, he was placed in Gourlay's house for two days under a guard ; and there it was that those remarkable conferences took place between him and certain clergymen, in which, while protesting his innocence of the murder of Darnley, he admitted liis foreknowledge of it. Among many popular errors, is one that lie in- vented tlie "maiden" by which he suffered; but it is now known to have been the common Scottish guillotine, since Thomas Scott was beheaded by it on the 3r(l of April, 1566. On the 7th of January, 1582, Moyse tells us in his Memoirs, " there came a French ambassador through England, named La Motte (Fenelon), he was lodged in Gourlay's iiouse near Tolbooth, and DEACON liRODIE. {After Kny.) also came another ambassador from England, named Mr. Davidson, who got an audience also that same day in the king's chamber of presence." This was probably a kinsman of De la Motte, the French ambassador, who was skin at Flodden. He left Edinburgh on the loth of February. Herein resided Sir William Drury during the siege of the Castle in 1573, and thither, on its surrender, was brought its gallant defender before death, with his brother Sir James Kirkaldy and others ; and it was here that in later years the great Argyle is said to have passed his last hours in peaceful sleep before his execution. So Robert Gourlay's old house had a terrible history. By this time the house had passed into the posses- sion of Sir Thomas Hope. Hence it has been con- jectured that Argyle'slast sleep took place in the Laigh Council Room, whither, Wodrow says, he was brought before e.xecu- li m. John Gourlay, son of Robert, erected a house at the foot of this an- cient close. It bore the date 1 588, with the motto, Sfes altei-a vit(e. Herein was the Bank of Scotland first established in 1695, and there its business was conducted till 1805, when it was removed to their new office, that stu- pendous edifice at the head of the entrance to the Earthen Mound. Lat- terly it was used as the University printing-office ; and therein, so lately as 1824, was in use, as a proof jiress, the identical old wooden press which accom- panied the Highland army, in 1745, for the publi- cation of gazettes arnd manifestoes. Robert Gourlay's house passed from the possession of Sir Thomas Hope and Lord Aberuchill into that of Sir George Lockhart (the great legal and ])olitical rival of Sir George Mackenzie), Lord President of the Session in 1685, and doomed to fall a victim to private revenge. Chiesly of Dairy, an unsuccess- ful litigant, enraged at the president for assigning a small aliment of ^93 out of his estate — a fme one south-westward of the city — to his wife, from whom Manch ne's Close.] LOCKHART ASSASSINATED. "7 we must suppose he was separated, swore to have vengeance. He was perhaps not quite sane ; but anyway, he was a man of violent and ungovernable passions. Six months before the event we are about to relate he told Sir James Stewart, an advo- cate, when in London, that he was "determined to go to Scotland before Candlemas and kill the president!" "The very imagination of such a thing," said Sir James, " is a sin before God." bed with illness, but sprang up on hearing the pistol-shot; and on learning what had occurred, rushed forth in her night-dress and assisted to convey in the victim, who was laid on two chairs, and instantly expired. The ball had passed out at the left breast. Chiesly was instantly seized. " I am not wont to do things by halves," said he, grimly and boastfully ; " and now I have taught the president how to do justice ! " He was put to the THE FIRST INTERVIEW IN I786: DEACON BRODIE AND GEORGE SMITH. {A/tcr Kay.) "Leave God and me alone," was the fierce response, " we have many things to reckon betwixt us, and we will reckon this too ! " The Lord President was warned of his open threats, but unfortunately took no heed of them. On Easter Sunday, the 31st of March, 1689, the assassin loaded his pistols, and went to the choir of St. Giles's church, from whence he dogged him home to the Old Bank Close, and though accompanied by Lord Casdehill and Mr. Daniel Lockhart, shot him in the back just as he was about to enter his house — the old one whose history we have traced. Lady Lockhart — aunt of the famous Duke of Wharton — was confined to her torture to discover if he had any accomplices; and as he had been taken red hand, he was on Monday sentenced to death by Sir Magnus Price, Provost of the city, without much formality, according to Father Hay, and on a hurdle he was dragged to the Cross, where his right hand was struck oft" when alive; then he was hanged in chains at Drumsheugh, says another account; between the city and Leith at the Gallowlee, according to a third, with the pistol tied to his neck. His right hand was nailed on the West Port. The manor house of Dairy, latterly the property of Kirkpatrick, of Allisland, was after this alleged to be haunted, and no servant therein ii8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Gosford's Close. would venture, after dark, alone into the back writes of a skeleton, found a century after, " when kitchen, as a tradition existed that his body — ' removing the hearth-stone of a cottage in Dairy which his relations had unchained and carried off, Park, with the remains oi a pistol ntax the situation sword in hand, under cloud of night — was buried somewhere near that apartment. " On repairing of the neck. No doubt was entertained that these were the remains of Chiesly, huddled into this SIR GEORGE LOCKHART OF CARNWATH. {From the Portrait in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum.) the garden-wall at a later period," says Dr. Wilson, " an old stone seat which stood in a recess of the wall had to be removed, and underneath was found a .skeleton entire, except the bones of tlie right hand — without doubt the remains of the assassin, that had secretly been brought thither from the Gallowlee." But Dr. Chambers also place of concealment, probably in the course of the night in which they had been abstracted from the gallows." This pistol is still preserved. In this close " the great house pertaining to the Earl of Eglintoun," with its coach-house and stables, is advertised for sale in the Evening Courant of April, 1735. CHAPTER XIII. THE LAWNMARKET {conclutied). Gosford's Close — Tlic Town House of the Abbot of Cambusl:cnneth- Tennant's House — Mansion of the Hays — T.ibcrton'r^ Wynd — Johnnie Dowic's Tavern — Burns and His SonRS — The Place of Execution - Birthplace of " The Man of Feeling " — The Mirror Club — Forrester's Wynd — The Heather .Stacks in the Houses— Peter Williamson — Beith's Wynd — Habits of the Lawnmarket Woollen Traders— " Lawn- market Gazettes" — Melbourne Place — The County Hall— The Signet and Advocates' Libraries. Below the scene of this tragedy opened Gosford's Close (in the direct line of tlie King's Bridge), wherein for ages stood a higlily-decoralcd edifice, belonging to the Augustinian abbey of Cambus- kenncth, near Stirling. It would seem to have been of considerable size, and from tlie mass of sculptured fragments, all beautiful Clothic carvings, found in the later houses of tlie close, must liave been a considerable feature in the city. " Tlie building was in all likelihood," we are told, " tlic Libcrton's Wynd-l BOWIE'S TAVERN. 119 town mansion of the abbot, with a beautiful chapel attached to it, and may serve to remind us how little idea we can form of the beauty of the Scottish capital before the Reformation, adorned as it was with so many churches and conventual buildings, the very sites of which are now unknown. Over the doorway of an ancient stone land in Gos- ford's Close, which stood immediately east of the Old Bank Close, there existed a curious sculptured lintel containing a representation of the crucifixion, and which may with every probability be regarded as another relic of the abbot's house that once occupied its site." This lintel is still preserved, and the house which it adorned belonged to Mungo Tennant, a wealthy citizen, whose seal is appended to a rever- sion of the half of the lands of Leny, in 1540. It also bears his arms, with the then common legend — Soli . Deo . Honor . d . Gloria. In the lower storey of this house was a strongly- arched cellar, in the floor of which was a concealed trap-door, admitting to another lower down, hewn out of the living rock. Tradition averred it was a chamber for torture, but it has more shrewdly been supposed to have been connected with the smugglers, to whom the North Loch afforded by boat such facilities for evading the duties at the city gates, and running in wines and brandies. This vault is believed to be still remaining untouched beneath the central roadway of the new bridge. On the first floor of this mansion the fifth Earl of Loudon, a gallant general officer, and his daughter, Lady Flora (latterly countess in her own right) afterwards Marchioness of Hastings, resided when in town. Here, too, was the mansion of Hume Rigg of Morton, who died in it in 1788. It is thus de- scribed in a note to Kay's works : — " The dining and drawing-rooms were spacious ; indeed, more so than those of any private modern house we have seen. The lobbies were all variegated marble, and a splendid mahogany staircase led to the upper storey. There was a large green behind, with a statue in the middle, and a summer-house at the bottom ; but so confined was the entry to this elegant mansion that it was impossible to get even a sedan chair near to the door." On the 20th January, 1773, ^^ four a.m., there was a tempest, says a print of the time, " and a stack of chimneys on an old house at the foot of Gosford's Close, possessed by Hugh Mossman, writer, was blown down, and breaking through the roof in that part of the house where he and his spouse lay, they both perished in the ruins In the storey below. Miss Mally Rigg, sister to Rigg of Morton, also perished." So lately as 1773 the Ladies Catharine and Anne Hay, daughters of John Marquis of Tweed- dale, and in that year their brother George, the fifth Marquis, resided there too, in the third floor of the front "land" or tenement. " Indeed," says Wilson, "the whole neighbourhood was the fa- vourite resort of the most fashionable and distin- guished among the resident citizens, and a perfect nest of advocates and lords of session." In the year 1794 the hall and museum of the Society of Antiquaries were at the bottom of this ancient thoroughfare. Ne.xt it was Liberton's Wynd, the avenue of which is still partially open, and which was removed to make way for the new bridge and other buildings. Like many others still extant, or demolished, this alley, called a wynd as being broader than a close, had the fronts of its stone mansions so added to and encumbered by quaint projecting out-shot Doric gables of timber, that they nearly met over- head, excluding the narrow strip of sky, and, save at noon, all trace of sunshine. Yet herein stood Johnnie Bowie's tavern, one of the most famous in the annals of Convivialia, and a view of which, by Geikie, is preserved by Hone in his " Year Book." Johnnie Bowie was the sleekest and kindest of landlords ; nothing could equal the benignity of his smile when he brought " ben " a bottle of his famous old Edinburgh ale to a well-known and friendly customer. The formality with which he drew the cork, the air with which he filled the long, slender glasses, and the regularity with which he drank the healths of all present in the first, with his douce civility at withdrawing, were as long re- membered by his many customers as his " Nor' Loch trouts and Welsh rabbits," after he had gone to his last home, in 1817, leaving a fortune to his son, who was a major in the army. With a laud- able attachment to the old costume he always wore a cocked hat, buckles at the knees and shoes, as well as a cross-handled cane, over which he stooped in his gait. Here, in the space so small and dark, that even cabmen would avoid it now, there came, in the habit of the times, Robert Fer- gusson the poet, Bavid Herd the earliest collector of Scottish songs, " antiquarian Paton," and others forgotten now, but who were men of local note in their own day as lords of session and leading advocates. Here Bavid Martin, a well-known portrait painter, instituted a Club, which was quaintly named after their host, the " Bowie College," and there his far more celebrated pupil Sir Henry Raebum often accompanied him in his earlier years ; and, more than all, it was the favourite resort of Robert Bums, OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Liberton's Wynd. where he spent many a jovial hour with Willie Nicol and Allan Masterton. " Three blyther lads " never gladdened the old place ; and so associated did it become with Burns, that, accord- ing to a writer in the " Year Book," " his name was assumed as its distinguishing and alluring cog- nomen. Until it was finally closed, it was visited nightly by many a party of jolly fellows Few strangers omitted to call in to gaze upon the ' coffin ' of the bard — this was a small, dark room, which would barely accommodate, even by squeez- ing, half a dozen, but in which Burns used to sit. ROBERT OOURLAY's HOUSE. Here he composed one or two of liis best songs, and here were preserved to the last the identical seats and table which had accommodated him." In his edition of Scottish songs published in 1829, five years before the demolition of the tavern, Chambers notes that in the ale-liouse was sung that sweetest of all Burns's love songs : — " O, poortith cauld, and restless love, Vc wreck my peace between ye ; Yet poortith a' I could forgie, An 'twere na for my Jeanic. " Oh, why should fale sic pleasure have, I-ife's dearest bonds untwining? Or why sae sweet a flower as love Uepcnd on fortune's shining?" The moment the clock of St. Giles's struck not another cork would Johnnie Dowie draw. His unvarying reply to a fresh order was, " Gentlemen, it is past twelve, and time to go home." In the same corner where Burns sat Christopher North has alluded to his own pleasant meetings with Tom Campbell. A string of eleven verses in honour of his tavern were circulated among his customers by Dowie, who openly ascribed them to Burns. Two of these will suffice, as what was at least a good imitation of the poet's style : ,, q Do^yj^'j ^le ! thou art the thing ^_ That gars us crack and gars us sing. Cast by our cares, our wants a' fling Frae us wi' anger ; Thou e'en mak'st passion tak the wing. Or tliou wilt hang her. " How blest is he wha has a groat, To spare upon the cheering pot ; He may look blylhe as ony .Scot That e'er was bom ; Gie's a' the like, but wi' a coat, And guide frae scorn." " Now these men are all gone," wrote one, who, alas ! has followed them ; " their very habits are be- coming matters of history, while, as for their evening haunt, the place whicli knew it once knows it no more, the new access to the Lawn- market, by George IV. bridge, passing over the area where it stood." Liberton's Wynd is mentioned so far back as in a charter by James III., in 1477, and in a more subsequent time it was the last permanent place of execution, after the demolition of the old Tolbooth. Here at its head have scores of un- happy wretches looked their last tipon the morning sun — the pre-eminent Irish mur- derers, Burke and Hare, among them. The socket of the gallows-tree was removed, like many other objects of greater interest, in 1834. Before ([uitting this ancient alley we must not omit to note that therem, in the house of his father Dr. Josiah Mackenzie (who died in 1800) was born in August, 1745, Henry Mackenzie, author of the " Man of I'eeling," one of the most illus- trious names connected with ])olitc literature in Scotland. He was one of the most active members of the Mirror Club, which met sometimes at Cleri- heugh's in AVriter's Court; sometimes in Somer's, opposite the Guard-house in the High Street ; sometimes in Stewart's oyster-house, in the old Forrester's Wynd.| THE "MIRROR" CLUB. Fleshmarket Close ; but oftener, perhaps, in Lucky Dunbar's, a house situated in an alley that led between Liberton's Wynd and that of Forrester's Wynd. This Club commenced its publication of the Minor in January, 1729, and terminated it in May, 1780. It was a folio sheet, published weekly at three-lialfpence. The Lounger, to which Lord Craig contributed largely, was commenced, by the staff of the Mirror, on the 6th of February, 1785, and continued weekly till the 6th of January, 1787. paid to their morals, behaviour, and every branch of education." In this quarter Turk's Close, Carthrae's, For- rester's, and Beith's Wynds, all stood on the slope between Liberton's Wynd and St. Giles's Church ; but every stone of these had been swept away many years before the great breach made by the new bridge was projected. Forrester's Wynd occurs so often in local annals that it must have been a place of some consideration. JOHN DOWIE's tavern. (Ftom Ihc Engrauing m Hones - Year Book.') Among the members of this literary Club were Mr. Alexander Abercrombie, afterwards Lord Aber- crombie ; Lord Bannatyne ; Mr. George Home, Clerk of Session ; Gordon of Newhall ; and a Mr. George Ogilvie : among their correspondents were Lord Hailes, Mr. Baron Hume, Dr. Beattie, and many other eminent literary men of the time ; but of the 1 01 papers of the Lounger, fifty-seven are the production of Henry Mackenzie, including his general review of Burns's poems, already referred to. In Liberton's Wynd, we find from the Edinburgh Advertiser of 1783, that the Misses Preston, daughters of the late minister of Markinch, had a boarding school for young ladies, whose parents " may depend that the greatest attention wiJl be 16 " The Diurnal of Occurrents" records, that in 1566, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin, Dean of Restalrig, and Lord President of the College of Justice, died in Forrester's Wynd, in the house of James Mossman, probably the same man who was a goldsmith in Edinburgh at that time, and whose father, also James Mossman, enclosed with the present four arches the crown of Scotland, by order of James V., when Henry VIII. closed the crown of England. In consequence of the houses being set on fire by the Castle guns under Kirkaldy, in 1572, it was ordered that all the thatched houses between Beith's AVynd and St. Giles's should be unroofed, and that all stacks of heather should be carried away from the streets OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. L Forrester's Wynd. and burned, and " that ilk man in Edinburgh have his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under painofdeid!" ("Diurnal") This gives us a graphic idea of the city in the sixteenth century, and of the High Street in particular, "with the majority of the buildings on either side covered with thatch, en- cumbered by piles of heather and other fuel accumulated before each door for the use of the inhabitants, and from amid these, we may add the stately ecclesiastical edifices, and the substan- tial mansions of the nobility, towering with all the more imposing effect, in contrast to their homely neighbourhood." Concerning these heather stacks we have the following episode in "Moyse's Memoirs :" — "On the 2nd December, 1584, a Baxter's boy called Robert Henderson (no doubt by the instigation of Satan) desperately put some powder and a candle to his father's heather-stack, standing in a close opposite the Tron, and burnt the same with his father's house, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole town, for which, being apprehended most mar- vellously, after his escaping out of town, lie was next day burnt quick at the cross of Edinburgh as an example." There was still extant in 1850 a small fragment of Forrester's Wynd, a beaded doorway in a ruined wall, with the legend above it — "O.F. Our Inheritance, 1623." " In all the old houses in Edinburgh," says Amot, "it is remarkable that the superstition of the time had guarded each with certain cabalistic ! characters or talismans engraved upon its front. These were generally composed of some texts of Scrijjture, of the name of God, or perhaps an emblematical representation of the crucifixion." Forrester's Wynd probably took its name from Sir Adam Forrester of Corstorphine, who was twice chief magistrate of the city in the 14th century. After the "Jenny Geddes" riot in St. Giles's, Guthrie, in his " Memoirs," tells us of a mob, con- sisting of some hundreds of women, whose place of rendezvous in 1637 was Forrester's Wynd, and who attacked Sydcserf, Bishop of Galloway, when on his way to the Privy Council, accompanied by Francis Stewart, son of the Earl of Bothwell, "with such violence, that probably he had been torn in pieces, if it had not been that the said Francis, with the help of two pretty men that attended him, rescued him out of their barbarous hands, and hurled him in at the door, holding back the pursuers until those that were within shut the door. 'J'hereafter, the Provost and Bailies being assembled in their council, those women beleaguered them, and threatened to burn the house about theii ears, unless they did presently nominate two com- missioners for the town," &c. Their cries were : " God defend all those who will defend God's cause ! God confound the service-book and all maintainers thereof!" From advertisements, it would appear that a character who made some noise in his time, Peter Williamson, " from the other world," as he called himself, had a printer's shop at the head of this wynd in 1772. The victim of a system of kidnap- ping encouraged by the magistrates of Aberdeen, he had been carried off" in his boyhood to America, and after almost unheard-of perils and adventures, related in his autobiography, published in 1758, he returned to Scotland, and obtained some small damages from the then magistrates of his native city, and settled in Edinburgh as a printer and publisher. In 1776 he started The Scots Spy, pub- lished every Friday, of which copies are now extremely rare. He had the merit of establishing the first penny post in Edinburgh, and also pub- lished a " Directory," from his new shop in the Luckenbooths, in 1784. He would appear for these services to have received a small pension from Government when it assumed his institution of the penny post. He died in January, 1799. The other venerable alley referred to, Beith's ^\'ynd, when greatly dilapidated by time, was nearly destroyed by two fires, which occurred in 1786 and 1788. The former, on the 12th December, broke out near Henderson's stairs, and raged with great violence for many hours, but by the assistance of the Town Guard and others it was suppressed, yet not before many families were burnt out. The Parliament House and the Advocates' Library were both in innninent peril, and the danger ap- peared so great, that the Court of Session did not sit that day, and preparations were made for the speedy removal of all records. At the head of Beith's Wynd, in 1745, dwelt Andrew Maclure, a writing-master, one of that corps of civic volunteers who marched to oppose the Highlanders, but which mysteriously melted away ere it left the West Port. It was noted of the gallant Andrew, that having made up his mind to die, he had affixed a sheet of paper to his breast, whereon was written, in large text-hand, "This is the body of Andrew Maclure ; let it be decently interred," a notice that was long a source of joke among the Jacobite wits. With this wynd, our account of the alleys in connection with the Lawnmarket ends. We have elsewhere referred to the once well-known Club formed by the dwellers in the latter, chiefly woollen The Tolbon'li 1 THE SIGNET AND ADVOCATES' LIBRARIES. "3 traders. They have been described as being "a dram-drinking, news-mongering, facetious set of citizens, who met every morn about seven o'clock, and after proceeding to tlie post-office to ascertain the news (when the mail arrived), generally ad- journed to a public-house and refreshed themselves with a libation of brandy." Unfounded articles of intelligence that were spread abroad in those days were usually named " Lawnmarket Gazettes," in allusion to their roguish or waggish originators. At all periods the Lawnmarket was a residence for men of note, and the frequent residence of English and other foreign ambassadors ; and so long as Edinburgh continued to be the seat of the Parliament, its vicinity to the House made it a favourite and convenient resort for the members of the Estates. On the ground between Robert Gourlay's house and Beith's Wynd we now find some of those por- tions of the new city which have been engrafted on the old. In Melbourne Place, at the north end of George IV. Bridge, are, among other offices, those of the Royal Medical Society, Property Invest- ment Society, and the Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures, built in an undefined style of architec- ture, new to Edinburgh. Opposite, with its back to the bridge, where a part of the line of Liber- ton's Wynd exists, is built the County Hall, pre- senting fronts to the Lawnmarket and to St. Giles's. The last of these possesses no common beauty, as it has a very lofty portico of finely-fluted columns, overshadowing a flight of steps leading to the main entrance, which is modelled after the choragic monument of Thrasyllus, while the ground plan and style of ornament is an imitation of the Temple of Erechtheius at Athens. It was erected in 1817, and contains several spacious and lofty court-rooms, with apartments for the Sheriff and other func- tionaries employed in the business of the county. The hall contains a fine statue of Lord Chief Baron Dundas, by Chantrey. Adjoining it and stretching eastward is the library of the Writers to the Signet. It is of Grecian archi- tecture, and possesses two long pillared halls of beautiful proportions, the upper having Corinthian columns, and a dome wherein are painted the Muses. It is 132 feet long by about 40 broad, and was used by George IV. as a drawing-room, on the day of the royal banquet in the Parliament House. Formed by funds drawn solely from con- tributions by Writers to H.M. Signet, it is under a body of curators. The library contains more than 60,000 volumes, and is remarkably rich in British and Irish history. Southward of it and lying parallel with it, nearer the Cowgate, is the Advocates' Library, two long halls, with oriel windows on the north side. This library, one of the five in the United Kingdom en- titled to a copy of every work printed in it, was founded by Sir George Mackenzie, Dean of Faculty in 1682, and contains some 200,000 volumes, forming the most valuable collection of the kind in Scotland. The volumes of Scottish poetry alone exceed 400. Among some thousand MSS. are those of Wodrow, Sir James Balfour, Sir Robert Sibbald, and others. In one of the lower compartments may be seen Greenshield's statue of Sir Walter Scott, and the original volume of Waverley ; two volumes of original letters written by Mary Queen of Scots and Charles I.; the Confession of Faith signed by James VI. and the Scottish nobles in 1589-90; a valuable cabinet from the old Scottish mint in the Cowgate ; the pennon borne by Sir William Keith at Flodden ; and many other objects of the deepest interest. The office or librarian has been held by many distinguished men of letters ; among them were Thomas Rud- diman, in 1702; David Hume, his successor, in 1752 ; Adam Fergusson ; and David Irving, LL.D. A somewhat minor edifice in the vicinity forms the library of the Solicitors before the Supreme Court. CHAPTER XIV. THE TOLBOOTH. Memorials of the Heart of Midlothian, or Old Tolbooth— Sir Walter Scott's Description— The Early Tolbooth— The " Robin Hood" Disturbances —Noted Prisoners— Entries from the Records— Lord Burleigh's Attempts at Escape— The Porteous Mob— The Stories of Katherine Nairne and of James Hay — The Town Guard — The Royal Bedesmen. is the power of genius, that with the name of the The genius of Scott has shed a strange halo around the memory of the grim and massive Tolbooth prison, so much so that the creations of his imagi- nation, such as Jeanie and Efl5e Deans, take the place of real persons of flesh and blood, and such Heart of Midlothian we couple the fierce furj' of the Porteous mob. " Antique in form, gloomy and haggard in aspect, its black stanchioned windows, opening through its dingy walls like the apertures 124 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Toll.ooth. of a hearse, it was calculated to impress all beholders with a sense of what was meant in Scottish law by the squalor caneris." Situated in the very heart of the ancient city, it stood at the north-west corner of the parish church of St. Giles, and so close to it as to leave only a narrow footway between the projecting buttresses, while its tall and gloomy mass extended so far into the High Street, as to leave the thoroughfare at that part only 14 feet in breadth. "Reuben Butler," says Scott, writing ere its demolition had been decreed, " stood now before the Gothic en- trance of the ancient prison, which, as is well known to all men, rears its front in the very middle of the High Street, forming, as it were, 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 prin- cipal street of the town, leaving for passage a narrow street on the north and on the south, into which the prison opens, a narrow, crooked lane, winding be- twixt the high and sombre walls of the Tolbooth and the adjacent houses on one side, and the buttresses and projections of the old church upon the otiier. 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, are jilastered, as it were, against the (Gothic projections and abutments, so that it seemed as if the traders had occupied with nests — bearing about the same proportion to the building — every buttress and coign of vantage, as the martlet did in Macbeth's castle. Of later years these booths have degenerated into mere toy-shops, where the little loiterers chiefly interested in such wares are tempted to linger, en- chanted by the rich display of holjby-horses, babies, and Dutch toys, arranged in artful and gay con- fusion, yet half scared I)y the cross looks of the withered ])antaloon by wliom these wares are superintended. But in the times we write of the hosiers, glovers, hatters, mercers, milliners, and all JOHN DOWIE. (After Kay.) who dealt in the miscellaneous wares now termed haberdashers' goods, were to be found in this narrow alley." By the year 1561 the Tolbooth, or Pretorium btirgi de Edinhiirgi, as it is named in the early Acts of the Scottish Parliament, had become ruinous, and on the 6th of February Queen Mary wrote a letter to the magistrates, charging the Provost to take it down at once, and meanwhile to provide accommodation elsewhere for the Lords of Session. Since the storm of the Reformation the Scottish revenues had been greatly impaired ; money and materials were alike scarce ; hence the magis- trates were anxious, if pos- sible, to preserve the old building ; accordingly a new one was erected, entirelyapart froui it, adjoining the south- west corner of St. Giles's church, and the eastern por- tion of the old Tolbooth bore incontestable evidence of being the work of an age long anterior to the date of Queen Mary's letter, and the line of demarcation between tlie east and west ends of the edifice is still apparent in all views of it. The more ancient portion, which had on its first floor a large and deeply-embayed square win- dow, having rich Gothic niches on each side, is sup- posed to have been at one time the house of the Provost of St. Giles's church, or some such appendage to the lat- ter, while the prebends and other members of the colleges were accommodated in edifices on the south side of the church, removed in 1632 to make way for the present Parliament House. Thus it is supposed to have been built about 1466, when James HI. erected St. Giles's into a collegiate church, and the chapter-house thereof being of sufticicnt dimensions, would naturally lead to the meeting-place of parliaments, thougli many were held in Edinburgh long before the time of James HI., especially in the old hall of the Castle, now degraded into a military hospital. The first Parliament of James 11. was held in the latter in 1437 ; in 1438 the second Parliament was held at Stirling, but in the November of the same year another in pretorio Imrgi de Edinburgh, The Tolbooth.l EARLY PARLTAMF.NTS. 125 ^■I'ftmfirim 126 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (The Tolbooth. i.e., the Tolbooth ; others were held there in 1449 and 1459. In the latter the Scottish word "Tolbooth," meaning a tax-house, occurs for the first time ; " Hence," says Wilson, " 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 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 the " Diurnal of Occurrents," it is recorded that in 1571 " the tour of the auM Tolbuyth was tane doun." The ornamental north gable of the Tolbooth was never seen without a human head stuck thereon in "the good old times." In 1581 "the prick on the highest stone" bore the head of the Regent Morton, in 1650 the head of the gallant Montrose, till ten years subsequently it was replaced by that of his enemy Argj^le. In 1 56 1 the Tolbooth figures in one of those tulzies or rows so common in the Edinburgh of those days ; but in this particular instance we see a distinct foreshadowing of the Porteous mob of the eighteenth century, by the magistrates forbidding a " Robin Hood." This was the darling May game of Scotland as well as England, and, under the pretence of frolic, gave an unusual degree of licence; but the Scottish Calvinistic clergy, with John Knox at their head, and backed by the authority of the magistrates of Edinburgli, who had of late been chosen exclusively from that party, found it impos- sible to control the rage of the populace when deprived of the privilege of having a Robin Hood, with the Abbot of Unreason and the Queen of the May. Thus it came to pass, tliat in May, 1561, when a man in Edinburgh was chosen as " Robin Hood and Lord of Inobedience," most probably because he was a frolicsome, witty, and popular fellow, and passed through the city witli a great number of followers, noisily, and armed, with a banner displayed, to the Castle Hill, the magistrates caught one of his companions, "a cordiner's ser- vant," named James Gillon, whom they condemned to be iiangcd on the 21st of July. On that day, as he was to i)e conveyed to the gibbet, it was set up with the ladder against it in the usual fa.shion, when the craftsmen rushed into the streets, clad in their armour, witli spears, axes, and handguns. They seized the Provost by main force of arms, together with two TJailics, David Sj-mmcr and Adnm Fullarton, and thrusting them into Alexander Guthrie's ^^Titing booth, left them there under a guard. The rest marched to the cross, broke the gibbet to pieces, and beating in the doors of the Tol- booth with sledge-hammers, under the eyes of the magistrates, who were warded close by, they brought forth the prisoner, whom they con- veyed in triumph down the street to the Nether Bow Port. Finding the latter closed, they passed up the street again. By this time the magistrates had taken shelter in the Tolbootli, from whence one of them fired a pistol and wounded one of the mob. "That being done," says the Diurnal of Occurrents, "there was nadliing but tak and slay! tliat is, the one part shooting forth and casting stones, the other part shooting hagbuts in again, and sae the craftsmen's servants held them (conducted themselves) continually frae three hours afternoon, while (till) aucht at even, and never ane man of the toun steirit to defend their provost and bailies." The former, who was Thomas MacCalzean, of Clifton Hall, contrived to open a communication with the constable of the Castle, who came with an armed party to act as umpire ; and through that officer it was arranged " that the provost and bailies should discharge all manner of actions whilk they had against the said crafts-childer in ony time bygone ; " and this being done and pro- claimed, the armed trades peacefully disbanded, and the magistrates were permitted to leave the Tolbooth. In 1579 the sixth Parliament of James VI. met there. The Estates rode through the streets; " the crown was borne before his Majesty by Archibald Earl of Angus, the sceptre by Colin Earl of Argyle, Chancellor, and the sword of honour, by Robert Earl of Lennox." Moyse adds, when the Parliament was dissolved, twelve days after, the king again rode tliither in state. In 1 58 1 Morton was tried and convicted in the hall for the murder of Darnley ; the King's Advocate on that occasion was Robert Crichton of Elliock, father of the " Admirable Crichton." Calderwood records some curious instances of the king's imbecility among his fierce and turl)ulent courtiers. On January 7 th, 1590, when he was coming down the High Street from the Tolbooth, wlicre he had been administering justice, two of his attendants, Lodovick Duke of Lennox (iieredi- tary High Admiral and Great Chamberlain), and Alexander Lord Home, meeting the Laird of Logic, with whom they had a quarrel, thougli he was valet of the royal chamber, attacked liim sword in hand, to the alarm of James, who rctirctl into an adjacent close ; and six days after, when he The Tolbooth.] ITS PRISONERS. izy was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the Laird of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly dragged out one of the most important witnesses, and carrying him to his castle of Crichton, eleven miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered a word. On the charge of being a " Papist," among many other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the Countess of Abercorn, where her health became broken by confinement, and the misery of a prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of George III., must have been something terrible in the days of Charles I. In 1621 she obtained a licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but faihng to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint in various places for three years, she was permitted to remain in the earl's house at Paisley, in March 1631, on condition that she "reset no Jesuits," and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000 merks. Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth contain volumes of entries made in the following brief fashion : — " 1662, June 10. — John Kincaid put in ward by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for ' pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft un- warrantably.' Liberated on finding caution not to do so again. " — June 10. — -Robert Binning for falsehood; hanged with the false papers about his neck. " — Aug. 13. — Robert Reid for murder. His head struck from his body at the niercat cross. " — Dec. 4. — James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhu- pitt from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the cheek with the Toun's common mark, and banished the kingdom, for the crime of double adultery. " 1663, March 13. — Alexander Kennedy; hanged for raising false bonds and writts. " — March 21. — Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certi- fying if again troubling the place, the next prison shall be the Correction House. " — • July 8. — Katherine Reid; hanged for theft. • " — July 8. — Sir Archibald Johnston of Warri- ston; treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed on the Netherbow. " — July 18. — Bessie Brebner; hanged for murder. " — Aug. 25. — The Provost of Kirkcudbright ; banished for keeping his house during a tumult. " — Oct. 5. — William Dodds ; beheaded for murder." And so on in grim monotony, till we come to the last five entries in the old record, which is quite incomplete. "1728, Oct. 25. — John Gibson; forging a declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed to the Tron, and dismissed. " 1751, March 18. — Helen Torrance and Jean Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child, eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when carried off, and dead on Friday, witli an incision in the belly, but sewn up again. " 1756, May 4. — Sir William Dalrymple of Cous- land ; for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh. Liberated on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks, to answer any complaint. " 1752, Jan. 10. — Norman Ross; hanged and hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for assassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of Wedderburn. " 1757, Feb. 4. — James Rose, Excise Officer at Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts for arrears." It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through clanship, or some other influence, nearly every criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape. Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer, who was one of the commissioners for executing the office of Lord Register in 1 6S9, and who married a daughter of the Earl of Melville about the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster who had married a girl to whom he had paid im- proper addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth, and sentenced to death ; and of his first attempt to escape the following story is told. He was carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful porter, who was to put him on board a vessel about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter did so with Lord Burleigh's head doummost, thus it had to sustain the weight of his whole body. The posture was agony, the way long and rough, but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port, where an acquaintance asked him " whither he was going?" "To Leith," was the reply. " Is the work good enough to afford a glass before going farther ? " was the next question. The porter said it was; and tossed do^vn the trunk with such violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Bur- leigh, who instantly fainted. Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd 128 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Tolbooth. collected ; the City Guard came promptly on the spot, and when the prisoner recovered from his swoon he was safe in his old quarters, which did not hold him long, however, as it would appear from the old folio of Douglas Peerage that he escaped in his sister's clothes. Yet as Lord Bur- leigh died in 17 13, Douglas in this matter seems to confound him witli his son, the Master. Of all the thousands who must have been prisoners tliere, recorded and unrecorded, on every conceiv- The malt-tax, the dismissal of the Duke of Rox- burgh from his office as Scottish Secretary of State, and the imposition of an intolerable taxation, the first result of the Union, and the endeavours of the re- venue officers to repress smuggling, all embittered the blood of the people. The latter officials were either all Englishmen, " or Scotsmen, chosen, as was alleged, on account of their treachery to Scot- tish interests, and received but little support even from local authorities. If in their occasion.T' iNTruioi; OK SIGNKT L1UH.\UY. able charge, tlie stories of none have created more excitement than those of Captain Porteous, of Katharine Nairne, and anotlier prisoner named Hay ; and singular to say, the names of none of them appear in the mutilated record just quoted. Porteous has been called the real hero of the Tolbooth. "The mob that thundered at its ancient portals on the eventful niglit of the 7th of September, 1736, and dashed through its blazing embers to drag forth the victim of their indignant revenge, has cast into sliadc all former acts of Lynch Im7o, for which the Edinburgh populace were once so notorious." But the real secret and mainspring of the whole tragedy was jealousy of the treatment of Scotland by the ministry in London. collisions with smugglers they shed blood, they were at once prosecuted, and an outcry was raised that Englishmen should not be allowed to slaughter Scotsmen with imininity." At length these quarrels led to and culminated in the Porteous mob. The seaport towns with which the coast of Fife is so thickly studded were at this time much infested by Scottish bands of daring smugglers, many of whom liad been buccaneers ih the Antilles and Gulf of Florida, and thus were constantly at war with the revenue official.s. One of these contra- bandistas, named Wilson, in revenge for various seizures and fines, determined to rob the collectoi of Customs at Pittenweem, and in this, with the aid of a lad named Robertson and two others, he fully succeeded. 'I'hey were all apprehended, and tried ; ^ s 8 < H Id X W X H The Tolbooth.] WILSON EXECUTED. 129 Wilson and Robertson were sentenced to death, without the slightest hope of a pardon. While the criminals were lying in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, by the aid of two horse-stealers, who were confined in a cell immediately above them, they succeeded in cutting the iron stanchels of a window, singing ])salms the while to drown all sound. One of the horse-stealers succeeded in getting through the aperture, and the other might have escaped in the same way but for the obstinacy of Wilson, who in- sisted on making the next attempt. Being a bulky man he stuck fast be- tween the bars, the gudeman of the Tolbooth was speedily made aware of the at- tempt, and took sure means to pre- clude a repetition of it. The charac- ter of Wilson the smuggler was not without some no- ble qualities, and he felt poignant regret for the sel- fish obstinacy by which he had pre- vented the escape of young Robert- son ; thus he formed the secret resolution of sav- ing his comrade's life, at any risk of his own. On the Sunday before the execution, according to the custom' of the period, the criminals were taken to that part of St. Giles's named the Tolbooth kirk, to hear the sermon preached for their especial benefit, but under custody of four soldiers of the City Guard, armed with their bayonets. On the dis- missal of the congregation, AVilson, who was an active and powerful man, suddenly seized two of the soldiers, one with each hand, a third with his teeth, and calling to Robertson, " Run, Geordie, run!" saw, with satisfaction, the latter knock the fourtli soldier down, and achieve an 17 RELICS FROM THE TOLBOOTH NOW IN THE SCOTTISH ANTIQUARIAN MUSEUM. I, Girdle; 2, Fetter-lock; 3, Padlock; 4, Staple; 5, Iron Gaud. escape, which no one for a moment thougiil of marring. The success of this daring achievement, though it doubly sealed his own fate, removed a load of remorse from the mind of Wilson, and excited so much sympathy in his behalf, that it was currently rumoured an attempt would be made to rescue him at the place of execution. When the day for that came — the 1 4th April, 1736 — it was found that the magistrates had taken ample pre cautions to enforce the law. Around the scaffold was a strong body of the City Guard, while a detachment of the Welsh Fusiliers — which young Elliot of Stobs, tlie future Lord Heathfield, had just joined as a volunteer — was under arms in the principal street. Vast multitudes had assembled, but their behaviour was subdued and or- derly until the terrible sentence had been execu- ted, and the body of Wilson swung from the lofty gib- )et in the Grass- market. Then a yell of rage and execration burst from the people, who broke through all restraint, and assailed the City Guard with every missile they could find. The body of Andrew A\'ilson was cut down, and an attempt made to carry it off It was interred at Pathhead, the burial register of which records that " The corpse of Andrew AVilson, baker, son to Andrew Wilson, baker and inn-dweller in Dun- nikier (Qui mortuit GalUfocio Edijilnirgam), was interred on the 5th April, 1736." An old denizen of Pathhead declared that he saw \Vilson's grave opened, and could not but remark upon the size and texture of his bones. I-30 OLD AXD NEW EDINBURGH. (The Tolbooth. The magistrates fled for shelter to a house in the Grassmarket, and the mob carried all before it Captain Porteous, the commander of the Guard, was an active officer, who had seen some service with the Scots Brigade in Holland ; but he was a harsh, proud man, of profligate character, who, it has been alleged, rendered himself odious to the people by the severity with which he punished the excesses of the poor, compared with his leniency to the wealthy. His fierce pride was roused to boiling heat. He had resented the escape of Robertson as an imputation upon the City Guard ; and also resented, as an insult, the presence of the Welsh Fusiliers in the city, where no drums were per- mitted to be beaten save his own and those of the 25th or Edinburgh Regiment, and he was therefore well inclined to vent his wrath on Wilson, as the cause of all these affronts. It would seem that on the morning of the execution, he appeared, by those who saw him, to be possessed by an evil spirit. It is alleged tliat he treated Wilson Avith brutal severity before leaving the prison ; and when the riot began, after the execution, and the City Guard was slowly returning up the steep West Bow, and facing about from time to time under showers of missile.s, which broke some bones and dashed the drums to pieces, it is said that he not only ordered his soldiers to " level their pieces and be d d ! " but snatched a musTcet from one and shot a ring- leader dead (Charles Husband, the man vrho cut down Wilson) ; then a ragged volley followed, and six or seven more fell killed or wounded. An Edinburgh crowd never has been easily in- timidated ; tlie blood of the people was fairly iqi now, and they closed in upon the soldiers with louder imprecations and heavier volleys of stones. A second time the Guard faced about and fired, filling the steep narrow street with smoke, and producing the most fatal results ; and as all who were killed or wounded belonged to the better class of citizens — some of whom were viewing the tumult from their own windows — pubHc indigna- tion became irrejjrcssiblc. Captain John Porteous was therefore brought to trial for murder, and sentenced to die in the usual manner on the 8th of September, 1736. His defence was that his men fired without orders; that his own fusil when shown to the magistrates, was clean ; and that the fact of their issuing ball ammunition amounted " to no less than an order to fire when it became necessary." George II. was then on the Continent, and Queen (,'arolinc, who acted as regent of a country of which .she knew not even the langu.igc, took a more favour- able view of the affair of Porteous than the l^din- burgh mob had done, and from tlie Home Office a six weeks' reprieve, preparatory to granting a full pardon, was sent down. " The tidings tliat a re- prieve had been obtained by Porteous created great indignation among the citizens of the capital ; they regarded the royal intervention in his behalf as a proof that the unjust English Government were disposed to treat the slaughter of Scotsmen by a military officer as a very venial offence, and a reso- lution was formed that Porteous should not escape the punishment which his crime deserved." On the night of the 7th September, according to a carefully-arranged plan, a small party of citizens, apparently of the lower class, preceded by a drum, appeared in the suburb called Portsburgh. At the sound of the drum the fast-swelling mob assembled from all quarters ; the West Port was seized, nailed, and barricaded. Marching rapidly along the Cow- gate, with numbers increasing at every step, and all more or less well-armed, they poured into the High Street, and seized the Nether Bow Port, to cut off" all communication with the Welsh Fusiliers, then quartered in the Canongate. While a strong band held this important post, the City Guardsmen were seized and disarmed in detail ; their armoury was captured, and all their muskets, bayonets, hal- berts, and Lochaber axes, distributed to the crowd, which with cheers of triumph now assailed the Tol- booth, while strong bands held the street to the eastward and westward, to frighten all who might come either from the Castle or Canongate. Thus no one would dare convey a written order to the officers commanding in these quarters from the magistrates, and Colonel Moyle, of the 23rd, very properly declined to move upon the verbal message of Mr. Lindsay, M.P. for the city. Meanwhile the din of sledge-hammers, bars, and axes, resounded on the ponderous outer gate of the Tolbooth. Its vast strength defied all eflibrts, till a voice cried, "Try it with fire!" Tar-barrels and other combustibles were brought ; the red flames shot upward, and the gate was gradually reduced to cinders, and through these and smoke the mob rushed in with shouts of triumi)h. The keys of the cells were torn from the trembling warder. The apartment in which Porteous was confined was searched in vain, as it seemed at first, till tlie unhappy creature was foiuid to have crept up the chinmey. This he had done at the risk of suffoca- tion, but his ujiward progress was stopped by an iron grating, which is often placed across the vents of such edifices for the sake of security, and to this he clung by his fingers, with a tenacity bordering on despair, and the fear of a dreadful death — a death in what form and at whose hands he knew not. I le was dragL,cd down, and though The Tolbooth.] PORTEOUS EXECUTED. 131 some proposed to slay him on the spot, was told by othei;s to jirepare for that death elsewhere which justice had awarded him ; but amid all their fury, the rioters conducted themselves generally with grim and mature deliberation. Porteous was allowed to entrust liis money and papers with a person who was in prison for debt, and one of the rioters kindly and humanely offered him the last consolation re- ligion can afford. Tlie dreadful procession, seen by thousands of eyes from the crowded windows, was then begun, and amid the gleam of links and torches, that tip[)ed with fire tlie blades of hun- dreds of weapons, the crowtl puuied ilown the West Bow to the Grassmarket. So coolly and deliberately did they proceed, that when one of Porteous' slippers dropped from his foot, as he was borne sobbing and praying along, they halted, and replaced it In the Bow the shop of a dealer in cordage (over whose door there hung a grotesque figure, still preserved) was broken open, a rope taken therefrom, and a guinea left in its stead. On reaching the place of execution, still marked by an arrangement of the stones, they were at a loss for a gibbet, till they discovered a dyer's pole in its immediate vicinity. They tied the rope round the neck of their victim, and slinging it over the cross- beam, swung him up, and speedily put an end to his sufferings and his life ; then the roar of voices that swept over the vast place and re-echoed up the Castle rocks, announced that all was over ! But ere this was achieved Porteous had been twice let down and strung up again, while many struck him with their Lochaber a.xes, and tried to cut off his €ars. Among those who witnessed this scene, and never forgot it, was the learned Lord Monboddo, who had that morning come for the first time to Edinburgh. " When about retiring to rest (according to ' Kay's Portraits ') his curiosity was excited by the noise and tumult in the streets, and in place of going to bed, he slipped to the door, half-dressed, with a night- cap on his head. He speedily got entangled in the crowd of passers-by, and was hurried along with them to the Grassmarket, where he became an involuntary witness of the last act of the tragedy. This scene made so deep an impression on his lordship, that it not only deprived him of sleep for the remainder of the night, but induced him to think of leaving the city altogether, as a place unfit for a civilised being to live in. His lordship frequently related this incident in after life, and on these occasions described with much force the ■effect it had upon him." Lord Monboddo died in 1799. As soon as the rioters had satiated tlieir ven- geance, they tossed away their weapons, and quietly dispersed; and when the morning of the 8th Sep- tember stole in nothing remained of the event but the fire-blackened cinders of the Tolbooth door, the muskets and Lochaber axes scattered in the streets, and the dead body of Porteous swinging in the breeze from the dyer's pole. According to the Caledonian Mercury of 9th SejUember, 1736, the body of Porteous was interred on the second day in the Greyfriars. The Government was exas- perated, and resolved to inflict summary vengeance on the city. Alexander Wilson, the Lord Provost, was arrested, but admitted to bail after three weeks' incarceration. A Bill was introduced into Parlia- ment materially affecting the city, but the clauses for the further imprisonment of the innocent Provost, abolishing the City Guard, and dismantling the gates, were left out when amended by the Com- mons, and in place of these a small fine of ;^2,ooo in favour of Captain Porteous' widow was imposed upon Edinburgh. Thus terminated this extra- ordinary conspiracy, which to this day remains a mystery. Large rewards were offered in vain for the ringleaders, many of whom had been disguised as females. One of them is said to have been the Earl of Haddington, clad in his cook-maid's dress. The Act of Parliament enjoined the pro- clamation for the discovery of the rioters should be read from the parish pulpits on Sunday, but many clergymen refused to do so, and there was no power to compel them ; and the people remembered \\ith much bitterness that a certain Captain Lind, of the Town Guard, who had given evidence in Edinburgh tending to incriminate the magistrates, was rewarded by a commission in Lord Tyrawley's South British Fusiliers, now 7th Foot. The next prisoner in the Tolbooth who created an intensity of interest in the minds of contem- poraries was Katharine Nairn, the young and beautiful daughter of Sir Robert Nairn, Bart., a lady allied by blood and marriage to many families of the best position. Her crime was a double one — that of poisoning her husband, Ogilvie of Eastmilne, and of having an intrigue with his youngest brother Patrick, a lieutenant of the Old Gordon Highlanders, disbanded, as we elsewhere stated, in 1765. The victim, to whom she had been married in her nineteenth year, was a man of property, but far advanced in life, and her marriage appears to have been one of those unequal matches by which the happiness of a girl is sacri- ficed to worldly policy. On her arrival at Leith in an open boat in 1766, her whole bearing betrayed so much levity, and was so different from what was expected by a somewhat pitying crowd, that a 132 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Tolbooth. Storm of just indignation was roused, and she was with some difficulty rescued from rough treatment by the authorities ; but in her case, as in some others, the strong walls of the old Tolbooth proved incapable of retaining a culprit of courage and high position. The final passing of the fatal sentence had been delayed by the Lords on account of the lady's pregnancy. Mrs. Shields, the midwife who attended her accoucliement (and who was a public practitioner in the city so lately as 1805), "had the address to achieve a jail delivery also." For three or four days previous to the concerted escape she pretended to be afflicted with a maddening tooth- ache, and went in and out of the Tolbooth with her head and face muffled in shawls and flannels, and groaning as if life were a burden to her. At length, when the warders and sen- tinels liad become fully used to see her thus, Katharine Nairn came down one even- ing in her stead, with her head enveloped, with the usual groans, and holding her hands upon her face, as if in agony. The warder of the inner door, as she passed out, gave her a slap on the back, calling her a " howling old Jezebel," and adding a " hope that she would trouble him no more." In her confusion, and per- haps ignorance of the city, she knocked at the door of Lord Alva, in James's Court, mistaking his house for that of her father's agent. The footboy who opened the door had a candle in Ills hand, and liaving been in court during the time of her recent trial, immediately recognised her, and raised the hue and cry. She then fled down a neiglibouring close, and achieved con- cealment for a time in the immediate vicinity of the Tolbooth, in a cellar about half-way down the old hack stairs of the Parliament Close belonging to the house of her uncle, \V. Nairn, advocate (after- wards Lord Dunsinane), from whence she was conducted to Dover in a post-chaise by one of that gentleman's clerks, whp was kept in constant dread of discovery by the extreme frivolity of her conduct. From Dover, disgiiiscfl in the uniform of an officer, she safely reached the Continent, and afterwards America, where she is said to have married again, and died at an advanced age, with the faces of a numerous progeny arounlan, scaled the walls of the Grcyfriars churchyard near the lower gate, a feat impossible to one less agile ; but so well had every stage of the business been arranged, tiial a large stone had The Tolbooth.] ESCAPE OF HAY. •33 1 t- • - \.^ r—r- r'- j^ .1: ■ '{"■" ' i*"^^ luiiiiTHi'iaiiiii d ■ i^-l s X H O o H O 134 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Tolbooth, been thrown down to facilitate the act. James Hay had been provided with a key that opened the long-unused gate of the gloomy-domed mausoleum of Sir George Mackenzie, a place still full of terror to boys, as it is supposed to be haunted by the blood-red spirit of the persecutor, and there he secreted himself, while the following advertisement appeared in the Edinburgh Advertiser of the 24th November, 1783 : — " Escaped from the Tolbooth of Edinbirgh, "James Hay, indicted for highway robbery, aged about 18 years, by trade a glazier, 5 feet 10 inches high, slender made, pale complexion, long visage, brown hair cut short, pitted a little in the face with the small-pox, speaks slow ■vvilh a haar in his tone, and has a mole on one of his clieeks. The magistrates offer a reward of Tivaity Giiiiuns to any person who will apprehend and secure the said James Hay, to be paid by the City Chamberlain, on the said James Hay being re-committed to the Tolbooth of this city." But James Hay had been a " Herioter," brought u\) in the famous hospital which adjoins the ancient and gloomy burying-ground ; thus, he contrived to make known his circumstances to some of his boy- ish friends, and besought them to assist him in his distress, as it was impossible for his father to do so. A very clannish spirit animated " the Auld Herioters " of those days, and not to succour one of the community, however undeserving he might be of aid, would have been deemed by them as a crime of tlie foulest nature ; thus. Hay's school- fellows sujiplicd his wants from their own meals, conveying him food in his eerie lurking-place, by scaling the old smoke-blackened and ivied walls, at the risk of severe punishment, and of seeing sights " uncanny," for six weeks, till the hue and cry abated, when he ventured to leave the tomb in the night, and escaiied abroad or to England, beyond reach of the law. " The principal entrance to the Tolbooth," to quote one familiar with the old edifice, " was at tlie bottom of the turret next the church. The gate- way was of good carve- AVy.) George Pitcairn, died 1791 ; George Robertson, died 1787 ; Robert Pillans, died 17S8. round the statue of Charles II. in the Parliament | to Hallow Fair, on which occasion their drums Square, as if the image of a Stuart were the last and fifes played slowly and sadly — refuge for any memorial of our ancient manners." i " The lust time I cam' o'er the muir.' In that year the Guard was finally disbanded, Scott mentions this, but he little knew that two 18 i>S OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Bedesmen. survivors of the corps would make their last actual appearance in public at the laying of the foundation of his monument, on the 15th of .\ugust, 1846. The last captain of the Guard was James Burnet, whose only military ex- perience had been gained in the ist Regiment of Edin- burgh Volunteers, and pre- vious to appointment he had been a grocer at the head of the Flesh-market Close. He died at Seton, on the 24th of August, 1814. One other memorial of the Tolbooth was that quar- ter of it which was named " The Puir Folks' Purses," on the north side. It derived its cognomen from being the place where the ancient fra- ternity of Blue Gmcins, or King's Faithful Bedesmen, received the royal bounty pre- sented to them on each king's birtliday, in a leathern purse, after having attended service in St. Giles's church. The origin of this fraternity is of great antiquity. Bedesmen to pray for the souls of the Scottish kings, l.OCIIAIU'.R AXl S OF {F} out the Scottish A n their ancestors and successors, were attached to most royal foundations, and they are mentioned in the chartulary of Moray, about 1226. The number of these Bedesmen was increased by one every royal birthday, as a penny was added to the pension of each, an arrangement doubt- less devised to stimulate their prayers for the life of the reigning monarch. For many years previous to the destruc- tion of the Tolbooth the distribution of a roll of bread, a tankard of ale, a blue gown, and a curiously- made leathern purse, was transferred to the Canon- gate kirk aisle. 'With the usual parsimony of the Im- perial Government in most matters connected with Scot- land — matters of more im- j>ort than this — the badges, gowns, and pensions, have all been discontinued, and the poor Bedesmen are now among the things that were, while a precisely similar charity is retained to this day at \\'indsor. THE CITY GUAKI tiquatian Museum.) CHAPTER XV. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. Si. Giles's Church— The Patron S.iint— Its Origin :ind early Norman style- The Renovation of 1829— History' of the Structure— Procession of the Saint's Relics — The Preston Relic — The Chapel of the Duke of Albany — Funeral of the Regent Murray— The "Gude Regent's Aisle" — The Assembly Aisle— Dispute between James VI. and the Church Party — Departure of James VI.— Haddo's Hole — The Napier Tomb — The Spire and Lantern — Clock and IJells — The Kramcs — Restoration of 187S. lived with him on the fruits of the earth and tlie milk of a hind. As Flavius Wamba, King of the Goths, was one day hunting in the neighbourhood of Nismcs, his hounds pursued her to the hermitage of the saint, where she took refuge. This hind has been ever associated with St. Giles, and its figure is to this day the sinister supporter of the city arms. ("Caledonia," ii., p. 773.) St. Giles died in 721, on the rst of September, which was always held as his festival in Edinburgh ; and to some disciple of the Benedictine establisliment in the south of France we doubtless owe the dedication of the ])arish church there. He owes his memory in the English capital to Matilda yf Scotland, queen of Henry I., wlio founded tlierc St. Giles's hospital for lepers in 1 1 17. Hence, the large parish which now lies in the heart of I .ondon took its name The churcli of St. (liles, or Sanctus Egidius, as he is termed in Latin, was the first parochial one erected in the city, and its history can be satisfac- torily deduced from the early part of the 12th century, when it superseded, or was engrafted on an edifice of much smaller size and older date, one founded about 100 years after the death of its patron saint, the abbot and confessor St. Giles, who was born in .Atlicns, of noble — some .say royal — parentage, and who, while young, sold his patri- mony and left his native country, to the end that he might serve God in retirement. In the year 666 he arrived at Provence, in the south of France, and chose a retreat near .'\rles ; but aftenvards, desiring more perfect solitude, he withdrew into a forest near Garde, in the diocese of Nismes, having witii Iwm only one companion, Veredemus, who St. Giles's Omrch.J THE EARLY CHURCH. 139 from the Greek recluse ; and the master and brethren of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to every felon as he passed their gate to Newgate. Among the places enumerated by Simon Dunel- mensis, of Durham, as belonging to the see of Lindisfarn in 854, when I'kirnulijh, who re- moved it to Chester-le-Street, was bishop, he in- cludes that of Edinburgh. From this it must be distinctly inferred that a church of some kind existed on the long slope that led to Dun Edin, but no authentic record of it occurs till the reign of King Alexander 11., when Baldred deacon of Lothian, and John perpetual vicar of the church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, attaclied their seals to copies of certain Papal bulls and charters of the church of Megginche, a dependency of the church of Holyrood ; and (according to the Zilie'r Cartarum Sandac Crucis) on the Sunday before the feast of St. Thomas, in the year 1293, Donoca, daughter of John, son of Herveus, resigned certain lands to the monastery of Holyrood, in full consis- tory, held in the church of St. Giles. In an Act passed in 1319, in the reign of Robert L, the church is again mentioned, when William the bishop of St. Andrews confirmed numerous gifts bestowed upon the abbey and its dependencies. In 1359 King David II., by a charter under his great seal, con- firmed to the chaplain ofiiciating at the altar of St. Catharine in the church of St. Giles all the lands of Upper Merchiston, the gift of Roger Hog, burgess of Edinburgh. It is more than probable that the first church on the site was of wood. St. Paul's Cathedral, at London, was burned down in 961, and built up again within the year. Of what must the materials have been ? asks Maitland. Burned again in 11S7, it was rebuilt on arches of stone — " a wonderful work," say the authors of the day. A portion of the church of St. Giles was arched with stone in 1380, as would appear from a con- tract noted by Maitland, who has also preserved the terms of another contract, made in 1387, be- tween the provost and community of Edinburgh on one. hand, and two masons on the other, for the construction of five separate vaulted chapels along the south side of the church, the architectural features of which prove its existence at a period long before any of these dates, and when Edin- burgh was merely a cluster of thatched huts. The edifice, as it now stands, is a building including the work of many different and remote periods. By all men of taste and letters in Edin- burgh it has been a general subject of regret that the restoration in 1829 was conducted in a man- ner so barbarous and irreverent, that many of its ancient features and its ancient tombs were swept away. The first stone church was probably of Norman architecture. A beautiful Norman door- way, which stood below the third window from the west, was wantonly destroyed towards the end of the eighteenth century. " This fragment," says Wilson, "sufficiently enables us to picture the little parish church of St. Giles in the reign of David I. Built in the massive style of the early Norman period, it would consist simply of a nave and chancel, united by a rich Norman chancel arch, altogether occupying only a portion of tlic centre of the present nave. Small circular-headed windows, decorated with zig-zag mouldings, would admit the light to its sombre interior; while its west front was in all probability surmounted by a simple belfry, from whence the bell «'0uld sum- mon the natives of the hamlet to matins and vespers, and with slow measured sounds toll their knell, as they were laid in the neighbouring church- yard. This ancient church was nrcer eiitirdy de- molished. Its solid masonry was probably very partially afiected by the ravages of the invading forces of Edward II. in 1322, when Holyrood was spoiled, or by those of his son in 1335, when the whole country was wasted with fire and sword. The town was again subjected to the like violence, probably with results little more lasting, by the conflagration of 1385, when the English army under Richard II. occupied the town for five days, and then laid it and the abbey of Holyrood in ashes. The Norman architecture disappeared piecemeal, as chapels and aisles were added to the original fabric by the piety of private donors, or by the zeal of its own clergy to adapt it to the wants of the rising town. In all the changes that it underwent for above seven centuries, the original north door, with its beautifully recessed Norman arches and grotesque decorations, always commanded the veneration of the inno\ators, and remained as a precious relic of the past, until the tasteless improvers of the eighteenth century de- molished it without a cause, and probably for no better reason than to evade the cost of its repair !" In the year 1462 great additions and repair j appear to have been in progress, for the Town Council then passed a law that all persons selling corn before it was entered should forfeit one chal- der to church work. In the year 1466 it was erected into a collegiate church by James III., the foundation consisting (according to Keith and others) of a provost, curate, sixteei'. prebendaries, sacristan, beadle, minister of the choir, and four choristers. Various sums of money, lands, tithes, &c., were appropriated for the support of the new I40 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. tSt. Giles's Church. establishment, and Maitland gives us a roll of the forty chaplaincies and altarages therein. An Act of Council dated twelve years before this event commemorates the gratitude of the citizens to one who had brought from France a relic of St. Giles, and, modernised, it runs thus : — " Be it kenned to all men by these present letters, we, the provost, bailies, counselle and commu- nitie of the burgh of Edynburgh, to be bound and obliged to William Prestoune of Gourton, son and heir to somewhile William Prestoune of Gour- ton, and to the friends and sir- name of them, that for so much that William Prestoune the father, whom God assoile, made diligent labour, by a high and mighty prince, the King of France (Charles VII.), and many other lords of France, for getting the arm-bone of St. Gile, the which bone he freely left to our mother kirk of St. Gile of Edinburgh, without making any condition. We, considering the great labour and costs that he made for getting thereof, promise that within six or seven years, in all t!ie possible and goodly haste we may, that we shall build an aisle forth from our Ladye aisle, where the said Wil- liam lies, the said aisle to be begun witliin a year, in which aisle there shall be brass for his lair in bost (/.<•., for his grave in embossed) work, and above the brass a writ, specifying the bringing of that Rylik by him into Scotland, with his arms, and his arms to be put in hewn work, in three other parts of the aisle, with book and chalice and all other furniture belonging thereto. AI.so, that we shall assign the chajilain of whilome Sir William of Prestoune, to sing at the altar from that time forth. .... Item, that as often as the said Rylik is borne in the year, that the sirname and nearest of blood of the said William shall bear the said Rylik, before all others, &c. In witness of which tilings we have set to our common seal at Edinburgh the nth (lay of the month of January, in the year of our Lord 1454."* The o//ifr arm of St. Giles is preserved in the SEAL OK ST.GIl.Ksf (A/lcr Heuty Laitig) * Fr.ig. : " ScotomonaKiici.' church of his name in the Scottish quarter of Bruges, and on the ist of September is yearly borne through the streets, preceded by all the dnmis in the garrison. To this hour the arms of Preston still remain in the roof of the aisle, as executed by the engage- ment in the charter quoted ; and the Prestons continued annually to exercise their right of bear- ing the arm of the patron saint of the city until the eventful year 15 58, when the clergy issued forth for the last time in solemn procession on the day of his feast, the ist September, bearing with them a statue of St. Giles — "a mar- mouset idol," Knox calls it — borrowed from the Grey Friars, because the great image of the saint, which was as large as life, had been stolen from its place, and after being " drouned " in the North Loch as an encou- rager of idolatry, was burned as a heretic by some earnest Reformers. Only two years before this event the Dean of Guild had paid 6s. for paint- ing the image, and i2d. for polishing the silver arm contain- ing the relic. To give dignity to this last procession the queen regent attended it in person ; but the moment she left it the spirit of the mob broke forth. Some pressed close to the image, as if to join in its support, while endeavouring to shake it down; but this proved impossible, so firmly was it secured to its supporters; and the struggle, rivalry, and triumph of the mob were delightful to Knox, who de- scribed the event wiUi the inevitable glee in which he indulged on such occasions. Onl)- four years after all this the saint's silver- work, ring and jewels, and all the rich vestments wherewith his image and his arm-bone were wont to be decorated on high festivals, wtjre sold by the authority of the magistrates, and tlie proceeds employed in the rejjair of the church. •f Under a cmopy supported by spiral cohimns a full-length figure of Si. f'.ilcs with the nitnbus, holding the crozicr in his right hand, and in his left a hook and a branch. A kid, the usual attendant on St. Giles, is playfully lea]>ing u]) to his h.-md. On the pedestal is a shield bearing the castle tri()le-towcrcd, S. cOMMtiNP. tAPTi mtt EGir>ir iik F.niNmiKdii. [A/ffirniii-it to a charter l>y the Prnvoat [li'n/tet Forhcs\ atiit Chi'ptrr fl/ SI. Cilei 0/ the ttintiae ami f^M>e in favour of the mn^istrntn mid community of r.tthilunxh^ A.D. 1496.") St. Giles's Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAV ON THF, PROCKSSIONISTS. 141 THE NORMAN DOORWAY, ST. GILES S, WHICH WAS DESTROYED TOWARDS THE END 01- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (From a Drawing l-y Anironr alwnt 1705) In his "Monarchie," finished in 1553, the pun- gent Sir David Lindesay of the Mount writes thus of the processionists : — " Fy on you fostereris of idolatrie ! That till ane dcid stok does sik reverence In presens of the pepill pubUckUe ; Feir ye nocht God, to commit sik offence, I counsall you do yit your diligence, To gar suppresse sik greit abusion ; Do ye nocht sa, I dreid your recompense. Sail be nocht else, bot clene confusion." The Lady aisle, where Preston's grave lay and the altar stood, was part of what forms now the south aisle of the choir called the High Church, and on that altar many of the earliest recorded gifts were bestowed. The constant additions made to St. Giles's church, from the exchequer of the city, or by con- tributions of wealthy burgesses, cannot but be regarded as a singular evidence of the great 142 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles. elasticity which the nation displayed in its endless wars with England, showing how the general and local government vied with each other in the erection of ornate ecclesiastical edifices, the mo- ment the invaders — few ol whom ever equalled Edward HI. in wanton ferocity — had re-crossed the Tweed. Among these we may specially j mention the chapel of Robert Duke of Albany, [ now the most beautiful and interesting portion of j this sadly defaced and misused old edifice. The ornamental sculptures of this portion are of a peculiarly striking character — heraldic devices forming the most prominent features on the capital of the great clustered pillar. On the south side are the arms of Robert Duke of Albany, son of King Robert II., and on the north are those of Archi- bald fourth Earl of Douglas, Duke of Touraine and Marshal of France, who was slain at the battle of Verneuil by the English. In 1401 David Duke of Rothesay, the luckless son of Robert II., was made a prisoner by his uncle, the designing Duke of Albany, with tlie full consent of the aged king his father, who had grown weary of the daily com- plaints that were made against the prince. In the " Fair Maid of Perth," Scott has depicted with thrilling effect the actual death of David, by the slow process of starvation, notwithstanding the intervention of a maiden and nurse, who met a very different fate from that he assigns to them in the novel, while in his history he expresses a doubt whether they ever supplied the wants of the prince in any way. According to the " Black Book" of Scone, the Earl of Douglas was with Albany when the prince was trepanned to Falkland, and having probably been exasperated against the latter, who was liis own brother-in-law (having married his sister Marjorie Douglas), for liis licentious course of life, must have joined in tlie i)rojected as.sassi- nation. " Such are the two Scottish nobles whose armorial bearings still grace the capital of the pillar in the old chapel. It is the only other case in which they are found acting in concert besides the dark deed already referred to ; and it seems no unreasonaljle inference to draw from such a coin- cidence, that this chapel had been founded and endowed by them as an expiatory offering for that deed of blood, and its chaplain probably a])pointed to say masses for their victim's soul " (Wilson). The comparative wealth of tlie Scottish Church in those days and for long after was considerable, and an idea may l)e formed of it from the amount of the tenth of the benefices jiaid by the three countries as a tax to Rome, and in the Acts of Par- liament of James III. in 147 1, and of James IV. in '493- 'Pile account is from a "Code.x Membra- naceus," in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum :— De terra Scotias /3,947 19 8 ,, Hibernia; 1,647 16 3 ,, Anglii? et W.iUi.x- 20,872 2 4J Thus we see that the Scottish Church paid more than double what was paid by Ireland, and a fifth of the amount that was paid by England. The transepts of St. Giles, as they existed before the so-called repairs of 1829, aftbrded distinct evidence of the gradual progress of the edifice. Beyond the Preston aisle the roof differed from the older portion, exhibiting undoubted evidence of being the work of a subsequent time ; and from its associations with the eminent men of other days it is perhaps the most interesting portion of the whole fabric. Here it was that Walter Chap- man, of Ewirland, a burgess of Edinburgh, famous as the introducer of the printing-press into Scotland, and who was nobly patronised by the heroic king who fell at Flodden, founded and endowed a chaplaincy at the altar of St. John the Evangelist, " in honour of God, the Blessed V^irgin Mary, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, and all the saints, for the healthful estate and prosperity of the most excellent lord the King of Scotland, and of his most serene consort Margaret Queen of Scotland, and of their children ; and also for the health of my soul, and of Agnes Cockburne, my present wife, and of the soul of Mariot Kerkettill, my former spouse," &c. "This charter," says a historian, "is dated ist August, 1 5 13, an era of peculiar interest. Scot- land was then rejoicing in all the prosperity and happiness consetiuent on the wise and beneficent reign of James IV. Learning was visited with the highest favour of the Court, and literature was rapidly extending its influence under the zealous co-operation of Dunbar, Douglas, Kennedy, and others, with the royal master-printer. Only one month thereafter Scotland lay at the mercy of her southern rival. Her king was slain ; the chief of her nobles and warriors had perished on I'"lodden Field, and adversity and ignorance again replaced the advantages that had followed in the train of the gallant James's rule. Thenceforth, the altars of St. (liles received few and rare additions to their endowments." From the preface to " Gologras and CJawane," we learn that in 1528 Walter Chapman the printer founded a chaplaincy at the altar of Jesus Christ, in St. (iiles, and endowed it wilii a tenement in the Covvgate ; and there is good reason for believing that the jiious old printer lies buried in the south tran.sept of the church, close by the spot where St. Giles's Church,] REGENT MURRAY'S FUNERAL. M3 the Regent Murray, the Regent Morton, and his great rival, John Stewart Earl of Athole, are buried ; and adjoining the aisle where the sorely mangled remains of the great Marquis of Montrose were so royally interred on the 7th of January, 1661. The Regent's tomb, now fully restored, stands on the west side of the south transept, and on many accounts is an object of peculiar interest. Erected to the memory of one who played so con- spicuous a part in one of the most momentous periods of Scottish history, it is well calculated to rouse many a stirring asso- ciation. All readers of liistory know how the Re- gent fell under the bullet of Bothwelthaugh, at Lin- lithgow, in avenging the wrongs inflicted on his wife, the heiress of Wood- houselee. Asthe"Cadyow Ballad " lias it— " 'Mid pennoned spears a stately grove, Proud Miiiray's plumage floated high ; Scarce could his trampling charger move. So close the minions crow- ded nigh. " From the raised vizor's shade, his eye. Dark rolling, glanced the ranks along ; And his steel truncheon waved on high, Seemed marshalling the iron throng. " But yet his saddened brow confessed, A passing shade of doubt and awe ; Some fiend was whispering in his breast. Beware of injured Bothwellliaugh ! " The death-shot parts— the charger springs- Wild rises tumult's startling roar ! •And Murray's plumy helmet rings — Rings on the ground to rise no more ! " When his remains were committed to the tomb in which they still lie, the thousands who crowded the church were moved to tears by the burning eloquence of Knox. "Vpoun the xiiij day of the moneth of Februar, 1570,'' says the "Diurnal of Occurrents" " my lord Regentis corpis, being brocht m ane bote be sey, fra Stirling to Leith, quhair it was keipit in Johne AVairdlaw his hous, and there- after cary it to the Palace of Holyrudhous, wes transportit fra the said Palace to the Collec'e Kirk JOHN KNO.X'S PULPIT, ST. GILES's. {From the Scoitisk Antiquarian Mjtsenin). of Sanctgeill, in this manner; that is to say, William Kirkaldie of Grange, Knycht, raid fra the said palace in dule weid, bearing ane pensall quherin was contenit ane Reid Lyon ; after him followit Colvill of Cleishe, Maister (of the) Hous- hold to the said Regent, with ane quherin was contenit my lords regentis armes and bage." The Earls of Mar, Athole, Glencairn, the Lords Ruthven, Methven, and Lindsay, the Master of Graham, and many other nobles, bore the body through the church to the grave, where it " was buryit in Sanct Anthonie's yle." On the front of the restored tomb is the an- cient brass plate, bearing an inscription composed by George Buchanan : — *' lacobo Stiyvarto, li/oraviiC Co- mill, Sco/iic Proregi ; Viro, ALtatis svs, ioi!:;e Opti- mo : ab inimicis^ Oiiniis memoriit ddfrrimis, ex iitsidiis extinctOf Ccv patri commvniy patria mcrrens posiiit. " Opposite, on the north side of the west transept, was the tomb in which the Earl of Athole, Chancellor of Scotland, who died sud- denly at Stirling, not with- out suspicion of poison, was interred with great solemnity on the 4th of July, 1579. A cross was used on this occasion, and as flambeaux were borne, according to Calderwood, the funeral probably oc- ciUTed at night ; these para- phernalia led to the usual interference of the General Assembly, and a riot ensued. The portion of the church which contained these monuments was entered by a door adjoining the Parliament Close, and, as it was never shut, "the gude regent's aisle," as it was named, became a common place for appointments and loungers. Thus French Paris — Queen Mary's servant — in his confession respecting the murder of King Henry, stated that during the communings which took place before that dark deed was re- solved on, he one day " took his mantle and sword and went to promefter (walk) in the high church." Probably in consequence of the veneration enter- tained for the memory of the Regent, his tomb . 144 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles's Church. was a place frequently assigned in bills for the payment of mone)-. The transept, callelaces where the Privy Council met, and torture went on, too often, almost daily at one time. Though long dedicated now " to the calm seclusion of literary study, they are the .same that witnessed the noble, the enthusiastic, and despairing, alike prostrate at the feet of tyrants, or subjected to their merciless sword. There Guthrie and Argyle received the barbarous sentence of their personal " 'I'hc King's Advocate being in Angus, sent over a deputation to me to ]nirsue ; but God so ordered it that I was freed, and Sir William Purves eased me of the office. In fortification of what they said before the Duke and Council, they led the clerks and macers as witnesses, who deponed that they uttered those or the like words : ' They declined the king, denied him to be tlicir lawfuf sovereign, and called him a tyrant and covenant- breaker.' And l'"orman had a knife with this l^osie graven on it — TJiis is to cut the throats of tyrants ; and said 'if the king be a tyrant, why not also cut his throat, and if they were righteous judges, they would have the same on their swords, parliament Hou^c] GENERAL DALYELL. 161 like Buchanan's motto borrowed from the great Emperor Trajan, Pro me, sin inereor, in me.' Garnock having at a Committee of Council railed at General Dalyell, calling him (with reference to his service in Russia) a Muscovia beast who used to roast men, the general in a passion struck him with the pommel of his shable on the face till the blood sprung. Garnock gave in a protestation signed with his own hand, calling them ' all bloody murderers and papists, and charging all the Parlia- of which was accordingly done ; and they died obstinately without acknowledging any fault or retracting their errors, reviling and condemning their judges and all that differed from them. Their bodies were stolen up by some of their party from under the gibbet, and re-buried in the west kirk- yard." To understand the courage of the man who in such a place would defy the terrible old colonel of the Greys — whose ghost is at this day supposed to TARLIAMENT HOUSE. (From the Vimi iiiAjnot's ■' History oj Edutburglt.-) mentors to reverse the wicked laws they had made, and that Popish test they had been taking, and to put away that sinful man (the duke) or else the judgments of God were ready to break upon the land. Lapsley was wiser than the other five, for he owned the king, so far as he owned the 'Covenant which he swore at his coronation at Scone.'" Lapsley was sent in fetters to the Thieves' Hole, but the other five were found guilty by jury of being present at a field conventicle, " and condemned to be hanged at the Gallowlee, betwixt Edinburgh and Leith, on the loth of October; their heads to be struck oft" and set upon pricks upon the Pleasance Port ; Forman's hand, who had the said knife, to be cut off (while) alive ; all 21 haunt his house of Binns — we must keep in mind the superstition of the time, which led the people to believe him bullet-proof; that if he spat, a hole was burned in the earth, and that water, if poured into his jack-boots, rose at once to boiling heat ! This magnificent hall and the buildings connected with it had a narrow escape in the " Great Fire " of 1700. It broke out in Lord Crossrig's lodging, at Mr. John Buchan's, near the meal-market, on a night in February ; and Duncan Forbes of Culloden asserts ("Culloden Papers") in a letter to his brother the colonel, that he never beheld a more vehement fire ; that 400 families were burned out, and that from the Cowgate upwards l62 OLD AND NEW fZDIN BURGH. [Parliament House. to the High Street scarcely one stone was left upon another. " The Parliament House very hardly escapt," he continues, " all registers confounded ; clerks, chambers, and processes, in such a confusion, that the lords and officers of state are just now met in Rosse's taverne in order to adjourning of the sessione by reason of the dissorder. Few people are lost, if any at all ; but there was neither heart nor hand left amongst them for saveing from the fjTe, nor a drop of water in the cisterns; 20,000 hands flitting their trash they knew not wher, and hardly 20 at work ; these babells of ten and four- teen story high, are down to the ground, and their fall very terrible. Many rueful spectacles, such as Crossrig, naked, with a child under his oxter, hopping for his lyffe; the Fish Mercate, and all from the Cowgate to Pett-streets Close, burnt ; the Exchange, vaults and coal-cellars under the Parliament Close, are still burning." Many of the houses that were burned on this occasion were fourteen storeys in height, seven of which were below the level of the Close on the south side. These houses had been built about twenty years before, by Thomas Robertson, brewer, a thriving citizen, whose tomb in the Greyfriars' Churchyard had an inscription, given in Mon- teith's Theatre of Mortality, describing him as " remarkable for piety towards God, loyalty to his king, and love to his country." He had given the Covenant out of his hand to be burned at the Cross in 1 66 1 on the Restoration ; and now it was re- membered exultingly " that God in his providence had sent a burning among his lands." But Robertson was beyond the reach of earthly retribution, as his tomb bears that he died on the 2ist of September, 1686, in the 63rd year of his age, with the adilendum, Vivit post funera virtus — " Virtue survives the grave." Before we come to record the great national tragedy which the Parliament House witnessed in 1707 — for a tragedy it was then deemed by tlie Scottish people — it may be interesting to describe the yearly ceremony, called " the Riding of the Parliament," in state, from the Palace to the Hall, as described by Arnot and others, on the 6th of May, 1703. The central streets of the city and Canongate, being cleared of all vehicles, and a lane formed by tlicir being inrailed on both sides, none were permitted to enter but those who formed the procession, or were officers of the Scottish regulars, and the trained bands in full uniform. Outside tliese rails the streets were lined by the Scottish Horse Gren.idier Guards, from the I'alace porch westwards ; next in order stood the Scottish Foot Guards (two battalions, then as now), under General Sir George Ramsay, up to the Netherbow Port ; from thence to the Parliament House, and to the bar thereof, the street was lined by the trained bands of the city, the Lord High Con- stable's Guards, and those of the Earl Marischal. The former official being seated in an arm-chair, at the door of the House, received the officers, while the members being assembled at the Palace of Holyrood, were then summoned by name, by the Lord Clerk Registrar, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, and the heralds, with trumpets sounding, after which the procession began, thus : — Two mounted trumpeters, with coats and banners, bare- headed. Two pursuivants in coats and foot mantles, ditto. Sixty-three Commissioners for burghs on horseback, two and two, each having a lackey on foot ; the odd number walking alone. Seventy-seven Commissioners for shires, mounted and covered, each having two lackeys on foot. Fifty-one Lord Barons in tlieir robes, riding two and two, each having a gentleman to support his train, and three lackeys on foot, wearing above their liveries velvet coats with the arms of their respective Lords on the breast and back enrbossed on plate, or embroidered in gold or silver. Nineteen Viscounts as the former. Sixty Earls as the former. Four trumpeters, two and two. Four pursuivants, two and two. The heralds, Islay, Ross, Rothesay, Albany, Snowdon, and Marchmont, in their tabards, two and two, bareheailed. The Lord Lyon King at Arms, in his tabard, with chain, robe, baton, and foot mantle. The Sword of State, born by the Earl of Mar. The Sceptre, borne by the Earl of Crawford. OT IHE CROWN, u Borne by the Earl of Forfar. [{ g The purse and commission, borne by the Earl of g o Morton. o .S THE DUKE OF QUEENSHERRY, LORD HIGH T, H COMMISSIONER, With his servants, pages, and footmen. Four Dukes, two and two. Cjenllemen bearing their trains, and each having eight l.ickcys. Six Marquises, each having six I.ickeys. The Duke of Argyle, Colonel of the Horse Guards. A sfjuadron of Horse Guards. The Lord High Commissioner was received there, at the door of tlie House, by the Lord High Constable and the l'",arl Marischal, between whom he was led to the throne, followed by tlie Usher of tiie Wliite Rod, while, amid the blowing of trumpets, the regalia were laid upon the table before it. The year 1706, before the assembling of the last Parliament, in the old liall, was peculiarly favourable to any attempt for the then exiled House of Stuart H I'arliament House.] TREATY OF UNION. ■63 to regain the throne ; for the proposed union with England had inflamed to a perilous degree tlie passions and the i)atriotism of the nation. In August the equivalent money sent to Scotland as a blind to the people for their full participation in the taxes and old national debt of England, was pompously brought to Edinburgh in twelve great waggons, and conveyed to the Castle, escorted by a regiment of Scottish cavalry, as Defoe tells us, amid the railing, the reproaches, and the deep curses of the people, who then thought of notliing but war, and viewed the so-called equivalent as the price of their Scottish fame, liberty, and honour. In their anathemas, we are told that they spared not the \'ery horses which drew the waggons, and on the return of the latter from the fortress their fury could no longer be restrained, and, unopposed by the sympathising troops, they dashed the vehicles to pieces, and assailed the drivers with volleys of stones, by which many of them were severely injured. " it was soon discovered, after all," says Dr. Chambers, " that only ^100,000 of the money was specie, the rest being in Exchequer bills, which the Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be welcome in all parts of Her Majesty's dominions. This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the Enghsh had tricked them by sending paper instead of money. Bills, payable 400 miles off, and which if lost or burned would be irrecoverable, were a pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come under to pay English taxes." In the following year, during the sitting of the Union Parliament, a terrible tumult arose in the west, led by two men named Montgomery and Finlay. The latter had been a sergeant in the Royal Scots, and diis enthusiastic veteran burned the articles of Union at the Cross of Glasgow, and with the little sum he had received on his discharge, enlisted men to march to Edinburgh, avowing his intention of dispersing the Union Parliament, sacking the House, and storming the Castle. In the latter the troops were on the alert, and the guns and beacons were in readiness. The mob readily enough took the veteran's money, but melted awa\' on the march ; thus, he was captured and brought in a prisoner to the Castle, escorted by 250 dragoons, and the Parliament continued its sitting without much interruption. The Articles of Union were framefl by thirty commissioners acting for England and thirty acting for Scotland ; and though the troops of both coun- tries were then fighting side by side on the Conti- nent, such were their mutual relations on each side of the Tweed, that, as Macaulay says, they could not possibly have continued for one year more " on the terms on which they had been during the preceding century, and that there must have been between them either absolute union or deadly enmity; and their enmity would bring frightful calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all tlic civilised world. Their union would be the best security for the prosperity of both, for the internal tranquillity of the island, for the just balance of power among European states, and for the immuni- ties of all Protestant countries." As the Union debates went on, in vain did the eloquent Belhaven, on his knees and in tears, beseech the House to save Scotland from extinc- tion and degradation ; in vain did the nervous Fletcher, the astute and wary Lockhart, plead for the fame of their forefathers, and denounce the measure which was to close the legislative hall for ever. " Many a patriotic heart," says Wilson, " throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily assem- bled in the Parliament Close, to watch the decision of the Scottish Estates on the detestable scheme of a union with England. Again and again its fate trembled in the balance, but happily for Scotland, English bribes outweighed the mistaken zeal ot Scottish patriotism and Jacobitism, united against the measure." On the 25th of March, 1707, the treaty 01 union was ratified by the Estates, and on the 22nd of April the ancient Parliament of Scotland ad- journed, to assemble no more. On that occasion the Chancellor Scofiekl made use of a brutal jest, for which, says Sir Walter Scott, his countrymen should have destroyed him on the spot. It is, of course, a matter of common history, that the legislative union between Scotland and England was carried by the grossest bribery and corruption ; but the sums actually paid to mem- bers who sat in that last Pariiament are not per- haps so well known, and may be curious to the reader. During some financial investigations which were in progress in 1 7 1 1 Lockhart discovered and made public that the sum of ^20,540 17s. 7d. had been secretly distributed by Lord Godolphin, the Treasurer of England, among the baser members ot the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of inducing them to vote for the extinction of their countrj', and in his " Memoirs of Scotland from the Accession of Queen Anne," he gives us the following list of the recei\ers, with the actual sura which was paid to each, and this list was confirmed on oath by David Earl of Glasgow, the Treasurer Deputy of Scotland. 164 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament House. I'.VKLIA.MLN 1 lluUSE IN lllli I'KEMiNr DAY. To the Earl of Marchmont Earl of Cromarty . Lord Prestonhall . Lord Ormiston, Lord Justice Clerk Duke of Montrose . Duke of Athole Earl of lialcarris Earl of Dunmore . Lord Anstruther Stewart of Castle Stewart Earl of Eglinton . . . Lord Fraser .... Lord C'L-ssnock (afterwards Polworth) Mr. John Campbell Earl of Forfar Sir KeniK'tli Mackenzie . Earl of (ilcncairn . Earl of Kinlore , , Ear! of Findlatcr . John Muir, Provost of Ayr Lord Forbes .... Earl of .Seafield (afterwards Find Later) .... Man|uis of Twecddale . Duke of Roxburghc I.oi'i I'.libanlv Lonl li.inff .... Major Cunninjjhame of Kckatt Bearer of iIil- Trt-aty of Union Sir William Sharp . Coultrain, Provost of VVigton . Mr. Alexander Wcdderburn . llijjh Commissioner ((^ueensbcrry) c J'. d. . 1 104 ■5 7 . 300 . 200 200 . 200 . 1000 . 500 . 200 ■ 300 • 300 . 200 100 h) 50 . 200 . 100 100 100 . 200 . 100 . 100 • 50 . 400 . 1000 . 500 50 1 1 2 . 100 . f,0 . 300 ■ 25 Ti '2.325 ;{:20,540 17 7 Ere the consummation, James Duke of Hamilton and James Earl of Bute quitted " the House in dis- gust and dispair, to return to it no more." The corrupt state of the Scottish peerage can scarcely excite surprise when we find that, accord- ing to Stair's Decisions, Lord Pitsligo, Init a few years before this, purloined Lord Coupar's watch, they at the time " being sitting in Parliament : " Under terror of the P2dinburgh mobs, who nearly tore the Chancellor and others limb from limb in the streets, one half of the signatures were appended tc the treaty in a cellar of a house, No 177, High Street, opposite the 'I'ron Cliurch, named " the Union C!ellar;" the rest were appended in an arbour which then adorned the Garden of Moray House in theCanongate ; and the moment this was accom- plished, Qucensberry and the con.iipirators — for such they really seem to have been — fled to England before daybreak, with the duplicate of the treaty. A bitter .song, known as " 'l"he Curses," was long after sung in every street. " Cur^'d be ihu l'a]iists who withdrew The king to their pcrsu.asion ; Curs'd lie the Crivtnanling crew Willi ),'ave the first occasion. Parliament House.] THE DARK AGE. 165 Curs'd be the wretch who seized the throne, And marred our Constitution ; And curs'd be they who helped on That wicked Revolution. "Curs'd be those traitorous traitors who By their perl'idious knavery, Have brought our nation now unto An everlasting slavery. Curs'd be the Tarlianient that day, Who gave their confirmation ; And cursed be every whining Whig, For they have damned the nation ! " We have shown what the representation of Scotland was, in the account of the Riding of the Pariiament. By the Treaty of Union the number was cut down to sixty-one for both Houses, and the general effects of it were long remembered in Scotland with bitterness and reprehension, and generations went to their grave ere the long-pro- mised prosperity came. Ruin and desolation fell upon the country ; in the towns the grass grew round the market-crosses ; the east coast trade was destroyed, and the west was as yet undeveloped ; all the arsenals were emptied, the fortresses dis- armed, and two royal palaces fell into ruin. The departure of the king to London in 1603 caused not the slightest difference in Edinburgh ; but the Union seemed to achieve the irre- parable ruin of the capital and of the nation. Of the former Robert Chambers says : — " From the Union, up to the middle of this century, the existence of the city seems to have been a perfect blank ! No improvements of any sort marked the period. On the contrary, an air of gloom and depression pervaded the city, such as distinguished its history at no former period. A tinge was com- municated even to the manners and fashions of society, which were remarkable for stiff reserve, precise moral carriage, and a species of decorum amounting almost to moroseness, sure indications, it is to be supposed, of a time of adversity and humiliation. ... In short, this may be called, no less appropriately than emphatically, the dark age of Edinburgh^ Years of national torpor and accepted degradation followed, and to the Scot who ventured south but a sorry welcome was accorded ; yet from this state of things Scotland rose to what she is to-day, by her own exertions, unaided, and often obstructed. A return made to the House of Commons in 17 10 shows that the proportion of the imperial revenue contributed by Scotland was only 2\ per cent., whereas, by the year 1866, it had risen to 14I per cent. During that period the revenue of England increased 800 per cent, while that of Scotland increased 2,500 per cent., thus showing that there is no country in Europe which has made such vast material progress ; and to seek for a parallel case we must turn to Australia or the United States of America ; but it is doubtful if those who sat in the old Parliament House on that 25 th of March, 1707, least of all such patriots as Lord Banff, when he pocketed his ;^ 11 2s., could, in the UNION CELLAR. 1 66 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament House. wildest imagerj', have foreseen the Edinburgh and the Scotland of to-day ! Till so lately as 1779 the Parliament House, retained the divisions, furnishing, and — save the royal portraits — other features, which it had borne in the days when Scotland had a national legislature. Since that time the associations of this hall — the Westminster Hall of Edinburgh — are only such as relate to men eminent in the College of Justice, for learning or great legal lore, among whom we ma)' note Duncan Forbes, Lords Monboddo and Kames, Hume, Erskine, and Mackenzie, and, indeed, nearly all the men of note in past Scottish literature- " Our own generation has witnessed there Cock- bum, 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 so celebrated ; and still the visitor to this learned and literary lounge cannot fail to be gratified in a high degree, while watching the differ- ent groups who gather in the Hall, and noting the lines of thought or humour, and the infinite variety of physiognomy for which the wigged and gowned loiterers of the Law Courts are peculiarly famed." The Hall is now open from where the throne stood to the great south window. Once it was divided into two portions — the southern separated from the rest by a screen, accommodated the Court of Session ; the northern, comprising a subsection used for the Sherift" Court, was chiefly a kind of lobby, and was degraded by a set of little booths, occupied as taverns, booksellers' shops, and toy- shops, like those in the Krames. Among others, Creech had a stall ; and such was once the condition of Westminster Hall. Spottiswoode of that ilk, who published a work on " Forms of Process," in 1718, records that there were then " two keepers of the session-house, who had small salaries to do the menial offices there, and that no small part of their annual perquisites came from the kranurs in the outer hall." The great Hall is now used as a promenade and waiting-room by the advocates and other practi- tioners connected with the supreme courts, and during the sitting of these presents a very animated scene ; and there George IV. was received in kingly state at a grand banquet, on his visit to the city in 1822. CHAPTER XVIII. THE PARLIAMENT YiOM '?,V.—{Condi,(kJ). The Faculty of Advocates— The Writers to the Signet— Solicitors before the Supreme Court— The First Lords of Session— The Law Courts— The Court of -Session : the Outer and Inner Houses— College of Justice— Supreme Judicature Court — Its Corrupt Nature— How Justice used to be defeated- Abduction of Lord Durie— Some Notable Senators of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Lords Fountainhali, Covington, Monboddo, Kames, Hailes, Gardenstone, Arniston, Balmuto, and Herraand. The Faculty of Advocates — who are privileged to ])lead in any court in Scotland, and in all Scottish appeals before the House of Lords — is a body, of course, inseparably connected, as )et, with the old Parliament House. From among that body the judges of the sui)reme courts and sheriffs of the various counties are selected. It is tlie most distinguished corporate body in Scotland, and of old, especially, was composed of the represen- latives alike of the landed aristocracy, the rank and intellect of Scotland ; and for more than three centuries the dignity of the Scottish bench and bar has been maintained by a succession of distin- guished men, illustrious, not only in their own peculiar department of legal knowledge, but in most branches of literature and science : and it has ])roduccd some men whose worksare read and whose influence is fell wherever the language of (Ireat Hrit.iin is known. The whole internal economy of the legal bodies, and of the courts of law, is governed In- the Arts of Sederunt. We find, in 1674, Charles II., in consequence of a difference having arisen between the Faculty and the Lords of Session, banished the whole of the former twelve miles from Edinburgh. The subject in dispute was whether any appeal lay from the Court of Session to the Parliament. It is obvious that in this contest between the bench and the bar, law and the practice of the court, independent of expediency, could alone be con- sidered, and the Faculty remained banished until the unlimited supremacy of the Court should be acknowledged ; but what would those sturdy ad- vocates of the seventeenth century have thought of appeals to a Parliament sitting at Westminster ? In 1702 the Faculty became again embroiled. lf])on the accession of Queen Anne a new Parlia- ment was not summoned, that which sat during the reign of her ])rc(lecessor being re-assembled. The Duke of Hamilton and seventy-nine members protested against this as being illegal, and witlidrew from the House. The Faculty of Advocates passed parliament House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. 167 a vote among themselves in favour of that protest, declaring it to be founded on the laws of the realm, for which they were prosecuted before Parliament, and sharply reprimanded, a circumstance whicli gave great offence to the nation. The affairs of the Faculty are managed by a Dean, or President, a Treasurer, Clerk, and se- lected Council ; and, besides the usual branches of a liberal education, those who are admitted as advocates must have gone through a regular course of civil and Scottish law. Connected with the Court of Session is the Society of Clerks, or Writers to the Royal Signet, whose business it is to subscribe the writs that pass under that signet in Scotland, and practise as attorneys before the Courts of Session, Justiciary, and the Jury Court. The office of Keeper of the Signet is a lucrative one, but is performed by a deputy. The qualifications for admission to this body are an apprenticeship for five years with one of the members, after two years' attendance at the Uni- versity, and on a course of lectures on conveyancing given by a lecturer appointed by the Society, and also on the Scottish law class in the University. Besides these Writers to the Signet, who enjoy the right of conducting exclusively certain branches of legal procedure, there is another, but inferior, society of practitioners, who act as attorneys be- fore the various Courts, in which they were of long standing, but were only incorporated in 1797, under the title of Solicitors before the Supreme Courts. The Judges of the Courts of Session and Jus- ticiary, with members of these before-mentioned corporate bodies, and the officers of Court, form the College of Justice instituted by James V., and of which the Judges of the Court of Session enjoy the title of Senators. The halls for the administration of justice imme- diately adjoin the Parliament House. The Court of Session is divided into what are named the Outer and Inner Houses. The former consists of five judges, or Lords Ordinary, occupying separate Courts, where cases are heard for the first time ; the latter comprises two Courts, technically known as the First and Second Divisions. Four Judges sit in each of these, and it is before them that litigants, if dissatisfied with the Outer House deci- sion, may bring their cases for final judgment, unless afterwards they indulge in the expensive luxury of appealing to the House of Lords. The Courts of the Lords Ordinary enter from the corridor at the south end of the great hall, and those of the Inner House from a long lobby on the east side of it. Although the College of Justice was instituted by James V., and held its first sederunt in the old Tolbooth on the 27th of May, 1532, it was first projected by his uncle, the Regent- Duke of Albany. The Court originally consisted of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President, fourteen Lords Ordinary, or Senators (one-half clergy and one-half laity), and afterwards an inde- finite number of supernumerary judges, designated Extraordinary Lords. The annual expenses of this Court were defrayed from the revenues of the clergy, who bitterly, but vainly, remonstrated against this taxation. It may not be uninteresting to give here the names of the first members of the Supreme Judicature : — Alexander, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, I^ord President ; Richard Bothwell, Rector of Askirk (whose father was Provost of Edinburgh in the time of James III.) ; John Dingwall, Provost of the Trinity Church ; Henry White, Dean of Brechin ; William Gibson, Dean of Restalrig ; Thomas Hay, Dean of Dunbar ; Robert Reid, Abbot of Kinloss ; George Kerr, Provost of Dunglass ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie ; Sir John Campbell of Lundie ; .Sir James Colville of Easter Wemyss ; Sir Adam Otterburne of Auldhame ; Nicolas Crawford of Oxengangs ; Sir Francis Bothwell (who was provost of the city in 1535); and James Lawson of the Highriggs. The memoirs which have been preserved of the administration of justice by the Court of Session in the olden time are not much to its honour. The arbitrary nature of it is referred to by Buchanan, and in the time of James VI. we find the Lord Chancellor, Sir Alexander Seaton (Lord Fyvie in 1598), superintending the lawsuits of a friend, and instructing him in the mode and manner in which they should be conducted. But Scott of Scotstarvit gives us a sorry account of this peer, who owed his preferment to Anne of Denmark. The strongest proof of the corrupt nature of the Court is given us by the Act passed by the sixth parliament of James VI., in 1579, by which the Lords were prohibited, " No uther be thamselves, or be their wives, or servantes, to take in ony times cumming, bud, bribe, gudes, or geir, fra quhat-sum-ever person or persones presently havand, or that hereafter sail happen to have ony actions or causes persewed before them," under pain of confiscation (Glendoick's Acts, fol.). The necessity for this law plainly evinces that the secret acceptance of bribes must have been common among the judges of the time; while, in other instances, the warlike spirit of the people paralysed the powers of the Court. When a noble, or chief of rank, was summoned to i68 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [PAiliament House. answer for some raid, act of treason, or murder, he would perhaps appear at the bar in a suit of mail, with as many armed men as he could muster; and the influence of clanship rendered it dis- honourable not to shield and countenance a kins- The forcible abduction of Sir Alexander Gibson, Lord Durie, a noted lawyer (who drew up the decisions of the Court from the nth July, 1621, to the i6th July, 1642) — that his voice and vote mififht be absent from the decision of a case — is VIEW FROM TUK COWC.VTK (IK IIIK IiriI.[ilN(;s ON Till' nl 111 inl. m Mil. I'ARI.IAMENT CLOSE, THE HIGHEST ISUILDINGS in Edinburgh. (From a I'rmt published in ina,.) man, whatever dark deed he might have done. At the trial of IJothwcU, for the murder of Darnley, before the Earl of Argyll as hereditary Lord High Justice, the latter had a guard of two hundred hackbutticrs, with matches lighted, to enforce the authority of the Court ; before which the former came armed, while four thousand of his followers in arms were drawn up at the door, thus enabling him to outbrave judges and jury alike. I well known, but told incorrectly, in the ballad on I the subject. It appears that in September, 1601, j Lord Durie was carried off from the neighbour- hood of St. Andrews by George Mcklrum younger i of Dumbreck, and taken to Northumberland, where [ he was kept for eight days in the Castle of Har- bottle, while his friends and family, unable to ac- count for his mysterious disappearance, believed I him to be dead, or spirited away by the fairies. Parliament House] THE COURT OF SESSION. 169 It has been said — with what truth it is impos- sible to tell — that, when Cromwell appointed eleven Commissioners (three of whom were Eng- lishmen) for the administration of justice at Edin- burgh, their decisions were most impartial ; and, on hearing them lauded after the Restoration had replaced the old lords on the Bench, the Presi- dent, Gilmour of Craigmillar, said, angrily, " Deil thank them — a wheen kinkss loons '. " The grave of one of these Englishmen, George Smith, was of Lady St. Clair to solicit Lady Betty Elphing- ston (Elizabeth Primrose of Carrington) and Lady Dun. My lord promises to back his lady, and to ply both their lords ; also Leven and his cousin Murkle (a Lord of Session in 1733). -^^ 's your good friend, and wishes success ; he is jealous Mrs. Mackie will side with her cousin Beattie. St. Clair says Leven has only o/ice gone wroig upon /lis hand since he was a Lord of Session. Mrs. Kinloch has been with Miss Pringle, Newhall. \ L 'nrh ^ rT..~T zz.2m \ r::'w/A xvvava ttt. L ^V^jv^^ Lj ScAl^ Of Feet, 10 20 30 40 so 60 70 SO 00 too Ft. PLAN OF THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND LAW COURTS. long pointed out in the abbey church, where he was buried by torchlight in 1657. (Lamont's Diary). So far down as 1737 traces of bribery and in- fluence in the Court are to be found, and proof of this is given in the curious and rare book named the " Court of Session Garland." In a lawsuit, pending 23rd November, 1735, Thomas Gibson of Durie, agent for Foulis of Woodhall, writes to his employer thus : — " I have spoken to Straclian, and several of the lords, who are all surprised Sir F. (Francis Kinloch, Bart, of Gilmerton) should stand that plea. By Lord St. Clair's advice, Mrs. Kinloch is to wait on Lady Cairnie to-morrow, to cause her to ask the favour 22 Young Dr. Pringle is a good agent //lerr, and discourses Lord Newhall sti-ong/y on the law of nature." Lord Newhall was Sir Walter Pringle, Knight, son of the Laird of Stitchill, Lord of Session in 1718. But such would seem to have been the influences that were used to obtain decisions in the olden time ; and, before quitting the subject of the Parliament House we may recall a few of the most notable senators, the memory of whose names still lingers there. The most distinguished lawyer of the seven- teenth century was undoubtedly Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, son of a bailie of Edinburgh. He was born there in 1646 ; and, after being at 170 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament House, the old High School in 1659, and studying law at Leyden, became a member of the Faculty of Advocates on the sth June, 1668, from which period he began industriously to record the deci- sions of the Court of Session. He was one of the counsel for the Earl of Argyll in 1681, and four years after was M.P. for West Lothian. To the arbitrary measures of the Scottish Government he offered all constitutional resistance, and for his zeal in support of the Protestant religion was ex- posed to some trouble and peril in 1686. He firmly opposed the attempt of James VH. to abolish the penal laws against Roman Catholics in Scotland; and in 1692 was offered the post of Lord Advocate, which he bluntly declined, not being allowed to prosecute tlie perpetrators of the massacre of Glencoe, which has left an indelible stain on the memory of William of Orange. He was regular in his attendance during the debates on the Union, against which he voted and pro- tested ; but soon after age and infirmity com- pelled him to resign his place in the Justiciary Court, and afterwards that on the Bench. He died in 1722, leaving behind him MSS., which are preserved in ten folio and three quarto volumes, many of which have been published more than once. Few senators have left behind them so kindly a memory as Alexander Lockhart, Lord Covington, so called from his estate in Lanarkshire. His paternal grandfather was the celebrated Sir George Lockhart, President of the Court of Session : his maternal grandfather was the Earl of Eglinton ; and his father was Lockhart of Carnwath, author of the " JVIemoirs of Scotland." He had been at the Bar from 1722, and, when appointed to the Bench, in 1774, liad long borne the reputation of being one of the most able lawyers of the age, yet lie never realised more than a thousand a-year by his practice. He lived in a somewhat isolateil mansion, near the Parlia- ment Close, whicli eventually was used as the Post Office. Lockhart and Fergusson (afterwards Lord Pitfour, in 1764), being rival advocates, were usually pitted against each other in cases of importance. After the battle of CuUodcn, says Robert Chambers, "many violently unjust, as well as bloody measures, were resorted to at Carlisle in the disposal of the prisoners, about seventy of whom came to a barbarous death." Messrs. Lock- hart and I'ergusson, indignant at the treatment of the poor Highlanders, and the un.scrujjulous measures of the English authorities to i)rocure con- victions, set off for Carlisle, arranging with each other that Lockhart should examine the evidence. while Fergusson pleaded, and addressed the jury. Offering their services, these were gladly accepted by the unfortunates whom defeat had thrown at the mercy of the Government. Each lawyer exerted his abilities with the greatest solicitude, but with little or no effect ; national and political rancour inflamed all against the prisoners. The jurors of Carlisle had been so terrified by the passage of the Highland army — orderly and peace- ful though it was — that they deemed everything like tartan a perfect proof of guilt ; and they were utterly incapable of discriminating the amount of complicity in any particular prisoner, but sent all who came before them to the human shambles — for such the place of e.\ecution was then named — before the Castle-gate. At length one of the two Scottish advocates fell upon an expedient, which he deemed might prove effectual, as eloquence had failed. He desired his servant to dress himself in a suit of tartan, and skulk about in the neighbour- hood of Carlisle, till he was arrested, and, in the usual fashion, accused of being " a rebel." As such the man v/as found guilty by the English jury, and would have been condemned had not his master stood forth, and claimed him as his servant, proving beyond all dispute that lie had been in immediate attendance on himself during the whole time the Highland army had been in the field. This staggered even the Carlisle jury, and, when aided by a few caustic remarks from the young and indignant advocate, made them a little more cau- tious in their future proceedings. So liigh was the estimation in which Lockhart of Covington (who 1 died in 1782) was held as an advocate, that Lord Newton — a senator famous for his extraordinary judicial talents and social eccentricities — when at the Bar wore his gown till it was in tatters ; and when, at last, lie was compelled to have a new one made, lie had a fragment of the neck of the original sewed into it, that he might still boast he wore " Covington's gown." Lord Newton, famous in the annals of old legal convivialia, died so late as October, 181 1. Covington, coadjutor to Lord Pitfour, always wore his hat when on the Bench, being afflicted with weak eyes. Lords Monboddo and Karnes, though both learned senators, are chiefly remembered for their eccentricities, some of wliich would now be deemed vulgarities. The former, James Burnet, who was raised to the Iknch in 1767, once embroiled himself in a law-])lca res|)ecting a horse, which belonged to liimself He had rdniniittcd ihe animal, when ill. Parliament House.] LORDS MONBODDO, KAMES, AND HAILES. 171 to the care of a farrier, with orders for the ad- ministration of certain medicines ; but the farrier went beyond tliese, and mixed in it a consider- able quantity of treacle. As the horse died next morning, Lord Monboddo raised a prosecution for its value, and pleaded his own cause at the Bar. He lost the case, and was so enraged against his brother judges that he never afterwards sat with them on the Bench, but underneath, among the clerks. This case was both a remarkable and an amusing one, from the mass of Roman law quoted on the occasion. Though hated and despised by his brethren for his oddities, l,ord Monboddo was one of the most learned and upright judges of his time. " His philosoph}'," says Sir Walter Scott, " as is well known, was of a fanciful and somewhat fantastic character ; but his learning was deep, and he pos- sessed a singular power of eloquence, which re- minded the hearer of the ps rotiinduin of tlie Grove or Academe. Enthusiastically partial to classical habits, his entertainments were always given in the evening, when there was a circulation of excellent Bordeaux, in flasks garlanded with roses, which were also strewed on the table, after the manner of Horace." The best society in Edinburgli was always to be found at his house, St. John's Street, Canongate. His youngest daughter, a lady of amiable dis- position and of surpassing beauty, which Burns panegyrised, is praised in one of the papers of the Minvr as rejecting the most flattering and advantageous opportunities of settlement in mar- riage, that she might amuse her father's loneliness and nurse his old age. He was the earliest patron of one of the best scholars of his time, Professor John Hunter, who was for many' years his secretary, and wrote the first and best volume of his lordship's " Treatise on the Origin of Languages." \\'hen Lord Monboddo travelled to London he always did so on horse- back. On his last journey thither he got no farther than Dunbar. His nephew inquiring the reason of this, "Oh, George," said he, "I find I am noo aughty-four." The manners of Lord Mon- boddo were as odd as his personal appearance. He has been described as looking " more like an old stuffed monkey dressed in judge's robes than anything else : " and so convinced is he said to have been of his fantastic theory of human tails that, when a child was born in his house he would watch at the chamber door, in order to see it in its first state, as he had an idea that midwives cut the tails off! He never recovered the shock of his beautiful daughter's death, by consumption, at Braid Farm, in 1790. He kept her portrait covered with black cloth ; at this he would often look sadly, without lifting it, and then turn to his volume of Herodotus. He died in 1799. The other eccentric we have referred to was Henry Home, Lord Kames, who was equally dis- tinguished for his literary abilities, his metaphysical subtlety, and wonderful powers of conversation ; yet he was strangely accustomed to apply towards his intimates a coarse tenn which he in\ariably used, and this peculiarity is well noted by Sir Walter Scott in " Redgauntlet." He was raised to the Bench in 1752, and afterwards lived in New Street, in a house then ranking as one of the first in the city. The catalogue of his printed works is a very long one. On retiring from the Bench he took a public farewell of his brother judges. After a solemn and pathetic speech, and shaking hands all round, as he was quitting the Court, he turned round, and exclaimed, in his familiar manner, " Fare ye a' weel, ye auld " here using his customary expression. A day or two before his death he told Dr. CuUen that he earnestly wished to be away, as he was exceedingly curious to learn the manners of another w^orld ; adding, " Doctor, as I never could be idle in this world, I shall gladly perform any task that may be imposed upon me in the next." He died in December, 1783, in his 87th year. Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, the annalist of Scotland, was raised to the Bench in 1766. He had studied law at Utrecht, and was distinguished for his strict integrity, unwearied diligence, and dig- nity of manner, but he was more conspicuous as a scholar and author than as a senator. His re- searches were chiefly directed to the history and antiquities of his native country ; and his literary labours extended over a period of close on forty years. At his death, in 1792, an able funeral sermon was preached by the well-known Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk ; and, as no will could be found, the heir-male was about to take possession of his estates, to the exclusion of his daughter, but some months after, when she was about to give up New Hailes, and quit the house in New Street, one was found behind a window- shutter, in the latter place, and it secured her in the possession of all, till her own death, which took place forty years after. Francis Gardner, Lord Gardenstone, appointed in 1764, was one of those ancient heroes of the Bar, who, after a night of hard drinking, would, without ha^■ing been in bed, or studying a case, 172 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Parliament House. plead with great eloquence upon what they had picked up from the opposite counsel. When acting as a volunteer against the Highland army, in 1745, he fell into the hands of Colonel John Roy Stewart, and was nearly hanged as a spy at Musselburgh Bridge. He was author of several literary works ; but had many strange fancies, in which he seemed to indulge with a view to his health, which was always valetudinarian. He had a curious predilection for pigs, and once had a he used to measure out the utmost time that was allowed for a judge to deliver his opinion ; and Lord Arniston would never allow another word to be uttered after the last grain had run, and was frequently seen to shake ominously this old-fashioned chronometer in the faces of his learned brethren if they became vague or tiresome. He was a jovial old lord, in whose house, when Sheriff Cockburn lived there as a boy, in 1750, sixteen hogsheads of claret were used yearly. Of him the President INTERIOR OK TUE JUSTICIARY COURT.' young one, which followed Iiim like a dog wherever he went, and slept in his bed. When it attained the years and bulk of swinehood this was attended with inconvenience ; but, unwilling to part with his companion, Lord Gardenstone, when he undressed, laid his clothes on the floor, as a bed for it, and that he might find liis clothes warm in the winter mornings. He died at Morn- ingside, near Edinburgh, in July, 1793. Robert Dundas of Arniston succeeded Cul- lodcn, in 1748, a.s Lord President. In his days it was the practice for that high official to have a sand-glass before him on the Jk-nch, with which Dalrymple said : " I knew the great lawyers of the last age — Mackenzie, Lockhart, and my own father, Stair — but Dundas excels them all !" (Cata- logue of the Lords, 1767.) He died in 1787. Among the last specimens 01 the strange Scottish judges of the last century were the Lords Balmuto and Hermand. The former, Claud Loswell ol Balmuto, was born in 1742, and was educated at the same school, in Dalkeith, with Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville ; and the friendship formed by the two boys there, lasted till the death of the peer, in May, 181 1. He always spoke, even on the Bench, • In the drawing visitors are represented as looking down the slairs leading to the cells below. Parliament House.] LORD HERMAND. 173 with the strongest broad Scottish accent, and when there was fond of indulging in pungent jokes. He was made a judge in 1798, and officiated as such till 1822. In the March of that year his friend and kinsman Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchin- leck was mortally wounded in a duel with James Stuart of Dunearn, about a mile from Balmuto House, whither he was borne, only to die ; and the venerable senator, who was then in his S3rd year, is thus mentioned in " Peter's Letters to his Kins- folk : " — " When ' Guy Mannering ' came out the judge was so delighted with the picture of the life of the old Scottish judges in that most chamiing novel, that he could talk of nothing else but Pley- dell, Uandie, and the high jinks, for many weeks. He usually carried one volume of the book about with him ; and one morning, on the Bench, his love for it so completely got the better of him that I.- h ^ I r^ It m HI RUINS IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE AFTER THE GREAT FIRE, IN NOVEMBER {Froiir an Etching published at the time.) never fully recovered the shock, and died in July, 1824. George Fergusson, Lord Hermand, succeeded Lord Braxfield in 1799, and was on the Bench •during all the political trials connected with the West Country seditions of 1817. He and Lord Newton were great cronies and convivialists ; but the former outlived Newton and all his old last- century contemporaries of the Bar, and was the last link between the past and present race of Scottish lawyers. On the Bench lie was hasty and sarcastic. He was an enthusiast in the memories of bygone days, and scorned as " priggishness " the sham decorum of the modern legal character. He he lugged in the subject, head and shoulders, in the midst of a speech about some dry point of law; nay, getting warmer every moment he spoke of it, he at last fairly plucked the volume from his pocket, and, in spite of all the remonstrances of his brethren, insisted on reading aloud the whole passage for their edification. He went through the task with his wonted vivacity, gave great eftect to every speech, and most appropriate expression to every joke. During the whole scene Sir Walter Scott was present — seated, indeed, in his official capacity — close under the judge." He died at his little estate of Hermand, near Edinburgh, in 1827, when in his 80th year. 174 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (Parliament Close. CHAPTER XIX. THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE. Probable Extinction of the Court of Session — Memonibilia of the Parliament Close and Square — Goldsmiths of the Olden Time — George Heriot— His Workshop — His Interview with James VI. — Peter Williamson's Tavern — Royal E.xchange — Statue of Charles II. — Hank of Scotland— The Fire of 1700 — The Work of Restoration — John Row's Coffee-house — John's Coffee-house — Sylvester Otway — Sir W. Korbes's Bank — Sir Walter Scott's Eulogy on Sir William Forbes— John Kay's Print-shop— The Parliament Stairs— James Sibbald— A Libel Case — Fire in June. 1024 — Dr. Archibald Pitcairn — The " Grepins Office" — Painting of King Charles's Statue White — Seal of Arnauld Lammius. A CHANGE has come over the scene of their labours and the system of the law which these old lords could never have conceived possible — we mean the system that is gradually e.xtending in Scotland, of decentralising the legal business of the country — a system which stands out in strong con- trast to the mode of judicial centralisation now prevailing in England. The Scottish county courts have a jurisdiction almost co-extensive with that of the Supreme Court, while those of | England have a jurisdiction (without consent of parties) to questions only of ^50 value. This gives them an overwhelming amount of business, while the supreme courts of Scotland are starved by the inferior competing with them in every kind of liti- gation. Thus the Court of Session is gradually dwindling away, by the active competition of the provincial courts, and the legal school becomes every day more defecti\'e for lack of legal prac- tice. The ultimate purpose, or end, of this system will, undoubtedly, lead to the disappearance of the Court of Session, or its amalgamation with the supreme courts in London will become an object of easy accomplishment ; and then the school from whence the Scottish advocates and judges come, being non-existent, the assimilation of the Scottish county courts to those of England, and the sweep- ing away of the whole legal business of the country to London, must eventually follow, with, perhaps, the entire subjection of Scotland to the Engli.sh courts of law. A description of the Parliament Close is given in the second volume of " Peter's Letters to his Kins- folk," before the great fire of 1824 ; — "The courts of justice with which all these eminent men are so closely connected are placed in and about the same range of buildings which in former times were set apart for the accommoda- tion of the Parliament of Scotland. The main approach to these buildings lies through a small oblong square, whicli from this circumstance takes the name of the Parliament Close. On two sides this close is surrounded by houses of the .same gigantic kind of elevation, and in these, of old, were lodged a great proportion of the dignitaries and iirincipal practitioners of the adjacent Courts. At present, however (1819), they are dedicated, like most of the houses in the same quarter of the city, to the accommodation of tradespeople and inferior persons attached to the courts of law. . . . . The southern side of the square and a small portion of the eastern are filled with vener- able Gothic buildings, which for many genera- tions have been dedicated to the accommodation of the courts of law, but which are now shut out from the eye of the public by a very ill-concei^•ed and tasteless front-work, of modern device, in- cluding a sufficient allowance of staring square windows, Ionic pillars, and pilasters. What beauty the front of the structure may have possessed in its original state I have no means of ascertaining ; but Mr. Wastle (J. G. Lockhart) sighs every time we pass through the close, as pathetically as could be wished, ' over the glory that hath departed.' '' The old Parliament House, the front of which has been destroyed and concealed by the arcaded and pillared facade referred to, we have already described. The old Goldsmiths' Hall, on the west side, formed no inconsiderable feature in the close, where, about 1673, the first coffee-house established in the city was opened. The Edinburgh goldsmiths of the olden time were deemed a superior class of tradesmen, and were wont to appear in public with cocked hats, scarlet cloaks, and gold-mounted canes, as men of undoubted consideration. The father of John Law of Lauriston, the famous financial projector, was the son of a goldsmith in Edinburgh, where he was born in April, 167 i ; but by fiir the most famous of all the craft in the old Parliament Close was George Heriot. Down to the year 1780, says a historian, ])erliaps there was not a goldsmith in Edinburgh who did not condescend to manual labour. In their shops every one of them might have been found busy with some light work, and generally in a very ])lain dress, yet ever ready to serve a customer, politely and readil)'. The whole plate shops of the city being collected in or near the Parliament Close, thither it was that, till tlie close of the eighteenth century, country couples resorted — the bride to get her bed and table napery and trousseau ; there, too. were got the nuptial ring, and " the silver spoons," and, as the goldsmiths of the city then kept scarcely FarlUment Close.) GEORGE HERIOT. 175 any goods on hand in their shops, everything had to be ordered long before it was required ; and it was always usual for the goldsmith and his cus- tomer to adjourn together to the Baijen Hole, an ancient baker's shop, the name of which has proved a puzzle to local antiquarians, or to John's Coffee House, to adjust the order and payment, through the medium of a dram or a stoup of mellow ale. But, as time passed on, and the goldsmiths of Edinburgh became more extensive in their views, capital, and ambition, the old booths in the Parliament Close were in quick succession abandoned for ever. The workshop of George Heriot existed in this neighbourhood till the demolition of Beth's Wynd and the ad- jacent buildings. There were three contiguous small shops, with pro- jecting wooden super- structures above them, that extended in a line, between the door of the old Tolbooth and that of the Laigh Council- house. They stood upon the site of the entrance- hall of the present Signet Library, and the central of these three shops was the booth of the im- mortal George Heriot, the founder of the great hospital, the goldsmith to King James VI. — the good-humoured, honest, and generous "Jingling Geordie" of the " Fortunes of Nigel." It measured only seven feet square ! The back windows looked into Beth's Wynd ; and, to show the value of local tradition, it long appeared that this booth belonged to George Heriot, and it be- came a confirmed fact when, on the demolition of the latter place, his name was found carved above the door, on the stone lintel. His forge and bellows, as well as a stone crucible and Ud, were also found on clearing away the ruins, and are now carefully preserved in the museum of the hospital, to which they were presented by the late Mr. Robertson, of the Commercial Bank, a grateful '■ Auld Herioter." GEORGE heriot' {Designed Humble though this booth, after the execution of " the bonnie Earl of Gowrie," when the extra- vagance of Anne of Denmark — a devoted patron of George Heriot — rendered the king's private exchequer somewhat impaired, he was not above paying visits to some of the wealthier citizens in the Lawnmarket or Parliament Scjuare, and, among others, to the royal goldsmith. The latter being bred to his father's business, to which in that age was usually added the occupation of a banker, was admitted a member of the Incorporation of Goldsmiths on the 28th May, 1588. In 1597 he was appointed goldsmith to Queen Anne, and soon after to the king. Several of the accounts for jewels furnished by him to the queen are inserted in Constable's " Life of Heriot," pub- lished in 1822. It is related that one day he had been sent for by the king, whom he found seated in one of the rooms at Holy- rood, before a fire com- posed of cedar, or some other perfumed wood, which cast a pleasant fragrance around, and the king mentioned in- cidentally that it was quite as costly as it was agreeable. " If your majesty will \isit me at my booth in the Par- liament Close," quoth Heriot, " I will show you a fire more costly than that." " Say you so ! " said the king ; ■ " then I will." On doing so, he was surprised to find that Heriot had only a coal fire of the usual kind. "Is this, then, your costly fire?" asked the king. " Wait, your highness, till I get my fuel," replied Heriot, who from an old cabinet or almrie took a bond for ^2,000 which he had lent to James, and, laying it on the fire, he asked, laughingl}-, " Now, whether is your majestj''s fire in Holyrood or mine the most costly ? " " Certainly yours, Master Heriot ! " replied the king. S DRINKING CUP. by himself.) 176 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Close. One of the shops next to the jeweller's was, about the middle of last centur}-, a tavern, kept by the famous Peter Williamson, the returned Palatine (as the boys abducted from Aberdeen were called) who designated himself on his signboard as " from the other world." Here the magistrates partook of the Deid-chack — a dinner at the expense of the city — after having attended an execution, a practice abolished by Lord Provost Creech. In 1685 an Ex- change was erected in the Parliament Close. It had a range of piazzas for the accommodation of merchants transact- ing business ; but by old use and wont, attached as they were to the more ancient place of meeting, the Cross, this conveni- ence was scarcely ever used by them. In 1685 the eques- trian statue of Charles II., a well-e.xecuted work in lead, was erected in the Par- liament Close, not far from its present site, where one in- tended for Cromwell was to have been placed ; but the Restoration changed the political face of Edinburgh. In the accounts of George Drummond, City Treasurer, 1684-5, '' appears that the king's statue was erected by the provost, magistrates, and council, at the cost of ^2,580 Scots, the bill for which seems to have come from Rotterdam. On the last destruction of the old Parliament Close, by a fire yet to be recorded, th,- statue was conveyed for safety to the yard of the Calton Gaol, where it lay for some years, till tlie present pedestal was erected, in which are inserted two marble tablets, which had been preserved among some lumber under the Parliament House, and, from the somewhat ful- .some inscriptions thereon, seem to have belonged to the first pedestal. Among the more homely associations of the Parliament Close, the festivities SIR WILLIAM l-OKIti, OI lllsLlOO. (AJt,.rhiy\ of the royal birthday are worthy of remembrance, as being perhaps amongst the most long-cherished customs of the people ere — " The times were changed, old manners gone. And a stranger filled the Stuart's throne. " " It was usual on this annual festival to have a public breakfast in the great hall, when tables, at the expense of the cit}-, were covered with wines and confections, and the sovereign's health \\as drunk with ac- claim, the volleys of the Town Guard made the tall man- sions re-echo, and the statue of King Charles was decorated with laurel leaves by the Aiild Callants, as the boys of Heriot's Hospital were named, and who claimed this duty as a prescriptive right. The Bank of Scot- land, incorporated by royal charter in 1695, first opened for business in a flat, or floor, of the Parlia- ment Close, with a moderate staff of clerks, and a paid-up capital of only ten thousand pounds ster- lin::;. The smallest sliarc which any per- son could hold in this bank was ;^i,ooo Scots, and the largest ;^2o,ooo of the same heritable bonds and of the in- moncy. To lend money on other securities was the chief business fant bank. The giving of bills of exchange — the great business of private bankers — was, after much deliberation, tried by the " adventurers," with a view to the extension of business as far as possible. In pursuance of this object, and to circulate their notes through the realm, branch offices were opened at Glasgow, Dundee, Montrose, and Aber- deen, to receive and pay out money, in the form of inland exchange, by notes and bills. But eventually the directors " found that the fxchange trade was not i5ro|)er for a banking company," Parliament Close.] BANK OF SCOTLAND. 177 which they conceived to be more properly in- tended "as a common repository of the nation's cash— a ready fund for affording credit and loans, and for making receipts and payments of money easy by the company's notes." Lut, as dealing in hours for business, and establishing rules and re- gulations, which will never answer the management of the exchange trade." Ere long the bank, we are told (in " Domestic Annals of Scotland "), found it impossible to sup- Jjf^.ZlALy G iU I'J*- RUINS IN THE OLD .MARKET CLOSE .AFTER THE GREAT FIRE OF NOVEMIiER, i^Frotn an Etching published at the ttjiic.j 1824. exchange interfered with private trade, the new Bank of Scotland deemed it troublesome and improper. " There was much lo be done in that business without doors, by day and night, without such variety of circumstances and conditions as are inconsistent with the precise hours of a public office and the rules and regulations of a well- governed company ; and no company like the Bank can be managed without fi.\ing stated office- 23 port the four provincial branches, as they did not contribute to the ends in %iew ; " for the money that was once lodged in any of these places by the cashiers issuing bills payable at Edinburgh, could not be re-drawn thence by bills from Edinburgh ;" of course, because of there being so little owing then to persons resident in the provinces. So, after considerable outlay in trj'ing the branch offices, the directors ordered them to be closed, and 178 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Cloie. their money brought on horseback to the ParHa- ment Close, where the company's business was thenceforward wholly restricted for a time to lending money, and all transactions to be in Edinburgh. In the fire we have mentioned as occurring in 1700 the bank perished. Assisted by the Earl of Leven, Governor of the Castle and also of the bank, with a party of soldiers, and by David Lord Ruthven, a director, who stood in the turnpike stair all night, keeping the passage free, the cash, bank-notes, books, and papers, were saved. Thus, though every other kind of property perished, the struggling bank was able to open an ofiice higher up in the city. ("Hist, of Bank of Scot.," 1728.) In that fire the Scottish Treasury Room perished, with the Exchequer and Exchange, and the Parlia- ment Square was afterwards rebuilt (in the pic- turesque style, the destruction of which was so much regretted), in conformity with an Act passed in 1698, regulating the mode of building in Edin- burgh with regard to height, convenience, strength, and security from fire. The altitude of the houses was greatly reduced. Previous to the event of 1700, the tenements on the south side of the Parliament Close, as viewed from the Kirk- heugh, were fifteen storeys in height, and till the erection of the new town were deemed the most splendid of which the city could boast. Occurring after " King William's seven years of famine," which the Jacobites believed to be a curse sent from heaven upon Scotland, this calamity was felt with double force; and in 1702 the Town Council passed an Act for " suppressing immorali- ties," in which, among the tokens of God's wrath, " the great fire of the 3d February " is specially referred to. Notwithstanding the local depression, we find in 1700 none of the heartless inertia that charac- terised the city for si.\ty years after the Union. Not an hour was lost in commencing the work of restoration, and many of the sites were bougiit by Robert M)lne, tlie king's master-mason. The new Royal Exchange, which had its name and the date 1700 cut boldly above its doorway, rose to the height of twelve storeys on the south — deemed a moderate altitude in those days. On its eastern side was an open arcade, with Doric pilasters and entablature, as a covered walk for pedestrians, and tile effect of the whole was stately and im- posing. Many aristocratic families who had been burned out, came flocking back to the vast tene- ments of the Parliament Close, among others the Countess of Wcmyss, who was resident there in a fashionable fiat at the time of the Porteous mob. and whose footman was accused of being one of the rioters, and who very nearly had a terrible tragedy acted in her own house, the outcome of the great one in the Grassmarket. It is related that the close connection into which the noble family of U'emyss were thus brought to the Porteous mob, as well as their near vicinity to the chief line of action, naturall) produced a strong impression on the younger members of the family. They had probably been aroused from bed by the shouts of the rioters assembling beneath their windows, and the din of their sledge-hammers thundering on the old Tol- booth door. Thus, not long after the Earl of ^Vemyss — the Hon. Francis Charteris was born in 1723, and was then a boy — proceeded, along with his sisters, to get up a game, or repre- sentation of the Porteous mob, and having duly forced his prison, and dragged forth the supiiosed culprit, " the romps got so thoroughly into the spirit of their dramatic sports that they actually hung up their brother above a door, and had well nigh finished their play in real tragedy." The first coftee-house opened in Edinburgh was John Row's, in Robertson's Land, a tall tenement near the Parliament House. This was in 1673. It was shut up in 1677, in consequence of a brawl, reported to the Privy Council by the Town Major, who had authority to see into such matters. The north-east corner of the Parliament Close was occupied by John's coffee-house. There, as Defoe, the historian of the Union, tells us, the opponents of this measure met daily, to discuss the proceedings that were going on in the Parlia- ment House close by, and to form schemes of opposition thereto ; and there, no doubt, were sung fiercely and emphatically the doggerel rhymes known as " Belhaven's Vision," of which the only copies extant are those printed at Edinburgh in 1729, at the Glasgow Arms, opposite the Corn Market ; and that other old song, which was touched by the master-hand of Burns : — " Wliat force or guile could not subtlue, Tlirougli many warlike ages, Is now wrought by a coward few . For hireling traitor's wages; The English steel \vc could disdain. Secure in valour's station ; But ICngland's gold has been our bane — Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ! " John's coflee-house was also the resort of the judges and lawyers of the eighteenth century for consultations, and for their " meridian," or twelve o'clock dram ; for in those days every citizen had Parliament Close.] JOHN OSWALD. 179 iiis peculiar hoioff, or place of resort by day or night, where merchants, traders, and men of every station, met for consultation, or good-fellowship, and to hear the items of news that came by the mail or stage from distant parts ; and Wilson, i writing in 1847, says, " Currie's Tavern, in Craig's j Close, once the scene of meeting of various clubs, and a favourite resort of merchants, still retains a reputation among certain antiquarian bibbers for ail old-fashioned luxury, known by the name of pap-ill, a strange compound of small-beer and whiskey, curried, as the phrase is, with a little oatmeal." Gossiping Wodrow tells us in his " Analecta," that, on the loth of June, 1712, "The birthday of the Pretender, I hear there has been great outrages At Edinburgh by liis friends. His health was drunk early in the morning in the Parliament Close ; and at night, when the magistrates were going through the streets to keep the peace, several were taken up in disguise, and the King's health {i.e., James VHI.) was drunk out of several windows, and the glasses thrown over the windows when the magistrates passed by, and many windows were illuminated. At Leith there was a standard set upon the pier, with a thistle and Nemo vie impiaie laccssit, and J. R. VIII. ; and beneath, Noe Abjuration. This stood a great part of the day." Had the old historian lived till the close of the century or the beginning of the present, he might have seen, as Chambers tells us, " Sing- ing Jamie Balfour " — a noted convivialist, of whom a portrait used to hang in the Leith Golf-house — with other topers in the Parliament Close, all bare- headed, on their knees, and hand-in-hand, around the statute of Charles H., chorusing vigorously, " Tlie King shall enjoy his oic^n again." Jamie Balfour was well known to Sir Walter Scott. About the year 1760 John's coffee-house was kept by a man named Oswald, whose son John, born there, and better known under his assumed name of Sylvester Otway, was one of the most extraordinary characters of that century as a poet and politician. He served an apprenticeship to a jeweller in the Close, till a relation left him a legacy, with which he purchased a commission in the Black Watch, and in 17 So he was the third lieutenant in seniority in the 2nd battalion when serving in India. Already master of Latin and Greek, he then taught himself Arabic, and, quitting the army in 1783, became a violent Radical, and published in London a pamphlet on the British Constitution, setting forth his views (crude as they were) and principles. His amatory poems received the approbation of Burns ; and, after publishing various farces, effusions, and fiery political papers, he joined the French Revolutionists in 1792, when his pamphlets obtained for him admission into the Jacobite Club, and his experiences in the 42nd procured him command of a regiment com- posed of the masses of Paris, with which he marched against the royalists in La Vendee, on which occasion his men mutinied, and shot him, together with his two sons — whom, in the spirit of equality, he had made drummers — and an English gentleman, who had the misfortune to be serving in the same battalion. John third Earl of Bute, a statesman and a patron of literature, who procured a pension for Dr. Johnson, and who became so unpopular as a minister through the attacks of Wilkes, was born in the Parliament Close on the 25 th of May, 1713- Near to John's coflee-house, and on the south side of the Parliament Close, was the banking-house of Sir William Forbes, Bart., who was born at Edin- burgh in 1739. He was favourably known as the author of the " Life of Beattie," and other works, and as being one of the most benevolent and high- spirited of citizens. The bank was in reality estab- lished by the father of Thomas Coutts, the eminent London banker, and young Forbes, in October, 1753, was introduced to the former as an appren- tice for a temi of seven years. He became a co- partner in 1761, and on the death of one of , the Messrs. Coutts, and retirement of another on account of ill-health, while two others were settled in London, a new company was formed, compris- ing Sir William Forbes, Sir James Hunter Blair, and Sir Robert Herries, who, at first, carried on business in the name of the old firm. In 1773, however, Sir Robert formed a sepa- rate establishment in London, when the name was changed to Forbes, Hunter, and Co., of which firm Sir William continued to be the head till his death, in 1S06. Kincaid tells us that, when their first banking- house was building, great quantities of human bones — relics of St. Giles's Churchyard — were dug up, which were again buried at the south-east corner, between the wall of the edifice and the Parliament Stairs that led to the Cowgate; and that, " not many years ago, numbers were also dug up in the Parliament Close, which were carefully put in casks, and buried in the Greyfriars' Church- yard." In accordance with a long-cherished desire of restoring his family — which had been attainted for loyalty to the house of Stuart — Sir William Forbes embraced a favourable opportunity for purchasing i8o OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Ciose. a great portion of the upper barony of Pitsligo, in- cluding the roofless and ruined old mansion-house of the Lords Pitsligo. He bestowed charity daily upon a number of pensioners, who were in the habit of waiting on him as he entered or left the bank, or as he passed through the Parliament Close, where for canto of " Marmion," thus affectionately and forcibly : — " Far may we search before we find A heart so manly and so kind ! But not around his honoured um, Shall friends alone and kindred mourn j ':^ ,>A/-->^>tf^^P^^-V i^'^^ nil I \Kl lAMtN 1 SI Ml years, as we are told in "The Hermit in Edin- burgh, 1824," might be seen the figure of "that pillar of worth. Sir William Forbes, in the costume of tlie last century, with a profusion of grey locks tied in a club, and a cloud of hair-powder flying about him in a windy day ; his tail, upright form is missed in the circles of moral life ; the poor miss him also." His friend Scott wrote of liim, in llie fourth The thousand eyes his care had dried Pour .It his name a bitter tide ; And frequent falls the grateful dew, l*'or Iicucfits tl>e woild ne'er knew. If mortal charity dare claim The AImi{;lity's attributed name, Inscribe above his mouldering cl.iy, T/ie 7oii/(nu's s/iielJ, the orphan's slay ! " Near his banking-house, and adjoining the Par- liament (or old back) Stairs, was long a shop occu- Parliament Close.] THE BEACON." i8i pied by John Kay, tlie well-known engraver and caricaturist, whose " Portraits " of old Edinburgh characters certainly form, with their biographies, perhaps the most unique collection in Europe. During his whole career he occupied the same small print-shop ; the solitary window was filled with his own etchings, which amounted to nearly 900 in number. He had originally been a barber, but after 1785 devoted himself solely to the art of etching and miniature painting. He died in 1830, at No. 227, High Street, in his eighty-fourth year. " In his latter days," says his biographer, " he was a slender but straight old man, of middle size, and usually dressed in a garb of antique cut; of simple habits and unassum- ing manners." The stairs just re- ferred to— a great and massive flight that ascended from the Cowgate to Parlia- ment Close, imme- diately under the south window of the great hall — have long since given place to the buildings of the modern square ; and no doubt they occupied the site of some old passage be- tween the Cowgate and the churchyard, and for this they had been substituted about the year 1636. At their base was an ancient public well. The Edinburgh Weekly Journal for 1 82 1 mentions that a man fell over " the stairs which lead from the Kirkheugh to the Parliament stairs ;" and the iSimt Journal for 1828 states that "work- men are engaged in taking down the large double tenement in the Cowgate, at the back of the Par- liament House, called Henderson's Stairs, part of which, it will be remembered, fell last summer, and which had been condemned sixty years ago," in 1768. In 1781 James Sibbald, an eminent bookseller and literary antiquarian, the son of a Roxburgh farmer, who came to Edinburgh with ^100 in his pocket, after being employed in the shop of Elliot the publisher, purchased the old circulating library that had belonged to Allan Ramsay, and com- DR. ARCHIBALD PITCArRN, mem ed business in the Parliament Close, where, in 1783, he started a new monthly miscellany, named The Edinburgh Magazine, illustrated with engravings, the principal papers in which were articles on Scottish antiquities, the production ot his own pen. He was also the projector of the Edinburgh Herald, which, however, was soon dis- continued. Relinquishing his establishment in the Close about 1792, he devoted himself to a literary life in London ; but, after a somewhat chequered career, returned to Edinburgh, where he died in a lodging in Leith Walk in 1803. In 1 8 16 the Par- liament Close, or Square as it was then becoming more generally named, was the scene of an un- seemly literary fracas, arising from political hatred and circum- stances, by which one life was ultimately lost, and which might have imperilled even that of Sir Walter Scott. A weekly paper, called the Beacon, was estab- lished in Edinburgh, the avowed object "of which was the sup- port of the then Go- vernment, but which devoted its columns to the defamation of private characters, particularly those of the leading Whig nobles and gentlemen of Scotland. This system of personal abuse gave rise to several actions at law, and on the 15th of August a rencontre took place between James Stuart of Dunearn, who conceived his honour and character impugned in an article which he traced to Duncan Stevenson, the printer of the paper, in the Parliament Square. Stuart, with a horsewhip, lashed the latter, who was not slow in retaliating with a stout cane. "The parties were speedily separated," says the Scots Magazine for 181 6, "and Mr. Stevenson, in the course of the day, demanded from Mr. Stuart the satisfaction customary in such cases. This was refused by Mr. Stuart, on the ground that, 'as the semle instrument of a partnership of slander,' he was un- worthy of receiving the satisfaction of a gentlemaa l82 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. I Parliament Close. Mr. Stevenson replied on the following day that he should forthwith post Mr. Stuart as ' a coward and scoundrel,' and he put his threat in execution ac- cordingly. Next day both parties were bound over by the sheriff to keep the peace for twelve months.'' But the matter did not end here. Mr. Stuart discovered that the Lord Advocate, Sir Walter Scott, and other Conservatives, had signed a bond for a considerable amount, binding themselves to support the Beacon, against which such strong pro- ceedings were instituted that the print was with- drawn from the public entirely by the 22nd of September. "But the discovery of the bond," continues the magazine just quoted, " was nearly leading to more serious consequences, for, if report be true, Mr. James Gibson, W.S., one of those who had been grossly calumniated in the Beacon, had thought proper to make such a demand upon Sir Walter Scott as he could only be prevented from answering in a similar hostile spirit by the interference of a common friend, Lord Lauder- dale." All these quarrels culminated in Mr. Stuart of Dunearn, not long after, shooting Sir Alex- ander Boswell, as author of a satirical paper in the Glasgow Scntiiui, which liad taken up the role of the Beacon. We have said the great fire of 1700, in the Par- liament Close, was attributed by the magistrates to the justice of Heaven ; but it seems scarcely credible, though such was the fact, that the still more calamitous fire of 1824, in the same place, was "attributed by the lower orders in and near Edin- burgh also to be the judgment of Heaven, specially commissioned to punish the city for tolerating such a dreadful enormity as — the Musical Festival ! " Early on the morning of the 24th of June, 1824, a fire broke out in a spirit-vault, or low drinking- .shop, at the head of the Royal Bank Close, and it made great progress before the engines arrived, and nearly all the old edifices being ])anelled or wainscoted, the supply of water jjroved ineffectual to check the flames, and early in the afternoon the eastern half of the Parliament Square was a heap of blackened ruins. To the surprise of all who wit- nessed this calamity, and observed the hardihood and temerity displayed by several i;ersons to save ])ropcrty, or to arrest the progress of the flames, the only individual who fell a sacrifice was a city officer named Chalmers, who was so dreadfully scorched that he died in the infirmary a few days after. SEAL OF .\RN.\ULD LAMMIUS. (From the Scottish Aidiqiiayian Jlitseitiii.) In one of the houses consumed on this occasion was a cellar or crypt in whicli Dr. Archibald Pit- cairn, the celebrated wit, poet, and physician, who was born at Edinburgh in 1652, was wont to pass many a jovial evening about 120 years before the conflagration. The entrance to this gloomy place was opposite the eastern window of St. Giles, and it descended from under a piazza. A more extra- ordinary scene for the indulgence of mirth and of festivity than this subterranean crypt or den — facetiously named the Greping Office — certainly could not well be conceived, nor could wit, poetry, and physic well have chosen a darker scene j yet it was the favourite of one whose writings were distinguished for their brilliancy and elegant Latinity. He died in 17 13, and was buried in the Greyfriars' Churchyard. In the fourth floor of the land overlooking the aforesaid cellar, there dwelt, about 1775, Lord Auchinleck, one of the Senators of the College of Justice, the father of James Boswell, the friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. In the year 1767 the magis- trates of Edinburgh had the bad taste to paint the equestrian statue of King Charles white, on which occasion the following witty rhymes appeared in a The Allan Ramsay referred to is the son of the ]5oet, who had just painted the portrait of George III. : — print of the day. " Well iloiie, my lord ! With noble t.iste, You've made Charles gay as five-aml-twenty, We may be scarce of gold and corn. But sure there's lead and oil in plenty ; Vet, for a pulilic work like this, You might have had some famous artist ; Tliough I had made each merk a jiound, I would have had the very sinartebt. " Why not bring Allan Ramsay down, From sketching coronet and cushion ? Kor he can j^aint a living king. And knows — the English Constitution, Tile milk--,ohite stivJ is well enough ; But why thus daub the man all over, And Ir) the swarthy Srt'ART give The cream comiilcxiun of Hanover?" In 1832, wlien a drain was being dug in the Parliament Sijuare, close by St. Giles's Church, there was found the bronze seal of a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem. It is now preserved in the Museum of Antiquities, and bears the legend, "S. Akknauli) Lammius." The Royll EKchanje.] THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 183 CHAPTER XX. THE ROYAL EXCHANGE— THE TRON CHURCH— THE GREAT FIRE OF NOVEMBER, 1824. The Royal Exchange — Laying the Fcundation Stone — Description of the Exchange — The Mysterious Statue — The Council Chamber — Coaven- tioB of Royal Burghs : Constitution thereof, and Powers — Writers' Court — The " Star and Garter " Tavern — Sir Walter Scott's Account of the Scene at Cleriheugh's— Lawyers' High Jinks— The Tron Church— History of the Old Church— The Great Fire of 1824 — Incidents of the Contlagratlon— The Ruins Undermined— lilown up by Captain Head of the Engineers. In 1753 we discover the first symptoms of vitality in Edinburgh after the Union, when the pitiful sum of ^1,500 was subscribed by the convention of royal burglis, for the purpose of " beautifying the city," and the projected Royal Exchange was fairly taken in hand. If wealth had not increased much, the popula- tion had, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the citizens had begun to find the incon- venience they laboured under by being confined within the old Flodden wall, and that the city was still destitute of such public buildings as were necessary for the accommodation of those societies which were formed, or forming, in all other capitals. to direct the business of the nation, and provide for the general welfare ; and so men of taste, rank, and opulence, began to bestir themselves in Edin- burgh at last. Many ancient alleys and closes, whose names are well-nigh forgotten now, Vtere demolished on the north side of the High Street, to procure a site for the new Roj-al Exchange. Some of these had already become ruinous, and must have been of vast antiquity. Many beautifully-sculptured stones belonging to houses there were built into the curious tower, erected by Mr. Walter Ross at the Dean, and are now in a similar tower at Porto- bello. Others were scattered about the garden grounds at the foot of the Castle rock, and still show the important character of some of the edifices demolished. Among them there was a lintel, discovered when clearing out the bed of the North Loch, with the initials I.S. (and the date 1658), supposed to be those of James tenth Lord Somerville, who, after serving long in the Venetian army, died at a great age in 1677. On the 13th of September, 1753, the first stone of the new Exchange was laid by George Drum- mond, then Grand Master of the Scottish Masons, whose memor)- as a patriotic magistrate is still re- membered with respect in Edinburgh. A triumphal arch, a galler)- for the magistrates, and covered stands for the spectators, enclosed the arena. " The procession was very grand and regular," says the Gentleman's Magazine for that year ; " each lodge of masons, of which there were thirteen, walked in procession by tliemseh-es, all uncovered, amounting to 672, most of whom were operative masons." The military paid proper honours to the company on this occasion, and es- corted the procession in a suitable manner. The Grand Master and the present substitute were preceded by the Lord Provost, magistrates, and council, in their robes, with the city sword, mace, &c., carried before them, accompanied by the directors of the scheme. All day the foundation-stone lay open, that the people might see it, with the Latin inscription on the plate, which runs thus in English : — " George Dkummond, Of the Society of Freemasons in Scotland Grand Master, Thrice Provost of the City of Edinburgh, Three hundred Brother Masons attending, In presence of many persons of distinction. The Magistrates and Citizens of Edinburgh, And of every rank of people an innumerable multitude, And all Applauding ; For convenience of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, And the public ornament. Laid this stone, William Alexander being Provost, On the 13th September, 1753. of the Era of Masonry 5753, And of the reign of George II., King of Great Britain, the 27th year." In the stone were deposited two medals, one bearing the profile and name of the Grand ^Master, the other having the masonic arms, with the collar of St. Andrew, and the legend, " In the Lord is all our trust." Though the stone was thus laid in 1753, the work was not fairly begun till the following year, nor was it finished till 1761, at the expense of ;^3i,5oo, including the price of the area on which it is built ; but it never answered the purpose for which it was intended — its paved quadrangle and handsome Palladian arcades were never used by the mercantile class, who persisted in meeting, as of old, at the Cross, or where it stood. Save that its front and western arcades have been converted into shops, it remains unchanged since it was thus described by Amot, and the back view of it, which faces the New Town, catches the eye at once, by its vast bulk and stupendous height, 100 feet, all of polished ashlar, now blackened wth the smoke of years : — " The Exchange is a large and elegant building, with a court in the centre. 1 84 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Royal Exchange, The principal part forms the north side of the square, and extends from east to west, i ii feet over wall, by 51 feet broad. Pillars and arches, supporting a platform, run along the south front, which faces the square, and forms a piazza. In the centre, four Corinthian pillars, whose bases stately stair, of which the well is twenty feet square and sixty deep. Off this open the City Chambers, where the municipal affairs are transacted by the magistrates and council. The Council Chamber contains a fine bronze statue of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, in Roman CI ERIillA i.n S I AVI KN rest upon the platform, support a pediment, on which the arms of the city of Edinburgli are carved. The first floor of the main front is laid out in shops. The upper floors are occupied by the IJoard of Customs, wlio have upwards of twenty apartments, for this they pay to the city a rent oi jQt,Go a year." Arnot wrote in 1779. The chief access to the edifice is by a very costume, and having a curious and mysterious his- tory. It is said — for nothing is known with cer- tainty about it — to have been cast in France, and was shipped from Dunkirk to I,eith, where, during tlie process of unloading, it fell into the harbour, and remained long submerged. It is next heard of as being concealed in a cellar in the city, and in the Scots Magazine it is referred to thus in i8io : — " On Tuesday, the i6th October, a very singular The Royal Exchange.] PRINCE CHARLES'S STATUE. 185 ;.:-:r?^Si: 1 86 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Royal Exchange. discovery was made in one of our churches. Some years ago a chest, without a)ty address, but of enormous weight, was removed from the Old Weigh House at Leith, and lodged in the outer aisle of the old church (a portion of St. Giles's). This box had lain for upwards of thirty years at Leith, and several years in Edinburgh, without a claimant, and, what is still more extraordinary, without any one ever having had the curiosity to examine it. On Tuesday, however, some gentle- men connected with the town caused the mys- terious box to be opened, and, to their surprise and gratification, they found it contained a beautiful statute of his majesty (?), about the size of life, cast in bronze Although it is at present unknown from whence this admirable piece of workmanship came, by whom it was made, or to whom it belongs, this cannot remain long a secret. We trust, however, that it will remain as an ornament in some public place in this city." More concerning it was never known, and ultimately it was placed in its present posi- tion, without its being publicly acknowledged to be a representation of the unfortunate prince. In this Council chamber there meets yearly tliat little Scottish Parliament, the ancient Convention of Royal Burghs. Their foundation in Scotland is as old, if not older, than the days of David I., who, in his charter to the monks of Holy- rood, describes Edinburgh as a burgh hold- ing of the king, paying him certain revenues, and having the privilege of free , . „, . , , _ ., TAI.I.V-STICK, HK.'VRINr, DATK OF l6q2. markets. Ihe nidements of the ,r c ,<■; ; ., i, / ^ J^^o"^"^" ^* *-"^ \From Scottish AuiiijiKtriitn Museum^ magistrates of burghs were liable to the review of the Lord Great Chamberlain of Scotland (the first of whom was Herbert, in 1 128), and his Court of the Four Burghs. He kept the accounts of the royal revenue and expenses, and held his circuits or chamberlain- ayres, for the better regulation of all towns. But even his decrees were liable to revision by the Court of the Four Burghs, composed of certain burgesses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and Berwick, who met annually, at Haddington, to de- cide, as a court of last resort, the appeals from the chamberlain-ayres, and determine upon all matters affecting the welfare of the royal burghs. Ifpon the suppression of the office of chamberlain (the last of whom was Charles Duke of Lennox, in 1685), the power of controlling magistrates' ac- counts was vested in the Exchequer, and the rc- viewal of their sentences in the courts of law ; while the power which the chamberlain had of regulating matters in his Court of the Four Burghs respecting the common welfare was transferred to the general Convention of Royal Burghs. This Court was constituted in the reign of James III., and appointed to be held yearly at Inverkeithing. By a statute of James VI., the Convention was appointed to meet four times in each year, wherever the members chose ; and to avoid confusion, only one was to appear for each burgh, except the capital, which was to have two. By a subsequent statute, a majority of the burghs, or the capital with any other six, were em- jiowered to call a Convention as often as they deemed it necessar)', and all the other burghs were obliged to attend it under a penalt)'. The Convention, consisting of two deputies from each burgh, now meets annually at Edin- burgh in the Council Chamber, and it is somewhat singular that the Lord Provost, although only a member, is the perpetual president, and the city clerks are clerks to the Convention, during the sittings of which the magistrates are supposed to keep open table for the members. The powers of this Convention chiefly respect the establishment of regulations con- cerning the trade and commerce of Scotland ; and with this end it has renewed, from time to time, articles of staple contract with the town of Campvere, in Holland, of old the seat of the conservator of Scottish privileges. As the royal burghs pay a sixth part of the sum imposed as a land-tax upon the counties in Scotland, the Convention is empowered to con- sider the state of trade, and the revenues of indi- vidual burghs, and to assess their respective portions The Convention has also been in use to examine the administrative conduct of magistrates in the matter of burgh revenue (though this comes more I)roperly under the Court of Exchequer), and to give sanction upon particular occasions to the Common Council of burghs to alienate a part of the burgh estate. The Convention likewise con- siders and arranges the political ,r(//,s- or constitu- tions of the different burghs, and regulates matters concerning elections that may be brought before it. Before the use of the Council Chamber was assigned to the Convention it was wont to meet in an aisle of St. Giles's church. Writers' Court — so named from the circumstance of the Signet Library being once there — adjoins the Royal I'^xchange, and a gloomy little (/// dc sac it m Tron Church. ) THE TRON CHURCH. 187 is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it once contained a tavern of great consideration in its time, "The Star and Garter," kept by a man named Cleriheugh, who is referred to in " Guy Man- nering," for history and romance often march side by side in Edinburgh, and Scott's picture of the strange old tavern is a faithful one. The reader of the novel may remember how, on a certain Saturday night, when in search of Mr. Pleydell, Dandie Dinmont, guiding Colonel Mannering, turned into a dark alley, then up a dark stair, and then into an open door. While Dandie " was whistling shrilly for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering looked around him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession and good society should choose such a scene for social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous. The passage in which they stood had a window to the close, which admitted a little light in the day- time, and a villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially towards evening. Cor- responding to this window was a borrowed light on the other side of the passage, looking into the kitchen, wliich had no direct communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at second- hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from the lane through the window opposite. ,\t present, the interior of the kitchen was visible by its own huge fires — a sort of pandemonium, where men and women, half-dressed, were busied in baking, boiling, roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron ; the mistress of the place, with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that of Megaera from under a round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders and giving them and obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery region." Yet it was in this tavern, perhaps more than any other, that the lawyers of the olden time held their, high jinks and many convivialities. Cleri- heugh's was also a favourite resort of the magistrates and town councillors when a deep libation was deemed an indispensable element in the adjust- ment of all civic affairs ; thus, in the last century, city wags used to tell of a certain treasurer of Edinburgh, who, on being applied to for new rope to the Tron Kirk bell, summoned the Council to consider the appeal. An adjournment to Cleri- heugh's was of course necessary ; but as one dinner was insufficient for the settlement of this weighty matter, it was not until three had been discussed that the bill was settled, and the old rope spliced ! Before proceeding with the general history of the High Street we will briefly notice that of the Tron Church, and of the great fire in which it was on the eve of perishing. The old Greyfriars, with the other city churches, being found insufficient for the increasing popu- lation, the Town Council purchased two sites, on which they intended to erect religious fabrics. One was on the Castle Hill, where the reservoir now stands ; the other was where the present Tron Church is now built. This was in the year 1637, when the total number of householders, as shown by the Council records, could not have been much over 5,000, as a list made four years before shows the numbers to have been 5,071, and the annual amount ofrents payable by them only ;^i92,ii8 5s., Scots money. Political disturbances retarded the progress of both these new churches. The one on the Castle Hill was totally abandoned, after having been partially destroyed by the English during the siege in 1650 ; and the other — the proper name of which is Christ's Church at the Tron — was not ready for public worship till 1647, "or was it completely finished till 1663, at the cost of ^6,000, so much did war with England and the contentions of the Covenanters and Cavaliers retard everything and impoverish the nation. On front of the tower over the great doorway a large ornamented panel bears the city arms in alto-relievo, and beneath them the inscription — ^de.m hanc Christo et eccles^jE SACRARUN'T GIVES EdINBURGENSES, ANNO DoM MDCLi. It is finished internally with an open roof of timber-work, not unlike that of the Parliament House. Much of the material used in the construction of the sister church on the Castle Hill was pulled down and used in the walls of the Tron, which the former was meant closely to resemble, if we may judge from the plan of Gordon of Rothiemay. In 1644 the magistrates bought 1,000 stone weight of copper in Amsterdam to cover the roof; but such were the exigencies of the time that it was sold, and stones and lead were substituted in its place. In 1639 David Mackall, a merchant of Edin- burgh, gave 3,500 merks, or about ^194 sterling, to the magistrates in trust, for purchasing land, to be applied to the maintenance of a chaplain in the Tron Church, where he was to preach every Sunday morning at six o'clock, or such other hour as the magistrates should appoint. They may be tndy said, continues Arnot, " to have hid this talent in a napkin. They did not appoint a preacher for sixty-four years. As money then bore ten per cent., although the interest of this i88 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Tron Church. sum had been paid but once in ten years, yet, if it had been properly managed, the accumulated sum behoved to have exceeded ^16,000 sterling." The old spire had been partially built of wood covered with lead, according to a design frequently repeated on public buildings then in Scotland. It was copied from the Dutch ; but the examples of it are rapidly disappearing. A bell, which cost 1,490 merks Scots, was hung in it in 1673, and continued weekly to summon the parishioners to prayer and pounds yearly. It is an edifice of uninteresting appearance and nondescript style, being neither Gothic nor Palladian, but a grotesque mixture of both. It received its name from its vicinity to the Tron, or public beam for the weighing of mer- chandise, wliich stood near it. A very elegant stone spire, which was built in 182S, replaces that which perished in the great conflagration of four years before. The Tron beam appears to have been used as A GENERAL. PLAN Op THE EXCHANGE IN THE CITY OF EDINBURGH, With the shops and coFFHE-HorsES on A LEVEL WITH THE STRBET. EXPLANATION. A The principal Entrj'. B Tile area of the Square. C The Piazza. D The Cotfee.room inthe west Coffee-house, d Rooms and Closets in ditto. B The Cotfee-room in the middle Cottce- house, e Rcotns and Closets in ditto. F The Coffee-room in the last Coffee-liouse. f Rooms in ditto. G The Great S:air leadinfr to tlie Custom House. H The Pass-afje leading to ditto. I An open for letting in light to the Houses in the Writer's Court under tlic level of the Square. K The P.issage between the Square and Writer's Court. L Seven Shops within the Square. M Four Shops behind the range to the street. N Ten Shops on a line with the street. O An open of four feet for drooping eaves of the neighbouring hotises. I' Part ot the ^\'riter-s Court Q Area of ditto. GENERAL PLAN OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. (From an Engraving in the " Scots Mngasine" for im.) sermon till the great fire of 1824, when it was partly melted by heat, and fell with a mighty crash through the bla/.ing ruins of tlie steeple. Tortions of it were made into drinking quaighs and similar memorials. In 1678 the tower was completed by placing therein the old clock wJiicli had formerly been in the AVcigli House. Towards the building of this church tlic pious Lady Yester gave 1,000 merks. In 1703 the magistrates ap])ointcd two persons to preach alter- nately in the 'I'ron Church, to each of whom they gave a salary of forty guineas, as the Council Re- gister shows ; but about 1788 they contented them- selves witli one preaclier, to whom they gave fifty a i)ilIory for the punishment of crime. In Niccol'.s "Diary "for 1649, it is stated that "much falset and cheitting was daillie dcteckit at this time by the Lords of Sessioune ; for the whilk there was daillie nailing of lugs and binding of people to the Troiic, and boring of tongues ; so that it was a fatal year for false notaries and witnesses, as daillie experience did witness." On the night of Monday, the 15th of November, 1824, about ten o'clock, the cry of "Fire!" was heard in the High Street, and it spread throughout the city from mouth to moulli ; vast crowds came from all quarters rushing to the spot, and columns of smoke and flame were seen issuing from the second floor of a house at the head of the old The Great Kire.) THE GREAT FIRE. 189 Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by Kirkwood, a well known engraver. The engines came promptly enough ; but, from some unknown cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working order, and by that time the terrible element had raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by eleven o'clock the upper portion of this tenement, including six storeys, forming the eastern division of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of roaring flames, which, as the breeze was from the to their elevated position, or the roar of the gather- ing conflagration, the shouts of the crowd, and wailing of women and children, their cries were unheard for a time, until it was too late. The whole tenement was lost, together with extensive ranges of buildings in the old Fish Market and Assembly Closes, to which it was the means of communicating the flames. While these tall and stately edifices were yielding to destruction, the night grew calm and still, and M THE ROYAL EXCHANbh. south-west, turned them, as they burst from the gaping windows, in the direction of a house to the eastward, the strong gable of which saved it from the destruction which seemed imminent. Two tenements to the westward were less for- tunate, and as, from the narrowness of the ancient close, it was impossible to work the engines, they soon were involved in one frightful and appalling blaze. Great fears were now entertained for the venerable Q't/ra/if oftice ; nor was it long before the fire seized on its upper storey, at the very time when some brave fellows got upon the roof of a tenement to the westward, and shouted to the fire- men to give them a pipe, by which they could play upon the adjoining roof But, owing either the sparks emitted by the flames shot upwards as if spouted from a volcano, and descended like the thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the respira- tion of all. A dusky, lurid red tinged the clouds, and the glare shone on the Castle walls, the rocks of the Calton, the beetling crags, and all the city spires. Scores of lofty chimneys, set on fire by the falling sparks, added to the growing horror of the scene ; and for a considerable time the Tron Church was completely enveloped in this perilous shower of embers. About one in the morning of the i6th the alarm of fire was given from a house directly opposite to the burning masses, and, though groundless, it added to the deepening consternation. Mean- I go OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Great Fire. while the weather changed rapidly ; the wind, accompanied by rain, came in fierce and fitful gusts, thus adding to the danger and harrowing interest of the scene, which, from the great size of the houses, had much in it that was wild and weird. " About five o'clock," says Dr. James Browne, in his "Historical Sketch of Edinburgh," " the fire had proceeded so far downwards in the building occupied by the Coiirant office, that the upper part of the front fell inwards with a dreadful crash, the concussion driving the flames into the middle of the street. By this time it had communicated with the houses on the east side of the Old Fish Market Close, which it burned down in succession ; while that occupied by Mr. Abraham Thomson, book- binder, which had been destroyed a few months previously by fire and re-built, was crushed in at one extremity by the fall of the gable. In the Old Assembly Close it was still more destructive ; the whole west side, terminating with the king's old Stationery Warehouse, and including the Old As- sembly Hall, then occupied as a warehouse by Bell and Bradfute, booksellers, being entirely con- sumed. These back tenements formed one of the most massive, and certainly not the least remark- able, piles of building in the ancient city, and in former times were inhabited by persons of the greatest distinction. At this period they pre- sented a most extraordinary spectacle. A great part of the southern land fell to the ground ; but a lofty and insulated pile of side wall, broken in the centre, rested in its fall, so as to form one-half of an immense pointed arch, and remained for several days in this inclined position. "By nine o'clock the steeple of the Tron Church was discovered to be on fire ; the pyramid became a mass of flame, the lead of the roof poured over the masonry in molten streams, and the bell fell with a crash, as we have narrated, but the church was chiefly saved by a powerful engine belonging to the Board of Ordnance. Tlie fire was now stopped ; but the horror and dismay of the people increased when, at ten that night, a new one broke forth in the devoted Parliament Scjuare, in the attic floor of a tenement eleven storeys in height, over- looking the Cowgate. As this house was far to windward of the other fire, it was quite impossible that one could have caused the other — a conclusion which forced itself upon the minds of all, together with the startling belief that some desperate in- cendiaries had resolved to destroy the city ; while many went about exclaiming that it was a special l)unishment sent from Heaven upon the people for their sins." (Browne, p. 220; Coiiranl oi Nov. 18, 1824; &c.) As the conflagration spread, St. Giles's and the Parliament Square resounded with dreadful echoes, and the scene became more and more appalling, from the enormous altitude of the buildings ; all eftbrts of the people were directed to saving the Parliament House and the Law Courts, and by five on the morning of ^^'ednesday the scene is said to have been unspeakably grand and terrific. Since the English invasion under Hertford in 1544 no such blaze had been seen in the ancient city. " Spicular columns of flame shot up majesti- cally into the atmosphere, which assumed a lurid, dusky, reddish hue ; dismay, daring, suspense, fear, sat upon different countenances, intensely expressive of their various emotions ; the bronzed faces of the firemen shone momentarily from under their caps as their heads were raised at each suc- cessive stroke of the engines ; and the very element by which they attempted to extinguish the con- flagration seemed itself a stream of liquid fire. The County Hall at one time appeared like a palace of light ; and the venerable steeple of St. Giles's reared itself amid the bright flames like a spectre awakened to behold the fall and ruin of the devoted city." Among those who particularly distinguished them- selves on this terrible occasion were the Lord Presi- dent, Charles Hope of Granton ; the Lord Justice Clerk, Boyle of Shewalton ; the Lord Advocate, Sir William Rae of St. Catherine's ; the Solicitor- General, John Hope ; the Dean of Faculty ; and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Cockburn, the well-known memorialist of his own times. The Lord Advocate would seem to have been the most active, and worked for some time at one of the engines playing on the central tenement at the head of the Old Assembly Close, thus exerting himself to save the house in which he first saw the light. All distinction of rank being lost now in one common and generous anxiety, one of Sir William's fellow-labourers at the engine gave him a hearty slap on the back, exclaiming, at the .same time, " ^V'eel dune, my lord ! " On the morning of Wednesday, though showers of sleet and hail fell, the fire continued to rage with fury in Conn's Close, to wliich it had been com- municated by flying embers ; but there the ravages of this unprecedented and calamitous conflagration ended. The extent of the mischief done exceeded all former example. Fronting the High Street tiiere were destroyed four tenements of six storeys each, besides the underground storeys ; in Conn's Close, two timber-fronted " lands," of great anti- (juity ; in the Old Assembly Close, four houses of seven storeys each ; in liorllnvick's Close, six great tenements ; in the Old Fish Market Close, four of The High Street.] THE HIGH STREET. 191 six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cow- gate nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of calcined and blackened ruins, witli gaping windows and piles of smoking rubbish. In the Parliament Square four double tenements of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and the incessant crash of falling walls made the old vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the carica- turist, always a great attraction to idlers. During the whole of Thursday the authorities were occupied in the perplexing task of examining the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square. These being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered, threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice pre- sented such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down with cannon. On the next day the ruins were in- spected by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain (afterwardsSir Francis) Head of theRoyal Engineers, an officer distinguished alike in war and m literature, who gave in a professional report on the subject, and to him the task of demolition was assigned. In the meantime offers of assistance from Cap- tain Hope of H.M.S. Brisk, then in Leith Roads, were accepted, and his seamen, forty in number, threw a line over the lofty southern gable above Heron's Court, but brought down only a small portion. Next day Captain Hope returned to the attack, with iron cables, chains, and ropes, while some sappers daringly undermined the eastern wall. These were sprung, and, as had been predicted by Captain Head, the enormous mass fell almost perpendicularly to the ground. At the Tron Church, on the last night of every year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with patience and good-humour the hands of the illu- minated clock till they indicate one minute past twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed in with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general shaking of hands and congratulations ensue, and one and all wish each other " A happy New Year, and mony o' them." A busy hum pervades the older parts of the city ; bands of music and bagpipes strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished with egg-flip, whiskey, &c., thousands hasten off in all directions to "firstfoot"' friends and relations. CHAPTER XXI. THE HIGH STREET. A Place for Brawling— First Paved and Lijjhted — The Meal and Flesh Markets— State of the Streets— Municipal Regulations i6th Centurj'— TnlzU-s — The Lairds of Airth and Wemyss — The Tweedies of Drummelzier — A Montrose Quarrel — The Slaughter of Lord Torthonvald — —A Brawl in 1705— Attacking a Sedan Chair— Habits in the Seventeenth Century — Abduction of Women and Girls— Sumptuary' Laws against Women. Before narrating the wondrous history of the many quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged of old, and some of which still diverge, from the stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable thoroughfare itself — its gradual progress, changes, and some of the stirring scenes that have been wit- nessed from its windows. Till so late as the era of building the Royal Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase or much alteration since King James VI. rode forth for England in 1603. "The e.xtended wall erected in the memorable year 15 13 still formed the boundary of the city, with the exception of the enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates re- mained kept under the care of jealous warders, and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as wiien the dreaded inroads of the Southron summoned the Burgher ^Vatcii to guard their walls. At the foot of the High Street, the lofty tower and spire of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, sur- mounting the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, inter- posed between the city and the ancient burgh of Canongate." On this upward-sloping thoroughfare first rose the rude huts of the Caledonians, by the side of the wooded way that led to the Dun upon the rock — when Pagan rites were celebrated at sunrise on the bare scalp of Arthur's Seat — and destined to become in future years "the King's High Street," as it was exclusively named in writs and charters, in so far as it extended from the Nether Bow to the edifice named Creech's Land, at the east end of the Luckenbooths. " Here," says a writer, " was the batde-ground of Scotland for centuries, whereon private and party feuds, the jealousies of nobles and burghers, and not a few of the contests between the Crown and the people, were settled at the sword." As a place for brawling it was proverbial ; and thus it was that Colonel Munro, in " His Expe- dition wth the Worthy Scots Regiment called Mackeyes," levied in 1626, for service in Denmark 192 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The High Street. and Sweden, tells us, at the storming of Boitzen- burg, there was " a Scottish gentleman under the enemy, who, coming to scale the walls, said aloud, ' Have with you, gentlemen ! Tliinke not now you are on the street of Edinburgh bravading.' One of his own countrymen thrusting him through the body with a pike, he ended there." In the general consternation which succeeded the defeat of the army at Flodden a plague raged within the city with great violence, and carried off great numbers. Hence the Town Council, to pre- vent its progress, ordered all shops and booths to be closed for the space of fifteen days, and neither doors nor windows to be opened within that time, but on some unavoidable occa- sion, and nothing to be dealt in but necessaries for the immediate support of life. All vag- rants were forbid- den to walk in the streets without hav- ing each a light ; and several houses that had been oc- cupied by infected persons were de- molished. In 1532 the High Street was first paved or cause- wayed, and many of the old tenements renovated. The former was done under the super- intendence of a Frenchman named Marlin, whose name was bestowed on an alle)' to the south. The Town Council ordered lights to be hung out by night by the citizens to light the streets, and Edin- burgh became a principal place of resort from all parts of the kingdom. Till the reign of James V., the meal-market, and also the flesh-market, were kept in booths in the open High Street, which was also encumbered Ijy stacks of ])eat, jieatlier, and otiier fuel, before every door ; while, till the middle of the end of the seven- teenth century, according to Gordon's map, a flesh- market was kept in the Canongatc, immediately helow the Nether Bow. ANDREW CROSnV. (From the Portrait in the Parli.iincnt Hall.) [The original o/Coutisetior Pleydellin " Guy Matnu-iins."~\ "These, however," says Arnot, "are not to be considered as arguing any comparative insignifi- cancy in the city of Edinburgh. They proceeded from the rudeness of the times. The writers of those days spoke of Edinburgh in terms that show the respectable opinion they entertained of it. ' In this city,' says a writer of the si.xteenth century — Braun Agrippinensis — ' there are two spacious streets, of which the principal one, leading from the Palace to the Castle, is paved with square stones. The city itself is not built of bricks, but of square free- stones, and so stately is its ap- pearance, that single houses may be compared to palaces. From the abbey to the castle there is a continued street, which on both sides contains a range of excellent houses, and the better sort are built of hewn stone.' There are," adds Arnot, " specimens of the buildings of tlie fifteenth cen- tury still (1779) re- maining, particu- larly a house on the south side of the High Street, immediately above Peeble's Wynd, having a handsome front of hewn stone, and niches in the images of saints, which may justify description. The house was built James I.) No private build- modern date can compare walls for tli( our author's about 1430 (temp ing in the city of with it." The year 1554 saw the streets better lighted, and some attem]ns made to clean them. The continual wars with England compelled the citizens to crowd their dwellings as near the Castle as possible ; thus, instead of the city increasing in limits, it rose skyward, as we have already men- tioned ; storey was i)iled on storey till the streets resembled closely packed towers or steeples, each house, or "land," sheltering from twenty to thirty families witliin its walls. This was particularly the ■:^*- High Street.] THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH. 193 case with the High Street. The mansions in the diverging streets, narrow, steep, gloomy, and ill- ventilated, became perilous abodes in times of fire or pestilence. Those who dwelt in the upper storeys avoided the toil of descending the steep wheel-stairs that ied to the street, and the entire debris of the house- Jiold was flung from the windows, regardless of who or what might be below, especially after nightfall ; hence the cries of " Haud your hand ! '' " Get lanterns, were ordered to be hung up, by such per- sons and in such places as the magistrates should appoint, there to continue burning for the space of four hours — i.e., from five till nine o'clock in the evening. In consequence of the great assiduity ot the Provost (Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie), the Town Council added to his annual allowance ;^ioo Scots for his clothing and spicery, with two hogs- heads of wine for his greater state ; and soon after THE OLD TKON CHURCH. (Fn'm an Engravitig m Arnct's " History oj Ediidurgh.) out o' the gait ! " or " Gardes I'eau ! '' a shout copied from the French, were incessant. Another source of filth and annoyance was the circumstance that every inhabitant had his own dunghill in the street, opposite his own door ; while the thorough- fares were further encumbered and encroached upon by outside stone stairs, many of which still remain. Under these were kept swine, which were allowed to roam the streets (as in old Paris), and act the part of scavengers, and be alternately the pets and the terror of the children. By Acts of Council, 15th October, 1553-5, the mounds of household garbage were ordained to be removed, the swine to be prevented from being a pest in the streets, in which ba^ets or 25 another Act was passed, ordaining that the (male) servants of the inhabitants should attend him with lighted torches from the vespers or evening prayers to his own house. But despite the Acts quoted the streets were not thoroughly cleared or cleaned for more than si.xty years after. When King James VL, having celebrated his marriage with Anne of Denmark, on the 22nd October, 15S9, was about to return home, he wrote one of his characteristic epistles to the Provost, Alexander Clark of Balbirnie : — " Here we are drinking and driving in the auld way," and adding, "fi>r Gflds sake see «' things are richt at our hattie- coming." James did not wish to be exposed in the eyes of his foreign attendants, and he alludes 194 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. especially to the removal of the numerous middens, the repair of the roads and streets, and also the expected hospitality of the city, as we find that soon after the inhabitants were assessed to support the queen and her retinue till Holyrood Palace was prepared to receive her. They were also compelled to defray their proportion of the expense of his return. Five years before this, in 15S4, to prevent the incessant broils and riots that took place in High Street and elsewhere at night, it was enacted that by ten o'clock forty strokes should be given on the great bell, after which any person found abroad was to be imprisoned during the magistrate's pleasure, and fined forty shillings Scots ; while for the better regulation of the nightly watch the city was divided into thirty quarters, over each of which the magis- trates appointed two commanders, one a merchant, the other a craftsman, as also an officer to summon the citizens occasionally to take into consideration the affairs connected with these several divisions. (Council Register.) And now to glance briefly at the tiilzies, or com- bats, for so were they named of old, of which the High Street has been the scene. Apart from the fiimous brawl named '• Cleanse the Causeway," already described, and that in which the Laird of Stainhouse fell with the French in 1560, a considerable amount of blood has been shed in this old thorouglifare. After the battle of Melrose, in 1526, there en- sued a deadly feud between the border clans of Scott and Kerr, which culminated in the slaughter of Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleuch, by the Kerrs, in October, 1551, in the High Street. " Rards long shall tell How Lord Walter fell ! When startled burghers fled afar. The furies of the Border war, When tlie streets of High Dunedin Saw lanees gleam and falehions redden. And heard the slogan's deadly yell — 'J'hen the chief of Branxholm fell !" Nor was the feud between these two fiimilies stanclied till forty-five years later, when the chiefs of both paraded the High Street with their fol- lowers amicably, but it was expected their first meeting would decide their quarrel. On the 24th of November, 1567, about two in the afternoon, the Laird of Airth and Sir John Wemyss of that ilk, " met upon tlie Hie Gait of Edinburgh," acconling to liirrel, "and they and their followers fought a bloody skirmish, when many were luirt on both sides by shot of pistol." On this the Privy Council issued, but in vain, an edict against the wearing of culverins, dags, pistolets, or other " firewerks." The latter seem to have been adopted or in use earlier in Scotland than in the sister kingdom. At the raid of the Redswire, the English archers were routed by the volleys of the Scottish hackbuttiers ; and here we find, as the author of " Domestic Annals " notes, " that sword and buckler were at this time (1567) the ordinary gear of gallant men in England — a comparatively harmless furnishing ; but we see that small fire-arms were used in Scot- land." On the 7 th December, three years after this, the Hoppringles and Elliots chanced to encounter in the same place — hostile parties knew each other well then by their badges, liver)', and banners — and a terrible slaughter would have ensued had not the armed citizens, according to the " Diurnal of Oc- currents," ndd — i.e., separated — them by main force. A feud, which for many years disturbed the upper valley of the Tweed, resulted in a tulzie in the streets which is not without some picturesque details. It was occasioned by the slaughter of Veitch of Dawick's son, in June, 1590, by or through James Tweedie of Drummelzier, to revenge which, James Veitch younger of Synton, and Andrew Veitch, brother of the Laird of Tourhope, slew John Tweedie, tutor of Drummelzier and bur- gess of Edinburgh, as he walked in the public streets. Too much blood had been shed now for the matter to end there. The Veitches were arrested, but the Laird of Dawick came to the rescue with 10,000 merks bail, and their liberation was ordered by the king ; but they were barely free before they effected the slaughter of James Geddes of Glenhegden, head or chief of his family, with whom they, too, were at feud ; and the recital of this crime, as given in the " Privy Council Record," aftbrds a curious insight into the modus operandi of a day- light brawl in the streets at that time. We modernise it thus I — James Oediles, being in Edinburgh for the space of some eight days, openly and publicly met; al- most daily in the High Street, the Laird of Drum- melzier. The latter fearing an attack, albeit that Geddes was always alone, jjlanted spies and re- tainers about tlie house in which he lived and other places to which he was in the habit of repair- ing. It chanced that on the 29th of December, 1592, James Geddes being in the Cowgate, getting his horse shotl at the boolli of David l^indsay, and being altogether careless of his safety, Drummelzier was informed of his whereabouts, and dixidintr all High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIC;H STREET. 195 his own friends and servants into two armed parties, set forth on slaughter intent. He directed his brothers John and Robert Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of Quarter, and others, to Conn's Close, which was directly opposite to the smith's booth ; while he, accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of the (aideman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field) Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut oflf the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as he was seen standing at the booth door with his back to them, they shot him down with their pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on the spot. For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the Castle; but they contrived to compromise the matter with the king, making many fiiir promises ; yet when he was resident at St. James's, in 1611, he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper Tweeddale were as bitter as ever. On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or ■combat, ensued in the High Street between the Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others. To explain the cause of this we must refer to Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of February, in the preceding year, John Graham of Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Mon- trose), was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by three or four score of armed men for his protection, ■when Sir James Sandilands, accompanied by his friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed •company, met him. As they had recently been in dispute before the Court about some temple lands, Graham thought he was about to be at- tacked, and prepared to make resistance. The The City in 1398— Fyncs Morison on the Manners of the Inhabitants — The " Lord " Provost of Edinburgh^ Police of the City— Taylor the Water Poet— Banquets at the Cross— The hard Case of tlic Earl of Tratiuair— A Visit of Hares— The Q^B^and his Acrobats— .\ Precession of Covenanters— Early Stages and Street Coaches— Sale of a Dancing-Rirl— Constables appointed in i^^First Number of the Coitrunt—Thc CttUdoniitn Mercury —Curt'ing away of the strata of Street Filth — Condition of old Houses. Before proceeding with tlje^cneral history of the <;ity, it may not he iiniiUercsc^g to the reader if we quote the following description of the manners of the inhabitants in 1598, but to be taken under great reservation : — " Myself," says Morison, in liis Itinerary, " was at a knight's house, who had many servants to attend him, that brought in his meat with their lieads covered with blew caps (/.<•., bonnets), the tible being more than half furnished with great platters of porridge, cadi having (in them) a little piece of sodden meat; and when the table was served, the servants sat down with us ; but the ■upper mess, instead of porridge, had a inillct, with some prunes in the broth. And I observed no art of cookery, or furniture of household stuff, but rather a rude neglect of both, though myself and my companion, sent from the Cjovernor of Berwick, about Bordering affairs, were entertained in their best manner. 'I'he .^cots living then in factions, used to keep many followers, and so consumed their revenue of victuals, living in some want of money. They vulgarly cat hearth cakes of oats, but in cities have also wheaten bread, whit h for llie most part High Street.) EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. 199 is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best sort of citizens. They drink pure wines, not with sugar, as we Enghsh, yet at feasts they put comfits in the wine, after the French manner ; but they had not our vintner's fraud to mix their wines. " I did not see nor hear that they have any pubhc inns, with signs hanging out ; but the better sort of citizens brew ale (which will distemper a stranger's body), and then some citizens will entertain pas- sengers upon actiuaintance or entreaty (i.e., intro- duction). Their bedsteads were then like cupboards in the wall (i.e., box beds), to be opened and shut at pleasure, so we climbed up to our beds. They used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but close at the feet. AVhen passengers go to bed, their custom is to present them a sleeping cup of wine at parting. The country people and merchants used to drink largely, the gentlemen somewhat more sparingl)- ; yet the very courtiers, by night- meetings and entertaining any strangers, used to drink healths, not without excess ; and to speak the truth without offence, the excess of drinking was far greater among the Scots than the English. " Myself being at the Court was invited by some gentlemen to supper, and being forewarned to fear this excess, would not promise to sup with them but upon condition that my inviter would be my protection from large drinking. . . . The hus- bandmen in Scotland, the servants, and almost all the country, did wear coarse cloth made at home, of grey or sky colour, and flat blew caps, very broad. The merchants in cities were attired in English or French cloth, of pale colour, or mingled black and blew. The gentlemen did wear English cloth or silk, or light stufils, litde or nothing adorned with silk lace, much less with silver or gold ; and all followed the French fashion, especially at Court. " Gentlewomen married did wear close upper bodies, after the German manner, with large whale- bone sleeves, after the fixnch manner ; short cloaks like the Germans, IRnch hoods, and large falling bands about their necks. The unmarried of all sorts (?) did go bareheaded, and wear short cloaks, with close linen sleeves on their arms, like the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of citizen's wives and the women of the country did wear cloaks made of a coarse stuff, of two or three colours, in checker work, vulgarly called plodon [i.e., tartan plaiding). " To conclude, they would not at this time be attired after the English fashion in any sort ; but the men, especially at Court, followed the French fashion ; and the women, both in Court and city, as well in cloaks as naked heads and close sleeves on the arms, and all other garments, fol- low the fashion of the women in Germany." On the 20th of June, 16 10, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh exhibited to his Council two gowns, one black, the other red, trimmed with sable, the gift of King James, as patterns of the robes to be worn by him and the bailies of the city; and in 1667 Charles II. gave -Sir Alexander Ramsay, Provost in that year, a letter, stating that the chief magistrate of Edinburgh should have the same precedence in Scotland as the Mayor of London has in England, and that no other provost should have the title of "Lord Provost" — a privilege which has, however, since been modified. The attention of King James, who never forgot the interests of his native city, was drawn in 161 8 to two abuses in its police. Notwithstanding the warning given by the fire of 1584, it was still cus- tomary for "baxters and browsters " {i.e., hakers and brewers) to keep great stacks of heather, whins, and peats, in the very heart of the High Street and other thoroughfares, to the great hazard of all adja- cent buildings, and many who were disposed to erect houses within the walls were deterred from doing so by the risks to be run ; while, moreover, candle-makers and butchers were allowed to pursue their avocations within the city, to the disgust and annoyance of " civil and honest neighbours, and of the nobility and country people," who came in about their private affairs, and thus a royal procla- mation was issued against these abuses. The idea of a cleaning department of police never occurreil to the good folks of those days ; hence, in the fol- lowing year, the plan adopted was that each inha- bitant should keep clean that part of each street before his own bounds. In 1 6 18 Edinburgh was visited by Taylor the Water Poet, and his description of it is as truthful as it is amusing : — " So, leaving the casde, as it is both defensive against any opposition and magni- fick for lodging and receipt, I descended lower to the city, wherein I observed the fairest and good- liest street mine eyes ever beheld, for I did never see or hear of a street of that length (which is half a mile English from the casde to a fair port, which they call the Nether Bow) ; and from that port the street which they call the Kenny-gate (Canongate) is one quarter of a mile more, down to the king's palace, called Holyrood House ; the buildings on each side of the way being all of squared stone, five, six, and seven storeys high, and many bye-lanes and closes on each side of the wa)-, wherein are gentlemen's houses, much fairer than the buildings in the High Street, for in the High Street the merchants and tradesmen do dwell, but OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. the gentlemen's mansions and goodliest houses are obscurely founded in the aforesaid lanes. The Avails are eight or ten feet thick, exceeding strong, not built for a day, a week, a month, or a year, but from antiquity to posterity — for many ages. There I found entertainment beyond my e.xpectation or merit; and there is fish, flesh, bread, and fruit in such variety, that I think I may offenceless call it •superfluity or satiety." The Penniless Pilgrim " came to Scotland in a more generous and appreciative mind than his ■countryman did, 150 years subsequently, and all he saw filled him with wonder, especially the moun- tains, to which he says: "Shooter's Hill, Gad's Hill, Highgate Hill, and Hampstead Hill, are but molehills." Varied indeed have been the scenes witnessed in the High Street of Edinburgh. Among these we may mention a royal banquet and whimsical pro- ■cession, formed by order of James VI., in 1587. Finding himself unable to subdue the seditious spirit of the ecclesiastics, whom he both feared and ■detested, he turned his attention to those personal -quarrels and deadly feuds which, had existed for ages among the nobles and landed gentry, in the •hope to end them. After much thought and preliminary negotiation, he invited the chiefs of all the contending parties to a royal entertainment in Holyrood, where he obtained a promise to bury and forget their feudal •dissensions for ever. Thereafter, in the face of all the assembled citizens, he prevailed upon them to walk two by two, hand in hand, to the Market Cross, where a banquet of wines and sweetmeats was prepared for them, and \\here they all drank to each other in token of mutual friendship and future forgiveness. The populace testified their approbation by loud and repeated shouts of joy. " This reconciliatione of the nobilitie and diverssc of the gentry," says Balfour in his Annaks, " was the gratest worke and happiest game the king had played in all his raigne heithertills ;" but if his good ofiices did not eradicate the seeds of transmitted hate, they, at least for a time, smothered them. The same annalist records tJic next banquet at the Cross in 1630. On the birth of a prince, afterwards Charles II., on the 29th of May, the Lord Lyon king-at-arms was dispatched by Charles from London, where he chanced to be, with orders to carry the news to -Scotland. He reached Edin- burgh on the 1st of June, and the loyal joy of the people burst forth with great effusiveness. The batteries of the Castle thundered forth a royal salute ; bells rang and bonfires blazed, and a table was spread in the High Street that extended half its entire length, from the Cross to the Tron, whereat the nobility. Privy Council, and Judges, sat down to dinner, the heralds in their tabards and the royal trumpeters being in attendance. In that same street, a generation after, was seen, in his old age begging his bread from door to door, John Earl of Traquair, who, in 1635, had been Lord High Treasurer of Scotland and High Com- missioner to the Parliament and General Assembly, one of the few Scottish nobles who protested against the surrender of King Charles to the English, but who was utterly ruined by Cromwell. A note to Scotstarvit's " Scottish Statesmen," records that "he died in anno 1659, in extreme poverty, on the Lord's day, and suddenly when taking a pipe of tobacco ; and at his funeral had no mortcloth, but a black apron ; nor towels, but dog's leishes belonging to some gentlemen that were present ; and the grave being two foot shorter than his body, the assistants behoved to stay till the same was enlarged, and be buried." " I saw him begging in the streets of Edinburgh," says another witness, James Eraser, minister of Kirkhill ; " he was in an antique garb, wore a broad old hat, short cloak and panier breeches, and I contributed in my quarters in the Canongate towards his relief The Master of Lovat.Culbockie (Eraser), Glenmoriston (Grant), and myself were there, and lie received the piece of money from my hand as humbly and as thankfully as the poorest supplicant. It is said, that at a time he had not (money) to pay for cobbling his boots, and died in a poor cobbler's house." And this luckless earl, so rancorously treated, was the lineal descendant of James Stuart the Black Knight of Lome, and of John of Gaunt Duke- of Lancaster. Nicoll records in his curious diary that in the October of 1654 a vast number of hares came into the city, penetrating even to its populous and central parts, such aSKie Parliament Close and the High Street ; and in the latter, a tew years subsequently, 1662, we read in the Chronicle of Fife of a famous quack doctor setting up his public stage in the midst of that thoroughfare for the third time. John Ponthcus was a German, styling himself professor of music, and his modus operandi affords a curious illustration ot the then state of medical science in Great Britain, and of what our forefathers deemed the requisites to a good jihysician. On tiie stage mentioned Ponthcus had one person to play the fool, another to dance upon a tight rope, in order to gather and amuse High Street.] THE QUACK DOCTOR'S ACROBATS. an audience. Then he began to vend his drugs at eightpence per packet. Nicoll admits that they •were both good and real, and describes the antics •of the assistants. Upon a great rope, fixed from side to side of the street, a man descended upon his breast with danced seven-score times, without intermission, hfting himself and vaulting six quarter high above his own head and lighting directly upon the tow (rope) as punctually as if he had been dancing on the plain stones." Four years after a different scene was witnessed THE XEIHER BOW PORT, FROM THE CANONGATE. {From an Etching l-y yaines Skeiu of RriHslau:) his arms "stretched out like the wings of a fowl, to the admiration of many." Nicoll adds that the country chirurgeons and apothecaries, finding his drugs both cheap and good, came to Edinburgh from all parts of the realm, and bought them for the purpose of retailing them at a profit. The antics and rope-dancing were continued for many days with an agility and nimbleness "admirable to the beholders; one of the dancers having 26 in the High Street, when, in 1666, after the battle of the Pentland Hills — a victory celebrated by the discharge of nearly as many guns from the Castle as there were prisoners — the captives were marched to the Tolbooth. They were eighty in number ; and these poor Covenanters were conveyed manacled in triumph by the victor, , with trumpets sounding, kettle-drums beating, and banners displayed. And Crookshank records in 202 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. his history, that Andrew Murray, an aged Presby- terian minister, when he beheld the ferocious Sir Thomas Dalzell of Binns in his rusted head- piece, with his long white vow-beard which had never been profaned by steel since the execution of Charles I., riding at the head of his cavalier squadrons, who, flushed with recent victory, sur- rounded the prisoners with drawn rapiers and matches lighted ; and when he heard the shouts of acclamation from the changeful mob, became so overpowered with grief at what he deemed the downfall for ever of " the covenanted Kirk of God," that he became ill, and expired. In 1678 we find a glimpse of modern civilisation, when it was ordained that a passenger stage between Leith and Edinburgh should have a fixed place for receiving complaints, and for departure, between the heads of Niddry's and the Blackfriars Wynds, in the High Street. The fare to Leith for two or three persons, in summer, was to be IS. sterling, or four persons is. 4d., the fare to the Palace gd., and the same returning. Carriages had been proposed for this route as early as 1610, when Henry Anderson, a Pomeranian, contracted to run them at tlie charge of 2S. a head; but they seem to have been abandoned soon after. Hackney carriages, which liad been adopted in London in the time of Charles I., did not become common in Scot- land till after the Restoration, and almost the first use we hear of one being i)ut to was when a duel took place, in 1667, between William Douglas of Whit- tingham and Sir John Home of Eccles, who was killed. With their seconds they proceeded in a liackney coach from the city to a lonely spot on the shore near Leith, where, after a few passes, Home was run through the body by Douglas, who was beheaded therefor. The year 1678 saw the first attempt to start a stage from the High Street to Glasgow, when on the 6th of August a contract was entered into between the magistrates of that city and a merchant of Edinburgh, by whicli it was agreed that " tlie said \Villiam Hume shall have in readiness one sufficient strong coach, to run betwixt Edinburgh and (Jlasgow, to be drawn by six able horses ; to leave iMlinburgh ilk Monday morning, ami return again— God willing — ilk Saturday night ; the burgesses of Glasgow alwa)s to have a preference in the coach." As the undertaking was deemed arduous, and not to be arcom])IisliLd without assistance, the said magistrates agreed to give Hume two hundred merks yearly for five years, whether l)assengers went or not, in consideration of liis having actually received two years' premium in advance. Even with this pecuniary aid the speculation proved unprofitable, and was abandoned, so little was the intercourse between place and place in those days. In the end of the 17th century — and for long after — it was necessary for persons de- sirous of proceeding from Edinburgh to London by land, to club for the use of a conveyance ; and about the year 1686, Sir Robert Sibbald, His Majesty's physician, relates, that " he was forced to come by sea, for he could not ride, by reason that the fluxion had fallen on his arme, and that he could not get companie to come in a coach." And people, before their departure, always made their wills, took solemn farewell of their friends, and asked to be prayed for in the churches. The Edinburgh of 1687, the year before the Revolution, actually witnessed the sale of a dancing- girl, a transaction which ended in a debate before the Lords of the Privy Council. On the 13th of January, in that year, as re- ported by Lord Fountainhall, Reid, a mountebank prosecuted Scott of Harden and his lady, " for stealing away from him a little girl called The Tumbling Lassie, that danced upon a stage, and produced a contract by which he had bought her from her mother for thirty pounds Scots (about jQz 10 s. sterling). But we have no slaves in Scotland," adds his lordship, " and mothers cannot sell their bairns ; and physicians attested that the employment of tumbling would kill her, her joints were even now growing stiff, and she declined to return, though she was an apprentice, and could not run away from her master. ' Then some of the Privy Council in the canting spirit of the age, " quoted Moses' Law, that if a servant shelter him- self with thee, against his master's cruelty, thou shalt not deliver him up." The Lords therefore assoilzied {i.e., acquitted) Harden, who had doubtless been moved only by humanity and compassion. By the year 1 700 the use of private carriages in the streets had increased so much that when the jjrin- cipal citizens went forth to meet the King's Com- missioner, there were forty coaches, with 1,200 gentlemen on horseback, with their mounted lackeys. In 1702, at 10 o'clock on the evening of the 1 2th March, Colonel Archibald Row of the Royal Scots Fusileers (now 21st Foot), arrived express in Edinburgh, to announce the death of William of Orange, at Kensington Palace, on the 8th of the same month. It conseciuently took three days and a half for this express to reach the Scottish cajjital, a day more than that recpiired by Robert Cary, to bring intclligen( e of the death of Elizabeth, ninety- nine years before. Monteith iu his "Tiieatre of High Street] CHANGES IN THE HIGH STREET. 203 Mortality," 1 704, gives us the long inscription on the tomb of the Colonel's wife, in the Greyfriars, begin- ning : — " Hk positcc Rdiquicc Lcdissma: matrotuc, JeaniuE Jo/iiisoiia:, co/ijugis Archibaldi Row, Kegiic ScIoppeiayionDii, I^^ionis," &c. She died in 1702. On the 8th of March Anne was proclaimed Queen of Scotland, at the Cross, with all the usual solemnities. In January, 1703, George Young, merchant in the High Street, was appointed by the Provost, Sir Hugh Cunningham, and the Council, to act as a constable, and along with several other citizens of respectable position, " oversee the manners and order of the burgh, and the inhabitants thereof; and on the evening of the 24th, being Sunday, he went through some parts of the city to see " that the Lord's day, and the laws made for the ob- servance thereof, were not violated." In the house of Marjory Thom, a vintner, this new official found, about 10 P.»r., several companies in several rooms, and expostulated with her on the subject, after which, according to liis own account, he quietly withdrew. As he proceeded up the close to the High Street, he and his comrades were followed by Mr. Archi- bald Campbell, son of the Lord Niel Campbell, who warned him that if he reported Marjory's house to the magistrates, he would repent it. This aftair ended in a kind of riot next day, in Young's shop, opposite the Town Guard House, and Campbell would probably have slain Young, had not the latter contrived to get hold of his sword and keep it till the Guard came, and the matter was brought before the Privy Council, when such was the influence of family and position, that the luckless Mr. Young was fined 400 merks, to be paid to Campbell, and to be imprisoned till the money was forthcoming. On the 14th of February, 1705, appeared the first number of the Edinburgh Couranf, a simple folio broadsheet, published by James Watson, in Craig's Close. Its place was afterwards taken by MacEwen's Edinburgh Evening Courant, in 17 18, a permanent success to this day. It was a Whig print, and caused the starting of the now defunct Caledonian Mereury, in the Jacobite interest, a little quarto of two leaves. According to the Courant of April gtli, 1724, the denizens of the High Street, and other greater thoroughfares, were startled by "a bank '' of drums, beating up for recruits for the King of Prussia's gigantic regiment of Grenadiers. Two guineas as bounty were offered, and many tall fellows were enlisted. The same regiment was recruited for in Edinburgh in 1728. liy the year 1730 great changes had been effected by the magistrates in enforcing cleanliness in the streets, and repressing the habit (accompanied by the terrible cry of GardczT caic) of throwing slops and rubbish from the windows. Sir James Dick of Prestonfield, the wise provost of 1679, transported away by personal energy a vast stratum of the refuse of ages, through which people had to make literal lanes to their shops and house-doors and therewith enriched his lands by the margin of Duddingston Loch (Act of Pari. James VII., I., cap. 12), till their fertility is proverbial to the present day. But still there was no regular system of cleaning, and though Sir Alexander 13rand, a well-known magistrate and manufacturer of Spanish leather gilt hangings, made some vigorous proposals on the subject, they were not adopted, till in 1730 the magistrates endeavoured by the strong arm of the law to repress the obnoxious habit oi throwing household litter from the windows, a habit amusingly described by Smollett forty years after in his " Humphrey Clinker." On the 6th of September, 1751, the fall of a great stone tenement on the north of the High Street, near the Cross, six storeys in height, with attics, sinking at once from top to bottom, and occasioning some loss of life, caused a general alarm in the city concerning the probable state of many of the more ancient and crumbling houses. A general survey was made, and many were condemned, and ordered to be taken down. But from 1707 Edinburgh stood singularly still till 1763, when the citizens seemed to wake from their apathetic lethargy. After that period the erection of adjuncts to the old city (to be referred to in their own localities) led to the general desertion of it by all people of position and wealth, .\mong the last who lingered there, and retained his mansion in the High Street, was James Fergusson of Pitfour, M.P., whose body was borne thence in October, 1820, for interment in the Greyfriars Churchyard. In the March of 1820 the High Street was lighted with gas for the first time. " This has been done," says a print of the day, " by the intro- duction of a single cockspur light into each of the old globes, in which the old oil lamps were formerly suspended." 204 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. CHAPTER XXIII. THE HIGH STREET (continued). The Black Turnpike— Bitler Reception of Queen Mary— Lambie's Banner— Mary in the Black Turnpike— The House of Fentonbarns— Its. Picturesque Appearance— The House of Bassandyne the Printer, 1574— " Bishop's Land," Town House of Archbishop Spottiswood— Its various Tenants— Sir Stuart Thriepland —The Town-house of the Hendersons of Fordel— The Lodging of the Earls of Crawford— The First Shop of Allan Ramsay— The Religious Feeling of the People— Ancrum House— The First Shop of Constable and Co.— Manners and Millar, Booksellers. On the south side of this great thoroughfare and immediately opposite to the City Cuard House, stood the famous Black Turnpike. It occupied the ground westward of the Tron church, and now left vacant as the entrance to Hunter's Square. It is described as a magnificent edifice by Maitland, and one that, if not disfigured by one of those timber fronts (of the days of James IV.), would be the most sumptuous building perhaps in Edinburgh. But, like many others, it had rather a painful history. [See view, p. 136.] " A. principal proprietor of this building," says Maitland, " has been pleased to show me a deed wherein George Robertson of Lochart, burgess of Edinburgh, built the said tenement, which refutes the idle story of its being built by Kenneth III." The above-mentioned deed is dated Dec. 6, 1461, and, in the year 1508, the same author relates that James IV. empowered the Edinburghers to farm or let the Burghmuir, which they immediately cleared of wood ; and in order to encourage people to buy this wood, the Town Council enacted that all persons might extend the fronts of their houses seven feet into the street, whereby the High Street was reduced fourteen feet in breadth, and the appearance of the houses much injured. There is evidence that in the 1 6th century the Black Turnpike had belonged to George Crichton, Bishop of Dnnkeld, in 1527, and Lord Privy Seal. In 1567 it was the town mansion of the provost of the city. Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar, Balgay, and that ilk, ancestor of the Earls of Desmond in Ireland. It waste this edifice that Mary Queen of Scots was brought a prisoner, about nine in the evening of Sunday the 15th of June, by the con- federate lords and their troops, after they violated the treaty by which she surrendered to them at Carberry Hill. On the march towards the city the soldiers treated Mary with the utmost insolence and in- dignity, pouring upon her an unceasing torrent of epithets the most opprobrious and revolting to a female. Whichever way she turned an emblematic banner of white taffety, representing the dead body of the murdered Darnley, with the little king kneel- ing beside it, was held up before her eyes, stretched out between two spears. She wept ; lier young heart was wrung with terrible anguish ; she uttered the most mournful complaints, and could scarcely be kept in her saddle. This celebrated but obnoxious standard belonged to the band or company of Captain Lambie, a hired soldier of the- Government, slain afterwards, in 1585, in a clan battle on Johnston Moor. Instead of conveying Mary to Holyrood, as Sir ^Villiam Kirkaldy had promised, in the name of the Lords, they led her through the dark and narrow w)'nds of the crowded city, surrounded by a fierce, bigoted, and petulant mob, who loaded the air with hootings and insult- ing cries. The innumerable windows of the lofty houses, and the outside stair-heads — then the distinguishing features of a Scottish street — were crowded with spectators, who railed at her in unison with the crowd below. Mary cried aloud to all gentlemen, who in those da) s were easily distinguished by the richness of their attire, and superiority of their air — " I am your queen, your own native princess ; oh, suffer me not to be abused thus !" " But alas for Scottish gallantry, the age of chivalry had passed away !" says the author of " Kirkaldy's Memoirs," whose authorities are Calderwood, Melville, and Balfour. " Mary's face was pale from fear and grief; her eyes were swollen with tears ; her auburn hair hung in dis- order about her shoulders ; her fair form was poorly attired in a riding tunic ; she was ex- hausted with fatigue, and covered with the summer dust of the roadway, agitated by the march of so- many men ; in short, she was scarcely recognis able ; yet thus, like some vile criminal led to execution, she was conducted to the house of Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar. The soldiers of the Confederates were long of passing through the gates ; the crowd was so dense, anil the streets were so narrow, that they filed through, man. by man." At the Black Turnpike she was barbarously thrust into a small stone chamber, only thirteen feet square by eight high, and locked up like a felon — she, the Queen of Scotland, the heiress of luigland, and tlie dowager of France ! It was- then ten o'clock ; tlie city was almost dark, but fierce tumult and noise reigned without. And this was the queen of whom the scholarly High Street.) THE BLACK TURNPIKE. 205 5^ •- '3 s ^ n |x Z -5 < S a S O Ji o X >. ■Jl .■= X .5 K - U 1!? 206 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. Buchanan wrote tluis, in his beautiful E[>i- thalamiu/H : — • " Behold the beauties that her brow adorn More bright than beams when Sol illumes the morn; Her graceful form and modest gait conspire To light the torch of pure and chaste desire ; Her blooming cheeks with opening roses vie ; AVhat gentle light darts from her lovely eye ! She perfect ease with elegance combines, While tender youth in mild alliance shines ; She utterance bland with majesty unites, Charms every eye, and all the soul delights ; Nor does her genius to her beauty yield, Nurtured with care behind Minerva's shield ; She every hour in useful lore improves, And wanders far amid Pierian groves ; Her mental powers, bright as the star of day. Her manners grace, and radiance round display." There, however, she spent the night, the last she was ever to spend in the capital of her kingdom — a captive, yet still a queen. For 220 years after, this apartment, with its little window facing the High Street, was always regarded as an object of interest. " A woman, young, beau- tiful, and in distress," says the gentle Robertson, " is naturally an object of compassion. The comparison of their present misery with their former splendour naturally softens us in favour of illustrious sufterers ; but the people beheld the deplorable situation of their sovereign with insensi- bility ; and so strong was their persuasion of her guilt, that the sufiferings of their queen did not in any way mitigate their resentment, or procure her that sympathy which is seldom denied to unfor- tunate princes." At dawn on the following day there was a scuffle ill the High Street, and under the walls of the Black Turnpike the helpless queen heard the clash of swords, and tlic war-cry of " A Home ! a Home !" As morning brightened she looked from the window of her jjrison, but the crowd was still there ; she was greeted with the .same yells and opprobrious epithets, while the same odious banner of Lambie's mercenaries was disi)layed before her eyes. Overcome by tears and despair, a kiiul of delirium seized her ; she rent her clothes, and, heedless of tlic pitiless crowd, she ajipeared at tlie window, with her hair dishevelled and Iut bosom bare. "Good people!" she exclaimed, in actents of agony ; " good people ! cither satisfy your hatred and cruelty by taking my miserable life, or relieve me from the hands of these infamous and inhuman traitors. " To the honour of the citizens this appeal was not made in vain. Many of them pitied her. believing that the affection she was said to bear the now fugitive Bothwell was caused by the love- philters of his old paramour, the necromantic Lady of Buccleuch, " who knew the art that none may name." Accordingly, many of the more respectable burghers and booth-holders began to take arms, and throng the streets in their helmets and armour; while some of the changeful rabble began to revile the treaty-breaking lords, and to clamour for their queen. A dread of what might ensue led to her imme- diate transmission to Holyrood to appease the populace ; but when midnight came she was deprived of her ornaments, disguised in a kirtle of coarse russet, and compelled to accompany two of the most savage of the confederate barons, armed and in close helmets — William Lord Ruthven and the grim misanthrope Lindsay — who conveyed her direct to the Castle of Loch- leven. In 1693, and also in 1697, there was a case reported by Fountainhall, an action brought by the trustees of Heriot's Hospital against Robert Hepburn of Bearford, " for a ground annual out of the tenement called Robertson's Inn," afterwards mentioned as his tenement " called the Black Turnpike," the property of Robertson of Lochart in 1461. From documents then adduced, it would appear that the Bishop of Dunkeld had conferred the building on his two illegitimate daughters. .\bout 164 years before its demolition, this edi- fice, universally said then to have been the oldest in the city, had been repaired, as the lintel of one of its doors in Peebles Wynd bore, according to the FAiinbur^h Afagaziiic for 1788, the inscription — " Pax intrantihus . saliis . cxciintibus . 1674 ;" " a legend," says a writer, "' peculiarly ai)propriate for the scene of the poor (jueen's last lodging in her capital, and probably the only thing to which the legend truly apiilied." However that may be, the building was demolished in the year 1788. Lower down, on the same side of the street, was an ancient timber-fronted tenement, that re- mained unchanged in its external form till 1823. In its antique state it was one of the most perfect si)ccimens existing of that picturesque French style introduced into Scotland in the years of the old aUiance with Fiance, and which characterised all the architecture of I'".dinburgli jirevious to the seventeenth ccniiiry. The carved work beneath the eaves, in the jirojecting angles of the roof, was extremely beautiful. This mansion was one of many built shortly after tlie last burning of Edinburgh, by the in- vaders under the Earl of Hertford in 15.11, and High Street.] THOMAS BASSANDYNE, PRINTER. in an investment in favour of Jolin Preston, Com- missary, dated 1581, is described as "that tene- ment of lands lying in the said burgh on the south side of the High Street, and on the entry of the wynd of the Preaching Friars, formerly waste, having been burnt by the English." Thus it would appear to have been built between 1544 and 15S1 — probably near the former date, as the .situation being central it was unlikely to remain long waste. In 1572 it suffered greatly during the siege of the Castle, in common with the Earl of Mar's mansion in the Cowgate, and Baxter's house in Dalgleish's Close. Its proprietor, John Preston, in 1581, though the son of a baker, was an eminent lawyer in the time of James VI., who was raised to the Bench in March, 1594, as Lord Fenton'bams (in succession to James first Lord Balmerino) and died Presi- dent of the Court in 1616. His mode of election was curious. "The King," says Lord Hailes, " named Mr. Peter Rollock, Bishop of Dunkeld, Mr. David MacGill of Cranstoun-Riddel, and Mr. Preston of Fentonbarns, requesting the Lords to choose the fittest of the three to be an Ordinary Lord of Session. The Lords were solemnly sworn to choose according to their knowledge and con- science. In consequence of this, conjecti in pileiim '.lomhiibiis [by ballot], the Lords elected Mr. John Preston." Before his death he attained to great wealth and dignity ; he was knighted by King James, and his daughter Margaret was married in this old house to Robert Nairn of Mackersie, and became mother of the first Lord Nairn, who was placed in the Tower of London by Cromwell in 1650, with many others, and not released till the Restoration, ten j-ears after. The senator's son. Sir Michael Preston, suc- ceeded him in possession of the mansion in 16 10. Preston, together with Craig and Stirling, is mentioned in a satirical production of Alexander IMontgomery, author of "The Cherrie and the Slae," and before whom he had become involved in a tedious suit before the Court of Session, and was at one time threatened with quarters in the Tolbooth. He wrote of Fentonbarns as — " A baxter's bird, a bluitter beggar bom." The old house narrowly escaped total destruc- tion by a fire in 1795, thus nearly anticipating that of later years. It was the last survivor of the long and unbroken range of quaint and stately edifices on the south side of the street, between St. Giles's and the Nether Bow. An outside stair gave access 207 to the first floor, the stone turnpike stair of which bore the abbreviated legend in Gothic characters — Deo . I loNOR . et . Glia. A little lower down the street, and nearly opposite the house of John Knox, dwelt Thomas Bassandyne, in that tall old mansion we have already referred to in an early chapter as having had built into its front the fine sculptured heads of the Emperor Septimus Severus and his Empress Julia, and having between them a tablet inscribed, " In sudore mils liti veceris pane luo," which Wilson shrewdly suspects to have been a fragment of the adjacent convent of St. Mary, or some other old monastic establishment in Edinburgh. Here it was that Thomas Bassandyne, a famous old Scottish typographer, in conjunction with Alexander Arbuthnot, undertook in 1574 the then arduous task of issuing his beautiful folio Bible, with George Young, a servant (clerk) of the Abbot of Dunfermline, as a corrector of the press ; the " printing irons," or types were of cast-metal. The work of printing the Bible proved a heavier task than they expected, as it had met with many im- pediments ; and before the Privy Council, which was giving them monetary aid, they pleaded for nine months to complete the work, or return the money contributed towards it by various Scottish parishes. In this we see the first attempt to publish by subscription. Here, too, Thomas, Bassandyne printed his rare quarto edition of Sir David Lindesay's Poems in 1574. His will is preserved in the Bannalyne Miscellany, and from it it appears, that his mother was life-rented in that part of the house which formed the printer's dwelling, the annual rent of which was eight pounds ; while the remainder that belonged to himself, was occupied by his brother Michael. At all events, he leaves in his will " his thrid, the ane half thairof to his wyf, and the vthir half to his mother, and Michael and his bairnes," in which says the memorialist of Edinburgh, we presume, to have been included the house, which we find both he and his bairns afterwards pos- sessing, and for which no rent would appear to have been exacted during the lifetime of the generous old printer. His house is repeatedly referred to in the evidence of the accomplices of the Earl of Bothwell in the murder of Darnley, an event which took place during the life of Bassandyne, beneath whose house was one occupied by a sword slipper, with whom it is said lodged the Black John of Ormiston, one of the conspirators, for whom the rest called on the night of the murder. I ; 2o8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. One of the most famous edifices on the north side of the High Street was known as " the Bishop's Land," so called from having been the town residence of John Spottiswood, Archbishop of St. Andrews in 1615, and son of John Spottiswood, Superintendent of Lothian, a reformed divine, who prayed over James VI., and blessed him when an infant in his cradle, in the Castle of Edinburgh. From him the Archbishop inherited the house, which bore the legend and date, BlISSIT . BE . YE . LORD . FOR . ALL . HiS . GiFTIS . I57S. consequently it must have been built when the Super- intendent (whose father fell at Flodden) was in his sixty-eighth year, and was an edifice sufficiently commodious and magnifi- cent to serve as a town residence of the Primate of Scotland, who in his zeal to promote the de- signs of James VI. for the establishment of Epis- copacy, performed the then astounding task of no less than fifty journeys to London. The ground floor of the mansion, like many others of the same age in the same street, was formed of a deeply-arched piazza, the arches of which sprang from massive stone jjiers. From the first floor there projected a fine brass balcony, that must many a time and oft have been liung with gay garlands and tapestry, and crowded with the fair and noble to witness the state pageants of old, such as the great procession of Charles I. to Holy- rood, where he was crowned by the archbishop King of Scotland in 1633. From this house Spottiswood was obliged to fly, when the nation en masse resisted, with peremptory promptitude, the introduction of the Liturgy. He took refiige in London, where he died in 1639, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. In 1752 the celebrated Lady Jane Douglas, wife of Sir George Stuart of Grantully, and the heroine of the famous " Douglas cause," was an occu- pant of " the I'.ishoji's J-and," till she ceased to be able to afford a residence even there. Therein, too, resided the first Lord I'residcnt Dundas, and ALLAN RAMSAY. (From the Forlrail in the 1761 Edition o/his "Poems.") there was born in 1741 his son, the celebrated statesman, Henry Viscount Melville. There long abode, on the first floor of the " Bishop's Land," a fine old Scottish gentleman, " one of the olden time,'' Sir Stuart Thriepland, of Fingask Castle, Bart., whose father had been at- tainted after the battle of SheritTmuir, which, however, did not prevent Sir Stuart from duly taking his full share in the '45. His wanderings over, and the persecutions past, he took up his residence here, and had his house well hung, we are told, with well-painted portraits of royal per- sonages — but >iot of the reigning house. He died in 1805, and the forfeited honours were generously restored by George IV. in 1826 to his son, Sir Patrick M. Thriepland of Fingask, which had long before been pur- chased back by the money of his mother, Janet Sin- clair of Southdun. On the third floor, above him, dwelt the Hamiltons of Pencaitland, and the baronial Aytouns of Inchdairnie. Mrs. Aytoun was Isabel, daugh- ter of Robert, fourth Lord Rollo, " and would some- times come down the stair," says Robert Cham- bers, " lighting herself with a little waxen taper, to drink tea with Mrs. Janet Thriepland (Sir Patrick's sister) — for so she called herself, though unmarried. In the uppermost floor of all lived a rei)utable tailor and his family. All the various tenants, in- cluding the tailor, were on friendly terms with each other — a pleasant thing to tell of this bit of tile old world, which lias left nothing of the same kind behind it in these days, when we all live at a greater distance, physical and mora:l, from each other." This fine old tenement, which was one of the most aristocratic in the street till a comparatively recent period, was totally destroyed by fire in 1814. I'^astward of it stood the town-house of the Hendersons of Fordel (an old patrician Fife- shire family), with wlioni Queen Mary was once a visitor ; but it, too, has i)assed away, and an High Street] THE LODGING OF THK EARLS OF CRAWFORD. 209 unattractive modern block of buildings occu- pies its site. In " Lamont's Diary" we read, that in 1649, Lady Pitarro, a sister of the Laird of Fordel-Henderson, " was delated by many to be a witch ; was apprehended and carried to Edin- burghe, where she was keiped fast ; and after It is mentioned in " Moyse's Memoirs," when occupied by David ninth Earl of Crawford, in 1588, about the time when Francis Stewart Earl of Bothwell was alternately the pest and terror of James VI. Sir Alexander Lindesay, brother of the Earl of Crawford (a gentleman who was created ALI.A.N' RAMsAY S SUOI', HIGH SlKEEl. remaining in prison for a tyme, being in health att night, upon the morn was found dead. It was thought that she had wronged herselfe, either by strangling or by poyson ; but we leave that to the judgment of the Great Day." She had likely died of grief and horror. On the same side 01 the street, and nearly op- posite the head of Blackfriars Wynd, was the lodging or town house of the Earls of Crawford. 27 Lord Spynie and was slain in 1607 ty Lindesay of Edzell), was promoted to the command of the Royal Guards, over the head of the Master of Glammis, who resented this bitterly. "Some bragging," says Moyse, " followed thereupon be- twixt him and the Earl of Bothwell, who took part with the Earl of Crawford and his brother against the Master of Glammis, and both parties having great companies attending them, some tumult was OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hi^h Street. likely to have arisen. It happened by accident that the Earl of Bothwell, coming out of the Earl of Crawford's lodging, was met by the Earl of Marr, who was coming out of the Laird of Lochleven's lodging hard by ; as it being about ten o'clock at night, and so dark that they could not know one another, he passed by, not knowing that the Master of Glammis was there, but thinking it was only the Earl of Marr. However, it was said that some ambushnient of men and hackbuttiers had been duressed in the house by conmiand of both parties.' Some brawl or tragedy had evidently been on the tajtis, for next day the king had the Earl of Bothwell and the Master before him at Holyrood, and committed the former to ward in the Palace of Linlithgow, and the latter in the Castle of Edin- burgh, " for having a band of hacquebuttiers in ambush with treasonable intent." Passing to more peaceable times, on the same side of the street, we come to one of the most picturesque edifices in it, numbered as 155 (and nearly opposite Niddry Street), in which Allan Ramsay resided and began his earlier labours, " at the sign of the Mercury," before he removed, in 1726, to the shop in tlie Luckeiibooths, where we saw him last. It is an ancient timber- fronted land, the singu- larly picturesque aspect of which was much marred by some alterations in 1S45, but herein worthy Allan first prosecuted his joint labours of author, editor, and bookseller. From this place he issued his poems in single or half sheets, as they were written ; but in whatever shape they always found a ready sale, the citizens being wont to send their cliildren with a penny for " Allan Ramsay's last piece." Here it was, that in 1724 he published the first volume of " The Tea Table Miscellany," a collection of songs, Scottish and English, dedicated " To ilka lovely British lass, Krae L.-idics Charlotte, Anne and Jean, Doon to ilk bonny singing Bess Wha (lances barefoot on the green." This publication r.m throuj^li twelve editions, and its early success induced him in tlie same year to bring out " The Evergreen," a collection of Scottish poems, "wrote by the Ingenious before 1600," professed to be selected from the Bannatyne MSS. And here it was that Ramsay had some of his hard struggles with the magistrates and clergy, who deemed and denounced all light literature, songs, and i)lays, as frivolity and open profanity, in the sour fanatical spirit of the age. Religion, in form, entered more into the daily habits of the Scottish people down to 1730 than it now does. Apart from regular attendance at church, and daily family worship, each house had some species of oratory, wherein, according to the Domestic Annals, " the head of the family could at stated times retire for his private devotions, which were usually of a protracted kind, and often accompanied by great moanings and groanings, expressive of an intense sense of human worth- lessness without the divine favour." Twelve o'clock was the hour for the cold Sunday dinner. " Nicety and love of rich feeding were understood to be the hateful peculiarities of the English, and unworthy of the people who had been so much more favoured by God in the knowledge of matters of higher concern." Puritanic rigour seemed to be destruction for literature, and when Addison, Steele, and Pope, were conferring glory on that of England, Scotland liad scarcely a writer of note ; and Allan Ramsay, in fear and trembling of legal and clerical censure, lent out the plays of Con- greve and Farquhar from that quaint old edifice numbered 155, High Street. The town residence of the Ancrutn family was long one of the finest specimens of the timber- fronted tenements of the High Street. It stood on the north side, at the head of Trunk's Close, behind the Fountain Well. A plain stone tene- ment of tasteless aspect has replaced its front, but the back still remains entire, including several rooms with finely-stuccoed ceilings, and a large hall, beautifully decorated with rich pilasters and oak panelling. Here was the first residence of Scott of Kirkstyle, who, in 1670, obtained a charter under the great seal of the barony of Ancrum, and in the following year was created Sir John Scott, Baronet, by Charles II. In 1703 the house passed into the possession of Sir Gilbert l';iliot, Bart., of Stobs, who resided here with his eight sons, the youngest of whom, for his glorious defence of Gibraltar, was created Lord Heathficld in 17S7. On the same side of the street, Ardiibald Constable, perhaps the most eminent publisher that Scotland has produced, began bilsiness in a small sho)), in the year 1795, and '^rom there, in tlie November of that year, he issued the first of that series of sale catalogues of curious and rare books, which he continued for a few years to issue at intervals, and which attracted to his shop all the bibliographers and lovers of literature in Edinburgh. Hither came, almost daily,- such men as Richard Heber, afterwards M.P. for the LTniversity of High Street.] CONSTABLE'S SHOP. Oxford ; Mr. Ale.xandcr Campbell, author of the "History of Scottish Poetry"; Dr. Alexander Murray, the famous self-taught philologist ; Dr. John Leyden, who died at Java ; Mr. (afterwards Sir Walter) Scott ; Sir John Graham Dalzell ; and many others distinguished for a taste in Scottish literature and historical antiquities, including Dr. James Browne, author of the " History of the Highland Clans," and one of the chief contributors to Constable's Edinburgh Magazine. The works of some of these named were among the first issued from Constable's premises in the High Street, where his obliging manners, profes- sional intelligence, personal activity, and prompt attention to the wishes of all, soon made him popular with a great literary circle ; but his actual reputation as a publisher may be said to have commenced with the appearance, in October, 1802, of the first number of the Edinburgh Rei'ieiv. His conduct towards the contributors of that famous quarterly was alike discreet and liberal, and to his business tact and straightforward deportment, next to the genius and talent of the projectors, much of its subsequent success must be attributed. In 1804 he admitted as a partner Mr. Hunter of Blackness, and the firm took the name of Constable and Co. ; and after various admissions, changes, and deaths, his sole partner in 181 2 was Mr. Robert Cadell. In 1805 he started The Edinbm-gh Medical and Surgical Journal, a work projected in concert with Dr. Andrew Duncan ; and in the same year, in conjunction with Long- man and Co., of London, he published " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," the first of that long series of romantic publications in poetry and prose which immortalised the name of Scott, to whom he gave ;^i,ooo for "Marmion" before a line of it was written. In conjunction with Messrs. Millar and Murray, and after many important works, in- cluding the " Encyclopsedia Britannica," had issued from his establishment in 1814, he brought out the first of the " Waverley Novels." Constable's shop " is situated in the High Street," says Peter in his " Letters to his Kinsfolk," " in the midst of the old town, where, indeed, the greater part of the Edinburgh booksellers are still to be found lingering (as the majority of their London brethren also do) in the neighbourhood of the same old haunts to which long custom has attached their predilections. On entering, one sees a place by no means answering, either in point of dimensions or in point of ornament, to the notion one might be apt to form of the shop from which so many mighty works are every day issuing — a low, dusky chamber, inhabited by a few clerks, and lined with an assortment of unbound books and, stationery — entirely devoid of all those luxurious attractions of sofas and sofa-tables and books of prints, &c., which one meets with in the superb nursery of the Quarterly Rei'iao in Albemarle Street. The bookseller himself is seldom to be seen in this part of his premises ; he prefers to sit in a chamber immediately above, where he can proceed with his own work without being disturbed by the incessant cackle of the young Whigs who lounge below ; and where few casual visitors are admitted to enter his presence, except the more important members of the great Whig Corporation — reviewers either in esse, or at least supposed to be so in posse — contributors to the supplement of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' .... The bookseller is himself a good-looking man, appa- rently about forty, very fat in his person, with a face having good lines, and a fine healthy com- plexion. He is one of the most jolly-looking members of the trade I ever saw, and, moreover, one of the most pleasing and courtly in his ad- dress. One thing that is remarkable about him, and, indeed, very distinguishingly so, is his total want of that sort of critical jabber of which most of his brethren are so profuse, and of which custom has rendered me rather fond than otherwise. Mr. Constable is too much of a bookseller to think it at all necessary that he should appear to be knowing in the merits of books. His business is to publish books ; he leaves the work of examining them before they are published, and criticising them afterwards, to others who have more leisure on their hands than he has." In the same " Letters " we are taken to the publishing establishment of Manners and Millar, on the opposite side of the High Street — " the true lounging-place of the blue-stockings and literar\- beau monde of the Northern metropolis," but long since extinct. Unlike Constable's premises, there the ante- rooms were spacious and elegant, adorned with busts and prints, w-hile the back shop was a verit- able bijou ; " its walls covered with all the most elegant books in fashionable request, arrayed in the most luxurious clothing of Turkey and Russia leather, red, blue, and green— and protected by glass folding doors from the intrusion even of the litde dust which might be supposed to threaten a place kept so delicately trim. The grate exhibits a fine blazing fire, or in its place a fresh bush of hawthorn, stuck all over with roses and hlies, and gay as a maypole," while paintings by Turner, Thomson, and Williams meet the eye on ever)- OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. hand; but we are told that "one sees in a moment , how Uttle could Alexander Arbuthnot, or worthy that this is not a great publishing shop ; such i old Bassandyne, when struggling with iron types to weighty and laborious business would put to flight print their famous Bible, and the works of David all the loves and graces that hover in the atmo- Lindesay, in the edifice which was not a bow-shot sphere of the place." ! distant, have dreamed of such places or such Millar was the successor of William Creech ; but I bibliopoles ? KN0.\ S STUDY. CHAPTER XXIV. Till. HIGH STREET {continued). The Neighbourhood of Knox\ House— Palmcrlno M-insion— SinKiilar Accident — The Knox Memorial Church — Society Close— John Knox's House— The " Prc.-iching Window " — His Wives— Attempted Assassination— L.ist Sermon— Death and Burial— James of Jerusalem- House of Archbishop Sharp- The Uirlhplacc of William Falconer— Old Excise Office — The Nether Bow Port— The Earlier Gate— The Regent Morton's Surprise Parly— The Last Gate— Its Demolition, One of the chief " lions" of the High .Street, if not perhaps the oldest stone building of a private of the old city itself, is the ancient manse of John nature existing there, for it was inhabited long be- Knox, which terminates it on the cast, and is fore his time by George Durie, Abbot of Dunferm- High Street.] LORD BALMERINO'S HOUSE. 213 line, who was also arcli-ilcan of St. Andrews. He was promoted to the abbacy by James V. in 1539, and was canonised two years afterwards at Rome, according to Wilson ; but no such name appears in Butler's " Lives of the Fathers." Until within the last few years the whole of this portion of the High Street was remarkable for its ancient houses, all bearing unchanged the stamp of Mary's time — about 1562; some that had open booths below had been converted into closed shops, but the fore-stairs, from which the people had reviled her as she came in from Carberry, and from whence their descend- ants witnessed Montrose dragged to his doom, remained unaltered. Adjoining the house of Knox (which we shall describe presently) once stood a timber- fronted fabric, having a corbelled oriel, and flats projecting over each other in succession, and a roof furnished with picturesque dormer win- dows. Its lintel bore the date 1601, and it was said to have been the mansion of the early Lords Balmerino, Sunday mornin: this entire edifi denly parted the front half was preci pitated into the street with a terrible crash, while the back part re- mained in its original position, thus giving a perfect longitudinal section through the edifice to the people without, presenting suddenly a scene as singular as some of those displayed by the diahlc boiteux to the gaze of the student Don Cleofas, when all the roofs of Madrid disappeared before him. Some of the inmates were seen in bed, others were partaking of their humble morning meal, and high up in the airy attic storey was seen an old crone on the creepie stool, smoking at her ingle no. On a ^^-7 /'^ gin 1840 r/^J^ L^^ ifice sud- ^Jr-X^f^P "t^^T^ PORTRAIT ANU AUTOGRArH OK JOHN KNOX (Facsimile of the Engraving in Beza's " Icoius.") side. The whole inhabitants of the place were filled with consternation, but all escaped without injury. The ruins were removed, and on their site was built, in 1850, a very handsome (iothic church in connection with the Free Church body, and named after the Reformer. Its foundation- stone was laid on the i8th of May, being a day memorable in the annals of the great Non-intrusion movement in Scotland. The wooden-fronted edifice on the other side of Knox's house was, about the middle of the eighteenth century, oc- cupied as a tavern, the place of many scenes of riotous mirth and high jinks, like those de- scribed by Scott in "Guy -Mannering," and to which the ill-fated Sir Alexander Boswell relers in his curious poem on " Edinburgh and the Ancient Royalty," pub- lished in 1 810 : — " Next to a neighbouring tavern all retired, And draughts of wine their various thoughts inspired. O'er draughts of \\ ine the beau would moan his love ; O'er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove ; O'er draughts of wine the writer penned the will, And legal wisdom coun- selled o'er a gill." Behind where Knox's ancient manse . and inodern church stand, on the western side of Society Close, No. 2 1, High Street, is an ancient stone land, on which is in- scribed — R.H. . HODIE . MlHI . CRAS . TiBI . CVR . IGITVR . CVRAS There was a date, now unknown. This was the property of Alison Bassandyne, daughter of Thomas the printer, and spouse of John Ker, and by her and others disposed of to John Binning in March, 1624; but the alley was long called Basfandyne's Close, till it took the name of Panmure, from the residence therein of John Maule of Inverkeilory, 214 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. Baron of the Exchequer Court in 1748, and grand- son of James of Balumby, fourth Earl of Panmure, who fought with much heroic valour at the battle of Dunblane, and was attainted in 17 15. The spacious stone mansion which he occupied at the foot of the close, and the north windows of which overlooked the steep slope towards the Trinity Church, and the then bare, bleak mass of the Calton Hill beyond, was afterwards acquired as an office and hall by the Society for the Propa- gation of Christian Knowledge and the Plantation of Schools in the Highlands "for the rooting out of the errors of popery and converting of foreign nations," a mighty undertaking, for which a charter was given it by Queen Anne in 1709. Thus the alley came to be called by its last name. Society Close. Such were the immediate surroundings of that old manse, in which John Kno.\ received the messengers of his queen, the fierce nobles of her turbulent Court, and the Lords of the Congregation. It is to the credit of the Free Church of Scotland, which has long since acquired it as a piece of property, that the progress of decay has been arrested, and some traces of its old magnificence restored. A wonderfully picturesque building of three storeys above the ground floor, it abuts on the narrowed street, and is of substantial ashlar, termi- nating in curious gables and masses of chimneys. A long admonitory inscription, extending over nearly the whole front, carved on a stone belt, bears these words in bold Roman letters : — Lufe God . ABOVE . al . and . yovr . Nichtdour . as . vi ! SELF. Perched upon the corner above the entrance door is a small and hideous effigy of the Reformer preaching in a pulpit, and pointing with his right hand above his head towards a rude sculpture of the sun bursting out from amid clouds, with tlie name of the Deity inscribed in three languages on its disc, thus : — F O 2 D E U S GOD On tlie decoration of the efligy the pious care of successive generations of tenants lias been ex- pended with a zeal not always appreciated by people of taste. The liouse contains a hall, the stuccoed ceiling of which pertains to the time of Charles II., when perhaps the building was repaired. M'Crie, in his Life of Knox, tells us, that the latter, on commencing his duties in Edinburgh in 1559, when the struggles of the Reformation ^ were well nigh over, was lodged in tlic house of David I'orrest, a citizen, after wliich he removed permanently to the house previously occupied by the exiled abbot of Dunfermline. The magis> trates gave him a salary of ;;^2oo Scots yearly, and in 1561 ordered the Dean of Guild to make him a warm study in the house built of " dailies " — i.e., to be wainscoted or panelled. This is supposed to be the small projection, lighted by one long window, looking westward up the entire length of the High Street ; and adjoining it on the first floor is a window in an angle of the house, from whicli he is said to have held forth to the people in the street below, and which is still termed " the preaching window." In this house he doubtless composed the " Con- fession of Faith " and the " First Book of Disci- pline," in which, at least, he had a principal hand, and which were duly ratified by Parliament ; and it was during the first year of his abode in this house that he lost his first wife, Marjory Bowes (daughter of an English border family), whom he had married when an exile, a woman of amiable disposition and pious deportment, but whose portrait at Streatlam Castle, Northumberland, is remarkable chiefly for its intense ugliness. She was with him in all his wanderings at home and abroad, and regarding her John Calvin thus ex- presses himself in a letter to the widower : — " Uxorem nadiis eras ad non reperiimtnr passim similes " — " you had a wife the like of whom is not anywhere to be found." By her he had two sons. Four years after her death, to this mansion, when in his fifty-ninth year, he brought his second wife, Margaret Stewart, the youngest daughter of Andrew, " the good " Lord Ochiltree, who, after his death, married Sir Andrew Kerr of Faudonside. By his enemies it was now openly alleged that he must have gained the young girl's aftections by tlie black art and the aid of the devil, whom he raised for that purpose in the yard behind his house. In that curious work entitled " The Dis- putation concerning the Controversit Headdis of Religion," Nicol Burne, the author, relates that Knox, on the occasion of his marriage, went to the Lord Ochiltree with many attendants, " on ane trim gelding, nocht lyk ane prophet or ane auld decrepit i)riest as h<; was, bot lyk as had been ane of the 151udc Royal, witli his bands of taflfettie feschnit witii golden rinyis and i)recious stones ; and, as is plainlie reportit in tlic countrey, be sorccrie and witchcraft did sua allure that puir gentiiwoman, tliat sclio could not Icve without him." ;\notlier of Knox's traducers asserts, that not long after his marriage, " she (his wife) lying in bed and perceiving a blak, uglie ill-favoured man (the devil, of course) busily talking with him in the High Street.] THE DEATH OF KNOX. same chamber, was so sodainly amazed that she took sickness and dyed ;" an absurd fabrication, as in the year after his death a pension was granted to her and her three daughters, and she is known to have been alive till about the end of the sixteenth century. In that old liouse, the abode of plebeians now, liave sat and debated again and again such men as the Regent Murray, the cniel and crafty Morton, the Lords Boyd, Ruthven, Ochiltree, and the half-savage Lindsay — • " He whose iron eye Oft saw fair Mary weep in vain; " Johnstone of Elphinstone, Fairlie, Campbell of Kinyeoncleugh, Douglas of Drumlanrig, and all who were the intimates of Knox ; and its old walls have witnessed much and heard much that history may never unravel. It was while resident here that Knox's enemies are said — for there is little proof of the statement — to have put a price upon his head, and that his most faithful friends were under the necessity of keeping watch around it during the night, and of appointing a guard for the protection of his person at times when he went abroad. ^^'hen under danger of hostility from the queen's garrison in the Castle, in the spring of 1571, M'Crie tells us that " one evening a musket-ball was fired in at his window and lodged in the roof of the apart- ment in which he was sitting. It happened that he sat at the time in a different part of the room from that which he had been accustomed to occupy, otherwise the ball, from the direction it took, must have struck him." It wafi probably after this that he retreated for a time to St. Andrews, but he returned to his manse in the end of August, 1572, while Kirkaldy was still vigorously defending the fortress for his exiled queen. His bodily infirmities now increased daily, and on the nth of November he was attacked with a cough which confined him to bed. Two days before that he had conducted the services at the induction of his colleague, Mr. James Lawson, in St. Giles's, and though he was greatly debilitated, he performed the important duties that devolved upon him with something of his wonted fire and energy to those who heard him for the last time. He then came down from the pulpit, and leaning on his staff, and supported by his faithful secretary, Richard Bannatyne (one account says by his wife), he walked slowly down the street to his own house, accompanied by the whole congregation, watching, for the last time, his feeble steps. During his last illness, which endured about a fortnight, he was visited by many of the principal nobles and reformed preachers, to all of whom he gave much advice ; and on Monday, the 24th of November, 1572, he expired in his sixty-seventh year, having been born in 1505, during the reign of James IV. From this house his body was conveyed to its last resting-place, on the south side of St. Giles's, accompanied by a mighty multitude of all ranks, where the newly-appointed Regent Morton pro- nounced over the closing grave his well-known eulogium. That eastern nook of the old city, known as the Nether Bow has many associations connected with it besides the manse of Knox. Therein was the abode of Robert Lekprevik, one of the earliest of Scottish printers, to whose business it is supposed Bassandyne succeeded on his removal to St. Andrews in 1570: and there, in 1613, the authorities discovered that a residenter named James Stewart, " commonly called James of Jerusalem, a noted Papist, and re-setter of seminary prints," was wont to have mass celebrated in his house by Robert Philip, a priest returned from Rome. Both men were arrested and tried on this charge, together with a third, John Logan, por- tioner, of Restalrig, who had formed one of the small and secret congregation in Stewart's house in the Nether Bow. " One cannot, in these days of tolerance," says Dr. Chambers, " read without a strange sense of uncouthness the solemn expressions of horror employed in the dittays of the king's ad- vocates against the offenders, being precisely the same expressions that were used against heinous offences of a more tangible nature." Logan was fined ^1,000, and compelled to ex- press public penitence ; and Philip and Stewart were condemned to banishment from the realm of Scotland. In the Nether Bow was the residence of James Sharp, who had been consecrated with great pomp at Westminster, as Archbishop of St. Andrews, on the 15 th of November, 1661 — a prelate famous for his unrelenting persecution of the faithful adherents of the Covenant which followed his elevation, and jusUy increased the general odium of his character, and who perished under the hands of pitiless assas- sins on Magus Muir, in 1679. Nicoll, the diarist, tells us, that on the 8th of May, 1662, all the newly consecrated bishops were convened in their gowns at the house of the Arch- bishop, in the Nether Bow, from whence they pro- ceeded in state to the Parliament House, conducted by two peers, the Earl of Kellie (who had been 2l6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. specially excepted out of Cromwell's act of indem- nity for his loyalty), and David Earl of Wemyss. In the Edinburgh Courant for October i6th, 1707 (then edited by Daniel Defoe), we have the following advertisement from a quack in this locality : — Bow ot Edinburgh, at William Muidies, where the Scarburay woman sells the same." Here, in the Nether Bow, dwelt a humble wig- maker and barber, named Falconer, whose son William, author of the beautiful and classic poem, "The Shipwreck," was born in 1730. The Nethet "There is just now come to town the excellent Scarburay Water, good for all diseases whatsom- ever, except consumption ; and this being the time of year for drinking the same, especially at the fall of leaf and the bud, the price of each chapin bottle is fivepence, the bottle never required, or three sliiliings (.Scots, 3d. I^nglish) without the bottle. Any person who has a mind for the same may come to the Fountain Close withhi the Nether 1.1. L' I;uu.M. Bow was his playground in early years, and there — ere he became an apprentice on board a merchant vessel at Leith— with Iiis deaf and dumb brotlier and sister, he shared in the sports and frolics of those wlio have all but himself long since liassed into the realm of oblivion. As a ])oet, Fal- coner's fame rests entirely on "The Shipwreck," which is a didactic as well as descriptive poem, and may well be reconuuendcd to the young sailor. High Street.] EXCISE OFFICE 217 not only to inspire his enthusiasm, but improve his seamanship ; and there was something prophetic in the poem, as the frigate Aurora, in which he served, perished at sea in 1769. Eastward of Knox's manse is an old timber- fronted land, bearing the royal arms of Scotland on its first floor, and entered by a stone turnpike, the door of which has the legend Dciis Beiicdidat, and long pointed out as the excise office'of early times. " The situation," says Wilson, " was pecu- liarly convenient for guarding the principal gate of das's splendid mansion in St. Andrew's Square.. now occupied by the Royal Bank. This may be considered its culminating point. It descended thereafter to Bellevue House, in Drummond Place, built by General Scott, the father-in-law of Mr. Canning, which house was demolished in 1846 in completing the tunnel of the Edinburgh and Leith Railway ; and now we believe the exciseman no- longer possesses a ' local habitation ' widiin the Scottish capital." The interesting locality of the Nether Bow talces KNOX S SITTING-ROOM. the city, and the direct avenue (Leith Wynd) to the neighbouring seaport Since George II.'s reign the excise office had as many rapid vicissitudes as might mark the career of a profligate spendthrift. In its earlier days, when a floor of the old land in the Nether Bow sufficed for its accommodation, it was regarded as foremost among the detested fruits of the Union. From thence it removed to more commodious chambers in the Cowgate, since demolished to make way for the southern piers of George IV. bridge. Its next resting place was the large tenement on the south side of Chessel's Court in the Canongate, the scene of the notorious Deacon Brodie's last robbery. From thence it was removed to Sir Lawrence Dun- 28 its name from the city gate, known as the .Nether Bow Port, in contradistinction to the L^pper Bow Port, which stood near the west end of the High Street. This barrier united the city wall from St. Mary's Wynd on the south to the steep street known as Leith ^\'ynd on the north, at a time when, per- haps, only open fields lay eastward of the gate, stretching from the township to the abbey of Holy- rood. The last gate was built in the time of James VI. ; what was the character of its predecessor we have no means of ascertaining ; but to repair it, in 1538, as the city cash had run low, the magis- trates were compelled to mortgage its northern vault for 100 merks Scots; and this was the gate which the English, under Lord Hertford, blew open OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nelher Bow. with cannon stone- shot in 1544, ere advancing against the Castle. "They hauled their cannons up the High Street by force of men to the Butter Tron, and above," says Calderwood, " and hazarded a shot against the fore entrie of the Castle {i.e., the port of the Spur). But the wheel and axle of one of the English cannons was broken, and some of their men slain by shot of ordnance out of the Castle ; so they left that rash enterprise." In 157 1, during the struggle between Kirkaldy and the Regent Morton, this barrier gate played a prominent part. According to the " Diurnal of Occurrents," upon the 22nd of August in that year, the Regent and the lords who adhered against the authority of the Queen, finding that they were totally excluded from the city, marched several bands of soldiers from Leith, their head-quarters, and concealed them under cloud of night in the closes and houses adjoining the Nether Bow Port. At five on the following morning, when it was supposed that the night watch would be withdrawn, six soldiers, disguised as millers, approached the gates, leading horses laden with sacks of meal, which were to be thrown down as they entered, so as to preclude the rapid closing of them, and while they attacked and cut down the warders, with those weapons which they wore under their disguise, the men in ambush were to rush out to storm the town, aided by a reserve, whom the sound of their trumpets was to summon from Holyrood. " But the eternal God," says the quaint old journalist we quote, " knowing the cruell murther that wold have beene done and committit vponn innocent poor per- sonis of the said burgh, wold not thole this inter- pryse to tak successe ; but evin quhen the said meill was almaist at the port, and the said men of war, stationed in clois headis, in readinesse to enter at the back of tlie samync ;" it chanced that a burgher of the Canongate, named Tiiomas Barrie, passed out towards his house in the then separate burgh, and perceiving soldiers concealed on every hand, he returned and gave the alarm, on which the gate was at once barricaded, and the design of the Regent and his adherents baffled. This gate having become ruinous, the magis- trates in 1606, three years after James VI. went to I'lngland, built a new one, of wliicli many views are jircserved. It was a liandsonie building, and (]uite enclosed the lower end of the High Street. The arcli, an ellipse, was in the centre, strengthened by round towers and battlements on the eastern or external front, and in the southern tower there was a wicket for foot passengers. On the inside of the arch were the arms of the city. The whole build- ing was crenelated, and consisted of two lofty storeys, having in the centre a handsome square tower, terminated by a pointed spire. It was adorned by a statue of James VI., which was thrown down and destroyed by order of Oliver Cromwell, and had on it a Latin inscription, which runs thus in English : — "Watch towers and thundr'ng walls vain fences prove No guards to monarchs like their people's love. Jacobus VI. Rex, Anna Regina, 1606." This gate has been rendered remarkable in his- tory by the extra-judicial bill that passed the House of Lords for razing it to the ground, in con- sequence of the Porteous mob. For a wonder, the Scottish members made a stand in the matter, and as the general Bill, when it came to the Commons, was shorn of all its objectionable clauses, the Nether Bow Port escaped. In June, 1737, when the officials of Edinburgh, who had been taken to London for examination concerning the riot, were returning, to accord them a cordial reception the citizens rode out in great troops to meet them, while for miles eastward the road was lined by pedestrians. The Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson, a modest man, eluded the ova- tion by taking another route ; but the rest came in triumph through the city, forming a procession of imposing length, while bonfires blazed, all the bells clanged and clashed as if a victory had been won over England, and the gates of the Nether Bow Port, which had been unhooked, were re-hung and closed amid the wildest acclamation. In 1760 the Common Council of London having obtained an Act of Parliament to remove their city gates, the magistrates of Edinburgh followed suit without any Act, and in 1764 demolished the Nether Bow Port, then one of the chief ornaments of the city, and like the unoffending Market Cross, a peculiarly interesting relic of the past. The ancient clock of its spire was afterwards placed in that old Orphan's Hospital, near Shakespeare Square, where it remained till the rdmoval of the latter edifice in 1845, when the North I'.ritish Rail- way was in progress, and it is now in the pediment between the towers of the beautiful Tuscan edifice built for the orjihans near the Dean cemetery. High Street.! BISHOP BOTHWELL. 219 CHAPTER XXV. THE HIGH STREET [continueJ). Tlic Ancient Markets—The House of Adam Bothwell. Rishop of Orkney— The Bishop and Queen Mary— His Sister Anne— Sir William Dick of Uraid— His Colossal Wealth— Hard Fortune— The *' Lamentable State "—Advocates' Close— Sir James Stewart's House--Andrew Croshie, " Counsellor Pleydell " — Scougal's House — His Picture Gallery — William Scott's IJall-room — Roxburghe Close — Warriston's Close — Lord Philiphaugh's House— Bruce of Uinning's Mansion— Messrs. W. and R. Chambers's Printing and Publishing Establishment — History of the Firm— House of Sir Thomas Craig— Sir Archibald Johnston of Warriston. Previous to 1477 there were no particular places assigned for holding the different markets in the city, and this often caused much personal strife among the citizens. To remedy this evil, James III., by letters patent, ordained that the markets for the various commodities should be held in the follow- ing parts of the city, viz. ; — In the Cowgate, the place for the sale of hay, straw, grass, and horse-meat, ran from the foot of Forester's Wynd to the foot of Peebles Wynd. The flesh market was to be held in the High Street, on both sides, from Niddry's Wynd to the Blackfriars Wynd ; the salt market to be held in the former \\'ynd. The crames, or booths, for chapmen were to be set up between the Bell-house and the Tron on the north side of the street ; the booths of the hat- makers and skinners to be on the opposite side of the way. The wood and timber market extended from Dalrymple's Yard to the Greyfriars, and westward. Tlie place for the sale of shoes, and of red barked leather, was between Forrester's 'Wynd and the west wall of Dalrymple's Yard. The cattle-market, and that for tlie sale of slaughtered sheep, wr.s to be about the Tron- beam, and so " doun throucli to the Friar's Wynd ; alsa, all pietricks, pluvars, capones, conyngs, chekins, and all other wyld foulis and tame, to be usit and said about the Market Croce." All living cattle were not to be brought into the town, but to be sold under the walls, westward of the royal stables, or lower end of the Grassmarket. Meal, grain, and corn were to be retailed from the Tolbooth up to Liberton's Wynd. The Upper Bow was the place ordained for the sale of all manner of cloths, cottons, and haber- dashery ; also for butter, cheese, and wool, " and sicklike gudis yat suld be weyit," at a tron set there, but not to be opened before nine a.m. Be- neath the Nether Bow, and about St. Mary's ^Vynd, was the place set apart for cutlers, smiths, lorimers, lock-makers, "and sicklike workmen ; and all armour, graith, gear," and so forth, were to be sold in the Friday market, before the Greyfriars'. In Gordon of Rothiemay's map " the flesh- stocks " are shown as being in the Canongate, immediately below the Nether Bow Port. Descending the High Street, after passing Bank Street, to which we have already referred, there might have been seen, until a very recent period, one of the most remarkable old edifices in the city — the mansion of Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. It stood at the foot of Byres' Close, so named from the house of Sir John Byres of Coates, and was removed to make way for St. Giles's Street. A doorway on the east side of the close gave access to a handsome stone stair, guarded by a curved balustrade, leading to a garden terrace,, that overlooked the waters of the loch. Above this, started abruptly up the north front of the house, semi-hexagonal in form, surmounted by three elegantly-carved dormer windows, having circular pediments, and surmounted by a finial. On one was inscribed Laus iilugiie Deo ; ork another, FeUciter, infelix. In this edifice (long used as a warehouse by Messrs. Clapperton and Co.) dwelt Adam, Bishop of Orkney, the same prelate who, at four in the morning of the 15th of May, 1567, performed in the chapel royal at Holyrood the fatal marriage ceremony which gave Bothwell possession of the unfortunate and then despairing Queen Mar)-. He was a senator of the College of Justice, and the royal letter in his favour bears, " Providing always ye find him able and qualified for adminis- tration of justice, and conform to the acts and statutes of the College." He married the unhappy queen after the new forms, " not with the mess, but with preach- ing;;," according to the " Diurnal of Occurrents," in the chapel ; according to Keith and others, " in the great hall, where the Council usually met." But he seemed a pliable prelate where his own interests were concerned ; he was one of the first to desert his royal mistress, and, after her enforced abdication, placed the crown upon the head of her infant son ; and in 1568, according to tlie book of the " Universal Kirk," he bound himself to preach a sermon in Holyrood, and therein to confess publicly his offence in performing a marriage cere- mony for Bothwell and Mary. As the name of the bishop was appended to that infamous bond of adherence granted by the Scottish nobles to Bothwell, before the latter put in practice his ambitious schemes against his sovereign, it is- OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. very probable that the Earl may often have been a guest in that old mansion, and King James him- self in later years. The bishop, who married Mar- garet Murray of Touchadam, died in 1593, and was succeeded in the old mansion by his son John Bothwell, designed of Auldhamer, who accompa- nied King James to England, and was created Lord Holyroodhouse, in the peerage of Scotland, in 1607. Here dwelt his sister Anne, a woman of remark- able beauty, whose wrongs are so touchingly re- " an English villain," according to Balfour — a ser- vant boy, out of revenge against his master. In the Scots Magazine for 1774 we have a notice of the death of Eleonora Bothwell, daughter of the deceased Henry, Lord Holyroodhouse. Alexander, his son. Master of Holyroodhouse, who died about the middle of the last century, ended the line of the family, of whom no relic now remains save the tomb of Bishop Adam, which still exists in Holyrood chapel. On the front of THE EXCISE mi ILL AT iHi; .M.'mLia.uW. (After n Phctogmfh ly Alcxivuicr A. hi^lii.) corded in the sweet old ballad known as " Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament." She was betrayed in a disgraceful liaison by Sir Alexander Enskine (a son ■of John, 14th Earl of Mar), of whom a portrait by Jamieson is still extant, and represents him in the mi- 'litary dress of his time — a handsome man in a cuirass .and scarf, with a face full of nobility of expression. The lady's name does not appear in the Douglas peerage ; but her cruel desertion by Sir Alexander was confidently believed at the time to have justly -exjKjsed him to the vengeance of heaven, for he perished with the Earl of Haddington and others in the Castle of Dunglas, which was blown up by gunpowder in 1640, through the instrumentality of the third ])illar from the east is a tablet with his arms — a chevron, between three trefoils slipped, with a crescent, and a very long inscription, the first six lines of which run thus : — " Ilic reconditus jacct nobilissimus vir Dominus Ailanius lintluicliiis, Episcopus, f )icay lliis liglit. To I)e a true and failliful kiiighl, With .ill my mi(;lit, liotli (l.iy ami night, .So help me Poker !" The knights presented his Majesty with a contri- bution of 100 guineas to assist in raising troops in 1778. The entrance-fee to this amusing club was originally half-a-crown, and eventually it rose to a guinea ; but so economical were the members, that among the last entries in their minutes was one to the etfect that the suppers should be at " the old price " of 4jd. a head. Lancashire the comedian, leaving the stage, seems to have eked out a meagre subsistence by opening in the Canongate a tavern, where he was kindly patronised by the knights of the Cape, and they subsequently paid him visits at " Comedy Hut, New FIdinburgh," a place of enter- tainment which he opened somewhere beyond the bank of the North Loch ; and soon after this con- vivial club — one of the many wherein grave citizens and learned counsellors cast aside their powdered wigs, and betook them to what may now seem mad- cap revelry in verj' contrast to the rigid decorum of every-day life — passed completely away ; but a foot-note to Wilson's " Memorials " informs us that " Provincial Cape Clubs, deriving their authority and diplomas from the parent body, were succes- sively formed in Glasgow, Manchester, and Lon- don, and in Charleston, South Carolina, each of which was formally established in virtue of a royal commission granted by the Sovereign of the Cape. The American off-shoot of this old Edinburgh fra- ternity is said to be still flourishing in the Southern States." In the " Life of Lord Karnes,'' by Lord A\'ood- houselee, we have an account of the Poker Club, which held its meetings near this spot, at " our old landlord of the Divtison'iiin, Tom Nicholson's, near the cross. The dinner was on the table at two o'clock ; we drank the best claret and sherry ; and the reckoning was punctually called at six o'clock. After the first fifteen, who were chosen by nomina- tion, the members were elected by ballot, and two black balls excluded a candidate." A political question — on the expediency of estab- lishing a Scottish militia (while Charles Edward and Cardinal \'ork were living in Rome) — divided the Scottish public mind greatly between 1760 and 1762, and gave ri.se to the club in the latter year, and it subsisted in vigour and celebrity till 1784, and continued its weekly meetings with great regu- larity, long after the object of its institution had ceased to engage attention ; and it can scarcely be doubted that its inllucncc was considerable in fos- tering talent and iiromoting elegant literature in Edinburgh, though the few puljlicatioiis of a literary nature that had been iniblished under the ausi)ices of the club were, like most of that nature, ephe- meral, and are now utterly forgotten. High Street.) THE POKER CLUB. 231 The only i)ublication of sterling merit which en- ' livened the occasion that called it forth was " The History in the Proceedings of Margaret, commonly called Peg," written in imitation of Dr. Arbutlinot's " History of John Bull." In the memoirs of Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk an amusing account is given of the Poker Club, of which he was a zealous and constant attender. About the third or fourth meet- ing of the club, after 1762, he mentions that mem- bers were at a loss for a name for it, and wished one tliat should be of uncertain meaning, and not so directly offensive as that of Militia Club, whereupon Adam Fergusson, the eminent historian and moral philosopher, suggested the name of Poker, which the members understood, and which would " be an enigma to the public." It comprehended all the literati of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, most of whom — like Robert- son, Blair, and Hume — had been members of the select society (those only excepted whowere enemies to the Scottish militia scheme), together with a great many country gentlemen whose national and Jacobite proclivities led them to resent the invidious line drawn between Scotland and England. Sir William Pulteney Johnston was secretary of the Poker Club, with two members, whom he was to consult anent its publications in a laughing hour. "Andrew Crosbie, advocate, was appointed assassin to the club, in case any service of that sort should be needed ; but David Hume was named for his assistant, so that between the plus and minus there was no hazard of much bloodshed." After a time the club removed its meetings to Fortune's Tavern, at the Cross Ki-ys, in the Stamp Office Close, where the dinners became so showy and e.xpensive that attendance began to decrease, and new members came in " who had no title to be there, and were not congenial " (the common fate of all clubs generally) " and so by death and de- sertion the Poker began to dwindle away, though a bold attempt was made to revive it in 1787 by some young men of talent and spirit." When Cap- tain James Edgar, one of the original Pokers, was in Paris in 1773, during the flourishing time of the club, he was asked by D'.\lembert to go with him to their club of literati, to which he replied with something of bluntness, " that the company of literati was no novelty to him, for he had a club at Edinburgh composed, he believed, of the ablest men in Europe. This " (adds Dr. Carlyle, whose original MS. Lord Kames quoted) " was no sin- gular opinion ; for the most enlightened foreigners had formed the same estimate of the literary society of Edinburgh at that time. The Princess Dashkoff, disputing with me one day at Buxtcn about the superiority of Edinburgh as a residence to most of the cities of Europe, when I had alleged various particulars, in which I thought we excelled, ' No,' said she, ' but I know one article 'you have not mentioned in which I must give you clearly the precedence, which is, that of all the societies of men of talent I have met with in my travels, yours is the first in point of abilities.' " A few steps farther down the street bring us to the entrance of the Old Stamp Office Close, wherein was the tavern just referred to. Fortune's, one in the greatest vogue between 1760 and 1770. " The gay men of the city," we are told, " the scholarly and the philosophical, with the common citizens, all flocked hither; and here the Royaf Commissioner for the General Assembly held his leve'es, and hence proceeded to church with his cortege, then additionally splendid from having ladies walking in it in their court dresses, as well as gentlemen." The house occupied by this famous tavern had been in former times the residence of Alexander ninth Earl of Eglinton, and his Countess Susanna Kennedy of the house of Colzean, reputed the most beautiful woman of her time. From the magnificent but privately printed " Memorials of the Montgomeries," we learn many interesting particulars of this noble couple, who dwelt in the Old Stamp Office Close. Whether their abode there was the same as that stated, of which we have an inventory, in the time of Hugh third Earl of Eglinton, " at his house in Edinburgh, 3rd March, 1563," given in the "Me- morials," we have no means of determining. Earl Alexander was one of those patriarchal old Scottish lords who lived to a great age. He was thrice married, and left a progeny whose names are inter- spersed throughout the pages of the Douglas peerage. His last Countess, Susanna, was the daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy, a sturdy old cavalier, who made himself conspicuous in the wars of Dundee. She was one of the co-heiresses of David Leslie Lord Newark, the Covenanting general whom Cromwell defeated at Dunbar. She was six feet in height, extremely handsome, with a brilliantly fair complexion, and a face of " the most bewitching loveliness." She had many admirers. Sir John Clerk of Penicuick among others ; but her friends had always hoped she would marry the Earl of Eglinton, though he was more than old enough to have been her father, and when a stray hawk, with his lordship's name on its bells, alighted on her shoulder as she was one day walking in her father's garden at Colzean, it was deemed an infallible omen of her future. 232 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Slrcet. The death of his second countess left the earl free to win the prize and fulfil the nursery pre- dictions. " Admirers of a youthful, impassioned, and sonnet-making cast might have trembled at his approach to the shrine of their divinity, for liis lordship was one of those titled suitors who, lifetime, it is not surprising that many interesting particulars concerning her have been preserved and handed down to us. She had a grace and bearing all her own ; hence the Eglinton air and the Eglinton manner were long proverbial in Edin- burgh after she had passed away. Her seven FI.F.SIIMARKl.T CI.ipsF.. (l-i.^mn l'i,-.v /■!,/■ is/u;l in \«.si.) however old and horrible, arc never rejected except in novels and romances;" and tliough Sir John Clerk had declared his passion, lie did so in vain, and his lovely Susanna became Countess of Eglin- ton about tile year of the Union. To tlie cjiarms of her personal appearance were added the more powerful attractions of genius and great accomplishments. Possessing these, in the elevated position whicli she occupied during a long (laughters were all handsome women, and it was deemed indeed a goodly sight to see the long pro- cession of eight gilded sedans issue from the Stamp Ofhcc Close, bearing her and her stalely brood to tile Assembly Room, amid a crowd that was huslied with respect and admiration, " to behold their lofty and graceful figures step from the chairs on the pavement. It could not fail to be a remarkable sight — eight singularly beautiful women, conspicuous High Streti.J THE EARL OF EGLINTON'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. 233 for their stature and carriage, all dressed in the splendid, though formal, fashions of that period, and inspired at once with dignity of birth and con- sciousness of beauty ! Alas I such visions no longer illuminate the dark, tortuosities of Auld Reekie I " By his three countesses the Earl had twelve daughters, and he was beginning to despair of an heir to his title, when one was born to him. He died in 1729. Shortly before his death he wrote a under the misery and slavery of being united to England, a Scotsman, without prostituting his honour, can obtain nothing by following a Court but bring his estate under debt, and consequently himself to necessity." The Countess was a great patron of authors. Boyse dedicated his poems to her, as Allan Ramsay did his " Gentle Shepherd," and in doing so enlarged in glowing terms upon the virtues of his patroness. SUSANNA, COUNTESS OF EGLINTON. {From the Portrait in the '^Memoirs o/ tht' Montgotiictics.") letter to his son, the tenth Earl, in which he ad- vised him never to marry an Englishwoman, and wherein the following passage occurs : — " You came to live at a time, my chiefest care, when the right to these kingdoms comes to be a question betwixt the House of Hanover, in posses- sion, and the descendants of King James. You are, in my poor opinion, not to intermeddle with either, but live abstractly at home, managing your affairs to the best advantage, and living in a good understanding with your friends ; for since we are 30 " If it were not for offending your ladyship here, I might give the fullest liberty to my muse, to delineate the finest of women by drawing your ladyship's character, and be in no hazard of being deemed a flatterer, since flattery lies not in paying what is due to merit, but in praises misplaced." William Hamilton of Bangour, an elegant poet and accomplished man, had recommended Allan Ramsay to her notice in an address, in which he eulogises her and her daughters. After referring to 234 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. the evil passions indulged in by many, Hamilton draws the contrast thus : — ■ " Unlike, O Eglintoun! thy happy breast, Calm and serene, enjoys the heavenly guest ; From the tumultuous rule of passions freed. Pure in thy thought and spotless in thy deed ; In virtues rich, in goodness unconfined, Thou shin'st a fair example to thy kind ; Sincere and equal to thy neighbour's name, How swift to praise ! ho.v guiltless to defame ! Bold in thy presence bashfulness appears. And backward merit loses all its fears. Supremely blest by Heaven — Heaven's richest grace Confest is thine, an early blooming race ; Whose pleasing smiles shall guardian wisdom arm, Divine instruction ! taught of thee to charm ; What transports shall they to thy soul impart (The conscious transports of a parent's heart), When thou behold'st them of each grace possest, And sighing youths imploring to be blest ; 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 Eglintounes of other days." Save Lady Frances, all her daughters wjre well married; but her eldest son, Earl Alexander, was her especial favourite. Li his youth, she said, she preserved the goodness of his nature by keeping his mind pure and untainted, and giving hitii just ideas of moral life. She is said never to have refused him a request but once. On the accession of George IH. to the throne, the young earl was appointed one of the lords of the bedchamber. Proud of his stately mother and of her noble figure, he begged that she would walk in the procession at his Majesty's coronation ; but the Countess — a tnie Jacobite — excused herself, that she was too old to wear robes now. His melancholy death at the hands of Mungo Campbell, in 1769, well nigh overwhelmed her. Lideed, she never entirely re- covered from the shock of seeing her beloved .son borne home mortally woimded. During Dr. Johnson's visit to her, it came out that she was married before he was born ; upon which she smartly and graciously said to him that she might have been his mother, and now adopted him ; and at parting she embraced him, a mark of affection and condescension which made a lasting im[)re.ssion upon the mind of the great literary bear. In 1780 she died at Aiichans, at the age of nincty-onc, jjre- serving to tiie last her grandeur of mien and her mar- vellous purity of complexion, a mystery to all the women of her time, and tlic secret of which was said to be that she i)eriudically bathed her face with soic's ?inlk! " I have seen a portrait," says Chambers, '• taken in her eighty-first year, in which it is ob- servable that her skin is of exquisite delicacy and tint. Altogether the Countess was a woman of ten thousand I . . . . One last trait may now be recorded : in her ladyship's bedroom was hung a portrait of her sovereign de jure, the ill-starred Charles Edward, so situated as to be the first object which met her sight on awaking in the morning." With the state levees of the old Earl of Leven as High Commissioner at Fortune's tavern the ancient glories of the Stamp Office Close faded away ; but an unwonted spectacle was exhibited at the head thereof in 181 2 — a public execution. On the night of the 31st December, 181 1, a band of young artisans and idlers, most of them under twenty years of age, but so numerous and so well organised as to set the regular police of the city at defiance, sallied forth, about eleven o'clock, into the streets, then crowded as usual at that festive season, arid proceeded with bludgeons to knock down and rob every person of decent ap- pearance who fell in their way — the least symptom on the part of the victims to resist, or protect their property, proving only a provocation to fresh out- rages. These desperadoes had full possession of the streets till two in the morning, for the police, who at that period were wretchedly insufficient, were routed and dispersed from the commence- ment of the murderous riot. One watchman, who did his duty in a resolute manner, was killed on the spot ; a great number of persons were robbed, and a greater number dan- gerously, some mortally, woimded. \\'hen the police recovered from their surprise, assisted by several gentlemen, a number of the rioters were arrested, some with stolen articles in their posses- sion, and the chief ringleaders were soon aftei discovered and taken into custody. Four were tried and convicted ; and three of these young lads were sentenced to be hanged. The magistrates had them executed on the 22nd of April, 18 1 2, on a gallows erected at the head of the Stamp Office Close, in order to mark more impressively the detestation of their crimes, and because that place had been the chief scene of the bloodslicd dining the riot. .\ small work entitled " Notes of Conversations," with tlu'se young desperadoes, was afterwards iiiib- lished by the Reverend \V. Innes. In 1 82 1 the Stamp Office was removed from this close to the new buildings erected at Waterloo Place. Hieh Street.! THE CROCHALLAN CLUB. 235 CHAPTER XXVn. THE HIGH STREET (contimccil). Tlie Anchor Close- Dawn-y Douglas's Tavern— The "Crown Room" — The Crochallaii Chib— Memhers — Burns among the Crochallan Fcncibles — Smellie's Printing Office— Dundas's House, KIcshmarket Close — Mylne's Square— Lord Alva's House — The Countess of Sutherland and Lady Glcnorchy— liirthp'acc of Fergusson— Halkerston's Wynd Port— Kinloch's Close — Carrubber's Close— The Episcopal Chapel — Clam Shell Land — Capt. Matthew Henderson- -Allan Ramsay's Theatre— Its later Tenants — The Tailor's Hall — Bailie Fyfe's Close — " Heave awa/ lads, I'm no deid yet " — Chalmers' Close — Hope's House — Sandiland's Close — Bishop Kennedy's House — Grant's Close— Baron Grant's House. One of the most interesting of the many old alleys of the High Street (continuing still on the north side thereof) is the Anchor Close. A few yards down this dark and narrow tho- roughfare bring us to the entrance of a scale-stair, having the legend, The Lord is only my svport ; adjoining it is another and older door, inscribed O . Lord . in . the . is . al . my . traiit ; while an architrave bears a line from a psalm, L^e mercifvl to me, under which we enter what was of old the famous festive and hospitable tavern of Daniel, or, as he was familiarly named by the Hays, Erskines, I'leydells, and Crosbies, who were his customers, Dawney Douglas, an establishment second to none in its time for convivial meetings, and noted for suppers of tripe, mince collops, rizzared haddocks, and fragrant hashes, that never cost more than six- pence a-head ; yet on charges so moderate Dawney Douglasand hisgudewifecontrived togrowextremely rich before they died. Who caused the three holy legends to be carved, as in many other instances, no man knows, nor can one tell who resided here of old, except that it was in the seventeenth century the house of a senator entitled Lord Forglen. " The frequenter of Douglas's," we are told, " after .ascending a few steps, found himself in a pretty large kitchen, through which numerous ineffable ministers of ilame were continually flying about, •while beside the door sat the landlady, a large, fat woman, in a towering head-dress and large-flowered silk gown, who bowed to every one passing. Most likely, on emerging from this igneous region, the party would fall into the hands of Dawney himself, and be conducted to an apartment." He was a little, thin, weak, quiet, and submissive man'; in all things a contrast to his wife. Here met the famous club called the Crochallan Fencibles, which Burns has celebrated both in prose and verse, and to which he was introduced in 17S7 by William Smellie, when in the city superintending the printing of his poems, and when, according to custom, one of the club was pitted against him in -a. contest of wit and humour. Burns bore the assault with perfect equanimity, and entered fully into the spirit of the meeting. Dawney Douglas knew a sweet old Gaelic song, called " Cro Chalien," or, Colin's cattle, which he was wont to sing to his customers, and this led to the establishment of the club, which, with jocular reference to the many Scottish corps then raising, was named the Crochallan Fencibles, composed entirely of men of original character and talent. Each member took some military title or ludicrous office. Amongst them was Smellie, the famous printer, and author of the " Philosophy of Natural History." Individuals committing an alleged fault were subjected to mock trials, in which those members who were advocates could display their wit ; and as one member was the depute liangmaii of the club, a little horse-play, with much mirth, at times prevailed. The song of " Cro Chalien " had a legend con- nected therewith. Colin's wife died very young, but some months after he had buried her she was occasionally seen in the gloaming, when spirits are supposed to appear, milking her cows as usual, and singing the plaintive song to which Burns must often have listened amid the orgies in the Anchor Close. In Dawney's tavern the chief room was rather elegant and well-sized, having an access by the second of the doors described, and was reseKved for large companies or important guests. Par excellence, '\\. was, named the "Crown Room," and was thus distinguished to guests on their bill tops, from some foolish and unwarrantable tradition that Queen Mary had once been there, when the crown was deposited in a niche in the wall. It was handsomely panelled, with a decorated fireplace and two lofty windows that opened to the close ; but all this has disappeared now, and new buildings erected in 1869 have replaced the old. Here, then, was Burns introduced to the jovial Crochallans, among whom were such men as Erskine, Lords Newton and Gillies, by Smellie the Ijhilosopher and printer who contested with Dr. Walker the chair of natural history in the Univer- sity ; and of one member, William Dunbar, ^\■.S., " Colonel " of the club, a predominant wit, he has left us a characteristic picture : — " Oh, rattlin' roarin' Willie, Oh, lie held to the fair, An' for to sell his ficklle. And buy some other v. are ; But paitinij \vi' his fiddle, Tlie saut tear blin't his ee ; And rattlin", roaiin' Willie, Ye're welcome hame to me ! 2.'?6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (High Street. " O Willie, come sell your fiddle, Oh sell your fiddle s.ie fine ; O Willie, come sell your fiddle. And buy a pint o' wine. If I .should sell my fiddle. The war!' would think I was mad For mony a rantin' day My fiddle and I hae had. "As I came by Crochallan, I cannily keekit ben — Rattlin', roarin' Willie, Was sitting at yon board en' — Sitting at yon board en'. And aniang guid corn- pan ie ; Rattlin', roarin' Willie, You're welcome hame to me !" In verse elsewhere Burns notes the pecu- liarities of his introducer, who had become, in middle life, careless of his costume and appearance : — " To Crochallan came, The old cocked hat, the brown surtout the same ; His bristling beard just rising in its might ; 'Twas four long nights .and days to shaving night." At the foot of the close there stood, till 1S59, the printing office of this strange genius (who died in 1795), '■ and there the most eminent literary men of that period visited and superintended the print- ing of works that have made the press of the Scottish capi- W. F. LINTEL OF DOORW.W IN DAWNEV DOUGLAS S TAVERN. (From a Sketch hy the Author.) i,r;;-ji!!S:t'1t!:'i:'S'*t'fi"rS,-:1f?|.. \V.R. — CM. ; and the house immediately below it contained the only instance known to exist in Edinburgh of a legend over an interior doorway: Augusta . ad. vsvm . Avgvsta. B. G. These were the initials of William Fowler, a merchant burgess of Edinburgh, supposed to be the author of "The Triumph of Death," and the others are, of course, those of his wife. As to what this house was originally nothing is known, and the peculi- arity of the legend has been a puzzle to many. Later it was the residence of Sir George Drummond, who in 1683 and 1684 was Lord Provost of the city. In those days the lower ground that sloped down to the North Loch appears to have been all laid out in pleasant gar- dens, wherein stood a summer-house belonging to Lord Forglen, who was Sir Alexander Ogilvie, Bart., a commissioner for the Treaty of L^nion, and who was accused by Sir Alexander Forbes of Tolquhoun of stealing a gilded drinking-cup out of his house, a mistake, as it proved, in the end. Eastward of this were, in succession, Geddes's, Jackson's, and the Flesh- market Closes. At the head of the latter, in the third flat of an old land, Henry Dundas, afterwards Lord Melville, began to jiractise as an advocate. Adjoining this is Mylne's tal celebrated throughout Eu- rope. Tliere was the haunt of Dr. Blair, Beattie, Black, Robertson, Adam l'"ergus- son, Adam Smith, Lords M o n b o d d o, Hailes, Kames, Henry Mac- kenzie, Arnot, Hume, and foremost among the Stjuare, the entrance to which bears the date of iiooKWAV, Il^\vN^v nofr.i.AS s tavern. (Prom a Sliftch hy the Author.) host, the poet Burns." Here was long shown an old tiinc-lilackencd desk, at which these, and other men such as these, revised their proofs, and a stool on which Biuns sat while correcting the proofs of his poems pub- lished between December, 1786, and April, 1787. Lower down the close, over the doorway of a house wliere the Bill Chamber stood for several genera- tions, were carved the date, 16 16, and the initials 1689, a lofty and gloomy court, having on its side a flight of steps to the North Bridge. This — the ])r()ject of one of the famous masonic family of Mylne — was among the first improvements eftectcd in the old town, before its contented burgesses became asjiiring, and dreamt of raising a New lMlinl)urgh, beyond the oozy bed of the bordering loch. Many distinguished people lived here of old. Among them was Charles Erskine of Alva, Lord High Street.) LORD ALVA. ?37 Justice Clerk in 1748, who long occupied two flats on the west side of the square, the back windows of which overlook the picturesque vista of Cock- burn Street, and the door of which was among the last that displayed tlie ancient risp. This cadet of the loyal and ancient house of Wily old Simon Lord Lovat, of the '45, who was perpetually involved in law pleas, frequently visited Lord Alva at his house in Mylne's Scjuare ; and the late Mrs. Campbell of Monzie, his daughter, was wont to tell that when Lord Lovat caught her in the stair " he always took her up Ci, lit ^ 'r.p'^-',\€'4 MVLNh'S SQUARE. Mar was born in 16S0, and died in 1763. Before the rise of the new city, it affords us a curious glimpse of the contented life that such a legal dignitary led in those days, when we find him happy during winter in a double flat, in this obscure place, and in summer at the little villa of Drumsheugh, swept away in 1S77, and of which no relic now remains, save the rookery with its old trees in Randolph Crescent. in his arms and kissed her, to her horror — he was so ugly." In this mansion in Mylne's Square Lord Al\-a's two step-daughters, the Misses Ma.xwell of Reston, were married ; one, Mary, became the Countess of William Earl of Sutherland, a captain in the 56th Foot, who, when France threatened invasion in 1759, raised, in two months, a regi- ment among his own clan and followers ; the 2^,8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHish Street. Other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord Glenorchy. The fate of the Earl of Sutherland, and of his countess, whose beauty excited the admiration of all at the coronation of George III., was a very cloudy one. In frolicking with their first-born, a daughter, the earl let the infant drop, and it sus- tained injuries from which it never recovered, and the event had so serious an effect on his mind, that he resorted to Bath, where he died of a malignant fever. For twenty-one days the countess, then about to have a babe again, attended him unremittingly, till she too caught the distemper, and pre-deceased him by a kw days, in her twenty-si.xth y'ear. Her death was sedulously concealed from him, yet the day before he expired, when delirium passed away, he said, " I am going to join my dear wife," as if his mind had already begun to penetrate the veil that hangs between this world and the next. In one grave in Holyrood, near the north-east corner of the ruined chapel, the remains of this ill-fated couple were laid, on the 9th of August, 1766. Lady Glenorchy, a woman remarkable for the piety of her disposition, was far from happy in her marriage; but we are told that "she met with her rich reward, even in this world, for she enjoyed the applause of the \Tealthy and the blessings of the poor, with that supreme of all pleasures — the con- viction that the eternal welfare of those in whose fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded by her precepts and example." In after years, the Earl of Hopetoun, when acting as Royal Commissioner to the General Assembly, was wont to hold his state levees in the house that had been Lord Alva's. To the east of Mylne's Square stood some old alleys which were demolisjied to make way for the Nortii Bridge, one of the greatest local undertakings of the eighteenth century. One of these alleys was known as the Cap and Feather Close, immediately above Halkerston's Wynd. The lands that formed the east side of the latter were remaining in some places almost intact till about 1850. In one of these, but which it was impossible to say, was born on the sth of September, 1750, tliat luckless but gifted child of genius, Robert Fergusson, the poet, whose father was then a clerk in the British Linen Company ; but even the site of his house, which has peculiar claims on the interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, cannot be indicated. How Halkerston's Wynd obtained its n.inie we have already told. Here was an outlet from the ancient city by way of a dam or dyke across the loch, to which Lord Fountainhall refers in a case dated 21st February, 170S. About twenty years before that time it would appear that the Town Council " had opened a new port at the foot of Halkerston's Wynd for the convenience of those who went on foot to Leith ; and that Robert Malloch, having acquired some lands on the other side of the North Loch, and made yards and built houses thereon, and also having invited sundry weavers and other good tradesmen to set up on Moutree's Hill [site of the Register House], and the deacons of crafts finding this prejudicial to them, and contrary to the iS4th Act of Parlia- ment, 1592," evading which, these craftsmen paid neither " scot, lot, nor stent," the magistrates closed up the port, and a law plea ensued between them and tlie enterprising Robert Malloch, wlio was accused of filling up a portion of the bank of the loch with soil from a quarry. " The town, on the other hand, did stop the vent and passage over the loch, which made it overflow and drown Robert's new acquired ground, of which he complained as an act of oppression." Eventually the magistrates asserted that the loch was wholly theirs, and " that therefore he could drain no part of it, especially to make it regorge and inundate on their side. The Lords were going to take trial by examining the witnesses, but the magistrates prevented it, by opening the said port of their own accord, without abiding an order, and let the sluice run," by which, of course, the access by the gate was rendered useless. Kinloch's Close adjoined Halkerston's Wynd, and therein, till about 1830, stood a handsome old substantial tenement, the origin and early occupants of which were all unknown. A mass of curious and abutting projections, the result of its peculiar site, it had a finely-carved entrance door, with the legend, Fdr . God . in . Luif ., 1595, and the initials I. W., and the arms of the surname of Williamson, together with a remarkable device, a saltire, from the centre of which rose a cross — symbol of passion. I Passing Allan Ramsay's old shop, a narrow bend gives us access to Carrubber's Close, the last strong- I hold of the faithful Jacobites after 16S8. Episco- ' pacy was abolished in 16S9, and although from that period episcopal clergymen had no legal pro- vision or settlement, they were permitted, without molestation, to preach in meeting-houses till 1746 ; but as they derived no emolument from Govern- ment, and no j)rovision from the Stale, tliey did not, says Arnot, perplex their consciences witli volii- ' tninous and imnccessary oaths, but merely excluded High Street.] CARRUBBER'S CLOSE. 239 the name of '' the Hanoverian usurpers " from all their devotions. But the humble chapels with which these old Scottish Episcopalians contented themselves in Carrubber's Close, Skinner's Close, and elsewhere, present a wonderful contrast to their St. Paul's and St. Mary's in the Edinburgh of to-day. In this close was the house of Robert Ainslie's master, during Burns's visit to Edinburgh, Mr. Samuel Mitchelson, a great musical amateur ; and here it was that occurred the famous " Haggis Scene, "described by Smollett in "Humphrey Clinker. " At the table of Mitchelson the poet was a frequent guest, while on another floor of the old Clam Shell Land, as it was named, dwelt another friend of Burns's, the elder Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, prior to his removal to the New Town. On the second floor of an ancient stone land at the head of the close dwelt Captain ALitthew Henderson, a well-known antiquar)', a gentleman of agreeable and dignified manners, who was a hero of Minden, and a member of the Crochallan Club, and dined constantly at Fortune's tavern. He died in 1789, and Burns wrote a powerful elegy on him as " a gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately from Almighty God." " I loved the man much, and have not flattered his memory," said Burns in a note to the elegy, which contains sixteen verses. The old captain was one whom all men liked. " In our travelling party," says Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas in his (suppressed) Memoirs, " was Matthew Henderson, then (1759) and afterwards well known and much esteemed in the town of Edinburgh, at that time an officer in the 2Sth Regiment of Foot, and, like myself, on his way to join the army; and I may say with truth, that in the course of a long life I have never known a more estimable character than Matthew Henderson." This close was the scene of the unsuccessful speculation of another poet, for liere Allan Ramsay made a bold attempt to establish his theatre, which was roughly closed by the magistrates in 1737, after it had been barely opened, for which he took a poet's vengeance in rhyme in the Gentleman's Magazine. The editice, which stood at the foot of the close, was quizzically named St. Andrew's Chapel, and in 1773 was the arena for the debates of a famous speculative club named the Pantheon. Five years subsequently blind Dr. Mo}es, the clever lecturer on natural philosophy, held forth therein to audiences both fashionable and select, on optics, the property of light, and so forth. It was afterwards occupied by Mr. John Barclay, founder of the Bereans, whose chief tenet was, that the knowledge of the existence of God is derived from revelation and not from Scripture. From him and his followers Ramsay's luckless theatre passed to the Rev. Mr. Tail and other founders of the Rowites, during whose occupancy the pulpit was frequently filled by the celebrated Edward Irving. The Relief and Secession con- gregations have also had it in succession ; the Catholics have used it as a schoolroom ; and till its demolition to make way for Jeftrey Street, it has been the arena of a strange olla podrida of per- sonages and purposes. In Carrubber's Close stood the ancient Tailor's Hall, the meeting-pjlace of a corporation whose charter, granted to them by the Town Council, is dated 20th October, 1531, and with their original one, was further confirmed by charters from James V. and James VI. They had an altar in St. CHles'sChurch dedicated to their patron St. Ann, and the date of their seal of cause is 1500. They had also an altar dedicated to St. Ann in the Abbey church, erected in 1554 by permission of Robert Commen dator of Holyrood. The fine old hall in the Cowgate has long since been abandoned by the Corporation, which still exists ; and in their other place of meet- ing in Carrubber's Close an autograph letter of King James VI., which hung framed and glazed over the old fireplace, was long one of its chief features. It was dated in 1594, and ran thusj but a few lines will suffice for a specimen : — "Dekin and remanent Maisters and Brethren of the Tailyer Craft within cure burgh of Edinburgh, we gret zow Weill. " Foisaemeikle as, respecting the guJe service of Alex- ander Mtllcr, in making and working the abulzements of our awn person, minding to continue him in oure service, as ain maist fit and meit persone. We laitlie recommendit him into zow be oure letter of requiest, desiring you to receive and admit him gratis to the libertie and fredom of the said craft, as a tiling maist requisite for him, having the cair of our awin wark, notwithstanding that he was not prenteis amongis zow, according to your ancient liberties and privi- liges had in the contraie. Willing zow at this our requiest to dispense him thereanent, &c., J.-\MES R." The king's request was no doubt granted, and the Alexander Miller to whom it referred died in 1616, a reputable burgess, whose tomb in the Greyfriars' churchyard was inscribed thus by his heirs : — " Alexandra Millero, Jacobi Mag. Brit. Francia:, &'e., Xegis Sarljri, adfiiiein vita:, priinario, harcdes. F. C. vixil annis 57, oiiit Prituipis et Civium lucta decoralus, Anno 16 1 5. Mail 2." 240 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. When the Company of Merchant Tailors in London requested James to become a member of their guild, he declined, on the plea that he " was already free of another company," and referred to the similar corporation in his native capital, but added that his son Henry, the Prince of Wales, would avail himself of the honour, and that he himself would be present at the ceremony. From " Guthrie's Memoirs " we learn that in 1643 a solemn and important meeting was held in the Tailor's Hall between the conservators of peace with England and commission of the General Assembly. St. Magdalene's Chapel, and the modern Mary's Chapel in Bell's Wynd, form the chief halls of the remaining corporations of Edinburgh that have long survived the purposes for which they were originally incorporated. In August, 1758, there occurred a dreadful fire in Carrubber's Close, on which occasion four tenements containing fifteen families were burned down, and many persons were severely injured. Towards the end of the eighteenth century gen- tility was still lingering here, for in the Edinburgh Advertiser for 1783 we read of the house of Stuart Barclay of CoUairnie — having a drawing-room measuring 19ft. by 14ft. — being for sale; and also that belonging to Neil Campbell of Duntroon, at the foot of the close. At the head of Bailie Fyfe's Close, No. 107, High Street, there stood a stately old stone tene- ment, having carved above one of its upper windows a shield bearing two mullets in chief, with a crescent in base — the arms of Trotter, with the initials I. T. L M., and the date 161 2. Elsewhere there was another shield, having the arms of the Parleys of Yorkshire impaled with those of Hay, ana the legend Be . Pasicnt . in . the . Lord, and to this edifice a peculiar interest is attached. After standing for close on 250 years, it sank suddenly — and without any jircmonitory symptoms or warning — to the ground with a terrible crash at midnight on the loth of November, 1863, burying in its ruins thirty-five persons, and shooting out into the broad street a mighty heap of rubbish. A few of the inmates almost miraculously escaped destruction from the peculiar way in which some of the strong oak beams and fragments of flooring fell over them ; and among those who did so was a lad, whose sculptured efiigy, as a memorial of the event, now decorates a window of the new edifice, with a scroll, whereon are carved the words he was heard uttering piteously to those who were digging out the killed and wounded : " Heave awa, lads, I'm no deid yet !" In Chalmer's Close an old house was connected in a remote way with the famous Lord Francis Jeflrey, whose grandfather dwelt there when in the trade as a barber and peri- wig maker, and the old close is said to have been in his boyhood a favourite haunt of the future judge and critic. In large old English letters the name JOHN HOPE appears cut over the doorway of an adja- cent turnpike stair, with a coat of arms, now com- pletely obliterated, and on the bed-corbel of the crowstepped gable is ano- ther shield, sculptured with a coat armorial and the initials I. H. Moulded mullions and transoms divided the large windows^ a rather uncommon feature in Scottish domestic architecture ; and from the general remains ot decayed magnificence, the naine, initials, and armr, this is supposed — but cannot be absolutely declared — to be the mansion of the founder of the noble family of llopetoun, Jolm de Hope, who came from France in the retinue of Magdaleneof Valois, the first queen of James V., and who, with his Son Edward, had two booths eastward of the old Kirk Style. But the name of Ilojiewas known in Scotland in the days of Alexander HI.; and James HI., in 1488, gave to Tiiomas Hope a grant of some land near Leitli. No. 71 is Sandiland's Close, where tradition, but tradition only, avers there dwelt that learned and munificent prelate, James Kennedy, Bishop of Dunkeld, Lord High Clianccllor, and tlie upright r.MILS CU.M'EI., CARRUBBERS CLOSE, High Street.] BISHOP KENNEDY. 241 counsellor of James II. and James III. The building indicated as having been his residence is a large stone tenement of great antiquity on the east side, having thereon a coat of arms and a mitre, which were removed a few years ago ; and our best antiquary asserts that " the whole appear- ance of the building is perfectly consistent with the supposition " that it had been Bishop Ken- nedy's abode. " The form and decorations of the doorways all prove an early date ; while the large "A large and convenient house, entering by a close mostly paved with flagstones, on the north side of the street near the Nether Bow, consisting of eight rooms, painted last year, or papered, some with Chinese paper ; a marble chimney-piece from the ceiling in one, concaves and slabes (sk) two other of the rooms ; the drawing-room elegantly fitted up, painted, gilded, and carved in the newest style, with light closets to all the bed-rooms and other conveniences to the dining-room and parlour ; HOUSE IN HIGH STREET WITH .ME.MORIAL WINDOW, "HEAVE AWA, LAI'S, iM NO DEID YET and elegant mouldings of the windows, and the massive appearance of the whole building, indicate such magnificence as would well consort with the dignity of the primacy at that early period." Bishop Kennedy, author of a history of his own times, now lost, died in 1466, and was in- terred at St. Andrews. Baron Grant's and Bailie Grant's Closes were among the last alleys on this side, adjoining the Netlier Bow Port. An advertisement in the Edin- burgh Cnurant for 1761, in describing the house of Mr. Grant (who was a Baron of the Exchequer Court) as offered for sale, gives us a pretty accurate idea of what a mansion in the Old Town was in those days : — 31 wine cellar and large kitchen, a coal-fauld, fire-room for servants, and larder ; a hen-house and cribbs, for feeding all sorts of fowls ; a house for a sedan- chair; a rack to contain 10 gross of bottles, all built and slated ; a garden extending down the greatest part of Leith Wynd, planted with flower- ing shrubs, and servitude for a separate entry to it, passing by the gate of Lord Edgefield's house." The garden referred to must have been bounded by the massive portion of the eastern wall of the city, which fell down about twenty years ago ; and the Lord Edgefield, whose neighbour the Baron had been, was Mr. Robert Pringle, who was raised to the Bench in 1754, and, dying ten years after, was succeeded by the well-known Lord Pitfour. 242 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. CHAPTER XXVni. THE HIGH STREET— (f««rf«aca'). 'The Salamander Land " — The Old Fishmarket Close — Heriot's Mansion — The Deemster's House — Borthwick's Close — Lord Durie's Hduse — Old Assembly Rooms— Edinburgh Assemblies, 1720-53— Miss Nicky Murray— Formalities of the Balls- Ladies' Fashions— Assemblies Removed to Kell's Wynd— Blair Street and Hunter's Square — Kennedy's Close— George Buchanan's Death— Niddry's Wynd- Nicol Edwards' House — A Case of Homicide in 1597 — A Quack Doctor —Livingstone's Liberty. of 1573, Moyse tells us the plague was brought, on the 7th of May, 1588, by a servant woman from St. Johnston. Within the Fishmarket Close was the mansion of George Heriot, the royal goldsmith, wherein more recently resided President Dundas, " father of Lord Melville, a thorough bon %'ivant of the old claret- drinking school of lawyers." Here, too, dwelt, we learn from Chambers's " Traditions," the Deemster, a finisher of the law's last sentence, a grim official, who annually drew his fee from the adjacent Royal Bank ; and one of the last of whom, when not officiating at the west end of the Tolbooth or the east end of the Grassmarket, eked out his subsistence by cobbling shoes. Borthwick's Close takes its name from the noble and baronial family of Borthwick of that ilk, whose castle, a few miles south -from the city, is one of the largest and grandest examples of the square tower in Scotland. In the division of the city in October, 15 14, the third quarter is to be — accord- ing to the Burgh records — " frae the Lopelie Stane with the Cowgaitt, till Lord Borthwick's Close," assigned to " Bailie Bansun," with his sergeant Thomas .'Vrnott, and his quartermaster Thomas Fowler. The property on the middle of the east side of the close belonged to one of the Lords Napier of Merchiston, but to which there is no record to show ; and it is not referred to in the minute A\ill of the inventor of logarithms, who died in 16 17. A new school belonging to Heriot's Hospital occupies the ground that intervenes between tliis alley and the old Assembly Close. On that site stood the town mansion of Lord Durie, President of the Court of Session in 1642, the hero of the ballad of "Christie's ^Vill," and according thereto the alleged victim of the I'^arl of Traquair, as given in a very patched' ballad of the Border Minstrelsy, beginning : — " Tr.iquair he h.ts vulden up Cliapclliope, And s,ie h.is lie dooii by the (Sreym.ire's Tail ; lliit he never stinted his light g.illop, Till he spiered for Christies Will." .'Vnd hence for a time the alley bore the name of Lord Durie's Close. On the site of his mansion, till its destruction by the fire of 1824, stood the Old .\ssembly Rooms I\ describing the closes and wynds which diverge from the great central street of the old city on the south we must resume at the point where the great fire of 1824 ceased, a conflagration witnessed by Sir Walter Scott, who says of it :^ " I can conceive no sight more grand or terrible than to see those lofty buildings on fire from top to bottom, vomiting out flames like a volcano from every aperture, and finally crashing down one after another into an abyss of fire, which resembled nothing but hell ; for there were vaults of wine and spirits, which sent up huge jets of flanies wherever they were called into activity by the fall of these massive fragments." " The Salamander Land," an enormous black tenement, so named from its having survived or escaped the fires that raged eastward and westward of it, and named also from that curious propen- sity, which is so peculiarly Scottish, for inventive and appropriate sobriquets, was removed to make way for the Police Chambers and the Courant office, in the latter of which James Hannay, tJie author of " Satire and Satirists " and several other works, and Joseph Robertson, the well- known Scottish antiquary, conducted the editorial duties of that paper, the first editor of which was Daniel Defoe. " We have been told," says Wilson, writing of the old tenement in question, " that this land was said to have been the residence of Daniel Defoe while in Edinburgh ; the tradition, however, is entirely unsupported by other testi- mony." Descending the street on the south, as we have done on the north, we shall peep into each of the picturesque alleys that remain, and recall those which are no more, with all the notables who once dwelt therein, and summon back the years, the men, and the events that liave passed away. Through " the Salamander Land " a spacious archway led into the Old Fishmarket Close, where, ])rcvious to the great fire, an enormous pile of buildings reared their colossal front, with that majestic effect i)roduced now by the back of- the Royal Exchange and of James's Court, and where now the lofty tenements of the new police office stand. To this alley, wherein the cannon shot of Kirk- aldy fell with such dire effect during the great siege High Street] MISS NICKY MURRAY. 243 of Edinburgli, to which the directors of haut ton removed their fashionable reunions about the year 1 720 from the West Bow ; and which in a " sasine " in the charter room of the burgli, dated 1723, is described as being " that big hall, or great room, now known by the name of the Assembly House, being part of that new great stone tenement of land, lately built." There it was that the Honourable Miss Nicky Murray reigned supreme as lady-directress and goddess of flishion, for many years during the middle of the eighteenth century. She was a sister of the Earl of Mansfield, and was a woman possessed of much good sense, firmness, knowledge of the world, and of the characters of those by whom she was surrounded. With her sisters she lived long in one of the tenements at the head of Bailie Fyfe's Close, where she annually received whole broods of fair country cousins, who came to town to receive the finishing touches of a girl's edu- cation, and be introduced to society — the starched and stately society of old Edinburgh. The Assembly Room was in the close to which it gave its name. It had a spacious lobby, lighted by sconces, where the gilded sedans set down their powdered, hooped, and wigged occupants, while links flared, liveried valets jostled, and swords were sometimes drawn ; and where a reduced gentle- man — a claimant to the ancient peerage of Kirk- cudbright — sold gloves, for which he was rather ungenerously sneered at by Oliver Goldsmith. From this lobby the dancing-hall opened at once, and up-stairs was a tea-room. The former had in its centre a railed space, within which were the dancers ; while the spectators, we are told, sat on the outside, and no communication was per- mitted between the different sides of this sacred pale. Here it was that in 1753 Goldsmith first saw, with some astonishment, the formalities of the old Scottish balls. He relates that on entering the dancing-room he saw one end of it taken up by the, ladies, who sat dismally in a group by themselves. "On the other end stand their pensive partners that are to be, but no more intercourse between the sexes than between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle, and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid on any closer commerce." The lady directress occupied a high chair, or species of throne, upon a dais at one end, and thereon sat Miss Nicky Murray in state. Her immediate predecessors there had been Mrs. Browne of Colstoun, and Lady Minto, daughter of Sir Robert Stuart of Allanbank. The whole arrangements were of a rigid character. I with a general tending to the promotion of dulness, there being but one set at a time permitted to occupy the floor ; it was seldom that any one was twice upon it in one night, and often the most beautiful girls in the city passed it, as mere spec- tators, which threw serious duties on the gentlemen in the way of conversation. I The latter usually sorted themselves with one partner for the whole year ! The arrangements were generally made at some prehminary ball or other gathering, when a gentleman's cocked hat was unflapped and the ladies' fans were placed therein, and, as in a species of ballot, the beaux drew forth the latter, and to whomsoever the fan belonged he was to be the partner for the season, a system often productive of absurd combinations and many a petty awkwardness. " Then," as Sir Alexander Boswell wrote — • " The Assembly Close received the fair — Order and elegance presided there — Each gay Right Honourable had her place, To walk a minuet with becoming grace. No racing to the dance, with rival hurry — • Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray ! Each lady's fan a chosen Damon bore, With care selected many a day before ; For, unprovided witli a favourite beau, The nymph, chagrined, the ball must needs forego. But previous matters to her taste arranged, Certes, the constant couple never changed ; Through a long night, to watch fair Delia's will, The same dull swain was at her elbow still." With sword at side, and often hat in hand, the gallants of those days escorted the chairs of their partners home to many a close and wynd now the abode of squalor and sordid poverty ; for much of stately and genuine old-fashioned gallantry pre- vailed, as if it were part of the costume, referred to by the poet : — " Shades of my fathers! in your pasteboard skirts. Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts. Your formal bag-wigs, wide extended cuffs, Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs. Gods ! how ye strut at times in all your state, Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate ! " Those who attended the assemblies belonged exclusively to the upper circle of society that then existed in Edinburgh ; and Miss Murray, on hearing a young lady's name mentioned to her for approval, was wont to ask, " Miss — oi ic/uit ? " und if no territorial or family name followed, she might dismiss the matter by a wave of her fan, for, according to her views, it was necessar)' to be ''a lady o' that ilk;" and it is well known, that " upon one occasion, seeing at an assembly a man who had been raised to wealth in some 244 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (High Street. humble trade, she went up to him, and without the least deference to his fine laced coat, taxed him with presumption in coming there, and turned him out of the room." The hours kept were early in those days, and the shopping, just as people perform these duties before that meal now. Then gentlemen wore the Ramillies wijj or lied hair, small three-cornered hats laced with gold or silver, large skirted, coUarless coats with square Knl.NS IN •IIIK OI.II ASSKMIII.Y CLOSE, AFTER THE (JREAT FIRK, NOV. {Rfiiiici^tl Fac-siinife of a Print of tht Pfriod,) moderate time was never protracted. When the hour of departure came even the most winning young couples would crowd about her throne, petitioning for "one dance more," but the inexorable Miss Nicky vacated her seal, and by a wave of iier fan silenced the musicians and summoned the candle-snuffers. The evening was then the fasliionable lime for receiving company in ICdinburgh, when people were all abroad upon the streets, after dinner calling and cuffs, and square-toed shoes ; and the dresses of the ladies, if quaint, gave them dignity and grace. "How fine it must have been to see, as an old gentle- man told me he had seen," says Dr. Cliambers, "two hooped ladies moving along the Lawnmarket in a summer evening, and filling up the whole foot- way with their stately and voluminous persons ! " Ladies in iMlinburgh then wore the cala.sh, a kind of liood formed of cane covered with silk, High Street.! NIDDRY'S WYND. 245 to protect the powdered head of loftily-dressed hair, when walking or driving, and it could be folded back flat like the hood of a carriage ; they also wore the capuchin or short cloak tippet, reaching to the elbows, usually of silk trimmed with velvet or lace. In walking, they carried the skirt of the long gown over one arm, a necessary precaution in the wynds and closes of 1750, as well as to display the rich petticoat below ; but on entering a room, the full train swept majestically behind them; and their stays were so long, as to touch the chair before and behind when seated. The vast hoops proved a serious inconvenience in the turnpike stairs of the Old Town, when, as ladies had to tilt them up, it was absolutely neces- sary to have a fine show petticoat beneath ; and we are told that such " care was taken of appear- ances, that even the garters were worn fine, being either embroidered, or having gold or silver fringes and tassels. . . . Plaids were worn by ladies to cover their heads and muffle their faces when they went into the street;" and we have already shown how vain were the fulminations of magistrates against the latter fashion. In 1733 the silk stockings worn by ladies and gentlemen were so thick, and so heavily adorned with gold and silver, that they could rarely be washed perhaps more than once. The Scottish ladies used enormous Dutch fans ; and all women high and low wore prodigious busks. Below the Old Assembly Close is one named from the Covenant, that great national document and solemn protest against interference with the religion of a free people having been placed for signature at a period after 1638 in an old mansion long afterwards used as a tavern at the foot of the alley. Lower down we come to Bell's Wynd, 146, High Street, which contained another Assembly Room, for the Edinburgh fashionables, removed thither, in 1758, to a more commodious hall, and there the weekly reunions and other balls were held in the season, until the erection of the new hall in George Street. Blair Street, and Hunter's Square, which was built in 1788, occasioned the removal of more than one old alley that led down southward to the Cowgate, among them were Marlin's and Peebles' Wynds, to which we shall refer when treating of the North and South Bridges. The first tenement of the former at the riglit corner, descending, marks the site of Kennedy's Close, on the first floor of the first turnpike on the left hand, wherein George Buchanan, the historian and poet, died in his 76th year, on the morning of Friday the 28th of September, 1582, and from whence he was borne to his last home in the Greyfriars' churchyard. The last weeks of his life were spent, it is alleged, in the final correction of the proofs of his history, equally remarkable for its pure Latinity and for its partisan spirit. He survived its appearance only a month. When on his death-bed, finding that all the money he had about him was insufficient to defray the expense of his funeral, he ordered his servant to divide it among the poor, adding " that if the city did not choose to bury him they might let him lie where he was." The site of his grave is now unknown, though a " throchstone " would seem to have marked it so lately as 17 10. A skull, believed to be that of Buchanan, is preserved in the Museum of the University, and is so remarkably thin as to be transparent ; but the evidence in favour of the tradition, though not conclusive, does not render its truth improbable. From the Council Records in 1 701, it would seem that Buchanan's grave- stone had sunk into the earth, and had gradually been covered up. In the Edinburgh Magaeine for 1788 we are told that the areas of some of the demolished closes westward of the Tron Church and facing Blair Street, were exposed for sale in April, and that " the first lot immediately west of the new opening sold for ^2,000, and that to the southward for _;^i,5oo, being the upset price of both." Niddry's Street, which opens eastward of the South Bridge, occupies the site of Niddry's Wynd, an ancient thoroughfare, which bore an important part in the history of the city. " It is well known," says Wilson, " that King James VI. was very con- descending in his favours to his loyal citizens of Edinburgh, making no scruple, when the larder of Holyrood grew lean, and the privy purse was exhausted, to give up housekeeping for a time, and honour one or other of the substantial, burghers of his capital with a visit of himself and house- hold ; or when the straitened mansions within the closes of old Edinburgh proved insufficient singly to accommodate the hungry train of courtiers, he would very considerately distribute his favours through the whole length of die close ! " Thus from Moyse's (or Moyses') Memoirs, page 1 82, we learn that when James was troubled by the Earl of Bothwell in January, 1591, and ordered Sir James Sandilands to apprehend him, he, with the Queen and Chancellor (and theirsuite of course), " withdrew themselves within the town of Edin- burgh, and lodged themselves in Nicol Edward's house, in Niddry's Wynd, and the Chancellor in 246 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHigh Street. Ale.xander Clark's house, at the same wyiid head." In after years the lintel of this house was built in to Ross's Tower, at the Dean. It bore this legend : — " The Lord is my Protector, Alex.\ndrus Cl.^rk." Nicol Edward was Provost of Edinburgh in 1591, and his house was a large and substantial building of quadrangular form and elegant proportions. The Chancellor at this time was Sir John Mait- land of Lethington, Lord Thirlestane. iSIoyses ne.xt tells us that on the 7th of February, George E^arl of Huntly (the same fiery peer who fouglit the battle of Glenlivat), " with his friends, to the number of five or six score horse, passed from his Majesty's said house in Edinburgh, as in- tending to pass to a horse-race in Leith ; but after they came, they passed forward to the Queens- ferry, where they caused to stop the passing of all boats over the water," and crossing to Fife, attacked the Castle of Donnibristle, and slew " the bonnie Earl of Murray." P"rom this passage it would seem that if Huntly's sLx score horse were not lodged in Nicol Edward's house, they were probably billeted over all the adjacent wynd, which six years after was the scene of a homicide, that affords a remarkable illustration of the exclusive rule of master over man which then prevailed. On the first day of the sitting of Parliament, the 7th December, 1597, Archibald Jardine, master- stabler and servitor to the Earl of Angus, was slain, through some negligence, by Andrew Stalker, a goldsmith at Niddry's Wynd head, for which he was put in prison. Then the cry of " Armour ! " went through the streets, and all the young men of Edinburgh rose in arms, under James Williamson, their captain, " and desirit grace," as Birrel records, " for the young man who had done anc reckless deed. The King's majesty desirit them to go to my Lord of Angus, the man's master, and satisfy and pacify his wrath, and he should be contentit to save his life." James Williamson thereupon went to the Earl of Angus, and offered, in the name of the young men of the city, " their manreid," or bond of man-rent, to be ready to serve him in war and feud, upon which he pardoned the said Andrew Stalker, who was immediately released from prison. In December, 1665, NicoU mentions that a doctor of physic named Joanna Baptista, acting under a warrant from his Majesty Charles II., erected a stage between the head of Niddry's ^^'ynd and Blackfriars' Wynd, whereon "he vended his drugs, powder, and medicaments, for the whilk he recei\'ed a great abundance of money." In May, 1692, we read that William Livingstone, brother of the Viscount Kilsyth, a cavalier, and husband of the widow of Viscount Dundee, had been a prisoner in the Tolbooth from June, 16S9, to November, 1690 — seventeen months; there- after, that he had lived in a chamber in the city under a guard for a year, and that he was permitted to go forth for a walk daily, but still under the eye of a guard. In consequence of his being thus treated, and his rents being sequestrated by the Revolutionary Government, his fortune was entirely ruined. On his petition, the Privy Council now permitted him " to go abroad under a sentinel each day from morning to evening furth of the house of Andrew Smith, periwig-maker, at the head of Niddry's Wynd," he finding caution under ^1,500 sterling to remain a prisoner. Under an escort of dragoons he was permitted to leave the periwig-maker's, and visit Kilsyth, after which he was confined in two royal castles and tiie Tolbooth till 1693, so that, as a writer remarks, " in the course of the first five years of British; liberty, Mr. Livingstone must have accjuired a tolerably extensive acquaintance with the various forms and modes of imprisonment, so far as these existed in the northern section of the island." CHAPTER XXIX. tup: Uir.n STRKET—(,ront;,imd). Niclflry's Wynd— Provost Edward's House— Lockh.irt's Court— St. M.iry's Cli.ipel —Masonic Lodge Mcetings-Viscountcss Glenorchy— The Story of Lady Grange— St. Cecilia'^ Hall— Its Old fa.shioncd Concerts— The Belles or the Eij;htecnth Century— The Name Niddrj. Or the house of Provost Nicol Edward (or Utl- 1 carved his arms, with nil anagram upon his name ward, to which we have referred) a very elaborate , thus : — description is given in the work entitled " Minor I "Va u'ltn \ol A Christ"— Antiquities." On a mantelpiece witliin it were "Go with one flight to Ciirist," which only can be High Strcel.J ST. MARY'S CHAPEL. 247 made out by Latinising his name into Nicholans EihiHirtus. It occupied the western side of Lock- hart's Court, and was accessible only by a deep archway. In an Act passed in 1581, " Anent the Cuinzie," Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edin- burgh, and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Com- missary for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gil- bert ; and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen, whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but, lest they should produce inferior work at Scottish prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council, '• hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edin- burgh, to be visitor and overseer of the said crafts- men's hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit ther- fore in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; " in virtue of all of which Nicholas was freed from all watch- ing, warding, and all charges and impositions. In that court dwelt, in 1753-1761, George Lock- hart of Carnwath. One of the thirteen rooms in his house contained a mantelpiece of singular magni- ficence, that reached the lofty ceiling ; but the house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of " a profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a secret trap-door, opening through the floor of a small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms extending along the south and west sides of the court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was neither so common nor so safe as now. Provost Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy more" The north side of Lockhart's Court was long occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the celebrated traveller. In Niddry's Wynd, a little below Provost Ed- ward's house on the opposite side, stood St. Mary's Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and Countess of Ross — then widow of John Earl of Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of James III., and died in 1498. Colville of Easter '\\'emys=:, and afterwards Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and patrons of this religious foundation ; and about the year 1600, James Chalmers, a macer before the Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel, and in 16 18 the Corporations of Wrights and Masons, known by the name of the United Incor- porations of Mary's Chapel, purchased this subject, " where they still possess, and where they hold meetings," says Arnot, writing in 1779. In the Caledonian Mercury for 1736 we read that on St. Andrew's Day the masters and wardens of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary's Chapel, and unanimously elected as their grand-master William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of an ancient though reduced family, connected for several generations with Scottish freemasonr)-. For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry's Wynd ; but the masonic lodge of Mary's Chapel still exists, and we believe holds its meetings there. Religious services were last conducted in the new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it. She was zealous in the cause of religion, and con- ceived a plan of having a place of worship in which ministers of every orthodox denomination might preach ; and for this purpose she had St. Mary's Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7 th March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ; but she failed to secure the ministrations of any clergyman of the Established Church, though in 1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a jioet of some eminence in his time, gave his course of lectures on the philosophy of history in the chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for the chair of civil history in the University. On the east side of Niddry's Wynd, nearly oppo- site to Lockhart's Court, was a handsome house, which early in the eighteenth century was inha- bited by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better known by his legal and territorial appellation of Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who led the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfei- ture of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of the last remains of the once great inheritance in the north from which the ancient family took its name. He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he figures prominently in the " Diary " of the indus- trious Wodrow, supplying that writer with many shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled 248 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Stieet. an interesting page in popular literature, and been j the theme of more than one work of fiction. I She was Rachel Chiesley, the daughter of that Chiesley of Dairy who, in a gust of passionate re- sentment, shot down the Lord President Lockhart, : and she inherited from him a temper prompt to ire. She and her husband had been married upwards of dislike, and would live with her no longer ; while he, on the other hand, asserted that he had long been tortured by her " unsubduable rage and mad- ness," and had failed in every eftbrt to soothe or bring her to reason. She was a woman of more than common beauty. Another account has it that in her girlhood Grange had seduced her, and GKORGE BUCHANAN. (/'';w« a Print t/iat belonged to the late David I.aittj;.) twenty years, and had several children, when a separation was determined u])on between them. " Some portion of her father's violent temper appears to have descended to the daughter," says the editor of Lord Grange's Letters, " and aggra- vated by drunkenness, rendered her marriage for many years miserable, and led at last, in the year 1730, to her formal separation from her husband." According to Lady Grange's account there liad been love and peace for twenty years between her and Lord Grange, when he conceived a sudden she compelled him to marry her by threatening to pistol him, and reminding him lliat -she was Chiesley 's daughter. In effecting the separation, he allowed her jCjoo a year so long as she lived peacefully apart from him ; but his frequent journeys to London, and rumours of certain amours there, inllamed her jealousy, and after being for some time in the country, she returned and took a lodging near her husband's house in Niddry's Wynd, as she herself touchingly relates, " that I might have the pleasure to see the liouse he was High Strecl.l ABDUCTION OF LADY GRANGE. 249 in, and to see him and my children when going out ; and I made his relations and my own speak to him, and was always in hopes that God would show him his sin of putting away his wife contrary to the laws of God and man ; and this was no secret, for the President of the Session, and some of the Lords, the Solicitor-General, and some of the advocates and ministers of Edinburgh, know all this to be truth. Wiien I lost all hopes, then I resolved to go to London." Lord Grange's account is somewhat different. She tormented him and the children by reproachful cries from her windows; and he states, that " in his house, at the bottom of Niddry's Wynd, where there is a court, througli which one enters the house, one time among others, when it was full of chairs, chairmen, and footmen, who attended the company that were with himself, or his sister Lady Jane Paterson (wife of Sir Hugh Paterson of Ban- nockburn), then keeping house together, she came into this court, and among that mob shamelessly cried up to the windows injurious reproaches, and would not go away, though intreated, till hearing the late Lord Lovat's voice " she would seem then to have retired. He also asserts that one day she assailed him in church ; on another, she compelled him to take refuge in a tavern, and threatened even to assault him on the Bench. Tradition asserts that Lord Grange was dissi- pated, restless, intriguing, and was concerned in some Jacobite plots subsequently to the battle of Sheritfmuir ; that in revenge his wife threatened to inform the Government ; and there is proof, from one of his own letters, that she had actually taken her seat in one of the occasional stages which then ran between Edinburgh and London, and he bribed her to give her seat to another traveller, after which he would seem to have resolved upon "sequestrating her," as he phrased it ; and in a long letter written by herself, and dated January 26th, 1741, she gives an ample detail of how this was effected. The plot was concerted between Lord Grange and some west Highland chiefs, among whom was the unscrupulous old Lord Lovat. A party of Highlanders, wearing the livery of the latter, made their way into her lodgings in Niddry's ^Vynd on the evening of the 22nd January, 1730, seized her with violence, knocking out some of her teeth, and, tying a cloth over her head, bore her forth, as if she had been a corpse. " I heard voices about me," she relates ; " but being blindfolded I could not discover who they were. They had a [sedan] chair at the stair-foot, which they put me in ; and there was a man in the chair who took me on his knee, and I made all the 32 struggle I could ; but he held me fast in his arms, and hindered me to put my hands to my mouth, which I attempted to do, being tied down. The chair carried me off very fast, and took me without the ports ; and when they had opened the chair and taken the cloth off my head to let me get air, I perceived, it being clear moonlight, that I was a little way from the Multer's Hill,* and the man on whose knee I sat was Alexander Foster, of Carse- bonny, who had there six or seven horses and men with him, who said all these were his servants, though I knew some of them to be my Lord Lovat's servants, who rode along. One of them was called Alexander Frazer, and the other James Frazer, and his groom, whose name I know not." From that night Niddry's Wynd knew her no more. She had two sons grown to manhood at the time she was so mysteriously spirited away; her daughter was married to John Earl of Kintore ; yet none of her relations ever made the slightest stir in the matter, though the Aberdeenshire seat of the Earl was once suggested as a place of resi- dence for her. Leaving the vicinity of Edinburgh by the Lang Gate, a ride of twenty miles brought her, with her captors, to Muiravonside, where she was secured, under guard, in the house of John Macleod, advo- cate ; but a man being posted near her bed, she could neither enter it nor take repose. Next night she was secured farther off, in an old solitary tower, at Wester Polmaise, where for fourteen weeks she was kept in a room, the windows of which w-ere boarded over, access to the garden even being denied her. On the 1 2th of August a Highlander named Alexander Grant suddenly appeared, and an- nounced that she must prepare for the road again ; and by her captors, who gave out that she was insane, she was conveyed by rough and secluded ways, where she could neither ride nor walk, but had to be borne in their arms, sleeping at night in a bothy, till she found herself on the shore of Loch Hourn, an arm of the sea, in the land of Glengarrj'. Then "bitterly did she weep and implore com- passion, but the Highlanders understood not her language, and though they had done so, a departure from the orders which had been given them was not to be expected from men of their character," and she was hurried on board of a ship. There she learned that she was now in the cus- tody of Alexander Macdonald, tacksman of Heiskar, a small island three leagues westward of North Uist, belonging to Sir Alexander Macdonald of • Where now the Register House stands. 2SO OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHiijh SlreM. Sleat, and so named probably from the vast resort and slaughter of seals formerly made on its bleak and desolate rocks. Few or none, we are told, who have not seen the black deep bosom of Loch Hourn, its terrific rampart of mountain turrets, and the long, narrow gulf in which it sleeps in the cradle of its abyss, can conceive its profound and breathless stillness when undisturbed by the wild gusts of the coires, or gales, that sweep through its narrow gorge. It was in such an interval of peace that Lady Grange embarked, and for nine days her vessel lay becalmed. Two miserable years she abode in Heiskar. In June, 1734, a sloop, commanded by a Mac- leod, came to Heiskar to convey the victim of all these strange precautions to the most remote por- tion of the British Isles, St. Kilda, " far amid the melancholy main,'' where she was placed in a cottage composed of two small apartments, with a girl to wait upon her, and where, except for a short time in the case of Roderick Maclennan, a High- land clergyman, there was not a human being who understood the language she spoke. No newspapers, letters, or intelligence, came hither from the world in which she had once dwelt, save once yearly, when a steward came to collect, in kind, birds' feathers and so forth, the rent of the poor islanders. In St. Kilda she spent seven years, and how she spent them will never be known, yet they were not passed without several mad and futile efforts to escape. Meanwhile all Edinburgh knew that she had been forcibly abducted from Niddry's Wynd by order of her husband, but the secret of her where- abouts was sedulously kept from all ; but now the latter had resigned his seat on the bench, and entered political life, as a friend of the Prince of Wales and opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. At length, in the gloomy winter of 1740-1, a communication from Lady Grange for the first time reached those in ICdinburgh, who had begun to wonder and denounce the singular means her Inisband had taken to ensure domestic quiet. It was brought by the minister Maclennan antl his wife Katharine Maclnnon, both of wliom had c|aitted St. Kilda in consequence of a tjuarrel with the steward of Macleod of that ilk. Maclennan was provided with letters for Lady Grange's law-agent, Mr. Hope, of Rankeillor, who made all the neces- sary ])rccognitions, including those of people at Polmaise and elsewhere; after which he made a;)|.lication to the Lord Justice-Clerk for warrants mipowcring a search to be made, and the Laird of Macleod and others to he arrested ; and when Mr. John Macleod, advocate, was citcfl, he declared that he had no authority to appear for Lord Grange, " but repelled the charges against his chief and clansmen, claiming that no warrant should be granted upon the evidence of such scandalous and disreputable persons as Maclennan and his wife;" and Rankeillor was ordered to produce letters of evidence that those shown were actually ^^Titten by Lady Grange, and being found to be in the writing of Maclennan, they were dismissed as insuf- ficient, and warrants were refused. Undeterred by this, Hope, on the 12th of Feb- ruary, fitted out a sloop, commanded by William Gregory, with twenty-fi\e well-armed men, and sent him, with Mr. Maclennan on board, " to search for and rescue Lady Grange wherever she could be found ; " but Macleod, on hearing of the departure of the sloop — which got no farther than Horse Shoe Harbour, in Lorn (where the master quarrelled with his guide, Mrs. Maclennan, and put her ashore) — had Lady Grange removed, and secluded in Assynt, at a farm-house, closely watched. There she became enfeebled in mind and body, the result of violent passions, intoxication, and latterly sea-sick- ness, which produced settled imbecility ; and the unhappy lady thus treated was the wife of a man who, " not to speak of his office of a judge in Scotland, moved in English society of the highest character. He must have been the friend of Lyttelton, Pope, Thomson, and other ornaments of Frederick's Court ; and, as the brother-in-law of the Countess of Mar, who was sister of Lady ]\Iary Wortley Montagu, he would figure in the brilliant circle which surrounded that star of the age of the second George. Yet lie does not appear to have ever felt a moment's compunction at leaving the mother of his children to fret herself to death in a lialf- savage wilderness." In a letter of his, dated Westminster, in June, 1 749, in answer to an intimation of her death, he wrote thus callously : — " I most heartily thank you, my dear friend, for the timely notice you gave me of the death of that person. It would be a ridi- culous untruth to pretend grief for it ; but as it brings to my mind a train of various things for many years back, it gives me concern. ... I long for the particulars of her death, \frhich you are pleased to tell me I am to have by the next post." After her removal to Skye her mind sunk to idiocy; She exhibited a restless desire to ramble, and no motive now remaining for restraint, she was allowed entire freedom, and the poor wan- derer strolled from ])lace to ]ilacc, supported by the hospitality and tenderness which, in the Highlands, have ever given a sacred claim Id the idiot ]»oor. In this state she lingered for seven High Street ] ST. CECILIA'S HAI, years, and in June, 1749, died in a cottar's luimble dwelling at Idragal, seventeen years after her ab- duction on that evening of January from her house in Niddry's Wynd. On the east side of Niddry's Wynd, at the foot thereof, and resting on the Cowgatc, was St. Ceciha's Hall, an oval edifice, having a concave ceiling, and built in 1762 by Robert JMylne, the architect of Blackfriars Bridge (lineal descendant of the royal master-masons) " after the model of the opera at Parma," says Kincaid. The or- chestra was placed over the north end, and therein was placed a fine organ. It was seated for 500 persons. The Musical Society of Edinburgh, whose weekly concerts formed one of the most delightful enter- tainments in the old city, dated back to the other- wise gloomy era of 1728. Yet from "Fountain- hall's Decisions " we learn that so far back as 1 694 an enterprising citizen named Beck " erected a concert of music " somewhere in the city, which involved him in a lawsuit with the Master of the Revels. Even before 1728 several gentlemen, who were performers on the harpsichord and violin, had taken courage, and formed a weekly club at the Cross Ktys tavern, "kept," says Arnot, "by one Steil, a great lover of musick, and a good singer of Scots songs." Steil is mentioned in the Latin lyrics of Dr. Pitcairn, who refers to a suliject of which he was fully master — the old Edinburgh taverns of Queen Anne's time. At Pate Steil's the common entertainment consisted in playing the concertos and sonatas of Corelli, then just published, and the overtures of Handel. A governor, deputy- governor, treasurer, and five directors, were annually chosen to direct the affairs of this society, which consisted of seventy members. They met in St. Mary's Chapel from 1728 till 1762, when this hall was built for them. For some years the celebrated Tenducci, who is mentioned in O'Keefe's " Recollections " in 1766 as a famous singer of Scottish songs, was at the head of the band ; and one great concert was gi\en yearly in honour of St. Cecilia, when Scottish songs were among those chiefly sung. When the Prince of Hesse came over, in 1745, with his 6,000 merce- naries, to fight against the Jacobites, he was speci- ally entertained here by the then governor of the Musical Society, Lord Drummore, Hugh Dalrymple. The prince was not only a dilettante, but a good performer on an enormous violoncello. " Few persons now living," says Dr. Chambers in 1847, " recollect the elegant concerts that were given many years ago in what is now an obscure part of our ancient citv, known bv the name of St. Cecilia's Hall," and still fewer may remember them now. On the death of Lord Drummore, in 1755, '^e society performed a grand concert in honour of his memory, when the numerous company were all dressed in the deepest mourning. In 1763 the concerts began at si.\ in the evening ; in 1783 an hour later. To the concertos of Corelli and Handel in the new hall, were added the overtures of Stamitz, Bach, Abel, and latterly those of Haydn, Pleyel, and the magnificent symphonies of Mozart and Beethoven. The vocal department of these old concerts consisted of the songs of Handel, Arne, Gluck, and Guglielmi, with a great infusion of Scottish songs, for as yet the fashionables of Edin- burgh were too national to ignore their own stirring music, and among the amateurs who took the lead as choristers were the wealthy Gilbert Innes of Stow, Mr. Alexander Wight, advocate, Mr. John Russell, W.S., and the Earl of Kellie, who on one occasion acted as leader of the band when per- forming one of six overtures of his own composi- tion ; and though last, not least, Mr. George Thomson, the well-known editor of the " Melodies of Scotland." A supper to the directors and their friends at Fortune's tavern always followed an oratorio, where the names of the chief beauties who had graced the hall were toasted in bumpers froiii glasses of vast length, for exuberant loyalty to beauty was a leading feature in the convivial meetings of those days. " Let me call to mind a few of those whose lovely faces at the concerts gave us the sweetest zest for music," wrote George Thomson, who died in 1851, in his ninety-fourth year: — "Miss Cleg- horn of Edinburgh, still living in single blessedness ; Miss Chalmers of Pittencrief, who married Sir William Miller of Glenlee, Bart. ; Miss Jessie Chalmers of Edinburgh, who married Mr. .Pringle of Haining ; Miss Hay of Hayston, who married Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, Bart. ; Miss Murray of Lintrose, who was called the FLncer of Strathmore, and upon whom Burns wrote the song, ' Blythe, blytlie, and merry was she, Blythe was she but and ben ; Blythe by the banks of Earn, And blythe in Glenturitgleo.' She married David Smith, Esq., of Methven, one of the Lords of Session ; Miss Jardine of Edinburgh, who married Home Drummond of Blairdrummond, their daughter, if I mistake not, is now Duchess of Athole ; Miss Kinloch of Gil- merton, who m.arried Sir Foster Cunliffe of Acton 252 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hish Street. Bart. ; Miss Lucy Johnston of East Lothian, who married Mr. Oswald of Auchincruive ; Miss Halket of Pitfirran, who became the wife of the celebrated Count Lally-ToUendal ; and Jane, Duchess of Gordon, celebrated for her wit and spirit as well as her beauty. These, with Miss wynd into a street, there was swept away Dalgleish's Close, which is referred to in the " Diurnal of Occurrents " in 1572, and which occupied the site of the present east side of Niddry Street. From whom this old thoroughfare took its name we know not : but it is an old one in ST. CECILIA S HALL. Burnet and Miss Home, and many others whose names I do not distinctly recollect, were in- disputably worthy of all the honours conferred upon them." These and other Edinburgh belles of the i)ast all shed the light of their beauty on the old hall in Niddry's Wynd, now devoted to scholastic uses. We first hear of a " Teacher of En<^lish " in i 750, when a Mr. Philp opened an educational establish- ment in the wynd in that year. In widening the Lothian, and, with various adjuncts, designates several places near the city. In the charters of David II. Henry Niddry is mentioned in con- nection with Niddry-Marshal, ana~,i'iiii:ly7aiiicsPiuiiiiN0iul,R.S.A^ Wilson wrote this in 1847, thirty years before the old Scottish Mint was doomed to total destruction. In the reign of Charles II. other buildings were added to the edifice of 1574, forming a stately quadrangle, and there the national coin was pro- duced till the Union, when a separate coinage was abandoned in both countries ; but to gratify prejudice, and the hope that many clung to, of having the Union repealed, the offices were main- tained even though they were sinecures. This court, with its buildings, w\as, like the royal mews at the end of the Grassmarket— a sanctuary for persons prosecuted for debt ; and a small den near the top of the building 01 1574, lighted by a little window looking westward u]) the Cowgatc, was used as a gaol for debtors and other delinquents, condemned by the officers of the .Mint. ised as St. Gilbert), is credited with the discovery of gold in Sutherlandshire ; but it was not until the 15th century that gold-mining in Scotland became of sufficient importance to warrant its regulation by the Legislature. Thus, in 1424, Par- liament granted to the Crown all the gold mines in the realm, and also all the silver mines, that yielded three halfpennies of silver to the i)ound of lead. The disaster at Flodden prevented immediate advantage being taken of the gold mines discovered on Crawford Muir in the reign of James IV. ; but in 1524 the famous .Mbany medal was made from gold obtained there ; and it is apparent that much of the coin of James V. was minted of native metal. ;\liners were brought from Germany, Holland, and Lorraine, and they woiketl under the care of John Mossman, goldsmith, who made a High Street.) SCOTTISH COINAGE. 269 crown for Mary of Guise, and inclosed with arches the present crown of Scotland. The early gold coins of Mary's reign were of native ore, and, during the minority of James VI., Cornelius de Vos, a Dutchman, who had licence to seek for gold and silver, obtained considerable (juantities, according to the records relating to mines and mining in Scotland, i)ublished by Mr. Cochran-Patrick. The oldest gold coin found in Scotland bears under pain of death. The coins current in Scot- land in the reign of James III. were named the demi, the lion, the groat of the crown, the groat of the fleur-de-lis, the penny, farthing, and plack. English coins were also current, but their value was regulated by the estates. From "Miscelleanea Scotica " we learn that in 1 5 1 2 Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston found gold in the Pentland Hills, and from the Balcarres MSS. (in the Advo- cates' Library) he and his son figure conspicuously RELICS OF THE OLD SCOTTISH MINT. , Delicate Set of Balances . 2. Dies : ^, Punch ; 4, Implements for Knarling the Coins : 5, Large Tirling-pin of the Great Door ; 6, Roller for Flattening the Silver; 7, Key of the Mint Door. {Fratn Originals noi» in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum^ the name of Robert, but which of the three monarchs so called is uncertain. Gold was not coined in England till 1257. The first gold coins struck in Scotland were of a broad surface and very thin. There is some doubt about when copper coinage was introduced, but in 1466, during the reign of James III., an Act was passed to the effect that, for the benefit of the poor, " there be cuinyied copper money, four to the (silver) penny, having on the one part the cross of St. Andrew and the crown, and on the other part the subscription of Edin- burgh," together with J.\mes R. The same monarch issued a silver coin contain- ing an alloy of copper, which went under the name of black money, and to ensure the circulation of this depreciated coin the parliament ordained that no counterfeits of it be taken in payment, or used, in connection with the Mint, of which the latter was general for some years after 1592. In 1572 the Regent Morton coined base money in his castle at Dalkeith, and by proclamation made it pass current for thrice its real value ; and having got rid of it all in 1575, by paying workmen in the repair of Edinburgh Castle and other public places, he issued a council order reducing it to its intrinsic value, an act of oppression which won him the hatred of the people. In the reign of James VI., all the silver coin, extending to two hundred and eleven stone ten pounds in weight, was called in, and a coin was issued from the Mint in Gray's Close, " in ten shilling pieces of eleven pennies fine," having on one side his effigy with the in- scription, Jacobus V/., Da Gratia Rex Scotorum, on the other the royal arms, crowned. In his reign 270 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. were also struck some very small copper coins called pennies, worth one-twelfth of the sterling penny, inscribed. Nemo me impuiic lacessit ; but in those days the manufacture of coins was not con- fined to the capital alone. Balfour records that, in 1604, "the Laird of Merchiston, General of the Cunyie House, went to London to treat with the English Commissioners anent the (new) cunyie, who, to the great amaze- ment of the English, carried his business with a great deal of dexterity and skill." In the closing days of the Mint as an active establislnnent, the coining-house was in the ground floor of the building on the north side of the court ; in the adjoining house on the east the coinage was polished and fitted for circulation. The chief instruments used were a hammer and steel dies, upon which the various devices were engraved. The metal being previously prepared of the proper fineness and thickness, was cut into longitudinal slips, and a square piece being cut from the slip, it was afterwards rounded and adjusted to the weight of the coin to be made. The blank pieces of metal were then placed between two dies, and the upper one struck with a hammer. After the Restoration another method was introduced at Gray's Close — that of the mill and screw, which, modified with many improve- ments, is still in use. At the Union, the ceremony of destroying the dies of the Scottish coinage took place in the Mint. After being heated red hot in a furnace, they were defaced by three impressions of a punch, " which were of course visible on the dies as long as they existed ; but it must be re- corded that all these implements, which would now have been great curiosities, are lost, and none of the machinery remains but the press, which, weigh- ing about half a ton, was rather too large to be readily appropriated, otherwise it woiikl have followed the rest." The .Scottish currency was, when abolished in 1707, of only one-twelfth the value sterling, and ^£■100 Scots equalled ^8 6s. y permission of Messrs. A. and C. BLuk.) worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active career, he retired from public life. When visiting his native capital for the last time, after an absence of nearly fifty years, with an emotion which did him honour, he caused himself to be carried in a sedan chair to Elphinstone Court, in that now obscure part of the city, that he might again see the house in which his father dwelt, and where his own early years as a boy and as a barrister had been spent. He expressed particular anxiety to know if a set of holes in the paved court before his father's door, which he had used for some youth- ful sport were still in existence; and finding them still there intact, it. is related that as all the past came upon him, the veteran statesman burst into tears. 35 and was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral at Lon- don. Shortly after the death of his father, Lord Chesterhall, which occurred in 1756, he sold the old mansion in Elphinstone Court to John Camp- bell, a senator under the title of Lord Stonefield, who succeeded Lord Gardenstone as a justiciary judge, and who retained his seat upon the bench till his death in June, 1801. It is somewhat re- markable that his two immediate predecessors occupied the same seat for a period of ninety years ; Lord Royston having been appointed a judge in 1710, and Lord Tinwald in 1744. By his wife, Lady Grace Stuart, daughter of John third Earl of Bute, he had several sons, all of whom pre-deceased him. The second of these was tlie 274 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. gallant Lieutenant-Colonel John Campbell, of the Black Watch, whose memorable defence of Man- galore from May, 1783, to January, 1784, arrested the terrible career of Tippoo Sahib, and shed a glory o\er the British campaign in Mysore. The colonel died of exhaustion at Bombay soon after. Upon leaving Elphinstone Court, his father re- sided latterly in George Square, where he died in June, 1801. Midway up South Gray's Close, a tall turreted mansion, with a tolerably good garden long attached to it, and having an entrance from Hyndford's Close, was the town residence of the Earls of Selkirk — there, at least in 1742, resided Dunbar, fourth Earl (eldest son of Basil Hamilton, of Baldoon), who resumed the name of Douglas on his succeed- ing to the honours of Selkirk. He married a grand-daughter of Thomas, Earl of Haddington, and had ten children, one of whom, Lord Daer, on attaining manhood, became, at the commencement of the French Revolution, an adherent of that movement and a " Friend of the People ;" and deeming the article of the Union with England, on which was founded the exclusion of the eldest sons of Scottish peers from representing their native country in Parliament, and from voting at elec- tions there, injurious, insulting, and incorrectly interpreted, he determined to try the question; but decisions were given against him in the Court of Session and House of Lords. He pre-deceased his father, who died in 1799. The next occupant of that old house was Dr. Daniel Rutherford, professor of botany, and said to be the first discoverer or inventor of gas. For his thesis, on taking his degree of M.D. at the University of Edinburgh in 1772, he chose a chemical subject, De Acre Afep/ii/ico, which, from the originality of its views, obtained the highest encomiums from Dr. Black. In this dissertation he demonstrated, though without explaining its jiro- perties, " the existence of a peculiar air, or new gaseous fluid, to which some eminent modem philosophers have given the name of azote, and others of nitrogen." That Dr. Rutherford first discovered this gas is now generally admitted ; and, as Bower remarks in his " History of the University of Edinburgh," the reputation of his discovery being speedily spread through Europe, his character as a chemist of the first eminence was firmly established. He died suddenly on the 15th of December, 181 9, in his seventy-first year, and it was somewhat re- markable that one of his sisters died two days after him, on the 17th, and another, the excellent mother of Sir Walter Scott, within seven days of the latter, viz., on the 24th of the same month, and that none of the three knew of the death of the other, so cumbrous were the postal arrangements of those days. "Sir Walter Scott, who," says Robert Cham- bers, " being a nephew of that gentleman, was often in the house in his young days, communicated to me a curious circumstance connected with it. It appears that the house immediately adjacent was not furnished with a stair wide enough to allow ot a coffin being carried down in decent fashion. It had, therefore, what the Scottish law calls a servi- tude upon Dr. Rutherford's house, conferring the jierpetual liberty of bringing the deceased inmates through a passage into that house, and down its stair into the lane," thus affording another curious example of how confined and narrow \\ere the abodes of the ancient citizens. It was latterly the priest's house of St. Patrick's Roman Catholic church, and was beautifully restored by the late Dr. Marshall, but is now demolished. In Edgar's map of Edinburgh in 1765 the whole space between the Earl of Selkirk's house on the west and St. Mary's Wynd on the east, and between the Marquis of Tweeddale's house on the north, nearly to the Cowgate Port on the south, is shown as a fine open space, pleasantly planted with rows of trees and shrubbery. CHAPTER XXXIII. ALLEV.S OF THE HIGH STREET— (ro«<-/H(/.v/). Hic Ilwiy; of tlic Earls of Hyndford— The Three Romps of Monreiih— Anne, Countess of Balcarris— South Foulis' Close— The " End- niylics Well ■— Foimt.-iin Close— The House of R:iilic Fullcrtou— Purch.iscof Property for the Roy.il College of Physicians— New Episcopal Chapcl-Twcoldnle Close— The Houfce of the M.ir.|uis of Twecdd.ilc- Kisc of llic IJriiish Linen Company— The Mysterious Murder of licgbie— The World's End Close— The Slanficid Tr.iKcdy— Tilled Rcsidenters in Old Town Closes, '■ not without its The mansion of the Earls of Hyndford immedi- ately adjoined tliat of the Earls of Selkirk, and the two edifices were thrown into one to form a Catholic chapel house, but the former gave its name to Hyndford's Close. "This was a Scottish jictr- age," says Robert Chambers, glories — witness particularly the thirtl earl, who acted as ambassador in succession to Prussia, to Russia, and to Vienna. It is now extinct ; its bijouterie, its pictures, including ]iortraits of Maria High Street.) THE MAXWELLS OF MONREITH. 275 Theresa, and other royal and imperial personages, which had been presented as friendly memorials to the ambassador, have all been dispersed by the salesman's hammer, and Hyndford's Close, on my trying to got into it lately in 1868, was inaccessible ■(literally) from filth." Another writer, in 1856, says in his report to the magistrates, " that, with proper drainage, causeway, and cleanliness, it might be made quite respectable." Prior to the Carmichaels of Hyndford it had 'been, for a time, the residence of the Earls of Stirling, the first of whom ruined himself in the colonisation of Nova Scotia, for which place he set sail with fourteen ships filled with emigrants and cattle in 1630. Here then, in this now humble but once most picturesque locality — for the house was singularly so, with its overhanging timber gables, its small' court and garden sloping to the south — lived John third Earl of Hyndford, the living representative of a long line of warlike ancestors, including Sir John Carmichael of that ilk, who broke a spear with the Duke of Clarence at the battle of Bauge-en-Anjou, when the Scots routed the English, the Duke was slain, and Car- michael had added to his paternal arms a dc.xter hand and arm, holding a broken spear. In 1732 he was Lieutenant-Colonel of a com- pany in the Scots Foot Guards, and was twice Commissioner to the General Assembly before 1740, and was Lord of Police in Scotland. In the following year, when Frederick the Great invaded Silesia, he was sent as plenipotentiary extraordi- nary to adjust the differences that occasioned the war, and at the conclusion of the Treaty of Breslau had the Order of the Thistle conferred upon him by George II., receiving at the same time a grant from Frederick, dated at Berlin, 30th September, 1742, for adding the eagle of Silesia to his paternal .arms of Hyndford, with the motto £x bene merito. He was si.\ years an ambassador at the Russian ■Court, and it wasbyhis able negociations that 30,000 Muscovite troops contributed to accelerate the peace which was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. These stirring events over, the year 1752 saw him leave his old abode in that narrow close off the High Street, to undertake a mission of the greatest importance to the Court of Vienna. On the death of Andrew Earl of Hyndford and Vis- count Inglisberry, in 1817, the tide became ex- tinct, but is claimed by a baronet of the name of Carmichael. Tlie entry and stair on the west side of Hynd- ford's Close was always a favourite residence, in •consequence of the ready access to it from the ■High Street. In the beginning of the reign of George III. here lived Lady Maxwell of Monreith, nee Magdalene Blair of that ilk, and there she educated and reared her three beautiful daughters — Catharine, Jane, and Eglantine (or Eglintoun, so named after the stately Countess Susanna who lived in the Old Stamp Office Close), the first of whom became the wife of Fordyce of Aytoune, the second in 1767, Duchess of Gordon, and the third. Lady Wallace of Craigie. Their house had a dark passage, and in going to the dining-room the kitchen door was passed, according to an architectural custom, common in old Scottish and French houses ; and such was the thrift and so cramped the accommodation in those times, that in this passage the laces and fineries of the three young beauties were hung to dry, while coarser garments were dis- played from a window pole, in the fashion common to this day in the same localities for the convenience of the poor. " So easy and familiar were the manners of the great, fabled to be so stiff and decorous," says the author of " Traditions of Edinburgh," who must vouch for the story, " that Miss Eglantine, afterwards Lady Wallace, used to be sent across the street to the Fountain \^^ell for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell's daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An old gentleman who was their relation, told me that the first time he saw these beautiful guls was in the High Street, where Miss Jane, afterwards Duchess of Gordon, was riding upon a sow, which Miss Eglantine thumped lustily behind with a stick. It must be understood that in the middle of the eighteenth century vagrant swine went as commonly about the streets of Edinburgh as dogs do in our own day, and were more generally fol- lowed as pets by the children of the last generation. It may, however, be remarked, that the sows upon which the Duchess of Gordon and her witty sister rode when children, were not the common vagrants of the High Street, but belonged to Peter Ramsay, of the inn in St. Mary's \\'ynd, and were among the last that were permitted to roam abroad. The romps used to watch the animals as the)' were let loose in the forenoon in the stable yard (where tliey lived among the horse litter) and got upon their backs the moment they issued from the close." Their eldest brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Max- well, of the 74th Highlanders, commanded the grenadier companies of the army under Cornwallis in the war against Tippoo, and died in India in 1800. In the same stair with Lady Maxwell li\-ed Anne Dalrymple, Countess of James fi*'th Earl of Bal- 276 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. Carres, who died in 1768, a lady who is said to have been the progenitrix of as many persons as ever any woman was in the same space of time, for Sir Bernard Burke records her as having eight children and fifteen grandchildren. Her eldest daughter, Anne — and of all her family almost the only, one remembered now — was the authoress of the sweet ballad of Auld Robin Gray, written to the ancient Scottish air called "The bridegroom greets when the sun gaes doon." She was born on the Sth of Decem- ber, 1750, and was married to Sir Andrew Barnard, Colonial Secretary at the Cape of Good Hope, and she died at Berkeley Square, London, in 1825, after surviving her husband eighteen years. The whole his- tory of the ballad, and lier authorship tliereof, are too well known to require repetition here ; but the first verse, as she wTote it, is in- variablyomittcd now: — "When the slice]) are in the faiild, and the kye a' at hame, When a' (he weaiy world to sleep are gane, The waes o' my heart fa' in showers from my ee' While my gudeman lies sound by me. " of towers on hills and haughs than the degradation of an Edinburgh close ; but I cannot help thinking on the simple and cosie retreats where worth and talent, and elegance to boot, were often nestled, and which now are the resort of misery, filth, poverty, and vice." The little tea-parties of Lady Balcarres, who was a daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castleton, were always famous for the strong infusion of Jaco- bite spirit that pervaded them, attainted peers and baronets being always spoken of, or an- nounced, with their old Scottish rank and titles in defiance of all acts of attainder, though she lived to see the ninth year of the reign of George II L The next alley, called South Foulis' Close, is named Fowler's in Edgar's map of the city, and some portion of this alley must have escaped the conflagra- tion of 1544, as Wilson refers to a large man- sion " that bears the date 1539 over its main doorway, with two coats of arms im- paled on one large shield in the centre, hut all now greatly de- faced. Another nearly opposite to it exhibits THE KARL or SELKIRK'S iioi'sF., iivnmh-okd's CLOSE {IVcsi viaf). an old oak door, orna- (From an Engraving in Sir- IValUr Scotfs " Rtdnauntht" mCUted witll fine CarV- Dr. D.micl Ruther- ford was, of course, a close nciglibour of the Countess of Balcarres, and from Lord Lindesay's " Lives of the Lindesays " we learn tliat his nephew, Walter Scott, when a boy, occasionally accompanied his aunt on visits to the Countess of Balcarres, and some forty years after, when having occasion to correspond with Lady Anne, he wrote : " I remember the locale of Hynd- ford's Close perfectly, even to the Indian screen with harletiuin and columbine, and the harpsi- chord, though I never had the ])leasure of hearing Lady Anne play upon it. I suppose the close, once too clean to soil the hem of your ladysliip's garment, is now a resort for the lowest mechanics — and so wears the world away. ... It is, to be sure, more picturesque to lament the desolation by permission of Messrs, A. and C. Black.) ing, Still in tolerable preservation, although the whole place has been (1847) converted into store-rooms and cellars." As in many other in- stances, not even a tiadition or a memory of the names even of the great or noble who dwelt here has come down to us. The close nunbered as 90 in Edgar's old map is called the Fountain, it is supposed from the cir- cumstance of its entrance being ojiposite the stone conduit in the recess near John Knox's house. A fountain named " the Endmylie's Well," frequently occurs in old historical works connected with the city, or ofiices therein, but whether it is the same cannot be determined now. William Powrie, one of Bothwell's accomplices in the murder of Darnley, High Street. 1 BAILIE FULLERTON. 277 says, after they heard the explosion at the Kirk-of- field, " thai past away togidder out at the Frier Yet, and sinderit when thai came to the Cowgate, pairt up the BlacktViar Wynd and pairt up the cloiss which is under the Endmyhe's Well." On the east side of the Close, and opposite to the house of Bassandyne the printer^ one with a hideous in the eyes of the reformers, " playing a Robin Hood," as we have related in our account of the Tolbooth, and would have hanged him there- for, had not the armed trades made themselves fairly masters of the city. In January, 1571, he sat as Commissioner for the City in the General Assembly which met at TWEEDiiAi.i: mil >i-;. highly ornamented double doorway, was themansion of .-Xdam Fullerton, a man of great note in his time, and an active coadjutor of the early reformers. The northern door lintel had the legend — V ill Vera Cit. ONLY. BE. CRYST — ADAM FVLLERTON. Tas. and the southern — ARIS . O . LORD — MAIRIORIE . ROGER . I573. He was one of the Bailies of Edinburgh in 1561, who, with the Provost, committed to ward the craftsman who had been guilty of that enormity so Leith, and in the summer of the same year he was made captain of two hundred armed citizens, who formed themselves into a band or company, and joined the forces of the Regent in that seaport, for which he was denounced as a traitor to his Queen ; and by an act of the Estates, sitting in the Tolbooth, and presided over on the iSth of August by the Duke of Chatelherault, many rebels to the Queen, "formost among whom is Adam Fullerton," were declared to have forfeited their lives, lands, goods, and coats of arms. His house in the Fountain 278 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHigh Street. Close was seized, and a battery erected on the summit thereof to assail the King's men. In the "Historie of James Sext " we are told that the Regent Earl of Mar brought nine pieces of ordnance up the Canongate to assail the Netherbow Port, but changed their position " to a fauxbourg of the town, callit Pleasands, " from whence to batter the Flodden wall and to oppose a platform of guns erected on the house of Adam Fullerton. When this sharp but brief civil disorder ended, Adam returned to his strong mansion in the Foun- tain Close once more, and on the 4th of December, 1572, he and Mr. John Paterson appear together as Commissaries for the city of Edinburgh, and the supposition is, that the date, 1573, referred to repairs upon the house, after what it had suffered from the cannon of Mar. Thus, says Wilson, " the viiicit Veritas of the brave old burgher acquires a new force, when we consider the circumstances that dictated its inscription, and the desperate struggle in which he had borne a leading part, before he returned to carve these pious aphorisms over the threshold that had so recently been held by his enemies." With a view to enlarging the library of the College of Physicians, in 1704, that body pur- chased from Sir James Mackenzie his house and ground at the foot of the Fountain Close. The price paid was 3,500 merks (;^i94 8s. lod.). To this, in seven years afterwards, was added an adjoining property, which connected it with the Cowgate, " then a genteel and busy thoroughfare," and for which 2,300 merks (^^127 15s. 6d.) were given. From Edgar's map it appears that the premises thus acquired by the College of Phy- sicians were more extensive than those occupied by any individual or any other public body in the city. The ground was laid out in gardens and shrubbery, and was an object of great ad- miration and envy to the nobility and gentry, to several of whom the privilege of using the pleasure grounds was accorded as a favour. Consider- ing the locality now, how strangely does all tliis read ! Tlie whole of the buildings must have been in a dilapidated, if not ruinous state, for expensive repairs were found to be necessary on first taking po.ssession, and the same head of expenditure constantly recurs in accounts of tlie treasurer of the College ; and so early as 1711a design was proposed for the erection of a new hall at the foot of the Fountain Close ; and after nine years' delay, 2,900 merks were borrowed, and a new building erected, but it was sold in 1720 for J[fiQO, as a site for tlic new Episcopal Chapel. Till the erection of St. Paul's in York Place, the Fountain Close formed the only direct communi- cation to this the largest and most fashionable Episcopal church in P^dinburgh, that which was built near the Cowgate Port in 177 1. Tweeddale's Close, the next alley on the east, was the scene of a terrible crime, the memory of which, though enacted so long ago as 1806, is still fresh in the city. The stately house which gave its name to the Close, and was the town residence of the Marquises of Tweeddale, still remains, though the " plantation of lime-trees behind it," mentioned by Defoe in his " Tour," and shown in seven great rows on Edgar's map, is a thing of the past. Even after the general desertion of Edinburgh by the Scottish noblesse at the Union, this fine old mansion (which, notwithstanding great changes, still retains traces of magnificence) was for a time the constant residence of the Tweeddale family. It was first built and occupied by Dame IMargaret Kerr Lady Yester, daughter of Mark first Earl of Lothian. Siie was born in 1572, and was wife of James the seventh Lord Yester, in whose family there occurred a singular event. His page, Hep- burn, accused his Master of the Horse of a design to poison him ; the latter denied it ; the affair was brought before the Council, who agreed that it should be determined by single combat, in 1595, and this is supposed to have been the last of such judicial trials by battle in Scotland. By Lady Yester, who founded the church that still bears her name in the city, the mansion, with all its furniture, was bestowed upon her grandson, John second Earl of Tweeddale (and ninth Lord Yester), who joined Charles I. when he unfurled his standard at Nottingham in 1642. Six years subsequently, wlien a Scottish army under the Duke of Hamilton, was raised, to rescue Charles from tlie English, the Earl, then Lord Yester, com- manded the East Lothian regiment of 1,200 men. After the execution of Charles I. he continued with the regal party in Scotland, assisted at the coronation of Charles II., and against Cromwell he defended his castle of Neidpath longer than any place south of the Forth, except Borthwick. ^Vith all this loyalty to liis native princes, he came early into tlic Revolution movement, and in 1692 was created, by William III., Marquis of Tweed- dale, with the office of Lord Higli Chancellor of Scotland, and died five years afterwards. Tlie next occupant of the house, John, second Mar(juis, received ;^i,ooo for his vote at the Union, and was one of tlie first set of sixteen representative peers. 'I'he last of the family who High Street.) THK BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279 resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was Secretary of State for Scotland from 1742 till 1745, when he resigned the oftite, on which the Govern- ment at once availed themselves of the opportunity for leaving it vacant, as it has remained ever since. He died in 1762, and soon after the carriage- entrance and the fine old terraced garden of the house, which lay on the slope westward, were removed to make way for the Episcopal church in the Cowgate — doomed in turn to be forsaken by its founders, and even by their successors. From the Tweeddale flimily the mansion passed into the hands of the British Linen Company, and became their banking house, until they deserted it for Moray House in the Canongate, from which they ultimately migrated to a statelier edifice in St. Andrew Square. This company was originally incorpo- rated by a charter under the Privy Seal granted by George H. on the 6th of July, 1746, at a time when the mind of the Scottish people was still agitated by the events of the preceding year and the result of the battle of Culloden ; and it was deemed an object of the first importance to tran- quillise the country and call forth its resources, so that the attention of the nation should be directed to the advantages of trade and manufacture. With this view the Ciovernment, as well as many gentle- men of rank and fortune, exerted themselves to promote the linen manufacture, which had been lately introduced, deeming that it would in time become the staple manufacture of Scotland, and provide ample employment for her people, while extensive markets for the produce of their labour would be found alike at home and in the colonies, then chiefly supplied by the linens of Germany. By the Dukes of Queensberry and Argyle, who became the first governors of the British Linen Company, representations to this effect were made to Government, and by the Earls of Glencairn, Eg- linton, Galloway, Panmure, and many other peers, together with the Lord Justice Clerk Fletcher of Saltoun, afterwards Lord Milton, who was the first deputy governor, and whose mother, when an exile in Holland during the troubles, had secretly ob- tained a knowledge of the art of weaving and of dressing the fine linen known as " Holland," and introduced its manufacture at the village of Saltoun ; by the Lord Justice Clerk Alva ; Provost George Drummond : John Coutts, founder of the famous banking houses of Forbes and Co., and Coutts and Co. in the Strand ; by Henry Home, Lord Kames ; and many others, all of whom urged the establishment of the company, under royal sanction, and offered to become subscribers to the under- taking. A charter was obtained in accordance with their views and wishes, establishing the British Linen Company as a corporation, and bestowing upon it ample privileges, not only to manufacture and deal in linen fabrics, but also to do all that might conduce to the promotion thereof; and authority was given to raise a capital of ^^100,000, to be enlarged by future warrants under the sign manual of his Majesty, his heirs and suc- cessors, to such sums as the affairs of the company might "require. After this the company engaged to a considerable extent in the importation of flax and the manufacture of yarns and linens, having ware- houses both in Edinburgh and London, and in its affairs none took a more active part than Lord Alilton, who was an enthusiast in all that related to the improvement of trade, agriculture, and learning, in his native country ; but it soon became apparent that the company " would be of more utility, and better promote the objects of their institution, by enlarging the issue of their notes to traders, than being traders and manufacturers themselves." By degrees, therefore, the company withdrew from all manufacturing operations and speculations, and finally closed them in 1763, from which year to the present time their business has been con- fined to the discount of bills, advances on accounts, and other bank transactions, in support of Scottish trade generally, at home and abroad. " By the extension of their branch agencies to a great number of towns," to quote their own historical report, " and the employment in discounts and cash advances of their own funds, as well as of that portion of the formerly scanty and inactive money capital of Scot- land which has been lodged with the company, they have been the means of contributing very materially to the encouragement of useful industry throughout Scotland, and to her rapid progress in agricultural and mechanical improvements, and in commercial intercourse with foreign countries. As regards the particular object of the institution of the company — the encouragement of the linen manufacture — con- siderably more than half of the flax and hemp imported into the United Kingdom, is now (in 1878) brought to the Scottish ports." Now the bank has nearly eighty branch or sub- branch offices over all Scotland alone. The com- pany's original capital of ^100,000 has been gradually increased under three additional charters, granted at different times, under the Great Seal. By Queen Victoria, their fourth charter, dated 19th March, 1849, ratifies and confirms all their privi- leges and rights, and power was given to augment their capital to any sum not exceeding;^ 1,5 00, 000 in all, for banking purposes. The amount of new 2 So OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. capital already created under the last charter is ;^5oo,ooo stock, making the existing capital _;£■ 1,000,000, and there still remains unexhausted the privilege to create ^^500,000 more stock whenever it shall appear to be expedient to com- plete the capital to the full amount conceded in the charter — a success that the early projectors of the first scheme, developed in Tweeddale's Close, could little have anticipated. The British Linen Company for a long series of years has enjoyed the full corporate and other privileges of the old chartered banks of Scot- land ; and in this capacity, along with the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland, alone is specially exempted in the Bank Regulation Act for Scotland, from making returns of the proprietors' names to the Stamp Office. In the sixth year of the 19th century Tweeddale House became* the scene of a dark event " which ranks among the gossips of the Scottish capital with the Icon Basilike, or the Man with the Iron Mask." About five in the evening of the 1 3th of Novem- ber, 1 806, or an hour after sunset, a little girl whose family lived in the close, was sent by her mother with a kettle to get water for tea from the Fountain Well, and stumbling in the dark archway over something, found it to be, to her dismay, the body of a man just expiring. On an alarm being raised, the victim proved to be William Begbie, the messenger of the British Linen Company Bank, a residenter in the town of Leith, where that bank was the first to establish a branch, in a house close to the upper drawbridge. On lights being brought, a knife was found in his heart, thrust up to the haft, so he bled to death without the power of uttering a word of explanation. Though a sentinel of the Ciuard was always on duty close by, yet he saw nothing of the event. It was found that he had been robbed of a package of notes, amounting in value to more than four thousand pounds, which he liad been convey- ing from the Lcitli branch to the head office. The murder had been accomplished with the utmost deliberation, and the arrangements connected with it displayed care and calculation. The weapon used had a broad thin blade, carefully pointed, with soft paper wra])i)ed round the hand in such a manner as to prevent any blood from reaching the l)crson of tlie assassin, and thus leading to Ills detection. For his discovery five hundred guineas were oflfered in vain ; in vain, too, was the city searched, while the roads were patrolled ; and all the evidence attainable amounted to this : — " That Begbie, in proceeding up Leith Walk, had been accompanied by a ' man/ and that about the supposed time of the murder ' a man ' had been seen by some chil- dren to run out of the close into the street, and down Leith Wynd There was also reason to believe that the knife had been bought in a shop about two o'clock on the day of the murder, and tliat it had been afterwards ground upon a grinding-stone and smoothed upon a hone." Many persons were arrested on suspicion, and one, a desperate character, was long detained in custody, but months passed on, and the assassina- tion was ceasing to occupy public attention, when three men, in passing through the grounds of Bellevue (where now Drummond Place stands) in August, 1807, found in the cavity of an old wall, a roll of bank notes that seemed to have borne ex- posure to the weather. The roll was conveyed to Sheriff Clerk Rattray's office, and found to contain ;!^3,ooo in large notes of the money taken from Begbie. The three men received ;^2oo from the British Linen Company as the reward of their honesty, but no further light was thrown upon the murder, the actual perpetrator of which has never, to this hour, been discovered, though strong sus- picions fell on a prisoner named MackouU in 1822, after he was beyond the reach of the law. This man was tried and sentenced to death by the High Court of Justiciary in June, 1820, for robbery at the Paisley Union Bank, Glasgow, and was placed in the Gallon gaol, where he was respited in August, and again in September, "during his majesty's pleasure " (according to the Edinburgh Weekly Jctiriiat), and where he died about the end of the year. In a work published under the tide of "The Life and Death of James Mackoull," there was included a document by Mr. Denovan, the Bow Street Runner, whose object was to prove that Mackoull alias Moffat, was the assassin of Begbie, and his statements, which arc curious, have thus been condensed by a local writer in 1865 : — " Still, in the absence of legal proof, there is a mystery about this daring crime which lends a sort of romance to its daring perpetrator. Mr. Denovan di.scovered a man in Leith acting as a teacher, who in 1 806 was a sailor-boy belonging to a ship then in the harbour. On tlie afternoon of the murder he was carrying up some smuggled article to a friend in Edinburgli, when he noticed ' a tall man carrying a yellow coloured parcel under his arm, and a gen- teel man, dressed in a black coat, dogging him.' He at once concluded tliat the man with the parcel was a smuggler, and the other a custom-house oificer. Fearful of detection himself, he watched their manoeuvres with considerable interest. 1 le lost High Slrcct.) PHILIP STAXFIELI). 281 sight of the parties for a short time, but when he came opposite to Tweeddale's Close, he saiv the (presumed) Custom House officer niiining out of it, with something under his coat. 'I'here can be no doubt that this was the murderer, and the descrip- tion given coincided exactly with the appearance of Mackoull. Although the boy heard of the murder before he left Leith, he never thought of communi- cating what he had seen to the authorities ; he was shortly after captured and carried to a French prison, where he remained for many years. Mackoull re- sided in Edinburgh from September, 1S05, till the end of 1806, lodging very near the scene of the murder, and was a frequent visitor at the coffee- room of the Ship Tavern in Leith." * Shortly before his death, when abruptly ques- tioned by Denovan as to where he resided in November, 1806, Mackoull was seized with con- vulsions, and threw himself back on his bed and began to rave. Tweeddale House, after being quitted by the British Linen Company for their new office in St. Andrew Square, became, and is still, the establish- ment of Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, the well-known printers and publishers. The World's End Close was the curious and appropriate name bestowed upon the last gloomy, and mysterious-looking alley on the south side of the High Street, adjacent to the Netherbow Port, when it lost its older name of Sir John Stanfield's Close. At the foot of it an ancient tenement has a shield of arms on its lintel, with the common Edinburgh legend — "Praisze. the. Lord, for.all. His. giftis, M.S.;" but save this, and a rich Gothic niche, built into a modern "land" of uninteresting aspect, nothing re- mains of Stanfield's Close save the memory of the dark tragedy connected with the name of the knight. Sir James Stanfield was one of those English manu- facturers who, by permission of the Scottish Govern- ment, had settled at Newmills, in East Lothian. He was a respectable man, but the profligacy of Philip, his eldest son, so greatly afflicted him that he became melancholy, and he disinherited his heir by a will. On a day in the November of 1687 he was found drowned, it was alleged, in a pool of water near his country house at Newmills. Doubts were started as to whether he had committed suicide, in consequence of domestic troubles, or had been murdered. The circumstances of his being hastily interred, and that Lady Stanfield had a suit of grave-clothes all ready for him before his death, seemed to point to the latter; and two surgeons " Traditions and Antiquities of Leith." were sent from I^dinburgh to e.xamine the body and report upon it. It was raised from the grave, after it had lain there two days, and the surgeons having made an incision near the neck, became convinced that death had been caused by strangulation, so all supposition of suicide was abandoned. This ex- amination took place in a church. After the cut had been sewn up, the body was washed, wrapped in fresh linen, and James Row, merchant in Edin- burgh, and Philip Stanfield, the disinherited son, lifted it for deposition in the coffin, when lo ! on the side sustained by Philip an effusion of blood took place, and so ample as to defile both his hands. " Lord, have mercy on me ! " he exclaimed, and let the body fall. He then rushed horror-stricken into the precentor's desk, where he lay for some time groaning in great anguish, and refusing to touch the corpse again, while all looked on with dismay. The incident was at once accepted by the then Scottish mind in the light of a revelation of Philip's guilt as his father's murderer. " In a secret murther," says King James in his ' Daemon- ology' — "if the dead carkasse be at any time there- after handled by the murtherar, it will gushe out of blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for revenge of the murtherar." Accordingly, on the 7th of February, 1688, Philip was brought to trial at Edinburgh, and after the household servants had been put to torture without eliciting anything on the strength of the mysterious bleeding, according to Fountainhall, save that he was known to have cursed his father, drunk to the king's confusion, and linked the royal name with those of the Pope, the de\il, and Lord Chan- cellor, he was sentenced to death. He protested his innocence to the last, and urged in vain that his father was a melancholy man, subject to fits; that once he set out for England, but because his horse stopped at a certain place, he thought he saw the finger of God, and returned home ; and that he once tried to throw himself over a window at the Nether Bow, probabl)' at his house in the ^\'orld's End Close. Philip Stanfield was hanged at the Market Cross on the 24th of February. \n consequence of a slip of the rope, he came down on his knees, and it was necessary to use more horrible means of strangula- tion. His tongue was cut out for cursing his father ; his right hand was struck off' for parricide ; his head was spiked on the East Port of Hadding- ton, and his mutilated body was hung in chains between Leith and the city. After a few days the body was stolen from the gibbet, and found lying in a ditch among water. It was chained up again. 38 3S2 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Slreet. but was a second time stolen ; and in the strangu- lation on the scaffold, and the being found in a ditch among water, the superstitious saw retribu- tive justice for the murder of which he was assumed to be guilty. " It will be acknow- ledged," says the author of the " Domestic Annals," " that in the circumstances related there is not a particle of valid evidence against the young man. The surgeons' opinion as to the fact of strangula- tion is not entitled to much regard ; but, granting its solidity, it does not prove the guilt of the ac- cused. The horror of the young man on seeing his father's blood might be referred to painful recol- lections of that profligate conduct which he knew had distressed his parent, and brought his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave — especially when we reflect that Stanfield would himself be impressed with the superstitious feelings of the age, and miglit accept the haemorrhage as an accusation by heaven on account of the concern his conduct had in shortening the life of his father. The whole case seems to be a lively illustration of the effect of superstitious feelings in blinding justice." We have thus traced the history of the High Street and its closes down once more to the Nether Bow. In the World's End Close Lady Lawrence was a residenter in 1761, and Lady Huntingdon in 1784, and for some years after the creation of the New Town, people of position continued to linger in the Old Town and in tlie Canongate. And from Peter M'illiamson's curious little "Directory" for 1784, we can glean a few names, thus : — Lady Mary Carnegie, in Bailie Fyfe's Close ; Lady Colstoun and the Hon. Alexander Gordon, on the Castle Hill ; General Douglas, in Baron Maule's Close; Lady Jean Gordon, in the Ham- merman's Close ; Sir James Wemyss, in Riddle's Close ; Sir John Whiteford of that ilk, in the Anchor Close ; Sir James Campbell, in the Old Bank Close ; Erskine of Cardross, in the Horse Wynd ; Lady Home, in Lady Stair's Close. In IMonteith's Close, in 1794, we find in the "Scottish Hist. Register" for 1795 recorded the death of Mr. John Douglas, Albany herald, uncle of Sir Andrew Snape Douglas, who was captain of the Queen Charlotte, of no guns, and who fought her so valiantly in Lord Bridport's battle on " the glorious 23rd of June, 1795." The house occu- pied by Lady Rothiemay in Turk's Close, below Liberton's Wynd, was advertised for sale in the Courant of 1761 ; and there lived, till his death in 1797, James Nelson, collector of the Ministers' A\'idows' Fund. In Morrison's Close in 1783, we find one of the most fashionable modistes of Edinburgh announcing in the Advertiser oi that year, that she is from " one of the most eminent houses in London," and that her work is finished in the newest fashions : — " Chemize de Lorraine, Grecian Robes, Habit Bell, Robe de Coure, and Levites, different kinds, all in the most genteel and approved manner, and on the most reasonable terms." In the same year, the signboard of James and Francis Jefirey, father and uncle of Lord Jeffrey, still hung in the Lawnmarket. CHAPTER XXXIV. NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL. Lord Cockbum Street— Lord Cockburn — The Scctsntan Newspaper — Cliarles Mackiren .ind AlexanJcr RlisscI— The Queen's Edinburgh Rifle IJriK.idc— St. Giles Street — Sketch of the Rise of Journalism in Edinburgh— Tlie Edinburgh Courant — The Daily Kez'iciu—Jcffrcy Street — New Trinity College Church, Thf. principal thoroughfare, which of late years has been run through the dense masses of the ancient alleys we have been describing, is Lord Cockburn Street, which was formed in 1859, and strikes northward from the north-west corner of Hunter's Sijuare, to connect the centre of the old city witli the railway terminus at Waverley Bridge ; it goes curving down a comparatively steep scries of slopes, and is mainly edificed in the Scottish baronial style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows, and conical turrets, iiigh over all of wliich towers the dark and mighty mass of the Royal Exchange. This new street exposes a romantic section (jf tlie lofty tenements in many of the closes that descend from the north side of the High Street, and was very properly named after Lord Cockburn, one entitled to special remembrance on many accounts, and for the deep interest he took in all matters connected with his birthplace. When he died, in April, 1854, he was one of the best and kindliest of the old scJiool of " Parliament House Whigs," and was a thorough, honest, shrewd, and benevolent Scottish gentleman, who, thougli he did not partici- pate to any e.\tent in the literary labours of his contemporaries, has left behind him an interesting volume of " Memorials." Many can yet recall his Cockburn Street.] THE SCOTSMAN. 283 plain, old-fashioned, yet gentlemanly bearing, his quiet gait, and shrewd features, when the clear bright glance was never dimmed, though the shaggy eyebrow grew snowier ; while in conversation he furnished almost the last remnant of idiomatic Scottish phrase and accent in its old courtly gentility. The most important edifice on the south side of Cockburn Street is unquestionably, for many rea- sons, the office of the Scotsman newspaper. No. ;^o — the leading journal in Scotland, and of which it may be truly said that there is no newspaper out of London, and only one or two in it, which has an influence so widely felt. About i860 the offices of the Scots/nan were re- moved from the High Street, where they had long been situated, to the new buildings in Cockburn Street, where no expense had been spared to make the establishment complete in all its appointments, and the perfection of what a newspaper office should be. The heading of the newspaper is carved in stone along the front of the edifice. The front block contains five floors. On the street floor are the advertisement and publishing offices, where orders for the paper are taken in and the answers to numbered advertisements received. This department is entirely managed by an ample staff of female clerks. The manager's room and counting room are on the first floor above. The paper usually contains not less than from 700 to 3,600 advertisements daily, and in receiving and entering these a large staff of clerks is engaged. The editorial departments are on the next floor above, and consist of a fine suite of eight rooms, opening off a spacious corridor, and all are fitted with speaking tubes and bells, communicating with every department of the establishment. In each room there is also a "copy" shoot of ingenious con- struction, which enables the printer's imp to be dispensed with. "Copy" is simply dropped into it, and, by pulling a cord, is drawn instantly to the composing-room. One of the rooms is set apart as a telegraph ofiice, the establishment being in direct communi- cation with London by means of its own special wires. The composing-room, 150 feet long by 30 in breadth, is well-lighted and ventilated. Three rooms for " readers " are screened off at one end, and at the other are the lavatory, cloak, and smoking- rooms, for the use of the workmen, about a hundred of whom are employed in the typographical depart- ment alone. There is also a stereotype foundry ; and a library, composed of several thousand volumes, free to all employed upon the premises. Two spacious apartments that measure together 80 feet in length by 40 in breadth, and with ceilings 25 feet in height, are the machine rooms. In these are three Walter presses, that print and fold from the web at the rate of 36,000 copies of a large eight- page sheet per hour. As a provision against acci- dents, there are two sets of engines and boilers. There is also a small printing machine which is used for printing the bill of contents. Over the machine room is the despatching room, a spacious hall, the general fittings of which seem a compound between a post-office and a railway ticket of^ce. Several rooms, in addition to these mentioned are connected with the machine department, and on the east side of the Anchor Close is an extensive ink and paper store. " In all the great towns in England correspon- dents are engaged," says David Bremner, in his " Industries of Scotland ;" " and in London- there is a staff of reporters and a sub-editor. Even in New York the paper is represented, and special telegrams from that city have appeared on several occasions. The arrangements with the telegraph companies for the supply of foreign news are most complete. With this vast organisation for collect- ing news at command, the Scv/sman daily presents not only a complete record of current events in Scotland, but each copy may be said to be an epitome of the world's history for a day." A special express engine, hired by the proprietors at a cost of _;^i,ooo a year, conveys the Scotsman parcels for Glasgow and the West of Scotland. At this time, including all departments, nearly 200 persons are employed on the premises ; and if to these be added paid contributors and others, the number of persons receiving remuneration for their services will be swelled to fully 500, wlio obtain among them ;^33, 000 a year. Of the daily issue of the paper 330,000 copies are printed every week, and of the weekly issue 60,000 copies, which give a circulation of 390,000 a week, or 20,280,000 a year. The annual production would, if spread out, cover about eleven square miles of ground, and if the sheets were placed end to end they would form a ribbon about 18,000 miles long and 4 feet broad. According to a privately-printed memoir of Mr. Charles Maclaren, who for thirty years (1817-47) was editor of the Scotsman, it was in the year 18 16 that the idea of starting an independent newspaper in Edinburgh originated. The political influences which overspread Scotland after the close of the long war had permeated society, and the ruling powers carried their repressive effects into every sphere of action. Hence the local press was very abject, without courage enough to expose any 284 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cockbum Street. abuse, however flagrant, if in doing so there was any risk of giving offence in high quarters ; and the time had come when a free organ was necessary for Scotland. It was calculated that if only 300 sub- scribers were obtained the project would have a chance of success, and Mr. Maclaren, with Mr. house, it was deemed unwise that he should be known as the editor of an opposition journal. At this time the paper consisted of eight pages, less than half the size of the present page, and the price was lod. — 6d. for the paper and 4d. of stamp duty. From the latest news columns ot ihe numbei." ■I 111. " SCOTSMAN " OFFICE. William Ritcliie, were to be joint editors. The lead- ing article of the first number appeared on the 25th of January, 181 7, and was from the pen of Charles Maclaren, who, during Mr. Ritchie's absence on the continent, found a valuable coadjutor in Mr. John Ramsay McCiiUoch, afterwards the eminent statist and economist, who temporarily assumed the office of responsible editor of the infant journal. Mr. Maclaren having become a clerk in the ("iistom- for 25th of January, some idea, says Mr. Bremner, of the time occupied in the transmission of intelli- gence in 181 7 may be gleaned; the latest from ; London was the 22nd; from Paris, January 15th; and from New York, December i5tli. The first advertisements were wholly of a literary nature. In 1823 the i)a]icr was iiubiished twice weekly at yd., and when the stamp duty was abolished the daily Sivtsnuiii appeared in 1855 — a Cockburn Street ] MACLAREN AND RUSSEL. 285 tiny sheet at first. " To the daily and bi-weekly editions, a weekly publication, composed of selec- tions from the others, was added in i860, repre- senting also the venerable Caledonian Mercury. A few years ago the bi-weekly paper was merged into the daily edition, which most of the subscribers had come to prefer. In all its various forms the Scotsman has enjoyed a most gratifying rim of prosperity." By 1820 the paper having become firmly es- tablished, Mr. Maclaren resumed the editorship, and very few persons now can have an idea of the magnitude of the task he had to undertake. " Cor- ruption and arrogance," says the memoir already quoted, " were the characteristics of the party in power — in power in a sense of which in these days we know nothing. The people of Scotland were absolutely without voice either in vote or speech. Parliamentary elections, municipal govern- ment, the management of public bodies — everything was in the hands of a few hundred persons. In Edin- burgh, for instance, the member of Parliament was elected and the government of the city carried on by thirty - two persons, and almost all these thirty-two took their directions from the Government of the day, or its proconsul. Public meetings were almost unknown, and a free press may be said to have never had an existence. Lord Cockburn, in his ' Life of Jeftrey,' says : — ' I doubt if there was a public meeting held in Edin- burgh between the year 1795 and the year 1820,' and adds, in 1852, that 'excepting some vulgar, stupid, and rash ' newspapers which lasted only a few days, there was ' no respectable opposition paper, till the appearance of the Scotsman, which for thirty-five years has done so much for the popular cause, not merely by talent, spirit, and consistency, but by independent moderation.'" Its tone from the first had been that of a decided AVhig, and in church matters that of a " voluntary." Apart from his ceaseless editorial labours, Mr. Maclaren enriched the literature of his country by many literary and scientific works, the enumeration of which is somewhat unnecessary here ; but one ALEXANDER RUSSEL. {From a Phottigrapk by J. Hloffat, Edinlitrgh.') of the proudest proofs of his mechanical sagacity is his having clearly foreseen and boldly proclaimed the certain success of locomotion by railways, while as yet the whole subject was in embryo or deemed a wild delusion. A series of his articles on this matter ajjpeared in the Scotsman for December, 1824, and were translated into nearly every European language ; and Smiles, in his life of Stephenson, emphatically acknowledges Maclaren's keen foresight in the subject. His great con- versational and social qualities lie apart from the history of his journal, which he continued to edit till compelled by ill-health to resign in 1847. He died in 1866, after having lived in comparative re- tirement at his suburban villa in the Grange Loan, in his eighty-fourth year, hav- ing been born in 1782, at Ormiston, in West Lothian. In the management of the paper he was ably suc- ceeded by Alexander Rus- sel, a native of Edinburgh, who, after editing one or two provincial journals, became connected with the Scotsman in 1845, as assist- ant editor. He was a Whig of the old Fox school, and contributed many brilliant articles to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Rcvieivs, the "Encyclopredia Britannica," and also Black^cood's Maga- zine. As editor of the Scotsman he soon at- tracted the attention of Mr. Cobden and other leaders of the Anti-corn-law agitation, and his pen was actively employed in furtherance of the objects of the League ; and among the first subjects to which he turned his attention in the Scotsman was the painful question of Highland destitution in 1S47. A notable local conflict in which the paper took a special interest was that of 1856, on the final retirement of Macaulay from the representa- tion of Edinburgh, and the return of Adam Black, the eminent publisher ; and among many matters to which this great Scottish journal lent all its w^eight and advocacy in subsequent years, was the great centenary of Robert Burns. To the change in the Stamp Act we have already referred — a change which, by the introduction of daily papers, entailed an enormous increase of work upon the editors ; but we are told that " Mr. 286 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles Street, Russel never failed to meet the requirements of the day ; and for three or four months scarcely a day passed on which he did not write one or more articles — seventy leading articles having been written by him, we believe, day after day." In testimony of his literary ability and public services a magnificent presentation of silver plate was made to him in 1859, at the Waterloo Rooms. The Scotsman, which has always opposed and exposed Pharisaism and inconsistency, yet the while giving ample place to the ecclesiastical element — a feature in Scottish everyday life quite incomprehensible to strangers — was in the full zenith and plenitude of its power when Alexander Russel died, in about the thirtieth year of his editorship and sixty-second of his age, leaving a blank in his own circle that may never be supplied, for he was the worthy successor of Maclaren in the task of making the Scotsman what it is — the sole representative of Scottish opinion in England and abroad ; " and that it represents it so that that opinion does not need to hang its head in the area of cosmopolitan discussion, is largely due to the independence of spirit, the tact, the discern- ment of character, and the unflagging energy by which Mr. Russel imparted a dignity to the work of editing a newspaper which it can hardly be said to have possessed in his own country before his time." Among other institutions of New Edinburgh to be found in picturesque Cockburn Street, under the very shadow of the old city, such as the Ear and Eye Dispensary, instituted in 1822, and the rooms of the Choral Society, are the permanent Orderly Rooms of the Edinburgh Volunteer Artillery, and the Queen's Edinburgh Rifle Volunteer Brigade, respectively at No. 27 and No. 35. Both these corps were embodied in the summer of 1859, when the volunteer movement was exciting that high enthusiasm which happily has never died, but has continued till the auxiliary army then, self-summoned into existence, though opposed by Government in all its stages, has now become one of the most important institutions in the kingdom. The City Artillery Volunteer (?orps, commanded in 1878 by Sir William Baillic, Bart., of Polkemet, consisting of nine batteries, showed in 1880 a maximum establishment of 519 (57 of whom were non-eflicients), 14 ofliccrs, and 36 sergeants.* Formed in two battalions (with a third corps of cadets), the Queen's Edinburgh Rifle Brigade, of • In ;id(tition to tliis Cfirps, llicrc arc ihc MHllothi.in Coast Volunteer Artillery, whose hcidqiinrlcrs arc at Kdinlturyli. and who showed in ■ 877 a maximum cstaMistiment of 640, 4,(3 of whom were efficients, with Bi officers and 30 sergeants. (Volunteer Uhic Hook.) which the Lord Provost is honorary colonel, con- sists now of 25 companies, seven of which were called Highland, with a total strength on the 31st of October, 1S80, of 2,252 efficients, 106 non- efficients, with 82 officers, 116 sergeants, extra- proficients. Since its embodiment in 1859 there have enrolled in this corps more than 11,537 men, of whom 9,584 have resigned, leaving the present strength, as stated, at 2,252. As a shooting corps, and for the excellence of its drill, it has always borne a high character, and its artisan battalion is " second to none " among the auxiliary forces. At the International Regi- mental Match shot for in May, 1877, the Queen's Edinburgh Brigade were twice victorious, and in the preceding year no less than 78 officers and 121 sergeants received certificates of proficiency. Under the new system the brigade forms a por- tion of the 62nd, or Edinburgh Brigade Depot, which includes the two battalions of the ist Royal Scots Regiment, the Edinbiu'gh or Queen's Regi- ment of Light Infantry Militia, and the Admini.^ trative Volunteer Rifle Battalions of Berwick, Haddington, Linlithgow, and Midlothian. In St. Giles Street, which opens on the north side of the High Street (opposite to the square in which the County Hall stands) and turning west joins the head of the mound, at the foot of Bank Street, are the ofiices of the Daily and Weekly Rn'icK.<. The Glasgow Herald and the Evening Times share a handsome edifice, built like the rest of the street, in the picturesque old Scottish style, with crowstepped gables and pedimented dormer windows, and having inscribed along its front in large letters : The Courant, Estab. 1705. To this ofllce, which was specially designed for the purpose by the late David ]5ryce, R.S.A., tlie headquarters of the paper were removed from 188, High Street; and in noticing this venerable organ of the Conservative party, it is impossible to omit some reference to the rise of journalism in Edin- burgh, where it has survived its old contemporaries, as the Caledonian Mercury, a continued serial from 1720, is now incorporated with the Scotsman, a.nd the Edinburgh Advertiser, which started in Januar)', 1764, ceased about i860; hence the oldest exist- ing paper in the city is the Edinburgh Gazette, which appeared in 1699, the successor to a sliort- lived ]iapcrof the same name, started in 1680. The newspaper press of Scotland began during the civil wars of the i7tli century. A party of Cromwell's troops which garrisoned the citadel of Lcilh in 1652, brought with Ihem a ])rintcr named Christopher Higgins, to reprint the London paper St. Giles Street."! THE COURANT. 287 called the Mci-Lurius Politiciis, con.sisting of from eight to sixteen pages, which he began to issue from his estabhshment " in Hart's Close, over against the Tron Church." The first number appeared on the 26th of October, 1653, and the serial continued till i66o. On the 31st December in that year appeared the "Alcrairiiis Caledonius, comprising the affairs now in agitation in Scotland, with a survey of foreign intelligence." It is in eight pages post Svo, and contains a description of the funeral of Montrose, the departure of the English garrison from the Castle, with the announcement that " the blasphemous Rumper and other anti-monarchical vermin in England must cast about somewliere else than for companions in Scotland." It lived only three montlis, and was succeeded by The Kingdom's Intdligenccr — to prevent false news — published by authority. James Watson, a printer of eminence, started the ^(//«/'«/;i,'/; Courantxw 1705, which only attained its fifty-fifth number, and in 1706 the Scots Couraiit. The whole of the local notices in the first-named paper are most meagre, and are as follows : — Edinburgh, Feb. 19. On Saturday last, Captain Green, Captain of the Ship Worchester, and the rest of his Creiv who are Prisoners here, and are to be try'd as Pyrats, before the Judge- Admiral, has each of them got a Copy of their Indite- ment to answer against the 5th. of March next ; and the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy-Council, has appointed five of their number to be assessors to the Judge- Admiral. This day Robert Pringle one of the Tellers of the Bank, who lately went off with about 425 lib. sterling of the Bank's Money, is to be Try'd for Life before the Lords of Justiciary, upon a Lybel rais'd at the instance of the Treasurer of the Bank, and the said Pringle's Cautioners, with concourse of Her M.ijesty's Advocat. Leith, Feb. 16. This day came in to our Port the Mary Galley, David Preshu, Commander, laden with Wine and Brandy. Advertisements. 'T'Hal the Lands of Pirnatoun, lying ivithin the Regality of Stouu, and Sheriffdom of Midlothian, are to be ex- posed to a Toluntar Roup and Sale, in the House of James Giison, Writer, linjitig in the Ada/ocats Class, opposite to the Old-Kirk-Style, on Thursday the i2ih. day of April next 1705, betujixt the hours of 1 and 5 in the Afternoon : whoe'ver has a mind to hid for the same, may see an exact and complcat Progress of the Writs of the said Lands, in the hands of William Wilson, one of the Under Clerks to the Sesiion. 'J^IIat there are Post-Offices settled at Wigtoun aid Neuj-GalloT.vay : Therefore all Letters and Racquets must be gi'ven in at Wigtoun every ll'ednesdav Morning, and at Neiv-Galloivay e--jery Wednesday Night, and at Edinburgh every Saturday ; the same to Commence March ist. 1705. y^Hat the Famous Lozengees for curing the Cold, stopping the Kinkhost, and pains in the Hreast ; Are to be sold hy George Anderson at the fool of the Fish Mercat, and at George Moubray's Shop, opposit to the Main- Guard. Price 8sh. the box. "T^lle Author hereof having upon the it,, instant, go! an Act of Her Majesty's most Honourable Privy- Council, to Print and Publish the Foreign and Home Nevus thrise Weekly, viz., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday ; the same will be continued from this day forevuard. NOTA, Advertisements may be put in this Courant, and for that end, attendance ivill be given from ten a Clock in the Forenoon till tvielve, and from tvoo in the Afternoon till four, at the Exchange Coffee-Uouse in Edinburgh. In 1 7 18 the Town Council gave a privilege to Mr. James MacEwan to print the Edinburgh Evening Coiimni thrice weekly, on condition that before publication he should give " ane coppie of his print to the magistrates." This is stated in the number of the paper for February 18, 1850. In its early days it was intended to be a de- cidedly Whig print, in violent opposition to the Caledonian Mercury, which, for long after the battle of Culloden, was an organ of the Jacobites, in whose interest it was started. From the first day of its issue the Coitrant proved successful. " As to our newspaper," says the Rev. Robert Wodrow, writing from Edinburgh on the 17th of January, 17 19, when it was about a year old, " it thrives so far as to be very well liked by all, excepting the violent Jacobites, who hate it for no other reason but because it is a true and im- partial paper. Several gentlemen who have had the London papers sent them have laid them aside, because this contains the substance not only of them, but of the foreign post also." Like other papers of its time, the columns of the Courant, in its earlier stage, display a dire dearth of home intelligence, "whole months often elapsing without so much as one obituary notice, or a ship's arrival at Leith. The reason of this unfortunate peculiarity was no other than the civic censorship under which tlie paper, as we see, was from the beginning placed. Even intelligence in the interest of the Government was not in every instance safe." All the copies of a certain number issued in the February of 1723 were seized by the magistrates, in consequence of their containing a ver}- little pai'agraph regarding a Mr. Patrick Holden, then under probation before the Lords of Session, as presentee of the Crown for a seat on the bench — • he being a mere creature of the ministry, and un- fitted for the ofiice of senator, to which eventually he does not seem to have attained. Indignant at the remark, "we do not hear of any great dis- 28S OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles Street. coveries yet made to his prejudice," the judges inflicted punishment upon MacEwan, who was compelled in his next issue to apologise to his country subscribers, and explain why they were not served " with that day's Courant, as also why we have been so sparing ail along of home news." Presbyterian churches. It was founded by the late Mr. David Guthrie to advance the views and interests of the Nonconformist Evangelical Church in Scotland, while at the same time taking its fair share in the general news of the country. Under the editorship of Mr. James Bolivar Manson, who was IN IKKIOK RINITV tOl.l.KliK CIIUKCII, JKIKRKY STKEET. In course of time the politics of the Courant gradually changed, and it is still a flourishing pajier as the organ of the Conservatives and of the landed interest in Scotland. The Daily Reviao, wliich came into existence in April, 1861, has always been a high-class and well- conducted paper of Liberal principles, and a leading organ on ecclesiastical matters among the greater body of Scottish Dissenters — the Free and United esteemed as one of the greatest journalists in Scot- land, it gained a high reputation for art criticism, and an increased circulation. Mr. Manson had an earnest susceptibility for art, and everything he wrote on that subject proceeded from genuine and native interest on the subject, and expressed con- victions which he cherished deeply. The (piarter- lies, too, occasionally contained articles from his facile pen, and not unfrequcntly has Punch been 10 F.OKI) (0( KIIIIKN STRK.r.T ANIi HACK OV lliK k()\AI. KXCllANGE. St. Giles Street.] THV: n.l/LY REllF.W. 289 the vehicle for the dissemination of the ricli vein of humour wliich ran through his character. His quaHties as a writer in a daily journal were amply displayed during the six years he edited the Daily Revinv, and a melancholy interest attaches to his connection with that journal, as he literally " died in harness." His great reading gave him genuine mind and culture, was ever and anon made evident, sometimes with curious solicitude." When death came upon Mr. Manson he was only in his forty-ninth year, and had not been confined by ill- ness to the house for a single day. After breakfast, he had seated himself in his'study to write a leader welcoming John Bright to Edinburgh ; and the few TRINITY COLLEGE CHITRCH (RESTORED). extensive resources, while his long study of public matters and knowledge of past political transactions were remarkable, or equalled only in the parallel instance of Alexander Russel, of the Scotsman. His tastes were various ; for in classic authors and in the Scottish vernacular he was equally at ho-.ne. " He could scourge pretenders, but he loved to welcome every genuine accession to our literary treasures, and to give a fresh and advantageous setting to any gems that might be found in the volume with which he h.id to deal. Indeed, amid the rough strokes of political war, his regard for any opponent whom he believed to be a man of 37 lines he wrote were penned, as usual, without a single elision, when Mrs. Manson entering the room about twelve o'clock, saw him lying back in his chair, as she supposed asleep — but it wa.s the sleep of death. This was on the 2nd of No- vember, 1868. Mr. Manson, who was long regretted by men of many professions over the length and breadth of the kingdom, and by friends who mourned him as a genial acquaintance, was succeeded, by the late Henry Kingsley, who occupied the edi- torial chair for eighteen months, and who was succeeded in turn by Dr. George Smith, formerly 29° OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Jeffrey Street. of The Friend of India, and author of the " Life of Dr. Wilson of Bombay." The paper has ever been an advanced Liberal one in pohtics, and considerably ahead of the old Whig school. JeftVey Street, so named from the famous literary critic, is one of those tlioroughfares formed under the City Improvement Act of 1867. It com- mences at the head of Leith Wynd, and occasioned there the demolition of many buildings of remote antiquity. From thence it curves north-westward, behind the Ashley Buildings, and is carried on a viaduct of ten massive arches. Proceeding west- ward through Milne's Court, and cutting off the lower end of many quaint, ancient, narrow, and it must be admitted latterly somewhat inodorous alleys, it goes into line with an old edificed thorough- fare at the back of the Flesh Market, under the southern arch of the open part of the North Bridge, and is built chiefly in the old Scottish domestic style of architecture, so suited to its peculiar locality. In this street stands the Trinity College Estab- lislied Church, re-erected from the stones of the original church, to which we shall refer elsewhere. When the North British Railway Company re- quired its site, it was felt by all interested in archreology and art that the destruction of an edi- fice so important and unique would be a serious loss to the city, and, inspired by this sentiment, the most strenuous efforts were made by the Lord Provost, Adam Black, and others, to make some kind of restoration of the church of Mary of Gueldres a condition of the company obtain- ing possession ; and their efforts were believed to liave been successful when a clause was inserted in the Company's Act binding them, before ac- quiring Trinity College churcli, to erect another, after the same style and model, on a site to be approved by the sheriff, in or near the parish and about a dozen of these were suggested, among others the rocky knoll adjoining the Calton stairs. The company finding the delay imposed by this clause extremely prejudicial to their interests, sought to liave it amended, and succeeded in having " the obligation to erect sucli a church raised from them, on the payment of sucli a sum as should be found on inquiry, under the authority of the sheriff, to be sufficient for the site and re- storation. About ^18,000 was accordingly paid to the Town Council in 1848; the church was removed, and its stones carefully numbered, and set aside." Questions of site, of the sitters, and the sum to be actually expended, were long discussed by the Council and in the press — some members of the former, with a sentiment of injustice, wishing to abolish the congregation altogether, and give the money to the city. After much litigation, extend- ing ultimately over a period of nearly thirty years, the Court of Session in full bench decided that all the money and the interest accruing therefrom should be expended on the church. This judgment was reversed, on appeal, by Lord Chancellor Westbury, who decided that only ^7,000 " without interest should be given to buy a site and build a church contiguous to Trinity Hospital, in which the rest of the money should vest." The Town Council of those days seemed ever intent on crushing this individual parish church, and, as one of the congregation wrote in an address in January, 1873, "to these it seemed as strange as sad, that while all over this island, cor- porations and individuals were spending very large sums in the restoration or preservation of the best specimens of the art and devotion of their fore- fathers, a city so beholden as Edinburgh to the beautiful and picturesque in situation and build- ings, should not only permit the disappearance of an edifice of which almost any other city would have been proud, but when the means and the obligation to preserve it had been secured, with much labour by others, should, with almost as much pains, seek to render nugatory alike the efforts of these and the certain pious regrets of posterity." In 1S71 the churchless parish, in respect of population, held the fourth place in old Edinburgh (2,882) exceeding the Tolbooth, Tron, and other congregations. The church, rebuilt from the stones of the ancient edifice of 1462, stands on the soutli side of Jeffrey Street, at the corner of Chalmers' Close. It was erected in 1 87 1-2, from drawings prepared by Mr. Lessels, architect, and is an oblong struc- ture, with details in the Norman Gothic style, with a tower and spire 115 feet in height. It is almost entirely constructed from the " carefully numbered stones " of the ancient church, nearly every pillar, niche, capital, and arch, being in its old place, and, taken in this sense, the edifice is a very unique one. Opened for divine service in October, 1877, it is ' seated for 900, and has the ancient baptismal font that stood in the vestry of the church of Mary of Gueldres placed in tlic lobby. The old apse has been restored /// iolo, and forms the most interest- ing portion of tlie new building. The ancient baptismal and communion ]ilate of the church are \cry valuable, and the hitter is dejjicted in Sir George Harvey's well-known picture of the "Cove- nanter's Baptism," and, like the communion-table, date from shortly after the Reformation, and have been the gifts of various jiious individuals. Victoria Street.] THE MECHANICS' LIBRARY. 291 CHAPTER XXXV. SOME OF THE NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL {condnJed). Victoria Street and Terrace— The India Buildings— Mechanics' Subscription Library— George IV. Bridge— St. Augustijie's Cliurch — Martyrs' Churcli— Chamber of the Hij^liland and Agricultural Society- ShcrifT Court Buildings and Solicitors' Hall— Johnstone Teriace--St. John's Free Church — The Church of Scotland Training College. Victoria Street, which opens from the west side of George IV. Bridge, and was formed as the re- sult of the same improvement scheme by which that stately bridge itself was erected, from the north end of the Highland and Agricultural So- ciety's Chambers curves downward to the north- east corner of the Grassmarket, embracing in that curve the last remains of the ancient West Bow. Some portions of its architecture are remarkably ornate, especially the upper portion of its south side, where stands the massive pile, covered in many parts with rich carving, named the India Buildings, in the old Scottish baronial style, of unique construction, consisting of numerous offices, entered from a series of circular galleries, and erected in 1867-8, containing the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, which was instituted in November, 1864. Its objects are to watch over the interests of practical agriculture, to promote the advance- ment of that science by the discussion of all sub- jects relating to it, and to consider questions that may be introduced into Parliament connected with it. The business of the Chamber is managed by a president, vice-president, and twenty directors, twelve of whom are tenant farmers. It holds fixed meetings at Perth in autumn, and at Edinburgii in November, annually ; and all meetings are open to the press. In the centre of the southern part of the street is St. John's Established church, built in 1838, in a mixed style of architecture, with a Sa.xon door- way. It is faced on the north side by a handsome terrace, portions of which rise from an open arcade, and include a Primitive Methodist church, or Ebenezer chapel, and an Original Secession church. Victoria Terrace is crossed at its western The library is divided into thirteen sections : — I, Arts and Sciences ; 2, Geography and Statistics ; 3, History ; 4, Voyages, Travels, and Personal Adventures; 5, Biography; 6, Theology; 7, Law; 8, Essays; 9, Poetry and the Drama; 10, Novels and Romances; 11, Miscellaneous; 12, Pamphlets; 13, Periodicals. Each of these sections has a par- ticular classification, and they are all constantly receiving additions, so as to carry out the original object of the institution — "To procure an exten- sive collection of books on the general literature of the country, including the most popular works on science." Thus every department of British literature is amply represented on its shelves, and at a charge so moderate as to be within the reach of all classes of the community : the entry-money being only 2S. 6d., and the quarterly payments is. 6d. The management of this library has always been vested in its own members, and {t.\\ societies ad- here so rigidly to their original design as the Mechanics' Library has done. It has, from the first, adapted itself to the pecuniary circumstances of the working man, and from the commencement it has been a self-supporting institution ; though in its infancy its prosperity was greatly accelerated as its records attest, by liberal donations of works in almost every class of literature. Among the earliest contributors in this generous spirit, besides many of its own members, were Sir James Hall, Bart., of Dunglas, so eminent for his attainments in geological and chemical science ; his son. Captain Basil Hall, R.N., the well-known author; Mr. Leonard Horner; and the leading publisliers of the day — Messrs. Archibald Constable, William Blackwood, Adam Black, Waugh and Innes, with John Murray of London. Some of them were end by a flight of steps, which seejn to continue munificent in their gifts, "besides granting credit the old line of access afforded by the Upper West Bow. No. 5 Victoria Terrace gives access to one of the most valuable institutions in the city — the Edinburgh Mechanics' Subscription Library. It was established in 1825, when its first president was Mr. Robert Hay, a printer, and Mr. John Dunn, afterwards a well-known optician, was vice- president, and it has now had a prosperous career of more than half a century. to any amount required — an accommodation of vital service to an infant institution." The property of the library is vested in trustees, who consist of two individuals chosen by vote every fifth year, in addition to " the Convener of the Trades of the City of Edinburgh, the principal librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, and the principal librarian to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, for the time being." The right of reading descends to the heirs 292 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Victoiiu Terrace. of subscribers, and is transferable under certain rides. Judging from the large number of books lent during the year, the interest in this Institution is not only real, but steadily maintained. The ordinary In recording the destruction of Mauchine's Close, Liberton's A\'ynd, and other old alleys, we referred to the erection of Melbourne Place. Here George IV. Bridge goes southward at right angles from the Lawnmarket, and stretches across the i;USI INJ; S CMUKC.H. members on tlie roll number more tliaii 600, an average tliat seldom varies, 'riiougii tiie chief entrance is from Victoria Terrace, the library is the proprietor of the whole projjcrty in Riddell's Close behind, from the basement to the attics. The first, or principal lioor, is occupied by the library (and tlie rest is let to tenants) and is in the house of Bailie Macmoran, who, as we have related, was shot by William .Sinclair, a High School boy, in the reign of James VI. Cowgatc, opposite Ikink Street, to a point near the south end of the Candlemaker Row. The foundation-stone of this magniiiccnl bridge, which was jirojected in 1825, was laid on the 15th of August, 1827; but after being begun, and for some time left in an imfmished state, through a fiilure of funils, it was finally completed in 1836. It occasioned the demolition of mnny picliuesiiue specimens of the city's ancient edifices, but forms a spacious thoroughfare tluee hundied yards in Ceirt-! IV. nridge ] VICTORIA TERRACE. VICTORIA STREET AND TERRACE, FROM GEORGE IV. BRIDGE. 294 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (George IV. P.iidgc. length, including the splendid groined open arches over the Cowgate, and seven others which are con- cealed. It is now edificed with houses on both sides, and presents the aspect of a stately street ; but, where open, commands from its lofty parapets a clear and striking view of the narrow Cowgate far down below, together with the new western approach round the south-west face of the Castle rock, which joins Johnstone Terrace. It cost about ^400,000. On the east side of it stands the St. Augustine's Independent (or Congregational) church, built in 1857, after designs by Hay, a Scottish architect set- tled in Liverpool. It cost ;,^ 14,000, and rises from a deep and massive basement in the old sunk trans- verse thoroughfare of Merchant Street. The main building is after the Byzantine style, with a hand- some tower and steeple above a hundred feet in height ; and is somewhat of an innovation even on the new architecture of the city. The Martyrs or Reformed Presbyterian church stands on the west side of George IV. Bridge, and nearly opposite St. Augustine's church. This congregation was established in Lady Lawson's Wynd in 1834. In No. 17, on the same side, a little farther north, are the chambers of the Pro- testant Institute, and of the Scottish Reformation Society, erected about i860, springing partly from previously organised efforts against the increase of Catholicism in Britain, and partly from the tri- centenary celebration of tlie Reformation in Scot- land. The former contains a hall for courses of lectures to students on subjects specially connected witli Roman controversy. But the two most im- portant buildings on this new bridge are the Sheriff Court Buildings on the west side, and those of the Highland and Agricultural Society on the east. Of the several patriotic institutions formed for the improvement of the country generally, and of the Highlands in particular, this has been the most useful, powerful, and extensive in its operations. It has steadily directed its great energies to the promotion of the immediate and most tangible interests of the Highlands, and to the introduction, extension, and adaptation of wliatever promises most efficiently to work out tlieir temporal prosperity. A noble institution, it embodies tlie genuine patri- otism with tlie i)atronage and skill of most of the nobility, landed gentry, and gentlemen formers throughout Scotland, and not a few of the men most distinguished in science and learning. Previous to its promotion there existed in Edin- burgh two similar associations. The first was named " The Honourable the Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agricullure," and is believed to have been the earliest in Britain, being founded in 1723. It ended with the battle of Culloden. The second was formed in 1755, ^^'^ existed for ten years, under the auspices of the " Select Society." " The Highland Society of Scotland," says Henry Mackenzie, one of the directors, in his introduction to the first volume of its " Trans- actions," " derives its origin from a number of gentlemen, natives of, or connected with the High- lands, assembled in Edinburgh in 1784. That meeting 'conceiving (as the words of their own resolutions express) that the institution of a High- land Society at Edinburgh would be attended with many good consequences to the country, as well as to individuals,' determined to take the sense of their countrymen on the propriety of such an insti- tution. A numerous meeting of such gentlemen as residence in or near Edinburgh allowed of being called together was assembled. They warmly ap- proved of the measure, agreed to become members of such a Society, proceeded to the nomination of a president, vice-president, and committee, and having thus far embodied themselves, wrote circu- lars to such noblemen and gentlemen as birth, property, or connection, qualified, and, as they supposed, might incline to join the formation of such an establishment, inviting them to become members of the proposed society." Though thus instituted in 1784, it was not in- corporated by royal charter till 1787. Candi- dates for admission must be proposed by a member, and are elected at the general meetings which take place in January and June or July. They pay in advance ^1 3s. 6d. per annum, or a life subscrip- tion of twelve guineas, except tenant-farmers, who are admissible on an annual payment of 10s., or life subscription of ^^5 5s. The members of the original Society were about 100; in 1787, 150; in 1797, 400. Since its institution 11,000 members have been elected, and now the present number enrolled at the office in George IV. Bridge is above 4,650. Tiiere is a powerful staflf of office-bearers, and fifteen chairmen of committees, whose cares em- brace— i. Agricultural Reports; 2, the Argyle Naval Fund ; 3, Chemical Department ; 4, Cottages ; 5, District Shows; 6, Finance; 7, Forestry Depart- ment ; 8, General Shows ; 9, Hall and Chambers ; 10, Law; n, Machinery; 12, Ordnance Survey; 13, Publications; 14, Steam Cultivation; 15, Veterinary De])artment. By a charter under the great seal in 1856 the Society is empowered to grant diplomas and certi- ficates in agriculltire, and lias regular boards of GeOrEC IV. Bridge.] THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 highly qualified examiners, on every point of which it takes cognisance. It grants annually ten bur- saries of ^20 each, and five of;^io each, to be competed for by pupils of schools approved of by the directors. The Society's vested capital now amounts to ^^70,000, and its annual revenue reaches more tlian ^£■4,500, besides the receipts for general shows. The Argyle Fund, for the education of young High- land gentlemen for the navy, now amounts to ;£^Sj639, and was instituted by John fifth Duke of Argyle, the original president of the Society. From its chambers, No. 3, George IV. Bridge, sur- veying a width of range and multiplicity of objects worthy of its wealth and intellect, its opulence of power and resource, the Society promotes the erec- tion of towns and bridges, the formation of roads, the experiments and enterprises of agriculture, the improvement of farm stock, the sheltering processes of planting, the extension of fisheries, the intro- duction of manufactures, the adaptation of ma- chinery to all useful arts, the ready co-operation of local influence with legislative and public measures, the diffusion of practical knowledge of all that may tend to the general good of the Scottish nation, and the consolidation of the Highlanders and Lowlanders into one great fraternal community. " The Society awards large and numerous pre- miums to stimulate desiderated enterprises, and in 1828 began the publication of the Qiiaj'krly Jour- nal of Agyicultiirc, for prize essays and the dis- semination of the newest practical information ; it patronises great annual cattle shows successively in different towns, and by means of them excites and directs a stirring and creditable spirit of emulation among graziers, and, in general, it keeps in play upon the community, a variety of influences which, as far as regards mere earthly well-being, have singularly transformed and beautified its character." Its arms are a figure of Caledonia on a pedestal, between two youths — one a Highland reaper, the other a ploughboy — being crowned. The motto is. Semper arm is nunc ef industria. The Highland Society's hall and chamber form a very symmetrical and also ornamental edifice, with a beautiful sculp- ture of its coat of arms from the chisel of A. H. Ritchie. It formerly contained a most interesting agricultural museum, which has been removed else- where. Similar societies on the same model have since been established — by England in 1838, and by Ireland in 1841. The other edifice referred to, the Sheriff's Court Buildings, contiguous to the open arches over the Cowgate, was erected in 1865-8, from designs by David Bryce, at a cost of more than ^44,000. It rises from a low basement, with an extensive and imposing flank to the south, and presents in its fa'^^-^Si:L!i^^| TheYoung Men's Ca- tholic So- ciety was established in 1S65, and las an aver- age 5'early at- tendance of about 1,000 m e m bers, inclusive of basement of which is occupied by spacious shops, ! many who are honorary, but subscribe to the Associa- DOORHEAD IN ST. M.\K\'s UVND (THE OLDEST KXIANI), Bl'II.T INTO HIE CATHOLIC INSTITUTE. (From a Dta'wiitg by the Author.) and wiiicli stands upon the site of the old " White Horse" Inn, as an inscription built into llie wall records thus : — " Boyd's Inn, at which Dr. Samuel Johnson nrrhied in Edinburgh, i/^/h August, 1773, on his memorable tour to the Hebrides, occupied the larger part of the site of this building." There is also built into another part of the tion, the objects of which are to promote sobriety, religious dejjortment, and a brotherly feeling among young men of the Catholic faith. It contains a library and reading room, lecture and billiard room. It has a dramatic association, and by the committt e who conduct it no means are left untried to increase the moral culture of the members. CHAPTER XXXVII. LKITH WYND. Leith Wynd— Our Lady's Hotpital— Paul's Work— Th- Wall of 1540— Its F.-ill in 1854— The "Happy Land"— Mary of CJueldres— Trir.ily College Church — Some Particulars of its Charter- Interior Vle^v— Decoration^ — Enlargement of the F.stahlishiiieiit— Fii\iltges of its Ancient Otficers— The Duchess of Le'inox — Lady Jane Hamilton- Curious Remains— rriuity Hospital— Sir Simon Pre>tuns " Public Spirit' — Becomes a Corporation Charity — Description of Buildings — Provisions for the Inmates— Lord Cockburn'b Kemalc Pensioner — Demolition of the Hospital — Other Charities. The connecting link betu'een St. Mary's Wynd and Leith Wynd was the Nctlier Bow Port, a barrier, r oncerning tlie strength of which that veteran marshal, tiie Duke of Argyle, spoke thus in tlie debate of 1736 in reference to tiie Portcous mob: — "The Netlier Bow tJate, my Lords, stands in a narrow street; near it are always a number of coaches and carts. Let us suppose another insur- rection is to happen. In that case, my Lords, should the conspirators have the presence of mind to barricade the street with these carriages, as may be done by a dozen of fellows, I aflirin, and I ap|)eal for the truth of what I ailvance to any man of my trade, who knows the situation of the place, if five hundred men may not keep out ten thousand for a longer time than that in which the mob executed their bloody designs against Porteous." From the end of this gate, and bordered latterly on the west by the city wall, Leith Wyntl, which is now nearly all a thing of the jxast, ran down the steep northern slope towards liie base of the Cation Hill. In ihe year 147;, Thomas Spence, Bishop of Aberdeen, previously of Galloway, and Lord Privy Seal, founded, at the foot of Leith Wynd, and on the east side thereof, a hospital for the reception and entertainment of twelve poor men, untler the name of" the Hospital of our Blessed Lady, in Leith Wynd ;" and subsequently it received great aug- mentations to its revenues from other benefactors ; but at first the yearly leinds did not amount to twelve pounds sterling, according to Arnot. From the name afterwards given to it, we are led to sup- pose that among the fiiture benefactions there had been aiitled a clupel or altarage, dedicated to .•^t. Paul. The records of I'arliament show that somewhere in Eilinhurgh there were a hospital and chniiel dedi- catctl to that apostle, and that tliere was a chapi-l (ledit:ated to the Virgin in 1495, W •''"''' ^^'i'li^i'" Knoiles, Preceptor of Torphichcn, who fell with King James at Floddcn. The founder of the hospital in Leith Wynd died at I'',dinl)iirgli on the r^th of A|iril, 14.S0, and was biui'.'d in the north aisle of Trinily College cl'.urch, near his foundation. I.rilh Wynd 1 I'Ari.'S WORK. 3°' The Town Council of Edinburgh became pro- i ding,' says Arnot, "and paid tiie masters of tlie prietors of this cliarity, according to their Register, ' work, thirteen pence and a third oi a penny ir, consequence of Queen Mary's grant to them of all such religious houses and colleges in Edinburgh; and in 1582 they resolved to adapt the bishop's college for other purposes than he intended, and weekly, during the first year of their apprenticeship. This was consiileredas a very beneficial institution, and accordingly, many well-disposed people en- riched it with donations ;" but to the horror of the COWGATt i'ORT. (F)vm a I'lczu b^' E-wOank, /^ul'-is'icU tn iZ^s) issued an edict, that among the bedesmen enter- tained there should be " na Papistes," but men of the '• trew religion." The buildings having become ruinous, were reconstructed under the name of Paul's Work in 1619, and five Dutchmen were brought from Delft to teach certain boys and giils lodged therein the manuf;icture of coarse woollen stuff's. " They furnished the poor children whom they put to apprenticeship with clothes and bed- Edinburghers in 162 r, as Calderwood records, on the I St of May, certain profane and superstitious " weavers in Paul's ^Vorke, Englishe and Dutche, set up a highe May-pole, with garlants and bells," causing a great concourse of people to assemble ; and it seemed eventually that the manufacture did not succeed, or the Town Council grew wearv of encouraging it ; so they converted Paul's Work into a House of Correction. 302 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Loith Wynd. In 1650 it was used as a hospital for the wounded soldiers of General Leslie's army, alter his repulse of Cromwell's attack on Edinburgh. The building was decorated with the city arms, and many carved devices on the pediments of its dormer windows, while above the doorway was the legend — God . Blis . This . Wark . 161 9. In February, 1696, Fountainhall reports a " Reduction pursued by the town of Edinburgh against Sir William Binny (ex-Provost) and other partners of the linen manufactory, in Paul's Work, of the tack set them in 1683. Insisted, that this house was founded by Thos. Spence, Bishop of Aberdeen, in the reign of James II., for disci- pline and training of idle vagabonds, and dedicated to St. Paul: and by an Act of Council in 1626, was destinate and mortified for educating bo\s in a woollen manufactory ; and this tack had inverted the original design, contrary to the sixth Act of Pari. 1633. discharging the sacrilegious inversion of all pious donations.'' Sir William Binny, Knight, was Provost of the city in 1675-6. It bears a pro- minent place in Rothieniay's map, and stood partly within the Leitli W)nd I'ort. In 1779 it was occu- pied by a Mr. Macdowal, "the present proprietor," says Arnot, "who cariies on in it an extensive manufacture of broad cloths, hardly inferior to the English." The whole edifice was swept away by the operations of the North British Railway ; and two very ancient keys found on its site were presented in 1849 to the Museum of Antiiiui- ties. It was at the foot of this wynd that, in February, 159-1 John Graham, a Lord of Session, was slain in open day, by Sir James Sandilands of Cakier, and others, not one of whom was ever tried or punished for the outrage. By an Act of the seventh Parliament of James "V., passed in 1540, the magistrates were ordained to warn all proprietors of houses on the west side of Leith Wynd iliat were ruinous, to repair or re- build thcin within a year and a day, or to sell the property to those who could do so ; and if no one would buy them, it was lawful for the said magis- trates to cast down the buildings, "and with the stiifiie and stanes thereof, bigge ane honest sub- stantioiis wall, fra the Porte of the Nether-bow to the Trinity College ; and it shall not be lawful in tyme dimming, to any manner of ])erson to perscw them, nor their siicces.sourcs therefore And because the east side of the said w\nd jiertains to the Abbot and Convente of Molynule House, it is ordained that the baillies of the Canoiigate garre siklike be done u|)nn the said east side," &c. The line ot this wall on the west side is distinctly shown in Rothieniay's map of 1647, and also in Edgar's plan of Edinburgh. In both the east side presents a row of closely-built houses, extending from the head of the Canongate to the site of the Leith Wynd Port, at Paul's Work. In January, 1650, "John Wilsone, tailyour, in St. Marie Wynd, and John Sinclere, dag-maker {i.e., pistol-maker) in Leith Wynd," were punished as false witnesses, in a plea between James Ander- son, merchant in Calder, and John Rob in Easter Duddingston, for which they were sentenced by the Lords in Council and Session to be set upon the Tron, with a placard announcing their crime to the people pinned on the breast of each, and to have " thair eares nailed to the Trone, be the space of ane hour." On the Leith Wynd Port, as on others, the quarters of criminals were displayed. In Sep- tember, 1672, the Depute of Gilbert Earl of F.rrol (High Constable of Scotland) sentenced James Johnstone, violer, who had stabbed his wife, to be hangeti, " and to have his right hand, which gave the stroak, cut off, and affixed upon Leith- wind Port, and ordained the magistrats of Edin- burgh to cause put the sentence to execution upon the gth of that month." In February, 1854, the wall of James the Fifth's time, on the west side of the wynd gave way, and a \ast portion of it, which was about twenty feet high and four feet thick, fell with a dreadful crash, smashing in the doors and windows on the oppo- site side, and blocking the whole of the steep narrow thoroughfare, and burying in its dibris four children, two of whom were killed on the instant, and two frightfully mangled. Its fall was supposed to have been occasioned by a new wall, seven feet in height, raised upon its outer verge, to form the outer jilatform in front of a building known as St. Andrew's Hall, anil afterwards the Training Institute of the Scottish Ejiiscopal Society. As St. Mary's Street, which lies in a line with this wynd, is in a direct line also from the Plea- sance, to render the whole thoroughfare more com- pletely available, it was deemed necessary by the Improvement Trustees to make alterations in Leith Wynd, by forming Jeffrey Street, which takes a semi-circular sweep, from the head of the Canon- gate behind John Knox's house and church, onwards to the southern end of the North Bridge. Thus the whole of the west sitle of Leith Wynd and its .south end have (.lisappeared in these opera- tions. One large tenement of great antiquity, and known as ihe " Happy Land," long the haunt of the most kiuless characters, has disappeared, and I.cith Wyndl TRINITY COLLEGE. 303 near its site stands one of the fine and si)acious school houses erected for the School Board. At the foot of Leith Wynd, on the west side, there was founded on the 5th of March, 1462, by royal charter, the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity, by Mary, Queen of Scotland, daughter of Arnold Uuke of Gueldres, grand-daughter of .John Duke of Burgundy, and widow of James IL, slain about two years before by the bursting of a cannon at Roxburgh. Her great firmness on that dis- astrous occasion, and during the few remaining years of her own life, proves her to have been a princess of no or- dinary strength of mind. She took an active part in governing thestormy kingdom of her son, and died in 1463. Her early death may account for the nave never being built, though it was not unusual for devout persons in that age of church buliding, to erect as much as they could finish, and leave to the devotion of postei ity the completion of the rest. Pitscottie tells us that she "was buried in the Trinitie College, quhilk she built hirself." grave was violated at the Reformation. The church was dedicated "to the Holy Trinity, to the ever blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, to St. Ninian the Confessor, and to all the saints and elect people of God." The foundation was for a provost, eight prebendaries, and two clerks, and with much minuteness several ecclesiastical bene- fices and portions of land were assigned for the support of the several offices ; and in the charter there are some provisions of a peculiar character, in Scotland at least, and curiously illustrative of the age and its manners : — " .\nd we appoint that none of the said preben- daries or clerks absent themselves from their offices without the leave of the Provost, to whom it shall not be lawful to allow any of them above the space of fifteen days at a time, unless it be on extraordi- nary occasions, and then not without consent of the chapter ; and whosoever of the said preben- daries or clerks shall act contrary to this ordinance, OLD COLLEGIATE SEALS, TRINITY COLLEGE CHURCH Her his office shall be adjudged vacant, and tiie same shall, by the Provost and Chapter, with consent of the Ordinary, be conferred upon anotlier. If any of the said prebendaries shall keep a fire-malie7-, and shall not dismiss her, after being therein ad- monished thereto by the Provost, his prebend shall be adjudged vacant, and conferred on another, by consent of the Ordinary as aforesaid. " The Provost of the said college, whenever the ofiice of provostry shall become vacant, shall by us and our successors, Kings of Scotland, be pre- sented to the Ordinary; and the vicars belonging to tlie out-churches aforesaid shall be presented by the Provostand Chapter of tlie said college to tlie Ordinary, from whom they shall receive canonical in- stitution ; and no prebendary shall be instituted unless he can read and sing plainly, count and discount, and that the boys may be found docile in the premises. And we further appoint and ordain, that when- ever any of the said prebendaries shall read mass, he shall, after the same, in his sacerdotal habits, repair to the tomb of the foundress with hyssop, and there read the prayer De pro/itndis, together with that of the faithful, and exhortation to excite the people to devotion." The choir of this church from the a'lse to the west enclosure of the rood tower was 90 fe^t long, and 70 feet from transept to transept window ; the north aisle was 1 2 feet broad, and the south 9 feet. It is a tradition in masonry that the north aisles of all Catholic churches were wider than the south, to commemorate the alleged circumstance of the Saviour's head, on the cross, falling on his right shoulder. In digging the foundation of the Scott monument, an old quarry 40 feet deep was dis- covered, and from it the stones from which the church was built were taken. With the exception of Holyrood, it was the finest example of decorated English Gothic architecture in the city, with many of the peculiarities of the age to which it belonged. Various armorial bearings adorned different parts 304 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd. o( the building, among these; on a buttress, at the west angle of the southern transept, was a shield, with the arms of Alexander Duke of Albany, who, at Mary's death, was resident at the Court of the Duke of Gueldres. Among the grotesque details of this church the monkey was repeated many times, especially among the gurgoyles, and crouching monsters, as corbels or brackets, seemed in agony under the load they bore. the entire teeth in the jaws, were found on the demolition of the church in 1840. They were placed in a handsome crimson velvet coffin, and re-interred at Holyrood. Portions of her original coffin are preserved in the Museum of Antiquities. Edinburgh could ill spare so fine an example of ecclesiastical architecture as this church, which was long an object of interest, and latterly of regret ; for "it is with some surprise," says a writer, •IKIMIY C^LLEUE CUIRLH, AM) I'ARr OK TKINMTY HOSIMTAL (TO rUK KKWIT. \A/ter a Drawing i'y CUy/c of Rldin^ 1780.] Utlirogal, in Monimail, was formerly a leper hospital, and with the lands of Hospital-Milne, in the adjoining parish of Cults, was (as the Statistical Account of Scotland says) given by Mary of Gueldres to the Trinity Hospital, and after the suppression, it went eventually to tlie Earls of Leven. According to Sir Robert .Sibbalil, the parish church of Easter Wemyss, in Fife, also belongetl " to the Colli';:^icw a Drawing by Satidby in Mait.and's l.( + ;> AMI TAkr 01- IKIMIV HObl'IlAL (^j, ' History of Edinburgh. ') Pont, an illustrious Venetian who came to Scotland in the train of Mary of Guise — the last Provost of Trinity,, in 1585, sold all the remaining rights that he had in the foundation, which James VI. con- firmed by charter two years afterwards. When the old religion was abolished, the revenues of the church amounted to only ^362 Scots yearly. Its seal, Scotland and Gueldres quarterly, is beautifully engraved among the HolyTood charters. In May, i592,Sqphia Ruthven, the young Duchess of Lenno.x, was buried with great solemnity at the east end of the church. She was a daughter of the luckless Earl of Gowrie, who died in 1584, and was forcibly abducted from a house in Easter Wemvss, where she had been secluded to secure her from the violence of the Duke's passion. But he carried 39 iSth of December, 1596, by her will, dated 9th of that month, beijueathed 100 merks to the Trinity College church, for a "buriall place " there. The church and other prebendal buildings suftered with the other religious houses in the city during the tumults of the Reformation, and, accord- ing to NicoU, in later years, at the hands of Crom: well's soldiers. While trenching the edifice, seeking for the remains of the Queen, those of many others, all long before violated and disturbed, were found, together with numbers of bullocks' horns, and an incredible quantity of sheep-head tioneg, and frag- ments of old Flemish quart bottles, the debris doubtless of the repasts of the workmen of 1462 ; and every stone in the building bore those marks with wlaich all freemasons are familiar. 3o6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rl eith Wynt". The history of this old ecclesiastical edifice is in- timately connected with that of the Trinity Hospital, founded by the same munificent queen, and though the original edifice has passed away, her foundation is still the oldest charitable institution in heradopted city of Edinburgh. According to her plan or desire, the collegiate buildings were built immediately ad- this of his awin free motive will, for the favour and luifF that he bears the Guid Toun." Notwithstanding all this verbose minute, his grant was burdened with the existing interests, vested in the officials of the establishment, who had embraced the principles of the Reformation, and passed a series of new rules for their bedes- ..ts-v- /V^^u^v^^ joining the church; while the hospital for her bedesmen stood at first on the opposite side of Leith Wynd. It became ruinous and was demolished probably about 1567, when the whole of the collegiate buildings were be- stowed upon Sir Simon Preston, who, within two days thereafter, bestowed them on the city by an act which received as much praise as if it had been a public-spirited disposal of his own property, and is thus recorded in the minutes of the Town Council : — " The quhilk day in the Counsall Houss of this Burgh, comperit Sir Simon Prestoun of Craigmillar, Knight, Provost of tliis Burgh, and shew and dectarit to the said Baillies, Counsall, and Deakynes, that he had ob- tained and impetrat at my Lord Regent's hands, a gift of the Trinity College Kirk, housses, biggins, and yards adjacent thereto, and by and contigue to tiie samyn, to be ane Hospital to the Puir, and to be biggit and uphaldane by the Guid Toun and the Elemosiiiaries to be placet thairinto. . . . . and notwitlistanding that he has laborit the samyn, it was not his mind to lauborit to his awin behuif,but tothe(iuidToun as said is,and there- fore, presentlie gaess (gives) the gift thereof to the Guid Toun, and transferit all right and tytill he had, hes or might have thereto, in to tiie Guid Toun, fra him and his airs for ever, and promisit that quhat right hereafter they dcsyrit him to make thereof, or suretie, he would do this .samyn, and that he, nor his airs, would never pretend rycht thereto, and SKAI. AND AUTOGRAPH OF MARY OF GUF.T.nRE'!. men, whom they required only to know the T>ord's Prayer, the 'l"en Commandments, and to be neither " drunkinsom tailyiours," bouncers, nor swearers. Under the new regime, the first, persons on record as being placed in it, are Robert Munloch, James Gelly, John Muir, James A\'right, John Wotherspoon, Isabel Bernard, and Janet Gate. In 1578, when Robert Pont had been seven years Provost of Trinity, and the establishment of a university in Edinburgh was contemplated, the magistrates endeavoured to arrange wiih hun ffir having their new institution grafted on the old foundation of Mary of Gueldres, and to be called the University of Trinity College ; but the idea Leilh Wyi.J.] THE TRINITY HOSPITAL. 307 was abandoned. At length, as stated, Robert Pont, in 1585, resigned all his rights and interests in the establishment, for the sum of 300 nicrks down, and an annuity of ;!^[6o Scots. In 1587 an Act was passed revoking all grants made during the king's minority, of hospitals, Maisons Dieit, anil " lands or rentis appertaining thereto," the object of which was, that they might be applied to this original purpose — the sustenta- tion of the poor, and not to the aggrandisement of mere individuals ; and in this Act it was specially ordained, that the rents of tlie Trinity College, " quhilk is now decayit," be assigned to " the new hospitall erectit be the Provest, Baillies, and Counsall;" and thus it became for ever a corpora- tion charity, for which a suitable edifice was found by simply repairing the ruinous buildings, occupied of old by the Provost and prebends, south of the church, and on the west side of the wynd. It was a fine specimen of the architecture and monastic accommodation of the age in which it was erected. It was two storeys high, and formed two sides of a square, and though far from orna- mental, its air of extreme antiquity, the smallness and depth of its windows, its silent, melancholy, and deserted aspect, in the very heart of a crovk^ded city, and latterly amid the uproar and bustle of the fast-encroaching railway, seldom failed to strike the passer with a mysterious interest. Along the interior of the upper storey of the longer side there was a gallery, about half the width of the house, lighted from the west, which served alike as a library (consisting chiefly of quaint old books of dry divinity), a promenade, and grand corridor, winged with a range of little rooms, some whilom the prebends' cells, each of which had a bed, table, and chair, for a single occupant. The other parts of the building were more modern sitting rooms, the erection of the sixteenth century, when it became destined to support decayed burgesses of Edinburgh, their wives and unmarried children, above fifty years of age. " Five men and two women were first admitted into it," says Arnot, " and, the number gradually increasing, amounted a.d. 1700 to fifty-four persons. It was found, however, that the funds of the hospital could not then support so many, and the number of persons maintained in it has frequently varied. At present (1779) there are within the hospital forty men and women, and, there are besides twenty- six out-pensioners. The latter have £6 a year, the former are maintained in a very comfortable manner. Each person has a convenient room. The men are each allowed a hat, a pair of breeches, a pair of shoes, a pair of stockings, two shirts, and two neckcloths, yearly ; and every other year a coat and waistcoat. The women have yearly, a pair of shoes, pair of stockings, two shifts ; and every other year a gown and petticoat. For buy- ing petty necessaries the men are allowed 6s. 8d., the women 6s. 6d., yearly. Of food, each person has a daily allowance of twelve ounces of house- hold bread; and of ale, the men a Scots pint each, the women two-thirds of a pint. For breakfast they have oatmeal-porridge, and for dinner, four days in the week, broth and boiled meat, two days roast meat, and each Monday, in lieu of tlesh, the men are allowed 2(1., the women lid. apiece." Such was this old charily towards the close of the eighteenth century. The inmates were of a class above the common, and whom a poor-house life would have degraded, yet quarrels, even riots, among them were so frequent, that the attention of the governors had more than once to be called to the subject, though they met only at meals and evening worship. Yet, occasionally, some belonged to the better classes of society. Lord Cockburn, writing in 1840, says: — -"One of the present female pensioners is ninety-six. She was sitting beside her own fire. The chaplain shook her kindly by the hand, and asked her how she was. ' Very weel — just in my creeping ordinary.' There is one Catholic here, a merry little woman, obviously with some gentle blood in her veins, and delighted to allude to it. This book she got from Sir John Something ; her great friend had been Lady some- thing Cunningham ; and her spinet was the oldest that had ever been made ; to convince me of which she opened it, and pointed exultingly to the year 1776. Neither she nor the ninety-six-year-old was in an ark, but in a small room. On overhearing my name, she said she was once at Miss Brandon's boarding-school, in Bristo Street, with a Miss Matilda Cockburn, ' a pretty Httle girl.' I told her that I remembered that school quite well, and that the little girl was tny sister ; and then I added as a joke, that all the girls at that school were said to have been pretty, and all light-headed, and given to flirtation ; the tumult revived in the vestaTs veins. Delighted with the imputation, she rubbed her hands together, and giggled till she wept." The octogenarian he refers to was a Miss Gibb, and the last nearly of the old original inmates. By 1850 the revenues amounted to about ;^2,ooo per annum. At its demolition, in 1845, forty-two persons were maintained within the hospital, who then received pensions of ^26 each. Those elected since that period receive ;^2o yearly each ; one hundred and twenty others have an annual allowance 3oS OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith W'j-nd. of ;z^io each. The benefits of the endowments are still destined to " burgesses, their wives or children not married, nor under the age of fifty years." Ten others have pensions of .;^io each out of the funds bequeathed by the late Mr. William Lennie to the hospital, of which the magistrates and Town Council are perpetual governors. According to Gordon of Rothiemay's map, the water of the North Loch washed the western whole area occupied by the church and collegiate buildings of the Holy Trinity was then included in the original termini of the Edinburgh and Glasgow, the North British, the Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee lines of railway. After the Trinity College Hospital, the next beneficent institution in Edinburgh (apart from the Craigcrook one, which dates from 1720), seems to have been the Horn Charity, of which we have the GrouaJ Plan — of tll< TaraiTY COLLEGE CHURCH GROUND PLAN OF TRINITY COLLEGE CHURCH, boundary-wall of its garden, in which he shows parterres and three rows of large trees, and also a square lantern and vane above the roof of tlie large hall ; and in Edgar's map, a hundred years later, the waters of the loch came no farther eastward than the line of the intended North Bridge, between which and the hospital lay the old Physic Gardens. "Its demolition brought to light many curious evidences of its former state," says Wilson. " A beautiful large Gothic fireplace, with clustered columns and a low, pointed arch, was disclosed in the north gable, and many rich fragments of Goiliic ornament were foun