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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 3t. Cuthbert‘s church,” i.e.,
the fountain in the Well-house Tower.
This valley-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 PueZZarum, were
John, Bishop of Glasgow ; Prince Henry, his son ;
William, his nephew ; Edward, the Chancellor ;
‘‘ BarthoZomeo $Zio Cornitis, et WiZZieZnza frateer
i u s ; Jordan0 Hayrum;” Hugo de Morville, thc
ST. MARGARET’S CHAPEL, EDINBURGH CASTLE,
the garden, which Malcolm, the son of Pagan, culjivated
for David II., and where tournaments were
held, 44 while deep pools and wide morasses, tangled
wood and wild animals, made the rude diverging
pathways to the east and westward extremely dangerous
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 1144 we find (King David resident in the
constable ; Odenell de Umphraville ; Robert Bruce ;
William of Somerville; David de Oliphant; and
William of Lindsay.
The charter of foundation to the abbey of
Holyrood-which will be referred to more fully in
its place-besides conferring valuable revenues,
derivable from the general resources of the city,
gave the monks a right to dues to nearly the same
amount from the royal revenues of the port of
Perth, which was the more ancient capital of
Scotland.

... to his new monastery were the churches of St. Cuthbert. and of the Castle, among which one plot of land ...

Vol. 1 p. 20 (Rel. 3.5)

Cramond.] CRAMOND BRIG. 317
Robert Bruce, “the King’s meadow and muir of
Cramond I’ are mentioned. Among the missing
charters of Robert III., are two to William Touris,
“of the lands of Berntoun))’ and another to the
same of the superiority of King’s Cramond.
William Touris, of Cramond, was a bailie of the
city in 1482. These Touris were the same family
who afterwards poFsessed Inverleith, and whose
name appears so often ill Scotstarvit’s “ Calendar.”
In I j38 the family seems to have passed to Bristol,
in England, as Protestants, Pinkerton suppose$, for
and has already been referred to in a preceding
chapter. In February, 1763, there died in Barnton
House, in the sixty-fourth year of her age,
Lady Susannah Hamilton, third daughter of John,
Earl of Ruglen, whose son William was styled
Lord Daer and Riccarton. She was buried in the
chapel royal at Holyrood.
In 1771 the Scots Magazine records the demise
of John. Viscount Glenorchy “at his house of
Barnton, five miles west of Edinburgh.” He was
husband of Lady Glenorchy of pious memory.
VIEW BELOW GRAMOND BRIG, (Alter a Phufog-rajh by G. W. WiZsom & Co.)
1r1 that year a charter of part of Inverleith is granted
to George Touris, of Bristol; but Lord Durie, in
1636, reports a case concerning ‘‘ umquhile James
Touris, brother to the laird of Inverleith.”
As stated elsewhere, Overbarnton belonged, in
~508, to Sir Robert Barnton, who was comptroller
of the household to James V. in 1520, and who
acquired the lands by purchase with money found
by despoiling the Portuguese ; but a George Maxwell
of Barnton, appears among the knights slain
at Flodden in 1513. He obtained Barnton by a
royal charter in 1460, on his mother’s resignation,
and was a brother of John, Lord Maxwell, who
also fell at Flodden. This property has changed
hands many times. James Elphinston of Barnton,
was the first Lord Balmerino, a Lord of the Treasury,
In after years it became the property of the
Ramsays, one of whom was long known in the
sporting world.
The quaint old bridge of Cramond is one of the
features of the parish, and is celebrated as the
scene of that dangerous frolic of James V., related
in our account of Holyrood. It consists of three
Pointed arches, with massively buttressed piers.
It became ruinous in 1607, and was repaired in
1619, 1687, and later still in 1761 and 1776: as a
panel in the parapet records. Adjoining it, and
high in air above it, is the new and lofty bridge of
eight arches, constructed by Rennie.
A little to the eastward of the village is Cramond
House, a fine old residence within a wooded
domain. Sir John Inglis cf Cramond was made

... CRAMOND BRIG. 317 Robert Bruce, “the King’s meadow and muir of Cramond I’ are mentioned. Among the ...

Vol. 6 p. 317 (Rel. 3.01)

166 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Leith.
or ripple or burnished face of water, the very
aspect of which is luxury in a summer day.”
North Leith is bounded on the north ‘by the
Firth of Forth, on the south and east by the stream
which gives its name to the whole locality, dividing
it from South Leith, and on the south and west
by St. Cuthbert’s. It is oblong in form, and has
an area of only 517 acres, Its surface is nearly a
uniform level, and with the exception of some
garden grounds is covered by streets and villas.
Between North Leith and Xewhaven the coast has
been to a considerable extent washed away by the
encroaching waves of the Firth, but has now received
the aid of strong stone bulwarks to protect
it from further loss.
The Links of North Leith, which lay along the
coast, were let in 1595 at the annual rent of six
merks, while those of South Leith were let at a rent
of thirty, so the former must have been one-fifth of
the extent of the latter, or a quarter of a mile long
by three hundred yards in breadth. For many
years the last vestiges of these have disappeared
and what must formerly have been a beautiful and
grassy plain is now an irreclaimable waste, where
not partially occupied by the railway and goods
station, regularly flooded by the tide, and displaying
at low water a thick expansion of stones and
pebbles, washed free from mould or soil.
The earliest reference td Leith in history is in
King David‘s famous charter to Holyrood, aim
1143-7, whereir. he gives the water, fishings, and
meadows to the canons serving God therein, ‘‘ and
Broctan, with its right marches ; and that Tnverlet
which is nearest the harbour, and with the half of
the fishing, and with a whole tithe of all the fishing
that belongs to the church of St. Cuthbert.”
This charter of King David is either repeated or
quoted in all subsequent grants by charter, or purchases
of superiority, referring to Leith ; and by it
there would seem to have been in that early age
some species of harbour where the Leith joins the
Firth of Forth ; but there is again a reference to it
in 1313, when all the vessels there were burned by
the English during the war waged by Edward II.,
which ended in the following year at Bannockburn.
On the 28th of May, 1329, King Robert I. began
all the future troubles of Leith by a grant of it to
the city of Edinburgh, in the following terms :-
U Robert, by the grace of God King of Scots, to
all good men of his land, greeting: Know ye that
we have given, granted, and to perform let, and by
this our present charter confirmed, to the burgesses
of our burgh of Edinburgh, our foresaid burgh of
Edinburgh, together with the port of Leith, mills,
and their pertinents, to have and to hold, to the
said burgesses and their successors, of us and our
heirs, freely, quietly, fully, and honourably, by all.
their right meithes and marches, with all the commodities,
liberties, and easements which justiy pertained
to the said burgh in the time of King:
Alexander, our predecessor last deceased, of good
memory ; paying, therefore, the said burgesses and
their successors, to us and our heirs, yearly, fiftytwo
merks sterling, at the terms of Whitsunday, and
Martinmas in winter, by equal proportions. In
witness whereof we have commanded our seal to
be affixed to our present charter. Tesfihs, Walter
of Twynham, our Chancellor ; Thomas Randolph,
Earl of Moray, Lord of Annandale and Man, our
nephew ; Janies, Lord of Douglas ; Gilbert of Hay,
our Constable ; Robert of Keith, our Marischal1 of
Scotland, and Adam Moore, knights. At Cardross,
the 28th of May, in the twenty-fourth year of our
reign.” (Burgh Charters, No. iv.)
From the date of this document a contest for the
right of superiority commenced, and till the present
century Leith was never free from the trammels
imposed upon it by the city of Edinburgh ; and the
town council, not content with the privileges given
by Robert Bruce, eventually got possession of the
ground adjacent to the harbour, on the banks of
the river.
In those days the population of the infant port
must have been very small. In the index of missing
royal charters in the time of King Robert II.,
there is one to John Gray, Clerk Register, “ of ane
tenement in Leith,” and another to the monastery
of Melrose of a tenement in the same place;
and in 1357, among those’who entered into an
obligation to pay the ransom of King David II.,
then a prisoner of war in England, we find
“ William of Leith,” no doubt a merchant of substance
in his day.
Thomas of Leith, or another bearing the same
name, witnessed a charter of David, Earl of Orkney,
in 1391.
Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, a man of heartless,
greedy, and rapacious character, began to
contest the-citizens’ claim or right of superiority
over Leith, and obliged them to take a concession
of it from him by purchase or charter, dated the
31st of May, 1398 ; and to this document we have
referred in a preceding chapter. Prior to this, says
Maitland, the course of traffic was restricted by
him “to the use of a narrow and inconvenient lane,
a little beneath the Tolbooth Wynd, now called the
Burgess Close.”
As we have related in the account of Restalrig,
Sir Robert Logan granted to the community of
Edinburgh a right to the waste lands in the vicinity
(Burgh Charters, Xo. vi.)

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Leith. or ripple or burnished face of water, the very aspect of which is luxury in a ...

Vol. 5 p. 166 (Rel. 2.83)

of Strathearn, the Rosabelle of Scott’s beautiful
ballad, which tells us-
“ There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold,
Lie buried in that proud chapelle,
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle.
With candle, with book, and with bell ;
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.”
Each one the holy vault doth hold,
And each St. Clair is buried there,
But the sea caves sung, and the wild waves rung,
In 1264, Sir William, sixth of Roslin, was
Sheriff of Edinburgh, Linlithgow, and Haddington
( r r Chamberlain Rolls ’7, and it was his son and successor,
Sir Henry, who obtained from Robert I.,
for his good and faithful services, a charter of
Pentland Muir, and to whom (and not to a Sir William)
the well-known tradition of the famous huntingmatch
thereon, which led to the founding of
the chapel of St. Katherine in the Hope, must
refer. With that muir he obtained other lands,
whjch were “all erected into a free forestry, for
payment of a tenth part of one soldier yearly, in
His son, Sir William, was one of the chosen
companions of the good Sir James Douglas, whom
he accompanied in the mission to convey Bruce’s
1317.”
heart to Jerusalem, and with whom he perished in
battle with the Moors at Teba, in 1331, He left
an infant son, who, in 1350, was ambassador at the
Court of England, whither he repaired with a train
of sixty armed horse. He married Isabella,
daughter of Malise, Earl of Strathearn, and was
succeeded by his son, Sir Henry Sinclair of Roslin,
who was created Earl of Orkney by Haco, King of
Norway, in 1379-a title confirmed by Robert 11.
According to Douglas, he married Florentina, a
daughter of the King of Denmark. Nisbet adds
that he was made Lord of Shetland and Duke of
Oldenburg (which is considered doubtful), and
that he was Knight of the Thistle, Cockle, and
Golden Fleece.
William, third earl, resigned his earldom of
Orkney in favour of King James IIL, and adopted
that of Caithness, which he resigned in 1476 to
his son TVilliam, who became distinguished by the
baronial grandeur of his household, and was the
founder of the chapel. It is of him that Father
Hay writes as “a prince,” who maintained at the
Castle of Roslin royal state, and was served at his
table in vessels of gold and silver. Lord Dirleton
was the master of his household, Lord Borthwick

... Strathearn, the Rosabelle of Scott’s beautiful ballad, which tells us- “ There are twenty of Roslin’s barons ...

Vol. 6 p. 348 (Rel. 2.75)

216 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Dab.
~~ ~~
Cuthbert’s, in 1831, for .&2,500, and seated for
1,300.
The church was built in 1827, and is now named
St David‘s, the parish being quo~d sawa, and disjoined
from St Cuthbert’s.
The United Secession Congregation, which formerly
sat here, have now their. place of worship,
seated for 1,284, on the west side of the Lothian
Road. In architecture, externally, it is assimilated
with the street.
charters granted by the Scottish kings between
1309 and 1413 the lands of Dalry, near Edinburgh,
are mentioned in several instances. Under Robert
I. the lands of Merchinstoun ahd Dalry ” were
granted to William Bisset. Under David II.,
Roger Hog, burgess of Edinburgh, had “one
annual forth of Dalry ;,I and there was a charter
given by William More, of Abercorn, to William
Touris and Helenor Bruce, Countess of Carrick, of
the lands of Dalry, in the county of Edinburgh.
EDINBURGH CASTLE FROM PORT HOPETO[’N, 1825. (A/?#- EW6U.d)
Westward of this quarter lies the old historic
suburban district named Dalry. The quaint old
mancr house of that name, which stood so
long embosomed among its ancient copsewood,
on the east side of the Dalry Road, with its
projecting towers crowned by ogee roofs, is
now incorporated with one of the somewhat
humble class of streets, which hereabout have
covered the whole estate, even to Wester Dalry,
near the cemetery of that name.
Of Celtic origin, it takes its name from Dal, a
vale, and righ, “ a king,” like a place of the same
name in Cunningham, near which there is also a
spot named, like that at Holyrood, Croft an Righ,
“the croft of the king.” In the roll of missing
This Helenor was the only daughter of Alexander,
fifth Earl of Carrick (who fell at the battle of
Halidon Hill, in 1333)’ and was the wife of Sir
William Cunningham, of Kilmaurs.
In the sixteenth century this fertile and valuable
barony became the property of the Chieslieq
wealthy burgesses of Edinburgh. .
In 1672 there was a “ratification” by Parliament
in favour of the notorious John Chieslie
(son of Walter Chieslie of Dalry) of the lands of
Gorgie; and the inscription on the tomb of his
mother in the Greyfriars is thus given in Monteith’s
“Theatre of Mortality,” I 704-
Memonk charissimle SUE mnjugis, Cuthayin@
Tad, ~ U E decessit 27th Januav, 1679 Manumen

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Dab. ~~ ~~ Cuthbert’s, in 1831, for .&2,500, and seated for 1,300. The church ...

Vol. 4 p. 216 (Rel. 2.51)

132 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
oxen, and other things belonging to a field, by the
hands of him, namely, who is called Hood of Leith,
from me and my heirs for ever, as freely, quietly,
and honourably free from all service and secular
exactions as any other gifts more freely and quietly
given, are possessed in the Kingdom of Scotland.
And that this gift may continue, I have set my
seal to this writing.”
Among those who witnessed this document were
the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, Hugh de Sigillo,
In May, 1398, Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig
granted to the citizens of Edinburgh, by charter,
full liberty to carry away earth and gravel, lying
upon the bank of the river, to enlarge their port of
Leith, to place a bridge over the said river, to
moor ships in any part of his lands, without the
said port, with the right of road and passage,
through all his lands of Restalrig. “All which
grants and concessions be warranted absolutely,
under penalty of A200 sterling to be uptaken
RESTALRIG CHURCH, 1817. (A / t e r m Etckirrg8y3amcr Skene of Rdislaw.)
Bishop of Dunkeld (called the “Poor Man’s
Bishop lJ) ; Walter, Abbot of Holyrood, previously
Prior of Inchcolm, who died in 1217 ; W. de
Edinham, Archdeacon of Dunkeld ; Master R. de
Raplaw ; and Robert Hood, of Leith.
In 1366, under David II., Robert Multerer
(Moutray?) received a charter of lands, within the
barony of Restalrig, before pertaining to John Colti ;
and some three years afterwards, John of Lestalrick
(sic) holds a charter of the mill of Instrother, in
Fifeshire, granted by King David at Perth.
Towards the latter part of the fourteenth century
the barony had passed into the possession of the
Logans, a powerful family, whose name is insepsrably
mingled with the history of Leith.
by the said burgesses and community in the name
of damages and expenses, and LIOO sterling to
the fabric of the church of St. Andrews before
the commencement of any plea.” (Burgh Charters.)
In 1413-4 another of his charters grants to the
city, “that the’piece of ground in Leith between
the gate of John Petindrich and a wall newly built
on the shore of the water of Leith, should be free
to the said community for placing their goods and
merchandise thereon, and carrying the same to and
from the sea, in all time coming.”
Westward of the village church, and on the
summit of a rock overhanging Loch End, are the
massive walls of the fortalice in which the barons of
Restalrig resided ; but a modem house is engrafted

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig. oxen, and other things belonging to a field, by the hands of him, namely, ...

Vol. 5 p. 132 (Rel. 2.25)

Hawthornden. 1 THE CAVERNS. 355
Druminond wrote most of his works in Hawthornden.
In the year 1643 he met accidentally Elizabeth
Logan, daughter of Sir Robert Logan of Restalng,
who so closely resembled the girl he had loved
and mourned so deeply, that he paid his addresses
to and married her,
When the civil war broke out Drummond
espoused the cause of the king, not in the field
with the sword, but in the closet with his pen. He
was constantly exposed, in consequence, to hostility
and annoyance from the Presbyterian party.
On leaving the house visitors are conducted
round the precipitous face of the rock on which
it stands, by a mere ledge, to a species of cavern.
There are seen an old table and seat. It was the
poet’s favourite resort, and in it he composed him
Cypress Grove,” after recovering from a danger.
ous illness. No place could be better adapted foi
poetic reveries. “ In calm weather the sighing oi
the wind along the chasm, the murmur of the
stream, the music of the birds around, above,
beneath, and the uttqr absence of an intimation ol
the busy world, must have often evoked the poet’:
melancholy, and brought him back the delightful
hopes that thrilled his youthful heart. There werz
other times and seasons when it must indeed haw
been awful to have sat in that dark and desolatt
cavern: when a storm was rushing through tht
glen, when the forked lightning was revealing it!
shaggy depths, and when the thunder seemed tc
shake the cliff itself with its reverberations.”
Drummond was the first Scottish poet who wrotc
in pure English ; his resemblance to Milton, whon
he preceded, has often been remarked. Thc
chivalrous loyalty that filled his heart and inspire(
his muse received a mortal shock by the death o
Charles I., and on the 4th of December, 1649, hi
died where he was born, and where he had spen
the most of his life, in his beautiful house of Haw
thornden, and was buried in the sequestered ant
Iree-shaded churchyard of Lasswade, on the soutl
slope of the brae, and within sound of the murmu
of his native Esk.
An edition of his poems was printed in 165t
8vo ; another appeared at London in 1791 ; whil
since then others have been published, notabl
that under the editorship of Peter Cunninghau
London, 1833, An edition of all his works, undc
the superintendence of Ruddiman, was brougk
out at Edinburgh in folio in 17 I I.
Over the door of the modem house, which j
defended by three loopholes for musketry, and is th
only way by which the edifice can be approachec
are the arms of the Right Reverend Williar
Lbernethy, titular Bishop of Edinburgh ; and near
hem is a panel with an inscription, placed there
by the poet when he repaired his dwelling.
‘‘DIVINO MUNERE GULIELYUS DRVYYONDUS JOHANNIS
URATI FILIUS Ur HONESTO OTIO QUIESCERET SIB1 ET
UCCESSORIBUS INSTAURAVIT, ANNO 1638.”
In the house is preserved a table with a marble
lab, dated 1396, and bearing the initials of King
tobert 111. thereon, with those of Queen Anna-
,ells Drummond, and on it lies a two-handed
word of Robert Bruce, which is five feet two
nches in length, with quadruple guard which
neasures eleven inches from point to point. There
s also a clock, which is said to have been in the
amily since his time; there are a pair of shoes
md a silk dress that belonged to Queen Anna-
Iella; the long cane of the Duchess of Lauderlale,
so famous for her diamonds and her furious
emper; and a dress worn by Prince Charles in
1745.
Below the house are the great caverns for which
3awthomden is so famous. They are artificial,
md have been hollowed out of the rock With
xodigious labour, and all communicate with each
ither by long passages, and possess access to a
vel1 of vast depth, bored from the courtyard of
he mansion. These caverns are reported by
radition and believed by Dr. Stukeley to have
xen a stronghold of the Pictish kings, and in three
nstances they bear the appropriate names of the
King’s Gallery, the King’s Bedchamber, and the
Suard-room ; but they seem simply to have been
hewn out of the solid rock, no one can tell when
x by whom. They served, however, as ample and
secret places of refuge and resort during the destructive
wars between Scotland and England,
especially when the troops of the latter were in
possession of Edinburgh ; and, like the adjacent
caves of Gorton, they gave shelter to the patriotic
bands of Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie and
the Black Knight of Liddesdale, and, by tradition,
to Robert Bruce, as a ballad has it :-
“Here, too, are labyrinthine paths
To caverns dark and low,
Found refuge from the foe.”
Wherein, they say, King Robert Bruce
The profusion of beautiful wood in the opulent
landscape around Hawthornden suggested to Peter
Pindar his caustic remark respecting Dr. Johnson,
that he
“Went to Hawthornden’s fair scenes by night,
Lest e’er a Scottish tree should wound his sight.”
Half a niile up the Esk is Wallace’s Cave-so
called by tradition, and capable of holding seventy

... 1 THE CAVERNS. 355 Druminond wrote most of his works in Hawthornden. In the year 1643 he met ...

Vol. 6 p. 355 (Rel. 2.14)

Newhaven.] FISHER FEUD WITH PRESTONPANS 301
men of the town of Edinburgh, and Lady Greenwich,
on one part, and certain fishermen of
Prestonpans on the other. The point in dispute is
certain oyster scalps, to which each party claims an
exclusive right. Accusations of encroachment were
mutually given and retorted. At dredging, when
the parties met, much altercation and abusive
language took place-bloody encounters ensued,
but only occurs in the Tmendas, like hawkings,
huntings, or other words of style.
“ After various representations to the Judge-
Admiral, his lordship pronounced an interlocutor,
ordaining both parties to produce their prescriptive
rights to their fishings, and prohibited them from
dredging oysters in any of the scalps in dispute till
the issue of the cause.
November 10, 1786, in virtue of which his lordship
was infeft, interaZia, in the oyster scalps in question.
They also condescended on a charter granted by
King James VI., in 1585, to the town of Burntisland,
which is on record, and which they say establishes
their right. They further contend that the magistrates
have produced no proper titles to prove
their exclusive right to the scalps they have let in
tack to the Newhaven fishermen.
“The charter of King James VI. was resigned
,by the town in the time of Charles I,, and the new
charter granted by the latter, gives no right to the
oyster scalps in dispute. The word ‘fishings,’ in
was abolished in defiance of the principles of the
Treaty of Union) in favour of the Newhaven men;
but each party had to pay their own expenses.
So far back as 1789 we begin to read of the
encroachments made by the sea in this quarter, and
probably of what was afterwards so long known as
the “ Man-trap,” as the Advertiser mentions that ‘‘ a
young lady coming from Newhaven to Leith fell
over the precipice on the side of the sea,’’ and
that within six weeks the same catastrophe had
befallen four others, ‘‘ the road being so narrow
and dangerous that people at night run a great risk
of their lives”

... Newhaven.] FISHER FEUD WITH PRESTONPANS 301 men of the town of Edinburgh, and Lady Greenwich, on one part, and ...

Vol. 6 p. 301 (Rel. 2.07)

OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Newhaven. ST.JAMES’S CHAPEL. 297
a manufactory of ropes and cables as having existed
in Newhaven a short time before that period.
In 1508, for the accommodation of his shipwrights
and others, the king built the chapel. It
was founded on the 8th of April; it was “conveyed
” into the hands of James by the chaplain
thereof, Sir James Cowie, “Sir” being then the
substitute for dontinus, when designating a priest.
Indeed, James IV. seems to have been the entire
originator of Newhaven.
In 1510, the city of Edinburgh, fearing that this
new seaport might prove prejudicial to theirs at
Leith, purchased the whole place from the king,
whose charter, dated at Stirling, 9th March of that
year, describes it as ‘‘ the new haven lately made
alley which lies between the main street and Pier
Pla.ce.
In 1506 James IV. erected here a building-yard
and dock for ships (the depth of water favouring the
plan), besides a rope-walk and houses for the accommodation
of artisans. Some portions of the Royal
Roperie were visible here till the middle of the
eighteenth century ; and in a work in MS. preserved
in the Advocates’ Library (a Latin description of
Lothian), written about 1640, mention is made of
the inner front of the houses of the South Row,
which are built on the south side of the street of the
said port. . . . We also will and ordain that
they uphold the bulwarks and other defences necessary
for receiving and protecting the ships and
vessels riding thereto, for thegood and benefit of us,
our kingdom and lieges.” (Burgh Charters, No.
Ixiv.)
From this we learn that in 1510 Newhaven had
a pier and at least one street, known then, as now,
by the name of South Row. Among the witnesses
to this charter are Mathew, Earl of Lennox, Archibald,
Earl of Argyle, George, Abbot of Holyrood,
and many others.
At this now small and rather obscure harbour
by the said king, on the sea. coast, with the lands
thereunto belonging, lying between the chapel of
St. Nicholas (at Leith) and Wierdy Brae.”
This charter gave the community of Edinburgh
free and common passage from Leith to Newhaven,
‘‘ with liberty and space for building and extending
the pier and bulwark of the said port, and unloading
their merchandise and goods in ships, and of
unloading the same upon the land, and to fix ropes
on the shore ; from the sea-shore of the said port to
REMAINS OF ST. JAMES’S CHAPEL, NEWHAVEN.

... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Newhaven. ST.JAMES’S CHAPEL. 297 a manufactory of ropes and cables as having existed in ...

Vol. 6 p. 297 (Rel. 1.9)

50 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even nominally the title of abbot.
A part of the lands fill to the Earl of Roxburghe,
from whom the superiority passed, as narrated
elsewhere.
The “Chronicon Sancta Crucis” was commenced
by the canons of Holyrood, but the portion that
has been preserved comes down only to 1163,
and breaks off at the time of their third abbot.
“Even the Indices Sanctorum and the ‘ two
Calendars of Benefactors and Brethren, begun from
the earliest times, and continued by the care of
numerous monks,’ may-when allowance is made
for the magniloquent style of the recorder-man
nothing more than the united calendar, martyrology,
and ritual book, which is fortunately still
preserved. It is a large folio volume of 132 leaves
of thick vellum, in oak boards covered with stamped
leather, which resembles the binding of the sixteenth
century.” .
The extent of the ancient possessions of this
great abbey may be gathered from the charters
and gifts in the valuable Munim-nta Ecdesicp San&
Cmcis de Edwinesburg and the series of Sent
Rollr. To enumerate the vestments, ornaments,
jewels, relics, and altar vessels of gold and silver
set with precious stones, would far exceed our
limits, but they are to be found at length in the
second volume of the “ Bannatyne Miscellany.”
When the monastery was dissolved at the Reformation
its revenues were great, and according to the
two first historians of Edinburgh its annual income
then was stated as follows :
By Maitland : In wheat. 27 chaldea, 10 bolls.
I) In bear ... 40 .. g ..
I t Inoa ts... 34 .. 15 .. 3tpecks.
501 capons, 24 hens, 24 salmon, 12 loads of salt, and an
unknown number of swine. In money, &926 8s. 6d.
Scots.
By Arnot : In wheat ............ 442 bolls. .. ............. In bear 640 ss .. In oats .............. 560 .. with the same amount in other kind, and.&o sterling.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOLYROOD ABBEY (concluded).
Charter of Willim 1.-Trial of the Scottish Tcmplars-Prrndergast’s Rercnpe--chanas by ROM IL and 111.-The Lord of the Isles-
Coronation of James 11.-Marriages of James I[. and III.-Church, Bc. Burned by the Englih-Ph&d by them-Its Restoration
by James VU.-The Royal Vault-Desaiption of the Chapel Royal-Plundered at the Revolution-Ruined in x*-The West Front-
The Belhavcn Mouument-The Churchyard-Extent of Present Ruin-The Sanctuary-The Abbey Bells.
.KING WILLIAM THE LION, in a charter under his
:great seal, granted between the years 1171 and
1r77, ddressed to “all the good men of his whole
kingdom, French, English, Scots, and Galwegians,”
confirmed the monks of Holyrood in all that had
been given them by his grandfather, King David,
together with many other gifts, including the pasture
of a thousand sheep in Rumanach (Romanno?),
-a document witnessed in the castle, “apud
&densehch. ”
In 1309, when Elias 11. was abbot, there
occurred an interesting event at Holyrood, of
which no notice has yet been taken in any,history
of Scotland-the trial of the Scottish Knights of the
Temple on the usual charges niade against the
erder, aftet the terrible murmurs that rose against it
in Paris, London, and elsewhere, in consequence
-of its alleged secret infidelity, sorcery, and other
vices.
According to the Processus factus contra Tem-
.#arias in Scofict, in Wilkins’ Concilia,” a work of
great price and rarity, it was in the month of
December, 1309-when the south of ScotIand was
averrun by the English, Irish, Welsh, and Norman
troops of Edward II., and John of Bretagne, Earl
of Richmond, was arrogantly called lieutenant of
the kingdom, though Robert Bruce, succeeding to
the power and popularity of Wallace, was in arms
in the north-that Master John de Soleure, otherwise
styled of Solerio, “chaplain to our lord the
Pope,” together with William Lamberton, Bishop of
St. Andrews, met at the Abbey of Holyrood “for
the trial of the Templars, and two brethren of that
order undernamed, the only persons of the order
present in the kingdom of Scotland, by command
of our most holy lord Clement V.” Some curious
light is thrown upon the inner life of the order by
this trial, which it is impossible to give at full
length.
In the first place appeared Brother Walter of
Clifton, who, being sworn on the Gospels, replied
that he had belonged to the military order of the
Temple for ten years, since the last feast of All
Saints, and had been received into it at Temple
Bruer, at Lincoln, in England, by Brother William
de la More (whom Raynouard, in his work on the
order, calls a Scotsman), and that the Scottish
brother knights received the statutes and observ

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood. Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his death, none bore even ...

Vol. 3 p. 50 (Rel. 1.8)

not of reptiles. “ Thus was dissipated the illusion,
founded on the Burdiehouse fossils, that saurian
. reptiles existed in the carboniferous era. To this
CHAPTER XLI.
THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH (continwed).
Gilmerton-The Kinlochs-Legend of the Bumtdale-Paterson’s C a v e T h e Drum House-The Somrrville Family-Roslin Castle-The
St. Clairs-Roslin Chauel-The Buried Barons-Tomb of Earl George-The Under Chapel-The Battle of Roslin-Relics of it-
In the chalk formations hereabout fossil remains
of the prickly palm have been frequently found,
and they have also been found in the lime-pits of
Roslin Village-Its old Inn.
GILMERTON, a village and puuad sncra parish
detached from Liberton, occupies the brow o
rising ground about four miles south from the
city, on the Roxburgh road, with a church, buill
in 1837, and the ancient manor-house of the
Kinlochs, known as the Place of Gilmerton, on the
south side of which there were in former times
butts for the practice of archery.
The subordinate part of the village consists 01
some rather unsightly cottages, the abodes of col.
liers and carters, who sell “yellow sqnd” in the
city.
Robert Bruce granted a charter to Murdoch
Menteith of the lands of Gilmerton, in which it
was stated that they had belonged of old to William
Soulis, in the shire of Edinburgh, and afterwards
he granted another charter .of the same
lands, “ quhilk Soulis foresfecit ” (sic), with ‘‘ the
barony of Prenbowgal (Barnbougle), quhilk was
Roger Mowbray’s.”
This was evidently Sir William de Soulis,
Hereditary Butler of Scotland, whose grandfather,
Nicholas, had been a competitor for the crown as
gtandson of Marjorie, daughter of Alexander II.,
and wife of Allan Durward. William was forfeited
as a traitor in English pay, and a conspirator
against the life of Robert I. He was condemned
to perpetual imprisonment by the Parliament in
1320.
After this, it is traditionally said to have been
the property of a family named Heron, or Herring.
At a much more recent period, the barony of Gilnierton
belonged to John Spence of Condie, Advocate
to Queen Mary in 1561, and who continued
as such till 1571. He had three daughters. “One
of them,” says Scotstarvit, ‘’ was married to Herring
of Lethinty, whose son, Sir David, sold all his lands
of Lethinty, Gilmerton, and Glasclune, in his own
time. Another was married to James Ballantyne of
Spout, whose son James took the same course.
The third to Sir John Moncrieq by whom he had
(“ Index of Charters.”)
an only son, who went mad, and leaped into the
River Earn, and there perished.”
In the next century Gilmerton belonged to the
Somervilles of Drum, as appears by an Act of
Ratification by Parliament, in 1672, to James
Somerville, of the lands of Drum and Gilmerton;”
and after him they went to the family of Kinloch,
whose name was derived from a territory in Fifeshire,
and to this family belongs the well-known
reel named “ Kinloch of Kinloch.” Its chief, Sir
David, was raised to a baronetage of Nova Scotia,
by James VII., in the year 1685, but the title became
extinct upon the failure of male descendants,
though there has been a recent creation, as baronet
of Great Britain, in 1855, in the person of Kinloch
of that ilk.
At what period the Gilmerton branch struck off
from :he present stock is unknown, but the first
upon record is Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, who
died in 1685, and was succeeded by his only son,
Alexander Kinloch, who was created a baronet of
Nova Scotia on the 16th September, 1686. He
married Magdalene McMath, and had a numerous
family. He had been Lord Provost of the city in
1677, His wife, who died in 1674, was buried in
the Greyfriars, and the epitaph on her tomb is
recorded by Monteith.
On his death, in 1696, he was succeeded by his
eldest son, Sir Alexander Kinloch of Gilmerton,
who married Mary, daughter of the famous General
David, Lord Newark, who, after the battle of
Naseby, drew off a whole division of Scottish
cavalry, and, by a rapid march, surprised and
defeated the great Montrose at Philiphaugh, and,
in turn, was defeated by Cromwell at Dunbar.
His son, Sir Francis, the third baronet, married
Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir James Rocheid
3f Inverleith, Bart., by whom he had three sons
md ‘three daughters. One of the former, Akxmder,
as already related in its place, took the surname
and arms of his maternal grandfather on
.

... of reptiles. “ Thus was dissipated the illusion, founded on the Burdiehouse fossils, that saurian . reptiles ...

Vol. 6 p. 343 (Rel. 1.79)

Holyrood.] SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47
between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and
Sir William Oliphant, in connection with the forfeited
estate of William of Monte Alto. Another
species of Parliament was held at Holyrood on
the 10th of February, in the year 1333-4, when
Edward 111. received the enforced homage of his
creature Baliol.
XVI. JOHN II., abbot, appears as a witness to
three charters in 1338, granted to William of
Livingston, William of Creighton, and Henry of
Brade (Braid?).
XVII. BARTHOLOMEW, abbot in 1342.
XVIII. THOMAS, abbot, witnessed a charter to
William Douglas of that ilk, Sir James of Sandilands,
and the Lady Elenora Bruce, relict of Alexander
Earl of Carrick, nephew of Robert I., of the
lands of the West Calder. On the 8th of May,
1366, a council was held at Holyrood, at which the
Scottish nobles treated with ridicule and contempt
the pretensions of the kings of England, and sanctioned
an assessment for the ransom of David II.,
taken prisoner at the battle of Durham. That
monarch was buried before the high altar in 1371,
and Edward 111. granted a safe conduct to certain
persons proceeding to Flanders to provide for the
tomb in which he was placed.
XIX. JOHN III., abbot on the 11th of January,
~372. During his term of office, John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III., was
hospitably entertained at Holyrood, when compelled
to take flight from his enemies in England.
XX. DAVID, abbot on the 18th of January, in
the thirteenth year of Robert 11. The abbey was
burned by the armyof Richard 11. whose army
encamped at Restalrig; but it was soon after
repaired. David is mentioned in a charter dated
at Perth, 1384-5.
XXI. JOHN (formerly Dean of Leith) was abbot
on the 8th of May, 1386. His name occurs in
several charters and other documents, and for the
last time in the indenture or lease of the Canonmills
to the city of Edinburgh, 12th September,
1423. In his time Henry IV. spared the monastery
in gratitude for the kindness of the monks to
his exiled father John of Gaunt.
XXII. PATRICK, abbot 5th September, 1435.
In his term of office James II., who had been born
in the abbey, was crowned there in his sixth year,
on the 25th March, 1436-7; and anothet high
ceremony was performed in the same church when
Mary of Gueldres was crowned -as Queen Consort
in July, 1449. In the preceding year, John Bishop
of Galloway elect became an inmate of the abbey,
and was buried in the cloisters.
XXIII. JAMES, abbot 26th April, 14~0.
XXIV. ARCHIBALD CRAWFORD, abbot in 1457.
He was son of Sir William‘ Crawford of Haining,
and had previously been Prior of Holytood. In
1450 he was one of the commissioners who treated
with the English at Coventry concerning a truce ;
and again in 1474, concerning a marriage between
James Duke of Rothesay and the Princess Cecile,
second daughter of Edward IV. of England. He
was Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in 1480.
He died in 1483. On the abbey church (according
to Crawford) his arms were carved niore than
thirty times. “He added the buttresses on the
walls of the north and south aisles, and probably
built the rich doorway which opens into the north
aisle.” Many finely executed coats armorial are
found over the niches, among them Abbot Crawford’s
frequently- fesse ermine, with a star of five
points, in chief, surmounted by an abbot’s mitre
resting on a pastoral staff.
XXV. ROBERT BELLENDEN, abbot in 1486,
when commissioner concerning a truce with
England. He was still abbot in 1498, and his
virtues are celebrated by his namesake, the archdean
of Moray, canon of ROSS, and translator of
Boece, who says ‘‘ he left the abbey, and died ane
Chartour-monk.” In 1507 the Papal legate presented
James IV., in the name of Pope Julius II.,
in the church, amid a brilliant crowd of nobles,
with a purple crown adorned by golden lilies, and
a sword of state studded with gems, which is still
preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh. He also
brought a bull, bestowing upon James the title of
Defender of the Faith. Abbot Bellenden, in 1493,
founded a chapel in North Leith, dedicated to St.
Ninian, latterly degraded into a victual granary
The causes moving the abbot to build this chapei,
independent of the spiritual wants of the people,
were manifold, as set forth in the charter of
erection. The bridge connecting North and South
Leith, over which he levied toll, was erected at the
same time.
XXVI. GEORGE CRICHTOUN, abbot in 1515,
and Lord Privy Seal, was promoted to the see of
Uunkeld in 1528. As we have recorded elsewhere,
he was the founder of the Hospital of St. Thomas,
near the Water Gate. An interesting relic of his
abbacy exists at present in England.
About the year 1750, when a grave was being
dug in the chancel of St Stephen’s church, St.
Albans, in Hertfordshire, there was found buried
in the soil an ancient lectern bearing his name, and
which is supposed to have been concealed there at
some time during the Civil Wars. It is of cast
brass, and handsonie in design, consisting of an eagle
with expanded wings, supported by a shaft deco-
The piers still remain.

... SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47 between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and Sir William Oliphant, in ...

Vol. 3 p. 47 (Rel. 1.73)

8 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The University.
thereof-A few Notable Bequests-Income-The Library-The
OF the four Scottish Universities, the youngest
Museums.
’ dormer windows, crowstepped gables, and turret
is Edinburgh, a perfectly Protestant foundation,
as the other three were established under the
Catholic ?-&vie; yet the merit of originating the
idea of academical institutions for the metropolis
is due to Robert Reid, who, in 1558, six years
before the date of Queen Mary’s charter, “had
bequeathed to the town of Edinburgh the sum of
8,000 merks for the purpose of erecting a University
within the city.” .
In 1566 Queen Mary entered so warmly into the
views of the magistrates as actually to draw up a
charter and provide a competent endowment for
the future college. But the unsettled state of the
realm and the turbulence of the age marred the
fulfilment of her generous desire ; yet the charter
she had prepared, acted, says Bower, in his ‘‘ His
tory,” so powerfully upon her son, James VI., that it
was inserted in the one which is now deemed the
foundation charter of the university, granted by the
king in 1582, with the privilege of erecting houses
for the professors and students. In recalling
the active benefactors of the university, we cannot
omit the names of the Rev. James Lawson, whose
exertions contributed so greatly to the institution
of the famous High School; and of Provost
William Little, and of Clement Little, Commissary of
Edinburgh, the latter of whom gave, in 1580, ‘‘ to
the city and kirk of God,” the whole of his library,
consisting of 300 volumes-a great collection in
those days-it is supposed for the use of the proposed
college.
The teachers at first established by the foundation
were a Principal or Prilliarius, a Professor of
Divinity, four Regents or Masters of Philosophy,
and a Professor of Philology or Humanity.
On the site of the Kirk-of-Field a quaint group
of quadrangular buildings grew up gradually but
rapidly, forming the. old college, which Maitland
describes as having three courts, the southern of
which was occupied on two sides by the classrooms
and professors’ houses, and on the others
by the College Hall, the houses of the principal
and resident graduates. A flight of steps led from
this to the western quadrangle, which was rich in
stairs. Here the students then resided. The
eastern quadrangle contained the Convocation
Hall and Library. The gateway was at the head
of the College Wynd, with a lofty bell-tower, and
the first five words of the a7~e in Gothic characters
cut upon its lintel, as it was the original portal to
the Kirk-of-Field.
When Scott completed his education here the
old halls, and solemn, yet in some senses mean,
quadrangles, were an unchanged, as in the days of
James VI. and the Charleses, and exhibited many
quaint legends carved in stone.
The old Library was certainly a large and handsome
room, wherein were shown a skull, said to be
that of George Buchanan ; the original Bohemian
protest against the Council of Constance for burning
John Huss and Jerome of Prague, dated 1417~
with 105 seals attached to it; the original marriage
contract of Queen Mary with the Dauphin ; many
coins, medals, and portraits, which were afterwards
preserved in the new university.
The old college buildings were begun in 1581 ;
and in 1583 the Town Council constituted Mr.
Robert Rollock, then a professor at St. Andrews, a
professor in this university, of which he became
afterwards Rector and Principal, and to which by
the power of his learning he allured many students.
The sum of 61 13s. 4d. was given him to defray
the expenses of his removal to Edinburgh, where he
began to teach on the 11th of October, when public
notice was given “ that students desirous of instruction
shall give up their names to a bailie, who
shall take order for their instruction.”
As there was then no other teacher but himself,
he was compelled to put all the students into one
class. ‘‘ He soon felt, however, that this was impracticable,”
says Bower, “so as to do justice to
the young men committed to his care. After having
made this experiment, he was obliged to separate
them into two classes. The progress which
they made was very different, and a considerable
number of them were exceedingly deficient in a
knowledge of the Latin language.”
On his recommendation a Mr. Duncan Nairn

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The University. thereof-A few Notable Bequests-Income-The Library-The OF the four ...

Vol. 5 p. 8 (Rel. 1.67)

THE TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton also granted to St. Cuth
bert’s Church the tithes and oblations of Legbor
nard, a church which cannot now be traced.
The name is supposed to be a corruption o
Lepertoun, as there stood here a hospital fo
lepers, of which all vestiges have disappeared ; bu
the lands thereof in some old writs (according tc
the “New Statistical Account”) were called “Spital
town.”
At Nether Liberton, three-quarters of a mile nortl
of the church, was a mill, worked of course by thc
Braid Burn, which David I, bestowed upon tht
monks of Holyrood, as a tithe thereof, ‘‘wit1
thirty cartloads from the bush of Liberton,” gift!
confirmed by William the Lion under the Grea
Seal circa I I 7 1-7.
The Black Friars at Edinburgh received fivc
pounds sterling annually from this mill at Nethei
Liberton, by a charter from King Robert I.
Prior to the date of King David’s charter, thc
church of Liberton belonged to St. Cuthbert’s
The patronage of it, with an acre of land adjoining
it, was bestowed by Sir John Maxwell of that iik
in 1367, on the monastery of Kilwinning,pro sahh
aniiiim SUE et Agnetis sponsiz SUE.
This gift was confirmed by King David 11.
By David 11. the lands of Over Liberton,
‘( quhilk Allan Baroune resigned,” were gifted tc
John Wigham ; and by the same monarch the land:
of Nether Liberton were gifted to William Ramsay,
of Dalhousie, knight, and Agnes, his spouse, 24th
October, 1369. At a later period he granted a
charter “to David Libbertoun, of the office of
sergandrie of the overward of the Constabularie of
Edinburgh, with the lands of Over Libbertoun
pertaining thereto.” (“ Robertson’s Index.”)
Adam Forrester (ancestor of the Corstorphine
family) was Laird of Nether Liberton in 1387, for
estates changed proprietors quickly in those troublesome
times, and we have already reterred to him
as one of those who, with the Provost Andrew
Yichtson, made arrangements for certain extensive
additions to the church of St. Giles in that year.
William of Liberton was provost of the city in
1429, and ten years subsequently with William
Douglas of Hawthornden, Meclielson of Herdmanston
(now Harviston), and others, he witnessed
the charter of Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, to Sir
Yatrick Logan, Lord. of Restalrig, of the office of
bailie of St. Leonard’s. (“ Burgh Charters,” No.
At Liberton there was standing till about 1840
a tall peel-house or tower, which was believed to
XXVI.)
have been the residence of Macbeth and other
barons of Liberton, and which must not be confounded
with the solitary square tower that stands
to the westward of the road that leads into the
heart of the Braid Hills, and is traditionally said to
have been the abode of a troublesome robber
laud, who waylaid provisions coming to the city
markets.
The former had an old dial-stone, inscribed
‘‘ God’s Providence is our Inheritance.”
Near the present Liberton Tower the remains
of a Celtic cross were found embedded in a wall in
1863, by the late James Drummond, R.S.A. It
was covered with knot-work.
The old church-or chapel it was more probably
-at Kirk-Liberton, is supposed to have been dedicated
to the Virgin Mary-there having been a
holy spring near it, called our Lady’s Well-and
it had attached to it a glebe of two oxgates of
land.
In the vicinity was a place called Kilmartin,
which seemed to indicate the site of some ancient
and now forgotten chapel.
In.1240 the chapelry of Liberton was disjoined by
David Benham, Bishop of St. Andrews and Great
Chamberlain to the King, from the parish of St.
Cuthbert’s, and constituted a rectory belonging to
the Abbey of Holyrood, and from then till the
Reformation it was served by a vicar.
For a brief period subsequent to 1633, it was a
prebend of the short-lived and most inglorious
bishopric of Edinburgh ; and at the final abolition
thereof it reverted to the disposal of the Crown.
The parochial registers date from 1639.
When the old church was demolished prior to
:he erection of the new, in 1815, there was found
very mysteriously embedded in its basement an
ron medal of the thirteenth century, inscribed in
xncient Russian characters “ THE GRAND PRINCE
3 ~ . ALEXANDER YAROSLAVITCH NEVSKOI.”
The old church is said to have been a picuresque
edifice not unlike that now at Corstor-
Ihine ; the new one is a tolerably handsome semi-
Gothic structure, designed by Gillespie Graham,
,eated for 1,430 persons, and having a square
ower with four ornamental pinnacles, forming a
)leasing and prominent object in the landscape
outhward of the city.
Subordinate to the church there were in Catholic
imes three chapels-one built by James V. at
3rigend’ already referred to ; a second at Niddrie,
ounded by Robert Wauchope of Niddrie, in 1389,
.nd dedicated to “ Our .Lady,” but which is now
inly commemorated by its burying-ground-which
ontinues to be in use-and a few faint traces of

... TOWER 327 Liberton.] between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis. Macbeth of Liberton ...

Vol. 6 p. 327 (Rel. 1.62)

224 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
ROBERT CHAMBERS.
(From a *ate PkOtog~U#h.)
1
volume by the firm in 1868, and is the preface tD
which Robert writes :-
‘<I am about to do what very few could do
without emotion-revise a book which I wrote
turreted edifice, that now forms the west side of
Warriston’s Close, and built in 1868. It bears
the legend Gracia . Dei. Ro6erfus . Bruiss, with a
WILLIAM CHAMBERS.
(From a Pktograplr by jokta Lamwrd.)
shield at each end, one having the arms sf Bruce
of Binning in Linlithgowshire, impaled with those
of Preston-three unicorns’ heads.
The eminent publishers, whose extensive premises
now occupy the west side of Warriston’s
Close, William and Robert Chambers-the great
pioneers of the cheap literature movement-were
born at Peebles, in 1800 and 1802 respectively.
Their ancestors were woollen manufacturers, and
their father carried on the business in cotton at
Peebles, on so large a scale that he used sometimes
to have a hundred looms at work.
He was thus enabled to give his sons a good
education at the schools of their native town, where
Robert passed through a classical course, with the
view of taking orders in the church of Scotland ;
but monetary misfortunes having overtaken his
parents, the family removed to Edinburgh, where
the two brothers were thrown in a great measure
on their own resources, but formed the noble
resolution to try by stem industry to regain the
ground their family had lost ; and a love of reading
led them gradually into the business of bookselling.
William served an apprenticeship, from 1814 to
1819, with Mr. Sutherland, Calton Street, who gave
him four shillings weekly as wages, and on this
small sum-shrinking from being a burden on his
delicate and struggling mother-he took a lodging,
it IS. 6d. per week, in Boak’s Land, West Port, a
ittle bed closet, which he shared with a poor
livinity student from the hills of Tweeddale. Out
)f these slender wages he contrived to save a few
ihillings, and began business, in a very small way,
n 1819, and by the following year added printing
hereto, having taught himself that craft, cutting
vith his own hand the larger types out of wood.
By 1818 Robert had begun business in a tiny
;hop as a bookstall-keeper, in Leith Walk, and
iaving a strong literary turn, he made an essay
is author, by starting a small periodical called
he KaZez’doscoje, the types of which were set up
md printed off by William, in an old rickety
xess, which, he relates, “ emitted a jangling,
xeaking noise, like a shriek of anguish,” when
vorked. After a brief career this publication was
hopped, to enable Robert, in 1822, to write a
rolume likely to be popular-“ Illustrations of the
4uthor of Waverley,” referring to the supposed
xiginal characters of the novelist. Of this work
William was printer, binder, and publisher, and a
iecond edition appeared in 1824.
Immediately after its issue he began his “ Traiiitions
of Edinburgh ” (in the plan and production
Df which the brothers anticipated a joint work, that
was to have been written by Scott and Kirkpatrick
S1iarpe)-a book re-written and re-published in one
.

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. ROBERT CHAMBERS. (From a *ate PkOtog~U#h.) 1 volume by the firm in ...

Vol. 2 p. 224 (Rel. 1.62)

Leith.] THE FIRST BRIDGE. 167
Kirk aark, and to be-deprived of- the freedom (of
the city) for ane zeare.” 1
.of the harbour, for the erection of quays and wharfs
and for the loading of goods, with the liberty to
have shops and granaries, and to make all necessary
roads thereto ; but this grasping feudal baron
afterwards sorely teased and perplexed the town
council with points of litigation, till eventually he
roused them to adopt a strong measure for satiating
.at once his avarice and their own ambition.
Bought over by them with alarge sum of nionfy
.drawn from the city treasury, Sir Robert Logan on
;the 27th of February, 1413, granted them an extraordinary
charter, which has been characterised as
an exclusive, ruinous, and enslaving bond,” restraining
the luckless inhabitants of Leith from
.carrying on trade cE any sort, from possessing warehouses
or shops, from keeping inns for strangers,
“ so that nothing should be built or constructed on
the said land (in Leith) in future, to the prejudice
and impediment of the said community.” The
witnesses to this grant are George Lauder the Pro-
Test, and the Bailies, William Touris of Cramond,
William of Edmondston, James Cant, Dean of
Guild, John Clark of Lanark, Andrew Learmouth,
and William of the Wood.
In 1428 King James I. granted a charter under
.his great seal, with consent of the community of
Edinburgh, ordaining “ that in augmentation of the
fabrik and reparation of the port and harbour of
Leith, there should be uplifted a certain tax or toll
upon all ships and boats entering therein,” This
is dated from the Palace of Dunfermline, 31st
December. (Burgh Records.)
In 1439 Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, granted to
Sir Robert Logan and his heirs the office of bailie
aver the abbey lands of St. Leonards, “lyande in
the town of Leicht, within the barony of Restalrig,
on the south halfe the water, from the end of the
gret volut of William Logane on the east part to
the common gate that passes to the ford over the
water of Leicht, beside the waste land near the
house of John of Turing,” etc. (Burgh Charters.)
Not content with the power already given them
over their vassals in Leith, the magistrates of Edinburgh,
after letting the petty customs and haven
siller” of Leith for the sum of one hkdred and
ten merks in 1485, passed a remarkable order in
council :-“ That no merchant of Edinburgh presume
to take into partnership any indweller of the
town of Leith, under pain of forty pounds to the
he proceeded to Leith tb hold his water courts,
such an escort being deemed necessary for the
In 1497 the civic despots of Edinburgh obtained,
on writ from the Privy Council, that “ all manner
of persons, quhilk are infectit, or has been infectit
and uncurrit of the contageouse plage, callit
the grand gore, devoid red and pass furth of
this towne, and compeir on the sandis of Leith,
at ten hours before noon, and thair shall have
boats reddie in the Haven, ordainit to thame be
the officears, reddie furnished with victualles, to
have them to the inche, there to remain quhi!l
God provide for thair health.” (Town Council
Records.)
As regards Leith, a much more important event
is recorded four years before this, when Robert
Ballantyne, abbot of Holyrood, “ with the consent
of his chapter and the approbation of William,
Archbishop of St. Andrews,” first spanned the
river by a solid stone bridge, thus connecting South
and North Leith, holding the right of levying a toll
therefor. It was a bridge of three arches; of
which Lord Eldin made a sketch in 1779, and part
of one of the piers of which still remains. Abbot
Ballantyne also built a chapel thereby, and in his
charter it is expressly stated, after enumerating the
tithes and tolls of the bridge, “that the stipend of
each of the two incumbents is to be limited to
fifteen merks, and after the repairs of the said
bridge and chapel, and lighting the same, the surplus
is to be given to the poor.”
This chapel was dedicated to St. Ninian the
apostle of Galloway, and the abbot’s charter was
confirmed by King James IV. on the 1st June,
1493. He also established a range of buildings
on the south side of the river, a portion of which,
says Robertson, writing in 1851, still exists in
the form of a gable and large oven, at the locality
generally designated ‘ the Old Bridge End.’ ”
The part in Leith whereon, it is said, the first
houses were built in the twelfth century, is bounded ,
on the south by the Tolbooth Wynd, on the west
by the shore or quay, on the north by the Broad
Wynd, and on the east by the Rotten Row, now
called Water Lane. One of the broadest alleys in
this ancient quarter is the Burgess Close,’ ten feet
in width, and was the first road granted to the
citizens of Edinburgh by Logan of Kestalng.
In the year 1501, all freemen of the city, to the
number of twenty or so, were directed by the
magistrates to accompany the water bailie when

... THE FIRST BRIDGE. 167 Kirk aark, and to be-deprived of- the freedom (of the city) for ane zeare.” 1 .of ...

Vol. 5 p. 167 (Rel. 1.59)

Onmond.1 HARBOUR AND ISLAND. 31.5
In the reign of David 11. Roger Greenlaw
obtained a royal charter of the Butterland in the
town of Cramond, “ quhilk‘ William Bartlemow
resigned ;” and Robert 11. granted, at Edinburgh,
in the eighteenth year of his reign, a charter of
certain lands in King’s Cramond to William
Napier, on their resignation by John, son of Simon
Rede, in presence of the Chancellor, John, Bishop
of Dunkeld, and others.
In 1587 Patrick Douglas of Kilspindie became
the south as the Pinnacle. In December, 1769,
a whale, fifty-four feet long, was stranded upon it
by the waves. About a mile northward and east
of it, lies another rocky islet, three or four furlongs
in circumferkhce, named Inchmickery, only remarkable
for a valuable oyster bed on its shore,
and for the rich profusion of sea-weed, mosses,
and lichens, on its beach and surface.
North from the point known as the Hunter’s
Craig or Eagle’s Rock, westward of the harbour,
THE “TWA BRIGS,” CRAMOND.
caution for John Douglas, in Cramond, and his son
Alexander, that they would not molest certain
parishioners there, nor ‘‘ their wives, bairns, or
servants.”
The little harbour of Cramond is specified in the
Exchequer Records as a creek within the port of
Leith. It possesses generally only a few boats,
but in 1791 had seven sloops, measuring 288 tons,
employed by the iron works. Cramond Island, 19
acres in extent, lies 1,440 yards NNE of the
pretty village. It rises high in the centre, with
steep granite cliffs on the east, formerly abounded
with rabbits, and is generally accessible on foot
at low water. It now belongs to Lord Rosebery.
The north point of the isle is known as the Binks;
the stretch known as the Drum Sands extends for
more than a mile.
In 1639, Alexander, sixth Earl of Eglinton, h,$ed
for two days at Cramond with his contingent for
the Scottish army, consisting of zoo horse and
1,800 foot, en route for’Leith.
In the time of Charles I. Cramond gave a title
in the Scottish peerage, when Dame Elizabeth Beaumont,
the wife of Sir Thomas Richardson, Lord
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in England,
was, for some reason now unknown, created
Baroness Cramond for life, with the title of baron
to the Chief Justice’s son and his heirs male; ‘‘in
failure of which, to the heirs male of his father‘s
body”-the first female creation on record in

... HARBOUR AND ISLAND. 31.5 In the reign of David 11. Roger Greenlaw obtained a royal charter of the ...

Vol. 6 p. 315 (Rel. 1.58)

. I64 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
*
LElTH WALK, FROM GAYFIELD SQUARE, LOOKING SOUTH.
CHAPTER XVII.
LEITH-HISTORICAI, SURVEY.
Origih of the Nme‘-Boundariee of South and North Leith-Links of Nor& Leith-The Tom first mentioned in History-King Robert’e Charter
-Superiority of the Logam and Magistrates of Ediuburgh-Abbot Ballantyne’s Bridge and Chapel-Newhaven given to Edinburgh by
Jarnes 1V.-The Port of I53c-The Town Burned by the English.
LEITH, the sea-port of Edinburgh, lies between it
and the Firth of Forth, but, though for Parliamentary
purposes separate from it, it is to all intents an
integral portion of the capital city. Of old the
name was variously written, Leyt, Let, Inverleith,
and the mouth of the Leith, and it is said to have
been derived from the family of the first recorded
proprietors or superiors, the Leiths, who in the reign
of Alexander 111. owned Restalrig and many extensive
possessions in Midlothian, till the superiority
passed by the marriage of the last of the
Leiths into the family of the Logans. However,
‘it seems much more probable that the family took
their name from the river, which has its rise in the
parish of Cume, at Kinleith, where three springs
receive various additions in their progress, particularly
at the village of Balerno, where they are joined
hy the Bavelaw Bum.
This stream, when its waters were pure, abounded
in fish-trout, loche or groundling, and the nine
eyed-eel Or river lamprey; and it must have contained
salmon too, as in the Edinburgh HeraZd for
August, 1797, we read of a soldier in the Caledonian
Regiment being drowned in the Salmon
Pool, in the Water of Leith, by going beyond his
depth when bathing there.
In his “ Historical Inquiries,” Sir Robert Sibbald
suggests that a Roman station of some kind existed
where Leith now stands ; but it has been deemed
more probable, as the author of CaZedonia Rqnana
supposes, that from the main Roman road that went
to Caer-almon (or Cramond) a path diverged by
the outlying camp at Sheriff Hall to Leith, where
Chalmers (“ Caledonia,” Vol., I.), records that “the
remains of a Roman way were discovered, when
one of the piers was being repaired ; I’ and this is
further supported by the fact that some Roman
remains were found near the citadel in 1825, Still,

... I64 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith. * LElTH WALK, FROM GAYFIELD SQUARE, LOOKING SOUTH. CHAPTER ...

Vol. 5 p. 164 (Rel. 1.58)

3 18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [cogs.
p. baronet of Nova Scotia by James VII., in
1687.
The close of the family is thus recorded in the
Scottish Register for 1795 :-“September I. At
Cramond House, died Adam, Inglis, Esq., last
surviving son af Sir John Inglis of Cramond, Bart.
He was instructed in grammar and learning at the
High School -and University of Edinburgh, and at
the Warrington Academy in Lancashire ; studied
law at Edinburgh, and was ca!led to thc bar in
1782. In May, 1794~ was appointed lieutenant of
one of the Midlothian troops of cavalry, in which
he paid the most assiduous attention to the raising
and discipline of the men. On the 23rd August
he was attacked with fever, and expired on the
1st September, in the thirty-fourth year of his age,
unmarried.” Cramond House is now the seat of
the Craigie-Halkett family.
Some three miles south of Cramond lies the district
of Gogar, an ancient and suppressed parish, a
great portion of which is now included in that of
Corstorphine Gogar signifies ‘‘ light,” according
to some “etymological notices,” by Sir Janies
Foulis of Colinton, probably from some signal
given to an army, as there are, he adds, marks of
a battle having taken p1ac.e to the westward‘; but
his idea is much more probably deduced from the
place named traditionally “ the Flashes,” the scene
of Leslie’s repulse of Cromwell in 1650. The
name is more probably Celtic The “ Ottadeni
and Gadeni,” says a statistical writer, ‘‘ the British
descendants of the first colonists, enjoyed their
original land during the second century, and have
left memorials of their existence in the names
of the Forth, the Almond, the Esk, the Leith,
the Gore, the Gogar, and of Cramond, Cockpen,
Dreghorn,” etc.
The church of Gogar was much older than that
of Corstorphine, but was meant for a scanty population.
A small part of it still exists, and after
the Reformation was set apart as a burial-place for
the lords of the manor.
Gogar was bestowed by Robert Bruce on his
trusty comrade in many a well-fought field, Sir
Alexander Seton, one of the patriots who signed
that famous letter to the Pope in 1330, asserting
the independence of the Scots ;’ and vowing that
so long as one hundred of them remained alive,
they would never submit to the King of England.
He was killed in battle at Kinghorn in 1332.
Soon after this establishment the Parish of Gogar
was acquired by the monks of Holyrood; but
before the reign of James V. it had been constituted
an independent rectory. In 1429 Sir John Forrester
conferred its tithes on his collegiate church at
Corstorphine, and made it one of the prebends
there.
In June, 1409, Walter Haliburton, of Dirleton, in
a charter dated from that place, disposed of the
lands and milne of Goga to his brother George.
Among the witnesses were the Earls of March and
Orkney, Robert of Lawder, and others. In 1516
the lands belonged to the Logans of Restalrig and
others, and during the reign of James VI. were in
possession of Sir Alexander Erskine, Master of Mar,
appointed Governor of Edinburgh Castle in I 5 78.
Though styled “the Master,” he was in reality
the second son of John, twelfth Lord Erskine, and
is stated by Douglas to have been an ancestor of
the Earls of Kellie, and was Vice-ChamberIain of
Scotland. His son, Sir Thomas Erskine, also of
Gogar, was in 1606 created Viscount Fenton, and
thirteen years afterwards Earl of Kellie and Lord
Dirleton.
In 1599, after vain efforts had been made by its
few parishioners to raise sufficient funds for an idcumbent,
the parish of Gogar was stripped of its
independence ; and of the two villages of Nether
Gogar and Gogar Stone, which it formerly contained,
the latter has disappeared, and the popu-
Iation of the former numbered a few years ago only
twenty souls.
Grey Cooper, of Gogar, was made a baronet ot
Nova Scotia in 1638.
In 1646 the estate belonged to his son Sir John
Cooper, Bart., and in 1790 it was sold by Sir Grey
Cooper, M.P., to the Ramsays, afterwards of Barnton.
A Cooper of Gogar is said to have been one
Df the first persons who appeared in the High
Street of Edinburgh in a regular coach. They
were, as already stated, baronets of 1638, and after
them came the Myrtons of Gogar, baronets of 1701,
md now extinct.
On the muir of Gogar, in 1606, during the prevalence
of a plape, certain little “ lodges” were
built by James Lawriston, and two other persons
named respectively David and George Hamilton,
for the accommodation of the infected ; but these
edifices were violently destroyed by Thomas Marjoribanks,
a portioner of Ratho, on the plea that their
erection was an invasion of his lands, yet the Lords
of the Council ordered theni to be re-built’“ where
they may have the best commodity of water,’’ as
the said muir was common property.
The Edinburgh Cowant for April, 1723, records
that on the 30th of the preceding March, ‘‘ Mrs.
Elizabeth Murray, lady toThomas Kincaid, younger,
of Gogar Mains,” was found dead on the road from
Edinburgh to that place, with all the appearance of
having been barbarously murdered.

... 18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [cogs. p. baronet of Nova Scotia by James VII., in 1687. The close of the family is ...

Vol. 6 p. 318 (Rel. 1.51)

278 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Prowsta
the city, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Stirling, met in
Holyrood Abbey.
After a gap of forty-eight years we find John
Wigmer aZdermm in 1344. Thirteen years subsequently
certain burgesses of Edinburgh and other
burghs are found negotiating for the ransom of
King David II., taken in battle by the English.
In 1362 WilliamGuppeld was alderman, 9th April,
and till 1369, in which year a council sat at Edinburgh,
when the king granted a charter to the
abbey of Melrose.
In 1373 the dderman was Sir Adam Forrester,
.said to be of Whitburn and Corstorphine, a man
possessed of immense estates, for which he obtained
no less than six charters under the great seal of
Robert II., and was several times employed in
-treaties and negotiations with the English, between
In 1377 John of Quhitness first appears as
Pmost, or Prepositus, on the 18th of May, and in
the following year Adam Forrester was again in
office. In 1381 John de Camera was provost,
and in 1387 Andrew Yutson (or Yichtson), between
whom, with “Adam Forster, Lord of Nether
Libberton,” the Burgh of Edinburgh, and John of
-Stone, and John Skayer, masons, an indenture was
made, 29th November, for the erection of five new
-chapels in St. Giles’s, with pillars and vzulted roofs,
-covered with stone, and lighted with windows.
These additions were made subsequent to the
burning of the city by the invaders under Richard
of England two years before.
In 1392 John of Dalrymple was provost, and
*the names of several bailies alone appear in the
Burgh Records (Appendix) till the time of Provost
Alexander Napier, 3rd October, 1403, whom
Douglas calls first Laird of Merchiston. Under him
Symon de Schele was Dean of Guild and KeepeI
.of the Kirk Work, when the first head guild was
held after the feast of St Michael in the Tolbooth.
Man of Fairnielee was provost 1410-1, and
again in 1419, though George of Lauder was provost
So lately as 1423 John of Levyntoun was styled
alderman, with Richard Lamb and Robert of
Bonkyl bailies, when the lease of the Canonmills
was granted by Dean John of Leith, sometime
Abbot of Holyrood, to “ the aldermen, baylyes, and
dene of the gild,” 12th September, 1423. His
successor was Thomas of Cranstoun, Preporitus,
when the city granted an obligation to Henry VI.
of England, for 50,000 merks English money, on
account of the expenses of James I., while detained
in England by the treasonable intrigues of his
.uncle. William of Liberton, George of Lauder,
1 3 9 4 4 1404-
hl 1413.
and John of Levyntoun, appear as provosts successively
in 1425, 1427, and 1428.
In 1434 Sir Henry Preston of Craigmillar wag
appointed provost; but no such name occurs in
the Douglas peerage under that date. After John
of Levyntoun, Sir Alexander Napier appears as
provost after 1437, and the names of Adam Cant
and Robert Niddry are among those of the magistrates
and council. Then Thomas of Cranstoun
was provost from 1438 till 1445, when Stephen
Hunter succeeded him.
With the interval of one year, during which
Thomas Oliphant was provost, the office was held
from 1454 to 1462 by Sir Alexander Napier of
Merchiston, a man of considerable learning, whom
James 11. made Comptroller ofScotland. In 1451
he had a safe-conduct from the King of England
to visit Canterbury as a pilgrim, and by James 111.
he was constituted Vice-Admiral. He was also
ambassador to England in 1461 and 1462.
In succession to Robert Mure of Polkellie, he
was provost again in 1470, and until the election of
James Creichton of Rothven, or Rowen, in 1477,
when the important edict of James 111. concerning
the market-places and the time of holding markets
was issued.
In 1481 the provost was Rilliarn Bertraham,
who, in the following year, with “the whole fellowship
of merchants, burgesses, and community ” of’
Edinburgh, bound themselves to repay to the King
of England the dowry of his daughter, the Lady
Cecil, in acknowledgment for which loyalty and
generosity, James 111. granted the city its Golden
Charter, with the banner of the Holy Ghost, locally
known still as the Blue Blanket. In 1481 the
provost was for the first time allowed an annual
fee of A z o out of the common purse ; but, some
such fee would seem to have been intended three
years before.
His successor was Sir John Murray of Touchadam,
in 1482; and in the same year we find Patrick
Baron of Spittlefield, under whose rt‘gime the
Hammermen were incorporated, and in 1484 John
Napier of Merchiston, eldest son of Provost
Alexander Napier. He was John Napier of
Rusky, and third of Merchiston, whom James III.,
in a letter dated 1474, designates as OUY Zouift
fandiar sqwiar, and he was one of the lords
auditors in the Parliament of 1483. Two of his
lineal heirs fell successively in battle at Flodden
and Pinkie.
The fourth provost in succession after him was
Patrick Hepburn, Lord Hailes, 8th August. He
was the first designated ‘‘ My h r d Provost,” pre
bably because he was a peer of the realm. He had

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Prowsta the city, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Stirling, met in Holyrood Abbey. After ...

Vol. 4 p. 278 (Rel. 1.5)

as for sale, “together with those new subjects
lying in Water Lane, adjoining Messrs. Elder and
Archibald‘s vaults.”
Many years ago Mr. Macfie was a well-known
sugar refiner in Leith. His establishment stood
in Elbe Street, South Leith, when it was destroyed
by fire; and about 1865 there was started the
extensive and thriving Bonnington Sugar Refining
Company in Breadalbane Street, I.eith, which was
described in a preceding chapter.
THE BANK OF LEITH, 1820. (AferStowr.)
of the incidental allusions to it. It is, however,
supposed to have included a royal arsenal, with
warehouses and dwellings for resident officials,
and according to Robertson’s map seems to have
measured about a hundred feet square.
‘( The remains of this building,” says Amot,
writing in 1779, “with a garden and piece of
waste land that surrounded it, was erected into a
free barony by James VI., and bestowed upon
Bernard Lindsay of Lochill, Groom of the Chamber
The Broad Wynd opens westward off Water
Lane to the shore. The first number of n e Leith
and Edinburgh TeZegrajh and General Adveriiser,
published 26th July, 1808, by William Oliphant,
and continued until September, 1811, appeared,
and was published by a new proprietor, William
Reid, in the Broad Wynd, where it was continued
till its abandonment, 9th March, 1813,
comprising in all 483 numbers. It was succeeded
by me fiith Commercid List. An extensive
building, of which frequent mention is made by
early historians as the King‘s Wark, seems to have
occupied the whole ground between this and the
present Bernard Street, but the exact purpose for
which it was maintained is not made clear in any
(or Chamber CheiZd, as he was called) to that prince.
This Lindsay repaired or rebuilt the King’s Wark,
and there is special mention of his having put its
anci‘enf imer in full repair. He also built there
a new tenniscourt, which is mentioned with
singular marks of approbation in the royal charter
‘ as being built for the recreation of His Majesty,
and of foreigners of rank resorting to the kingdom,
to whom it afforded great satisfaction and delight j
and as advancing the politeness and contributing
to the ornament of the country, to which, by its
happy situation on the Shore of Leith, where there
was so great a concourse of strangers and foreigners,
it was peculiarly adapted.’”
The reddendo in this charter was uncommon,

... for sale, “together with those new subjects lying in Water Lane, adjoining Messrs. Elder and Archibald‘s ...

Vol. 6 p. 236 (Rel. 1.5)

lection of glittering jewels, of which Tytler gives
the list. In the “inventory” of the Jewel House
are mentioned five relics of Robert Bruce, viz.,
four silver goblets and a shirt of mail, “King
Robert‘s serk,” as it is written. Among his
cannon were two great French curtalds, forty-six
other pieces of various calibre, and sixteen fieldwaggons,
with a vast quantity of military stores of
every description.
. The quarrels between James and his arrogant
nobles deepened day by day. At last, says Godscroft,.
a story went abroad that it was proposed
to invite them all to a banquet in the great hall
of the Castle, and there cut them off root and
branch ! This startling rumour led to others, and
all culminated in the battle of Sauchieburn, where
James perished, under the dagger of an assassin,
on the 8th of June, 1488-a monarch who, more
than any other of the Stuarts, contributed towards
the permanent prosperity of the Scottish metropolis.
“By favour of his charters its local jurisdiction
was left almost exclusively in the hands
of its own magistrates; on them were conferred
ample powers for enacting laws for its governance,
with authority in life and death-still vested in its
chief magistrate-an independence which was
afterwards defended amid many dangers down to
the period of the Union. By his charters, also in
their favour, they obtained the right, which they
still hold, to all the customs of the haven and
harbour of Leith, with the proprietorship of the
adjacent coast, and all the roads leading thereto.”
On the accession of James IV., in his boyhood,
he sent a herald from Leith to demand the surrender
of the Castle, and a commission consisting
of the Lord High Treasurer, Sir Wi11;am Knowles
(afterwards slain at Flodden), and others, took
over all the personal property of the late king.
The inventory taken on this occasion, according
to Tytler, affords a pleasing and favourable idea
of the splendour of the Scottish court in those
days.
In the treasurer‘s accounts we have many curious
entries concerning the various Scottish harpers,
fiddlers, and English pipers, that performed here
to amuse James IV. “July 10, 1489 ; to Inglish
pyparis that cam to the Caste1 yet and p1.ayit to
the king, viij lib. viij s,”
During the reign of the chivalrous and splendid
James 1V.-who was crowned at Kelso-Edinburgh
became celebrated throughout all Europe as
the scene of knightly feats. The favourite place for
the royal tournaments was a spot of ground just
below the Cast16 rock, and near the king‘s stables.
There, James in particular, assembled the nobles by
prwlamation, for jousting, offering such meeds of
honour as a golden-headed lance, or similar
favours, presented by his own hand or that of
some beautiful woman. Knights came from all
countries to take part in these jousts; “bot,”
says Pitscottie, “few or none of thame passed
away unmatched, and oftimes overthrowne.”
One notable encounter, witnessed by the
king from the Castle wall, took place in 1503,
when a famous cavalier of the Low Countries,
named by Pitscottie Sir John Cochbevis, challenged
the .best knight in Scotland to break
a spear, or meet him d outrancc in combat to
the death. Sir Patrick Hamilton of the house
of Arran took up his challenge. Amid a vast
concourse, they came to the barriers, lanced,
horsed, and clad in .tempered mail, with their
emblazoned shields hung round their necks. At
sound of trumpet they rushed to the shock, and
splintered their spears fairly. Fresh ones were
given them, but as Hamilton’s horse failed him,
they drew their two-handed swords, and encountered
on foot. They fought thus “for a full
hour, till the Dutchman being struck to the
ground,” the king cast his plumed bonnet over
the wall to stay the combat, while the heralds
and trumpeters proclaimed the Scottish knight
victorious.
But the court of James was distinguished for
other things than the science of war, for during
his brilliant reign Edinburgh became the resort of
men high in every department of science and
art; and the year 1512 saw the Provost of St.
Giles’s, Gavin Douglas, translating Virgil’s “Bneid”
into Scottish verse.
In the Castle there resided, about 1503, Lady
Margmet Stuart, the daughter of James, by Margaret
Drummond of that ilk, whom he is said to
have married clandestinely, and who was removed
by some Scottish conspirators ‘‘ to . make way
for a daughter of England,” as an old historian
has i t She was poisoned, together with her two
sisters; and in August, 1503, “the daughter of
England” duly came in the person of Margaret
Tudor, whose marriage to James at Edinburgh
was conducted with great splendour and much
rejoicing.
In 1509 James employed his master gunner,
Robert Borthwick, to cast a set of brass ordnance
for the Castle, all of which were inscribed
-Mmfim sum, Scofo Borfhwick Eizbricafa, Roberto.
Seven of these were named by James “ the sisters,”
being remarkable for their beauty and size. Borthc
wick also cast within the Castle the bells that now
hang in the cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall
’

... of glittering jewels, of which Tytler gives the list. In the “inventory” of the Jewel House are mentioned ...

Vol. 1 p. 35 (Rel. 1.48)

I18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
of the House of Orkney. He is represented in
armour of the fifteenth century (but the head has
been struck OK); she, in a dress of the same
period, with a breviary clasped in her hands. The
other monument is said to represent the son of
the founder and his wife, whose hands are represented
meekly crossed upon her bosom. Apart
lies the tomb of a supposed crusader, in the south
transept, with a dog at his feet. Traditionally this
is said to be the resting-place of Bernard Stuart,
Lord Aubigny, who came from France as Ambassador
to the Court of James IV., and died in the
adjacent Castle of Corstorphine in 1508. But the
altar tomb is of a much older date, and the shield
has the three heraldic horns of the Forresters duly
stringed. One shield impaled with Forrester, bears
the fesse cheque of Stuart, perhaps for Marian
Stewart, Lady Dalswinton.
It. has been said there are few things more
impressive than such prostrate effigies as these-so
few in Sdotland now-on the tombs of those who
were restless, warlike, and daring in their times;
and the piety of their attitudes contrasts sadly with
the mockery of the sculptured sword, shield, and
mail, and with the tenor of their characters in life.
The cutting of the figures is sharp, and the
draperies are well preserved and curious. There
are to be traced the remains of a piscina and of a
niche, canopied and divided into three compartments.
The temporalities of the church were dispersed
at the Reformation, a portion fell into the
hands. of lay impropriators, and other parts to
educational and other ecclesiastical institutions.
In 1644 the old parish church was demolished,
‘ and the collegiate establishment, in which the
, minister had for some time previously been accustomed
to officiate, became from thenceforward the
only church of the parish.
In ancient times the greater part of this now fertile
district was 8 Swamp, the road through which
was both difficult and dangerous; thus a lamp
was placed at the east end of the church, for the
double purpose of illuminating the shrine of the
Baptist, and guiding the belated traveller through
the perilous morass. The expenses of this lamp
were defrayed by the produce of an acre of land
situate near Coltbndge, called the Lamp Acre to
this day, though it became afterwards an endowment
of the schoolmaster, At what time the kindly
lamp of St. John ceased to guide the wayfarer
by its glimmer is unknown ; doubtless it would be
at the time of the Reformation; but a writer in
1795 relates “ that it is not long since the pulley
for supporting it was taken down.”
Of the Forrester family, Wilson says in his
“ Reminiscences,” published in 1878, “ certainly
their earthly tenure, outside‘ of their old collegiate
foundation, has long been at an end. Of their
castle under Corstorphine Hill, and their town
mansion in the High Street of Edinburgh, not
one stone remains upon another. The very wynd
that so long preserved their name, where once
they flourished among the civic magnates, has
vanished.
“Of what remained of their castle we measured
the fragments of the foundations in 1848, and
found them to consist of a curtain wall, facing the
west, one hundred feet in length, flanked by two
round towers, each twentyone feet in diameter
externally. The ruins were then about seven feet
high, except a fragment on the south, about twelve
feet in height, with the remains of an arrow hole.”
Southward and eastward of this castle there lay
for ages a great sheet of water known as Corstorphine
Loch, and so deep was the Leith in those
days, that provisions, etc., for the household were
brought by boat from the neighbourhood of Coltbridge.
Lightfoot mentions that the Loch of Corstorphine
was celebrated for the production of the
water-hemlock, a plant much more deadly than the
common hemlock,
The earliest proprietors of. Corstorphine traceable
are Thomas de Marshal and William de la
Roche, whose names are in the Ragman Roll
under date 1296. In the Rolls of David 11.
there was a charter to Hew Danyelstoun, “ of the
forfaultrie of David Marshal, Knight, except
Danyelstoun, which Thomas Carno got by gift,
and Llit lands of Cortorphing whilk Malcolm Ramsay
got” (Robertson’s “ Index.”)
They were afterwards possessed by the Mores of
Abercurn, from whom, in the time of Sir William
More, under King Robert II., they were obtained
by charter by Sir Adam Forrester, whose name
was of great antiquity, being deduced from the
office of Keeper of the King’s Forests, his armorial
bearings being three hunting horns. In that charter
he is simply styled “Adam Forrester, Burgess of
Edinburgh.” This was in 1377, and from thenceforward
Corstorphine became the chief title of
his family, though he was also Laird of Nether
Liberton.
Previous to this his name appears in the Burgh
Records as chief magistrate of Edinburgh, 24th
April, 1373 ; and in 1379 Robert 11. granted him
“twenty merks of sterlings from the custom of
the said burgh, granted to him in heritage by our
other letters . . . , until we, or our heirs,
infeft the said Adam, or his heirs, in twenty merks

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine. of the House of Orkney. He is represented in armour of the fifteenth ...

Vol. 5 p. 118 (Rel. 1.44)

216 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
chapel of St. Jamey at Newhaven, belonged to
the preceptory at Leith; and also the little chapel
be payit as follows-namely, best of the third of
the Preceptone of Sanct Antonis LIO, and the
passed in 1587 the preceptory
of St. Anthony
and the chapel of St.
James at Newhaven were,
with other benefices, annexed
to the Crown.
Maitland observes that
the vestry of Leith, after
the Reformation, ’ having
purchased the lands and
properties of divers religious
houses there and in Newhaven,
King James VI.
granted and confirmed the
same by charter in 1614
for the use of the poor.
The Session elected the
Baron Bailie of St. Anthony,
who exercised jurisdiction
in Leith and Newhaven, holding his court at
uil! and giving sentence without appeal, thus :-
‘‘At Leith, 9th February, 1683.‘ On Monday
last St. Anthonis Court was holden in this place,
and is to be keepit att Newheavin at ye first conveniencie.”
The last Baron Bailie was Thomas
THE ARMORIAL BEARINGS OF MARIA DE LORRAINE, 1560.

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith chapel of St. Jamey at Newhaven, belonged to the preceptory at Leith; and also ...

Vol. 6 p. 216 (Rel. 1.44)

People don't play riddle games with Giants, or get tricked by Faerie Queens. They don't follow Blind Maniacs into Futures, or have their Lives saved by Death.

Timothy Hunter in The Books of Faerie

54 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holymd
under his great seal, granted to David, Abbot of
Holyrood, a piece of land within the Castle of
Edinburgh whereon to erect a house, to which the
monks, their servants and families, might repair in
time of peace and war. This piece of ground
was eighty feet in length and eighty in breadth,
wherever the abbot might choose, “beyond the
site of our manor” (the royal lodging?); “the
said abbot and his successors paying therefor to
us and to our heirs a silver penny at the said
castle on Whitsunday yearly, if asked only, so
that the foresaid abbot and his successors and
their servants shall be bound to take the oath
of fidelity for the due security of the said castle
to the keeper thereof, who may be for the time,
have free ish and entry to the said castle at accustomed
and proper hours.”
On the 5th April, 1391, King Robert III., undei
his great seal, granted a charter to the Abbey of
Holyrood, confirming the charter of David 11. to
the abbey, dated 30th December, 1343. It is dated
at Edinburgh. When the abbey became a species
of palace has never been distinctly ascertained,
but Robert 111. appears sometimes to have made
Holyrood his residence. James I. occasionally
kept his court there; and in the abbey his queen
was delivered of twin princes, on the 16th October,
14 I 6-Alexandeq who died, and James, afterwards
second of that name.
In 1428 a remarkable episode occurred in the
abbey church. Alexander, Lord of the Isles, who
had been in rebellion against James I., but had
been utterly defeated by the royal troops in
Lochaber, sent messengers to the king to sue for
mercy. But the latter, justly incensed, refused to
enter into .my negotiations with an outlawed
fugitive. Alexander, driven to despair, and compelled
to fly from place to place, was compelled at
last to trust to the royal clemency. Travelling
secretly to Edinburgh, he suddenly presented himself,
upon a solemn festival, before the high altar 01
Holyrood, and holding his‘drawn sword by the
point, he presented the hilt to the astonished king,
in token of his unconditional submission, and
falling on his knees, in presence of Queen Jane
and the whole court, implored the royal mercy.
The ill-fated James granted him his life, at the
tender intercession of his royal consort, but sent
him a prisoner to the sequestered castle of
Tantallon, on its sea-beat Tock, under the charge
of his nephew, the Earl of Angus. The island
chief eventually received a free pardon, was restored
to all his honours, castles, and estates, and stood
as sponsor for the twin princes, Alexander and
James, at the font
.
In 1437 the Parliament met at Edinburgh, on
the 25th March, after the murder of James I., and
adopted immediate measures for the government of
the country. Their first act was the coronation of
the young prince, in his sixth year, on whose head
at Holyrood, as James II., the crown was solemnly
placed by James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews,
in presence of a great concourse of the nobles,
clergy, and representatives of towns, amid the usual
testimonies of devotion and loyalty.
On March 27th, 1439, Patrick Abbot of Holyrood
and his convent granted a charter to Sir Robert
Logan of Restalrig, and his heirs, of the ofice of
bailie over their lands of St. Leonard’s, in the town
of Leith, “from the end of the great volut of
William Logane, on the east part of the common
gate that passes to the ford over the water of Leith,
beside the waste land near the house of John of
Turyng on the west part, and common Venale
called St. Leonard’s Wynd, as it extended of old
on the south part, and the water of the port OF
Leith on the north, and . . . . in the ninth year of
the pontificate of our most holy father and lord,
Eugenius IV., by Divine Providence Pope.”
Chronologically, the next event connected with
the abbey was the arrival of Mary of Gueldres in
1449. In company with John Railston, Bishop
of Dunkeld, and Nicholas Otterburn, official of
Lothian, the Lord Chancellor Crichton went to
France to seek among the princesses of that
friendly court a suitable bride for young James
11.; but no match being suitable, by the advice
of Charles VII. these ambassadors proceeded to
Burgundy, and, with the cordial concurrence of
Duke Philip the Good, made proposals to his
kinswoman, hlary, the only daughter and heiress
of Arnold, Duke of Gueldres, and in 1449 the
engagement was formally concluded. Philip promised
to pay _f60,boo in gold as a dowry, while
James, on the other hand, settled IO,OOO crowns
upon her, secured on land in Strathearn, Athole,
Methven, and East Lothian, while relinquishing all;
claim to the Duchy of Gueldres, in the event of
an heir male being born to Duke Arnold ; and the
Parliament met at Stirling, resolved that the royal
nuptials should be conducted on a scale of splendour
suited to the occasion.
The fleet containing the bride anchored in June
in the Forth. She was “young, beautiful, and of a
masculine constitution,” says Hawthornden, and
came attended by a splendid train of knights and
nobles from France and Burgundy, including tlie
Archduke Sigisniund of Austria, the Duke of
Brittany, and the Lord of Campvere (the three
brothers-in-law of the King of Scotland), togetho

... don't play riddle games with Giants, or get tricked by Faerie Queens. They don't follow Blind Maniacs into ...

Vol. 3 p. 54 (Rel. 1.44)

Canongate.1 GOVERNMENT OF THE BURGH. 3
{oundation charter of the latter, I likewise grant
go the said canons the town of Herbergare, lying
betwixt the said church, and my town (of Edinmunity
had been swept away by the Reformatioa ;
and by the king’s grant a commendator succeeded
the last abbot, enjoying the privileges of the latter,
According to the record books of the Canongate,
it was governed in 1561 by four old bailies, three
deacons, two treasurers, and four councillors,
“chosen and elected;” and, as enacted in 1567,
the council met every eighth day, on fuirsdaye.
The Tolbooth was then, as till a late period, the
council-room, court-house, and place of punishunent
By 1561 the monastic superiority over the combut
the real glory of the Canongate may be said
to have departed with the court when James VI.
succeeded to the throne of England in 1603, though,
as we shall show, it long continued to be a
fashionable quarter of the metropolis even after
the time of the Union.
In pursuing the general history of the suburbs,
we find that in 1609, under favour of James VI.,
when a number of foreigners were introduced into

... GOVERNMENT OF THE BURGH. 3 {oundation charter of the latter, I likewise grant go the said canons the ...

Vol. 3 p. 3 (Rel. 1.4)

The Cowgate.] LADY GALLOWAY. Z S 7
Although the name of this wynd is as old as
the middle of the seventeeth century, none of the
buildings in it latterly were older than the middle of
the eighteenth. They had all been removed by
those who were anxious for the benefit of such fine
air as its surroundings afforded, for in the map of
1647 the Yicus Epuorzrm is shown as having to
the westward gardens in plenitude, divided by four
long hedgerows, and closed on the south by the
became remarkable for piety, mingled with great
stateliness and pride; and she is thus referred to
in the Ridotto of Holyrood, partly written by her
sister-in-law, Lady Bruce of Kinloss :--
“And there was Bob Murray, though married, alas !
Yet still rivalling Johnstone in beauty and grace.
And there was my lady, well known by her airs,
Who ne’er goes to revel but after her prayers.”
The Bob herein referred to was Sir Robert
crenelated wall of the city, and it terminated by a
bend eastward at the Potterrow Port.
Respectable members of the bar were always
glad to have a flat in some of the tall edifices on
the east side of the wynd. About the middle of it,
on the west side, was a distinct mansion called
Galloway House, having a large Fcdiment, and
ornamented on the top by stone vases. This
residence was built by Alexander, sixth Earl of
Galloway, one of the Lords of Police, who died in
1773. His countess Catharine, daughter of John
Earl of Dundonald, colonel of the Scottish Horse
Guards, was mother of Captain George Stewart, who
fell at Ticonderoga. She had been a beauty in her
youth, and formed the subject of one of Hamilton
of Bangour’s poetical tributes, and in her old age
81
Murray of Clermont. Among all the precise
granddames of her time in Edinburgh, Lady
Galloway was noted for her pre-eminent pomp and
formality, and would order out her coach with six
horses, if but to pay a visit to a friend at the corner
of the wpd, or to Lord hfinto, whose house was a few
yards westward of it. “ It was alleged that when
the countess made calls, the leaders were sometimes
at the door she was going to when she was stepping
into the camage at her own door. This may be
called a tour de force illustration of the nearness of
friends to each other in Old Edinburgh.”
New College Wynd, which strikes from the
eastern part of Chambers Street, runs first IIO feet
northward, then 180 feet westward, and then northward
again in the line of the Iower part of the

... Cowgate.] LADY GALLOWAY. Z S 7 Although the name of this wynd is as old as the middle of the seventeeth ...

Vol. 4 p. 257 (Rel. 1.38)

Leith.] SIR ANDREW WOOD. 199
CHAPTER XXI.
LEITH-HISTORICAL SURVEY (ronfinaed).
A Scottish Navy-Old Fighting Mariners of Leith-Sir Andrew Woodand the YdZm CaravrZ-J.~es 111. skin-James IV. and Su-
Andrew-Double Defeat of the English Ships-John, Kobert, and Andrew Barton-Their Letten of Marque against the Portugu-
Jarnes IV. and his Sailors-A Naval Review.
AND now, before giving the history of more
modern Leith, we must refer to some of her brave
old fighting merchant mariners, who made her
famous in other years.
“As the subject of the Scottish navy,” says
Pinkerton, “ forms a subject but little known, any
anecdotes concerning it become interesting ;1’ and,
fortunately for our purpose, most of these have
some reference to the zncient port of Leith.
Though the foymation of a Scottish navy was
among the last thoughts of the great king Robert
Bruce, when, worn with war and years, he lay dying
in the castle of Cardross, it was not until the reigns
of James 111. and IV. that Scotland possessed any
ships for purely warlike purposes. Nevertheless,
she was rich in hardy mariners and enterprising
merchants ; and an Act of Parliament during the
reign of the latter monarch refers to “ the great
and innumerable riches yat is tint in fault of shippis
and busses,” or boats to be employed in the
fisheries.
In 1497 an enactment was made that vessels of
twenty tons and upwards should be built in all the
seaports of the kingdom, while the magistrates were
directed to compel all stout vagrants who frequented
such places to learn the trade of mariners, and
labour for their own living.
Among the merchants and the private traders
James IV. found many men of ability, bravery,
and experience, such as Sir Andrew Wood of Largo,
the two Bartons (John and Robert), Sir Alexander
Mathieson, William Meremonth, all merchants of
Leith; and Sir David Falconer, of Borrowstounness.
Williarn Brownhill, who never saw an English
ship, either in peace or war, without attacking and
taking her if he was able, and various other naval adventurers
of less note were sought out by James 111.
and treated with peculiar favour and distinction.
But it was in the reign of his father that Sir Andrew
Wood, who has been called the “ Scottish Nelson ”
of his day, made his name in history, and to him
we shall first refer.
Under that unfortunate monarch Scotland’s commerce
was beginning to flourish, notwithstanding
the restraint so curiously laid upon maritime enterprise
by the Act that restricted sailing from St Jude’s
Day till Candlemas, under a penalty; and in 1476
R’e read of the ‘‘ great ship ” of James Kennedy,
which Buchanan states “ to have been the largest
that ever sailed the ocean,” but was wrecked upon.
the coast of England and destroyed by the people.
During the reign of James III., the fighting merchant
of Leith, Sir Andrew Wood, bore the terror
of his name through English, Dutch, and Flemish
waters, and in two pitched battles defeated the
superior power of England at sea. As he was the
first of his race whose name obtained eminence,
nothing is known of his family, and even much of
his personal history is buried in obscurity. Dr.
Abercrombie, in his “ Martial Achievements,” supposes
him to have been a cadet of the Bonnington
family in Angus, and he is generally stated to have
been born about the middle of the fifteenth century
at the old Kirktoun of Largo, situated on the
beautiful bay of the same name.
Wood appears to have been during the early
part of the reign of James 111. a wealthy merchant
in Leith, where at first he possessed and commanded
two armed vessels of some 300 tons each, the-
YeZZow CaraveZ and FZlmer, good and strong ships,
superior in equipment to any that had been seen in*
Scotland before, so excellent were his mariners,
their arms, cannon, and armour. According to
a foot-note in Scott of Scotstarvit’s work, “he had
been first a skipper at the north side of the bridge
of Leith, and being pursued, mortified his house
to Paul’s Work (in Leith Wynd) as the register
beats.”
It would appear that the vessel called the YelZow
CuraveZ was formerly commanded by his friend!
John Barton (of whom more elsewhere), as in the
accounts of the Lord High Treasurer the following
note occurs by the editor :-
‘( In March 1473-4 the accounts contain a notice
of a ship which a cancelled entry enables us to
identify with the King‘s Yellow Carad, afterwards
rendered famous under the command of Sir Andrews
Wood in naval engagements with the English.”
The editor a!so states that in the ‘‘ Account of the
Chamberlain of Fife” he had found another entry
concerning 3 delivery to John Barton, master of
the King’s CurnveZ, under date 1475. “ This last
entry,” says an annotator, ‘‘ being deleted, however
shows that there must have been some mistake as
to whom the corn was delivered, John Barton being
probably sailing one of his own ships. During

... SIR ANDREW WOOD. 199 CHAPTER XXI. LEITH-HISTORICAL SURVEY (ronfinaed). A Scottish Navy-Old Fighting ...

Vol. 6 p. 199 (Rel. 1.38)

352 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roslin.
’ scratching on a pewter plate two verses, which are
~ preserved among his works, and run thus :-
“ My blessings on you, sonsie wife ! . I ne’er was here before ;
Nae heart could wish for more.
You’ve gien us walth for horn and knife,
“ IIeaven keep you free frae care and strife,
Till far ayont fourscore’;
And while I toddle on through life,
I’ll ne’er gang by your door.”
Bums and Nasmyth, it would appear, had spent
the day in “a long ramble among the Pentlands,
which, having sharpened the poet’s appetite, lent
an additional relish to the evening meal.”
It is stated in a recent work that the old inn is
still kept by the descendants of those who estab
lished it at the Restoration.
nected with the victory : the “Shinbones Field,”
where bones have been ploughed up ; the “ Hewan,”
where the onslaught was most dreadful; the
“ Stinking Rig,;” where the slain were not properly
interred ; the ‘‘ Kill-burn,” the current of which was
reddened with blood j and “ Mount Marl,” a farm so
called from a tradition that when the English were
on the point of being finally routed, one of them
cried to his leader, “ Mount, Marl-and ride ! ”
Many coins of Edward I. have also been found
hereabout.
confirmations of this charter from James VI.
and Charles 11. In modern times it has subsided
into a retreat of rural quietness, and the abode
of workers in the bleaching-fields and powdermills.
In the old inn of Roslin, which dates from 1660,
Dr. Johnson and Boswell, in 1773, about the close
of their Scottish tour, dined and drank tea. There,
also, Robert Bums breakfasted in company with
Nasniyth the artist, and being well entertained by
Mrs. Wilson, the landlady, he rewarded her by
ROSLIN CHAPEL:-THE CHANCEL. ( A f t r a Pkologtagh Sy G. w. ki’ilson b CO.)
In 1754, near Roslin, a stone coffin nine feet
long was uncovered by the plough, It contained
a human skeleton, supposed to be that of a chief
killed in the battle ; but it was much more probably
that of some ancient British wamor.
The village of Roslin stands on a bank about a
mile east of the road to Peebles. About 1440,
this village, or town, was the next place in importance
to the east of Edinburgh and Haddington;
and fostered by the care of the St. Clairs of Roslin, it
became populous by the resort of a great concourse
of all ranks of people. In 1456 it received from
James 11. a royal charter creating it a burgh of
barony, with a market cross, a weekly market, and
an annual fair on the Feast of St. Simon and Jude
-the anniversary of the battle of Roslin; and
respectively in the years 1622 and 1650 it received

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roslin. ’ scratching on a pewter plate two verses, which are ~ preserved among his ...

Vol. 6 p. 352 (Rel. 1.36)

soldiers of the garrison made a fruitless defence
till the 6th of June, 1296, when they were compelled
to capitulate-the weather being intensely
sultry and the wells having dried up. In accordance
with Edward‘s usual sanguinary policy, the
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 next year Wallace with his patriots
swePt like a torrent over the Lowlands.
Victorious at Stirling,
in particular, he slew
Cressingham, and recaptured
all the fortresses
- Edinburgh
among them. Scotland
was cleared of the
English ; but the invasion
of I zg8 followed ;
Wallace was betrayed,
and too well do we
know how he died.
The year 1300 saw
“Johan de Kingeston,
Connestable et Gardeyn
du Chaste1 de Edenburgh,”
and four years
afterwards he was succeeded
by Sir Piers
de Lombard, a brave
Robert Bruce was
now in arms. He in
turn had became conqueror
; he invaded
England in 1311, and
by the following year
had re-captured nearly
every castle but that of
. knight of Gascony.
was made on the night of the 14th of March-which
proved dark and stormy-at the most difficult
part of those precipitous blxffs which overhang the
Princes’ Street Gardens, where a fragment of ruin,
named Wallace’s Cradle, is still visible. Under 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
CHANCEL ARCH OF ST. MARGARET’S CHAPEL.
Edinburgh, the reduction of which 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 prepared
to offer a desperate resistance, when a romantic
incident restored the Castle to the king
of Scotland.
Among the soldiers of Randolph was one named
William Frank, who volunteered to lead an escalade
up a steep and intricate 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
-
operations in 1821
traces were found of
steps cut in the rock,
about seventyfeetabove
the fragment named
“ Wallace‘s Cradle ”-
a path supposed to
have been completcd
by a movable ladder.
Sir Piers de Lombard
(sometimes called Leland)
joined King
Kobert, who, according
to Barbour, created him
Viscount of Edinburgh;
but afterwards suspecting
him of treason, and
“that he had an English
hart, made him to
be hangit and drawen.”
To prevent it from
being re-captured or
r e-ga rri son e d, R a ndolph
dismantled the
Castle, which for fourand-
twenty years afterwards
remained a desolate
ruin abandoned
to the bat and the owl.
shattered walls afforded While in this state its
shelter for a single night, in 1335, to therouted
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 transfixed by the
other‘s lance. On the bodies being stripped of
their armour, the gallant stranger proved to be
a woman ! While the issue of the battle was
still doubtful, the earls were joined by fresh
forces under Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie,
William Douglas, and Sir David de Annan. The

... of the garrison made a fruitless defence till the 6th of June, 1296, when they were compelled to ...

Vol. 1 p. 24 (Rel. 1.35)