... . . . . . 320
Coliiiton . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Dreghorn Castle . . . . . . . 324
MapoC the Environs of ...
Vol. 6 p. 402 (Rel. 2.1)
![Colinton.] JUNIPER GREEN. 323
when the village was occupied on the 18th August
by ten companies of Monk’s Regiment (now the
Coldstream Guards), of which Captain Gough of
Berwick was lieutenant-colonel, and Captain
Holmes of Newcastle, major, prior to the storming
of the fortalices of Redhall and Colinton, before
the 24th of the same month. (“Records: Cold.
Guards.”) Redhall, in after years, was the patrimony
of Captain John Inglis, of H.M.S. Be&
pueux, who, at the battle of Camperdown, whq
confused by the signals of the admiral, shouted
with impatience to his sailing-master, ‘‘ Hang it,
Jock ! doon wi’ the helm, and gang iicht into the
middle o’t ! ” closing his telescope as he spoke.
Old Colinton House was, at the period of the
Protectorate, occupied by the Foulis family (now
represented by that of Woodhall in the same parish)
whose name is alleged to be a corruption of the
Norman, as their arms are azure, their bay leaves
uert, in old Norman called fed&. Be that as it
may, the family is older than is stated by Sir Bernard
Burke, as there were two senators of the College
of Justice, each Lord Colinton respectively-James
Foulis in 1532, and John Foulis in 1541; and
there was a James. Fodlis of Colinton, who lived
in the reigns of Mary and James VI., who married
Apes Heriot of Lumphoy, whose tombstone is yet
preserved in an aisle of Colinton Church, and
bears this inscription :-
HERE. LYES. ANE. HONORABIL. WOMAN. A. HERIOT.
SPOVS. TO . J. FOULIS . OF . COLLINT3VN. VAS. QUHA .
DEID . 8 . AUGUST. 1593.
They had four sons-James, who succeeded to
the estate; George, progenitor of the house of
Ravelston ; David, progenitor of the English family
of Ingleby Manor, Yorkshire ; and John, of ?he
Leadhills, whose granddaughter became ancestress
of the Earls of Hopetoun.
Alexander Foulis, of Colinton, was created a
baronet of Nova Scotia in 1634, and his son Sir
James, whose house was stormed by the troops of
Monk, having attended a convention of the estates
in Angus, was betrayed into the hands of the English,
together with the Earls of Leven, Crawford,
Marischal, the Lord Ogilvy, and many others, who
were surprised by a party of Cromwell’s cavalry,
under Colonel Aldridge, on August, 1651, and
taken as prisoners of war to London. He married
Barbara Ainslie of Dolphinton, but, by a case
reported by Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, in 1667,
he would seem to have been in a treaty of marriage
with Dame Margaret Erskine, Lady Tarbet, which
led to a somewhat involved suit before the Lords
of Council and Session. After the Restoration he
was raised to the-Bench as Lord Colinton, and was
succeeded by his son, also a Lord of Session, and
a member of the last Scottish Parliament in 1707,
the year of the Union.
he joined the Duke of Hamilton,
the Earl of Athol, and many others of the nobility
and gentry, in their celebrated protest made by the
Earl of Errol, respecting the most constitutional
defence of the house of legislature, He also
joined in the protest, which declared that an incorpotating
union of the two nations was inconsistent
with the honour of Scotland.”
Further details of this family will be found in
the account of Ravelston (p. 106).
The mansions and villas of many other families
are in this somewhat secluded district ; the principal
one is perhaps the modern seat of the late
Lord Dunfermline, on a beautifully wooded hill
overhanging the village on the south. Colinton
House was built by Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
Bart. Near it, the remains of the old edifice, of the
same name, form a kind of decorative ruin.
Dreghorn Castle, a stately modern edifice, with
a conspicuous round tower, is situated on the
northern slope of the Pentlands, at an elevation of
489 feet above the sea. John Maclaurin, son of
Colin Maclaurin, the eminent mathematician, was
called to the bench as Lord Dreghorn. A learned
correspondence, which took place in 17 go, between
him, Lord Monboddo, and M. Le Chevalier, afterwards
secretary to Talleyrand, on the site of Troy,
will be found in the Scots Magazine for 1810.
The name of this locality is very old, as among
the missing crown charters of Robert II., is one
confirming a lease by Alexander Meygners of
Redhall, to Robert, Earl of Fife and Menteith, of
the barony of Redhall in the shire of Edinburgh,
except Dreghorn and Woodhall; and of the barony
of Glendochart in Perthshire, during the said Earl’s
life. In the early part of the eighteenth century
it was the property of a family named Home.
Near Woodhall, in the parish of Colinton, is the
little modern village of Juniper Green, chiefly
celebrated as being the temporary residence of
Thomas Carlyle, some time after his marriage at
Comely Bank, Stockbridge, where, as he tells us in
his ‘‘ Reminiscences ” (edited by Mr. Froude), “his
first experience in the difficulties of housekeeping
began.” Carlyle’s state of health required perfect
quiet, if not absolute solitude; but at Juniper
Green, as at Comely Bank, their house was much
frequented by the literary society of the day; and,
among others, by Chalmers, Guthrie, and Lord
Jeffrey, whose intimacy with Carlyle .rapidly increased
after the first visit he paid him at Comely
Bank. “He was much taken with my little
-4fter that](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p142.gif "Volume 6 Page 323")
... old edifice, of the
same name, form a kind of decorative ruin.
Dreghorn Castle , a stately modern edifice, ...
Vol. 6 p. 323 (Rel. 2)
... beauty and boldness of contour. The fine pas-
DREGHORN CASTLE ,
Meantime it was very pleasant, and made ...
Vol. 6 p. 324 (Rel. 1.91)
... not correspond in paint of date with the
shirts they accompanied.” Lord Napier died in
1823.
His house, ...
Vol. 3 p. 158 (Rel. 1.1)
... 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. 1.05)
![THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and most effectively re-decorated
by David Bryce, R.S.A., in 1868-70. It now
presents a lofty, broad, and arch-based rear front of
colossal proportions to Princes Street, from whence,
and every other poiiit of view, it forms a conspicuous
mass, standing boldly from among the
many others that form the varied outline of the
Old Town, and consists of the great old centre with
new wings, surmounted by a fine dome, crowned
by a gilded figure of Fame, seven feet high. In
length the facade measures 175 feet; and 112 in
height from the pavement in Bank Street to the
summit, and is embellished all round with much
force and variety, in details of a Grecian style.
The height of the campanile towers is ninety feet.
The bank has above seventy branches ; the subscribed
capital in 1878 was A1,875,000 ; the paidup
capital LI,Z~O,OOO. There are a governor (the
Earl of Stair, K.T.), a deputy, twelve ordinary
and twelve extra-ordinary directors.
The Bank of Scotland issues drafts on other
places in Scotland besides those in which it has
branches, and also on the chief towns in England
and Ireland, and it has correspondents throughout
the whole continent of Europe, as well as in
British America, the States, India, China, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere-a ramification
of business beyond the wildest dreams oi
John Holland and the original projectors of the
establishment in the old Bank Close in 1695.
Concerning the Earthen Mound, the late Alex.
ander Trotter of Dreghorn had a scheme foi
joining the Qld Town to the New, and yet avoiding
Bank Street, by sinking the upper end of the
mound to the leve! of Princes Street, and carrying
the Bank Street end of it eastward along the north
of the Bank of Scotland, in the form of a handsomc
terrace, and thence south into the High Street b)
an opening right upon St. Giles’s Church. Thf
next project was one by the late Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder. He also proposed to bring down thc
south end of the mound “to the level of Prince;
Street, and then to cut a Roman arch through thc
Lawnmarket and under the houses, so as to pas!
on a level to George Square. This,” say!
Cockburn, “was both practical and easy, but i
was not expounded till too late.’’
Not far from the Bank of Scotland, in I(
North Bank Street, ensconced among the might!
mass of buildings that overlook the mound, arc
the offices of the National Security Savings Ban1
of.Edinburgh, established under statute in 1836, an(
certified in terms of the Act 26 and 27 Victoria
cap. 87, managed by a chairman and cominittel
I
if management, the Bank of Scotland being
reasurer.
Of this most useful institution for the benefit of
,he thrifty poorer classes, suffice it to say, as a
ample of its working, that on striking the yearly
iccounts on the 20th of November, 1880, “the
balance due to depositors was on that date
&r,305,27g 14s. 7d., and that the assets at the
same date were x1,3og,3g2 Ss., invested with the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt, and A3,1o4 3s. gd., at the credit of the
3ank’s account in the Bank of Scotland, making
the total assets L1,312,496 11s. gd., which, after
ieductionof the above sum of L1,305,279 14s. 7d.,
leaves a clear surplus of A7916 17s. zd. at the
:redit of the trustees.”
The managers are, ex oficio, the Lord Provost,
the Lord Advocate, the senior Bailie of the city,
:he Members of Parliament for the city, county,
md Leith, the Provost of Leith, the Solicitor-
General, the Convener of the Trades, the Lord
Dean of Guild, and the Master of the Merchant
Company.
In the sanie block of buildings are the offices of
the Free Church of Scotland, occupying the site of
the demolished half of James’s Court. They were
erected in 1851-61, and are in a somewhat
Rorid variety of the Scottish baronial style, from
designs by the late David Cousin.
In striking contrast to the terraced beauty of the
New Town, the south side of the vale of the old
loch, from the North Bridge to the esplanade of
the Castle, is overhung by the dark and lofty gables
and abutments of those towering edifices which
terminate the northern alleys of the High Street,
and the general grouping of which presents an
aspect of equal romance and sublimity. From
amid these sombre masses, standing out in the
white purity of new freestone, are the towers and
facade of the Free Church College and Assembly
Hall, at the head of the Mound.
Into the history of the crises which called
these edifices into existence we need not enter
here, but true it is, as Macaulay says, that for the
sake of religious opinion the Scots have made
sacrifices for which there is no parallel in the
annals of England; and when, at the Disruption,
so many clergymen of the Scottish Church cast
their bread upon the waters, in that spirit of
independence and self-reliance so characteristic of
the race, they could scarcely have foreseen the
great success of their movement.
This new college was the first of those instituted
in connection with the Free Church. The idea
was origipally entertained of making provision for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p107.gif "Volume 3 Page 95")
... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and ...
Vol. 3 p. 95 (Rel. 1.01)
... plays 11. IDrawbridge'lhe
Leith 111. I 8
Dreghorn, iord, '11. 156,166, 911.
Dreghorn Castle . 111. 323, ...
Vol. 6 p. 375 (Rel. 0.98)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Libertou.
extended from east to west over all the country.
This inequality in the ...
Vol. 6 p. 326 (Rel. 0.97)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lcolinton.
the Belitice Puetaruni Scuiurum. He was a convert
to the Protestant ...
Vol. 6 p. 322 (Rel. 0.96)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Andrew squan. I
CHAPTER XXII.
ST. ANDREW SQUARE.
St Andrew Square-List of Early ...
Vol. 3 p. 166 (Rel. 0.94)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS .
--c-
THE OLD CHURCH OF ST . CUTHBERT’S AND THE NORTH LOCH (after CZffSh of ...
Vol. 2 p. 392 (Rel. 0.73)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. tThe Castle Hill.
the steep flight of steps that descend to Johnston
Terrace, we find a ...
Vol. 1 p. 88 (Rel. 0.7)
![1745.1 GENERAL- PRESTON, 329
the operations subsequent to his council of war,
though the inscription on his tomb in Westminster
CHARLES EDWARD IN HIS YOUTH,
(Frm t@ Portrait 6y Torque.)
when " besieged by the rebels."
The officers of state had now fled from Edinburgh
to defend which he instantly adopted the most
vigorous measures. He wrote to the Secretary of
State, acquainting him that if not soon relieved he
would be compelled to surrender, as his stock of
provisions was so small. This letter fell into the
hands of the Prince, by whom the Castle was
never formally summoned. Preston had now been
seventy years in the service. He was in his eighty,
seventh year, and was so enfeebled by time and
wounds as to be unable to walk j yet so constant
was his vigilance, that every two hours he was
wheeled round the posts to see that his sentinels
were on the alert, and whenever a Highlander could
be seen, a gun loaded with grape was fired at him
CHAPTER XLI.
EDINBURGH IN 1745 (concluded).
General] Guest's '' Bravery "-Popularity of the Prince-Castle Blockaded-It Fires on the City-kith Bombarded-End of the Blockade-
Departure of the Highland Army for England-Prisoners in the Castle-Macdopald of Teindreich-Duke ofCurnberlan'd in Edinburgh-
Burning of the Standards.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p149.gif "Volume 2 Page 329")
... GENERAL- PRESTON, 329
the operations subsequent to his council of war,
though the inscription on his tomb ...
Vol. 2 p. 329 (Rel. 0.69)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bradie's Close.
Cullen, a single-minded and upright man, the
transition is great ...
Vol. 1 p. 112 (Rel. 0.67)
... IN THE CASTLE BELOW QUEEN MARY’S ROOM.
CHL4PTER 111.
CASTLE OF EDINBURGH-(cantinued.~~e~.)
The Legend ...
Vol. 1 p. 21 (Rel. 0.66)
... would ensure their total destruction, yet
he escaped them. Aware that a day of trial was
coming, and ...
Vol. 1 p. 33 (Rel. 0.66)
... CASTLE, RAMSAY GARDENS, BANK OF SCOTLAND, AND EARTHEN MOUND, FROM PRINCES ...
Vol. 3 p. iii (Rel. 0.65)
... 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LCowgate.
the historian) became senior minister of the Cowgate
chapel.
One of his ...
Vol. 4 p. 248 (Rel. 0.65)
... THE MELVILLES..
/
LASSWADE CnuKCH, 1773. (Afdw an Etching by Yohn Clerk of E(din.1
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE ...
Vol. 6 p. 361 (Rel. 0.61)
... 1 LATDTNG OF THE ENGLISH ARMY, 309
I. CAROLINE PARK; a, RUINS OF GRANTON CASTLE ; 3, EAST ...
Vol. 6 p. 309 (Rel. 0.6)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craigmillar.
CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE.
I, The Hall ; 2, The Keep ; 3. Queen Mary's Tree ; 4, ...
Vol. 5 p. 60 (Rel. 0.6)
... his queen in the then solitary Castle,
Grime (who, according to Buchanan, began his
reign in the year ...
Vol. 1 p. 16 (Rel. 0.59)
... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J
CHAPTER I.
P R E H I S T O R ...
Vol. 2 p. 385 (Rel. 0.58)
... 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. 0.58)
... Castle Hill.
solid, and her camage winning and affable to her
inferiors.” One of the most ardent of her ...
Vol. 1 p. 84 (Rel. 0.56)
![Cnigmillar.] CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. 61
when descending Craigmillar Hill, a queen’s soldier,
who had a loose match in his hand, exploded
the powder-barrels, and mortally injured Captain
Melville, the kinsman of Sir William Kirkaldy.
The latter interred him with military honours in a
vault of Edinburgh Castle, where, doubtless, his remains
still rest
In 1589 there was granted a charter under the
great seal to John Ross of the lands of Limpitstoun,
which was witnessed in Craigmillar by the Arch-
%ishop of St. Andrews, John Lord Hamilton, the
Commendator of Arbroath, Maitland of Thirlstane,
Walter, Prior of Blantyre, and others.
Calderwood relates, that in January, 1590, when
Jaines VI. was sitting in the Tolbooth, hearing
to the gibbet by forty and fifty at a time. in the
sight of Edinburgh and Leith.
In 1573 the Loyalists, says Crawford of Drumsoy,
sent a strong body of horse and foot, in hope
to capture the Regent Morton at Dalkeith in the
aight; but found him ready to receive them on
Sheriff-hall Muir, from whence he drove them in as
far as the Burghmuir, and only lost the Laird of
Kirkmichael and some fifty men. Few were killed,
recent rains having wetted the gun-matches ; but
its ofice houses and grass,” it was advertised to be
let in the Edinburgh Cowant for 11th March, 1761.
In that year Sir Alexander Gilmour of Craigmillar
was elected M.P. for the county.
We cannot dismiss the subject of Craigmillar
without a brief glance at some of those who occupied
it
Sir Simon Preston, who obtained it from John
de Capella, traced his descent up to Leolph de
Preston, who lived in the reign of William the
Lion; and, according to Douglas, his father was
Sir John Preston, who was taken at the battle of
Durham in 1346, and remained in the Tower of
London until ransomed.
In 1434 Sir Henry Preston of Craigmillar (whose
the case of the Laird of Criigmillar, who was sueing
for a divorce against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell
forcibly carried off one of the most important witnesses
to his Castle of Crichton, threatening him
with the gallows, ‘&as if there had been no king
in Israel.”
It was not until after the beginning of the present
century that the castle was permitted to fall into
ruin and decay, which it did rapidly. It was
in perfect preservation, no doubt, when, with ‘‘ all
PEFFER MILL-HOUSE.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p072.gif "Volume 5 Page 61")
... CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. 61
when descending Craigmillar Hill, a queen’s soldier,
who had a loose match in ...
Vol. 5 p. 61 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
EDINBURGH CASTLE (conclzded). .
The Torture of Neville ...
Vol. 2 p. 386 (Rel. 0.55)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [1745-
General Preston saluted with cannon the officers
of State who returned to ...
Vol. 2 p. 332 (Rel. 0.55)
... leaders of that movement, and with cold and
hard hostility they gazed upon her wasted but once
beautifiil' ...
Vol. 1 p. 45 (Rel. 0.55)
... to 500 men.” This enumeration probably
includes wounded.
On the 13th of June the duke pulled down ...
Vol. 1 p. 65 (Rel. 0.53)
![west Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,” and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both inconvenient and circuitous.
It has been supposed that the earliest buildings
-on this site had been erected in the reign of James
IV., when the low ground to the westward was the
scene of those magnificent tournaments, which drew
to that princely monarch7s court the most brilliant
chivalry in Europe, and where those combats ensued
of which the king was seldom an idle spectator.
This tilting ground remained open and unen-
~
appointed for triell of suche matters.” Latterly
the place bore the name of Livingstone’s Yards.
We have mentioned the acquisition by the city
of the king‘s stables at the Restoration. Lord
Fountainhall records, under date I rth March,
1685, a reduction pursued by the Duke of Queensberry,
as Governor of the Castle, against Thomas
Boreland and other possessors of these stables, as
part of the Castle precincts and property. Boreland
and others asserted that they held their property in
THE GRASSMARKET, FROM THE WEST PORT, 1825. (Afhh’wbmk.)
closed when Maitland wrote. and is described by I virtue of a feu granted in the reign of James V.,
him as a pleasant green space, 150 yards long, by
50 broad, adjoining the Chapel of Our Lady ; but
this “pleasant green” is now intersected by the‘
hideous Kingsbridge ; one portion is occupied by
the Royal Horse Bazaar and St. Cuthbert’s Free
Church, while the rest is made odious by tan-pits,
slaughter-houses, and other dwellings of various
descriptions.
Calderwood records that in the challenge to
mortal combat, in 1571, between Sir William
I Kirkaldy of Grange, and Alexander Stewart
younger of Garlies, they were to fight “upon the
ground, the Baresse, be-west the West Port of
Edinburgh, the place accustomed and of old ,
I
77
but the judges decided that unless thedefenders
could prove a legal dissolution of the royal possession,
they must be held as the king‘s stables, and
be accordingly annexed to the crown of Scotland
Thomas Boreland’s house, one which long figured
in every view of the Castle from the foot of Vennel
{see Vol. I., p. 80), has recently been pulled down.
It was a handsome and substantial edifice of three
storeys in height, including the dormer windows,
crow-stepped, and having three most picturesque
gables in front, with a finely moulded door, on the
lintel of which were inscribed a date and legend :-
T. B. v. B. 1675.
FEAR. GOD. HONOR . THE. KING.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p045.gif "Volume 4 Page 225")
... Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,” and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both ...
Vol. 4 p. 225 (Rel. 0.53)
... king, and will yield it to no power whatever.
But I respect that of the Parliament, and require
six days to ...
Vol. 1 p. 40 (Rel. 0.52)
... permanent and undisputed capital of Scotland.
Sorrow and indignation spread over all the realm
when the fate ...
Vol. 1 p. 29 (Rel. 0.52)
... but they failed to excite mutiny ; yet a
plan was formed by which it was expected that the
Castle and ...
Vol. 4 p. 237 (Rel. 0.52)
... as a spy from Elizabeth. “He was next
visited, in a pretended friendly manner, by Sir
Williain Drury, ...
Vol. 1 p. 48 (Rel. 0.51)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [COrStOrphiie.
fact came to her kcoivledge. Inspired with fury
she repaired at once to ...
Vol. 5 p. 120 (Rel. 0.51)
... Castle Hill,” says Dr. Chambers, “ is partly ’
an esplanade, serving as a parade ground for the
garrison, and ...
Vol. 1 p. 79 (Rel. 0.5)
... following day, accompanied by twelve armed
‘ men, disguised as seamen, with hoods over their
helmets, he ...
Vol. 1 p. 26 (Rel. 0.5)
... by the hand of the Major-General commanding.
From the “ Archieologia Scotica ” we cull the
following ...
Vol. 1 p. 56 (Rel. 0.5)
... the royal marriage and coronation of
Tames 111. with Margaret of Oldenburg-both of
which ceremonies took ...
Vol. 1 p. 32 (Rel. 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle.
‘‘ by a net tied to an iron ring ; he fell and fractured
by Miss ...
Vol. 1 p. 70 (Rel. 0.49)
... this time a strange story went abroad
concerning the spectre of Dundee ; the terrible
yet handsome ...
Vol. 1 p. 66 (Rel. 0.49)
... IV., while preparing for his fatal invasion
rn 1513, went daily to the Castle to inspect and
prove his ...
Vol. 1 p. 36 (Rel. 0.48)
... troops, chiefly cavalry, now gave way, but
still fighting with the dogged valour of Walloons.
Part of ...
Vol. 1 p. 25 (Rel. 0.47)
... cross was raised, " In memory of Colonel
Kenneth Douglas Mackenzie, C.B., who served for
forty-two ...
Vol. 1 p. 80 (Rel. 0.47)
... Castle. 44
old one with France. So their young queen was
betrothed to the Dauphin, and 6,000 ...
Vol. 1 p. 44 (Rel. 0.46)
![The Castle Hill.] THE DUKE OF GORDON’S HOUSE. 89
ter of the Duke of Norfolk and wife of Duke
George, who SO gallantly defended the Castle
against the troops of William of Orange; during
the lifetime of the duke she retired to a Belgian
convent, but afterwards returned to the old mansion
in Edinburgh, where she frequently resided till
her death, which took place at the abbey in 1732,
life, destroyed utterly the ancient Gothic fireplace,
which was very beautiful in its design.
This house is mentioned in the “Diurnal of
Occurrents” as being, in 1570, the residence of
~ Patrick Edgar; and after it passed from the Gordons
it was possessed by the family of Newbyth,
who resided in it for several generations, and
ALLAA RAMSAY’S HOUSE.
sixteen years after that of the duke at Leith.
The internal fittings of the mansion are in many
respects unchanged since its occupation by the
duchess. It is wood-panelled throughout, and
one large room which overlooks the Esplanade. is
decorated with elaborate carvings, and with a large
painting over the mantelpiece the production of
Norrie, a famous housedecorator of the eighteenth
century, whose genius for landscapes entitles him
to a place among Scottish painters. An explosion
of gunpowder which took place in the basement
of the house, in 1811, attended with serious loss of
12
therein, on the 6th December, 1757, was born
the gallant Sir David Baird, Bart., the hero of
Seringapatam and conqueror of Tippoo Saib ; and
therein he was educated and brought up. Returning
years after, he visited the place of his birth,
which had long since passed into other hands.
Chambers relates that the individual then occupying
the house received the veteran hero with great
respect, and, after showing him through it, ushered
him into the little garden behind, where some boys
were engaged in mischievously throwing cabbage
stalks at the chimneys of the Grassmarket. On](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p101.gif "Volume 1 Page 89")
... Castle Hill.] THE DUKE OF GORDON’S HOUSE. 89
ter of the Duke of Norfolk and wife of Duke
George, who SO ...
Vol. 1 p. 89 (Rel. 0.46)
... THE GAELIC CHAPEL. 235
target, andnogentlemantookthe road without pistols
in his holsters, and was ...
Vol. 4 p. 235 (Rel. 0.46)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstrophinc
- ~- I
CRAIGCROOK IN THE PRESENT DAY.
than doubled all the specie ...
Vol. 5 p. 112 (Rel. 0.45)
![THE GUISE PALACE. 93 The Castle Hill.]
queen’s Deid-room, where the individuals of the
royal establishment were kept between their death
and burial. In 1828 there was found walled up
in the oratory an infantine head and hand in wax,
being all that remained of a bambina, or figure of
the child Jesus, and now preserved by the Society
of Antiquaries. The edifice had many windows
on the northern side, and from these a fine view
spent her youth in the proud halls of the Guises
in Picardy, and had beell the spouse of a Longueville,
was here content to live-in a close in
Edinburgh! In these obscurities, too, was a
government conducted, which had to struggle with
Knox, Glencairn, James Stewart, Morton, and
many other powerfd men, backed by a popular
sentiment which never fails to triumph. It was
DUKE OF GORDO~’S HOUSE, BLAIR’S CLOSE, CASTLE HILL.
must have been commanded of the gardens in
the immediate foreground, sloping downward to
the loch, the opposite bank, with its farm-houses,
the Firth of Forth, and Fifeshire. ‘‘ It was interesting,”
says the author of “ Traditions of Edinburgh,”
“to wander through the dusky mazes of
this ancient building, and reflect that they had
been occupied three centuries. ago by a sovereign
princess, and of the most illustrious lineage. Here
was a substantial monument of the connection
between Scotland and France. She, whose ancestors
owned Lorraine as a sovereignty, who had
the misfortune of Mary (of Guise) to be placed in
a position to resist the Reformation. Her own
character deserved that she should have stood in
a more agreeable relation to what Scotland now
venerates, for she was mild and just, and sincerely
anxious for the welfare of her adopted country. It
is also proper to remember on the present occasion,
that in her Court she maintained a decent gravity,
nor would she tolerate any licentious practices
therein. Her maids of honour were always busied
in commendable exercises, she herself being an
examplc to them in virtue, piety, and modesty,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p105.gif "Volume 1 Page 93")
... GUISE PALACE. 93 The Castle Hill.]
queen’s Deid-room, where the individuals of the
royal establishment were ...
Vol. 1 p. 93 (Rel. 0.45)
... a matrimonial alliance having been concluded
between Ermengarde de Beaumont (cousin of
Henry) and King ...
Vol. 1 p. 23 (Rel. 0.44)
... all human shape at the foot of the cliff. James V,
was struck with remorse on hearing‘ bll this ...
Vol. 1 p. 86 (Rel. 0.44)
... according to P. Williamson’s Directory for
1784.
Amid the tumultuom excitement of the Highlanders
entering ...
Vol. 2 p. 328 (Rel. 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1174S- .
to England or theremote districts of Scotland. The
old Chevalier was ...
Vol. 2 p. 330 (Rel. 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle.
entrance to the apartment in which her daughter
was delivered of ...
Vol. 1 p. 78 (Rel. 0.42)
... - OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
- 52 -
set at liberty ; but on the suppression of the order
throughout Scotland, ...
Vol. 3 p. 52 (Rel. 0.42)
... Stratl CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 165
principal duty as clerk in court was to sit below
the bench, watch the ...
Vol. 3 p. 165 (Rel. 0.41)
... Edinburgh Castle, tome and tower,
God grant thou sinke for sinne,
An that even for the black dinner
Earle ...
Vol. 1 p. 31 (Rel. 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughtoa --
REMAINS OF THE VILLAGE OF OLD RROUGHTON, Isj2.
(From a Drawing by Gcorp ...
Vol. 3 p. 180 (Rel. 0.41)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS . .
THE UNIVERSITY.-~~ontirpi~ce.
PAGE
The Kirk-of-Field . . . . . . . I
Rough Sketch of ...
Vol. 6 p. 401 (Rel. 0.41)
... -- Edinburgh Castle. THE EARL OF ARGYLE
which he received the sentence of death. His
guards in the Castle were ...
Vol. 1 p. 59 (Rel. 0.41)
... and howitzers on the bastions of the latter
and the Calton Hill. The sharp encounter there,
and at St. ...
Vol. 1 p. 55 (Rel. 0.4)
![THE CASTLE -4ND GLEN. 34 7 Roslin.]
further repaired, as an ornate entrance seems tc
show, with its lintel, inscribed “ S.W.S., 1622.’’
The same initials appear on the half-circular pedi.
ment of a dormer window. Above this door, which
is beautifully moulded and enriched, is a deep and
ornate squqre niche, the use for which it is difficult
to conceive.
From its windows it commands a view of the
richly-wooded glen, between the rocky banks and
dark shadows of which the Esk flows onward with
a ceaseless murmur among scattered boulders,
where grow an infinite variety of ferns. The
eastern bank rises almost perpendicularly from the
river’s bed, and everywhere there is presented a
diversity of outline that always delights an artistic
eye.
The entrance to the castle was originally by a
gate of vast strength, and the whole structure must
have been spacious and massive, and on its northern
face bears something of the aspect of old Moorish
fortresses in Spain. A descent of a great number of
stone stairs conducts through the existing structure
to the bottom, leading into a spacious kitchen,
from which a door opens into the once famous
gardens. The modern house of 1563 is ill-lighted
and confined, and possesses more the gloom of
a dungeon-like prison than the comforts of a residence.
Grose gives us a view of the whole as they
appeared in 1788--“ haggard and utterly dilapidated-
the mere wreck of a great pile riding on a
l ~ t l e sea of forest-a rueful apology for the once
grand fabric whose name of ‘ Roslin Castle ’ is so
intimately associated with melody and song.”
It is unknown when or by whom the original
castle was founded. It has been referred to the
year 1100, when William de St. Clair, son of
Waldern, Count of St. Clair, who came to England
with William the Conqueror, obtained from
Malcolm 111. the barony of Roslin, and was
named “the seemly St. Clair,” in allusion to his
grace of deportment ; but singular to say, notwithstanding
its importance, the castle is not mentioned
distinctly in history till the reign of James II.,
when Sir William Hamilton was confined in it in
1455 for being in rebellion with Douglas, and again
when it was partly burned in 1447.
Father Richard Augustine Hay, Prior of St.
Piermont, in France, who wrote much about the
Roslin family, records thus :--
“About this time, 1447, Edmund Sinclair of
Dryden, coming with four greyhounds and some
rackets to hunt with the prince (meaning William
Sinclair, Earl of Orkney), met a great company of
rats, and among them an old blind lyard, with a
straw in his mouth, led by the rest, whereat he
greatly marvelled, not thinking what was to follow;
but within four days after-viz., the feast of St.
Leonard, the princess, who took great delight in
little dogs, caused one of the gentlewomen to go
under a bed with a lighted candle to bring forth one
of them that had young whelps, which she was
doing, and not being very attentive, set on fire the
bed, whereat the fire rose and burnt the bed, and
then rose to the ceiling of the great chamber in
which the princess was, whereat she and all that
were in the dungeon (keep?) were compelled to fly.
“ The prince’s chaplain seeing this, and remembering
his master‘s writings, passed to the head of
the dungeon, where they were, and threw out four
great trunks. The news of this fire coming to the
prince’s ears through the lamentable cries of the
ladies and gentlemen, and the sight thereof coming
to his view in the place where he stood-namely,
upon the College (Chapel?) Hill-he was in sorrow
for nothing but the loss of his charters and other
writings; but when the chaplain, who had saved
himself by coming down the bell-rope tied to a
beam, declared how they were saved, he became
cheerful, and went to re-comfort his princess and
the ladies, desiring them to put away all sorrow,
and rewarded his chaplain very richly.” The
i‘ princess ” was the Elizabeth Countess of Roslin,
referred to in page 3 of Vol. I.
In 1544 the castle was fired by the English
under Hertford, and demolished. The house of
1563, erected amid its ruins nineteen years after,
was pillaged and battered by the troops of Cromwellin
1650.
+4t the revolution in 1688, it was pillaged again
by a lawless mob from the city, and from thenceforward
it passes out of history.
Of the powerful family to whom it belonged we
can only give a sketch.
The descendants of the Norman William de St.
Clair, called ihdifferently by that name and Sinclair,
received from successive kings of Scotland
accessions, which made them lords of Cousland,
Pentland, Cardoine, and other lands, and they lived
in their castle, surrounded by all the splendour of a
rude age, and personal importancegiven by the
acquisition of possessions by methods that would
be little understood in modern times.
There were three successive William Sinclairs
barons of Roslin (one of whom made a great
figure in the reign of William the Lion, and gave
a yearly gift to Newbattle,pro saZufe mime we)
before the accession of Henry, who, by one account,
is said to have mamed a daughter of the
Earl of Mar, and by auother a daughter of the Earl](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p166.gif "Volume 6 Page 347")
... CASTLE -4ND GLEN. 34 7 Roslin.]
further repaired, as an ornate entrance seems tc
show, with its lintel, ...
Vol. 6 p. 347 (Rel. 0.4)
... Castle Hill.
well-known in his time as a man of taste, and the
patron of Runciman the artist.
mond, of ...
Vol. 1 p. 92 (Rel. 0.4)
![The Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the head of the bank, and so
going down to the said North Loch,” &c.
This right of proprietary seems clear enough,
yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown,
and found that the ground adjacent to the
Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and
the north and south banks or braes,” belonged,
(‘jure coronte, to Her Majesty as part and pertinent
of the said Castle.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE CASTLE HILL (cmclded).
Dr. Guthrie’s Original Ragged School-Old Houses in the Streetof the Castle Hill-Duke of Gordon’s House, Blair’s Close-Webster‘s
CloscDr. Alex. Webster-Boswell’s Court-Hyndford House-Assembly Hall-Houses of the Marquis of Argyle, Sir Andrew Kcnnedy,
the Earl of Cassillis, the Laird of Cockpen--Lord Semple’s House-Lord Semple-Palace of Mary of Gub-Its Fate.
ON the north side of this thoroughfare-which,
within 150 years ago, was one of the most
aristocratic quarters of the old city-two great
breaches have been made: one when the Free
Church College was built in 1846, and the other, a
little later, when Short’s Observatory was built in
Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged
School, which owes its existence to the philanthropic
efforts of the late Dr. Guthrie, who, with
Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took
so leading a part in the pon-intrusion controversy,
which ended in the disruption in 1843 and the
institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1847
Guthrie’s fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf
of the homeless and destitute children, the little
street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the
establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged
Industrial School, which has been productive of
incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer
classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of
a good common and Christian education, by training
them in habits of industry, enabling them to
earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for
the duties of life,
All children are excluded who attend regular
day-schools, whose parents have a regular income,
or who receive support or education from the parochial
board; and the Association consists of all subscribers
of 10s. and upwards per annum, or donors
of A5 and upwards; and the general plan upon
which this ragged school and its branch establishment
at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows,
viz.:-“To give children an adequate allowance of
food for their daily support; to instruct them in
reading, writing, and arithmetic ; to train them in
habits of industry, by instructing and employing
them in such sorts of work as are suited to their
years; to teach them the truths of the Gospel,
making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of
instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive
food as on other days, and such religious instruction
as shall be arranged by the acting committee,”
which consists of not less than twelve members.
To this most excellent institution no children
are admissible who are above fourteen or under five
years of age, and they must either be natives of
Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months
prior to application for admission, though, in special
cases, it may be limited to six. None are admitted
or retained who labour under infectious disease, or
whose mental or bodily constitution renders them
incapable of profiting by the institution. All must ,
attend church on Sunday, and no formula of
doctrine is taught to which their parents may
object ; and children are excused from attendance
at school or worship on Sunday whose parents
object to their attendance, but who undertake that
the children are otherwise religiously instructed in
the tenets of the communion to which they belong,
provided they are in a condition to be entrusted
with the care of their children.
Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views
of Dr. Guthne, and most ably have they been
carried out.
According to the Report for 187g-which may
be taken as fairly typical of the work done in this
eminently useful institution-there was an average
attendance. in the Ramsay Lane Schools of 216
boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department
comprises carpentry, box-making, shoemaking, and
tailoring, and the net, profits made by the boys
in these branches amounted to &;I& 14s. 5+d.
Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the
cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they
occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys
was estimated at A130, and the girls, equally
industrious, did work to the value (including the
washing) of A109 7s.
Full of years and honour, Dr. Thomas Guthne
died 24th February, 1873.
Memories of these old houses that have passed
away, yet remain, while on the opposite side of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p099.gif "Volume 1 Page 87")
... Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the ...
Vol. 1 p. 87 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Heriot‘s Green.
a round hat, with a cockade and black feather on
the left side, ...
Vol. 4 p. 372 (Rel. 0.39)
... to Bellenden, was now standing boldly
at bay, and, with its branching antlers, put the life
of the ...
Vol. 1 p. 22 (Rel. 0.39)
... for some raid, act of treason, or murder, he
would perhaps appear at the bar in a suit of mail,
with as ...
Vol. 1 p. 168 (Rel. 0.39)
... THE FORRESTERS. I21
took the name of Ruthven, and occupied the castle,
the family honours and ...
Vol. 5 p. 121 (Rel. 0.39)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
after nnmixous schemes and suggestions, the North
Bridge was widened in ...
Vol. 2 p. 340 (Rel. 0.38)
... at sea, yet he adds, “our numbers
amounted to 700, and with the loss of three we
made ourselves masters ...
Vol. 5 p. 173 (Rel. 0.38)
... of glittering jewels, of which Tytler gives
the list. In the “inventory” of the Jewel House
are mentioned ...
Vol. 1 p. 35 (Rel. 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.but the3ittle .warlike episode connected with Inchkeith
forms a part of ...
Vol. 5 p. 172 (Rel. 0.37)
... might be baptised in Protestant form,
The queen only replied by placing the child in
his arms. Then the ...
Vol. 1 p. 47 (Rel. 0.37)
![192 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lThe High S e e a
and Sweden, tells us, at the storming of Boitzenburg,
there was “ a Scottish gentleman under the
enemy, who, coming to scale the walls, said aloud,
‘Have with you, gentlemen ! Thinke not now
you are on the streel of Edhlburgh bravading.’ One
of his own countrymen thrusting him through the
body with a pike, he ended there.”
In the general consternation which succeeded
* the defeat of the army at Flodden a plague raged
within the city with great violence, and carried off
great numbers. Hence the Town Council, to prevent
its progress,
ordered all shops
and booths to be
closed for the space
of fifteen days, and
neither doors nor
windows to be
opened within that
time, but on some
unavoidable occasion,
and nothing
to be dealt in but
necessaries for the
immediate support
of life. All vagrants
were forbidden
to walk in the
streets without hiving
each a light;
and several houses
that had been occupied
by infected
persons were demolished.
*
In 1532 the
High Street was
first paved or causewayed,
and many of
the old tenements
“These, however,” says Arnot, “are not to be
considered as arguing any comparative insignificancy
in the city of Edinburgh. They proceeded
from the rudeness of the times. The writers of
those days spoke of Edinburgh in terms that show
the respectable opinion they entertained of it. ‘ In
this city,’ says a writer of the sixteenth century-
Braun Agrippinensis--‘ there are two spacious
streets, of which the principal one, leading from
the Palace to the Castle, is paved with square
stones. The city itself is not built of bricks,
ANDREW CROSBY. (Fmm the Portrait in tkePadiament Haii.)
[The orkinal ofCuunseZZnr PLydelZ in “ Guy Mamneiing.“]
renovated. The former was done under the superintendence
of a Frenchman named Marlin, whose
name was bestowed on an alley to the south. The
Town Council ordered lights to be hung out by
night by the citizens to light the streets, and Edinburgh
became a principal place of resort from all
parts of the kingdom.
Till the reign of James V., the meal-market, and
also the flesh-market, were kept in booths in the
open High Street, which was also encumbered by
stacks of peat, heather, and other fuel, before every
door; while, till the middle of the end of the seventeenth
century, according to Gordon’s map, a fleshmarket
was kept in the Canongate, immediately
below the Nether Bow.
but of square freestones,
and so
stately is its app
ear an c e, that
single houses inay
be compared to
palaces. From the
abbey to the castle
there is a continued
street, which on
both sides contains
a range of excellent
houses. and the
better sort are built
of hewn stone.’
There are,” adds
Amot, ‘‘ specimens
oT the buildings of
the fifteenth century
still (1779) remaining,
particularly
a house on
the south side of
the High Street,
immediately above
Peeble’s Wynd,
having a handsome
front of hewn stone,
and niches in the
walls for the images of saints, which may justify
our author‘s description. The house was built
about 1430 (temp. James I.) No private building
in the city of modern date can compare
with it.”
The year 1554 saw the streets better lighted,
and some attempts made to clean them.
The continual wars with England compelled the
citizens to crowd their dwellings as near the Castle
as possible ; thus, instead of the city increasing in
limits, it rose skyward, as we have already mentioned
; storey was piled on storey till the streets
resembled closely packed towers or steeples, each
house, or “land,” sheltering from twenty to thirty
families within its walls. This was particularly thc](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p204.gif "Volume 1 Page 192")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lThe High S e e a
and Sweden, tells us, at the storming of Boitzenburg,
there was “ a ...
Vol. 1 p. 192 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD -4ND NEW EDINBURGH. [Calton Hill.
~~~~
sea or land, with all its defects it makes a ...
Vol. 3 p. 108 (Rel. 0.37)
... of Belhaven, the Earl Marischal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at ...
Vol. 1 p. 67 (Rel. 0.37)
... brave prince, demanded instant restitution, and,
at the head of an army, laid siege to the Normans
in the ...
Vol. 1 p. 18 (Rel. 0.37)
... These documents had been perfidiously
sent to Scotland by General Monk. The marquis
was condemned to ...
Vol. 1 p. 59 (Rel. 0.37)
... These documents had been perfidiously
sent to Scotland by General Monk. The marquis
was condemned to ...
Vol. 1 p. 58 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
of Brockhouse, contracted with the corporation to
provide accommodation for ...
Vol. 6 p. 194 (Rel. 0.37)
... ‘married Henry Stuart Lord Methven, on
finding that the former was about to seize her
dower-lands, fled, with ...
Vol. 1 p. 43 (Rel. 0.37)
... monarchs-a new era began in its history,
and it took a stahding as the chief burgh in
Scotland, the ...
Vol. 1 p. 27 (Rel. 0.36)
... N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil,
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet
eastward of ...
Vol. 1 p. 82 (Rel. 0.36)
... _- George S1rret.l THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS.
ducted in Europe; but the regulations as issued for
them a century ago ...
Vol. 3 p. 149 (Rel. 0.36)
![Edinburgh Castle.] KIRKALDY’S SURRENDER. 49
fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St. Cuthbeds church ; while the fifth, under Sir
Thomas‘Sutton, was on the line of Princes Street,
and faced King Davids Tower.
All these guns opened simultaneously on Sunday,
the 17th of May, by salvoes; and the shrieks of
the women in the Castle were distinctly heard
in the camp of the Regent and in the city.
The fire was maintained on both sides with unabated
vigour-nor were the arquebuses idle-till
the 23rd, when Sutton’s guns having breached
sieged depended chiefly for water. This great
battery then covered half of the Esplanade
Holinshed mentions another spring, St. Margaret‘s
Well, from which Kirkaldy’s men secretly obtained
water till the besiegers poisoned it ! By this time
the survivors were so exhausted by toil and want
of food as to be scarcely able to bear armour, or
work the remaining guns. On the 28th Kirkaldy
requested a parley by beat of drum, and was
lowered over the ruins by ropes in his armour, to
arrange a capitulation ; but Morton would hear
ANCIENT POSTERN hND TURRET NEAR THE QUEEN’S POST.
Davfd’s Tower, the enormous mass, with all its
guns and men, and with a roar as of thunder, came
crashing over the rocks, and masses of it must have
fallen into the loch zoo feet below. The Gate
Tower with the portcullis and Wallace’s Tower,
were battered down by the 24th. The guns of
the queen’s garrison were nearly silenced, now, and
cries of despair were heard. The great square
Peel and the Constable’s Tower, with the curtain
between, armed with brass cannon-dikes of
great antiquity-came crashing down in succession,
and their d&is choked up the still existing drawwells.
Still the garrison did not quite lose
heart, until the besiegers got passession of the
Spur, within which was the well on which the bea
of nothing now save an unconditional surrender,
so the red flag of defiance was pulled down on the
following day. By the Regent’s order the Scottish
companies occupied the breaches, with orders to
exclude all Englishmen. “The governor delivered
his sword to Sir William Drury on receiving the
‘solemn assurance of being restored to his estatc
and liberty at the intercession of Q-ueen Elizabeth
The remnant of his gamson marched into the city
in armour with banners displayed ; there came
forth, with the Lord Home, twelve knights, zoo
soldiers, and ten boys, with several ladies, including
the Countess of Argyle.” The brave commander
was basely delivered up by Drury to the
I vindictive power of the Regent j and he and his](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p061.gif "Volume 1 Page 49")
... Castle.] KIRKALDY’S SURRENDER. 49
fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St. Cuthbeds church ...
Vol. 1 p. 49 (Rel. 0.36)
... whom she took up her abode. After having
effectually lulled all suspicion, she affected to remember
a vow ...
Vol. 1 p. 30 (Rel. 0.36)
... Lawomarket.1 MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 9s
visitor could be fully visCd before admission was
accorded. In many other ...
Vol. 1 p. 95 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castlc.
brother Sir James, with two burgesses of the City,
were drawn ...
Vol. 1 p. 50 (Rel. 0.36)
![Leith.] THE HIGHLAND MUTINEERS ON THE SHORE. 195 - .
the battery guns facing the city-which was filled
with consternation-while a rather helpless force of
cavalry took possession of the Castle HilL The
crisis was, indeed, a perilous one, as the vaults of
the fortress were full of French and Spanish prisoners
of war, while a French squadron was cruising off the
mouth of the Forth, and had already captured some
vessels. Next day the company capitulated, all
save one, who, with his claymore, assailed an officer
of the Ioth, who struck him down and had him
made a prisoner.
The cavalry occupied the fortress until the arrival
of Lord Lennox’s regiment, the 26th or Cameronians,
when‘a court-martial was held. One Highlander
was sentenced to be shot, and another to
receive a thousand lashes ; but both were forgiven
on condition of serving beyond the seas in a battalion
of the line.
Another mutiny occurred in the April of the
following year.
Seventy Highlanders enlisted for the 42nd and
71st (then known as the Master of Lovat’s
Regiment) when marched to Leith, refused to
embark, a mischievous report having been spread
that they were to be draughted into a Lowland
corps, and thus deprived of the kilt; and so much
did they resent this, that they resolved to resist to
death. On the evening they reached Leith the
following despatch was delivered at Edinburgh
Castle by a mounted dragoon :-
(‘ To Governor Wemyss, or the Commanding
Officer of the South Fencible Regiment. 7
“ Headquarters, Apri!, I 7 79.
“ SrR,-The draughts of the 71st Regiment
having refused to embark, you will order 200 men
of the South Fencibles to march immediately to
Leith to seize these mutineers and march them
prisoners to the castle of Edinburgh, to be detained
there until further orders.-I am, &c.,
“ JA. AmLPnus OUGHTON.”
In obedience to this order from the General
Commanding, three captains, six subalterns, and
zoo of the Fencibles under Major Sir James
Johnstone, Bart., of Westerhall, marched to Leith
on this most unpleasant duty, and found the
seventy Highlanders on the Shore, drawn up in
line with their backs to the houses, their bayoiiets
fixed, and muskets loaded. Sir James drew up his
detachment in such a manner as to render escape
impossible, and then stated the positive orders he
would be compelled to obey.
His words were translated into Gaelic by Sergeant
Ross, who acted as interpreter, and who,
after some expostulation, turned to Sir James,
saying that all was over-his countrymen would
neither surrender nor lay down their arms. On
this Johnston‘e gave the order to prepare for firing
-but added, “Recover ams.”
A Bighlander at that moment attempted to
escape, but was seized by a sergeant, who was
instantly bayoneted, while another, coming to the
rescue with his pike, was shot. The blood of the
Fencibles was roused now, and they poured in
more than one volley upon the Highlanders, of
whom twelve were shot dead, and many mortally
wounded. The fire was returned promptly enough,
but with feeble effect, as the Highlanders had only
a few charges given to them by a Leith porter;
thus only two Fencibles were killed and one
wounded ; but Captain James Mansfield (formerly
of the 7th or Queen’s Dragoons), while attempting
to save the latter, was bayoneted by a furious
Celt, whose charge he vainly sought to parry with
his sword. A corporal shot the mutineer through
the head: the Fencibles-while a vast crowd of
Leith people looked on: appalled by a scene so unusual-
now closed up with charged bayonets, disarmed
the whole, and leaving the Shore strewn
with dead and dying, returned to the Castle with
twenty-five prisoners, and the body of Captain
Mansfield, who left a widow with six children, and
was interred in the Greyfriars churchyard.
The scene of this tragedy was in front of the
old Ship Tavern and the tenement known as the
Britannia Inn.
After a court-martial was held, on the 29th ot
May, the garrison, consisting of the South and West
Fencibles and the cavalry, paraded on the Castle
Hill, in three sides of a hollow square, facing inwards.
With a band playing the dead march, and
the drums muffled and craped, three of these Highland
recruits, who had been sentenced to death,
each stepping slowly behind his open coffin, were
brought by an escort down the winding pathway,
under the great wall of the Half-moon Battery,
and placed in the open face of the square by the
Provost-marshal. They were then desired to kneel,
while their sentence was read to them-Privates
Williamson and MacIvor of the Black Watch, and
Budge of the 7 1st-to be shof fo death f
The summer morning was bright and beautiful ;
but a dark cloud rested on every face while the
poor prisoners remained on their knees, each man
in his coffin, and a Highland officer interpreted the
sentence in Gaelic. They were pale and composed,
save Budge, who was suffering severely from wounds
received at Leith, and looked emaciated and
ghastly. Their eyes were now bound up, and the
firing party were in the act of taking aim at the
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p014.gif "Volume 6 Page 195")
... THE HIGHLAND MUTINEERS ON THE SHORE. 195 - .
the battery guns facing the city-which was filled
with ...
Vol. 6 p. 195 (Rel. 0.36)
... extinct Scottish regiments, and various weapons
from the field of Culloden, particularly the Doune
steel ...
Vol. 1 p. 76 (Rel. 0.35)
... of the garrison made a fruitless defence
till the 6th of June, 1296, when they were compelled
to ...
Vol. 1 p. 24 (Rel. 0.35)
![Castle Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the larger scenes. The
proscenium was 32 feet wide by 32 feet in height,
with an availabie width behind of 74 feet, expanding
backwards to 114 feet.
The lighting was achieved ‘by a central sunlight
and lamps hung on the partition walls. The ventilation
was admirable, and the temperature was
regulated by steam-pipes throughout the house.
But the career of this fine edifice as a theatre
was very brief, and proved how inadequate Edinburgh
is, from the peculiar tastes and wishes of
its people, to supply audiences for more than two
or three such places of entertainment. It speedily
proved a failure, and being in the inarket was
purchased by the members of the United Presbyterian
Church, who converted it into a theological
hall, suited for an audience of 2,ooo in all.
The total cost of the building to the denomination,
including the purchase of the theatre, amounted
to ~47,000. Two flats under the street $oor are
fitted up as fireproof stores, which will cover in all
an area of 3,500 square yards.
In connection with this defunct theatre it was
proposed to have a winter garden and aquarium.
Near it the eye is arrested by a vast pile of new
buildings, fantastic and unique in design and
detail, the architect of which has certainly been
fortunate, at least, in striking out something
original, if almost indescribable, in domestic architecture.
Free St. Cuthbert’s Church is in Spittal Street,
which is named from Provost Sir James Spittal,
and is terminated by the King’s Bridge at the base
of the Castle Rock.
All this area of ground and that lying a little
to the westward have the general name of the
Castle Barns, a designation still preserved in a
little street near Port Hopetoun. A map of the
suburbs, in 1798, shows Castle Barns to be an
isolated hamlet or double row of houses on Lhe
Falkirk Road, distant about 250 yards from the
little pavilion-roofed villa still standing at the Main
Point. Maitland alleges that somewhere thereabout
an ediiice was erected for the accommodation
of the royal retinue when the king resided
in the Castle; and perhaps such may have been
the case, but the name implies its having been
the grange or farm attached to the fortress, and
this idea is confirmed by early maps, when a considerable
portion of the ground now lying on both
sides of the Lothian Road is included under the
general term.
On the plateau at the head of the latter, bordered
on the south-east by the ancient way to Fountainbridge,
stands one of the most hideous features
of Edinburgh-the Canal Basinl with its surrounding
stores and offices. 8
In 1817 an Act of Parliament was procured,
giving power to a joint stock company to cut a
a canal from Edinburgh to the Forth and Clyde
Canal at a point about four miles before the communication
of the latter with the Forth. The canal
was begun in the following year and completed in
1822. The chief objects of it were the transmission
of heavy goods and the conveyance of passengers
between the capital and Glasgow-a system long
since abandoned ; the importation to the former
of large coal supplies from places to the *estward,
and the exportation of manure from the city into
agricultural districts. The eastern termination,
calledPort Hopetoun, occasioned the rapid erect;on
of a somewhat important suburb, where before there
stood only a few scattered houses surrounded by
fields and groves of pretty trees; but the canal,
though a considerable benefit to the city in prerailway
times, has drained a great deal of money
from its shareholders.
Though opened in 182, the canal was considerably
advanced in the year preceding. In the
Week0 Journd for November 7, 1821, we read
that “from the present state of the works, the
shortening of the days, and the probability of being
retarded by the weather, it seems scarcely possible
that the trade of this navigation can be opened up
sooner than the second month of spring, which
will be exactly four years from its commencement.
Much has been done within the last few months
on the west end of the line, while at the east end
the forming of the basin, which is now ready to
receive the water, together with the numerous
bridges necessary in the first quarter of a mile, have
required great attention. , Of the passage boats
building at the west end of Lochrin distillery, two
of which we mentioned some time ago as being
in a forward state, one is now completed ; she is
in every respect an elegant and comfortable vessel,
and is called the FZoora Mac Ivor; the second is
considerably advanced, and a third boat after the
same model as the others is commenced building.”
In the same (now defunct) periodical, for 1st
January, 1822, we learn that the RZora, “the first
of the Union Canal Company’s passage boats, was
yesterday launched from the company’s building
yard, at the back of Gilmore Place.”
One of the best features of street architecture
that sprung up in this quarter after the formation
of the canal was Gardiner’s Crescent., with its
chapel, which was purchased from the United
Secession Congregation by the Kirk Session of St.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p035.gif "Volume 4 Page 215")
... Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the ...
Vol. 4 p. 215 (Rel. 0.35)
... the time of her accouchement drew near, she
was advised by the Lords of Council to remain in
the fortress and ...
Vol. 1 p. 46 (Rel. 0.35)
... College Church (restored) . . . . 289
Victoria Street and Terrace, from George Iv. Bridge. ...
Vol. 2 p. 394 (Rel. 0.35)
... had been paying his addresses to a girl
possessed of great attractions, daughter of Richard
Lawson of ...
Vol. 1 p. 42 (Rel. 0.35)
![Manor Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of the close of the ceremony,
and immediately the choir, along with other officials
of ‘the church in surplices stationed in the garden,
sung the hymn “Praise ye the Lord, ye Heavens
in the nave and clerestory bear the arms of many
ancient Scottish families,
Away to the westward of the quarter we have
described, at the delta of the old Glasgow and
Dalry roads, where for several generations stood
ST. MAPY7S CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR VIEW. (Fpom a Phofosrnph by G. W. Wikm ad Co., ACrdem.)
by the Lord Provost.
Sir Gilbert Scott did not live to see the completion
of this cathedral, which is one of the many
lasting monuments of his skill as an architect.
Among the gifts to the cathedral are a peal of ten
bells presented by Dean Montgomery ; the great
from Glasgow by wings upon the two roads, formed
a junction and halted, while the officers had breakfast
or dinner before pushing on to the Castle by
the Lang Dykes and latterly by Princes Street and ,
the Earthern Mound-is the Haymarket Railway
Station, the first or original terminus of the Edin](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p033.gif "Volume 4 Page 213")
... Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of ...
Vol. 4 p. 213 (Rel. 0.35)
... blood of the Trojans. In Albanye (now called
Scotland) he edified the Castell of Alclude, which
is Dumbreyton ...
Vol. 1 p. 15 (Rel. 0.35)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craigmillar.
-- 58
competition, the first prize for the chapel, &c., was
awarded to ...
Vol. 5 p. 58 (Rel. 0.35)
... Castle Hill~l LORD SEMPLE 9s -
spire which surmounts the massive Gothic tower at
the main entrance rises to ...
Vol. 1 p. 91 (Rel. 0.35)
... he delighted in music and the theatre, and
it was his own advanced taste and spirit that led
.him, in 1725, ...
Vol. 1 p. 83 (Rel. 0.34)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur's Scat.
sey, and a deep excitement prevailed, when it was
whispered-none knew ...
Vol. 4 p. 308 (Rel. 0.34)
![Firinburgh Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers-Guardsmenand Greys mingled-Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of, the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a solitary
roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.”
According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the’duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, “Whither
“Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,” was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameroniaas
beat to ;urns, and they came swarming out of theix
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
ackioion, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earl$
of Tweeddale arid Lothian appeared at the gate d
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender ii
within four-and-twenty houm, and daringly offering
a year’s pay to every soldier who would desert him.
‘‘ My lords,” said he, “without the express order?
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrendei
this castle.”
By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke 01
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declarec
a traitor. He tossed them some guineas to drink
the health of James VII., adding, with a laugh, ‘‘I
would advise you not to proclaim men traitors whc
wear the king’s coat till they have turned it”
Under the highest penalties, all persons were non
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockadethc
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were addec
300 Highlanders under Argyle. Out of this bodj
there were formed in one day two battalions of thc
line, which still exist-the 25th, or old Edinburgt
regiment, which bears on its colours the tripk
castle, with the motto, ‘‘ Nisi Dominus Frustra,”*
go you ? ”
-
There was a second regiment, called the bth. or Royal Edinburgl
Volunteers, raised by Major-General Sir William Erskine. Bart., in 1777
It served rinder Cornwallis in the American War, and wasdibanded ai
the close thereof. Its Lieuteoant-Colooel was Dundas of Fingask, wh<
died at Guadaoupe
and the 26th, or Cameronians, whose appointments
bear the five-pointed mullet-the .arms of their
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scots
Brigade, from Holland, were on their march, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matters looked darker and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now seventy-four
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were,
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (fomierly King’s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in a
supply of provisions, the
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.
The entire strength
of the garrison, including
okers and gentlemen-
volunteers, was
only eighty-six men,
who had to work
twentv-two Dieces of
@j duke wrote King James -
(exclusive of FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBURGH REfield-
pieces) ranging VOLUTION CLUB.
from 42 to I a-pounders.
They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money, Mnrl in 1688.)
(=nick in 1753 in ~ommn~mmtiom
a d ~,ztrtu 6,. Wiziiam aw
of the recmwy of tkir Rrligwr
and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard !
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hopelessly
invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
Jam& safe arrival in Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve companies,
all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolpacks with
which to form breastworks. A11 within the Castle
who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly from
the want of medical attendance, till the duke’s
family physician contrived to join him, probably by
the postern.
On the 13th of March he heavily cannonaded the
western entrenchments, and by dint of shot and
shell retnded the working parties; but General
Mackay now formed a battery of 18-pounders, at
the Highnggs, opposed to the royal lodging and
the half-moon. On the 3rd of April the Duke discovered
that the house of Coates, the ancient](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p075.gif "Volume 1 Page 63")
... Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 63 (Rel. 0.34)
![Firinburgh Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers-Guardsmenand Greys mingled-Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of, the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a solitary
roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.”
According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the’duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, “Whither
“Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,” was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameroniaas
beat to ;urns, and they came swarming out of theix
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
ackioion, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earl$
of Tweeddale arid Lothian appeared at the gate d
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender ii
within four-and-twenty houm, and daringly offering
a year’s pay to every soldier who would desert him.
‘‘ My lords,” said he, “without the express order?
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrendei
this castle.”
By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke 01
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declarec
a traitor. He tossed them some guineas to drink
the health of James VII., adding, with a laugh, ‘‘I
would advise you not to proclaim men traitors whc
wear the king’s coat till they have turned it”
Under the highest penalties, all persons were non
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockadethc
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were addec
300 Highlanders under Argyle. Out of this bodj
there were formed in one day two battalions of thc
line, which still exist-the 25th, or old Edinburgt
regiment, which bears on its colours the tripk
castle, with the motto, ‘‘ Nisi Dominus Frustra,”*
go you ? ”
-
There was a second regiment, called the bth. or Royal Edinburgl
Volunteers, raised by Major-General Sir William Erskine. Bart., in 1777
It served rinder Cornwallis in the American War, and wasdibanded ai
the close thereof. Its Lieuteoant-Colooel was Dundas of Fingask, wh<
died at Guadaoupe
and the 26th, or Cameronians, whose appointments
bear the five-pointed mullet-the .arms of their
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scots
Brigade, from Holland, were on their march, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matters looked darker and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now seventy-four
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were,
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (fomierly King’s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in a
supply of provisions, the
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.
The entire strength
of the garrison, including
okers and gentlemen-
volunteers, was
only eighty-six men,
who had to work
twentv-two Dieces of
@j duke wrote King James -
(exclusive of FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBURGH REfield-
pieces) ranging VOLUTION CLUB.
from 42 to I a-pounders.
They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money, Mnrl in 1688.)
(=nick in 1753 in ~ommn~mmtiom
a d ~,ztrtu 6,. Wiziiam aw
of the recmwy of tkir Rrligwr
and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard !
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hopelessly
invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
Jam& safe arrival in Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve companies,
all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolpacks with
which to form breastworks. A11 within the Castle
who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly from
the want of medical attendance, till the duke’s
family physician contrived to join him, probably by
the postern.
On the 13th of March he heavily cannonaded the
western entrenchments, and by dint of shot and
shell retnded the working parties; but General
Mackay now formed a battery of 18-pounders, at
the Highnggs, opposed to the royal lodging and
the half-moon. On the 3rd of April the Duke discovered
that the house of Coates, the ancient](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p076.gif "Volume 1 Page 64")
... Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 64 (Rel. 0.34)
... of the name from Mollance to Mince, or
Mons Meg, was quite natural to the Scots, who
sink tlie l’s in ...
Vol. 1 p. 75 (Rel. 0.34)
... goods. He accused Edinburgh of an unreasonable
jealousy of its seaport, and invited the inhabitants
of that ...
Vol. 5 p. 188 (Rel. 0.33)
... THE CLAN REGIMENTS. 327
venerable Market Cross, with the heralds, pursuivants,
and the magistrates (many ...
Vol. 2 p. 327 (Rel. 0.33)
![High Street.] SCOTTISH COINAGE. 269
~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~
crown for Mary of Guise, and inclosed with arches
the present crown of Scotland.
The early .gold coins of Mary‘s reign were of
native ore, and, during the minority of James VI.,
Cornelius de Vos, a Dutchman, who had licence to
seek for gold and silver, obtained considerable
quantities, according to the records relating to
mines and mining in Scotland, published by Mr.
Cochran-Patrick.
The oldest gold coin found in Scotland bears
- ~~
under pain of death. The coins current in Scotland
in the reign of James 111. were named the
demi, the lion, the groat of the crown, the groat
of the fleur-de-lis, the penny, farthing, and plack.
English coins were also current, but their value
was regulated by the estates. From “Miscelleanea
Scotica” we learn that in 1512 Sir Alexander
Napier of Merchiston found gold in the Pentland
Hills, and from the Balcarres MSS. (in the Advocates’
Library) he and his son figure conspicuously
3
2
RELICS OF THE OLD SCOTTISH MINT.
I, Delicate Set of Balances, 2, Dies ; 3, hnch : 4. Implements for Knarling the Coins : 5, Large Tiding-pin of the Great Door : 6, Roller for
Flattening the Silver; 7, Key of the Mint Door. (From Origiwlr am ia fhr ScottW Antiyuarzizn Musrum.)
the nameof Robert, but which of the three monarchs
so called is uncertain. Gold was not coined in
England till 1257. The first gold coins struck in
Scotland were of a broad surface and very thin.
There is some doubt about when copper coinage
was introduced, but in 1466, during the reign of
James III., an Act was passed to the effect that,
for the benefit 6f the poor, “there be cuinyied
copper money, four to the (silver) penny, having on
the one part the cross of St. Andrew and the crown,
and on the other part the subscription of Edinburgh,”
together with JAMES R.
The same monarch issued a silver coin containing
an alloy of copper, which went under the name
of black money, and to ensure the circulation of
this depreciated coin the parliament ordained that
no counterfeits of it be taken in payment, or used,
in connection With the Mint, of which the latter was
general for some years after 1592.
In 1572 the Regent Morton coined base money
in his castle at Dalkeith, and by proclamation
made it pass current for thrice its real value ; and
having got rid of it all in 1575, by paying workmen
in the repair of Edinburgh Castle and other public
places, he issued a council order reducing it to its
intrinsic value, an act of oppression which won him
the hatred of the people. In the reign of James
VI., all the silver coin, extending to two hundred
and eleven stone ten pounds in weight, was called
in, and a coin was issued from the Mint in Gray’s
Close, “in ten shilling pieces of eleven pennies
fine,” having on one side his effigywith the inscription,
JZZU~US YI., Da‘ Gratia Rex Scofomm,
on the other the royal arms, crowned. In hisreign](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p089.gif "Volume 2 Page 269")
... Street.] SCOTTISH COINAGE. 269
~~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~ ~~~
crown for Mary of Guise, and inclosed with arches
the ...
Vol. 2 p. 269 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
of the House of Orkney. He is represented in
armour of the fifteenth ...
Vol. 5 p. 118 (Rel. 0.33)
... Vlll OLD' AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
, T H E W E S T B 0 W (conclud-d.) PAGE
A Hand to Hand Combat in ...
Vol. 2 p. 390 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHolyrood
these ecclesiastical foundations :-The Priory of St.
Mary’s Isle, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 46 (Rel. 0.33)
![The Mound.] A PROPOSED HARBOUR. no
“And such a lot, my Skene, was thine,
When thou of late wert doomed to twine- - Just when thy bridal hour was by-
The cypress with the myrtle tie.
Just on thy bride her sire had smiled,
And blessed the union of his child,
When love must change its joyous cheer,
And wipe affection’s filial tear.”
In the subsequent March Scott had left his
beloved house in Castle Street for ever.
Among the memorials of the Pictish race, illustrated
so ably in Dr. Stuarfs “ Sculptured Stones
of Scotland,” is one with the peculiar emblems of
the crescent and sceptre, which was found under
the Castle rock and near the west churchyard.
The line of railway which intersects the garden,
and passes by a tunnel under the new portion of
St. Cuthbert’s churchyard, fails to mar its beauty,
as it is almost entirely hidden by trees and
shrubbery, especially about the base of the rock,
from which the castle “looks down upon the
city as if out of another world: stem with all its
peacefulness, its garniture of trees, its slopes of
grass. The rock is dingy enough in colour,
but after a shower its lichens laugh our greenly
in the returning sun, while the rainbow is brightening
on the lowering sky beyond. How deep
the shadow which the castle throws at noon
on the gardens at its feet, where the children
play! How grand when giant bulk and towery
crown blacken against the sunset !
In the extreme western portion of the gardens
lie some great fragments of masonry, which have
fallen down in past sieges from some of the older
walls in the vicinity of the sallyport, while thefoundations
of these are to be traced from point to point,
some feet on the outside of the present fortifications,
and lower down the rock.
In the western hollow is an ornamental fountain
of considerable beauty, and formed of iron, named
after its donor, Mr. Ross, who spent A3;ooo on
its erection. In 1876 the gardens were acquired
by the citizens, and were thea much improved
They are used in summer for musicaI promenades,
and in contour and embellishment, though
much more extensive, have a certain resemblance
to the gardens on the east side of the Earthen
Mound.
For long years after the loch had passed away
the latter was but a reedy, marshy hollow, intersected
by what was called the Little Mound, that
led from near South St. Andrew Street to the foot
of Mary King’s Close. The ground was partially
drained when the North Bridge was built, but
more effectually about 1821, when it was let as a
nursery.
.When the Union canal was projected, towards
the close of the last century, the plans for it, not
unlike those of the Earl of Mar in 1728, included
the continuation of it through the bed of the North
Loch, past where a street was built, and actually
called Canal Street. “From thence it was proposed
to conduct it to Greenside, in the area of
which was an immense harbour ; and this, again,.
being connected by a broad canal with the sea, it
was expected that by such means the New Town
would be converted into a seaport, and the
unhappy traders of Leith compelled either to
abandon their traffic or remove within the precincts
of their jealous rivals. Chimerical as this project
may now appear, designs were furnished by experienced
engineers, a map of the whole plan was
engraved on a large scale, and no doubt our civic
reformers rejoiced in the anticipation of surmounting
the disadvantages of an inland position, and
seeing the shipping of the chief ports of Europe
crowding into the heart of their new capital ! ”
The operations for forming the canal were
delayed in 1776 by a dispute between the magistrates
and the feuars of the extended royalty
relative to Canal Street, that ended in the Court
of Session, which sustained “ the defences pled by
the magistrates of Edinburgh, and assoilie from the
conclusion of the declarator j but with respect to
the challenge brought with regard to particular
houses being built contrary to the Act of Parliament,
1698, remit to the Lord Ordinary to hear
parties to do as he shall see cause.” The Lord
President, the Lord Justice Clerk, and Lord
Covington, were of a different opinion from the
rest of the court, and condemned the conduct of
the magistrates in very severe terms.
The Act of 1698, referred to, was one restricting
the height of houses within the city, and to
the effect that none should be above five storeys,
with a front wall of three feet in thickness at the
base. In March, 1776, the dispute was adjusted,
and a print of the time tells us that the public
‘‘ will now be gratified with a pleasure-ground upon
the south side of Princes Street, to a considerable
extent ; and the loch will in time be formed into a
canal, which will not only be ornamental, but of
great benefit to the citizens”
This Utopian affair was actually commenced, for
in the Edinburgh We&y Magazine of the 28th
March, 1776, we are told that on the 25th instant
twenty labourers “ began to work at the banks of
the intended canal between the old and new town
but how far the work proceeded we hake no means
of knowing.
The site of the projected canal is now occupied](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p111.gif "Volume 3 Page 99")
... Mound.] A PROPOSED HARBOUR. no
“And such a lot, my Skene, was thine,
When thou of late wert doomed to twine- ...
Vol. 3 p. 99 (Rel. 0.33)
![Merchiston.] THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, Bart.
In 1870 the original use to which the foundation
was put underwent a change, and the hospital
became a great public school for boys and girls.
At the western extremity of what was the Burghmuir,
near where lately was an old village of that
name (at the point where the Colinton road diverges
from that which leads to Biggar), there stands, yet
unchanged amid all its new surroundings, the
ancient castle of Merchiston, the whilom seat of a
race second to none in Scotland for rank and talent
-the Napiers, now Lords Napier and Ettrick. It
is a lofty square tower, surmounted by corbelled
battlements, a ape-house, and tall chimneys. It
was once surrounded by a moat, and had a secret
avenue or means of escape into the fields to the
north. As to when it was built, or by whom, no
record now remains.
In the missing rolls of Robert I., the lands of
Merchiston and Dalry, in the county of Edinburgh,
belonged in his reign to William Bisset, and under
David II., the former belonged to William de
Sancto Claro, on the resignation of Williani Bisset,
according to Robertson’s “Index,” in which we find
a royal charter, “datum est apud Dundee,” 14th
August, 1367, to John of Cragyof the lands of
Merchiston, which John of Creigchton had resigned.
So the estate would seem to have had several
proprietors before it came into the hands of
Alexander Napier, who was Provost of Edinburgh
in 1438, and by this acquisition Merchiston became
the chief title of his family.
His son, Sir Alexander, who was Comptroller of
Scotland under James 11. in 1450, and went on a
pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury in the
following year-for which he had safe-conduct from
the King of England-was Provost of Edinburgh
between 1469 and 1471- He was ambassador to
the Court of the Golden Fleece in 1473, and was
no stranger to Charles the Bold ; the tenor of his
instructions to whom from James II., shows that he
visited Bruges a d the court of Burgundy before
that year, in 1468, when he was present at the
Tournament of the Golden Fleece, and selected a
suit of brilliant armour for his sovereign.
Sir Alexander, fifth of Merchiston, fell at Flodden
with James IV.
John Napier of Merchiston was Provost 17th
of May, 1484, and his son and successor, Sir Archibald,
founded a chaplaincy and altar in honour of St.
Salvator in St. Giles’s Church in November, 1493.
His grandson, Sir Archibald Napier, who married
a daughter of Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, was
slain at the battle of Pinkie, in 1547.
Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston and Edinbellie,
who was latterly Master of the Mint to
James VI., was father of John Napier the
celebrated inventor of the Logarithms, who was
born in Merchiston Castle in 1550, fgur years after
the birth of Tycho Brahe, and fourteen before that
of Galileo, at a time when the Reformation in
Scotland was just commencing, as in the preceding‘
year John Knox had been released from the
French galleys, and was then enjoying royal
patronage in England. His mother was Janet,
only daughter of Sir Francis Bothwell, and sister
of Adam, Bishop of Orkney. At the time of his
birth his father was only sixteen years of age. He
was educated at St. Salvator’s College, St. Andrews,
where he matriculated 1562-3, and afterwards spent
several years in France, the Low Countries, and
Italy; he applied himself closely to the study of
mathematics, and it is conjectured that he gained
a taste for that branch of learning during his residence
abroad, especially in Itily, where at that
time were many mathematicians of high repute.
While abroad young Napier escaped some perils
that existed at home. In 150s a dreadful pest
broke out in Edinburgh, and his father and family
were exposed to the contagion, “ by the vicinity,”
says Mark Napier, ‘‘ of his mansion to the Burghmuir,
upon which waste the infected were driven
out to grovel and die, under the very walls of
Merchiston.”
In his earlier years his studies took a deep theological
turn, the fruits of which appeared in his
“ Plain Discovery of the Revelation of St John,”
which he published at Edinburgh in 1593, and
dedicated to James VI. But some twenty years
before that time his studies must have been sorely
interrupted, as his old ancestral fortalice lay in the
very centre of the field of strife, when Kirkaldy
held out the castle for Queen Mary, and the savage
Douglas wars surged wildly round its walls.
On the 2nd April, 1572, John Napier, then in his
twenty-second year, was betrothed to Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir James Stirling of Keir ; but as he
had incurred the displeasure of the queen’s party
by taking no active share in her interests, on the
18th of July he was arrested by the Laid of Minto,
and sent a prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh,
then governed by Sir TVilliam Kirkaldy, who in the
preceding year had bombarded Merchiston with
his iron guns because certain soldiers of the king’s
party occupied it, and cut off provisions coming
north for the use of his garrison. The solitary
tower formed the key of the southern approach
to the city ; thus, whoever triumphed, it became the
object of the opponent’s enmity.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p046.gif "Volume 5 Page 35")
... THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, ...
Vol. 5 p. 35 (Rel. 0.32)
... cap, it was perhaps the most lawless land
in Europe.
All save those who possessed. zoo merks of
yearly ...
Vol. 1 p. 28 (Rel. 0.32)
... 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. 0.32)
![Cmigmillar.] CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. Si
Robert XI., “of the lands of Craigmillar, in Vic
du Edinburgh, whilk William de Capella resigned,
sustennand an archer in the king‘s army.” (Robertson’s
“ Index”)
Under the same monarch, some time after,
another charter was granted, confirming “John de
Capella, keeper of the king’s chapel, in the lands of
Erolly (sic), whilk Simon de Prestoun resigned ; he,
John, performing the same service in the king’s
chapel that his predecessors used to perform for
the third part of Craigmillar.”
The date 1474 above the principal gate probably
refers to some repairs. Four years afterwards,
William, a successor of Sir Simon Preston,
was a member of the parliament which met at
Edinburgh June I, 1478. He had the title .of
Domine de Craigmillar, the residence of his race
for nearly three hundred years.
In 1479 this castle became connected with a
dark and mysterious State tragedy. The Duke
of Albany was accused of conspiring treasonably
with the English against the life of his brother,
James III., but made his escape from Edinburgh
Castle, as related in Volume I. Their younger
brother John, Earl of Mar, was placed a prisoner
in Craigmillar on the same charges. James 111.
did not possess, it was alleged, the true characteristics
of a king in those days. He loved music,
architecture, poetry, and study. “He was ane
man that loved solitude,” says Pitscottie, “and
desired never to hear of warre ”-a desire that the
Scottish noblemen never’ cared to patronise.
Mar, a handsome and gay fellow, “ knew nothing
but nobility.” He was a keen hunter, a sportsman,
and breeder of horses for warlike purposes.
Whether Mar was guilty or not of the treasons which
were alleged against him will never be known, but
certain it is that he never left his captivity alive.
Old annalists say that he chose his own mode 01
death, and had his veins opened in a warm bath
but Drummond, in his “ History of the Jameses,’
says he was seized by fever and delirium in Craig
millar, and was’ removed to the Canongate, wherc
he died in the hands of the king‘s physician, eithei
from a too profuse use of phlebotomy, or from his
having, in a fit of frenzy, torn off the bandages.
In 1517 Balfour records that the young king
James V. was removed from Edinburgh to Craig
millar, and the queen-mother was not permitted tc
see him, in consequence of the pestilence ther
raging. But he resided here frequently. In 1544
it is stated in the “ Diurnal of Occurents ” that thc
fortress was too hastily surrendered to the Englisl
invaders, who sacked and burned it.
By far the most interesting associations of Craig
nillar, like so many other castles in the south of
kotland, are those in which Queen Mary behrs a
)art, as she made it a favourite country retreat.
Within its walls was drawn up by Sir James
Balfour, with unique legal solemnity, the bond of
Dardey’s murder, and there signed by so many
iobles of the first rank, who pledged themselves
o stand by Bothwell with life and limb, in weal or
woe, after its perpetration, which bond of blood the
wily lawyer afterwards destroyed.
Some months after the murder of Rizzio, and
while the grasping and avaricious statesmen of the
!ay were watching the estrangement of Nary and
ier husband, on the 2nd December, 1560, Le
3oc, the French Ambassador, wrote thus to the
4rchbishop of Glasgow :-“ The Queen is for the
xesent at Craigmillar, about a league distant from
.his city. She is in the hands of the physicians,
and I do assure you is not at all well, and do
Jelieve the principal part of her disease to consist
n deep grief and sorrow. Nor does it seem possible
to make her forget the same. Still she repeats
ihese words--‘lcould wish to be dead!”’
Craigmillar narrowly escaped being stained with
the blood of the dissolute Darnley. It would zppear
that when he returned from Glasgow, early in
1567, instead of lodging him in the fatal Kirk-0’-
Field, the first idea of the conspirators was to bring ,
him hither, when it was suggested that his recovery
from his odious disease might be aided by the
sanitary use of a bath--“ an ominous proposal to a
prince, who might remember what tradition stated
to have happened ninety years earlier within the
same walls.”
The vicinity abounds with traditions of the
hapless Mary. Her bed closet is still pointed out ;
and on the east side of the road, at Little France,
a hamlet below the castle walls, wherein some of
her French retinue was quartered, a gigantic
plane-the largest in the Lothians-is to this day
called “ Queen Mary’s Tree,’’ from the unauthenticated
tradition that her own hands planted it, and
as such it has been visited by generations. In
recent storms it was likely to suffer ; and Mr. Gilmour
of Craigmillar, in September, 1881, after consulting
the best authorities, had a portion of the
upper branches sawn off to preserve the rest
In ‘‘ the Douglas wars,” subsequent to the time
when Mary was a captive and exile, Craigmillar
bore its part, especially as a prison ; and terrible
times these were, when towns, villages, and castles
were stormed and pillaged, as if the opposite
factions were inspired by the demon of destruction
-when torture and death were added to military
execution, and the hapless prisoners were hurried](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p070.gif "Volume 5 Page 59")
... CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. Si
Robert XI., “of the lands of Craigmillar, in Vic
du Edinburgh, whilk William ...
Vol. 5 p. 59 (Rel. 0.32)
... Everything about him-his coat, his
wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus’s
dance, his ...
Vol. 1 p. 100 (Rel. 0.31)
![Grassmarket.] EXECUTIONS IN THE GUSSMARKET. 231
Market, from the corner of Marlin’s Wynd (where
Blair Street is now) to the east end of the Grassmarket,
where it continued to be held until within
the last few years.
It was not until about a century later that this
great market place began to acquire an interest of
a gloomy and peculiar character, as the scene of
the public execution of many victims of religious
intolerance, who died heroically here, and also as
the spot where niany criminals met their doom.
Prior to the adoption of this place for public
executions, the Castle Hill and Market Cross had
been the spots chosen j and a sword, as in France
and elsewhere on the Continent, was used, before
the introduction of the Maiden, for beheading.
, Thus we find that in 1564, the magistrates, because
the old beheading sword had become worn out, reteived
from William Macartnay “ his tua-handit
sword, to be usit for ane heidmg sword,” and
gave him the sum of five pounds therefor.
Among some of the most noted eFecutions in the
Grassmarket were those of the fanatic Mitchel in
1676, for attempting to shoot Archbishop Sharp in
1668; of Sergeant John Nisbett, of Hardhill, in
1685, who had received seventeen wounds at the
battle of Pentland, and fought at Drumclog, according
to the Wodrow Biographies ; of Isabel Alison
and Marion Harvey-the latter only twenty years of
age-two young women, for merely having heard
Donald Cargill preach. The human shambles in
this place of wailing witnessed executions of this
kind almost daily till the 17th of February, 1688,
when James Renwick, the celebrated field preacher,
and the last martyr of the Covenant, was found
guilty, on his own confession, of disowning an uncovenanted
king, and executed in the twenty-sixth
yearof his age. Most of the hundred and odd
pious persons who suffered for the same cause in
Edinburgh breathed their last prayers on this spot.
Hence arose the Duke of Rothes’ remark, when a
covenanting prisoner proved obdurate, “ Then let
him glorify God in the Grassmarket”-the death
of that class of victinis always being accompanied
by much psalm-singing on the scaffold. In the time
of Charles II., Alexander Cockburn, the city hangman,
having murdered a King’s Bluegown, died here
the death he had so often meted out to others.
In 1724 the same place was the scene of the
partial execution of a woman, long remembered in
Edinburgh, as ‘‘ Half-hangit Maggie Dickson.” She
was a native of Inveresk, and was tried under
the Act of 1690 for concealment of pregnancy, in
the case of a dead child ; and the defence that she
was a married woman, though living apart from her
husband, who was working in the keels at New-
’
castle, proved of no avail, and a broadside of the
day details her execution with homble minuteness ;
how the hangman did his usual office of dragging
down her legs, and how the ’body, after hanging
the allotted time, was put into a coffin, thecooms
of which were nailed firmly to the gibbet-foot.
After a scuffle with some surgeon-apprentices
who wished to possess themselves of the body, her
friends conveyed it away by the Society Port, but
the jolting of the cart in which the coffin lay had
stirred vitality and set the blood in motion. Thus
she was found to be alive when passing Peffermiln,
and was completely restored at Musselburgh, where
flocks of people came daily to see her. She had
several children after this event, and lived long as
the keeper of an ale-house and as a crier of salt in
the streets of Edinburgh. (“ Dom Ann.” III., StaL
Acct., Vol XVI).
In the account of the Porteous Mob eo1 I.,
pp. I 28-13 I), we have referred to the executions of
Wilson and of Porteous, in 1736, in this placethe
street “crowded with rioters, crimson with
torchlight, spectators filling every window of the
tall houses-the Castle standing high above the
tumult amidst the blue midnight and the stars.”
It Continued to be the scene of such events till
1784; and in a central situation at the east end
of the market there remained until 1823 a qoassive
block of sandstone, having in its c h t r ~ a quadrangular
hole, which served as the socket of the
gallows-tree ; but instead of the stone there is now
only a St. Andrew’s Cross in the causeway to
indicate the exact spot.
The last person who suffered in the Grassmarket
was James Andrews, hanged there on the 4th of
February, 1784, for a robbery committed in Hope
Park ; and the first person executed at the west end
of the old city gaol, was Alexander Stewart, a youth
pf only fifteen, who had committed many depredations,
and at last had been convicted of breaking
into the house of Captain Hugh Dalrymple, of Fordell
in the Potterrow, and NeidpathCastle, the seat of
the Duke of Queensberry, from which he carried off
many articles of value. It was expressly mentioned
by the judge in his sentence, that he was to be
hanged in the Grassmarket, “or any other place
the magistrates might appoint,” thus indicating that
a change was in contemplation ; and accordingly,
the west end of the old Tolbooth was fitted up for
his execution, which took place on the 20th of
April, 1785.
In 1733 the Grassmarket was the scene of some
remarkable feats, performed by a couple of Italian
mountebanks, a father and his son, A rope being
fixed between the half-moon battery of the Castle,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p051.gif "Volume 4 Page 231")
... EXECUTIONS IN THE GUSSMARKET. 231
Market, from the corner of Marlin’s Wynd (where
Blair Street is ...
Vol. 4 p. 231 (Rel. 0.31)
... with legends, dates, and coats of arms,
for ages formed one of the most important features
of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 32 (Rel. 0.31)
![castle Street.] NUMBER THIRTY-NINE CASTLE STREET. 163
lived for a time James Grant of Corrimony,
advocate, who had his town house in Mylne’s
Court, Lawnmarket, in 1783. This gentleman, the
representative of an old Inverness-shire family,
was born in 1743, in the house of Commony in
Urquhart, his mother being Jean Ogilvie, of the
family of Findlater. His father, Alexander Grant,
was induced by Lord Lovat to join Prince Charles,
and taking part in the battle of Culloden, was
wouiided in the thigh. The cave at Corrimony in
which he hid after the battle, is still pointed out to
tourists. His son was called to the bar in 1767,
and at the time of his death, in 1835, he was the
oldest member of the Faculty of Advocates. Being
early distinguished for his liberal principles, he
numbered among his friends the Hon. Henry
Erskine, Sir James Macintosh, Francis Jeffrey, and
many others eminent for position or attainments;
In 1785 he published his ‘‘ Essays on the Origin of
Society,” Src j in 1813, “Thoughts on the Origin
and Descent of the Gael,” &c: works which, illustrated
as they are by researches into ancient Greek,
Latin, and Celtic literature, show him to have been
a man of erudition, and are valuable contributions
to the early history of the Celtic races.
The next thoroughfare is Castle Street, so called
from its proximity to the fortress. As the houses
spread westward they gradually improved in external
finish and internal decoration. By the French
Revolutionary war, according to the author of
“Old Houses in Edinburgh,” writing in 1824, an
immense accession of inhabitants of a better class
were thrown into.the growing city, All the earlier
buildings of the new town were rubble-work, nnd
so simple were the ideas of the people at that
time, “ that main doors (now so important) were
not at all thought of, and many of the houses in
Princes Street had only common stairs entering
from the Mews Lane behind. But within the last
twenty years a very different taste has arisen, and
the dignity of a front door has become almost
indispensable. The later buildings are, with few
exceptions, of the finest ashlar-work, erected on a
scale of magnificence said to be unequalled ; yet,
it cannot be denied that here and there common
stairs-a nuisance that seems to cling to the very
nature of Edinburgh-have crept in. However,
even that objection has in most cases been got
over by an ingenious contrivance, which renders
them accessible only to the occupants of the various
flats,” it., the crank communicating from eabh,
with the general entrance-door below-a feature
altogether peculiar to Edinburgh and puzzling to
all strangers.
No. I Castle Street, now an hotel, was in 1811
he house of the first Lord Meadowbank, already
.ererred to, who died in 1816. At the same time
:he adjoining front door was occupied by the Hon.
Miss Napier (daughter of Francis; seventh Lord
Napier), who died unmarried in 18zc~. No. 16
,vas the house of Skene of Rubislaw, the bosom
iiend of Sir Walter Scott, and the last survivor of
$e six particdar friends to whom he dedicated
:he respective cantos of “ Marmion.” He possessed
the Bible used by Charles I. on the scaffold, and
which is described by Mr. Roach Smith in his
“ Collectanea Antiqua.” Latterly Mr. Skene took
up his residence at Oxford. pis house is now
legal offices.
About 1810 Lady Pringle of Stitchel occupied
No. 20, at the corner of Rose Street. She was the
daughter of Norman Macleod of Macleod, and
widow of Sir James Pringle, Bar!., a lieutenantcolonel
in the army, who died in 1809. At the
opposite corner lived Mrs. Fraser of Strichen; and
No. 27, now all sub-divided, was the residence of
Robert Reed, architect to the king. No. 37, in
1830, was the house of Sir Duncan Cameron, Bart.,
of Fassifem, brother of the gallant Colonel Cameron
who fell at Quatre Bras, and won a baronetcy for
his family. And now we come to the most important
house in New Edinburgh, No. 39, on the east side
of the northern half of the street, in which
Sir Walter Scott resided for twenty-six years prior
to 1826, and in which the most brilliant of his
works were written and he spent his happiest years,
“from the prime of life to its decline.” He considered
himself, and was considered by those about
him, as amassing a large fortune ; the annual profits
of his novels alone had not been less than A;IO,OOO
for several years. His den, or study, there is thus
described by Lockhart :-“ It had a single Venetian
window, opening on a patch of turf not much
Larger than itself, and the aspect of the place was
sombrous. . . . A dozen volumes or so, needful
for immediate purposes of reference, were placed
close by him on a small movable form. All the
rest were in their proper niches, and wherever a
volume had been lent its room was occupied by a
wooden block of the same size, having a card with
the name of the borrower and date of the lending
tacked on its front . . . The only table wasa
massive piece of furniture which he had constructed
on the model of one at Rokeby, with a desk and all
its appurtenances on either side, that an arnanuensis
might work opposite to him when he chose, with
small tiers of drawers reaching all round to the
floor. The top displayed a goodly array of session
papers, and on the desk below were, besides the
MS. at which he was working, proof-sheets and so](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p175.gif "Volume 3 Page 163")
... Street.] NUMBER THIRTY-NINE CASTLE STREET. 163
lived for a time James Grant of Corrimony,
advocate, who ...
Vol. 3 p. 163 (Rel. 0.31)
![Bristo Street.] ALISON RUTHERFORD. 329
and conversed on various topics, we took leave
of the venerable lady, highly gratified by the interview.
To see and talk with one whose name is so
indissolubly associated with the fame of Bums,
and whose talents and virtues were so much
fare, where, in the days of her widowhood, as Mrs
Cockburn of Ormiston, resided Alison Rutherford
of Fahielee, Roxburghshire, authoress of the
modem version of the ‘‘ Flowers of the Forest ” and
other Scottish songs-in her youth a “forest flower
esteemed by the bard-who has now (in 1837)
been sleeping the sleep of death for upwards of
forty years-may well give rise to feelings of no
ordinary description. In youth Clarinda must
have been about the middle size. Bums, she
said, if living, would have been about her own age,
probably a few months older.”
Off Bristo Street there branches westward
Crichton Street, SO named from an architect of the
time, a gloomy, black, and old-fashioned thoroughof
rare beauty.” She removed hither from Blair‘s
Close in the Castle-hill, and her house was the
scene of many happy and brilliant reunions Even
in age her brown hair never grew grey, and she
wore it combed over a toupee, with a lace band tied
under her chin, and her sleeves puffed out in the
fashion of Mary‘s time. “She maintained,” says
Scott, “that rank in the society of Edinburgh
which French women of talent usually do in that of
Paris ; and in her little parlour used to assemble a](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p149.gif "Volume 4 Page 329")
... Street.] ALISON RUTHERFORD. 329
and conversed on various topics, we took leave
of the venerable lady, ...
Vol. 4 p. 329 (Rel. 0.31)
![High Street.] THE QUACK DOCTOR’S ACROBATS. 201
an audience. Then he began to vend his drugs
at eightpence per packet. Nicoll admits that they
were both good and real, and describes the antics
of the assistants.
Upon a great rope, fixed from side to side of
the street, a man descended upon his breast with
~ ~ ~~~~
danced seven-score times, without intermission,
lifting himself and vaulting s k quarter high above
his own head and lighting directly upon the tow
(rope) as punctually as if he had been dancing on
the plain stones.”
Four years after a different scene was witnessed
THE NETHER BOW PORT, FROM THE CANONGATE. ( F m an Etcking6y Jams SKrrrc of RdGhw.)
his arms “stretched out like the wings of a fowl,
to the admiration of many.” Nicoll adds that the
country chirurgeons and apothecaries, finding his
drugs both cheap and good, came to Edinburgh
from all parts of the realm, and bought them for
the purpose of retailing them at a profit. The
antics and rope-dancing were continued for many
days with an agility and nimbleness “admirable
to the beholders; one of the dancers having
28
in the High Street, when, in 1666, after the battle
of the Pentland Hills-a victory celebrated by
the discharge of nearly as many guns from the
Castle as there were prisoners-the captives were
marched to the Tolbooth. They. were eighty
in number; and these poor Covenanters were
conveyed manacled in triumph by the victor,
with trumpets sounding, kettle-drums beating, and
banners displayed. And Crookshank records in](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p021.gif "Volume 2 Page 201")
... Street.] THE QUACK DOCTOR’S ACROBATS. 201
an audience. Then he began to vend his drugs
at eightpence per ...
Vol. 2 p. 201 (Rel. 0.3)
![Parliament House.] TREATY OF UNION. 163
to regain the throne; for the proposed union
with England had inflamed to a perilous degree
the passions and the patriotism of the nation.
In August the equivalent money sent to Scotland
as a blind to the people for their full participation
in the taxes and old national debt of England, was
pompously brought to Edinburgh m twelve great
waggons, and conveyed to the Castle, escorted by
a regiment of Scottish cavalry, as Defoe tells us,
amid the railing, the reproaches, and the deep
curses of the people, who then thought of nothing
but war, and viewed the so-called equivalent as
the price of their Scottish fame, liberty, and
honour.
In their anathemas, we are told that they spared
not the very horses which drew the waggons, and on
the return of the latter from the fortress their fury
could no longer be restrained, and, unopposed by
the sympathising troops, they dashed the vehicles
to pieces, and assailed the drivers with volleys of
stones, by which many of them were severely
injured.
“It was soon discovered, after all,” says Dr.
Chambers, “ that only LIOO,OOO of the money was
specie, the rest being iu Exchequer bills, which the
Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be
welcome in all parts of Her Majesty’s dominions.
This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the
English had tricked them by sending paper instead
of money. Bills, payable 400 miles of, and which
if lost or burned would be irrecoverable, were a
pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come
under to pay English taxes.’’
In the following year, during the sitting of the
Union Parliament, a terrible tumult arose in the
west, led by two men named Montgomery and
Finlay. The latter had been a sergeant in the
Royal Scots, and this enthusiastic veteran burned
the articles of Union at the Cross of Glasgow, and
with the little sum he had received on his discharge,
enlisted men to march to Edinburgh, avowing his
intention of dispersing the Union Parliament,
sacking the House, and storming the Castle. I n
the latter the troops were on the alert, and the
guns and beacons were in readiness. The mob
readily enough took the veteran’s money, but
melted away on the march ; thus, he was captured
and brought in a prisoner to the Castle, escorted by
250 dragoons, and the Parliament continued its
sitting without much interruption.
The Articles of Union were framed by thirty
commissioners acting for England and thirty acting
for Scotland ; and though the troops of both COUTI’
tries were then fighting side by side on the Continent,
such were their mutual relations on each side
of the Tweed, that, as Macaulay says, they could
not possibly have continued for one year more ‘‘ on
the terms on which they had been during the
preceding century, and that there must have been
between them either absolute union or deadly
enmity; and their enmity would bring frightful
calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all the
civilised world Their union would be the best
security for the prosperity of both, for the internal
tranquillity of the island, for the just balance of
power among European states, and for the immunities
of all Protestant countries.”
As the Union debates went on, in vain did the
eloquent Belhaven, on his knees and in tears,
beseech the House to save Scotland from extinction
and degradation; in vain did the nervous
Fletcher, the astute and wary Lockhart, plead for
the fame of their forefathers, and denounce the
measure which was to close the legislative hall
for ever. “ Many a patriotic heart,” says Wilson,
“ throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily assembled
in the Parliament Close, to watch the decision
of the Scottish Estates oa the detestable scheme
of a union with England. Again and again its fatetrembled
in the balance, but happily for Scotland,
English bribes outweighed the mistaken qeal ot
Scottish patriotism and Jacobitism, united against
the measure.”
On the 25th of March, 1707, the treaty or
union was ratified by the Estates, and on the zznd
of April the ancient Parliament of Scotland adjourned,
to assemble no more. On that occasion
the Chancellor Seafield made use of a brutal jest,
for which, says Sir Walter Scott, his countrymen
should have destroyed him on the spot.
It is, of course, a matter of common history,
that the legislative union between Scotland and
England was carried by the grossest bribery and
corruption; but the sum actually paid to members
who sat in that last Parliament are not perhaps
so well known, and may be curious to the
reader.
During some financial investigations which were
in progress in 1711 Lockhart discovered and
made public that the sum of Lzo,540 17s. 7d. had
been secretly distributed by Lord Godolphin, the
Treasurer of England, among the baser members ot
the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of inducing
them to vote for the extinction of thek country,
and in his Memoirs of Scotland from the Accession
of Queen Anne,” he gives us the following list of
the receivers, with the actual sum which was paid
to each, and this list was confirmed on oath hy
David Earl of Glasgow, the Treasurer Deputy of
Scotland .
I
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p175.gif "Volume 1 Page 163")
... House.] TREATY OF UNION. 163
to regain the throne; for the proposed union
with England had inflamed to ...
Vol. 1 p. 163 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket:
houses which were inhabited by this gang were
well chosen for the ...
Vol. 4 p. 230 (Rel. 0.3)
... SIR THOMAS CFLAIG. 321
Riccarton, with those of Warriston, in the barony
of Currie, were given by ...
Vol. 6 p. 321 (Rel. 0.3)
![West Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve their past ill-conduct by noisily .
preparing to raise forces to defend themselves in
case of a second visit from the Highlanders.
the General Assembly met in the church, and
passed an Act, which, however necessary, perhaps,
in those harassing times, concerning ‘‘ the sine and
guilte of the king and his house,” caused much
suffering to the Covenanters after the Restoration.
It was known by the name of the West Kirk Act,
and was approved by Parliament the same day.
Subsequently, during his siege of the castle
Cromwell made the church a barrack; hence its
roof and windows were destroyed by the guns of
the fortress, and soon little was left of it but the
bare walls, which were repaired, and opened for
service in 1655.
For some years subsequent the sole troubles
of the incumbents were breaches
of “the Sabbath,” such as when
William Gillespie, in 1659, was
“fund carrying watter, and his
wyfe knoking beir,” for which
they had to make public repentance,
or filling people for
“taking snuff in tyme of sermon,”
contrary to the Act of
18th June, 1640; till 1665,
when the ‘‘ great mutiny” in
the parish occurred, and the
minister, William Gordon, for
“ keeping of festivals,” was
railed at by the people, who
closed the doors against him,
for which a man and a woman,
according to Wodrow, were
scourged through Edinburgh.
At the Revolution, those
of ground to the west was added to it (including
the garden,with trees, shown in Gordon’s Map), from
the old boundary to the present west gate at the
Lothian Road. About the same time several
heritors requested permission to inter their dead
in the little or Wester-kirk, which had been a
species of ruin since the invasion of Cromwell.
In 1745, after the victory of the Highlanders at
Prestonpans, a message was sent to the ministers
of the city, in the name cf “Charles, Prince Regent,”
desiring them to preach next day, Sunday,
as usual; but many, alarmed by the defeat of Cope,
sought refuge in the country, and no public worship
was performed within the city, save by a
ST. CUTHBERT’S CHURCH.
(From Cmdm of Potkicmay’s Mu@.)
ministers who had been ejected in 1661, and were
yet alive, returned to their charges. Among them
was Mr. David Williamson, who, in 1689, was
settled in St. Cuthbert’s manse ; but not quietly,
for the castle, defended by the Duke of Gordon,
was undergoing its last disastrous siege by the
troops oC William, and the church suffered so much
damage from shot and shell, that for many months
after the surrender in June, the people were unable
to use it, and the repairs amounted to LI,~OO.
If tradition has not wronged him, Mr. Williamson
is the well-known (‘ Dainty Davie” of Scottish
song, who had six wives ere the seventh, Jean.
Straiton, survived him. He died in August, 1706,
and was buried in the churchyard, where the
vicinity of the grave is alone indicated by the
letters D. W. cut on the front of the tomb in which
he lies.
The ancient cemetery on the knoll having been
found too small for the increasing population and
consequent number of interments, in 1701 a piece
clergyman named Hog a t t h e
Tron.
It was otherwise, however,
at St. Cuthbert’s, the incumbent
of which was then the Rev.
Neil McVicar, yho preached
to a crowded congregation,
many of whom were armed
Highlanders, before whom he
prayed for George 11. and also
for Charles Edward in a fashion
of his own, recorded thus by
Ray, in his history of the time,
and others :-
‘(Bless the king! Thou
knowest what king I mean.
May the crown sit long on his
head. As for that young man
who has come among us to
seek an earthly crown, we](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p145.gif "Volume 3 Page 133")
... Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve ...
Vol. 3 p. 133 (Rel. 0.3)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. LSouth Bridge. 376
In 1837 he succeeded Professor Macvey Napier
as Librarian to the Signet ...
Vol. 2 p. 377 (Rel. 0.3)
![Leith.] WITCHCRAFT IN LEITH; I81
-
dated 15th March, 1603, among many enumerations,
all in favour of Edinburgh, power is again
given the magistrates to enlarge and extend the
port towards the sea, with bulwarks on both sides
of theaiver; and to build, strengthen, and fortify the
Andrew Sadler, through the agency, in the former
case, of a little bag of black plaiding, wherein she
put some grains of wheat, worsted threads of divers
colours, hair, and nails of “ mennis fingeris ;” and
I in the latter case by a shirt dipped in a certain
GRANT’S SQUARE, 1851.~ (A&r a Dmwiw by W. Chanring.)
same in a substantial and durable manner for the
safety of shipping.
As the sixteenth century was drawing to its close,
the criminal records give many instances of the
dark and gross superstition that had spread over
the land even after the days of Knox. Thus, in
1597, Janet Stewart, in the Canongate, and Christian
Livingstone, in Leith, were accused of witchcraft
and casting spells upon Thomas Guthry and
well ; for which alleged crimes they were sentenced
to die on the Castle Hill, “ thair bodies to be
Grant’s Square has entirely disappeared. “It was,“ writes Dr.
Robtrt Paterson, “the square in which existed the old Parliament
Houu, once occupied in Mary’s time. The m m in which the Par-
L i e n t met must have been a spacious one, as when I remember it it
was divided into numerous smaller rooms for poor tenants, but yet tkc
carved oak panelling and the richly-decorated mof told of former
magnificence. All has, however, now been cleared away, and replaced
by a granary.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p192.gif "Volume 5 Page 181")
... WITCHCRAFT IN LEITH; I81
-
dated 15th March, 1603, among many enumerations,
all in favour of Edinburgh, ...
Vol. 5 p. 181 (Rel. 0.29)
... all neatly done up with red tape. . . .
His own writing apparatus was a very handsome
old box, richly ...
Vol. 3 p. 164 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The West Bow.
Jambites pointing t a it with mingled howls and
jeers, as a proof of ...
Vol. 2 p. 318 (Rel. 0.29)
... (said Sir Walter Scott, in the Quarter@
Revkw,) instead of rousing the hearts of the
volunteers, like the ...
Vol. 2 p. 324 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
lawyer and judge. Admitted an advocate at the
early age of nineteen, he ...
Vol. 2 p. 272 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow.
with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing
;against the Castle. “ They ...
Vol. 2 p. 218 (Rel. 0.29)
... were captured, among others old McLean,
who made a desperate resistance in the West Port
with a musket and ...
Vol. 1 p. 69 (Rel. 0.29)
... with other four in the angles. The tiar, or
bonnet, was of purple velvet; but, in 1685, it got a
.cap of ...
Vol. 1 p. 74 (Rel. 0.28)
... Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187
is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it
once contained a tavern of ...
Vol. 1 p. 187 (Rel. 0.28)
![Queen Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of laughter.”
No. 62 Queen Street was inhabited by Lord
Jeffrey from 1802 till 1810. In the following year
it became the residence of Sir John Leslie, K.H.,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Edinburgh, who in 1800 invented the differential
thermometer, one of the most beautiful and delicate
instruments that inductive genius‘ ever contrived
as a help to experimental research ; and the
results of his inquiries concerning the nature and
laws of heat, in which he was so much aided by
this exquisite instrument, were published in 1804,
in his celebrated “Essay on the Nature and Propagation
of Heat.” Sir John Leslie was one of
those many self-made men who are peculiarly the
glory of Scotland, for he was the son of a poor
joiner in Largo, yet he attained to the highest
honours a university can bestow. In 1832, along
with Herschel, Brewster, Hams, Nichols, and others,
on the recommendation of Lord Brougham, he was
created a Knight of the Guelphic Order, but died
in the November of that year from an attack of
erysipelas.
No. 64 was, and is still, the town residence of
the Earls of Weniyss, but has had many other
tenants. Among others here resided ‘‘ Lang Sandy
Gordon? as he was named in those days of simple
and unassuming familiarity, the son of William,
second Earl of Aberdeen, who was admitted an
advocate in 1759, and became Stewart-depute of
Kirkcudbright in 1764. Twenty years afterwards
he was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville, and
resided long in the close which bore .that name on
the Castle Hill, and afterwards in Queen Street
He was remarkable for his manly beauty and
handsome figure. He was a member of the Crochallan
Club, and a great convivialist. Walking
down the High Street one day, when the pavement
was unsafe by ice, he fell, and broke his arm.
He was conveyed to Provost Elder‘s shop, opposite
the Tron church, where surgical aid was procured
and his arm dressed ; but, unfortunately, when his
friends were conveying him to his new home at
No. 64, one of the chairmen fell and overturned
the sedan in the street, which unsettled the splinting
of his lordship’s arm, and ultimately brought on
afever, of which he died on the 13th of March,
‘792.
No. 64 was afterwards occupied by Sir James
Grant, Bart., of Grant, usually known as “the
good Sir James.” His town house, with extensive
stable-offices, had previously been at the ,foot of
the Canongate, where it was advertised for sale
in 1797, as “ presently possessed by Professor
Stewart.” At a period when the extensive Highland
proprietors were driving whole colonies of
people from the abodes of their forefathers, and
compelling them to seek on distant shores that
shelter which was denied them on their own, and
“when absenteeism and the vices of courtly intrigue
and fashionable dissipation had sapped the
morality of too many of our landholders, Sir James
Grant escaped the contagion, and during a long
life was distingifished for the possession of those
virtues which are the surest bulwarks of the peace,
happiness, and strength of a country. Possessed
of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous
tenantry, his exertions seemed to be equally devoted
to the progressive improvement of the one
and the present comfort and enjoyment of the
other.” ’
Among his clau he raised two regiments of Highland
Fencibles within a few months of each other.
One was numbered as the 97th, or Strathspey
Regiment, 1,800 strong, and a portion of it joined
the 4nnd for service in the West Indies. Sir
James died at Castle Grant in 181 I.
No. 66, now offices, was occupied by Stewart of
Castle Stewart ; and in No. 68 lived George Joseph
Bell, Advocate, Professor of Law, and author of
“ Principles of the Law of Scotland.” No. 7 I, in
181 I, was the residence of Francis, Lord Napier,
who served in the American war under General.
Burgoyne, but left the army in 1789. He took a
leading part in many local affiirs, was Grand
Master Mason of Scotland, Colonel of the Hopetoun
Fencibles in 1793, Commissioner to the
General Assembly in 1802, and a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish
Manufactures and Fisheries.
His prominently aquiline face and figure were
long remarkable in Edinburgh ; though, at a time
when gentlemen usually wore gaudy coloursfrequently
a crimson or purple coat, a green plush
vest, black breeches, and white stockings-when
not in uniform, he always dressed plainly, and with
the nicest attention to propriety. An anecdote of
his finical taste is thus given in Lockhart’s “Life
of Scott ” :-
“Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
(in Lanarkshire), with the intention of staying a
week, but next morning it was announced that a
circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable
for them to return without delay to
their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible
for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation
at the moment, but it afterwards turned out that
Lord Napier’s valet had committed the grievous
mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p169.gif "Volume 3 Page 157")
... Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of ...
Vol. 3 p. 157 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11745.
-the identical vehicle in which the deputies had returned
from Gray’s Mill, and ...
Vol. 2 p. 326 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11746.
b
ONE of the most important events in the annals
of Edinburgh was the erection ...
Vol. 2 p. 334 (Rel. 0.28)
![The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial
crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base
a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border,
charged with instruments used by the society. To
the surgeons. were added the apothecaries.
James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and
science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and
chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche,
whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie
tells us that James was “ane singular guid chirurgione,”
and in his daily expense book, singular
entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people
to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :-
“Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit
furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.
“Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith
drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.”
The barbers were frequently refractory, and
brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e
adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union
of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up
the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation
by an Act of Council, on the 25th February,
1657, as already mentioned in the account of
the old Royal College of Surgeons.
The first admitted after the change, was Christopher
Irving, recorded as ‘‘ ane free chmgone,”
without the usual words “and barber,” after his
name. He was physician to James VII., and from
him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are
descended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY.
The Candlemaker Row--The “ Cunzie Nook”-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers’ Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+
Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside
--Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital-
-Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its
Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of
ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The
.
Theatre ofvari.&s.
THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion
of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and
Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in
1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to
Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion
of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their
head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their
defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335.
In Charles I.’s time a close line of street with a
great open space behind occupied the whole of the
east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead.
The west side was the boundary wall of the
churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three
houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie
Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as
a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted
with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery
projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit
the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers
therein.” This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook,
a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab
Cshed at some early period, possibly during some
of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary
of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation
“past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit
With the ernis of the Cunzehous.”
On the west side, near the present entrance to
the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of
the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which
gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the
craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong
panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto,
. Omnia man;jesfa Zuce.
Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences,
smaller accommodation sufficing for the
fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little
more than in name. In 1847 the number of its
members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically
for various purposes, connected with the corporation
and its funds.
Edgar‘s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the
close row of houses that existed along the whole of
the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and
nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith
the central Meadow Walk.
Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir
James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in
1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the
street was a place ‘of considerable bustle; the
Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from
Paterson’s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p087.gif "Volume 4 Page 267")
... Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire ...
Vol. 4 p. 267 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND ‘NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
there was born in 1741 his son, the celebrated
statesman, Henry ...
Vol. 2 p. 208 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Loch.
whose windows perhaps the accident occurred
“that the fox will not set his ...
Vol. 3 p. 82 (Rel. 0.28)
... of the Scottish court. She was magnificent
in her own attire ; she increased the number
of persons in ...
Vol. 1 p. 19 (Rel. 0.27)
![323 *la.] ADV.4NCE OF THE * HIGHLANDERS, -__
appointed thereto in 1716), mustered the outpensioners
of Chelsea, and officered them, locally,
from the half-pay list.
Doubtful of the faith of Preston, as a Scotsman,
the Government superseded him in command, and
sent in his place Lieutenant-General Joshua Guest,
an Englishman, who proved a staunch Jacobite,
and on the approach of the Highlanders he was
the first to propose a capitulation, a measure
vigorously opposed by Preston, a resolute Whig 01
the old King William school, who thereupon undertook
the defence, with a gamson which consisted
only of the old Castle company, the two companies
of the 47th, each mustering about seventy bayonets,
under Major Robertson, the Chelsea Pensioners,
and Lieutenant Brydone’s artillery company, which
had landed at Leith on the 4th of September, and
marched in with a great quantity of the munitions
of war.
The other troops in Scotland at this time consisted
only of the 13th and 14th Light Dragoons
at Edinburgh, the company of the Royals captured
at Spean Bridge, the 6th Foot at Aberdeen, two
companies of the 21st Scots Fusiliers at Glasgow,
the 25th Edinburgh regiment in Fifeshire, two
companies of the 4znd at Crieff, five of the 44th
in the West, and another five at Berwick, the 46th
(known as ‘‘ Murray’s Bucks ”) scattered over the
Highlands, Loudon’s Highlanders (disbanded in
1749) stationed in the north ; in all not quite 4,ooc
men ; but, collecting these, Sir John Cope prepared
to bar the Prince’s way into the Lowlands.
Quitting Perth at the head of little more than
2,000 men,* only the half of whom had arms, the
latter, on the 11th September, resumed his adventurous
march southward, and crossing the Forth
by the perilous fords of Frew, to avoid the guns
of Stirling, he held on his way by the Scottish
Marathon, by the Torwood and Linlithgow, traversing
scenes that he, the heir of the ancient regal
line, could not have beheld without emotion, engaged,
as he was, on an enterprise more daring
and more desperate than had ever been undertaken
by any of his ancestors since Bruce fought
the battle of Dalry.
On the 1,gth he was at Corstorphine, less than
A true account of thestrengthof the Highland army, aph August, 1745.
Lochiel ........................... 700
Clanmnald, having men of his Islands ...... 050
The Stewarts of Appin under Ardsheil ...... a50
Keppoch ........................... 260
and the Grants of Glenmorriston ...... 600
, Glengawy’s men, induding Knoydart, Glencoe.
2 . h
(“ Culloden Papers. ’3
“The Highlanders were not more than 1,800, and the half of them only
Were armed.” (“Autobiography of Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk”)
lour miles distant from the capital, and to avoid
exposing his troops to the Castle guns in advancing,
he wheeled southward towards Slateford, and fixed
his quarters at Gray’s Mill, two miles from the
city.
Great was now the excitement within the walls.
The militia, called the trained bands, consisted of
sixteen companies, or 1,000 men, entirely undisciplined,
and many of them entirely disloyal to the
Hanoverian cause. In their own armoury the
citizens had 1,259 muskets and zoo bayonets, 300
sets of accoutrements, a considerable quantity of
ammunition, with seventy-five stand of arms and
Lochaber axes belonging to the City Guard. On
Sunday, 16th September, Hislop, keeper of this
arsenal, issued 500 rounds of ball ammunition and
sixty firelocks to each company of the trained
bands, thirty-nine firelocks to the additional
company of the City Guard, and twenty-four to the
company of the Canongate-head, 500 rounds of
ball to the Seceders, whose muster-place was the
Infirmary, and 450 Ibs. of powder for the cannon on
the walls. All the rest he sent to the Castle. The
banner borne by the Seceders is now in the Museum
3f Antiquities, and was once used at Bothwell
Brig. It is blue, with a white St. Andrew‘s saltire,
charged with five roses, and the motto, Cmenanfs,
Ueligion, Kin& and Kingdoms.
Towards the end of the preceding month the
nore zealous citizens had proposed to raise a
regiment 1,000 strong for the defence of the town ;
but the royal permission therefor was not accorded
till the 9th of September, and by the time that
the Prince drew near only zoo men had been
enrolled, all of the most dissolute character, and
tempted by the proffered pay alone. In addition
to these was the regiment of Edinburgh Volunteers,
400 strong, divided into six companies, and drilled
regularly twice daily. Cannon from the ships at
Leith were mounted on the walls together with
swivels or pateraroes (i.e., small cannon). The ports
were barricaded ; there was much military bluster,
with much Singing of psalms ; but as the Highlanders
drew nearer all this show of valour died away.
When the Prince’s vanguard was at Kirkliston, it
was proposed by General Guest that the two Light
Dragoon regiments, supported by the City Guard,
the so-called Edinburgh Regiment, and 250 volunteers,
should march out and give battle to the
insurgents !
The signal was given ; on the forenoon of Sunday
the 15th of September the clang of the alarm
bells came during sermon, and the people rushed
rorth from the churches to find the detailed force
&-awn up under arms ia the High Street; but the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p143.gif "Volume 2 Page 323")
... *la.] ADV.4NCE OF THE * HIGHLANDERS, -__
appointed thereto in 1716), mustered the outpensioners
of Chelsea, ...
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... barbarously threw the bodies on a great fire
that blazed in the fireplace of the tower; “and
there in their ...
Vol. 1 p. 34 (Rel. 0.27)
![THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes cognisance. It grants annually ten bursaries
of L z o each, and five of LIO each, to be
competed for by pupils of schools approved .of by
the directors.
The Society’s vested capital now’ amounts to
&o,ooo, and its annual revenue reaches more than
&,~oo, besides the receipts for general shows,
The Argyle Fund, for the education of young Highland
gentlemen for the navy, now amounts to
A5,639, and was instituted by John fifth Duke of
Argyle, the original president of the Society.
From its chambers, No. 3, George IV. Bridge, surveying
a width of range and multiplicity of objects
worthy of its wealth and intellect, its opulence of
power and resource, the Soqiety promotes the erection
of towns and bridges, the formation of roads,
the experiments and enterprises of agriculture, the
improvement of farm stock, the sheltering processes
of planting, the extension of fisheries, the introduction
of manufactures, the adaptation of machinery
to all useful arts, the ready co-operation of
’ local influence with legislative and public measures,
the diffusion of practical knowledge of all that may
tend to the general good of the Scottish nation,
and the consolidation of the Highlanders and
Lowlanders into one great fraternal community.
“ The Society awards large and numerous premiums
to stimulate desiderated enterprises, and in
1828 began the publication of the Quarter0 lown
d of Agridtztre, for prize essays and the dissemination
of the newest practical information ; it
patronises great annual cattle shows successively in
different towns, and by means of them excites and
directs a stirring and creditable spirit of emulation
among graziers, and, in general, it keeps in play
upon the community, a variety of influences which,
as far as regards mere earthly well-being, have
singularly transformed and beautified its character.”
Its arms are a figure of Caledonia on a pedestal,
between two youths-one a Highland reaper, the
other a ploughboy-being crowned. The motto is,
Sem$er armis nunc et industria. The Highland
Society’s hall and chamber form a very symmetrical
and also ornamental edifice, with a beautiful sculpture
of its coat of arms from the chisel of A.. H.
Kitchie. It formerly contained a most interesting
agricultural museum, which has been removed elsewhere.
Simil7.r societies on the same model have
since been established-by England in 1838, and
by Ireland in 1841.
The other edifice referred to, the Sheriff’s Court
Buildings, contiguous to the open arches over the
Cowgate, was erected in 1865-8, from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of more than A44,ooo. -
It rises from a low basement, with an extensive
and imposing flank to the south, and presents in
its fapde an ornate variety of the Italian style
of architecture ; but within exhibits simply the
usual features of legal courts, with three subordinate
official chambers, unless we except the Society
hall of the solicitors-at-law, a minor legal body in
Edinburgh, which was incorporated by royal charter
in 1780, and only certain members of which are
qualified to act as agents before the Supreme Courts.
Johnstone Terrace, King’s Road, and Castle
Terrace crossing the King’s Bridge, the foundation
stone of which was laid in 1827, unitedly extend
about go0 yards along the southern limb, or southwestern
skirt of the Castle Rock, connecting the
head of the Lawnmarket with the Lothian Road,
at a point about 180 yards south of the west end
of Princes Street. These were formed between
1825 and 1836, to afford improved access to the
Old Town from the westward. They are collectively
called the New Western Approach, and apart
from being a very questionable improvement as
regards artistic taste, have destroyed the amenity
of the Castle Rock, and lessened its strength as a
fortress.
In Johnstone Terrace, to which we shall confine
ourselves for the present, at the eastern end,
resting at the corner of the Old West Bow, is St.
John’s Free Church, a handsome edifice in a mixed
style of early Gothic It was built from designs
furnished by Robert Hamilton in 1847, and is
chiefly famous for its congregation having enjoyed
for some years the ministry of the celebrated Dr.
Guthrie, and of Dr. Williani Hanna, a graduate of
the University of Glasgow, who was ordained to
the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1835,
and who is so well known as the author of “Wycliffe
and the Huguenots,” and as the affectionate
biographer of Chalmers.
Westward of this edifice is St. Columba’s Episcopal
church, also a Gothic structure, but of an earlier
style, with a low, square battlemented tower;
built in 1845.
At the cost of about ;GIO,OOO, the Normal School
of the Church of Scotland was built westward of it,
in 1845, and is a large and handsome edifice.
It is called the Normal School, or Church of
Scotland Training College. It is under the control
and management of the Education Committee of
the Church. It is a double college, and like that
in Glasgow, trains both masters and mistresses.
The course of training extends over two years,
and none are admitted as students but those who
have passed a preliminary examination ; but the
committee exercise their discretion in making their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p115.gif "Volume 2 Page 295")
... NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes ...
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... F e Tolbooth. 124
as the- martlet did in Macbeth’s castle. Of
later years .these booths have degenerated ...
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... THE HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. . 75
’ blew gowns, each having got thirty-five shillings in
a purse, came up ...
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... to the muzzle with musket-balls was depressed
to sweep it, and did so with awful effect.
According to the ...
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... OLD APU'D NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER XXII.
ST. ANDREW SQUARE.
PAGE
St. Andrew Sq-Lst .of Early R e s i d e n u t ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
Mr. Andrew Anderson, printer to the King’s most
Excellent Majesty, for Mr. ...
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... STAIR. 105 Lady Stair’s closol
House of Lords and Court of Session. In support
of what he stated, ...
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![Holyrood.] ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse of all
classes of the people, and, escorted by a bodyguard
of 300 men-at-arms, all cap-d+e, with
the citizens also in their armour, under Patrick
Cockburn of Nevtbigging, Provost of Edinburgh
and Governor of the Castle, was escorted to the
monastery of the Greyfriars, where she was warmly
welcomed by her future husband, then in his
twentietb year, and was visited by the queenmother
on the following day.
The week which intervened between her arrival
and‘her marriage was spent in a series of magnificent
entertainments, during which, from her great
beauty and charms of manner, she won the devoted
affection of the loyal nobles and people.
A contemporary chronicler has given a minute
account of one of the many chivalrous tournaments
that took place, in which three Burgundian nobles,
two of them brothers named Lalain, and the thud
HervC Meriadet, challenged any three Scottish
knights to joust with lance, battle-axe, sword, and
dagger, a defiance at once accepted by Sir James
Douglas, James Douglas of Lochleven, and Sir
John Ross of Halkhead, Constable of Renfrew.
Lances were shivered and sword and axe resorted
to with nearly equal fortune, till the king threw
down his truncheon and ended the combat.
The royal marriage, which took place in the
church at Holyrood amid universal joy, concluded
these stirring scenes. At the bridal feast the first
dish was in the form of a boar’s head, painted and
stuck full df tufts of coarse flax, served up on an
enormous platter, with thirty-two banners, bearing
the arms of the king and principal nobles ; and the
flax was set aflame, amid the acclamations of the
numerous assembly that filled the banquet-hall.
Ten years after Holyrood beheld a sorrowful
scene, when, in 1460, James, who had been slain
by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh
on the 3rd August, in his thirtieth year, was
laid in the royal vault, “with the teares of his
people and his hail1 army,” says Balfour.
In 1467 there came from Rome, dated zznd
February, the bull of Pope Paul II., granting, on
the petition of the provost, bailies, and community
of the city, a con~mission to the Bishop of Galloway,
“et dilectojZio Abbafi Monasterii Sancta Cmcis mini
viuros de Rdynburgh,” to erect the Church of St.
Giles into a collegiate institution.
Two years afterwards Holyrood was again the
scene of nuptial festivities, when the Parliamen!
met, and Margaret of Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden, escorted by the Earl of Arran and a
gallant train of Scottish aad Danish nobles, landed
at Leith in July, 1469. She was in her sixteenth
year, and had as her dowry the isles of Orkney
and Shetland, over which her ancestors had hitherto
claimed feudal superiority. James III., her
husband, had barely completed his eighteenth
year when they were married in the abbey church,
where she was crowned queenconsort. ‘‘ The marriage
and coronation gave occasion to prolonged
festivities in the metropolis and plentiful congratulations
throughout the kingdom. Nor was the
flattering welcome undeserved by the queen ; in the
bloom of youth and beauty, amiable and virtuous,
educated in all the feminine accomplishments of
the age, and so richly endowed, she brought as
valuable an accession of lustre to the court as of
territory to the kingdom.”
In 1477 there arrived “heir in grate pompe,”
says Balfour, “Husman, the legate of Pope
Xystus the Fourth,” to enforce the sentence of
deprivation and imprisonment pronounced by Hjs
Holiness upon Patrick Graham, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, an eminent and unfortunate dignitary of
the Church of Scotland. He was the first who
bore that rank, and on making a journey to Rome,
returned as legate, and thus gained the displeasure
of the king and of the clergy, who dreaded his
power. He was shut up in the monastery of Inchcolm,
and finally in the castle of Lochleven. Meanwhile,
in the following year, William Schivez, a
great courtier and favourite of the king, was
solemnly consecrated in Holyrood Church by the
papal legate, from whose hands he received a pall,
the ensign of archiepiscopal dignity, and with great
solemnity was proclaimed ‘‘ Primate and Legate of
the realm of Scotland.” His luckless rival died
of a broken heart, and was buried in St. Serf‘s
Isle, where his remains were recently discovered,
buried in a peculiar posture, with the knees drawn
up and the hands down by the side.
In 1531, when Robert Cairncross was abbot,
there occurred an event, known as “ the miracle of
John Scott,” which made some noise in its time.
This man, a citizen of Edinburgh, having taken
shelter from his creditors in the sanctuary of Holyrood,
subsisted there, it is alleged, for forty days
without food of any kind.
Impressed by this circumstance, of which some
exaggerated account had perhaps been given to
him, James V. ordered his apparel to be changed
and strictly searched. He ordered also that he
should be conveyed from Holyrood to a vaulted
room in David‘s Tower in the castle, where he was
barred from access by all and closely guarded.
Daily a small allowance of bread and water were
placed before him, but he abstained from both for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p067.gif "Volume 3 Page 55")
... ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle HX
one going plump down a vent they set up a shout
of joy. Sir David ...
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![Edinburgh Cad:.] CORONATION OF CHARLES I. 51
and long it was since Edinburgh had been
the scene of anything so magnificent. Every
window was crowded with eager faces, and every
house was gay with flowers, banners, and tapestry.
*‘ Mounted on a roan horse, and having a saddle
of rich velvet sweeping the ground, and massive with
pasements of gold, Alexander Clark, the Provost,
appeared at the head of the bailies and council to
meet the king, while the long perspective of the
crowded street ( then terminated by the spire of
the Nether Bow) was lined (as Spalding says) by
a brave company of soldiers, all clad in white
satin doublets, black velvet .breeches, and silk
stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, and bands.
Thesegallants haddaintymuskets, pikes, and gilded
partisans. Six trumpeters, in gold lace and scarlet,
preceded the procession, which moved slowly from
But most of the assembled multitude looked
darkly and doubtfully on. In almost every heart
there lurked the secret dread of that tampering
with the Scottish Church which for years had been
conspicuous.
Charles, with great solemnity, was crowned king
of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, by the
Bishop of St. Andrews, who placed the crown upon
his head; and on the 18th July he left Edinburgh
on his return to London. Under the mal-influence
of the zealot Laud ruin and civil war soon came,
when Episcopacy was imposed upon the people,
A committee of Covenanters was speedily formed
at Edinburgh, and when the king’s commissioner
arrived, in 1638, he found the Castle beset by
armed men. His efforts at mediation were futile ;
and famous old “Jenny Geddes” took the initiative
the- Privy Seal;
Morton the Treasuw’s golden mace,with its globe of
sparkling beryl ; the York and Norroy English kingsat-
arms with their heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters
in tabards blazing with gold and embroidery;
Sir James Balfour, the Scottish Lion king, preceding
the spurs, sword, sceptre, and crown, borne
by earls. Then came the Lord High Constable,
riding, with ,his blton, supported by the Great
Chamberlain and Earl Marshal, preceding Charles,
who was arrayed in &robe of purple velvet once
worn by James IV., and having a foot-cloth embroidered
with silver and pearls, and his long train
upborne by the young Lords Lorne, Annan, Dalkeith,
and Kinfauns Then came the Gentlemen
Pensioners, marching with partisans uplifted ; then
the Yeomen of the Guard, clad in doublets of
russet velvet, with the royal arms raised in embossed
work of silver and gold on the back and
breast of each coat-each company commanded
by an earL The gentlemen of the Scottish Horse
Guards were all armed d la cuirassier, and carried
swords, petronels, and musketoons.”
of trained Scottish
officers and soldiers, who had been pushing
their fortune by the shores of the Elbe and the
Rhine, in Sweden and Germany, came pouring
home to enrol under the banner of the Covenant ;
a general attack was concerted on every fortress
in Scotland; and the surprise of Edinburgh was
undertaken by the commander of the army, Sir
Alexander Leslie of Balgonie, Marshal of Sweden
under Gustavus Adolphus-a soldier second to
This he achieved successfully on the evening of
the 28th March, when he blew in the barrier gate
with a petard. The Covenanters rushed through
the Spur sword in hand, and the. second gate fell
before their sledge-hammers, and then Haldane of
Gleneagles, the governor, gave up his sword.
That night ieslie gave the Covenanting lords a
banquet in the hall of the Castle, .w&reon they
hoisted their blue standard with. the miotto, “ For
an oppressed kirk and broken’ Covenant” Montrose’s
regiment, 1,500 strong, replaced the gamson ;
Lord Bdmerbo was appointed goxernor, and many](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p063.gif "Volume 1 Page 51")
... Cad:.] CORONATION OF CHARLES I. 51
and long it was since Edinburgh had been
the scene of anything so ...
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![Lord Provost?.] THE DUNDAS RIOTS. 281
daughter of the head of the firm. When he took
ofice politics ran high, The much-needed reform
of the royal burghs had been keenly agitated
for some time previous, and a motion on the subject,
negatived in the House of Commons by a
majority of 26, incensed the Scottish public to a
great degree, while Lord Melville, Secretary of
State, by his opposition to the question, rendered
himself so obnoxious, that in many parts of Scotland
he was burned in effigy. In this state of excitement
Provost Stirling and others in authority at
Edinburgh looked forward to the King’s birthdaythe
4th of June, 1792-with considerable uneasiness,
and provoked mischief by inaugurating the festival by
sending strong patrols of cavalry through the streets
at a quick pace with swords drawn. Instead of
having the desired effect, the people became furious
at this display, and hissed and hooted the cavalry
with mocking cries of “Johnnie Cope.” In the
afternoon, when the provost and magistrates were
assembled in the Parliament House to drink the
usual loyal toasts, a mob mustered in the square, and
amused themselves after a custom long peculiar to
Edinburgh on this day, of throwing dead cats at
each other, and at the City Guard who were under
arms to fire volleys after every toast.
Some cavalry officers incautiously appeared at this
time, and, on being insulted, brought up their men
to clear the streets, and, after considerable stonethrowing,
the mob dispersed. Next evening it
re-assembled before the house of Mr. Dundas in
George Square, with a figure of straw hung from a
pole. When about to burn the effigy they were
attacked by some of Mr. Dundas’s friends-among
others, it is said, by his neighbours, the naval hero
of Camperdown, and Sir Patrick Murray of
Ochtertyre. These gentlemen retired to Dundas’s
house, the windows of which were smashed by the
mob, which next attacked the residence of the
Lord Advocate, Dundas of Amiston. On this it
became necessary to bring down the 53rd Re$-
ment from the Castle ; the Riot Act was read, the
people were fired on, and many fell wounded, some
mortally, who were found dead next day in the
Meadows and elsewhere. This put an end to the
disturbances for that night ; but on Wednesday
evening the mob assembled in the New Town with
the intention of destroying the house of Provost
Stirling at the south-east corner of St. Andrew
Square, where they broke the City Guards’ sentry
boxes to pieces. But, as an appointed signal, the
ancient beacon-fire, was set aflame in the Castle,
the Bind frigate sent ashore her marines at Leith,
and the cavalry came galloping ih from the eastward,
an which the mob separated finally.
By this time Provost Stirling had sought shelter
In the Castle from the mob, who were on the point
Jf throwing Dr. Alexander Wood (known as Lang
Sandy) over the North Bridge in mistake for him.
For his zeal, however, he was made a baronet of
Great Britain. The year 1795 was one of great
listress in the city ; Lord Cockbum tells us that
16,000 persons (about an eighth of the population)
were fed by charity, and the exact quantity of food
each family should consume was specified by public
proclamation. In 1793 a penny post was established
in Edinburgh, extending to Leith, Musselburgh,
Dalkeith, and Prestonpans. Sir James
Stirling latterly resided at the west end of Queen
Street, and died in February, 1805.
Sir William Fettes, Lord Provost in 1800 and
1804, we have elsewhere referred to ; but William
Coulter, a wealthy hosier in the High Street, who
succeeded to the civic chair in 1808, was chiefly remarkable
for dying in office, like Alexander Kina
i d thirty years before, and for the magnificence
with which his funeral obsequies were celebrated.
He died at Morningside Lodge, and the cortkge
was preceded by the First R E. Volunteers, and
the officers of the three Regiments of Edinburgh
local militia, and the body was in a canopied
hearse, drawn by six horses, each led by a groom in
deep mourning. On it lay the chain of office, and
his sword and sash as colonel of the volunteers.
A man of great stature, in a peculiar costume,
bore the banner of the City. When the body was
lowered into the grave, the senior herald broke and
threw therein the rod of office, while the volunteers,
drawn up in a line near the Greyfriars’ Church,
fired three funeral volleys.
Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart., Lord Provost in
1813, was the son of Marjoribanks of Lees, an
eminent wine merchant in Bordeaux, and his
mother was the daughter of Archibald Stewart, Lord
Provost of the city in the memorable ’45. Sir John
was a partner in the banking-house of Mansfield,
Ranisay, and Co., and while in the civic chair was
the chief promoter of the Regent Bridge and Calton
Gaol, though the former had been projected by Sir
James Hunter Blair in 1784 When the freedom
of thedty was given to Lord Lynedoch, “the gallant
Graham,” Sir John gave h k a magnificent dinner,
on the 12th of August, I815-two months after
Waterloo. There were present the Earl of Morton,
Lord Audley, Sir David Dundas, the Lord Chief
Baron, the Lord Chief Commissioner, Sir James
Douglas, Sir Howard Elphinstone, and about a
hundred of the most notable men in Edinburgh,
the freedom of which was presented to Lord
Lynedoch in a box of gold ; and at the conclusion](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p103.gif "Volume 4 Page 283")
... Provost?.] THE DUNDAS RIOTS. 281
daughter of the head of the firm. When he took
ofice politics ran high, The ...
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... THE CASTLE BLOCKADE WITHDRAWN. 331
Livingstone’s Yard, where a Highlander was
assassinated by a soldier, ...
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... ancient ruby ring which the kings of Scotland
wore at their coronation. It was last used by the
unhappy ...
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![urgh Castle.] THE ROYAL LODGING. 77
for woodwork in the “ Gret Ha’ windois in the
Castell, gret gestis and dowbill dalis for the myd
’ chalmer, the king’s kechin, and the New Court
kechin in David‘s Toure,” and for the Register
House built in 1542 by “John Merlyoune,” who
first paved the High Street by order of James V.
On the east side of the square is the old palace,
or royal lodging, in which many stirring events
have happened, many a lawless deed been done,
where the longest line of sovereigns in the British
Isles dwelt, and manv have been born and
gorgeous landscape is spread out, reaching almost
to the ancient landmarks of the kingdom, guarded
on the far east by the old keep of Craigmillar, and
on the west by Merchiston Tower.” Besides the
hall in this edifice there was another in the fortress ;
for among the items of the High Treasurer’s accounts,
in 1516, we find for flooring the Lord’s
James VI. was unable to take with him to England
-lay so long hidden from view, and where they are
now exhibited daily to visitors, who number several
thousands every meek. The room was greatly
improved in 1848, when the ceiling was repaired
with massive oak panelling, having shields in bold
relief, and a window was opened to the square.
Two barriers close this room, one a grated door of
vast strength like a small portcullis.
In this building Mary of Guise died in 1550,
and a doomay, bearing the date of 1566, gives
1 have died. It is a handsome edifice, repaired so
~ lately as 1616, as a date remains to show ; but its
octagonal tower, square turrets and battlements,
’ were probably designed by Sir James Hamilton
of Finnart, the architect to James V. A semioctagonal
tower of considerable height gives access
to the strongly vaulted and once totally dark room
EDINBURGH, FROM THE KING’S BASTION, 1825. (After EwJank.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p089.gif "Volume 1 Page 77")
... Castle.] THE ROYAL LODGING. 77
for woodwork in the “ Gret Ha’ windois in the
Castell, gret gestis and ...
Vol. 1 p. 77 (Rel. 0.26)
![222 OLD ‘AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Port.
prehending the main street of the West Port (the
link between Fountainbridge and the Grassmarket),
the whole of Lauriston from the Corn-market and
foot of the Vennel to the Main Point, including
Portland Place on the west, and to Bruntsfield
Links on the east, including Home and Leven
Streets.
In IIGO John AbbotofKelso grantedtoLawrence,
the son of Edmund of Edinburgh, a toft situated
between the West Port and the Castle, on the left
of the entrance into the city. In this little burgh
there were of old eight incorporated trades, deriving
their rights from John Touris of Inverleitk
Many of the houses here were roofed with thatch
in the sixteenth century,
and the barriergate
by which the whole
of the district was cut
off from the city was
milt in 1513, as a port
in the ‘,F’lodden wall.
Some gate may, however,
have existed previously,
as Balfour in
his “Annales,” tells that
the head of Robert Graham,
oneof the assassins
of James I., in 1437,
“was sett ouer the West
Port of Edinburgh ;”
and in I 5 I 5 the head of
Peter Moffat, “ane
greit swerer and thief,”
was spiked in the same
place, after the reins
of government were
that every man in the city “be reddy boddin for
weir,” in his best armour at ‘‘ the jow of the common
bell” for its defence if necessary. Nearly
similar orders were issued concerning the gates in
1547, and the warders were to be well armed
with jack, steel helmet, and halberd or Jedmood
axe, finding surety to be never absent from their
In 1538 Mary of Guise made her first entry by
the West Port on St. Margaret’s day, “ with greit
trivmphe,” attended by all the nobility (Diurnal of
OCC.). There James VI. was received by “ King
Solomon ” on his first state entry in 1579 ; and by
it Anne of Denmark entcred in 1590, when she was
posts. (Ibid.)
HIGHRIGGS HOUSE, 1854. (Afler P Drawing by Ihr Aidkor.)
assumed by John Duke of Albany. (“ Diurnal of
Occurrents.”)
In the same year it was ordained by the magistrates
and council that only three of the city gates
were to be open daily, viz., “the West Port, Nether
Bow, and the Kirk-of-Field-and na ma. -4nd
ilk port to haif twa porteris daylie quhill my
Lord Govemoure’s hame coming. [Albany was
then on the Borders, putting down Lord Home’s
rebellion.] And thir porteris suffer na maner of
person on hors nor fute, to enter within this toune
without the President or one of the bailies knaw
of their cuming and gif thame licence. And the
said personis to be convayit to thair lugings be one
of the said porteris, swa that gif ony inconvenient
happenis, that thair hoste niycht answer for thame as
efferis.” (Burgh Records.) It was also ordained
that a fourth part of the citizens should form a
watch every night till the return of Albany, and
received by a long Latin
oration, while the garrison
in the Castle
“gave her thence a
great volley of shot,
with their banners and
ancient displays upon
the walls ” (‘( Marriage
of James VI.,” Bann.
Club). Here also in
1633, Charles I. at his
grand entrance was
received by the nymph
Edina, and again at the
Overbow by the Lady
Caledonia, both of
whom welcomed him
in copious verse from
the pen, it is said, of
the loyal cavalier and
poet, Drummond of
Hawthornden.
Fifteen years before this period the Common
Council had purchased the elevated ridge of ground
lying south of the West Port and Grassmarket,
denominated the Highriggs, on a part of which
Heriot’s Hospital was afterwards built, and the
most recent extension of the city wall then took
place for the purpose of enclosing it. A portion of
this wall still fomis the boundary of the hospital
grounds, terminating at the head of the Vennel, in
the only tower of the ancient fortifications now
remaining.
In 1648 the superiority of the Portsburgh was
bought by the city from Sir Adam Hepburn for
the sum of 27,500 merks Scots; and in 1661
the king’s stables were likewise purchased for
EI,OOO Scots, and the admission of James Baisland
to the freedom of Edinburgh.
In 1653 the West Port witnessed a curious
, scene, when Lieutenant-Colonel Cotterel, by order](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p042.gif "Volume 4 Page 222")
... OLD ‘AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Port.
prehending the main street of the West Port (the
link between ...
Vol. 4 p. 222 (Rel. 0.26)
![George Street.] THE MASONIC HALL. k5 1
Glasgow Union Bank Company, which dates from
1830; in 1843 the name was changed to the
Union Bank of Scotland. ‘ As was stated by Mr.
Gairdner to the Committee of the House of
Commons on “Banks of Issue” (1874), several
private and public banks were incorporated from
time to time in the Union: notably, the Thistle
Bank of Glasgow in 1836, the Paisley Union Bank
iri 1838, the Ayr Bank, the Glasgow Arms and
Ship Gank in 1843, Sir William Forbes and J.
Hunter and Co. in the same year. The Aberdeen
Bank was also absorbed in the Union system in
1849, and the Perth Banking Company in 1857.
The special general ;meeting €or “ considering
whether or not this bank should be registered
under the Companies Act, 1862,” was called on
the 10th December, 1862, but the bank had in
fact %een so registered on the 3rd November of
the same year. At the meeting, Sir John Stuart
Forbes, Bart., was in the chair, and it was unanimously
agreed “that it is expedient that the
bank register itself 9s an unliniited company under
the Companies Act, 1862, and that the meeting do
now assent to the. bank being so registered, and
authorise the directors to take all necessary steps
for carrying the motion into effect.”
Opposite the Northern Club-3 mere plain
dwelling-house-is the Masonic Hall and offices
of the grand lodge of Scotland, No. 98, George
Street. The foundation &one was laid on the
24th of June, 1858, with due masonic honours, by
the Grand Master, the Duke of Athole, whose
henchman, a bearded Celt of vast proportions, in
Drumrnond tartan, armed with shield and claymore,
attracted great attention. The streets were lined
by the i7th Lancers and the Staffordshire Militia.
The building was finished in. the following year,
snd, among many objects of great masonic interest,
contains the large picture of the “ Inauguration of
Robert Bums as Poet Laureate of the Grand
Lodge of Scotland,” by William Stewart Watson,
a deceased artist, nephew of George Watson, first
president of the Scottish Academy, and cousin of
the late Sir John Watson-Gordon. He was an ardent
Freemason, and for twenty years was secretary
to the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge.
His picture is a very valuable one, as containing
excellent portraits of many eminent men who took
part in that ceremony. He was the same artist
who designed the embellishments of the library at
Abbotsford, at the special request of Sir Walter
Scott, to whom he was nearly related.
In this office are the rooms and records of the
Grand Secretary, and there the whole general
business of the’ entire masonic body in Scotland is
transacted.
Three fine bronze pedestrian statues decorate
this long and stately street.
The first of these statues, at the intersection of
George Street and Hanover Street, to the memory
of George IV., is by Chantrey, and was erected in
November, 183r. It is twelve feet in height, on a
granite pedestal of eighteen feet, executed by Mr.
Wallace. The largest of the blocks weighed
fifteen tons, and all were placed by meatls of some
of the cranes used in the erection of the National
Monument.
The second, at the intersection of Frederick
Street, is ’also by Chantrey, to the memory of
William Pitt, and was erected in 1833.
The third, at the intersection of Castle Street, on
a red granite pedestal, was erected in 1878 to the
memory of Dr. Chalmers, and is by the hand of
Sir John Steel.
CHAPTER XX
QUEEN STREET.
The Philosophical Iostitution-House of Bamn Ode-New Physicians’ Hall-Sir James Y. Simpron, M.D.-The House of hf-
Wilson-Sir John Leslic-Lord Rockville-Sir Jams Grant of Grant-The Hopetoun Rooms-Edinburgh Educational Institution
for Ladies.
QUEEN STREET was a facsimile of Princes Street,
but its grouping and surroundings are altogether
different.
Like Princes Street, it is a noble terrace, but not
overlooked at a short distance by the magnificent
castle and the Dunedin of the Middle Ages. It
looks northward pver its whole length on beautiful
gardens laid out in shrubs and flowers, beyond
which lie fair white terraces and streets that far
excel itself-the assembled beauties of another new
town spreading away to the wide blue waters of the
Firth of Forth. How true are the lines of Scott !-](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p163.gif "Volume 3 Page 151")
... Street.] THE MASONIC HALL. k5 1
Glasgow Union Bank Company, which dates from
1830; in 1843 the name was ...
Vol. 3 p. 151 (Rel. 0.25)
... the most brilliant conversationalists and the
kindest-hearted of men in Edinburgh.
Among the prizes competed ...
Vol. 3 p. 113 (Rel. 0.25)
![Chongrte.] A LEGEND BY SIR WALTER SCOT‘I’. 5 -
when the Castle of Duiiglass was blown up by
gunpowder.
An old house at the head of the Canongate, on
the north side, somewhere in the vicinity of Coull’s
Close, but now removed, was always indicated as
being the scene of that wild story which Scott
relates in his notes to the fifth canto of ‘‘ Rokeby,”
and in his language we prefer to give it here.
He tells us that ‘( about the beginning of the
eighteenth century, when the large castles of the
Scottish nobles, and even the secluded hotels,
hke those of the French noblesse, which they
had each 40,000 merks Scots as a fortune, their
uncle, the Earl of Argyle, being cautioner for the
payment, “for relief whereof he got the wadset of
Lochaber and Badenoch” Lady Jean, a third
daughter, was also married in the ensuing January,
with a fortune of 30,000 merks, to Thomas, Earl
of Haddington, who perished in the following year,
bearers insisted upon his being blindfolded. The
request was enforced by a cocked pistol, and
submitted to ; but in the course of the discussion
he conjectured, from the phrases employed by the
chairmen, and from some parts of their dress not
completely concealed by their cloaks, that they
were greatly above the menial station they had
assumed. After many turnings and windings the
chair was carried upstairs into a lodging, where his
eyes were uncovered, and he was introduced into
a bed-room, where he found a lady nen-ly delivered
of an infant, and he was commanded by his
possessed in Edinburgh, were sometimes the scenes.
of strange and mysterious transactions, a divine of
singular sanctity was called up at midnight to pray
with a person at the point of death. This was no
unusual summons ; but what followed was alarming-
He was put into a sedanchair, and after he had
been transported to a remote part of the town the
EAST END OF HIGH STREET, NETHER BOW, AND WEST END OF CANONGATE. (Frmn G d w ofRofhiemay’r Mu!.)
48, Blackfriars Wynd : 49, l’odrig‘s Wynd ; 50, Gay’s Wynd ; 51, St. Mary’s Wynd : 58, Leith Wynd ; 8, Suburbs of the Canongate : g, High
Street : 14, The Nether How ; h, The Nether-bow Port; 18, The Flesh Stocks in the Goongate.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p017.gif "Volume 3 Page 5")
... A LEGEND BY SIR WALTER SCOT‘I’. 5 -
when the Castle of Duiiglass was blown up by
gunpowder.
An old ...
Vol. 3 p. 5 (Rel. 0.25)
... MACDONALD OF TEINDREICH. 333
landers, after their retreat from England, were besieging
Stirling, Lord ...
Vol. 2 p. 333 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,” and it sometimes ...
Vol. 6 p. 306 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Craigcrook
Local tradition makes Craigcrook the scene of a
murder, but this is a ...
Vol. 5 p. 108 (Rel. 0.25)
![Braid.] THE LANDS OF BRAID. 41
the city on the south, and directly overlook
Morningside. Their greatest altitude is 700 feet
According to one traditional legend, these hills
were the scene of “ Johnnie 0’ Braidislee’s ” woeful
hunting, as related in the old ballad.
exposed to more than one
military visitation from
the garrison in Edinburgh
Castle. Knox’s secretary
records that on the 25th
May twelve soldiers came
to Braid, when the laird
was at supper, and
rifled the house of the
miller. Braid appeared,
but was treated with contempt,
and was told that
they would bum the house
about his ears if he did
not surrender to Captain
Melville, who was one of
the eight sons of Sir lames
Melville of Raith, and his
lady Helen Napier of Merchiston.
Though called “ a
quiet man,” the wrath of
the laird was roused, and
he rushed forth at the
head of his domestics,
the north bank of the latter stream, which meanders
close to it, and which takes its rise in the bosom
of the Pentlands, near the Roman camp above
Bonally.
It is a two-storeyed villa, with a pavilion roof
CHRIST. CHURCH, MORNINGSIDE.
armed with an enormous two-handed sword, and
cut down one of the soldiers, who fired their hackbuts
without effect, and were eventually put to flight.
In the early part of the eighteenth century Braid
belonged to a family named Brown, and a great
portion of it in the present century had passed into
the possession of Gordon of Cluny.
between the Braid Hills and Blackford, stands the
beautiful retreat called the Hermitage of Braid, on
In a romantic, sequestered, and woody dell,
102
and little corner turrets, in that grotesque style of
castellated architecture adopted at Gillespie’s
Hospital, and is evidently designed by the same
architect, though built about the year 1780. It
was the property of Charles Gordon of Cluny,
father of the ill-fated Countess of Stair, the once
beautiful “Jacky Gordon,” whose marriage was
annulled in 1804, after which it frequently formed
her solitary residence. It afterwards became the
property of the widow of the late John Gordon of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p052.gif "Volume 5 Page 41")
... THE LANDS OF BRAID. 41
the city on the south, and directly overlook
Morningside. Their greatest altitude ...
Vol. 5 p. 41 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
’ for provisions, and the enemy in confident expectation
of starving them ...
Vol. 6 p. 334 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Coltbridge;.
from Inverleith Row, and a third from the narrow
lane leading to East ...
Vol. 5 p. 102 (Rel. 0.24)
... RIT. ITO. CELIO. HADKIANO
ANTONINOA.U G. Pro. PATRIP. ATRIB.
Although the Roman military ...
Vol. 1 p. 10 (Rel. 0.24)
![North Bridgt.]
were again seen bivouacking all night, on straw or
pallets, under the portico of the house, or in the
adjacent square, for the purpose of securing seats
for their employers the moment the doors were
open. Again it became a recognised amusement
for peop!e to proceed thither after breakfast to see,
about the time of the box-office unclosing, the
fights that ensued between the liverymen and the
imtable Highland porters.
But in the year 1819 Miss O’Neill quitted the
stage, and became eventually Lady Becher of
Ballygiblio Castle, in the couiity of Cork.
THE WAVERLEY DRAMAS.
which she had to pay yearly as rent and purchase.
money.
Thus one day she was shocked and startled by
a harsh, cold letter, in the usual legal form, arresting
all moneys in her hands until certain claims were
settled, at a time when she had scarcely a penny
wherewith to make payment.
It was at this desperate crisis that Walter Scott
came to the rescue. His Rob Roy, operatically
dramatised, hadalreadyproved a marked success at
Covent Garden, and it was now prepared for the
Edinburgh Theatre, with an excellent cast and much
?49
girl, Miss Elizabeth ONeill, “who seemed designed
by nature to catch the tragic mantle as it fell from
Mrs. Siddons’ shoulders,” appeared in the theatre
in August, ISIg-two months after Waterloo.
The characters in which she always achieved the
greatest success were Juliet, Mrs. Haller, Jane
Shore, and Mrs. Beverley ; and on the occasion of
her first appearance, the old scene of the Siddons
furore was renewed, and porters and livery servants
In 1816 Edmund Kean appeared in Edinburgh,
to startle and delight the people by his vivid
action; then came the elder Matthews, with his
wondrous humour and power of mimicry, and then
Miss Stephens and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kemble ;
yet with all this excellence the management did
not prosper, and when the season of 1819 opened,
matters seemed so gloomy that it was doubtful if
Mrs. Henry Siddons could collect the L2,ooo
THE OLD 1HEATRE ROYAL. (Fmm a Drawing by T. H. Shfherd.publi~hdin 1829.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p169.gif "Volume 2 Page 349")
... Bridgt.]
were again seen bivouacking all night, on straw or
pallets, under the portico of the house, or in ...
Vol. 2 p. 349 (Rel. 0.24)
... worth consideration ; but, interesting as it is, it
need not detain us long here.
In the ? Myrvyian, or ...
Vol. 1 p. 14 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. me West Bow.
sorely. Keeping on the defensive, Westerhall
gave way step by step, ...
Vol. 2 p. 316 (Rel. 0.24)
... end we might pass to Heaven with all this
gear! But fie on the knave Death !-that will
come whether ye will ...
Vol. 3 p. 68 (Rel. 0.24)
![Leith.] DEATH OF JAMES 111. 201
1488-he embarked in one of Sir Andrew’s ships
then anchored in the Roads of Leith, and landed
from it in Fifeshire. As the Admiral had been lying
there for some time, intending to sail to Flanders,
the Barons, now in arms against the Crown, spread
a report that James had fled, surprised the castle
of Dunbar, furnished themselves with arms and
ammunition out of the royal arsenal, “ and,” says
Abercrombie, “ overran the three Lothians and
the Merse, rifling and plundering all honest men.”
In April, 1488, the king re-crossed the Forth in
the admiral’s ship, and, marching past Stirling,
pitched his standard near Blackness, where his
army mustered thirty thousand, and some say
forty thousand, strong, but was disbanded after an
indecisive skirmish. Fresh intrigues ensued that
belong to general history; two other armies, in
all amounting to nearly seventy thousand men,
took the field James 111. had no alternative but
to take flight in the ships of Wood, then cruising
in the Forth, or to resort to the sword on the 11th
June, 1488.
His army took up a position near the Bum of
Sauchie, while ‘‘ Sir Andrew Wood, attending to
the fortune of war, sailed up the silver winding of
the beautiful river with the FZmw and YelZow
CaraveZ, and continued during the whole of that
cloudless day to cruise between dusky Alloa and
the rich Carse of Stirling, then clothed im all the
glory of summer.” On the right bank of the river
he kept several boats ready to receive the king if
defeat-as it eventually did-fell upon him, and
he often landed, with his brothers John and Robert
and a body of men, to yield any assistance in his
power.
While attempting to reach the ships James was
barbarously slain, and was lying dead in a mill
that still stands by the wayside, when rumour went
that he had reached the YeZZow Caravd Thus
Wood received a message in the name of the Duke
of Rothesay (afterwards James IV.), as to the truth
of this story; but Sir Andrew declared that the
king was not with him, and refilsed to go on shore,
when invited, without hostages for his own safety.
The Lords Fleming and Seaton came on board
in this capacity, and landing at Leith the admiral
was conducted to the presence of the Prince, who
was then a captive and tool in the hands of the
rebels, and only in his sixteenth year. Wood was
arrayed in handsome armour, and so dignified was
he in aspect, and so much did he resemble the
king his master, that the Prince, who had seen little
of the latter, shed tears, and said, timidly-
‘‘ Sir, are you my father? ”
. Then this true old Scottish mariner, heedless of
123
the titled crowd which regarded him with bitter
hostility, and touched to the heart by the question,
also burst into tears, and said-
“ I am not your father, but his faithful servant,
and the enemy of all who have occasioned his
downfall ! ”
“ Where is the king, and who are those you took
on board after the battle?” demanded several of
the rebel lords.
‘‘ As for the king, I know nothing of him. Finding
our efforts to fight for or to save him vain, my
brother and I returned to our ships.” He added,
says Buchanan, “that if the king were alive he
would obey none but him; ,and that if slain, he
would revenge him ! ”
He then went off to the ships, but just in time
to save the hostages, whom his impatient brothers
were about to hang at the yard-arm. The lords
now wanted the mariners of Leith to arm their
ships, and attack Wood; but, to a man, they
declined.
In the early part of 1489 Henry of England, to
make profit out of the still disturbed state of Scotland,
sent five of his largest ships to waste and burn
the sea-coast villages of Fife and the Lothians ; and
the young James IV., in wrath at these proceedings,
requested Sir Andrew Wood to appear before the
Privy Council and take measures to curb the outrages
of the English.
He at once undertook to attack them ; but James,
as they outnumbered him by three, advised him to
equip more vessels.
‘‘ No: he replied,” ‘‘ I shall only take my own
two-the FZower and the Jl‘ellow Carard.”
Accordingly, .with the first fair wind on a day in
February, he dropped down the Firth, and found
the plunder-laden English vessels hovering off
Dunbar, and which Tytler surmises to have been
pirates, as they came in time of truce. Wood at
once engaged them, and after an obstinate conflict,
of which no details are preserved, he brought them
all prizes into Leith. He presented their captains
to the young king, who now further rewarded him on
the 11th March, 1490, with the lands of Balbegnoth,
the superiority of Inchkeith, the lands of
Dron and Newbyrn ; and by a charter under the
Great Seal, 18th May, 1491, he granted to Sir
Andrew Wood “ license to build a castfe at Largo
with gates of iron as a reward for the great services
done and losses sustained by the said Andrew, and
for those services which there was no doubt he
would yet render.” This castle, fragments of which
yet remain, he appears to have built, with some
adjacent houses, by the hands of English pirates
whom he had captured at sea; and the coat](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p020.gif "Volume 6 Page 201")
... DEATH OF JAMES 111. 201
1488-he embarked in one of Sir Andrew’s ships
then anchored in the Roads of ...
Vol. 6 p. 201 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Merchistom
captain named ScougaL
After a hard struggle, during which several ...
Vol. 5 p. 36 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Water of Leith
name doesnot appear in the Baronage) was Sheriff and
Provost of ...
Vol. 5 p. 62 (Rel. 0.24)
![Beechwood.] SIR ROBERT DUNDAS OF BEECHWOOD. 105
to the Castle of Edinburgh under a strong escort of
their comrades.
General Leslie, and Lieutenant MacLean the
adjutant, having accompanied this party a little
way out of Glasgow, were, on their return, assailed
by a mob which sympathised with the Highlanders
and accused them of being active in sending
away the prisoners. The tumult increased,
stones were thrown ; General Leslie was knocked
down, and he and MacLean had to seek shelter
these documents were not formally executed, were
confused in their terms, and good for nothing in a
legal sense, Mrs. Rutherford of Edgerstoun very
generously fulfilled to the utmost what she conceived
to be the intentions of her father.
Sir Robert Dundas, Bart., of Beechwood, like the
preceding, figures in the pages of Kay. He was
one of the principal Clerks of Session, and Deputy
Lord Privy Seal of Scotland. He was born in
June, 1761, and was descended from the Dundases
BEECHWOOD.
in the house of the Lord Provost till peace
officers came, and a company of Fencibles. One
of the mutineers was shot, by sentence of a
court-martial. The others were sent to America.
On his way back to Edinburgh General Leslie
was seized with a dangerous illness, and died at
' Beechwood House on the 27th of December,
'794.
No will could be found among the General's repositories
at Beechwood, and it was presumed that
he had died intestate. However, a few days after
the filneral, two holograph papers were discovered,
bequeathing legacies to the amount of L7,ooo
among some of his relations and friends, particularly
.&I,OOO each to two natural daughters. Although
110
of Amiston, the common ancestor of whom was
knighted by Charles I., and appointed to the
bench by Charles 11. Educated as a Writer to
the Signet, he was made deputy-keeper of Sashes,
and in 1820 a principal Clerk of Session. He was
one of the original members of the old Royal
Edinburgh Volunteers, of which corps he was a
lieutenant in 1794. He purchased from Lord
Melville the estate of Dunira in Perthshire, and
succeeded to the baronetcy and the estate of
Beechwood on the death of his uncle General Sir
David Dundas, G.C.B., who was for some time
Commander-in-Chief of the forces. Sir Robert
died in 1835.
A winding rural carriage-way, umbrageous and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p116.gif "Volume 5 Page 105")
... SIR ROBERT DUNDAS OF BEECHWOOD. 105
to the Castle of Edinburgh under a strong escort of
their ...
Vol. 5 p. 105 (Rel. 0.24)
... NISBET$ OF DEAN. 65 The Water of Leith.1
Embosomed among venerable trees, the old
house of a baronial family, ...
Vol. 5 p. 65 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
from somewhere about Coltbridge, to fill, and run
through the North ...
Vol. 2 p. 336 (Rel. 0.24)
... made the ornate edifice we find it now, with
‘oriel windows and clustering turrets. He was
author of “The ...
Vol. 5 p. 50 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and ...
Vol. 4 p. 238 (Rel. 0.24)
... reign of James 111. there were two or three
vessels called “royal,” and among them often
appears the ...
Vol. 6 p. 200 (Rel. 0.24)
![Leith Walk.] GAYFIELD HOUSE. IGI
ceeded to the title, which is now extinct. The
latter’s sister, Maria Whiteford, afterwards Mrs.
Cranston, was the heroine of Bums’s song, “The
Idass 0’ Ballochmyle,” her father being one of the
poet’s earliest and warmest patrons.
The Gayfield quarter seems to have been rather
aristocratic in those days. In 1767, David, sixth
Earl of Leven, who had once been a captain in the
army, occupied Gayfield House, where in that year
his sister, Lady Betty, was married to John, Earl of
Walk is shown edificed from the corner of Picardy
Place to where we now find Gayfield Square,
which, when it was first erected, was called Gayfield
Place. West London Street was then called
Anglia Street, and its western continuation, in
which old Gayfield House is now included, was not
contemplated. North of this house is shown a
large area, “ Mrs. D. Hope’s feu ;” and between it
and the Walk was the old Botanical Garden.
In 1783 Sir John Whiteford, Bart., of that ilk,
Gordon, relict of Sir Alexander Gordon of Lesmoir,
Bart., died there.
Gayfield House is now a veterinary college.
In 1800 Sir John Wardlaw, Bart., of Pitreavie,
resided in Gayfield Square ; and there his wife, the
daughter of Mitchell of Pitteadie (a ruined castle
in Fifeshire), died in that year. He was a colonel
in the army, and died in 1823, a lieutenantcolonel
of the 4th West India Regiment.
No. I, Gayfield Place, was long the residence of
BOARD SCHOOL, LOVER’S LOAN.
a well-known citizen in his time, Patrick Crichton,
whose father was a coachbuilder in the Canongate,
and who, in 1805, was appointed lieutenantcolonel
commandant of the 2nd Regiment of Edinburgh
Local Militia. He had entered the army when
young, and attained the rank of captain in the
57th Regiment, with which he served during the
American war, distinguishing himself so much that
he received the public thanks of the comrnanderin-
chief. Among his friends and brother-oficers.
then was Andrew Watson, whose brother George
founded the Scottish Academy. When the war was
over he retired, and entered into partnership with
his father ; and on the first formation of the Volunteers,
in consequence of his great military e x p](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p172.gif "Volume 5 Page 161")
... Walk.] GAYFIELD HOUSE. IGI
ceeded to the title, which is now extinct. The
latter’s sister, Maria Whiteford, ...
Vol. 5 p. 161 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD THEATRE ROYAL, IN PROCESS PP DEMOLITION.
CHAPTER XLV.
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE ...
Vol. 2 p. 353 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church.
and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six
battalions of ...
Vol. 4 p. 374 (Rel. 0.23)
![Colstorphine.] THE FORRESTERS. 119
of land, in any proper place;” and in 1383 there
followed another charter from the same king concerning
“ the twenty merks yearly from the farmes
of Edinburgh.” (Burgh Charters.) In the preceding
year this influential citizen had been made
Sheriff of Edinburgh and of Lothian.
In 1390 he was made Lord Privy Seal, and
negotiated several treaties with England; but in
1402 he followed Douglas in his famous English
raid, which ended in the battle of Homildon Hill,
where he fell into the hands of Hotspur, but was
ransomed. He died in the Castle of Corstorphine
on the 13th of October, leaving, by his wife, Agnes
Dundas of Fingask, two sons, Sir John, his heir,
and Thomas, who got the adjacent lands of Drylaw
by a charter, under Robert Duke of Albany, dated
‘‘ at Corstorfyne,” 1406, and witnessed among others
by Gilbert, Bishop of Aberdeen, then Lord Chancellor,
George of Preston, and others.
Sir John Forrester obtained a grant of the barony
of Ochtertyre, in favour of him and his first wife
in 1407, and from Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney,
he obtained an annuity of twelve merks yearly,
out of the coal-works at Dysart, till repaid thirty
nobles, “which he lent the said earl in his great
necessity.’’
In 1424 he was one of the hostages for the
ransom of James I., with whom he stood so high
in favour that he was made Master of the Household
and Lord High Chamberlain, according to
Douglas, and Lord Chancellor, according to Beatson’s
Lists. His second wife was Jean Sinclair, daughter
of Henry Earl of Orkney. He founded the collegiate
church of which we have given a description,
and in 1425 an altar to St Ninian in the
church of St. Giles’s, requiring the chaplain there
to say perpetual prayers for the souls of James I.
and Queen Jane, and of himself and Margaret his
deceased wife.
He died in 1440, and was succeeded by his son
Sir John, who lived in stormy times, and whose
lands of Corstorphine were subjected to fire and
sword, and ravaged in 1445 by the forces of the
Lord Chancellor, Sir William Crichton, whose lands
of Crichton he had previously spoiled.
By his wife, Marian Stewart of Dalswhton, he
had Archibald his heir, and Matthew, to whom
James III., in 1487, gave a grant of the lands of
Barnton. Then followed in succession, Sir Alexander
Forrester, and two Sir Jameses. On the
death of the last without heirs Corstorphine devolved
on his younger brother Henry, who married
Helen Preston of Craigmillar.
Their son GerJrge was a man of talent and probity.
He stooci high in favour with Charles I.,
who made him a baronet in 1625, and eight years
afterwards a peer, by the title of Lord Forrester
of Corstorphine. By his wife Christian he had
several daughters-Helen, who became Lady Ross
of Hawkhead ; Jean, married to. lames Baillie of
Torwoodhead, son of Lieutenant-General William
Baillie, famous in the annals of the covenanthg
wars ; and Lilias, married to William, another son
of the same officer, And now we approach the
dark tragedy which, for a time, even in those days,
gave Corstorphine Castle a temble notoriety.
George, first Lord Forrester, having no male
heir, made a resignation of his estates and honours
into the hands of the king, and obtained a new
patent from Charles II., to himself in life-rent,
and after his decease, “to, or in favour of, his
daughter Jean and her husband the said James
Baillie and the heirs procreate betwixt them ;
whom failing, to the nearest lawful heir-male of the
said James whatever, they carrying the name and
arms of Forrester ; the said James being designed
Master of Forrester during George’s life.”
This patent is dated 13th August, 1650, a few
weeks before the battle of Worcester. He died
soon after, and was succeeded by his son-in-law,
whose wife is said to have sunk into an earlygrave,
in consequence of his having an intrigue with one
of her sisters.
James Lord Forrester married, secondly, a
daughter of the famous old Cavalier general, Patrick
Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Brentford, by whom,
says Burke, “he had three sons and two daughters,
all of whom assumed the name of Ruthven,”
while Sir Robert Douglas states that he died
without any heir, and omits to record the mode of
his death.
He was a zealous Presbyterian, and for those of
that persuasion, in prelatic times, built a special
meeting-house in Corstorphine ; this did not prevent
him from forming a dangerous intrigue with
a handsome woman named Christian Nimmo,
wife of a merchant in Edinburgh, and the scandal
was increased in consequence of the lady being
the niece of his first wife and grand-daughter of
the first Lord Forrester. She was a woman of a
violent and impulsive character, and was said to
carry a weapon concealed about her person. - It
is further stated that she was mutually related to
Mrs. Bedford, a remarkably wicked woman, who
had murdered her husband a few years before, and
to that Lady Warriston who was beheaded for the
same crime in 1600 ; thus she was not a woman to
be treated lightly.
Lord Forrester, when intoxicated, had on one
occasion spoken of her opprobriously, and this](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p130.gif "Volume 5 Page 119")
... THE FORRESTERS. 119
of land, in any proper place;” and in 1383 there
followed another charter from ...
Vol. 5 p. 119 (Rel. 0.23)
... were committed prisoners to his care, and
remained there till the pacification of Berwick.
On the 19th ...
Vol. 1 p. 52 (Rel. 0.23)
... ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. I09
them in the middle of the West Bow, and offered
to write the bond which they ...
Vol. 5 p. 109 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW
Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free
Assembly were held in it.
Here, too, in ...
Vol. 5 p. 88 (Rel. 0.23)
![BARBARA NAPIER 3‘9 The West Bow.]
tlength, involving that of many others; but a portion
of the charges against her will suffice as a sample
of the whole, from U Pitcairn’s Trials.”
‘‘ Satan had informed the witches that James VI.
sf Scotland was the greatest enemy he had, and
the latter‘s visit to Norway, to bring over his queen,
seemed to afford an opportunity for his destrucition.
Accordingly, Dr. Fiar of Tranent, the
.devil’s secretary, summoned a great gathering of
witches on Hallow Eve, when zoo of them embarked,
each in a riddle or sieve, with much mirth
.and jollity; and after cruising about somewhere on
the ocean with Satan, who rolled himself before
them on the waves, dimly seen, but resembling a
huge haystack in size and aspect, he delivered to
-one of the company, named Robert Grierson, a
cat, which had been drawn previously nine times
through a crook, giving the order to ‘cast the same
into the sea.’ ”
This remarkable charm was intended to raise
such a furious tempest as would infallibly drown
the king and queen, then on their homeward
lroyage from Christiania, which, if any credit may
be given to the declaration of James (who greedily
swallowed the story), was not without some effect,
as the ship which conveyed him encountered a
furious contrary wind, while all the rest of the fleet
.had a fair one and a smooth sea.
On this, Barbara Napier and her infernal companions,
after regaling themselves with wine out of
their sieves, landed, and proceeded in procession
t o North Berwick Kirk, where the devil awaited
them in the pulpit, singing as they went-
‘‘ Cummer go ye before, cummer go ye ;
Cif ye winna gang before, cummer let me.”
Sir James Melville gives us a most distinct account
-of the devil’s appearance on this auspicious ocusion.
His body was like iron; “his faice was
terrible; his nose like the bek of an egle;” he
had claws like those of a griffin on his hands and
>feet. He then called the roll to see that all were
present, and all did him homage in a manner
.equally humiliating and indecorous, which does
not admit of description here.
All this absurdity being proved against Barbara
Napier, she was sentenced, with many others, on
the 11th of May, 1590, to be burnt “at a stake sett
on the Castle HiU, with barrells, coales, heather,
and powder;” but when the torch was about to
be applied, pregnancy was alleged, according to
“ Calderwood’s Historie,” as a just and sufficient
Cause for staying proceedings; the execution was
delayed, and ultimately the unfortunate creature
was set at liberty by order of James VI, Now
nothing remains of these Napiers but their tomb
and burial-place on the north side of the choir of
St. Giles’s.
In the basement of the house which was once
theirs was the booth from which the rioters, on the
night of the 7th September, 1736, obtained the
rope with which they hanged Porteous. It was
then rented by a woman named Jeffrey, a dealer in
miscellaneous wares, who offered them the rope
gratis when she learned for what purpose it was
required, but one of the conspirators threw a
guinea on the counter as payment. The house of
the Napiers was demolished in 1833.
Opposite the mansion of Provost Stewart, and
also outside the Bow Port, but on the east side of
the bend, was a tenement known as “the Clockmaker’s
Land,” which was demolished in 1835, to
make way for what is now Victoria Street, but
which ’took its name from an eminent watchmaker,
a native of France, named Paul ,Romieu, who is
said to have occupied it from the time of Charles
11. (about 1675) till the beginning of the eighteenth
century. In front of the house there remained,
until its demolition, one of the wonders of the
Bow-a curious piece of mechanism, which formed
the sign of the ingenious Paul Romieu. It projected
over the street from the third storey-a gilded
ball representing the moon, which was made to
revolve by means of clockwork. A large iron
key of antique form, which was found among the
ruins of this house, is preserved in the hfuseum of
Antiquities.
Among the oldest edifices in ]this part of the
street was one which bore the singular name of
the ‘‘ Mahogany Land,” having an outer stair protected
by a screen of wood. There was no date
to record its erection, but its ceilings were curiously
adorned by paintings precisely similar to those
which were found in the palace of Mary of Guise
in the Castle Hill ; and no record remained of its
generations of inmates, save that, like others about
to be mentioned, it bore the iron cross of the
Temple, and also the legend-which, from being a
simply moral apophthegm, and not Biblical, was
supposed to be anterior to the Reformation-22 .
yt. fhZis . overcommis, (i.e., “He that bears overcomes.”)
There was also a half-obliterated shield.
For ages the Bow was famous as the chief place
for whitesmiths, and till about the time of its demcr
lition there was scarcely a shop in it occupied by
any other tradesmen, and even on Sunday the
ceaseless clatter of their hammers on all hands
rang from morning till night.
Behind the Mahogany Land “ lay several steep,
narrow, and gloomy closes, containing the most](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p139.gif "Volume 2 Page 319")
... NAPIER 3‘9 The West Bow.]
tlength, involving that of many others; but a portion
of the charges against ...
Vol. 2 p. 319 (Rel. 0.23)
... House
PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN THE PRESENT DAY.
the Earl of Marchmont
Earl of Cromarty . . . . 300 0 ...
Vol. 1 p. 164 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Dab.
~~ ~~
Cuthbert’s, in 1831, for .&2,500, and seated for
1,300.
The church ...
Vol. 4 p. 216 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND PEW EDINBUKGH. [Leith.
on the coast of East Lothian, from whence the way
to England was open and ...
Vol. 5 p. 192 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [1745!.
CEIAFTER XL.
E D I N B U R G H IN 1745.
Provost Stewart-Advance of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 322 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
~ ~~ ~~ ~
period, and in 1736- one of unusual brilliance
was given in ...
Vol. 3 p. 76 (Rel. 0.23)
... him an intimation that he was to be made
prisoner, and advised him to lose no time in
assuming the defensive. ...
Vol. 1 p. 39 (Rel. 0.23)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
Vol. 5 p. 94 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Cowgate.
showed that the barrel had been placed so as to collect
the rain water from ...
Vol. 4 p. 246 (Rel. 0.23)
... 40 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moredun.
and a father, his afflicted widow and daughters
erect this memorial of ...
Vol. 6 p. 340 (Rel. 0.23)
![rrs PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly
dragged out one of the most important witnesses,
and carrying him to his castle of Cricliton, eleven
miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered
a word.
On the charge of being a “ Papist,” among many
other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the
Countess of Abercorn, where her health became
broken by confinement, and the misery of a
prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of
George III., must have been something terrible in
the days orCharles I. In 1621 she obtained a
licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing
to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the
Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint
in various places for three years, she was permitted
to remain ir. the earl’s house at Paisley, in March
1631, on condition that she “ reset no Jesuits,”
and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000
merks.
Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth
contain volumes of entries made in the following
brief fashion :-
“1662, June 10.-John Kincaid put in ward
by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for
‘ pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft anwarranfably.’
Liberated on finding caution not to
do so again.
“-June 10.-Robert Binning for falsehood ;
hanged with the false papers about his neck.
“--4ug. q.-Robert Reid for murder. His
head struck from his body at the mercat cross.
“- Dec. 4.-James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhupitt
from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the
cheek with the Toun’s common mark, and banished
the kicgdom, for the crime of double adultery.
‘‘ 1663, March ~g.-ATexander Kennedy; hanged
for raising false bonds and aritts.
“-March z I.-Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certifying
if again troubling the place, the next prison
shall be the Correction House.
“- July 8.-Katherine Reid ; hanged for
theft.
“-July &--Sir Archibald Johnston of Wamston;
treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed
on the Netherbow.
“ - July I 8.-Bessie Brebner ; hansed for
murder.
‘I -Aug. zS.-The Provost of Kirkcudbright ;
banished for keeping his house during a tumult.
“ - Oct. 5.-William Dodds ; beheaded for
murder.”
And so on in grim monotony, till we come to
the last five entries in the old record, which is
quite incomplete.
1728, Oct. zs.-John Gibson; forging a
declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed
to the Tron, and dismissed.
‘( 1751, March 18.-Helen Torrance :md Jean
Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child,
eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to
the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when
carried OK, and dead on Friday, with an incision in
the belly, but sewn up again.
“ I 7 5 6, May 4.-Sir William Dalrymple of Cousland;
for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of
Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh.
Liberated’on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks,
to answer any complaint.
“ 1752, Jan. 10.-Norman Ross ; hanged and
hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for
issassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of
Wedderburn.
‘ I 1757, Feb. 4.-Janies Rose, Excise Officer at
Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts
for arrears.”
It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through
clanship, or some other influence, nearly every
criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape.
Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer,
who was one of the commissioners for executing
the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who
married a daughter of the Earl of hfelville about
the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster
who had married a girl to whom he had paid improper
addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth,
and sentenced to death; and of his first attempt
to escape the following story is told He was
carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be
conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful
porter, who was to put hini on board a vessel
about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that
when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter
did so with Lord Burleigh‘s head doiwnnmost, thus
it had to sustain the weight of his whole body.
The posture was agony, the way long and rough,
but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual
burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port,
where an acquaintance asked him “whither he
was going?” ‘:TO Leith,” was the reply. “ Is the
work good enough to afford a glass before going
farther?” was the next question. The porter said
it was; and tossed down the trunk with such
violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Burleigh,
who instantly fainted.
Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open
the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found
cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p139.gif "Volume 1 Page 127")
... PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who ...
Vol. 1 p. 127 (Rel. 0.23)
... 1 A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. ‘3
one with a dark lantern ; but notwithstanding that
a pardon and zoo ...
Vol. 5 p. 13 (Rel. 0.23)
![Koslin.] THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the means of communication between
the two being by a steep descent of steps. Its use
has sorely puzzled antiquaries, though it forms a
handsome little chapel, with ribbed arches and roof
of stone. Under its eastern window is an altar, and
there is a piscina and anibry for the sacramental
plate, together with a comfortable fireplace and a
rob+ of closets.
‘‘ Its domestic appurtenances,” says a writer,
clearly- show. it. to have been the <house of: the
priestvrcustodier of the chapel, and the ecclesiastical’types
first named were for his private nieditation
; and thus the puzzle ceases.”
Near the,chapel is St, Mathew’s Well. The
parish of Roslin possesses many relics and traditions
of the famous three battles which were fought
there in one day-the 24th of February, 1302 :-
“ Three triumphs in a day,
Three hosts subdued in one,
Beneath one common sun !”
Three armies scattered like the spray
On the 26th of January, 1302, the cruel and
treacherous Edward I. of England concluded a
treaty of truce-not peace-with Scotland, while,
on the other hand, he prepared to renew the war
against her. To this end he marched in an army
of 2o,ooo--Some say 30,ooo-men, chiefly cavalry,
under Sir John de Segrave, with orders’less to
fight than to waste and devastate the already wasted
country.
To obtain ptovisions with more ease, Segrave
marched his force in three columns, each a mile or
two apart, and the 24th of February saw them on
the north bank of the Esk, at three places, still
indicated by crossed swords on the county map ;
the first at Roslin ; the second . at Loanhead, on
high ground, still named, from the battle, “ Killrig,”
north of the village ; and the third at Park Bum,
near Gilmerton Grange.
Meanwhile, Sir John Comyn, Guardian of the
Kingdom, and Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver Castle
(the friend and comrade of Wallace), Heritable
Sheriff of Tweeddale, after mustering a force of
only 8,000 men-but men carefully selected and
well armed-marched from Biggar in the night,
and in the dull grey light of the February morning,
in the wooded glen near Roslin Castle, came
suddenly on the first column, under Segrave.
Animated by a just thirst for vengeance, the
Scots made a furious attack, and Segrave was
rapidly routed, wounded, and taken prisoner, together
with his brother, his son, sixteen knights,
and thirty esquires, called sergeants by the rhyming
English chronicler Langtoft.
.
The contest was barely over when the second
column, alarmed by the fugitives, advanced from its
camp at Loanhead, ‘‘ and weary though the Scots
were with their forced night march, flushed with
their first success, and full of the most rancorous
hate of their invaders, they rushed to the charge,
and though the conflict was fiercer, were victorious.
A vast quantity of pillage fell into their hands,
together with Sir Ralph the Cofferer, a paymaster
of the English army.”
The second victory had barely been achieved,
when the third division, under Sir Robert Neville,
with all its arms and armour glittering in the
morning sun, came in sight, advancing from the
neighbourhood of Gilmerton, at a time when
many of the Scots had laid aside a portion of their
arms and helmets, and were preparing some to eat,
and others to sleep.
Frase; and Comyn at first thought of retiring,
but that was impracticable, as Neville was so close
upon, them. They flew from rank to rank, says
Tytler, “and having equipped the camp followers
in the arms of their slain enemies, they made a
furious charge on the English, and routed them
with great slaughter.”
Before the second and third encounters took
place, old historians state that the Scots had recourse
to the cruel practice of slaying their prisoners,
which was likely enough in keeping with the spirit
with which the wanton English war was conducted
in those days. Sir Ralph the Cofferer begged Fraser
to spare his life, offering a large ransom for it.
“ Your coat of mail is no priestly habit,” replied
Sir Simon. “ Where is thine alb-where thy hood ?
Often have you robbed us all and done us grievous
wrong, and now is our time to sum up the account,
and exact strict payment.’’
With these words he hewed off the gauntleted
hands of the degraded priest, and then by one
stroke severed his head from his body.
Old English writers always attribute the glory of
the day to Wallace ; but he was not present. The
pursuit lasted sixteen miles, even as far as Biggar,
and 12,000 of the enemy perished, says Sir James
Balfour. English historians have attempted to
conceal the triple defeat of their countrymen on
this occasion. They state that Sir Robert Neville’s
division stayed behind to hear mass, and repelled the
third Scottish attack, adding that none who heard
mass that morning were slain. But, unfortunately
for this statement, Neville himself was among the
dead ; and Langtoft, in his very minute account of
the battle, admits that the English were utterly
routed.
Many places in the vicinity still bear names con-
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p170.gif "Volume 6 Page 351")
... THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the ...
Vol. 6 p. 351 (Rel. 0.23)
![Holyrood. I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid church from my ren
of Edinburgh forty shillings, from Stirling twentj
shillings, and from Perth forty shillings ; and ont
toft in Stirling, and the draught of one net foi
tishing ; and one toft in my Burgh of Edinburgh
free and quit of all custom and exaction ; and ont
toft in Berwick, and the draught of two nets ir
Scypwell ; one toft in Renfrew of five perches, tht
‘draught of one net for salmon, and to fish thert
for herrings freely ; and I forbid any one to exact
from you or your men any customs therefor.
‘‘ I moreover grant to the aforesaid canons from
my exchequer yearly ten pounds for the lights o
the church, for the works of that church, anc
repairing these works for ever. I charge, more
over, all my servants and foresters of Stirlingshirt
and Clackmannan, that the abbot and convent havt
free power in all my woods and forests, of taking
as much timber as they please for the building 01
their church and of their houses, and for any purpost
of theirs; and I enjoin that their men who take
timber for their use in the said woods have my
firm peace, and so that ye do not permit them tc
be disturbed in any way ; and the swine, the property
of the aforesaid church, I grant in all my
woods to be quit of pannage [food].
‘‘ I grant, moreover, to the aforesaid canons the
half of the fat, tallow, and hides of the slaughter 01
Edinburgh ; and a tithe of all the whales and seabeasts
which fall to me from Avon to Coldbrandspath;
and a tithe of all my pleas and gains from
Avon to Coldbrandspath ; and the half of my tithe
of cane, and of my pleas and gains of Cantyre and
Argyll ; and all the skins of rams, ewes, and lambs
of the castle and of Linlithgow which die of my
flock ; and eight chalders of malt and eight of meal,
with thirty *cart-loads of bush from Liberton ; and
one of my mills of Dean; and a tithe of the mill
of Liberton, and of Dean, and of the new mill of
*Edinburgh, and of Craggenemarf, as much as I
.have for the same in my domain, and as much as
JVuieth the White gave them of alms of the same
Crag. I
‘ ‘‘ I grant likewise to them leave to establish a
burgh between that church and my burgh.* And
. I grant that the burgesses have common right of
selling their wares and of buying in my market,
‘freely and quit of claim and custom, in like manner
.as my own burgesses ; and I forbid that any one
take in this burgh, bread, ale, or cloth, or any ware
-by force, or without consent of the burgesses. I
grant, moreover, that the canons be quit of toll
. Here them is no mention of the town of Hcr6Crgrrs, alleged to haw
occupied the site of the Canongate.
and of all custom in all my burghs and throughout
all my land: to wit, all things that they buy
and sell.
“And I forbid any one to take pledge on the
land of the Holy Rood, unless the abbot of that
place shall have refused to do right and justice. I
will, moreover, that they hold all that is above
written as freely and quietly as I hold my own
lands ; and I will that the abbot hold his court as
freely, fully, and honourably as the Bishop of St.
Andrews and the Abbots of Dunfermline and
Kelso hold their courts.
“Witnesses tRobert Bishop of St. Andrews,
John Bishop of Glasgow, Henry my son, William
my grandson, Edward the Chancellor, Ilerbert the
Chamberlain, Gillemichael the Earl, Gospatrick the
brother of Dolphin, Robert of Montague, Robert
of Burneville, Peter of Brus, Norman the Sheriff,
Oggu, Leising, Gillise, William of Grahani, Turston
of Crechtune, Blein the Archdeacon, Aelfric the
Chaplain, Walerain the Chaplain.” l-
This document is interesting from its simplicity,
and curious as mentioning mzny places still known
under the same names. 1
The canons regular of the order of St. Augustine
were brought there from St. Andrews in Fifeshire.
The order was first established in Scotlayd
by Alexander I. in 1114, and ere long possessed
twenty-eight monasteries or foundations in tqe
So, in process of time, ‘‘ in the hollow betweqn
two hills ” where King David was saved from the
white hart, there rose the great abbey house,
with its stately cruciform church, having three
:ewers, of which but a fragment now remainsT
i melancholy ruin. Till its completion the canods
Mere housed in the Castle, where they resided till
rbout 1176, occupying an edifice which had preiliously
been a nunnery.
The southern aisle of the nave is the only part
if the church on which a roof remains, and of the
whole range of beautifully clustered pillars on the
iorth side but two fragments alone survive. The
mtire ruin retains numerous traces of the original
vork of the twelfth century, though enriched by
he additions of subsequent ages. With reference
o the view of it in the old print which has been
:opied in these pages,$ it has been observed
hat therein “the abbey church appears with a
econd square tower, uniform with the one still
tanding at the north of the great doorway. The
ransepts are about the usual proportions, but the
:hoir is much shorter than it is proved from other
kingdom. I
-
t “Charters relatiagta Cityof E&bwgh,“&u xr43-x5+ao. 4ta. 1871.
f see ante, vol. i, p. 5.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p054.gif "Volume 3 Page 42")
... I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid ...
Vol. 3 p. 42 (Rel. 0.23)
![The West Bow.] MAJOR WEIR’S HOUSE. 3 13
an extraordinary quantity of yarn, in the time that
it would have taken four women to do so.
At the place of execution in the Grassmarket a
frenzy seized her, and the wretched old creature
began to rend her garments, in order, as she
shrieked, that she might die ‘‘ with all the shame
she could ! ”
Undeterred by her fate, ten other old women
were in the same year burned in Edinburgh for
alleged dabbling in witchcraft.
flaming torches, as if a multitude of people were
there, all laughing merrily. “This sight, at so
dead a time of night, no people being in the windows
belonging to the close, made her and her
servant haste home, declaring all that they saw to
the rest of the family.”
“For upwards of a century after Major Weir‘s
death he continued to be the bugbear of the Bow,
and his house remained uninhabited. His apparition,”
says Chambers, ‘‘ was frequently seen at
MAJOR WEIR’S LAND.
(Fmm a Measrrrrd Drawing by Thomas HamiZton, #idZiskcd in 183a)
The reverend Professor who compiled “ Satan’s
Invisible World,” relates that a few nights before
the major made his astounding confession, the
wife of a neighbour, when descending from the
Castle Hill towards the Bow-head, saw three
women in different windows, shouting, laughing,
and clapping their hands. She passed on, and
when abreast of Major Weir’s door, she saw a
woman of twice mortal stature arise from the street.
Filled with great fear, she desired her maid, who
bore a lantern, to hasten on, but the tall spectre
still kept ahead of them, uttering shouts of “unmeasurable
laughter,” till they came to the narrow
alley called the Stinking Close, into which the
spectre turned, and which was seen to be full of
40
night, flitting like a black and silent shadow about
the street. His house, though known to be deserted
by everything human, was sometimes observed at
midnight to be full of lights, and heard to emit
strange sounds, as of dancing, howling, and, what
is strangest of all, spinning. Some people occasionally
saw the major issue from the low close at
midnight, mounted on a black horse without a
head, and gallop off in a whirlwind of flame. Nay,
sometimes the whole inhabitants of the Bow would
be roused from their sleep at an early hour in the
morning by the sound of a coach and six, first
rattling up the Lawnmarket, and then thundering
down the Bow, stopping at the head of the terrible
close for a few minutes, and then rattling and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p133.gif "Volume 2 Page 313")
... West Bow.] MAJOR WEIR’S HOUSE. 3 13
an extraordinary quantity of yarn, in the time that
it would have taken ...
Vol. 2 p. 313 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Vol. 4 p. 224 (Rel. 0.23)
![Rase Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ‘59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns of Rose Street ‘‘ to
the hymeneal altar.” In hiswrath, Creech threatened
an action against the editor, whose contradiction
made matters worse :-“ In a former number we
noticed the intended marriage between Bailie
Creech of Edinburgh and the beautiful Miss Bums
of the same place. We have now the authority of
that gentleman to say that the proposed marriage
is not to take place, matters having been otherwise
arranged, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties
and their respective friends.” After a few years of
unenviable notoriety, says the editor of *‘ Kay,”
Miss Burns fell into a decline, and died in 1792 at
Roslin, where a stone in the churchyard records
her name and the date of her demise.
In the same year of this squabble we find a
ball advertised in connection with the now unfashionable
locality of Rose Street, thus :-“ Mr.
Sealey (teacher of dancing) begs to acquaint his
friends and the public that his ball is iixed for the
20th of March next, and that in order to accommodate
his scholars in the New Town, he proposes
opening a school in Rose Street, Young’s Land,
opposite to the Physicians’ Hall, the 24th of that
month, where he intends to teach on Tuesdays
and Fridays from nine in the morning, and the
remainder of the week at his school in Foulis’s
Close, as formerly.” In 1796 we find among
its residents Sir Samuel Egerton Leigh, Knight, of
South Carolina, whose lady “ was safely delivered
of a son on Wednesday morning (16th March) at
her lodgings in Rose Street.”
Sir Samuel was the second son of Sir Egerton
high, His Majesty’s AttorneyGenerd for South
Carolina, and he died at Edinburgh in the ensuing
January. He had a sister, married to the youngest
brother of Sir Thomas Burnet of Leya
This son, born at Edinburgh in 1796, succeeded
in ISIS to the baronetcy, on the death of his uncle,
Sir Egerton, who married Theodosia (relict of
Captain John Donellan), daughter of Sir Edward,
and sister of Sir Theodosius Edward Boughton,
for the murder of whom by poison the captain was
executed at Warwick in 1781,
It was in Dr. John Brown’s Chapel in Rose
Street, that Robert Pollok, the well-known author
of “The Course of Time,” who was a licentiate of
the United Secession Church, preached his only
sermon, and soon after ordination he was attacked
by that pulmonary disease of which he died in
1827.
In 1810 No. 82 was “Mrs. Bruce’s fashionable
boarding-school,” and many persons of the greatest
respectability occupied the common stairs, particularly
to the westward ; and in Thistle Street were
many residents of very good position.
Thus No. z was the house, in 1784, of Sir
John Gordon, Bart. ; and Sir Alexander Don, Bart.,
of Newton Don, lived in No. 4, when Lady Don
Dowager resided in No. 53, George Street (he had
been one of the d h u s in France who were seized
when passing through it during the short peace of
1802), and a Mrs. Colonel Ross occupied No. 17,
Under the name of Hill Street this thoroughfare
is continued westward, between Fredenck Street
and Castle Street, all the houses being “selfcontained.”
The Right Hon. Charles Hope of
Granton, Lord Justice Clerk, had his chambers in
No. 6 (now writers’ offices) in ~808 ; Buchanan of
Auchintorlie lived in No. I I, and Clark of Comrie
in No. 9, now also legal offices. In one of the houses
here resided, and was married in 1822, as mentioned
in Bkrckwoad’s Magazine for that year, Charles
Edward Stuart, styled latterly Count d’Albany
(whose son, the Carlist colonel, married a daughter
of the Earl of Errol), and who, with his brother, John
Sobieski Stuarf attracted much attention in the city
and Scotland generally, between that period and
1847, and of whom various accounts have been
given. They gave themselves out as the grandsons
of Charles Edward Stuart, but were said to be
the sons of a Captain Thomas Allan, R.N., and
grandsons of Admiral John Carter Allan, who died
in 1800.
Seven broad and handsome streets, running south
and north, intersect the great parallelogram of the
New Town. It was at the corner of one of those
streets-but which we are not told-that Robert
Burns first saw, in 1787, Mrs. Graham, so celebrated
for her wonderful beauty, and whose husband
commanded in the Castle of Stirling.
From the summit of the ridge, where each of
these streets cross George Street, are commanded
superb views : on one side the old town, and on
the other the northern New Town, and away to the
hills of Fife and Kinross.
According to “ Peter Williamson’s Directory,”
Hugo Arnot, the historian, had taken up his abode
in the Meuse Lane of South St. Andrew Street
in 1784. His own name was Pollock, but he
changed it to Arnot on succeeding to the estate of
Balcormo, in Fifeshire. In his fifteenth year hC
became afflicted with asthma, and through life was
reduced to the attenuation of a skeleton. Admitted
an advocate in 1772, he ever took a deep interest
in all local matters, and published various essays
thereon, and his exertions in promoting the
improvements then in progress in Edinburgh were
which is now the New Town dispensary. c](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p171.gif "Volume 3 Page 159")
... Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ‘59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns ...
Vol. 3 p. 159 (Rel. 0.23)
![Restalrig.] DRURY’S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Douglas, Lord
of Bothwell, Galloway, and Annandale, Duke of
Touraine aud Marshal of France, resided in 1440,
in which year he died at Restalrig, of a malignant
fever.
In 1444 Sir John Logan of Restalrig was sheriff
of Edinburgh ; and in 1508 James Logan, of the
same place, was Sheriff-deputy.
Twenty-one years before the latter date an
calsay lyand, and the town desolate.” In the
following year, Holinshed records that “ the Lord
Grey, Lieutenant of the Inglis’ armie,” during the
siege of Leith, “ludged in the town of Lestalrike,
in the Dean’s house, and part of the Demi-lances
and other horsemen lay in the same towne.”
A little way north-westward of Restalrig, midway
between the place named Hawkhill and the upper
Quarry Holes, near the Easter Road, there occurred
on the 16th of June, 1571, a disastrous skirmish, de-
~
RESTALRIG CHURCH IN THE PRESENT DAYEnglish
army had encamped at Restalrig, under the
Duke of Gloucester, who spared the city at the
request of the Duke of Albany and on receiving
many rich presents fiom the citizens, while James
III., in the hand of rebel peers, was a species of
captive in the castle of Edinburgh.
In 1559 the then secluded village was the scene
of one of the many skirmishes that took place between
the troops of the Queen Regent and those
of the Lords of the Congregation, in which the
latter were baffled, “driven through the myre at
Restalrig-worried at the Craigingate ” (i.e., the
Calton), and on the 6th of November,’ “ at even
in the nycht,” they departed ‘‘ furth of Edinburgh
to Lynlithgow, and left their artailzerie on the
signated the BZack Saturday, or Drury’s peace,”
as it was sometimes named, through the alleged
treachery of the English ambassador.
Provoked by a bravado on the part of the Earl
of Morton, who held Leith, and who came forth
with horse and foot to the Hawkhill, the Earl of
Huntly, at the head of a body of Queen Mary‘s
followers, with a train of guns, issued out of Edinburgh,
and halted at the Quarry Holes, where he
was visited by Sir William Drury, the ambassador
of Queen Elizabeth, who had been with Morton in
Leith during the preceding night. His proposed
object was an amicable adjustment of differences,
to the end that no loss of life should ensue between
those who were countrymen, and, in too](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p144.gif "Volume 5 Page 133")
... DRURY’S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth ...
Vol. 5 p. 133 (Rel. 0.23)
... was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this ...
Vol. 3 p. 29 (Rel. 0.23)
![The Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known engraver. The engines
came promptly enough ; but, from some unknown
cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working
order, and by that time the terrible element had
raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by
eleven o'clock the upper portion of this tenement,
including six storeys, forming the eastern 'division
of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of
roaring flames, which, as the breeze was from the
to their elevated position, or the roar of the gathering
conflagration, the shouts of the crowd, and
wailing of women and children, their cries were
unheard for a time, until it was too late. The
whole tenement was lost, together with extensive
ranges of buildings in the old Fish Market and
Assembly Closes, to -which it was the means of
communicating the flames.
While these tall and stately edifices were yielding
to destruction, the night grew calm and still, and
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.
sooth-west, turned them, as they burst from the
gaping windows, in the direction of a house to the
eastward, the strong' gable of which saved it from
the destruction which seemed imminent.
Two tenements to the westward were less fortunate,
and as, from the narrowness of the ancient
close, it was impossible to work the engines, they
soon were involved in one frightful and appalling
blaze. Great fears mere now entertained for the
venerable Courant office; nor was it long before
the fire seized on its upper storey, at the very time
when some brave fellows got upon the roof of a
tenement to the westward, and shouted to the firemen
to give them a pipe, by which they could
piay upon the adjoining roof, But, owing either
I the sparks emitted by the flames shot upwards as if
spouted from a volcano, and descended like the
thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the respiration
of all. A dusky, lurid red tinged the clouds,
and the glare shone on the Castle wdls, the
rocks of the Calton, the beetling crags, and all the
city spires. Scores of lofty chimneys, set on fire
by the falling sparks, added to the growing horror
of the scene ; and for a considerable time the Tron
Church was completely enveloped in this perilous
shower of embers.
About one in the morning of the 16th the alarm
of fire was given from a house directly oppoife to
the burning masses, and, though groundless, it
added to the deepening Consternation. Mean](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p201.gif "Volume 1 Page 189")
... Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known ...
Vol. 1 p. 189 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
the 27th October, 1592, by ‘(the hail1 elderes, deacones,
and honest men ...
Vol. 3 p. 132 (Rel. 0.23)
... of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time
when its garrison was the nsth, or old regiment of
Edinburgh, ...
Vol. 1 p. 68 (Rel. 0.23)
![High Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. I99
is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best
sort of citizens. They drink pure,aines, not with
sugar, as we English, yet at feasts they put comfits
in the wine, after the French manner; but they
had not our vintner’s fraud to mix their wines.
*‘ I did not see nor hear that they have any public
inns, with signs hanging out ; but the better sort of
‘ citizens brew ale (which will distemper a stranger’s
body), and then some citizens will entertain passengers
upon acquaintance or entreaty (i.e., introductioh).
Their bedsteads were then like cupboards
in the wall (i.e., box beds), to be opened and shut
at pleasure, so we climbed up to our beds. They
used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but
close at the feet. When passengers go to bed, their
custom is to present them a sleeping cup of wine
at parting. The country people and merchants
used to drink largely, the gentlemen somewhat
more sparingly; yet the very courtiers, by nightmeetings
and entertaining any strangers, used to
drink healths, not without excess ; and to speak the
truth without offence, the excess of drinking was
far greater among the Scots than the English.
*‘ Myself being at the Court was invited by some
gentlemen to supper, and being forewarned to fear
this excess, would not promise to sup with them
but upon*condition that my inviter would be my
protection from large drinking. . . . The husbandmen
in Scotland, the servants, and almost all
the country, did wear coarse cloth made at home,
of grey or sky colour, and flat blew caps, very
broad. The merchants in cities were attired in
English or French cloth, of pale colour, or mingled
black and blew. The gentlemen did wear English
cloth or silk, or light stuffs, little or nothing adorned
with silk lace, much less with silver or gold ; and
all followed the French fashion, especially at
Court.
“Gentlewomen married did wear close upper
bodies, after the German manner, with large whalebone
sleeves, after the French manner; short
cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and large
falling bands about their necks. The unmarried of
all sorts (?) did go bareheaded, and wear short
cloaks, with close linen sleeves on their arms, like
the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of
citizen’s wives and the women of the country did
wear cloaks ,made of a coarse stuff, of two or three
colours, in checker work, vulgarly called jZodun
(i.e., tartan plaiding).
“To conclude, they would not at this time be
attired after the English fashion in any sort; but
the men, especially at Court, followed the French
fashion ; and the women, both in Court and city,
as well -in cloaks as naked heads and close
sleeves on the arms, and all other garments, follow
the fashion of the women in Germany.”
On the 20th of June, 1610, the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh exhibited to his Council two gowns, one
black, the other red, trimmed with sable, the gift
of King James, as patterns of the robes to be worn
by him and the bailies of the city; and in 1667
Charles 11. gave Sir Alexander Ramsay, Provost in
that year, a letter, stating that the chief magistrate
of Edinburgh should have the same precedence in
Scotland as the Mayor of London has in England,
and that no other provost should have the title of
‘I Lord Provost ”-a privilege which has, however,
since been modified.
l h e attention of King James, who never forgot
the interests of his native city, was drawn in 1618
to two abuses in its police. Notwithstanding the
warning given by the fire of 1584, it was still cus
tomary for “baxters and browsters” (i.e., bakers
and brewers) to keep great stacks of heather, whins,
and peatq in the very heart of the High Street and
other thoroughfares, to the great hazard of all adjacent
buildings, and many who were disposed to
erect houses within the walls were deterred from
doing so by the risks to be run ; while, moreover,
candle-makers and butchers were allowed to pursue
their avocations within the city, to the disgust and
annoeance of civil and honest neighbours, and of
the nobility and country people,” who came in
about their private affairs, and thus a royal procla-
.mation was issued against these abuses. The idea
of a cleaning department.of police never occurred
to the good folks of those days ; hence, in the following
year, the plan adopted was that each inhabitant
should keep clean that part of each street
before his own bounds.
In 1618 Edinburgh was visited by Taylor the
Water Poet, and his description of it is as truthful
as it is amusing :-“ So, leaving the castle, as it is
both defensive against any opposition and magnifick
for lodging and receipt, I descended lower to
the city, wherein I observed the fairest and goodliest
street mine eyes ever beheld, for I did
never see or hear of a street of that length (which
is half a mile English from the castle to a fair port,
which they call the Nether Bow); and from that
port the street which they call the Kenny-gate
(Canongate) is one quarter of a mile more, down
to the king’s palace, called Holyrood House ; the
buildings on each side of the way being all of
squared stone, five, six, and seven storeys high, and
many bye-lanes and closes on each side of the way,
wherein are gentlemen’s houses, much fairer than
the buildings in the High Street, fur in the High
Street the merchants and tradesmen. do dwell, but](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p019.gif "Volume 2 Page 199")
... Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. I99
is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best
sort of citizens. ...
Vol. 2 p. 199 (Rel. 0.23)
... 2 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University.
posts, and make the Grassmarket their headquarters.
The City Militia held ...
Vol. 5 p. 12 (Rel. 0.23)
![I34 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalng.
many instances, relatives and friends. With all
the affected zeal of a peacemaker, this gentleman
(whose house stood in Drury Lane, off the Strand
in London), proposed terms which Huntly deemed
satisfactory ; but the next point to be considered
was, which party should first march off the field.
On this, both parties were absurdly obstinate.
Huntly maintained that Morton, by an aggressive
display, had drawn the Queen’s troops out of the
city ; while Morton, on the other hand, charged the
Highland Earl with various acts of hostility and
insult. Dnuy eventually got both parties to promise
to quit the ground at a given signal, “and
that signal,” he arranged, “shall be the throwing
up of my hat.”
This was agreed to, and before Drury was halfway
between the Hawkhill and the ancient quarries,
up went his plumed hat, and away wheeled
Huntly’s forces, marching for the city by the road
that led to the Canongate, without the least suspicion
of the treachery of Drury, or Morton, whose
soldiers had never left their ground, and who cow,
rushing across the open fields with shouts charged
with the utmost fury the queen’s men, ‘‘ who were
retiring with all the imprudent irregularity and confusion
which an imaginary security and exultation
at having escaped a sanguinary conflict were calculated
to produce.”
Thus treacherously attacked, they were put to
flight, and were pursued with cruel and rancorous
slaughter to the very gates of the city. The
whole road was covered with dead and wounded
men, while Lord Home, several gentlemen of high
position, and seventy-two private soldiers, a pair
of colours, several horses, and two pieces of cannon,
were, amid great triumph, marched into Leith in the
afternoon.
This was not the only act of treachery of which
Sir William Drury was guilty. He swore that he
was entirely innocent, and threw the whole blame
on Morton; but though an ambassador, so exas.
perated were the people of Edinburgh against him,
that he had afterwards to quit the city under a
guard to protect him from the infuriated mob.
The Laird of Restalrig was among those who
surrendered with Kirkaldy of Grange, in 1573, when
the Castle of Edinburgh capitulated to Morton;
but he would seem to have been pardoned, as
no record exists of any seventy practised upon him.
In #some criminal proceedings, in I 5 76, the sheet
of water here is designated as Restalrig Loch,
when a woman named Bessie Dunlop was tried
for witchcraft and having certain interviews with
‘‘ ane Tam Reid,” who was killed at the battle of
Pinkie. Having once ridden with her husband to
Leith to bring home meal, “ganging afield to
tether her horse at Restalrig Loch, there came ane
company of riders by, that made sic a din as if
heaven and earth had gane together; and, incontinent
they rade into the loch, with mony
hideous rumble. Tarn tauld [her] it was the
Gude Wights, that were riding in middle-eard.”
For these and similar confessions, Bessie was
consigned to the flames as a witch.
During the prevalence of the pestilence, in 1585,
James Melville says that on his way to join the
General Assembly at Linlithgow he had to pass
through Edinburgh ; that after dining at Restalrig at
eleven o’clock, he rode through thecity from the Water
Gate to the West Port, “ in all whilk way, we saw
not three persons, sae that I mis-kenned Edinburgh,
and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.”
In 1594 Restalrig was the scene of one of those
stormy raids that the “mad Earl of Bothwell”
caused so frequently, to the torment of James VI.
The earl, at the head of an armed force, was in
Leith, and broke out in open rebellion, when,
on the 3rd of April, the king, after sermon, summoned
the people of Edinburgh in arms, and moved
towards Leith, from whence Bothwell instantly
issued at the head of 500 mounted men-atms,
and took up a position at the Hawkhill near
Restalrig. Fearing, however, the strength of the
citizens, he made a detour, and galloped through
Duddingstone. Lord Home with his lances followed
him to “the Woomet,” says Birrel, probably
meaning Woolmet, near Dalkeith, when Bothwell
faced about, and compelled him to retire in turn,
but not without bloodshed.
In February, 1593, at Holyrood, Robert Logan,
of Restalrig, was denounced for not appearing to
answer for his treasonable conspiracy and trafiicking
“ with Francis, sum tyme Earl of Bothwell ; ” and
in the June of the following year he was again
denounced as a traitor for failing to appear and
answer for the conduct of two of his vassals, Jockie
Houlden and Peter Craick, who had despoiled
Robert Gray, burgess in Edinburgh of Lg50.
It was in this year that the remarkable indenture
was formed between him and Napier of Merchiston
to search for gold in Fast Castle (the “Wolf’s Crag”
of the Master of Ravenswood), a fortress which lie
had acquired by his marriage with an heiress of
the Home family, to whom it originally belonged.
Logan joined the Earl of Gowrie in the infamous
and mysterious conspiracy at Perth, in the year
1600. It was proposed to force the king into ir
boat at the bottom of the garden of Gowrie
House, which the river Tay bordered, and from‘
thence conduct him by sea to Logan’s inacces](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p145.gif "Volume 5 Page 134")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalng.
many instances, relatives and friends. With all
the affected zeal of a ...
Vol. 5 p. 134 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ’ [Leith.
preachers, who though profound unbelievers in any
kind of consecration, ‘‘ ...
Vol. 5 p. 174 (Rel. 0.23)
... the Tolbooth; others were held there in 1449
and 1459. In the latter the Scottish word
“Tolbooth,” meaning ...
Vol. 1 p. 126 (Rel. 0.23)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 397 (Rel. 0.23)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 398 (Rel. 0.23)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 399 (Rel. 0.23)
... men; at Bilston Burn is Wallace’s camp, in
the form of a half-moon, defended by a broad deep
ditch-a ...
Vol. 6 p. 356 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
is in the Gothic style, with a tower 130 feet high,
surmounted by an open ...
Vol. 6 p. 240 (Rel. 0.22)
... Hi11.1 THE LYON KING-OF-ARMS. 37= _.
able testimonial, signed and sealed by all the
members of that ...
Vol. 2 p. 371 (Rel. 0.22)
... Hi11.1 THE LYON KING-OF-ARMS. 37= _.
able testimonial, signed and sealed by all the
members of that ...
Vol. 2 p. 370 (Rel. 0.22)
... “ THE WARLOCK NAPIER.” 37
men, and others felL Of the queen’s men, only one
lost his life by a shot ...
Vol. 5 p. 37 (Rel. 0.22)
... PALACE BURNED AND REPAIRED. 73
~
gesse !”’ Then the castle fired a salute, while
silver was scattered to the ...
Vol. 3 p. 73 (Rel. 0.22)
... Strathearn, the Rosabelle of Scott’s beautiful
ballad, which tells us-
“ There are twenty of Roslin’s barons ...
Vol. 6 p. 348 (Rel. 0.22)
... probable that the Earl may often have been
a guest in that old mansion, and King James himself
in later ...
Vol. 2 p. 220 (Rel. 0.22)
... 1543, when the traitorous Scottish nobles of
what was named the English faction, leagued with
Henry VIII. ...
Vol. 5 p. 169 (Rel. 0.22)
![Arthut’s Seat] “ THE WILD MACRAAS.” 307
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of the 29th
of October, 1728, contains the following reference
to the Craigs, or the chasm, there named the
Catnick :-“ A person who frequents the (King‘s)
Park, having noticed a man come from a cleft
towards the north-west of Salisbury Rocks, had the
curiosity to climb the precipice, if possibly he
might discover something that could invite him
there, He found a shallow pit, which delivered
him into a little snug room or vault hung with
dressed leather, lighted from the roof, the window
covered with a bladder. It is thought to have been
the cave of a hermit of ancient times, though now
the hiding-place of a gang of thieves.”
The long, deep, and tremendous rift in the wes
t e n slope of Arthur’s Seat (locally known as the
Gutiit Haddie) was caused by a mighty waterspout,
on the 13th of September, 1744. “Dividing its
force ”-says the “ Old Statistical -4ccount ”-‘‘ it
discharged one part upon the western side, and
tore up a channel or chasm, which still remains a
monument of its violence ; the other division took
its direction towards the village of Duddingston,
carried away the gable .of the most westerly cottage,
and flooded the loch over the adjacent meadows.”
On the steep sloping shoulder of Arthur‘s Seat,
south-westward, under the Rock of Dunsappie, the
Highland army encamped in September before
the battle of Prestonpans, and from thence it was
-after the Prince had held a council of his chief5
and nobles-the march began at daybreak on the
morning of the 20th through the old hedgerow:
and woods of Duddingston, with pipes playing
and colours flying, after Charles, in front of thc
he, had significantly drawn his claymore and flung
away the scabbard.
From a letter which appears in the Advertiser foi
the 15th of January, 1765, the entrance to tne Park
from St. Anne’s Yard to the Duke’s Walk having
become impassable, was privately repaired at tht
expense of a couple of classical wits, whose name:
were unknown, but who placed upon the entrance
the following inscription :-
Ite nunc faciles per gaudia uestra,
3 Cpuepecun sua re@&durn cur.
CaLIan. MD.C.CLXl?
rJ*i faciant ut haec smpiusjunf.
QUIRITES
Mungo Campbell (formerly officer of Excise ai
Saltcoats), who shot Archibald, tenth Earl oj
Eglinton, committed suicide in the Tolbooth ic
1770, on the day after he had been sentenced
to death, when the judge also directed that hi2
body should be given to the professor of anatomy,
His counsel having interposed on the plea that dip
section was not a legal penalty for self-murder, it
was privately interred at the foot of Salisbury Craigs.
But the Edinburgh mob, who were exasperated by
the manner in which he had shot the earl in a
poaching affray, took the .body out of the grave,
tossed it about till they were tired, and eventually
flung it over the cliffs. After this, to prevent
further indecency and outrage, Campbell’s friends
caused the body to be conveyed in a boat from
Leith and sank it in the Firth of Forth. (Caldwell
Papers ; S o t s Mug., Vol. XXXII.)
Southward of the coue of Arthur‘s Seat are the
Raven’s Craig and the Nether Hill, or Lion’s
Haunch ; between the latter and the cone can still
be traced the trench and breastwork formed by the
Seaforth Highlanders when they revolted in 1778-
an event which created a profound sensation in
Scotland.
In the July of that year they had marched into
the Castle, replacing the Royal Edinburgh Volunteers,
or 80th Regiment of the Line, a corps
which was raised by General Sir William Erskme in
1777, and was disbanded in 1783-5.
Kenneth Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth, had
recently raised his noble regiment, which was then
numbered as the 78th (but is now known as the
Duke of Albany’s Own Highlanders), among his
clansmen in the district of Kintail and Applecross,
Kilcoy, and Redcastle ; of these Soawere from his
own estate; the rest were all from the others
named, and the corps mustered 1,130 bayonets at
its first parade in Elgin in the May of 1778 ; but
from a great number of another sept who were
in its ranks, the subsequent mutiny was known at
first as the afair of the WiZd Mwaas.
The latter was an ancient but subordinate tribe
of the west, who had followed the “ Caber Feigh,”
or banner of Seaforth, since the days when Black
Murdoch of Kintail carried it in the wars of
Robert I., and now many of its best men were
enrolled in Earl Kenneth‘s new Fencible regiment,
perfect subordination in the ranks of which was
maintained in the Castle until the 5th of August,
when an order was issued for marching at an hour’s
notice. A landing of a French force being expected
near Greenock, zoo of them, with seven
9-pounders, marched there with the greatest enthusiasm
to meet the foe, who never appeared; but
by the time these two companies returned, transports
to convey the whole for foreign service had come
to anchor in Leith Roads.
Where the scene of that service lay the men
knew not. It was kept a mystery from them and
their officers. The former would not believe a
rumour spread that it was to be tine Isle of Guern](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p127.gif "Volume 4 Page 307")
... Seat] “ THE WILD MACRAAS.” 307
The Edinburgh Evening Courant of the 29th
of October, 1728, contains the ...
Vol. 4 p. 307 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
brunt in assis, and all thair moveable guidis to be
escheat.”
On the 6th of ...
Vol. 5 p. 182 (Rel. 0.22)
... 14 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Castle Terrace.
Place, and now chiefly used as a coal dep8t.
Some of the merchants ...
Vol. 4 p. 214 (Rel. 0.22)
![The West Bow.] THE HIDDEN SWORD. 317
from his sick-bed (a few months after to be his
death-bed, though he fled to Newcastle in the
interim); and, donning his armour, drew back the
arras of the Queen’s chamber, looking like a pale
spectre under his steel-barred helmet, on that fatal
night in the March of 1566, when he planted his
dagger into David Rizzio, whose death was mainly
his contrivance; and in the demolition of this
which the blade was covered, such as Vzncere a d
mori, Fide sed cui $e4 and Sdi De0 GZoria. The
manner of its concealment, and the fierce character
of the old Lord Ruthven, within whose ancient
lodging it was discovered, may readily suggest to
the fancy its having formed the instrument of some
dark and bloody deed ere it was consigned to its
strange hiding-place.”
ASSEMBLY ROOMS, WEST BOW.
(From U McMIrcd Diawing T. Hanriltm pu6lished im 1830).
house a singular relic of him apparently was discovered.
‘‘ Between the ceiling ,and floor in one
of the apartments, a large and beautifully chased
sword was found concealed, with the scabbard
almost completely decayed, and the blade, which
was of excellent temper, deeply corroded with
rust half-way towards the hilt.” Was this the corrosion
of blood? ’ “ The point of it,” says Daniel
Wilson, “was broken 06 but it still measured
324 inches long. The maker’s name, WILHELM
WIRSBERG, was inlaid in brass upon the blade.
His device, seemingly a pair of pincers, was
engraved on both sides, surmounted by a coronet,
and encircled on one side with a motto partly
defaced, and on the other with his name repeated,
and the words in.soZ.ingen. Various other mottoes
were engraved amid the ornamental work with
He died at the close of 1566, or early in the
following year;’ and a curious key, which was
found in the demolition of his house, was procured
by the Society of Antiquaries in 1848.
Up the West Bow for centuries did all that was
regal, noble, and diplomatic, advance on entering
the city; and down it, for 124 years-between the
Restoration and I f84-went more criminals than
can be reckoned, to their doom, and many a‘victim
of misrule, such as the luckless and unflinching
Covenanters, testifying to the last and glorying in
their fate.
Down the Bow, on the 3rd of September, 1716,
there were marched from the Castle, en route for
trial at Carlisle, eighty-nine Jacobite prisoners.
‘‘ The departing troop was followed by a wail of
indignant lament fiom the national heart, the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p137.gif "Volume 2 Page 317")
... West Bow.] THE HIDDEN SWORD. 317
from his sick-bed (a few months after to be his
death-bed, though he fled to ...
Vol. 2 p. 317 (Rel. 0.22)
![George Street.] THE BLACKWOODS. I39
CHAP,TER XIX.
GEORGE STREET.
Major Andrew Faser-The Father of Miss Femer-Grant of Kilgraston-William Blackwoad and his Magazine-The Mother of Sir Waltn
Scott-Sir John Hay, Banker-Colquhoun of Killermont-Mrs. Murray of Henderland-The Houses of Sir J. W. Gomon, Sir Jam-
Hall. and Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster-St. Andrew's Church-Scene of the Disruption-Physicians' Hall-Glance at the Histcry of thecollege
of Physicians-Sold and Removed-The Commercial Bank-Its Constitution-Assembly Rooms-Rules of 17+Banquet to Black
Watch-" The Author of Waverley"-The Music Hall-The New Union Bank-Its Formation, &c.-The Mlasonic Hall-Watsoa'E
Pictureof Bums-Statues of George IV., Pitt, and Chalmers. .
PREVIOUS to the brilliant streets and squares
erected in the northern and western portions of
new Edinburgh, George Street was said to have no
rival in the world ; and even yet, after having undergone
many changes, for combined length, space,
uniformity, and magnificence of vista, whether
viewed from the east or west, it may well be
pronounced unparalleled. Straight as an arrow
flies, it is like its sister streets, but is 1x5 feet
broad. Here a great fossil tree was found in 1852.
A portion of the street on the south side, near
the west end, long bore the name of the Tontine,
and owing to some legal dispute, which left the
houses there mfinished, they were occupied as
infantry barracks during the war with France.
Nos. 3 and 5 (the latter once the residence of
Major Andrew Fraser and cf William Creech the
eminent bookseller) forni the office of the Standard
Life Assurance Company, in the tympanum of
which, over four fine Corinthian pilasters, is a
sculptured group from the chisel of Sir John Steel,
representing the parable of the Ten Virgins. In
George Street are about thirty different insurance
offices, or their branches, all more or less ornate
in architecture, and several banks.
In No. 19, on the same side, is the Caledonian,
the oldest Scottish insurance company (having
been founded in June, 1805). Previously the
office had been in Bank Street. A royal charter
was granted to the company in May, 1810, and
twenty-three years afterwards the business of life
assurance was added to that of fire insurance.
No. 25 George Street was the residence (from
1784 till his death, in 18zg), of Mr. James Ferrier,
Principal Clerk of Session, and father of Miss
Susan Ferrier, the authoress of " Marriage," &c.
He was a keen whist player, and every night of his
life had a rubber, which occasionally included Lady
Augusta Clavering, daughter of his friend and client
John, fifth Duke of Argyll, and old Dr. Hamilton,
usually designated " Cocked Hat " Hamilton, from
the fact of his being one of the last in Edinburgh
who bore that head-piece. When victorious, he
wcdd snap his fingers and caper about the room,
to tbe manifest indignation of Mr. Ferrier, who
would express it to his partner in the words, "Lady
Augusta, did you ever see such rediculous leevity
in an auld man 7 " Robert Burns used also to be
a guest at No. 25, and was prescnt on one occasion
when some magnificent Gobelins tapestry arrived
there for the Duke of Argyll on its way to Inverary
Castle. Mrs. Piozzi also, when in Edinburgh, dined
there. Next door lived the Misses Edmonstone,
of the Duntreath family, and with them pitched
battles at whist were of frequent nightly occurrence.
These old ladies figure in " Marriage " as
Aunts Jacky, Grizzy, and Nicky; they were grandnieces
of the fourth Duke of Argyll. The eldest
Miss Ferrier was one of the Edinburgh beauties in
her day ; and Bums once happening to meet her,
while turning the corner of George Street, felt suddenly
inspired, and wrote the lines to her enclosed
in an elegy on the death of Sir D. H. Hair. Miss
Ferrier and Miss Penelope, Macdonald of Clanronald,
were rival belles ; the former married
General Graham ot Stirling Castle, the latter Lord
Belhaven.
In No. 32 dwelt Francis Grant of Kilgraston,
father of Sir Francis Grant, President of the Royal
Academy, born in 1803 ; and No. 35, now a shop,
was the town house of the Hairs of Balthayock, in
Perthshire.
No. 45 has long been famous as the establishment
of Messrs. Blackwood, the eminent publishers.
William Blackwood, the founder of the magazine
which stills bears his name, and on the model of
which so many high-class periodicals have been
started in the sister kingdom, was born at Edinburgh
in 1776, and after being apprenticed to the
ancient bookselling firni of Bell and Bradfute, and
engaging in various connections with other bibliopoles,
in 1804 he commenced as a dealer in old
books on the South Bridge, in No. 64, but soon
after became agent for several London publishing
houses. In 1S16 he disposed of his vast stock of
classical and antiquarian books, I 5,000 volumes in
number, and removing to No. 17 Princes Street,
thenceforward devoted his energies to the business
of a-general publisher, and No. 17 is to this day a
bookseller's shop.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p151.gif "Volume 3 Page 139")
... Street.] THE BLACKWOODS. I39
CHAP,TER XIX.
GEORGE STREET.
Major Andrew Faser-The Father of Miss ...
Vol. 3 p. 139 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Provosts.
burgh of great numbers of‘ His Majesty’s subjects
and strangers, there ...
Vol. 4 p. 280 (Rel. 0.22)
![Fanester’s Wynd.] THE “MIRROR” CLUB. rzr
i “The Diurnal of Occurrents” records, that in
1566, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin, Dean of
Restalrig, and Lord President of the College of
Justice, died in Forrester‘s Wynd, in the house of
James Mossman, probably the same man who was a
goldsmith in Edinburgh at that time, and whose
father, also Jarnes Mossrnan, enclosed with the
present four arches the crown of Scotland, by
order of James V., when Henry VIII. closed
the crown of England. In consequence of the
houses being set on fire by the *Castle guns under
Kirkaldy, in 1572, it was ordered that all the
thatched houses between Beith’s J7ynd and St.
Giles’s should be unroofed, and that all stacks of
heather should be carried away from the streets
Fleshmarket Close ; but oftener, perhaps, in Lucky
Dunbar’s, a house situated in an alley that led
between Liberton’s Wynd and that of Forrester’s
Wynd. This Club commenced its publication of
the Mirror in January, 1729, and terminated it in
May, 1780. It was a folio sheet, published weekly
at three-halfpence. The *Lounger, to which Lord
Craig contributed largely, was commenced, by the
staff of the Mirror, on the 6th ot February, 1785,
and continued weekly till the 6th of January, 1787.
paid to their morals, behaviour, and every branch
of education.”
In this quarter Turk’s Close, Carthrae’s, Forrester’s,
and Beith’s Wynds, all stood on the slope
between Liberton’s Wynd and St. Giles’s Church ;
but every stone of these had been swept away many
years before the great breach made by the new
bridge was projected. Forrester‘s Wynd occurs so
often in local annals that it must have been a place
of some consideration.
JOHN DOWIE’S TAVERN. (Fs~m fk Engraving in How’$ YearBwk.’)
Among the members of this literary Club were Mr.
Alexander Abercrombie, afterwards Lord Abercrombie
; Lord Bannatyne ; Mr. George Home,
Clerk of Session ; Gordon of Newhall ; and a Mr.
George Ogilvie ; among their correspondents were
Lord Hailes, Mr. Baron Hurne, Dr. Beattie, and
many other eminent literary men of the time ; but
of the IOI papers of the Lounger, fifty-seven are
the production of Henry Mackenzie, including his
general review of Burns’s poems, already referred to.
In Liberton’s Wynd, we find from the Ediduygh
Advertiser of 1783, that the Misses Preston,
daughters of the late minister of Narkinch, had a
boarding school for young ladies, whose parents
“may depend that the greatest attention will be
18](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p133.gif "Volume 1 Page 121")
... Wynd.] THE “MIRROR” CLUB. rzr
i “The Diurnal of Occurrents” records, that in
1566, John Sinclair, ...
Vol. 1 p. 121 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LGeorge 2:rtet.
of the first, accompanied by Major-General Hope
and that famous old ...
Vol. 3 p. 150 (Rel. 0.22)
... of Braid to the sandy shores of the Firth of
Forth.
Edinburgh, now within a few hours’ journey ...
Vol. 1 p. 2 (Rel. 0.22)
![Calton HilL] THE NATIONAL MONUMENT. 109
~
Grand Master of Scotland, the various loQges
proceeded in procession from the Parliament Square,
accompanied by the commissioners for the King,
and a brilliant concourse. The foundation-stone
of the edifice (which was to be 228 feet long, by
IOZ broad) weighed six tons, and amid salutes of
cannon from the Castle, Salisbury Craigs, Leith
Majesty, the patron of the undertaking. The celebrated
Parthenon of Athens being model of the edifice.”
The Scots Greys and 3rd Dragoons formed
the escorts. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm displayed
when the undertaking was originated, and
though a vast amount of money was subscribed, the
former subsided, and the western peristyle alone
THE NATICNAL MORUMEST, CALTON HILL.
Fort, and the royal squadron in the roads, the
inscription plates were deposited therein, One is
inscribed thus, and somewhat fulsomely :-
‘‘ To the glory of God, in honour of the King, for
the good of the people, this monument, the tribute
of a gratefur country to her gallant and illustrious
sms, as a memorial of the past and incentive to the
future heroism of the men of Scotland, was founded
on the 27th day of August in the year of our Lord
1822, and in the third year of the glorious reign of
George IV., under his immediate auspices, and in
commemoration of his most gracious and welcome
visit to his ancient capital, and the palace of his
royal ancestors; John Duke of Atholl, James Duke
of Montrose, Archibald Earl of Rosebery, John
Earl of Hopetoun, Robert Viscount Melville, and
Thomas Lord Lynedoch, officiating as commissioners,
by the special appointment of his august
was partially erected. In consequence of this
*emarkable end to an entefprise that was begun
mder the most favourable auspices, the national
monument is often referred to as “Scotland’s
pride and poverty.” The pillars are of gigantic
proportions, formed of beautiful Craigleith stone ;
each block weighed from ten to fifteen tons, and
each column as it stands, with the base and frieze,
cost upwards of LI,OOO. As a ruin it gives a
classic aspect to the whole city. According to the
original idea, part of the edifice was to be used as
a Scottish Valhalla
On the face of the hill overlooking Waterloo
Place is the monument of one of Scotland’s gredtest
philosophers. It is simply inscribed :-
DUGALD STEWART.
BORN NOVEMBER 22ND, 1753;
DIED JUKE KITH, 1828.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p121.gif "Volume 3 Page 109")
... HilL] THE NATIONAL MONUMENT. 109
~
Grand Master of Scotland, the various loQges
proceeded in procession ...
Vol. 3 p. 109 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGR, [High Street.
Torthorwald could defend himself, ran him through
the body, and slew him ...
Vol. 2 p. 196 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
C
Cable’s Wynd, Leith, XI. 226, 227
Caddies,orstreetmesngers, I. 151,
Cadell and ...
Vol. 6 p. 372 (Rel. 0.21)
![High Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune’s tavern, removed from Skinner‘s Close to
a house at the north-west corner of Nicolson
Square, and latterly at No. 2, St. Andrew Square
(now the London Hotel), where he died, in his
eightieth year, in ISOZ.
In his lordship’s time the office of Commissioner
to the Church, which he held from 1783 to 1801, was
attended with more “pomp and circumstance”
Treasurer, under date February, 1562-3 :-
“ Item, allowit to the carpenter, be payment maid
to Johne Achesoun, Maister Congreave, to Maister
William M‘Dowgale, Maister of Werk, for expensis
maide be him vpon the bigging of the Cwnge-house,
within the castell of Edinburgh, and beting of the
qvnge-hous within the Palice of Halierud-house,
fra the xi. day of Februar, 1559, zens, to the
Comniissioner proceeded on foot, escorted by his
guard of honour.
South Gray’s, or the Mint Close, was one of the
stateliest alleys in the old city, and herein stood the
Cunzie flous, as the Scottish Mint was named
(after its removal from near Holyrood in Queen
Mary’s time) till the Union in 1707, and until lately
its sombre and massive tower of finely polished
ashlar projecting into the narrow thoroughfare of
Cowgate, for three hundred and four years formed
one of the leading features of the latter, and to the
last the old edifice retained many traces of the important
operations that once went on within its
walls.
The first Mint House had been originally erected
in the outer court of the palace of Holyrood, somewhere
near the Horse Wynd, fromwhence, for greater
safety, it was removed to the castle, in which a new
Mint House had been built in 1559, as shown by
edifices of the period,” says Wilson, describing
the edifice prior to its removal. “The whole
building was probably intended, when completed,
to form a quadrangle, surrounded on every side by
the same substantial walls, well suited for defence
against any ordinary assault, while its halls were
lighted from the enclosed court. The small windows
in this part of the building remain in their
original state, being divided by an oaken transom,
and the under part closed by a pair of folding
shutters. The massive ashlar walls are relieved
by ornamental stringcourses, and surmounted by
crowsteps of the earliest form and elegant proportions.
. . . . The internal marks of former
magnificence are more interesting than their external
ones, notwithstanding the humble uses to
which the buildings have latterly been applied ;
in particular some portions of a very fine oak
ceiling still remain, wrought in Gothic panelling,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p087.gif "Volume 2 Page 267")
... Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune’s tavern, removed from Skinner‘s Close to
a house at the north-west ...
Vol. 2 p. 267 (Rel. 0.21)
