![North Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY. 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they stickle zealously, if by it
they could get a minister presented by the legal
patron to be rejected; while they did not insist
upon the stipend being properly secured ; while
they agreed to permit Lady Glenorchy to dispose
without control, upon those pious offerings which
should have been applied towards the support of
the chanty workhouse; while they, in fact, eluded
that right of patronage over all churches in this city,
the chapel to all the privileges it had enjoyed
by the countenance and protection of the
Presbytery.
In 1776 Lady Glenorchy invited Dr. Thomas
Snell Jones, a Wesleyan Methodist, to accept the
charge of her chapel, and after being ordained to
the office of pastor by the Scottish Presbytery of
London he became settled as incumbent on the
25th of July, 1779, and from that date continued
to labour as such, until about three years before his
holding communion with the Established ministers,
which is vested in the magistrates of Edinburgh ;
and while they had no powver to depose from the
benefice in this chapel the minister installed by
them in case of his errors in life or doctrine !”
To avoid unpleasantness, Mr. Balfour, like Mr.
Grove, declined the charge.
It was now that the matter came before the
Synod, which not only gave judgment in the
matter, but forbade all ministers or probationers
within their bounds to preach in this unlucky
chapel, or to employ the minister of it in any
capacity. From this sentence the Presbytery of
Edinburgh appealed to the next General Assembly
of the Church, which reversed it, and restored
46
death, which occurred on the 3rd of March, 1837,
a period of nearly fiRyeight years.
He preached the funeral sermon on the demise
of Lady Glenorchy on the 17th July, 1786, in
her forty-fourth year. She was buried, by her
own desire, in avault in the centre of the chapel
By a settlement made some time before her death,
she endowed the latter with a school which wac
built near it. Therein, a hundred poor children
were taught to read and write. It was managed
by trustees, with instructions which secure its perpetuity.
Lady Glenorchy’s Free Church schooI is
now at Greenside.
In I 792 Dr. Jones had as a colleague, Dr. Greville
Ewing, afterwards editor of 2’’ Missionary](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p181.gif "Volume 2 Page 361")
... Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY . 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they ...
Vol. 2 p. 361 (Rel. 4.7)
... that was deemed necessary.
The pond sam parish called Lady Glenorchy ’s
lies eastward of Nicolson Street, and ...
Vol. 4 p. 338 (Rel. 2.81)
![Cramond.] CRAMOND BRIG. 317
Robert Bruce, “the King’s meadow and muir of
Cramond I’ are mentioned. Among the missing
charters of Robert III., are two to William Touris,
“of the lands of Berntoun))’ and another to the
same of the superiority of King’s Cramond.
William Touris, of Cramond, was a bailie of the
city in 1482. These Touris were the same family
who afterwards poFsessed Inverleith, and whose
name appears so often ill Scotstarvit’s “ Calendar.”
In I j38 the family seems to have passed to Bristol,
in England, as Protestants, Pinkerton suppose$, for
and has already been referred to in a preceding
chapter. In February, 1763, there died in Barnton
House, in the sixty-fourth year of her age,
Lady Susannah Hamilton, third daughter of John,
Earl of Ruglen, whose son William was styled
Lord Daer and Riccarton. She was buried in the
chapel royal at Holyrood.
In 1771 the Scots Magazine records the demise
of John. Viscount Glenorchy “at his house of
Barnton, five miles west of Edinburgh.” He was
husband of Lady Glenorchy of pious memory.
VIEW BELOW GRAMOND BRIG, (Alter a Phufog-rajh by G. W. WiZsom & Co.)
1r1 that year a charter of part of Inverleith is granted
to George Touris, of Bristol; but Lord Durie, in
1636, reports a case concerning ‘‘ umquhile James
Touris, brother to the laird of Inverleith.”
As stated elsewhere, Overbarnton belonged, in
~508, to Sir Robert Barnton, who was comptroller
of the household to James V. in 1520, and who
acquired the lands by purchase with money found
by despoiling the Portuguese ; but a George Maxwell
of Barnton, appears among the knights slain
at Flodden in 1513. He obtained Barnton by a
royal charter in 1460, on his mother’s resignation,
and was a brother of John, Lord Maxwell, who
also fell at Flodden. This property has changed
hands many times. James Elphinston of Barnton,
was the first Lord Balmerino, a Lord of the Treasury,
In after years it became the property of the
Ramsays, one of whom was long known in the
sporting world.
The quaint old bridge of Cramond is one of the
features of the parish, and is celebrated as the
scene of that dangerous frolic of James V., related
in our account of Holyrood. It consists of three
Pointed arches, with massively buttressed piers.
It became ruinous in 1607, and was repaired in
1619, 1687, and later still in 1761 and 1776: as a
panel in the parapet records. Adjoining it, and
high in air above it, is the new and lofty bridge of
eight arches, constructed by Rennie.
A little to the eastward of the village is Cramond
House, a fine old residence within a wooded
domain. Sir John Inglis cf Cramond was made](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p136.gif "Volume 6 Page 317")
... five miles west of Edinburgh.” He was
husband of Lady Glenorchy of pious memory.
VIEW BELOW GRAMOND BRIG, ...
Vol. 6 p. 317 (Rel. 2.61)
![North Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan Hospital-Its Foundation. Object, and Removal-Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel-Her Disputes with the Presbytery-Dr. SnelI
Jones-Demolition of the Chapel and School-Old Physic Gardens Formed-The Gardens-Sir Andrew Balfm-James Sutherland-
Inundated in x68pSutherland‘s Efforts to Improve the Gardcn-Professor Hope.
ABOUT IOO feet east of the bridge, and the same
distance south of the theatre which Whitefield
to his dismay saw built in the park of the Orphan
Hospital, stood the latter edifice, the slender,
pointed spire of which was a conspicuous object in
this quarter of the city.
A hospital for the maintenance and education
of orphan children was originally designed by Mr.
Andrew Gardiner, merchant, and some other
citizens, in 1732. The suggestion met with the
approval of the Society for the Propagation of
Christian Knowledge, then located in what was
anciently named Bassandyne’s Close ; and it was
moreover assisted by liberal subscriptions and
collections at the church doors. At first a house
was hired, and thirty orphans placed in it. According
to Maitland, in November, 1733, the
hospital was founded; it stood 340 feet northwest
of the Trinity College Church, and in its
formation a part of the burial ground attached to
the latter was used.
In 1738 the Town Council granted the hospital
a seal of cause, and in 1742 they obtained royal
letters patent creating it a corporation, by which
most of the Scottish officers of State, and the heads
of different societies in Edinburgh, are constituent
members. This chanty is so extensive in its
benevolence, that children from any part of the
British Empire have the right of admission, SO far
as the funds will admit-indigence, and the
number of children in a poor family being the
None, however, are admitted under the age of
seven, or retained after they are past fourteen, as
at that time of life the managers are seldom at a
loss to dispose of them, “the young folks,” says
Arnot, “ choosing to follow trades, and the public
entertaining so good an opinion of the manner in
which they have been brought up, that manufacturers
and others are very ready to take them into
their employment. There are about,” he adds, in
1779, “one hundred orpham maintained in this
hospital.”
This number was increased in 1781, when Mr.
Thomas Tod, merchant in Edinburgh, became
treasurer. It was then greatly enlarged for the
better accommodation of the children, ‘‘ and to
enable them to perform a variety of work, from the
. best title to it.
produce of which the expenses of their education
and maintenance were lessened, and healthy and
cheerful exercise furnished, suitable to their years.”
It is remarkable,” says Kincaid, “ that from
January, 1784, to January, 1787, out of from 130 to
140 young children not one has died. A particular
account of the rise, progress, present state,
and intended enlargement of this hospital was
publisted by the treasurer (Mr. Tod), wherein is a
print of the elevation, with two wings,.which the
managers intend to build so soon as the funds will
permit, when there will be room for zoo orphans.”
In its slender spire hung two bells, and therein
also stood the ancient clock of the Netherbow
Port, now in use at the Dean.
The revenues were inconsiderable, and it was
chiefly supported by benefactions and collections
made at the churches in the city. Howard, the
philanthropist, who visited it more than once, and
made himself acquainted with the constitution and
management of this hospital, Acknowledged it to be
one of the best and most useful charities in Europe.
A portrait of him hangs in the new Orphan Hospital
at the Dean, the old building we have described
having been removed in 1845 by the operations
of the North British Railway, and consequently
being now a thing of the past, like the chapel of
Lady Glenorchy, which shared the same fate at the
same time.
This edifice stood in the low ground, between
the Orphan Hospital and the Trinity College
Church, about 300 feet eastward of the north arch
of the Bridge.
Wilhelmina Maxwell, Viscountess Dowaget of
John Viscount Glenorchy, who was a kind of
Scottish Countess of Huntingdon in her day, was
the foundress of this chapel, which was a plain,
lofty stone building, but neatly fitted up- within
with two great galleries, that ran round the sides
of the edifice, and was long a conspicuous object
to all who crossed the Bridge. It was seated for
2,000 persons, and the middle was appropriated to
the poor, who sat there gratis to the number of
some hundreds. ‘‘ Whether,” says Arnot, “before
Lady Glenorchy founded this institution there were
churches sufficient for accommodating the inhabitants
we shall not pretend to determine. Such,
indeed, is the demand for seats, and so little arg](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p179.gif "Volume 2 Page 359")
... Old Orphan Hospital-Its Foundation. Object, and Removal- Lady Glenorchy ’s Chapel-Her Disputes with the ...
Vol. 2 p. 359 (Rel. 2.52)
... for so
many feet square in the inside of a church."
- Lady Glenorchy , whom Kincaid describes as '' ...
Vol. 2 p. 360 (Rel. 2.36)
... studies under the famous Harvey in
’ connected with Lady Glenorchy ’s chapel, enter- I London, after which he ...
Vol. 2 p. 362 (Rel. 2.02)
... House, Fleshmarket Clo~-Mylne's Squue-Lord Alva's How-The Countess of
Sutherland and Lady Glenorchy ...
Vol. 2 p. 388 (Rel. 1.8)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
other, Willielmina, became the wife of John Lord
Glenorchy.
The fate of the Earl of Sutherland, and of his
countess, whose beauty excited the admiration of
all at the coronation of George III., was a very
cloudy one. In frolicking with their first-born, a
daughter, the earl let the infant drop, and it sustained
injuries from which it never recovered, and
the event had so serious an effect on his mind,
that he resorted to Bath, where he died of a
malignant fever. For twenty-one days the countess,
then about to have a babe again, attended him
unremittingly, till she too caught the distemper, and
predeceased him by a few days, in her twenty-sixth
year. Her death was sedulously concealed from
him, yet the day before he expired, when delirium
passed away, he said, I am going to join my dear
Wife,” as if his mind had already begun to penetrate
the veil that hangs between this world and the
next.
In one grave in Holyrood, near the north-east
corner of the ruined chapel, the remains of this
ill-fated couple were laid, on the 9th of August,
1766.
Lady Glenorchy, a woman remarkable for the
piety of her disposition, was far from happy in her
marriage j but we are told that she met with her
rich reward, even iii this world, for she enjoyed
the applause of the wealthy and the blessings of the
poor, with that supreme of all pleasures-the conviction
that the eternal welfare of those in whose
fate she was chiefly interested was forwarded by
her precepts and example.”
In after years, the Earl of Hopetoun, when
acting as Royal Commissioner to the General
Assembly, was wont to hold his state levees in the
house that had been Lord Alva’s.
To the east of hfylne’s Square stood some old
alleys which were demolished to make way for the
North Bridge, one of the greatest local undertakings
of the eighteenth century. One of these alleys was
known as the Cap and Feather Close, immediately
above Halkerston’s Wynd. The lands that formed
the east side of the latter were remaining in some
places almost intact till about 1850.
In one of these, but which it was impossible
to say, was born on the 5th of September, 1750,
that luckless but gifted child of genius, Robert
Fergusson, the poet, whose father was then a clerk
in the British Linen Company; but even the site
of his house, which has peculiar claims on the
interest of every lover of Scottish poetry, cannot
be indicated.
How Halkerston’s Wynd obtained its name we
have already told. Here was an outlet from the
ancient city byway of a dam or dyke across the
loch, to which Lord Fountainhall refers in a case
dated zIst February, 1708. About twenty years
before that time it would appear that the Town
Council “had opened a new port at the foot
of Halkerston’s Wynd for the convenience of those
who went on foot to Leith; and that Robert
Malloch, having acquired some lands on the other
side of the North Loch, and made yards and built
houses thereon, and also having invited sundry
weavers and other good tradesmen to set up
on Moutree’s Hill [site of the Register House], and
the deacons of crafts finding this prejudicial
to them, and contrary to the 154th Act of Parliament,
I 592,’’ evading which, these craftsmen paid
neither scot, lot, nor stent,” the magistrates closed
up the port, and a law plea ensued between them
and the enterprising Robert Malloch, who was
accused of filling up a portion of the bank of the
loch with soil from a quarry. “The town, on the
other hand, did stop the vent and passage over the
loch, which made it overtlow and drown Robert’s
new acquired ground, of which he complained as
an act of oppression.”
Eventually the magistrates asserted that the loch
was wholly theirs, and ‘( that therefore he could
drain no part of it, especially to make it regorge
and inundate on their side. The Lords were
going to take trial by examining the witnesses, but
the magistrates prevented it, by opening the said
port of their own accord, without abiding an order,
and let the sluice run,” by which, of course, the
access by the gate was rendered useless.
Kinloch‘s Close adjoined Halkerston’s Wynd, and
therein, till about 1830, stood a handsome old
substantial tenement, the origin and early occupants
of which were all unknown. A mass of curious
and abutting projections, the result of its peculiar
site, it had a finely-carved entrance door, with
the legend, Peir. God. in . Luzy., 1595, and the
initials I. W., and the arms of the surname of
Williamson, together with a remarkable device, a
saltire, from the centre of which rose a crosssymbol
of passion.
Passing Allan Ramsay’s old shop, a narrow bend
gives us access to Carrubber’s Close, the last stronghold
of the faithful Jacobites after 1688. Episcopacy
was abolished in 1689, and although from
that period episcopal clergymen had no legal provision
or settlement, they were permitted, without
molestation, to preach in meeting-houses till I 746 ;
but as they derived no emolument from Government,
and no provision from the State, they did not,
says Arnot, perplex their consciences with voluminous
and unnecessary oaths, but merely excluded](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p058.gif "Volume 2 Page 238")
... couple were laid, on the 9th of August,
1766.
Lady Glenorchy , a woman remarkable for the
piety of her ...
Vol. 2 p. 238 (Rel. 1.54)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet
There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named
Charles Jackson, to whom ...
Vol. 4 p. 335 (Rel. 1.5)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet
There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named
Charles Jackson, to whom ...
Vol. 4 p. 334 (Rel. 1.5)
![Kirk-of- Field.] THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST DARNLEY. 5
IZ. our lady kirk of field
13. ye kirk of field kirk y i '
I+ ye potterraw .. .. .. The Pot:er Row.
15. ye caich ill gait . . . . The Catchpole Gate.
. . Our Lady Kirk-of-Field. . . The Kirk-of-Field kirk y d .
EXPLANATION OF THE ORIGINAL I
I. ye blak freiris . . . . .. The Black Friars.
a. ye priestis chameris . . . . The priest's chambers.
3. ye well .. .. . . .. The well.
4. ye mylk row . . .. . . The Milk Row.
5. our lady stapis . . Our Lady's steos.
6. ye Dukis gaitt ofchattiiieraur
7. ye lu+ att ye king was keipit
8. ye place of ye murthqr . . . . The lace of the murder.
9. ye provost place ..
The Duke of Chatelherault's gate.
The lodging at which the King
eftir his murthur . . . , was kept after his murder,
. . .. The Frovast's place.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p016.gif "Volume 5 Page 5")
... Field.] THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST DARNLEY. 5
IZ. our lady kirk of field
13. ye kirk of field kirk y i '
I+ ...
Vol. 5 p. 5 (Rel. 1.49)
... OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concluded).
The Old Orphan Hospital-It5 Foundation, Object, and Removal- Lady Glenorchy 's ...
Vol. 2 p. 390 (Rel. 1.17)
![Rcstalrig.] THE NISBETS OF CRAIGANTINNIE. ‘37
receiving and returning their visits as such.
After a four-days’ debate, the Lords of Session
pronounced for the defender, with expenses. The
son John, as sixth baronet; but not without a
contest, as fourteen years afterwards a Mr. John
Edgar raised in the Court of Session an action
of reduction of his service, as nearest lawful heir
of the late baronet, on the plea that the latter had
never been legally married to his wife.
It was alleged that he had gone to France, and
there had formed a connection with a lady whose
social position was inferior to his own, but who
accompanied him to Britain, where she bore him
The question was, whether from the whole circumstances,
Sir John and this lady were to be
considered as married persons? In evidence it
appeared that they had never doubted that they were
so, though Sir John, in dread of his proud relations,
had sedulously kept the fact a secret while in
Scotland, where, it was alleged for the pursuer,
Sir John had ventured to pay his addresses to a
lady of rank.
On the other side there was the evidence of an
Locn END.
two sons. After selling out of the army, in 1775,
Sir John went to Carolina, to settle upon an estate
he possessed there, taking with him this lady and
his two sons, and the process stated that after
their arrival in America, in 1775, or the beginning
of 1776, Sir John and his lady were shipwrecked
and drowned. From this awful catastrophe their
two sons were preserved, having been left at school
in the Jerseys. Some time afterwards the boys
were sent over to this country, and the eldest of
them-the defender in this action-on the 15th
August, 1781, was served heir to his father. From
the time of his father and mother’s death, till
1790, when this action was raised, he had been in
the uninterrupted possession of his fatheis estates.”
114](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p148.gif "Volume 5 Page 137")
... THE NISBETS OF CRAIGANTINNIE. ‘37
receiving and returning their visits as such.
After a four-days’ ...
Vol. 5 p. 137 (Rel. 1.16)
... new front on an old house,
pierced with the entrance to Lady Glenorchy ’s Free
Church, which stands immediately ...
Vol. 5 p. 158 (Rel. 1.14)
![Hih Street.] THE CROCHALLAN CLUB. 235
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE HIGH STREET (rontinurd).
The Anchor Close-Dawney Douglas’s Tavern-The ‘‘ Crown Room”-The Cmchallan Club-Members-Burns among the Crochallan Fencibles
-Smellie’s Printing Office-Dundas’s House, Fleshmarket Close-Mylne’s Square-Lord Alva’s House-The Conntes of Sutherland and
Lady Glenorchy-Birthplace of Fergusson-Halkerston’s Wynd Port-Kinloch’s Close-Carmbbeh Close-’fie Episcopal Chapel-Clam
Shell Land-Capt. Matthew Henderson-Allan Ramsay’s Theatre-Its later Tenants-The Tailor‘s Hall-Bailie Fyfe’s Close-“ Heave awa,’
lads, I’m no deid yet ”-Chalmers’ Close-Hope’s House-Sandiknd‘s Close-Bishop Kennedy’s House-Grant’s C l o s e - h n Grant’s H o e .
ONE of the most interesting of the many old alleys
of the High Street (continuing still on the north
side thereof) is the Anchor Close.
A few yards down this dark and narrow thoroughfare
bring us to the entrance of a scale-stair,
having the legend, The Lord is 0714~ my svjwt;
adjoining it is another and older door, inscribed
0. Lm’. in . tk . is. a(. my. traist; while an
architrave bears a line‘ from a psalm, Be mmczjX
to me, under which we enter what was of old the
famous festive and hospitable tavern of Daniel, or,
as he was familiarly named by the Hays, Erskines,
Pleydells, and Crosbies, who were his customers,
Dawney Douglas, an establishment second. to none
in its time for convivial meetings, and noted for
suppers of tripe, mince collops, rizzared haddocks,
and fragrant hashes, that never cost more than sixpence
a-head ; yet on charges so moderate Dawney
Douglas and hisgudewife contrived to grow extremely
rich before they died. Who caused the three holy
legends to be carved, as in many other instances,
no man knows, nor can one tell who resided here of
old, except that it was in the seventeenth century
the house of a senator entitled Lord Forglen.
“ The frequenter of Douglas’s,’’ we are told, ‘‘ after
ascending a few steps, found himself in a pretty
large kitchen, through which numerous ineffable
ministers of flame were continually flying about,
while beside the door sat the landlady, a large, fat
woman, in a towering head-dress and large-flowered
silk gown, who bowed to every one passing. Most
likely, on emerging from this igneous region, the
party would fall into the hands of Dawney himself,
and be conducted to an apartment.”
He was a little, thin, weak, quiet, and submissive
man ; in all things a contrast to his wife.
Here met the famous club called the Crochallan
Fencibles, which Bums has celebrated both in
prose and verse, and to which he was introduced
in 1787 by William Smellie, when in the city
superintending the printing of his poems, and
when, according to custom, one of the club was
pitted against him in a contest of wit and humour.
Burns bore the assault with perfect equanimity, and
entered fully into the spirit of the meeting.
Dawney Douglas knew a sweet old Gaelic song,
called Cro Chalien,” or, Colin’s cattle, which he
was wont to sing to his customers, and this led to
.
the establishment of the club, which, with jocular
reference to the many Scottish corps then raising,
was named the Crochallan Fencibles, composed
entirely of men of original character and talent.
Each member took some military title or ludicrous
office. Amongst them was Smellie, the famous
printer, and author of the “ Philosophy of Natural
History.” Individuals committing an alleged fault
were subjected to mock trials, in which those
members who were advocates could display their
wit; and as one member was the depute hngman
cf the club, a little horse-play, with much mirth, at
times prevailed.
The song of “ Cro Chalien” had a legend connected
therewith. Colin’s wife died very young,
but some months after he had buried her she was
occasionally seen in the gloaming, when spirits are
supposed to appear, milking her cows as usual, and
singing the plaintive song to which Bums must often
have listened amid the orgies in the Anchor Close.
In Dawney’s tavern the chief room was rather
elegant and well-sized, having an access by the
second of the doors described, iind was reserved
for large companies or important guests. Pm
exceZZeme, it was named the “ Crown Room,” and
was thus distinguished to guests on their bill tops,
from some foolish and unwarrantable tradition that
Queen Mary had once been there, when the crown
was deposited in a niche in the wall. It was
handsomely panelled, with a decorated fireplace
and two lofty windows that opened to the dose ;
but all this has disappeared now, and new buildings
erected in 1869 have replaced the old.
Here, then, was Bums introduced to the jovial
Crochallans, among whom were such men as
Erskine, Lords Newton and Gillies, by Smellie the
philosopher and printer who contested with Dr.
Walker the chair of natural history in the University;
and of one member, William Dunbar, W.S.,
“ Colonel of the club, a predominant wit, he has
left us a characteristic picture :-
Oh, he held to the fair,
And buy some other ware ;
The saut tear blin’t his ee ;
Ye’re welcome hame to me I
.
“ Oh, rattlin’ roarin’ Willie,
An’ for to sell his fiddle,
But parting wi’ his fiddle,
And rattlin’, roarin’ Willie,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p055.gif "Volume 2 Page 235")
... Square-Lord Alva’s House-The Conntes of Sutherland and
Lady Glenorchy -Birthplace of Fergusson-Halkerston’s Wynd ...
Vol. 2 p. 235 (Rel. 0.96)
![Parliament House.] THE COURT
It has been said-with what truth it is impossible
to tell-that, when Cromwell appointed.
eleven Commissioners (three of whom were Eng-
4ishmen) for the administration of justice at Edinburgh,
their decisions were most impartial ; and,
on hearing them lauded after the Restoration had
-replaced the old lords on the Bench, the Presi-
.dent, Gilmour of Craigmillar, said, angrily, ‘‘ Deil
thank them-a wheen Kinless loons ! The grave
=of one of these Englishmen, George Smith, was
-
long pointed out in the abbey church, where
he was buried by torchlight in 1657. (Lamont’s
So far down as 1737 traces of bribery and in-
‘fluence in the Court are to be found, and proof
,of this is given in the curious and rare book
named the ‘‘ Court of Session Garland.”
In a lawsuit, pending 23rd November, 1735,
‘Thomas Gibson of Dune, agent for Foulis of
‘Woodhall, writes to his employer thus :-“ I have
spoken to Strachan, and several of the lords, who
are all surprised Sir F. (Francis Kinloch, Bart., of
Gilmerton) should stand that plea. By Lord St.
Clair‘s advice, Mrs. Kinloch is to wait on Lady
Caunie to-morrow, to cause her to ask the favour
Diary).
OF SESSION. 169
of Lady St. Clair to solicit Lady Betty Elphingston
(Elizabeth Primrose of Carrington) and Lady
Dun. My lord proniises to back his lady, and
to ply both their lords ; also Leven and his cousin
Murkle (a Lord of Session in 1733). He is your
good friend, and wishes success; he is jealous
Mrs. Mackie will side with her cousin Beattie. St.
Clair says Leven has only once gone wrong upon
his Rand since he was a Lord of Session. Mrs.
Kinloch has been with Miss Pringle, NewhalL
Young Dr. Pringle is a good agent there, and
discourses Lord Newhall strongCy an the law of
Lord Newhall was Sir Walter Pnngle, Knight,
son of the Laird of Stitchill, Lord of Session in
1718. But such would seem to have been the
influences that were used to obtain decisions in
the olden time; and, before quitting the subject of
the Parliament House we may recall a few of the
most notable senators, the memory of whose names
still lingers there.
The most distinguished lawyer of the seventeenth
century was undoubtedly Sir John Lauder,
Lord Fountainhall, son of a bailie of Edinburgh.
He was born there in 1646 ; and, after being at
nature.” b
PLAN OF THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND LAW COURTS.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p181.gif "Volume 1 Page 169")
... House.] THE COURT
It has been said-with what truth it is impossible
to tell-that, when Cromwell ...
Vol. 1 p. 169 (Rel. 0.94)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
farlane sent for the magistrates, who secured the
house and servants. -4 ...
Vol. 4 p. 244 (Rel. 0.91)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Great Stuart Street.
shire, and of Amelia, daughter of Alexander Graham,
of Duntrune, ...
Vol. 4 p. 208 (Rel. 0.91)
... Castle Hill.
solid, and her camage winning and affable to her
inferiors.” One of the most ardent of her ...
Vol. 1 p. 84 (Rel. 0.89)
... STAIR. 105 Lady Stair’s closol
House of Lords and Court of Session. In support
of what he stated, ...
Vol. 1 p. 105 (Rel. 0.88)
![The Cowgate.] LADY GALLOWAY. Z S 7
Although the name of this wynd is as old as
the middle of the seventeeth century, none of the
buildings in it latterly were older than the middle of
the eighteenth. They had all been removed by
those who were anxious for the benefit of such fine
air as its surroundings afforded, for in the map of
1647 the Yicus Epuorzrm is shown as having to
the westward gardens in plenitude, divided by four
long hedgerows, and closed on the south by the
became remarkable for piety, mingled with great
stateliness and pride; and she is thus referred to
in the Ridotto of Holyrood, partly written by her
sister-in-law, Lady Bruce of Kinloss :--
“And there was Bob Murray, though married, alas !
Yet still rivalling Johnstone in beauty and grace.
And there was my lady, well known by her airs,
Who ne’er goes to revel but after her prayers.”
The Bob herein referred to was Sir Robert
crenelated wall of the city, and it terminated by a
bend eastward at the Potterrow Port.
Respectable members of the bar were always
glad to have a flat in some of the tall edifices on
the east side of the wynd. About the middle of it,
on the west side, was a distinct mansion called
Galloway House, having a large Fcdiment, and
ornamented on the top by stone vases. This
residence was built by Alexander, sixth Earl of
Galloway, one of the Lords of Police, who died in
1773. His countess Catharine, daughter of John
Earl of Dundonald, colonel of the Scottish Horse
Guards, was mother of Captain George Stewart, who
fell at Ticonderoga. She had been a beauty in her
youth, and formed the subject of one of Hamilton
of Bangour’s poetical tributes, and in her old age
81
Murray of Clermont. Among all the precise
granddames of her time in Edinburgh, Lady
Galloway was noted for her pre-eminent pomp and
formality, and would order out her coach with six
horses, if but to pay a visit to a friend at the corner
of the wpd, or to Lord hfinto, whose house was a few
yards westward of it. “ It was alleged that when
the countess made calls, the leaders were sometimes
at the door she was going to when she was stepping
into the camage at her own door. This may be
called a tour de force illustration of the nearness of
friends to each other in Old Edinburgh.”
New College Wynd, which strikes from the
eastern part of Chambers Street, runs first IIO feet
northward, then 180 feet westward, and then northward
again in the line of the Iower part of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p077.gif "Volume 4 Page 257")
... Cowgate.] LADY GALLOWAY. Z S 7
Although the name of this wynd is as old as
the middle of the seventeeth ...
Vol. 4 p. 257 (Rel. 0.86)
![Leith.] CORNWALLIS’S REGIMENT. ‘93
“Are you uneasy about that fishing-party ? ” ‘‘ No,”
she replied, “I had no thought of it.” After she
had been asleep about an hour, she again exclaimed,
in a dreadful fright : ‘‘ I see the boat-it is going
down ! ” Again the major awoke her, on which she
said the second dream must have been suggested
Chambers conceives that, unlike many anecdotes
of this kind, Lady Clerk‘s dream-story can be traced
to an actual occurrence, which he quotes from the
CaZcdoniaiz Mercury of I 734, and that the old lady
had mistaken the precise year.
In 1740-for the first time, probably, since the
THE OLD TOLBOOTH, 1820. (&?er Slorcr.)
by the first. But no rest n-as to be obtained by
her, for again the dream returned, and she exclaimed,
in extreme agony : “They are gone !-the boat is
sunk ! Then she added : “ Mr. Dacre must not
go, for I feel that, should he go, I should be miserable
till his return.” In short, on the strength of
her treble dream, she induced their nephew to send
a note of apology to his companions, who left Leith,
but were caught in a storm, in which all perished.
121
days of Cromwell--we find regular troops quartered
in Leith, when General Guest, commanding in Scotland,
required the magistrates to find billets in
North and South Leith for certain companies of
Brigadier Cornwallis’s regiment, latterly the I I th
Foot.
Previous to 1745, the only place where troops
could be accommodated in a body at Leith was in the
old Tolbooth About that time, Robert Douglas,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p012.gif "Volume 6 Page 193")
... CORNWALLIS’S REGIMENT. ‘93
“Are you uneasy about that fishing-party ? ” ‘‘ No,”
she replied, “I had no ...
Vol. 6 p. 193 (Rel. 0.85)
... 235, 236. Mylne's
Square, 2 3 d z 3 8 : ~orld AI='s
house, 237; thecountess ofSutherland
and lady ...
Vol. 6 p. 378 (Rel. 0.84)
... where she was wont to say her prayers-such
private oratories being common in most of the
Edinburgh houses of ...
Vol. 1 p. 104 (Rel. 0.84)
![Greyfriars Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved their
escape, but many died. All this, at the hands of their
own countrymen, these poor people had to endurethe
stubborn Scottish peasant, with his pride and
rectitude of heart, his tender, it might be weak and
ailing wife, with his infants and his aged parents.
to administer to the wants of the prisoners there
was one lady who was wont to come attended by
a young daughter possessed of considerable personal
attractions. Periodically they came to the iron gate
with food and raiment, collected among the charitable,
and between the young lady and one of the
A ROYAL EDINBURGH VOLUNTEER. (p?W7?J a Print Of tk Psriod.)
Some who signed a bond never to take up arms
against the Government were released ; others
found rest amid the graves on which they lay;
the remainder, to the number of two hundred and
fifty-seven, were sent to be sold as slaves in Barbadoes,
Jamaica, and New Jersey, but many were
drowned at sea
“ From the gloom of this sad story there is shed
one ray of romance,” says Chambers, in his ‘‘ Traditions.”
Among the sympathising people who dared
B6
younger captives an attachment sprang up.
Doubtless she loved him for the dangers he had
dared, and he loved her because she pitied them.
In happier days, long after, when their constancy
had been well tried by an exile which he suffered
in the plantations, this pair were married and settled
in Edinburgh, where they had sons and daughters.
A respectable elderly citizen,” adds Chambers,
‘‘ tells me he is descended from them”
After the Duke of Albany and York came, as](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p197.gif "Volume 4 Page 377")
... Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved ...
Vol. 4 p. 377 (Rel. 0.81)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate.
the kingdom to teach the making of cloths of
various kinds, a colony of them ...
Vol. 3 p. 4 (Rel. 0.8)
![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. 0.78)
... . - High Street.; LADY LOVAT.
She was received by Lord Lovat with an extravagant
affectation of welcome, and ...
Vol. 2 p. 257 (Rel. 0.77)
... OLD -AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Calton Hill.
It was finished in 1832, and is a beautiful restoration,
with some ...
Vol. 3 p. 110 (Rel. 0.77)
... OLD ANI) NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
a Negro,” published at Paisley so lately as 1841.
Peter was a livery ...
Vol. 5 p. 140 (Rel. 0.77)
![High Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It occupied the western side of Lockhart’s
Court, and was accessible only by a deep
archway.
In an Act passed in 158r, ‘<Anent the Cuinzie,”
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edinburgh,
and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both
in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The
latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Commissary
for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gilbert;
and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of
Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen,
whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but,
!est they should produce inferior work at Scottish
prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council,
hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest
and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edinburgh,
to be visitor and overseer of the said craftsmen’s
hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said
Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within
the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit therfore
in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; I’ in virtue
of all of which Nicholas was freed froin all watching,
warding, and all charges and impositions.
In that court dwelt, in 17534761, George Lockhart
of Carnwath One of the thirteen roonis in his
house contained a mantelpiece of singular magnificence,
that reached the lofty ceiling; but the
house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of (‘ a
profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a
secret trapdoor, opening through the floor of a
small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms
extending along the south and west sides of the
court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was
neither so common nor so safe as now, Provost
Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy
more.”
The north side of Lockhart’s Court was long
occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the
celebrated traveller.
In Niddry‘s Wynd, a little below Provost Edward’s
house on the opposite side, stood St.
Mary’s Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed
Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its
foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord
Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Countess of Ross-then widow of John Earl of
Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by
the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by
his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of
James III., and died in 1498.
Colville of Easter U‘emyss, and afterwards
Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and
patrons of this religious foundation ; and about
the year 1600, James Chaliners, a macer before the
Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel,
and in 1618 the Corporations of Wrights and
Masons, known by the name of the United Incorporations
of Mary’s Chapel, purchased this subject,
“where they still possess, and where they hold
meetings,” says Arnot, writing in 1779.
In the CaZedonian Mercury for 1736 we read
that on St. Andrew’s Day the masters and wardens
of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary’s Chapel,
and unanimously elected as their grand-master
William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of
an ancient though reduced family, connected for
several generations with Scottish freemasonry.
For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was
substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry’s
Wynd; but the masonic lodge of Mary’s Chapel
still exists, and we believe holds its meetings
there.
Religious services were last conducted in the
new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it.
She was zealous in the cause of religion, and conceived
a plan of having a place of worship in
which ministers of every orthodox denomination
might preach; and for this purpose she had St.
Mary’s Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7th
March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the
minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ;
but she failed to secure the ministrations of any
clergyman of the Established Church, though in
1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a
poet of some eminence in his time, gave his course
of lectures on the philosophy of history in the
chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for
the chair of civil history in the University.
On the east side of Niddry’s Wynd, nearly opp0-
site to Lockhart’s Court, was a handsome house,
which early in the eighteenth century was inhabited
by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better
known by his legal and territorial appellation of
Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who
led’ the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the
Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to
the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in
the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfeiture
of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of
the last remains of the once great inheritance in
the north from which the ancient family took its
name.
He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and
adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he
figures prominently in the ‘‘ Diary” of the indus .
trious \ffodrow, supplying that writer with many
shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so
dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for
the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p067.gif "Volume 2 Page 247")
... Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It occupied the ...
Vol. 2 p. 247 (Rel. 0.76)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. princcs Street
came into her possession, the pocket-knife, fork,
and spoon which ...
Vol. 3 p. 124 (Rel. 0.75)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Duddingston.
were the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Errol, the
Earl of Dalhousie, ...
Vol. 4 p. 318 (Rel. 0.71)
![Newhaven.] FISHER FEUD WITH PRESTONPANS 301
men of the town of Edinburgh, and Lady Greenwich,
on one part, and certain fishermen of
Prestonpans on the other. The point in dispute is
certain oyster scalps, to which each party claims an
exclusive right. Accusations of encroachment were
mutually given and retorted. At dredging, when
the parties met, much altercation and abusive
language took place-bloody encounters ensued,
but only occurs in the Tmendas, like hawkings,
huntings, or other words of style.
“ After various representations to the Judge-
Admiral, his lordship pronounced an interlocutor,
ordaining both parties to produce their prescriptive
rights to their fishings, and prohibited them from
dredging oysters in any of the scalps in dispute till
the issue of the cause.
November 10, 1786, in virtue of which his lordship
was infeft, interaZia, in the oyster scalps in question.
They also condescended on a charter granted by
King James VI., in 1585, to the town of Burntisland,
which is on record, and which they say establishes
their right. They further contend that the magistrates
have produced no proper titles to prove
their exclusive right to the scalps they have let in
tack to the Newhaven fishermen.
“The charter of King James VI. was resigned
,by the town in the time of Charles I,, and the new
charter granted by the latter, gives no right to the
oyster scalps in dispute. The word ‘fishings,’ in
was abolished in defiance of the principles of the
Treaty of Union) in favour of the Newhaven men;
but each party had to pay their own expenses.
So far back as 1789 we begin to read of the
encroachments made by the sea in this quarter, and
probably of what was afterwards so long known as
the “ Man-trap,” as the Advertiser mentions that ‘‘ a
young lady coming from Newhaven to Leith fell
over the precipice on the side of the sea,’’ and
that within six weeks the same catastrophe had
befallen four others, ‘‘ the road being so narrow
and dangerous that people at night run a great risk
of their lives”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p120.gif "Volume 6 Page 301")
... Newhaven.] FISHER FEUD WITH PRESTONPANS 301
men of the town of Edinburgh, and Lady Greenwich,
on one part, and ...
Vol. 6 p. 301 (Rel. 0.71)
... OLD AND NE\V EDINBURGH. [High Street.
to be the same tenement with which he endowed
an altar in the chapel of ...
Vol. 2 p. 256 (Rel. 0.71)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
C
Cable’s Wynd, Leith, XI. 226, 227
Caddies,orstreetmesngers, I. 151,
Cadell and ...
Vol. 6 p. 372 (Rel. 0.67)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
and from Lord Lindesay’s Lives or the Lindesays” ’
we learn that his ...
Vol. 2 p. 276 (Rel. 0.67)
![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. 0.67)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. 250
Sleat, and so named probably from the vast resort
and slaughter of seals ...
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![North Bridge.] MRS. SIDDONS. 34s
her first engagement the appearances of Mrs.
Siddons were as follows :-
May zznd, Venice Preserved.
24th, The Gamester.
” 26th, Venice Preserved.
” zfth, The Gamester.
” zgth, Mourning Bride.
June Ist, Douglas.
” 3rd. Isabella.
” Sth, Jane Shore
with a magnificent piece of plate. The Courunt
tells us that during her performance of Lady
Randolph U there was not a dry eye in the whole
house.” During the summer of 1785 she was again ‘.
in Edinburgh, and played on eighteen nights, her
receipts being more than handsome, averaging
about A120 per night, and Azoo for the Gamester.
Never did the old theatre behold such a firorc
1 as Mrs. Siddons excited, and during the time of
VIEW FROM THE BACK OF SHAKESPEARE SQUARE. ( A f t r EdatA.)
June fth, Douglas.
”
” loth, Mourning Bride.
”
gth, Grecian Daughter (her beneht).
11th. Grecian Daughter (for the benefit of the
Charity Workhouse).
Kay gives us an etching of her appearance as
Lady Randolph, in a powdered toupee ; but costume
was not a study then, nor for long after. Indeed,
Donaldson, in his I‘ Recollections of an Actor,”
mentions, “In 1815, in Scotland, I have seen
Macbeth dressed in a red officer’s coat, sash, blue
pants, Hessian boots, and cocked hat !”
On the ~ z t h of June Mrs. ,Siddons departed for
She’had shared A50 for ten nights ; at
her benefit she drew &so, and was presented
I Dublin:
44
her second engagement nothing was thought of or
talked of but her wondrous power as an actress,
and vast crowds gathered not at night, but in the
day, hours before the doors were open, to secure
places. It became necessary to admit then1 at
three in the afternoon ; then the crowds began to
gather at twelve to obtain admittance at three;
and a certain set of gentlemen, by subscribing
&zoo as a guarantee beforehand, considered
themselves very fortunate in securing a private and
early entrance to the pit; and eventually the
General Assembly of the Church, then in session,
were compelled to arrange their meetings with
reference to the appearance of Mrs. Siddons.
“People came from distant places, even from](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p165.gif "Volume 2 Page 345")
... Bridge.] MRS. SIDDONS. 34s
her first engagement the appearances of Mrs.
Siddons were as follows :-
May ...
Vol. 2 p. 345 (Rel. 0.65)
![High Street.] MISS NICKY MURRAY. 243
in the charter room of the burgh, dated 1723, is
described as being “that big hall, or great room,
now known by the name of the Assembly House,
twice upon it in one night, and often the most
beautiful girls in the city passed it, as inere spectators,
which threw serious duties on the gentlemen
There it was that the Honourable Miss Nicky
Murray reigned supreme as lady-directress and
goddess of fashion, for many years during the
middle of the eighteenth century. She was a
sister of the Earl of Mansfield, and was a woman
possessed of much good sense, firmness, knowledge
of the world, and of the characters of those by
whom she was surrounded. With her sisters she
lived long in one of the tenements at the head of
Bailie Fyfe’s Close, where she annually received
whole broods of fair country cousins, who came to
town to receive the finishing touches of a girl’s education,
and be introduced to society-the starched
and stately society of old Edinburgh.
The Assembly Room was in the close to which
it gave its name. It had a spacious lobby, lighted
by sconces, where the gilded sedans set down their
powdered, hooped, and wigged occupants, while
links flared, liveried valets jostled, and swords were
sometimes drawn; and where a reduced gentleman-
a claimant to the ancient peerage of Kirkcudbnght-
sold gloves, for which he was rather
ungenerously sneered at by Oliver Goldsmith.
From this lobby the dancing-hall opened at
once, and up-stairs was a tea-room. The former
had in its centre a railed space,-within which were
the dancers ; while the spectators, we are told, sat
on the outside, and no communication was permitted
between the different sides of this sacred
pale. Here it was that in 1753 Goldsmith first
saw, with some astonishment, the formalities of
the old Scottish balls. He relates that on entering
the dancing-room he saw one end of it taken up
by the ladies, who ‘sat dismally in a group by
themselves. “On the other end stand their
pensive partners that are to be, but no more
intercourse between the sexes than between two
countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle,
and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid on
any closer commerce.”
The lady directress occupied a high chair, or
species of throne, upon a dais at one end, and
thereon sat Miss Nicky Murray in state. Her
immediate predecessors there had been Mrs.
Browne of Colstoun, and Lady Minto, daughter
of Sir Robert Stuart of Allanbank.
The whole arrangements were ofa rigid character,
iartner for the whole year! The arrangements
were generally made at some preliminary ball or
Ither gathering, when a gentleman’s cocked hat
was unflapped and the ladies’ fans were placed
;herein, and, as in a species of ballot, the beaux
hew forth the latter, and to whomsoever the fan
3elonged he was to be the partner for the season,
I system often productive of absurd combinations
md many a petty awkwardness. “ Then,” as Sir
Alexander Boswell wrote-
“ The Assembly Clbse received the fair-
Order and elegance presided there-
Each gay Right Honourable had her place,
To walk a minuet with becoming grace.
No racing to the dance, with rival hurry-
Such was thy sway, 0 famed Miss Nicky Murray !
Each lady’s fan a chosen Damon bore,
With care selected many a day before ;
For, unprovided with a favourite beau,
The nymph, chagrined, the ball must needs forego,
But previous matters to her taste arranged,
Certes, the constant couple never changed ;
Through a long night, to watch fair Delia’s will,
The same dull swain was at her elbow still.’’
With sword at side, and often hat in hand, the
gallants of those days escorted the chairs of their
partners home to many a close and wynd now the
ibode of squalor and sordid poverty; for much
Df stately and genuine old-fashioned gallantry prevailed,
as if it were part of the costume, referred
to by the poet :-
“ Shades of my fathers ! in your pasteboard skirts,
Your broidered waistcoats and your plaited shirts,
Your formal bag-wigs, wide extended cuffs,
Your five-inch chitterlings and nine-inch ruffs.
Gods! how ye strut at times in all your state,
Amid the visions of my thoughtful pate ! ”
Those who attended the assemblies belonged
exclusively to the upper circle of society that then,
existed in Edinburgh ; and Miss Murray, on
hearing a young lady’s name mentioned to her for
approval, was wont to ask, ‘‘ Miss-of what? ” and,
if no territorial or family name followed, she might
dismiss the matter by a wave of her fan, for,
according to her views, it was necessary to be
‘‘a lady 0’ that ilk;” and it is well known, that
“upon one occasion, seeing at an assembly a
wan who had been raised to wealth in some](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p063.gif "Volume 2 Page 243")
... Street.] MISS NICKY MURRAY. 243
in the charter room of the burgh, dated 1723, is
described as being “that ...
Vol. 2 p. 243 (Rel. 0.64)
... Hope Pukl “THE DOUGLAS CAUSE.”
THE BURGH LOCH.. (Aftw a Plwtagrajh o f t h OnginaZ, bypermission of thc M e m ...
Vol. 4 p. 349 (Rel. 0.64)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hope Park.
British House of Lords, would have left the fortress
of honours and of ...
Vol. 4 p. 350 (Rel. 0.63)
... of her chief intimates was the unfortunate
Lady Jane Douglas of Grantully, the heroine of
the long-contested ...
Vol. 2 p. 258 (Rel. 0.62)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1st. Andrew Street,
rewarded by the freedom of the city, which was
conferred on him by ...
Vol. 3 p. 160 (Rel. 0.61)
![156 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
hall within thirty years of the time when Steele and
Addison were writing in the Specfatorf
The 10th of October, 1681, saw five unfortunate
victims of misrule, named Garnock, Foreman,
Russel, Ferrie, and Stewart, executed at the Gallow
Lee, where their bodies were buried, while their
heads were placed on the Cowgate Port. Some of
their friends came in the night, and reverently
lifting the remains, re-interred them in the West
Churchyard They had the courage also to take
half of the linen over them, and stufft the coffin
with shavings.” Many urged that the latter should
be borne through all the chief thoroughfares ; but
PatricK Walker adds that instead, we went out
by. the back of the [city] wall, in at the Bristo Port,
and turned up to the churchyard [Greyfrairs],
where they were interred close to the Martyrs’
tomb, with the greatest multitude of people, old
and young, men and women, ministers and others,
that I ever saw together.”
JOPPA PANS,
down the heads for the same purpose, but being
scared they were obliged to enclose them in a box,
which they buried in a garden at Lauriston. There
they lay till the 7th of October, 1726, a period of
forty-five years, when a Mr. Shaw, proprietor of the
garden, had them exhumed. The resurrection of
the ghastly relics of the Covenanting times made a
great excitement in Edinburgh. They were rolled
in four yards of fine linen and placed in a coffin.
‘( Being young men, their teeth all remained,” says
Patrick Walker (the author of ‘‘ Biographia Presbyteriana
”). “ All were witness to the holes in each
of their heads which the hangman broke with his
hammer ; and according to the bigness of their
skulls we laid their jaws to them, drew the other
On the 10th of January, 1752, there was taken
from the Tolbooth, hanged at the Gallow Lee, and
gibbeted there, a man named Norman ROSS, whose
remains were long a source of disgust and dismay
to all wayfarers on the Walk. His crime was the
assassination of Lady Baillie, a sister of Home the
Laud of Wedderburn. A relation of this murder
is given in a work entitled “Memoirs of an Anstocrat,”
published in 1838, by the brother of a
claimant for the Earldom of Marchmont, a book
eventually suppressed The lady in question married
Ninian Home, a dominie, but by failure of
her brothers ultimately became heiress, and the
dominie died before her.
Norman Ross was her footman, and secreted](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p167.gif "Volume 5 Page 156")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
hall within thirty years of the time when Steele and
Addison were writing ...
Vol. 5 p. 156 (Rel. 0.61)
... 44 OLD AND NEW’ EDINBURGH. [Gilmerton.
succeeding to the estate of Inverleith. Sir Francis,
who entailed the ...
Vol. 6 p. 344 (Rel. 0.61)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Arthur’s h t . 1
Marquis of Douglas. This lady, who was married
in 1670, was divorced, ...
Vol. 4 p. 320 (Rel. 0.6)
![Pottemw.] JEAN BROWN. 331
BeAoZd
a thing
and how be-
Togzfher
B d
In Unit&
Hmu good
it is,
comitzg we2
m h ns
k n ar
io h e l .
an unaristocratic quarter inay be inferred from the
fact that, so lately as 1716, Robert, seventh Earl
of Morton, a man who, Douglas says, “was well
versed in the knowledge of the antiquities of our
country,” had his residence there ; and later still,
in 1760, Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had a stately
mansion, surrounded by extensive grounds, immediately
on the west side of the Potterrow, near
the north end of which was his carriage entrance,
a gate within a recess, overlooked by the city wall.
Lady Houston lived in the Potterrow in 1784.
In the Diary of Lord Grange, we are told of
Jean Brown, a woman in humble life, residing in the
Potterrow in I 7 17, who had somecuriousexperiences,
which, while reminding us of those of St. Teresa,
the Castilian, the foundress of the Barefooted
Carmelites, were not, singular to say, inconsistent
with orthodox Presbyterianism.
Being taken, together with Mr. Logan, the incumbent
of Culross, to see this pious woman, at
Lady Aytoun’s lodging behind the College, he
found her to be between thirty and forty years of
age ; when, having Conrmunion administered to
her at Leith, in the October of that year, she had
striven to dwell deeply on the thought of Christ
and all His sufferings. Then she had a vision of
Him extended on the cross and in His rocky sepulchre,
“ as plainly as if she had been actually present
when these things happened, though there was
not any visible representation thereof made to her
bodily eyes. She also got liberty to speak to
Him, and asked several questions at Him, to
which she got answers, as if one had spoken to her
audibly, though there was no audible voice.”
Lord Grange admits that all this was somewhat
like delusion or enthusiasm, but deemed it far
from him to say it was either. Being once at Communion
in Kirkcaldy, a voice called to her, “.Arise
and eat; for thou hast a journey to make-a
Jordan to pass through.”
The latter proved to be the Firth of Forth, where
she was upset in the water, but floated till rescued
bpa boat. Lord Grange called frequently to see
her at her little shop in the Potterrow, but usually
found it so crowded 6th children buying her
wares that his wishes were frustrated. “Afterwards,”
he states, “I employed her husband (a
shoemaker) to make some little things for me,
mostly to give them business, and that I might
thereby get opportunity now and then to talk with
such as, I hope, are acquainted with the ways of
God.“
Middleton’s Entry, which opened westward off the
Potterrow, was associated with another of Bums’s
heroines, Miss Jean Lorimer, the flaxen-haired](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p151.gif "Volume 4 Page 331")
... JEAN BROWN. 331
BeAoZd
a thing
and how be-
Togzfher
B d
In Unit&
Hmu good
it is,
comitzg ...
Vol. 4 p. 331 (Rel. 0.6)
... 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. 0.59)
![Waniston.] LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew estranged from him,
and eventually her heart became filled with a
deadly hatred.
An old and attached nurse began to whisper of
a means of revenge and relief from her married
thraldom, and thus she was induced to tamper
with a young man named Robert Weir, a servant
or vassal of her father at Dunipace, to become her
instrument.
At an early hour in the morning of the 2nd of
July, Weir came to the place of Warriston, and
being admitted by the lady to the chamber of her
husband, beat him to death with his clenched fists.
He then fled, while the lady and her nurse remained
at home. Both were immediately seized,
subjected to a summary trial of some kind before
the magistrates, and sentenced to death ; the lady
to have “ her heade struck frae her bodie ” at the
Canongate Cross.
In the brief interval between sentence and execution,
this unfortunate young girl, who was only
twenty-one, was brought, by the impressive discourse
of a good and amiable clergyman, from a
state of callous indifference to a keen sense of
her crime, and also of religious resignation. Her
case was reported in a small pamphlet of the day,
entitled, “Memorial of the Conversion of Jean
Livingston (Lady Waniston), with an account of
her carriage at her execution ”-a dark chapter of
Edinburgh social history, reprinted by Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe. “She stated, that on Weir
assaulting her husband, she went to the hall, and
waited till the deed was done. She thought she
still heard the pitiful cries uttered by her husband
while struggling with his murderer.” She tried to
. weep, but not a tear could she shed, and could
only regard her approaching death as a just expiation
of her crime.
Deeply mortified by the latter and its consequences,
her relations used every effort to secure
as much privacy as was possible for the execution;
hence it was arranged that while her nurse
was being burned on the Castle Hill at four o’clock
in the morning, thus attracting the attention of
all who might be out of bed at that time, Lady
Waniston should be taken to the Girth Cross, at
the east end of the town, and there executed by
the Maiden.
“The whole way as she went to the place,”
says the pamphlet referred to, “ she behaved herself
so cheerfully as if she was going to her
wedding, and not to her death. When she came
to the scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she
looked up to the Maiden with two longsome looks,
for she had never seen it before.
of her, to which all that saw her will bear record,
that her only countenance moved [sic, meaning
that its expression alone was touching], although
she had not spoken a word; for there appeared
such majesty in her countenance and visage, and
such a heavenly courage in gesture, that many
said, ‘That woman is gifted with a higher spirit
than any man or woman’s! ’”
She read an address to the spectators at the four
corners of the scaffold, and continued to utter
expressions of devotion till the swift descent of
the axe decapitated her. Balfour, in his “Annals,”
gives the year 1599 as the date of this tragedy.
Four years after Weir was taken, and on the
26th January, 1606, was broken on the wheel, a
punishment scarcely ever before inflicted in Scotland.
In the year 1619 Thomas Kincaid of Wamston
was returned heir to his father Patrick Kincaid of
Warriston, in a tenement in Edinburgh. This was
probably the property that was advertised in the
Couranf of 1761, as about to be sold, “that
great stone tenement of land lying at the head of
the old Bank Close, commonly called Warriston’s
Land, south side of the Lawn Market, consisting
of three bedchambers, a dining-room, kitchen, and
garret.” There is no mention of a drawing-room,
such apartments being scarcely known in the Edinburgh
of those days.
In 1663 another proprietor of Warriston came
to a tragic end, and to him we have already referred
in our account of Waniston’s Close.
This was Sir Archibald Johnston, who was known
as Lord Warriston in his legal capacity. He wag
an advocate of 1633. In 1641 he was a Lord of
Session. He was made Lord Clerk Register by
Cromwell, who also created him a peer,under the title
of Lord Wamston, and as such he sat for a time
in the Upper House in Parliament. After the
Restoration he was forfeited, and fled, but was
brought to Edinburgh and executed at the Marke
Cross, as we have recorded in Chapter XXV. ct.
Volume I.
Wodrow, in his “History of the Church of
Scotland,” states that Wamston’s memoirs, in his
handwriting, in the form of a diary, are still extant ;
if so, they have never seen the light. His character,
admirably drawn in terse language by his nephew,
Bishop Burnet, is thus given in the U History of his
Own Times,” Vol. 1.:-
“ Waniston was my own uncle. He was a man of
great application ; could seldom sleep above three
hours in the twenty-four. He studied the law
carefully, and had a great quickness of thought,
This I may say ,
.
*](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p110.gif "Volume 5 Page 99")
... LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew ...
Vol. 5 p. 99 (Rel. 0.59)
... TENTS. V
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DISTRICT OF RESTALRIG.
PAGE
Abbey Hill-Baron Norton-Alex. Campbell and 'I ...
Vol. 6 p. 395 (Rel. 0.58)
... such as David Laing, Robert Chambers, and
Cosmo Innes. In his “ Diary” Scott writes of him
as “a very ...
Vol. 3 p. 192 (Rel. 0.57)
![Restalrig.] CAPTAIN MACRAE.‘ ‘39
frewshire Sketches, styles “ a Goth who committed
a most barbarous deed by demolishing the great
and splendid castle (of Houston) in 1780, and
applied the stones to the building of a new village
for lappet weavers.”
During his occupation of Marionville, his tastes
and family being gay and fashionable, the house
was the scene of constant festivities and private
theatricals, of which, many such notices appear in
the papers of the time, like the following from the
Advertiser of April, I 7 89 :-
“On Tuesday last, the tragedy of Yen12 Presmed was
performed before a genteel and select company at Mr.
Macrae’s Private Theatre at Marionville. The following
were the principal Dram&> Persane :-
Priuli . . . . Mrs. Hunter.
Pierre . . . . Captain Mackewan.
Jaffier . . , . Mr. Macrae.
Renault . . . Mr. Welwood.
Bedamar , . . Mr. Dowling.
Duke of Venice . . Mr. Justice.
Belvidera . . . Mrs. Macrae.
Mrs. Macrae and
Captain Mackewan, in particular, performed in a style ol
superior excellence.”
The play gave very great satisfaction.
Captain Macrae, in addition to being a man of
fortune, was well-connected, and was a cousin of
that good Earl of Glencairn who was the friend
and patron of Buyns, while through his mother he
was nearly related to Viscount Fermoy and the
famous Sir Boyle Roche. He was a man of a
generous and warm disposition, but possessed a
somewhat lofty and imperious sense of what he
deemed due to the position of a gentleman; and
being yet young, he was about to return to the
army when the catastrophe occurred which caused
his ruin. All allowed him to be a delightful companion,
yet liable to be transported beyond the
bounds of reason at times by trivial matters.
“ Thus,” says Chambers, “ a messenger of the law
having arrested the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, a brother
of the Earl of Glencairn, far debt, as he was passing
with a party from the drawing-room to the
dining-room of Drumsheugh House, Macrae threw
the man over the stairs. He was prompted to this
act by indignation at the affront which he conceived
his cousin, as a gentleman, had received
from a common man. But soon after, when it was
represented to him that every other means of
inducing Mr. Cunningham to settle his debt had
failed, and when he learned that the messenger had
suffered severe injury, he went to him, made him a
hearty apology, and agreed to pay 300 guineas by
way of compensation.”
His wife was Maria Cecilia le Maitre, daughter of
the Baroness Nolken, wife of the Swedish ambassador.
While resident occasionally with her cousin
in Paris M.adame de la Briche, the private theatricals
they saw at her magnificent house in the
Marais led to the reproduction of them at Marionville.
There the husband and wife both took
character parts, and Sir David Kinloch and the Mr.
Justice already mentioned were among their best
male performers ; and often Mrs. Macrae herselc
The chief lady was Mrs. Carruthers, of Dormont,
in Dumfries-shire, a daughter of Paul Sandby, the
eminent artist, and founder of the English school
of water-colour painting, who died in 1809.
Marionville was quite the centre of fashionable
society ; but, manners apart-alternately stately
and rough-how strange to-day seems what was
fashionable then in Edinburgh ! the ladies with
head-dresses so enormous that at times they had to
sit on the carriage floor ; the gentlemen with bright
coloured coats, with tails that reached to their
heels, breeches so tight that to get them on or off
was a vast toil; waistcoats six inches long; large
frilled shirts and stiff cravats ; a watch in each fob,
with a bunch of seals, and wigs with great side
curls, exactly as Kay shows Macrae when in the
act of levelling a pistol.
In the visiting circle at Marionville were Sir
George Ramsay, Bart., of Banff House, and hiq
lady, whose maiden name was Eleanor Fraser, and
they and the Macraes seem to have been very intimate
and warmly attached friends, till a quarrel
arose between the two husbands about a rather
trivial cause.
On the evening of the 7th April, 1790, Captain
Macrae was handing a lady out of the box-lobby
of the old theatre, and endeavoured to get a sedan
for $er conveyance home. Seeing two chairmen
approach with one, he asked if it was disengaged,
and both replied distinctly in the affirmative.
Macrae wasabout to hand the lady into it, a footman
came forward in a violent manner, and seizing one
of the poles insisted that it was engaged for his
mistress, though the latter had gone home some
time before ; but the man, who was partly intoxicated,
knew not that she had done so.
Macrae, irritated by the valet’s manner, gave him
a rap over the knuckles with his cane, to make hini
quit his hold of the pole ; on this the valet called
him a scoundrel, and struck him on the breast.
On being struck over the head, the man became
more noisy and abusive ; Macrae proceeded to
chastise him, on which several bystanders took
part with the valet ; a general brawl seemed about
to ensue; another chair was got for the terrified
lady, and she was carried away. The details of
this brawl are given in the “ Life of Peter Bumef
’
As -](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p150.gif "Volume 5 Page 139")
... CAPTAIN MACRAE.‘ ‘39
frewshire Sketches, styles “ a Goth who committed
a most barbarous deed by ...
Vol. 5 p. 139 (Rel. 0.56)
... and the founder’s own mother and wife, and
of all the faithful dead, was specially directed, at
the ...
Vol. 5 p. 116 (Rel. 0.55)
... and alert carriage, together with some oldfashioned
peculiarities of costume, which made her
one of the ...
Vol. 3 p. 125 (Rel. 0.55)
![1628, by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were actually cut away for this ignoble
purpose, while the lower tracery of the windows
was destroyed by their lean-to roofs, just as we
may see still in the instance of many churches
in Belgium. These wretched edifices were called
the Krames, yet, as if to show that some reverence
was still paid to the sanctity of the place, the
Town Council decreed, ‘‘ that no tradesman should
be admitted to these shops except bookbinders,
mortmakers (i.e. watchmakers)] jewellers, and goldsmiths.”
“ Bookbinders,” says Robert Chambers,
“must be in this instance meant to signify booksellers,
the latter term being then unknown in
Scotland ;” but within the memory of many still
Displaying double-beaded winged dmgons clustering round a central rose with the hook of the altar lam?.
Sanction was given in the early part of 1878
by the municipal authorities for extensive restorations,
to be conducted in a spirit and taste un
known to thebarbarous “improvers” of 1829. At
the head of the restoration committee was placed
Dr. Rilliam Chambers, the well-known publisher
and author. According to the plans laid before
it, the last of the temporary partitions were to be
removed, the rich-shaped pillars embedded therein
to be uncovered and restored ; the galleries and
pews swept away, when the church will assume its
old cruciform aspect. “ By these operations the
Montrose aisle will be uncovered, and form an
interesting historical object. Provision is made
for the Knights of the Thistle, if they should desire
it, erecting their stalls, as is done by the Knights of
east angle of the church. Another account says
they were named from the infamous Lady March,
wife of the Earl of Arran, the profligate chancellor
of James VI., from whom the nine o’clock bell
was also named “The Lady Bell,” as it was rung
an hour later to suit herself. An old gentlewoman
mentioned in the ‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” who
died in 1802, was wont to own that she had, in
her youth, seen both the sfdtue and the steps ; but
it is extremely unlikely that the former would
escape the iconoclasts of 1559, who left the church
almost a ruin.
But time has accomplished a change that John
Knox and “Jenny Geddes” could fittle foresee !
was ordered for the church. “The instrument,”
says the Scofsmzn, “consists of two full manuals
and a pedal organ of full compass. The great
organ contains eleven stops, and one of sixteen
feet in metal. There are eleven stops in the
swell organ, and one of sixteen feet in wood.
The pedal organ contains five stops, including two
of sixteen feet in wood, and one of sixteen feet in
metal. In the great organ there is to be a silver
clarionet of eight feet; a patent pneumatic action
is fitted to the keys, and the organ will be blown
by a double cylinder hydraulic engine.”
In its most palmy days old St. Gilas’s couldnevei
boast of such “a kist 0’ whistles ” as this !](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p159.gif "Volume 1 Page 147")
... by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were ...
Vol. 1 p. 147 (Rel. 0.55)
![High Street.] THE MAXWELLS OF MONREITH. 275
Theresa, and other royal and imperial personages,
which had been presented as friendly memorials to
the ambassador, have all been dispersed by the
salesman’s hammer, and Hyndford’s Close, on my
trying to get into it lately in 186P, was inaccessible
(literally) from filth.” Another writer, in 1856, says
in his report to the magistrates, “that, with proper
drainage, causeway, and cleanliness, it might be
made quite respectable.”
Prior to the Carmichaels of Hyndford it had
been, for a time, the residence of the Earls of
Stirling, the first of whom ruined himself in tEx
colonisation of Nova Scotia, for which place he
set sail with fourteen ships filled with emigrants
and cattle in 1630. Here then, in this now
humble but once most picturesque locality-for
the house was singularly so, with its overhanging
timber gables, its small court and garden sloping
to the south-lived John third Earl of Hyndford,
the living representative of a long line of warlike
ancestors, including Sir John Carmichael of that
ilk, who broke a spear with the Duke of Clarence
at the battle of Bauge-en-Anjou, when the Scots
routed the English, the Duke was slain, and Carmichael
had added to his paternal arms a dexter
hand and arm, holding a broken spear,
In 1732 he was Lieutenant-Colonel of a company
in the Scots Foot Guards, and was twice
Commissioner to the General Assembly before
1740, and was Lord of Police in Scotland. In the
following year, when Frederick the Great invaded
Silesia, he was sent as plenipotentiary extraordinary
to adjust the differences that occasioned the
war, and at the conclusion of the Treaty of Breslau
had the Order of the Thistle conferred upon him
by George II., receiving at the same time a grant
from Frederick, dated at Berlin, 30th September,
1742, for adding the eagle of Silesia to his paternal
arms of Xyndford, with the motto Ex bene merifo.
He was six years an ambassador at the Russian
Court, and it wasbyhis able negociations that 30,000
Muscovite troops contributed to accelerate the
peace which was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle.
These stimng events over, the year 1752 saw
him leave his old abode in that narrow close off
the High Street, to undertake a mission of the
greatest importance to the Court of Vienna. On
the death of Andrew Earl of Hyndford and Viscount
Inglisberry, in r817, the title became extinct,
but is claimed by a baronet of the name 01
Carmichael.
The entry and stair on the west side of Hyndford’s
Close was always a favourite residence, in
consequence of the ready access to it from the
High Street.
In the beginning of the reign of George 111. here
lived Lady Maxwell of Monreith, d e Magdalene
Blair of that ilk, and there she educated and
reared her three beautiful daughters-Catharine,
Jane, and Eglantine (or Eglintoun, so named after
the stately Countess Susanna who !ived in the Old
Stamp Office Close), the first of whom became the
wife of Fordyce of Aytoune, the second in 1767,
Duchess of Gordon, and the third, Lady Wallace
of Craigie.
Their house had a dark passage, and in going
to the dining-room the kitchen door was passed,
according to an architectural custom, common in
old Scottish and French houses; and such was
the thrift and so cramped the accommodation
in those times, that in this passage the laces
and fineries of the three young beauties were
hung to dry, while coarser garments were displayed
from a window pole, in the fashion
common to this day in the same localities for the
convenience of the poor. “ So easy and familiar
were the manners of the great, fabled to be so
stiff and decorous,” says the author of “Traditions
of Edinburgh,” who must vouch for the story,
“ that Mis,s Eglantine, afterwards Lady Wallace,
used to be sent across the street to the Fountain
Well for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell’s
daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An
old gentleman who was their relation, told me that
the first time he saw these beautiful girls was in
the High Street, where Miss Jane, afterwards
Duchess of Gordon, was riding upon a sow, which
Miss Eglantine thumped lustily behind with a
stick. It must be understood that in the middle
of the eighteenth century vagrant swine went as
commonly about the streets of Edinburgh a’s dogs
do in our own day, and were more generally followed
as pets by the children of the last generation.
It may, however, be remarked, that the sows upon
which the Duchess of Gordon and her witty sister
rode when children, were not the common va,mnts
of the High Street, but belonged to Peter Ramsay,
of the inn in St. Mary‘s Wynd, and were among
the last that were permitted to roam abroad. The
romps used to watch the animals as they were let
loose in the forenoon in the stable yard (where they
lived among the horse litter) and got upon their
backs the moment they issued from the close.”
Their eldest brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell,
of the 74th Highlanders, commanded the
grenadier companies of the army under Cornwallis
in the war against Tippoo, and died in India in
1800.
In the same stair with Lady Maxwell lived Anne
Dalrymple, Countess of James firth Earl of Bal](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p095.gif "Volume 2 Page 275")
... Street.] THE MAXWELLS OF MONREITH. 275
Theresa, and other royal and imperial personages,
which had been ...
Vol. 2 p. 275 (Rel. 0.55)
... Letters,” that the Countess of Stair was subject
to hysterical fits-the result perhaps of all she ...
Vol. 1 p. 106 (Rel. 0.55)
... OLD AND. NEW. EDINBURGH. [Cauongate.
date over a doorway in it, this street had been in
progress in 1768.
At ...
Vol. 3 p. 26 (Rel. 0.55)
... OLD AYD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarket.
Duke of York and Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke made
some noise in London ...
Vol. 1 p. 102 (Rel. 0.54)
... -- Edinburgh Castle. THE EARL OF ARGYLE
which he received the sentence of death. His
guards in the Castle were ...
Vol. 1 p. 59 (Rel. 0.54)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd.
broad and spacious thoroughfare, named St. Mary’s
Street, presenting on ...
Vol. 2 p. 300 (Rel. 0.53)
![St. Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the pungent
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount writes thus
of the processionists :-
THE NORMAN DOORWAY, ST. GILES’S WHICH WAS DE~TKOYEL) IOWAKDS THE END OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (From a Drawing by an no^ nbont 1799.)
The Lady aisle, where Preston’s ,gave lay and
the altar stood, was part of what forms now the
south aisle of the choir called the High Church, and
“ Fy on you fostereris of idolatrie !
That till ane did stok does sik reverence
Feir ye nocht God, to commit sik offence,
To gar suppresse sik greit abusion;
Sal1 be nocht else, bot clene confusion.”
In presens of the pepill publicklie ;
I counsall you do yit ywr diligence,
Do ye nocht sa, I dreid your recompense,
on that altar many of the earliest recorded gifts
were bestowed.
The constant additions made to St. Giles’s
church, from the exchequer of the city, or by contributions
of wealthy burgesses, cannot but be
regarded as a singular evidence of the great](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p153.gif "Volume 1 Page 141")
... Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the ...
Vol. 1 p. 141 (Rel. 0.53)
... INDEX. 371
118-121 ; tomb of, Corstorphine
Church, 111. 121
Forrester’s Wynd, I. 121. 122, 148,
219, ...
Vol. 6 p. 377 (Rel. 0.53)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Canongate.
the days that were no more. ‘* No funeral hearse,”
says Lockhart, “crept ...
Vol. 3 p. 28 (Rel. 0.52)
![Leith Walk.] MCCULLOCH OF ARDWELL.
~ _ _ _
ofArdwell, a commissioner of the Scottish Customs,
and a man famous in his time for hospitality, pleasantry,
and wit, and known as a spouter of halfinjury
to the new and’splendid one at Inverleith
Row.
Shrub Hill, the villa on a little eminence north.
ward of the Botanical Gardens, in 1800 was the
property of the dowager Lady Maxwell, and appears
as such in the map of 1804. She was Lady Maxwell
of Monreith, whose husband died in 1771, and
whose second daughter Jane became Duchess of
Gordon in 1767,
The Leith Directory for 1811 gives Lady Nairn
a residence in Pilrig Street, but she must have
held this title through Scottish courtesy, as the
attainted peerage was not restored by Act of Parliament
till 17th June, 1824. She must have been
Brabazon Wheeler, widow of Lieut.-Colonel John
Nairn, who but for the attainder would have succeeded
as fourth Lord Nairn.
Pilrig Free Church, at the north corner of this
street and Leith Walk, was built in 1861-2, and
is in the early Decorated Gothic style, with a double
transept, and has a handsome steeple 150 feet in
height.
The fine old but unused avenue of stately trees,
that opened westward from the Walk to the old
Manor House of Pilrig, has now given place to a
street of workmen’s houses, named after the pro.
prietor, Balfour Street, and lower down, near the
bottom of the Walk, is Springfield Street, named ,
he may he is no mean hand at an epigram.’
Ardwell came forward to apologise for his fun.
“My dear sir,” said Foote, “no apology is nechaise
with four horses from the Kh$s Arms Inn,
at the same time that two strangers did so in another
vehicle, and with difficulty amid the drifted
snow they all reached the summit of Erickstane
Brae, a lofty hill at the head of Clydesdale, along
the side of which, above a most perilous declivity,
the public road passes.
,Further progress being impossible, a consultation
was held, and they all resolved to return to Moffat ;
but, as wheeling the carriage round proved a dangerous
operation, “ Wee Davie ” was wrapped up
and laid on the snow till that was accomplished,
and after reaching the inn Ardwell discovered that
his two companions were Samuel Foote the cele.
brated player and another favourite son of Thalia.
On reaching the inn, Foote entered it in no good
humour-as he walked with difficulty, having lost a
leg-and ordered breakfast, while his luggage was
taken off the chaise; and after this was done, he
€ound a written paper affixed to the panel. In
some anger he demanded, “What rascal has been
placarding this ribaldry on my carriage I” Then
pausing, however, he read the following lines :-
“ While Boreas his flaky storm did guide,
Deep covering every hill o’er Tweed and Clyde,
The North-wind god spied travellers seeking way,
Sternly he cried : ‘ Retun your steps, I say ;
Let not OIK hot, ’tis my behest, urofane
time.”
It would appear that in the winter of 1774-5
Mr. McCulloch visited his country mansion of
Ardwell (near Gatehouse in Kirkcudbright), which
is still possessed by his descendants, in order to be
present at an election, together with a friend named
Mouat. After a week or two they set out on their
return to Edinburgh, Mr. McCulloch bringing with
him his infant son, familiarly known as “Wee
Davie,” and the trio, after quitting Dumfries, were
compelled by a snowstorm to tarry at Moffat for
the nighr Early next morning they departed in a
occasion when afterwards at the Theatre Royal, he
set apart a night or two for a social meeting with
I McCulloch of Ardwell, at Springfield, on Leith
Walk. “In the parlour, on the right hand side in
entering the house, the largest of the row,” says
Chambers in 1869, “ Foote, the celebrated wit of
the day, has frequently been associated with many
Edinburgh and Leith worthies, when and where he
was wont to keep the table in a roar.”
McCulloch of Ardwell died in 1794 in his fiftythird
year. “ Wee Davie” died thirty years afterwards
at Cheltenham.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p174.gif "Volume 5 Page 163")
... Walk.] MCCULLOCH OF ARDWELL.
~ _ _ _
ofArdwell, a commissioner of the Scottish Customs,
and a man famous ...
Vol. 5 p. 163 (Rel. 0.52)
... in the old house, of the plague. His widow
survived him, and the street was named Lady
Gray’s Close till ...
Vol. 1 p. 103 (Rel. 0.52)
![LddI.1 JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of their
acquaintance the loan of a pair of saddlebags,
in which to deposit the MS.”
The latter was also rejected by Garrick, “with
the mortifying declaration that it was totally unfit
for the stage.” Yet it was brought out at Edinburgh
by Digges, on the 14th December, 1756,
and produced that storm of fanaticism to which
we have referred in a former part of this work. It
had a run then unprecedented, and though a rather
dull work, has maintained a certain popularity
almost to the present day.
To escape the censiires of the kirk, he resigned
HOME. 241
his living, and published several other tragedies;
and after the accession of George 111. to the
throne he received a pension of A300 per
annum. In 1763 he obtained the then sinecure
appointment of Conservator of Scottish Privileges
at Campvere (in succession to George Lind, Provost
of Edinburgh)] and also the office of Commissioner
for Sick and Wounded Seamen. In 1779 he removed
to Edinburgh, where he spent the latter
years of his life, and married a lady of his own
name, by whom he had no children.
Home’s ‘‘ Douglas” is now no longer regarded
as the marvel of genius it once was ; but the author
was acknowledged in his lifetime to be vain of it,
ST. JAMES’S EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH, 1882. (Affta a Pho#ogm#h by Nr.1. Clrapman.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p060.gif "Volume 6 Page 241")
... JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of ...
Vol. 6 p. 241 (Rel. 0.52)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Infirmary Street.
._
Freirs xx li. owing to them, at this last Fasterns
evin, for ...
Vol. 4 p. 286 (Rel. 0.52)
![44 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During the levelling of the
ground around the palace, and digging a foundation
for the substantial rai!ing with which it was
recently enclosed, the workmen came upon the
the present rampart wall, when near the same site
two stone coffins of the twelfth century, now in
the nave, were found. Each is six feet four inches.
in length, inside measurement.
In the abbey was preserved, enshrined in silver,.
CROFT-AN-RIGH HOUSE.
zealous veneration in the great cathedral near the
The texture of this remarkable cross was
said to have been of such a nature that no mortal
artificer could tell whether it was of wood, horn, OG
, field.
of other early buildings [perhaps the abbey
house?], and from their being in the direct line
of the building it is not improbable that a Lady
chapel or other addition to the abbey church
may have stood to the east of the choir. . . .
A curious relic of the ancient tenants of the
monastery was found by the vorkmen, consisting
of a skull, which had no doubt formed the solitary
companion of one of the monks. It had a hole in
the top of the cranium, which served, most probably,
for securing a crucifix, and over the brow
‘ was traced in antique characters, Memento mori.
This solitary relic of the furniture of the abbey
was procured by the late Sir Patrick Walker, and
is still in possession of his family.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p056.gif "Volume 3 Page 44")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During ...
Vol. 3 p. 44 (Rel. 0.52)
![North Bridge.] THE PLAYHOUSE GHOST. 347
youthful frolic ; and it was a rich treat to hear him
tell of a Highland solicitor’s apprentice, who, on
hearing some one express a hope there would be
no blows, exclaimed, “ Plows, by Got ! ” and fell
on. At a distance of thirty years, on an opportunity
occurring of speaking a good word in favour
of an application of this person for a situation in the
Exchequer, Scott felt bound to use his influence,
from a friendly feeling about the Rayhouse Row.”
In 1797 there appeared in the Edinburgh
Theatre Henry Erskine Johnston, known in his
time as “ The Scottish Roscius,” from the circumstance
of his having been born in the High Street,
where his father was a barber ; the latter happened
to be shaving Henry Erskine, when intelligence
was brought that his wife had just presented him
with a son, whom he named from the learned
barrister then under his hands. Old Johnston
afterwards kept an oyster tavern in Shakespeare
Square, where he died in 1826.
Quitting a writer’s oflice in which he was a clerk,
his son came forth as an actor, his favourite parts
being those of Hamlet and Norval, and he was
nightly the attraction of Scottish playgoers, whom
he was wont to astonish by playing the Danish
Prince and Harlequin alternately. A young lady
who saw him acting in a piece called The Storming
of Srhgafatam fell deeply in love with him,
“ and after a short, albeit impassioned courtship,
she became Mrs. Johnston, although at that period
only about fifteen.” From Edinburgh he went to
Dublin and elsewhere. We shall have to recur to
him as manager of the rival theatre in the city.
Prior to that his story was a painful one. His
young wife became, as an actress, the rage in
London, and, unhappily for him, yielded to the
temptations thrown in her way-she shone for a
few short years in the theatrical atmosphere of the
English metropolis, and then sank into insignificance,
while poor Johnston became a houseless
and heart-broken wanderer.
The old Theatre Royal had an unpleasant
tenant in the shape of a ghost, which made its appearance,
or rather made itself heard first during
the management of Mr. Jackson. His family
occupied a small house over the box-office and
immediately adjoining the theatre, and it was
alleged that long after the latter had closed and
the last candle been snuffed out, strange noises
pervaded the entire building, as if the mimic
scenes of the plays were being acted over again by
phantoms none could see. As the story spread
and grew, it caused some consternation. What
the real cause of this was has never been explained,
but it occurred for nights at a time.
Between 1794 and 1809 the old theatre was in
B very struggling condition. The debts that encumbered
it prevented the management from
bringing to it really good actors, and the want of
these prevented the debts from being paid OK
For the sum of ;EB,ozo Mr. Jackson, the old
manager, became the ostensible purchaser of the
house in 1800, and for several years after that date
it was conducted by Mr. Rock, who, though an
able and excellent actor, could never succeed in
making it an attractive or paying concern, ‘‘ One
of the few points of his reign worthy of notice was
the appearance here of the Yourg Ros&s, a boy
who, for a brief space, passed as a great actor.
The Edinburgh public viewed with intense interest
this lad playing young Norval on the stage, and the
venerable author of the play blubbering in the
boxes, and declaring that until now his conception
of the character had never been realised.”
Many old favourites came in succession, whose
names are forgotten now. Among these was Mrs.
Charters, a sustainer, with success, of old lady
parts. Her husband, who died in 1798, had been
a comic actor on the same boards, in conjunction
with Mr. Henderson, in 1784. He had by nature
an enormous nose, and was deemed the perfection
of a Bardolph, in which character Kay depicts him,
with a three-cocked hat and knee breeches; and
Henderson, as FalstaK, in long slop-trousers, and
armed with a claymore! Mrs. Charters died in
1807, and her obituary is thus recorded in the
Edinburgh papers of the day :-
“Died here on Monday last, with the wellmerited
reputation of an honest and inoffensive
woman, Mrs. Charters, who has been in this
theatre for more than thirty years. She succeeded
the much-admired Mrs. Webb, and for many years
after that actress left the city was an excellent
substitute in Lady Dacre, Juliet’s Nurse, Deborah
Woodcock, Dorcas, Mrs. Bunale, &c., &c.”
In her own line she was worthily succeeded by
Mrs. Nicol, who retired from the Theatre Royal in
1834, after a brilliant career of twenty-seven years,
and died in 1835. In her old lady parts she was .
ably succeeded by her daughter, Miss Nicol, whose
name is still remembered with honour and regard
by all the old playgoers of Edinburgh.
Another Edinburgh favourite for upwards of
thirty years was Mr. Woods, the leading actor,
whom the public strenuously opposed every attempt
on the part of the management to change.
He retired from the boards in April, 1802, intending
to open an elocution class in the city, but died
in the December of that year. For his benefit in
I 784, he appeared as ‘(Young Riot ” in a local](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p167.gif "Volume 2 Page 347")
... Bridge.] THE PLAYHOUSE GHOST. 347
youthful frolic ; and it was a rich treat to hear him
tell of a Highland ...
Vol. 2 p. 347 (Rel. 0.52)
![Ceorge Street.] MRS. MURRAY OF HENDERLAND. f 43
teen, Mr. Bartlett, six, Mr. Hay, four-in all, fortyeight
shares.” From that time he grew in wealth
and fame with the establishment, which is now
merged in the Joint-stock Union Bank of Scotland.
Si John Hay died in 1830, in his seventy-fifth
year.
No. 86 was the house of his nephew, Sir
William Forbes, Bart., who succeeded to the title
on the death of the eminent banker in 1806, and
who married the sole daughter and heiress of Sir
John Stuart of Fettercairn, whose arms were thus
quartered with his ovn.
In May, 1810, Lord Jeffrey-then at the bar as a
practising advocate-took up his dwelling in No.
92, and it was while there resident that, in consequence
of some generous and friendly criticism in
the Rdinburgh Reviaer, pleasant relations were
established between him and Professor Wilson,
which, says the daughter of the latter, “led to a
still closer intimacy, and which, though unhappily
interrupted by subsequent events, was renewed in
after years, when the bitterness of old controversies
had yielded to the hallowing influences of time.”
Lord Jeffrey resided here for seventeen years.
In the second storey of No. 108 Sir Walter Scott
dwelt in 1797, when actively engaged in his German
translations and forming the Edinburgh Volunteer
Light Horse, of which he was in that year, to
his great gratification, made quartermaster. Two
doors farther on was the house of the Countess of
Balcarres, the venerable dowager of Earl Alexander,
who died in 1768. She was Anne, daughter of
Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castleton.
No. 116, now formed into shops, was long the
residence of Archibald Colquhoun of Killermont,
Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1807. He was
Archibald Campbell of Clathick, but assumed the
name of Colquhoun on succeeding to the estate of
Killermont. He came to the bar in the same
year, 1768, or about the same time as his friends
Lord Craig and the Hon. Henry Erskine. He
succeeded Lord Frederick Campbell as Lord
Clerk Register in 1816. His mind and talents
were said to have been of a very superior order ;
he was a sound lawyer, an eloquent pleader, and
his independent fortune and proud reserve induced
him to avoid general business, while in his Parliamentary
duties as member for Dumbarton he was
unremitting and efficient.
The Edinburgh Association of Science and Arts
now occupies the former residence of the Butters
of Pitlochry, No. ‘17. It is an institution formed
in 1869, and its title is sufficiently explanatory of
its objects.
An interesting lady of the old school abode long
He died in 1820.
in No. I 22-Mrs. Murray of Henderland. She was
resident there from the early part of the present
century. The late Dr. Robert Chambers tells us
he was introduced to her by Dr. Chalmers, and found
her memories of the past went back to the first
years of the reign of George 111. Her husband,
Alexander Murray, had been, he states, Lord
North’s Solicitor-General for Scotland. His name
appears in 1775 on the list, between those of
Henry Dundas and Islay Campbell of Succoth.
‘‘ I found the venerable lady seated at a window
of her drawing-room in George Street, with her
daughter, Miss Murray, taking the care of her
which her extreme age required, and with some
help from this lady we had a conversation of about
an hour.” She was born before the Porteous Mob,
and well remembering the ’45, was now close on
her hundredth year.
She spoke with affection and reverence of her
mother’s brother, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield ;
“and when I adverted,” says Chambers, “ to the
long pamphlet written against him by Athenian
Stuart, at the conclusion of the Douglas cause, she
said that, to her knowledge, he neyer read it, such
being his practice in respect to ail attacks made
upon him, lest they should disturb his equanimity
in judgment. As the old lady was on intimate terms
with Boswell, and had seen Johnson on his visit to
Edinburgh-as she was the sister-in-law of Allan
Ramsay, the painter, and had lived in the most
cultivated society of Scotland all her life-there
were ample materials for conversation with her ;
but her small strength made this shorter and slower
than I could have wished. When we came upon
the poet Ramsay, she seemed to have caught new
vigour from the subject ; she spoke with animation
of the child-parties she had attended in his house
on the Castle Hill during a course of ten years
befoie his death-an event which happened in 1757.
He was ‘ charming,’ she said ; he entered so heartily
into the plays of the children. He, in particular,
gained their hearts by making houses for their
dolls. How pleasant it was to learn that our great
pastoral poet was a man who, in his private capacity,
loved to sweeten the daily life of his fellow-creatures,
and particularly of the young ! At a warning from
Miss Murray I had to tear myself away from this
delightful and never-to-be-forgotten interview.”
From this we may suppose that the worthy publisher
never saw the venerable occupant of No. 123
again.
No. 123, on the opposite side, was the residence
of the well-known Sir John Watson Gordon,
President of the Royal Scottish Academy, who
died June Ist, 1863, and to whom reference has](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p155.gif "Volume 3 Page 143")
... Street.] MRS. MURRAY OF HENDERLAND. f 43
teen, Mr. Bartlett, six, Mr. Hay, four-in all, ...
Vol. 3 p. 143 (Rel. 0.5)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Newcastle, to witness what all spoke of with
wonder. There were one day ...
Vol. 2 p. 346 (Rel. 0.5)
![Granton.] CAROLINE PARK. 311
and most gifted men of his time,” and had his town
residence in one of the flats in James’s Court,
where it is supposed that his eccentric daughter,
who became Lady Dick of Prestonfield, was born.
In 1743, John, the celebrated Duke of Argyle,
entailed his ‘‘ lands of Roystoun and Grantoun,
called Caroline Park ” (“ Shaw’s Reg.”), doubtless
so called after his eldest daughter Caroline, who, in
the preceding year, had been married to Francis,
Earl of Dalkeith, and whose mother had been a
maid of honour to Queen Caroline. The estates
of Royston and Granton were her$ and through
her, went eventually to the house of Buccleuch.
The Earl of Dalkeith, her husband, died in the
lifetime of his father, in 1750, in his thirtieth year,
leaving two children, afterwards Henry, Duke of
Buccleuch, and Lady Frances, afterwards wife of
Lord Douglas. .
Lady Caroline Campbell, who was created a
Reeress of Great Britain, by the title of Lady
Greenwich, in 1767, had, some years before that,
married, a second time, the Right Hon. Charle:
Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He1
barony of Greenwich being limited to the issut
male of her second marriage, became extinct or
her death at Sudbrooke, in her seventy-seventl
year, one of her two sons, who was a captain ir
the 45th Foot, having died unmarried; and thc
other, who was a captain in the 59th, having corn
mitted suicide ; thus, in 1794, the bulk of her rea
and personal property in Scotland and England
but more particularly the baronies of Granton anc
Royston, devolved upon Henry, third Duke o
Buccleuch, K.G. and KT:, in succession, to thc
Duke of Argyle, who appears as “ Lord Royston,’
in the old valuation roll.
Old Granton House, sometimes called ROYS~OI
Castle, which is founded upon an abutting rock
was entered from the north-west by an archway 11
a crenelated barbican wall, and has three crow
stepped gables, each with a large chimney, and iI
the angle a circular tower with a staircase. Thc
external gate, opening to the shore, was in thii
quarter, and was surmounted by two most ornatc
vases of great size j but these had disappeared b;
1854. The whole edifice is an open and roofles
ruin.
On the east are the remains of a magnificen
camage entrance with two side gates, and twc
massive pillars of thirteen courses of stone work
gigantic beads and panels alternately, each havinj
on its summit four inverted trusses, capped b1
vases and ducal coronets, overhanging what wa
latterly an abandoned quany.
The Hopes had long a patrimonial interest ii
;ranton. Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, King’s
Pdvocate to Charles I., left four sons, three of
vhom were Lords of Session at one time, who all
narried and left descendants-namely, Sir John
Hope of Craighall, Sir Thomas Hope of Kerse,
sir Alexander Hope of Granton, ahd Sir James
Hope of Hopetown.
Sir Alexander of Granton had the post at court
)f ‘‘ Royal Carver Extraordinary, and he was much
ibout the person of his Majesty.”
The best known of this family in modem times,
was the Right Hon. Charles Hope of Granton,
Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1801, afterwards
Lord President of the Court of Session, to whom
we have already referred amply, elsewhere.
The more modem Granton House, in this
quarter, was for some time the residence of Sir
John McNeill, G.C.B., third son of the late
McNeill of Colonsay, and brother of the peer of
that title, well known as envoy at the court of
Persia, and in many other public important capacities,
LLD. of Edinburgh, and D.C.L: of Oxford.
George Cleghorn, an eminent physician in Dublin,
and his nephew, William Cleghorn, who was associated
with him as Professor of Anatomy in Trinity
College, Dublin, were both natives of Granton.
George, the first man who established, what might
with any propriety, be called an anatomical school
in Ireland, was born in 1716 of poor but reputable
and industrious parents, on a small farm at Granton,
where his father died in I 7 19, leaving a widow and
five children. He received the elements of his
education in the parish school of’ Cramond village,
and in 1728 he was sent to Edinburgh to be
further instructed in Latin, Greek, and French,
and, to a great knowledge of these languages, he
added that of mathematics. Three years after he
commenced the study of physics and surgery under
the illustrious Alexander Monro, with whom he
remained five years, and while yet a student, he
and some others, among whom was the celebrated
Dr. Fothergill, established the Royal Medical
Society of Edinburgh.
In 1736 he was appointed surgeon of Moyle’s
Regiment, afterwards the zznd Foot (in which,
sbme years before, the father of Laurence Sterne
had been a captain) then stationed in Minorca,
where he remained with it thirteen years, and
accompanied it in 1749 to Ireland, and in the
following year published, in London, his work on
“ The Diseases of Minorca.”
Settling in Dublin in 175 I, in imitation of Monro
and Hunter he began to give yearly lectures
on anatomy. A few years afterwards he was
admitted into the University as an anatomical](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p130.gif "Volume 6 Page 311")
... CAROLINE PARK. 311
and most gifted men of his time,” and had his town
residence in one of the flats in ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Burghmuir.
hollows are still discernible, and in them thc
Scots Foot Guards were ...
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... Park.1 LORD- DOUGLAS. 351
“My dear little ones, Archy and Sholto, are, I
bless God, in very good health. I ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bonnington.
In April, 1747, the Countess of Hugh, third Earl
of Marchmont (Anne ...
Vol. 5 p. 90 (Rel. 0.5)
... MONBODDO. storm of just indignation was roused, and she was
with some dificulty rescued from rough ...
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... Everything about him-his coat, his
wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus’s
dance, his ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lauriston.
the most prominent edifice to the westward, and
nearly opposite the head ...
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![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. 0.48)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. -
CHAPTER VI.
THE VALLEY OF THE WATER OF LEITH.
PAGE
Lady Sinclair of Dunbeath-Bell's ...
Vol. 6 p. 394 (Rel. 0.48)
![The Lawnmarket.] JAMES BOSWELL. I01
duchess. A daughter of Douglas of Mains, she was
the widow of Archibald Duke of Douglas, who died
in 1761.
While on this visit, Patrick Lord Elibank, a
learned and accomplished noble, addressed a letter
to him, and they afterwards had various conversatkns
on literary subjects, all of which are duly
On one occasion he was in a large party, of
which David Hume was one. A mutual friend
proposed to introduce him to the historian, ‘‘ No,
sir ! ” bellowed the intolerant moralist, and turned
away. Among Boswell’s friends and visitors at
James’s Court were Lords Kames and Hailes, the
annalist of Scotland; Drs. Robertson, Slab, and
recorded in the pages of the sycophantic Boswell.
Johnson was well and hospitably received by all
classes in Edinburgh, where his roughness of
manner and bearing were long proverbiaL ‘‘ From
all I can learn,” says Captain Topham, who visited
the city in the following year, “he repaid all their
attention to him with ill-breeding; and when in
the company of the ablest men in this country
his whole design was to show them how little he
thought of them.”
Beattie, and others, the most eminent of his
countrymen; but his strong predilection for
London induced him to move there with his
family, and in the winter of 1786 he was called to
the English bar. His old house was not immediately
abandoned to the plebeian population, as
his successor in it was Lady Wallace, dowager of
Sir Thomas Wallace of Craigie, and mother of the
unfortunate Captain William Wallace of the 15th
Hussars, whose involvement in the affairs of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p113.gif "Volume 1 Page 101")
... Lawnmarket.] JAMES BOSWELL. I01
duchess. A daughter of Douglas of Mains, she was
the widow of Archibald Duke ...
Vol. 1 p. 101 (Rel. 0.47)
... High StrcetJ THE LODGING OF THE EARLS OF CRAWFORD.
remaining in prison for a tyme, being in health att
night, ...
Vol. 2 p. 209 (Rel. 0.47)
![North Bridge.] MR. AND MRS. WYNDHAM. 351
who was present can ever forget. Scott, it may be
remarked, was sensible to various impulses which
are utterly blank to other men. There were associations
about Mr. Murray and his sister as ‘ come
of Scotland’s gentle bluid’ and the grandchildren
of a man prominent in the Forty-five which helped
not a little to give him that strong and peculiar
interest in the Theatre Royal, which he constantly
displayed from 1809 downwards.”
The association here refeAed to was the circumstance
that Mrs. Henry Siddons and her brother
were the grandchildren of John Murray of Broughton,
who was secretary to Prince Charles Edward,
and gained a somewhat unenviable notoriety by
turning king‘s evidence against Lord Lovat and
others, when he was taken prisoner subsequent to
the battle of Culloden.
Mrs. Henry Siddons’ twenty-one years of the
patent ended in 1830; but her completion of
twenty-one annual payments of L2,ooo to the
representatives of Mr. John Jackson made her
sole proprietor of the house; and on the 29th of
March she took farewell of the Edinburgh stage,
in the character of Lady Townley in the Prmuked
Husband, and retired, into private life, carrying
with her, as we are told, “the good wishes of all
in Edinburgh, for they had recognised in her not
merely the accomplished actress, but the good
mother, the refined lady, and the irreproachable
member of society.”
Her brother, Mr, Murray, obtaining a renewal of
the patent, leased the house from her for twentyone
ye‘ars; but, save Rob Roy and Gzry Manner-
&, the day of the Waverley dramas was past, yet
to him the speculation did not prove an unsuccessful
one; and the supernumerary house, the Adelphi
in Leith Walk, was alike a rival, and a dead weight
on his hands, till, on the expiring of his lease,
he retired, in the zenith of his favour with the
Edinburgh public, in 1851, and with a moderate
competency, withdrew to St. Andrews, where he
died not long after.
After being let for a brief period to Mr. Lloyd
the comedian, Mr. Rollinson, and Mr. Leslie, all
of whom failed to make the speculation a paying
one, it passed into the management of its last lessees,
Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Wyndham, the greatest
favourites, as managers, and in public and private
life, that the Royal had ever possessed, not even
excepting Mrs. Henry Siddons.
Mr. Wyndham, a gentleman by education and
position, who adopted the stage by taste as a profession,
came to Edinburgh, about 1845, as a
member of Mr. Murray’s company, to support Miss
Helen Faucit, and after being in management at
,
*
the Adelphi, he obtained that of the Royal in
succession to Messrs. Rollinson and Leslie, and,
as managed by him and Mrs. Wyndham, it
speedily attained the rank and character of
one of the best-conducted theatres in the three
kingdoms. The former, always brilliant in light or
genteel comedy, was equally pleasing and powerful
in his favourite delineations of Irish character,
while Mrs. Wyndham was ever most touching and
pathetic in all tender, wifely, and motherly parts,
and could take with equal ease and excellence
Peg Woffington or Mrs. Haller, Widow Smilie or
Lady Macbeth.
Under their rkiime, the scenery and properties
attained a pitch of artistic excellence of which
their predecessors could have had not the slightest
conception; and some of the Waverley dramas
were set upon the stage with a magnificence and
correctness never before attempted. While pleasing
the public with a constant variety, these, the
last lessees of this famous old theatre, did much
for the intellectual enlightenment of Edinburgh by
producing upon their boards all the leading members
of the profession from London, and also
giving the citizens the full benefit of Italian opera
almost yearly.
Kean and Robson, Helen Faucit, old Paul
Bedford in conjunction with Wright, and latterly
J. L. Toole, the unfortunate Gustavus V. Brooke,
Madame Celeste, Alfred Wigan, Mrs. Stirling,
Sothern, Mesdames Ristori and Titiens, Mario and
Giuglini, and all the most famous artistes in every
branch of the modern drama, actors and singers,
were introduced to the Edinburgh public again
and again ; and, though last, not least in stature,
Sir William Don, of Newton-Don, “ the eccentric
Baronet.”
In recognition of these services, and their own
worth, a magnificent service of plate was presented
to them in 1869. It was unquestionably under
Mr. Wyndham’s management that the Edinburgh
stage was first raised to a perfect level with the
stages of London and Dublin, and it was under
his auspices that both Toole the comedian and
Irving the tragedian first made a name an the
boards.
The acquisition of the site occupied by the old
theatre by the Government for the sum of A5000
for the erection of a new General Post Office thereon,
though the latter had long been most necessary,
and the former was far from being an ornament to
the city, was a source of some excitement, and of
much regret to all old playgoers; and when the
night came t k t the curtain of fate was to close
upon it, after a chequered course of niriety years,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p171.gif "Volume 2 Page 351")
... Bridge.] MR. AND MRS. WYNDHAM. 351
who was present can ever forget. Scott, it may be
remarked, was sensible ...
Vol. 2 p. 351 (Rel. 0.47)
![343 - George Square.] LORD DUNCAN.
of the Scots Brigade, I have the honour to present
these colours to you, and I am very happy in
having this opportunity of expressing my wishes
that the brigade may continue by good conduct
to merit the approbation of our gracious sovereign,
and to ‘maintain that high reputation which all
Europe knows that ancient and respectable corps
has most deservedly enjoyed.”
His address was received with great applause, - and many of the veterans who had served since
their boyhood in Holland were visibly affected.
We have already referred to the tragic results of
the Dundas riots in this square during 1792, when
the mob broke the windows of the Lord Advocate’s
house, and those of Lady Arniston and Admiral
Duncan, who, with a Colonel Dundas, came forth
and assailed the rabble with their sticks, but
were pelted with stones, and compelled to fly for
she1 t er.
The admiral’s house was KO. 5, on the north
side of the square, and it was there his family
resided while he hoisted his flag on board his ship
the Yenwable, and blockaded the Texel, till the
mutiny at the Nore and elsewhere compelled him
to bear up for the Yarmouth Roads; and in the
October of that year (1797) he won the great battle
of Camperdown, and with it a British peerage. The
great ensign and sword of the Dutch admiral he
brought home with him, and instead of presenting
them to Government, retained them in his own
house in George Square j and there, if we rernember
rightly, they were shown by him to Sir James
Hall of Dunglass, and his son, the future Captain
Basil Hall, then an aspirant for the navy, to
whom the admiral said, with honest pride, as he
led him into the room where the Dutch ensign
hung-
“Come, my lad, and 1’11 show you something
worth looking at.”
The great admiral died at Kelso in 1804, but
for inany years after that period Lady Duncan
resided in No. 5.
It was while the Lord Advocate Dundas was
resident in the square that, at the trial of Muir
and the other “political martyrs,’’ he spoke of
the leaders of the United Irishmen as ‘‘ wretches
who had fled from punishment.” On this, Dr.
Drennan, as president, and Archibald Hamilton
Rowan of Killileagh, demanded, in 1793, a recantation
of this and other injurious epithets. No
reply was accorded, and as Mr. Rowan threatened
a hostile visit to Edinburgh, measures for his apprehension
were taken by the Procurator Fiscal.
Accompanied by the Hon. Simon Butler, Mr.
Rowan .arrived at Dumbreck‘s Hotel, St. Andrew
Square, when the former, as second, lost no time
in visiting the Lord Advocate in George Square,
where he was politely received by his lordship,
who said that, “although not bound to give any
explanation of what he might consider proper tu
state in his official capacity, yet he would answer
Mr. Rowan’s note without delay.” But Mr. Butler
had barely returned to Mr. Rowan when they were
both arrested on a sheriff’s warrant, but were liberated
on Colonel Norman Macleod, M.P., becoming
surety for them, and they left Edinburgh, after
being entertained at a public dinner by a select
number of the Friends of the People in Hunter’s
Tavern, Royal Exchange.
In No. 30 dwelt Lord Balgray for about thirty
years, during the whole time he was on the bench,
me of the last specimens of the old race of Scottish
judges ; and there he died in 1837.
In No. 32 lived for many years Francis Grant of
Kilgraston, whose fourth son, also Francis, became
President of the Royal Academy, and was knighted
[or great skill as an artist, and whose fifth son,
General Sir James Hope Grant, G.C.B., served
with such distinction under Lord Saltoun in China,
and subsequently in India, where he led the 9th
Lancers at Sobraon, and who further fought with
such distinction in the Punjaub war, and throughout
the subsequent mutiny, under Lord Clyde, and
whose grave in the adjacent Grange Cemeteryis
now so near the scenes of his boyhood.
In No. 36 lived Admiral Maitland of Dundrennan,
and in No. 53 Lady Don, who is said to have
been the last to use a private sedan chair.
No. 57 was the residence of the Lord Chief
Baron Dundas, and therein, on the 29th of May,
181 I, died, very unexpectedly, his uncle, the celebrated
Lord Melville, who had come to Edinburgh
to attend the funeral of his old friend the Lord
President Blair, who had died a few days before,
and was at that time lying dead in No. 56, the
house adjoining that in which Melville expired.
No. 58 was the house of Dr, Charles Stuart 01
Duneam in the first years of the present century.
His father, James Stuart of Dunearn, was a greatgrandson
of the Earl of Moray, and was Lord
Provost of the city in 1764 and 1768. The
doctor‘s eldest son, James Stuart of Dunearn, W.S.,
a well-known citizen of Edinburgh, died in 1849.
The private sedan, so long a common feature
in the areas or lobbies of George Square, is no
longer to be seen there now. In the Edinburgh of
the eighteenth century there were fir more sedans
than coaches in use. The sedan was better suited
for the narrow wynds and narrower closes of the
city, and better fitted, under all the circmtances,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p163.gif "Volume 4 Page 343")
... - George Square.] LORD DUNCAN.
of the Scots Brigade, I have the honour to present
these colours to you, and I ...
Vol. 4 p. 343 (Rel. 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Water of Leith
name doesnot appear in the Baronage) was Sheriff and
Provost of ...
Vol. 5 p. 62 (Rel. 0.47)
... HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21
of stone with a
Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed
this house, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 22 (Rel. 0.47)
... HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21
of stone with a
Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed
this house, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 21 (Rel. 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
where a curiously-carved fleur-de-lis surmounts the
gable, a grotesque ...
Vol. 2 p. 254 (Rel. 0.47)
... 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. 0.46)
![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. 0.46)
... Spcet.1 PROFESSOR WILSONS MOTHER. I < <
He died of disease of the heart at 52, Queen
Street, on the ...
Vol. 3 p. 155 (Rel. 0.46)
... were captured, among others old McLean,
who made a desperate resistance in the West Port
with a musket and ...
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... 28 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Prinm Street.
fiery oratory; and to succeeding times it will
preserve a vivid ...
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... OLD AED NEW EDINBURGH. [Hanover Street.
in yhich David Hume died the Bible Society oi
Edinburgh was many ...
Vol. 3 p. 162 (Rel. 0.45)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street 5748
an interesting page in popular literature, and been
the theme of more ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
EDINBURGH CASTLE (conclzded). .
The Torture of Neville ...
Vol. 2 p. 386 (Rel. 0.45)
![Inverleith.] MRS. ROCHEID OF INVERLEITH. s 95
to the estate of‘his maternal grandmother, took
the name of Rocheid. His son, James Rocheid
.of Inverleith, was an eminent agriculturist, on
whose property the villas of Inverleith Row were
built.
He died in 1824 in the house of Inverleith.
He was a man of inordinate vanity and family
pride, and it used to be one of the sights of Stockbridge
to see his portly figure, in a grand old family
carriage covered with heraldic blazons, passing
through, to or from the city; and a well-known
anecdote of how his innate pomposity was humbled,
is well known there still.
On one occasion, when riding in the vicinity, he
took his horse along the footpath, and while doing
so, met a plain-looking old gentleman, who firmly
declined to make way for him; on this Rocheid
ordered him imperiously to stand aside. The
pedestrian declined,saying that the otherhad no right
whatever to ride upon the footpath. “DO you
know whom you are speaking to ?” demanded the
horseman in a high tone. “ I do not,” was the
quiet response. “Then know that I am John
Rocheid, Esquire of Inverleith, and a trustee upon
this road !
“ I am George, Duke of Montagu,” replied the
other, upon which the haughty Mr. Rocheid took
to the main road, after making a very awkward
apology to the duke, who was then on a visit to
his daughter the Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith.
He had a predilection for molesting pedestrians,
and was in the custom of driving his carriage along
a strictly private footpath that led from Broughton
Toll towards Leith, to the great exasperation of
those at whose expense it had been constructed.
It is of his mother that Lord Cockburn gives
us such an amusing sketch in the ‘‘ Memorials of
his own Time,”-thus: ICLacly Don and Mrs.
Rocheid of Inverleith, .two dames of high and
aristocratic breed. They had both shone at first
as hooped beauties in the minuets, and then as
ladies of ceremonies at our stately assemblies ; and
each carried her peculiar qualities and air to the
very edge of the grave, Lady Don’s dignity softened
by gentle sweetness, Mrs. Rocheid’s made more
formidable by cold and severe soleinnity. Except
Mrs. Siddons, in some of her displays of magnificent
royalty, nobody could sit down like the Lady
of Inverleith. She would sail like a ship from
Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk,
done up in all the accompaniment of fans, earrings,
and finger-rings, falling-sleeves, scent-bottle,
embroidered bag, hoop and train, all superb, yet all
in purest taste ; managing all this seemingly heavy
rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan
Who are you, fellow ? ”
does its plumage. She would take possession of
the centre of a large sofa, and at the same moment,
without the slightest visible exertion, cover the
whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds
seeming to lay themselves over it, like summer
waves. The descent from her carriage too, where
she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a display
which no one in these days could accomplish or
even fancy. The mulberry-coloured coach, but
apparently not too large for what it carried, though
she alone was in it-the handsome, jolly coachman
and his splendid hammer-cloth loaded with lacethe
two respectful livened footmen, one on each
side of the richly carpeted step, these were lost
sight of amidst the slow majesty with which the
lady came down and touched the earth. She presided
in this imperial style over her son’s excellent
dinners, with great sense and spirit to the very last
day almost of a prolonged life.”
This stateliness was not unmixed with a certain
motherly kindness and racy homeliness, peculiar to
great Scottish dames of the old school.
In InverleithTerrace, oneof thestreetsbuilt on this
property, Professor Edmonstone Aytounwas resident
about 1850 ; and in No. 5 there resided, prior to his
departure to London, in 1864, John Faed, the eminent
artist, a native of Kirkcudbright, who, so early
as his twelfth year, used to paint little miniatures,
and after whose exhibition in Edinburgh, in 1841,
his pictures began to find a ready sale.
In Warriston Crescent, adjoining, there lived for
many years the witty and eccentric W. R. Jamieson,
W.S., author of a luckless tragedy entitled
“Timoleon,” produced by Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham,
at the old Theatre Royal, and two novels, almost
forgotten now, “ The Curse of Gold,’’ and “ Milverton,
or the Surgeon’s Daughter.” He died in obscurity
in London.
Inverleith Row, which extends north-westwards
nearly three-quarters of a mile from Tanfield Hall,
to a place called Golden Acre, is bordered by a
row of handsome villas and other good residences.
In No. 52, here, there lived long, and died on
6th of November, 1879, a very interesting old
officer, General William Crokat, whose name was
associated with the exile and death of Napoleon
in St. Helena. “So long ago as 1807,” said a
London paper, with particular reference to this
event, “ William Crokat was gazetted as ensign in
the 20th Regiment of Foot, and the first thought
which suggests itself is, that from that date we are
divided by a far wider interval than was Sir Walter
Scott from the insurrection of Prince Charlie, when
in 1814, he gave to his first novel the title of
‘Waverley, or ’Tis Sixty Years Since.’ There is](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p106.gif "Volume 5 Page 95")
... MRS. ROCHEID OF INVERLEITH. s 95
to the estate of‘his maternal grandmother, took
the name of ...
Vol. 5 p. 95 (Rel. 0.44)
![The Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the Sciennes.
The convent was erected under a Bull of Pope
Lax., and also by a charter of James V. This
Bull informs us that the convent was created
hough the influence of the families of Seton,
Lord Seton, refusing all offers of mamage, became
a nun at the Sciennes, and dying in her seventyeighth
year, was buried there, according to the
history of her house.
The chapel of St. John the Eaptist became
that of the new convent, which, up to the middle
MR. DUNCAN MCLAREN. (Froma Pkofo~roph &y/. G. Tunny.)
Douglas of Glenbervie, and Lauder of the Bass,
the land being given by the venerable Sir John
Crawford. The first prioress was the widowed
Lady Seton ; “ ane nobill and wyse Ladye,” says
Sir Richard hlaitland, “sche gydit hir sonnis
leving quhill he was cumit to age, and thereafter
she passit and remainit at the place of Senis, on
the Borrow Mure.” There she died in 1558, and
was buried in the choir of Seton church, beside
her husband, whose body had been brought from
Flodden.
Katharine, second daughter of George, fourth
of the skteenth century, received various augmentations-
among others, a tenement in the Cowgate.
The nuns made annual processions to the altar
of St. Katharine in St. Margaret’s Chapel at Liberton;
and it was remarked, says- the editor of
ArcAauZqia Scutica, that the man who demolished
the latter never prospered after.
In 1541 the magistrates took in feu from the
nuns their arable land, lying outside the Greyfriars’
Port, and, curious to say, it is on a portion of this
that the new Convent of St. Katharine was founded,
about 1860. Within the grounds on the north side](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p064.gif "Volume 5 Page 53")
... Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 53 (Rel. 0.44)
![Restalrig.] THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir walls of this
monument of idolatry ” were roofed over in 1837,
as has been stated.
An ancient crypt, or mausoleum, of large diniensions
and octangular in form, stands on the south
side of the church. Internally it is constructed with
a good groined roof, and some venerable yews cast
their shadow over the soil that has accumulated
above it, and in which they have taken root. It is
believed to have been erected by Sir Robert Logan,
knight, of Restalrig, who died in 1439, according
to the obituary of the Preceptory of St. Anthony at
Leith, and it has been used as a last resting-place
for several of his successors. Some antiquaries,
however, have supposed that it was undoubtedly
attached to the college, perhaps as a chapter-house,
or as a chapel of St. Triduana, but constructed on
the model of St. Margaret’s Well. Among others
buried here is “LADY JANEr KER, LADY RESTALRIG,
QUHA DEPARTED THIS LIFE 17th MAY, 1526.”
Wilson, in his ‘‘ Reminiscences,” mentions that
‘‘ Restalrig kirkyard was the favourite cemetery of
the Nonjuring Scottish Episcopalians of the last
century, when the use of the burial service was
proscribed in the city burial-grounds ; ” and a strong
division of dead cavalry have been interred there
from the adjacent barracks. From Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe he quotes a story of a quarrel carried
beyond the grave, which may be read upon a flat
stone near that old crypt.
Of the latter wrote Sharpe, “I believe it belongs
to Lord Bute, and that application was made to him
to allow Miss Hay-whom I well knew-daughter
of Hay of Restalrig, Prince Charles’s forfeited
secretary, to be buried in the vault. This was
refused, and she lies outside the door. May the
earth lie light on her, old lady kind and vener.
able !”
In 1609 the legal rights of the church and parish
of Restalrig, with all their revenues and pertinents,
were formally conferred upon the church of South
Leith.
In 1492, John Fraser, dean of Restalrig, wa?
appointed Lord Clerk Register; and in 154C
another dean, John Sinclair, was made Lord 01
Session, and was afterwards Bishop of Brechin and
Lord President of the Court of Session. He it war
who performed the marriage ceremony for Queen
* Mary and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1592
the deanery was dissolved by Act of Parliament,
and divided between “ the parsonage of Leswadc
and parsonage of Dalkeith, maid by Mr. Georgt
Ramsay, dean of Restalrig.”
After the Logans-of whom elsewhere-tht
Lords Balmerino held the lands of Restalrig till
their forfeiture in I 746, and during the whole period
of their possession, appropriated the vaults of the
forsaken and dilapidated church as the burial-place
of themselves and their immediate relations. From
them it passed to the Earls of Bute, with whose
family it still remains.
In the burying-ground here, amid a host of
ancient tombs, are some of modem date, marking
where lie the father of Lord Brougham ; Louis
Cauvin, who founded the hospital which bears his
name at Duddingston ; the eccentric doctor known
as Lang Sandy Wood,” and his kindred, including
the late Lord Wood ; and Lieutenant-Colonel
William Rickson, of the I 9th Foot, a brave and distinguished
soldier, the comrade and attached friend
of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. His death is thus
recorded in the Scots Magazine for 1770 :-cr At
his house in Broughton, Lieutenant-Colonel William
Rickson, Quartermaster-General and Superintendent
of Roads in North Britain.” His widow died
so lately as 1811, as her tomb at Restalrig bears,
‘‘ in the fortieth year of her widowhood”
Here, too, was interred, in 1720, the Rev. Alexander
Rose, the last titular bishop of Edinburgh.
In tracing out the ancient barons of Restalrig,
among the earliest known is Thomas of Restalrig,
nxa 1210, whose name appears in the Regktruum
de DunferrnZine as Sheriff of Edinburgh.
In the Macfarlane MSS. in the Advocates’
Library, there is a charter of his to the Priory of
Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth, circa 1217, very
interesting from the localities therein referred to,
and the tenor of which runs thus in English :-
“To all seeing or hearing these writings,
Thomas of Lestalrig wishes health. Know ye,
that for the good of my soul, and the souls of all
my predecessors and successors, and the soul of
my wife, I have given and conceded, and by this
my charter have confirmed, to God and the canons
of the church of St. Columba on the Isle, and the
canons of the same serving God, and that may yet
serve Him forever, that whole land which Baldwin
Comyn was wont to hold from me in the town of
Leith, namely, that land which is next and adjoining
on the south to that land which belonged to
Ernauld of Leith, and to twenty-four acres and a
half of arable land in my estate of Lestalrig in that
field which is called Horstanes, on the west part of
the same field, and on the north part of the high
road between Edinburgh and Leith (it., the Easter
Road) in pure and perpetual gift to be held by
them, with all its pertinents and easements, and
with common pasture belocging to such land, and
with free ingress and egress, with carriage, team,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p142.gif "Volume 5 Page 131")
... THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir ...
Vol. 5 p. 131 (Rel. 0.44)
... Castle Hill~l LORD SEMPLE 9s -
spire which surmounts the massive Gothic tower at
the main entrance rises to ...
Vol. 1 p. 91 (Rel. 0.44)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Newhaven.
~~~~~ ~
being inadmissible from the broad belt which supports
the creel, ...
Vol. 6 p. 304 (Rel. 0.44)
![New Town.] ’ . WOOD’S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep hollow, where Bell’s Mills
lie, and by Broughton Loan at the other end of the
northern ridge.
Bearford‘s Parks on the west, and Wood’s Farm
on the east, formed the bulk of this portion of the
site; St. George’s Church is now in the centre of
the former, and Wemyss Place of the latter. The
hamlet and manor house of Moultray’s Hill arc now
occupied by the Register House; and where the
Royal Bank stands was a cottage called “Peace
and Plenty,” from its signboard near Gabriel’s
Road, “ where ambulative citizens regaled themselves
with curds and cream,’’ and Broughton was
deemed so far afield that people went there for
the summer months under the belief that they
were some distance from ‘town, just as people
used to go to Powburn and Tipperlinn fifty years
later.
Henry Mackenzie, author of “The Man of
Feeling,” who died in 1831, remembered shooting
snipes, hares, and partridges upon Wood’s Farm.
The latter was a tract of ground extending frGm
Canon Mills on the north, to Bearford‘s Parks on
the south, and was long in possession of Mr. Wood,
of Warriston, and in the house thereon, his son,
the famous “Lang Sandy Wood,” was born in
1725. It stood on the area between where Queen
Street and Heriot Row are now, and “many still
alive,” says Chambers, writing in 1824, “remember
of the fields bearing as fair and rich a crop of
wheat as they may now be said to bear houses.
Game used to be plentiful upon these groundsin
particular partridges and hares . . . . . Woodcocks
and snipe were to be had in all the damp
and low-lying situations, such as the Well-house
Tower, the Hunter’s Bog, and the borders of
Canon Mills Loch. Wild ducks were frequently
shot in the meadows, where in winter they are
sometimes yet to be found. Bruntsfield Links,
and the ground towards the Braid Hills abounded
in hares.”
In the list of Fellows of the Royal College of
Surgeons, Alexander Wood and his brother Thomas
are recorded, under date 1756 and 1715 respectively,
as the sons of “Thomas Wood, farmer on
the north side of Edinburgh, Stockbridge Road,“
now called Church Lane.
A tradition exists, that about 1730 the magistrates
offered to a residenter in Canon Mills all the
ground between Gabriel’s Road and the Gallowlee,
in perpetual fee, at the annual rent of a crown
bowl of punch; but so worthless was the land then,
producing only whim and heather, that the offer
was rejected. (L‘ Old Houses in Edinburgh.”)
The land referred to is now worth more than
A15,ooo per annum. .
Prior to the commencement of the new town,
the only other edifices. on the site were the Kirkbraehead
House, Drumsheugh House, near the old
Ferry Road, and the Manor House of Coates.
Drumsheugh House, of which nothing now remains
but its ancient rookery in Randolph Crescent,
was removed recently. Therein the famous
Chevaliei Johnstone, Assistant A.D.C. to Prince
Charles; was concealed for a time by Lady Jane
Douglas, after the battle of Culloden, till he escaped
to England, in the disguise of a pedlar.
Alexander Lord Colville of Culross, a distinguished
Admiral of the White, resided there s u b
sequently. He served at Carthagena in 1741, at
Quebec and Louisbourg in the days of Wolfe, and
died at Drumsheugh on the zIst of May, 1770.
His widow, Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of
Alexander Earl of Kellie, resided there for some
years after, together with her brother, the Honourable
Andrew Erskine, an officer of the old 71st,
disbanded in 1763, an eccentric character, who
figures among Kay’s Portraits, and who in
1793 was drowned in the Forth, opposite Caroline
Park. Lady Colville died at Drumsheugh in
the following year, when the house and lands
thereof reverted to her brother-in-law, John Lord
Colville of Culross. And so lately as 1811 the
mansion was occupied by James Erskine, Esq.,.
of Cambus.
Southward of Drumsheugh lay Bearford’s Parks,.
mentioned as “ Terras de Barfurd ” in an Act in.
favour of Lord Newbattle in 1587, named from
Hepburn of Bearford in Haddingtonshire.
In 1767 the Earl of Morton proposed to have a
wooden bridge thrown across the North Loch
from these parks to the foot of Warriston’s Close, but
the magistrates objected, on the plea that the property
at the dose foot was worth A20,ooo. The
proposed bridge was to be on a line with “the
highest level ground of Robertson’s and Wood’s
Farms.” In the Edinburgh Adnediser for 1783
the magistrates announced that Hallow Fair was
to be “held in the Middle Bearford’s Park.”
Lord Fountainhall, under dates 1693 and 1695,
records a dispute between Robert Hepburn of
Bearford and the administrators of Heriot’s hospital,
concerning “the mortified annual rents
acclaimed out of his tenement in Edinburgh, called
the Black Turnpike,” and again in 1710, of an
action he raised against the Duchess of Buccleuch,
in which Sir Robert Hepburn of Bearford,
in I 633, is referred to, all probably of the same family.
The lands and houses of Easter and Wester](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p127.gif "Volume 3 Page 115")
... Town.] ’ . WOOD’S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep hollow, ...
Vol. 3 p. 115 (Rel. 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Charlotte Square.
Bank, near Edinburgh; Arnsheen, in Ayrshire ;
Redcastle, ...
Vol. 3 p. 174 (Rel. 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craiglockhart
Cluny (who died recently in London), Lady
Gordon-Cathcart of Killochan ...
Vol. 5 p. 42 (Rel. 0.43)
![High Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson’s and Cant’s Closes-The House of the “ Scottish Hogarth ” and the Knight of Tillybole-Rosehaugh’s, or Strichen’s, Close-House 01
the Abbots of Melrose-Sir Georye Yaclteuzie of Rosehaugh-Lady h n e Dick-Lord Strichen-The hlanncls of 1730-Pmvost Grieve-
John Dhu, Corporal of the City Guard-Lady Lovat’s Land-Walter Chnpman, Printer-Lady Lovat.
DICKSON’S CLOSE, numbered as 118, below the
modern Niddry Street, gave access to a handsome
and substantial edifice, supposed to be the work of
that excellent artificer Robert Mylne, who built the
modern portion of Holyrood and s3 rnacy houses
of an improved character in the city about the time
of the Revolution. Its earlier occupants are unknown,
but herein dwelt David Allan, known as
the “ Scottish Hogarth,” a historical painter of
undoubted genius, who, on the death of hlexander
Runciman, in 1786, was appointed director and
master of the academy established by the board of
trustees for manufacturers in Scotland.
While resident in Dickson’s Close he published,
in 1788, an edition of the “Gentle Shepherd,” with
characteristic etchings, and, some time after, a collection
of the most humorous old Scottish songs with
similar drawings ; these, with his illustrations of
“ The Cottar’s Saturday Night ” and the satire,
humour, and spirit of his other etchings in aquatinta,
won him a high reputation as a successful
delineator of character and nature. His drawing
classes met in the old college, but he received
private pupils at his house in Dickson’s Close after
his marriage, on the 15th November, 1788. His
terms were, as advertised in the Nucz~ry, one
guinea per month for three lessons in the week,
which in those simple days would restrict his pupils
to the wealthy and fashionable class of sqciety.
He died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August, 1796.
Lower down the close, on the same side, a
quaint old tenement, doomed to destruction by the
Improvements Act, 1867, showed on the coved bedcorbel
of its crowstepped gable the arms of Haliburton,
impaled with another coat armorial, with
the peculiar feature of a double window corbelled
out ; and in a deed extant, dated 1582, its first proprietor
is named Master James Haliburton. Afterwards
it was the residence of Sir John Haliday, of
Tillybole, and formed a part of Cant’s Close.
Its appearance in 1868 has been preserved to us
by R. Chambers, in a brief description in his
‘‘ Traditions . ” According to this authority: it was
two storeys in height, the second storey being
reached by an outside stair, within a small courtyard,
which had originally been shut by a gate.
The stone pillars of the gateway were decorated
with balls at the top, after the fashion of entrances
to the grounds of a country mansion. It was a
picturesque building in the style of the sixteenth
century in Scotland. As it resembled a neat oldfashioned
country house, it was odd to find it
jammed up amid the tall edifices of this confined
alley. Ascending the stair, the interior consisted
of three or four apartments, with elaborately-carved
stucco ceilings. The principal room had a double
window on the west to Dickson’s Close.
In 1735 this mansion was the abode of Robert
Geddes, Gird of Scotstoun in Peeblesshire, who sold
it to George Wight, a burgess of Edinburgh, after
which it became deteriorated, and its stuccoed
apartments, froin the attics to the ground floor,
became each the dwelling of a separate family, and
a scene of squalor and wretchedness.
A considerable portion of the edifices in Cant’s
Close mere once ecclesiastical, and belonged to
the prebendaries of the collegiate church, founded
at Ciichton in 1449, by Sir William Crichton of
that ilk, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
In Kosehaugh’s Close, now called Strichen’s, the
next alley on the east, was the town-house of the
princely mitred abbots of Melrose. In Catholic
times the great dignitaries of the church had all
their houses in Edinburgh ; the Archbishop of St.
dndrews resided at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd ;
the Bishop of Dunkeld in the Cowgate ; the Abbot
of Dunfermline at the Netherbow ; the Abbot of
Cambuskenneth in the Lawnmarket ; and the Abbot
of Melrose in the close we have named, and his
“ludging” had a garden which extend’ed down to
the Cowgate, and up the opposite slope on the
west side of the Pleasance, within the city wall.
The house of the abbot, a large and massive
building enclosing a small square or court in the
centre of it, was entered from Strichen’s Close.
‘‘ The whole building has evidently undergone
great alterations,’’ says the description of it written
in 1847; “a carved stone bears a large and very
boldlycut shield, with two coats of arms impaled,
and the date 1600. There seems no reason to
doubt, however, that the main portion of the
abbot’s residence still remains. The lower storey is
strongly vaulted, and is evidently the work of an
early date. The smalrquadrangle also is quite in
character with the period assumed for the building;
and at its north-west angle is Cant’s Close,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p073.gif "Volume 2 Page 253")
... Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson’s and ...
Vol. 2 p. 253 (Rel. 0.43)
... a man named Clark, in the Fleshmarket Close.
He had the tact and art to keep his secret profligacy
unknown, ...
Vol. 1 p. 113 (Rel. 0.42)
![North Loch.] <‘GANGING TO THE DEIL HIS AIN GATE” 81
For the sake ot ornament the magistrates kept
Swans and wild ducks on the loch, and various
entries for their preservation occur in their accounts;
and one passed in Council between 1589-
94 ordained a boll of oats to be procured for
feeding them A man was outlawed for shooting
a swan in the said loch, and obliged to find another
rash act. Hearing the tumult, the father of the
late Lord Henderland threw up his window in
James’s Court, and leaning out, cried down the
brae to the people : ‘What’s all the noise about?
Can’t ye e’en let the man gang to the dei1 his ain
gate ?’ Whereupon the honest man quietly walked
out of the loch, to the no small amusement of the
THE HOLYROOD FOUNTAIN.
in its place. ‘I The loch,” says Chambers, “ seems
to have been a favourite place for boating. Various
houses in the neighbourhood had servitudes of the
use of a boat upon it, and these, in later times,
used to be employed to no little purpose in
smuggling whisky into the town. . . . . It
was also the frequent scene of suicide, and on this
point one or two droll anecdotes are related. A
man was proceeding deliberately to drown himself,
when a crowd of the townspeople rushed down to
the water-side, venting cries of horror and alarm at
the spectacle, yet without actually venturing into
the water to prevent him from accomplishing the
59
lately appalled neighbours.” There a lady was.
saved from suicide by her hoop-petticoat.
The loch must have abounded in some kind of
fish, as the Council Register refers to an eel-ark
set therein, at ten merks yearly, for the benefit of
the Trinity Hospital; and in February, 1655,
Nicoll records that in consequence of the excessively
stormy weather, some thousands of dead
eels were cast upon its banks, “ to the admiration
of many.”
On the 11th February, 1682, three men were
drowned in the loch by the ice giving way. We
have a proverb,” says Lord Fountainhall, under](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p093.gif "Volume 3 Page 81")
... Loch.] <‘GANGING TO THE DEIL HIS AIN GATE” 81
For the sake ot ornament the magistrates kept
Swans and ...
Vol. 3 p. 81 (Rel. 0.42)
![The West Bow.]
A BITTER personal quarrel had existed for some
years between James Johnstone of Westerhall and
Hugh (from his bulk generally known as Braid
Hugh) Somerville of the Writes, and they had
often fought with their swords and parted on equal
temis. Somerville, in the year 1596, chancing to
be in Edinburgh on private business, was one day
loitering about the head of the Bow, when, by
chance, Westerhall was seen ascending the steep
and winding street, and at that moment some
officious person said, “ There is Braid Hugh
Somerville of the Writes.”
THE OLD ASSEMBLIES. 3’5
Westerhall, conceiving that his enemy was lingering
there either in defiance, or to await him, drew
his sword, and crying, “Turn, villain!” gave
Somerville a gash behind the head, the most severe.
wound he had ever inflicted, and which, according
to the “ Memoirs of the Somervilles,” was “ much
regrated eftirwards by himselt”
Writes, streaming with blood, instantly drew his
sword, and ere Westerhall could repeat the stroke,
put him sharply on his defence, and being the
taller and stronger man of the two, together with
the advantage given by the slope, he pressed him
could retire for refreshments, or to rosin their bows.
Here then did the fair dames of Queen Anne’s
time, in their formal stomachers, long gloves, ruffles
and lappets, meet in the merry country dance, or
the stately minuef de la (our, the beaux of the time,
with their squarecut velvet coats and long-flapped
waistcoats, with sword, ruffles, and toupee in tresses,
when the news was all about the battle of Almanza,
the storming of Barcelona, or the sinking of the
Spanish galleons by Benbow in the West Indies,
or it might be-in whispers-of the unfurling of the
standard on the Braes of Mar.
The regular assembly, according to Arnot, was
. first held in the year 17 10, and it continued entirely
hnder private management till 1746, but though
the Scots as a nation are passionately fond of
dancing, the strait-laced part of the community
bitterly inveighed against this infant institution.
In the Library of the Faculty of Advocates there
is a curious little pamphlet, entitled, a “Letter
from a Gentleman iti the Country to his Friend in
the City, with an Answer thereto concerning the
New Assembly,” which affords a remarkable glimpse
of the bigotry of the time :-
“I am informed that there is lately a society
erected in your town, which I think is called an
Assembly. The speculations concerning this meeting
have of late exhausted the most part of the
public conversation in this countryside :. some are
pleased to say that ’tis only designed to cultivate
polite conversation, and genteel behaviouramong the
better sort of folks, and to give young people an
opportunity of accomplishing themselves in both ;
while others are of opinion that it will have quite a
different effect, and tends to vitiate and deprave the:
minds and inclinations of the younger sort.”
The author, who might have been Davie Deans
himself, and who writes in 1723, adds that he had
been much stirred on this matter by the approaching
solemnity of the Lord’s Supper, and that he had
been “informed that the design of this (weekly)
meeting was to afford some ladies an opportunity
to alter the station that they had long fretfully continued
in, and to set off others as they should
prove ripe for the market.”
The old Presbyterian abhorrence of ‘‘ promiscuous
dancing” was only held in check by the
less strait-laced spirit of the Jacobite gentry; but
so great was the opposition to the Edinburgh
Assembly, as Jackson tells us in his “History of
the Stage,” that a furious rabble once attacked
the rooms, and perforated the closed doors with
red-hot spits.
Arnot says that the lady-directress sat at the
head of the room, wearing the badge of heroffice,
a gold medal with a motto and device,
emblematic of charity and parental tenderness.
After several years of cessation, under the effect.
of local mal-influence, when the Assembly was
re-constituted in 1746, among the regulations hung
up in the hall, were tko worth quoting :-
“No lady to be admitted in a nz$f-gowr
(negl&i?), and no gentleman in boots.”
‘‘ No misses in skirts and jackets, robe-coats, nor.
staybodied-gowns, to be allowed to dance in country
dances, but in a set by themselves.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p135.gif "Volume 2 Page 315")
... West Bow.]
A BITTER personal quarrel had existed for some
years between James Johnstone of Westerhall ...
Vol. 2 p. 315 (Rel. 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [canomgate.
IN the map of the city engraved in 1787 for the
quarto edition of “ Arnot’s ...
Vol. 3 p. 38 (Rel. 0.41)
... KIRK-OF-FIELD. (Alto an Etching by /awes Skenc cf Rubirlaw).
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER I.
THE KIRK OF ...
Vol. 5 p. 1 (Rel. 0.4)
... according to P. Williamson’s Directory for
1784.
Amid the tumultuom excitement of the Highlanders
entering ...
Vol. 2 p. 328 (Rel. 0.4)
![Newhaven.] “OUR LADY’S PORT OF GRACE.” 295
1815 it was changed to a revolving light, as at
present. Its elevation is 235 feet above the waterline.
On the 1st October, 1835, thereflecting light was
discontinued, and a dioptric light was put in its
place, It consists of seven annular lenses, which
circulate round a great lamp having three concentric
wicks and produce brilliant flashes once in
every minute, and of five rows of curved mirrors,
which, being fixed, serve to prolong the duration
of the flashes from the lenses. The appearance of
the new light does not, therefore, differ materially
from that of the old one-save that the flashes
which recur at the same periods, are considerably
more brilliant, and of shorter duration. In clear
weather the light is not totally eclipsed between
the flashes at a distance of four or five miles, and
it is visible at the distance of eighteen nautical
miles. . The expense of this lighthouse in 1839 was
The old light of 1803~ with all its apparatus, was
purchased by the Government of Newfoundland,
and is still in use on Cape Spear, near the Narrows
of St. John.
A467 14s. sd.
C H A P T E R XXV.
NEWHAVEN.
Cobbett on Edinburgh-Jam- IV.5 Dockyard -Hi Gift or Newhaven to Edinburgh-The Gnat Mick&Embarkation of Mary of G b
Works at Newhaven in the Sixteenth Century-The L i V k u n t Newhaven-The Feud with Preston-The Sea Fencibles-
Chain Pier-Dr. Fairbairn-The Fishwives-Superstitions.
IT may not be uninteresting to quote, the ideas
entertained of Edinburgh by an English visitor in
the first years of the nineteenth century, as he was
-in his time-considered a typical John Bull,
I now come back to this delightful and beautiful
city,” wrote William Cobbett in his RegWr.
I thought Bristol, taking in its heights and Clifton
with its rocks and river, was the finest city in the
world; but it is nothing to Edinburgh, with its
castle, its hills, its pretty little seaport detached
from it, its vale of rich land lying all around, its
lofty hills in the background, its views across the
Firth. I think little of its streets and its rows of
fine houses, though all built of stone, and though
everything in London and Bath is begary to these ;
I thing nothing of Holyrood House ; but I think a
great deal of the fine and well-ordered streets of
shops ; of the regularity which you perceive everywhere
in the management of business ; and I think
still more of the absence of that foppishness and
that affectation of carelessness and insolent assumption
of superiority in almost all the young men you
meet in the fashionable parts of the great towns in
England. I was not disappointed, for I expected
to find Edinburgh the finest city in the kingdom. . . . The people, however, still exceed the
place; here all is civility; you do not meet with
rudeness, or with the want of disposition to oblige,
even in the persons of the lowest state of life. A
fiend took me round the environs of the city ; he
had a turnpike ticket, received at the first gate,
which cleared five or six gates. It was sufficient
for him to tell the gate-keepers that he had it.
When I saw that, I said to myself, ‘Nota bene:
gate keepers take people’s wordin Scotland,’ a thing
I have not seen before since I left Long Island.”
Now its seaport is no longer (‘ detached,” but has
become an integral part of Edinburgh, and all the
vale of rich land” between it and the Forth to
Granton, Trinity, and Newhaven, is covered by a
network of fine roads and avenues, bordered by
handsome villas.
Newhaven now conjoined to Leith, and long
deemed only a considerable fishing village, lies two
miles north of Princes Street, and yet consists
chiefly of the ancient village \;hich is situated,
quoad civilia, in the parish of North Leith, and
whose inhabitants are still noted as a distinct community,
rarely intermarrying with any other class.
The male inhabitants are almost entirely fishermen,
and the women are employed in selling the produce
of their husbands’ industry in the streets of the city
and suburbs. Intermarriage seems to produce
among them a peculiar cast of countenance and
physical constitution. The women, inured to outdoor
daily labour in all weathers, are robust, active,
and remarkable for their florid complexions, healthy
figures, and regular features, as for the singularity of
their costume.
In the fifteenth century this village was designated
“ Our Lady’s Port of Grace,” from a chapel dedicated
to the Virgin Mary and St. James, some
portions of which still exist in the ancient or
unused burial-ground of the centre of the village.
The nearly entire west gable, with a square window
in it, can still be seen in the Vennel, a narrow](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p114.gif "Volume 6 Page 295")
... “OUR LADY’S PORT OF GRACE.” 295
1815 it was changed to a revolving light, as at
present. Its elevation ...
Vol. 6 p. 295 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD. AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
high altar in the Kirk-of-Field, of which they
were patrons, and concerning ...
Vol. 4 p. 254 (Rel. 0.39)
![High Sir=er.] ABUUCTlON OF LADY GRANGE. 2.19
in, and to see him and my children when going
out ; and I made his relations and my own speak
to him, and was always in hopes that God would
show him his sin of putting away his wife contrary
to the laws of God and man; and this was nc
secret, for the President of the Session, and sonit
of the Lords, the Solicitor-General, and some oi
the advocates and ministers of Edinburgh, know
all this to be truth, When I lost all hopes, then I
resolved to go to London.”
Lord Grange’s account is somewhat different.
She tormented him and the children by reproachful
cries from her windows; and he states, that “in his
house, at the bottom Qf Niddry’s Wynd, where
there 5 a court, through which one enters the
house, one time among others, when it was full of
chairs, chairmen, and footmen, who attended the
company that were with himself, or his sister Lady
Jane Paterson (wife of Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn),
then keeping house together, she came
into this court, and among that mob shamelessly
cried up to the windows injurious reproaches, and
would not go away, though h e a t e d , till hearing
the late Lord Lovat’s voice” she would seem
then to have retired. He also asserts that one
day she assailed him in church ; on another, she
compelled him to take refuge in a tavern, and
threatened even to assault him on the Bench.
Tradition asserts that Lord Grange was dissipated,
restless, intriguing, and was concerned in
some Jacobite plots subsequently to the battle of
Sheriffmuir ; that in revenge his wife threatened to
inform the Government; and there is proof, from
one of his own letters, that she had actually taken
her seat in one of the occasional stages which then
ran between Edinburgh and London, and he bribed
her to give her seat to another traveller, after which
he would seem to have resolved upon “sequestrating
her,” as he phrased it ; and in a long Ietter written
by herself, and dated January 26th, 1741, she gives
an ample detail of how this was effected.
The plot was concerted between Lord Grange
and some west Highland chiefs, among whom was
the unscrupulous old Lord Lovat. A party of
Highlanders, wearing the livery of the latter, made
their way into her lodgings in Niddry’s Wynd on
the evening of the zznd January, 1730, seized her
with violence, knocking out some of her teeth, and,
tying a cloth over her head, bore her forth, as if she
had been a corpse.
“I heard voices about me,” .she relates ; “ but
being blindfolded I could not discover who they
were. They had a [sedan] chair at the stair-foot,
which they put me in ; and there was a man in the
chair who took me on his knee, and I made all the
32
struggle I could; but he held me fast in his arms,
and hindered me to put my hands to my mouth,
which I attempted to do, being tied down. The
chair carried me off very fast, and took me without
the ports; and when they had opened the chair
and taken the cloth OK my head to let me get air,
I perceived, it being clear moonlight, that I was a
little way from the Multer’s Hill,* and the man on
whose knee I sat was Alexander Foster, of Carsebonny,
who had there six or seven horses and men
with him, who said all these were his servants,
though I knew some of them to be my Lord
Lovat’s servants, who rode along. One of them
was called Alexander Frazer, and the other James
Frazer, and his groom, whose name I know not.”
From that night Niddry’s Wynd knew her no
more. She had two sons grown to manhood at
the time she was so mysteriously spirited away;
her daughter was married to John Earl of Kintore;
yet none of her relations ever made the slightest
stir in the matter, though the Aberdeenshire seat
of the Earl was once suggested as a place of residence
for her.
Leaving the vicinity of Edinburgh by the Lang
Gate, a ride of twenty miles brought her, with her
captors, to Muiravonside, where she was secured,
under guard, in the house of John hfacleod, advocate;
but a man being posted near her bed, she
could neither enter it nor take repose. Next night
she was secured farther 0% in an old solitary tower,
at Wester Polmaise, where for fourteen weeks she
was kept in a room, the windows of which were
boarded over, access to the garden even being
denied her.
On the 12th of August a Highlander named
Alexander Grant suddenly appeared, and announced
that she must prepare for the road again ;
and by her captors, who gave out that she was
insane, she was conveyed by rough and secluded
ways, where she could neither ride nor walk, but
had to be borne in their arms, sleeping at night in
bothy, till she found herself on the shore of Loch
Hourn, an arm of the sea, in the land of Glengarry.
Then “bitterly did she weep and implore compassion,
but the Highlanders understood not her
language, and though they had done so, a departure
kom the orders which had been given them was
lot to be expected from men of their character,”
tnd she was hurried on board of a ship.
There she learned that she was now in the cus-
:ody of Alexander Macdonald, tacksman of Heiskar,
t small island three leagues westward of North
Uist, belonging to Sir Alexander Macdonald of
__I.-
* Where now the Register House stands,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p069.gif "Volume 2 Page 249")
... Sir=er.] ABUUCTlON OF LADY GRANGE. 2.19
in, and to see him and my children when going
out ; and I made his ...
Vol. 2 p. 249 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Przstonfield.
Cunninghams, baronets of 1677, according to Burke.
Prior to coming into ...
Vol. 5 p. 56 (Rel. 0.39)
![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. 0.39)
... Uasc.1 LOCKHART ASSASSINATED.
we must suppose he was separated, swore to have
vengeance. He was perhaps ...
Vol. 1 p. 117 (Rel. 0.39)
![33 Canongate.] THE EARL OF SEAFIELD-AND THE UNION.
matures were affixed to the Act of Union, while the
cries of the exasperated mob rang in the streets
without the barred gates.
When James VII. so rashly urged those measures
in 1686 which were believed to be a prelude to
the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy,
under the guise of toleration, a new Scottish
ministry was formed, but chiefly consisting of
members of the king’s own faith. Among these
w i s the proprietor of this old house, Alexander
Earl of Moray, a recent convert from Protestantism,
then Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament,
and as such the representative of royalty in festive
hall as well as the Senate j and his mansion, being
Lord Lorne’s marriage-that Lorne better known
.as the luckless Earl of Argyle-with Lady Mary
Stuart, of the House of Moray.
In the highest terrace of the old garden an
ancient thorn-tree was pointed out as having been
planted by Queen Mary-a popular delusion, born
of the story that the house had belonged to her
hother, the subtle Regent ; but there.long remained
ahe old stone summer-house, surmounted by two
foul and degrading bribery connected with that
event took place within its walls, may safely be
inferred from the fact that it was the residence of
the Earl of Seafield,.then Lord High Chancellor, and
one of the commissioners for the negotiation of the
treaty, by which he pocketed j64g0, paid by the
Earl of Godolphin: and he it was who, on giving
the royal assent by touching the Act of Union with
I the sceptre, said, with a brutal laugh, ‘‘ There’s an
’ end of an auld sang.”
From those days Moray House ceased, like
many others, to be the scene of state pageantries.
For a time it became the ofice of the British Linen
Company’s Bank. Then the entail was broken
in the very centre of what was then the most aristocratic
quarter of the city, was admirably suited
for his courtly receptions, all the more so that
about that period the spacious gardens on the
south were, like those of Heriot’s Hospital, a kind
of public promenade or lounging place, as would
appear chiefly from a play called “ The Assembly,”
written by the witty Dr. Pitcairn in 1692.
The union of the kingdoms is the next historical](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p045.gif "Volume 3 Page 33")
... Canongate.] THE EARL OF SEAFIELD-AND THE UNION.
matures were affixed to the Act of Union, while the
cries of ...
Vol. 3 p. 33 (Rel. 0.39)
... in March, 1566, a gift of all the patronages
and endowments in the city, which had belonged
to the ...
Vol. 4 p. 288 (Rel. 0.38)
![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. 0.38)
... THE SCOTTISH TEMPLARS. 51
ances of the order from the Master of England,
who received them from the ...
Vol. 3 p. 51 (Rel. 0.38)
... KATHERINE OSWALD, WITCH. 339
The same Sir John seems to have possessed
property in East Lothian.
In ...
Vol. 6 p. 339 (Rel. 0.37)
... reign of James 111. there were two or three
vessels called “royal,” and among them often
appears the ...
Vol. 6 p. 200 (Rel. 0.37)
![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. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wright’s H0u.w~
good behaviour of William Douglas of Hyvelie
(Reg : Privy Council ...
Vol. 5 p. 34 (Rel. 0.37)
... ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. I09
them in the middle of the West Bow, and offered
to write the bond which they ...
Vol. 5 p. 109 (Rel. 0.37)
![270 OLD AND *NEW EDINBURGH. [Brown Square.
Till about 1780 the inhabitants of these districts
formed a distinct class of themselves, and had their
own places of amusement, independent of all the
rest of the city. Nor was it until the New Town
was rather far advanced that the sowfh side lost its
attractions; and we are told that, singular as it
may appear, there was one instance, if not more, of
a gentleman living and dying in this southern district
without having once visited, or even seen, the
New Town, although at the time of his death it
had extended westward to Castle Street. (Scott’s ‘‘ Provincial Antiquities.”)
In the notes to “ Redgauntlet,” the same author
tells us, that in its time Brown Square was hailed
“as an extremely elegant improvement ” on Edmburgh
residences, even witli its meagre plot of
grass and shabby iron railings. It is here he
places the house of Saunders Fairford, where Man
is described as first beholding the mysterious Lady
GreenmanfZe, and as being so bewildered with her
appearance, that he stood as if he had been
senseless. “ The door was opened, out she went,
walked along the pavement, turned down the
close (at the north-east end of the square leading
into the Cowgate), and put the sun, I believe,
into her pocket when she disappeared, so suddenly
did dulness and darkness sink down on the
square when she was no longer visible.”
To show how much this new locality was thought
of, we will here quote a letter in the Edinburgh
Adverfiser of 6th March, 1764 (Vol. I.) :-
“Su,-\Vith pleasure I have observed of late
the improvements we are making in this metropolis,
and there is nothing which pleases me yore than
the taste for elegant buildings, than which nothing
can be a greater ornament to a city, or give a
stranger a greater impression of the improvement
of the inhabitants in polite and liberal arts.
“ That very elegant square, called Brown Square,
which, in my opinion, is a very great beauty to the
town, is now almost finished, and last day the
green pasture was railed in. Now, I think, to
complete the whole, an elegant statue in the
middle would be well worth the expense; and I
dare say the gentlemen who possess houses there
would not grudge a small sum to have that part
adorned with an equestrian statue of his present
Majesty George the Thud, and which I should think,
would be contributed to by public subscriptions,
set a-foot for that purpose. Whie we are thus
making such improvements, I am surprised nobody
has ever mentioned an improvement on our
College [the old one was then extant] which, as it
now is, gives strangers but an unfavourable idea of
our University, which, however, is at present so
flourishing. . . . , To have a handsome building
for that purpose is surely the desire of every good
citizen. This could be easily accomplished by
various means. Suppose a lottery should be proposed,
every student I dare say would take a
ticket, and I would venture to ensure the success
of it.”
But George 111. was fated not to have a statue
either in Brown Square or Great King Street, according
to a suggestion some sixty years afterwards
; yet as a proof that the square was deemed
alike fashionable and elegant, we may enumerate
some of those who resided there. . Among them
were the Dowager Lady Elphinstone (daughter of
John sixth Earl of Wigton) who had a house here
in 1784; Henry Pundas (afterwards Viscount
Melville), when a member of the Faculty of Advocates;
Sir Islay Campbell, Bart., of Succoth, in the
days when it was the custom of the senators to
walk to court in the morning, with nicely powdered
wigs, and a small cocked hat in the hand-a practice
retained nearly to the last by Lord Glenlee:
he was afterwards Lord President. He bought
Lord Melville’s house in Brown Square, and after
a time removed to York Place.
His successor in the same residence, No. 15,-
was John Anstruther of that ilk, Advocate, with
whom resided the family of Charles Earl of
Traquair, whose mother was a daughter of Sir
Philip Anstruther of Anstrutherfield. Other residents
were Lord Henderland and the future Lord
President Blair of Avontoun, both when at the bar,
and William Craig, afterwards a Lord of Justiciary
in 1792; Sir John Forbes-Drummond, when a
captain of the Royal Navy, and before he became
Baronet of Hawthornden ; Henry Mackenzie, the
ubiquitous “ Man of Feeling ; ” Lord Woodhouselee,
and the Lord President Miller, whose residence
was the large house (No. 17) with the painted front,
on the north side, the interior of which, with its
frescoes and panelings, is now one of the finest
specimens remaining of a fashionable Edinburgh
mansion of the eighteenth century; and therein
lived and died his son Lord Glenlee, who (uZtimus
Scoforum 2) resisted the attraction of three successive
New Towns, to which all his brethren had
long before fled.
He retained, until within a few years of his death,
the practice referred to, of walking daily to Court,
hat in hand, with a powdered wig, through Brown
Square, down Crombie’s Close, across the Cowgate,
xnd up the Back Stairs to the Parliament Houser
ittended by his valet, and always scrupulously
kessed in black. In 1838, when nearly eighty
years of age, this grand lord of the old school,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p090.gif "Volume 4 Page 270")
... OLD AND *NEW EDINBURGH. [Brown Square.
Till about 1780 the inhabitants of these districts
formed a distinct ...
Vol. 4 p. 270 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
helmet, now preserved in the Antiquarian Museum
-and the entrance gate or ...
Vol. 6 p. 258 (Rel. 0.37)
... THE CHIESLIES.
by invading him in his own house at Dalry, where
they beat and wounded him and his servants, ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
~ ~~ ~~ ~
period, and in 1736- one of unusual brilliance
was given in ...
Vol. 3 p. 76 (Rel. 0.37)
... WARRISTON CEMETERY. I01
with an extraordinary memory, He went into very
high notiom of lengthened ...
Vol. 5 p. 101 (Rel. 0.37)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. me Old High Schaol‘
display the dresses so used should be given to the
poor.”
For ...
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![THE TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton also granted to St. Cuth
bert’s Church the tithes and oblations of Legbor
nard, a church which cannot now be traced.
The name is supposed to be a corruption o
Lepertoun, as there stood here a hospital fo
lepers, of which all vestiges have disappeared ; bu
the lands thereof in some old writs (according tc
the “New Statistical Account”) were called “Spital
town.”
At Nether Liberton, three-quarters of a mile nortl
of the church, was a mill, worked of course by thc
Braid Burn, which David I, bestowed upon tht
monks of Holyrood, as a tithe thereof, ‘‘wit1
thirty cartloads from the bush of Liberton,” gift!
confirmed by William the Lion under the Grea
Seal circa I I 7 1-7.
The Black Friars at Edinburgh received fivc
pounds sterling annually from this mill at Nethei
Liberton, by a charter from King Robert I.
Prior to the date of King David’s charter, thc
church of Liberton belonged to St. Cuthbert’s
The patronage of it, with an acre of land adjoining
it, was bestowed by Sir John Maxwell of that iik
in 1367, on the monastery of Kilwinning,pro sahh
aniiiim SUE et Agnetis sponsiz SUE.
This gift was confirmed by King David 11.
By David 11. the lands of Over Liberton,
‘( quhilk Allan Baroune resigned,” were gifted tc
John Wigham ; and by the same monarch the land:
of Nether Liberton were gifted to William Ramsay,
of Dalhousie, knight, and Agnes, his spouse, 24th
October, 1369. At a later period he granted a
charter “to David Libbertoun, of the office of
sergandrie of the overward of the Constabularie of
Edinburgh, with the lands of Over Libbertoun
pertaining thereto.” (“ Robertson’s Index.”)
Adam Forrester (ancestor of the Corstorphine
family) was Laird of Nether Liberton in 1387, for
estates changed proprietors quickly in those troublesome
times, and we have already reterred to him
as one of those who, with the Provost Andrew
Yichtson, made arrangements for certain extensive
additions to the church of St. Giles in that year.
William of Liberton was provost of the city in
1429, and ten years subsequently with William
Douglas of Hawthornden, Meclielson of Herdmanston
(now Harviston), and others, he witnessed
the charter of Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, to Sir
Yatrick Logan, Lord. of Restalrig, of the office of
bailie of St. Leonard’s. (“ Burgh Charters,” No.
At Liberton there was standing till about 1840
a tall peel-house or tower, which was believed to
XXVI.)
have been the residence of Macbeth and other
barons of Liberton, and which must not be confounded
with the solitary square tower that stands
to the westward of the road that leads into the
heart of the Braid Hills, and is traditionally said to
have been the abode of a troublesome robber
laud, who waylaid provisions coming to the city
markets.
The former had an old dial-stone, inscribed
‘‘ God’s Providence is our Inheritance.”
Near the present Liberton Tower the remains
of a Celtic cross were found embedded in a wall in
1863, by the late James Drummond, R.S.A. It
was covered with knot-work.
The old church-or chapel it was more probably
-at Kirk-Liberton, is supposed to have been dedicated
to the Virgin Mary-there having been a
holy spring near it, called our Lady’s Well-and
it had attached to it a glebe of two oxgates of
land.
In the vicinity was a place called Kilmartin,
which seemed to indicate the site of some ancient
and now forgotten chapel.
In.1240 the chapelry of Liberton was disjoined by
David Benham, Bishop of St. Andrews and Great
Chamberlain to the King, from the parish of St.
Cuthbert’s, and constituted a rectory belonging to
the Abbey of Holyrood, and from then till the
Reformation it was served by a vicar.
For a brief period subsequent to 1633, it was a
prebend of the short-lived and most inglorious
bishopric of Edinburgh ; and at the final abolition
thereof it reverted to the disposal of the Crown.
The parochial registers date from 1639.
When the old church was demolished prior to
:he erection of the new, in 1815, there was found
very mysteriously embedded in its basement an
ron medal of the thirteenth century, inscribed in
xncient Russian characters “ THE GRAND PRINCE
3 ~ . ALEXANDER YAROSLAVITCH NEVSKOI.”
The old church is said to have been a picuresque
edifice not unlike that now at Corstor-
Ihine ; the new one is a tolerably handsome semi-
Gothic structure, designed by Gillespie Graham,
,eated for 1,430 persons, and having a square
ower with four ornamental pinnacles, forming a
)leasing and prominent object in the landscape
outhward of the city.
Subordinate to the church there were in Catholic
imes three chapels-one built by James V. at
3rigend’ already referred to ; a second at Niddrie,
ounded by Robert Wauchope of Niddrie, in 1389,
.nd dedicated to “ Our .Lady,” but which is now
inly commemorated by its burying-ground-which
ontinues to be in use-and a few faint traces of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p146.gif "Volume 6 Page 327")
... TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton ...
Vol. 6 p. 327 (Rel. 0.36)
... THE FORRESTERS. I21
took the name of Ruthven, and occupied the castle,
the family honours and ...
Vol. 5 p. 121 (Rel. 0.36)
... HALL. 319 Riccar&&l
He was at once-for some reasons known at the
time-accused of having ...
Vol. 6 p. 319 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
Close was seized, and a battery erected on the
summit thereof to assail ...
Vol. 2 p. 278 (Rel. 0.36)
![Bell’s Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the Canongate, in January)
1794, while that street and much of the neighbour.
hood around it were still the centre of the literaq
and fashionable society of the then secluded
capital of Scotland.
Thus she was old enough to have seen and
known many who were “ QUt with the Prince ” b
1745, and reminiscences of these people and 01
their days were ever a favourite theme with hei
when she had a sympathetic listener. “Old
maiden ladies,” she was wont to say, with a sort 01
sad pitifulness in her tone, “were the last lea1
Jacobites in Edinburgh ; spinsterhood in its loneli.
ness remained then ever true to Prince Charlit
and the vanished dreams of youth.” Lady Sinclaii
used to relate how in the old Episcopal Chapel in
the Cowgate, now St. Patrick‘s Church, the last
solitary representative of these Jacobite ladies nevei
failed to close her prayer-book and stand erect, in
d e n t protest, when the prayer for King George 111.
‘( and the reigning family ” was read in the Church
Service. Early in her girlhood her family removed
from St. John Street to Picardy Place, and the
following adventure, which she used to relate,
curiously evinces the difference between the social
customs of the early years of this century and those
of the present day.
“ Once, when she was returning from a ball, the
bearers of her sedan-chair had their bonnets carried
off by the wind, while the street oil-lamps were
blown out, and the ‘ Donalds ’ departed in pursuit
of their head-gear. It was customary in those
times for gentlemen to escort the sedan-chairs
that held their fair partners of the evening, and
the two gentlemen who were with her-the Duke
af Argyle and Sir John Clerk of Penicuickseized
hold of the spokes and carried her home.
‘Gentlemen were gentlemen in those days,’ she was
wont to add, ‘and Edinburgh was the proper
residence of the Scottish aristocracy-not an inn
.or a half-way house between London and the
Highland muirs.’ ”
In 1821 she was married to Mr. Sinclair, afterwards
Sir John Sinclair, Bart., of Dunbeath, and
for fifty years afterwards her home was at the
House of Barock, in Caithness, where her influence
among the poor was ever felt and gratefully
acknowledged. She was a staunch and
amusingly active Liberal, and, with faculties clear
and unimpaired in the last week of her long life,
noted and commented on Mr. Gladstone’s famous
“ hlidlothian speeches,” and rejoiced over his
success. She was always scrupulously dressed,
and in the drawing-room down to the day of
her death. She saw all her children die before
her, in early or middle life; her eldest, Colonel
Sinclair, dying in India in his forty-fifth year. After
Sir John’s death she settled in Edinburgh.
“I am the last leaf on the outmost bough,”
she was wont to say, “and want to fall where I
was born.” And so she passed away.
When she was interred within the Chapel Royal
at Holyrood, it was supposed that she would be one
of the last to whom that privilege would be accorded.
It was not so ; for the remains of James,
Earl of Caithness, who died in America, were laid
there in April, 1881.
The Dean, or Den, seems to have been the old
general name for the rocky hollow now spanned
by the stately bridge of Telford.
Bell’s Mills, a hamlet deep down in a grassy
glen, with an old bridge, aver which for ages lay
the only road to the Queensferry, and now overshadowed
by fashionable terraces and crescents, is
described by Kincaid in 1787 as a village, “one and
three-quarter niiles north-west of Edinburgh, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, and .a quarter
of a mile west of West Leith village.” * It received
its name from an old proprietor of the
flour-mills, which are still grinding there, and have
been long in existence. ‘‘ On Thursday night
last,” says the Zdinburgh Advertseer of 3rd January:
1764, “ the high wall at Bells Brae, near the
Water of Leith Bridge, fell down, by which accident
the footpath and part of the turnpike road are
carried away, which makes it hazardous for carriages.
This notice may be of use to those who have
occasion to pass that road.”
At the head of the road here, near the Dean
Bridge, is a Free Church, built soon after the
Disruption-a little edifice in the Saxon style, with
a square tower ; and a quaint little ancient crowstepped
building, once a toll-house, has built into
it some of the old sculpture from the Dean House.
At the foot of the road, adjoining Bell’s Mills
Bridge, are old Sunbury distillery and house, in a
lelta formed by the Leith, which sweeps under a
steep and well-wooded bank which is the boundary
3f the Dean Cemetery.
The Water of Leith village, which bears marks of
peat antiquity, is fast disappearing amid the enxoachments
of modern streets, and yet all that renains
of it, deep down in the rocky hollow, where
:he stream, flowing under its quaint old bridge,
3etween ancient mills, pours in a foaming sheet
wer a high, broad weir, is wonderfully striking
ind picturesque. Dates, inscriptions, crowstepped
:ables, and other features of the seventeenth
:entury, abound here in profusion.
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p074.gif "Volume 5 Page 63")
... Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the ...
Vol. 5 p. 63 (Rel. 0.36)
... vii
. CHAPTER XXXI.
PAGE ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued).
Blackfriars Wynd-The Grant of ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
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![Greyfriars Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro $rimus, the great anatomist, and Alexander
Monro secwidm, who in 1756 was admitted joint
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery with his distinguished
father.
In the same ground, in 1799, were laid Professor
Joseph Black, the great chemist ; Dr. Hugh Blair, in
1800 ; Henry Mackenzie, “ the Man of Feeling,” in
1831 ; Alexander Tytler, another distinguished
Zittivatear; John Kay, the caricaturist, in 1826 ;
and Dr. McCrie, the well-known biographer of John
Knox.
The monument to Dr. Hugh Hair was erected
in 1817, and is placed on the south side of the
church, in the same compartment with that of Professor
MacLaurin. Thus, one of the most eminent
philosophers and one of the most distinguished
preachers that Scotland has produced are commemorated
side by side.
On the eastern gable of the Old Greyfriars
Church, a grim, repellent, and remarkable monument
catches the eye. In the centre is sculptured
a skeleton, festooned around with surgical implements,
but the inscription is nearly obliterated by
time and the fire of the church, yet it is always an
object of much curiosity.
It marks the grave of James Borthwick, whose
portrait is the oldest now hanging in the Hall of
the Royal College of Surgeons, the incorporation
of which he entered in 1645 ; he was a cadet of
the House of Crookston, and nearly related to
Lord Borthwick, who defended his castle of that
name against Oliver Cromwell after the battle
of Dunbar. He acquired the estate of Stow, in
which he was succeeded by his son James, who
erected this hideously grotesque memorial to his
memory.
Another monument of a different kind, in the
form of a brass plate inserted into a stone, on the
western wall of the church, bore some fine elegiac
verses to the memory of Francisca, daughter of
‘< Alexander Swinton, advocate ; who died . . . . .
aged 7 years.”
But these verses were quite obliterated by 1816.
They ran thus :-
“ The sweetest children, like these transient flowers,
Which please the fancy for a few short hours,-
Lovely at morning, see them burst in birth,
At evening withered-scattered on the earth,
Their stay, their place, shall never more be known,
Save traits enpven on those hearts alone
That fostered these frail buds while here beneath ;
Yes, these shall triumph o’er the powers of death,
Shall spring eternal in the parent’s mind
Till hence transplanted to a realm refined.”
Northward of the two churches stands the tomb
and grave of Duncan Ban Maclntyre, commonly
known in the Highlands as Donnachan ban nun
Oran, who died in the year 1812, and who, though
he fought at Falkirk, outlived all the bards and
nearly all the warriors associated in the Highland
heart with the last chivalrous struggle for the House
of Stuart.
A handsome monument marks the place where
his ashes lie. Though little known in the Lowlands,
Duncan is deemed one of the-sweetest of
the Gaelic poets, and was so humble in his wants
that he had no higher ambition than to become a
soldier in the old City Guard.
The burial-place of Sir Walter Scott’s family lies
on the west side of the ground. “ Our family,” he
wrote, “heretofore (Dec., 1819) buried close by the
entrance to Heriot’s Hospital, on the southern or
left-hand. side as you pass from the churchyard.”
Here the father, Walter Scott, W.S., and several of
his children who died in the old house in the College
Wynd, are interred. Mrs. Scott, her sisters,
and her brother, Dr. Rutherford, are interred in
the burial-ground attached to St. John’s Church, at
the west end of Princes Street. Sir Walter purchased
a piece of ground there, “moved by its
extreme seclusion, privacy, and security; for,” as
he wrote to brother Thomas, who was paymaster
of the 70th Foot, conveying an account of their
mother‘s death, “when poor Jack (their brother)
was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where my
father and Anne (their sister) lie, I thought their
graves more encroached upon than I liked to
witness.”
The Greyfriars Churchyard is, curiously enough,
noted as being the scene of Scott’s first love affair
with a handsome young woman. Lockhart tells us
that their acquaintance began in that place of
dreary associations, “ when the rain was beginning
to fall one Sunday, as the congregation were dispersing.
Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and
the tender being accepted, so escorted her to her
residence, which proved to be at no great distance
from his own. I have neither the power nor the
wish,” adds his biographer, ‘‘ to give in detail the
sequel to this story. It is sufficient to szy that
after he had through several long years nodrished
the dream of an ultimate union with this lady-
Margaret, daughter of Sir John and Lady Jane
Stewart Belshes of Invermay-his hopes terminated
in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes,
Bart., of Pitsligo.”
In December, 1879, there were interred in the
Greyfriars Churchyard, under the direction of the
city authorities, the great quantity of human bones](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p203.gif "Volume 4 Page 383")
... Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro ...
Vol. 4 p. 383 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Burdiehouse.
intelligence to the enemy, which occasioned the
imprisonment of his ...
Vol. 6 p. 342 (Rel. 0.36)
![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. 0.36)
... 68 OLD. AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Andrew Square.
Natural Phenomena,” and many other scientific
and geographical ...
Vol. 3 p. 167 (Rel. 0.36)
![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 ...
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... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd. 304
of the building, among these; on a buttress, at the
west angle of the ...
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... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [IFeriot Row.
lady weak poems, which were noticed by Lockhart
in the Quarterly Rmim, ...
Vol. 4 p. 194 (Rel. 0.36)
... of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time
when its garrison was the nsth, or old regiment of
Edinburgh, ...
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... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 397 (Rel. 0.36)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 398 (Rel. 0.36)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 399 (Rel. 0.36)
![Canongate.] THE TENNIS COURT. ’ 39
Scotland, and who for some years had been Commissioner
to the General Assembly. In this house
he died, 28th July, 1767, as recorded in the Scots
Magazine, and was succeeded by his son, Major-
General the Earl of Ancrum, Colonel of the 11th
Light Dragoons (now Hussars). His second son,
Lord Robert, had been killed at Culloden.
His marchioness, Margaret, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Nicholson, Bart., of Kempnay, who survived
him twenty years, resided in Lothian Hut
till her death. It was afterwards occupied by the
dowager of the ‘ fourth Marquis, Lady Caroline
D’Arcy, who was only daughter of Robert Earl
of Holderness, and great-grand-daughter of Charles
Louis, the Elector Palatine, a lady whose character
is remembered traditionally to have been both
grand and amiable. Latterly the Hut was the
residence of Professor Dugald Stewart, who, about
the end of the last century, entertained there many
English pupils of high rank. Among them, perhaps
the most eminent was Henry Temple, afterwards
Lord Palmerston, whose education, commenced
at Harrow, was continued at the University
of Edinburgh. When he re-visited the latter city in
1865, during his stay he was made aware that an
aged woman, named Peggie Forbes, who had been
a servant with Dugald Stewart at Lothian Hut,
was still alive, and residing at No. I, Rankeillor
Street. There the great statesman visited her, and
expressed the pleasure he felt at renewing the
acquaintance of the old domestic.
Lothian Hut, the scene of Dugald Stewart’s
most important literary labours, was pulled down
ih 1825, to make room for a brewery ; but a house
of the same period, at the south-west corner of the
Horse Wynd, bears still the name of Lothian
Vale.
A little to the eastward of the present White
Horse hostel, and immediately adjoining the Water
Gate, stood the Hospital of St. Thomas, founded
in 154r by George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld,
“dedicated to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and
all the saints.” It consisted of an almshouse and
chapel, the bedesmen of which were “to celebrate
the founder’s anniversary obit. by solemnly singing
in the choir of Holyrood church yearly, on the
day of his death, ‘the Placebo and Dinie for the
repose of his soul ” and the soul of the King of
Scotland. “ Special care,” says Amot, “ was taken
in allotting money for providing candles to be
lighted during the anniversary ma.ss of requiem,
and the number and size of the tapers were fixed
with a precision which shows the importance in
which these circumstances were held by the founder.
The number of masses, paternosters, aye-marias,
and credos, to be said by the chaplain and bedesmen
is distinctly ascertained.”
The patronage of the institution was vested by
the founder in himself and a certain series of representatives
named by him.
In 1617, with the consent of David Crichton of
Lugton, the patron, who had retained possession
of the endowments, the magistrates of the Canongate
purchased the chapel and almshouse from the
chaplains and bedesmen, and converted the institution
into a hospital for the poor of the burgh.
Over the entrance they placed the Canongate arms,
supported by a pair of ‘cripples, an old man and
woman, with the inscription-
HELP HERE THE POORE, AS ZE WALD GOD DID ZOV.
JUNE 19, 1617.
The magistrates of the Canongate sold the patronage
of the institution in 1634 to the Kirk Session,
by whom its revenues “ were entirely embezzled f
by 1747 the buildings were turned into coachhouses,
and in 1787 were pulled down, and replaced
by modem houses of hideous aspect.
On the opposite side of the Water Gate was the
Royal Tennis Court, the buildings of which are
very distinctly shown in Gordon’s map of 1647.
Maitland says it was anciently called the Catchpel,
from Cache, a game now called Fives, a favourite
amusement in Scotland as early as the reign of
James IV. The house, a long, narrow building,
with a court, after being a weavers’ workhouse,
was burned down in 1771, and rebuilt in the
tasteless fashion of that period ; but the locality is
full of interest, as being connected not only with
the game of tennis, as played there by the Duke
of Albany, Law the great financial schemer, and
others, but the early and obscure history of the
stage in Scotland.
In 1554 there was a ‘‘litill farsche and play
maid be William Lauder,” and acted before the
Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, for which he was
rewarded by two silver cups. Where it was acted
is not stated. Neither are we told where was perlormed
another play, “ made by Robert Simple ”
at Edinburgh, before the grim Lord Regent and
others of the nobility in 1567, and for which the
mthor was paid ;E66 13s. 4d.
The next record of .a post-Reformation theatre is
in the time of James VI. when several companies
came from London for the amusement of the court,
including one of which Shakspere was a member,
though his appearance cannot be substantiated.
In 1599 the company of English comedians was
interdicted by the clergy and Kirk Session,
though their performances, says Spottiswoode in](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p051.gif "Volume 3 Page 39")
... THE TENNIS COURT. ’ 39
Scotland, and who for some years had been Commissioner
to the General ...
Vol. 3 p. 39 (Rel. 0.35)
... OLD AND ‘NEW EDINBURGH. [George Square.
Centenary celebration in 1872 was a ‘‘ Contract
between James Brown, ...
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... at sea, yet he adds, “our numbers
amounted to 700, and with the loss of three we
made ourselves masters ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Sciennes.
of hermit, or chaplain, resided ; and the charter of
foundation mentions ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Kirk-of-Field.
land of umyle Hew Berrie’s tenement and chamber
adjacent yr to, lying in ...
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHo~yrOam
Commendator of Coldingham. He was created,
in right of his mother (who was ...
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![Bomington] THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,”
though coloured by High Church prejudices,
is deemed a useful narration and very candid record
of the most controverted part of our national
annals, while the State documents used in its compilation
have proved of the greatest value to every
subsequent writer on the same subject. Very
curious is the list of subscribers, as being, says
Chambers, a complete muster-roll of the whole
Jacobite nobility and gentry of the period, including
among others the famous Rob Roy, the outlaw !
The bishop performed the marriage ceremony of
that ill-starred pair, Sir George Stewart of Grandtully
and Lady Jane Douglas, on the 4th of August, I 746.
In I 7 5 5 he published his well-known “ Catalogue
of Scottish Bishops,” a mine of valuable knowledge
to future writers.
The latter years of his useful and blameless life,
during which he was in frequent correspondence
with the gallant Marshal Keith, were all spent at
the secluded villa of Bonnyhaugh, which belonged
to himself. There he died on the 27th of January,
1757, in his seventy-sixth year, and was borne,
amid the tears of the Episcopai communion, to his
last home in the Canongate churchyard. There he
lies, a few feet from the western wall, where a plain
stone bearing his name was only erected recently.
In 1766 Alexander Le Grand was entailed in the
lands and estates of Bonnington.
In 1796 the bridge of Bonnington, which was of
timber, having been swept away by a flood, a
boat was substituted till 1798, when another wooden
bridge was erected at the expense of A30.
Here in Breadalbane Street, northward of some
steam mills and iron-works, stands the Bonnington
Sugar-refining Company’s premises, formed by a few
merchants of Edinburgh andLeith about 1865, where
they carry on an extensive and thriving business.
The property and manor house of Stewartfield
in this quarter, is westward of Bonnington, a square
edifice with one enormous chimney rising through a
pavilion-shaped roof. We have referred to the entail
of Alexander Le Grand, of Bonnington, in 1766.
The Scots Magazine for 1770 records an alliance
between the two proprietors here thus :-“At Edinburgh,
Richard Le Grand, Esq., of Bonnington
(son of the preceding?), to Miss May Stewart,
daughter of James Stewart of Stewartfield, Esq.”
On the north side of the Bonnington Road, and
not far from Bonnington House, stands that of
Pilrig, an old rough-cast and gable-ended mansion
among aged trees, that no doubt occupies the site
of a much older edifice, probably a fortalice.
In 1584 Henry Nisbett, burgess of Edinburgh,
became caution before the Lords of the Privy
Council, for Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig, John
Kincaid of Warriston, Clement Kincaid of the
Coates, Stephen Kincaid, John Matheson, and
James Crawford, feuars of a part of the Barony
of Broughton, that they shall pay to Adam Bishop
of Orkney, commendator of Holyrood House,
“what they ow-e him for his relief of the last
taxation of _f;zo,ooo, over and above the sum of
€15, already consigned in the hands of the col-
Lector of the said collection.”
In 1601 we find the same Laird of Pilrig engaged
in a brawl, “forming a specimen of the
second class of outrages.” He (Patrick Monypenny)
stated to the Lords of Council that he had
a wish to let a part of his lands of Pilrig, called the
Round Haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew
Alis, for his own utility and profit. But on a certain
day, not satisfied, David UuA; a doughty indweller in
Leith, came to these per‘sons, and uttering ferocious
menaces against them in the event of their occupying
these lands, effectually prevented them from
doing so.
Duff next, accompanied by two men named
Matheson, on the 2nd of March, 1601, attacked
the servants of the Laird of Pilrig, as they were
at labour on the lands in question, with similar
speeches, threatening them with death if they persisted
in working there; and in the night they,
or other persons instigated by them, had come
and broken their plough, and cast it into the
Water of Leith. “John Matheson,” continues the
indictment, ‘‘ after breaking the complenar‘s plew,
came to John Porteous’s house, and bade him gang
now betwix the Flew stilts and see how she wald go
till the morning:’ adding that he would have his
head broken if he ever divulged who had broken
the plough,
The furious Duff, not contentwith all this,trampled
and destroyed the tilled land. In this case the
accused were dismissed from the bar, but only, it
would appear, through hard swearing in their own
cause.
There died at Pilrig, according to the Scots
Magazine for 1767, Margaret, daughter of the late
Sir Johnstone Elphinstone of Logie, in the month of
January ; and in the subsequent June, Lady Elphinstone,
his widow. The Elphinstones of Logie were
baronets of 1701.
These ladies were probably visitors, as the then
proprietor and occupant of the mansion was James
Balfour of Pilng, who was born in 1703, and became
a member of the Faculty of Advocates on
the 14th of November, 1730, Three years later
on the death of Mr. Bayne, Professor of Scottish
Law in the University of Edinburgh, he and Mr.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p102.gif "Volume 5 Page 91")
... THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,”
though coloured by High ...
Vol. 5 p. 91 (Rel. 0.35)
... Sq-I MISS JEANNIE ELLIOT. =7*
-was compelled to have recourse to a sedan chair
by which he was wont to be ...
Vol. 4 p. 271 (Rel. 0.35)
... 16 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. p e w Town,
himself and his lady. This lintel was removed by
the late Sir Patrick ...
Vol. 3 p. 116 (Rel. 0.35)
![280 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
number of wounded men on his hands, bore awa]
to Barbadoes to re-fit.
In the spring of the following year, a Leitl
sloop, coming from Strichen, laden with wheat anc
cheese, was taken off St. Abb’s Head by two Frenct
privateers of twelve and sixteen guns-the latter was
Le MarichaZ Duc de NoaiZZes, painted quite black.
When the sloop struck a tremendous sea was run.
ning ; Laverock, the master, ransomed her for IOC
guineas, and reported at Leith that if these twc
great privateers were not taken soon, they wopld
ruin the east coast trade of Scotland.
Soon after another ship of Leith was taken by
them into Bergen, and ransonied for 500 guineas,
though a few days before the privateer had been
severely handled by the EZiza6efh, merchant ship,
Captain Grant, who had also to strike to her, afteI
a most severe combat.
In 1794, the Haith, of Leith, was captured by a
squadron of French ships on the zIst August,
together with the Dundee, whaler, of Dundee. The
latter was re-taken, and brought into Leith by H.M.
brig Fisher, which reported that, previous to re-capture,
the Dundee had picked up a boat, having on
board eight Frenchmen, part of a prize crew of
sixteen put on board the Raifir to take her to
Bergen ; but the mate and another Scottish seaman
had daringly re-taken her, and had sailed none
knew whither. Soon after a letter reached the
owners in Leith from Lyons, the mate, dated from
Lerwick, briefly stating that when fifteen miles
west of Bergen, “1 retook her from the French,
sending nine of the Frenchmen away in one of the
boats, ancl put the rest in confinement.” Eventually
these two brave fellows brought the ship to
Leith, from whence their prisoners were sent to
the Castle.
In those days the Glass House Company had
their own armed ships, and one of these, the
Phemk, Cornelius Neilson, master, had the reputation
of being one of the swiftest sailers in Leith,
and was always advertised to sail with or without
convoy, as she fought her own way.
In 1797, the BreadaZbane Letter of Marque, of
Leith, captured a large Spanish brig off the coast
of South America, and sent her into Leith Roads
for sale, under the convoy of the RoyaZ ChrZoffe,
Captain Elder.
During the latter end of the eighteenth century
Leith possessed two frigate-built ships of remarkable
beauty, the RoseUe, a Letter of Marque, and
the MoreZan/E, her sister ship, which usually fought
their own way; and the former was so like a man-ofwar
in her size and appearance, that she frequently
gave chase for a time to laige foreign privateers.
In the NeraZd for 1798 we read that on her appeacance
off Peterhead, in March, she created such consternation
that the captain of the RoJert, a Greenlandman,
on a gun being fired from her, ran his
ship ashore, according to one account, and, according
to another, made his escape, with the assistance
of his crew, from the supposed enemy. The
MoreZand and the Lady Fwbes,,” of Leith, another
armed ship, seem always to have sailed in company,
for protection, to and from the West Indies.
After many escapes and adventures, the beautiful
RoseZZe, which carried fourteen guns of large calibre,
was captured at last by a Spanish line-of-battle ship,
which, report said, barbarously sank her, with all
on board, by a broadside.
On the 6th December, 1798, theBefsy, of Leith,
Captain Mackie, having the Angus regiment of
volunteers on board, from Shetland, in company
with an armed cutter, was attacked off Rattray
Head by two heavily-armed French privateers. A
severe engagement ensued, in which the volunteers
made good use of their small arms; the
privateers were crippled and beaten off by the
Befsy, which ran next day into Banff, and the
roops were put on shore.
In the same month The Generous Triends, sailing
from Leith to Hull, when a few miles off the
mouth of the Humber, in a heavy gale of wind,
was overtaken by a large black privateer, having a
?oop and fiddle-head painted red and white. The
ieavy sea prevented her from being boarded, and
:he appearance of the Baltic fleet compelling the
:nemy to sheer off, she bore up with the latter, and
yeturned to Leith Roads; but such little excitenents
were of constant occurrence in those stirring
imes
The Nancy, of Leith, Captain Grindley, was
:aken, in July, I 799, off Dungeness, by the Ado&h,
ugger, of eighteen guns and fifty men, who used
iim and his crew with great severity prior to their
Jeing cast into the horrible prison at Valenciennes.
“The behaviour of the Frenchmen to us, when
aken, was most shameful,” he wrote to his owners
n Leith. 6‘ When they got upon our deck, they
Kept firing their pistols, cutting with swords for some
ime, and dragging those who were below out of
Heir beds; they cut and mangled in a cruel manner
me of our men, William Macleod, who was then
it the helm, and afterwards threw him overhoard.
rhis obliged the rest of the crew to leave the
leck and go below. In a short time we were
It is interesting to remark that the original painting, after which the
rawing of Plate 32 ( ‘ I Leith Pier and Harbour, 1798 ”) was made, ws
iainted for Caprain Gourley, who was part owner of the Lady Fades,
The Editor is obliged
o bir. R. F. Todd, owner of the painting in question, for this information.
Letter of Marque that carried 14 mnada.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p099.gif "Volume 6 Page 280")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
number of wounded men on his hands, bore awa]
to Barbadoes to re-fit.
In the ...
Vol. 6 p. 280 (Rel. 0.35)
... Leith Wynd.1 THE DUCHESS OF LENNOX
Pont, an illustrious Venetian who came to Scotland
in the train of Mary of ...
Vol. 2 p. 305 (Rel. 0.35)
![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. 0.35)
![Prince Street.] CRAIG OF RICCARTON. ‘23
brother of Sir William Jenner, Bart., the eminent
physician.
Princes Street contains most of the best-stocked,
highest-rented, and most handsome business premises
and shops in the city. From its magnificent
situation it is now, par exceZZence, the street for
hotels; and as a proof of the value of property
there, two houses, Nos. 49 and 62, were publicly
sold on the 12th of February, 1879, for
cf26,ooo and Lz4,soo respectively.
No. 53 at an early perid became the Royal
Hotel. In December, 1817, when it was possessed
bya Mr. Macculloch, the Grand Duke Nicholas,
brother of Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, resided
there with a brilliant suite, including Baron
Nicolai, Sir Wilhm Congreve, Count Kutusoff,
and Dr. Crichton-the latter a native of the city,
who died so lately as 1856. He was a member of
the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg and that of
Natural History at Moscow, K.G.C, of St. Anne
and St. Vladimir. He was a grandson of Crichton
of Woodhouselee and Newington. A guard of the
92nd Gordon Highlanders was mounted on the
hotel, and the Grand Duke having expressed a
wish to see the regiment-the costume of which
had greatly impressed him-it was paraded before
him for that purpose on the zznd of December,
on which occasion he expressed his high admiration
of the corps.
No. 64 is now the North British and Mercantile
Insurance Company, established in I 809,
and incorporated by royal charter, with the Duke
of Roxburgh for its present president, and tht
Dukes of Sutherland and Abercorn, as vice-presi,
dents. A handsome statue of St. Andrew, tht
patron of Scotland, on his peculiar cross, adorn5
the front of the building, and is a conspicuou:
object from the street and opposite gardens.
The Life Association of Scotland, founded in
1839, occupies No. 82. It is a magnificent
palatial edifice, erected in 1855-8, after designs by
Sir Charles Barry and Mr. David Rhind, and
consists of three double storeys in florid Koman
style, the first being rusticated Uoric, the second
Ionic, and the third Corinthian. Over its whole
front it exhibits a great profusion of ornament-sa
great, indeed, as to make its appearance somewhat
heavy.
In 1811, and before that period, the Tax Office
occupied No. 84 The Comptroller in those
days was Henry Mackenzie, author of the “Man
of Feeling,” who obtained that lucrative appoint.
ment from Mr. Pitt, on the recommendation 01
Lord Melvilla and Mr. George Rose, in 1804.
With No. 85, it now forms the site of the New
Club, a large and elegant edifice, with a handsome
Tuscan doorway and projecting windows, erected
by an association of Scottish nobles and gentlenien
for purposes similar to those of the clubs at
the west end of London.
No. 91, which is now occupied as an hotel, was
the residence of the aged Robert Craig, Esq., of
Riccarton, of whom Kay gives us a portrait, seated
at the door thereof, with his long staff and broadbrimmed,
low-crowned hat, while his faithful
attendant, William Scott, is seen behind, carefully
taking “tent ’’ of his old master from the diningroom
window. Mr. Craig had been in early life a
great pedestrian, but as age came upon him his
walks were limited to the mile of Princes Street,
and after a time he would but sit at his door and
enjoy the summer breeze. He wore a plain coat
without any collar, a stock in lieu of a neckcloth,
knee-breeches, rough stockings, and enormous brass
shoe-buckles. He persisted in wearing a hat with
a narrow brim when cocked-hats were the fashion
in Edinburgh, until he was so annoyed by boys
that he adopted the head-dress in which he is
drawn by Kay. He always used a whistle in the
ancient manner, and not a bell, to sumnion his
servant. He died on the 13th of March, 1823.
Pursuant to a deed of entail, Mr. James Gibson, W.S.
(afterwards Sir James Gibson-Craig, Bart., of
Riccarton and Ingliston), succeeded to the estate,
and assumed the name and arms of Craig ; but the
house, No. 91, went to Colonel Gibson.
The record of his demise in the papers of the
time is not without interest :-“ Died at his house
in Princes Street (No. gi), on the r3th March, in
the 93rd year of his age, Robert Craig, Esq., of
Riccarton, the last male heir of Sir Thomas Craig
of Riccarton, the great feudal lawyer of Scotland.
Mr. Craig was admitted advocate in 1754, and was
one of the Commissaries of Edinburgh, the duties
of which situation he executed to the entire satisfaction
of every one connected with it. He resigned
the office many years ago, and has long been the
senior member of the Faculty of Advocates. It
is a remarkable circumstance that his father‘s elder
brother succeeded to the estate of Riccarton in
January, 1681, so that there has been only one
descent in the family for 142 years.”
No. 100, now occupied as an hotel, was for
many years the house of Lady Mary Clerk of
Pennicuick, known as “The White Rose of Scotland
.”
This lady, whose maiden name was Ilacre, was
the daughter of a gentleman in Cumberland, and
came into the world in that memorable year when
the Highland army was in possession of Carlisle,
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p135.gif "Volume 3 Page 123")
... Street.] CRAIG OF RICCARTON. ‘23
brother of Sir William Jenner, Bart., the eminent
physician.
Princes ...
Vol. 3 p. 123 (Rel. 0.35)
![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. 0.35)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Buccleuch Place. 346
way, and from thence along the Gibbet Street
northward, to where it ...
Vol. 4 p. 346 (Rel. 0.35)
![High Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from public life.
When visiting his native capital for the last time,
after an absence of nearly fifty years, with an
emotion which did him honour, he caused himself
to be camed in a sedan chair to Elphinstone Court,
in that now obscure part of the city, that he might
again see the house in which his father dwelt, and
where his own early years as a boy and as a bamster
had been spent. He expressed particular anxiety
to know ‘if a set of holes in the paved court before
his father’s door, which he had used for some youthful
sportwere still in existence; and finding them still
there intact, it is related that as all the past came
upon him, the veteran statesman burst into tears.
North in forming the celebrated Coalition Ministry,
in which he held the appointment of first Commissioner
for keeping the Great Seal. On its
dissolution, he joined the Opposition under Fox ;
but, amid the alarm of the expected French invasion,
he gave in his adhesion to the Administration
of Pitt, and on succeeding Lord Thurlow as Lord
High Chancellor, in April, 1801, was created Earl
of Xosslyn in Midlothian, and then, when nearly
and was interred in St. Paul’s Cathedral at London.
Shortly after the death of his father, Lord
Chesterhall, which occurred in 1756, he sold the
old mansion in Elphinstone Court to John Camp
bell, a senator under the title of Lord Stonefield,
who succeeded Lord Gardenstone as a justiciary
judge, and who retained his seat upon the bench
till his death in June, 1801. It is somewhat remarkable
that his two immediate predecessors
occupied the same seat for a period of ninety
years ; Lord Royston having been appointed a
judge in 1710, and Lord Tinwald in 1744. By
his wife, Lady Grace Stuart, daughter of John
third Earl of Bute, he had several sons, all of whom
pre-deceased him. The second of these w+s the
The memory of the early friendships he formed
with the “ select society ’’ of Edinburgh, including
Darid Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, and Blair,
he cherished with unceasing fondness. ‘‘ His
ambition was great,” says Sir Egerton Bridges,
“and his desire of oflice unlimited. He could
argue with great ingenuity on either side, so that
it was difficult to anticipate his future by his past
opinions.” He died of an apoplectic fit in 1805~
THE EARL OF SELKIRK’S HOUSE, HYNDFORD’S CLOSE (south W-#).
(From fke Engraviwin Sir Wa&rScotfs “Rrd‘axntki,“ byfirmission of Messn. A. and C. Black.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p093.gif "Volume 2 Page 273")
... Street.] THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. 273
worn-out with the fatigues of a long and active.
career, he retired from ...
Vol. 2 p. 273 (Rel. 0.34)
![The Mound.] THE SCOTTISH GALLERY. 89 -
seen Sir Noel Paton’s two wonderful pictures of
Oberon and Titania; others by Erskine Nicol,
Herdman, Faed, W. Fettes, Douglas, James Drummond,
Sir George Harvey, Horatio Macculloch,
R. S. Lauder, Roberts, Dyce, and Etty, from whose
brush there are those colossal paintings of U Judith
with the Head of Holofernes ’’ and “The Woman
Interceding for the Vanquished.”
Among the many fine paintings bequeathed to
this Scottish Gallery is Gainsborough’s celebrated
portrait of hfrs. Graham, depicting a proud and
are outlined ; and the great and accurately detailed
picture of the battle of Bannockburn.
There is a small full-length picture of Bums,
painted by Nasmyth, as a memento of the poet,
and another by the same artist, presented by the
poet’s son, Colonel W. Nicol Burns, and a fine
portrait of Sir John Moore, the property of the
officers of the Black Watch,
The choice collection of water colours embraces
some of the best works of I‘ Grecian ” Rilliams ;
a series of drawings bequeathed to the Gallery
INTERIOR OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
beautiful girl, grief for whose death in early fife
caused her husband, the future Lord Lynedoch,
“the hero of Earossa,” to have it covered up that
he might never look upon it again. There are
also some beautiful and delicate works by Greuze,
the gift of Lzdy Murray ; and one by Thomson of
Duddingstone, presented by Lady Stuart of
Allanbank ; and Landseer’s I‘ Rent Day in the
Wilderness,” a Jacobite subject, bequeathed by
the late Sir Roderick Murchison, Bart.
Not the least interesting works here are a few
that were among the last touched by deceased
artists, and left unfinished on their easels, such as
Wilkie’s “John Knox Dispensing the Sacrament
at Calder House,” of which a few of the faces alone
00
by Mr. Scott, including examples of Robert
Cattermole, Collins, Cox, Girtin, Prout, Nash,
and Cnstall; and a set of studies of the most
striking peculiarities of the Dutch, Spanish, Venetian,
and Flemish schools. Of great interest, too,
are the waxen models by Michael Angelo.
The Gallery also contains a collection of
marbles and bronzes, bequeathed by Sir James
Erskine of Tome, and a cabinet of medallion
portraits and casts fnm gems, by James and
William Tassie, the celebrated modellers, who,
though born of obscure parents in Renfrewshire,
acquired such fame and reputation that the first
cabinets in Europe were open to their use.
The Royal Scottish Academy of Painting and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p101.gif "Volume 3 Page 89")
... Mound.] THE SCOTTISH GALLERY. 89 -
seen Sir Noel Paton’s two wonderful pictures of
Oberon and Titania; others ...
Vol. 3 p. 89 (Rel. 0.34)
... _- George S1rret.l THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS.
ducted in Europe; but the regulations as issued for
them a century ago ...
Vol. 3 p. 149 (Rel. 0.34)
![Duddingston.] DUDDINGSTON HOUSE 317
Commissioner for the Plantation of Kirks and Valuation
of Benefices in 1672; but the title is now
extinct, and in 1674 the barony had become the
property of the atrocious Duke of Lauderdale,
from whom it passed with a daughter of his first
duchess, as pin money, to her husband, Archibald,
tenth earl, and first Duke of Argyle.
This lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Lionel
Talmash of Helingham, and her mother was the
daughter and heiress of William Murray, Earl of
mansion house upon it. It was completed in
1768, from designs furnished by the architect of
Somerset House, in the Strand, Sir William Chambers,
the son of Scottish parents, but born in
Stockholm in 1726. It cost ~30,000, and is an
elegant edifice .of a somewhat Grecian style, surrounded
by plantabons, canals, and gardens, but
in a situation too low for any extensive vien-.
Duddingston House was for years the favourite
residence of Francis, Earl of Moira, a veteran of
PRINCE CHARLIE’S HOUSE, DUDDINGSTON.
(From Uu Engraving in I& Roxburgh Edition of ‘‘ Waverky,’‘ puhlirkrd b9 Mesm. A. & C. BZack.1
Dysart. The celebrated John and Archibald,
successively Dukes of Argyle, passed much of their
time here, and it is said received most of their
education from their mother, who resided constantly
in this, then, secluded village prior to 1734
In 1745 Duddingston was sold by Archibald,
Duke of Argyle, to James, Earl of Abercorn, whose
ducal descendants still hold it; but if was not
until 1751 that this beautiful and valuable estate
was subdivided, enclosed, and improved by
James, the eighth earl, who built commodious farmhouses,
planted hedgerows and coppice in places
where the land, prior to 1746, rented at only ten
shillings per acre !
In 1763, after the estate had been thoroughly
enclosed, the earl began to build the present
the American War, who, in 1803, was appointed
Commander-in-chief in Scotland, where he was
long deservedly popular with the people, and
where he married, in 1804, Flora Mina Campbell
(in herown right), Countess of Loudon, who was
the first, north of the Tweed, to introduce those
laconic invitation cards now so common, and the
concise style of which-“ The Countess of Loudon
and Moira at Home”-so puzzled the Edinburgh
folk to whom they wete issued.
On the 14th of June, 1805, one of these “At
Homes ” is thus noticed in a print of the day :- .
“On Friday evening the Countess of Loudon
and Moka gave a grand fSte at Duddingston
House, to receive three hundred of the nobility
and gentry in and about the city-among whom](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p137.gif "Volume 4 Page 317")
... DUDDINGSTON HOUSE 317
Commissioner for the Plantation of Kirks and Valuation
of Benefices in 1672; ...
Vol. 4 p. 317 (Rel. 0.34)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
cost of .&3oo, and has two ornamental fronts;
respectively with Ionic ...
Vol. 6 p. 244 (Rel. 0.34)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IArgyle square.
Many professors succeeded Blair as tenants of
the same house; among ...
Vol. 4 p. 272 (Rel. 0.33)
![Cowgate.] ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council in 1616 describes
Edinburgh as infested by strong and idle vagabonds,
having their resorts “in some parts of the Cowgate,
Canongate, Potterrow, West Port, &c., where
they ordinarily convene every night, and pass their
time in all kind of not and filthy lechery, to the
offence and displeasure of God,” lying all day on
CLOSES. 241
Close in 1514; Todrig’s Wynd is mentioned in
1456, when Patrick Donald granted two merks
yearly from his tenement therein for repairing the
altar of St. Hubert, and in 1500 a bailie named
Todrig, was assaulted with drawn swords in his
own house by two men, who were taken to the Tron,
and had their hands stricken through.
Carrubber‘s Close was probably named from
“ William of Caribris,” one of the three bailies in
THE COWGATE, FROM THE PORT TO COLLEGE WYND, 1646. ( A f b cfdsthumay.)
17. The Cowgate ; 44, Peebles Wynd ; 45, Merlin’s Wynd ; 46, Niddry’s Wynd ; 47, Dickson’s Close : 50, Gnfs Wynd ; 5% St Mad5 w p d ;
h St Mary’s Wpd Suburbs ; I; Cov&e Port ; g, Si M a j s Wynd Port ; 53, The College Wynd ; 54. Robertson’s Wynd ; 55. High
School Wynd ; q, Lady Yeser‘s Kirk ; .r, The High School ; w, The College ; y, S i M;uy of the Fields, or the Kirk of Fields ; 25, The
Town Wall.
the causeway, extorting alms with “ shameful exclamations,”
to such an extent that passengers could
neither walk nor confer in the streets without being
impeded and pestered by them ; hence the magistrates
gave orders to expel them wholesale from the
city and keep it clear of them.
The Burgh Records throw some light on the
names of certain of the oldest closes-those running
between the central street and the Cowgate, as being
the residences or erections of old and influential
citizens. Thus Niddry’s Wynd is doubtless connected
with Robert Niddry, a magistrate in 1437 ;
Cant’s Close with Adam Cant, who was Dean of
Guild in 1450, though it is called Alexander Cant’s
79
1454, as doubtless Con’s Close was from John Con,
a wealthy flesher of 1508. William Foular’s Close
is mentioned in 1521, when Bessie Symourtoun
is ordered to be burned there on the cheeks and
banished for passing gear infected with the pest ;
and Mauchan’s Close was no doubt connected
with the name of John Mauchane, one of the bailies
in 1523; Lord Eorthwick’s Close is frequently
mentioned before 1530, and Francis Bell’s Close
occurs in the City Treasurer‘s Accounts, under date
1554. Liberton’s Wynd is mentioned in a charter
by James 111. in 1474, and the old protocol books of
the city refer to it frequently in the twelve years
preceding Flodden ; William Liberton’s heirs are](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p061.gif "Volume 4 Page 241")
... ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council ...
Vol. 4 p. 241 (Rel. 0.33)
... INDEX 37s
Douglas, Sir William the Black
Knight ofliddesdal;, II.53,III.
354. 355
Dou&s, Baron, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 375 (Rel. 0.33)
... JAMES IV. 61
whose contract is still preserved in the city archives.
A minute account of her reception ...
Vol. 3 p. 61 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate.
Life below Stairs,” which the fraternity of footmen
bitterly resented, and ...
Vol. 3 p. 24 (Rel. 0.31)
![Canongate] SIR ARCRIBALD ACHESON. 27
polished ashlar, with sculptured dormer windows,
dine stringcourses, and other architectural details of
:the period. The heavily moulded doorway, which
measures only three feet by six, is surmounted by
&he date 1633, and a huge monogram including the
initials of himself and his wife Dame Margaret
Hamilton. Over all is a cock on a trumpet and
scroll, with the motto Yzgilantibzls. He had been a
puisne judge in Ireland, and was first knighted by
Charles I., for suggesting the measure of issuing
out a commission under the great seal for the sltr-
If Hawthornden and of Sir William Alexander
Earl of Stirling.
A succession of narrow and obscure alleys
ollows till we come to the Horse Wynd, on the
LINTEL ABOVE THE DOOR OF SIR A. ACHESON’S HOWL
east side of which lay the royal stables at the time
of Darnley’s murder. In this street, on the site of a
school-house’ &c., built by the Duchess of Gordon
for the inhabitants of the Sanctuary, stood an old
tenement, in one of the rooms on the first floor of
which the first rehearsal of Home’s ‘‘ Douglas ”
took place, and in which the reverend author was
assisted by several eminent lay and clerical friends,
among whom were Robertson and Hume the
historians, Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk and the
author taking the leading male parts in the cast,
while the ladies were represented by the Rev. Dr.
Blab and Professor Fergusson. A dinner followed
in the Erskine Club at the Abbey, when they were
joined by the Lords Elibank, Kames, Milton, and
Monboddo. To the south of this house was the
town mansion of Francis Scott Lord Napier, who
inherited that barony at the demise of his grandmother,
Lady Napier, in 1706,and assumed the name
of Napier, and died at a great old age in 1773.
At its southern end the wynd was closed by an
arched gate in the long wall, which ran from the
Cowgate Port to the south side of the Abbey Close.
CHAPTER V.
THE CANONGATE (continued).
‘Separate or Detached Edifices therein-Sir Walter Scott in the CanongattThe Parish C%urch-How it came to be built-Its Official Position
--Its Burying Ground-The Grave of Ferguuon-Monument to Soldiers interred there-Ecceotric Henry Prentice-The Tolhth-
Testimony as to its Age-Its later uses-Magdalene Asylum-Linen Hall-Moray House-Its Historical Associations-The Winton House
-Whiteford House-The Dark Story of Queensbemy House.
THE advancing exigencies of the age and the of the court suburb, but there still remain some
necessity for increased space and modern sanitary ’ to which belong many historical and literary
improvements have made strange havoc among the I associations of an interesting nature. Scott was
ald alleys and mansions of the great central street ~ never weary of lingering among them, and recalling](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p039.gif "Volume 3 Page 27")
... SIR ARCRIBALD ACHESON. 27
polished ashlar, with sculptured dormer windows,
dine stringcourses, and ...
Vol. 3 p. 27 (Rel. 0.31)
... StRet.1 THOMAS CHALMERS. 205
of high entranced enthusiasm. But the shape of
the forehead is perhaps the most ...
Vol. 4 p. 205 (Rel. 0.31)
... INDEX. 385 -
Nisbet Lord 111. 67
Nisbet: Sir .&exander. 111. 136
Nisbet Sir Henry 111. 136
Nisbet: ...
Vol. 6 p. 385 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW' EDINBURGH.
'Plague in Leith, The 111. 180,186
Plainstane's close ~ i . 235
Playfair, Dr. Lyo;, ...
Vol. 6 p. 386 (Rel. 0.3)
![Infirmary Street.] DR. HAMILTON. ’ 301
of the instruments for the use of the wards ; and
to each of these four surgeons, after 1766, was
assigned a salary in proportion to what the funds
of the institution admitted.
Distinct as these regulations were, they did not
work well, and a committee was appointed to confer
with the managers in 1769 to adjust certain
matters that were in dispute, and new arrangements
were made. Under these ‘‘ one of the substitutes
was to be changed annually, and his place supplied
by a brother duly elected by the Incorporation
of Surgeons according
to seniority-
at least
in the order in
which they could
find any disposed
to accept
of the trust : all
this was to be
.done under the
authority of the
managers, and
to continue in
force until they
saw cmse to
alter it.”
About 1769
.the ordinary
patients, exclusive
of soldiers
and servants,
averaged about
sixty; but the
funds having
grown apace,
eighty were accommoda
t ed.
“If the phybe
mentioned that‘between 1770 and 1775 the
numbers admitted yearly at an average amounted
to 1,567Q, and the number of deaths 634, and,
omitting fractional parts, the deaths were to the
numbers admitted as I to 25.
In 1778 the total number of patients with their
attendants made up a family of 230, but so rapid
has been the increase of the population, that betweenoctober
1846 and October 1847 no fewer
than 7,576 patients sought refuge within its walls.
Of these 1,059 died-“ a large number no doubt,”
THE OLD ROYAL INFIKMARY, 1820. (Affer Storm..)
sicians, on -a due consideration of certain cases
thought otherwise, no more were to be admitted,
and those taken in, so long as they remained
supernumeraries, were expected to pay sixpence
per day.”
Dr. John Stedman, on the 2nd of August, 1773,
was elected in place of Dr. Drummond, who had
emigrated to Bristol ; but his health was so infirm,
that in 1775 Dr. Black was chosen in his place,
and afterwards Dr. James Hamilton senior, long
one of the ornaments of the city; and after obtaining
also the office of physician to George
Heriot’s, the Trades Maiden, and Merchant Maiden
Hospitals, he superintended these benevolent insti-
&u$ions for upwards of fifty years.
As an estimate of the good accomplished it may
says a report,
“still, but for
such a house of
refuge, how
many more
would have
breathed out
their last amidst
the noxious
abodes of our
city, spreading
wider and wider
the pestilential
calamity which
has swept away
its thousands of
victims in all
parts of the
country.”
In the year
1848 the chap
lain was required
by new
regulations to
read a portion
of the Scrip
tures, and engage
in devotional
exercises in every ward in the house-a
duty which generally occupied about five hours ;
he had to meet the convalescent patients in chapel
for religious duty every evening ; to be ready to
attend the dying, and he had to preach twice on
Sunday to the nurses, servants, and all patients
who could attend.
In the old house over 5,000 patients were admitted
annually, of whom about 2,300 were surgid
cases. The average number of out-door patients
yearly was about 12,000, obtaining the benefit
of the highest professionai skill of the medical and
surgical officers, and receiving all the necessary
dressings, appliances, and comforts at the expense
of the house, which has an admirable sta€f of nurses
under a lady-superintendent.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p121.gif "Volume 4 Page 301")
... Street.] DR. HAMILTON. ’ 301
of the instruments for the use of the wards ; and
to each of these four ...
Vol. 4 p. 301 (Rel. 0.3)
![Potterrow.] AN OLD TAVERN. 333
Moray, who died in 1810, lived in the Potterrow,
in a large mansion, which was entered through a
garden “at the east end of the row, and another
by Chapel Street.’’ An advertisement, offering it
for sale in 1783, says the earl had occupied it “for
these ten years past;” that it consists of fifteen
apartments, with servants’ hall, vaulted cellar, and
ample stabling. This was, in all probability, the
house formerly occupied by the Duke of Douglas.
The Original Seceder Congregation, afterwards
located in Richmond Street, was established in the
Potterrow about 1794, and removed to the former
quarter in 1813.
We get an idea of the class of humble Edinburgh
merchapzt, as the phrase was understood in Scotland.
On Sundays, too, Mrs. Flockhart’s little
visage might have been seen in a front gallery seat
in Mr. Pattieson’s chapel in the Potterrow. Her
abode, situated opposite to Chalmers’ Entry, in
that suburban thoroughfare, was a square, about
fifteen feet each way.”
A mere screen divided her dwelling-house from
her tavern, and before it, every morning, the
bottles containing whisky, rum, and brandy, were
placed on the bunker-seat of a window, with
glasses and a salver of gingerbread biscuits. Anon
an elderly gentleman would drop in, saluting her
with ‘‘ Hoo d‘ye do, mem I ” and then proceed to
ROOM IN CLARINDA’S HOUSE, GENERAL’S ENTRY.
taverns of the old school from the description that
Chambers gives us of a famous one, Mrs. Flockhart’s-
otherwise “ Lucky Fykie’s ”-in the Potter-.
row, at the close of the last century,
It was a small as well as obscure edifice, externally
having the appearance of a huckster‘s
shop. Lucky Fykie was a neat little elderly
woman, usually clad in an apron and gown of the
same blue-striped stuff, with a black silk ribbon
round her mutch, the lappets of which were tied
under her chin. “Her husband, the umquhile
John Flucker, or Flockhart, had left her some
ready money, together with his whole stock-in-trade,
consisting of a multifarious variety of articlesropes,
tea, sugar, whipshafts, porter, ale, beer,
yellow-sand, camstune, herrings, nails, cotton-wicks,
thread, needles, tapes, potatoes, lollipops, onions,
and matches, &c., constituting ,her a respectable
help himself from one of the bottles ; another and
another would drop in, till the tiny tavern was
full, and, strange to say, all of them were men of
importance in society, many of them denizens of
George Square - eminent .barristers or wealthy
bankers-so simple were the habits of the olden
time.
In No. 7, Charles Street, which runs into Crichton
Street, near the Potterrow, Lord Jeffrey, the eminent
critic, was born in 1773, in the house of his father,
a Depute-Clerk of Session, though some accounts
have assigned his birthplace to Windmill Street.
Lady Duffus was resident in Charles Street in I 784,
Where this street is now, there was an old locality
known as Charles‘s Field, which on Restoration
Day, 1712, was the scene of an ingenious piece
of marked Jacobitism, in honour of the exiled I Stuarts
pub
ale house
public house
tavern](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p153.gif "Volume 4 Page 333")
... AN OLD TAVERN. 333
Moray, who died in 1810, lived in the Potterrow,
in a large mansion, which was ...
Vol. 4 p. 333 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Gwrge squarc
for transporting a finelydressed lady in a powdered
toupee. The public ...
Vol. 4 p. 344 (Rel. 0.3)
... Church.
sum had been paid but once in ten years, yet, if it
had been properly managed, the accumulated ...
Vol. 1 p. 188 (Rel. 0.28)
... edifice that forms the west side of Mylne’s
Court belongs to an earlier period, and had once
been the side of ...
Vol. 1 p. 97 (Rel. 0.27)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS .
--c-
THE OLD CHURCH OF ST . CUTHBERT’S AND THE NORTH LOCH (after CZffSh of ...
Vol. 2 p. 392 (Rel. 0.27)
![3 76 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Xrskine, Lady Elizabeth, 11. 115
3rskine. Mrs. Mary, 11. 272, 362
Erskine Club, 11. 27
2scape of risoners from Edinburgh
Ssk, The river, 111. 318, 346, 353,
3% 361, 364;
Sskgrove, Lord,\I.d, 120,111.367
Ssplanade, The, I. 79, 83, 86
Esten, Mrs., the actress, I. 346,
Castle, &tempted, I. 71
3557 357, 358, 35
the coal seams 171. 358, 359
11. 778
Edinburgh Dock, Leith, 111. 284,
Edinburgh Duke of 111. 288
Edinburgh' Dukedok of 111. 126
Edinburghkducational Ihstitution,
Edinburgh Hospital for Incurables,
Edinburgh IndustrialSchool, I. 264,
Edinburgh Institution for Educa-
286, 287
11. 158
111. 55
* 265
tion
Edinb
Educafion 11. 344
Edinburgh ~teruyInstitute,III.g~
Edinburgh Mechanics' Subscription
tion If. 200
Edindlrrgh Kruinv, The, I. 339,
11. 143 191 203 47 111. 43
Edinburih difle b k n t e e r Hall,
11. 326
Edinburgh School of Art, I. 379,380
Edinbureh Theatrical Fund Asso-
Gr; ~ ~ a t e ' 2 9
,gh kolunteer Artillery, I.
286, 323
Edinburgh Volunteers, 11. 76, 82,
188, 219, 371, 372, 373. 374>'"377r
Edidurgk We&& jrrumal, 111.
799 82, 89, 143, 754
Edzn6argh WreRly IWagozitre, I.
3331 11. 3 53 111.83, 1:4~ IS?, 744
Edinburgh toung Mens Chnstran
Association I. 379
Edmonston 6dge, 1. 43, 111. 338
Edmonstone, Lord, 111. 339
Edmonstone, Colonel, 11. 161
Edmouctone 111. 339
EAmonstone'House, 111. 338, '31;
its owners, 111. 338, 33
Edmonstone of Duntreat;, 11. 139,
111. 338
Edmonstones The 111. 338, 339
Edward I., 1.'23, i1. 46,111.41~43,
351 ; captures Edinburgh Castle,
111.39
338
Elcho, Lord, I. 326,327.11.31~318,
Elder. Lord Provost. 11. IW. 176.
322, 111. 198, zzz, 366
, -.. . .
17?.'282. 111. 21
Eldii, Li&t.-Col&el, 11. 371
Elder Street, 11. 176
Eldin, Lord, II., 186, 187, 111. 167,
260; hisfondnessforuts, 11. 186'
;cadent at the sale ofhis effects.
11.
Eldin:%hn Clerk of, 11. 186, 191
Eldin douse, 111. 359
Electric time-ball, The, 11. 108
Elgin Earl of I. 107, 336
Elibak, PatAck Lord, I. 83, 101,
Elizabeth Countess of Ross, I. 246
Elizabeth: Queen, I. 47. 49, 111.
174, 175, 178 : her death, I. zoz
Elllock, Lord, 111. 142
Elliot, Sir George, I. 210
11. 27, 166, 351
Elliot Sir Gilbert, 11. 273
Ellio; Sir ohn 111. 340
Elliot: Archaid architect, 11. 188
Klliot of Minto, sir Gilbert, 11. 161
Elliot of Minto, Miss Jeannie,
Elliot thepublisher I. 181 111.154
Elm Place Leith, iII. 268
Elm Row Leith Walk, II1.154,158
Elphinstdne, Lord, 11. 103, 352
Elphinstone, James, Lord Balme-
Elphidstone, Charles Lord, 11.174 ;
Elphinstone, 3owager Lady, 11.
authoress, 11. a71
rino 111. 135
his sons, i6.
279
11. 274
'36
Elphinstone, Admiral Sir Charles,
Elphinstone, Lieut.-Gen. Lord, 11.
Elphmstone, Sir Howard, 11. a83
Elphinstone, Sir James, I. 271, 11.
Elphinstone Sir ohn 111. 42
Elphinstone' Sir fohnitone, 111. 91
Elphinstone: Hon. Alexander, 111.
262, 263
Elphinstone Court, I. 271--274,
*27z ; distinguished residents in,
203. 111.128
I. 271-274
Elphinstone of Barnton, Lord Bal-
Elphinstone, The Master of, 111.
merino, 111. 317
182
Elphinstone family, The, 111. azz
Elphinstone, Mistress of, I. 257
Elphinetones of Lopie, The, 111. 91
Emery, the actor, I. 348
" Encyclopredia Britannica." The,
I. ZII, 223, 339,Il. 126,165, 111.
En myhe's Well, 1. 276, 277
English Episcopal Chapel, I. 262
English in Scotland, The, I. 23, 24,
II!. 3+, 35: ; driven out, I. 25
English invasion expected, 11. 330
Englishmen captured by Scotsmen,
7$ 247
1. 3'
Entablature above the Gateway,
Edinburgh Castle I. 51
Environs of Edinbdrgh, The, 111.
314-368 : map of, 111. * 325
EpimplChapel Cowgate 11.247
*q9, 111. 63 ;'its bell, iI. 247 i
its ministers, i6.
Episcopal €hapel, Leith, Theearly,
111. 230
Episcopacy in Edinburgh, Attempt
to enforce,.I. 51 144 208, 11. 131,
a46, 375 ; its sekcei at one time
@armed by stealth, 111. 231
Euiscoualian Church. Portobello.
-111. i '53
Errol, Earl of, I. 147, 11. 159, 318,
111. 323 ; Countess of, II.59,166,
3x8
Erskine. Tohn. Earl of Mar. I. *37. . ...
44 335- .
Ersdine, Lord Chancellor, 11. 111,
Erskine, John Lord, 11. zrg, 111.
z87, 111. 271
31?
111. 318
Erskme, Sir Alexander, I. 220,371,
Erskine of Cynbq Sir Charles, I.
37'
Erskine, Sir Harry, 11. 344
Erskine, SirThomas 111. 318
Erskme, Gen. Sir Wham, 11.307
Erskine Sir William I. 63 111.258
Erskingof Alva, Chgles h r d Justice-
clerk I. 236 237
Erskineof &a, SiiCharles, 11.243
Erskine of Cardross, I. 282
Erskine of Carnock 11.379
Erskine of Dun II.'67, 68
Enkine of Foikst, Capt. James
Erskine of Mar, John Francis, 11.
Erskme of Scotscraig, Sir Arthur,
Erskine of Torrie, Sir James, 11.89
Enkine, Hon. Andrew. 11.115
Erskine. Hon. Henrv. 1. 115, 15%
Francis, 11. 282
249
11. 70
166, G5, II.26,122; 143, 163, rig;
Enkme, Hon. James, I. 247 (sec
Grange, Erskine, Lord)
Erskine, Dr. John, 11. 37
Erskine, Lady Barbara, I?. 319,320
248, 339, 111. 34, 362
Eton Tekace, 111. 74
Ettrick Shepherd, The (see Hogg,
Etty, the painter, 11. 89, 91
Evers Lord I. 43
Ewbank, John, the painter, 11. 19,
Ewing, Greville, I. 361, 362
Exchange, The I. 176 178
Exchange Buiidings, 'Leith, 111.
1713 244, "245
Exchequer, The, I. 178
Excise Office, The, 1. IIZ, 113, 217,
*zm, 11. 23, 110, 191. 259, 260;
robberies at the, I. n2--114
Excise Office, Drummond Place, 11. * rgz, 111. '24
Execution of English pirates at
Leith, 111. 190, 191
Executions for various offences, I.
83. 84. 867 115, 117, 122, 1 6 2347
281, 332, 11. 228, 230,231, 238
(set &sa Grassmarket)
James)
111. 79
F
Faed, the painter, 11. 89, 111. 82
Fairbairn, Rev. Dr., 111. 303, *304;
Fairfax Admiral d r W. G., 11. 198
Fairho<me Adam 111. 47
Fairholm: Bailie' 111. 47
Fairholme: Jam,;, 111. 46, 47
Fairholme, George, 111. 47
Fairholme Thomas, 111. 47
Fairies' or Ha gis Knowe, 11. 319
Fair Maid of 8alloway, The, I. 31
Fairnielee, Alan of, Provost, 11. 278
Fairy Boy, The, 11. 101
Fairy Halec Newhaven 111. 299
Falcon Had, 111. 39 ; 'its owner,
Falconer, hliss, 111. 38
Falconer of Borrowstounnes. Sir
his philanthropy 111. 303
111. 38
David, Lord President, II.'379,
Falconer Patrick 111. 365
Falconer' Will& author of the
Falconer ofHalkertoun.Lord.II.97~
111. 199, 202, 206
"Shipkreck," I.'216
Falkirk, Battle of (see battl&] "-_
Falkirk Road, 11. 215
False news, Easy circulation of,
I. 60
11. &A. *&F. 111. 67
Falshaw, Sir James, Lord Provost,
FalshawStreG; 111.
Fast Castle, 111. 37, 134, 135
Faucit, Mis Helen, actress, I. 351
Fenton, Viscount, 111. 318
Fentonbams, Lord, I. 207
Fenwick, the ainter, 11. 1%
Fergusson Large (Lord Her.
mand) i. 170 173 11. 207; hir
defenh of the '45pr?lsoners, I. 17c
Fergussan, Sir C. Dalrymple, 111.
367
Fergusson, Robert, poet, I. I q ,
119, 230, 238, 348, 11. 127. 194,
310, 324, 38, 111. 125, 295, 269
tomb of If. * 30
Fergusso;, Robert, I' the plotter,'
I. 66
Fergusson of Pitfour Jams I. 202
Fergusson, Dr. A&, histokm, I.
123,236,11.27,29,191,111.55,24~
Fergussoii, Dr., the friend of H u e ,
1. 99
Fergusson, Dr., 11. 153
Ferrier, James, Clerk of Session,
11. 139
Ferrier, Miss Susan, novelist, I.
106, 11. 139, 194; her husband,
Ferries of Leith, The ancient, 111.
Ferry Rcad, 11.82, I I ~ , 116,111.64
11. 139
211,212
Fettes, Lord Provost Sir William,
11.31. 173,283.111.82, 97 ; Lady,
11. 318
Fettes College, 111. *Eo, 82, 97, 288
Fettes, the painter, 11. 89
Fettes Row, I. 135, 11. 185
Feuds of the Newhaven and her.
toil ns fishermen 111. 300 01
Fife, Earl of, I. 350,'II. 86, &86,
146 ; Lady, 111. 265
Figgate Burn. 111. 143, 144, 146,
259, 263
Figgate hluir, 111 142, 143
Figgate Whins 111. 144, 236
Filby, Goldsmih's tailor, 11. a51
Fincaytle Lord 11. 120
Fingzie Glace, Leith, 111. 266
Finlay, Wilson's friend, 11. 199
Fire of 1824, Ruins of the, I. ' 185
Fire, SirW. Scott'ssto ofa, 11.5 6
First Parliament of Tames VIi.
Cavalcadeat theopening of, I.%;
FirthofForth,The, 11.151.319,III.
164, 165, 166, 169, 180, 181, 188,
191, 192, 1931 198, 201, 202, 209,
2x2, 228, 270. 274, 282, 287, 312,
Fishermen, Rigits of the Newhaven,
111. 301
Fisher's Close, I. I I I . 11. 242
Fish-hwks, First mmufacturer of.
314, 3227 326, 66
11. 263
" Fishwives' Causeway," I. 10, 12,
Fishwomen ot Musselburgh, 11. 22
F.( sec . also Newhaven)
itzsimmons, Rev. Mr., 11. 248
Flaxman the sculptor, 11. 135
Fleming,'Lurd, I. 40, 262, 111.~98,
349; marriage of 11. 306
Flemihg, Sir lame;, I. 196
Fleshers The 11. 265
Flesh Mkket,'The,I. 1gz,21g,II.17
Fleshmarket Close, 1.113, 1~1,138,
*232, 236, 338, 11. 77 ; formerly
the Provost's office 11. 227
Fletcher Laurence cbmedian, 11.40
Fletche;ofSaltoui, 11.34, 111. go,
Flockhart's tavern 11. 333
Flodden Field Ba;Lle of(reeBatt1es)
Flodden Wall: The, I. 38, + 40,183,
278, 381, 11. 221, 239, 339 a
Flora Macdonald, 11. 87, ~ 1 4 ~ 124
Faod riots 111. 87
Football, k'rohibition of, 111. p
Foote, the comedian, I. 342, 343,
Fwte, Maria, actresq, I. 350
Forks Lord 11. 194
Forbeid Cuioden, Lord President
Duncan 1. 159,161, 166, 330, 11.
83,382;'his fondness for golf, 111.
31, 262 ; his biographer, 111. 43
Forbes Sir John Stuart 11. 151
~ o r h ' of Pitsligo, sir killiam, I.
142, 143, 188, ?93, 318,'11I. 47:
244, 323 ; his wife, 11. 383
Forks, Prof. Edward, t he naturalist,
111. 68 242, 307
Forbes df Tolquhoun, Sir Alexander,
I. 236
Forks-Drummond, Sir JohnJI. 270
Forks The Master of 1. 8
F o r k : Rev. Rokrt: Bisiop of
Fordun, John de, I. 297, 11. 53,
Fordyce of Aytoun, I. 275
Foreign clothiers. Introduction of,
111. 144, 165
150
111. 163
158, 176, 179-181, 239 11. 120
Caithness, 111. 231
111. 27
Forglen, Lord, I. 235, 236
Forglen's Park, 11. 325
Forres Street 11.
Forrest of domiston, Sir James,
Lord Provost, 11. 284, 111. 326
Forrest Road, 11. 103, ~ 6 7 ~ 323.326,
Forrest's Coffee-house, Edinburgh,
Forrester Lord 111. 119
Forrester: Sir kdam, I. 122, 278,
Forrester Sir Andrew, 11. 24
Forrester: Sir John, I, 31, Ill. 115,
367
111. 210 .
111. 115, 118, 327
11% 318
Forreater Lords, 111. 119-121
Forreste; family, The, 111. 116,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p195.gif "Volume 6 Page 376")
... 76 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Xrskine, Lady Elizabeth, 11. 115
3rskine. Mrs. Mary, 11. 272, 362
Erskine Club, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 376 (Rel. 0.27)
... 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. 0.26)
... 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. 0.26)
... 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. 0.26)
... OLD AND ‘NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
there was born in 1741 his son, the celebrated
statesman, Henry ...
Vol. 2 p. 208 (Rel. 0.26)
... to the muzzle with musket-balls was depressed
to sweep it, and did so with awful effect.
According to the ...
Vol. 1 p. 54 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Hume, Alexander, High School
H u e , don. Baron David, I. 121,
I66 11.-
Hum;, David. ...
Vol. 6 p. 379 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Hume, Alexander, High School
H u e , don. Baron David, I. 121,
I66 11.-
Hum;, David. ...
Vol. 6 p. 380 (Rel. 0.25)
![Canongate.] , THE MOROCCO LAND. 7
per month. A number of the ailing were hutted
in the King’s Park, a few were kept at home, and
aid for all was invoked from the pulpits. The
Session of the Canongate ordained, on the 27th of
June, that, “to avoid contention in this fearful
time,” all those who died in the park should be
buried therein ; for it would seem that those who
perished by the plague were buried in places apart
from churchyards, lest the infection might burst
forth anew if ever the graves were reopened.’
Maitland records. that such was the terror prevailing
at this period that the prisoners in the
Tolbooth were all set at liberty, and all who were
not free men were compelled,
under severe penalties, to quit
the city, until at length, “ by the
unparalleled ravages committed by
the plague, it was spoiled of its
inhabitants to such a degree that
there were scarcely sixty men left . capable of assisting in the defence
of the town in case of an
attack,”
At this crisis a large armed
vessel of peculiar rig and aspect
entered the Firth of Forth, and
came to anchor in Leith Roads.
By experienced seamen she was
at once pronounced to be an
Algenne rover, and dismay spread
over all the city. This soon
reached a culminating point when
a strong band landed from her,
and, entering the Canongate by
Moors. After some conference with his men he
intimated his possession of an elixir of wondrous
potency, and demanded that the Provost’s daughter
should be entrusted to his skill, engaging that if he
did not cure her immediately to embark with his
men, and free the city without ransom. After considerable
parley the Provost proposed that the
leader should enter the city and take up an abode
in his house.”
This was rejected, together with higher offers of
ransom, till Sir John Smith yielded to the exhortations
of his friends, and the proposal of the Moor
was accepted, and the fair sufferer was borne to a
house at the head of the Canongate,
wherein the corsair had taken
up his residence, and from thence
she went forth quickly restored
and in health.
The most singular part of this
story is its denouement, from
which it would appear that the
corsair and physician proved to
be no other than the condemned
fugitive Andrew Gray, who had
risen high in the favour and service
of the Emperor of Morocco.
“He had returned to Scotland,”
says Wilson, ‘‘ bent on revenging
his own early wrongs on the magis-.
trates of Edinburgh, when, to his
surprise, he found in the destined
object of his special vengeance
relation of his own. He married
the Provost’s daughter, and settled EFFIGY OF THE MOOR, MOROCCO LAND.
the.Water Gate, advanced to the
Netherbow Port and required admittance. The
magistrates parleyed with their leader, who demanded
an exorbitant ransom, and scoffed at the
risk to be run in a plague-stricken city.
The Provost at this time was Sir John Smith, of
Groat Hall, a small mansion-house near Craigleith,
and he, together with his brother-in-law, Sir William
Gray, Bart., of Pittendrum, a staunch Cavalier,
and one of ’the wealthiest among the citizens, to
whom we have referred in our account of Lady
Stair’s Close, agreed to ransom the city for a
large sum, while at the same time his eldest son
was demanded by the pirates as a hostage. “ It
seems, however,” says Wilson, “that the Provost’s
only child was a daughter, who then lay stricken
of the plague, of which her cousin, Egidia Gray,
had recently died. This information seemed to
work an immediate change on the leader of the
-
“Dom. Ann.,” Vol. 11.
down a wealthy citizen in the burgh
of Canongate. The house to which his fair patient.
was borne, and whither he afterwards brought
her as his bride, is still adorned with an effigy
of his royal patron, the Emperor of Morocco,
and the tenement has ever since borne the name
of the Morocco Land. . . . . We have had
the curiosity to obtain a sight of the title-deeds
of the property, which prove to be of recent
date. The earliest, a disposition of 1731, so far
confirms the tale that the proprietor at that date is
John Gray, merchant, a descendant, it may be, of
the Algerine rover and the Provost’s daughter.
The figure of the Moor has ever been a subject of
pcapular admiration and wonder, and a variety of
legends are told to account for its existence. Most
of them, though differing in almost every other
point, seem to agree in connecting it with the last
visitation of the plague.’’
Near this tenement, a little to the eastward, was
the mansion of John Oliphant of Newland, second](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p019.gif "Volume 3 Page 7")
... , THE MOROCCO LAND. 7
per month. A number of the ailing were hutted
in the King’s Park, a few were ...
Vol. 3 p. 7 (Rel. 0.25)
![H o l y d . ] MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 79
bade them farewell in the Gallery of the Kings,
while a vast concourse assembled outside, all
wearing the white cockade. Another: multitude
was collected at Newhaven, where the Fishermen's
Society formed a kind of body-guard to cover the
embarkation.
'' A few gentlemen," says the editor of " Kay's
Portraits," " among whom were Colonel Macdonel,
the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Gillis, John Robinson,
Esq., and Dr. Browne, accompanied His
Majesty on board the steamer, which they did not
leave till she was under weigh. The distress of the
king, and particularly of the dauphin, at being
obliged to quit a country to which they were so
warmly attached was in the highest degree affecting.
The Duc de Bordeaux wept bitterly, and the Duc
d'AngouEme, embracing Mr. Gillis d la 3ranfaise,
gave unrestrained scope to his emotion. The act
of parting with one so beloved, whom he had
known and distinguished in the salons of the
Tuileries and St. Cloud, long before his family had
sought an asylum in the tenantless halls of Holyrood,
quite overcame his fortitude, and excited
feelings too powerful to be repressed. When this
ill-fated family bade adieu to our shores they
carried with them the grateful benedictions of the
poor, and the respect of all men of all parties who
honour misfortune when ennobled by virtue."
In Edinburgh it is well known that had H.K.H.
the late Prince Consort-whose love of the picturesque
and historic led him to appreciate its
natural beauties-survived a few years longer, many
improvements would have taken place at Holyrood
; and to him it is said those are owing which
have already been effected.
Southward of the palace, the unsightly old tenements
and enclosed gardens at St. Anne's Yard
were swept away, including a quaint-looking dairy
belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, and by
1857-8-9 the royal garden was extended south
some 500 feet from the wall of the south wing, and
a new approach was made from the Abbey Hill,
a handsome new guard-house was built, and the
carved door of the old garden replaced in the wall
between it and the fragment of the old abbey
porch ; and it was during the residence of H.R.H.
the Prince of Wales at Holyrood that the beautiful
fountain in the Palace Yard was completed, on the
model of the ancient one that stands in ruin nowy
in the quadrangle of Linlithgow, and which is
referred to by Defoe in his "Tour in Great
Britain."
The fountain rises from a basin twenty-four feet in
diameter to the height of twenty-eight feet, divided
into threestages, andby flying buttresses has theeffect
of a triple crown. From the upper of these the water
flows through twenty ornate gurgoils into three
successive basins. The basement is of a massive
character, divided by buttresses into eight spaces,
each containing a lion's head gurgoil. This is surmounted
by eight panels having rich cusping, and
between these rise pedestals and pinnacles. The
former support heraldic figures with shields. These
consist of the unicorn bearing the Scottish shield, a
lion bearing a shield charged with the arm of
James IV. and his queen, Margaret of England;
a deer supports two shields, with the arms of the
queens of James V., Magdalene of France, and
Mary of Guise ; and the griffin holds the shields of
James IV. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark.
The pinnacles are highly floriated, and ,enriched
with flowers and medallions
It is in every way a marvellous piece of stone
carving. The flying buttresses connecting the stages
are deeply cusped. On the second stage are eight
figures typical of the sixteenth century, representing
soldiers, courtiers, musicians,' and a lady-falconer,
each two feet six inches in height. On the upper
stage are four archers of the Scottish Guard, supporting
the imperial crown. It occupies the site whereon
for some years stood a statue of Queen Victoria,
which has now disappeared.
Still, as of old, since the union of the cron-ns:
for a fortnight in each year the Lord High Conimissioner
to the General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland holds semi-royal state in Holyrood,
gives banquets in its halls, and holds his ledes in
the Gallery of the Kings.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p091.gif "Volume 3 Page 79")
... o l y d . ] MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 79
bade them farewell in the Gallery of the Kings,
while a vast concourse ...
Vol. 3 p. 79 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
pilgrimage to on May Day, I. 379
geology of the hill 11. 303, 304
origin of the name: ...
Vol. 6 p. 370 (Rel. 0.24)
![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. 0.24)
![THE MESSRS, NELSON. 355 The Meadows.]
G. H., cut in wood, remained in Several parts of the
l?ouse. The Rev. Dr. Steven, gpvernor of the
hospital, presented a coloured drawing of the house
to the Messrs. Nelson, as “the country residence
of the founder of the hospital.” It perished in the
fire of 1878, but another is preserved.
The house was also, about 1800, the abode of an
aged lady, well known to those of Jacobite proclivities
in Edinburgh, Mrs. Hannah Robertson, an
alleged grand-daughter of Charles II., and whose
sister was ancestress of the Mercers of Gorthy.
She died in 1808.
The well-known firm of the Messrs. Nelson and
Sons was originally established by the late Mr.
Thomas Nelson, whose first business premises were
in a small corner shop at the head of the West Bow,
only lately removed, where he published cheap
editions of the “ Scots Worthies,” Baxter’s “Saints’
Rest,” and similar works; but it was not until
his sons entered the business that the work of the
firm was placed upon a wider basis.
Mr. Nelson was born at a village called Throsk,
near Stirling, in 1780. When twenty years of age
he went to London, and after experiencing his own
share of difficulties, familiar to young men in
pushing their way in the world, he at last entered
the service of a publishing house in Paternoster
Row. This determined the course of his career.
One of his early associates in London was the late
Mr. Kejly, publisher, afterwards raised to the Lord
Mayor’s chair. Mr. Nelson had begun by this time
to show that love for the standard works of the old
theological school which characterised him in afteI
iife. He remained for some years in London, and
then came to Edinburgh, where he soon signalized
himself as a publisher.
Cheap issues are a common feature of the
publishing trade of the country now, but it was
otherwise in the beginning of the century, and he
was among the first to introduce the new order 01
things by the publication of works like those ol
Paley, Leighton, Romaine, Newton, and many
ithers.
For several years in the latter part of his life
le was more or less of an invalid. He died, at the
ige of eighty, on the 23rd of March, 1861. He
.ies buried in Edinburgh in the Grange cemetery,
iext to the grave of Hugh Miller.
The Messrs. Nelsons’ range of offices at Hope
Park were on a scale surpassing any similar place
2f business in Edinburgh, as it consisted of three
:onjoined blocks of neat and plain design, forming
as many sides of a square. In the main building
were three floors, and machinery was used
wherever it was available, and by means of that
and an admirably organised system of the division
of labour, the amount of literary work turned out
was enormous. The process of stereotyping, which
was invented by Mr. William Ged, a goldsmith in
Edinburgh, and has been brought to the highest
perfection in the place of its birth, was here greatly
in practice. By 1870 the Messrs. Nelson employed
fully 600 workpeople, the half of whom were young
women, and on theii own premises they manufactured
all the inks used in printing, and the varnishes
for bookbinding.
The whole of their extensive premises were destroyed
by a calamitous fire, after which the Messrs.
Nelson erected new offices and workshops upon
several acres of land, known as Parkside, with a
fine frontage to the old Dalkeith Road, south of
“The Castle of Clouts,” and near what was called
of old the Gibbet TolL
Erected by the Messrs. Nelson in 1881, two
handsome pillars, surmounted respectively by
the Unicorn and Lion, now ornament the entrance
to the Melville Drive at the east end of the
Meadows. These pillars stand near the site of
their former premises, and were erected as a gift to
the city, in commemoration of the kindness and
sympathy shown to tkm by the magistrates at the
time of the great fire.
CHAPTER XLII.
LAURISTON.
The New University B u i l d h ~ l ’ h c Estimates and Accommodation-George Watson’s Hospital-Founded-Opened and Sold--The New
Infirmary-Its Capabilities for Accommodation-Simpwn Memorial Hospital-Sick C h i l M s Hospital-Mberdust Maiden Haspitai-
Watson’s SchoobIauriston United Resbyterian Church-St. Catharine’s Convent.
IN the district of Lauriston we find quite a cluster
of charitable institutions ; but before treating of the
more ancient one-Heriot’s Hospital-we shall
describe those edifices which lie between the street
and the northern walk of the Meadows
In the city map of 1787, after Watson’s Hospital,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p175.gif "Volume 4 Page 355")
... MESSRS, NELSON. 355 The Meadows.]
G. H., cut in wood, remained in Several parts of the
l?ouse. The Rev. Dr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 355 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine’s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of old ...
Vol. 6 p. 329 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine’s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of old ...
Vol. 6 p. 330 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
musical farce, entitled HaZZow 3a+, which is not
included in tne ‘‘ ...
Vol. 2 p. 348 (Rel. 0.23)
... Stratl CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 165
principal duty as clerk in court was to sit below
the bench, watch the ...
Vol. 3 p. 165 (Rel. 0.23)
... INDEX.
Christ’s Church at the Tron, I. 187
Christ‘s Church. Castle Hill. I. 82
Chrystie family,’The, ...
Vol. 6 p. 373 (Rel. 0.23)
![Canongate.] MORAY HOUSE. 31
fined here under a guard of Cromwell’s soldiers,
effected their escape by rending their blankets
and sheets into strips. In January, 1675, the
captain of the Edinburgh Tolbooth complained
to the Lords of Council that his brother official
in the Canongate used to set debtors at liberty
at his own free will, or by consent of the creditor
by whom they were imprisoned without pemiission
accorded.
After the erection of the Calton gaol this edifice
was used for the incarceration of debtors alone;
and the number therein in October, 1834, was only
seventeen, so little had it come to be wanted for
that purpose.
Within a court adjoining the Tolbooth was the
old Magdalene Asylum, instituted in 1797 for the
reception of about sixty females j but the foundation-
stone of a new one was laid in October, 1805,
by the Provost, Sir
William Fettes, Bart, in
presence of the clergy
and a great concourse
of citizens. “In the
stone was deposited a
sealed bottle, containing
various papers relating
to the nse, progress, and
by an arrangement with her younger sister, Anne
Home, then Countess of Lauderdale, by whom the
mansion was built. “It is old and it is magnificent,
but its age and magnificence are both different
from those of the lofty piled-up houses of
the Scottish aristocracy of the Stuart dynasty.”
Devoid of the narrow, suspicious apertures,
barred and loopholed, which connect old Scottish
houses with the external air, the entrances and
proportions of this house are noble, spacious,
and pleasing, though the exterior ha$ little ornament
save the balcony, on enormous trusses, projecting
into the street, with ornate entablatures
over their great windows and the stone spires of
its gateway. There are two fine rooms within,
both of them dome-roofed and covered with designs
in bas-relief,
The initials of its builder, M. H., surmounted
by a coronet, are sculp
THE STOCKS, FROM THE CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
(Now in the Scottisk A ~ ~ ~ w w % z R Mfucum.)
present state of the
asylum.” This institution was afterwards transferred
to Dalry.
A little below St. -John Street, within a court,
stood the old British Linen Hall, opened in 1766
by the Board of Manufactures for the Sale and
Custody of Scottish Linens-an institution to be
treated of at greater length when we come to its
new home on the Earthen Mound. Among the
curious booth-holders therein was (( old John
Guthrie, latterly of the firm of Guthrie and Tait,
Nicholson Street,’’ who figures in “ Kay’s Portraits,”
and whose bookstall in the hall-after he ceased
being a travelling chapman-was the resort of all
the curious book collectors of the time, till he
removed to the Nether Bow.
A little below the Canongate Church there
was still standing a house, occupied in 1761 by
Sir James Livingstone of Glentenan, which possessed
stables, hay-lofts, and a spacious flowergarden.
By far the most important private edifice still
remaining in this region of ancient grandeur and
modern squalor is that which is usually styled
Moray House, being a portion of the entailed property
of that noble family, in whose possession it
remained exactly zoo years, having become the
property of Margaret Countess of Moray in 1645
tured on the south &-
dow, and over another
on the north are the
lions of Home and
Dudley impaled in a
lozenge, for she was the
daughter of Lord Dudley
Viscount Lyle, and
then the widow of Alexander
first Earl of Home, who accompanied
James VI. into England. She erected the house
some years before the coronation of Charles I.
at Edinburgh in 1633; and she contributed
largely to the enemies of his crown, as appears
by a repayment to her by the English Parliament
of ~ 7 0 , 0 0 0 advanced by her in aid‘ of the
Covenanters; and hence, no doubt, it was, that
when Cromwell gained his victory over the
Duke of Hamilton in the north of England, we
are told, when the (then) Marquis of Argyle conducted
Cromwell and Lambert, with their army,
to Edinburgh, they kept their quarters at the
Lady Home’s house in the Canongate, according
to Guthrie, and there, adds Sir James Turner,
they came to the terrible conclusion ‘( that fhere
was a necessitie fa fake away fhe King‘s Zzyee;’’ so
that if these old walls had a tongue they might
reveal dark conferences connected with the most
dreadful events of that sorrowful time. In conclave
with Cromwell and Argyle were the.Earls of
Loudon and Lothian, the Lords Arbuthnot, Elcho,
and Burleigh, with Blair, Dixon, Guthrie, and other
Puritans. Here, two years subsequently, occurred,
on the balcony, the cruel and ungenerous episode
connected with the fallen Montrose, amid the
joyous banquetings and revelry on the occasicn of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p043.gif "Volume 3 Page 31")
... MORAY HOUSE. 31
fined here under a guard of Cromwell’s soldiers,
effected their escape by rending ...
Vol. 3 p. 31 (Rel. 0.23)
... 99 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
. Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Wm., 11. 86,
. Stitchill, Laird of I. 169
.Stockbridge, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 390 (Rel. 0.23)
![High Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281
(presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it,
with something under his coat. There can be no
doubt that this was the murderer, and the description
given coincided exactly with the appearance
of Mackoull, Although the boy heard of the murder
before he lkft Leith, he never thought of communicating
what he had seen to the authorities ; he was
shortly after captured and carried to a French prison,
where he remained for many years. Mackoull resided
in Edinburgh from September, 1805, till the
end of 1806, lodging very near the scene of the
murder, and was a frequent visitor at the coffee-
It was raised from the grave, after it had lain
there two days, and the surgeons having made an
incision near the neck, became convinced that
death had been caused by strangulation, so all
supposition of suicide was abandoned. This examination
took place in a church. After the cut
had been sewn up, the body was washed, wrapped
in fresh linen, and James Row, merchant in Edini
burgh, and Philip Stanfield, the disinherited son,
lifted it for deposition in the coffin, when 10 ! on
the side sustained by Philip an effusion of blood
took place, and so ample as to defile both his hands.
printers and publishers.
The World’s End Close was the curious and
appropriate name bestowed upon the last gloomy,
and mysterious-looking alley on the south side of
the High Street, adjacent to the Netherbow Port,
when it lost its oXer name of Sir John Stanfield’s
Close.
At the foot of it an ancient tenement, has a shield
of arms on its lintel, .with the common Edinburgh
legend-“Praisze. the. Lord. for.all.His.giftis,M.S. ;I’
but save this, and a rich Gothic niche, built into a
modern “land ” of uninteresting aspect, nothing remains
of Stanfield‘s Close save the memory of the
dark tragedy connected with the name of the knight.
Sir Jaines Stanfield was one of those English manufacturers
who, by permission of the Scottish Government,
had settled at Newmills, in East Lothian.
He was a respectable man, but the profligacy of
Philip, his eldest son, so greatly afflicted him that
he became melancholy, and he disinherited his heir
by a will. On a day in the November of 1687 he
was found drowned, it wafi alleged, in a pool of
water near his country house at Newmills. Doubts
were started as to whether he had committed
suicide, in consequence of domestic troubles, or had
been murdered. The circumstances of his being
hastily interred, and that Lady Stanfield had a suit
of graveclothes all ready for him before his death,
‘seemed to point to the latter; and two surgeons
“ Tiditions and Antiquities of Leith.”
36
November, 1806, Mackoull was seized with convulsions,
and threw himself back on his bed and
began to rave.
Tweeddale House, after being quitted by the
British Linen Company for their new office in St.
after handled by the murtherar, it will ;ushe out of
blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for
revenge of the murtherar.”
Accordingly, on the 7th of February, 1688,
Philip was brought to trial at Edinburgh, and after
the household servants had been put to torture
without eliciting anything on the strength of the
mysterious bleeding, according to Fountainhall, save
that he was known to have cursed his father, drunk
to the king’s confusion, and linked the royal name
with those of the Pope, the devil, and Lord Chancellor,
he was sentenced to death. He protested
his innocence to the last, and urged in vain that
his father was a melancholy man, subject to fits;
that once he set out for England, but because his
horse stopped at a certain place, he thought he saw
the finger of God, and returned home ; and that he
once tried to throw himself over a window at the
Nether Bow, probably at his house in the World’s
End Close.
Philip Stanfield was hanged at the Market Cross
on the 24th of February. In consequence of a slip
of the rope, he came down on his knees, and it was
necessary to use more horrible means of strangulation
His tongue was cut out for cursing his
father ; his right hand was struck off for parricide ;
his head was spiked on the East Port of.Haddington,
and his mutilated body was hung in chains
between L.eith and the city. After a few days the
body was stolen fiom the gibbet, and found lying
in a ditch among water. It was chained up again,
time groaning in great anguish, and refusing to
touch the corpse again, while all looked on with
dismay. The incident was at once accepted by
the then Scottish mind in the light of a revelation
of Philip’s guilt as his father’s murderer. “In a
Andrew Square, became, and is still, the establish- 3 I ment of Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, t!ie well-known
secret niurther,” says King James in his ‘ Damonology’-“
if the dead carkasse be at any time there](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p101.gif "Volume 2 Page 281")
... Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281
(presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it,
with something under his ...
Vol. 2 p. 281 (Rel. 0.23)
... INDEX.
299, 307, 342 ; Lord Provost, 11.
282 283 293' hisfuneral I 155
Kindid, b a d , of Coates ...
Vol. 6 p. 381 (Rel. 0.23)
![University.] THE PROFESSORS AND THE TOWN COUNCIL. 15 -
endof the year named, a body was, for the first
time, regularly dissected in the city, after the celebrated
Dr. Archibald Pitcairn-who left a distinguished
position as a professor of medicine in the
University of Leyden, to marry a lady of Edinburgh
-had been induced to settle there, and seek a
practice. . . ,
The Doctor, on the 14th of October, wrote to his
friend 1)r. Gray, of London, stating that he was
making efforts to obtain from the magistrates subjects
for dissectiod, such as the bodies of those who
died in the ,House of Correction at Paul’s Work,
and had none to bury them. “We offer,” he says,
I‘ to wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them
after dissection at our own charges, which now the
town does; yet there is great opposition by the
chief surgeons, who neither eat hay nor suffer the
oxen to eat it. I do propose, if this be granted, to
make better improvements in anatomy than have
been made at Leyden these thirty years; for I
think most or all anatomists have neglected or
not known what was most useful for a physician.”
The person who moved ostensibly in this matter
was Alexander Monteith, who entered the Colleg?
of Surgeons in December, 1691. He was a prominent
Jacobite, and owner of Todshaugh, now
called Foxhall, in West Lothian. He was an eminent
surgeon, and a friend of Pitcairn’s. The Town
Council on the 24th of October, in compliance with
his urgent request, granted to him the bodies of
those who died in the House of Correction and
of all foundlings who died at the breast.
They gave him, at the same time, a room for dissection,
with permission to inter the mutilated remains
in the College Kirk Cemetery, stipulating
that he should inter all intestines within forty-eight
hours, the rest of the body within ten days, and that
his prelections should only be in the winter season.
Though the College of Surgeons did not generally
oppose this new movement, they greatly disliked
his exclusive permission from the Council,
and proposed to give demonstrations in anatomy
as well, asking for the unclaimed bodies of those
who died in the streets, and also of foundlings.
Their petition was granted, on the understanding
that they should have a regular anatomical theatre
ready before the Michaelmas of 1697 ; but it was
not until 1705 that the Anatomical Chair was
founded in the university.
In 1703 a struggle for emancipation from the
Town Council was made by the professors. It had
-wen usual f9r the former body to appoint a day for
graduation, or laureation, as it was named in those
days. This was for the first or senior class; and to
preside at this learned ceremony a certain portion
of the somewhat unlearned civic patrons were
regularly deputed, with their robes, insignia, and
halberdiers, to at ten d.
The professors, as may be supposed, were becoming
very impatient of this yearly interference
with their internal arrangements, and perhaps imagined,
not unnaturally, that literature, science,
and philosophy, could derive but little lustre .‘ from
the presence of men who, generally speaking, would
have ears which heard not, and understandings
which could not perceive.”
Thus they bethought them of a plan whereby they
hoped to get rid of such officious visitors in all
time coming.
Accordingly, when all the professors met in the
Old College Hall, on the 20th of January, 1703,
they, as an independent faculty, adopted the following
resolution :-
“ The Faculty of Philosophy within the city of
Edinburgh, taking to their consideration the reasons
offered by Mr. Scott . why his magistrand class
should be privately graduated, and being satisfied
with the same, do unanimously, according to fheir
undoubfed yighf, confained in the charfer of erection,
and their constant and uninterrupted custom in
such cases, appoint the said class to be laureated
privately upon the last Thursday of April next,
being the twenty-seventh day of the said month.
Signed by order, and in presence of the Faculty, by
Robert Anderson, CZerk.”
This was deemed by the Provost and bailies as
the very tocsin of rebellion, and roused at once
their wrath. A visitation accordingly followed, by
the Lord Provost, Sir Hugh Cunningham, Knight,
and the bailies, with the inevitable halberdiers, in
the library of the college on the 15th of the following
month ; there he informed the Senatus that
among many other contumacious things,. he had become
cognisant <‘ of an unwarrantable act of the
masters of that college, viz., the Professors of
Philosophy, Humanity, Mathematics, and Church
Iiistory, wherein they assert themselves a FiicuZty,
empowered by the charter of erection to appoint,
&C.”
It is difficult to know how this quarrel might
have ended, had not the Lord Advocate, as
mediator between the parties, effected a compromise,
which, however, implied a surrender of
the asserted point at issue by the four professors ;
at the same time, so resolute were the magistrates
and Council in their intention of upholding and
defending their privileges as patrms of the
university, that Bailie Blackwood, in the name of
the rest, declared that the Council of the city
“would not be satisfied with the masters simply](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p026.gif "Volume 5 Page 15")
... THE PROFESSORS AND THE TOWN COUNCIL. 15 -
endof the year named, a body was, for the first
time, ...
Vol. 5 p. 15 (Rel. 0.23)
![388 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
2307 33O7 3447.3501 359s
at er, 11. 255; hls fat er
house, 11. 340, *PI; his mdkk
11. 142, 340; his various resi
dences, 11. 163 -164, 165 111.
359; @~study,'II. 163; las; resi
dence in bdtnburgh, 11.210 ; hi!
birthplace, 11.251~255 ; his par
trait, 11. 254; his arms, 11. *a54
his school Me, 11. 293, 294, 326
111. 8 ; his childhood 11. 30
burial-place ofhisfamil;, 11. 383
hls first love ib.; his son, 11,
294 ; his dauihter 11.165
Scott, Anne (sir &alter Scott'!
daughter), 11. 165
Scott of Balcomie, General, 11.191,
201, 269, 111. 42, 307; anecdote
of, 11. 191 ; his wife, 111. 124
Scott of Bavelaw 111. 331
Scott of Branxhoim, Sir Water, I.
194
ScottofBuccleuch Sir Waiter,]. zz:
Smtt of Cauldhou& 11. 2.9
Scott of Harden, Slr Wllliam, I.
Scott'of Kirkstyle I. 210
Scott ofMalleny;i.hefamiIyof, 111.
a02 111. 136
. .
334,335
Scott of Scotstanit, Sir John, I.
167, zm, 11. 3, 223, Ill. 135,199,
ScottbfThirlstane SirFrancis,I.z71
Scott ofThirlstan;, Patrick, 11. a y
Swtt. Lieut.-Col. (Sir Walter'sson),
2903 317. 343, 364
11. 294
Scott, David, the painter, 11. 92,
111. 68, 78, 223
Scott ohn Miracle of, 11. 55, 56
Scottl dicLe1, €1.
Scott: William. Greek professor.
111; 15 .
16~
k t t centenary, The first, 11. 150,
scb;'is Close, 11.271
kott's monument, I. *r 11. 126,
127, *12g ; statnetteson'it II. 1z1
Scottlsh Academv of Paint& 11. -.
90s 9'
Scottish Antiquar$n Society, 1.
Scottlsh Baptist meeting-house,
Scottrsh Barrack office 11.42
Scottish Chamber ofA&ulture, I.
Scottish currency, Value of the, in
258, 270
+le Square, 11.274
291
1707, 1.270
Scottish Episcopal chapels, I. 278
Scottish Episcopalians, The, I. 239,
Scottish Equitable Asurance Sc-
Scottish Hentable Security Com-
111. 231
ciety, 11. 170
PanY 11. I53
Scottish Horse Guards The I. 5'
Scottish judge+ Emhent, i. 167,
Scottish Liberal Club 11. 125
Scottish matrons, S& spirit of,
169-173
Sck?sh Miniitem' Widows' Fund,
ScottLhmonarchs, Portraits of the,
11. 378
11. 73, 74,177
Scottish National Fire and Life
Scottish Naval anh Militarv
Assurance Company 11.168
Academy, 11. 138
Scottish MV~, Formation of a, 111.
Sc%h Provident Institution, 11.
168
Scottish Records State of I. 367
11. 119 ; the& removal' to thi
Register House, I. 368
Scottish ReformationSocietp I. 294
Scottish Rights Association i1. 150
Scottish Roscius, The, I. ;47 ; his
Scottiih School of Design 11. 86
ScottishTemplars, Trialsifthe, 11.
ScotkhTreacury Room, The, 1.178
Scottish Union and National Inwife
ib.
46 50, 51, 111. 130
surance Company, 11. 170, 171 * 172
Scottish Universities Act, 111.24
Scottish Vulcanite Company, I1
Scotttsk Widows' Fund, 11. 1%
Scou&l, John, the painter, I. 22:
Sculptured stone, Newhaven, I1
Sea Penctbles The 111. 303
Seafield Cha&ello: I. 163
Seafield' Earl of 11: 33 111. 191
Seafield' Leith ill. 14; 263 266
Seafie1d'Hous;and B a d , Hi. 26c
Seafield Toll 111. 286
Sea-fight in k i t h harbour. A. 111
219, 220
168 172
223, 11. 90
299 *3?
duel on the site of rb.
, . r83,-184
the, 11. 307-310
Seaforth Highlanders, Revolt (
Seaforth, Kenneth Mackenzie. Ea
of 11. 307, 3 9
Seaiorth, Franci Lord, 111. IOI
Seal of Edinburgh, The Commox
his son, i6.
1. *a
Se&an'sHospital, Leith, 111.22:
Seamen, Wages of the Leith. 111
278
Leith 111. 278
Seamen's Friendly Society, Th
Seaton,'Sir Alexander, I. 167
Seceders, 'lhe, 1. 323,325, 333
Secession and Relief Church=
Union of the 111. 88
Secret subtenahean pLssages,Edii
burgh Castle, I. 82
Secretary's Register The I. 370
Sedan chairs, Use o( in Edinburgl
11. 120, 343 ; number of in 1775
11. 282 ; fracas resulting from th
useof, 111. 13
Sederunt, ~ c t s oP I. IW 11.315
Seqave, Sir Johdde, Ilk 351
Selkirk. Earl of, I. 274, 373 11.144
166,205,III. 122; mansion ofthc
1. *273, 274, '276, 11. 246, 249
Selkirk Countess of, 11. 335
Sellars"Ciose, I. 55
Semple, Lords, I. 91,92,11.3oo,35
Semple's Close I. 91
Senate Hall, Edinburgh University
111. 23, 24, 27
Session, Court of, I. 166, 167, 337
11. 174; probable extinction a
the, I. 174
Seton, Lord, 11. 35, 52 ; Lady, 111
52, 53.
Seton, Sir Alexander, III.49,318
Seton family, The, 111. 53, 54, 24
>ton House I1 35
Seven sist2;s oi Borthwick."The
I. 36
%mow Lord Webb 11.347
SbakesGe Club Tie, 111.126
Shakespeare in dinburgh, 11.39
Shakespeare Square, I. 218, 340
343, 336, 47, 3531 11. 176, 336
337 ;new 20, the back of, 1. *34!
Shandwick Place, 11. z q , 210
Shank I. 254
Sharp:, James, Archbishop of St
Andrews, 1. 215 259; his son':
residence, 111. 385
Sharpe of Hoddam Charles Kirk
patrick, 11.191, I&, 193, 243,342
111.99, IZO, 131, 230 ; saleofhir
curiosities, 11. 193
Sharpe of Hoddam, Mrs., 11. 26
Shearsmith, The first, 11. 26
Sheephead Wynd, Leith, 113 227
Shellycoat, The demon, Ill. 282
Shepherds' Ha' 111. 144
Sheridan, the a&, I.
Sheriff Brae, or Shirra &ge, Leith,
111. 247 248 250 ~51,*253,zBs
Sheriff Coirt, i. 166
Sheriff Court Buildings, I. 294, 29:
Sheriff Hall, 111. 16 , 963
ship Hotel,Theold,fxtth, III.rg5,
245 246. the new 111. 245 246
;hipduildiAg at LeAh, Newkven,
&c. 111.281
jhip&ng, Numberof, in Leith, 111.
188 'go 276 277; lawsrespening'the
i11. ;75
jhipmast'ers' Widows' Fund, The,
111. 278
jhoemakers' C!ose, 11. 10, 19
Shoemakers' Lands 11. g 10
Shore, The, Leith,' 111. '177, 184
'94, 1959 207, 209, 21% 227. 22g
Short'Sanh The 111. 282
Short's O&rvat&y, I. 87, 91, I1
'05
ShrubHill 111. 155 163
Sibbald- Si Rohert i 123 167 201
304,&, 363,II. ;4;, I I i . r6;,33:
Sibbald, James, booksellexand anu
quary, I. 181 111. 154
Siddons Mrs.: 1. 108, 343, 344
amusing anecdote of, 111. 24a
Siddons, Henry, 1. 348, 11.125~17:
Siddons, Mrs. Henry, I. 348, 349
350,351,111. 158,159 ; her grand
father, I. 351
Sidey Dr. J. A. 11. 305,347
Signe;, Keeper df the I. 367, $8
librarian of the (sm Ikng, David
Silvermills, The, 11. 117, 182, 111
Sd~~nrulls House, 111.
Sirnon Master of Lovat, 9.3z57, 251
Simon'square, 11.337
Simond, theFrenchtraveller, 11.18:
Simony, Practice of 111. 116
Simple, Robert, the'player, 11. 9
Simpson, Professor Sir Jame
'156, &,170,315,362, III.79,xa
Simpson the architect, 111. 339
Sinclair 'EVI w i l l i I. 661 ; hi
prince& I.&?,III.&7; hisstyb
oflivini ib.
Sinclair(o; St. clair) family, E ~ I !
history of the, 11. 247,111. 34
Sinclairof Dunbeath, Sir John, If1
63 ; Dame, 111. 62, 63
Siclair, Si John, the agriculturist
11. 17, 120, 126, 144, 172; hi
daughter Catherine 11. 126 165
Sinclau, Sir William, k d the kigt
School affray of 1595, I. no
111 297.
Siucl;ir of Roslin, Sir William, 111
354
Sinclair, Henry first Lord, 11. 251
Sinclair ot Ulbster George 11.30:
Sinclair of Murkle: Lady, iI. 188
Sinclair, John, Bishop of Brechin
Sinclair, Lady Janet, 11. 17~ IM
Sinclair ofstevenaon, Lady, 11. 33:
Sinclair, Catherine, 11. 126, 165
Kinclair, Margaret, 11. 165
Sinclair, the actor, I. 350
Sinclair Fountain, The, 11. 126
Kiclair's, Professor, " Satan's In.
viribleWorld Discovered."I.~z8.
236 238 245,246, 247, PhtC 31
345 ; $er popularity, 1. 345, 346
8- 84.
Young 11. 130. 153, 154, 155
I. 121
Street 11. *r64
Six FeeiClub The 111. 125. 326
jkene, M a j o r h d r a l Robert, 11.
310
jkene of Rubislaw Sir W. Scott's
friend 11.98 163'III.86,145,3jq
jkenes :f CurAehiil, The, 111.334,
Sir Jam- and Sir John, 11.302,
4kinners The 11. 264,111. z
jkinner'i Cl&, I. 139, 266, 167,
3aney's Hotel, I. 222
ilnteford, I. 323, 111. 326
jlaughterhousea, The city 11. 218
ilezer, Captain, author ofl" Theatrum
Scotire," 11. ,367, 111. 350
heaton's Clore Leith 111. 226
hellie, Williad, thepkter, I. 235,
236,383.11. 87, 1p0 111.31
imellie, the naturalist: 11. 311
imith, Provost Sir John, I. 102, no,
11 "
I.II.334, 335
11.247
i%h; Lord Chief Baron, Episcopal
chapel founded by I. 262 11.247
imith, Adam, I. 114 156, i36, 273,
11. 17, 21, 161, 194, 111. 240;
residence of, 11. 21 ; graye of,
with, Alexander, the poet, 111.
102, 30!
Nmith George, I. 113 *117; rob- be4 in concern whh Deacon
Hrodie, I. 113-115
mith, Sydney, 11. 203
11. 29
Smith, Dr. John, the physician, 11,
SZA the banker, Deathof, 11.18,
Smollett, Tobu., I.@, 155,239,lI.
26 127, 111. 262. his sister 11.
26'; his wife, ib. f his h o d , 11.
-e '"
Smythe Sir Jeremiahand theDutch
Snuff-taking in church, an offence,
fleet, i. 58,111. re8
11. 133
Society Close, I. 213, -14
SocietyofEdiburghGolfers III.31
Society for the PropagaAon of
Chrlstian Knowledge, I. 214, 359
Society Port, The, II.231,234,268,
2% 274, 346
Soldiersof EdinburghCastle, Tomb
in memoryof 11. 30
Soldiers first iuartered in Leith,
III. '931 I94
Solicitors before the Supremecourt,
Library of I. 123
Solway, ad of 11.37
Solway, Rout &, 11. 64,65
Sothern the actor, 1. 351
Somers"tavern I. 120
Somerset Dulce of I, 43
Somervilie, Lards,'I. 150, 155,183.
316,II. 161 111. 346
Somervjlle fai!nily, The, 111. 346
Somerville Bartholomew, I. 97, 314
Somerville: Major, and Capt. Crawford
Encounter between I. 95
Somerhle mansion The i. 314
Sounding-boards I i 32d
South back of ;he Longate, 11.
238, 245
South Blacket Place 111. 55, 56
South Bridge, I. 24;. 373-382, 11.
139,238 251 274 282 2 8, 334,
359, I d . I&; %e ;or8 commenced,
I. 374; valueof thesite,
ib.
South Bridge Street I 374 111.23
South Castle Street '11: 82 '165
South Clerk Street,'III. 5;
SouthCollegeStreet 1I.330,111.23
South Foulis' Close,'I. 276
South Frederick Street 11. 92
South Gray's C l m 1. ;673 274
South Leith, 111. r&, 165, 166,188,
South Leith, b+dge of, 11. 47
South Leith bunal-ground, 111.171
South Leith Freechurch, 111.1~8,
South Leith Poor-house 111.249
South Lach,The, 1. 8, h . 2 7
South Hanover Street, 11. 162, 192
South Niddry Street, 11. 251
South St.Andrew Street II.99,159
South St. David Street.'II. oz. 160
193, 210, 21
266
, ~. -162
Southern Market The, 11. 346
Southfield 111. I&
Spalding Pund. The, 11. 92
Spalding Peter 11. 92
Spaldina: the dtorian. 11. 10. 111. . _. . .
211
Spence, Thomas, Bishop of Aber-
Spence Willim I. 59 6a
Spendthrift Clud, I.he,'III. r z ~
Spjttal, Sir James, 11. 215
Spittal Street, 11. 215, 223
Spattiswc.de, Archbishop, I. 287,
298, 11. 39, 111. 2x9 ; hls house,
I. 208
Spottigwoode I. 166
Sputtkwood 'John, Superintendent
of Lothid I. 46 208
Spottkwood Road,'I11. 46
Springfield, 111. 356, 360
Springfield Street, 111. 163
Spur, The, Edinburgh Castle, 1.36,
Spylaw 111. 34
Spynie'Lord I. mg IIZ. 113
St. Andrew the Apoitle I. 261
St. Asdrew'saltar. Hol;rwd. 11. z8
deen, I. 300, 301
49, 5x1 52, 54, 86, 218
St. Andrew's Chapel, 'Carrubbeis
St. Andrew's Church. Geom
Close, I. 239.11. 242
Street, 11. 120, 144, *145, 14,
17' ; interior of, 11. 148
9t. Andrew's Hall, 1. 302
St. Andrew's Lane, 11.160
3t. Andrew's Port, I. 366
3. Andrew's Square, I. 2r7, 222,
267, 279, 11. 110, 118, 136, 161,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p207.gif "Volume 6 Page 388")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
2307 33O7 3447.3501 359s
at er, 11. 255; hls fat er
house, 11. 340, *PI; his ...
Vol. 6 p. 388 (Rel. 0.23)
![Parlirmcnt House.] LORDS MONBODDO, KAMES, AND HAILES 171
ministration of certain medicines ; but the famer
went beyond these, and mixed in it a considerable
quantity of treacle. As the horse died next
morning, Lord Monboddo raised a prosecution for
its value, and pleaded his own cause at the Bar.
He lost the case, and was so enraged against his
brother judges that he never afterwards sat with
them on the Bench, but underneath, among the
clerks. This case was both a remarkable and illl
amusing one, from the mass of Roman law quoted
on the occasion.
Though hated and despised by his brethren for
his oddities, Lord Monboddo was one of the most
learned and upright judges of his time. “His
philosophy,” says Sir Walter Scott, “as is well
known, was of a fanciful and somewhat fantastic
character ; but his learning was deep, and he possessed
a singular power of eloquence, which re-
,,mhded the hearer of the os ro&ndum of the Grove
or Academe. Enthusiastically partial to classical
habits, his entertainments were always given in the
evening, when there was a circulation of excellent
Bordeaux, in flasks garlanded with roses, which
were also strewed on the table, after the manner
Qf Horace.”
The best society in Edinburgh was always ‘ta be
found at his house, St John’s Street, Canongate.
His youngest daughter, a lady of amiable disposition
and of surpassing beauty, which Burns
panegyrised, is praised in one of the papers of
the Mirror as, rejecting the most flattering and
advantageous opportunities of Settlement in marriage,
that she might amuse her father’s loneliness
and nurse his old age.
He was the earliest patron of one of the best
scholars of his time, Professor John Hunter, who
was for many years his secretary, and wrote the
first and best volume of his lordship’s “ Treatise on
the Origin of Languages.” When Lord Monboddo
travelled to London he’ always did so on hoeeback.
On his last journey thither he ’got no
farther than Dunbar. His nephew inquiring the
Teason of this, ‘.‘Oh, George,” said he, “ I find I
am noo aughty-four,” The manners of Lord Monboddo
were as’odd as his personal appearance.
He has been described as looking “more like an
.old stuffed monkey dressed in judge’s robes than
anything else;” and so convinced is he said to
have been of his fantastic theory of human tails
that, when a child was born in his house he would
watch at the chamber door, in order to see it in its
first state, as he had an idea that midwives cut the
tails off!
He never recoveied the shock of his beautiful
in 1790. He kept her portrait covered with black
cloth; at this he would often look sadly, without
lifting it, and then turn to his volume of Herodotus.
He died in 1799.
The other eccentric we have referred to was
Henry Home, Lord Kames, who was equally distinguished
for his literary abilities, his metaphysical
subtlety, and wonderful powers of conversation j
yet he was strangely accustomed to apply towards
his intimates a coarse term which he invariably
used, and this peculiarity is well noted by Sir Walter
Scott in “Redgauntlet.” He was raised to the
Bench in 1752, and afterwards lived in New Street,
in a house then ranking as one of the first in the
city, The catalogue of his printed works is a very
long one.
On retiring from the Bench he took a public
farewell of. his brother judges. After a solemn
and pathetic speech, and shaking hands all round,
as he was quitting the Court, he turned round,
and exclaimed, in his familiar manner, “Fare ye
a’ weel, ye auld -” here using his customary
expression. A day or two b.efore his death he
told Dr. Cullen that he earnestly wished to be
away,’as he was exceedingly curious to learn the
manners of another world ; adding, “ Doctor, as I
never could be idle in this world, I shall gladly
perform any task that may be imposed upon me
in the next” He died in December, 1782, in
his 87th year.
Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, the annalist
of Scotland, was raised to the Bench in 1766. He
had studied law at Utrecht, and was distinguished
for his strict integrity, unwearied diiigence, and dignity
of manner, but he was more conspicuous as
a scholar and author than as a senator. His researches
were chiefly directed t9 the history and
antiquities of his native country; and his literary
labours extended over a period of close on forty
years. .4t his death, in 1792, an able funeral
sermon was preached by the well-known b r .
Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk; and, as no will
could be found, the heir-male was about to take
possession of his estates, to the exclusion of his
daughter, but some months after, when she was
about to give up Ne% Hailes, and quit the house
in New Street, one was found behind a windowshutter,
in the latter place, and it secured her iu
the possession of all, till her own death, which
took place forty years after.
Francis Gardner, Lord Gardenstone, appointed
in 1764, was one of those ancient heroes of the
Bar, who, after a night of hard drinking, would,
without having been in bed, or studying a case,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p183.gif "Volume 1 Page 171")
... House.] LORDS MONBODDO, KAMES, AND HAILES 171
ministration of certain medicines ; but the famer
went ...
Vol. 1 p. 171 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
C H A P T E R X X X I I I .
LEITH-TIIE DOCKS.
New Docks proposed-Apathy of ...
Vol. 6 p. 282 (Rel. 0.23)
... family were too rich to be bribed, and
clamoured that they would have blood for blood.
On the other hand, ...
Vol. 1 p. 111 (Rel. 0.23)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canonmills. 86
modation than external display, and yet is not
unsuited to the ...
Vol. 5 p. 86 (Rel. 0.23)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1st. teona& 384
bat in St. Leonard’s Hill, and upon the 23rd the said
Robert was put ...
Vol. 2 p. 384 (Rel. 0.23)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Princes Street 121
famous china emporium-has had many and various
occupants. In I 783, ...
Vol. 3 p. 122 (Rel. 0.23)
