... he
had conceived-like his father-a plan to escape.
. Lady Sophia Lindsay (of Balcarres), wife of his
son ...
Vol. 1 p. 59 (Rel. 3.51)
... 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. 1.99)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King’s
Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the
infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than
-war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and
re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy
.and great decoration of this realme, in that office,
place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re-
- sortand to the Schore of Leith.”
In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital
- for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard
Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep
four taverns in the buildings, together with the
tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of
‘catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose
till the year 1649, when it was taken pos-
2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and
. converted into a weigh-house.
“ In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay
commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,”
observes Campbell, in his “ History of Leith,” “ but
.are more than half disposed to believe it was that
old house which projects into Bernard Street, and
is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com-
,pany’s Bank.” ‘‘ The house alluded to,” adds
Robertson on this, “has a carved stone in front,
representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with
a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and
-can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.”
The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have
been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of
Montrose in his youth, as in his ‘‘ Household Accounts,”
under date 1627, are the following entries
.(Mait. Club Edit.) :-
‘‘ Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs.
Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s.
Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s
Item, to my Lord Nepar’s cochman . .
Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth..
. . 6s. Sd.
16s.”
The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in
the Parish Records ” of South Leith, and is dated
17th July, 1589 :-“ The quhilk days comperit
up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave
their names to be proclamit and mareit, within
this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.”
Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears
that the Session “ allowis burial to Barbara Logane,
-.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in
the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to
be given to the poor.”
From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present
Bernard Street is derived. Bernard’s Nook has
long been known. ‘‘ In the ‘ Council Records’ of
Edinburgh, 1647,” says Robertson, “is the following
entry :-‘ To the purchase of the Kingis Werk,
in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.’ A previous entry, 1627,
refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay,
‘for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .’
We have no record that any buildings existed beyond
the bounds of the walls or the present
Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on
the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.”
The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood
within Bernard’s Nook, on the west side of the
street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition
asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse
of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd.
Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark
already mentioned :-‘‘ A large stone panel, which
bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding
the appropriation of the King‘s Wark to
civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the
old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its
site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved
in bold relief springing at either end from a bank
of clouds.”
“ So,” says Arnot, ‘‘ this fabric, which was reared
for the sports and recreations of a Court, was
speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of
carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of
weighing hemp and of iron.”
Eastward of the King’s Wark, between Bernard‘s
Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously
designated Little London, and which, according to
Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west,
by seventy-five broad over the walls. “ How it
acquired the name of Little London is now
unknown,” says Camphell, in his “ History ” ;
“but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do
not see, however,” he absurdly remarks, “that it
could have obtained this appellation from any
other circumstauce than its having had some
real or supposed resemblance to the [English]
metropolis.”
As the views preserved of Little London show it
to have consisted of only four houses or so, and
these of two storeys high, connected by a dead
wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in
1800, Campbell’s theory is untenable. It is much
more probable that it derived its name from being
the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English
soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of
Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to
assist the Regent Morton’s Scottish Companies in
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men
departed from Leith on the 16th of the following
June, and it has been supposed that a few of them
may have been induced to remain, and the locality
thus won the name of Little London, in the same](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p057.gif "Volume 6 Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and ...
Vol. 6 p. 238 (Rel. 1.89)
... for sale, “together with those new subjects
lying in Water Lane, adjoining Messrs. Elder and
Archibald‘s ...
Vol. 6 p. 236 (Rel. 1.82)
... 2 OLD AND KEW EDINBURGH. [North Brid~c
Neaves was to be delivered, the house was filled in
every quarter; and ...
Vol. 2 p. 352 (Rel. 1.65)
![THE SCHOOL OF ARE. 379 South Bridge.]
called Adam Square. In those days the ground
in front of these was an open space, measuring
about 250 feet one way by zoo the other, nearly
to Robertson’s Close in the Cowgate, which was
concealed by double rows of trees.
In one of these houses there resided for many
years, and died on the 28th July, 1828, Dr. Andrew
Duncan, First Physician to His Majesty for Scotland;
and an eminent citizen in his day, so much
so that his funeral was a public one. “The custom
of visiting Arthur‘s Seat early on the morning
of the 1st of May is, or rather was, observed with
great enthusiasm by the inhabitants of Edinburgh,”
says the editor of “ Kay’s Portraits.” “ Dr.
younger son of Hope of Rankeillour, in Fife. Of
Stewart and Lindsay, the former was the son of
Charles Stewart of Ballechin, and the latter a
younger son of Lindsay of Wormiston. Among the
leading drapers : In the firm of Lindsay and Douglas,
the former was a younger son of Lindsay of Eaglescairnie,
and the latter of Douglas of Garvaldfoot.
Of Dundas, Inglis, and Callender, the first was a son
of Dundas of Fingarth, in Stirlingshire, the family
from which the Earl of Zetland and Baron Amesbury
are descended ; the second was a younger
son of Sir John Inglis of Cramond, and succeeded
to that baronetage, which, it may be remarked,
took its rise in an Edinburgh merchant of the
seventeenth century. Another eminent clothdealiog
firm, Hamilton and Dalrymple, comprehended
John Dalrymple, a younger brother of the wellknown
Lord Hailes and a grandson of the first
Lord Stair. He was at one time Master of the
Merchant Company. In a fourth firm, Stewart,
Wallace, and Stoddart, the leading partner was a
.son of Stewart of Dunearn.”
The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and
Manufactures is an offshoot of the old Merchant
Company in 1786, and consists of a chairman and
deputy,with about thirty directors and other officers,
and has led the van in patronising and promoting
liberal measures in trade and commerce generally.
The schools of the Edinburgh Merchant Company
are among the most prominent institutions
of the city at this day.
More than twenty years behre the erection of the
South Bridge, the celebrated Mr. Robert Adam, of
Maryburgh in Fifeshire, from whose designs many of
the principal edifices in Edinburgh were formed, and
who was appointed architect to the king in 1762,
built, on that piece of ground whereon the south-west
end of the Bridge Street abutted, two very large
and handsome houses, each with large bow-windows,
which, being well recessed back, and having the
College buildinas on the south, formed what was
at an expense within {is reach; and the idea was
the more favourably entertained because such a
scheme was already in full operation at Anderson’s
Institution in Glasgow, and the foundation of the
Edinburgh School of Art in the winter of 1821
was the immediate result.
With Mr. Horner many gentlemen well-known
in the city cordially co-operated ; among these were
Sir David Brewster, Principal of the University,
Dr. Brunton, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Murray, Professor
Pillans, Mr. Playfair, architect, Mr. Robert
Bryson, and Mr. James Mylne, brassfounder.
To enable young tradesmen to become acquainted
with the principles or chemistry and
Duncan was one of the most regular in his devotion
to the Queen of May during the long period of
fifty years, and to the very last he performed his
wonted pilgrimage with all the spirit, if not the
agility, of his younger years On the 1st of May,
1826, two years before his death, although aged
eighty-two, he paid his annual visit, and on the
summit of the hill read a few lines of an address to
Alexander Duke of Gordon, the oldest peer then
alive.” The Doctor was the originator of the Caledonian
Horticultural Society, and the first projector
of a lunatic asylum in Edinburgh
Latterly the houses of Adam were occupied by
the Edinburgh Young Men’s Christian Association,
and the Watt Institution and School of Arts,
which was founded by Mr. Leonard Horner,
F.R.S., a native, and for many years a citizen, of
Edinburgh, the son of Mr. John .Horner, of Messrs.
Inglis and Horner, merchants, at the Cross. The
latter years of his useful life were spent in London,
where he died in 1864, but he always visited Edinburgh
from time to time, and evinced the deepest
interest in its welfare. In 1843 he published the
memoirs and correspondence of his younger brother,
the gifted Francis Horner (the friend of Lansdowne,
Jeffrey, and Brougham), who died at Pisa,
yet won a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey.
To an accidental conversation in 1821, in the
shop of Mr. Bryson, a watchmaker, the origin of
the school has been traced. Mr. Horner asked
whether the young men brought to Mr. Bryson’s
trade received any mathematical education, and
the latter replied that, “it was seldom, if ever,
the case, and that daily experience showed the
want of this instruction; but that the expense
and usual hours of teaching mathematical classes
put it out of the power of working tradesmen to
obtain such education.” The suggestion then
occurred to Mr. Horner to devise a plan by which
such branches of science as would benefit the
mechanic might be taught at convenient hours and
. .](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p199.gif "Volume 2 Page 379")
... SCHOOL OF ARE. 379 South Bridge.]
called Adam Square. In those days the ground
in front of these was an open ...
Vol. 2 p. 379 (Rel. 1.55)
![Leith.] THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in repair, for holding wines and
other provisions for the king's use.
This Bernard Lindsay it was whom Taylor
mentions in his '' Penniless Pilgrimage " as having
Moreover, the King's Wark was placed most
advantageously at the mouth of the harbour, to
serve as -a defence against any enemy who might
approach it from the seaward. It thus partook
somewhat of the character of a citadel; and this
BERNARD STREET.
given him so warm a welcome at Leith in
1618.
That some funds were derivable from the King's
Wark to the Crown is proved by the frequent
payments with which it was burdened by several
of our monarchs. Thus, in the year 1477 James
111. granted out of it a perpetual annuity of twelve
marks Scots, for support of a chaplain to officiate
at the altar of c'the upper chapel in the collegiate
church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at
Restalrig."
seems to have been implied by the infeftment
granted by Queen Mary in 1564 to John Chisho!ia,
Master or Comptroller of the Royal Artillery,
who would appear to have repaired the buildings
which, no doubt, shared in the general conflagrations
that signalised the English invasions of 1544
and 1547. and the queen, on the completion
of his work, thus confirms her grant to the
comptroller :-
U Efter Her Heinis lauchful age, and revocation
made in parIiament, hir majestie sett in feu farme](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p056.gif "Volume 6 Page 237")
... THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in repair, for ...
Vol. 6 p. 237 (Rel. 1.51)
![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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Sciennes.
of hermit, or chaplain, resided ; and the charter of
foundation mentions ...
Vol. 5 p. 52 (Rel. 1.43)
... 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. 1.41)
... to his new monastery were the churches
of St. Cuthbert. and of the Castle, among which
one plot of land ...
Vol. 1 p. 20 (Rel. 1.31)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 383 (Rel. 1.21)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 382 (Rel. 1.21)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 384 (Rel. 1.21)
![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)
![Leith] CAPTAIN PALLISER’S CONTUMACY. 277
to-morrow ; the sailors belonging to the said ships
are to repair on board, under penalty of loss of
wages and imprisonment as deserters. Thir presents
to be published by tuck of drumme through
Leith, that none may pretend ignorance. (‘ WALTER SCOTTE, B.”
In 1752 the vessels of Leith amounted to sixtyeight,
with a tonnage of 6,935; and two years subsequently
we find an attempt upon the part of a
captain in the royal navy there to defy the Scottish
Court of Admiralty in the roads and harbour.
Captain (aflerwards Sir Hugh) Palliser, when
captain of H.M.S. Seahorse, in consequence of a
petition presented to the Judge of the High Court
of Admiralty, 20th March, 1754, by Thomas ROSS,
master, and Murdoch Campbell, owner of the
Scottish ship CumberZand, of Thurso, was served
with a notice to deliver up James Cormick, apprentice
to the former, whom he had taken on board
as a seaman.
Accordingly, by order of the judge, the macers
of court, messengers-at-arms, and other officials,
repaired on board the Seahorse, at the anchorage in
Leith, to bring off James Cormick; “and the said
Captain Hugh Palliser, and the other officers and
sailors on board the said shipof-war Seahorre,” ran
the warrant, “are hereby ordered to be assisting”
in putting it into execution, at their highest peril.
(‘ All others, shipmasters, sailors, and others his
Majesty’s .subjects,” were ordered to assist also, at
their utmost peril.
James Lindsay, Admiralty macer, served this
notice upon Captain Palliser, who foolishly and
haughtily replied that he was subject to the laws
of England only, and would not send Cormick
ashore. (‘ Upon which,” as the execution given
into court bears, ‘( I (James Lindsay) declared he
had contemned the law, was guilty of a deforcement,
and that he should be liable accordingly, having
my blazon on my breast, and broke my wand of
peace.’’
On this, a warrant was issued to apprehend the
commander of the Seahorse, and commit him to
the next sure prison (i.e. the Tolbooth of Leith), but
the captain having gone to Edinburgh, on the 26th
of March he was seized and placed in the Heart of
Midlothian, and brought before the High Court of
Admiralt), next day.
‘ There he denied that its jurisdiction extended
over a king’s ship, or over himself personally, or any
man in the Seahorse, especially an enlisted sailor ;
and maintained that the court, by attempting to do
so, assumed a right competent to the Lords of the
Admiralty alone ; ‘( and by your imprisoning me,”
he added, (( for not delivering up one of the king‘s
sailors, you have suspended my commission from
the Lord High Admiral, and disabled me from
executing the orders with which I am charged as
commander of one of the king’s ships.”
This only led to the re-commitment of the contumacious
captain, till he (‘found caution to obtemper
(sic) the Judge Admiral’s warrant, in case it should
be found by the Lords that he ought to do so.”
He was imprisoned for six weeks, until the apprentice
was put on shore. On this matter, Lord
Hardwicke, who was then Lord Chancellor, remarked
that the Scottiah Admiralty judge was a
bold one, “but that what he had done was
right.”
Captain Palliser, on his return to England,
threatened to make the frauds on the revenue a
matter for Parliamentary investigation, if not attended
to, And the ministry then enftrced the duties
upon claret, which, before this time, had been
drunk commonly even by Scottish artisans.
This officer afterwards behaved with great bravery
at Newfoundland, in 1764 ; and on attaining the
rank of Admiral of the White, was created a
baronet, and died governor of Greenwich Hospital
in 1796.
In 1763 the shore dues at Leith had increased to
A580. The Scots’ Magazine for December, 1769,
states that, “take one year with another, about
1,700 vessels are cleared out and in yearly at Leith.
Some days ago an acute merchant took a serious
view of the shipping in the harbour of Leith, and
reckoned upon a calculation that there would be
between 30,000 and 35,000 tonnage at one and the
same time mooring there.” This seems barely
probable.
In 17 7 I we meet with an indication of free trade,
when the Court of Session, upon the application
of the merchants of Edinburgh, ordered the port
of Leith, and all other Scottish ports, to be open
for the free importation of grain of all kinds.
Arnot states that in the year ending January
sth, 1778, there were, in Leith, 52 foreign ships,
6,800 tons, and 428 men ; 44 coasting and fishing
ships, 3,346 tons, and 281 men. Five years sub.
sequently, the shore dues were f;4,ooo; but in
that year there was only one vessel trading with
St. Petersburg. She made but one voyage yearly,
and never carried tallow if any other freight could
be obtained Now the sailing vessels make three
voyages to the same port annually.
In 1791 there was a proposal to form a jointstock
company, to cut a canal from Leith to the
middle ward of Lanarkshire.
The tonnage in 1792 had increased to 18,468.
In the same year, when those Radicals who](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p096.gif "Volume 6 Page 277")
... CAPTAIN PALLISER’S CONTUMACY. 277
to-morrow ; the sailors belonging to the said ships
are to repair on ...
Vol. 6 p. 277 (Rel. 1.15)
... THE REV. JOHN LOGAN.
The first Protestant minister of Leith, at the
settlement of the Reformation in 1560, ...
Vol. 6 p. 219 (Rel. 1.07)
![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. 1)
![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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyrood.
orders, who was on his way to Scotland at the
time of the murder. Darnley’s ...
Vol. 3 p. 70 (Rel. 0.87)
... 1 MARRIAGE OF MARY AND BOTHWELL. 71
dragged through the bed-room to the door of the
presence-chamber, where the ...
Vol. 3 p. 71 (Rel. 0.86)
![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)
... PGrt.1 THE LAWSONS. 22;
of Cromwell, expelled the General Assembly from
Edinburgh, literally drumming the ...
Vol. 4 p. 223 (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)
... 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)
![ROBERT MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in the grand and sublime
of Nature, and his style is marked chiefly by
vigour, power, and breadth of effect-strong light
and deep shadow. As a man and a Christian
minister, his life was simple, pure, and irreproachable,
his disposition kind, affable, and benevolent.
He died of apoplexy in 1840, in his sixty-second
year.
The city must have had some interest in the loch,
as in the Burgh accounts for 1554 we read:-
‘‘ Item : twa masons twa weeks to big the Park Dyke
at the loch side of Dudding‘ston, and foreanent it
again on Priestfield syde, ilk man in the week xv’.
summa iijIi.
(‘Item : for ane lang tree to put in the wall that
lyes far in the loch for outganging of ziyld beistis
v?.” ’ (“ Burgh Records.”)
The town or lands of Duddingston are included
in an act of ratification to James, Lord Lindsay of
the Byers, in 1592.
In the Acts of Sederunt for February, 1650, we
find Alexander Craig, in-dweller in the hamlet,
pilloried at the Tron of Edinburgh,. and placarded
as being a “ lying witness ” in an action-at-law
concerning the pedigree of John Rob in Duddingston;
but among the few reminiscences of this
place may be mentioned the curious hoax which
the episcopal incumbent thereof at the Restoration
played upon Cardinal de Retz.
This gentleman, whose name was Robert Monteith,
had unfortunately become involved in an
amour with a lady in the vicinity, the wife of Sir
James Hamilton of Prestonfield, and was cpmpelled
to fly from the scene of his disgrace. He
was the son of a humble man employed in the
salmon-fishing above Alloa ; but on repairing to
Paris, and after attaching himself to M. de la
Porte, Grand Prior of France, and soliciting employment
from Cardinal de Retz, he stated he was
“one of the Monteith family in Scotland.” The
cardinal replied that he knew the family well, but
asked to which branch he belonged. “To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net,” replied the unabashed
adventurer.
The cardinal replied that this was a branch he
had never heard of, but added that he believed
it was, no doubt, a very ancient and illustrious
family. Monteith was patronised by the cardinal,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame,
and made him his secretary, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his elegance and purity,
in the French language. This strange man is
author of a well-known work, published in folio,
entitled, “ Hisfoa’re des TroubZes de &andBretap,
depuis Z’an 1633 juspu’a Z‘an 1649, pur Robed
Menfet de Salmonet.
It was dedicated to the Coadjutor Archbishop of
Pans, with a portrait of the author; and a trans- .
lation of it, by Captain James Ogilvie, was published
in 1735 by G. Strachan, at the “Golden Ball,”
in Cornhill.
In the year of the Revolution we find the
beautiful loch of Duddingston, as an adjunct to
the Royal Park, mentioned in a case before the
Privy Council on the 6th March.
The late Duke of Lauderdale having placed
some swans thereon, his clever duchess, who was
carrying on a legal contest With his heirs, deemed
herself entitled to take away some of those birds
when she chose; but Sir James Dick, now proprietor
of the %ch, broke a lock-fast place in
which she had put them, and set them once more
upon the water. The irate dowager raised an
action against him, which was decided in her
favour, but in defiance of this, the baronet turned
all the swans off the loch ; on which the Duke of
Hamilton, as Heritable Keeper of the palace, came
to the rescue, as Fountainhall records, alleging
that the loch bounded the King’s Park, and that
all the wild animals belonged to him ; they were,
therefore, restored to their former haunts.
Of the loch and the landsof Priestfield (orPrestonfield),
Cockburn says, in his “Memorials” :-“I know
the place thoroughly. The reeds were then regularly .
cut over by means of short scythes with very long
handles, close to the ground, and this (system)
made Duddingston nearly twice its present size”
Otters are found in its waters, and a solitary
badger has at times provoked a stubborn chase.
The loch is in summer covered by flocks of dusky
coots, where they remain till the closing of the ice
excludes them from the water, when they emigrate
to the coast, and return With the first thaw.
Wild duck, teal, and water-hens, also frequent it,
and swans breed there prolifically, and form one
of its most picturesque ornaments. The pike, the
perch, and a profusion of eels, which are killed by
the barbed sexdent, also abound there.
In winter here it is that skating is practised as an
art by the Edinburgh Club. “The writer recalls
with pleasure,” says the author of the “Book of
Days,” “skating exhibitions which he saw there early
in the present century, when Henry Cockburn,
and the philanthropist James Sipson, were conspicuous
amongst the most accomplished of the
club for their handsome figures and great skill in
the art. The scene of that loch ‘ in full bearing J
on a clear winter day, with its busy and stirring
multitude of sliders, skaters, and curlers, the snowy
Paris, 166 I.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p135.gif "Volume 4 Page 315")
... MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in ...
Vol. 4 p. 315 (Rel. 0.83)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called St.
Anthony’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 223 (Rel. 0.82)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called St.
Anthony’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 222 (Rel. 0.82)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rLeith
He adds that the most striking feature is the
curiously decorated doorway, an ...
Vol. 6 p. 221 (Rel. 0.82)
![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)
... Street. THE sco-rr MONUMENT. 127
- -
Beattie, James Thomson, and John Home, adorn
the west front j those ...
Vol. 3 p. 127 (Rel. 0.79)
... . - 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 ANI) NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
a Negro,” published at Paisley so lately as 1841.
Peter was a livery ...
Vol. 5 p. 140 (Rel. 0.77)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
By interdict the directors were compelled to give
access to the well, ...
Vol. 5 p. 130 (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 AKD NEW EDINBURGH, [Leith.
1596-7. In 1578 an Act of Parliament was passed
to prevent “ the taking away ...
Vol. 5 p. 180 (Rel. 0.74)
... .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
But this ancient alley is the earliest thoroughhre
in the seaport of which we ...
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... 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)
![REGENT MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot parts-the charger springs-
Wild rises tumult’s startling roar !
And Murray’s plumy helmet rings-
Rings on the ground to rise no mare ! ”
When his remains were committed to the tomb in
which they still lie, the thousands who crowded
the church were moved to tears by the burning
eloquence of Knox. “Vpoun the xiiij day of the
moneth of Februar, 1570,” says the “ Diurnal of
Occurrents” “ my lord Regentis corpis, being brocht
in ane bote be sey, frz Stirling to Leith, quhair it
was keipit in Johne Wairdlaw his hous, and thereafter
cary it to the Palace of Holyrudhous, wes
transportit fra the said Palace to the College Kirk
the Regent Murray, the Regent Morton, and his
great rival, John Stewart Earl of Athole, are buried ;
and adjoining the aisle where the sorely mangled
remains of the great Marquis of Montrose were
so royally interred on the 7th of January, 1661.
The Regent’s tomb, now fully restored, stands
on the west side of the south transept, and on
many accounts is an object of peculiar interest.
Erected to the memory of one who played so conspicuous
a part in one of the most momentous
periods of Scottish history, it is well calculated to
interference of the General Assembly, and a riot
ensued.
The portion of the church which contained
these monuments was eftered by a door adjoining
the Parliament Close, and, as it was never shut,
“the gude regent’s aisle,” as it was named,
became a common place for appointments and
loungers. Thus French Paris-Queen Mary’o
servant-in his confession respecting the murder
of King Henry, stated that during the communings
which took place before that dark deed was resolved
on, he one day “took his mantle and sword
and went to prumencr (walk) in the high church.”
Probably in consequence of the veneration entertained
for the memory of the Regent, his tomb
rouse many a stirring association.
All readers of
history know how the Regent
fell under the bullet
of Bothwellhaugh, at Linlithgow,
in avenging the
wrongs inflicted on his
wife, the heiress of Woodhouselee.
As the “Cadyow
Ballad ” has it-
“ ’Mid pennoned spears a stately
Proud Murray’s plumage
Scarce could his trampling
So close the minions crow-
“ From the raised vizor’s shade,
Dark rolling, glanced the
And his steel truncheon waved
Seemed marshalling the iron
“But yet his saddened brow
A passing shade of doubt
Some fiend was whispering in
grove,
floated high ;
charger move,
ded nigh.
his eye,
ranks along ;
on high,
throng,
confessed,
and awe ;
his breast,
~
of Sanctgeill, in this manner; that is to say,
.i‘illiam Kirkaldie of Grange, Knycht, raid fra the
said palace in dule weid, bearing ane pensal!
quherin was contenit ane Reid Lyon; after him
followit Colvill of Cleishe, Maister (of the) Houshold
to the said Regent, with ane quherin was
contenit my lords regentis armes and bage.” The
Earls of Mar, Athole, Glencairn, the Lords
Ruthven, Methven, and Lindsay, the Master of
Graham, and many other nobles, bore the body
through the church to the grave, where it “was
JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST. GILES’S.
(From tk Scottish Anfaquarinn Museum).
buryit in Sanct Anthonie’s
yle.” On the front of the
restored tomb is the ancient
brass plate, bearing
an inscription composed
by George Buchanan :-
’( Iur060 Stuvarto, Mwm’e Cornifi,
Scotie Prwqi;
Vim, a t a t i s szw, longe opt*
mo : a6 inirnik,
0mni.- rnemorie deterrimis, ex
insdiis exfindo,
Ceu pafn‘ commwni, pafna
mcprens $omit.’’
Opposite, on the north side
of the west transept, was
the tomb in which the Earl
of Athole, Chancellor of
Scotland, who died suddenly
at Stirling, not without
suspicion of poison,
was interred with great
solemnity on the 4th of
July, 1579. A cross was
used on this occasion, and
as flambeaux were borne,
according to Calderwood,
the funeral probably occurred
at night ; these paraphernalia
led to the usual](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p155.gif "Volume 1 Page 143")
... MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot parts-the ...
Vol. 1 p. 143 (Rel. 0.7)
![High Street.] THE DEATH OF KNOX. 215
same chamber, was so sodainly amazed that she
took sickness and dyed ;I, an absurd fabrication, as
in the year after his death a pension was granted
to her and her three daughters, and she is known
to have been alive till about the end of the
sixteenth century.
In that old house, the abode of plebeians now,
have sat and debated again and again such men
as the Regent Murray, the cruel and crafty
Morton, the Lords Boyd, Ruthven, Ochiltree, and
the half-savage Lindsay-
“ He whose iron eye
Oft saw fair Mary weep in vain; ”
Johnstone of Elphinstone, Fairiie, Campbell of
Kinyeoncleugh, Douglas of Drumlanrig, and all
who were the intimates of Knox ; and its old walls
have witnessed much and heard much that history
may never unravel.
It was while resident here that Knox’s enemies
are said-for there is little proof of the statement
-to have put a price upon his head, and that his
most faithful friends were under the necessity of
keeping watch around it during the night, and of
appointing a guard for the protection of his person
at times when he went abroad. When under
danger of hostility from the queen’s garrison in
the Castle, in the spring of 1571, M‘Crie tells us
that “one evening a musket-ball was fired in at
his window and lodged in the roof of the apartment
in which he was sitting. It happened that
he sat at the time in a different part of the room
from that which he had been accustomed to
occupy, otherwise the ball, from the direction it
took, must have struck him.”
It was probably after this that he retreated for a
time to St. Andrews, but he returned to his manse
in the end of August, 1572, while Kirkaldy was
still vigorously defending the fortress for his exiled
queen.
His bodily infirmities now increased daily, and
on the 11th of November he was attacked with a
cough which confined him to bed.
Two days before that he had conducted the
services at the induction of his colleague, Mr.
James Lawson, in St. Giles’s, and though he was
greatly debilitated, he performed the important
duties that devolved upon him with something of
his wonted fire and energy to those who heard
him for the last time. He then came down from
the pulpit, and leaning on his staff, and supported
by his faithful secretary, Richard Bannatyne (one
account says by his wife), he walked slowly down
the street to his own house, accompanied by the
whole congregation, watching, for the last time, his
feeble steps.
During his last illness, which endured about a
fortnight, he was visited by many of the principal
nobles and reformed preachers, to all of whom he
gave much advice; and on Monday, the 24th of
November, 1572, he expired in his sixty-seventh
year, having been born in 1505, during the reign
of James IV.
From this house his body was conveyed to its
last resting-place, on the south side of St. Gileo’s,
accompanied by a mighty multitude of all ranks,
where the newly-appointed Regent Morton pronounced
over the closing grave his well-known
eulogiuni.
That eastern nook of the old city, known as the
Nether Eow has many associations connected with
it besides the manse of Knox
Therein was the abode of Robert Lekprevik,
one of the earliest of Scottish printers, to whose
business it is supposed Bassandyne succeeded on
his removal to St. Andrews in 1570; and there, in
16 13, the authorities discovered that a residenter
named James Stewart, “ commonly called James of
Jerusalem, a noted Papist, and re-setter of seminary
prints,” was wont to have mass celebrated in his
house by Robert Philip, a priest returned from
Rome. Both men were arrested and tried on this
charge, together with a third, John Logan, portioner,
of Restalrig, who had formed one of the
small and secret congregation in Stewart‘s house
in the Nether Bow. “One cannot, in these days
of tolerance,” says Dr. Chambers, “ read without a
strange sense of uncouthness the solemn expressions
of horror employed in the dittays of the king’s advocates
against the offenders, being precisely the
same expressions that were used against heinous
offences of a more tangible nature.”
Logan was fined LI,OOO, and compelled to express
public penitence; and Philip and Stewart
were condemned to banishment from the realm of
Scotland.
In the Nether Bow was the residence of James
Sharp, who had been consecrated with great pomp
at Westminster, as Archbishop of St. Andrews, on
the 15th of November, 1661-a prelate famous for
his unrelenting persecution of the faithful adherents
of the Covenant which followed his elevation, and
justly increased the general odium of his character,
and who perished under the hands of pitiless assassins
on Magus Muir, in 1679.
Nicoll, the diarist, tells us, that on the 8th of
May, 1662, all the newly consecrated bishops were
convened in their gowns at the house of the Archbishop,
in the Nether Bow, from whence they proceeded
in state to the Parliament House, conducted
by two peers, the Earl of Kellie (who had been](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p035.gif "Volume 2 Page 215")
... Street.] THE DEATH OF KNOX. 215
same chamber, was so sodainly amazed that she
took sickness and dyed ;I, an ...
Vol. 2 p. 215 (Rel. 0.69)
![Holymod.] ‘ QUEEN MARY AND JOHN KNOX. 67
religion of the land, yet on the first Sunday
subsequent to her return she ordered mass to be
said in the chapel royaL Tidings of this caused
a dreadful excitement in the city, and the Master
of Lindsay, with other gentlemen, burst into the
palace, shouting, ‘‘ The idolatrous priest shall die
the death!” for death was by law the penalty of
celebrating mass; and themultitude, pouring towards
the chapel, strove to lay violent hands on the priest.
Lord James-afterwards Regent-Moray succeeded
in preventing their entrance by main strength, and
thus gave great offence to the people, though he
alleged, as an excuse, he wished to prevent “ any
Scot from witnessing a service so idolatrous.”
After the function was over, the priest was committed
to the protection of Lord Robert Stuart,
Commendator of Holyrood, and Lord John of
Coldingham, who conducted him in safety to his
residence. “ But the godly departed in great grief
of heart, and that afternoon repaired to the Abbey
in great companies, and gave plain signification
that they could not abide that the land which God
had, by His power, purged from idolatry should
be polluted again.” The noise and uproar of these
companies ” must have made Mary painfully
aware that she was without a regular guard or
armed protection ; but she had been barely a week
in Holyrood when she held her first famous interview
with the great Reformer, which is too well
known to be recapitulated here, but whichaccording
to himself-he concluded by these
remarkable words :-cc I pray God, madam, that ye
may be as blessed within the commonwealth of
Scotland, if it be the pleasure of God, as ever
Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”
The Queen’s Maries, so celebrated in tradition,
in history, and in song, who accompanied her to
France-namely, Mary, daughter of Lord Livingston,
Mary, daughter of Lord Flemihg, Mary, daughter of
Lord Seton, and Mary Beaton of Balfour, were all
married in succession ; but doubtless, so long as
she resided at Holyrood she had her maids ol
honour, and the name of “Queen’s Maries”
became a general designation for her chosen attendants
; hence the old ballad :-
“Now bear a hand, my Maries a’
And busk me braw and fine.”
Her four Maries, who received precisely the same
education as herself, and were taught by the
same masters, returned with her to Scotland with
their acknowledged beauty refined by all the
graces the Court of France could impart; and in
a Latin masque, composed by Buchanan, entitled
the “Pomp of the Gods,” acted at Holyrood in
July, 1567, before her marriage with Damley,
Diana speaks to Jupiter of her $%e Manes-the
fifth being the queen herself; and well known is
the pathetic old ballad which says :-
“ Yest’reen the Queen had foyr Manes,
This night she’ll have but three ;
And Mary Carmichael and me.”
There was Marie Beaton and Mane Seaton
In a sermon delivered to the nobles previous to
the dissolution of Mary’s first Parliament, Knox
spoke with fury on the runiours then current concerning
the intended marriage of the Queen to a
Papist, which “ would banish Christ Jesus from the
realm and bring God‘s vengeance on the country.’l
He tells that his own words and his manner of’
speaking them were deemed intolerable, and that
Protestants and Catholics were equally offended.
And then followed his second interview with Mary,
who summoned him to Holyrood, where he wasintroduced
into her presence by Erskine of Dun, and
where she complained of his daring answers and
ingratitude to herself, who had courted his favour;
but grown undaunted again, he stood before her
in a cloth cap, Geneva cloak, and falling bands,
and with “ iron eyes beheld her weep in vain.”
‘‘ Knox,” says Tytler, “ affirmed that when in
the pulpit he was not master of himself, but must
obey His commands who bade him speak plain,
and flatter no flesh. As to the favours which had
been offered to him, his vocation, he said, was
neither to wait in the courts of princes nor in
the chambers of ladies, but to preach theGospel.
‘I grant it so,’ reiterated the queen; ‘but what
have you to do with my mamage, and what are
you within the commonwealth 7 ’ ‘ A subject
born within the same ; and albeit, madam, neitherbaron,
lord, nor belted earl, yet hath God made
me, however abject soever in your eyes, a useful
and profitable member. As such, it is my duty
to forewarn the people of danger ; and, therefore,
what I have said in public I repeat to your own
face ! Whenever the nobility of this realm so farforget
themselves that you shall be subject to an
unlawful husband, they do as much as in
them lieth to renounce Christ, to banish the
truth, betray the freedom of the realm, and perchance
be but cold friends to yourself!’ This
new attack brought on a still more passionate
burst of tears, and Mary commanded Knox to quit
the apartment.”
Then it was, as he was passing forth, “ observing
a circle of the ladies of the queen’s household
sitting near in their gorgeous apparel, he
could not depart without a word of admonition.
‘ Ah, fair ladies,’ said he, ‘ how pleasant were this
life of yours if it should ever abide, and then b](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p079.gif "Volume 3 Page 67")
... ‘ QUEEN MARY AND JOHN KNOX. 67
religion of the land, yet on the first Sunday
subsequent to her return ...
Vol. 3 p. 67 (Rel. 0.68)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
Vol. 2 p. 282 (Rel. 0.67)
... 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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
especially to the removal of the numerous middens,
the repair of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 194 (Rel. 0.67)
... character of the place inust have been
destroyed. ‘‘ Queen Mary granted the gardens of
-the Greyfriars’ ...
Vol. 1 p. 158 (Rel. 0.67)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. 250
Sleat, and so named probably from the vast resort
and slaughter of seals ...
Vol. 2 p. 250 (Rel. 0.66)
![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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ’ [Leith.
preachers, who though profound unbelievers in any
kind of consecration, ‘‘ ...
Vol. 5 p. 174 (Rel. 0.64)
![THE GREAT WINCOW. ‘59 Parliament Hoox.]
obelisks, with the motto Bominus cusfodif infroifurn
msfrunz. The destruction of all this was utterly
unwarrantable.
The tapestries with which the hall was hung
were all removed about the end of the last century,
and now its pictnres, statues, and decorations of
Scotland’s elder and latter days replace them.
Of the statues of the distinguished Scottish
statesmen and lawyers, the most noticeable are a
colossal one of Henry first Viscount Melville in
his robes as a peer, by Chantrey ; on his left is Lord
Cockburn, by Brodie ; Duncan Forbes of Culloden,
in his judicial costume as President of the Court,
by Roubiliac (a fine example) ; the Lord President
Boyle, and Lord Jeffrey, by Steel ; the Lord President
Blair (son of the author of “The Grave”),
by Chantrey.. .
On the opposite or eastern side of the hall
(which stands north and south) is the statue
of Robert Dundas of Arniston, Lord Chief Baron
of the Scottish Exchequer, also by Chautrey;
portraits, many of them of considerable antiquity,
some by Jameson, a Scottish painter who studied
under Rubens at Antwerp. But the most remarkable
among the modern portraits are those of
Lord Broiigham, by Sir Daniel Macnee, P.R.S.A. ;
Lord Colonsay, formerly President of the Court,
and the Lord Justice-clerk Hope, both by the
same artist. Thete are also two very tine pQrtraits
of Lord Abercrombie and Professor Bell, by Sir
Henry Raeburn.
Light is given to this interestihg hall by fouI
windows on the side, and the great window on the
south. It is of stained glass, and trulymagnificent.
It was erected in 1868 at a cost of Az,ooo, and
was the work of two German artists, having been
designed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, and executed
by the Chevalier Ainmiller of Munich. It repre.
sents the inauguration of the College of Justice, 01:
the Supreme Court of Scotland, by King Tames V.,
in 1532. The opening of the court is supposed by
the artist to have been the. occasion of a grand
state ceremonial, and the moment chosen for
representation is that in which the young king,
surrounded by his nobles and great officers
of state, is depicted in the ,act of presenting
the charter of institution and of confirniation by
Pope Clement VII. to Alexander Mylne, Abbot
of Cambuskenneth, the first Lord President, wha
kneels before him to receive it, surrounded by the
other judges in their robes, while the then Lord
Chancellor of Scotland, Gavin Dunbar, ArchbishoF
of Glasgow, and afterwards of St. Andrews, with
upraised hand invokes a.blessing on the act.
In 1870 the four side windows on the west of the
la11 were filled in with stained glass Qf a heraldic
:haracter, under the superintendence of the late
Sir George Harvey, president of the Royal Scottish
kcadeniy. Each window is twenty feet high
~y nine wide, divided by a central mullion, the
:racery between being occupied by the armorial
learings and crests of the various Lord Justice-
Zlerks, the great legal writers of the Faculty of
Advocates, those of the Deans of Faculty, and the
Lords Advocate.
This old hall has been the scene of many a
;reat event and many a strange debate, and most
Df the proceedings that took place here belong
to the history of the country j for with the exception
of the Castle and the ancient portion of Holyrood,
no edifice in the city is so rich in historic
memories.
Beneath the old roof consecrated to these, says
one of its latest chroniclers, “ the first ’great movements
of the Civil War took place, and the successive
steps in that eventful crisis were debated
with a zeal commensurate to the important results
involved in them. Here Montrose united with
Rothes, Lindsay, Loudon, and others of the
covenanting leaders, in maturing the bold measures
that formed the basis of our national liberties ; and
within the same hall, only a few years later, he sat
with the calmness of despair, to receive from the
lips of his old compatriot, Loudon, the barbarous
sentence, which was executed with such savage
rigour.”
After his victory at Dunbar, some of Cromwell’s
troopers in their falling bands, buff coats, and steel
morions, spent their time alternately in preaching to
the people in the Parliament Hall and guarding a
number of Scottish prisoners of war who were confined
in “ the laigh Parliament House ” below it
On the 17th of May, 1654, some of these contrived
to cut a hole in the floor of the great hall, and all
effected their escape save two; but when peace
was established between Croniwell and the Scots,
and the Courts of Law resumed their sittings,
the hall was restored to somewhat of its legitimate
uses, and there, in 1655, the leaders of the Commonwealth,
including General Monk, were feasted
with a lavish hospitality.
In 1660, under the auspices of the same republican
general, came to pass “ the - glorious
Restoration,” when the magistrates had a banquet
Ft the cross, and gave _~;I,OOO sterling to the king;
and his brother, the Duke of Albany and York, who
came as Koyal Commissioner, was feasted in the
same hall with his Princess Mary d’Este and his
daughter, the future Queen Anne, surrounded by all
the high-born and beautiful in Scotland. But dark](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p171.gif "Volume 1 Page 159")
... GREAT WINCOW. ‘59 Parliament Hoox.]
obelisks, with the motto Bominus cusfodif infroifurn
msfrunz. The ...
Vol. 1 p. 159 (Rel. 0.64)
![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)
![Le:th.] LANDING OF QUEEN MARY. 179
Thus the whole line of fortifications facing the
city were levelled, but those on the east remained
long entire; and considerable traces of them were
only removed about the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
On the 20th of August, 1560, Queen Mary
landed at the town to take possession of the throne
of her ancestors. The time was about eight in the
morning, and Leith must have presented a different
aspect than in the preceding year, when the cannon
of the besiegers thundered against its walls. No
vestige now remains of the pier which received her,
though it must have been constructed subsequent
to the destruction of the older one by the savage
Earl of Hertford-the pier at which Magdalene of
France, the queen of twenty summer days, had
landed so joyously in the May of 1537.
The keys of St. Anthony’s Port were delivered to
Mary, who was accompanied by her three uncles-
Claude of Lorraine, Duc d’Aumale, who was killed
at the siege of Rochelle thirteen years after; Francis,
Grand Prior of Malta, general of the galleys of
France, who died of fatigue after the battle of
Dreux; and Rend, Marquisd’Elbeuff, who succeeded
Francis as general of the galleys. She was attended
also by her ‘‘ four Maries,” whose names, as given by
Bishop Leslie, were Fleming, Beaton, Livingstone,
and Seaton, who had been all along with her in
France. Buchanan in 1565 mentions five Maries,
and the treasurer’s account at the same date mentions
si;., including two whose names were Simparten
and Wardlaw.
The cheers of the people mingled with the boom
of cannon, and, says Buchansn, “the dangers she
had undergone, the excellence of her mien, the
delicacy of her beauty, the vigour of her blooming
years, and the elegance of her wit, all joined in her
recommendation.”
As the genial Ettrick Shepherd wrote :-
‘‘ After a youth by woes o’ercast,
After a thousand sorrows past,
The lovely Mary once again
Set foot upon her native plain ;
Kneeled on the pier with modest grace,
And turned to heaven her beauteous face . . . I .
There rode the lords of France and Spain,
Of England, Flanders, and Lorraine ;
While semed thousands round them stood,
From shore of Leith to Holyrood.”
But Knox’s thunder was growling in the distance,
as he records that ‘‘ the very face of heaven did
manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this
country with hir-to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness,
and all impiety; for in the memory of man never
was seyn a more dolorous face of the heaven than
was at her arryvall . . . . . the myst was so thick
that skairse mycht onie man espy another ; .and the
sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two
days after !IJ
Four years after this the poor young queen,
among other shifts to raise money in her difficulties,
mortgaged the superiority of Leith to the city
of Edinburgh, redeemable for 1,000 merks ; and in
1566 she requested the Town Council by a letter
to delay the assumption of that superiority ; but
she could only obtain a short indulgence to prevent
the consequence of her hasty act falling on the
devoted seaport.
In 1567, taking advantage of the general confusion
of the queen’s affairs, on the 4th of July the
Provost, bailies, deacons, and the whole craftsmen
of the city, armed and equipped in warlike array,
with pikes, swords, and arquebuses, marched to
Leith, and went through some evolutions, meant to
represent or constitute the capture and conquest of
the town, and formally trampled its independence
in the dust. From the Links the magistrates
finally marched to the Tolbooth, in the wynd
which still bears its name, and on the stair thereof
held a court, creating bailies, sergeants, clerks, and
deemsters, in virtue of the infeftment made to
them by the queen ; and the superiority thus established
was maintained, too often with despotic
rigour, till Leith attained its independence after the
passing of the Reform Bill in 1832.
During the contention between Morton and the
queen’s party, when the former was compelled with
his followers to take shelter in Leith, where thq
Regent Mar had established his headquarters on
the 12th of January, 1571, a convention, usually
but erroneously called a General Assembly of the
Kirk, was convened there, and sat till the 1st of
February, and in it David Lindsay, minister of
Leith, took a prominent part. The opening sermon
on this occasion was lately reprinted by Principal
Lee. It is now extremely scarce, and is entitled
“ Ane sermon preichit befoir the Regent and
nobilitie, in the Kirk of Leith, 1571, by David
Fergussone, minister of the Evangell at Dunfermlyne.
The sermon approvit by John Knox, with
my dead hand but glaid heart, praising God that of
His mercy He lenis such light to His Kirk in this
desolation.”
M‘Crie says that the last public service of Knox
was the examination and approval of this sermon.
During the minority of James VI. Leith figured
in many transactions which belong strictly to the
general history of the realm ; thus from November,
1571, till the August of the following year, it was
the seat of the Court of Justiciary, and again in
thus :-](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p190.gif "Volume 5 Page 179")
... LANDING OF QUEEN MARY. 179
Thus the whole line of fortifications facing the
city were levelled, but those ...
Vol. 5 p. 179 (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)
![Leith.] FIGHT IN THE HARBOUR. ‘33
of war, which had been at anchor for six weeks
in the Roads, and apparently with all her guns
shotted,
About noon on the 10th December, 1613, an
Englishman, who was in a “mad humour,” says
Calderwood, when the captain and most of the
officers were on shore, laid trains of powder throughout
the vessel, notwithstanding that his own son
was on board, and blew her up. Balfour states
that she was a 48-gun ship, commanded by a
Captain Wood, that sixty men were lost in her,
and sixty-three who escaped were sent to London.
Calderwood reduces the number who perished to
twenty-four, and adds that the fire made all her
ordnance go off, so that none dared go near her to
render assistance.
In 1618 Leith was visited by Taylor, the Water
Poet, and was there welcomed by Master Bernard
Lindsay, one of the grooms of his Majesty’s bedchamber;
and his notice of the commerce of the
port presents a curious contrast to the Leith of the
present day :-cc I was credibly informed that within
the compass of one year there was shipped away
from that only port of Leith fourscore thousand
boles of wheat, oats, and barley, into Spain, France,
and other foreign parts, and every bole contains a
measure of four English bushels; so that from
Leith only hath been transported 320,000 bushels
of corn, besides some hath been shipped away
from St. Andrews, Dundee, Aberdeen, &c., and
other portable towns, which makes me wonder that
a kingdom so populous as it is, should nevertheless
sell so much bread corn beyond the seas, and yet
have more than sufficient for themselves.”
In parochial and other records of those days
many instances are noted of the capture of Scottish
mariners by the pirates of Algiers, and of collections
being made in the several parishes for their
redemption from slavery. In the Register of the
Privy Council, under date January, r636, we find
that a ship called the Jdn, of Leith, commanded
by John Brown, when sailing from London to
La Rochelle, on the coast of France, fell in with
three Turkish men-of-war, which, after giving him
chase from sunrise to sunset, captured the vessel,
took possession of the cargo and crew, and then
scuttled her.
Poor Brown and his mariners were all taken to
Salee, and there sold in the public market as
slaves. Each bore iron chains to the weight of
eighty pounds, and all were daily employed in
grinding at a mill, while receiving nothing to eat
but a little dusty bread. In the night they were
confined in holes twenty feet deep aniong rats and
mice, and because they were too poor-being only
mariners-to redeem themselves, they trusted to the
benevolence of his Majesty‘s subjects. By order
of the Council, a contribution was levied in the
Lothians and elsewhere, but with what result we
are not told.
In 1622 the usual excitements of the times were
varied by a sea-fight in the heart of Leith harbour.
On the 6th of June, in that year, the constable of
Edinburgh Castle received orders from the Lords
of Council to have his cannon and cannoniers in
instant readiness, as certain foreign ships were engaged
in close battle within gunshot of Leith
A frigate belonging to Philip IV. of Spain, cbmmanded
by Don Pedro de Vanvornz, had been
lying for some time at anchor within the harbour
there, taking on board provisions and stores, her
soldiers and crew coming on shore freely whenever
they chose; but it happened that one night two
vessels of war, belonging to their bitter enemies,
the Dutch, commanded by Mynheer de Hautain,
the Admiral of Zealand, came into the same anchorage,
and-as the Earl of Melrose reported to
James VI.-cast anchor close by Don Pedro.
The moment daylight broke the startled Spaniards
ran up their ensign, cleared away for action, and a
desperate fight ensued, nearly muzzle to muzzle.
For two hours without intermission, the tiers of
brass cannon from the decks of the three ships
poured forth a destructive fire, and the Spaniards,
repulsed by sword and partisan, made more than
one attempt to carry their lofty bulwarks by
boarding. The smoke of their culverins, matchlocks,
and pistolettes enveloped their rigging and
all the harbour of Leith, through the streets and
along the pier of which bullets of all sorts and
sizes went skipping and whizzing, to the terror and
confusion of the inhabitants.
As this state of things was intolerable, the burgesses
of the city and seaport rushed to arms and
armour, at the disposal of the Lords of Council,
who despatched a herald with the water bailie to
command both parties to forbear hostilities in Scottish
waters ; but neither the herald‘s tabard nor the
bailie’s authority prevailed, and the fight continued
with unabated fury till midday. The Spanish
captain finding himself sorely pressed by his two
antagonists, obtained permission to warp his ship
farther within the harbour ; but still the unrelenting
Dutchmen poured their broadsides upon his
shattered hull.
The Privy Council now ordered the Admiral
Depute to muster the mariners of Leith, and assail
the Admiral of Zealand in aid of the Dunkerpuer;
but the depute reported that they were altogether
vnable, and he saw no way to enforce obedience](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p194.gif "Volume 5 Page 183")
... FIGHT IN THE HARBOUR. ‘33
of war, which had been at anchor for six weeks
in the Roads, and apparently ...
Vol. 5 p. 183 (Rel. 0.63)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord PmYoss.
tion of five new professorships. A few years after
his death a bust of ...
Vol. 4 p. 282 (Rel. 0.63)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
brunt in assis, and all thair moveable guidis to be
escheat.”
On the 6th of ...
Vol. 5 p. 182 (Rel. 0.63)
... 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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet
There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named
Charles Jackson, to whom ...
Vol. 4 p. 335 (Rel. 0.62)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet
There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named
Charles Jackson, to whom ...
Vol. 4 p. 334 (Rel. 0.62)
... magistrates fled for shelter to a house in
the Grassmarket, and the mob carried all before
it. Captain ...
Vol. 1 p. 130 (Rel. 0.62)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lord Provosts.
burgh of great numbers of‘ His Majesty’s subjects
and strangers, there ...
Vol. 4 p. 280 (Rel. 0.62)
... 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. [Grassmarket.
Some English writers have denied that Henry
was ever in Edinburgh at any ...
Vol. 4 p. 234 (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)
... seems peculiarly applicable to the Edinburgh
of Jsmes V., and still more to that of
James 11.
“He ...
Vol. 1 p. 7 (Rel. 0.6)
... 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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge
they occupied when obtained, that we are tempted to
conclude the ...
Vol. 2 p. 360 (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)
![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")
... CRAMOND BRIG. 317
Robert Bruce, “the King’s meadow and muir of
Cramond I’ are mentioned. Among the ...
Vol. 6 p. 317 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roxburgh Place.
sion, belonging to the Lords Ross and to the age
of stately ceremony ...
Vol. 4 p. 338 (Rel. 0.56)
![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)
... 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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER XXIII. ,
THE HIGH STREET (continued).
PAGR ' The Black Turnpike-Bitter ...
Vol. 2 p. 388 (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 ...
Vol. 6 p. 311 (Rel. 0.5)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Burghmuir.
hollows are still discernible, and in them thc
Scots Foot Guards were ...
Vol. 5 p. 30 (Rel. 0.5)
... Park.1 LORD- DOUGLAS. 351
“My dear little ones, Archy and Sholto, are, I
bless God, in very good health. I ...
Vol. 4 p. 351 (Rel. 0.5)
... 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 ...
Vol. 1 p. 132 (Rel. 0.5)
... Everything about him-his coat, his
wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus’s
dance, his ...
Vol. 1 p. 100 (Rel. 0.5)
![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")
... Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan ...
Vol. 2 p. 359 (Rel. 0.49)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Lauriston.
the most prominent edifice to the westward, and
nearly opposite the head ...
Vol. 4 p. 356 (Rel. 0.48)
![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 ...
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... 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 ...
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... 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 ...
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![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. [Leith Walk.
On the east side of the walk, overlooking the
steep and deep Greenside ...
Vol. 5 p. 158 (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, ...
Vol. 4 p. 217 (Rel. 0.37)
... 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 ...
Vol. 5 p. 94 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. me Old High Schaol‘
display the dresses so used should be given to the
poor.”
For ...
Vol. 4 p. 290 (Rel. 0.37)
![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)
... Bridge. __ 362 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Magazine (started in Edinburgh), and minister of’ son of Sir Michael ...
Vol. 2 p. 362 (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 ...
Vol. 2 p. 389 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Vol. 4 p. 224 (Rel. 0.36)
![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 ...
Vol. 3 p. 159 (Rel. 0.36)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd. 304
of the building, among these; on a buttress, at the
west angle of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 304 (Rel. 0.36)
... 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, ...
Vol. 1 p. 68 (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. 397 (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, ...
Vol. 4 p. 340 (Rel. 0.35)
... at sea, yet he adds, “our numbers
amounted to 700, and with the loss of three we
made ourselves masters ...
Vol. 5 p. 173 (Rel. 0.35)
... 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 ...
Vol. 3 p. 72 (Rel. 0.35)
![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)
![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)
![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)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
C
Cable’s Wynd, Leith, XI. 226, 227
Caddies,orstreetmesngers, I. 151,
Cadell and ...
Vol. 6 p. 372 (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)
... INDEX. 379
.Her!or brewery, The, 11.374
Henot free schools, 11. 374 37:
Heriot Kow, 11.1~5, 158,194, ...
Vol. 6 p. 378 (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)
