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334 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet
There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named
Charles Jackson, to whom Charles 11. had acted
as godfather in the Kirk of Keith, and Jackson
was a name assumed by Charles after his escape
in the Royal Oak. In consideration of all this,
by an advertisement in the Courant, Mr. Jackson,
as being lineally descended from a stock of
royalists, ?invited all such to solemnise that
memorable day (29th May) at an enclosure called
Charles?s Field, lying a mile south from this city
(where he hath erected a very useful bleachingfield),
and there entertained them with a diversity
of liquors, fine music, 8rc.?
He had a huge bonfire lighted, and a tall pole
erected, with a large banner displayed therefrom,
and the royal oak painted on it, together with
the bark in which his sacred majesty made his
escape, and the colonel who accompanied him
?The company around the bonfire drank Her
Majesty Queen Anne?s health, and the memory ot
the happy Restoration, with great mirth and demonstrations
of loyalty. The night concluded with
mirth, and the standard being brought back to Mr.
Jackson?s lodgings, was carried by ZoyaZ gentlemen
bareheaded, and followed by several others with
trumpets, hautboys, and bagpipes playing before
them, where they were kindly entertained.? (Reliquiz
Scofia.)
CHAPTER XXXIX.
NICOLSON STREET AND SQUARE.
Lady Nicolson-Her Pillar-Royal Riding School-M. Angelo-New Surgeons? Hall-The Earl of Leven-Dr. Barthwick Gilchrist-The Blind
Asylum-John Madmen-Sir David WilkicRaxburgh Parish-My Glenorchy?r Chapel.
NICOLSON STREET, which runs southward to the
Cross Causeway, on a line with the South Bridge,was
formed about the middle of the eighteenth century,
on the grounds of Lady Nicolson, whose mansion
stood on an area now covered by the eastern end
of North College Street ; and a writer in a public
print recently stated that the house numhered as
82 in Nicolson Street, presently occupied as a
hotel, was erected for and occupied by her after
the street was formed.
In Shaw?s ? Register of Entails ? under date of
Tailzie, 7th October, 1763, and of Registration, 4th
December, 1764, is the name of Lady Nicolson
(Elizabeth Carnegie), relict of Mr. Tames Nicolson,
with note of the lands and heritable subjects in
the shire of Edinburgh that should belong to her
at her death.
In Edgar?s plan for 1765, her park, lying eastward
of the Potterrow, is intersected by the ?New
Road,? evidently the line of the present street, and
at its northern end is her mansion, some seventy
feet distant from the city wall, with a carriage gate
and lodge, the only other building near it being the
Royal Riding School, with its stables, on the site of
the present Surgeons? Hall.
On the completion of Nicolson Street, Lady
Nicolson erected at its northern end a monument
to her husband. It was, states Amot, a fluted
Corinthian column, twenty-five feet two inches in
height, with a capital and base, and fourteen inches
diameter. Another account says it was from
thirty to forty feet in height, and had on its pedestal
an inscription in Latin and English, stating that
Lady Nicolson having been left the adjacent piece
of ground by her husband, had, out of regard for
his memory, made it to be planned into ?? a street,
to be named from him, Xicolson Street.?
On the extension of the thoroughfare and ultimate
completion of the South Bridge, from which
it was for some years a conspicuous object, it was
removed, and the affectionate memorial, instead
of being placed in the little square, with that barbarous
want of sentiment that has characterised
many improvements in Edinburgh and elsewhere in
Scotland in more important matters, was thrown
aside into the yard of the adjacent Riding School,
and was, no doubt, soon after broken up for
rubble.
One of the first edifices in the newly-formed
thoroughfare was the old Riding School, a block of
buildings and stables, measuring about one hundred
and fifty feet each way.
The first ?master of the Royal Riding Menage?
was Angelo Tremamondo, a native of Italy, .as his
name imports, though it has been supposed that it
was merely a mountebank assumption, as it means
the tremor of the world, a universal earthquake;
but be that as it may, his Christian name in Edmburgh
speedily dwindled clown to Aimhe. He was
in the pay of the Government, was among the earliest
residents in Nicolson Square, and had a salary of
Lzoo per annum. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nicolson Sheet There was then in Edinburgn a merchant, named Charles Jackson, to whom ...

Book 4  p. 335
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330 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine?s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of old the Priest?s Hill,
which probably. had some connection with the
,well and chapel. The Cromwellians, who destroyed
the former, were a portion of 16,000 men, who
were encamped on the adjacent Galachlaw Hill,
in 1650, shortly before their leader fell back on
his retreat to Dunbar.
At the period of the Reformation the chapelry
of Niddrie, with the revenues thereof, was attached
to Liberton Church. Its founders, the Wauchopes
of Niddrie, have had a seat in the parish for more
than 500 years, and are perhaps the oldest family
in Midlothian.
Gilbert Wauchope of Niddrie was a distinguished
member of the Reformation Parliament in
1560. On the 27th of December, 1591, Archibald
Wauchope, of Niddrie, together with the Earl of
Bothwell, Douglas of Spott, and others, made a
raid on Holyrood, attempting the life of James VI.,
and after much firing of pistols and muskets were
repulsed, according to Moyses? Memoirs, for which
offence Patrick Crombie of Carrubber and fifteen
others were forfeited by Parliament.
Sir John Wauchope of Niddrie is mentioned by
Guthry in his ? Memoirs,? as a zealous Covenanter.
Niddrie House, a mile north of Edmonstone
House, is partly an ancient baronial fortalice and
partly a handsome modern mansion. The holly
hedges here are thirty feet high, and there is a
sycamore nineteen feet in circumference.
In 1718 John Wauchope of Niddrie, Marischal,
was slain in Catalonia. He and his brother were
generals of. Spanish infantry, and the latter was
governor of the town and fortress of Cagliari in
Sardinia.
We find the name of his regiment in the following
obituary in I 7 I g :-?Died in Sicily, of fever, in
the camp of Randazzo, Andrew, son of Sir George
Seton of Garleton-suln-lieutenant in Irlandas Regiment,
late Wauchope?s.? (Salmon?s ?Chronology.?)
In 1718 one of the same family was at the seabattle
of Passaro, captain of the San Francisco
Arreres of twenty-two guns and one hundred men.
Lediard?s History calls him simply ?Wacup, a
Scotchman.?
The other chapel referred to gives its name
to the mansion and estate of St. Katherine?s, once
the residence of Sir William Rae, Bart. of Eskgrove,
the friend of Sir Walter Scott, who apostrophises
him as his ?dear loved Rae,? in the introduction
to the fourth canto of Marmion, and who, with
Skene, Mackenzie, and others of the Old Edinburgh
Light Horse, including Scott, formed themselves
into a little semi-military club, the meetings
of which were held at their family supper-tables in
rotation. He was the third baronet of his family,
and was appointed Lord Advocate in 1819, on the
promotion of Lord Meadowbank, and held the
office till the end of 1830. He was again Lord
Advocate during Sir Robert Peel?s administration
in 1835, and was M.P. for Bute.
A little way to the south is a place called the
Kaimes, which indicates the site of an ancient camp.
We have already, in other places, referred to
Mr. Clement Little, of Upper Liberton, a founder
of the College Library, by a bequest of books thereto
in 1580. Two years before that he appeared as
procurator for the Abbot of Kilwinning, in a dispute
between him and the Earl of Egliiiton (Priv.
Coun. Reg).
Lord Fountainhall records, under date May zznd,
1685, that the Lady of Little of Liberton, an active
dame in the cause of the Covenant, was imprisoned
for harbouring certain recusants, but that ? I on
his entering into prison for her she was liberate.??
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ENVIRONS OF EPINBURGH (rontinued).
Cume-Origin of the Name-Roman Camps-% Old Church andTemple Lands-Lennox Tower-Curriehill Castle and the Skenes-Scott of
Malleny-James Anderson, LL.D.-? Camp Meg ? and her Story.
CURRIE, in many respects, is one of the most interesting
places in the vicinity of Edinburgh. The
parish is in extent about five or six miles in
every direction, though in one quarter it measures
nine miles from east to west.. One-third of the
*hole district is hill and moorland. Freestone
abounds in a quarry, from which many of the
houses in the New Town have been built; and
there is, besides, plenty of ironstone, and a small
vein of copper.
A Though antiquaries have endeavoured to connect
its name with the Romrlns, as CO&, it is most
probably dCrived from the Celtic Corrie, signifying
a hollow or glen, which is very descriptive of the ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie. East of St. Katherine?s is a rising ground now called Grace Mount, and of old ...

Book 6  p. 330
(Score 0.54)

330 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine?s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of old the Priest?s Hill,
which probably. had some connection with the
,well and chapel. The Cromwellians, who destroyed
the former, were a portion of 16,000 men, who
were encamped on the adjacent Galachlaw Hill,
in 1650, shortly before their leader fell back on
his retreat to Dunbar.
At the period of the Reformation the chapelry
of Niddrie, with the revenues thereof, was attached
to Liberton Church. Its founders, the Wauchopes
of Niddrie, have had a seat in the parish for more
than 500 years, and are perhaps the oldest family
in Midlothian.
Gilbert Wauchope of Niddrie was a distinguished
member of the Reformation Parliament in
1560. On the 27th of December, 1591, Archibald
Wauchope, of Niddrie, together with the Earl of
Bothwell, Douglas of Spott, and others, made a
raid on Holyrood, attempting the life of James VI.,
and after much firing of pistols and muskets were
repulsed, according to Moyses? Memoirs, for which
offence Patrick Crombie of Carrubber and fifteen
others were forfeited by Parliament.
Sir John Wauchope of Niddrie is mentioned by
Guthry in his ? Memoirs,? as a zealous Covenanter.
Niddrie House, a mile north of Edmonstone
House, is partly an ancient baronial fortalice and
partly a handsome modern mansion. The holly
hedges here are thirty feet high, and there is a
sycamore nineteen feet in circumference.
In 1718 John Wauchope of Niddrie, Marischal,
was slain in Catalonia. He and his brother were
generals of. Spanish infantry, and the latter was
governor of the town and fortress of Cagliari in
Sardinia.
We find the name of his regiment in the following
obituary in I 7 I g :-?Died in Sicily, of fever, in
the camp of Randazzo, Andrew, son of Sir George
Seton of Garleton-suln-lieutenant in Irlandas Regiment,
late Wauchope?s.? (Salmon?s ?Chronology.?)
In 1718 one of the same family was at the seabattle
of Passaro, captain of the San Francisco
Arreres of twenty-two guns and one hundred men.
Lediard?s History calls him simply ?Wacup, a
Scotchman.?
The other chapel referred to gives its name
to the mansion and estate of St. Katherine?s, once
the residence of Sir William Rae, Bart. of Eskgrove,
the friend of Sir Walter Scott, who apostrophises
him as his ?dear loved Rae,? in the introduction
to the fourth canto of Marmion, and who, with
Skene, Mackenzie, and others of the Old Edinburgh
Light Horse, including Scott, formed themselves
into a little semi-military club, the meetings
of which were held at their family supper-tables in
rotation. He was the third baronet of his family,
and was appointed Lord Advocate in 1819, on the
promotion of Lord Meadowbank, and held the
office till the end of 1830. He was again Lord
Advocate during Sir Robert Peel?s administration
in 1835, and was M.P. for Bute.
A little way to the south is a place called the
Kaimes, which indicates the site of an ancient camp.
We have already, in other places, referred to
Mr. Clement Little, of Upper Liberton, a founder
of the College Library, by a bequest of books thereto
in 1580. Two years before that he appeared as
procurator for the Abbot of Kilwinning, in a dispute
between him and the Earl of Egliiiton (Priv.
Coun. Reg).
Lord Fountainhall records, under date May zznd,
1685, that the Lady of Little of Liberton, an active
dame in the cause of the Covenant, was imprisoned
for harbouring certain recusants, but that ? I on
his entering into prison for her she was liberate.??
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ENVIRONS OF EPINBURGH (rontinued).
Cume-Origin of the Name-Roman Camps-% Old Church andTemple Lands-Lennox Tower-Curriehill Castle and the Skenes-Scott of
Malleny-James Anderson, LL.D.-? Camp Meg ? and her Story.
CURRIE, in many respects, is one of the most interesting
places in the vicinity of Edinburgh. The
parish is in extent about five or six miles in
every direction, though in one quarter it measures
nine miles from east to west.. One-third of the
*hole district is hill and moorland. Freestone
abounds in a quarry, from which many of the
houses in the New Town have been built; and
there is, besides, plenty of ironstone, and a small
vein of copper.
A Though antiquaries have endeavoured to connect
its name with the Romrlns, as CO&, it is most
probably dCrived from the Celtic Corrie, signifying
a hollow or glen, which is very descriptive of the ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie. East of St. Katherine?s is a rising ground now called Grace Mount, and of old ...

Book 6  p. 329
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 333
The length of the island appears to be about three miles from the westernmost point to that
on the north side of the eastern bay, and its breadth nearly two miles from north to south. It
is surrounded with high and almost perpendicular rocks, except on the N.W. and S.E. sides,
in each of which there is a small bay, or arm of the sea ; of which the latter alone affords any
harbouring place for vessels. The land is in general rather elevated ; and there are three hills
of considerable height. Of these, by far the highest is Cmgar, on the north side, supposed to
be upwards of 1400 feet above the level of the sea ; the next, Ornuall-hill, on the east ; and the
third, Rmveil (Gaelic, Rdh-mheall), on the south-west side of the Island.
'( I could discover no old edifices on this island, except that called Christ's Church, near thk
village, and situated in the burying-ground ; and St. Brianan's, a little above the bay, on the
south-west side-both of which are in ruins.
" There are two small islands besides the main one, which are serviceable to the people for
pasture, as well as for the fowls which frequent them. The one is called Soay, sitnate on the
west side of St. Kilda, and separated from it by a narrow channel. It is about a quarter of a
mile long, and scarcely half as broad. The other is Boreray, about four-miles in a direct line
to the north, and a little larger than Soay.
" The ground is used chiefly for pasture ; and the islanders keep a stock of sheep and black
cattle on it, from which they are supplied with articles of clothing, milk, butter, cheese, etc. There
is no moss on the island ; and the only fuel consists of turf cut on the hills, and carried home
a9 it is needed. The group of houses in which the people reside, for it scarcely deserves the
name of a village, is situate a little above the eastern bay, and is composed of twenty small
huts, built with stone, and thatched with turf and straw. Being surrounded with hills on all
sides, except the south and south-east, it is pretty well sheltered, unless when the wind blows
from these quarters.
"All the cultivated lauds lie around the village in scattered and irregular patches ; of
which each family in the island, about twenty in number, has nearly an equal quantity-what
they call a farthingland, or something about two acres, This sows about five firlots of barley
and six of oats, which, with potatoes, are the only crops they raise. Though the soil is naturally
rich, yet, owing to want of good management, it seldom yields above three returns. Hence
they cannot conveniently dispose of much of their grain ; and of late years, indeed, I believe
they have done but very little in this way. Besides, every three years, these lands pass by
lot from one hand to another ; a practice which evidently militates greatly against real improvement.
In making it
into meal, they grind it in querns, or little hand-mills, there being neither windmills nor watermills
in the island.
"Their houses, or huts, are all exactly of the same form and dimensions, and in internal
appearance also completely alike. They consist of but one apartment, in which the family is
accommodated at one end, and the cattle at the other. The walls contain their beds and places
for their stores, for which purpose they are generally six or seven feet thick. No chairs or
tables are to be seen : wooden stools and even stones being made to supply their place. The
ashes are never carried out of the house, nor even removed to the part of the room appropriated
to the cattle, but are spread every morning under the feet of the inmates, in order, aa they call
it, to help the manure. The floor, thus raised in the course of the season to a considerable
height, is reduced to its proper level only once a year, when the whole matter so accumulated
is conveyed to the fields I reasoned with the people on the impropriety of this habit, chiefly
on the ground of ita being injurious to their health and comfort, but to little effect, long
custom having reconciled them to it. As might be expected,'also, their habita in other respects,
and particularly in point of cleanliness and dress, are much of a piece with the interior of their
houses, their persons being extremely dirty, and seeming to undergo no sort of purification,
except once a week ; while their clothes are in general coarse and ragged, though, on Sunday,
both the young men and women dress a little more decently. I was somewhat surprised at not
finding the kilt and hose among them, instead of which, the men commonly wear a jacket or
short coat, with trousers or pantaloons. There is scarcely anything like division of labour
among them, every man being his own tailor, shoemaker, and, in most cases, weaver, there
being no thorough-bred workman of any kind in the island.
" Notwithstanding these habits, it is not a little remarkable that they enjoy such a degree
of health and longevity. During my residence among them, there waa not a single individual
The grain also, as mightrbe expected, is rather of an inferior quality. ... SKETCHES, 333 The length of the island appears to be about three miles from the westernmost point to ...

Book 9  p. 443
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268 MEAfORIA L S OF EDINBURGH.
the very finest specimens of this ancient style of building in Edinburgh, having the main
timbers and gables of its oaken fapade richly carved, in the fashion of some of the magnificent
old timber fronts of the opulent Flemings in Bruges or Ghent. The roof was
surmounted by a range of crow-steps of the form already described as peculiar to the
fifteenth or earlier part of the sixteenth centuries; and an outside stair led to the first
floor, whose ancient stone turnpike staircase was decorated with the abbreviated motto,
in fine ornamental Gothic characters :-DE0 HONOR * ET GLIA - Another inscription,
we are told, existed over the entrance from Toddrick’s Wynd, being only covered
up with plaster by a former tenant to save the expense of a signboard. A little way
down this wynd, on the east side, a favourite motto appeared, in bold Roman letters, over
an ancient doorway, repeating with slight variation the same sentiment already noticed in
other instances. It occurred on an
. aucient tenement which bore evident tokens of having at one time been the reaidence of
rank and fashion; and an old iron-nobbed door on one of the floors possessed the
antiquated appendage of a risping pin. Toddrick’s Wynd acquired a special interest from
its association with a memorable deed in the bloody annals of our national history. It
was by this ancient alley that the Earl of Bothwell and his merciless accomplices and
hirelinp proceeded towards the gate of the Blackfriars’ Monastery, in the Cowgate, on
the 9th of February 1567, to fire the powder by which the house of the Provost of the
Kirk-of-Field was blown into the air, and’ Lord, Darnley, with his servant, Taylor,
slain.
The closes between this and the Netherbow mostly exist in the same state as they have
done for the two last centuries or more, though woefully contaminated by the slovenly
habits of their modern inmates ; this portion of the town being occupied now by a lower
class than many of the ancient alleys described in the higher part of the town. South
Gray’s, or the Mint Close, however, forms an exception. It is a comparatively spacious
and aristocratic looking alley; and aome feeble halo of its ancient honours still lingers
about its substantial and.picturesque mansions. It affords a curious instance of a close
retaining for centuries the name of a simple burgess, while it has been the residence of
nobles and representatives of ancient families, in striking contrast to the variable nomenclature
of most of the alleys of the Old Town. It is mentioned by its present name in a
charter dated 1512, in which “ umpb John Gray, burgess of Edinburgh,” is the author of
earlier titles referred to. By an older deed, the ground on which it is built appeare to
have formed part of the lands of the Monastery of Greyfriars. the Inventer and
THE FEIR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGENINGP OF VISDOME.
Iu
Thia ancient tenement is thus described in a disposition by Sir Michael Preston to Lawrence Kenrison, dated 1626,
and preserved in the Burgh Charter Room :--“That tenement or land, aome time waste and burnt be the English ;
some time pertaining to umquile Mr John Preston, some time President of the College of Justice, and my father ; on
the south part of the King’s High Street, and on the east side of the trance of the wynd, called the Blackfriars’ Wynd,
betwixt the said trance and land above, pertaining to the heirs of umquile Walter Chepman, upon the west,” &c. It is
pointed out in Chambers’s Traditions aa that of Lord Fentonbarns. The allusion to its burning shows the date of ita
erection to be somewhat later than 1544. But it again suffered in the civil wars that followed, though probably not so
completely aa to preclude repair, notwithstanding its appearance among the list of houses destroyed during the siege of
Edinbuqh in 1572 :-“ Thir ar the houssis that wer distroyit this moneth (May) ; to wit, the Erle of Maris, now present
Regent, lugeing in the Cowgait, Mr Johne Prestonis in the Frier Wynd, David Kinloch Baxteris house in Dalgleish
Closs,” &a-(Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 299.) The last mentioned is that of a wealthy burgess of the period,
whose name was borne by the close immediately below Niddry’s Wynd, the same, we presume, tht is alluded to here.
Ita site i s now occupied by the east aide of Niddry Street. ... MEAfORIA L S OF EDINBURGH. the very finest specimens of this ancient style of building in Edinburgh, having ...

Book 10  p. 291
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306 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,? and it sometimes came ; to propitiate him,
his moderate demands became, ere he died, an
established claim. Hence it would seem that now
to say to a crew at sea, ?(John Brounger ?s in your
head-sheets,? or ?? OR board of you,? is sufficient to
cause her crew to haul in the dredge, ship their
oars, and pull the boat thrice round in a circle, to
break the evil spell, and enough sometimes to make
the crew abandon work.
But apart from such fancies, the industrious
fishermen of Newhaven still possess the noble
qualities. ascribed to them by the historian of
Leith, in the days when old Dr. Johnston was
their pastor : ?It was no sight of ordinary interest
to see the stem and weather-beaten faces of these
hardy seamen subdued by the influence of religious
feeling into an expression of deep reverence and
humility, before their God. Their devotion seemed
. - I mansion, pleasantly situated on the sea-shore, about
to have acquired an additional solemnity of character,
from a consciousness of the peculiarly
hazardous nature of their occupation, which,
throwing tKem immediately and sensibly on the
protection of their Creator every day of their lives,
had im5ued them with a deep sense of gratitude to
that Being, whose outstretched arm had conducted
their little bark in safety through a hundred storms.?
In the first years of the present century there
was a Newhaven stage, advertised daily to start
from William Bell?s coach-office, opposite the Tron
church, at ten am., three and eight p-m.
We need scarcely add, that Newhaven has long
been celebrated for the excellence and variety of
its fish dinne&, served up in more than one oldfashioned
inn, the best known of which was, perhaps,
near the foot of the slope called the Whale
Brae.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WARDIE, TRINITY, AND GRANTON.
Wardie Muir-Human Remains Found-Banghalm Bower and Trinity Lodge-Christ Church, Trinity-Free Church, Granton Road-Piltoa
-Royston--Camline Park-Grantan-The Piers and Harbours-Morton?s Patent Slip.
WARDIE MUIR must once have been a wide, open,
and desolate space, extending from Inverleith and
Warriston to the shore of the Firth; and from
North Inverleith Mains, of old called Blaw Wearie,
on the west, to Bonnington on the east, traversed
by the narrow streamlet known as Anchorfield
Bum.
Now it is intersected by streets and roads,
studded with fine villas rich in gardens and teeming
with fertility; but how waste and desolate the
muiland must once have been, is evinced b i those
entries in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer
of Scotland, with reference to firing ,Mons Meg,
in the days when royal salutes were sometimes
fired with shotted guns !
On the 3rd of July, 1558, when the Castle
batteries saluted in honour of the Dauphin?s marriage
with Queen Mary, Mons Meg was fired by
the express desire of the Queen Regent; the
pioneers were paid for ?I their jaboris in mounting
Meg furth of her lair to be schote, and for finding
and carrying her bullet from Wardie Muir to the
Castell,? ten shillings Scots.
Wardie is fully two miles north from the Castle,
and near Granton.
native tribes. Several fragments of human remains
were discovered in 1846, along the coast of
Wardie, in excavating the foundations for a bridge
of the Granton Railway ; and during some earlier
operations for the same railway, on the 27th
September, 1844 a silver and a copper coin of
Philip 11. of Spain were found among a quantity
of huiiian bones, intermingled with sand and shells;
and these at the time were supposed to be a
memento of some great galleon of the Spanish
Armada, cast away upon the rocky coast,
In the beginning of the present century, and
before the roads to Queensferry and Granton
were constructed, the chief or only one in this
quarter was that which, between hedgerows and
trees, led to Trinity, and the principal mansions
near it were Bangholm Bower, called in the
Advertiser for 1789 ? the Farm of Bangholms,?
adjoining the lands of Wamston, and which was
offered for lease, with twelve acres of meadow,
?lying immediately westward of Canonmills Loch;??
Lixmount House, in 1810 the residence of Farquharson
of that ilk and Invercauld; Trinity
Lodge, and one or two others. The latter is
described in the Advertiser for 1783 as a large ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie. In this district evidences have been found of the luck,? and it sometimes ...

Book 6  p. 306
(Score 0.53)

THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 343
when the Lords of the Congregation I‘ past to Halyrudhous, and tuik and intromettit with
the irnis of the c~nzehous.~. ~
The general aspect of the Grassmarket appears to have suffered little change for above
two hundred years. One of the most modern erections on its southern side is that immediately
to the west of the Templar Lands we have just described, which bears on a tablet
over the entrance to Hunter’s Close, ANNO. DOM . MDCLXXI . It is not likely to
be soon lost sight of, that from a dyer’s pole in front of this old tenement Captain
. Porteous was hung by his Lynch-law judges A.D. 1736. . The long range of buildings that
extend beyond this, present as singular and varied a group of antique tenements as either
artist or antiquary could desire. Finials of curious and grotesque shapes surmount the
crow-stepped gables, and every variety of form and
elevation diversifies the sky line of their roofs and
chimneys; while behind, the noble pile of Heriot’s
Hospital towers above them a8 a counterpart to the
old Castle that rises majestically over the north side
of the same area’ Many antique features are yet
discernibIe here. Several of the older houses are built
with bartizaned roofs and ornamental copings, designed
to afford their inmates an.uninterrupted view of the magnificent pageants that were
wont of old to defile through the wide area below, or of the gloomy tragedies that were
so frequently enacted there between the Restoration and the Revolution. One of thesej
which stands immediately to the west of Heriot’s Bridge, exhibits a very perfect
specimen of the antique style of window already frequently referred to. The folding
shutters and transom of oak remain entire below, and the glass in the upper part is Bet in
an ornamental pattern of lead. Still finer, though less perfect, specimens of the same
early fashion, remain in a tenement on the north side, bearing the date 1634. It forms
the front building at the entrance to Plainstane’s Close-a distinctive title, implying
its former respectability as a paved alley. A handsome projecting turnpike stair bears
being thairin.”-Diurn. of OCC. p. 269. Humble as this nook appears, it is possible that it may be a fragment of the
Regent Murray’s lodging.
1 The careful and elaborate history of Heriot’s Hospital, by Dr Steven, renders further investigation of its memorials
unnecesaary. Tradition assigns to Inigo Jones the merit of having furnished the beautiful design for the Hospital,
which is well worthy of his genius. If so, however, it has been carried‘out in a modified form, under the direction
of more modern architects. “May 3 t T h e r e is a
necessity that the steeple of the Hospital be finished, and a top put thereupon. Ro. Miln, Master Mason, to think
on e drawing thereof, against the next council meeting.” The master mason doea not appear to have thought to good
purpose, as we find recorded the following year :-“July 10.-Deacon Sandilans to put a roof and top to the Hoepital’s
ateeple, according to the draught condescended upon be Sir William Bruce.” In one of Captain Slezer’s very accurate
general view8 of Edinburgh, published towarda the close of the 17th century, Heriot’s Hospital is introduced 88 it
then appeared, with the plain square tower over the gateway, and near to it the Old Oreyfriars’ Church, with the
tower at the west end, aw it stood previous to 1718, when the latter waa accidentally blown up by gunpowder, which
had been deposited there for aafety. A view of the Hospital, by Glordon of Rothiemay, which was engraved in
Holland before 1650, is believed to aford an accurate representation of the original deeign. The aame is engraved in
the fourth edition of Sleser’s views, under the name of Bogengkht. In thia view, the tower is surmounted by a lofty
and beautiful apire, carrying out the idea of contrast in form and elevation which appears in the reat of the dedign,
much more effectively than the dome which has been substituted for it. The large towers at the angles of the building
appear in this view covered with ogee roofs, in mora questionable tsste. Several entries in the Hospital %cords seem
to imply that two of the four towers had been completed according to this idea, and afterwards altered. The Recorda
afford evidence of frequent deviations from the original design being sanctioned, even rfter auch parta of the building
were 6niahed according to the plan.
The following entry occurs in the Hospital Recorda for 1675. ... WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 343 when the Lords of the Congregation I‘ past to Halyrudhous, and tuik and ...

Book 10  p. 375
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APPENDIX. 4-29
of the conhgration. In 1678 the furnishing of the steeple waa completed, by putting up there the old clock
that had formerly belonged to that of the Weigh-house.
The bequest of Thomas Moodie appears to have cost ita trustees some little concern aa to how to dispm of
it, a few years having sufficed to effect very radical changes on the ideas of the civic Council tu to the church
accommodation required by the citizens. The Town of Edinburgh
obtain an act anent Thomas Moodie’s legacy and mortification to them of 20,OOO merks, that in regard
they have no use for a church (which was the end whereto he destined it), that therefore they might be allowed to
invert the same to some other public work The Articles and Parliament recommended the Town to the Privy
Council, to see the will of the defunct fuElled as near as could be; for it comes near to sacrilege to invert a
pious donation. The Town offers to buy with it a peal of Bells to hang in St Gile’s Steeple, tu ring musically
and to warn-to Church, and to build B Tolbooth above the West Port of Edinburgh, and to put Thomas
Moodie’s name and arms thereon. Some thought it better to make it a stipend to tbe Lady Pester’s Kirk, or
to a minister to preach to all the prisoners in the Canongate and Edinburgh Tolbooths, and at the Correctionhouse,
Sunday about.” In the records of the Privy Council, May 15,1688, when Moodie’s bequest was Snally
appropriated towards providing the ejected burghers of Canongate with a Parish Church, it appears that the
annual interest of it had been appropriated to the payment of the Bishop of Edinburgh’s house rent. (Fonntsinhnll‘
s Decisions, voL i p. 505.) The arms of Moodie now form a prominent ornament on the front of the
Canongate Church. In the vestry an elevation of the church is i~servdh,a ving a steeple attached to ita south
front ; but the funds which had been raised for this ornamental addition were appropriated to build the Chapel
of Ease at the head of New Street.
Fountainhall records in 1681 (VOL i p. 156),
LADYP EFYPCEHRvR’ScE -The Inventar of Pious Donations appends to a long list of pious mwtdjicath by
Lady Yester, a genealogical sketch, which we correct and complete from Wood, who thus describw the ecclesiastical
origin of the Lothiin family :--“ Mark Ker, second son of Sir Andrew Ker of Cessford, entering into
holy orders, was promoted in 1546 to the dignity of Abbot of Newbottle ; which station he possessed at the
Reformation, 1560, when he renounced the profession of Popery, and held hie benefice in commendam, . . .
He married Lady Helen Lesly, second daughter of George fourth Earl of Rothes, and by her had issue,
Mark. On the death of hie father in 1584, the Commendatorship of Newbottle, to which the latter had been
provided by Queen Mary in 1567, waa ratified to him by letters under the Qreat Seal ; and he was also
appointed one of the extraordinary Lords of Seasion in his father’s place, 12th November 1584. He had the
lands of Newbottle erected into a barony, with the title of a Baron, 28th July 1587,” &c This waa the father
of Lady Yester, of whom the following account appears in the Inwentar: “The e‘ Dame Margaret Ker was
the eldest [the third] daughter of Mark Commendator of Newbottle, one of the 101 of council and -ion, yrafter
E. of Lothian, procreat betwixt him and LMargaretJ Maxwell, a daughter of Jo. lo/ Herries, In her young
years she was 1st married to Ja Lo. Hay of Yester, and by her wise and vertuous government, she was most
instrumental in preserving and improving of the s‘ estate. By him she had two sons, Jo. 10/ Hay of Pester,
yrafter E. of Tweedale, and Sir Wm. her 2d son, for whom she purchased the Barrone of Lmplam, &c, The s’
Dame Margaret Ker having lived many years a widow, she married Sir Andrew Ker, younger of Fernyhirst,
and procured his father to be made Lo/ Jedburgh. Besides the many Gardens, Buildin- Parka, made be her
in all placea belonging to her husband, in every paroch qr either of her husbands had money-renN she erected
and built Hospitals and e0hooI.a’ After this follows the list, which is altogether -rising, aa evidence of continued
muniticence and benevolent piety ; among which are the following item +
“Towards the building of the Town [Tron?] Kirk of Ehr., &e gifted loo0 m.
“She built an kirk near the High School in Ed’., and bestowed toward the building y’of $lOOOa with 5000
h~ for the use of the minister of $e e‘ church, and a little before her death caused joyne y’to an little Isle for
the use of the minister, q* she lies interred, with an tomb in the wall, with this inscription :- ... 4-29 of the conhgration. In 1678 the furnishing of the steeple waa completed, by putting up there the ...

Book 10  p. 468
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322 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lcolinton.
the Belitice Puetaruni Scuiurum. He was a convert
to the Protestant religion, and the chief work of
his pen is his learned book on feudal law. It has
been well said that lie U kept himself apart from the
political intrigues of those distracting times, devoting
himself to his professional duties, and in his
hours of relaxation cultivating a taste for classical
literature.?
He was present at the entry of King James into
London, and at his coronation as King of England,
an event which he commemorated in a poem in
Latin hexameters. In 1604 he was one of the
commissioners appointed by the king to confer
with others on the part of England, concerning
a probable union between the two countries, a
favourite project with James, but somewhat Utopian
when broached at a time when men were living
who had fought on the field of Pinkie.
He wrote a treatise on the independent
sovereignty .of Scotland, which was published in
1675, long after his death, which occurred at Edinburgh
on the 26th of February, 1Go8. He married
Helen, daughter of Heriot of Trabrown, in East
Lothian, by whom he had seven children. His
eldest son, Sir Lewis Craig, born in 1569, became
a senator, as Lord Wrightislands
On the death of his lineal descendant in 1823,
Robert Craig of Riccarton (of whom mention was
made in our chapter on Princes Street in the
second volume of this work), James Gibson, W.S.
(afterwards Sir James Gibson-Craig of Riccarton
and Ingliston), assumed the name and arms of
Craig in virtue of a deed of entail made in 1818.
He was a descendant of the Gibsons of Durie, in
Fife.
His eldest son was the late well-known Sir
William Gibson-Craig, who was born and August,
1797, and, after receiving his education in Edinburgh,
was called as, an advocate to the Scottish
Bar in 1820. He was M.P. for Midlothian from
1837 to 1841, when he was returned for the city of
Edinburgh, which he continued to represent till
1852. He was a Lord of the Treasury from 1846
to 1852, and was appointed one of the Board
of Supervision for the Poor in Scotland. In 1854
he was appointed Lord Clerk Register of Her
Majesty?s Rolls and Registers in Scotland in 1862,
and Keeper of the Signet. He was a member of
the Privy Council in 1863, and died in 1878.
Riccarton House, a handsome modern villa of
considerable size, has now replaced the old
mansion of other times.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH (cmtinzted).
Colinton-Ancient Name and Church-Redhall-The Family of Foulis-Dreghorn-The Pentlands-View from Torphin-Corniston-Slateford
-Graysmill-Liherton-The Mill at Nether Libertan-Liberton Tower-The Church-The Balm Well of St. Kathrrine-Grace Mount-
The Wauchopes of Niddrie-Niddrie House-St. Katherine?s-The Kaimes-Mr. Clement Little-Lady Little of Liberton.
THE picturesque little parish village of Colinton,
about a mile and a quarter from Kingsknowe
Station, on the Caledonian Railway, is romantically
situated in a deep and wooded dell, through which
the Water of Leith winds on its way to the Firth
of Forth, and around it are many beautiful walks
and bits of sweet sylvan scenery. The lands here
are in the highest state of cultivation, enclosed by
ancient hedgerows tufted with green coppice, and
even on the acclivities of the Pentland range, at
the height of 700 feet above the sea, have been
rendered most profitably arable.
In the wooded vale the Water of Leith turns
the wheels of innumerable quaint old water-mills,
and through the lesser dells, the Murray, the Braid,
and the Burdiehouse Burns, enrich the parish with
their streams.
Of old the parish was called Hailes, from the
plural, it is said, of a Celtic word, which signifies a
mound or hillock. A gentleman?s residence near
the site of the old church still retains the name,
which is also bestowed upon a well-known quarry
and two other places in the parish. The new
Statistical Account states that the name of Hailes
was that of the principal family in the parish, which
was so called in compliment to them?; but this
seems barely probable.
The little church-which dates from only 1771-
and its surrounding churchyard, are finely situated
on a sloping eminence at the bottom of a dell,
round which the river winds slowly by.
The ancient church of Hailes, or Colinton, was
granted to Dunfermline Abbey by Ethelred, son of
Malcolm Canmore and of St. Margaret, a gift confirmed
by a royal charter of David I., and by a Bull
of Pope Gregory in 1234, according to the abovequoted
authority ; but the parish figures so little in
history that we hear nothing of it again till 1650, ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lcolinton. the Belitice Puetaruni Scuiurum. He was a convert to the Protestant ...

Book 6  p. 322
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184 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rLeith .
but by bringing ordonnance from the Castell to the
shoare, to dins at them so long as they sould be
within shot.?? (Melrose?s Letter.)
Upon this the constable and his cannoniers, with
a battery of guns, came with all speed down, by the
Bonnington Road most probably, and took up a
position on the high ground near the ancient chapel
of St. Nicholas; but this aid came too late, for
Mynheer de Hautain had driven the unfortunate
Spanish frigate, after great slaughter, completely
outside the harbour, where she grounded on a dangerous
reef, then known as the Mussel Cape, but
latterly as the Black Rocks.
There she was boarded by a party of Leith seamen,
who hoisted a Scottish flag at her topmasthead
; but that afforded her no protection, for the
inexorable Dutchmen boarded her in the night,
burned her to the water?s edge, and sailed away
before dawn.
Two years after this there occurred a case of
? murder under trust, stouthrief, and piracie,? of
considerable local interest, the last scene of which
was enacted at Leith. In November, 1624, Robert
Brown, mariner in Burntisland, with his son, John
Brown, skipper there, David Dowie, a burgess there,
and Robert? Duff, of South Queensferry, were
all tried before the Criminal Court for slaying under
trust three young Spanish merchants, and appropriating
to themselves their goods and merchandise,
which these strangers had placed on board John
Brown?s ship to be conveyed from the Spanish port
3f San Juan to Calais three years before. ? Beeing
in the middis of the sea and far fra lande,? runs
the indictment, they threw the three Spaniards
overboard, ?ane eftir other in the raging seas,?
after which, in mockery of God, they ?maid ane
prayer and sang ane psalm,? and then bore away
for Middelburg in Zealand, and sold the property
acquired-walnuts, chestnuts, and Spanish wines.
For this they were all hanged, their heads struck
from their bodies and set upon pikes of iron in the
town of Leith, the sands of which were the scene
of many an execution for piracy, till the last, which
occurred in 1822, when Peter Heaman and Fransois
Gautiez were hanged at the foot of Constitution
Street, within the floodmark, on the 9th of January,
for murder and piracy upon the high seas.
On the 28th and 30th March, 1625, a dreadful
storm raged along the whole east coast of Scotland,
and the superstitious Calderwood, in his history,
seems to connect it as a phenomenon with the death
of James VI., tidings of which reached Edinburgh
on that day. The water in Leith harbour rose
to a height never known before; the ships were
dashed against each other ?? broken and spoiled,?
and many skippers and mariners who strove to
make them fast in the night were drowned. ?It
was taken by all men to be a forerunner of some
great alteration. And, indeed, the day followingto
wit, the last of March-sure report was brought
hither from Court that the King departed this
life the Lord?s day before, the 27th of March?
.
CHAPTER XX.
LEITH-HISTORICAL SURVEY (continued).
Si William Mown?s Suggestinns-Leith Re-fortified-The Covenant Signed-The Plague-The Cromwelli in Leith-A Mutiny-Newspaw
Printed in the Citadel-Tucker?s Report-English Fleet-A Windmill-English Pirates Hanged-Citadel seized by Brigadier Mackintosh&
Hessian Army Lands-Highland Mutinies-Paul Jones-Prince William Henry. .
CHARLES I. was proclaimed King of Scotland,
England, France, and Ireland, at the Cross of Edinburgh
and on the shore at Leith, where Lord Balmerino
and the Bishop of Glasgow attended with
the heralds and trumpeters.
The events of the great Civil War, and those
which eventually brought that unfortunate king to
the scaffold, lie apart from the annals of Leith, yet
they led to the re-fortifying of it after Jenny Geddes
had given the signal of resistance in St. Giles?s in
July, 1637, and the host of the Covenant began to
gather on the hills above Dunse.
Two years before that time we find Vice-Admiral
Sir William Monson, a distinguished English naval
officer who served with Raleigh in Elizabeth?s reign
in many expeditions under James VI., and who
survived till the time of Charles I., urging in his
?Naval Tracts? that Leith should be made the
capital of Scotland !
?? Instead of Edinburgh,? he wrote, I? which is
the supreme city, and now made the head of justice,
whither all men resort as the only spring that waters
the kingdom, I wish his Majesty did fortify, strengthen,
and make impregnable, the town of Leith, and
there to settle the seat of justice, with all the other
privileges Edinburgh enjoys, referring it to the ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rLeith . but by bringing ordonnance from the Castell to the shoare, to dins at them so ...

Book 5  p. 184
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50 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even nominally the title of abbot.
A part of the lands fill to the Earl of Roxburghe,
from whom the superiority passed, as narrated
elsewhere.
The ?Chronicon Sancta Crucis? was commenced
by the canons of Holyrood, but the portion that
has been preserved comes down only to 1163,
and breaks off at the time of their third abbot.
?Even the Indices Sanctorum and the ? two
Calendars of Benefactors and Brethren, begun from
the earliest times, and continued by the care of
numerous monks,? may-when allowance is made
for the magniloquent style of the recorder-man
nothing more than the united calendar, martyrology,
and ritual book, which is fortunately still
preserved. It is a large folio volume of 132 leaves
of thick vellum, in oak boards covered with stamped
leather, which resembles the binding of the sixteenth
century.? .
The extent of the ancient possessions of this
great abbey may be gathered from the charters
and gifts in the valuable Munim-nta Ecdesicp San&
Cmcis de Edwinesburg and the series of Sent
Rollr. To enumerate the vestments, ornaments,
jewels, relics, and altar vessels of gold and silver
set with precious stones, would far exceed our
limits, but they are to be found at length in the
second volume of the ? Bannatyne Miscellany.?
When the monastery was dissolved at the Reformation
its revenues were great, and according to the
two first historians of Edinburgh its annual income
then was stated as follows :
By Maitland : In wheat. 27 chaldea, 10 bolls.
I) In bear ... 40 .. g ..
I t Inoa ts... 34 .. 15 .. 3tpecks.
501 capons, 24 hens, 24 salmon, 12 loads of salt, and an
unknown number of swine. In money, &926 8s. 6d.
Scots.
By Arnot : In wheat ............ 442 bolls. .. ............. In bear 640 ss .. In oats .............. 560 .. with the same amount in other kind, and.&o sterling.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOLYROOD ABBEY (concluded).
Charter of Willim 1.-Trial of the Scottish Tcmplars-Prrndergast?s Rercnpe--chanas by ROM IL and 111.-The Lord of the Isles-
Coronation of James 11.-Marriages of James I[. and III.-Church, Bc. Burned by the Englih-Ph&d by them-Its Restoration
by James VU.-The Royal Vault-Desaiption of the Chapel Royal-Plundered at the Revolution-Ruined in x*-The West Front-
The Belhavcn Mouument-The Churchyard-Extent of Present Ruin-The Sanctuary-The Abbey Bells.
.KING WILLIAM THE LION, in a charter under his
:great seal, granted between the years 1171 and
1r77, ddressed to ?all the good men of his whole
kingdom, French, English, Scots, and Galwegians,?
confirmed the monks of Holyrood in all that had
been given them by his grandfather, King David,
together with many other gifts, including the pasture
of a thousand sheep in Rumanach (Romanno?),
-a document witnessed in the castle, ?apud
&densehch. ?
In 1309, when Elias 11. was abbot, there
occurred an interesting event at Holyrood, of
which no notice has yet been taken in any,history
of Scotland-the trial of the Scottish Knights of the
Temple on the usual charges niade against the
erder, aftet the terrible murmurs that rose against it
in Paris, London, and elsewhere, in consequence
-of its alleged secret infidelity, sorcery, and other
vices.
According to the Processus factus contra Tem-
.#arias in Scofict, in Wilkins? Concilia,? a work of
great price and rarity, it was in the month of
December, 1309-when the south of ScotIand was
averrun by the English, Irish, Welsh, and Norman
troops of Edward II., and John of Bretagne, Earl
of Richmond, was arrogantly called lieutenant of
the kingdom, though Robert Bruce, succeeding to
the power and popularity of Wallace, was in arms
in the north-that Master John de Soleure, otherwise
styled of Solerio, ?chaplain to our lord the
Pope,? together with William Lamberton, Bishop of
St. Andrews, met at the Abbey of Holyrood ?for
the trial of the Templars, and two brethren of that
order undernamed, the only persons of the order
present in the kingdom of Scotland, by command
of our most holy lord Clement V.? Some curious
light is thrown upon the inner life of the order by
this trial, which it is impossible to give at full
length.
In the first place appeared Brother Walter of
Clifton, who, being sworn on the Gospels, replied
that he had belonged to the military order of the
Temple for ten years, since the last feast of All
Saints, and had been received into it at Temple
Bruer, at Lincoln, in England, by Brother William
de la More (whom Raynouard, in his work on the
order, calls a Scotsman), and that the Scottish
brother knights received the statutes and observ ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood. Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his death, none bore even ...

Book 3  p. 50
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cyloagate.1 HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21
of stone with a
Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed
this house, in which he was resident in the middle
of the last century, and was succeeded in it by the
Countess of Aberdeen.
From 1778 till his death, in 1790, it formed the
residence of Adam Smith, author of ? The Wealth
of Nations,? after he came to Edinburgh as Commissioner
of the Customs, an appointment obtained
by the friendship of the Duke of Buccleuch. A few
days before his death, at Panmure House, he gave
orders to destroy all his mandscripts except some
detached essays, which were afterwards published
by his executors, Drs. Joseph Black and Janies
Hutton, and his library, a valuable one, he left to
his nephew, Lord Reston. From that old mansion
the philosopher was borne to his grave in an obscure
nook of the Canongate churchyard. During
the - last years of his blameless life his bachelor
household had been managed by a female cousin,
Miss Jeanie Douglas, who acquired a great control
? had attained her
From her published memoir-which, after its first
appearance in 1792, reached a tenth edition in
1806, and was printed by James Tod in Forrester?s
Wynd-and from other sources, we learn that she
was the widow of Robert Robertson, a merchant
in Perth, and was the daughter of a burgess named
George Swan, son of Charles 11. and Dorothea
Helena, daughter of John Kirkhoven, Dutch baron
of Ruppa, the beautiful Countess of Derby, who had
an intrigue with the king during the protracted
absence of her husband in Holland, Charles, eighth
earl, who died in 1672 without heirs.
According to her narrative, the child was given
to nurse to the wife of Swan, a gunner at Windsor,
a woman whose brother, Bartholomew Gibson, was
the king?s farrier at Edinburgh; and it would
further appear that the latter obtained on trust for
George Swan, from Charles 11. or his brother the
Duke of York, a grant of lands in New Jersey,
where Gibson?s son died about 1750, as would
over him.
At the end of Panmure Close
was the mansion of John
Hunter, a wealthy burgess, who
was Treasurer of the Canongate
in 1568, and who built it in
1565, when Mary was on the
throne. Wilson refers to it as
the earliest private edifice in
the burgh, and says ?it consists,
like other buildings of
the period, of a lower erection
forestair leading to the first floor, and an ornamental
turnpike within, affording access to the
upper chambers. At the top of a very steep
wooden stair, constructed alongside of the latter,
a very rich specimen of carved oak panelling
remains in good preservation, adorned with the
Scottish lion, displayed within a broad wreath and
surrounded by a variety of ornaments. The doorway
of the inner turnpike bears on the sculptured
lintel the initials I. H., a shield charged with a
chevron, and a hunting horn in base, and the
date 1565.? It bore also a comb with six teeth.
It was demolished in August, 1853.
A little lower down are Big and Little Lochend
Closes, which join each other near the bottom and
TU into the north back of the Canongate. In the
former are some good houses, but of no great antiquity.
One of these was occupied by Mr. Gordon
of Carlton in 1784; and in the other, during the
close of the last and first years of the present century,
there resided a remarkable old lady, named
Mrs Hannah Robertson, who was well known in her
time as a reputed grand-daughter of Charles 11.
appear from a notice in the
Lndon ChronicZe for 1771.
Be all this as it may, the old
lady referred to was a great
favourite with all those of
Jacobite proclivities, and at the
dinners of the Jacobite Club
always sat on the right hand of
the president, till her death,
which occurred in Little Lochend
Close in 1808, when she
eighty-fourth year, and a vast - . . .
concourse attended her funeral, which took place
in the Friends? burial-place at the Pleasance.
Unusually tall in stature, and beautiful even in old
age, her figure, with black velvet capuchin and
cane, was long familiar in the streets of Edinburgh.
From a passage in the ?Edinburgh Historical Register?
for 1791-2, she would appear to have been
a futile applicant for a pension to the Lords of the
Treasury, though she had many powerful friends,
including the Duchess of Gordon and the Countess
of Northesk, to whom she dedicated a book named
?? The Lady?s School of Arts.?
One of the most picturesque and interesting
houses in the Canongate is one situated in what
was called Davidson?s Close, the old ?White Horse
Hostel,? on a dormer window of which is the date
1603. It was known as the ?White Horse? a
century and more before the accession of the
House of Hanover, and is traditionally said to
have taken its name from a favourite white palfrey
when the range of stables that form its basement
had been occupied as the royal mews. The adjacent
Water Gate took its name from a great ... HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21 of stone with a Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed this house, in ...

Book 3  p. 21
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cyloagate.1 HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21
of stone with a
Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed
this house, in which he was resident in the middle
of the last century, and was succeeded in it by the
Countess of Aberdeen.
From 1778 till his death, in 1790, it formed the
residence of Adam Smith, author of ? The Wealth
of Nations,? after he came to Edinburgh as Commissioner
of the Customs, an appointment obtained
by the friendship of the Duke of Buccleuch. A few
days before his death, at Panmure House, he gave
orders to destroy all his mandscripts except some
detached essays, which were afterwards published
by his executors, Drs. Joseph Black and Janies
Hutton, and his library, a valuable one, he left to
his nephew, Lord Reston. From that old mansion
the philosopher was borne to his grave in an obscure
nook of the Canongate churchyard. During
the - last years of his blameless life his bachelor
household had been managed by a female cousin,
Miss Jeanie Douglas, who acquired a great control
? had attained her
From her published memoir-which, after its first
appearance in 1792, reached a tenth edition in
1806, and was printed by James Tod in Forrester?s
Wynd-and from other sources, we learn that she
was the widow of Robert Robertson, a merchant
in Perth, and was the daughter of a burgess named
George Swan, son of Charles 11. and Dorothea
Helena, daughter of John Kirkhoven, Dutch baron
of Ruppa, the beautiful Countess of Derby, who had
an intrigue with the king during the protracted
absence of her husband in Holland, Charles, eighth
earl, who died in 1672 without heirs.
According to her narrative, the child was given
to nurse to the wife of Swan, a gunner at Windsor,
a woman whose brother, Bartholomew Gibson, was
the king?s farrier at Edinburgh; and it would
further appear that the latter obtained on trust for
George Swan, from Charles 11. or his brother the
Duke of York, a grant of lands in New Jersey,
where Gibson?s son died about 1750, as would
over him.
At the end of Panmure Close
was the mansion of John
Hunter, a wealthy burgess, who
was Treasurer of the Canongate
in 1568, and who built it in
1565, when Mary was on the
throne. Wilson refers to it as
the earliest private edifice in
the burgh, and says ?it consists,
like other buildings of
the period, of a lower erection
forestair leading to the first floor, and an ornamental
turnpike within, affording access to the
upper chambers. At the top of a very steep
wooden stair, constructed alongside of the latter,
a very rich specimen of carved oak panelling
remains in good preservation, adorned with the
Scottish lion, displayed within a broad wreath and
surrounded by a variety of ornaments. The doorway
of the inner turnpike bears on the sculptured
lintel the initials I. H., a shield charged with a
chevron, and a hunting horn in base, and the
date 1565.? It bore also a comb with six teeth.
It was demolished in August, 1853.
A little lower down are Big and Little Lochend
Closes, which join each other near the bottom and
TU into the north back of the Canongate. In the
former are some good houses, but of no great antiquity.
One of these was occupied by Mr. Gordon
of Carlton in 1784; and in the other, during the
close of the last and first years of the present century,
there resided a remarkable old lady, named
Mrs Hannah Robertson, who was well known in her
time as a reputed grand-daughter of Charles 11.
appear from a notice in the
Lndon ChronicZe for 1771.
Be all this as it may, the old
lady referred to was a great
favourite with all those of
Jacobite proclivities, and at the
dinners of the Jacobite Club
always sat on the right hand of
the president, till her death,
which occurred in Little Lochend
Close in 1808, when she
eighty-fourth year, and a vast - . . .
concourse attended her funeral, which took place
in the Friends? burial-place at the Pleasance.
Unusually tall in stature, and beautiful even in old
age, her figure, with black velvet capuchin and
cane, was long familiar in the streets of Edinburgh.
From a passage in the ?Edinburgh Historical Register?
for 1791-2, she would appear to have been
a futile applicant for a pension to the Lords of the
Treasury, though she had many powerful friends,
including the Duchess of Gordon and the Countess
of Northesk, to whom she dedicated a book named
?? The Lady?s School of Arts.?
One of the most picturesque and interesting
houses in the Canongate is one situated in what
was called Davidson?s Close, the old ?White Horse
Hostel,? on a dormer window of which is the date
1603. It was known as the ?White Horse? a
century and more before the accession of the
House of Hanover, and is traditionally said to
have taken its name from a favourite white palfrey
when the range of stables that form its basement
had been occupied as the royal mews. The adjacent
Water Gate took its name from a great ... HANNAH ROBERTSON. 21 of stone with a Panmure of Forth, and was the last who possessed this house, in ...

Book 3  p. 22
(Score 0.51)

Stenhouse.1 KATHERINE OSWALD, WITCH. 339
The same Sir John seems to have possessed
property in East Lothian.
In 1413-4 Gulielmus de Edmonstone, scutger,
was a bailie of Edinburgh, together with William
Touris of Cramond, Andrew of Learmouth, and
William of the Wood. (? Burgh Charters,? No.
It was on Edmonstone Edge that the Scots
pitched their camp before the battle qf Pinkie, and
when the rout ensued, the tremendous and exulting
shout raised by the victors and their Spanish,
German, and Italian auxiliaries, when they mustered
on the Edge, then covered by the Scottish tents,
was distinctly heard in the streets of Edinburgh,
five miles distant.
In 1629 the ?Judicial Records? tell us of
certain cases of witchcraft and sorcery as occurring
in the little villages of Niddrie and Edmonstone.
Among them was that of Katherine Oswald, a
generally reputed witch, who acknowledged that,
with others at the Pans, she used devilish charms
to raise a great storm during the borrowing days of
1625, and owned to having, with other witches and
warlocks, had meetings with the devil between
Niddrie and Edmonstone for laying diseases both
on men and cattle.
She was also accused of ?bewitching John
Nisbett?s cow, so that she gave blood instead ol
milk. Also threatening those who disobliged her,
after which some lost their cows by running mad,
and others had their kilns burnt. Also her numerous
cures, particularly one of a lad whom she
cured of the trembling fever, by plucking up a
nettle by the root, throwing it on the hie gate, and
passing on the cross of it, and returning home, all
which must be done before sun-rising ; to repeat
this for three several mornings, which being done,
he recovered.
XXI.)
?? Convicted, worried at a stake, and burnt?
A companion of this Katherine Oswald, Alexander
Hamilton, who confessed to meeting the devil
in Saltoun Wood, being batooned by him for failing
to keep a certain appointment, and bewitching
to death Lady Ormiston and her daughter, was alsa
? worried at a stake, and burnt?: (? Spottiswoode
Miscellany.?)
Regarding the surname of Edmonstone, 1632,
Lord Durie reports a case, the Laird of Leyton
against the Laird of Edmonstone, concerning the
patronage of ? the Hospital of Ednemspittal, which
pertained to the House of Edmonstone?
The defender would seem to have been Andrew
Edrnonstone of that ilk, son of ?uniquhile Sir
John,? also of that ilk.
The family disappeared about the beginning oj
the seventeenth century, and their land passed into
the possession of the second son of Sir John
Wauchope of Niddrie, Marischal, who was raised to
the bench as Lord Edmonstone, but was afterwards
removed therefrom, ?in consequence of his opposition
to the royal inclinations in one of his votes as
a judge.? His daughter and heiress mamed Patrick,
son of Sir Alexander Don of Newton Don and
that ilk, when the family assumed the name of
Wauchope, and resumed that of Don on the death
of the late Sir William Don, Bart.
The estate of Woolmet adjoins that of .Ednionstone
on the eastward. According to the ?New
Statistical Account,? it was granted to the abbey of
Dunfermline by David I. It belonged in after
years to a branch of the Edmonstone family, who
also possessed house p,roperty in Leith, according
to a case in Durie?s ? Decisions ? under date 1623.
In 1655 the Laird of Woolmet was committed
to ward in the Castle of Edinburgh, charged With
? dangerous designes and correspondence with
Charles Stuart ; ? and in I 670 several cases in the
Court of Session refer to disputes between Jean
Douglas, Lady Woolmet, and others, as reported in
Stair?s ? Decisions.? \
Wymet, now corrupted to Woolmet, was the
ancient name of the parish now incorporated with
that of Newton, and after the Reformation the
lands thereof were included in Tames VI.?s grant
to Lord Thirlstane.
The little hamlet named the Stennis, or Stenhouse
(a corruption of Stonehouse, or the Place of
the Stones) lies in the wooded. hollow through
which Burdiehouse Bum flows eastward.
In the new church of St. Chad, at Shrewsbury,
in Shropshire, there lies interred a forgotten native
of this hamlet-atl architect-the epitaph on whose
massive and handsome tombstone is quite a little
memoir of him :-
? L J ~ ~ ~ SIMPSON,
?? Born at Stennis, in Midlothian, I 75 5 ; died in this
parish, June rgth, 1815. As a man, he was moral,
gentle, social, and friendly. In his professional
capacity, diligence, accuracy, and irreproachable
integrity ensured him esteem and confidence wherever
he was employed, and lasting monuments of
his skill and ability will be found in the building
of this church (St. Chad?s), which he superintended,
the bridges of Bewdley, Dunkeld, and
Bonar, the aqueducts of Pontoysclite and Chirk,
and the locks and basins of the Caledonian Canal.
The strength and maturity of his Christian faith
and hope were seen conspicuously in his last
illness. To his exemplary cbnduct as a husband ... KATHERINE OSWALD, WITCH. 339 The same Sir John seems to have possessed property in East Lothian. In ...

Book 6  p. 339
(Score 0.51)

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

Book 5  p. 118
(Score 0.51)

196 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Great King Street,
in July, .1836, was appointed to the chair of logic
and metaphysics, in succession to Professor David
Ritchie. In the interval between his appointment
and the commencement of the college session, in
the November of the same year, he was assiduously
occupied in preparing to discharge the
duties of the chair, which (according to the
practice of the University) consist in the delivery
of a course of lectures on the subjects assigned
to it.
On his appointment at first, Sir William
Hamilton would seem to have experienced
considerable difficulty in deciding on the character
of the course of lectures on Philosophy, which,
while doing justice to the subject, would at the
same time meet the requirements of his auditors,
usually comparatively young students in the second
year of their University curriculum. His first
course of lectures fell to be written during the
currency of the session 1836-7. He was in the
habit of delivering three in each week; and each
lecture was usually written on the day, or more
probably on the evening and night, before its
delivery. His ? Course of Metaphysics? was the
result of this nightly toil.
His lectures on Logic were not composed until
the following session, 1837-8. A commonplace
book which he left among his papers, exhibits in a
very remarkable degree Sir William?s power of
appreciating and making use of every available
hint scattered through the obscurer regions of
thought, through which his extensive reading
conducted him, says the editor of his collected
work, and no part of his writings more completely
verifies the remark of his American critic, Mr.
Tyler :-? There seems to be not even a random
thought of any value which has been dropped
along any, even obscure, path of mental activity,
in any age or country, that his diligence has not
recovered, his sagacity appreciated, and his
judgment husbanded in the stores of his knowledge.?
The lectures of Sir William Hamilton, apart from
their very great intrinsic merit, possess a high
acapemical and historic interest From 1836 to
1856-twenty consecutive years-his courses of
Logic and Metaphysics were the means by which
this great, good, and amiable man sought to imbue
with his philosophical opinions the young men
who assembled in considerable numbers from his
native country, from England, and elsewhere ; ?? and
while by these prelections,? says his editor in
1870, ? the author supplemented, developed, and
moulded the National Philosophy-leaving thereon
the ineffaceable impress of his genius and learning
-he at the same time and by the same means
exercised over the intellects and feelings of his
pupils an influence which for depth, intensity, and
elevation, was certainly never surpassed by that of
any philosophical instructor. Among his pupils
are not a few who, having lived for a season under
the constraining power of his intellect, and been
Led to reflect on those great, questions regarding
the character, origin, and bounds of human
knowledge which his teaching stirred and
quickened, bear the memory of their beloved and
revered instructor inseparably blended with what
is highest in their present intellectual life, as well
as in their practical aims and aspirations.?
At the time of his death, in 1856, he resided,
as has beeu stated, in No. 16 Great King Street,
and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Willigm,
an officer ofthe Royal Artillery. Since his death
a memoir of him has appeared from the pen of
Professor Veitch, of the University of Glasgow.
In No. 72 of the same street lived and died
another great Scotsman, Sir William Allan, R.A.,
whose fame and reputation as an artist extended
over many years, and whose works are still his
monument. We have already referred to his .
latter years in our account of the Royal Academy
and the ateZier of his earlier days in the Parliament
Close, where, after his wanderings in foreign lands,
and in the first years of the century, he was wont
to figure ?by way of robe-de-chambre, in a dark
Circassian vest, the breast of which was loaded
with innumerable quilted lurking-places, originally,
no doubt, intended for weapons of warfare, but
now occupied with the harmless shafts of hair
pencils, while he held in his hand the smooth
cherry-wood stalk of a Turkish tobacco-pipe,
apparently converted very happily into a palette
guard. A swarthy complexion and profusion of
black hair, tufted in a wild but not ungraceful
manner, together with a pair of large sparkling
eyes looking out from under strong shaggy brows
full of vivacious and ardent expressiveness, were
scarcely less speaking witnesses of the life of
romantic and roaming adventure I was told this
fine artist had led.? In spite of his bad health,
which (to quote ?Peter?s Letters?) ?was indeed
but too evident, his manners seemed to be full of
a light and playful sportiveness, which is by no
means common among the people of our nation,
and still less among the people of Scotland;
and this again was every now and then exchanged
for a depth of enthusiastic earnestness still more
evidently derived from a sojourn among men
whose blood flows through their veins with a heat
and rapidity to which the North is a stranger.? ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Great King Street, in July, .1836, was appointed to the chair of logic and ...

Book 4  p. 196
(Score 0.5)

North Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335
have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though
not carried out till the early years of George 111.?~
reign, it had been projected in the latter end of
the reign of Charles 11.
The idea was first suggested when James VII.,
as Duke of Albany and York, was resident Royal
Commissioner at Holyrood, in the zenith of the
only popularity he ever had in Scotland. Vast
numbers of the Scottish nobility and gentry flocked
.around him, and the old people of the middle of
xhe eighteenth century used to recall with delight
the magnificence and brilliance of the court he
gathered in the long-deserted palace, and the
general air of satisfaction which pervaded the
entire city.
Despite the recent turmoils and sufferings consequent
on the barbarous severity with which the
Covenanters had been treated, Edinburgh was prosperous,
and its magistrates bestowed noble presents
upon their royal guest; but the best proof of the
city?s prosperity was the new and then startling idea
s f having an extended royalty and a North Bridge,
;and this idea the Duke of Albany warmly patronised
and encouraged, and towards it gave the citizens a
grant in the following terms :-
?That, when they should have occasion to
enlarge their city by purchasing ground without
tthe town, or to build bridges or arches for the accomplishing
of the same, not only were the propietors
of such lands obliged to part With the same
an reasonable terms, but when in possession thereof,
they are to be erected into a regality in favour of
the citizens ; and after finishing the Canongate
church, the city is to have the surplus of the
20,ooo merks given by Thomas Moodie, in the
year 1649, with the interest thereof; and as all
public streets belong to the king, the vaults and
cellars under those of Edinburgh being forfeited to
the Crown, by their being built without leave or
consent of his majesty, he granted all the said
vaults or cellars to the town, together with a power
to oblige the proprietors of houses, to lay before
their. respective tenements large flat stones for the
conveniency of walking.?
James VII. had fully at heart the good of Edinburgh,
and but for the events of the Revolution
the improvements of the city would have commenced
seventy-two years sooner than they did, but
the neglect of subsequent monarchs fell heavily alike
on the capital and the kingdom. ?Unfortunately,?
. :says Robert Chambers, ?the advantages which
Edinburgh enjoyed under this system of things
were destined to be of short duration. Her royal
:guest departed, with all his family and retinue, in
May, 1682. In six years more he was lost both
:o Edinburgh and Britain; and ?a stranger filled
:he Stuart?s throne,? under whose dynasty Scotland
?ined long in undeserved reprobation.?
The desertion of the city consequent on the
Union made all prospect of progress seem hopeless,
yet some there were who never forgot the cherished
idea of an extended royalty. Among various
plans, the most remarkable for its foresight was that
3f John eighteenth Lord Erskine and eleventh
Earl of Mar, who was exiled for his share in the
insurrection of I 7 I 5.
His sole amusement during the years of the long
exile in which he died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732
was to draw plans and designs for the good of his
beloved native country and its capital; and the
paper to which we refer is one written by him in
1725, and mentioned in vol. 8 of the ?Old Statistical
Account of Scotland,? published in 1793.
?All ways of improving Edinburgh should be
thought on : as in particular, making a Zarge bridge
flfhree arch, over the ground betwixt the North
Loch and Physic Gardens, from the High Street at
Liberton?s Wynd to the Multersey Hill, where
many fine streets might be built, as the inhabitants
increased. The access to them would be easy on
all hands, and the situation would be agreeable and
convenient, having a noble prospect of all the fine
ground towards the sea, the Firth of Forth, and
coast of Fife. One long street in a straight line,
where the Long Gate is now (Princes Street?) ; on
one side of it would be a fine opportunity for
gardens down to the North Loch, and one, on the
other side, towards Broughton. No houses to be
on the bridge, the breadth of the North Loch ; but
selling the places or the ends for houses, and the
vaults and arches below for warehouses and cellars,
the charge of the bridge might be defrayed.
? Another bridge might also be made on the other
side of the towq, and almost as useful and commodious
as that on the north. The place where it
could most easily be made is St. Mary?s Wynd, and
the Pleasance. The hollow there is not so deep, as
where the other bridge is proposed, so that it is
thought that two storeys of arches might raise it near
the level with the street at the head of St. Mary?s
Wynd. Betwixt the south end of the Pleasance and
the Potter-row, and from thence to Bristo Street,
and by the back of the wall at Heriot?s Hospital, are
fine situations for houses and gardens. There would
be fine avenues to the town, and outlets for airing
and walking by these bridges ; and Edinburgh, from
being a bad incommodious situation, would become
a very beneficial and convenient one ; and to make
it still more so, a branch of that river, called the
Water of Leith, misht, it is thought, be brought ... Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335 have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though not carried out till the ...

Book 2  p. 335
(Score 0.5)

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

Book 5  p. 166
(Score 0.5)

354 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hawthornden.
walls seven feet thick, and the remains of a banqueting-
hall with large windows, and walls five
feet thick.
The more modern house of the seventeenth century,
which has been engrafted on this fortress
(probably destroyed by the English in 1544 or
I 547) measures ninety feet long, with an average
breadth of twenty-three feet, and exhibits the usual
crowstepped gables, massive chimneys, and small
windows of the period.
In the days of the War of Independence the
Castle of Hawthornden belonged to a family called
Abernethy. It was then the stronghold of Sir
Lawrence Abernethy (the second son of Sir William
Abernethy of Saltoun), who, though a gallant
soldier, was one of those infamous traitors who
turned their swords against their own country, and
served the King of England.
He it was who, on the day Bannockburn was
fought and when Douglas was in hot pursuit of the
fugitive Edward II., was met, at the Torwood, with
a body of cavalry hastening to join the enemy, and
who added to the infamy of his conduct by instantly
joining in the pursuit, on learning from Douglas
that the English were utterly defeated and dispersed.
Three-and-twenty years after, the same traitor,
when again in the English interest, had the better
of the Knight of Liddesdale and his forces five in
one day, yet was at last defeated in the end, and
taken prisoner before sunset. All this is recorded
in stone in an inscription on a tablet at the west
end of the house. At this time, 1338, Sir Alexander
Ramsay of Dalhousie, emulating the faith and
valour of Douglas, at the head of a body of knights
and men-at-arms, whom his fame and daring as a
skilful warrior had drawn to his standard, sallied
from his secret stronghold, the vast caves of Hawthornden,
and after sweeping the southern Lowlands,
penetrated with fire and sword into Englaod ;
and, on one occasion, by drawing the English into an
ambush near Wark, made such a slaughter of them
that scarcely one escaped.
For these services he received a crown charter
from David II., in 1369, of Nether Liberton, and
of the lands of Hawthornden in the barony of
Conyrtoun, Edinburghshire, ? quhilk Lawrence
Abernethy foris fecit? for his treasons ; but, nevertheless,
his son would seem to have succeeded.
In after years the estate had changed proprietors,
being sold to the Douglases; and among the slain
at Flodden was Sir John Douglas of Hawthornden,
with his neighbour, Sir William Sinclair of Roslin.
By the Douglases Hawthornden was sold to
.the Urummonds of Carnock, with whom it has
since remained ; and the ancient families of Abernethy
and Drummond became, curiously enough,
united by the marriage of Bishop Abernethy and
Barbara Drummond.
The most remarkable member of this race was
William Drummond (more generally known as
? Hawthornden ?), the historian of the Jameses,
the tender lover and gentle poet, the handsome
cavalier, whom Cornelius Jansen?s pencil has portrayed,
and who died of a broken heart for the
execution of Charles I. .
His history of the Jameses he dedicates, ? To the
Right Honorable my very good Lord and Chiel,
the Earl of Perth,? but it was not published till
after his death.
The repair of the ancient house in its present
form took place in 1638 and 1643, as inscriptions
record.
Few poets have enjoyed a more poetical home
than William Drummond, whose mind was, no
doubt, influenced by the exquisite scenery amid
which he was born (in 1585) and reared. He has
repaid it, says a writer, by adding to this lovely
locality the recollections of himself, and by the
tender, graceful, and pathetic verses he composed
under the roof of his historical home.
He came of a long line of ancestors, among
whom he prized highly, as a member of his family,
Annabella Drummond, queen of King Robert 111.
Early in life he fell in love with a daughter of
Cunninghame of Bames, a girl whose beauty and
accomplishments-rare for that age-he has recorded
in verse.
Their weddingday was fixed, and on its eve she
died. After this fatal event Drummond quitted
Hawthoroden, and for years dwelt on the Continent
as a wanderer; but the winter of 1618 saw
him again in his sequestered home by the Esk,
where he was visited by the famous Ben Jonson,
who, it is said, travelled on foot to Scotland to see
him. At the east end of the ruins that adjoin the
modern mansion is a famous sycamore, called One
of the Four Sisters. It is twenty-two feet in circumference,
and under this tree Drunimond was
sitting when Jonson arrived at Hawthornden. It
would seem that the latter had to fly from England
at this time for having slain a man in a duel.
Reference is made to this in some of Drummond?s
notes, and a corroboration of the story is given by
Mr. Collier, in his ?? Life of AIleyn I? the actor, and
founder of Dulwich College.
Jonson stayed same weeks at Hawthornden,
where he wrote two of the short pieces included in
his ? Underwoods? and ? My Picture left in
Scotland,? with a . lang inscription to his. host. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hawthornden. walls seven feet thick, and the remains of a banqueting- hall with large ...

Book 6  p. 354
(Score 0.5)

High Street.3 CHANGES IN THE HIGH STREET. 203
Mortality,? I 7041 gives us the long inscription on the
tomb of the Colonel?s wife, in the Greyfriars, beginning
:-? Nic $osita Rdiquire Lectissrna rnatronq
Jeanne ]ohnsone, conizcgl?s Archibaldi Row, Re@
Scloppetarz>rum, hpmzis,? &c. She died in
1702.
On the 8th of March Anne was proclaimed
Queen of Scotland, at the Cross, with all the usual
solemnities.
In January, 1703, George Young, merchant in
the High Street, was appointed by the Provost, Si1
Hugh Cunningham, and the Council, to act a
a constable, and along with several other citizen:
of respectable position, ? oversee the manners and
order of the burgh, and the inhabitants thereof,
and on the evening of the 24th, being Sunday, he
went through some parts of the city to see ?that
the Lord?s day, and the laws made for the observance
thereof, were not violated.? ? In the house
of Marjory Thom, a vintner, this new official found,
about 10 P.M., several companies in several rooms,
and expostulated with her on the subject, aftei
which, according to his own account, he quietly
withdrew.
As he proceeded up the close to the High Street,
he and his comrades were followed by Mr. Archi.
bald Campbell, son of the Lord Niel Campbell,
who warned him that if he reported Marjory?s
house to the magistrates, he would repent it. This
affair ended in a kind of riot next day, in Young?:
shop, opposite the Town Guard House, and Campbell
would probably have slain Young, had not the
latter contrived to get hold of his sword and keep
it till the Guard came, and the matter was brought
before the Privy Council, when such was the
influence of family and position, that the luckless
Mr. Young was fined 400 merks, to be paid to
Campbell, and to be imprisoned till the money
was forthcoming.
On the 14th of February, 1705, appeared tlie
first number of the Bdinbwgh Courant, a simple
folio broadsheet, published by James Watson, in
Craig?s Close. Its place was afterwards taken by
MacEwen?s Rdifzburgh Evening Courant, in I 7 18,
a permanent success to this day. It was a Whig
print, and caused the starting of the now defunct
Caledonkn Mercury, in the Jacobite interest,
a little quarto of two leaves.
According to the Courant of April gth, 1724 the
denizens of the High Street, aud other greater
thoroughfares, were startled by ?a bank ? of drums,
beating up for recruits for the King of Prussia?s
-
gigantic regim?ent of Grenadiers. Two guineas as
bounty were offered, and many tall fellows were
enlisted. The same regiment was recruited for
in Edinburgh in 1728.
By the year 1730 great changes had been
effected by the magistrates in enforcing cleanliness
in the streets, and repressing the habit (accompanied
by the temble cry of Gardezl?eau) of throwing slops
and rubbish from the windows. Sir James Dick of
Prestonfield, the wise provost of 1679, transported
away by personal energy a vast stratum of the
refuse of ages, through which people had to make
literal lanes to their shops and house-doors and
therewith enriched his lands by the margin of
Duddingston Loch (Act of Parl. James VII., I.,
cap. IZ), till their fertility is proverbial to the
present day. But still there was no regular system
of cleaning, and though Sir Alexander Brand, a
well-known magistrate and manufacturer of Spanish
leather gilt hangings, made some vigorous proposals
on the subject, they were not adopted, till in
1730 the magistrates endeavoured by the strong arm
of the law to repress the obnoxious habit of
throwing household litter from the windows, a
habit amusingly described by Smollett forty years
after in his ?? Humphrey Clinker.?
On the 6th of September, 1751, the fall of
a great stone tenement on the north of the High
Street, near the Cross, six storeys in height, with
attics, sinking at once from top to bottom, and
occasioning some loss of life, caused a general
alarm in the city concerning the probable state of
many of the more ancient and crumbring houses.
A general survey was made, and many were
condemned, and orderec! to be taken down.
But from 1707 Edinburgh stood singularly still
till 1763, when the citizens seemed to wake
fiom their apathetic lethargy. After that period
the erection of adjuncts to the old city (tcr
be referred to in their own localities) led to the
general desertion of it by all people of position and
wealth. Among the last who lingered there, and
retained his mansion in the High Street, was
James Fergusson of Pitfour, M.P., whose body was
borne thence in October, 1820, for interment in the
Greyfriars Churchyard.
In the March of 1820 the High Street was
iighted with gas for the first time. ? This has been
done,? says a print of the day, ?by the introduction
of a single cockspur light into each of the
old globes, in which the old oil lamps were formerly
suspended.? ... Street.3 CHANGES IN THE HIGH STREET. 203 Mortality,? I 7041 gives us the long inscription on the tomb of the ...

Book 2  p. 203
(Score 0.5)

High Street.] THOMAS BASSANDYNE, PRINTER. 207
in an investment in favour of John Preston, Commissary,
dated 1581, is described as ?that tenement
of lands lying in the said burgh on the south
side of the High Street, and on the entry of the
wynd of the Preaching Friars, formerly waste,
having been burnt by the English.? Thus it
would appear to have been built between 1544
and 158I-probably near the former date, as the
situation being central it was unlikely to remain
long waste.
In 1572 it suffered greatly during the siege of
the Castle, in common with the Earl of Mar?s
mansion in the Cowgate, and Baxter?s house in
Dalgleish?s Close.
Its proprietor, John Preston, in 1581, though the
son of a baker, was an eminent lawyer in the time
of James VI., who was raised to the Bench in
March, 1594, as Lord Fentonbarns (in succession
to James first Lord Balmerino) and died President
of the Court in 1616. His mode of election
was curious. ?The King,? says Lord Hailes,
?named Mr. Peter Rollock, Bishop of Dunkeld,
Mr. David MacGill of Cranstoun-Riddel, and Mr.
Preston of Fentonbarns, requesting the Lords to
choose the fittest of the three to be an Ordinary
Lord of Session. The Lords were solemnly sworn
to choose according to their knowledge and conscience.
In consequence of this, coigecfi in $ileum
;zominibus [by ballot], the Lords elected Mr. John
Preston.?
Before his death he attained to great wealth and
dignity; he was knighted by King James, and his
daughter Margaret wzs married in this old house to
Robert Nairn of? Mackersie, and became mother
of the first Lord ?Nairn, who was placed in the
Tower of London by Cromwell in 1650, with many
others, and not released till the Restoration, ten
years after.
The senator?s son, Sir Michael Preston, succeeded
him in possession of the mansion in 1610.
Preston, together with Craig and Stirling, is
mentioned in a satirical production of Alexander
Montgomery, author of ?The Cherrie and the
Slae,? and before whom he had become involved
in a tedious suit before the Court of Session, and
was at one time threatened with quarters in the
Tolbooth. He wrote of Fentonbarns as-
? A baxter?s bird, a bluitter beggar born?
The old house narrowly escaped total destruction
by a fire in 1795, thus nearly anticipating that
,of later years. It was the last survivor of the long
and unbroken range of quaint and stately edifices
on the south side of the street, between St. Giles?s
and the Nether Bow. An outside stair gave access
to the first floor, the stone turnpike stair of which
bore the abbreviated legend in Gothic characters-
DEO. HONOR . ET. GLIA.
A little lower down the street, and nearly
opposite the house of John b o x , dwelt Thomas
Bassandyne, in that tall old mansion we have
already referred to in an early chapter as having
had built into its front the fine sculptured heads of
the Emperor Septinius Severus and his Empress
Julia, and having between them a tablet inscribed,
? In sudorc vuh fui vecmir pane tz~o,? which
Wilson shrewdly suspects to have been a fragment
of the adjacent convent of St May, or some other
old monastic establishment in Edinburgh.
Here it was that Thomas Bassandyne, a famous
old Scottish typographer, in conjunction with
Alexander Arbuthnot, undertook in 1574 the then
arduous task of issuing his beautiful folio Bible,
with George Young, a servant (clerk) of the Abbot
of Dunfermline, as a corrector of the press ; the
?? printing irons,? or types were of cast-metal. The
work of printing the Bible proved a heavier task
than they expected, as it had met with many impediments
; and before the Privy Council, which
was giving them monetary aid, they pleaded for
nine months to complete the work, or return the
money contributed towards it by various Scottish
parishes. In this we see the first attempt to
publish by subscription. Here, too, Thomas
Bassandyne printed his rare quarto edition of Sir
David Lindesay?s Poems in 1574. His will is
preserved in the Banizatyne MisceZZany, and from
it it appears, that his mother was life-rented in that
part of the house which formed the printer?s
dwelling, the annual rent of which was eight
pounds ; while the remainder that belonged to
himself, was occupied by his brother Michael. At
all events, he leaves in his will ?his thrid, the
ane half thairof to his wyf, and the vthir half to
his mother, and Michael and his bairnes,? in
which says the memorialist of Edinburgh, we
presume, to have been included the house, which
we find both he and his bairns afterwards possessing,
and for which no rent would appear to
have been exacted during the lifetime of the
generous old printer.
His house is repeatedly referred to in the evidence
of the accomplices of the Earl of Bothwell in the
murder of Darnley, an event which took place
during the life of Bassandyne, beneath whose house
was one occupied by a sword slipper, with whom it
is said lodged the Black John of Ormiston, one of
the conspirators, for whom the rest called on the
night of the murder. ... Street.] THOMAS BASSANDYNE, PRINTER. 207 in an investment in favour of John Preston, Commissary, dated 1581, ...

Book 2  p. 207
(Score 0.5)

466 MENORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Kennedy’s Close, High Street, 247
Benneth III., 246
Ker of Fawdonside, 76
Elligrew, Henry, Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, 183
Killor, a Black Friar, burnt, 44
Kilravock, 192
Bincaid, Provost, 199
Hincardine, Countese of, 166
King’s Head Inn, Cowgate, 330
Pillar, St Giles’s Church, 381
Stables, 23, 135-137
Work, Leith, 363
Kinloch, Henry, 284
Kinloch’s Close, 251
Kinnoul, William, 3d Earl of, 216
Kintore, John, 3d Earl of, 228
Kirkaldy, Sir William, 82, 84, 85, 121, 136, 174, 182,
Canongate, 284
348,389
James, 85
Kirkgate, Leith, 64, 358
Kirkheugh, 207, 208
Kirkliston Church, 129
Kirk-of-Field, 14, 63, 78, 321, 397
Kirkpatrick, William, of Allisland, 179
Knolls, Sir William, Preceptor of Torphichen, 352
Bnox, John, 53, 69, 62, 68, 69, 70, 76, S3, 206, 320,
Sir Fhomaa, of Closeburn, 390 -
389
House of, Netherbow, 257
Krames, The, 200
Lacrok, Monsieur, French dmbassador, 357,415
Lady Stair’s Close, 141, 163
Stepe, St Giles’e Church, 201
Lovat’a Land, 262
Yester’s Church, 96, 105, 429, 430
Lady’s Aisle, St Giles’s Church, 382, 383
Altar, 383
Niche, 201
Walk, Leith, 368
Wynd, 136
Lambert, General, 97
Lamb’s Ale House, Parliament Close, 211
Lancaster, Duke of, 12
Lancashire, Tom, the Comedian, 236
Lands, 138
(. Lauder, Sir Alexander, of Blyth, 386
Sir John. See Fountainhall, Lord
Bishop, 319
Lauderdale, Duke of, 235
John, 2d Earl of, 102
Charles, 3d Earl of, 209, 298
Countess of, 294
Laurieston, 87
Law of Laurieston, John, 308
Lawnmarket, 157-183,334
Lawson, James, 170
Lawsoun, Richard, 32
Leather Market, 207
Lee, Sir Richard, carries of the Brazen Font of Holy-
Club, 157
rood Abbey, 406
Leith, 23, 60, 62, 63, 81, 97, 866-888
Links, 93,104
Walk, 851
Wynd, 44, 66, 82,123, 278,279,362,863
Church, South. See St Mary’r
Church, North. See St Ninkn‘c
Leiths, Ancient Family of, 356
Lekprevik, Robert, the Printer, 376
Leland, Piers, 6
Lennox, John, 3d Earl of, 40
Matthew, 4th Earl of, 49, 82,277, 362
Lndovic, 2d Duke of, 223
Isabell, Countess of, 382
Leo x., Pope, 26
Lepers, Hospital for, 371,411
Leelie, General, 94, 353, 355, 373
Lethington, 174
Leven, David, Sd Earl of, 144
David, 6th Earl of, 242
Libberton’s Wynd, 164,180,328
Liberton, 4
Lighting of the Streets, First, 67
Lindisfarn, Bishop of, 12, 377
Lindorea, the Clock of the Abbey Church of, put up in
St Qiles’s Steeple, 394
Lindeay, Lord, 205, 215
Sir David, 38, 39, 41, 42, 45, 66, 62,152, 383,
Sir Dav;d, Younger, 89
Bernard, of Lochill, 364
Lady, 174
442
Linlithgow, 47
Lion’s Den, 131
Little, Clement, 169, 170, 171
Little Jack’s Close, 291
Livingaton, Bishop, 320
Earl of, 309
William, 169,171
Lord, 63
Sir Archibald, 15
Vicar of, 143
Mary, 144
Livingstone’a Yardg 136
Lochaber Axe, 248
Lochart’e court, 89
Lochend, 23
’ Lockhart, Sir George, Lord President, 178,440
George, “ Union Lockhart,” 241
Robert, 349
Sir Robert, 367, 399, 412
Logan of Restalrig, 362
‘
Long Gait, 123, 452
Lord Cullen’e Close, 171
Lorn, Lord, 294
Lorraine, May of, 43. See &he, Nay of
Lothian Road, 137.
Loadon, Earl of, 180,216,295,326
Loughborough, Lord Chancellor, 269
Lounger, The, 200
Lovat, Lady, 262
Lowrie, John, 344
Luckenbootha, 116,172,196, 228
Hut, 301 ... MENORIALS OF EDINBURGH. Kennedy’s Close, High Street, 247 Benneth III., 246 Ker of Fawdonside, ...

Book 10  p. 505
(Score 0.5)

98 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [WaniStolL
The cost to the Government of fencing in the
-ground, planting, &c., up to May, 1881, was
A6,000, while the purchase of Inverleith House
entailed a further expenditure ot &$,g50.
In the garden are several fine memorial trees,
planted by the late Prince Consort, the Prince of
Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, and others.
Mr. James M?NabwaslongtheCuratoroftheRoyal
I Botanic Gardens, and till his death, in November,
1878, was intimately associated with its care and,
progress. The sou of William M?Nab, gardener, a
native of Ayrshire, he was born in April, 1814, and
five weeks later his father was appointed Curator
of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden in Leith Walk.
On leaving school James adopted the profession of
his father, and for twelve consecutive years worked
in the garden as apprentice, journeyman, and foreman,
from first to last con urnore, gaining a thorough
knowledge of botany and arboriculture, and, by a
variety of experiments, of the best modes of heating
greenhouses. In 1834 he visited the United States
and Canada, and the results of his observktions in
those countries appeared in the ?Edinburgh Philosophical
Journal? for 1835, and the ? Transactions ?
of the Botanical Society.
On the death of his father in December, 1848,
after thirty-eight years? superintendence of the
Botanic Garden, Mr. James M?Nab was appointed
to the Curatorship by the Regius Professor, Dr.
Balfour. At that time the garzen did not consist
of more than fourteen imperial acres, but after a time
two more acres were added, and these were planted
and laid out by Mr. M?Nab. A few years after the
experimental garden of ten acres was added to
the original ground, and planted with conifers and
other kinds of evergreens. The rockery was now
formed, with 5,442 compartments for the cultivation
of alpine and dwarf herbaceous plants. Mr.
M?Nab was a frequent contributor to horticultural
.and other periodicals, his writings including papers,
not only on botanical subjects, but on landscapegardening,
arboriculture, and vegetable climatology.
He was one of the original members of the Edinburgh
Botanical Society, founded in 1836, and in
1872 was elected President, a position rarely, if
ever, held by a practical gardener.
In 1873 he delivered his presidential address on
? The effects of climate during the last half century
on the tultivation of plants in the Botanic Garden
of Edinburgh, and elsewhere in Scotland,? a subject
which excited a great deal of discussion, the
writer having adduced facts to show that a change
had taken place in our climate within the period
given. Few men of his time possessed a more
thorough know!edge of his profession in all its
.
departments, and to his loving care and enthusiasm
it is owing that the Botanic Garden of Edinburgh is
now second to none.
On the east side of Inverleith Row lies the
ancient estate of Warriston, which has changed
proprietors quite as often as the patrimony of the
Touris and Rocheids.
Early in the sixteenth century Warriston bglonged
to a family named Somerville, whose residence
crowned the gentle eminence where now the modem
mansion stands. It must, like the house of h e r -
leith, have formed a conspicuous object from the
once open, and perhaps desolate, expanse of
Wardie Muir, that lay between it and the Firth
of Forth.
From Pitcairn?s ? Criminal Trials ? it would a p
pear that on the 10th of July, 1579, the house or
fortalice at Wamston was besieged by the Dalmahoys
of that ilk, the Rocheids and others, when
it was the dwelling-place of William Somerville.
They were ?pursued? for this outrage, but were
acquitted of it and of the charge of shooting pistolettes
and wounding Barbara Barrie.
By 1581 it had passed into the possession of
the Kincaids, and while theirs was the scene of a
dreadful tragedy. Before the Lords of the Council
in that year a complaint was lodged by John
Kincaid, James Bellenden of Pendreich, and James
Bellenden of Backspittal, ? all heritable feuars of
the lands of Waristown,? against Adani Bishop of
Orkney, as Commendator of Holyrood, who had
obtained an Act of the Secret Council to levy
certain taxes on their land which they deemed
unjust or exorbitant ; and similar complaints against
the same prelate were made by the feuar of abbey
land at St. Leonard?s. The complainers pleaded
that they were not justly indebted for any part
of the said tax, as none of them were freeholders,
vassals, or sub-vassals, but feuars only, subject to
their feu-duties, at two particular terms, in the year.
Before the Council again, in 1583, John Kincaid of
Warriston, and Robert Monypenny of Pilrig, a p
peared as caution for certain feuars in Broughton,
in reference to another monetary dispute with the
same prelate.
In I 591, Jean Ramsay, Lady Warriston, probably
of the same family, was forcibly abducted by
Robert Cairncross (known as hleikle Hob) and
three other men, in the month of March, for which
they were captured and tried. The year 1600
brings us to the horrible tragedy to which reference
was made above in passing.
John Kincaid of Warriston was married to a
very handsome young woman named Jean Livingston,
the daughter of a man of fortune and good ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [WaniStolL The cost to the Government of fencing in the -ground, planting, &c., up ...

Book 5  p. 98
(Score 0.49)

THE CASTLE -4ND GLEN. 34 7 Roslin.]
further repaired, as an ornate entrance seems tc
show, with its lintel, inscribed ? S.W.S., 1622.??
The same initials appear on the half-circular pedi.
ment of a dormer window. Above this door, which
is beautifully moulded and enriched, is a deep and
ornate squqre niche, the use for which it is difficult
to conceive.
From its windows it commands a view of the
richly-wooded glen, between the rocky banks and
dark shadows of which the Esk flows onward with
a ceaseless murmur among scattered boulders,
where grow an infinite variety of ferns. The
eastern bank rises almost perpendicularly from the
river?s bed, and everywhere there is presented a
diversity of outline that always delights an artistic
eye.
The entrance to the castle was originally by a
gate of vast strength, and the whole structure must
have been spacious and massive, and on its northern
face bears something of the aspect of old Moorish
fortresses in Spain. A descent of a great number of
stone stairs conducts through the existing structure
to the bottom, leading into a spacious kitchen,
from which a door opens into the once famous
gardens. The modern house of 1563 is ill-lighted
and confined, and possesses more the gloom of
a dungeon-like prison than the comforts of a residence.
Grose gives us a view of the whole as they
appeared in 1788--? haggard and utterly dilapidated-
the mere wreck of a great pile riding on a
l ~ t l e sea of forest-a rueful apology for the once
grand fabric whose name of ? Roslin Castle ? is so
intimately associated with melody and song.?
It is unknown when or by whom the original
castle was founded. It has been referred to the
year 1100, when William de St. Clair, son of
Waldern, Count of St. Clair, who came to England
with William the Conqueror, obtained from
Malcolm 111. the barony of Roslin, and was
named ?the seemly St. Clair,? in allusion to his
grace of deportment ; but singular to say, notwithstanding
its importance, the castle is not mentioned
distinctly in history till the reign of James II.,
when Sir William Hamilton was confined in it in
1455 for being in rebellion with Douglas, and again
when it was partly burned in 1447.
Father Richard Augustine Hay, Prior of St.
Piermont, in France, who wrote much about the
Roslin family, records thus :--
?About this time, 1447, Edmund Sinclair of
Dryden, coming with four greyhounds and some
rackets to hunt with the prince (meaning William
Sinclair, Earl of Orkney), met a great company of
rats, and among them an old blind lyard, with a
straw in his mouth, led by the rest, whereat he
greatly marvelled, not thinking what was to follow;
but within four days after-viz., the feast of St.
Leonard, the princess, who took great delight in
little dogs, caused one of the gentlewomen to go
under a bed with a lighted candle to bring forth one
of them that had young whelps, which she was
doing, and not being very attentive, set on fire the
bed, whereat the fire rose and burnt the bed, and
then rose to the ceiling of the great chamber in
which the princess was, whereat she and all that
were in the dungeon (keep?) were compelled to fly.
? The prince?s chaplain seeing this, and remembering
his master?s writings, passed to the head of
the dungeon, where they were, and threw out four
great trunks. The news of this fire coming to the
prince?s ears through the lamentable cries of the
ladies and gentlemen, and the sight thereof coming
to his view in the place where he stood-namely,
upon the College (Chapel?) Hill-he was in sorrow
for nothing but the loss of his charters and other
writings; but when the chaplain, who had saved
himself by coming down the bell-rope tied to a
beam, declared how they were saved, he became
cheerful, and went to re-comfort his princess and
the ladies, desiring them to put away all sorrow,
and rewarded his chaplain very richly.? The
i? princess ? was the Elizabeth Countess of Roslin,
referred to in page 3 of Vol. I.
In 1544 the castle was fired by the English
under Hertford, and demolished. The house of
1563, erected amid its ruins nineteen years after,
was pillaged and battered by the troops of Cromwellin
1650.
+4t the revolution in 1688, it was pillaged again
by a lawless mob from the city, and from thenceforward
it passes out of history.
Of the powerful family to whom it belonged we
can only give a sketch.
The descendants of the Norman William de St.
Clair, called ihdifferently by that name and Sinclair,
received from successive kings of Scotland
accessions, which made them lords of Cousland,
Pentland, Cardoine, and other lands, and they lived
in their castle, surrounded by all the splendour of a
rude age, and personal importancegiven by the
acquisition of possessions by methods that would
be little understood in modern times.
There were three successive William Sinclairs
barons of Roslin (one of whom made a great
figure in the reign of William the Lion, and gave
a yearly gift to Newbattle,pro saZufe mime we)
before the accession of Henry, who, by one account,
is said to have mamed a daughter of the
Earl of Mar, and by auother a daughter of the Earl ... CASTLE -4ND GLEN. 34 7 Roslin.] further repaired, as an ornate entrance seems tc show, with its lintel, ...

Book 6  p. 347
(Score 0.49)

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