Edinburgh Bookshelf

Edinburgh Bookshelf

Search

Index for “tron church edinburgh”

1628, by numerous wooden booths being stuck up all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some of which were actually cut away for this ignoble purpose, while the lower tracery of the windows was destroyed by their lean-to roofs, just as we may see still in the instance of many churches in Belgium. These wretched edifices were called the Krames, yet, as if to show that some reverence was still paid to the sanctity of the place, the Town Council decreed, ?? that no tradesman should be admitted to these shops except bookbinders, mortmakers (i.e. watchmakers)] jewellers, and goldsmiths.? ? Bookbinders,? says Robert Chambers, ?must be in this instance meant to signify booksellers, the latter term being then unknown in Scotland ;? but within the memory of many still Displaying double-beaded winged dmgons clustering round a central rose with the hook of the altar lam?. Sanction was given in the early part of 1878 by the municipal authorities for extensive restorations, to be conducted in a spirit and taste un known to thebarbarous ?improvers? of 1829. At the head of the restoration committee was placed Dr. Rilliam Chambers, the well-known publisher and author. According to the plans laid before it, the last of the temporary partitions were to be removed, the rich-shaped pillars embedded therein to be uncovered and restored ; the galleries and pews swept away, when the church will assume its old cruciform aspect. ? By these operations the Montrose aisle will be uncovered, and form an interesting historical object. Provision is made for the Knights of the Thistle, if they should desire it, erecting their stalls, as is done by the Knights of east angle of the church. Another account says they were named from the infamous Lady March, wife of the Earl of Arran, the profligate chancellor of James VI., from whom the nine o?clock bell was also named ?The Lady Bell,? as it was rung an hour later to suit herself. An old gentlewoman mentioned in the ?? Traditions of Edinburgh,? who died in 1802, was wont to own that she had, in her youth, seen both the sfdtue and the steps ; but it is extremely unlikely that the former would escape the iconoclasts of 1559, who left the church almost a ruin. But time has accomplished a change that John Knox and ?Jenny Geddes? could fittle foresee ! was ordered for the church. ?The instrument,? says the Scofsmzn, ?consists of two full manuals and a pedal organ of full compass. The great organ contains eleven stops, and one of sixteen feet in metal. There are eleven stops in the swell organ, and one of sixteen feet in wood. The pedal organ contains five stops, including two of sixteen feet in wood, and one of sixteen feet in metal. In the great organ there is to be a silver clarionet of eight feet; a patent pneumatic action is fitted to the keys, and the organ will be blown by a double cylinder hydraulic engine.? In its most palmy days old St. Gilas?s couldnevei boast of such ?a kist 0? whistles ? as this ! ... by numerous wooden booths being stuck up all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some of which were ...

Book 1  p. 147
(Score 0.67)

88 OLD AND NEW Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free Assembly were held in it. Here, too, in 1847, it witnessed the constituting of the Synods of the Secession and Relief Churches into the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Old Canonmills House, which faced Fettes Row, has been removed, and on its site was erected, in 1880-1, a handsome United Presbyterian Church within a crescent. In the month of October, 1879, there was laid at Bellevue Crescent, by the Lord Provost (Sir Thomas Boyd), in presence of a vast concourse of people, the foundation stone of a handsome German church-the first of its kind in Scotlandfor the congregation of Hem Blumenreich, which for a number of years preceding had been wont to meet in the Queen Street Hall. The Provost was presented with a silver trowel wherewith to lay the stone. Tie cost was estimated at &2,600. The building was designed by Mr. Wemyss, architect, Leith, in the Pointed Gothic style, for 350 sitters. Where now Claremont Terrace andBellevueStreet zre erected in Broughton Park, there existed, EDINBURGH. [Canonmills. between 1840 and 1867, the Zoological Gardens (a small imitation of the old Vauxhall Gardens in London), where the storming of Lucknow and other such scenes of the Indian mutiny used to be nightly represented, the combatants being parties of soldiers from the Castle, the fortifications and so forth being illuminated transparencies. Unfortunately or otherwise the gardens proved a failure. Among the last animals here were two magnificent tigers, sent from India by the then Governor-General, the ?Marquis of Dalhousie, and afterwards, we believe, transmitted to the Zoological Gardens in London. Here, too, was Wood?s Victoria Hall, a large timber-built edifice for musical entertainments, which was open till about 1857. Eastward of old Broughton Hall here, and bordering on the old Bonnington Road, are various little properties and quaint little mansion-houses, such as Powderhall, Redbraes, Stewartfield, Bonnington House, and Pilrig, some of them situated where the Leith winds under wooded banks and past little nooks that are almost sylvan still-and each of these has. its own little history or traditions. Powderhall, down in a dell, latterly the property of Colonel Macdonald, in 1761 was the residence ... OLD AND NEW Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free Assembly were held in it. Here, too, in ...

Book 5  p. 88
(Score 0.67)

I34 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church. When peace came, Messrs. McVicar and Pitcairn, his coadjutor, continued faithfully and successfully to discharge the duties of the ministry. In 1247 Mr. McVicar, when about to deliver one of the old Thursday sermons, suddenly dropped down dead ; and amid a vast concourse of sorrowing parishioners was deposited in his tomb, which has a plain marble monument. A well-painted portrait of him hangs in the vestry of the present church. His colleague, the Rev. Thomas Pitcairn, followed him on the 13th of June, 1751, and a pyramidal stone, erected to his memory by his youngest daughter, stands in the ancient burying-ground. So early as 1738 attempts were made to violate graves, for surgical purposes, in the churchyard, which, of course, was then a lonely and sequestered place, and though the boundary walls were raised eight feet high, they failed to be a protection, as watchers who were appointed connived at, rather than prevented, a practice which filled the parishioners with rage and horror. Hence, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Session to prevent such violation of tombs, several bodies were abstracted in 1742. George Haldane, one of the beadles, was suspected of assisting in this repulsive practice; and on the 9th of May his house at Maryfield was surrounded by an infuriated mob, and burned to the ground. The old church, which stood for ages,and had been in succession a Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and finally a Presbyterian place of worship again, and which had been gutted and pillaged by Reformers and Cromwellians, and cannon-shotted in civil wars, was found to be dangerous, and condemned to be taken down. Although the edifice was insufficient, and in some parts dangerous, there was no immediate cause for the growing terror that pervaded the congregation, and culminated in a general alarm on Sunday, the 27th September, 1772. Part of a seat in one of the galleries gave way with a crash, on which the entire assembled mass rushed to the doors, and in an instant the church was empty. A jury of tradesmen met to inspect the church, which they were of opinion should be taken down without delay; but this verdict had hardly been drawn up and read, than a fear seized them that the old church would fall and bury them in its ruins, on which they fled to the adjacent charity work house. The work of demolition was begun forthwith, and when removing this venerable fane, the interior of which now, ? formed after no plan, presented a multitude of petty galleries stuck fip one above another to the very rafters, like so many pigeons?-nests,? a curious example of what is namqd heart-burial came to light. The workmen, says the .!!ots Migazine for September, 1773, discovered ? a leaden coffin, which contained some bones and a leaden urn. Before opening the urn, a most fragrant smell issued out ; on inspecting the cause of it, they found a human heart finely embalmed and in the highest state of preservation. No inscription was upon the coffin by which the date could be traced, but it must have been there for centuries. It is conjectured that the heart belonged to some person who, in the time of the Crusades, had gone to the Holy Land, and been there killed, and the heart, as was customary in those times, embalmed and sent home to be buried with some of the family.? Prior to the erection of the new church, the congregation assembled in a Methodist Chapel in the Low Calton. In 1775 it was completed in the hideous taste and nameless style peculiar to Scottish ecclesiastical irchitecture during the times of the first three Georges. It cost A4,231, irrespective of its equally hideous steeple, and is seated for about 3,000 persons, and is now the mother church, associated with ten others, for a parish which includes a great part of the parliamentary burgh of the capital, and has a population of more than 140,000. The church, says a writer, ? apart from its supplemental steeple, looks so like a huge stone box, that some wags have described it as resembling a packing-case, out of which the neighbouring beautiful toy-like fabric of St. John?s Church has been lifted? At the base of the spire is a fine piece of monumental sculpture, from the chisel of the late Handyside Ritchie, in memory of Dr. David Dickson, a worthy and zealous pastor, who was minister of the parish for forty years. Some accounts state that Napier of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms, was interred in the cemetery; but from an essay on the subject read before the Antiquarian Society by Professor William Wallace in 1832, there is conclusive evidence given, from a work he quoted, ? that Napier was buried without the West Port of Edinburgh, in the church of St. Cuthbert,? and in a vault, in the month of April, 1617. The baronial family of Dean had also a vault in the old church, which still remains under the new, entering from the north. Above it is a monumentaI stone from the old church, fo the memory of Henry Nisbet of that ilk, by whom we thus learn the vault was built. The arms of the Dean family are still above this black ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church. When peace came, Messrs. McVicar and Pitcairn, his coadjutor, continued ...

Book 3  p. 134
(Score 0.67)

62 MEMORIALS OP EDINB UR GH. land, romed in the mind of Elizabeth that vindictive jealousy, which so largely contributed to all the miseries that attended the course of Mary of Scotland, from the first moment of her return to her native land. From this time forward a fatal change took place in the policy of the Queen Regent. She abandoned the moderate measures which her own natural disposition inclined her to ; she lent herself en’tirely to the ambitious projects of the French Court and the Chiefs of the house of Guise, and the immediate result was a collision between the Catholic and Protestant parties. Some concessions had been granted at the request of the Lords of the Congregation ; but now these were entirely withdrawn, a proclamation was issued for conformity of religion, and several of the leaders of the reforming party were summoned A provincial synod, worthy of notice, as the last ever held in Scotland during Roman Catholic times, was convened on the 2d of March, this year, in the Blackfriare’ Church, Edinburgh, to consult what wae required for the safety of the Church thus endangered. Resolutions were passed for the amendment of life in the clergy, and the removal of other crying abuses ; but it can hardly be wondered at that their general tone was by no means conciliatory ; the decrees of the Council of Trent were again declared obligatory ; the use of any other language than Latin, in the services of the Church, was expressly forbid ; and, by an act of this same synod, Sir David Lindsay’R writings were denounced, and ordered to be burnt.’ According to Calderwood, this, the last synod ‘of the Church, was dissolved on the 2d of May, the same day that John Knox arrived at Leith,-too striking a coincidence to be overlo~ked.~ The conducting of the public religious services in an unknown language had long excited opposition ; and the popularity of such writings as those of Dunbar, Douglas, and Lindsay, in the vernacular tongue, doubtless tended to increase the general desire for its u8e in the services of the Church, as well as on all public occasions. In Kitteis Confeessioun, a satirical poem ascribed to Sir David Lindsay, the dog-lath of an ignorant father-confeseor is alluded to with sly humourto answer for their past deeds.‘ . . I He speirit monie strange case, How that my lufe did me embrace, Quhat day, how oft, quhat sort, and quhair 1 Quod he, I wad I had been thair. He me absolvit for ane plack, Thocht he with me na price wald rnak ; And rnekil Latine did he mummill; I heard na thing bot Aumrnill burnmill. The poet was already in his grave when his writings were thus condemned. The last years of hie life had been spent in retirement, and the exact time of his death is unknown, but‘Henry Charteris, the famous printer, who published Lindsay’s works in 1568, says that This occurred in 1558, from which it may be inferred, that he died towards the cloae of the previous year, 1557.4 shortly after the death of Sir David, they burnt auld Walter Mill.” 1 Tytler, vol. vi. pp 109,110. Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 526. * Calderwood, vol. i. p. 438. ’ Chalmera’ Sir D. Lindsay, vol. i p. 42. Keith, vol. i p. 156. ... MEMORIALS OP EDINB UR GH. land, romed in the mind of Elizabeth that vindictive jealousy, which so largely ...

Book 10  p. 67
(Score 0.67)

Tine Lawomarket.1 MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 9s visitor could be fully visCd before admission was accorded. In many other instances the entrances to the turnpike stairs had loopholes for arrows or musketry, and the archways to the closes and wynds had single and sometimes double gates, the great hooks of which still remain in some places, and on which these were last hung in 1745, prior to the occupation of the city by the Highlanders. The Lawnmarket was bounded on the west by the Butter Tron, or Weigh-house, and on the east by the Tolbooth, which adjoined St. Giles?s, thus forming in earlier times the greatest open space, save the Grassmarket, within the walls. The Weighhouse, built on ground which was granted to the citizens by David II., in 1352, was a clumsy and hideous edifice, rebuilt in 1660, on the site of the previous building, which Gordon of Rothiemay, in his map of 1647, shows to have been rather an ornate edifice, two storeys in height, with a double #outside stair on the south side, and a steeple and vane at the east end, above an archway, where enormous quantities of butter and cheese were continually being disposed of. In 1640 the Lawnmarket was the scene of a remarkable single combat, of which we have a very clearly-detailed account in ?? The Memoirs of the Somervilles.? In that year, when Major Somerville of Drum commanded the garrison of Covenanting troops in Edinburgh Castle, a Captain Crawford, who, though not one of his officers, deemed himself privileged to enter the fortress at all times, walked up to the gates one morning, and, on finding them closed, somewhat peremptorily demanded admission. The sentinel within told him that he must ?( before entering, acquaint Major Somerville with his name and rank.? To this Crawford replied, furiously, ? Your major is neither a soldier nor a gentleman, and if he were without this gate, and at a distance from his guards, I would tell him that he was a pitiful cullion to boot! ? The irritated captain was retiring down the Castle Hill, when he was overtaken, rapier in hand, by Major Somerville, to whom the sentinel had found means to convey the obnoxious message with mischievous precision. ?Sir,? said the major, ?you must permit me to accompany you a little way, and then you shall know more of my mind.? ? I will wait on you where you please,? replied Crawford, grimly; and they walked together in silence to the south side of the Greyfriars churchyard, at all times a Ionely place. ? Nazi," said Somerville, unsheathing his sword, ?I am without the Castle gates and at a distance from my guards. Draw and make good your threat I ? Instead of defending himself like a man of honour, Crawford took off his hat, and begged pardon, on which Somerville jerked his long bowlhilted rapier into its sheath, and said, with scorn, (? You have neither the discretion of a gentleman, nor the courage of a soldier ; begone for a coward and fool, fit only for-Bedlam !? and he returned tb the Castle, accompanied by his officers, who had followed them to see the result of the quarrel. It is said that Crawford had been offended at not being invited to a banquet given in the Castle by Somerville to old General Ruthven, on?the day after the latter surrendered. As great liberties were taken with him after this in consequence of his doubtful reputation for ? courage, he resolved, by satisfaction demanded in a public and desperate manner, to retrieve his lost honour, or die in seeking it. Thus, one forenoon, about eleven o?clock,? when the Major was on his way to visit General Sir Alexander Leslie, and proceeding down the spacious Lawnmarket, which at that hour was always thronged with idlers, he was suddenly confronted by Captain Crawford, who, unsheathing both sword and dagger, exclaimed, ?? If you be a pretty man-draw f ? With a thick walking cane recently presented to him by General Ruthven, the Major parried his onset and then drew his sword, which was a half-rapier slung in a shoulderbelt, and attacked the Captain so briskly, that he was forced. to fall back, pace by pace, fighting desperately, from the middle of the Lawnmarket to the goldsmiths? booths, where Somerville struck him down on the causeway by the iron pommel of his ? sword, and disarmed him. Several of Somerville?s soldiers now came upon the scene, and by these he would have been slain, had not the yictor protected him; but for this assault upon & superior officer he was thrown into prison, where he lay for a year, heavily manacled, and in a wretched condition, till Somerville?s wife,who resided at the Drum House, near Gilmerton, and to whom he had Written an imploring letter, procured his liberation. Here in the Lawnmarket, in the lofty tenement dated 1690, on the second floor,? is the ?shop? where that venerable drug, called the ?Grana . Angelica,? but better known among the country people as (?Anderson?s Pills,? are sold. They took their origin from a physician of the time of Charles I., who gave them his name, and of whom a long account? was given in the University Magazine, and locally their fame lasted for nearly 250 years. From his daughter Lilias Anderson, the patent, granted by James VII., came ??tg Thomas Weir, chirurgeon, in Edinburgh,? who left the secret of preparing the pills to his daughter, Mrs. Irving, who died in ~837, at the age of . ... Lawomarket.1 MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 9s visitor could be fully visCd before admission was accorded. In many other ...

Book 1  p. 95
(Score 0.67)

and burned, and ?? that ilk mail in Edinburgh have his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under pain of deid !? (I? Qiurnal.?) This gives us a graphic idea of the city in the sixteenth century, and of the High Street in particular, ?with the majority of the buildings on either side covered with thatch, encumbered by piles of heather and other fuel accumulated before each door for the use of the inhabitants, and from amid these, we may add the stately ecclesiastical edifices, and the substantial mansions of the nobility, towering with all the more imposing effect, in contrast to their homely neighbourhood.? Concerning these heather stacks we have the following episode in ?Moyse?s Memoirs :?--?On the 2nd December, 1584, a b.kxteis boy called Robert Henderson (no doubt by the instigation of Satan) desperately put some powder and a candle to his father?s heather-stack, standing in a close opposite the Tron, and burnt the same with his.father?s house, to the imminent hazard of burning the whole Sown, for which, being apprehended most marvellously, after his escaping out of town, he wus n~xt day burnt pick at the cross of Edinburgh as an example.? There was still extant in 1850 a small fragment .of Forrester?s Wynd, a beaded doorway in a ruined wall, with the legend above it- ?? O.F. OUR INHERITANCE, 1623.? ?In all the old houses in Edinburgh,? says Amot, ?it is remarkable that the superstition of the time had guarded each with certain cabalistic characters or talismans engraved upon its front. These were generally composed of some texts of Scripture, of the name of God, or perhaps an emblematical representation of the crucifixion.? Forrester?s Wynd probably took its name from Sir Adam Forrester of Corstorphine, who was twice chief magistrate of the city in the 14th century. After the ?Jenny Geddes? riot in St. Giles?s, Guthrie, in his ?Memoirs,? tells us of a mob, consisting of some hundreds of women, whose place .of rendezvous in 1637 was Forrester?s Wynd, and who attacked Sydeserf, Bishop of Galloway, when .on his way to the Privy Council, accompanied by Francis Stewart, son of the Earl of Bothwell, .?with such violence, that probably he had been torn in pieces, if it had not been that the said Francis, with the help of two pretty men that attended him, rescued him out of their barbarous hands, aud hurled him in at the door, holding back the pursuers until those that were within shut the door. Thereafter, the Provost and Bailies being assembled in their council, those women beleaguered them, and threatened to burn the house about their ears, unless they did presently nominate two commissioners for the town,? Src. Their cries were : ?? God defend all thdse who will defend God?s cause! God confound the service-book and all maintainers thereof !? From advertisements, it wonld appear that a character who made some noise in his time, Peter Williamson, ?I from the other world,? as he called himself, had a printer?s shop at the head of this wynd in 1772. The victim of a system of kidnapping encouraged by the magistrates of Aberdeen, he had been c?arried off in his boyhood to America, and after almost unheard-of perils and adventures, related in his autobiography, published in 1758, he returned to Scotland, and obtained some small damages from the then magistrates of his native city, and settled in Edinburgh as a printer and publisher, In 1776 he started The Scots Spy, published every Friday, of which copies are now extremely rare. He had the merit of establishing the first penny post in Edinburgh, and also published a ?? Directory,? from his new shop in the Luckenbooths, in 1784. He would appear for these services to have received a small pension from Government when it assumed his institution of the penny post. The other venerable alley referred to, Beith?s Wynd, when greatly dilapidated by time, was nearly destroyed by two fires, which occurred in 1786 and 1788. The former, on the 12th Decernher, broke out near Henderson?s stairs, and raged with great violence for man), hours, but by the assistance of the Town Guard and others it was suppressed, yet not before many families were burnt out. The Parliament House and the Advocates? Library were both in imminent peril, and the danger appeared so great, that the Court of Session did not sit tha? day, and preparations were made for the speedy removal of all records. At the head of Beith?s Wynd, in 1745, dwelt Andrew Maclure, a writing-niaster, one of that corps of civic volunteers who marched to oppose the Highlanders, but which mysteriously melted away ere it left the West Port. It was noted of the gallant Andrew, that having made up his mind to die, he had affixed a sheet of paper to his breast, whereon was written, in large text-hand, ?This is the body of Andrew Maclure j let it be decently interred,? a notice that was long a source of joke among the Jacobite wits. With this wynd, our account of the alleys in connection with the Lawnmarket ends. We have elsewhere referred to the once well-known Club formed by the dwellers in the latter, chiefly woc!!en He died in January, 1799. ... burned, and ?? that ilk mail in Edinburgh have his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under pain of ...

Book 1  p. 122
(Score 0.66)

21% OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow. with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing ;against the Castle. ? They hauled their. cannons up the High Street by force of men to the ButteI Tron, and above,? says Calderwood, ? and hazarded a shot against the fore entrie of the Castle (i.e., the port of the Spur). But the wheel and axle 01 .one of the English cannons was broken, and some of their men slain by shot of ordnance out of the Castle j so they left that rash enterprise.? In 1571, during the struggle between Kirkaldy .and the Regent Morton, this barrier gate played a prominent part. According to the ?Diurnal of Qccurrents,? upon the nznd of August in that year, the Regent and the lords who adhered against the .authority of the Queen, finding that they were totally excluded from the city, marched several bands of soldiers from Leith, their head-quarters, .and concealed them under cloud of night in the I closes and houses adjoining the Nether Bow Port. At five on the following morning, when it was supposed that the night watch would be withdrawn, six soldiers, disguised as millers, approached the .gates, leading horses laden with sacks of meal, which were to be thrown down as they entered, so .as to preclude the rapid closing of them, and while they attacked and cut down the warders, with those weapon? which they wore under their disguise, the .men in ambush were to rush out to storm the -town, aided by a reserve, whom the sound of their trumpets was to summon from Holyrood. ?But the eternal God,? says the quaint old journalist we quote, ? knowing the cruel1 murther that wold have beene done and committit vponn innocent poor personis of the said burgh, wold not thole this interpryse to tak successe; but evin quhen the said meill was almaist at the port, and the said men of war, stationed in clois headis, in readinesse to enter at the back of the samyne it chanced that a burgher of the Canongate, named Thomas Barrie, passed out towards his hcuse in the then separate burgh, and perceiving soldiers concealed on every hand, he returned and gave the alarm, on which the gate was at once barricaded, and the design of the Regent and his adherents baffled. This gate having become ruinous, the magis trates in 1606, three years after James VI. went to England, built a new one, of which many views are preserved. It was a handsome building, and quite enclosed the lower end of the High Street. The arch, an ellipse, was in the centre, strengthened by round towers and battlements on the eastern or external front, and in the southern tower there was a wicket for.foot passengers. On the inside of the arch were the arms of the city. The whole building was crenelated, and consisted of two lofty storeys, having in the centre a handsome square tower, terminated by ii pointed spire. It was adorned by a statue of James VI., which was thrown down and destroyed by order of Oliver Cromwell, and had on it a Latin inscription, which runs thus in English :- ?Watch towers and thundr?ng walls vain fences prove No guards to monarchs like their people?s love. Jacobus VL Rex, Anna Regina, 1606.? This gate has been rendered remarkable in history by the extra-judicial bill that passed the House of Lords for razing it to theground, in consequence of the Porteous mob, For a wonder, the Scottish members made a stand in the matter, and as the general Bill, when it came to the Commons, was shorn of all its objectionable clauses, the Nether Bow Port escaped. In June, 1737, when the officials of Edinburgh, who had been taken to London for examination concerning the not, were returning, to accord them a cordial reception the citizens rode out in great troops to meet them, while for miles eastward the road was lined by pedestrians. The Lord Provost, Alexander Wilson, a modest man, eluded the ovation by taking another route ; but the rest came in triumph through the city, forming a procession of imposing length, while bonfires blazed, all the bells clanged and clashed as if a victory had been won over England, and the gates of the Nether Bow Port, which had been unhooked, were re-hung and closed amid the wildest acclamation. In 1760 the Common Council of London having obtained an Act of Parliament to remove their city gates, the magistrates of Edinburgh followed suit without any Act, and in 1764 demolished the Nether Bow Port, then one of the chief ornaments of the city, and like the unoffending Market Cross, a peculiarly interesting relic of the past. The ancient clock of its spire was afterwards placed in that old Orphan?s Hospital, near Shakespeare Square, where it remained till the removal of the latter edifice in 1845, when the North British Railway was in progress, and it is now in the pediment between the towers of the beautiful Tuscan edifice built for the orphans near the Dean cemetery. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow. with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing ;against the Castle. ? They ...

Book 2  p. 218
(Score 0.66)

B TO GR A P H I C A L SIC ET C HE S. 435 it may be mentioned, that on the resignation of Dr. Touch, minister of the Old Chapel of Erne, now Buccleuch Church, in March 1808, he, along with his colleague, Sin Henry Moncreiff, regularly preached and dispensed ordinances there till November 1813, when the Rev. Henry Gray, of St. Mary’s, was inducted to its ministry. The congregation under Dr. Touch had been gradually dwindling away, till the seat-rents, formerly amounting to El 50, and which he enjoyed as his stipend, scarcely exceeded €30 per annum. By the exertions of Sir Henry and Dr. Dickson, who voluntarily offered their services, a speedy renovation was effected. Besides a retiring allowance of SS0 to Dr. Touch, the debt was liquidated-the expense of a large addition to the chapel defrayedand a fund of XSOO realised, the interest of which is now pledged in perpetuity towards the support, of the minister. A vacancy having taken place in the Professorship of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in the University of Edinburgh, by the death of Dr. Moodie in 1812, Dr, Dickson, whose acquirements in that department of literature were generally known to be of no inferior kind, became a candidate for the chair ; but, on the late Dr. Murray being brought forward, Dr. Dickson, much to his honour, immediately withdrew from all competition with so pre-eminent a philologist ; and in consequence of this chiefly, as was well understood at the time, Dr. Murray obtained the appointment, though even then only by a majority of two votes over the remaining competitors. In 1822 the attention of the Kirk-Session having been directed to the great want of church accommodation and pastoral superintendence in the northern and southern districts of the parish, Dr. Dickson at once most cordially and zealously went along with and assisted them in all the measures which soon after happily led to the erection of the new chapels, now churches and parishes, of St. Eernard‘s and Newington. During the vacancies also which have from time’to time occurred in the ministry of these places of worship, he has always hitherto given his services in them on the Sabbath-day diets, when he had not to officiate in his own pulpit. Again, in 1831, Gardener’s Crescent Chapel (now St. David‘s Church) having been purchased by the Kirk-Session of St. Cuthbert, Dr. Dickson and his colleague, the Rev. John Paul,’ took charge of the congregation ; and statedly conducted every part of the ministerial duty till February 1837, when the Rev. J. Tannoch was appointed minister of the Church. To the citizens of Edinburgh, it would be superfluous to say almost any thing of the warm and efficient support which Dr, Dickson ever gave equally by his personal labours, and his pecuniary contributions, to the various institutions and societies connected with the relief both of the temporal and spiritual wants of his fellow-men, not only in this city, or in Scotland, but throughout the world at large. He acted long, indeed, as secretary to several of them, was manager or director of many more, and a stated subscriber to a far greater number still. 1 Son of Dr. Dickson’s predecessor, and nephew of Sir Henry Moncreiff, whom he succeeded in 1828. ... TO GR A P H I C A L SIC ET C HE S. 435 it may be mentioned, that on the resignation of Dr. Touch, minister of ...

Book 9  p. 583
(Score 0.66)

ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 395 hastily completed with crow-stepped gables and a slanting roof. specimen of the decorated English style of archi- The church is 8 beautiful tecture. The east end of the choir more especially has a very stately and imposing effect. It is an Apsis, with a lofty window in each of its three sides, originally iilled with fine tracery, and not improbably with painted glass, though the only evidence of either that now remains is the broken ends of mullions and transoms. The ornamental details with which the church abounds exhibit great variety of design, though many of those on the exterior are greatly injured by time. Various armorial bearings adorn different parts of the building, and particularly the east end of the choir. One of the latter has angels for supporters, but otherwise they are mostly too much decayed to be decipherable. One heraldic device, which, from its sheltered position on the aide of a buttress at the west angle of the south transept, has escaped the general decay, is described both by Maitland and Arnot as the arms of the foundress. It proves, however, to be the arms of her brother-in-law, Alexander Duke of Albany, who at the time of her decease was residing at the court of the Duke of Guelders. From the royal supporters still traceable, attached to a coat of arms sculptured on the north-east buttress of the vestry, the arms of the foundress would appear to have been placed on that part of the church where she lies buried. In the foundation charter it is specially appointed, that '' whenever any of the said Prebendaries shall read Mass, he shall, after the same, in his sacredotal habiliments, repair to the tomb of the foundress with a sprinkler, and there devoutly read over the De Profundis, together with the Fidelium, and an exhortation to excite the people to devotion." Many of the details of the church are singularly grotesque. The monkey is repeated in all variety of positions in the gurgoils, and is occasionally introduced in the interior among other figures that seem equally inappropriate as the decorations of an ecclesiastical edifice, though of common occurrence in the works of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The varied corbels exhibit here and there an angel, or other device of beautiful form; but more frequently they consist of such crouching monsters, labouring under the burden they have to bear up, as seem to realise Dante's Purgatory of Pride, where the unpurged souls dree their doom of penance underneath a crushing load of stone :- As, to support incumbent floor or roof, For corbel, ia 8 figure sometime0 seen, That crumple8 up ita knees unto its breast; With the feigned posture, stirring ruth unfeigned In the beholder's fancy.1 The centre aisle is lofty, and the groining exceedingly rich, abounding in the utmost variety of detail. -A very fine doorway, underneath a beautiful porch with groined roof, gives access to the south aisle of the choir, and a small but finely proportioned doorway may be traced underneath the great window of the north transept, though now built up. The admirable proportions and rich variety of details of thiq church, as well as its perfect state externally, untouched, Nave by the hand of time-if we except the tracery of ita windows-render it oqe of the most attractive objects of study to the C q ' s Dante. Purgatory. Canto x. ... ANTIQUITIES. 395 hastily completed with crow-stepped gables and a slanting roof. specimen of the ...

Book 10  p. 433
(Score 0.66)

88 QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH. and dash against the very boundary-walls of the various proprietors in the neighbourhood. Maitland tells us that this village anciently was a naval Roman station, ‘ which had not only a safe and commodious harbour, but, from the vestipa of the military ways still remaining, appears to have had those Roman roads leading to it from south, eaqt, and west.’ That it had been a Roman town, originally, is obvious enough from the number of Roman antiquities which have from time to time been picked up in and around it :’a large square stone, for example, was found there with an eagle sculptured on it, grasping ~ the lightning in its talons and holding a crown in its beak; so about the same time, and not very far from the same place, was discovered the base of a column, with a medal of Faustina, consort to M. Antonius, buried under it ; while farther inwards in the same direction, again, a few years after, ‘ divers stonern walls,’ of great thickness, were laid bare, running parallel to each other, on and besides which was got a large number of Roman medals, fibula, and potsherds or broken urns. Accordingly, from these and other circumstances of less moment, antiquaries have concluded, and not without good reason apparently, that this nice little village was anciently a Roman station. Ecclesiastically, Cramond is not without interest. It is related that David I., in his desire to introduce English Barons into Scotland, gifted one-half of the manor of Cramond, with its church, to Robert Avenel, as an inducement to him to remain in, and others probably to come over into, his kingdom, which gift the pious Robert afterwards transferred to the Bishop of Dunkeld. The church was in Nether-Cramond, and the locality, after the transference was effected, was called Bishop’s Cramond : the other portion of the parish, remaining with the crown, was called for a similar reason King‘s Cramond. Bishop’s Cramond, in consequence of the interest thus acquired in it by the diocese of Dunkeld, was ,occasionally honoured by a temporary residence of the bishop at it : one of them in the year 12 10, as we are given to understand, actually conferring upon the sweet, little, unpretentious place the very distinguished honour of dying in it, whence his remains were removed with great pomp and solemnity, and interred in the monastery of Inchcolm. In the church here there were two altars, one consecrated to Columba, the patron saint of Dunkeld, and the other to the holy Virgin. Up to the Reformation the parish remained ‘a mensa1 cure ’ of the Bishop of Dunkeld, and was served by a vicar: after the Reformation, the endowments for the support of the chaplains were acquired by the Earl of Haddington, while the ... QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH. and dash against the very boundary-walls of the various proprietors in ...

Book 11  p. 141
(Score 0.66)

230 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. No. XCVI. MR. THOMAS NEIL, WRIGHT AND PRECENTOR, IN THE CHARACTER Or “THE OLD WIFE.” IT is now thirty-six years since this (‘ son of song” departed to the ‘( world of spirits ; ” yet he is well remembered by many of the old inhabitants of Edinburgh. He was forty years a precentor in the Old Church ; and, it is believed, the last time he oficiated was at the re-opening of that place of worship, at the close of last century, after it had undergone some extensive repairs. Perhaps no man in Edinburgh of his time possessed greater local notoriety than “ TU NEIL.” He was a universal favourite, and seemed formed for the very purpose of “ smoothing the wrinkled brow of care ; ” and although his wit . may not have been of the most brilliant description, yet there was in the manner of the humourist an inimitable archness, which irresistibly compelled even the most serious of his auditors to “hold their sides” for a time. The clear, strong, musical voice with which he was endowed peculiarly adapted him for the desk, and no derogatory tongue has yet dared to say that he did not perform his duties regularly and with propriety ; but there was a solemnity in the walls, and a dulness in the long faces of a church, which by no means comported with his own mirthcreating features. There, in giving due effect to some humorous Scottish ditty, his whole powers of music and mimicry found ample scope. He could also sing, with great pathos, many of our most pathetic national melodies : but Tam had not a heart for sadness. “He possesses the knack of setting off his songs with so much drollery,” is the remark of Kay in his notes, “ and such a singular peculiarity of manner, that in all probability he will never have an equal or successor. He has the art of adapting not only his voice, but his very features, so much to the subject of the song-especially where it will admit of mimicry-that a stranger, who may have seen him in the Old Man’s WGh in one company, would not know him half an hour after as the Old Fife in another,-so very different a turn does he give to his voice, features, and action.” The latter of these songs, in the character of which he is represented in the Print, was one of his particular fwourites. With a handkerchief wrapped over his head, his lips compressed, and his long chin set prominently forward, his imitations of the querulous voice of age were quite inimitable. There was another production (a catch), familiar to the vocalists of the present day, called “TheMerry Christ’s Church Bells,” in which Neil displayed, with wonderful effect, the compass and harmony of his voice ; and so peculiar As we have already said, Tam was a precentor. It was in the tavern that Tam was glorious! ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. No. XCVI. MR. THOMAS NEIL, WRIGHT AND PRECENTOR, IN THE CHARACTER Or “THE OLD ...

Book 8  p. 324
(Score 0.66)

rrs PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.] was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the Laud of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly dragged out one of the most important witnesses, and carrying him to his castle of Cricliton, eleven miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered a word. On the charge of being a ? Papist,? among many other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the Countess of Abercorn, where her health became broken by confinement, and the misery of a prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of George III., must have been something terrible in the days orCharles I. In 1621 she obtained a licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint in various places for three years, she was permitted to remain ir. the earl?s house at Paisley, in March 1631, on condition that she ? reset no Jesuits,? and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000 merks. Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth contain volumes of entries made in the following brief fashion :- ?1662, June 10.-John Kincaid put in ward by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for ? pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft anwarranfably.? Liberated on finding caution not to do so again. ?-June 10.-Robert Binning for falsehood ; hanged with the false papers about his neck. ?--4ug. q.-Robert Reid for murder. His head struck from his body at the mercat cross. ?- Dec. 4.-James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhupitt from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the cheek with the Toun?s common mark, and banished the kicgdom, for the crime of double adultery. ?? 1663, March ~g.-ATexander Kennedy; hanged for raising false bonds and aritts. ?-March z I.-Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certifying if again troubling the place, the next prison shall be the Correction House. ?- July 8.-Katherine Reid ; hanged for theft. ?-July &--Sir Archibald Johnston of Wamston; treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed on the Netherbow. ? - July I 8.-Bessie Brebner ; hansed for murder. ?I -Aug. zS.-The Provost of Kirkcudbright ; banished for keeping his house during a tumult. ? - Oct. 5.-William Dodds ; beheaded for murder.? And so on in grim monotony, till we come to the last five entries in the old record, which is quite incomplete. 1728, Oct. zs.-John Gibson; forging a declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed to the Tron, and dismissed. ?( 1751, March 18.-Helen Torrance :md Jean Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child, eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when carried OK, and dead on Friday, with an incision in the belly, but sewn up again. ? I 7 5 6, May 4.-Sir William Dalrymple of Cousland; for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh. Liberated?on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks, to answer any complaint. ? 1752, Jan. 10.-Norman Ross ; hanged and hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for issassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of Wedderburn. ? I 1757, Feb. 4.-Janies Rose, Excise Officer at Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts for arrears.? It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through clanship, or some other influence, nearly every criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape. Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer, who was one of the commissioners for executing the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who married a daughter of the Earl of hfelville about the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster who had married a girl to whom he had paid improper addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth, and sentenced to death; and of his first attempt to escape the following story is told He was carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful porter, who was to put hini on board a vessel about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter did so with Lord Burleigh?s head doiwnnmost, thus it had to sustain the weight of his whole body. The posture was agony, the way long and rough, but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port, where an acquaintance asked him ?whither he was going?? ?:TO Leith,? was the reply. ? Is the work good enough to afford a glass before going farther?? was the next question. The porter said it was; and tossed down the trunk with such violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Burleigh, who instantly fainted. Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd ... PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.] was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the Laud of Craigmillar, who ...

Book 1  p. 127
(Score 0.66)

ECCL ESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 417 of Gillie Grange, by which a part of it is still known, and that of The Grange, mw the property of Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., preserve memorials of the grange or farm which belonged of old to the Collegiate Church of St Giles. Here, towards the close of the prosperous reign of James IV., Sir John Crawford, a canon of St Giles’s Church, founded and endowed the Church of St John the Baptist, portions of the ruins of which are believed still to form a part of the garden wall of a house on the west side of Newington, called Sciennes Hall. The following notice of its foundation occurs in the Inoentar of Pious Donations, bearing the date 2d March 1512 :-c‘ Charter of Confirmation of a Mortification be Sir Jo. Crawford, ane of the Prebenders of St Giles Kirk, to a kirk bigged by him at St Geillie Grange, mortyiefying yrnnto 18 aikers of land, of the said lands, with the Quarrie Land given to him in Charitie be ye said brongh, with an aiker and a quarter of a particate of land in his 3 aikers and a half an aiker of the said mure pertaining to him, lying at the east side of the Common Mure, betwixt the lands of Jo. Cant on the west, and the Common Mure on the east and south parts, and the Murebrugh, now bigged, on the north.” This church was designed as a chantry for the benefit of the founder and his kin, along with the reigning Sovereign, the Magistrates of Edinburgh, and such others as it was usual to include in the services for the faithful departed in similar foundations, The chaplain was required to be of the founder’s family or name, and the patronage was assigned after his death to the Town Council of Edinburgh. Almost immediately after its erection, the Convent of St Katherine de Sienna was founded by the Lady Seytoun, whose husband, George, third Lord Seton, was slain at the Battle of Flodden. ‘( Efter quhais deceisa,” pap the Chronicle of the House of Seytoun, “his ladye remanit wido continualie xlv yeiris. Sche gydit hir sonnis leving quhill he was cumit of age; and thairefter sche passit and remainit in the place of Senis, on the Borrow Mure, besyd Edinburgh, the rest of her lyvetyme. Quhilk place sche helpit to fund and big as maist principale.” The history of this religious foundation, one of the last which took place in Scotland in Roman Catholic times, and the very last, we believe, to receive additions to the original foundation, acquires a peculiar interest when we consider it in connection with the general progress of opinion throughout Europe at the period. The Bull of Pope Leo X. by which its foundation is confirmed, is dated 29th January 1517. Cardinal WoIsey was then supreme in England, and Henry VIII. was following on the career of a devoted son of the Church which won him the title of Defender of t h FaitA. Charles V., the future Emperor of Germany, had just succeeded to the crown of Spain, and Martin Luther was still a brother of the order of St Aqwstine. This very year Leo X. sent forth John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, authorised to promote the sale of indulgences in Germany, and soon the whole of Europe was shaken by the strife of opinions. The peculiar circumstances in which Scotland then stood, delayed for a time its participation in the movement; and meanwhiIe the revenues of the convent of St Katherine de Sienna received various augmentations, and the Church of St John the Baptist was permanently annexed to it as the chapel of the convent. The nuns, however, were speedily involved in the troubles of the period. In 1544 their convent shared the same fate as the neighbouring capital, from the barbarous revenge of the The Church of St John the Baptist did not long remain a solitary chaplainry. Sche was ane nobill and wyse ladye. Hi& of House of Seytoun, p, 37. 3 6 ... ESIA S TICA L ANTIQUITIES. 417 of Gillie Grange, by which a part of it is still known, and that of The ...

Book 10  p. 457
(Score 0.66)

224 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port. ~~ ~ the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute was very different in the last century. Thus we find in the Edinburgh papers for 1764, advertisedas to let there, " the new-built house, beautifully situated on the high ground south of the Portsburgh, commanding an extensive prospect every way, with genteel furniture, perfectly clean, presently possessed by John Macdonald, Esq., of Lairgie," with chaisehouse and stabling. remained intact up till SO recently as 1881, while around the large cupola and above the chief seat were panels of coats of arms of the various city crafts, and that also of the Portsburgh-all done in oil, and in perfect condition. This court-room was situated in the West Port. In its last days it was rented from the city chamberlain by the deacons' court of Dr. Chalmers' Territorial Church. Mission meetings and Sunday-schools were held in it, but OLD HOUSES IN THE WEST PORT, NEAR THE HAUNTS OF BURKE AND HARE, 1869 (Fsmn a Drawing Sy Mn. J. Stnvari Smith.) Near the Territorial Church is a door above which are the arms of the Cordiners of the Portsburgh- a cordiner's cutting-knife crowned, within a circle, with the heads of two winged cherubim, and the words of Psalm 133, versified :- " Behold how good a thing it is, And how becoming well, Together such as brethren are, In unity to dwell. I 696. " One of the most complete of the few rare relics of the City's old municipal institutions was the court-room where the bailies of the ancient Portsburgh discharged their official duties. The bailies' bench, seats, and other court-room fittings the site upon &hich it was built was sold by roup for city improvements. In the middle of the West Port, immediately opposite the Chalmers Territorial Free Church and Schools, and running due north, is a narrow alley, called the Chapel Wynd. Heye, at the foot thereof, stood in ancient times a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, some remains of which were visible in the time of Maitland about 1750. Near it is another alley-probably an access to itnamed the Lady Wynd. Between this chapel and the Castle Rock there exists, in name chiefly, an ancient appendage of the royal palace in the fortress-the king's stables, " although no hoof of the royal stud has been there for well-nigh three I ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port. ~~ ~ the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute was very ...

Book 4  p. 224
(Score 0.65)

396 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. lover of Gothic architecture that now remains in the capital. Unhappily, however, the march of improvement threatens its demolition. It has already been marked for a prey by the engineers of the North British Railway, for the purpose of enlarging their terminus; and unless the exertions of the lovers of antiquity succeed in averting its destruction, the doom has already been pronounced of this venerable fane which covers the remains of Mary of Guelders, the Queen of James 11.’ The vestry affords, externally, a fine specimen of the old Scottish method of ‘‘ theiking with stone,” with which the whole church, except the central tower, was roofed till about the year 1814, when it was replaced with slates. The vestry also exhibits a rare specimen of an ancient Gothic chimney, an object of some interest to the architect, from the few specimens of domestic architecture in that style which have escaped the general destruction of the religious houses in Scotland, The collegiate buildings, erected according to the plan of the foundress, were built immediately adjoining the church on the south side, while the hospital for the bedemen stood on the opposite side of Leith Wynd. In 1567 the church, with the whole collegiate buildings, were presented by the Regent Murray to Sir Simon Preston, Provost of Edinburgh, by whom they were bestowed on the town. New statutes were immediately drawn up for regulating “ the beidmen and hospitdaris now present and to cum;”2 and the hospital buildings being found in a ruinous condition, part of the collegiate buildings were fitted up and converted into the new hospital, which thenceforth bore the name of Trinity Hospital. This veuerable edifice was swept away in 1845 in clearing the site for the railway station, and its demolition brought to light many curious evidences of its earlier state. A beautiful large Gothic fireplace, with clustered columns and a low-pointed arch, was disclosed in the north gable, while many rich fragments of Gothic ornament were found built into the walls-the remains, no doubt, of the original hospital buildings used in the enlargement and repair of the college. In the bird’s-eye view in Gordon’s map, an elegant Gothic lantern appears on the roof above the great hall, but this had disappeared long before the demolition of the building. In enlarging the drain from the area of the North Loch, in 1822, an ancient causeway was discovered fully four feet below the present level of the church floor, and extending a considerable way up the North Back of the Canongate. Its great antiquity was proved on the recent demolition of the hospital buildings, by the discovery that their foundations rested on part of the same ancient causeway thus buried beneath the slow accumulations of centuries, and which was not improbably a relic of the Roman invasion. One of the grotesque gurgoils of the Trinity Hospital is now preserved in the Antiquarian Museum. In the view of Trinity College Church, drawn by Paul Sandby for Maitland’s History of Edinbargh, a building is shown attached to the west end of it, which appears to have been a separate hospital maintained by the town, after the Magistrates had obtained the exclusive control of the Queen’s charitable foundation, In the will of Katharine Norwell, for example, the widow of the celebrated printer Thomas Bassendyne, bted 8th August 1 As anticipated, Trinity College Church was taken down on the construction of the North British Railway in 1846. The stonea having been almost entirely preserved, and a aite obtained on a spot nearly opposite to where it originally stood, it is now (1872) being rebuilt. ’ Maitland, pp. 211, 490. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. lover of Gothic architecture that now remains in the capital. Unhappily, however, the ...

Book 10  p. 434
(Score 0.65)

96 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound. arts classes as well as those for theology; and accordingly Mr. Patrick C. Macdougal was appointed, in 1844, Professor of Moral Philosophy, the Rev. John Millar was appointed Classical Tutor, and in 1845 the Rev. Alexander C. Fraser was appointed Professor of Logic. To give effect to the view long cherished by the revered Dr. Chalmers, that logic and ethics should follow the mathematical and physical sciences in the order of study, the usual order thereof was practically altered, though not imperatively so. procured in George Street, and there the business of the college was conducted until 1850. These class-rooms were near the house ot Mr. Nasmyth, an eminent dentist, and as the students were in the habit of noisily applauding Dr. Chalmers, their clamour often startled the patients under the care of Mr. Nasmyth, who by letter requested the reverend principal to make the students moderate their applause, or express it some other way than beating on the floor with their feet. On this, Dr. Chalmers promptly informed THE BANK OF SCOTLAND, FROM PRINCES STREET GARDENS. The provision thus made for arts classes was greatly due to the circumstance that at that time the tests imposed upon professors in the established universities were of such a nature and mode of application as to exclude from the professorial chairs all members of the Free Church. When these tests were abolished, and Professors Fraser and Macdougal were elected to corresponding chairs in the University of Edinburgh, in 1853 and 1857, this extended platform was renounced, and the efforts of the Free Church of Scotland were concentrated exclusively upon training in theology. Premises-however, inadequate for the full development of the intended system-were at once them of the dentist?s complaint, and begged that they would comply with his request. ?I would be sorry indeed if we were to give offence to any neighbour,? said the principal j adding, with a touch of that dry humour which was peculiar to him, ?but more especially Mr. Nasmyth, a gentleman so very much in the mouths oi the public.? Immediately after the Disruption, Dr. Chalmers had taken active steps to secure for the Free Church a proper system of theological training, in full accordance with the principles he had advocated so long, and subscription lists were at once opened to procure a building suited to the object. Each contributor gave Lz,ooo, and Dr. Welsh succeeded in obtaining from twentp ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound. arts classes as well as those for theology; and accordingly Mr. Patrick C. ...

Book 3  p. 96
(Score 0.65)

132 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church. the 27th October, 1592, by ?(the hail1 elderes, deacones, and honest men of ye parochin . . . . quha hes agreit, all in ane voice, that in all tymes coming, thair be ane preaching everie Thursday, and that it begin at nyne hours in ye morning, and ye officer of ye kirk to gang with ye bell at aught hours betwixt the Bow Fut and the Toun-end.? This Thursday sermon was kept up until the middle of the eighteenth century. The ?? toun-end ? is supposed to mean Fountain Bridge, sometimes of old called the Causeway-end. . In 1589 the Kirk Session ordained that none in the parish should have ?? yair bairnes ? baptised, admitted to mamage, repentance, or alms, but those who could repeat the Lord?s Prayer, the Belief, and the Commandments, and ?gif ane compt yair of, quhen yai ar examinet, and yis to be publishit in ye polpete.? In the following year a copy of the Confession of Faith and the National Covenant was subscribed by the whole parish. From the proximity of the church to the castle, in the frequent sieges sustained by the latter, the former suffered considerably, particularly after the invention of artillery. At the Reformation it had a roof of thatch, probably replacing a former one of stone. The thatch was renewed in 1590, and new windows and a loft were introduced; two parts of the expense were borne by the parish, the other by Adam, Bishop of Orkney, a taxation which he vehemently contested. Among other additions to the church was ?a pillar for adulterers,? built by John Howieson and John Gaims in August, 1591. The thatch was removedand theroof slated. In 1594 a manse adjoining the church was built for Mr. Robert Pont, on the ?site of the present one, into which is inserted an ancient fragment of the former, inscribed- RELIGIOXI ET POSTERIS IN MINISTERIO. S.R. P. G. A. 1594 The burying-ground in those days was confined to the rising slope south-west of the church, and as ? nolt, horse, and scheipe ? were in the habit of grazing there, the wall being in ruins, it was repaired in 1597. The beadle preceded all funerals with a hand-bell-a practice continued in the eighteenth century. -In consequence of the advanced age of Messrs. Pont and Aird, a third minister, hlr. Richard Dickson, was appointed to the parish in May, 1600, and in 1606 communion was given on three successive Sundays. On the 8th of May that year the venerable Mr. Pont passed from the scene of his labours,and is supposed to have been interred within the church. To his memory a stone was erected, which, when the present edifice was built, was removed to the Rev. Mr. Williamson?s tomb on the high ground, in which position it yet remains. His colleague, Mr. Aircl, survived hini but a few months, and their succkssors, Messrs. Dickson and Arthur, became embroiled with the Assembly in 16 I 9 for celebrating communion to the people seated at a table, preventing them from kneeling, as superstitious and idolatrous. Mr. Dickson was ordered ?to enter his person in ward within the Castle of Dumbarton,? and .Mr. Arthur to give communion to the people on their knees ; but he and the people declined to ??comply with a practice so nearly allied to popery.? Mr. Dickson was expelled in 1620, but Mr. Arthur was permitted to remain. Among those who were sitters in the church at this time were Williani Napier, of the Wrytes house, and his more illustrious kinsman, John Napier, of Merchiston, the inventor of logarithms, whose ?dasks,? or seats, seem to have been close together. The old church, like that of Duddingstone, was furnished with iron jougs, in which it appears that Margaret Dalgleish was compelled to figure on the 23rd of April, 1612, for her scandalous behaviour; and in 1622, John Reid, ?poltriman,? was publicly rebuked in church for plucking ?geiss upon the Lord his Sabbath, in tyme of sermon.? We are told in the ? History of the West Church,? that ? in 1622 it was deemed proper to have a bell hung in the stekple, if the old ruinous fabric which stood between the old and new kirks might be so called,? for a new church had been added at the close of the sixteenth century. In 1618 new communion cups of silver were procured. ?They were then of a very peculiar shape, being six inches in height, gilt, and beautifully chased; but the cup itself, which was plated, was only two inches deep and twenty-four in circumference, not unlike a small soupplate affixed to the stalk of a candlestick. On the bottom was engraved the following sentence :-I wiz fa& flse COVJ of saZvafimnc and caZ @one fhe name of fh b ~ d I I 6 PsZm. I 6 I 9 ; and around the rim of the cup these words :-Fw fire Vmf Kirk ovfvith EdinhrgAe.? The year 1650 saw the church again imperilled by war. Its records bear, on the 28th July in that year, that ? No sessione was keiped in the monthe of August, because there lay ane companie at the church,? the seats of which had been destroyed and the sessioners dispersed, partly by the army of Cromwell, which lay on the south side of the parish, and that of the Scots, which lay on the north; and on the 13th of that month, after Cromwell?s retreat to Dunbar, the commission of ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church. the 27th October, 1592, by ?(the hail1 elderes, deacones, and honest men ...

Book 3  p. 132
(Score 0.65)

High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - - his own friends and servants into two armed parties, set forth on slaughter intent. He directed his brothers John and Robert Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of Quarter, and others, to Conn?s Close, which was directly opposite to the smith?s booth; while he, accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of the Gudeman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field) Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut off the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as he was seen standing at the booth door with his back to them, they shot him down with their pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on the spot. For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the Castle; but they contrived to compromise the matter with the king, making many fair promises ; yet when he was resident at St. James?s, in 1611, he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper Tweeddale were as bitter as ever. On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or combat, ensued in the High Street between the Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others. 10 explain the cause of this we must refer to Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of February, in the preceding year, John Graham of Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Montrose), was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by three or four score of armed men for his protection, when Sir Janies Sandilands, accompanied by his friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed I company, met him. As they had recently been in dispute before the Court about Some temple lands, Graham thought he was about to be attacked, and prepared to make resistance. The duke told him to proceed on his journey, and that no one would molest him; but the advice was barely given when some stray shots were fired by the party of the judge, who was at once attacked, and fell wounded. He was borne bleeding into an adjacent house, whither a French boy, page to Sir Alexander Stewart, a friend of Sandilands, followed, and plunged a dagger into him, thus ending a lawsuit according to the taste of the age. Hence it was that when, in the following year, John Earl of Montrose-a noble then about fifty years old, who had been chancellor of the jury that condemned the Regent Morton, and moreover was Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom-met Sir James Sandilands in the High Street, he deemed it his duty to avenge the death of the Laird of Halyards. On the first amval of the earl in Edinburgh Sir James had been strongly recommended by his friends to quit it, as his enemies were too strong for him ; but instead of doing so he desired the aid and assistance of all his kinsmen and friends, who joined him forthwith, and the two parties meeting on the 19th of January, near the Salt Tron, a general attack with swords and hack buts begun. One account states that John, Master of Montrose (and father of the great Marquis), first began the fray; another that it was begun by Sir James Sandilands, who was cut down and severely wounded by more than one musket-shot, and would have been slain outright but for the valour of a friend named Captain Lockhart. The Lord Chancellor was in great peril, for the combat was waged furiously about him, and, according to the ? Historie of King James the Sext,? he was driven back fighting ?to the College of Justice ( i e . , the Tolbooth). The magistrates of the town with fencible weapons separatit the parties for that time ; and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on his party, for he himself was left for dead, and a cousingerman of his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain, and many hurt.? On the side of the earl only one was killed, but many were wounded. On the 17th of June, 1605, there was fought in the High Street a combat between the Lairds of Edzell and Pittarrow, with many followers on both sides. It lasted, says Balfour in his AnnaZes, from nine at night till two next morning, with loss and many injuries. The Privy Council committed the leaders to prison. The next tulzie of which we read arose from the following circumstance :- Captain James Stewart (at one time Earl of Arran) having been slain in 1596 by Sir James Douglas of Parkhead, a natural son of the Regent Morton, who cut off his .head at a place called Catslack, and carried it on a spear, ?leaving his body to be devoured by dogs and swine;? this act was not allowed to pass unrevenged by the house of Ochiltree, to which the captain-who had been commander of the Royal Guard-belonged. But as at that time a man of rank in Scotland could not be treated as a malefactor for slaughter committed in pursuance of a feud, the offence was expiated by an assythement. The king strove vainly to effect a reconciliation ; but for years the Imds Ochiltree and Douglas (the latter of whom was created Lord Torthorwald in 1590 by James VI.) were at open variance. It chanced that on the 14th of July, 1608, that Lord Torthonvald was walking in the High Street a little below the Cross, between six and seven in the morning, alone and unattended, when he suddenly met William Stewart, a nephew of the man he had slain. Unable to restrain the sudden rage that filled him, Stewart drew his sword, and ere ... Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - - his own friends and servants into two armed parties, set forth ...

Book 2  p. 195
(Score 0.65)

238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith. -to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and . assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King?s Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than -war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy .and great decoration of this realme, in that office, place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re- - sortand to the Schore of Leith.? In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital - for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep four taverns in the buildings, together with the tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of ?catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose till the year 1649, when it was taken pos- 2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and . converted into a weigh-house. ? In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,? observes Campbell, in his ? History of Leith,? ? but .are more than half disposed to believe it was that old house which projects into Bernard Street, and is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com- ,pany?s Bank.? ?? The house alluded to,? adds Robertson on this, ?has a carved stone in front, representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and -can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.? The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of Montrose in his youth, as in his ?? Household Accounts,? under date 1627, are the following entries .(Mait. Club Edit.) :- ?? Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs. Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s. Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s Item, to my Lord Nepar?s cochman . . Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth.. . . 6s. Sd. 16s.? The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in the Parish Records ? of South Leith, and is dated 17th July, 1589 :-? The quhilk days comperit up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave their names to be proclamit and mareit, within this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.? Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears that the Session ? allowis burial to Barbara Logane, -.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to be given to the poor.? From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present Bernard Street is derived. Bernard?s Nook has long been known. ?? In the ? Council Records? of Edinburgh, 1647,? says Robertson, ?is the following entry :-? To the purchase of the Kingis Werk, in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.? A previous entry, 1627, refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay, ?for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .? We have no record that any buildings existed beyond the bounds of the walls or the present Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.? The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood within Bernard?s Nook, on the west side of the street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd. Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark already mentioned :-?? A large stone panel, which bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding the appropriation of the King?s Wark to civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved in bold relief springing at either end from a bank of clouds.? ? So,? says Arnot, ?? this fabric, which was reared for the sports and recreations of a Court, was speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of weighing hemp and of iron.? Eastward of the King?s Wark, between Bernard?s Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously designated Little London, and which, according to Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west, by seventy-five broad over the walls. ? How it acquired the name of Little London is now unknown,? says Camphell, in his ? History ? ; ?but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do not see, however,? he absurdly remarks, ?that it could have obtained this appellation from any other circumstauce than its having had some real or supposed resemblance to the [English] metropolis.? As the views preserved of Little London show it to have consisted of only four houses or so, and these of two storeys high, connected by a dead wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in 1800, Campbell?s theory is untenable. It is much more probable that it derived its name from being the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to assist the Regent Morton?s Scottish Companies in the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men departed from Leith on the 16th of the following June, and it has been supposed that a few of them may have been induced to remain, and the locality thus won the name of Little London, in the same ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith. -to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and . assignais, all and ...

Book 6  p. 238
(Score 0.65)

Leith Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303 near its site stands one of the fine and spacious school houses erected for the School Board. At the foot of Leith Wynd, on the west side, there was founded on the 5th of March, 1462, by royal charter, the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity, by Mary, Queen of Scotland, daughter of Arnold Duke of Gueldres, grand-daughter of John Duke of Burgundy, and widow of James II., slain about two years before by the bursting of a cannon at Roxburgh. Her great firniness on that disastrous occasion, and during the few remaining years of her own life, proves her to have been a princess of no ordinary strength of mind. She took an active part in goyerning the stormy kingdom of her son, and died in 1463. Her early death may account for the nave never being built, though it was not unusual for devout persons in that age of church buliding, to erect as much as they could finish, and leave to the devotion of posterity the completion of the rest. Pitscottie tells us that she OLD COLLEGIATE SEALS, his office shall be adjudged vacant, and the same shall, by the Provost and Chapter, with consent of the Ordinary, be conferred upon another. If any of the said prebendaries shall keep a $ye-maker, and shall not dismiss her, after being therein admonished thereto by the Provost, his prebend shall be adjudged vacant, and conferred on another, by consent of the Ordinary as aforesaid. ? The Provost of the said college, whenever the office of provostry shall become vacant, shall by us and our successors, Kings of Scotland, be presented to the Ordinary; and the vicars belonging to the out-churches aforesaid shall be presented by the Provost and Chapter of the said college to the Ordinary, fromwhomtheyshall receive canonical institution; and no prebendary shall be instituted unless he can read and sing plainly, count and discount, and that the boys may be found docile in the premises. And we further appoint and ordain, that whenever any of the said ?RINITY COLLEGE CHURCH. prebendwies shall ?was buried in the Trinitie College, quhilk she built hirself.? Her grave was violated at the Reformation. The church was dedicated ?to the Holy Trinity, to the ever blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, to 3t. Ninian the Confessor, and to all the saints and elect people of God.? The foundation was for a provost, eight prebendaries, and two clerks, and with much minuteness several ecclesiastical benefices and portions of land were assigned for the support of the several offices ; and in the charter there are some provisions of a peculiar character, in Scotland at least, and curiously illustrative of the age and its manners :- ?Aud we appoint that none of the said preben- ,daries or clerks absent themselves from their offices without the leave of the Provost, to whom it shall not be lawful to allow any of them above the space of fifteen days at a time, unless it be on extraordiaary occasions, and then not without consent of the chapter ; and whosoever of the said prebendaries or clerks shall act contrary to this ordinance, iead mass,? he shall, after the same, in his sacerdotal habits, repair to the tomb of the foundress with hyssop, and there read the prayer Dep-ofmdis, together with that of the faithful, and exhortation to excite the people to devotion.?? . Thechoir of this church from the apse to the west enclosure of the rood tower was go feet long, and 70 feet from transept to transept window ; the north aisle was 12 feet broad, and the south g feet. It is a tradition in masonry that the north aisles of all Catholic churches were wider than the south, to commemorate the alleged circumstance of the Saviour?s head, on the cross, falling on his right shoulder. In digging the foundation of the Scott monument, an old quarry 40 feet deep was discovered, and from it the stones from which the church was built were taken. With the exception of Holyrood, it was the finest example of decorated English Gothic architecture in the city, with many of the peculiarities of the age to which it belonged. Various armorial bearings adorned different parts ... Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303 near its site stands one of the fine and spacious school houses erected for the ...

Book 2  p. 303
(Score 0.65)

338 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roxburgh Place. sion, belonging to the Lords Ross and to the age of stately ceremony and stately manners, occupied till the middle of the eighteenth century the site occupied the same apartment as that in which resided, till the year before his death, in 1785, Alexander Kunciman, one of the most eminent Scottish artists of his day, and where, no doubt, he must have entertained the poet Robert Fergusson, ?? while with ominous fitness he sat as his model for the Prodigal Son.? Nicolson Street church, erected in 1819-20, at a cwt of x6,000, has a handsome Gothic front, with two turreted pinnacles ninety feet in height. It is built upon the site of the old Antiburgher Meeting-house, and is notable for the ministry of Dr. John Jamieson, author of several theological works, and of the well-known ? Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.? It was among the first efforts at an improved style of church architecture in Edinburgh, where, as elsewhere in Scotland after the Keformation, the accommodation of the different congregations in the homeliest manner was all that was deemed necessary. The pond sam parish called Lady Glenorchy?s lies eastward of Nicolson Street, and therein quite a cluster of little churches has been erected. The parish church was built as a relief chapel in 1809, by the Rev. Mr. Johnstone, and altered in 1814, when it was seated for 990 persons. The Independent congregation in Richmond Couk was established in 1833 ; but their place of worship till 1840 was built about 1795 by the Baptists. The Hebrew congregation was established in 1817, but has never exceeded IOO souls. The Episcopal congregation of St. Peter?s, Roxburgh Place, was established in 1791, and its place of worship consisted of the first and second flats of a five-storeyed tenement, and was originally built, at the sole expense of the clergyman, for about 420 persons. To Roxburgh Place came, in 1859, the congregation of Lady Glenorchy?s church, which had been demolished by the operations of the North British Railway. The Court of Session having found that city. In those days the mansion, which was a square block with wings, was approached by an avenue through a plantation upwards of sixty yards ROSS this body must be kept in full communion with the Established Church, authorised the purchase of Roxburgh Place chapel in lieu of the old place of worship, and trustees were appointed to conduct their affairs. The chapel handed over to them was that of the Relief Communion just mentioned. Externally it has no architectural pretensions ; but many may remember it as the meeting-place of the ?Convocation ? which preceded the ever-memorable secession in 1843, after which it remained closed and uncared for till it came into the hands of the Glenorchy trustees in 1859, in so dilapidated a condition that their first duty was to repair it before the congregation could use it. The remains of the pious Lady Glenorchy, which had been removed from the old church near the North Bridge, were placed, in 1844, in the vaults of St. John?s church ; but the trustees, wishing to comply as far as was in their power with the wishes of the foundress, that her remains should rest in her own church, had a suitable vault built in that at Roxburgh Place. It was paved and covered with stone, set in Roman cement, and formed on the right side of the pulpit. Therein her body was laid on the evening of Saturday, 31st December, 1859. The marble tablet, which was carefully removed from the old church, was placed over her grave, with an additional inscription explaining the circumstance which occasioned her new place of interment. The portion of St. Cuthbert?s garish which was disjoined and attached to Lady Glenorchy?s is bounded by Nicolson Street and the Pleasance on the west and east, by Drummond Street on the north, and Richmond Street on the south, with an average population of about 7,000 souls. Roxburgh Terrace is built on what was anciently called Thomson?s Park; and the place itself was named the Back Row in the city plan of 1787. CHAPTER XL. GEORGE SQUARE AND THE VICINITY How-The last Lord Ross-Earlier Residents in the Square-House of Walter Scott, W.S.-Sir Waltcr?s Boyhood-Bickas-Grcen Breeks-The Edinburgh Light Horse-The Scots Brigad+Admiral Duncan--Lord Advocate Dundas-The Grants of Kilgrastonhmn Dunda+Sedan Chak--Campbells of Snccoth-Music Class Room-The Eight Southern DistrictAhapel of Ease-Windmill Street-Euccleuch Place-Jeffrey?s First House there-The Burgh Loch-Society of Impraven-The Meadow. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roxburgh Place. sion, belonging to the Lords Ross and to the age of stately ceremony ...

Book 4  p. 338
(Score 0.65)

Greyfriars Church.] TOMBS. TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD. 1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. McKenzie commonly called '' Blocd McKenzie " 16gz; 3, Wilhm CarJtarrs Rdomer, and Principal of the Uhiversity of Edinburgh, 17x5 ; 4, Ebtranrx to the South Gmu$ known 85 ihq Covenant4 Rim ; 5, J&nhYhG Keeper of the Signet, 1614 ; 4 C M y ol DaLy, 1633 ; 7, William Adam, Archirat, 1748, and W b h h n , D.D., 1793. ... Church.] TOMBS. TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD. 1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. ...

Book 4  p. 381
(Score 0.64)

THE OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.] impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and ? a drinking cup,? as Nicoll names it, on their head. ?? The chronicles of this place of petty durance, could they now be recovered, would furnish many an amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed at rare intervals with the graver deeds of such disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as the witty 2nd eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter of Lord Royston, found at times a night?s lodging, when she and her maid sallied out aspreux chma- Ciers in search of adventures. Occasionally even grave jidge or learned lawyer, surprised out of his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial club, was astonished, oh awaking, tu find himself within its impartial walls, among such strange bedfellows as the chances of the night had offered to its vigilant guardians.?? A slated building of one storey in height, it consisted of four apartments. In the western end was the captain?s room; there was also a ? Burghers? room,? for special prisoners ; in the centre was a common hall ; and at the east end was an apartment devoted to the use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under the captain?s room was the black-hole, in which coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In I 785 this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground, an3 the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters finally assigned them on the ground floor of the old Tolbooth. It is impossible to quit our memorials of the latter without a special reference to the famous old City Guard, with which it was inseparably connected. In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden, all male inhabitants of the? city were required to be in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men were selected as a permanent or standing watch, and in them originated the City Guard, which, however, was not completely constituted until 1648, when the Town Council appointed a body of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain was, says Amot, ?to have the monthly pay of LII 2s. 3d. sterling, two lieutenants of E2 each, two sergeants of AI 5s., three corporals of AI, and the private men 15s. each per month.? No regular fund being provided to defray this expense, after a time the old method of ?watching and warding,? every fourth citizen to be on duty in arms each night, was resumed; but those, he adds, on whom this service was incumbent, became so re- , - laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council informed the magistrates that if they did not provide an efficient guard to preserve order in the city, the regular troops of the Scottish army would be quartered in it Upon this threat forty armed men were raised as. a guard in 1679, and in consequence of an event which occurred in 1682, this number was increased to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot, caused by an attempt to carry off a number of lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for trivial offences, to serve the Prince of Orange as. soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith, under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the latter. By order of Major Keith, commanding, the soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded. One of the women being with child, it was cut from her and baptised in the street. The excitement of this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while Patrick Grahame, a younger son of Inchbraikiethe same officer whom Macaulay so persistently confounds with Claverhouse-was appointed captain, with the concurrence of the Duke of York and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drummers? IS., and the sergeants? IS. 6d. In 1685 Patnck Grahame, ? captain of His Majesty?s company of Foot, within the town of Edinburgh (the City Guard), was empowered to import 300 ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with wrappings and other necessaries, for the clothing of the corps, this being in regard that the manufactories are not able to furnish His Majesty?s (Scottish) forces with cloth and other necessaries.? After the time of the Revolution the number of the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period, after 1750, it consisted usually of only seventy-five men, a force most unequal to the duty to be done. ?The Lord Provost is commander of this useful corps,? wrote Amot, in 1779. ? The men are properly disciplined, and fire remarkably well. Within these two years some disorderly soldiers in one of the marching regiments, having conceived an umbrage at tha Town Guard, attacked them. They were double in number to the party of the Town Guard, who, in the scuffle, severely wounded some of their assailants, and made the whole prisoners.? By day they were armed with muskets and bayonets ; at night with Lochaber axes. They were mostly Highlanders, all old soldiers, many of whom had served in the Scots brigades in Holland. In the city they took precedence of all troops of the line. At a monthly inspection of the corps in 1789 the Lord Provost found a soldier in the ranks who had ... OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.] impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed the scene of many an act ...

Book 1  p. 135
(Score 0.64)

Greyfrian Church.] THE COVENANT. 375 and Lord Scrope represented their respective monarchs. The number of the inhabitants having greatly increased, and the churches of the city being insufficient for their accommodation, the magistrates, in 1612, says Ariiot, ordered a new one to be built on the ground formerly belonging to the Greyfriars, and bestowed on them by Queen Mary for a public cemetery; but he makes no mention of any preceding church, on which the present edifice might have been engrafted. The eastern entrance from the Candlemaker Row was formed at some time subsequent to the erection or opening of this church. On the 28th of February 1638, the National Covenant was first subscribed at the Greyfriars Church, when the aggressive measures of Charles I. roused in arms the whole of Scotland, which then, happily for herself, was not, by the desertion of her nobles and the abolition of her officers of state, unable to resist lawless encroachment ; and her sons seemed to come forth as one man in defence of the Church, which had then no more vigorous u p holder than the future Marquis of Montrose. ?? In the old church of the Greyfriars,? to quote his memoirs (London, 1858), ?? which stands upon an eminence south of the ancient capital, and within the wall of 1513, amid quaint and smoke-encrusted tombs, and many headstones sunk deep in the long, rank grass-where now the furious Covenanter, Henderson, and Rosehaugh, ? that persecutor of the saints of God,? as the Whigs named him, are lying side by side in peace among the dead of ages, the Covenant, written on a sheet of parchment one ell square, and so named because it resembled those which God is said to have made with the children of Israel, was laid before the representatives of the nation, and there it was signed by a mighty concourse, who, with uplifted hands, with weeping eyes, and drawn swords, animated by the same glorious enthusiasm which fired the crusaders at the voice of Peter the Hermit, vowed, with the assistance of the supreme God, to dedicate life and fortune to the cause of Scotland?s Church and the maintenance of their solemn engagement, which professed the reformed faith and bitterly abjured the doctrines and dogmas of the Church of Rome -for with such they classed the canons and the liturgy of Laud.? It was first subscribed by the congregation of the Greyfriars ; but the first name really appended to it was that of the venerable and irreproachable Earl of Sutherland. Montrose and other peers followed his example, and it afterwards was sent round the churches of the city; thus it speedily became sa xowded with names on both sides, says Maithd, :hat not the smallest space was left for more, It appears that when there was so little,room ;eft to sign on, the subscriptions were shortened by inserting only the initials of the Covenanters? names, 3f which the margins and other parts were so full that it was a difficult task to number them. By a cursoryview Maitland estimated themat about 5,000. By order of the General Committee every fourth man in Scotland was numbered as a soldier. In 1650 the church was desecrated, and all its wood-work wasted and destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell. Nine years afterwards, when Monk was in Edinburgh with his own regiment (now the Coldstream Guards) and Colonel Morgan?s, ? on the 19th of October, he mustered them in the High Street, in all the bravery of their steeplecrowned hats, falling bands, calfskin boots, with niatchlocks and bandoleers, some time prior to his march southward to achieve the Restoration, From that street he marched them (doubtless by theRest Bow) to the Greyfriars Church, where he told his officers that he ? was resolved to make the military power subordinate to the civil, and that since they had protection and entertainment from the Parliament, it was their duty to serve it and obey it against all opposition.? The officers and soldiers unanimously declared that they would live and die with him. In the year 1679 the Greyfriars Church and its burying-ground witnessed a pitiful sight, when that city of the dead was crowded, almost to excess, by those unhappy Covenanters whom the prisons could not contain, after the rising at Bothwell had been quenched in blood. These unhappy people had been collected, principally in the vicinity of Bathgate, by the cavalry, then employed in ? dragooning,? or riding down the country, and after being driven like herds of cattle, to the number of 1,200, tied two and two, to the capital, they were penned up in the Greyfriars Churchyard, among the graves and gloomy old tombs of all kinds, and there they were watched and guarded day and night, openly in sight of the citizens. Since Heselrig destroyed the Scottish prisoners after Dunbar (for which he was arraigned by the House of Commons) no such piteous sight had been witnessed on British ground. They were of both sexes and of all ages, and there they lay five long months, 1,200 souls, exposed to the suq by day and the dew by night-the rain, the wind, and the storm-with no other roof than the changing sky, and no other bed than the rank grass that grew in its hideous luxuriance from the graves beneath them. All were brutally treatedby their ... Church.] THE COVENANT. 375 and Lord Scrope represented their respective monarchs. The number of the ...

Book 4  p. 375
(Score 0.64)

  Previous Page Previous Results   Next Page More Results

  Back Go back to Edinburgh Bookshelf

Creative Commons License The scans of Edinburgh Bookshelf are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.