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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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