Search
Index for “images/thumbs/memorials/memorials_v1_Page_517”
![234 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
for all the world.”1 It was the fate of this old mansion of the Earls of Angus to be
linked at its close in the misfortunes of a Douglas. It formed during last century the
banking-house of Douglas, Heron, & Company, whose failure spread dismay and suffering
through a widely-scattered circle, involving both high and low in its ruin. The Chapel of
Ease in New Street, erected in 1794, now partly occupies the site. Several other interesting
relics of the olden time were destroyed to make way for this ungainly ecclesiastical
edifice. One of these appears from the titles to have been the residence of Henry Kinloch,
a wealthy burgess of the Canongate, to whose hospitable care the French ambassador was
consigned by Queen Mary in 1565. An old diarist of the period relates, that ‘‘ Vpoun
Monunday the ferd day of Februar, the seir of God foirsaid, thair come ane ambassatour
out of the realm of France, callit Monsieur Rambollat, with xxxvj horse in tryne, gentilmen,
throw Ingland, to Halyrudhous, quhair the King and Queenis Majesties wes for the
tyme, accumpanyit with thair nobillis. And incontinent efter his lychting the said ambassatour
gat presens of thair graces, and thairefter depairtit to Henrie Kynloches lugeing
in the Cannogait besyid Edinburgh.” A few days afterwards, ‘( The Kingis Majestie
[Lord Darnley], accumpanyit with his nobillis in Halyrudhous, ressavit the ordour of
knychtheid of the cokill fra the said Rambollat, with great magniilcence. And the samin
nycht at evin, our soueranis maid ane banket to the ambassatour foirsaid, in the auld
chappell of Halyrudhous, quhilk wes reapparrellit with fyne tapestrie, and hung m a p s -
centlie, the said lordis maid the maskery efter supper in ane honrable manner. And
vpoun the ellevint day of the said moneth, the King and Quene in lyik manner bankettit
the samin ambassatour ; and at evin our soueranis maid the maskrie and mumschance,
in the quhilk the Queenis grace, and all her maries and ladies wer all cledin men’s apperrell;
and everie ane of thame presentit ane quhingar, bravelie and maist artiticiallie made and
embroiderit with gold, to the said ambassatour and his gentlemen.” * On the following
day the King and Queen were entertained, along with the ambassador and his suite, at a
splendid banquet provided for them in the Castle by the Earl of Mar ; and on the second
day thereafter, Monsieur Rambollat bade adieu to the Court of Holyrood. It is to be
regretted that an accurate description cannot now be obtained of the burgher mansion
which was deemed a fitting residence for one whom the Queen delighted to honour,
and for whose entertainment such unwonted masquerades were enacted. It was probably
quite as homelya dwelling as those of the same period that still remain in the neighbourhood.
The sole memorial of it that now remains is the name of the alley running
between the two ancient front lands previously described, through which the ambassador
and his noble visitors must have passed, and which is still called Kinloch’s Close after
their burgher host.
New Street, which is itself a comparatively recent feature of the old burgh, is a curious
sample of a fashionable modern improvement, prior to the bold scheme of the New Town.
It still presents the aristocratic feature of a series of detached and somewhat elegant mansions.
Its last century occupants were Lord Kames-whose house is at the head of the
street on the east side-Lord Hailes, Sir Philip and Lady Betty Anstruther, and Dr
Hume of Godscroft’s History of the Douglases, p. 432. ’ Diurnal of Occurrenta, pp. 86, 87. There appears, indeed (Maitlaud, p. 149), to have been another Kinloch‘s
lod,&g near the palace, but the correapondenoe of name and data Beems to prove the above to be the one referred to.](images/thumbs/memorials/memorials_v1_Page_326.gif "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Page 308")
......
Book 10 p. 308
(Score 0.55)
......
Book 10 p. 271
(Score 0.55)
......
Book 10 p. 400
(Score 0.55)
......
Book 10 p. 217
(Score 0.55)
......
Book 10 p. 169
(Score 0.55)
......
Book 10 p. 381
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 133
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 310
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 48
(Score 0.54)
![3 20 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
below renders it probable that the Episcopal residence in the ckpital, thus permanently
attached to the See of Dunkeld, was the lodging on the south side of the Cowgate; and
the same ecclesiastical biographer already referred to mentions as one of the good works
of Bishop Brown, the predecessor of Douglas, that he built the south wing of the house
at Edinburgh belonging to the Bishops of Dunkeld.’ It cannot be doubted that the
mansion thus gifted and enlarged was a building well suited by its magnificence for the
abode of the successive dignitaries of the Church who were promoted to that exalted
station, and that it formed another striking feature in this street of palaces. Its vicinity
both to the Archiepiscopal residence and to the Blackfriars’ Church-the later scene of
rescue of Archbishop Beaton by Gawin Douglas-affords a very satisfactory illustration
of one of the most memorable occurrences during the turbulent minority of James V.
The poet, after his ineffectual attempt at mediation, retired with grief to his own
house, and employed himself in acts of devotion suited to the danger to which his friends
were exposed; from thence he rushed out, on learning of the termination of the fray,
in time to interpose effectually on behalf of the warlike priest, who had been personally
engaged in the contest, and, according to Buchanan, “flew about in armour like a firebrand
of sedition.” This old Episcopal residence has other associations of a very
dXerent nature; for we learn from Knox’s history that, when he was summoned to
appear in the Blackfriars’ Church on the 15th of May 1556, and his opponents deserted
their intended attack through fear, “ the said Johne, the same day of the summondis,
tawght in Edinburgh in a peattar audience then ever befoir he had done in that toune :
The place was the Bischope of Dunkellis, his great loodgeing, whare he continewed
in doctrin ten dayis, boyth befoir and after nune.”a A modern land now occupies
the site of Bishop Douglas’s Palace; and the pleasure grounds wherein the poet
was wont to stray, and on which we may suppose him to have exercised his refined
taste and luxurious fancy in realizing such a 46 gardyne of plesance ” as he describes
in the opening stanzas of his Pallis of Honor, is now crowded with mean dwellings
of the artizan and labourer-too much engrossed with the cares of their own
domestic circle to heed the illustrious memories that linger about these lowly habitations.
The range of buildings extending from the Cowgate Port to the Old High School Wynd,
on the south side of the street, still includes several exceedingly picturesque timber-fronted
tenements of an early date ; but none of them possess those characteristics of former magnificence
which were to be seen in the Mint Close. A finely. carved lintel, which surmounted
the doorway of one of a similar range of antique.tenements to the west of the High School
Wpd, has been replaced over the entrance to the modern building, erected on the same
site in 1801. The inscription, of which we furnish a sketch, is boldly cut in an unusual
lain in St Geiles Kirk in Edinburgh, of au annual rent of 6 merks out of the tenement of Donald de Keyle on the N.
nide of the gaite . . . au annual rent. of 40 sh. out of his own house lyand in the Cowgaite, betwixt the land of the
Abbot of Melroa on the east, and of George Cochran on the west,” &c.-23d Jan. 1449 ; MS. Advoc. Lib. “A mortification
made by James [Livingston] Bishop of Dunkeld, to a chaplain of St Martin and Thomas’s Altar, in St Geiles Kirk
of Edinburgh, of an annual rent of E10 out of his tenement lying in the said burgh, on the north side of the Hie
Street,” &.-Ibid. “Confirmation of a charter granted be Thomas [Lauder] Bishop of Dunkeld, to a chaplain of the
Holy Cross Isle, in St Geiles Kirk in Edinburgh,” of divers annual rents, dated 17th March 1480.-Ibid.
.
Vitae Dunkeld. Episc. p. 46. f Knox’s W-orks, Wodrow Soc., vol. i p. 251.](images/thumbs/memorials/memorials_v1_Page_366.gif "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Page 348")
......
Book 10 p. 348
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 263
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 194
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 244
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 342
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 465
(Score 0.54)
......
Book 10 p. 439
(Score 0.53)
![296 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
its quaint old lions, in which the Unionists are said to have been scared while signing
some of their preliminary treaties, is still there. The upper terrace is shaded by a magnificent
thorn tree, which appears to be much older than the house; on the second, a
curious arbour has been constructed by the interlacing stems of trees, twisted into the
fantastic forms in which our ancestors delighted; and on the lowest terrace, a fine fountain
of clear water is guarded by the marble statue of a little fisher, with his basket at his feet,
5lled with the mimic spoils of the rod and line. The garden has a southern aspect, and
is of large dimensions, and both it and the house might still afford no unsuitable accommodation
to the proudest Earl in the Scottish Peerage.’
Directly opposite to the Old Tolbooth, and not far removed. from the stately mansion
of the Earls of Moray, is an antique fabric of a singularly picturesque character, associated
with the name of one of the adversaries of that noble house-George, first Marquis of
Huntly, who murdered the Bonny Earl of Moray in 1591.. The evidence, indeed, is not
complete which assigns this as the dwelling of the first marquis, but it is rendered exceedingly
probable from the fact that his residence was in the Canongate, and that this
fine old mansion was occupied at a later period by his descendants. In June 1636, he
was carried from his lodging in the Canongate, with the hope of reaching his northern
territories before his death, but he got no farther than Dundee, where he died in his
seventy-fourth year.8 The aame noble lodging was the abode of the unfortunate Marquis,
who succeeded to his father’s title, and perished on the block at the Cross of Edinburgh in
1649. Ten years before that, their old mansion in the Canongate was the scene of special
rejoicing and festivity, on the occasion of the marriage of his eldest daughter, Lady Ann
with the Lord Drummond, afterwards third Earl of Perth, who was ane preceise puritane,
and therfore weill lyked in Edinburgh.” * The house was occupied, when Maitland wrote,
by the Duchess-Dowager of Gordon; and through a misinterpretation of the evidence
given by some of the witnesses concerned in the murder of Darnley in 1567, he pronounces
it to have been the Mint Office of Scotland at that period. If the date on the building,
which is 1570, be that of its erection, it settles the question. But, at any rate, an examination
of the evidence referred to leaves no doubt that the Mint was situated at the period
entirely without the Canongate, and in the outer court of the Palace of Holyoood,’ though
this has uot prevented the historian being followed, as usual, without investigation by later
writers. We have engraved a view of this curious old mansion as it appears from the
Bakehouse Close. It presents an exceedingly picturesque row of timber-fronted gables
to the street, resting on a uniform range of ornamental corbels projecting from the stone
basement fitory. A series of sculptured tablets adorn the front of the building, containing
certain pious aphorisms, differing in style from those so frequently occurrikg on the buildings
of the sixteenth century. On one is inscribed :-“ CONSTANTPIE CTORI RES MOBTALIVM
Moray House was for aome time occupied by the British Linen Company’s Bank ; and, since 1847, has been used as
the Free Church Normal School, and the fine terraced gardens deacribed above transformed into a playgronnd for the
wholam. ’ Spaldmg’e History of the Troublea, vol. i p. 42. ’ Ibid, vol. i p. 177.
4 “Incontinent the Erle [Bothwell], French Paris, William Powry, semitar and porter to the eaid Erle, Pat. Wil-
~ouna, nd the deponar, geid down the turnpike altogidder, and endlong the back of the Queenis garden puhiZZ mo cum
to the Cunzie-Eow, and the back of the stabilk [seemingly what is now called the Howa Wynd], quhill eow cum to the
Cannongate foreanent the Abbey eet.”-Deposition of Cfeorge Dalgleiah ; Crim. Trials, Supp. p. 495.](images/thumbs/memorials/memorials_v1_Page_340.gif "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Page 322")
......
Book 10 p. 322
(Score 0.53)
......
Book 10 p. 306
(Score 0.53)
......
Book 10 p. 248
(Score 0.53)
......
Book 10 p. 469
(Score 0.53)
......
Book 10 p. 206
(Score 0.53)
![456 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
standing on that pillorie, with his heid and handis lyand out at hoilis cuttit out for that end, his rycht lug was
cuttit af; and thaireftir careyit over to the toun of St Johnnestoun, quhair ane uther pillorie wes erectit, on
the quhilk the uther left lug wes cuttit af him. The caus heirof W&B this ; that he haid gevin out fah calumneis
and le@ aganes Collonell Daniell, governour of Peirth. Bot the treuth is, he was ane notorious decevar and
ane intelligencer, sumtyme for the Englisches, uther tymes for the Scottis, and decevand both of thame:
besyde mony uther prankis quhilk wer tedious to writt.”
(‘ Last of Apryle 1655.-The Marschellis man, quha weB apoynted to haif cuttit Mr Patrik Maxwell haill lug,
bot being buddit pribed] did onlie cutt a€ a pairt of his lug, was thairfoir this day brocht to the Mercat Croce
of Edinburgh, and set upone the pillarie, and thair his lug boirit for not obeying his oommissioun in that
“23 Marche 1657.-Thair wes ane Engliache sodger bund naikit to the gallous of Edinburgh, and first
scourgit, and thaireftir his lugges naillit to the gallous by the space of ane hour or thairby, and thaireftir hia
lugges cuttit out of his heid for cunzieing and forging two halff crounes. The quhich two half crounea war
festned and naillit to the gibit, quhair they remayne to this day.”
These are ody the minor punishments inflicted on offenders, The same annalist recorda hanging and
burning for more heinous crimes, with painful frequency ; proving either a period of unusual depravity, or of
unwonted strictness in searching after secret offences that am now scarcely ever heard of before our criminal
Wurt&
The mode of public pillory, by nailing the offender’s ear to the Tron, continued in use in the eighteenth
century, though it was latterly only resorted to for the punishment of graver offenders, others being simply
exposed, with a label a x e d to them publishing their infamy, On the 24th July 1700, as appears by the Acta
of Sederunt, John Corse of Corsemlin was convicted of using a vitiated bond, the same having been altered
with his knowledge, “and therefore the Lords ordain the said John to be sent to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh,
and from thence on Friday next, before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, to be taken by the hands of the common
hangman to the Tron, and there to have his ear nailed to the Tron and to stand so nailed till twelve hours
strike, and to have these words in great letters fixed on hk breast, as he goes down the street, and upon the
Tron, For his kno~ledgeof , and using a vitiate bond”
popt.”
NOSEP mcHmCt.-The following notices of a sw later date show the same process of nailing continued,
with the addition of an entirely novel means of torture, called Nose Pinching. This, we presume, must have
been effected by screwing some instrument like a hand-vice on the nose, which, in addition to the acute pain
it inflicted, must have presented 8 singularly ludicrous appearance to the by-standers, as the culprit stood
nailed to the post with his pincAw dangling from his nose, hugging &B it were the instruments of his torture.
The following notices are extracted from a “List of Precedents excerpte from the Records of Warranda to
vouch the use and exercise of the Town of Edinburgh’s Jurisdiction of SheriGhip by the Lord Provost and
Baillies.”
(‘ 29 October 1723.-The trial and process against James Stewart, alias M‘Pherson, a vagrant thief, whipt
“28 December 1726.-The trial against George Melvil, notour thief; set on the bone, and his nose
(‘ 17 October 1727.-The trial against David Allison for theft. Pillar’d, pinch’d in the nose, and sent to the
“29 Mych 1728.-The trial against Jean Spence, notour thief; pillar‘d, her lug nailed, and her nose pinched.”
.
and sent to the Correction House for life.”
pinch’d”
Correction House.”](images/thumbs/memorials/memorials_v1_Page_514.gif "Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Page 496")
......
Book 10 p. 496
(Score 0.53)
......
Book 10 p. 280
(Score 0.52)
......
Book 10 p. 235
(Score 0.52)
Previous Results
More Results
The scans of Edinburgh Bookshelf are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.