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382 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. altar, are the arms of Thomas de Cranston, Seutifer Regis, a man of considerable influence in the reign of James IL, and a frequent ambassador to foreign courts, who died about 1470; and on the engaged pillar to the south, the arms are those of Isabel, Duchess of Albany and Countess of Lennox, who, in 1450-about a year before her death-founded the Collegiate Church of Dumbarton, and largely endowed other religious foundations.’ Maitland remarks-“ In the year 1462, a great work seems to have been in hand at this church ; for it was by the Town Council ordained that all persons presuming to buy corn before it was entered should forfeit one chalder to the church work.” This may be supposed to refer to the same additions to the choir begun in the reign of James 11. and then in progress, though it will be seen that other works were proceeded with about the same time. The work had no doubt been aided by the contributions of that monarch, and may have been further encouraged by the gifts of his widowed queen for masses to his soul. The repetition of the royal arms on the King’s Pillar is probably intended to refer to James III., in whose reign the work was finished. To the south of the choir, a second aisle of three arches, with a richly-groined ceiling, forms the Preston Aisle, erected agreeably to a charter granted to William Prestoune, of Gortoune, by the city of Edinburgh in 1454, setting forth (‘ pat forasmekle as William of Prestoun the fadir, quam God assoillie, made diligent labour and grete menis, be a he and mighty Prince, the Eing of France, and mony uyr Lordis of France, for the gettyn of the arme bane of Saint Gele ;-the quhilk bane he freely left to our moyr kirk of Saint Gele of Edinburgh, withoutyn ony condition makyn;-we considrand ye grete labouris and costis yat he made for the gettyn yrof, we pmit, as said is yat within six or seven zere, in all the possible and gudely haste we may, yat we sal big an ile, furth frae our Lady Ile, quhare ye said William lyes in the said ile, to be begunyin within a zere ; in the quhilk ile yare sall be made a brase for his crest in bosit work ; and abone the brase a plate of brase, with a writ, specifiand, the bringing of yat relik be him in Scotland, with his armis ; and his armis to be put, in hewyn marble, uyr thre parts of the ile.” ’ The charter further binds the Provost and Council to found an altar there, with a chaplain, and secures to the lineal descendants of the donor the priyilege of bearing the precious gift of St Giles’s arm bone in all public processions. The aims of Preston still remain on the roof of the aisle, as engaged to be executed in this charter ; and the same may be seen repeated in different parts of their ancient stronghold of Craipillar Castle ; where also occurs their Rebus, sculptured on a stone panel of the outer wall : a press, and tun or barrel.’ They continued annually to exercise their chartered right of bearing the arm bone of the Patron Saint till the memorable year 1558, when the College of St Giles walked for the last time in procession, on the 1st of September, the festival of St Giles, bearing in procession a statue hired for the occasion, from the Grey Friars, to personate the Great Image of the Saint, as large M life, because ‘( the auld Saint Geile” had been fist drowned in the North Loch as an adulterer, or encourager of idolatry, and thereafter 1 A letter on the subject of these armorial bearings, signed A D. [the late Alexander Deuchar, we presume, a firatrate authority on all matters of heraldry], appeared in the Scota Nagaaine, June 1818. The writer promises to send the result of further observations, but he does not appear to have followed out his intentions. ’ Maitland, p. 271. a Archmlogia Scotica, vol. i. p. 575. ’ The Rebus of Prior Bolton, in Westminster Abbey, is very similar ta this : a tun, or barrel, with a bolt thrust - through it. ......

Book 10  p. 419
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318 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. broad flight of steps conducted to the main floor of the building. By this mode of construction, common in old times, the approach to the quadrangle could be secured against any ordinary attack, and the indwellers might then hold out, as in their castle, until they made terms with their assailants, or were relieved by a superior force. The ancient building was erected by James Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, as appears from various allusions to it by early writers.’ He became Lord High Treasurer in 1505, and was promoted to the Archiepiscopate of Glasgow in 1509, so that we may unhesitatingly assign the date of this erection to the beginning of the sixteenth century. He busied himself, after his translation to this see, in promoting many important erections, and greatly enlarged and beautified the Episcopal Palace of Glasgow. Upon all the buildings erected by him his armorial bearings were conspicuously displayed, and a large stone tablet remained till a few years since over the archway of Blackfriars’ Wynd, leading into the inner court, blazoned with the Beaton Arms, supported by two angels in Dalmatic habits, and surmounted by a crest, sufficiently defaced to enable antiquaries to discover in it either a mitre or a cardinal’s hat, according as their theory of the original ownership inclined towards the Archbishop, or his more celebrated nephew, the Cardinal.$ The exterior angle of this building towards the Cowgate was finished with a hexagonal turret, projecting from a stone pillar which sprang from the ground, and formed a singularly picturesque feature in that ancient thoroughfare. We find, however, from the early titles of the property, that the Archbishop’s residence. and grounds had included not only the buildings between Blackfriars’ and Toddrick’s Wynds, but the whole of the site occupied by the ancient buildings of the Mint; so that there can be little doubt the Archbishop had extensive gardens attached to his lodgings in the capital. An inspection of the back wall of the Mint in Toddrick’s Wynd would confirm the idea of its having succeeded to a more ancient building of considerable architectural pretensions ; as, on minute examination, various carved stones will be observed built up among the materials of the rubble work.’ Here the Earl of Arran and the chief adherents of his faction were assembled on the 30th of April 1520, engaged in maturing their hastily-concerted scheme for seizing the ’ 1 “Biachope James Beatoun remained still in Edinburgh in his awin ludging, quhilk he biggit in the Frierie Wynd.” -Pitacottie’E Chronicles, voL ii. p. 313. ’ Nisbet, who is the best of d authorities on such a subject, says :-“ With us angels have been frequently made use of aa supporters, CardinaI Beaton had his supported by two angels in Dalmatic habits, or, as some say, priestly ones, which are yet to be seen on hia lodgings in Blrckfriars’ Wynd.”-Nisbet’s Heraldry, vol. ii. part iv. The stone, which is now in the posaession of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., is exceedingly soft and much worn. The crest has most probably been an otter’a head, which was that borne by the family. It is certainly neither a mitre nor a. cardinal’s hat, and indeed the arms are simply those of the family, and not impaled with those of any see, aw we might expect them to have been if surmounted with such an official badge. a The following is the definition of the property as contained in a deed dated 1639, and preaerved in the Burgh Charter Room :-“Disposition of houae, John Sharpe, elder, of Houston, advocate, to Mr J. Sharpe, younger, hia son. . . All and hail that great lodging or tenement, back‘and fore, under and above, biggit and waste, with the yards and pert’ aome time pertaining to the Archbishop of St Andrew’s, thereafter to umq‘ John Beaton of Capeldraw, thereafter to the heira of umq Archibald Stewart and Helen Aitchison, and thereafter pertaining to urnq’O Thomas Aitchison, his Highness Maister Cuneier, lying within the Burgh of Edinburgh, on ye south of the King’s High Street thereof, on ye east side of ye trance thereof, betwixt the close called Gray’s Cloae and ye vennel called Toddrickb Wynd upon ye east, the transe of ye said Blackfried Wynd on ye west, the High Street of Cowgate on ye soubh, the yard of umqb John Barclay, thereafter pertaining to umqb Alex. Hunter, &e., on ye north,” Qc. ......

Book 10  p. 346
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I 62 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. and when in the company of the ablest men in this country, his whole desigu was to show them how little he thought of them.”’ It is told of Johnson, that being on one occasion in a company where Hume was present, a mutual friend offered to introduce him to the philosopher, when the intolerant moralist roared out, “No, sir!” It is not therefore without reason that Mr Burton questions if Johnson would have been able to “sleep 0’ nights,” had he learned that he had been entrapped into the arch-infidel’s very mansion ! ’ In Hume’s day the North Loch lay directly below the windows of his house, with gardens extending to its margin, aud a fine open country beyond, diversified with woodland and moor, where now the modern streets of the Scottish capital cover a space vastly exceeding its whole ancient boundaries for many centuries. Hume appears to have derived great pleasure from the magnificent prospect which his elevated residence secured to him ; yet although he writes to Dr Robertson in 1759, ((1h ave the strangest reluctance to change places,” he was, nevertheless, one of the earliest to emigrate beyond the North Loch. In 1770 he commenced building his new house, which was the -first erected in South St David Street, and in which he died. The old dwelling, however, was not immediately abandoned to the plebeian population ; Boswell, as we have seen, succeeded him, and he was followed in its occupancy by the Lady Wallace, Dowager, relict of Sir Thomas Wallace of Cragie.’ The floor below Hume’s house was the property of Andrew Macdowal, Esq., advocate, author of the “ Institutional Law of Scotland,” a ponderous mass of legal learning in three folio volumes. On his elevation to the bench in 1755, under the title of Lord Bankton, his lordship,-in order to adapt the flat in the Lawnmarket to his increased dignity and rank,-purchased the one below it, on a level with the court, and united the two by an elegant internal stair of carved mahogany, which has since been displaced by a more homely substitute, on the conversion of the old judge’s dwelling into a printing office. Immediately to the east of the lofty range of buildings fronting James’s Court, houses of an early date, and of considerable variety of character, again occur. The fist of these, represented at‘the head of the chapter, is a tall and narrow stone land, of a marked character, and highly adorned, according to the style prevailing at the close of the sixteenth century. The house belonged of old to Sir Robert Bannatyne, chaplain, and after passing through several hands, was purchased in 1631 by Thomas Gladstone, merchant burgess, who appears to have built the present stone front. On a shield below the crow-steps of the west 1 Topham’s Letters, London, 1776, p. 139. a We kpve adhered ia thia to the biographer of Hume, who assigns the same house to both. It is certain that Hume had a ten& of the name of Boswell ; and as the house below waa a large residence, consisting of two flats, the probability of Boswell occupying the single flat seems confirmed by the fact that he “regretted sincerely that he had not also a room for Mr Scott,” afterwards Lord Stowell, who had accompanied the doctor from Newcastle to the White Horse Inn, Edinburgb. “ Boswell,” he writea, “ has very handsome and spacious rooms, lever with the ground at one side of the house, and on the other four stories high,”+ remark only explicable, on this idea, by supposing him to refer to the peculiar character of the building, as deacribed above. ’ 80 late aa 1771, his brother, Joseph Hume, Esq. of Ninewells, occupied a fashionable residence in the Mth flat of an old house that stood at the junction of the Lawnmarket with Melbourne Place. The following notice of the residence of Lady Ninewells, the grandmother, a8 we presume, of Hume, occum in a series of accounts of B judicial sale of property in Parliament Close, in the year 1680 :-“ The house presently possest be the Lady Ninewells, being the fourth storie above the entrie from the long transa of the tenement upon the east aide of the kirk-heugh, consisting of four fire rowmea, with ane sellar, at a yearly rent of ane hundred fourtie and four pounds Scotts.” Dr fohnaon’s evidence, however, contradicts this. ......

Book 10  p. 176
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66 About this time a strange story went abroad concerning the spectre of Dundee ; the terrible yet handsome Claverhouse, in his flowing wig and glittering breastplate, appearing to bis friend the Earl of Balcarres, then a prisoner in the Castle, and awaiting tidings of the first battle with keen anxiety. .\bout daybreak on the morning when Killiecrankie was fought and lost by the Williamites, the spectre of Dundee is said to have come to Bal- OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ?After this??(says C. K. Sharpe, in a note to ? Law?s Memorials I), ? it moved towards the mantelpiece, remained there for a short time in a leaning posture, and thed walked out of the ? chamber without uttering one word. Lord Balcarres, in great surprise, though not suspecting that what he saw WAS an. apparition, called out ?repeatedly on his friend to stop, but received no answer, and subsequently learned that at the very moment the [Edinburgh Castle.? CHAPTER vIr. EDINBURGH CASTLE ( G O Z C ~ ~ ~ ) . The Torture of Neville Payne-Jacobite Plots-Entombing the Regalia-Project for Surprising the Foitress-Right of Sanctuary Abolished- Lord Drummond?s Plot-Some Jacobite Prisoners-? Rebel Ladies?-James Macgregor-The Castle Vaults-Attempts nt Escape-Fears as to the Destruction of the Crown, Sword, and Sceptre-Crown-room opened in ~;rg+-Again in 7817, and the Regalia brought forth-Mons Meg-General Description of the whole Castle. AMONG the many unfortunates who have pined as prisoners of state in the Castle, few suffered more than Henry Neville Payne, an English gentleman, who was accused of being a Jacobite conspirator. About the time of the battle of the Boyne, when the Earl of Annandale, Lord ROSS, Sir Robert hlontgomerie of Skelmorlie, Robert Fergusson ? the plotter,? and others, were forming a scheme in Scotland for the restoration of King James, Payne had been sent there in connection with it, but was discovered in Dumfriesshire, seized, and sent to Edinburgh. Lockhart, the Solicitor- General for Scotland, who happened to be in London, coolly wrote to the Earl of Melville, Secretary of State at Edinburgh, saying, ? that there was no doubt that he (Payne) knew as much as would hang a thousand; but except you put him to the torture, he will shame you all. Pray you, put him in such hands as will have no pity on him!?* The Council, however, had anticipated these amiable instructions, and Payne had borne torture to extremity, by boot and thumbscrews, without confessing anything. On the loth of December, under express instruction signed by King William, and countersigned by Lord Melville, the process was to be repeated; and this was done in the presence of the Earl of Crawford, ?with all the seventy,? he reported, ? that was consistent with humanity, even unto that pitch that we could not preserve life and have gone further, but without the least success. He was so manly and resolute under his sufferings that such of the Council as were not Melville?s Coiiespondence. acquainted with the evidence, were brangled, and began to give him charity that he might be innocent. It was surprising that flesh and blood could, without fainting, endure the heavy penance he was in for two hours.? This unfortunate Englishman, in his maimed and shattered condition, was now thrown into a vault of the Castle, where none had access to him save a doctor. Again and again it was represented to the ?I humane and pious King William? that to keep Payne in prison Id without trial was contrary to law;? but notwithstanding repeated petitions for trial and mercy, in defiance of the Bill of Rights, William allowed him to languish from year to year for ten years ; until, on the 4th of February, 1701, he was liberated, in broken health, poverty, and premature old age, without the security for reappearance, which was customary in such cases. Many plots were formed by the Jacobites-one about 1695, by Fraser of Beaufort (the future Lovat), and another in 1703, to surprise the Castle, as being deemed the key to the whole kingdom-but without success ; and soon after the Union, in 1707, its walls witnessed that which was deemed ?I the last act of that national tragedy,? the entombing of thz regalia, which, by the Treaty, ? are never more to be used, but kept constantly in the Castle of Edinburgh.? In presence of Colonel Stuart, the constable ; Sir James Mackenzie, Clerk of the Treasury ; William Wilson, Deputy-Clerk of Session-the crown, sceptre, sword of state, and Treasurer?s rod, were solemnly deposited in their usual receptacle, the crown-room, on the 26th of March. ?Animated by the sam- glow of patriotism that fired the ......

Book 1  p. 66
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424 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. TL ANCIENT MAPS AND VIEWS OF EDINBURGH. 1544.-The frequent reference to maps of different dates through the Work, renders some account of them desirable for the general reader. The oldest, and by far the most valuable, is that of which a facsimile is given in the iimt volume of the Bannatyne Miscellany, to illustrate a description of Edinburgh, referred to in the course of this Work, by Alexander Alesse, a native of Edinburgh, born 23d April 1500, who embraced the Protestant faith about the time when Patrick Hamilton, the first Scottish martyr, was brought to the stake in 1527. He left Scotland about the year 1532 to escape a similar fate, and is believed to have died at Leipzig in 1565. The original map is preserved in the British Museum (NS. Cotton. Augustus 1, vol. ii Art. 66), and is assigned with every appearance of probability to the year 1544, the date of the Earl of Hertford’s expedition under Henry VIII. The map may be described as @fly consisting of a view from the Calton Hill, and represents Arthur‘s Seat and the Abbey apparently with minute accuracy. The higher part of the town is spread out more in the character of a bird’s-eye view ; but there also the churches, the Netherbow Port, and other prominent features, afford proof of its general correctness. The buildings about the Palace and the whole of the upper town have their roofs coloured red, a8 if to represent tiles, while those in the Canongate are coloured grey, probably to show that they were thatched with straw. The only other view that bears any near resemblance to the last, occurs in the corner of one of the maps in “John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine,”published at London in 1611. It is, perhaps, only a reduction of it, with some additions from other sources. It must have been made, at any rate, many years before ita publication, as both the Blackfriars Church and the Kirk-of-Field form prominent objects in the town. Trinity College Church is introduced surmounted by a spire. St Andrew‘s Port, at the foot of Leith Wynd, appears as a gate of aome architectural pretensions ; and the old Abbey and Palace of Holyrood, with the intricate enclosing walls surrounding them, are deserving of comparison with the more authentic view. 1573.-The next in point of time is a plan engraved onwood for Holinshed’s Chronicles, 1577, and believed to be the same that is referred to in “A Survey taken of the Castle and towne of Edinbrogh in Scotland, by vs Rowland Johnson and John Fleminge, servantes to the Q. Ma”’, by the comandement of s‘ William Drury, Knighte, Governor of Berwicke, and Mr Henry Killigrave, Her Mah Embassador.” The view in this is from the eouth, but it is chiefly of value as showing the position of the besiegers’ batteries. The town is mapped out into little blocks of houses, with singular-looking heroes in trunk hose interspersed among them, tall. enough k step over their roofs ! A facsimile of this illustrates the “Journal of -the Siege,= in tKe second voIume of the Bannatpe Miscellany. Of the aame date is a curious plan of the Castle, mentioned in Blomefield’s Historp of Norfolk :--“ At Ridlesworth Hall, Norfolk, is a picture of Sir William Drury, Lord Chief- Justice of Ireland, 1579, by which hangs an old plan of Edinburgh Castle, and two armies before it, and round it-Sir Willkm h y e , Knt., General of the EngliShe, wanm Edinburgh Castle 1573.‘-Gough’s British Topography, vol. ii. p. 667. 1580.-Another map, which has bcen frequently engraved, was published about 1580 in Braun’s Civitates &his. ‘‘ Any person,” says the editor of the Bannatyne Miscellany (vol. i. p. 185), ‘‘ who is acquainted with the localities of the place may easily perceive that this plan has been delineated by a foreign artist from the information contained in the printed text, and not from any actual survey or sketch ; and consequently is of little interest or value.” The same, however, might, with equal propriety, be said of the preceding map, which has fully as many errors as the one now referred to. The latter is certainly much too correct, according to the style of depiction adopted in these bird‘s-eye maps, to admit of the idea of ita being drawn from description, though it is not improbable that it may have been made up ‘from others, without personal survey. It affords some interesting points of comparison with that of 1574. ......

Book 10  p. 463
(Score 0.51)

132 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. defences of the tower were principally directed. The walls are here of very great thickness, and pierced by a square cavity in the solid mass, for the reception of a sliding beam to secure the door, while around it are the remains of various additional fortifications to protect the covered way. During the same operations, indications were discovered of a pathway up the cliff, partly by means of steps cut in the shelving rock, and probably completed by moveable ladders and a drawbridge communicating with the higher story of the Well-house Tower. About seventy feet above, there is a small building on an apparently inaccessible projection of the cl3, popularly known as ‘ I Wallace’s Cradle ” (an obvious corruption of the name of the tower below), which would seem to have formed a part of this access from the Castle to the ancient fountain at its base. In excavating near the tower, and especially in the neighbourhood of the sally port, various coins were found, chiefly those of Edward 111. and Cromwell, in very good preservation. There were also some foreign coins, and one of Edward I., many f r a p e n t s of bombshells, a shattered skull, and other indications of former warfare. The coins are now in the Antiquarian Museum, and are interesting from some of them being of a date considerably anterior to the supposed erection of the tower.a The ancient fortifications .of the town of Edinburgh, reared under the charter of James 11.) formed, at this part, in reality an advanced wall of the Castle, the charge of which was probably committed entirely to the garrison. The wall, after extending for a short way from the Well-house Tower, along the margin of the Loch, was carried up the Castle bank, and thence over the declivity on the south, until it again took an easterly direction towards the ancient Overbow Port, at the first turning of the West Bow, so that the whole of the Esplanade was separated from the town by this defence. There was in the highest part of the wall, a gate which served as a means of communication with the town by the Castle Hill, and was styled the Barrier Gate of the Castle. This outer port was temporarily restored for the reception of George IT., on his visit to the Castle in the year 1822, and it was again brought into requisition in 1832, in order completely to isolate the garrison, during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera. Previous to the enclosure and planting of the Castle bank and the bed of the ancient North Loch, the Esplanade was the principal promenade of the citizens, and a road led from the top of the bank, passing in an oblique direction down the north side, by the Well-house Tower, to St Cuthbert’s Church, some indications of which still remain. This church road had existed from a very early period, and is mentioned in the charter of . 1 The following extracts from the Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 332-3, in reference to the siege of the Castle by Sir William Drury in 1573 (ante, p. 84), embrace various interesting allusions to the local detail :- “ Wpoun the xxij day of Maij, the south quarter of the toure of the Castell, callit Dauid’s toure, fell through the vehement and continual1 achuting, togidder with some of the foir wall, and of the heid wall beayd Sanct Margaretia set. “ Wpoun the xxiiij day, the eist quarter of the said tour fell, with the north quarteris of the port cuheis ; the tour als callit Wallace tour, with some mair of the foir wall, notwithstanding the Castell men kust thair hand with schutting of small artailzerie. . . . . Wpoun the xxvj day, the hail1 cumpangis of Scotland and Ingland, being quietlie convenit at vij houris in the mornyng, passed with ledders, ane half to the blookhous, the vther half to Sanct Katherin’a eet, on the west syd, quhair the syid wea schote doun.” The Caatle vwa at length rendered by Sir William Kirkaldy on the 29th of the month. In Calderwood’s History, Wodrow Soc., vol. iii. 281, the followiug occurs, of the same date :-“Captain Nitchell waa layed with his band at Sanct Cuthbert’a Kirk, to atoppe the passage to St Margaret’a Well.” Also in “The Inventory of Royal Wardrobe,” dcc,, p. 168,-“1tem, am irne yet for Sanct Margareth’a t.o ur*, ”A &rcch. wlogia Scotica, vol. ii. pp. 469-477. ......

Book 10  p. 143
(Score 0.51)

45 2 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. lower churchyard, in 1844 ; the following notices of the Town Council Records, indicates the date and reason of their disuse. An Act of Council, September 30th, 1618, ‘‘Discharges Oak Kircts to be made for burials of the deceased persones within the Brough” Thia, however, must have met with very slight attention, the ancient usages in reference to the burial of the dead being in all countries and states of society the most diBcult to eradicate. Another Act of the Town Council, in February 1635, prohibits the Oak Kbts being brought to the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, ‘‘ The-burial place in Greyfriars being scarce capable of the dead bodiea occasioned through Wainscott Kists.” Even this failed in securing sufficient room for the dead, and an Act of Town Council, dated 1st April 1636, provides for the augmentation of the areyfriars’ burial-ground. XIX. ANCIENT LODGINGS. A FEW additional notices of some value, regarding some of the ancient mansions referred to in the come of the work, are introduced here, having been overlooked when preparing the Text, or only discovered when too late to insert in their proper places. The following notice of it appears in the Diurnal of Occurrsnts, a very curious collection of contemporary records of the sixteenth century, printed by the Bannatyne Club, the practical value of which is greatly abridged by the want of an index :-“ Vpon the xiij day of Februar, the zeir of God foirsaid, Henrie lord Dernlk, eldest Bone to Matho erle of Lennox, come to Edinburgh be post fra Ingland, and wes lugeit in my lord Seytouna lugeing in the Cannongait besyid Edinburgh.’-(Diurnal of Occurrents in Scotland, p. 79.) CARDINABLE ATONH’So usE.-From the following notices it will be wen that the ancient tenement which stood till lately in the Cowgate, at the foot of Blackfriars’ Wynd, was the scene of the first festivities in Edinburgh after the arrival of Queen Mary, and was, not long after, honoured by her own presence, with the chief nobles of her court :- U Vpoun the xix day of August lxj, Marie, quene of Scottis, our souerane ladie, e tin th e raid of Leith at sex houris in the mornyng, accumpanyit onlie with tua gallionis ; and thair come with hir in cumpany monsieur Domell, the grand pryour, monsieur marques [d’ElbeufJ the said quenes grace moder broder, togidder with monsieur Danguill [d’hville], second sone to the constable of France, with certane vther nobill gentilmen ; and at ten houris the samen day, hir hienes landit vpoun the schoir of Leith, and remanit in Andro Lambis hous be the space of ane hour, and thairefter wes convoyit vp to hir palice of Halyrudhoua “Vpoun the xxiiij day of August, quhilk wes Sonday, the quenes grace causit say mes in hir hienes chappell within hir palace of Halyrudhous, quhairat the lordis of the congegatioun wes grittumlie annoyit . (6 Vpoun $he lust day of Aqwt lxj, the toun of Edinburgh maid thc banked to m&r DomeU, the grand mow, marques, and monsieur Danguill, in am honourable maner, within the lugeing mrntynts pertenying to tha cardinall. “Vpoun the h t day of September, the said monsieur Domell depairtit, with the twa gallionis quhilk. brocht the quenes grace hame to France, and his broder remanit in Scotland, ((Vpoun the secund day of September lxj, the quenes grace maid hir entrea in the burgh of Edinburgh on tbis maner. Her hienes depairtit of Halyrudhous, and raid be the lang gait on the north syid of the said burgh, vnto the tyme scho come to the castell, quheir wee ane xet maid to hir, at the quhilk scho, wcumpanijt with the maist pairt of the nobilitie of Scotland except my lord duke and hia none, come in and raid vp the castell bank to the caatell, and dynit thairin ; and quhen sho had dynit at tuelf houris, hir hienea come furth of the said WINTOUNH OUSE.-The site of the ancient mansion of the Earls of Wintoun is described on page 303. ......

Book 10  p. 491
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THE CANONGA TE AND ABBEY SANCTUAR Y. 305 the street, which tradition points out as the residence of Bishop Paterson, one of the latest Episcopal dignitaries of the Established Church, and a special subject of scandal to the Covenanters. He was formerly chaplain to the Duke of Lauderdale, and wam currently reported to have owed his,proruotion to the favour of the Duchess? A little to the eastward of the White Horse Close, and immediately adjoining the Water Gate, a plain modern land occupies the site of St Thomas’s Hospital, founded by George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, in 1541, and dedicated to God, the Virgin Mary, and all saints. It consisted of a chapel and almshouse, which were purchased by the Magistrates of Canongate in the year 1617, from the chaplains and bedesmen, with the consent of ‘ David Creichton of Lugtoun, the patron, who probably retained possession of the endowments. Its new patrons converted it into an hospital for the poor of the burgh, and invited the charity of the wealthy burghers of Canongate, by placing the following inscription over the entrance, surmounted with the figures of two cripples, an old man and woman, and the Canongate ~ S : - H E L P E HERE THE POORE, AS ZE VALD GOD DID zov. JUNE 19, 1617. When Maitland wrote, the chapel had been, converted into a coach-house, and both it and the hospital were in a very ruinous state ; and, in 1778, it was entirely demolished, and its site occupied by private dwellings.’ The Water Gate formed the chief entrance to the burgh of Canongate, and the main approach to the capital previous to the erection of the North Bridge. It is a port of considerable antiquity, being represented as such in the maps of 1544 and 1573 ; and in the Registers of the Burgh for 1574, the Treasurer is ordered ‘‘ to bye ane lok and key to the Wattir Yet.” ’ Through it the Earl of Hertford entered with the army of Henry VIII. in the former year ; and, at the same place, the Marquis of Montrose, the Earl of Argyle, and others of less note, were received on their capture, with all the ignominy that party rancour could devise.‘ Perhaps, however, the following unauthorised entrance by the same public thoroughfare, in the year 1661, may be considered no less singular than any of which it has been the scene. In the City Records of Edinburgh, after a gift of escheat granted by the Council to the Baron Bailie of Canongate, of all heritable and movable goods belonging to the witches thereof, a report follows by the Bailie concerning Barbara Mylne, whom Janet Allen, burnt for witchcraft, ‘‘ did once see come in at the Water Gate in likeness of a catt, and’ did change her garment under her awin staire, and went into her hou~e.”~S uch residenters were not effectually expelled by the gift of escheat, An anonymous letter, addressed to the Bishop by mme of his Presbyterian revilers in 1681, ia preserved among the collection of original documents in the City Chambers. It supplies a su5ciently minute narrative of his proceedings both in Edinburgh and elsewhere; of his escape from an enraged husband by leaping the Water of Errie, thenceforth called “Paterson’s Loup;” of hia dealinga with “that Jezebel the Dutchess;” the Town Guard of Edinburgh, &c., all told in somewhat too plain language for modern ears. The property of this pious foundation appears to have been alienated long before. We have found, in the Burgh Charter Room, “A disposition of house uear the ground of the Holy Crow. John Pateraone to Andrew Eussall,” dated 1628, which runs thus:-“All and hail, that fore buith and dwellioghouse, and back vault of the same, lying contiguous thereto; lying in the ground pertaining to the land sometime pertaining to the puir Bedemen of the Hospital, founded beside the Abbey of the Holy Cross, by umquhile Oeorge, Bishop of Dunkeld; and under the nether fore stair of the same, with the pertinenta, and free ish and entry thereto ; which tenement lies within the eaid Eurgh, on the south side of the King’s High Street thereof, at the head of the wynd called Bell’s Wynd.” The name of St Thomaa does not occur in the charter of foundation aa given by Kitland. Maitland, p. 155. Arnot, p. 249, Register of the Burgh of the Canongate, 18th Oct. 1574. Law’a Memorials, Pref. p. lxix. ’ Fountainhall’e Hist. Observes, pp. 185-190. 2 Q ......

Book 10  p. 333
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1 24 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. anticipated, on the loftiest and least accessible part of the rock on which it is built. Here, on the very edge of the precipitous cliff, overhanging the Old Town several hundred feet below, the ancient Royal Palace is reared, forming the south and east sides of a large quadrangle, called the Grand Parade. The chief portion of the southern side of this square consists of a large ancient edifice, long converted into an hospital for the garrison, but which had been ori,ginally the great hall of the Palace. Notwithstanding the numerous changes to which it has been subjected in adapting it to its present use, some remains of its ancient grandeur have been preserved. At the top of the principal staircase may be seen a very finely sculptured stone corbel, now somewhat mutilated, representing in front a female face of very good proportions, and ornamented on each with a volute and thistle. On this still rests the original oak beam ; and on either side of it there are smaller beamfl let into the wall, with shields carved on the front of each. The whole are now defaced with whitewash, but they afford evidence of the existence formerly of a fine open timbered roof to the great hall, and it is probable that much more of it still remains, though concealed by modern ceilings and partitions. From the occasional assembling of the Parliament here, while the Scottish Monarchs continued to reside in the Castle, it still retain8 the name of the Parliament House.’ The view from the windows on this side of the Palace is scarcely surpassed by any other in the capital. Immediately below are the picturesque old houses of the Grassmarket and West Port, crowned by the magnificent towers of Heriot’s Hospital. From this abyss, the hum of the neighbouring city rises up, mellowed by the distance, into one pleasing voice of life and industry; while, beyond, a gorgeous landscape is spread out, reaching almoat to the ancient landmarks of the kingdom, guarded on the far east by the old keep of Craigmillar Castle, and on the west by Merchiston Tower. Between these is still seen the wide expanse of the Borough Muir, on which the fanciful eye of one familiar with the national history will summon up the Scottish hosts marshalling for southern war ; as when the gallant Jameses looked forth from these same towers, and proudly beheld them gathering around the standard of (( the Ruddy Lion,” pitched in the massive (( Bore Stane,”’ still remaining at the Borough Muir Head. The windows in this part of the quadrangle have been very large, though now partly built up, and near the top of the building, there is a sculptured shield, much defaced, which seems to bear the Scottish Lion, with a crown over it. A stone tablet over the arch of the old doorway, with ’ Immediately to the east of this, the royal apartments are situated. In the Treasurer‘s Acoounta, various items occur, relating to the royal apartmenta in the Castle, e.g. AJJ. 1516, “for trein werk (timber work) for The Great Haw Windois in the Castell; gret gestis, doubill dalis, &c., for the Myd Chamer ;” and, again, r( to Robert Balye for fluring of the Lordis Haw in Davidis Tower of the Castell in Ed‘ ”-Pitcairn’s Crim. Trials, Appendix. The Hall is also alluded to in the survey of 1572, and ita locality deacribed aa “On the south syde wher the haule is,” &c.-Bann. Misc., vol. ii. p. 70. In a seriee of “One hundred and fifty select views, by P. Sandby,” published by Boydell, there is one of Edinburgh Castle from the south, dated 1779, in which two of the great hall windows remain ; they are lofty, extending through two stories of the building, as now arranged, and apparently divided by stone mullions. Bore Stane, so called from the hollow or Lore into which the staff of the royal standard was placed (vide Marmion, canto iv. v. 28). About a mile south of this, near the entrance to Morton Hall, is the Eare Stane (confounded by Maitland, p. 506, with the former). Various stones in Gloucestershire and other districta of England bear the same name, which an antiquarian friend suggests is probably derived from the Saxun I?&, signifying slaughter, and therefore indicating the site of an ancient battle. About a mile to the south of this, a huge h i d i c a l mass of red sandstone bears the name of Buck Stane. The two last are popularly believed to mark the rendezvous of the Court for coursing the hare or hunting the buck in “ The olden time.” The coping, supported on stone corbels, still remains a8 in the earliest views. ......

Book 10  p. 135
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=go MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. of Eglinton, resided during her latter years, and was visited by Lady Jane Douglas, as appears in the evidence of the Douglas Cause. The other tenants of its numer0usJiTat.s were doubtless of corresponding importance in the social scale ; but its most eminent occupant was David Hume, who removed thither from Riddle’s Land, Lawnmarket, in 1753, while engaged in writing his History of England, and continued to reside at Jack’s Land during the most important period of his literary career. Immediately behind this, in a court on the east side of Big Jack’s Close, there existed till a few years since some remains of the town mansion of General Dalyell, commander of the forces in Scotland during most of the reign of Charles II., and the merciless persecutor of the outlawed Presbyterians during that period. The General’s dwelling is described in the Minor Antiquities a as (( one of the meanest-looking buildings ever, perhaps, inhabited by a gentleman.” In this, however, the author was ‘deceived by the humble appearance of the small portion that then remained. There is no reason to believe that the stern Mmcovite-as he was styled from serving under the Russian Czar, during the Protectorate- tempered his cruelties by an$ such Spartan-like virtues. The General’s residence, on the contrary, appears to have done full credit to a courtier of the Restoratidn. We owe the description of it, as it existed about the beginning of the present century, to a very zealous antiquary’ who was born there in 1787, and resided in the house for many years. He has often conversed with another of its tenants, who remembered being taken to Holyrood when a child to see Prince Charles on his arrival at . the palace of his forefathers. The chief apartment was a hall of unusually large dimensions, with an arched or waggon-shaped ceiling adorned with a painting of the sun in the centre, surrounded by gilded rays on an azure ground. The remainder of the ceiling was painted to represent sky and clouds, and spangled over with a series of silvered stars in relief. The large windows were closed below with carved oaken shutters, similar in style to the fine specimen still remaining in Riddle’s Close, and the same kind of windows existed in other parts of the building. The kitchen also was worthy of notice for a fire-place, formed of a plain circular arch of such unusual dimensions that popular credulity might have assigned it for the perpetration of those rites it had ascribed to him, of spiting and roasting his miserable captives l 4 Our informant was told by an intelligent old man, who had resided in the house for many years, that a chapel formerly stood on the site of the open court, but all traces of it The following advertisement will probably be considered a curious illustration of the Canongate aristocracy at a still later period:-“A negro runaway.-That on Wednesday the 10th current, an East India ne50 lad eloped from a family of distinction residing in the Canongate of Edinburgh, and is supposed to have gone towards Newcastle. He is of the mulatto colour, aged betwixt sixteen and seventeen years, about five feet high, having long black hair, slender made and long-limbed. He had on, when he went off, a brown cloth short coat, with brass buttons, mounted with black and yellow button-holes, breeches of the same, and a yellow vest with black and yellow lace, with a brown duffle surtout coat, with yellow lining, and metal buttons, grey and white marled stockings, a fine English hat with yellow lining, having a gold loop and tassle, and double gilded button. As this negro lad has carried off sundry articles of value, whoever shall receive him, EO that he may be restored to the owner, on sending notice thereof to Patrick M‘Dougal, writer in Edinburgh, shall be handsomely rewarded.”-Edinhwgh Advertiser, March 12th, 1773. An earlier advertisement in the Courunt, March 7th, 1727, offers a reward for the apprehension of another runaway :-“A negro woman, named Ann, about eighteen years of age, with a green gown, and a brass collar about her neck, on which are engraved these words, ‘ Gustavus Brown in Dalkeith, his negro, 1726.’ ” ’ Minor Antiquities of Edinburgh, p. 230. Mr Wm. Rowan, librarian, New College, Fountainhall‘s Deciaiona, vol. i. p. 159. Burnet’s Hut. of his Own Times, vol. i. p. 334. ......

Book 10  p. 315
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THE WEST BOW AND SUBURBS. 343 when the Lords of the Congregation I‘ past to Halyrudhous, and tuik and intromettit with the irnis of the c~nzehous.~. ~ The general aspect of the Grassmarket appears to have suffered little change for above two hundred years. One of the most modern erections on its southern side is that immediately to the west of the Templar Lands we have just described, which bears on a tablet over the entrance to Hunter’s Close, ANNO. DOM . MDCLXXI . It is not likely to be soon lost sight of, that from a dyer’s pole in front of this old tenement Captain . Porteous was hung by his Lynch-law judges A.D. 1736. . The long range of buildings that extend beyond this, present as singular and varied a group of antique tenements as either artist or antiquary could desire. Finials of curious and grotesque shapes surmount the crow-stepped gables, and every variety of form and elevation diversifies the sky line of their roofs and chimneys; while behind, the noble pile of Heriot’s Hospital towers above them a8 a counterpart to the old Castle that rises majestically over the north side of the same area’ Many antique features are yet discernibIe here. Several of the older houses are built with bartizaned roofs and ornamental copings, designed to afford their inmates an.uninterrupted view of the magnificent pageants that were wont of old to defile through the wide area below, or of the gloomy tragedies that were so frequently enacted there between the Restoration and the Revolution. One of thesej which stands immediately to the west of Heriot’s Bridge, exhibits a very perfect specimen of the antique style of window already frequently referred to. The folding shutters and transom of oak remain entire below, and the glass in the upper part is Bet in an ornamental pattern of lead. Still finer, though less perfect, specimens of the same early fashion, remain in a tenement on the north side, bearing the date 1634. It forms the front building at the entrance to Plainstane’s Close-a distinctive title, implying its former respectability as a paved alley. A handsome projecting turnpike stair bears being thairin.”-Diurn. of OCC. p. 269. Humble as this nook appears, it is possible that it may be a fragment of the Regent Murray’s lodging. 1 The careful and elaborate history of Heriot’s Hospital, by Dr Steven, renders further investigation of its memorials unnecesaary. Tradition assigns to Inigo Jones the merit of having furnished the beautiful design for the Hospital, which is well worthy of his genius. If so, however, it has been carried‘out in a modified form, under the direction of more modern architects. “May 3 t T h e r e is a necessity that the steeple of the Hospital be finished, and a top put thereupon. Ro. Miln, Master Mason, to think on e drawing thereof, against the next council meeting.” The master mason doea not appear to have thought to good purpose, as we find recorded the following year :-“July 10.-Deacon Sandilans to put a roof and top to the Hoepital’s ateeple, according to the draught condescended upon be Sir William Bruce.” In one of Captain Slezer’s very accurate general view8 of Edinburgh, published towarda the close of the 17th century, Heriot’s Hospital is introduced 88 it then appeared, with the plain square tower over the gateway, and near to it the Old Oreyfriars’ Church, with the tower at the west end, aw it stood previous to 1718, when the latter waa accidentally blown up by gunpowder, which had been deposited there for aafety. A view of the Hospital, by Glordon of Rothiemay, which was engraved in Holland before 1650, is believed to aford an accurate representation of the original deeign. The aame is engraved in the fourth edition of Sleser’s views, under the name of Bogengkht. In thia view, the tower is surmounted by a lofty and beautiful apire, carrying out the idea of contrast in form and elevation which appears in the reat of the dedign, much more effectively than the dome which has been substituted for it. The large towers at the angles of the building appear in this view covered with ogee roofs, in mora questionable tsste. Several entries in the Hospital %cords seem to imply that two of the four towers had been completed according to this idea, and afterwards altered. The Recorda afford evidence of frequent deviations from the original design being sanctioned, even rfter auch parta of the building were 6niahed according to the plan. The following entry occurs in the Hospital Recorda for 1675. ......

Book 10  p. 375
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THE BANK OF SCOTLAND. 93 The Mound. J whereof are to be applied for ever for the support of decayed and superannuated artists.? This property consisted mainly of ancient houses, situated in the old town, the free proceeds ofwhich were only~220. It was sold, and the whole value of it, amounting to Lt;5,420 IOS., invested in Bank of Scotland and Eritish Linen Company Stock, and has been s6 carefully husbanded that the directors now possess stock to the value of more than A6,618. ?It was originally given in annuities varying from A;5o to LIOO a year; but the directors some years ago thought it advisable to restrict the amount of these, so as to extend the benefit of the fund over a larger number of annuitants, and they now do not give annuities to a Iarger amount than if35, and they require that the applications for these shall in all cases be accompanied by a recommendation from two members of the Royal Scottish Academy who know the circumstances of the applicant? CHAPTER XIV. THE HEAD OF THE EARTHEN MOUND. The Bank of Scotland-Its Charter-Rivalry of the Royal Bank Notes for 65 and for 5s.-The New Bank of Scotland-Its Present Aspect- The Projects of Mr. Trotter and Sir Thomas Dick Lauder-The National Security Savings Bank of Edinburgh-The Free Church College and Assembly Hall-Their Foundation-Constitution-Library-Museum-Bu~~-Missiona~ and Theological Societies-The Dining Hall, &.-The West Princes Street Gardens-The Proposed Canal and Seaport-The East Princes Street Gardens--Railway TerminusWaverley Bridge and Market. ?HOW well the ridge of the old town was set off by a bank of elms that ran along the front of Tames?s Court, and stretched eastward over the ground now partly occupied by the Bank of Scot- Idnd,? says Cockburn, in his ?Memorials;? but looking at the locdity now, it is difficult to realise the idea that such a thing had been; yet Edgar shows us a pathway running along the slope, between the foot of the closes and a row of gardens that bordered the loch. Bank Street, which was formed in- 1798 a few yards westward of Dunbar?s Close, occasioning in its formation the destruction of some buildings of great antiquity, looks at first sight like a broad czdde-m blocked up by the front of the Bank of Scotland, but in reality forms the carriage- way downward from the head of the Mound to Princes Street. While as yet the bank was in the old narrow alley that so long bore its name, we read in the 2Tddnburgh HeraZd ann! ChronicZe of March, 1800, ?(that the directors of the Bank of Scotland have purchased from the city an area at the south end of the Earthen Mound, on which they intend to erect an elegant building, with commodious apartments for carrying on their business.? Elsewhere we have briefly referred to the early progress of this bank, the oldest of the then old ?chartered banks? which was projected by John Holland, a retired London merchant, according to the scheme devised by William Paterson, a native of Dumfries, who founded the Bank of England. The Act of the Scottish Parliament for starting the Bank of Scotland, July, 1695, recites, by way of exordium, that ?? our sovereign lord, considering how useful a public bank may be in this kingdom, according to the custom of other kingdoms and states, and that the same can only be best set up and managed by persons in company with a joint stock, sufficiently endowed with those powers, authorities, and liberties necessary and usual in such cases, hath therefore allowed, with the advice and consent of the Estates of Parliament, a joint stock of LI,ZOO,OOO money (Scots) to be raised by the company hereby established for the carrying on and managing a public bank.? After an enumeration of the names of those who were chosen to form the nucleus of the company, including those of five Edinburgh merchants, the charter proceeds to state that they have full powers to receive in a book the subscriptions of either native Scots or foreigners, ? who shall be willing to subscribe and pay into the said joint stock, which subscriptions the aforesaid persons, or their quorum, are hereby authorised to receive in the foresaid book, which shall lie open every Tuesday or Friday, from nine to twelve in the forenoon, and from three to six in the afternoon, between the first day of November next and the first day of January next following, in the public hall or chamber appointed in the city of Edinburgh ; and therein all persons shall have liberty to subscribe for such sums of money as they shall think fit to adventure in the said joint stock, AI,OOO Scots being lowest sun1 and ~ 2 0 , 0 0 0 Scots the highest, and the two-third parts of the said stocks belonging always to persons residing in Scotland. Likewise, each and every person, at the time of his subscribing, shall pay into the hands of the forenamed persons, or any three of them, ten of the hundred ......

Book 3  p. 93
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454 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. any reasonable doubt entertahed, it shows that both King James VI. aud his Queen, Anne of Denmark, have been entertained there by the Magistrates of the city, in the palmy days of Old Edinburgh :-“1598, May 2.- The 2 of Maii, the Duck of Holsten got ane banquet in MMman’s ludging, given by the toune of Ed‘. The Kings M. and the Queine being both y’ ther wes grate solemnitie and mirrines at the said banquet”-(Fragment of Scottish History, Diary, p, 46.) QUEENSBEBRHYo usE.-In a foot-note at page 298, it is suggested that Queensberry House oocupies the site of a mansion built by the celebrated Lord Halton, afterwards Earl of Lauderdale, in 1681. The following entry in Fountainhall’s Decisions, omitted, like many other of the old Judge’s curious details, in the printed folio, proves that the house is the same which was built by Lord Halton, and afterwards disposed of to the first Duke of Queensberry :- “81 Junij 1686.-By a letter from his Majesty, Queensberry is laid asyde €rom all hi~ places and offices, as his place in the Treasurie, Priv Counsell, Session, &c., and desired not to goe out of Tome, till he cleared his accounts. So he bought Lauderdale’s House in the Cannongate.” XX. THE PILLORY. BRANDINAGN D MmLATINa.-The strange and barbarous punishmente recorded both by old diarists, and in the Scottish criminal records, as put in force at the Cross or Tron of Edinburgh, afford no inapt illustration of the gradual and very slow abandonment of the cruel practices of uncivilised times. In the sixteenth century, burning or branding on the cheeks, cutting off the ears, and the like savage mutilations were adjudged for the slightest crimes or misdemeanors. On the 5th May 1530, for example, ‘‘ William Kar oblissis him that he sall nocht be sene into the fische merkat, nother byand nor selland fische, vnder the pane of cutting of his lug and bannasing of the toune, t o t gif he haif ane horse of his aune till bring fische to the merket till sell vniuersale as vther strangearia dois till OUT Souerane Lordis legis.”-(Acts and Statutes of the Burgh of Edinburgh, Mait. Misc., voL ii p. 101.) At this period the Greyfriars or Bristo Port appears to have been a usual scene for such judicial terrors. On the 1st July 1530, “Patrick Gowanlok, fleschour, duelland in the Abbot of Melrosis lugying within this toune,” is banished the town for ever, under pain of death, for harbouring a woman infected with the pestilence ; “And at the half of his moveable gudia be applyit to the common workis of this toune for his dehlt, And ala that his seruand woman csllit Jonet Gowane, quhilk is infekkit, for hir conceling the said seiknes, and passand iu pilgrimage, scho haiffand the pestilens apone hir that .who ealbe brynt on baith the cheikis and ban& thie toune for ever vnder the pane of deid. And quk that lykis till sed ju-stice execute in this mater, that thai mm to the Grayfrier port incontinent q&r thai aall et? the samys put till mtioun.”-(Ibid, p. 106.) - - . DROWNINB.--of a different nature is the following scene enacted in the year 1530, without the Greyfriar’s - Port, which was then an unenclosed common on the outskirts of the Borough. Muir, and remained in that state till it was included within the precincts of the latest extension of the town walls in 1618. Drowning in the North Loch, and elsewhere, was a frequent punishment inflicted on females. “The quhilk day Katryne Heriot is convict be ane assise for the thiftus steling and conseling of twa stekis of bukrum within this tovne, and als of commoun theift, and als for the bringing of this contagius seiknes furth of Leith to this toune, and brekin of the statuti8 maid tharapone, For the quhilk causes echo i a adiuyit to be drounit in the Quare11 holZw at the CrayfTere port, mncr incontinent, and that we8 gevin for dome.”-(Ibid, p. 113.) The workmen engaged in draining the ancient bed of the Nprth Loch in the spring of 1820, discovered. a large coffin of thick fir deals, ......

Book 10  p. 494
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436 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. one is the Crucifixion, beautifully cut. On the shield to the right, two crescents in chief, on the field a boar’s head erased. On the left shield, a saltier, a bar in pale, intersecting a small saltier in the middle chief point. On the fesse point, a circle forming with the saltier and bar a St Katherine’s wheel. On the flanks, the initials M. T. Above the whole is the inscription cut in very neat old ornamental characters :-SOLI , DEO . HONOR . ET . QLORIA. This, we have little doubt, indicated the mansion of Mungo Tennant, burgess of Edinburgh, who, says Nisbet (vol. i. p. 146), ‘‘ had his seal appended to a reversion of half of the lands of Leny, the fourth of October 1542, whereupon was a boar‘s head in chief, and two crescents in the flanks j and in base the letter M.; the initial letter of his Christian name.” The bearings, it will be observed, are reversed. Similar liberties, however, are not of such rare occurrence as heraldic authorities would lead ua to expect. Francis Tennant, probably a relative of this burgess, according to Nisbet sometime Provost of Edinburgh (though his name does not appear in Maitland’s list), an adherent of Queen Mary, was taken prisoner while fighting for her in 1571. WARRIBTONC’rB,o sE.-The mansion of Bruce of Binning, with its hely sculptured lintel and armorial bearings-Bruce impaling Preston-in Warriston’s Close (page 231), appears from the following notice by Chalmelv (Caledonia, vol. ii p. 758, extracted fkom the Chartularies o! Newbottle Abbey), to be a building of the very early part of the sixteenth cent.ury, if not earlier ; so that its substantial walls must have experienced little damage from the burning of 1544. “ Andrew, the abbot [of Newbottle], in May 1499, granted his lands of Kinard, in Stirlingshire, to Edward Brus, his well-deserving armiger, rendering for the same sixteen marks yearly ; and in December 1500, he gave to Robt B w of Bining, and Mary Preston his spouse, the Monastery‘s lands, called the Abbot’s Lands of West-Bining in Linlithgowahire ; rendering for the same four shillings yearly.” IX. THE RESTORATION. BURNING OB’ CROMWELL, THE POPE, &c. DURINQth e rejoicings in Edinburgh, consequent on the “happy Restoration,” the meane taken to Rhow the sincerity of the new-fashioned loyalty were characterised by the oddwt mixture of devotion and joviality conceivable. In the following account of them recorded in Nicoll’s Diary, not the least noticeable feature is the scene between that notable traytor Oliver and the Devil, with which the holiday’s heterogeneous proceedings are wound up :- “ The Kingdome of Scotland haitling takin to thair consideration the great thinges and wonderfull that the Lord God had done for thame, in restoring unto thame thair native Soverane Lord and King, efter so long banischement, and that in a wonderfull way, worthy of admiration, thai resolvit upone severall dayis of thankisgevhg to be set apairt for his Majesteis Ratauratioun, and for his mercyes to this pure land, quho haid opned a dure of hope to hia pepill, for satling thrie Kingdomes in religion and justice. And, fist, this day of thankisgeving began at Edinburgh, and throw all the kirkis and pairtes of Lothiane, upone Tysday the nyntene day of Junij 1660, @hair thair wer sermondie maid throw all the kirkis, and quhairat all the Magistrates of Edinburgh and the Commoune Consell were present, all of them in thair best robis ; the great mace and sword of honor careyed befoir thame to the sermond, and throw the haill streitis as they went, all that day. And eftir the sermond endit, the Magistrates and Consell of Edinburgh, with a great number of the citizens, went to the Mercat Croce of Edinburgh, quhair a great long boord of foote of lenth wes covered with all soirtes of sweit meittis, and thair drank the Hinges helth, and his brether ; the spoiites of the Croce rynnand all that tyme with abundance of clareyt &e. Ther wer thrie hundreth dosane of glassis all brokin and cassin throw the streitis, with sweit meitis in abundance. Major-generall Morgan commander in cheiff of all the’forces in Scotland, and the Governor of the Castell of Edinburgh, being both Englischemen, with sum of the speciall officeris of the ......

Book 10  p. 475
(Score 0.49)

434 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. which originally appeared in a note to “The Household Book of Lady Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar”& a work now of great rarity, only a very small edition having been printed. It was edited by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. There is no date to it, but we are informed by the editor that it WM published in 1814. It is aa an illustration of’ the followiq entry of 1st September 1640. (Page 43) The Comptar craveu allowance of two nights charges, being sent to waitt upon the buriall of COL Blexander, his corps, which was buried before he came att Tyninghame, 63sh. 4d.” To this the editor appends the following note in reference to the Colonel :-“ Colonel Alexander Erskine, Lady Mar’s third son, was blown up in the Castle of Dungha, together with his brother-in-law the Earl of Hadington. ‘ Upon Sunday the 30th August 1640, the Earl of Hadington, with about eighty persons, of Knights, Barons, and Gentlemen, within the place of Dunglass in the Merse pertaining heritably to the Lord Hume, was suddenly blown up in the air, by a sudden tire occasioned thus : Haddington, with his friends and followels, rejoicing how they defended the army’s magazine frae the English garrison of Berwick, came altogether to Dunglass, having no fear of evil, where they were all sudd edy blown up with the roof of the house in the air, by powder, whereof there was abundance in this place, and never bone nor hyre seen of them again’-&aZding. Bishop Guthrie remarks, that ‘ The very day the Scota entered Newcastle, Dunglass Castle, in the keeping of Haddington (who had left the King’s party, and held it under Ledie), was blown up about mid-day ; he and about sixty gentlemen were buried under one of the walls, which fell upon them as they stood in the close. The King said upon it, albeit he had been very ungrateful to him, yet he was sorry that he had not at his dying some time to repent.’ U Sir Robert cfordon, in his History of the Sutherland Family, asserts that Lord Haddigton and Colonel Alexander.Erskine had returned the day before from a victorious skirmish with the English, and were at dinner when the explosion took place. He adds, ‘This was ascryved to a servant of the Earle’s (ane Englishman) who was his barbour, but how truly I know not.’ “Alexander Erskine, son to John Earl of Mar, had a letter of provision of the abbacy of Cambuskenneth, 31st May 1608. Re and his brother, Lord Cardrm, were two of the chief mourners at the funeral of their Uncle, Ludovick Duke of Lennox, who died 16th Februay 1624, and was buried at Westminster’(8z’r Robert Gordon’e ETistory of thc Sutherland Family). He was knighted, but at what time is uncertain, and was in the French milita,ry service, as appears from a letter printed by Lord Hailes, and communicated by Lord Alva. It is addressed to a person unknown in France, by the leaders of the Scottish army, written in bad French (which is translated by Lord Hailes), a d dated from the camp at Dunse, 20th August 1640 :- a ‘ Sq-The state of our affairs has constrained us to levy a numerous army for preserving this kingdom from utter ruin ; hence it is that we coidd not permit Colonel Erskine to transport his regiment (into France) last year, and the same course still obligea us to employ the Colonel at home in the defence of his country. Although he is exceedingly zealous in the public service, yet he will not accept of any commission from UH, unless with the consent of his Most Christian Majesty, and under the condition of being permitted to repair to France at whatever time he may be required. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peace is the aim of our desires, and the wish of our souls ; as soon as that is concluded, we shall demonstrate, by our assisting Colonel Erskine in his levies, and by procuring good recruits for his Majesty’s service, that true Scotsmen can never forget their ancient alliances, and the common interest which unitea them with fiance ; and therefore, Sir, we again entreat you to represent what has been here said, and the situation of Colonel Erskine’s affairs, to his Majesty, and to his Eminence. We hope to obtain these favours by pour means ; and, besidea the obligations which you will thereby confer on the Colonel, you will oblige ua to remain, Sir, your most humble servants, k LESLIE. AROYLE. RorEEa. MAR BALCAXRAS. BELMERINOSE. AFOBTE.’ This letter waa written only ten days previous to the Colonel’s death, which tradition affirm8 to have been regarded as I punishment of Providence for hie amorous pejuriee tow& Anna Bothwell (a &er of Lord -Holyroodhonse),whose lament has exercised the subtile wits of antiquarians, in the ascertainment of her pedigree She has been made out to be the divorced Countess of Bothwell, and also, I believe, a Miss Boawell ......

Book 10  p. 473
(Score 0.48)

462 MEMORIALS UP Congregation, The, 61-70, 386 Constable, Archibald, 235 Constitution Street, Leith, 368 Contareno, Patriarch of Venice, 48 Cope, Sir John, 111 Cornelius of Zurich, 342 Corporation and Masonic Halls, 430 Corpus Christi Day, 64 Corstorphine, 4, 110 Coul’e Close, 279 Couper Street, 97 Lord, 361 Covenant, The, 93, 244 Close, 93, 244 Covington, Lord, 325 Cowgate, 35, 310, 314-330, 400, 446 Tam, of the. See Haddingtm, Earl of Cowgate Chapel, 273,314 Craig, Alison, 73 Elizabeth, 233 James, Architect, 371, 376 John, a Scottish Dominican, 403 Lord, ZOO, 201 Sir Lewis, 232 Sir Thomas, 231 Craigend, 354 Craigmillar Castle, IS, 39, 50, 129 Craig’s Close, 212, 235, 236, 238 Cranmer, Archbishop, 52 Cranstou, Patrick, 74 Cranstoun, Thomas de, 382 Crawford, Earl of, 361 Crawfurd, Abbot, 406 Creech, Provost, 200, 235 Creech’s Land, 198 Crichton, Chancellor, 15, 17 Sir John, Canan of St Cfiles’s, 417 George, Bishop of Dunkeld, 245, SO5 Captain, 291 The Lodging of the Provost of, 261 Castle, 16 Crispin, King, 291 St, 292 Cmchallan Club, 238, 240 Croft-an-righ, 309 Cromarty, Earl of, 169 Cromwell, Oliver, 94, 159, 171, 215, 247, 294, 341, 355 Cmsbie, Andrew, Advocate, 229 Cross, The, 32, 74, 94, 100, 114,115, 223, 454 Croasrig, Lord, 208, 209 Crow-Steps, 134 Cruik, Helen, 172 Cullen, Dr, 171, 316, 376 Lord, 171 Culloden, The Battle of, 112 Cumberland, Duke of, 112 Cummyng, James, of the Lyon Office, 409 Curor, Alexander, 143 Currie’s Tavern, 212 Curry, Walter, 8 Bwtizan, 96, 225 Last speech and dying words of, 446 Dacre, Lord, 403 Daft Laird, The, 214 Dalkeith, 26, 39, 48 Church, 378 Dalmeny, Church, 129 Dalrymple, Sir David, 153 Sir John, his projects for Improving the Old Town, 439 Dalziel, General, 216, 290 Dalziel, General, the Mansion of, 290 Danes, 88 Danish Ambassador, 59 Darien Expedition, 106 Darnley, Lord, 75, 78, 284, 296 House, 106 his first Lodging in the Canongate, 452 DArtois, Count, 265 David I., 3, 4, 187, 373, 378, 379 II., 8, 187, 378 David’s Tower, Castle, 121, 122, 132 Dean, Village of, 373 Deanhaugh, 115,374 D’Anand, Sir David, 7 Deans, David, 228 Dederyk, William de, 6 D’Este, Duchess Mary, 102 D’EssB, Monsieur, 53, 54,367 Defoe, 183, 211 De Kenne, Admiral, 12 D’Elbceuf, Marquis, 73 Dial, Queen Mary’s, 408 Dick, Sir William, of Braid, 169, 228 Sir James, Provost, 206 Sir William Nisbet of, 157, 374 Jamea, of Woodhouselee, 239 Residence of, 242 House of, 228 Dickson, Andrew, 104 Dickson’s Close, 261, 264 Dingwall Castle, 370 Dirleton, Lord, 266 Donald Bane, 3 Donaldson, James, the Printer, 113 Donaldson’s Close, 113 Donoca, the Lady, 378 Douglas, Jnmea, 2d Earl, 12 John, Provost of Trinity College, 370 Archibald, 3d Earl, 350 Archibald, 4th Earl, 3S8 William, 8th Earl, 17, 130 Duchess of, 161 Margaret de, 130 Lady Jane, 163, 263,290 of Cavers, 316 of Whittinghame, 264 Archibald, of Kilspindie, 152, 272 Gorge, of Parkhead, 85,121 George, 76 Gawin, Bishop of Dunkeld, 24, 29, 37, 319 William, Brother of the Earl of Angug 37 ’ William, 6th Earl, 16 330 ......

Book 10  p. 501
(Score 0.48)

Stuart monarchs-a new era began in its history, and it took a stahding as the chief burgh in Scotland, the relations of which with England, for generations after, partook rather of a vague prolonged armistice in time of war than a settled peace, and thus all rational progress was arrested or paralysed, and was never likely to be otherwise so long as the kings of England maintained the insane pretensions of Edward I., deduced from Brute the fabulous first king of Albion ! In 1383 Robert 11. was holding his court in the Castle when he received there the ambassador of Charles VI., on the 20th August, renewing the ancient league with France. In the following year a truce ended; the Earls of March and Douglas began the war with spirit, and cut off a rich convoy on its way to Roxburgh. This brought the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Buckingham before Edinburgh. Their army was almost innumerable (according to Abercrombie, following Walsingham), but the former spared the city in remembrance of his hospitable treatment by the people when he was among them, an exile from the English court-a kindness for which the Scots cared so little that they followed up his retreat so sharply, that he laid the town and its great church in ashes when he returned in the following year. In 1390 Robert 111. ascended the throne, and ir. that year we find the ambassadors of Charles VI. again witnessing in the Castle the royal seal and signature attached to the treaty for mutual aid and defence against England in all time coming. This brought Henry IV., as we have said, before the Castle in 1400, with a well-appointed and numerous army, in August. From the fortress the young and gallant David Duke of Rothesay sent a herald with a challenge to meet him in mortal combat, where and when he chose, with a hundred men of good blood on each side, and determine the war in that way. " But King Henry was in no humour to forego the advantage he already possessed, at the head of a more numerous army than Scotland could then raise ; and so, contenting himself with a verbal equivocation in reply to this knightly challenge, he sat down with his numerous host before the Castle till (with the usual consequences of the Scottish reception of such'invaders) cold and rain, and - twenty feet in length, with three or four large saws, I for the common use, and six or more " cliekes of castles, resorted to the simple expedient of driving off all the cattle and sheep, provisions and goods, even to the thatch of their houses, and leaving nothing but bare walls for the enemy to wreak their vengeance on; but they never put up their swords till, by a terrible retaliating invasion into the more fertile parts of England, they fully made up for their losses. And this wretched state of affairs, for nearly 500 years, lies at the door of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings. The aged King Robert 111. and his queen, the once beautiful Annabella Drummond, resided in the Castle and in the abbey of Holyrood alternately. We are told that on one occasion, when the Duke of Albany, with several of the courtiers, were conversing one night on the ramparts of the former, a singular light was seen afar off at the horizon, and across the s t a q sky there flashea a bright meteor, carrying behind it a long train of sparks. '' Mark ye, sirs ! " said Albany, " yonder prodigy portends either the ruin of a nation or the downfall of some great prince ;a and an old chronicler omits not to record that the Duke of Rothesay (who, had he ascended the throne, would have been David III.), perished soon after of famine, in the hands of Ramornie, at Falkland. Edinburgh was prosperous enough to be able to contribute 50,000 merks towards the ransom of James I., the gifted author of " The King's Quhair " (or Book), who had been lawlessly captured at sea in his boyhood by the English, and was left in their hands for nineteen years a captive by his designing uncle the Regent Albany ; and though his plans for the pacification of the Highlands kept him much in Perth, yet, in 1430, he was in Edinburgh with Queen Jane and the Court, when he received the surrender of Alexander Earl of ROSS, who had been in rebellion but was defeated by the royal troops in Lochaber. As yet no Scottish noble had built a mansion in Edinburgh, where a great number of the houses were actually constructed of wood from the adjacent forest, thatched with straw, and few were more than two storeys in height ; but in the third Parliament of James I., held at Perth in 1425, to avert the conflagrations to which the Edinbiirghers were so liable, laws were ordained requiring the magistrates to have in readiness seven or eight ladders of his progress or retreat."* When unable to resist, the people of the entire town and country, who were not secured in * Wilson's ''Memorials." . fired ;' and that no fire was to be conveyed from one house to another within the town, unless in a covered vessel or lantern. Another law forbade' people on visits to live with their friends, but to ......

Book 1  p. 27
(Score 0.47)

secluded character of the place inust have been destroyed. ?? Queen Mary granted the gardens of -the Greyfriars? monastery to the citizens in the year 1566, to be used as a cemetery, and from that period the old burial-place seems to have and are now said to be among the miscellaneous collections at Holyrood. Begun in 1632, the hall with its adjacent buildings took seven years to erect; but subsequently the external portions of the edifice were almost totally renewed. Howell, the citizens forgot that their Exchange was built over their fathers? graves.? Yet within six years after Queen Mary?s gr.ant, Knox was interred in the old burial-ground. ?Before the generation had passed away that witnessed and joined in his funeral service,? says the author of ? Memorials of Edinburgh,? ?the churchyard in which they laid him had been converted into a public thoroughfare ! We fear this want of veneration must be regarded as a national Characteristic which Knox assisted to call into existence, and to which we owe much of the reckless demolition of those time-honoured monuments of the past which it is sow thought a weakness to deplore.? As a churchyard in name it last figures in 1596 as the scene of a tumult in which John Earl of Mar, John Bothwell, Lord Holyroodhouse, the Lord Lindsay, and others, met in their armour, and occasioned some trouble ere they could be pacified. It was the scene of all manner of rows, when club-law prevailed ; where exasperated litigants, sick of ?the law?s delays,? ended the matter by appeal to sword and dagger ; and craftsmen and apprentices quarrelled with the bailies and deacons. It has been traditionally said that many of the tombstones were removed to the Greyfriars? churchyard; if such was the case no inscriptions remain built here lately,? and regretting that Charles I. did not inaugurate it in person, he adds that ?they did ill who advised him otherwise.? The time had come when old Scottish raids were nearly past, and when revolutions had their first impulse, not in the battle-field, but in deliberative assemblies ; thus the Parliament that transferred its meetings from the old Tolbooth to the new House in 1639 had to vote ?? the sinews of war ? for an aymy against England, under Sir Alexander Leslie, and was no less unprecedented in its constitution and powers than the place in which it assembled was a new edifice. Outside of a wooden partition in the hall was an oak pulpit, where a sermon was preached at the opening of parliament; and behind was a small gallery, where the public heard the debates of the House. To thousands who never saw or could have seen it the external aspect of the old Parliament House has been rendered familiar by Gordon?s engravings, and more particularly by the view of it on the bank notes of Sir William Forbes and Co. Tradition names Inigo Jones as the architect, bit of this there is not a vestige of proof. It was highly picturesque, and possessed an individuality that should have preserved it from the iconoclastic ?improvers? of 1829. ?There was a quaint The Parliament Hall, which was finished in 1639, at the expense of the citizens, costing A11,600 of the money of that time, occupies a considerable portion of the old churchyard, and possesses a kind of simple grandeur ? belonging to an anterior age. Its noblest feature is the roof, sixty feet in height, which rests on ornamental brackets consisting of boldly sculptured heads, and is formed of dark oak tie-and-hammer beams with cross braces, producing a general effect suggestive of the date of Westminster or of Crosby Hall. Modern corridors that branch out from it are in harmony with the old hall, and lead to the various court rooms and the extensive libraries of the Faculty of Advocates and the Society of Writers to the Signet. The hall measures 122 feet in length by 49 in breadth, and was hung of old with tapestry and portraits of the kings of Scotland, some by Sir Godfrey Kneller. These were bestowed, in 1707, by Queen Anne, on the Earl of Mar, ? we are told, ?and the rude elaborateness of its decorations, that seemed to link it with the courtiers I of Holyrood in the times of the Charleses, and its last gala days under the Duke of York?s viceregency. Nothing can possibly be conceived more meaningless and utterly absurd than the thing that superseded it ?-a square of semi-classic buildings, supported by a narrow arcade, and surmounted by stone sphinxes. Above the old main entrance, which faced the east, and is now completely blocked up and hidden, were the royal arms of Scotland, beautifully sculptured, supported on the right by Mercy holding a crown wreathed with laurel, and on the left by Justice, with a palm branch and balance, with the inscription, Stant his feZiciin r p a , and underneath the national arms, the motto, Uni unionurn. Over the smaller doorway, which forms the present access to the lofty lobby of the House, were the arms of the city, between sculptured ......

Book 1  p. 158
(Score 0.47)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 3 6 i undertake the translation of Buffon’s Natural History, he endeavoured to dissuade him from the undertaking, solely on account of the “atheistical parts,” which it contained. The following is his lordship’s letter :- “New Hailes, 11th July 1779. “ Sir-I received your proposals for publishing the Natural History of Rulfon. To make the work useful, a confutation of the atheistical parts of it ought to be added in the notes. Without that addition it would do great hurt to an ignorant nation, already too much vitiated by French philosophy. It will be to make poison cheaper and more pleasant. . My reverend friend, Profeasor Monro, held Buffon in sovereign contempt, and ranged him in the class of Indian philosophers, with their bull and their tortoise. “ Not many years ago, there was published a book of travels : it had a run merely for ita French philosophy ; for it was ignorant beyond probability or even imagination. The authors of the Edinburgh Recieza were the only persons who, to my knowledge, confuted it ; and yet they were represented &s enemies of religion. This shows that it is dangerous to publish such books as those of Buffon, when treatises of less merit are admired ; and when confutations of such treatises are overlooked, because the confuters are ill thougbtof and traduced. But what can we say of aoage which admires the blundering romanoes of Raynal ?-I am, etc. Lord Hailes lived sometime in the Old Mint House, foot of Todrick’s Wynd ; he next occupied a house in what is called ‘‘ the Society,” Brown’s Square ; and latterly removed to New Street, on the north side of the Canongate. His general residence, however, even before his promotion to the bench, was New Hailes.’ The. house in New Street (No. 23) was afterwards possessed by Mr. Ruthven, the ingenious inventor of the Ruthven printing-press. D A VD~AL RYHPLE.” The following is a pretty accurate catalogue of his works :- Sacred Poems, or a Collection of Translations and Paraphrases from the Holy Scriptures ; by various authors. Edinburgh, 1751, 12mo. Dedicated to Charles, Lord Hope; with a PrePace of ten Proposals for carrying on a certain Public Work in the City of Edinburgh. Edinburgh, 1751, 12mo. A jeu-#esprit. The Wisdon of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus, 12mo. Select Discourses (in number nine), by John Smith, late Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, 12rno. pp. 291. Edinburgh, 1756 : with a Preface of five pages-“ many quotations from the learned langnages translated-and notes added, containing allwions to ancient mythology, and to the erroneous philosophy which prevailed in the days of the author-various inaccuracies of style have been corrected, and harsh expressions softened.“ World, No. 140. September 4, 1755. A meditation among books. Ditto, No. 147. Thursday, October 23,1755. “Both these papers are replete with wit and bumour: and the last one is introduced with a high character OP it and of the author, by Mr. Moore, the editor and chief author of the World.“ Ditto, No. 204. Thursday, Xov. 25, 1756. “A piece of admirable wit,” ‘‘(food Things,and the propriety of taxing them.” A Discourse of the unnatural and vile Conspiracy pages. Edin. 1755. attempted by John, Earl of Gowry and his Brother against his Majesty’s Person, at Saint Johnstouu. upon the 6th ofi August 1600. No date British Songs, Sacred to Love aud Virtue. Edin. 1756. 12mo. A Sermon, which might have been preached in East Lothian upon the 25th day of October 1761, on Acts xwu 1, 2. “The barbarous people showed us no ’little kindness.” Edinburgh, 1761, pp. 25, 12mo. ‘‘ Occasioned by the country people pillaging the wreck of two vessels, &. the Betsy Cunninghum, and the Leith packet, Pilouip, from London to Leith, cast away on the shore between . Dunbar and North Berwick. AU the passengers on board the former, in number seventeen, perished; five on board the latter, October 16, 1561. Reprinted at Edinburgh, 1794, 8vo. The first edition is scarce. Memorials and Letters relating to the History OF Britain in the reign of James I., published from the originals. Glasgow, 1762. Addressed to Philip Yorke, Viscount Roystoun, pp. 151. I‘ From a collection in the Advocates’ Library, by Balfow of Denmyln.” An enlarged edition was printed at Glasgow, 1766, 8vo. The Works of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hdes of Eton, now Brst collected together, in Y vols. Glasgow, 1765 ; preface of three page& Dedicated to William (Warbur&n), Biahop of G1ouceater.- L1755.1 1 New Hailes is beautifully situated a little to the west of Mwelburgh, near the line of the Rsilway to Edinburgh. ......

Book 8  p. 513
(Score 0.47)

The West BOW.] MAJOR WEIR. even to this day, a deep-rooted impression on the popular mind. A powerful hand at praying and expounding, 46 ? he became so notoriously regarded among the Presbyterian sect, that if four met together, be sure Major Weir was one,?? says Chambers, quoting Fraser?s MS. in the Advocate?s Library ; ? ?at private meetings he prayed to admiration, which He never married, but lived in a private lodging with his sister Grizel Weir. Many resorted to his house to join with him, and hear him pray; but it was observed that he could not officiate in any holy duty without the black staff, or rod, in his hand, and leaning upon it, which made those who heard him pray, admire his flood in prayer, his ready extemporary expression, his heavenly gesture, so that he was thought more an angel than a man, and was termed by some of the holy sisters, ordinarily Angelid Tho?nas.? ?? ? Holy sisters,? in those days abounded in the major?s quarter ; and, indeed, during all the latter part of the 17th century the inhabitants of the Bow enjoyed a peculiar fame for piety and zeal in the cause of the National Covenant, and were frequently subjected to the wit of the Cavalier faction; Dr. Pitcairn, Pennycook, the burgess bard, stigmatised them as the (? Bow-head Saints,? the ? godly plants of the Bow-head,? &c. ; and even Sir Walter Scott, in describing the departure of Dundee, sings :- ? As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow, Ilka carline was flyting and shaking her POW i? and it was in this quarter that many of the polemical pamphlets and sermons of Presbyterian divines have since been published. after a life characterised externally by all the graces of devotion, but polluted in secret by crimes of the most revolting nature, and which little needed the addition of wizardry to excite the horror of living men, fell into a severe sickness, which affected his mind so much that he made open and voluntary confession of all his wickedness.? According to Professor Sinclair, the major had made a compact with the devil, who of course outwitted his victim. The fiend had promised, it was said, to keep him scatheless from all peril, but a single ? burn ; hence the accidental naming of a man named Bum, by the sentinels at the NetheI Bow Port, when he visited them as commande1 of the Guard, cast him into a fit of terror; and on another occasion, finding Libberton Burn ?before him, was sufficient to make him turn back trembling. . made many of that stamp court his converse. . Major Weir, ____ ~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ His sick-bed confession, when he was now verging on his seventieth year, seemed at first so incredible that Sir Andrew Ramsay of Abbotshall, who was Lord Provost from 1662 to 1673, refused for a time to order his arrest. Eventually, however, the major, his sister (the partner of one of his crimes), and the black magical staff, were all taken into custody and lodged in the Tolbooth. The staff was secured by the express request of his sister, and local superstition still records how it was wont to perform all the major?s errands for any article he wanted from the neighbouring shops ; that it answered the door when ?the pin was tirled,? and preceded him in the capacity of a linkboy at night in the Lawnmarket. In his house several sums of money in dollars were found wrapped up in pieces of cloth. A fragment of the latter, on being thrown on the fire by the bailie in charge, went up the wide chimney with an explosion like a cannon, while the dollars, when the magistrate took them home, flew about in such a fashion that the demolition of his house seemed imminent. While in prison he confessed, without scruple, that he had been guilty of crimes alike possible and impossible. Stung to madness by conscience, the unfortunate wretch seemed to feel some comfort in sharing his misdeeds with the devil, yet he refused to address himself to Heaven for pardon. To all who urged him to pray, he answered by wild screams. ?Torment me no m o r e 1 am tortured enough already !?, was his constant cry ; and he declined to see a clergyman of any creed, saying, acdording to ? Law?s Memorials,? that ?? his condemnation was sealed; and since he was to go to the devil, he did not wish to anger him !? When asked by the minister of Ormiston if he had ever seen the devil, he answered, (? that any fealling he ever hade of him was in the dark.? He and his sister were tried on the 9th of April, 1670, before the Justiciary Court; he was sentenced to be strangled and burned, between Edinburgh and Leith, and his sister Grizel (called Jean by some), to be hanged in the Grassmarket. When hi?s neck was encircled by the fatal rope at the place of execution, and the fire that was to consume his body-the ?burn to which, as the people said the devil had lured him-he was bid to say, ?Lord, be merciful to me!? but he only replied fiercely and mournfully, ? Let me alone- I will not ; I have lived as a beast and must die like a beast.? When his lifeless body fell from the stake into the flaming pyre beneath, his favourite stick, which (according to RavaiZZm Rediuivus) ?? was all of one piece of thornwood, with a crooked ~ ......

Book 2  p. 311
(Score 0.47)

314 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (The West Bow. thundering back again; being neither more nor less than Satan come in one of his best equipages to take home the major and his sister after they had spent a night?s leave of absence in their terrestrial dwelling.? Scott also tellsus inhis ?Letters on Demonology,? that bold indeed was the urchin who approached the gloomy house, at the risk of seeing thC major?s enchanted staff parading the desolate apartments, .or hearing the hum of the necromantic wheel which procured for his sister such a reputation as a spinner. About the beginning of the present century, according to the author above quoted, when Weir?s house was beginning to be regarded with less superstitious terror, an attempt was made by the luckless proprietor to find one bold enough to ;become his tenant, and such an adventurer was yrocured in the person of a dissipated old soldier named William Patullo, whose poverty rendered him glad to possess a house at any risk, on the low terms at which it was offered; and the greatest interest was felt by people of all ranks in the city, on its becoming known that Major Weir?s house was about to have a mortal tenant at last ! Patullo and his spouse felt rather flattered by the interest they excited ; but on the first night, as the venturesome couple lay abed, fearful and wakeful, ?a dim uncertain light proceeding from the sathered embers of their fire, and all being silent around them-they suddenly saw a form? like that of a calf, which came forward to the bed, and setting its fore-feet upon the stock, looked steadfastly at the unfortunate pair. When it had contemplated them thus for a few minutes, to their great relief it took itself away, and, slowly retiring, vanished from their sight. As might be expected, they deserted the house next morning; and for another half century no other attempt was made to embank this part of the world of light from the aggressions of the world of darkness.? But even the world of spirits could not withstand the Improvement Commission, and the spring of 1878 saw the house of the wizard numbered with the things that are no more in this quarter of Edinburgh, and to effect the removal of which the Commissioners gave freely the sum of ~ 4 0 0 , 0 0 0 . Behind the abode of the major in the West Bow, but entered from Johnstone?s Close, Lawnmarket, was another very remarkable old house which was demolished about the same time. Memorials,? that it exhibits an interior ?? abounding with plain arched recesses and corbelled projections, scattered throughout in the most irregular and lawless fashion, Of this building Wilson says in his and with narrow windows thrust into the oddest corners, or up even above the very cornice of the ceiling, in order to catch every wandering ray of light, amid the jostling of its pent-up neighbourhood. A view of the largest apartment is given in the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley novels, under the name of the ? Hall of the Knights of St. John, St John?s Close, Canongate.? ? But he adds that he had failed in every attempt to obtain any clue to the early history of this mysterious edifice which tradition thus associated with the soldier-monks of Torphichen. Discoveries made in the course of its demolition added to the mystery concerning it. In the stair leading from the court to the hall there was a quaint holy-water font; and in clearing out the interior, it was found that the ceiling had at one time been beautifully painted with flowers and geometric designs. In the great open chimney-place of the hall there were, singularly enough, two mall windows; and in the heart of the massive walls were found secret stairs that led from the hall to rooms above it In addition to these secret passages, the walls disclosed four recesses that had been faced with stone, and which concealed the relics of more than one crime or mystery that will never be unravelled. One held the skeleton of a child, with its cap and part of its dress; and in the other there were quantities of human bones. In a built-up cupboatd a large vertebral bone of a whale was discovered. ?? The beams of the hall,? says the Scotsman of 8th February, 1878, ?( and indeed of the whole house, were of oak, which, according to tradition, was grown on the Burghmuir, and, with the exception of the ends which had been built into the wall, the wood was found to be perfectly sound and beautifully grained.? Immediately opposite the close that led to the house of Major Weir, and occupying nearly the site of the present St John?s Free Church, stood an old tenement, which bore the date 1602, with the arms of the Somerville family, and the initials P. S. and J. W., being those of a once worthy and wealthy magistrate and his wife, whose son Bartholomew Somerville was a benefactor to the University of Edinburgh, when that institution was in its infancy. The architrave of the door bore also the legend IN. DOMINO. CONFIDO. A narrow spiral stair led to a lofty wainscoted room, with a fine carved oak ceilipg, on the second floor. This was the first Edinburgh Assembly Room, off which was a closet or recess, forming an out-shot over the street, wherein the musickm ......

Book 2  p. 314
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282 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows, %ut was a second time stolen ; and in the strangulation on the scaffold, and the being fouricl in a ditch among water, the superstitious saw retributive justice for the murder of which he was assumed to be guilty. ? I t will be acknowledged,? says the author of the ? Domestic Annals,? ?that in the circumstances related there is not a particle of valid evidence against the young man. The surgeons? opinion as to the fact of strangulation is not entitled to much regard ; but, granting its solidity, it does not prove the guilt of the ac- .cused. The horror of the young man on seeing his father?s blood might be referred to painful recol- Jections of that profligate conduct which he knew had distressed his parent, and brought his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave-especially when we reflect that Stanfield would himself be impressed with the superstitious feelings of the age, and might .accept the hzmorrhage as an accusation by heaven on account of the concern his conduct had in shortening the life of his father. The whole case :seems to be a lively illustration of the effect of superstitious feelings in blinding justice.? We have thus traced the history of the High Street and its closes down once more to the Nether Bow. In the World?s End Close Lady Lawrence was a residenter in 1761, and Lady Huntingdon in 1784, and for some years after the creation of the New Town, people of position continued to linger in the Old Town and in the Canongate. And from Peter Williamson?s curious little ?? Directory ? for 1784, we can glean a few names, thus :- I Scottish gentleman, who, though he did not partici- Lady Mary Carnegie, in Bailie Fyfe?s Close; Lady Colstoun and the Hon. Alexander Gordon, on the Castle Hill; General Douglas, in Baron Maule?s Close; Lady Jean Gordon, in the Hammerman?s Close; Sir James Wemyss, in Riddle?s Close; Sir John Whiteford of that ilk, in the Anchor Close ; Sir Jameg Campbell, in the Old Bank Close; Erskine of Cardross, in the Horse Wynd ; Lady Home, in Lady Stair?s Close. In Monteith?s Close, in 1794, we find in the ? Scottish Hist. Register for 1795 recorded the death of Mr. John Douglas, Albany herald, uncle of Sir Andrew Snape Douglas, who was captain of the Queen CharZoffe, of IIO guns, and who fought her so valiantly in Lord Bridport?s battle on ? the glonous 23rd of June, 1795.? The house occupied ?by Lady Rothiemay in Turk?s Close, below Liberton?s Wynd, was advertised for sale in the Couranf of 1761 ; and there lived, till his death in 1797, James Nelson, collector of the Ministers? Widows? Fund. In Morrison?s Close in 1783, we find one of the most fashionable modisfes of Edinburgh announcing in the Adverfiser of that year, that she is from ?one of the most eminent houses in London,? and that her work is finished in the newest fashions :- ? Chemize de Lorraine, Grecian Robes, Habit Bell, Robe de Coure, and Levites, different kinds, all in the most genteel and approved manner, and on the most reasonable terms.? In the same year, the signboard of James and Francis Jeffrey, father and uncle of Lord Jeffrey, still hung in the Lawnmarket. CHAPTER XXXIV. NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL. h r d ?Cockburn Street-Lord Cockburn-The Scotsmun NewspapeFCharles Maclaren and Alexander Russel-The Queen?s Edinburgh Rifle Brigade-St. Giles Street-Sketch of the Rise d Journalism in Edinburgh-The EdinQxrgk Courunt-The Daily Rnrieur-Jelfrey Street-New Trinity College Church THE principal thoroughfare, which of late years has been run through the dense masses of the ancient alleys we have been describing, is Lord Cockburn Street, which was formed in 1859, and strikes northward from the north-west corner of Hunter?s Square, to connect the centre of the 012 city with -the railway terminus at Waverley Bridge ; it goes curving down a comparatively steep series of slopes, and is mainly edificed in the Scottish baronial lofty tenements in many of the closes that descend from the north side of the High Street, and was very properly named after Lord Cockburn, one entitled to special remembrance on many accounts, and for the deep interest he took in all matters connected with his birthplace. When he died, in April, 1854, he was one of the best and kindliest of the old school of ?Parliameht House Whigs,? and was a thorough, honest, shrewd, and benevolent and conical turrets, high over all of which towers . the dark and mighty mass of the Royal Exchange. This new street expdses aromantic section of the pate to any extent in the literary labours of his contemporaries, has left behind him an interesting volume of ? Memorials.? Many can yet recall his ......

Book 2  p. 282
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6 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate attendants to say such prayers by her bedside as ? the seventeenth century, and the lofty buildings on were fitting for a person not expected to survive a mortal disorder. ? He ventured to remonstrate, and observed that her safe delivery warranted better hopes; but he was sternly commanded to obey the orders first given, and with difficulty recollected himself sufficiently to acquit himself of the task imposed on him, He was then again hurried into the chair ; but as they conducted him down-stairs he heard the report of a pistol! He was safely conducted home, and a purse of gold was forced upon him; but he was warned at the same time that the least allusion to this dark transaction would cost him his life. He betook himself to rest, and after long and broken musing, fell into a deep sleep. From this he was awakened with the dismal news that a fire of uncommon fury had broken out in the house of -, near the head of the Canongate, and that it was totally consumed, with the shocking addition that the daughter of the proprietor, a young lady eminent for beauty and accomplishments, had perished in the flames. The clergyman had his suspicions ; but to have made them public would have availed gothing. He was timid ; the family was of the first distinction; above all, the deed was done, and could not be amended. ?Time wore away, and with it his terrors; but he became unhappy at being the solitary depositary -of this fearful mystery, and mentioned it to some of his brethren, through whom the anecdote acquired a sort of publicity. The divine had long been dead when a fire broke out on the same spot where the house of - had formerly stood, and which was now occupied by buildings of an inferior description. When the flames were at their height, the tumult that usually apends such a scene was. suddenly suspended by an unexpected apparition. A beautiful female in a nightdress, extremely rich, but at least half a century old, appeared in ,the very midst of the fire, and uttered these tremendous words in her vernacular idiom :-? Anes bumeddwice burned-the third time 1?11 scare you all ! ? The belief in this story was so strong, that on a fire breaking out, and seeming to approach the fatal spot, there was a good deal of anxiety testified lest the apparition should make good her denunciation.? I According to a statement in Nates and Queries, this story was current in Edinburgh before the childhood of Scott, and the murder part of it was generally credited, He mentions a person acquainted with the city in 1743 who used to tell ithe tale and point out the site of the house. It is Remarkable that a great fire did happen there in . the spot date from that time. Of the plague, which in 1645 nearly depopu- . lated the Canongate as well as the rest of Edinburgh, a singular memorial still remains, a little lower down the street, on the north side, in the form of a huge square tenement, called the Morocco Land, from the effigy of a turbaned Moor, which projects from a recess above the second floor, and having an alley passing under it, inscribed with the following legend :- ? MISERERE MEI, DOMINE : A PECCATO, PKOBRO, DEBITO, ET MORTE SUBITA. LIBERA ~~1.6.18.? Of the origin of this edifice various romantic stories are told: one by Chambers, to the effect t5at a young woman belonging to Edinburgh, having been taken upon the sea by an African rover, was sold to the harem of the Emperor of Morocco, whose favourite wife she became, and enabled her brother to raise a fortune by merchandise, and that in building this stately edifice he erected the black nude figure, with turban and necklace of beads, as a memorial of his royal brother-in-law; but the most complete and consistent outline of its history is that given by Wilson in his ? Memorials,? from which it would appear that during one of the turnults which occurred in the city after the accession of Charles I., the house of the Provost, who had rendered himself obnoxious to the rioters, was assaulted and set on fire. Among those arrested as a ringleader was Andrew Gray, a younger son of the Master of Gray, whose descendants inherit the ancient honours of Kinfauns, and who, notwithstanding the influence of his family, was tried, and sentenced to be executed on the second day thereafter. On the very night that the scaffold was being erected at the Cross he effected his escape from the City Tolbooth by means of a rope conveyed to him by a friend, who had previously given some drugged liquor to the sentinel at the Puir-folkspurses, and provided a boat for him, by which he crossed the North Loch and fled beyond pursuit. Time passed on, and the days of the great civil war came. ? Gloom and terror now pervaded the streets of the capital. It was the terrible pear 1645-the last visitation of the pestilence to Edinburgh- when, as tradition tells us,? says Wilson, ?grass grew thickly .about the Cross, once as crowded a centre of thoroughfare as Europe could boast of.? The Parliament was compelled to sit at Stirling, and the Town Council, on the 10th of April, agreed with Joannes Paulitius, M.D., that he should visit the infected at a salary of AS0 Scot ......

Book 3  p. 6
(Score 0.46)

The Mound.] A PROPOSED HARBOUR. no ?And such a lot, my Skene, was thine, When thou of late wert doomed to twine- - Just when thy bridal hour was by- The cypress with the myrtle tie. Just on thy bride her sire had smiled, And blessed the union of his child, When love must change its joyous cheer, And wipe affection?s filial tear.? In the subsequent March Scott had left his beloved house in Castle Street for ever. Among the memorials of the Pictish race, illustrated so ably in Dr. Stuarfs ? Sculptured Stones of Scotland,? is one with the peculiar emblems of the crescent and sceptre, which was found under the Castle rock and near the west churchyard. The line of railway which intersects the garden, and passes by a tunnel under the new portion of St. Cuthbert?s churchyard, fails to mar its beauty, as it is almost entirely hidden by trees and shrubbery, especially about the base of the rock, from which the castle ?looks down upon the city as if out of another world: stem with all its peacefulness, its garniture of trees, its slopes of grass. The rock is dingy enough in colour, but after a shower its lichens laugh our greenly in the returning sun, while the rainbow is brightening on the lowering sky beyond. How deep the shadow which the castle throws at noon on the gardens at its feet, where the children play! How grand when giant bulk and towery crown blacken against the sunset ! In the extreme western portion of the gardens lie some great fragments of masonry, which have fallen down in past sieges from some of the older walls in the vicinity of the sallyport, while thefoundations of these are to be traced from point to point, some feet on the outside of the present fortifications, and lower down the rock. In the western hollow is an ornamental fountain of considerable beauty, and formed of iron, named after its donor, Mr. Ross, who spent A3;ooo on its erection. In 1876 the gardens were acquired by the citizens, and were thea much improved They are used in summer for musicaI promenades, and in contour and embellishment, though much more extensive, have a certain resemblance to the gardens on the east side of the Earthen Mound. For long years after the loch had passed away the latter was but a reedy, marshy hollow, intersected by what was called the Little Mound, that led from near South St. Andrew Street to the foot of Mary King?s Close. The ground was partially drained when the North Bridge was built, but more effectually about 1821, when it was let as a nursery. .When the Union canal was projected, towards the close of the last century, the plans for it, not unlike those of the Earl of Mar in 1728, included the continuation of it through the bed of the North Loch, past where a street was built, and actually called Canal Street. ?From thence it was proposed to conduct it to Greenside, in the area of which was an immense harbour ; and this, again,. being connected by a broad canal with the sea, it was expected that by such means the New Town would be converted into a seaport, and the unhappy traders of Leith compelled either to abandon their traffic or remove within the precincts of their jealous rivals. Chimerical as this project may now appear, designs were furnished by experienced engineers, a map of the whole plan was engraved on a large scale, and no doubt our civic reformers rejoiced in the anticipation of surmounting the disadvantages of an inland position, and seeing the shipping of the chief ports of Europe crowding into the heart of their new capital ! ? The operations for forming the canal were delayed in 1776 by a dispute between the magistrates and the feuars of the extended royalty relative to Canal Street, that ended in the Court of Session, which sustained ? the defences pled by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and assoilie from the conclusion of the declarator j but with respect to the challenge brought with regard to particular houses being built contrary to the Act of Parliament, 1698, remit to the Lord Ordinary to hear parties to do as he shall see cause.? The Lord President, the Lord Justice Clerk, and Lord Covington, were of a different opinion from the rest of the court, and condemned the conduct of the magistrates in very severe terms. The Act of 1698, referred to, was one restricting the height of houses within the city, and to the effect that none should be above five storeys, with a front wall of three feet in thickness at the base. In March, 1776, the dispute was adjusted, and a print of the time tells us that the public ?? will now be gratified with a pleasure-ground upon the south side of Princes Street, to a considerable extent ; and the loch will in time be formed into a canal, which will not only be ornamental, but of great benefit to the citizens? This Utopian affair was actually commenced, for in the Edinburgh We&y Magazine of the 28th March, 1776, we are told that on the 25th instant twenty labourers ? began to work at the banks of the intended canal between the old and new town but how far the work proceeded we hake no means of knowing. The site of the projected canal is now occupied ......

Book 3  p. 99
(Score 0.46)

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