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Book 10 p. 499
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Book 10 p. 503
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Book 4 p. 342
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Book 6 p. 318
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Book 10 p. 213
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Book 3 p. 162
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Book 5 p. 38
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![Inverleith.] MRS. ROCHEID OF INVERLEITH. s 95
to the estate of?his maternal grandmother, took
the name of Rocheid. His son, James Rocheid
.of Inverleith, was an eminent agriculturist, on
whose property the villas of Inverleith Row were
built.
He died in 1824 in the house of Inverleith.
He was a man of inordinate vanity and family
pride, and it used to be one of the sights of Stockbridge
to see his portly figure, in a grand old family
carriage covered with heraldic blazons, passing
through, to or from the city; and a well-known
anecdote of how his innate pomposity was humbled,
is well known there still.
On one occasion, when riding in the vicinity, he
took his horse along the footpath, and while doing
so, met a plain-looking old gentleman, who firmly
declined to make way for him; on this Rocheid
ordered him imperiously to stand aside. The
pedestrian declined,saying that the otherhad no right
whatever to ride upon the footpath. ?DO you
know whom you are speaking to ?? demanded the
horseman in a high tone. ? I do not,? was the
quiet response. ?Then know that I am John
Rocheid, Esquire of Inverleith, and a trustee upon
this road !
? I am George, Duke of Montagu,? replied the
other, upon which the haughty Mr. Rocheid took
to the main road, after making a very awkward
apology to the duke, who was then on a visit to
his daughter the Duchess of Buccleuch at Dalkeith.
He had a predilection for molesting pedestrians,
and was in the custom of driving his carriage along
a strictly private footpath that led from Broughton
Toll towards Leith, to the great exasperation of
those at whose expense it had been constructed.
It is of his mother that Lord Cockburn gives
us such an amusing sketch in the ?? Memorials of
his own Time,?-thus: ICLacly Don and Mrs.
Rocheid of Inverleith, .two dames of high and
aristocratic breed. They had both shone at first
as hooped beauties in the minuets, and then as
ladies of ceremonies at our stately assemblies ; and
each carried her peculiar qualities and air to the
very edge of the grave, Lady Don?s dignity softened
by gentle sweetness, Mrs. Rocheid?s made more
formidable by cold and severe soleinnity. Except
Mrs. Siddons, in some of her displays of magnificent
royalty, nobody could sit down like the Lady
of Inverleith. She would sail like a ship from
Tarshish, gorgeous in velvet or rustling silk,
done up in all the accompaniment of fans, earrings,
and finger-rings, falling-sleeves, scent-bottle,
embroidered bag, hoop and train, all superb, yet all
in purest taste ; managing all this seemingly heavy
rigging with as much ease as a full-blown swan
Who are you, fellow ? ?
does its plumage. She would take possession of
the centre of a large sofa, and at the same moment,
without the slightest visible exertion, cover the
whole of it with her bravery, the graceful folds
seeming to lay themselves over it, like summer
waves. The descent from her carriage too, where
she sat like a nautilus in its shell, was a display
which no one in these days could accomplish or
even fancy. The mulberry-coloured coach, but
apparently not too large for what it carried, though
she alone was in it-the handsome, jolly coachman
and his splendid hammer-cloth loaded with lacethe
two respectful livened footmen, one on each
side of the richly carpeted step, these were lost
sight of amidst the slow majesty with which the
lady came down and touched the earth. She presided
in this imperial style over her son?s excellent
dinners, with great sense and spirit to the very last
day almost of a prolonged life.?
This stateliness was not unmixed with a certain
motherly kindness and racy homeliness, peculiar to
great Scottish dames of the old school.
In InverleithTerrace, oneof thestreetsbuilt on this
property, Professor Edmonstone Aytounwas resident
about 1850 ; and in No. 5 there resided, prior to his
departure to London, in 1864, John Faed, the eminent
artist, a native of Kirkcudbright, who, so early
as his twelfth year, used to paint little miniatures,
and after whose exhibition in Edinburgh, in 1841,
his pictures began to find a ready sale.
In Warriston Crescent, adjoining, there lived for
many years the witty and eccentric W. R. Jamieson,
W.S., author of a luckless tragedy entitled
?Timoleon,? produced by Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham,
at the old Theatre Royal, and two novels, almost
forgotten now, ? The Curse of Gold,?? and ? Milverton,
or the Surgeon?s Daughter.? He died in obscurity
in London.
Inverleith Row, which extends north-westwards
nearly three-quarters of a mile from Tanfield Hall,
to a place called Golden Acre, is bordered by a
row of handsome villas and other good residences.
In No. 52, here, there lived long, and died on
6th of November, 1879, a very interesting old
officer, General William Crokat, whose name was
associated with the exile and death of Napoleon
in St. Helena. ?So long ago as 1807,? said a
London paper, with particular reference to this
event, ? William Crokat was gazetted as ensign in
the 20th Regiment of Foot, and the first thought
which suggests itself is, that from that date we are
divided by a far wider interval than was Sir Walter
Scott from the insurrection of Prince Charlie, when
in 1814, he gave to his first novel the title of
?Waverley, or ?Tis Sixty Years Since.? There is](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p106.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 95")
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Book 5 p. 95
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Book 1 p. 22
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![High Street.] THE MAXWELLS OF MONREITH. 275
Theresa, and other royal and imperial personages,
which had been presented as friendly memorials to
the ambassador, have all been dispersed by the
salesman?s hammer, and Hyndford?s Close, on my
trying to get into it lately in 186P, was inaccessible
(literally) from filth.? Another writer, in 1856, says
in his report to the magistrates, ?that, with proper
drainage, causeway, and cleanliness, it might be
made quite respectable.?
Prior to the Carmichaels of Hyndford it had
been, for a time, the residence of the Earls of
Stirling, the first of whom ruined himself in tEx
colonisation of Nova Scotia, for which place he
set sail with fourteen ships filled with emigrants
and cattle in 1630. Here then, in this now
humble but once most picturesque locality-for
the house was singularly so, with its overhanging
timber gables, its small court and garden sloping
to the south-lived John third Earl of Hyndford,
the living representative of a long line of warlike
ancestors, including Sir John Carmichael of that
ilk, who broke a spear with the Duke of Clarence
at the battle of Bauge-en-Anjou, when the Scots
routed the English, the Duke was slain, and Carmichael
had added to his paternal arms a dexter
hand and arm, holding a broken spear,
In 1732 he was Lieutenant-Colonel of a company
in the Scots Foot Guards, and was twice
Commissioner to the General Assembly before
1740, and was Lord of Police in Scotland. In the
following year, when Frederick the Great invaded
Silesia, he was sent as plenipotentiary extraordinary
to adjust the differences that occasioned the
war, and at the conclusion of the Treaty of Breslau
had the Order of the Thistle conferred upon him
by George II., receiving at the same time a grant
from Frederick, dated at Berlin, 30th September,
1742, for adding the eagle of Silesia to his paternal
arms of Xyndford, with the motto Ex bene merifo.
He was six years an ambassador at the Russian
Court, and it wasbyhis able negociations that 30,000
Muscovite troops contributed to accelerate the
peace which was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle.
These stimng events over, the year 1752 saw
him leave his old abode in that narrow close off
the High Street, to undertake a mission of the
greatest importance to the Court of Vienna. On
the death of Andrew Earl of Hyndford and Viscount
Inglisberry, in r817, the title became extinct,
but is claimed by a baronet of the name 01
Carmichael.
The entry and stair on the west side of Hyndford?s
Close was always a favourite residence, in
consequence of the ready access to it from the
High Street.
In the beginning of the reign of George 111. here
lived Lady Maxwell of Monreith, d e Magdalene
Blair of that ilk, and there she educated and
reared her three beautiful daughters-Catharine,
Jane, and Eglantine (or Eglintoun, so named after
the stately Countess Susanna who !ived in the Old
Stamp Office Close), the first of whom became the
wife of Fordyce of Aytoune, the second in 1767,
Duchess of Gordon, and the third, Lady Wallace
of Craigie.
Their house had a dark passage, and in going
to the dining-room the kitchen door was passed,
according to an architectural custom, common in
old Scottish and French houses; and such was
the thrift and so cramped the accommodation
in those times, that in this passage the laces
and fineries of the three young beauties were
hung to dry, while coarser garments were displayed
from a window pole, in the fashion
common to this day in the same localities for the
convenience of the poor. ? So easy and familiar
were the manners of the great, fabled to be so
stiff and decorous,? says the author of ?Traditions
of Edinburgh,? who must vouch for the story,
? that Mis,s Eglantine, afterwards Lady Wallace,
used to be sent across the street to the Fountain
Well for water to make tea. Lady Maxwell?s
daughters were the wildest romps imaginable. An
old gentleman who was their relation, told me that
the first time he saw these beautiful girls was in
the High Street, where Miss Jane, afterwards
Duchess of Gordon, was riding upon a sow, which
Miss Eglantine thumped lustily behind with a
stick. It must be understood that in the middle
of the eighteenth century vagrant swine went as
commonly about the streets of Edinburgh a?s dogs
do in our own day, and were more generally followed
as pets by the children of the last generation.
It may, however, be remarked, that the sows upon
which the Duchess of Gordon and her witty sister
rode when children, were not the common va,mnts
of the High Street, but belonged to Peter Ramsay,
of the inn in St. Mary?s Wynd, and were among
the last that were permitted to roam abroad. The
romps used to watch the animals as they were let
loose in the forenoon in the stable yard (where they
lived among the horse litter) and got upon their
backs the moment they issued from the close.?
Their eldest brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell,
of the 74th Highlanders, commanded the
grenadier companies of the army under Cornwallis
in the war against Tippoo, and died in India in
1800.
In the same stair with Lady Maxwell lived Anne
Dalrymple, Countess of James firth Earl of Bal](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p095.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 275")
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Book 2 p. 275
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![THE OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when
drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden
horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and ? a drinking
cup,? as Nicoll names it, on their head. ?? The
chronicles of this place of petty durance, could
they now be recovered, would furnish many an
amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed
at rare intervals with the graver deeds of such
disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack
of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as
the witty 2nd eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter
of Lord Royston, found at times a night?s lodging,
when she and her maid sallied out aspreux chma-
Ciers in search of adventures. Occasionally even
grave jidge or learned lawyer, surprised out of
his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial
club, was astonished, oh awaking, tu find himself
within its impartial walls, among such strange bedfellows
as the chances of the night had offered
to its vigilant guardians.?? A slated building of
one storey in height, it consisted of four apartments.
In the western end was the captain?s room;
there was also a ? Burghers? room,? for special prisoners
; in the centre was a common hall ; and at
the east end was an apartment devoted to the
use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under
the captain?s room was the black-hole, in which
coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In I 785
this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground,
an3 the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the
new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters
finally assigned them on the ground floor of the
old Tolbooth.
It is impossible to quit our memorials of the
latter without a special reference to the famous
old City Guard, with which it was inseparably
connected.
In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden,
all male inhabitants of the? city were required to
be in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men
were selected as a permanent or standing watch,
and in them originated the City Guard, which,
however, was not completely constituted until
1648, when the Town Council appointed a body
of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain
was, says Amot, ?to have the monthly pay of
LII 2s. 3d. sterling, two lieutenants of E2 each,
two sergeants of AI 5s., three corporals of AI,
and the private men 15s. each per month.?
No regular fund being provided to defray this
expense, after a time the old method of ?watching
and warding,? every fourth citizen to be on duty in
arms each night, was resumed; but those, he adds,
on whom this service was incumbent, became so re-
,
-
laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council informed
the magistrates that if they did not provide an
efficient guard to preserve order in the city, the
regular troops of the Scottish army would be
quartered in it
Upon this threat forty armed men were raised as.
a guard in 1679, and in consequence of an event
which occurred in 1682, this number was increased
to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot,
caused by an attempt to carry off a number of
lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for
trivial offences, to serve the Prince of Orange as.
soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith,
under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the
latter. By order of Major Keith, commanding, the
soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two
women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded.
One of the women being with child, it was cut from
her and baptised in the street. The excitement of
this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for
whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while
Patrick Grahame, a younger son of Inchbraikiethe
same officer whom Macaulay so persistently
confounds with Claverhouse-was appointed captain,
with the concurrence of the Duke of York
and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drummers?
IS., and the sergeants? IS. 6d. In 1685
Patnck Grahame, ? captain of His Majesty?s
company of Foot, within the town of Edinburgh
(the City Guard), was empowered to import 300
ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with
wrappings and other necessaries, for the clothing
of the corps, this being in regard that the manufactories
are not able to furnish His Majesty?s
(Scottish) forces with cloth and other necessaries.?
After the time of the Revolution the number of
the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period,
after 1750, it consisted usually of only seventy-five
men, a force most unequal to the duty to be done.
?The Lord Provost is commander of this useful
corps,? wrote Amot, in 1779. ? The men are properly
disciplined, and fire remarkably well. Within
these two years some disorderly soldiers in one of
the marching regiments, having conceived an umbrage
at tha Town Guard, attacked them. They
were double in number to the party of the Town
Guard, who, in the scuffle, severely wounded some
of their assailants, and made the whole prisoners.?
By day they were armed with muskets and bayonets ;
at night with Lochaber axes. They were mostly
Highlanders, all old soldiers, many of whom had
served in the Scots brigades in Holland. In the
city they took precedence of all troops of the line.
At a monthly inspection of the corps in 1789 the
Lord Provost found a soldier in the ranks who had](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p147.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 135")
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Book 1 p. 135
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Book 6 p. 214
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Book 3 p. 34
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![Currie.] DR. JAMES ANDERSON. . 335
were appointed to look after the king?s exchequer,
?properties, and casualties,? were named. (?Moyses?
Memoirs.?)
In April, 1598, he witnessed at Stirling the
contract between James VL, Ludovick Stewart,
Duke of Lennox, and Hugh, fifth Earl of Eglinton,
for the marriage of the latter and Gabriella,
sister of the duke.
He is best known in Scottish legal literature by
his treatise ?? De Verborum Significatione,? and the
edition of the ?? Regiam Majestatem,? but Lord
Hailes doubted if his knowledge of Scottish antiquities
was equal to his industry.
In 1607, with reference to the latter work, Sir
James Balfour records in his Annales? that ?? The
ancient Lawes of Scotland, collected by s? John
Skeene, Clerke of Register, on the Lordes of the
Privey Counsall?s recommendation to the King,
by their letters of the 4th of Marche this yeire
wer ordained to be published and printed, on his
Majestie?s charges.?
This work, which was printed in folio at Edinburgh
in 1609, is entitled ? REGIAM MAJESTATEM
SCOTIR;. The auld lawes and constitutions of Scotland,
faithfullie collected furth of the Register, and
other auld authentick Bukes, from the dayes of King
hlalcolme the Second vntill the time of King Jame
the First.? It contains the Quoniam Attachianzentq
or Baron Laws, the Burgh Laws, the Forest Law:
of William the Lion, and many other quaint anc
curious statutes.
His son, Sir James Skene of Curriehill, succeedec
Thomas, Earl of Mehose, as President of thc
Court of Session in 1626. At what time he w;1!
made a baronet of Nova Scotia is unknown, bui
his death as such is thus recorded by Balfour :-
?The 20 of October (1663) deyed s? Jame:
Skeine of Curriehill, Knight and Barronet, Presi
dent of the Colledge of Justice, at his auen houssc
in Edinburghe, and was interred in the Greyfriar:
ther.? Re was buried within the church, when
his tomb was found a few years ago; and tht
house in which he died is that described as bein;
?beside the Grammar School,? within the south
east angle of the Flodden wall, and in after years
the official residence of the Professor of Divinity.
Sir Archibald Johnston (Lord Warriston) wa:
a considerable heritor in the parish of Currie
Maitland (Lord Ravelrig) we have already referrec
to, and also to Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton
?The Scotts of hlalleny, father and son, were like
wise eminent lawyers at the same period, and tht
latter had a seat on the bench,? says the ?Olc
Statistical Account? ; but if so, his name does no1
appear in the list of senators at that time.
(? Eglinton Memorials.?)
.
The late General Thomas Scott of Malleny, who
lied at the age of ninety-six, served on the contilent
of Europe, and in the American War under
.he Marquis of Cornwallis.
He entered the army when a boy, and was a
:aptain in the 53rd Foot in October, 1777. It is
-ecorded of him that he carried some very impor-
:ant despatches in the barrel of his spontoon with
ucess and dexterity, passing through the American
hes in the disguise of aa armed pedler. These
services were recognised by Lord Melbourne, who
gave him a pension without solkitation.
He belonged latterly to the Scots Brigade ; was
t major-general of 1808, and a lieutenant-general
af 1813.
In 1882 his ancient patrimony of Malleny was
purchased by the Earl of Rosebery.
James Anderson, LLD., a miscellaneous writer
of considerable eminence, the son of a farmer, was
born at Hermiston, near Currie, in 1739, ?His
ancestors had been farmers,? says the Sots Magazine
for 1809, ?and had for several generations
farmed the same land, which circumstance is supposed
to have introduced him to that branch of
knowledge which formed the chief occupation of
his life.?
Among the companions of his youth, born in
the same hamlet, was Dr. James Anderson, who in
the early years of the present century was Physician-
General of the Forces in Madras. They were
related, educated together, and maintained a correspondence
throughout life.
Losing his father at the age of fifteen, he entered
upon the management of his ancestral farm, and
at the same time attended the chemistry class of
Dr. Cullen in the University of Edinburgh, studying
also several collateral branches of science. He
adopted a number of improvements, one of which,
the introduction of a small two-horse plough, was
afterwards so common in Scotland.
Amid his ? agricultural labours, so great was his
thirst for knowledge, and so steady his application,
that he contrived to acquire a considerable stock
of information; and in 1771, under the nouz de
phme of ? Agricola,? he contributed to Ruddiman?s
Edinburgh Week4 Xagazine a series of ? Essays
on Planting,? which were afterwards published in
a volume. In 1773 he furnished the article
Monsoon? to the first edition of the EmycZopdia
Britannica,. in which, curiously enough, he
confidently predicted the failure of?captain Cook?s
first expedition in search of a southern polar continent.
Previous to ,1777 he had removed from Hermistop
to a large uncultivated farm, consisting of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p154.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 335")
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Book 6 p. 335
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Book 2 p. 230
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![*lEe %we.] THE LORDS ROSS. 339
long, from where the north-east end of Teviot Row
was latterly. There were the stable offices; in
front of the house was a tree of great size, while
its spacious garden was bordered by Bristo Street.
When offered for sale, in March, 1761, it was
described in a newspaper of the period as ?ROSS
House, with the fields and gardens lying around
it, consisting of about twenty-fou acres, divided as
follows : About an acre and a half in a field and
court about the house; seventeen acres in one
field lying to the south-west, between it and Hope
Park j the rest into kitchen-gardens, running along
Bristo Street and the back of the wall. The house
consists of dining, drawing, and dressing rooms,
six bed-chambers, several closets and garrets; in
the ground storey, kitchen, larder, pantry, milkhouse,
laundry, cellars, and accommodation for
servants, &c?
This house, which was latterly used as a lying-in
hospital, was occupied for some time prior to 1753
by George Lockhart of Carnwath, during whose
time it was the scene of many a gay rout, ball, and
ridotto ; but it was, when the family were in Edinburgh,
the permanent residence of the Lords Ross
of Halkhead, a family of great antiquity, dating
back to the days of King Willmm the Lion,
1165.
In this house died, in June, 2754, in the seventy
third year of his age, George, twelfth Lord ROSS,
Commissioner of the Customs, whose body wa
taken for interment to Renfrew, the burial-place 01
the family. His chief seats were Halkhead and
Melville Castle, He was succeeded by his son,
the Master of Ross, who waa the last lord of that
ilk, and who died in his thirty-fourth year, unmarried,
at Mount Teviof the seat of his uncle, the Marquis
of Lothian, in the following August, and was alsa
taken to Renfrew for purposes of interment.
His sister Elizabeth became Countess of Glas
gow, and eventually his heiress, and through he1
the Earls of Glasgow are also Lords Ross of
Halkhead, by creation in 1815.
Another sister was one of the last persons in
Scotland supposed to be possessed of an evil
spirit-Mary, who died unmarried. A correspondent
of Robert Chambers states as follows:-
??A person alive in 1824 told me that, when a
child, he saw her clamber up to the top of an oldfashioned
four-post bed. In her fits it was impossible
to hold her.?
At the time-Ross House was offered for sale
the city was almost entirely confined within the
Flodden Wall, the suburbs being of small extent-
Nicolson Street and Square, Chapel Street, the
southern portion of Bristo Street, Crichton Street,
-
.
Buccleuch Street, and St. Patrick Square; though
some mere projected, the sites were nearly alI
fields and orchards. The old Statistical Account
says that Ross Park was purchased for ;GI,ZOO,
and that the ground-rents of the square yield
now (i.e., in 1793) above LI,OOO sterling per
annum to the proprietor.
James Brown, architect, who built Brown Square,
having feued from the city of Edinburgh the lands
of Ross Park, built thereon most of the houses of
the h?ew Square, which measures 220 yards by
150, and is said to have named it, not for the king,
but Brown?s elder brother George, who was the
Laud of Lindsaylands and Elliestown. It speedily
became a more popular place of residence than
Brown Square, being farther from town, and possessing
houses that were greatly superior in style
and accommodation.
Among the early residents in the square in
1784, and prior to that year, were the Countesses
of Glasgow and Sutherland, the Ladies Rae and
Philiphaugh, Antliony, Earl of Kintore, eighth
Lord Falconer of Halkertoun, Sir John Ross
Lockhart, and the Lords Braxheld, Stonefield, and
Kennet; and in 1788, Major-General Sir Ralph
Abercrombie, who died of his wounds in Egypt
It has been recorded as an instance of Lord Braxfield?g
great nerve that during the great political
trials in 1793-4, when men?s blood was almost at
fever heat, after each day?s proceedings closed,
usually about midnight, he always walked home,
alone and unprotected, through the dark or illlighted
streets, to his house in George Square,
though he constantly commented openly upon the
conduct of the Radicals, and more than once
announced in public that ?? They wad a? be muckle
the better 0? bein? hung !
Here, too, resided in 1784 the Hon. Henry
Erskine (brother of the Earl of Buchan), the witty
advocate, who, after being presented to Dr. Johnson
by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow in
the Parliament House, slipped a shilling into
Boswell?s hand, whispering that it was for the sight
of his English bear.
To those named, Lord Cockburn, in his ?Memorials,?
adds the Duchess of Gordon, Robert
Dundas of Amiston, Lord Chief Baron of Exchequer,
the hero of Camperdown, Lord President Blair,
Dr. John Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer, and
says, ?a host of other distinguished people all
resided here. The old square, with its pleasant
trim-kept gardens, has still an air of antiquated
grandeur about it, and retains not a few traces of
its former dignity and seclusion.?
Aniong the documents exhibited at the Scott](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p159.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 339")
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Book 4 p. 339
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Book 3 p. 174
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![ROBERT MONTEITH. . 3?5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in the grand and sublime
of Nature, and his style is marked chiefly by
vigour, power, and breadth of effect-strong light
and deep shadow. As a man and a Christian
minister, his life was simple, pure, and irreproachable,
his disposition kind, affable, and benevolent.
He died of apoplexy in 1840, in his sixty-second
year.
The city must have had some interest in the loch,
as in the Burgh accounts for 1554 we read:-
?? Item : twa masons twa weeks to big the Park Dyke
at the loch side of Dudding?ston, and foreanent it
again on Priestfield syde, ilk man in the week xv?.
summa iijIi.
(?Item : for ane lang tree to put in the wall that
lyes far in the loch for outganging of ziyld beistis
v?.? ? (? Burgh Records.?)
The town or lands of Duddingston are included
in an act of ratification to James, Lord Lindsay of
the Byers, in 1592.
In the Acts of Sederunt for February, 1650, we
find Alexander Craig, in-dweller in the hamlet,
pilloried at the Tron of Edinburgh,. and placarded
as being a ? lying witness ? in an action-at-law
concerning the pedigree of John Rob in Duddingston;
but among the few reminiscences of this
place may be mentioned the curious hoax which
the episcopal incumbent thereof at the Restoration
played upon Cardinal de Retz.
This gentleman, whose name was Robert Monteith,
had unfortunately become involved in an
amour with a lady in the vicinity, the wife of Sir
James Hamilton of Prestonfield, and was cpmpelled
to fly from the scene of his disgrace. He
was the son of a humble man employed in the
salmon-fishing above Alloa ; but on repairing to
Paris, and after attaching himself to M. de la
Porte, Grand Prior of France, and soliciting employment
from Cardinal de Retz, he stated he was
?one of the Monteith family in Scotland.? The
cardinal replied that he knew the family well, but
asked to which branch he belonged. ?To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net,? replied the unabashed
adventurer.
The cardinal replied that this was a branch he
had never heard of, but added that he believed
it was, no doubt, a very ancient and illustrious
family. Monteith was patronised by the cardinal,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame,
and made him his secretary, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his elegance and purity,
in the French language. This strange man is
author of a well-known work, published in folio,
entitled, ? Hisfoa?re des TroubZes de &andBretap,
depuis Z?an 1633 juspu?a Z?an 1649, pur Robed
Menfet de Salmonet.
It was dedicated to the Coadjutor Archbishop of
Pans, with a portrait of the author; and a trans- .
lation of it, by Captain James Ogilvie, was published
in 1735 by G. Strachan, at the ?Golden Ball,?
in Cornhill.
In the year of the Revolution we find the
beautiful loch of Duddingston, as an adjunct to
the Royal Park, mentioned in a case before the
Privy Council on the 6th March.
The late Duke of Lauderdale having placed
some swans thereon, his clever duchess, who was
carrying on a legal contest With his heirs, deemed
herself entitled to take away some of those birds
when she chose; but Sir James Dick, now proprietor
of the %ch, broke a lock-fast place in
which she had put them, and set them once more
upon the water. The irate dowager raised an
action against him, which was decided in her
favour, but in defiance of this, the baronet turned
all the swans off the loch ; on which the Duke of
Hamilton, as Heritable Keeper of the palace, came
to the rescue, as Fountainhall records, alleging
that the loch bounded the King?s Park, and that
all the wild animals belonged to him ; they were,
therefore, restored to their former haunts.
Of the loch and the landsof Priestfield (orPrestonfield),
Cockburn says, in his ?Memorials? :-?I know
the place thoroughly. The reeds were then regularly .
cut over by means of short scythes with very long
handles, close to the ground, and this (system)
made Duddingston nearly twice its present size?
Otters are found in its waters, and a solitary
badger has at times provoked a stubborn chase.
The loch is in summer covered by flocks of dusky
coots, where they remain till the closing of the ice
excludes them from the water, when they emigrate
to the coast, and return With the first thaw.
Wild duck, teal, and water-hens, also frequent it,
and swans breed there prolifically, and form one
of its most picturesque ornaments. The pike, the
perch, and a profusion of eels, which are killed by
the barbed sexdent, also abound there.
In winter here it is that skating is practised as an
art by the Edinburgh Club. ?The writer recalls
with pleasure,? says the author of the ?Book of
Days,? ?skating exhibitions which he saw there early
in the present century, when Henry Cockburn,
and the philanthropist James Sipson, were conspicuous
amongst the most accomplished of the
club for their handsome figures and great skill in
the art. The scene of that loch ? in full bearing J
on a clear winter day, with its busy and stirring
multitude of sliders, skaters, and curlers, the snowy
Paris, 166 I.?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p135.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 315")
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Book 4 p. 315
(Score 0.44)
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Book 3 p. 126
(Score 0.42)
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Book 10 p. 141
(Score 0.42)
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Book 8 p. 514
(Score 0.39)
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