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North Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335
have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though
not carried out till the early years of George 111.?~
reign, it had been projected in the latter end of
the reign of Charles 11.
The idea was first suggested when James VII.,
as Duke of Albany and York, was resident Royal
Commissioner at Holyrood, in the zenith of the
only popularity he ever had in Scotland. Vast
numbers of the Scottish nobility and gentry flocked
.around him, and the old people of the middle of
xhe eighteenth century used to recall with delight
the magnificence and brilliance of the court he
gathered in the long-deserted palace, and the
general air of satisfaction which pervaded the
entire city.
Despite the recent turmoils and sufferings consequent
on the barbarous severity with which the
Covenanters had been treated, Edinburgh was prosperous,
and its magistrates bestowed noble presents
upon their royal guest; but the best proof of the
city?s prosperity was the new and then startling idea
s f having an extended royalty and a North Bridge,
;and this idea the Duke of Albany warmly patronised
and encouraged, and towards it gave the citizens a
grant in the following terms :-
?That, when they should have occasion to
enlarge their city by purchasing ground without
tthe town, or to build bridges or arches for the accomplishing
of the same, not only were the propietors
of such lands obliged to part With the same
an reasonable terms, but when in possession thereof,
they are to be erected into a regality in favour of
the citizens ; and after finishing the Canongate
church, the city is to have the surplus of the
20,ooo merks given by Thomas Moodie, in the
year 1649, with the interest thereof; and as all
public streets belong to the king, the vaults and
cellars under those of Edinburgh being forfeited to
the Crown, by their being built without leave or
consent of his majesty, he granted all the said
vaults or cellars to the town, together with a power
to oblige the proprietors of houses, to lay before
their. respective tenements large flat stones for the
conveniency of walking.?
James VII. had fully at heart the good of Edinburgh,
and but for the events of the Revolution
the improvements of the city would have commenced
seventy-two years sooner than they did, but
the neglect of subsequent monarchs fell heavily alike
on the capital and the kingdom. ?Unfortunately,?
. :says Robert Chambers, ?the advantages which
Edinburgh enjoyed under this system of things
were destined to be of short duration. Her royal
:guest departed, with all his family and retinue, in
May, 1682. In six years more he was lost both
:o Edinburgh and Britain; and ?a stranger filled
:he Stuart?s throne,? under whose dynasty Scotland
?ined long in undeserved reprobation.?
The desertion of the city consequent on the
Union made all prospect of progress seem hopeless,
yet some there were who never forgot the cherished
idea of an extended royalty. Among various
plans, the most remarkable for its foresight was that
3f John eighteenth Lord Erskine and eleventh
Earl of Mar, who was exiled for his share in the
insurrection of I 7 I 5.
His sole amusement during the years of the long
exile in which he died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732
was to draw plans and designs for the good of his
beloved native country and its capital; and the
paper to which we refer is one written by him in
1725, and mentioned in vol. 8 of the ?Old Statistical
Account of Scotland,? published in 1793.
?All ways of improving Edinburgh should be
thought on : as in particular, making a Zarge bridge
flfhree arch, over the ground betwixt the North
Loch and Physic Gardens, from the High Street at
Liberton?s Wynd to the Multersey Hill, where
many fine streets might be built, as the inhabitants
increased. The access to them would be easy on
all hands, and the situation would be agreeable and
convenient, having a noble prospect of all the fine
ground towards the sea, the Firth of Forth, and
coast of Fife. One long street in a straight line,
where the Long Gate is now (Princes Street?) ; on
one side of it would be a fine opportunity for
gardens down to the North Loch, and one, on the
other side, towards Broughton. No houses to be
on the bridge, the breadth of the North Loch ; but
selling the places or the ends for houses, and the
vaults and arches below for warehouses and cellars,
the charge of the bridge might be defrayed.
? Another bridge might also be made on the other
side of the towq, and almost as useful and commodious
as that on the north. The place where it
could most easily be made is St. Mary?s Wynd, and
the Pleasance. The hollow there is not so deep, as
where the other bridge is proposed, so that it is
thought that two storeys of arches might raise it near
the level with the street at the head of St. Mary?s
Wynd. Betwixt the south end of the Pleasance and
the Potter-row, and from thence to Bristo Street,
and by the back of the wall at Heriot?s Hospital, are
fine situations for houses and gardens. There would
be fine avenues to the town, and outlets for airing
and walking by these bridges ; and Edinburgh, from
being a bad incommodious situation, would become
a very beneficial and convenient one ; and to make
it still more so, a branch of that river, called the
Water of Leith, misht, it is thought, be brought

... Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335 have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though not carried out till the ...

Book 2 p. 335
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1 90 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Previous to the extension or rebuilding of the west portion of the Tolbooth, it had
furnished accommodation for the wealthiest traders of the city, and there also some of the
most imposing displays took place on Charles I. visiting his northern capital in 1633. ‘‘ Upon the west wall of the Tolbooth,” says an old writer,l r‘ where the Goldsmiths’ shops
do stand, there stood ane vast pageant, arched above, on ane large mab the pourtraits of
a hundred and nine kings of Scotland. In the cavity of the arch, Mercury was represented
bringing up Fergus the first King of Scotland in ane convenient habit, who delivered to
his Majesty a very grave speech, containing many precious advices to his royal successor;
” a representation, not altogether in caricature, of the drama often enacted on
the same spot, at a later period, when Jock Heigh,-the Edinburgh Jack Ketch for above
forty years,-played the part of Mercury, bringing up one in ane convenient habit, to hear
a very grave speech, preparatory to treatment not unlike that which the unfortunate
monarch received, in addition to the precious advices bestowed on him in 1633. The
goldsmiths’ ’ shops were latterly removed into the Parliament Close ; but George Heriot’s
booth existed at the west end of St Giles’s Church till the year 1809, when Beth’s
Wynd and the adjoining buildings were demolished, as already described. A narrow
passage led between the church and an ancient three-storied tenement adjoining the
New Tolbooth, or Laigh Council House, as it was latterly called, and the centre one of
the three booths into which it waa divided, measuring about seven feet square, was
pointed out by tradition as the workshop of the founder of Heriot’s Hospital, where both
King James and his Queen paid frequent visits to the royal goldsmith. On the demolition
of this ancient fabric, the tradition was completely confirmed by the discovery of
George Heriot’s name boldly carved on the stone lintel of the door. The forge and
bellows, as well as a stone crucible and lid, supposed to have belonged to its celebrated
possessor, were discovered in clearing away the ruins of the old building, and are now
carefully preserved in the Hospital Museum.
The associations connected with the ancient building we have described, are almost
entirely those relating to the occupants whom it held in durance in its latter capacity as
a prison. The eastern portion, indeed, had in all probability been the scene of stormy
debates in the earlier Scottish Parliaments, and of deeds even ruder than the words of the
turbulent barons. There also the College of Justice, founded by Jamea V. in 1532,
held its first sederunt ; the earliest statutes of the Court requiring that all the lordis sall
entre in the Tolbuth and counsal-houss at viij howris in the mornyng, dayly, and sall sit
quhill xi howris be strikin.” All these, however, had ceased to be thought of for centuries
previous to the demolition of the tall and gloomy prison ; though even in its degradation
it was connected with historical characters of no mean note, having been the final place of
captivity of the Marquises of Montrose and Argyll,’ and others of the later victims of
factious rivalry, who fell a sacrifke to the triumph of their opponents. The main floor of
the more ancient building, in its latter days, formed the common hall for all prisoners,
except those in irons, or incarcerated in the condemned cells. It had an old oak pulpit of
curious construction for the use of any one who took upon him the duties of prison chaplain,
and which tradition,-as usual with most old Scottish pulpits,-affirmed to have been
.
Pidc Canipbell’a Journey, vol. ii. p. 122. Biooll’s Diary, p. 334.

... 90 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. Previous to the extension or rebuilding of the west portion of the Tolbooth, it ...

Book 10 p. 208
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242 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HIGH STREET-(continued).
?The Salamander Land ?-The Old Fishmarket Close-Heriot?s Mansion-The Deemster?s Hocse-Borthwick?s Close-Lord Durie?s House-
Old Assembly Rooms-Edinburgh As.emblies, 17zc-53-Mes Nicky Blurray-Formalities of the Balls-Ladies? Fashions-Assemblies
Removed to Hell?s Wpd-Hair Srreet and Hunter?s Square-Kennedy?s Close-George Buchanan?s Death-Niddry?r Wynd- Nicol
Edwards? House-A Case of Homicide in 1597-A Quack Doctor -Livingstone?s Liberty.
IN describing the closes and wynds which diverge
from the great central street of the old city on the
south we must resume at the point where the great
fire of 1824 ceased, a conflagration witnessed by
Sir Walter Scott, who says of it :-
?? I can conceive no sight more grand or terrible
than to see those lofty buildings on fire from top to
bottom, vomiting out flames like a volcano from
every aperture, and finally crashing down one after
another into a* abyss of fire, which resembled
nothing but hell ; for there were vaults of wine and
spirits, which sent up huge jets of flames wherever
they were called into activity by the fall of these
massive fragments.?
?( The Salamander Land,? an enormous black
tenement, so named from its having survived or
escaped the fires that raged eastward and westward
of it, and named also from that curious propensiv,
which is so peculiarly Scottish, for inventive
and appropriate sobriquets, was removed to
make way for the Police Chambers and the
Cournnt office, in the latter of which James Hannay,
the author of ?Satire and Satirists? and several
other works, and Joseph Robertson, the wellknown
Scottish antiquary, conducted the editorial
duties of that paper, the first editor of which
was Daniel Defoe. ?We have been told,? says
Wilson, writing of the old tenement in question,
?that this land was said to have been the residence
of Daniel Defoe while in Edinburgh ; the tradition,
however, is entirely unsupported by other testimony.?
Descending the street on the south, as we have
done on the north, we shall peep into each of the
picturesque alleys that remain, and recall those
.which are no more, with all the notables who once
.dwelt therein, and summon back the years, the
men, and the events that have passed away.
Through ?? the Salamander Land ? a spacious
archway led into the Old Fishmarket Close,
where, qrevious to the great fire, an enormous pile
of buildings reared their colossal front, with that
majestic effect produced now by the back of the
Royal Exchange and of James?s Court, and where
now the lofty tenements of the new police office
stand.
To this alley, wherein the cannon shot of Kirkaldy
fell with such dire effect during the great siege
of 1573, Moyse tells us the plague was brought, on
the 7th of May, 1588, by a servant woman from St.
Johnston.
Within the Fishmarket Close was the mansion of
George Heriot, the royal goldsmith, wherein more
recently resided President Dundas, ?? father of Lord,
Melville, a thorough bon vivant of the old claretdrinking
school of lawyers.?
Here, too, dwelt, we learn from Chambers?s
? Traditions,? the Deemster, a finisher of the law?s
last sentence, a grim official, who annually drew his
fee from the adjacent Royal Bank; and one of the
last of whom, when not officiating at the west end
of the Tolbooth or the east end of the Grassmarket,
eked out his subsistence by cobbling shoes,
Borthwick?s Close takes its name from the noble
and baronial hmily of Borthwick of that ilk, whose
castle, a few miles south from the city, is one of
the largest and grandest examples of the square
tower in Scotland. In the division 6f the city in
October, 1514, the third quarter is to be-according
to the Burgh records-? frae the Lopelie Stane
with the Cowgaitt, till Lord Borthwick?s Close,?
assigned to ?? Bailie Bansun,? with his sergeant
Thomas Amott, and his quartermaster Thomas
Fowler.
The property on the middle of the east side of
the close belonged to one of the Lords Napier of
Merchiston, but to which there is no record to
show; and it is n9t referred to in the minute will
of the inventor of logarithms, who died in 1617.
A new school belonging to Heriot?s Hospital
occupies the ground that intervenes between this
alley and the old Assembly Close.
On that site stood the town mansion of Lord
Dune, President of the Court of Session in 1642,
the hero of the ballad of ? Christie?s Will,? and
according thereto the alleged victim of the Earl of
Traquair, as given in a very patched ballad of the
Border Minstrelsy, beginning :-
? Traquair he has ridden up Chapelhope,
And sae has he doon by the Greymare?s Tail ;
Till he spiered for Christie?s Will?
But he never stinted his light gallop,
And hence for a time the alley bore the name of
Lord Dune?s Close.
On the site of his mansion, till its destruction by
the fire of 1824, stood the Old Assembly Rooms

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE HIGH STREET-(continued). ?The Salamander Land ?-The ...

Book 2 p. 242
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Lad Plovosts] PROVOST DRUMMOND. 281 -
fluence of the Duke of Lauderdale. in return for
ment of Colonel Gordon, who with Leslie and
Walter Butler of the Irish Musketeers, slew the
great M?allenstein, Duke of Friedland.
Sir Hugh Cunningham was provost when Anne
was proclaimed by the heralds at the Cross, on
the 8th of March, 1702, Queen of Scotland ; and
she in her first letter to Parliament pressed them
to consider the advantages which might accrue to
of the city. A cadet of the noble house of Perth, he
his view of the city-a work wonderful for its ? got a protection to enable him to appear in this
I minuteness and fidelity-to provost Tod and the matter. ? Thus he was brought to the street again.?
Council, who made him a free burgess, and paid him His predecessor in 1676 was a Sir William Binny,
A333 6s. 8d. Scots, or A27 16s. 8d. sterling for who, in 1686 had a curious case before the Court I the drawing, which was engraved in Holland by of Session, against Hope of Carse, on the testa-
De Witt, and dedicated to the provost and magisi
trates, who appear by the city accounts to have had
a collation on the occasion.
The provost who was present at and presided over
the barbarous execution of Montrose, in 1650, was
Sir James Stewart of Coltness, who suffered therefor
a long imprisonment after the Restoration,
and was only rescued from something worse by
his having obtained for his Grace L6,ooo as the
price of the citadel of Leith. Sir Andrew while in
the civic chair conducted himself so tyrannically,
by applying the common good of the city for the
use of himself and his friends, and by inventing new
employments and concessory offices within it, to
provide for his dependents, that the citizens, weary
of his yoke, resolved to turn him out at the next
election ; but he having had a majority the burgesses
were forced to ?intent a reduction of the
election.?
This case being submitted to the Chancellor and
President, they ordered an Act to be passed in the
Common Council of the city, declaring that none
should hereafter continue in office as provost for
more than two years. But this regulation has not
been strictly observed, and the Lord Prwosts of
the city are now elected for three years.
In 1683 Sir George Drummond was Lord Pre
vost ; but in August, 1685, he became a bankrupt,
and took refuge in the Sanctuary at Holyrood, the
first, says Fountainhall, ?that during his office has
broke in FAinburgh.? A week or two afterwards, a
riot having taken place at the Town Guard-house,
the Lord Chancellor, the Earl oi Perth, who was
bound to do what he could to protect the provost,
84
was born in 1687, and when only eighteen years
of age was employed by the Committee of the
Scottish Parliament to give his assistance in the
arrangement of the national accounts prior to the
Union; and in 1707, on the establishment of the
Excise, he was rewarded with the office of Accountant-
General, and in I 7 I 7 he was a Commissioner
of the Board of Customs. In 1725 he was elected
Lord Provost for the first time, and two?years afterwas
named one of the commissioners and trustees for
improving the fisheries and manufactures of Scotland.
Hewasthe principal agent in the erection of the
Royal Infirmary ; and in I 745 he served as a volunteer
with Cope?s army at the Rattle of Prestonpans.
As grand-master of the freemasons he laid the
foundation-stone of the Royal Exchange, and in
1755 was appointed to that lucrative-if dubious
-office, a trustee on the forfeited estates of the
Jacobite lords and landholders. We have related
(in its place) how he laid the foundation-stone of the
North Bridge. He died in 1766 in the eightieth
year of his age, and was honoured, deservedly,
with a public funeral in the Canongate. To
Provost Drummond Dr. Robertson the historian
owed his appointment as Principal of the University,
which was also indebted to him for the institu

... Plovosts] PROVOST DRUMMOND. 281 - fluence of the Duke of Lauderdale. in return for ment of Colonel Gordon, ...

Book 4 p. 281
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I 70 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Lawson, the colleague and successor of Knox, the true founders’ of ‘‘ King James’s College;”
that royal pedant having in reality bestowed little more on the University than a
charter and his name ! In 1580, Clement Little, advocate and commissary of Edinburgh,
dedicated all his books, consisting of three hundred volumes, “ for the beginning of ane
library,”-the undoubted foundation of that magnificent collection which the College now
possesses. This generous gift waa bestowed during his lifetime, and the volumes “ were
put up in Mr James Lawson’s galery, an part of the lodgings appoynted for the ministry,
situated where the Parliament House is now found.”
James Lawson is well known for his uncompromising resistance to the schemes of
King James for “ re-establishing the state of bishops, flatt contrare the determination of
the kirk.” On the assembly of the Estates for this purpose in 1584, the King sent word
to the Magistrates to seize and imprison any of the ministers who should venture to speak
against the proceedings of the Parliament. James Lawson, however, with his colleague
Walter Balcanquall, nothing daunted, not only preached against these proceedings from
the pulpit, but the latter appeared, along with Mr Robert Pont, at the Cross, on the
heralds proceeding to proclaim the act, and publicly protested, and took instruments
in the name of the Kirk of Scotland against them, in so far as they prejudiced the
former liberties of the kirk. ‘‘ Arran made manie vowes that if Mr James Lawson’s
head were as great as an hay stacke, he would cause it leap from his hawse I ” (I Both he
and his colleague were accordingly compelled to make a precipitate flight to England,
where James Lawson died the same year ; Walter Balcanquall, however, returned afterwards
to his charge. Two years later, in 1586, we find him preaching before the King,
“ in the Great Kirk of Edinburgh,” when “ the King, after sermoun, rebooked Mr Walter
yubliclie from his seat in the loaft, and said he would prove there sould be bishops I ”
&c. The royal arguments were not altogether thrown away, as it would seem; the
young Walter, son of the good man,-having probably listened to this rebuke from ‘‘ the
minister’s pew,”-afterwards became the well known Dr Balcanquall, Dean of Durham
and Rochester, ‘‘ special favorite to King James VI. and King Charles I. ; ” to whom his
relative, George Heriot, committed the entire regulation and oversight of his magnificent
foundation.‘
On the 28th of April
1572, proclamation was made at the Cross, ‘‘ that Mr Robert Maitland, Dene of Aberdene,
ane of the senatouris of the College of Justice, and Mr Clement Littill and Alexander
Sim, advocattis, commissaris of Edinburgh, wes present in Leith, partakaris with the
King, and rebellis to the Quene and her lieutennentis, thairfoir dischargit thame of thair
offices, in that pairt for euver.” The proclamation would appear, however, to have led
to no consequences of very permanent import.
Clement Little also bore his share in the troubles of the period.
Bower’# Hist. of the University, vol. i. p. 69. Craufurd‘a Hiat., p. 20. a Caldemood, vol. iv. p. 65. ‘ The following items from the will of Mr James Lawson, including a bequest to hie colleague, are curious :-
U Imprimis, Yee sall deliver to the Frenche Kirk at London, three angells, to be diatributed to their poore. Item, To
Yaistresse Vannoll, who keeped me in my sicknesse, an angell. Item, I will that my loving brother, Mr James Carmichaell,
sall bow a rose noble inatantlie, and deliver it to my deere brother and loving friend Mr Walter Balcalquall,
who hath beene so carefull of me at all times, and cheefelie in time of this my present sicknesse ; to remaine with
him aa a perpetuall tokin and remembrance of my special1 love and thankfull heart toward8 him.”-Calderwood’s Hist.,
vol. iv. p. 206. ’ Dr Steven’s Memoir of G. Heriot, Appendix, p. 148. Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 295,

... 70 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. Lawson, the colleague and successor of Knox, the true founders’ of ‘‘ King ...

Book 10 p. 185
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342 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Such are a few of the great names associated with the ancient thoroughfare which we have
seen so recklessly destroyed, and which, until its sudden doom was pronounced, seemed
like a hale and vigorous octogenarian, that had defied the tooth of time while all around
was being transmuted by his touch.
On the lowest part of the declivity of the Bow, a handsome, though somewhat heavy
conduit, erected by Robert Mane in 1681, bears the name of the Bow-foot Well.
Directly facing this, at the south-west angle of the Grassmarket, there stood of old the
Monastery of the Franciscans or Greyfriars, founded by James I., for the encouragement
of learning. In obedience to an application from that monarch, the Vicar-General of the
Order at Cologne sent over to Scotland some of the brethren, under the guidance of
Cornelius of Zurich, a scholar of great reputation ; but such was the magnzcence of the
monastic buildings prepared for them that it required the persuasive influence of the
Archbishop of St Andrew’s to induce Cornelius to accept the office of Prior. That the
monastery was a sumptuous foundation, according to the times, is proved by its being
assigned for the temporary abode of the Princess, Mary of Guelders, who immediately after
her arrival at Leith, in June 1449, proceeded on horseback, behind the Count de Vere,
to her lodging in the Convent of the Greyfriars in Edinburgh, and there she was visited by
her royal lover, James II., on the following day.’ A few years later it afforded an asylum
to Henry VI. of England, when he fled to Scotland, accompanied by his heroic Queen,
Margaret, and their son, Prince Edward, after the fatal battle of Towton. That a church
would form a prominent feature of this royal foundation can hardly be doubted, and we
are inclined to infer that the existence both of it, and of a churchyard attached to it, long
before Queen Mary’s grant of the gardens of the monastery for the latter purpose, is
implied in such allusions as the following in the Diurnal of Occurrents, July 7, 1571.
(‘ The hail1 merchandis, craftismen, and personis remanand within Edinburgh, maid thair
moustaris in the Gray Frear Kirk yaird; ” and, again, where Birrel in his Diary, April
26, 1598, refers to the (( work at the Gray Friar Kirke,” although the date of erection
of the more modern church is only 1613. The exact site of these monastic buildings is
proved from the titles of the two large stone tenements which present their picturesque
and antique gables to the street, immediately to the west of the entrance from the Cowgate.
The western tenement is described as (( lying within the burgh of Edinburgh, at
the place called the Grayfreres,” while the other is styled that Temple tenement of land,
lying at the head of the Cowgate, near the Cunzie nook, beside the Minor, or Greyfriars,
on the east, and the common King’s High Street, on the north parts.” Beyond this, in
the Candlemaker Row, a curious little timber-fronted tenement appears, with its gable
surmounted with the antique crow-steps we have described on the Mint buildings and
elsewhere ; an open gallery projects in front, and rude little shot windows admit the light
to the decayed and gloomy chambers within. This, we presume, to be the Cunzie nook
referred to above, a place where the Mint had no doubt been established at 6ome early
period, possibly during some of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary of Guize,’
1 Caledonia, voL i p. 599.
“ Vpoun the 21 day of Julij [1559], Jamea, commendatare of Sanctandrois, and Alexander, erle of Glencarne,
with thair assistaria callit the congregatioun, past from Edinburgh to Halyrudhous, and thair tu& and iotromettit with
the irois of the cuneehous, and brocht the same to the said burgh of Edinburgh, to the priour of Sanctandrois lugeing,

... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. Such are a few of the great names associated with the ancient thoroughfare which we ...

Book 10 p. 374
(Score 0.45)

CONTENTS. B
CHAPTER XV.
. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. PAGE
SL Giles?s Church-The Patron Saint-Its Wgh and early Norman style-The Renovation of xEzg-History of the StrucsPmcession of
the Saint?s Relics-The Preston Relic-The Chapel of the Duke of Albany-Funeral of the Regent Morray-The ?Gude Regent?s
Aisle?-The Assembly Aisle-Dispute between James VI. and the Church Part-Departure of James VI.-Haddo?s Hole-The
Napier Tomb-The Spire and Iantun--Clak and Bells-The Krames-Restoration of 1878 . . . . . . . 1.38 . .
CHAPTEK XVI.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. GILES?S.
St Giles?s Churchyard-The Maison Dieu-The Clam-shell Turnpike-The Grave of Knox-The City C-The Summons of Pint-
Executions : Kirkaldy, Gilderoy, and othe-The Caddies-The Dyvours Stane-The LnckenboobThe Auld Kirk Style-Byre?s
Lodging--Lord Coaktoun?s Wig-Allan Ramsay?s Library and ?? Creech?s Land?-The Edinburgh Halfpenny . . . . . 1 4
f .
CHAPTEK XVII.
? THE PARLIAMEXT HOUSE.
Site of the Parliament Iiouse-The Parliament Hall-Its fine Roof-Proportions-Its External Aspect of Old-Pictures and Statues-The
Great South Window-The Side Windows-Scots Prisoners of War-General Monk Feasted-A Scene with Gen. DalyeU-The Fire of
17-Riding of the Parliament-The Union-Its due Effects and ultimate good Results-Trial of Covenanters . . . . . 157
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE (continued).
The Faculty of Advocates-The Wr:ters to the Signet-Solicitors before the Supreme Court-The First Lords of Session-The Law Courts-
The Court of Session: the Outer and Inner HousesXollege of Justice-Supreme Judicature Court-Its Corrupt Nature-How Justice
used to be defatec-Abduction of Lord Dune-Some Notable Senators?of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Lord0
Fountainhall, Covington, Monboddo, Kames, Hailes, Gardenstone. Amiston, Balmuto, and Hermand . . . . . , I66
CHAPTER XIX.
THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE.
Probable Extinction of the Court of Scion-Memorabiliaof the Parliament Close?and Square-Goldsmiths of the OldenTime-Gearge Heriot-
HIS Workshop-His Interview with James VI.-Peter Williamson?s Tavern-Royal Exchange-Statueof Charles 11.-Bank of Satha-
The Fire of 17-The Work of Restoration-John Row?s Coffee-house-John?s Coffee-house-SylvesterOtwaFSir W. Forbes?s Bank-
6ir Walter Scott?s Eulogy on Sir Willkm Forks-John Kay?s Print-shopThe Parliament ShirsiJames Sibbald-A Libel Gsc-Fire
in Junz IllatDr. Archibald Pitcairn-lhe ?Greping Office?-Painting of King Charles?s Statue White-Seal of Arnauld Lzmmiua 174
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL EXCHAGGE-THE TRON CHURCH-THE GREAT FIRE OF NOVEMBER, 18%
The Royal Exchange-Laying the Foundation Stone-Description of the Exchanee-The Mysterious Statue-The Council Chamber-
Convention of Rayal Burghs : Constitution thereof, and Powers-Writers? Court-The s? Star and Garter ? Tavern-Sir Walter
Scotth Account of the Scene at Clenheugh?s-Lawyers? High Jinks-The Tron Church-History of the Old Church-The Great Fire
of 18z4-1nddents of the ConAagration-The Ruin9 Undermined-Blown up by Captain Head of the Engioew . . . . 183
CHAPTER XXI.
T H E H I G H S T R E E T .
A Place for Blawling-First Paved and Lighted-The Meal and Flesh Market-State of the Streets-Municipal Regnlations 16th Ccntury-
Tulzies-The Lairds of Airth and Wemyss-The Tweedies of Drumrnelzier-A Montrose Quarrel-The Slaughter of Lord T o r t h d d
-A Brawl in 1705-Attacking a Sedan Chair-Habits in the Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Girls-Sumptuary
Laws against Women . , . . - . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . , . 191
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HIGH STREET (continucd).
Thc City in 1598-Fynes Morison on the Manners of the Inhabitants-Tle ?Lord? Provost of Edinburgh-Police of the City-Taylor the
Water Poet-Banquets at the Cross-The hard Case of the Earl of Traquair-A Visit of H-The Quack and his Acrobats-A
Procession of Covenanters-Early Stages and Street Caaches--Salc of a Dancing-girl-Constables appointed in Ip-First Numher of
the Courrmt-The Cnledomian Mercwy-Carting away of the strata of Street Filth-Candition of old Houses . . . . . 198

... B CHAPTER XV. . THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. PAGE SL Giles?s Church-The Patron Saint-Its Wgh and early ...

Book 2 p. 387
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190 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hart Street
York Place he officiated there, until a severe illness
in 1831 compelled him to relinquish all public
duties, In ?Peter?s Letters? we are told that he
possessed all the qualifications of a popular orator.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh in the first year of its formation, and
was the intimate friend of many of its most distinguished
members, as he was of most of the men of
genius and learning of his time in Scotland. His
?Essays on Taste? appeared first in 1790, since
when it has passed through several editions, and
has been translated into French. His theory of
taste has met the approval of men of the highest
genius in poetry, criticism, and art. He died, universally
respected, on the 17th of May, 1839.
St. George?s Episcopal chapel, built in 1794,
stands on the south side of York Place. It was
designed by Robert Adam, and is of no known
style of architecture, and is every way hideous in
conception and in detail. This dingy edifice cost
North of the two streets we have described, and
erected coeval with them, are Forth and Albany
Streets.
In No. 10 of the former street lived for years,
, and died on the 27th of August, 1837, in his
seventy-first year, George Watson, first president
and founder of the Royal Scottish Academy, of
whom an account has already been given in connection
with that institution, as one of the most
eminent artists of his time. In the same house
also lived and died his third son, Smellie George
Watson, RSA, a distinguished portrait painter,
named from the family of his mother, who was
Rebecca, eldest daughter of William Smellie, the
learned and ingenious paintef and natural philosopher.
In the little and obscure thoroughfare named
Hart Street lived long one who enjoyed considerable
reputation in his day, though well-nig; forgotten
now: William Douglas, an eminent miniature
painter, and the lineal descendant of the
ancient line of Glenbervie. ? He received a useful
education,? says his biographer, ?and was well
acquainted with the dead and living languages
From his infancy he displayed a taste for the fine
arts. While yet a mere child he would leave his
playfellows to their sports, to watch the effects of
light and shade, and, creeping along the furrows of
the fields, study the perspective of the ridges.
This enabled him to excel as a landscape painter,
and gave great beauty to his miniatures.?
As aminiature painter he was liberally patronised
by the upper ranks in Scotland and England, and
his works are to be found in some of the finest
L3,ooo.
collections of both countries. In particular he was
employed by the family of Buccleuch, and in 1817
was appointed Miniature Painter for Scotland to
the Princess Charlotte, and Prince Leopold afterwards
King of the Belgians.
Prior to his removal to Hart Street he lived in
No. 17 St. James?s Square, a common stair. He
possessed genius, fancy, taste, and delicacy,, with a
true enthusiasm for his art; and his social worth
and private virtues were acknowledged by all who
had the pleasure of knowing him. He had a vast
fund of anecdote, and in his domestic relations was
an affectionate husband, good father, and faithful
friend. His constant engagements precluded his
contributing to the exhibitions in Edinburgh, but
his works frequently graced the walls of the Royal
Academy at Somerset House. In a note attached
to David Malloch?s ? Immortality of the Soul,? he
says :-?? The author would take this opportunity
of stating that if he has been at all successful in
depicting any of the bolder features of Nature, this
he in a great measure owes to the conversation of
his respected friend, William Douglas, Esq., Edinburgh,
who was no less a true poet than an eminent
artist.?
He died at his house in Hart Street on the 20th
of January, 1832, leaving a daughter, Miss Ranisay
Douglas, also an artist, and the inheritor of his
peculiar grace and delicacy of touch.
York Place being called from the king?s second
son by his English title, Albany Street, by a
natural sequence, was ndmed from the title of
the second son of the king of Scotland. Albany
Row it was called in the feuing advertisements
in 1800, and for some twenty years after. In
No. 2, which is now broken up and subdivided, lived
John Playfau, Professor of Natural Philosophy in
the University, z man of whom it has been said
that he was cast in nature?s happiest mould, acute,
clear, comprehensive, and having all the higher
qualities of intellect combined and regulated by
the most perfect good taste, being not less perfect
in his moral than in his intellectual nature. He
was a man every?way distinguished, respected, and
beloved.
When only eighteen years old he became a candidate
in 1766 for the chair of mathematics in
the Marischal College, Aberdeen, where, after a
lengthened and very strict examination, only two
out of six nval competitors were judged to have
excelled him-these were, Dr. Trill, who was
appointed to the chair, and Dr. Hamilton, who
subsequently succeeded to it. He was the son
of?the Rev. James Playfair, minister of Liff and
Benvie, and upon the representation of Lord
.
.

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hart Street York Place he officiated there, until a severe illness in 1831 compelled ...

Book 3 p. 190
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JAMES ZV. TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN. 23
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and uuder the influence of the leaders at the Field of Stirling,
enacted, in his name, many harsh and unjust laws, directed against the adherents of the late
King, involving suspension or deprivation to all officers of state, and handing over (‘ all
churchmen taken in armour, to their ordinaries, to be punished according to law.” The first
occurrence that tended to rescue the King from implicit confidence in his father’s enemies,
was the splendid victory obtained by Sir Andrew Wood, over a fleet sent by Henry VII.
of England, to execute reprisals on the murderers of the late King. They had committed
great ravages on the Scottish shipping, and completely blockaded the mouth of the Forth ;
when Sir Andrew Railed against them, and with an inferior force, completely defeated, and
brought the whole armament, consisting of five large ships, into Leith. Shortly after this,
the King concluded a truce with England, and on the 15th day of February 1490, his second
Parliament met at Edinburgh, and again another in the following year, both of which
enacted many salutary laws ; and, at the same time, Andrew Foreman, Protonotary of Pope
Alexander VL, arrived at the Scottish Court with consolatory letters to the King, whose
grief at the share he had taken in the fatal rebellion against his father still manifested itself
in severe penances and mortifications. He was also the bearer of a bull, addressed to the
abbots of Paisley and Jedburgh,’ empowering them to absolve and readmit into the church
all such as had been accessory to the death of King James 111. of famous memory, on
their expressing sincere repentance for the same.* And now the King, drawing towards
manhood, the ominous clouds that had threatened the commencement of his reign disappeared,
and a long and prosperous calm succeeding his early troubles, left him free to
give the rein to his chivalrous tastes, and extend his royal patronage to the many eminent
men that adorned the Scott,ish Court.
During this reign, Edinburgh became celebrated throughout Europe, as the scene of
knightly feats of arms. tournaments are of great antiquity
; they were held. in Edinburgh in the reign of milliam the Lion, and in those of
many of the succeeding Princes. The valley or low ground lying between the wester road
to Leith, and the rock at Lochend, was bestowed by James 11. on the community of Edinburgh,
for the special purpose of holding tournaments and other martial sports.” Here,
most probably, the weaponshaws which were of such constant recurrence at a later period, ‘
as well as such martial parades as were summoned by civic authority, were held, unless in
cases of actual preparation for war, when the Borough Muir seems to have been invariably
the appointed place of rendezvous. The favourite scene of royal tournaments, however,
was a spot of ground near the King’s Stables, just below the Castle wall. Here James
IT., in particular, often assembled his lords and barons, by proclamation, for jousting;
offering such meeds of honour as a spear headed with gold, and the like favours, presented
to the victor by the King’s own hand; so that ‘‘ the fame of hisjusting and turney spread
throw all Europe, quhilk caused many errand knyghtis cum out of vther pairtes to Scotland
to seik justing, becaus they hard of the kinglie fame of the Prince of Scotland. Bot few
or none of thame passed away vnmached, and oftymes overthromne.” ‘
One notable encounter is specially recorded, which took place between Sir John Cockbewis,
a Dutch knight, and Sir Patrick Hamilton. “ Being assembled togidder on great
In this country,” says Arnot,
Hawthornden, p. 68
Arnot, p. i l .
’ Martial Achievements, voL ii. p. 497. ’ Piboottie, vol. E. p. 246.

... ZV. TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN. 23 Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and uuder the influence of the leaders at the Field ...

Book 10 p. 25
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THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 259
escape from the shot of an assassin, which struck the candlestick before him as he sat at
his studies ; and within these walls he at length expired, in the sixty-seventh year of his
age, ‘‘ not so much oppressed with years as worn out and exhausted by his extraordinary
labour of body and anxiety of mind.”
A range of very picturesque buildings once formed the continuous row from ‘‘ Knox’s
corner,” to the site of the ancient Nether Bow Port, but that busy destroyer, Time, seems
occasionally to wax impatient of his own ordinary slow operations, and to demolish with
a swifter hand what he has been thought inclined to spare. One of them, a curious
specimen of the ancient timber-fronted lands, and with successive tiers of windows divided
only by narrow pilasters, has recently been curtailed by a story in height and robbed of
its most characteristic featnres, to preserve for a little longer what remains, while the
house immediately to the east of Knox’s, which tradition pointed out as the mansion of
the noble family of Balmerinoch, has now disappeared, having literally tumbled to the
ground, Immediately behind the site of this, on the west side of Society Close, an
ancient stone land, of singular construction, bears the following inscription over its main
entrance :-R * H There
appears to have been a date, but it is now illegible. The doorway gives access to a curious
hanging turnpike stair, supported on corbels formed by the projection of the stone steps
on the first floor beyond the wall. This is the same tenement already referred to as the
property of Aleson Bassendyne, the printer’s daughter. The alley bears the name of
Bassendyne’s Close, in the earliest titles ; more recently it is styled Panmure Close, from
the residence there of John Naule of Inverkeilory, appointed a Baron of the Court of
Exchequer in 1748-a grandson of the fourth Earl of Panmure, attainted in 1715 for his
adherence to the Stuarts. The large stone mansion which he occupied at the foot of the
close, was afterwards acquired by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge,
founded in 1701, and erected into a body-corporate by Queen Anne. Its chief apartment
was used as their Hall; from which circumstance the present name of the close
originated.
The old timber land to the east of this close is said to have been the Excise Office
in early times, in proof of which the royal arms are pointed out over the first floor.
The situation was peculiarly convenient for guarding the principal gate of the city, and
the direct avenue to the neighbouring seaport. It is a stately erection, of considerable
antiquity, and we doubt not has lodged much more important official occupants than the
Hanoverian excisemen. It has an outside stair leading to a stone turnpike on the first
floor, and over the doorway of the latter is the motto DEW - BENEDICTAT. Since
George II.’s reign, the Excise Office has run through its course with as many and
rapid vicissitudes as might sufiice to mark the career of a prufligate spendthrift. In its
earlier days, when a floor of the old land in the Nether Bow sufficed for its accommodations,
it was regarded as foremost among the detested fruits of the Union. From thence
it removed to more commodious chambers in the Cowgate, since demolished to make way
for the southern piers of George IV. Bridge. Its next resting-place was the large tenement
on the south side of Chessel’s Court, in the Canongate, the scene of the notorious
Deacon Brodie’s last robbery. nom thence it was removed to Sir Lawrence Dnndas’s
splendid mansion in St Andrew Square, now occupied by the Royal Bank. This may
HODIE * MIHI * CRAS . TIBI . CVR * IGITVR CVRAS *

... HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 259 escape from the shot of an assassin, which struck the candlestick before him ...

Book 10 p. 281
(Score 0.45)

446 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
find that loss sufficiently supplied in other places, where they have a foot too much ; and be$des men’s works
generally resemble themselves-if the poems are lame, so is the author !
Claudero lived ostensibly by teaching a school, which he kept in an old tenement in the Cowgate, at the
bottom of the High School Wynd. By his poetic effusions he contrived to eke out a precarious income, deriving
no unfrequent additions to his slender purse, both by furnishing lampoons to his less witty fellow-citizens who
desired to take their revenge on some offending neighbour by such means, and by engaging to suppress similar
effusions, which he frequently composed on some of the rich but sensitive old burghers, who willingly feed
him to aecure themselves against such a public pillory, He latterly added to his pofasaional income by performing
half-merk marriages, an occupation which, no doubt, afforded him additional eatisfaction, as he was
thereby taking their legitimate duties out of the hands of his old enemies, the clergy.
Claudero, like other great men who have kept the world in awe, was himself subjected to a domestic rule
sutliciently severe to atone to his bitterest enemies for the mongs they suffered from his pen. His wife was an
accomplished virago, whose shrewish tongue subdued the poetic fire of the poor satirist the moment he came
within her sphere, though, probably with little increase. to her own comfort Like other poets’ helpmates, she
had, no doubt, frequent occasion to complain of an empty larder, and the shrill notes of her usual welcome
often helped to send the not unwilling bard to some favourite howf, with its jolly circle of boon companions.
The Echo of the Royal Porch of the Palace of Holyrood-
House, which fell under Military Execution, Anno 1753.” From this it would appear that the military
guardians of the Palace had been employed in this wanton act of destruction. The poet-or rather the Echo
of the Old Porch-thus speaks of these
“ The hst piece in Claudem’s collected poems is,
Sons of Mars, with black cockade :”-
‘‘ They do not always deal in blood ;
Nor yet in breaking human bones,
For Quixot-like they knock down stones.
Regardlesa they the mattock ply,
To root out Scota antiquity.”
In the same vein the poet mourns the successive demolition of the most venerable antiquities of Edinburgh ;
genedy allowing the expiring relic to speak ita own grievances: The following is the lament-for the old City
Cross, which, Claudero insinuates in the last line, was demolished lest ita tattered and time-worn visage should
shame the handsome polished front of the New Exchange ; and this idea is enlarged on in the piece with which
it is followed up in the collection, entitled :-cc The serious advice and exhortation of the Royal Exchange to
the Cross of Edinburgh, immediately before its execution.”
(‘ The Last Speech una Dying Wwda of the Cross of Edidurgh, which war hanged, drawn, and quartwed, on
Monday the 16th of March 1756, for the horrid CTinze of being am Ewrnhrance lo the Street.-
Ye sons of Scotia, mourn and weep,
Express your grief with sorrow deep ;
Let aged sires be bath’d in team,
And ev’ry heart be fill’d with fears ;
Let rugged rocks with grief abound,
And Echo8 multiply the sound;
Let rivers, hills, Iet woods and plains,
Let morning dews, let winds and rainB,
United join to aid my woe,
And loudly mourn my overthrow.-
For Arthur’r Orin and Edinbuvgh Cross,
Have, by new achemers, got a toss;
We, heels o’er head, are tumbled down,
The modern taste ia London town.

... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. find that loss sufficiently supplied in other places, where they have a foot too much ...

Book 10 p. 485
(Score 0.44)

THE STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF YAMES III. I3
after this, Henry IV. of England renewed the oft-confuted claim of superiority over Scotland;
and in pursuance of this, wrote letters to the Scottigh King, and to the nobles and
prelates of Scotland, requiring them to meet him at Edinburgh by the 23d of August, in
order to pay the homage due to him as their superior and direct lord.’ King Henry was
as good as his word, for with a well-ordered and numerous army, he crossed the Borders,
and was at Edinburgh before the day he had appointed ; as appears from a letter written
by him to the King of Scots, dated at Leith, 21st August 1400.* While there, the
Duke of Rothsay, who then held the Castle of Edinburgh, sent him a challenge to meet
him where he pleased, with an hundred nobles on each side, and so to determine the quarrel.
But King Henry was in no humour to forego the advantages he already possessed,
at the head of a more numerous army than Scotland could raise ; and 80 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 absolute dearth of provisions, compelled him to
raise the inglorious siege and hastily recross the Border, without doing any notable injury
either in his progress or retreat.
During the minority of James I., the royal poet, and his tedious captivity of nineteen
years in England, Edinburgh continued to partake of all the uncertain vicissitudes of the
capital of a kingdom under delegated government, though still prosperous enough to contribute
50,000 merks towards the payment of his ransom. When at length he did return
to enter on the cares of royalty, his politic plans for the control of the Highland clans seem
to have led to the almost constant assembly of the Parliaments, as well as his frequent
residence at Perth. Yet, in 1430, we find him residing in Edinburgh, attended by his Queen
and court, as appears from accounts of the surrender of the Earl of Rosa. At thia time,
the rebellious Earl, having made a vain attempt to hold out against the resolute measures
of the King, wrote to his friends at court to mediate a peace ; but finding their efforts unavailing,
he came privately to Edinburgh: where, having watched a fit opportunity, when
the Ring and Queen were in the church of Holyrood Abbey at divine service, he prostrated
himself on his knees, and holding the point of his sword in his own hand, presented the
hilt to the King, intimating that he put his life at his Majesty’s mercy. At the request of
the Queen, King James granted him his life, but confined him for a time in the castle of
Tantallan. His imprisonment, however, seems to have been brief, and the reconciliation,
on the King’s part at least, sincere and effectual ; for the Queen having shortly after this
given birth to two sons-Alexander, who died 00011 after; and James, afterwards the
second monarch of the name ;-the King not only liberated him, with many other prisoners,
but is said to have selected him to stand sponsor for the royal infants at the font.
The style of building, still prevalent at this period, was of the same rude and fragile
nature as we have already described at an earlier period ; and repeated enactments occur,
intended to avert the dangerous conflagrations to which the citizens were thus liable. In
the third Parliament of this reign, a series of stringent laws were passed, requiring the
magistrates to keep I( siven or aught twenty fute ledders, as well as three or foure sayes to
the comnoun use, and sex or maa cleikes of iron, to draw down timber and d e st hat are
fired.” And, again, ‘I that na fie be fetched fra ane house, til me uther within the town,
Hartial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 200. ’ Ibid, p, 215. * Ibid,p. 289.

... STUARTS TO THE DEATH OF YAMES III. I3 after this, Henry IV. of England renewed the oft-confuted claim of ...

Book 10 p. 14
(Score 0.44)

241 CoWgab.1 THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL.
to preach openly, by taking the oaths to Govemment,
had been founded in Edinburgh by Baron
Smith, and two smaller ones were founded about
1746, in Skinner?s and Carrubber?s Closes; but as
these places were only mean and inconvenient
apartments, a plan was formed for the erection of
a large and handsome church. The Episcopalians
of the city chose a committee of twelve gentlemen
to see the scheme executed. They purchased from
the Royal College of Physicians the area of what
had formerly been the Tweeddale gardens, and
opened a subscription, which was the only resource
they had for completing the building, the
trifling funds belonging to the former obscure
chapels bearing no proportion to the cost of so
expensive a work. But this impediment was removed
by the gentlemen of the committee, who
generously gave their personal credit to a considerable
amount.
The foundation stone was laid on the 3rd of
April, 1771, by the Grand Master Mason, Lieutenant-
General Sir Adolphus Oughton, K.B.,
Colonel of the 31st Foot, and Commander of the
Forces in Scotland. The usual coins were deposited
in the stone, under a plate, inscribed thus :-
EDIFICII SAC. ECCLESIW EPISC. ANGLIB,
PRIMIlM POSUIT LAPIDEY,
I. ADOLPHUS OUGHTON,
CURIO MAXIMUS,
MILITUM PRWFECTUS,
REONANTE GEORGIO 111.
TERTIO APR. DIE,
A.D. MDCCLXXI.
IN ARCHITECTONICA storm RFPUB.
Towards this church the Writers to the Signet
subscribed zoo guineas, and the Incorporation
of Surgeons gave 40 guineas, and on Sunday, the
9th of October, 1774, divine service was performed
in it for the first time. ?This is a plain,
handsome building,? says Arnot, ? neatly fitted up
in the inside somewhat in the form of the church
of St. Martin?s-in-the-Fields, London. It is 90
feet long by 75 broad pver the walls, and is omamented
with a neat spire of a tolerable height. In
the spire hangs an excellent bell, formerly belonging
to the Chapel Royal at Holyrood, which is
permitted to be rung for assembling the congregation,
an indulgence that is not allowed to the
Presbyterians in England. This displays a commendable
liberality of sentiment in the magistrates
of Edinburgh ; but breathes no jealousy for the
dignity of their national Church. In the chapel
there is a fine organ, made by Snetzler.of London.
In the east side is a niche of 30 feet, with a
Venetian window, where stands the altar, which is
adorned with paintings by Runciman, a native of
Edinburgh. In the volta is the Ascefision; over
the small window on the right is Christ talking
with the Samaritan woman ; on the left the Prodigal
returned. In these two the figures are halflength.
On one side of the table is the figure of
Moses ; on the other that of Elias.?
At the time Arnot wrote L6,Soo had been spent
on the building, which was then incomplete. ? The
ground,? he adds, ?? is low ; the chapel is concealed
by adjacent buildinis ; the access for carriages inconvenient,
and there is this singularityattending it,
that it is the only Christian church standing north
and south we ever saw or heard of. . . . . . . . . There are about I,ooo persons in this
congregation. Divine service is celebrated before
them according to all the rites of the Church of
England. This deserves to be considered as a
mark of increasing moderation and liberality among
the generality of the people. Not many years ago
that form of worship in all its ceremonies would
not have been tolerated The organ and paintings
would have been downright idolatry, and the
chapel would have fallen a sacrifice to the fury of
the mob.?
Upon the death of Mr. Can; the first senior
clergyman of this chapel, he was interred under its
portico, and the funeral service was sung, the voices
of the congregation being accompanied by the
organ. In Arnot?s time the senior clergyman was
Dr. Myles Cooper, Principal of New York College,
an exile from America in consequence of the revolt
of the colonies.
In the middle?of February, 1788, accounts
reached Scotland of the death and funeral of Prince
Charles Edward, the eldest grandson of James VII.,
at Rome, and created a profound sensation among
people of all creeds, and the papers teemed with
descriptions of the burial service at Frascati ; how
his brother, the Cardinal, wept, and his voice broke
when singing the office for the dead prince, on
whose coffin lay the diamond George and collar of
the Garter, now in Edinburgh Castle, while the
militia of Frascati stood around as a guard, with
the Master of Nairn, in whose arms the prince
expired.
In the subsequent April the Episcopal College
met ?at Aberdeen, and unanimously resolved that
they should submit ? to the present Government of
this kingdom as invested in his present Majesty
George III.,? death having broken the tie which
bound them to the House of Stuart. Thenceforward
the royal family was prayed for in all their
churches, and the penal statutes, after various
modifications, were repezled in 1792. Eight years
afterwards the Rev. Archibald Alison (father of

... CoWgab.1 THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL. to preach openly, by taking the oaths to Govemment, had been founded in ...

Book 4 p. 247
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308 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
authority on which this rests, it is probable that the utmost countenance afforded by these
divines waa their presence at the rehearsal, and the dinner which succeeded it in the
Erskihe Club, at the Abbey.’ The old tenement, wherein this singular assemblage took
place, has been entirely demolished to make way for a chapel and school founded by the
Duchess of Cordon for the inhabitants of the Sanctuary. The antique building to the
south, separated from this by the vennel mentioned above, appears from the titles to
have been the residence of Francis Lord Napier at the memorable era of the Union
Parliament.
The ancient Tennis Court, the frequent scene of the dramatic amusements of the royal
occupants of Holyrood, which survives now only in name, immediately without the Water
Gate, has been repeatedly referred to in the course of the work.’ The game of Tennis,
which was a favourite sport throughout Europe during last century, is now almost
unknown. Its last most celebrated Scottish players are said to have been James Hepburn,
Esq. of Keith, and the famous John Law, of Laurieston, afterwards Comptroller-
General of the finances in France.8 The whole ground to the eastward of the Tennis Court
appears in Edgar’s map as open garden ground attached to the Palace, with the exception
of the small building known as Queen Mary’s Bath; but shortly after Lord Adam
Gordon, Commander of the Forces in Scotland, took up his residence at Holyrood Palace
in 1789, he granted permission to several favourite veterans, who had served under him
abroad, to erect small booths and cottages along the garden wall; and they so effectually
availed themselves of the privilege that several of the cottages have since risen to be
substantial three and four storied lands. John Keith, a favourite subaltern, obtained at
that time the piece of ground immediately adjoining Queen Mary’s Bath, and in the
course of rearing the large building, which now remains in the possession of his daughters,
he had to demolish part of a turret staircase which led to the roof of the Bath. Here, on
removing a portion of the slating, a richly-inlaid dagger of antique form, and greatly
corroded with rust, was found sticking in the sarking of the roof. It remained for many
years in the possession of the veteran owner, and used to hang above the parlour fire-place
along with his own sword. His daughter, to whom we owe these particulars, described
the ancient weapon (( as though it had the king’s arms on it, done in gold.” It was
finally lent to a young friend, to add to his other decorations, preparatory to his figuring
in one of the processions during the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh in 1822, and was
lost through the carelessness of the borrower. This very curious relic of antiquity has
been supposed, with considerable appearance of probability, to have formed one of the
weapons of the murderers of Rizzio, who are known to have escaped through this part of
the royal garden^.^ This curious and exceedingly picturesque lodge of the ancient Palace
is well worthy of preservation, and it is to be hoped will meet with due care in any,projected
improvements in the neighbourhood of Holyrood House. The tradition of its
having been used as a bath by the Scottish Queen is of old standing. Pennant tells us
ic
Pi& Burton’s Life of Hume, VOL i. p. 420, where it is shown that Dr Robertaon was not then principal, nor Dr
Ferguson, professor; though thin is of little account, if they lived at the time in friendship with Home. Among the
company at the Abbey were Lord Elibank, Lord Milton, Lord Kamea, and Lord Yonboddo.
a Ants, p. 103. ’ Ante p. 76.
* Archseol. Scot., voL i. p. COS.
We have made thie curioue discovery the subjed of careful investigation, and feel aesured that no
one who make, the name inquiries at the respectable proprietora of the house will entertain any doubt on the subject.

... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. authority on which this rests, it is probable that the utmost countenance afforded by ...

Book 10 p. 336
(Score 0.44)

ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 381
others. The pillars are decorated with foliated capitals, elaborately finished with sculptured
shields and angels’ heads ; the shafts are fluted according to a regular and beautiful
design, and their bases are enriched with foliated sculpture ; while the other pillars of the
choir are plain octagons, with their capitals formed by a few simple mouldings. The arching
and groining, moreover, of this extended portion of the aisles entirely differs from the
western and earlier part ; for whereas the latter are formed of concentric arches springing
from four sides and meeting in one keystone, so that the top of the windows can
reach no higher than the spring of the arch, the former is constructed on the more nsual
plan of a goined roof, running across the aisle, and admitting of the two eastmost windows
on each side rising nearly to the top of the arch. No less obvious proofs are discoverable of
the addition of the clerestory at the same period. There are flaws remaining in the
lower part of its walk, marking distinctly how far the old work has been taken down.
A slight inclination outward, in part of the wall immediately above the pillars, shows
that the roof of the choir had corresponded in height with the old nave ; and portions of
the original groining springing from the capitals of the pillars still remain, only partially
chiselled away. The extreme beauty of the clerestory groining, and its remarkably rich
variety of bosses, all furnish abdndant evidence of its being the work of a later age than
the other parts of the building. On €he centre boss, at the division of the two eastmost
compartments of the ceiling, is the monogram fQ$, boldly cut on a large shield; and on
the one next to it westward, the following legend is neatly arranged round a carved
centre in bold relief :-%be + gCil .. pbl . bnpl + teCU +-an abbreviation evidently of the
salutation of the Virgin,-Ave Maria, gratia p Zena, dominus tecum,-though from ita
height, and the contractions necessary to bring it within such circumscribed dimensions,
it is not easily deciphered. These, it is probable, stood directly over the site of the high
altar, which does not appear to have been removed from its original position at the east
end of the old choir upon its enlargement and elongation in the fifteenth century, as we
find that Walter Bertrame, burgess of Edinburgh, by a charter dated December 20, 1477,
founded a chaplainry at ‘‘ the Altar of St fiancia, situate behind the Great Altar,” and
endowed it with various annual rents from property in Edinburgh and Leith.l
Another striking feature of the additions made to St Giles’s Church in the fifteenth
century, is the numerous heraldic devices introduced among the ornaments, which afford
striking confirnation as to the period when they were executed., The north-east, or King’s
Pillar, as it is generally called, of which we have already given a view; bears on the east
and west sides the royal arms of Scotland ; on the north side those of May of Gueldersthe
Queen of James 11. and the founder of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinityimpaled
with the royal arms ; and on the south side the arms of France. James II. succeeded
to the throne, a mere child, in 1438, and was killed by the bursting of a cannon at
the siege of Roxburgh Castle in 1460 ; and the remaining armorial bearings afford further
proof of the erection of this addition to the church between these two periods. On the opposite
pillar there are, on the south side, the arms of the good town ; and on the west those
of Bishop Remedy, the cousin of James IL and his able and faithful councillor, who was
promoted to the metropolitan see in 1440, and died in 1466. The other arms are those
of Nicolson, and Preston of Craigmillar. On the engaged pillar, on the north side of the
Maitland, p. 271. Inventar of Pious Donations. MS. Ad. Lib. ’ Ante, p. 24.

... ANTIQUITIES. 381 others. The pillars are decorated with foliated capitals, elaborately finished ...

Book 10 p. 418
(Score 0.44)

THE HIGH STREET. 243
bouring buildings with a majestic and imposing effect, of which the north front of James’a
Court-the only private building that resembles it-conveys only a very partial idea.
Within the Fishmarket Close was the mansion of George Heriot, the royal goldsmith of
James VI. ; where more recently resided the elder Lord President Dundas, father of
Lord Melville, a thorough &on wivant of the old claret-drinking school of lawyers.’ There
also, for successive generations, dwelt another dignitary of the College of Justice, the
grim executioner of the law’s last sentence-happily a less indispensable legal functionary
than in former days. The last occupant of the hangman’s house annually drew “ the
dempster’s fee” at the Royal Bank, and eked out his slender professional income by
cobbling such shoes as his least superstitious neighbours cared to trust in his hands,
doubtless, with many a sorrowful reflection on the wisdom of our forefathers, and ‘‘ the
good old times ” that are gone The house has been recently rebuilt, but, as might
be expected, it is still haunted by numerous restless ghosts, and will run considerable
risk of remaining tenantless should its official occupant, in these hard times, find his
occupation gone.4
Borthwick’s Close, which stands to the east, is expressly mentioned in Nisbet’s
Heraldry as having belonged to the Lords Borthwick, and in the boundaries of a house
in the adjoining close, the property about the middle of the east side is described as the
Lord Napier’s ; but the whole alley is now entirely modernised, and destitute of attractions
either for the artist or antiquary. On the ground, however, that intervenes between this
and the Assembly Close, one of the new Heriot schools has been built, and occupies a site
of peculiar interest. There stood, until its demolition by the Great Fire of 1824, the old
Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh, whither the directors of fashion removed their ‘‘ General
Assembly,” about the year 1720,” from the scene of its earlier revels in the West Bow.
There it was that Goldsmith witnessed for the first time the formalities of an old Scottish
ball, during his residence in Edinburgh in 17’53. The light-hearted young Irishman has
left an amusing account of the astonishment with which, ‘‘ on entering the dancing-hall,
he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit dismally in a group by themselves
; on the other end stand their pensive partners that are to be, but no more intercourse
between the sexes than between two countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may
ogle, and the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid upon any closer commerce I ” Only
three years after the scene witnessed by the poet, these grave and decorous revels were
removed to more commodious rooms in Bell’s Wynd, where they continued to be held till
the erection of the new hall in George Street. Much older associations, however, pertain
to this interesting locality, for, on the site occupied by the d d Assembly Rooms, there
formerly stood the town mansion of Lord Durie, President of the Court of Session in 1642,
and the hero of the merry ballad of “ Christie’s Will.” The Earl of Traquair, it appears,
had a lawsuit pending in the Court of Session, to which the President’s opposition was
1 Dr Steven’s Memoirs of Gorge Heriot, p. 6. ’ T& ‘‘ Convivial habits of the Scottish Bar.”-Note to “Guy Mannering.? ’ Pidc Chambers’s Traditions, vol. ii. p, 184, for aome curioua notices of the Edinburgh hangmen. ’ The office of this functionary ia now abolished, and the house ia occupied by privata families,
5 Nbbet’s Heraldry, vol. ii Appendix, p. 106.
a In a mine dated 1723, it is atyled-“That big hall, or great room, now known by the name of the h m b l y
House, being part of that new great atone tenemeut of land lately built,” &c.--BurgA Chu&r h.

... HIGH STREET. 243 bouring buildings with a majestic and imposing effect, of which the north front of ...

Book 10 p. 264
(Score 0.44)

326 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11745.
-the identical vehicle in which the deputies had returned
from Gray?s Mill, and the driver of which
wanted to pass out at that critical juncture. ?Open
the port,? he cried, ?for I behove to get out.? ?You
cannot,? yeplied the sentinel, ?without an order from
Provost Stewart.? ?Let the coach out instantly,?
said James Gillespie, under-keeper of the gate,
?:for I have an order to that effect.? ?Oh, sir, ?tis
very well; you have the keys of the port and must
answer for it,? replied the soldier,. as he pulled
back the ponderous gate in the arch between its
two massive towers.
At that moment a Highlander sprang in and
wrested his musket from him ; it was the chief of
Lochiel; and immediately the whole clan Cameron
advanced up the street, with swords drawn and
colours flying, their pipes playing
? We?ll awa to Shirramuir,
And haud the Whigs ip order.?
Other noise there was none, and no bloodshed;
not an armed man was to be seen on the streets, to
the astonishment of the Highlanders, who saw only
the people in their nightdresses, at the windows,
by the light of the early dawn.
They seized the Guard-house, disarmed the
Guard, captured the cannon and arsenal, placed
pickets at the eight principal gates with the
utmost order and regularity, while the magistrates
retired to their houses, aware that their authority
was ended. .
Generals Guest and Preston hoisted the royal
standard on the Castle, and fired a few cannon to
warn all to keep from its vicinity, and, meanwhile,
after two hours? sleep, Charles prepared to take
possession of the palace of his forefathers. Making
a tour to the south, to avoid the fire of the Castle
till he reached Braidsburn, he turned towards the
city as far as the Hare Stone, a mass of granite
on the turnpike road near Morningside-the old
banner stone of the Burghmuir. He then wheeled
to the east by the beech-shaded Grange Loan (now
bordered by villas, sequestered and grassy then),
which leads by the old house of the Grange to the
Causeway side
Near Priestfield he entered the royal parks by
a breach that had been made in the wall, and
traversed the Hunter?s Bog, that had echoed so
often .to the bugles of his ancestors. Leaving his
troops to take up their camp, about noon he rode
-with what emotions we may imagine-towards
old Holyrood, of a thousand stirring memories,
attended by the Duke of Perth and Lord Elcho,
with a train of gentlemen and the veterans of his
Highland guard-veterans of Sherriffmuir and Glenshiel-
eighty in number, at the very time that Sir
John Cope?s armament was disembarking at Dunbar.
On reaching the eminence below St. Anthony?s
chapel and well, when for the first time he came
in sight of the old palace, he alighted from his
horse, and paused to survey the beautiful scene.
Then descending to the Duke?s Walk (so called
because it had been a favourite resort of his grandfather,
to whose flagrant misgovernment he owed
his exile) he halted for a few minutes to show himself
to the people, who now flocked around him in
great numbers with mingled feelings of ccriosity
and admiration. Loud huzzas came from the
crowd, and many of the enthusiastic Jacobites
knelt down and kissed his hand. He then
mounted his horse-a fine bay gelding, presented
to him by the Duke of Perth-and rode slowly
towards the palace. On arriving in front of Holyrood
he alighted, and was about to enter the royal
dwelling, when a cannon ball fired from the Castle
struck the front of Jarnes V.?s tower, and brought
down a quantity of rubbish into the court-yard.
No injury was done, however, by this gratuitous
act of annoyance, and the Prince, passing in at the
outer gate, and proceeding along the piazza, and
the quadrangle, was about to enter the porch of
what are called the Duke of Hamilton?s apartments,
when James Hepburn of Keith, who had takeii
part in the rising of 1715, ?a model of ancient
simplicity, manliness, and honour,? stepped from
the crowd, bent his knee in token of homage, and
then drawing his sword, raised it aloft, and marshalled
the way before Charles up-stairs.?
On this day Charles wore a short tartan coat, with
the star of St- Andrew, a blue velvet bonnet, and
white cockade, a blue ribbon over his shoulder,
scarlet breeches, and military boots, Tall, handsome,
fair, and noble in aspect, he excited the
admiration of all those fearless Jacobites, the ladies
especially. ?All were charmed with his appearance,?
says Home; ?they compared him to
Robert Bruce, whom he resembled, they said, in
his figure and fortune. The Whigs looked upon
him with other eyes; they acknowledged that he
was a goodly person, but observed that even in
that triumphant hour, when about to enter the
palace of his fathers, the air of his countenance was
languid and melancholy; that he looked like a
gentleman and man of fashion, but not like a hero
or conqueror.? He adds, however, that he was
greeted with acclaim by the peasantry, who, whenever
he went abroad, sought to kiss his hand3 and
even to touch his clothes.
At one o?clock on the same day a body of the
Cameron clansmen was drawn up around the

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11745. -the identical vehicle in which the deputies had returned from Gray?s Mill, and ...

Book 2 p. 326
(Score 0.44)

382 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Gregfriars Church.
encroaching on one not fit to be touched ! The
whole presents a scene equally nauseous and unwholesome.
How soon this spot will be so surcharged
with animal juices and oils, that, becoming
one mass of corruption, its noxious steams will
burst forth with the prey of a pestilence, we shall
not pretend to determine ; but we will venture to
say, the effects of this burying-ground would ere
now have been severely felt, were it not that, besides
the coldness of the climate, they have been checked
by the acidity of the coal smoke and the height of
the winds, which in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh
blow with extraordinary violence.?
h o t wrote fully a hundred years ago, but since
his time the interments in the Greyfriars went on
till within a recent period.
George Buchanan was buried here in 1582,
under a through-stone, which gradually sank into
the earth and disappeared. The site, distinctly
known in 1701, is now barely remembered by tradition
as being on the north slope of the churchyard;
but a monument in the ground, to the great
Latin scholar and Scottish historian, was erected
by the late great bibliopole, David Laing, so many
years Librarian of the Signet Library, at his own
expense. An essential feature in the memorial is a
head of Buchanan in bronze, from the best likeness
of him extant. The design was furnished by D.
W. Stevenson, A.R.S.A.
Taking some of the interments at, random, here
is the grave of George Heriot (father of the founder
of the adjacent hospital), who died in 1610; of
George Jameson, the Scottish Vandyke, who died
in 1644; and of Alexander Henderson, 1646, the
great covenanting divine, and leading delegate from
Scotland to the Westminster Assembly, and the
principal author of the Assembly?s Catechism. His
ashes lie under a square pedestal tomb, erected
by his nephew, and surmounted by a carved urn.
There are long inscriptions on the four sides.
John Milne?s tomb, 1667, Royal Master Mason
@y sixth descent), erected by his nephew, .Robert
Milne, also Royal Master Mason, and builder of
the modem portions of Holyrood House, records
in rhyme how-
? John Milne, who maketh the fourth John,
And, by descent from father unto son,
Sixth Master Mason to a royal race
Of seven successive kings, sleeps in this place.?
It is a handsome tomb, with columns and a
pediment, and immediately adjoins the eastern or
Candlemaker Row entrance, in the formation of
which some old mural tombs were removed;
among them that of Alexander Millar, Master
Tailor to James VI., dated 1616--Xiit Pnkcz$s et
Civium Zucfu decotafus, as it bore.
A flat stone which, by 1816, was much sunk in
the earth, dated 1613, covered the grave of Dr.
John Nasmyth, of the family of Posso, surgeon of
the king of France?s troop of Scottish Guards, who
died in London, but whose remains had been sent
to the Greyfriars by order of James VI.
The tomb of Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh-
the celebrated lawyer, and founder of the
Advocates? Library, and who, as a persecutor, was so
ahhorred by the people that his spirit was supposed
to haunt the place where he lies-is a handsome
and ornqte octagon temple, with eight pillars, a
cornice, and a dome, on the southern side of the
ground, and its traditional terrors we have already
referred to. But other interments than his have
taken place here. One notably in 1814, when
the widow of Lieutenant Roderick Mackenzie of
Linessie was, at her own desire, laid there, ?in
the tomb of the celebrated Sir George Mackenzie,
who was at the head of the Lochslin family, and
to whom, by the mother?s side, she was nearly
related.? (GenfZeman?s Mng., 1814.)
Near it is the somewhat remarkable tomb of
William Little, whilom Provost of Edinburgh in
1591. He was Laird of Over Liberton, and the
tomb was erected by his great-grandchild in 1683.
His kinsman, Clement Little, Advocate and Commissary
of Edinburgh, whose meagre library formed
the nucleus of that of the university, is also buried
here. It is a mausoleum, composed of a recumbent
female figure, with a pillar-supported canopy above
her, on which stand four female figures at the
several corners. The popular story is that the
lady was poisoned by her four daughters, whose
statues were placed over her in eternal remembrance
of their wickedness; but the effigies are in
reality those of Justice, Charity, Faith, &c., favourite
emblematical characters in that age when the
monument was erected; and the object in placing
them there was merely ornamental.
Here are interred Archibald Pitcairn, the poet,
1713, under a rectangular slab on four pillars, with
an inscription by his friend Ruddiman, near the
north entry of the ground; Colin MacLaurin, the
mathematician, 1746; and William Ged, the inventor
of stereotype printing.
Here was worthy and gentle Allan Ramsay committed
to the grave in 1758, and the just and u p
right Lord President Duncan Forbes of Culloden,
elevenyears before that time. Another famous Lord
President, Robert Blair of Avontoun, was laid here
in 1811.
Here, too, lie the two famous Monros, father and

... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Gregfriars Church. encroaching on one not fit to be touched ! The whole presents a ...

Book 4 p. 382
(Score 0.44)

CHAPTER VIT.
THE CANONGA TE AND ABBE Y SANCTUAR Y.
HE ancient Burgh of Canongate may claim as its
founder the sainted David I., by whom the
Abbey of Holyrood was planted in the Forest of
Drumselch early in the twelfth century, as a shrine
for the miraculous cross which the royal hunter so
unexpectedly obtained within its sylvan glades. It
sprung up wholly independent of the neighbouring
capital, gathering as naturally around the conse-’
crated walls of the monastery, whose dependents
and vassals were its earliest builders, as did its warlike
neighbour shelter itself under the overhanging
battlements of the more ancient fortress. Bornething
of a native-born character seems to have
possessed these rivals, and exhibited itself in very
legible phazes in their after history; each of them
retaining distinctive marks of their very dserent
parentage.’
In the year 1450, when James 11. granted to the
lieges his charter, empowering them “ to fosse, bulwark,
wall, toure, turate, and otherwise to strengthen ”
his Burgh of Edinburgh, because of their “dreid
of the evil and skeith of oure enemies of England,”
these ramparts extended no further eastward than
the Nether Bow. Open fields, in all probability,
then lay outside the gate, dividing from it the township
of the neighbouring Abbey; and although at a
later period a suburb would appear to have been
built beyond the walls, so that the jurisdiction of the town was claimed within the
Burgh of Canongate so far as St John’s Cross, no attempt was made to secure or to
The Magistrates of the Canongate claimed a feudal lordship over the property of the burgh, aa the succeasora
of its spiritual superiurs, most of the title-deeds running thus :-‘‘ To be holden of the Magistrates of the Canongate, 88
come in place of the Nonaatery of Holycross.”
Vraw~~~-C!anongaTteol booth.

... VIT. THE CANONGA TE AND ABBE Y SANCTUAR Y. HE ancient Burgh of Canongate may claim as its founder the ...

Book 10 p. 300
(Score 0.44)

money than brains and ambition. In Charles Street (No. 7), which lies
betyeen Bristo Street and George Square, Lord Jeffrey was born (the house
is seen in the engraving of Hamilton’s Entry as you look th;ough the pend,
while in the rear there stood, till the autumn of 1875, Sir Walter Scott’s first
school,’ so that this little archway binds together early memories of two of
Scotland’s most gifted sons), and in the third flat of No. 18 Buccleuch PIace
(close at hand), JeKrey, Sydney Smith, and Lord Brougham first projected
the Edivburgh Rmim. Long before, a few yards from this, in the ‘‘Hole
.BUCCLEUCH PLACE.
in the Wa’” of Buccleuch Fend, a certain Lucky PringIe kept an. alehouse
much frequented by William Nicol of the High School (who lived near it),
Burns’s friend, and by Burns himself. At the east end of Sciennes Hillthe
seat of the ancient Convent of St. Catherine of Siena (corrupted into
‘ Sciennes,’ and now pronounced Sheens ’)-stood Adam Fergusson’s house,
where, at a breakfast party, Scott, a boy, met and interchanged courteous
words with the Peasant Poet of Scotland. This altogether may be called
the classic region of Edinburgh, every inch of it bristIing with literary
recollections.
We now approach the Meadows, one of the oldest and finest promenades
in Edinburgh, originally a part of the old Borough Loch. A strip at the
west end of the East Meadow is used as a practice-grouna for the Royal Company
of Archers (Archers’ Hall), while Bruntsfield Links, to the south of
1 The accompanying drawing was made during the process of demolition.

... than brains and ambition. In Charles Street (No. 7), which lies betyeen Bristo Street and George Square, ...

Book 11 p. 59
(Score 0.44)

Queen Street.] SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON. I53
office by Sir James Montgomery of Stanhope.
Early in the next century the house was the
residence of Sir William Cunningham, Bart, and in
more recent years had as an occupant the gallant
Sir Neil Douglas, Commander of the Forces in
Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle, who
commanded the Cameron Highlanders in the war
with France, and was contused by a ball at Quatre
Bras. It is now occupied by tlic Edinburgh Institution
for Education, the head of which is Dr.
Fergusson, F.R.S.E.
Nos. g and 10 were removed in 1844 to make
way for the present hall of the Royal College of
Physicians, on the demolition of the former one in
George Street. The foundation stone was laid on
the 8th of August, 1844, by the then president,
Dr. Renton, in presence of the Fellows of the
college and others. In it were deposited a copy of
the first edition of the ? Edinburgn Pharmacopeia,?
containing a list .of the Fellows of the college; a
work concerning its private affairs, printed several
years before ; an Edinburgh Almanac for the
current year; several British coins, and a silver
plate with a suitable Latin inscription.
It was designed by Thomas Hamilton, and ?is
adorned in front with an Attic Corinthian tetrastyle,
sunqounted by a common Corinthian distyle, and
is handsomely adorned by colossal statues of
iBsculapius, Hippocrates, and Hygeia ; but it was
barely completed when, ample though its accommodation
appeared to be, the rapid additions to
its library and the great increase in the number of
Fellows, consequent on a reduction of the money
entry, and other changes, seemed to .render an
extension necessary.
In No. 11 are the offices of the E&hurgh
Gazette, the representative of the paper started by
Captain Donaldson in 1699, and re-issued by the
same person in March, I 707.
Sir Henry Wellwood Moncriff, Bart., D.D., a
distinguished divine, wha for half a century was
one .of the brightest ornaments of the Scottish
Church, resided in No. 13 during the first years of
the present century. He died in August, 1827,
and his second, son, James, a senator, under the
title of Lord Moncrieff, succeeded to the baronetcy,
which is one of the oldest in Scotland, having
been conferred by Charles I. in 1626.
It was afterwards occupied by the Scottish
Heritable Security Company.
-The next house westward was the residence, at
the same time, of William Honeyman of Graemsay,
who was elevated to the bench as Lord Armadale,
and created a baronet in 1804. He had been pre.
viously Sheriff of the county of Lanarkshire. ?He mar.
88
*ied a daughter of Lord Braxfield, and died in 1825,
eaving ,behind him a reputation for considerable
dent and sound judgment, both as a barrister and
udge. He had two sons in the army-Patrick,
who served in the old -28th Light Dragoons, and
Robert, who died in Jamaica in 1809, Lieutenant-
Clolonel of the 18th Royal Irish.
His house is now occupied by the site of the
Zaledonian United Service Club, erected in 1853.
In 1811 No. 27 was the residence of General
Sraham Stirling, an old and distinguished officer,
whose family still occupy it. In the same year
4lexander Keith of Ravelston, Hereditary Knight
Marshal of Scotland, occupied No. 43. Behind the
louse line stands St. Luke?s Free Church, which has
i fictitious street front in the Tudor style, with two
-ichly crocketed finials.
No. 38 was the house of George Paton, ?Advocate,
md afterwards Lord Justice Clerk, whose suicide
nade much sensation in Edinburgh a few years
1go.
In No. 52 lived and died one of the most illus-
:rious citizens of Edinburgh-Professor Sir James .
Young Sirnpson, Bart., who came to Edinburgh a
poor and nearly friendless student, yet in time
ittained, as Professor of Midwifery in the University
and as the discoverer of extended uses of chlorolorm,
a colossal fame, not only in Europe, but
wherever the English language is spoken. He
obtained the chair of midwifery in r840, and seven
years after made his great discovery. In 1849 he
was elected President of the Edinburgh College
of Physicians; in 1852 President of the Medico-
Chirurgical Society ; and ?in the following year,
under circumstances of the greatest klat, Foreign
Associate of the French Academy of Medicine ?
In 1856 the French Academy of Sciences awarded
him the ? Monthyon Prize ? of 2,000 francs for the
benefits he conferred on humanity by the introduction
of anmthesia by chloroform into the practice
of surgery and midwifery.
A few weeks earlief, for the same noble cause, he
won the royal order of St. Olaf, from Oscar, King
of Sweden, and in 1866 was created a baronet of
Great Britain. His ,professional writings are too
numerous to be recorded here, suffice it to say
that they have been translated into every European
language.
No man ever attracted so many visitors to Edinburgh
as Sir James Simpson, for many Came to see
him who were not invalids. His house in Queeu
Street was the centre of attraction for men -of
letters and science from all parts of the worldphysicians,
naturalists, antiquarians, and literati of
all kinds were daily to be met at his table. His

... Street.] SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON. I53 office by Sir James Montgomery of Stanhope. Early in the next century ...

Book 3 p. 153
(Score 0.44)

358 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
looking burgh, full of crooked alleys, and rambling narrow wynds, scattered about in the
most irregular and lawless fashion, and happily innocent as yet of the refinements of an
Improvements’ Commission ; though the more gradual operations of time and changing
tastes have swept away many curious features of the olden time. There is indeed an air
of substantial business-like bustle and activity about its narrow unpretending thoroughfares,
and dingy-looking counting-houses, that strangely contrasts with the gaudy finery
of New Town trading. The London fopperies of huge plate-glass windows, and sculptured
and decorated shop fronts, so much in vogue there, are nearly unknown among the
burghers of Leith, The dealers are too busy about more important matters to trouble
themselves with these new-fangled extravagancies, while their customers are much too
knowing to be attracted by any such showy baits. The contrast indeed between the
Scottish Capital and its Port is even more marked than that which distinguishes the
courtly west end of London from its plebeian Wapping or White Chapel, and is probably,
in all the most substantial sources of digereme, in favour of the busy little burgh : whose
merchants conduct a large and important share of the trade of the North of Europe in
their unpretending little boothies, while the shopkeeper of the neighbouring city magnifies
the petty details transacted over his well-polished mahogany counter, and writes himself
down mercdant accordingly.’
The principal street of Leith is the Kirkgate, a broad and somewhat stately thoroughfare,
according to the prevalent proportions among the lanes and alleys of this close-packed
little burgh. Time and modern taste have slowly, but very effectually, modified its antique
features. No timber-fronted gable now thrusts its picturesque fapade with careless grace
beyond the line of more staid and formal-looking ashlar fronts. Even the crow-stepped
gables of the Rixteenth and fieventeenth centuries are becoming the exception ; and it is
only by the irregularity which still pertains to it, aided by the few really antique tenements
that remain unaltered, that it now attracts the notice of the curious visitor asthe genuine
remains of the ancient High Street of the burgh. Some of these relics of former.times are
well worthy the notice of the antiquary, while memorials of still earlier fabrics here and
there meet the eye, and carry back the imagination to those stirring scenes in the history
of this locality: when the Queen Regent and her courtiers and allies made it their stronghold
and chosen place of abode ; or when, amid a more peaceful array, the fair Scottish
Queen Mary, or the sumptuous Anne of Denmark, rode gaily through the street on their
way to Holyrood. At the south-east angle of the old churchyard, one of these memorials
meets the eye in the shape of an elegant Gothic pediment surmounting the boundary wall,
and adorned with the Scottish Regalia, sculptured in high relief, with the initials J. R. 6 ;
while a large panel below bears the Royal Arms and initials of Charles II., very boldly
executed. These insignia of royalty are intended to mark the spot on which King James’s
Hospital stood-a benevolent foundation which owed no more to the royal patron whose
name it bore, than the confirmation by his charter in 1641 of a portion of those revenues
that had been long before bestowed by the piety of private donors on the hospital of St
Anthony, and the imposition of a duty on all wine brought into the port for the augmentation
of its reduced funds. Here certain poor women were maintained, being presented
The description given above, to a 5eat extent, no longer applies, aa the town haa 80 rapidly extended as to be now
part of the City, and ia also not behind its great neighbour in the wealth of imposing shop fronts.

... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. looking burgh, full of crooked alleys, and rambling narrow wynds, scattered about in ...

Book 10 p. 393
(Score 0.44)

throne would ensure their total destruction, yet
he escaped them. Aware that a day of trial was
coming, and terrified by the unknown fate of Mar,
some of his numerous friends contrived to acquaint
him that in the Roads of Leith there lay a small
vessel laden with Gascon wine, by which he might
and also a strong rope, with a waxen roll
enclosing an unsigned letter, urging, "that he
should lose no time in escaping, as the king's
minions had resolved that he should die ere the
' morrow's sun set," but that the boats of the French
vessel would await him at the harbour of Leith.
EDINBURGH CASTLE IN 1647. (From Gmda o/ Rofhiemuys Mu#.)
U, the Castle; 6, the Castle ChapeL
escape if he made an effort. It is supposed that
he was confined in David's Tower, for we are told
it was one that arose from the northern verge of
the rock, where the height of the precipice seemed
to preclude the possibility of escape. He had
but one attendant (styled his chalmerchield) left
to wait upon him, and to this follower he revealed
his intention. From the vessel there came to
him two small runlets said to contain wine, and
they were camed to his apartment unexamined,
The duke found that they contained malvoisie,
U b,.
To lull suspicion, Albany invited the captain of
the guard and three of his principal soldiers to sup
with him, and all these he succeeded in partially
intoxicating. They sat drinking and gaming until
the hour grew late ; and then the royal duke found
that the moment of fate had come !
Snatching the captain's long dagger from his
baldrick, Albany buried it again and again in his
glittering breast ; he despatched the intoxicated
soldiers in the same fashion, and, in token of his
hostility, with the assistance of his chalmer-chield
castle rock
castles
:

... would ensure their total destruction, yet he escaped them. Aware that a day of trial was coming, and ...

Book 1 p. 33
(Score 0.44)

206 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
He particularly manifested his satisfaction during the following year, when the ejected
ministers had been allowed to return to their pulpits. “All this winter the King and Queen
remained in the Abbey, and came up to the toun aindrie tymes; dynned and supped in the
ministers’ houses behind the kirk. For the King keeped their houses in his owne hand, howbeit
they were restored to their general1 ministrie in Edinburgh.” l To resume our chronological
sketch: in the year 1617, on the return of King James to his Scottish capital, the
old churchyard had so entirely lost all traces of its original character that it was selected
as the scene of a magnxcent civic banquet, with which the magistrates welcomed him back
to his native city. The ministers appear to have been restored after a time to their manses
in the kirkyard, but this-was only by sufferance, and during the royal will ; for in 1632
the ancient collegiate buildings were at length entirely demolished, to make way for the
Parliament House, which occupies their site. On the 14th of August 1656 General
Monck was feasted in the great hall, along with Lord Broghall, President of the Council,
and all the councillors of state, and officers of the army. ‘‘ This feast,” says Nicoll, ‘‘ wes gevin by the toun of Edinburgh, with great solempnitie, within the Parliament Hous,
ritchlie hung for that end. The haill pryme men, and such of thair followeris as wer in
respect, wer all resavit burgessis, and thair burges tickettis delyverit to thame.” a The
Duke of York, afterwards James VII., was feasted by the city within the same old hall,
on his arrival in Edinburgh in the year 1680, along with his Duchess, and the Lady Anne,
who afterwards succeeded to the throne. In 1685 the equestrian statue of King Charles
was erected, almost above the grave of John Knox; and without extending too minutely
these more striking data, we may remind the reader, that the same hall in which the Duke
of York was entertained in 1680, was the scene of the magnificent banquet with which the
next royal visitor was welcomed in 182X3 The open area was at length enclosed with
buildings, at first only low booths, but these were soon after succeeded by the loftiest
private buildings ever reared in this, or probably any other town. In 1676, a considerable
portion of the new buildings were destroyed by fire. Another conflagration succeeded
this in 1700, known by the name of the ‘‘ Great Fire,” which swept the whole magnificent
range of buildings to the ground, and these were only re-erected to experience a third
time the same fate in the year 1824. On the last destruction of the eastern and larger
half of the old Parliament Close, the statue of King Charles was carted off to the Calton
Jail, where his Majesty lay incarcerated for several years, until the complete remodelling
of the whole locality, when he was elevated anew on a handsome pedestal, in which two
marble tablets have been inserted, found among some lumber in the rooms below the
Parliament House, and containing an inscription evidently prepared for the former
Calderwood’s Hist., vol. v. p. 673. Nicoll’s Diary, p. 183.
a The following curious remarks appear in B communisation to the Caledonian blereury, December 224 1788 :-‘‘ It
is somewhat remarkable that the last public dinner that was given in the Parliament House here was to King James
VII., then Duke of York, at which WRS present the Lady Anne, afterwards Queen Anne ; and that the next dinner
that should be given in the eame place-vie., this day-ahould be by the Revolution Club, in commemoration of
his expulsion from the throne ! The whole Court of Scotland,
and a numerous train of noblemen, with the Duke, were present. And the outer hall of the Parliament House
was thrown inta one room upon the occasion. Sir James Dick,
the then Lord Provost, presided (aa the present will do this day). The Duke of Ybrk, and all the noblemen who
were with him, were preaepted with the freedom of the city. The drink-money to the Duke’s servants amounted to
S220 sterling.”
The dinner was given by the Magistrates of Edinburgh.
This dinner cost the city above $21400 aterling.

... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. He particularly manifested his satisfaction during the following year, when the ...

Book 10 p. 225
(Score 0.43)

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