... SKETCHES. 321
daughters and one son survived. One of his sons, the late Robert Jameson,
Esq., ...
Book 9 p. 427
(Score 0.36)
![Restalrig.] ST. MARGARET?S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of Drumsheugh were in all their
glory, there stood St. Margaret?s Well, the entire
edifice of which was removed to the Royal Park,
near Holyrood ; but the pure spring, deemed so
holy as to be the object of pilgrimages in the days
of old, still oozes into the fetid marsh close by.
It was no doubt the source of supply to the
ancient ecclesiastics of the village, and the path
alluded to had become in after times a means of
The structure-for elsewhere it still remains intact
-is octagonal, and entered by a pointed Gothic
doorway, and rises to the height of 4 ft. 6 in. It
is of plain ashlar work, with a stone ledge or seat
running round seven of the sides. From the centre
of the water, which fills the entire floor of the
building, rises a decorated pillar to the same height
as the walls, with grotesque gargoyles, from which
the liquid flows. Above this springs a richly
groined roof, ? presenting, with the ribs that rise
RESTALRIG.
communication between the church there and the
Abbey of Holyrood.
No authentic traces can be found of the history
of this consecrated fountain ; ? but from its name,?
says Billings, ?? it appears to have been dedicated
to the Scottish queen and saint, Margaret, wife of
Malcolm 111.?
In the legend which we have already referred
to in our account of Holyrood, which represents
David I. as being miraculously preserved from the
infuriated white hart, Bellenden records that it
?fled away with gret violence, and evanist in the
same place quhere now springs the Rude Well.?
From its vicinity to the abbey, St. Margaret?s has
been conjectured to be the well referred to.
113
from the corresponding corbels at each of the eight
angles of the building, a singularly rich effect when
illuminated by the reflected light from the water
below.?
When this most picturesque fountain stood in an
unchanged condition by the side of the old winding
path to Restalrig, an ancient elder-tree, With furrowed
and gnarled branches, covered all its grassgrown
top, and a tiny but aged thatched cottage
stood in front of it. Then, too, a mossy bank, rising
out of pleasant meadow land, protected the little
pillared cell; but the inexorable march of modem improvement
came, the old tree and the rustic cottage
were swept away, and the well itselfwas buried under
(See Vol. II., page 311.)
. a hideous station of the North British Railway.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p140.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 129")
... ST. MARGARET?S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of ...
Book 5 p. 129
(Score 0.36)
... SKETCHES. 67
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in the first volume of whose Transactions it
was ...
Book 8 p. 96
(Score 0.36)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
- 368 -__
Courts, and large apartments for the stowage of
registers. In ...
Book 2 p. 367
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Burdiehouse.
intelligence to the enemy, which occasioned the
imprisonment of his ...
Book 6 p. 342
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBVRGH. [Leith.
London, at the request of Lord Balgonie, afterwards
Earl of Leven.
People of ...
Book 6 p. 250
(Score 0.36)
![High Street.] MARY KINGS CLOSE 227
net tells us that he was a man of such unflagging
zeal that he barely allowed himself three hours? sleep
out of the twenty-four. On the renewal of the
Covenant, in 1638, he and the celebrated Alexander
Henderson were appointed to revise and
adapt that national document to the circumstances
of the times; and at the memorable assembly
which met at Glasgow Johnston was unanimously
elected clerk, and was constituted Procurator for
the Church. ? He took a prominent share in resisting
the unjust interference of Charles I: in Scottish
affairs, and in 1638, on the royal edict being proclaimed
from the Cross of Edinburgh, which set at
defiance the popular opposition to Episcopacy, he
boldly appeared on the scaffold erected near it,
and read aloud the famous protest drawn up in
the name of the Tables, while the mob compelled
the six royal heralds to remain while this counterdefiance
in the name of Scotland was being read
In 1641, when Charles visited Edinburgh for the
second time, Johnston was knighted and made a
Lord of Session, and after sitting in the Parliament
of Scotland in 1644, he attended, as one of the
Commissioners, the assembly of divines at Westminster.
In the following year he was Lord Advocate;
and in 1649 he performed one of his last
official duties, proclaiming Charles 11. King of
Scotland, on the 5th of February, 1650.
After the battle of Dunbar he was weak enough
to accept ofice under the Protectorate, as Clerk
Registrar; and after the death of Cromwell he
acted as one of the Committee of Public Safety,
when the feeble and timid Richard Cromwell withdrew
from public life ; and this last portion of his
career, together with the mode in which he had
prosecuted and persecuted the fallen Cavaliers, and
refused to concur in the treaty of Breda, sealed
his doom when the Restoration came. He was
forfeited in exile and condemned to death on the
15th of May, 1651.
An emissary of the Scottish ministry discovered
his retreat at Rouen, and, with the aid of the
French authorities, he was sent to the Tower, and
from thence to Edinburgh, where, with every mark
of indignity, he was publicly executed on the same
spot where, five-and-twenty years before, he had
defied the proclamation of Charles I. This was
on the n2nd of July, 1663, and he died with the
utmost constancy and Christian fortitude. And
now the busy establishment of one of the most
enterprising of Scottish publishing firms occupies
the site of the old mansion, in which he must many
a time have entertained such men as Alexander
Henderson, the Marquises Argyle, Rothes, and Callander,
the gallant Sir Alexander Leslie, the somewhat
double-dealing Monk, perhaps Cromwell too.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HIGH STREET (continued).
Mary King?s Close-Who was Mary ?-Scourged by the Plague of 1645-Its Mystery-Drummond?s Epigram-Prof. Sinclair?s ?I Satan?s Invisible
World Discovered?--Mr. and Mrs. Coltheart?s Ghostly Visitors-The Clox finally abandoned to Goblins-Craig?s Close-Andro Hart,
Bookseller and Printer-Andro?s Spear-A Menagerie in Craig?s CIosc-The Isle of Man Arms--The Cape Club-Its Mysteries and O f f i c a ~
--Installation of a Knight-ProvinciaI Cape Clubs-The Poker Club-How it Originated-Members-Office-bearers-Old Stamp Office
Court-Fortune?s Tavern-The beautiful Countess of EgIinton-Her Patronage of Lettters-Her Family-Interview with Dr. Johnson-
Murderous Riot in the Close-Removal of the Stamp Office.
MARY KING?S Close was long a place of terror to
the superstitious, as one of the last retreats of the
desolating plague of 1645. ?Who Mary King
was is now unknown, but though the alley is roofless
and ruined,? says one, writing of it in 1845,
?with weeds, wall-flowers, grass, and even little
trees, flourishing luxuriantly among the falling
walls, her name may still be seen painted on the
street corner.?
For some generations after the plague-in which
most of itsinhabitants perished-its houses remained
closed, and gradually it became a place of mystery
and horror, the abode of a thousand spectres and
nameless terrors, for superstition peopled it with
inhabitants, whom all feared and none cared to
succeed. ?Those who had been foolhardy enough
to peep through the windows after nightfall saw
the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged
in their wonted occupations ; headless forms danced
through the moonlit apartments ; on one occasion
a godly minister and two pious elders were scared
out of their senses by the terrible vision of a raw
head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded
from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished
a sword above their heads ; and many other terrors,
which are duly chronicled in ?Satan?s Invisible
World;?? yet it was down this place that the wild
young Master of Gray dragged the fair Mistress
Carnegie, whom, sword in hand, he had abducted
from her father?s house at the head of twelve men-at](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p047.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 227")
... Street.] MARY KINGS CLOSE 227
net tells us that he was a man of such unflagging
zeal that he barely allowed ...
Book 2 p. 227
(Score 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. : [Convivialia
In 1783, ? a chapter of the order? was adver
tised ?to be held at their ...
Book 5 p. 124
(Score 0.36)
![Merchiston.] THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, Bart.
In 1870 the original use to which the foundation
was put underwent a change, and the hospital
became a great public school for boys and girls.
At the western extremity of what was the Burghmuir,
near where lately was an old village of that
name (at the point where the Colinton road diverges
from that which leads to Biggar), there stands, yet
unchanged amid all its new surroundings, the
ancient castle of Merchiston, the whilom seat of a
race second to none in Scotland for rank and talent
-the Napiers, now Lords Napier and Ettrick. It
is a lofty square tower, surmounted by corbelled
battlements, a ape-house, and tall chimneys. It
was once surrounded by a moat, and had a secret
avenue or means of escape into the fields to the
north. As to when it was built, or by whom, no
record now remains.
In the missing rolls of Robert I., the lands of
Merchiston and Dalry, in the county of Edinburgh,
belonged in his reign to William Bisset, and under
David II., the former belonged to William de
Sancto Claro, on the resignation of Williani Bisset,
according to Robertson?s ?Index,? in which we find
a royal charter, ?datum est apud Dundee,? 14th
August, 1367, to John of Cragyof the lands of
Merchiston, which John of Creigchton had resigned.
So the estate would seem to have had several
proprietors before it came into the hands of
Alexander Napier, who was Provost of Edinburgh
in 1438, and by this acquisition Merchiston became
the chief title of his family.
His son, Sir Alexander, who was Comptroller of
Scotland under James 11. in 1450, and went on a
pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury in the
following year-for which he had safe-conduct from
the King of England-was Provost of Edinburgh
between 1469 and 1471- He was ambassador to
the Court of the Golden Fleece in 1473, and was
no stranger to Charles the Bold ; the tenor of his
instructions to whom from James II., shows that he
visited Bruges a d the court of Burgundy before
that year, in 1468, when he was present at the
Tournament of the Golden Fleece, and selected a
suit of brilliant armour for his sovereign.
Sir Alexander, fifth of Merchiston, fell at Flodden
with James IV.
John Napier of Merchiston was Provost 17th
of May, 1484, and his son and successor, Sir Archibald,
founded a chaplaincy and altar in honour of St.
Salvator in St. Giles?s Church in November, 1493.
His grandson, Sir Archibald Napier, who married
a daughter of Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, was
slain at the battle of Pinkie, in 1547.
Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston and Edinbellie,
who was latterly Master of the Mint to
James VI., was father of John Napier the
celebrated inventor of the Logarithms, who was
born in Merchiston Castle in 1550, fgur years after
the birth of Tycho Brahe, and fourteen before that
of Galileo, at a time when the Reformation in
Scotland was just commencing, as in the preceding?
year John Knox had been released from the
French galleys, and was then enjoying royal
patronage in England. His mother was Janet,
only daughter of Sir Francis Bothwell, and sister
of Adam, Bishop of Orkney. At the time of his
birth his father was only sixteen years of age. He
was educated at St. Salvator?s College, St. Andrews,
where he matriculated 1562-3, and afterwards spent
several years in France, the Low Countries, and
Italy; he applied himself closely to the study of
mathematics, and it is conjectured that he gained
a taste for that branch of learning during his residence
abroad, especially in Itily, where at that
time were many mathematicians of high repute.
While abroad young Napier escaped some perils
that existed at home. In 150s a dreadful pest
broke out in Edinburgh, and his father and family
were exposed to the contagion, ? by the vicinity,?
says Mark Napier, ?? of his mansion to the Burghmuir,
upon which waste the infected were driven
out to grovel and die, under the very walls of
Merchiston.?
In his earlier years his studies took a deep theological
turn, the fruits of which appeared in his
? Plain Discovery of the Revelation of St John,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1593, and
dedicated to James VI. But some twenty years
before that time his studies must have been sorely
interrupted, as his old ancestral fortalice lay in the
very centre of the field of strife, when Kirkaldy
held out the castle for Queen Mary, and the savage
Douglas wars surged wildly round its walls.
On the 2nd April, 1572, John Napier, then in his
twenty-second year, was betrothed to Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir James Stirling of Keir ; but as he
had incurred the displeasure of the queen?s party
by taking no active share in her interests, on the
18th of July he was arrested by the Laid of Minto,
and sent a prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh,
then governed by Sir TVilliam Kirkaldy, who in the
preceding year had bombarded Merchiston with
his iron guns because certain soldiers of the king?s
party occupied it, and cut off provisions coming
north for the use of his garrison. The solitary
tower formed the key of the southern approach
to the city ; thus, whoever triumphed, it became the
object of the opponent?s enmity.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p046.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 35")
... THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, ...
Book 5 p. 35
(Score 0.36)
... was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this ...
Book 3 p. 29
(Score 0.36)
![The Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known engraver. The engines
came promptly enough ; but, from some unknown
cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working
order, and by that time the terrible element had
raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by
eleven o'clock the upper portion of this tenement,
including six storeys, forming the eastern 'division
of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of
roaring flames, which, as the breeze was from the
to their elevated position, or the roar of the gathering
conflagration, the shouts of the crowd, and
wailing of women and children, their cries were
unheard for a time, until it was too late. The
whole tenement was lost, together with extensive
ranges of buildings in the old Fish Market and
Assembly Closes, to -which it was the means of
communicating the flames.
While these tall and stately edifices were yielding
to destruction, the night grew calm and still, and
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.
sooth-west, turned them, as they burst from the
gaping windows, in the direction of a house to the
eastward, the strong' gable of which saved it from
the destruction which seemed imminent.
Two tenements to the westward were less fortunate,
and as, from the narrowness of the ancient
close, it was impossible to work the engines, they
soon were involved in one frightful and appalling
blaze. Great fears mere now entertained for the
venerable Courant office; nor was it long before
the fire seized on its upper storey, at the very time
when some brave fellows got upon the roof of a
tenement to the westward, and shouted to the firemen
to give them a pipe, by which they could
piay upon the adjoining roof, But, owing either
I the sparks emitted by the flames shot upwards as if
spouted from a volcano, and descended like the
thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the respiration
of all. A dusky, lurid red tinged the clouds,
and the glare shone on the Castle wdls, the
rocks of the Calton, the beetling crags, and all the
city spires. Scores of lofty chimneys, set on fire
by the falling sparks, added to the growing horror
of the scene ; and for a considerable time the Tron
Church was completely enveloped in this perilous
shower of embers.
About one in the morning of the 16th the alarm
of fire was given from a house directly oppoife to
the burning masses, and, though groundless, it
added to the deepening Consternation. Mean](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p201.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 189")
... Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known ...
Book 1 p. 189
(Score 0.36)
... SKETCHES, 51
It is said that when Sam was in London, on one occasion he was advised to
show himself ...
Book 8 p. 71
(Score 0.36)
... I 0 GRAPH I C AL SIC E T C H ES. 113
No. LV.
MRS. SIDDONS,
MR. SUTHERLAND,
MRS. WOODS,
OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, ...
Book 8 p. 167
(Score 0.36)
... of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time
when its garrison was the nsth, or old regiment of
Edinburgh, ...
Book 1 p. 68
(Score 0.36)
... SKETCHES. 397
No. CLVII.
MR. JOHN SHIELLS,
SURGEON.
MR. SHIELLSw as a native of Peeblesshire ; ...
Book 8 p. 553
(Score 0.36)
... QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
mere lover of scenery : Portobeilo, thus happily surrounded and ...
Book 11 p. 175
(Score 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Newcastle, to witness what all spoke of with
wonder. There were one day ...
Book 2 p. 346
(Score 0.35)
![Granton.] CAROLINE PARK. 311
and most gifted men of his time,? and had his town
residence in one of the flats in James?s Court,
where it is supposed that his eccentric daughter,
who became Lady Dick of Prestonfield, was born.
In 1743, John, the celebrated Duke of Argyle,
entailed his ?? lands of Roystoun and Grantoun,
called Caroline Park ? (? Shaw?s Reg.?), doubtless
so called after his eldest daughter Caroline, who, in
the preceding year, had been married to Francis,
Earl of Dalkeith, and whose mother had been a
maid of honour to Queen Caroline. The estates
of Royston and Granton were her$ and through
her, went eventually to the house of Buccleuch.
The Earl of Dalkeith, her husband, died in the
lifetime of his father, in 1750, in his thirtieth year,
leaving two children, afterwards Henry, Duke of
Buccleuch, and Lady Frances, afterwards wife of
Lord Douglas. .
Lady Caroline Campbell, who was created a
Reeress of Great Britain, by the title of Lady
Greenwich, in 1767, had, some years before that,
married, a second time, the Right Hon. Charle:
Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He1
barony of Greenwich being limited to the issut
male of her second marriage, became extinct or
her death at Sudbrooke, in her seventy-seventl
year, one of her two sons, who was a captain ir
the 45th Foot, having died unmarried; and thc
other, who was a captain in the 59th, having corn
mitted suicide ; thus, in 1794, the bulk of her rea
and personal property in Scotland and England
but more particularly the baronies of Granton anc
Royston, devolved upon Henry, third Duke o
Buccleuch, K.G. and KT:, in succession, to thc
Duke of Argyle, who appears as ? Lord Royston,?
in the old valuation roll.
Old Granton House, sometimes called ROYS~OI
Castle, which is founded upon an abutting rock
was entered from the north-west by an archway 11
a crenelated barbican wall, and has three crow
stepped gables, each with a large chimney, and iI
the angle a circular tower with a staircase. Thc
external gate, opening to the shore, was in thii
quarter, and was surmounted by two most ornatc
vases of great size j but these had disappeared b;
1854. The whole edifice is an open and roofles
ruin.
On the east are the remains of a magnificen
camage entrance with two side gates, and twc
massive pillars of thirteen courses of stone work
gigantic beads and panels alternately, each havinj
on its summit four inverted trusses, capped b1
vases and ducal coronets, overhanging what wa
latterly an abandoned quany.
The Hopes had long a patrimonial interest ii
;ranton. Sir Thomas Hope, of Craighall, King?s
Pdvocate to Charles I., left four sons, three of
vhom were Lords of Session at one time, who all
narried and left descendants-namely, Sir John
Hope of Craighall, Sir Thomas Hope of Kerse,
sir Alexander Hope of Granton, ahd Sir James
Hope of Hopetown.
Sir Alexander of Granton had the post at court
)f ?? Royal Carver Extraordinary, and he was much
ibout the person of his Majesty.?
The best known of this family in modem times,
was the Right Hon. Charles Hope of Granton,
Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1801, afterwards
Lord President of the Court of Session, to whom
we have already referred amply, elsewhere.
The more modem Granton House, in this
quarter, was for some time the residence of Sir
John McNeill, G.C.B., third son of the late
McNeill of Colonsay, and brother of the peer of
that title, well known as envoy at the court of
Persia, and in many other public important capacities,
LLD. of Edinburgh, and D.C.L: of Oxford.
George Cleghorn, an eminent physician in Dublin,
and his nephew, William Cleghorn, who was associated
with him as Professor of Anatomy in Trinity
College, Dublin, were both natives of Granton.
George, the first man who established, what might
with any propriety, be called an anatomical school
in Ireland, was born in 1716 of poor but reputable
and industrious parents, on a small farm at Granton,
where his father died in I 7 19, leaving a widow and
five children. He received the elements of his
education in the parish school of? Cramond village,
and in 1728 he was sent to Edinburgh to be
further instructed in Latin, Greek, and French,
and, to a great knowledge of these languages, he
added that of mathematics. Three years after he
commenced the study of physics and surgery under
the illustrious Alexander Monro, with whom he
remained five years, and while yet a student, he
and some others, among whom was the celebrated
Dr. Fothergill, established the Royal Medical
Society of Edinburgh.
In 1736 he was appointed surgeon of Moyle?s
Regiment, afterwards the zznd Foot (in which,
sbme years before, the father of Laurence Sterne
had been a captain) then stationed in Minorca,
where he remained with it thirteen years, and
accompanied it in 1749 to Ireland, and in the
following year published, in London, his work on
? The Diseases of Minorca.?
Settling in Dublin in 175 I, in imitation of Monro
and Hunter he began to give yearly lectures
on anatomy. A few years afterwards he was
admitted into the University as an anatomical](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p130.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 311")
... CAROLINE PARK. 311
and most gifted men of his time,? and had his town
residence in one of the flats in ...
Book 6 p. 311
(Score 0.35)
... Cowgate. 262 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Chapel, and quhat expensis he makis thaeron
sal be allowit to him in his ...
Book 4 p. 262
(Score 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. princcs Street
came into her possession, the pocket-knife, fork,
and spoon which ...
Book 3 p. 124
(Score 0.35)
... IN THE CASTLE BELOW QUEEN MARY?S ROOM.
CHL4PTER 111.
CASTLE OF EDINBURGH-(cantinued.~~e~.)
The Legend ...
Book 1 p. 21
(Score 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
and retaining traces of the heraldic blazonry
with which it was ...
Book 2 p. 268
(Score 0.35)
... the Tolbooth; others were held there in 1449
and 1459. In the latter the Scottish word
?Tolbooth,? meaning ...
Book 1 p. 126
(Score 0.35)
... men; at Bilston Burn is Wallace?s camp, in
the form of a half-moon, defended by a broad deep
ditch-a ...
Book 6 p. 356
(Score 0.35)
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