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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 307
Blackwall, where the Circassian was conducted into a private room, whilst some necessav
arrangements were made ; and about ten o’clock the travellers, attended by the three English
gentlemen, went on board a boat provided for the occasion, and suitably fitted up for privacy and
comfort, by Mr. Barber, of the house of Messrs. Mathias, P. Lucas, and Co., the lightermen to his
Excellency, The distressing situation of the Circassian on taking leave of the Ambassador, and
the native sensibility of the males on taking leave of their old friends and relatives, unavoidably
delayed the arrival of the party at the waterside considerably beyond the time agreed upon,
which occasioned a loss of the 6rst hour‘s ebb tide ; and although this detention added considerably
to the labours of the boatmen, who were all chosen men in the employ of Messrs. Lucas and
Co.l(their foreman acting as captain of the boat’s crew), and whose occupations did not generally
lead them to this sort of duty ; yet with such alacrity did they proceed, stimulated, no doubt,
by the honour of conveying a female of such distinguished notoriety, that they reached the vessel
in Gravesend Roads about three o’clock, where they were received on board with every mark of
attention by Captain Milh and his ship’s crew.”
A vast crowd had assembled at Gravesend, in the hope of obtaining a sight
of the ‘‘ Fair Circassian ;” and although orders had been issued by Government
to the various officers of customs, not to interfere with the luggage of the party,
every official contrivance was resorted to by some of them in order to obtain a
glimpse of the stranger.
“ Such was the anxiety of the Ambassador respecting his Dill Awm,” continues the account
from wpich we have quoted so largely, “that although he had given ample directions that everything
possible should be provided for her private use, beyond the supplies of the ship, and which
he could not doubt would be strictly attended to ; yet after she had proceeded on her way to the
ship, he despatched the Persian medical student, Mirza Jiafer Tabeeb, to attend her on board,
that nothing might be wanted as far as his professional knowledge could suggest, that could in
a remote degree contribute to her comfort and the preservation of her health.
“On her passage to the ship, she was attired in English costume, wearing a black velvet
pelisse, and buff sandals, with an Anglo-Cashmere shawl placed over her head, which nearly
covered her figure ; and on leaving the Ambassador’s house it veiled her face, with the exception
of her beautiful jet eyes, which lost none of their lustre, although she was evidently labouring
under a depression of spirits, bordering on dejection, but from which she appeared to have
considerably recovered in the course of the day.
“When she arrives at Constantinople she will have to perform a tedious journey of about
fifteen hundred miles overland to Tehran, the present capital of Persia, where the principal
residence of the Ambassador is situated. The mode of conveyance from Constantinople, for
females of her rank, is in a TmMr awm, which, in the Persian language, signifies a moving
throne or seat. It may be compared to an English sedan chair, only considerably more spacious ;
two poles are similarly fastened to each side, which project fore and aft ; but instead of being
supported by men, two mules are substituted, one in front, and the other on the principle of a
propelling power, and a strap or cord being fastened behind from one pole to the other, which
rests on a kind of saddle placed on the back of the mule, the T t ~ hatw~an is supported by the
mules at a proper distance from the ground, to preserve a due equilibrium ; and in this way they
travel at an easy rate in perfect safety through a dangerous tract of countrg.”
After the departure of his Dill Awm, the Ambassador remained in England
about a month, a portion of which he spent at Cheltenham for his health. In
the prosecution of his design of visiting Scotland and Ireland, his Excellency
arrived at Dumbreck’a Hotel, Edinburgh, on Saturday the 30th of October,
and shortly afterwards took up his residence at the Royal HoteL He was
waited upon by the Lord Provost (Manderston), and about three o’clock, accompanied
by his lordship, Bailie Manners, and an interpreter. The Ambassador
proceeded in his carriage to the Parliament House, and viewed with much
interest the Courts of law, the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, and the ... SKETCHES. 307 Blackwall, where the Circassian was conducted into a private room, whilst some ...

Book 9  p. 408
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382 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
altar, are the arms of Thomas de Cranston, Seutifer Regis, a man of considerable influence
in the reign of James IL, and a frequent ambassador to foreign courts, who died about
1470; and on the engaged pillar to the south, the arms are those of Isabel, Duchess of
Albany and Countess of Lennox, who, in 1450-about a year before her death-founded
the Collegiate Church of Dumbarton, and largely endowed other religious foundations.’
Maitland remarks-“ In the year 1462, a great work seems to have been in hand at this
church ; for it was by the Town Council ordained that all persons presuming to buy corn
before it was entered should forfeit one chalder to the church work.” This may be supposed
to refer to the same additions to the choir begun in the reign of James 11. and then in
progress, though it will be seen that other works were proceeded with about the same time.
The work had no doubt been aided by the contributions of that monarch, and may have
been further encouraged by the gifts of his widowed queen for masses to his soul. The
repetition of the royal arms on the King’s Pillar is probably intended to refer to James III.,
in whose reign the work was finished. To the south of the choir, a second aisle of three arches,
with a richly-groined ceiling, forms the Preston Aisle, erected agreeably to a charter granted
to William Prestoune, of Gortoune, by the city of Edinburgh in 1454, setting forth (‘ pat
forasmekle as William of Prestoun the fadir, quam God assoillie, made diligent labour and
grete menis, be a he and mighty Prince, the Eing of France, and mony uyr Lordis of
France, for the gettyn of the arme bane of Saint Gele ;-the quhilk bane he freely left to
our moyr kirk of Saint Gele of Edinburgh, withoutyn ony condition makyn;-we considrand
ye grete labouris and costis yat he made for the gettyn yrof, we pmit, as said is
yat within six or seven zere, in all the possible and gudely haste we may, yat we sal big
an ile, furth frae our Lady Ile, quhare ye said William lyes in the said ile, to be begunyin
within a zere ; in the quhilk ile yare sall be made a brase for his crest in bosit work ; and
abone the brase a plate of brase, with a writ, specifiand, the bringing of yat relik be him
in Scotland, with his armis ; and his armis to be put, in hewyn marble, uyr thre parts of the
ile.” ’ The charter further binds the Provost and Council to found an altar there, with a
chaplain, and secures to the lineal descendants of the donor the priyilege of bearing the
precious gift of St Giles’s arm bone in all public processions. The aims of Preston still
remain on the roof of the aisle, as engaged to be executed in this charter ; and the same
may be seen repeated in different parts of their ancient stronghold of Craipillar Castle ;
where also occurs their Rebus, sculptured on a stone panel of the outer wall : a press, and
tun or barrel.’ They continued annually to exercise their chartered right of bearing the
arm bone of the Patron Saint till the memorable year 1558, when the College of St Giles
walked for the last time in procession, on the 1st of September, the festival of St Giles,
bearing in procession a statue hired for the occasion, from the Grey Friars, to personate the
Great Image of the Saint, as large M life, because ‘( the auld Saint Geile” had been
fist drowned in the North Loch as an adulterer, or encourager of idolatry, and thereafter
1 A letter on the subject of these armorial bearings, signed A D. [the late Alexander Deuchar, we presume, a firatrate
authority on all matters of heraldry], appeared in the Scota Nagaaine, June 1818. The writer promises to send the
result of further observations, but he does not appear to have followed out his intentions. ’ Maitland, p. 271.
a Archmlogia Scotica, vol. i. p. 575. ’ The Rebus of Prior Bolton, in Westminster Abbey, is very similar ta this : a tun, or barrel, with a bolt thrust
-
through it. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. altar, are the arms of Thomas de Cranston, Seutifer Regis, a man of considerable ...

Book 10  p. 419
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41 0 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Among the representatives of the rougher sex in this very miscellaneous assemblage is a
very sour-looking divine, dubbed John Knox, and a grave clergyman, probably of the
time of Charles I., whose red calotte or skull cap, we presume, led to his being engraved
both by Pennant and Pinkerton as Cardinal Beaton.’ In the Marquis of Breadalbane’s
apartments there is a full-length portrait of Lady Isabella Thyme, daughter of the Earl of
Holland, who perished on the scaffold during the great civil war. The lady is represented
with a lute in her hand, for her great skill on which she is celebrated in the poems of Waller.
Aubrey relates that her sister, ‘‘ The beautiful Lady Diana Rich, as she was walking in her
father’s garden at Kenington, to take the fresh air before dinner, about eleven o’clock,
being then very well, met with her own apparition, habit, and everything, as in a looking-
glass.” She died about a month thereafter of the smallpox; and her sister, the Lady
Isabella, is affirmed to have received a similar warning before her death.a These and other
portraits adorn the various lodgings of the different noblemen who possess apartments in
the Palace ; but many of them, being the private property of the noble lodgers, can hardly
be considered as part of the decorations of Holyrood. The latest contribution to its walls
is Wilkie’s full-length portrait of George IT., in the Highland costume, as he appeared on
his visit to the northern capital in 1822.
A much slighter survey will suffice for the remaining ecclesiastical foundations of the
Scottish capital, of the majority of which no vestige now remains. Among the latter is
the Monastery of Blackfriars of the order of St Dominic, founded by Alexander 11. in
1230, which stood on the site of the Surgical Hospital. It is styled in the foundation
charters Mansio Regis, that monarch having, we presume, bestowed on the friars one of
the royal residences for their abode. It appears to have been a wealthy foundation, subsequently
enlarged by gifts from Robert I. and James III., as well as by many private
donations confirmed by the latter monarch in‘1473.3 The monastery was accidently destroyed
by fire in 1528; but it is probable that the church was only partially injured by the
conflagration, as it appears in the view of 1544 as a large cross church, with a central tower
and lofty spire. It no doubt experienced its full share in the events of that disastrous
year, and it had hardly recovered from these repeated injuries when’the Reformers of 1558
completed its destruction.
The Monastery of the Greyfriars in the Grassmarket has already been described, and
the venerable cemetery which has been made from its gardens frequently referred to. Over
A portrait of Cardinal Beaton, copied, we believe, by C‘nambera from an original French painting, is now at St Mary’s
College, Blair, and another copy of the .same hangs in the Refectory of St Margaret’s Convent, Edinburgh. It represents
him about the age of 35, when he was ambassador at the French Court. The face ia oval, the features regular, and the
expression somewhat pensive, but very pleasing. He wears mustaches and an imperial, and we may add, bears not the
slightest resemblance to the Holyrood portrait. On the background of the picture the following inscription is painted,
most probably copied from the original portrait :-Le bienherevx David de Bethvne, Archevesque de St And&, Chancelllere
et Regent du royaume d‘Ecosse, Cardinal et Legat a latere, fut massacre pour la foy en 1546. ’ Law’s Memorials, preface, p. lxvi * “ Charter of confirmation of all Mortifications maid to the said Brethren Predicators in Edid, vie. One made be
Alexander II., of an a. rent of 10 marks de $rmG burgalihua de Edin’. One made be Ueorge Seaton and Cristain
Murray his spouse, of 20 marks yearly out of the lands of Hartahead and Clint. One made be Phillipia Moubray,
Lady Barnebugle, of 20s. sterling, yearly, out of little Barnbugle. One made be Joan Barcklay of Kippe of 10s. yearly,
out of the lands of Duddingstone and husband-lands thereof. One be Jo. Sudgine of 30s. 4d. out of his tenement of
Leith, on the south aide o€ the water thereof, between Men Nepar’a land on the East and Rottenrow on the West, 14
May 1473.”--Inventar of Pious Donations, MS, ... 0 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. Among the representatives of the rougher sex in this very miscellaneous assemblage is ...

Book 10  p. 449
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262 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Rev. Mr. Hall of the Burghers. When Mr. Brodie came to the scaffold, he bowed politely to the
Magistrates and the people. Smith
was dressed in white linen, trimmed with black. Eaving spent some time in prayer with seeming
fervency with the clergymen, Mr. Brodie than prayed a short time by himself.
“ Having put on white nightcaps, Brodie pointed to Smith to ascend the steps that led to the drop ;
and, in an easy manner, clapping him on the shoulder, said, ‘ George Smith, you are first in hand.’
Upon this Smith, whose behaviour was highly penitent and resigned, slowly ascended the steps, and
ww immediately followed by Brodie, who mounted with briskness and agility, and examined the
dreadful apparatus with attention, and particularly the halter designed for himself. The ropes being
too short tied, Brodie stepped down to the platform, and entered into conversation with his friends.
He then sprang up again, but the rope was still too short ; and he once more descended to the platform,
showing some impatience. During this dreadful interval Smith remained on the drop with great
composure and placidness. Bmdie having ascended a third time, and the rope being at last properly
adjusted, he deliberately untied his neckcloth, buttoned up his waistcoat and coat, and helped the
executioner to fix the rope. He than took a friend (who stood close by him) by the hand, bade him
farewell, and requested that he would acquaint the world that he wa.9 still the same, and that he died l i e
a man. He then pulled the nightcap over his face, and placed himself in an attitude expressive of
firmness and resolution. Smith, who, during all this time had been in fervent devotion, let fall a
handkerchief as a signal, and a few minutes before three they were launched into eternity. Brodie
on the scaffold neither confessed nor denied his being guilty. Smith, with great fervency, confessed in
prayer his being guilty, and the justice of his sentence ; and showed in all his conduct the proper expressions
of penitence, humility, and faith. This execution was conducted with more than usual solemnity ;
and the great bell tolled during the ceremony, which had an awful and solemn effect. The crowd
of spectators was immense.”
He had on a full suit of black-his hair dressed and powdered.
In explanation of the wonderful degree of firmness, if not levity, displayed in
the conduct of Brodie, a curious and somewhat ridiculous story became current.
It was stated that he had been visited in prison by a French quack, of the
name of Degravers,’ who undertook to restore him to life after he had hung the
usual time; that, on the day previous to the execution, he had marked the
temples and arms of Brodie with a pencil, in order the more readily to know
where to apply the lancet; and that, with this view, the hangman had been
bargained with for a short fall. “ The excess of caution, however,” observes our
worthy informant, who was himself a witness of the scene, exercised by the
executioner in the first instance, in shortening the rope, proved fatal, by his
inadvertency in making it latterly too long. After he was cut down,” continues
our friend, “ his body was immediately given to two of his own workmen, who,
Dr. Peter Degravers, according to his own account, was at one time F’rofessor of Anatomy and
Physiology in the Royal Academy of Science at Paris, and a member of several medical societies.
Whatever may have been his circumstances in France, Kay says it is certain his finances were at a
very low ebb when he came to Edinburgh, where, in order to get into immediate practice, he advertised
his advice in all cases at the low rate of half-a-crown. After having been some time in Edinburgh,
he succeeded in securing the affections of Miss Baikie, sister to Robert Baikie, Esq. of Tankerness,
M.P., whom he married, and with her was to receive aeven hundred pounds of portion. Some delay,
however, occurred in the settlement ; and, unfortunately for the Doctor, before he had obtained more
than an elegantly furnished house, his lady died in childbed, when the money was retained by her friends
as a provision for the child, which waa a daughter. Not long after this event the Doctor decamped,
no one knew whither, leaving debts to a considerable amount unsettled. In 1788 Degravera published
a “ Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye and Ear,” to which an etching of the author, by Kay,
was prefixed, as well aa two anatomical prints by the same artist. These platss are not to be found
in Kay’s collection, having, we understand, been paid for and carried away by Degravers. Like the
productions of most other quacks, hia treatise was full of invective against the gentlemen of the
faculty. ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. Rev. Mr. Hall of the Burghers. When Mr. Brodie came to the scaffold, he bowed politely ...

Book 8  p. 366
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242 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
up to the full average of poets, yet his vanity was
of a very inoffensive kind.
Mrs. Sarah Siddons, when visiting the Edinburgh
Theatre, always spent an occasional afternoon with
Mr. and Mrs. Home, at their neat little house in
North Hanover Street, and of one of these visits
Sir Adam Fergusson was wont (we have the authority
of Robert Chambers for it) to relate the following
anecdote :-They were seated at early dinner,
attended by Home?s old man-servant John, when
the host asked Mrs. Siddons what liqueur or wine
she preferred to drink.
A.little porter,? replied the tragedy queen, in
her usually impressive voice; and Johs was despatched
to procure what he thought was required,
But a considerable time elapsed, to the surprise
of those at table, before steps were heard in the
outer lobby, and John re-appeared, panting and
flushed, exclaiming, ?I?ve found ane, mem t he?s
the least I could get !? and with these words he
pushed in a short, thickset Highlander, whose
leaden badge and coil of ropes betokened his
profession, ? but who seemed greatly bewildered
on finding himself in a gentleman?s dining-room,
surveyed by the curious eyes of one of the
grandest women that ever walked the earth. The
truth flashed first upon Mrs. Siddons, who, unwonted
to laugh, was for once overcome by a
sense of the ludicrous, and broke forth into something
like shouts of mirth;? but Mrs. Home,
we are told, had not the least chance of ever
understanding i t
Home accepted a captain?s commission in the
Duke of Buccleuch?s Fencibles, which he held till
that corps was disbanded, His last tragedy was
?Alfred,? represented in 1778, when it proved
an utter failure. In 1776 he accompanied his
friend Ilavid Hume, in his last illness, from Morpeth
to Bath. He never recovered the shock of
a fall from his horse when on parade with the
Buccleuch Fencibles ; and his ? History of the
Rebellion,? perhaps his best work in some respects
(though it disappointed the public), and the task
of his declining years, was published at London
in 1802. He died at Edinburgh, in his eightyfourth
par, and was buried in South Leith churchyard,
where a tablet on the west side of the
church marks the spot. It is inscribed :--?In
niemory of John Home, author of \the tragedy
of ?Douglas,? &c. Born 13th September, 1724.
Died 4th September, 1808.?
Before recurring to general history, we may here
refer to another distinguished native of Leith,
Robert Jamieson, Professor of Natural History,
who was born in 1779 in Leith, where his father
was a merchant, and perhaps the most extensive
manufacturer of soap in Scotland. He was appointed
Regius Professor and Keeper of the
Museum, or *? Repository of Natural Curiosities
in the University of Edinburgh,? on the death of
Dr. Walker, in 1804; but he had previously distinguisbed
himself by the publication of three valuable
works connected with the natural history of
the? Scottish Isles, after studying for two years at
Freyberg, under the famous Werner,
He was author of ten separate works, all contributing
to the advancement of natural history, but
more especially of geology, and his whole life was
devoted to study and investigation. Whether in the
class-room or by his writings, he was always alike
entitled to and received the gratitude and esteem
of the students.
In 1808 he founded the Wernerian Natural
History Society of Edinburgh, and besides the
numerous separate works referred to, the world is
indebted to him for the Edinburgh PhiZosophicaZ
Journal, which he started in 1819, and which
maintained a reputhion deservedly high as a repository
of science. The editorial duties connected
with it he performed for nearly twenty
years (for the first ten volumes in conjunction with
Sir David Brewster), adding many brilliant articles
from his own pen, and, notwithstanding the varied
demands upon his timq was a contributor to the
?? Edinburgh Encyclopzdia,? the ?? Encyclopzdia
Britannia,? the Annals of Philosophy,? the
U Edinburgh Cabinet Library,? and many other
standard works.
He was for half a century a professor, and had
the pleasure of sending forth from his class-room
in the University of Edinburgh many pupils who
have since won honour and renown in the seminaries
and scientific institutions of Europe. He was
a fellow of many learned and Royal Societies,
and was succeeded in the Chair of Natural
History in 1854 by Edward Forbes. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith. up to the full average of poets, yet his vanity was of a very inoffensive ...

Book 6  p. 242
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132 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
defences of the tower were principally directed. The walls are here of very great thickness,
and pierced by a square cavity in the solid mass, for the reception of a sliding beam
to secure the door, while around it are the remains of various additional fortifications to
protect the covered way.
During the same operations, indications were discovered of a pathway up the cliff, partly
by means of steps cut in the shelving rock, and probably completed by moveable ladders
and a drawbridge communicating with the higher story of the Well-house Tower. About
seventy feet above, there is a small building on an apparently inaccessible projection of the
cl3, popularly known as ‘ I Wallace’s Cradle ” (an obvious corruption of the name of the
tower below), which would seem to have formed a part of this access from the Castle to
the ancient fountain at its base. In excavating near the tower, and especially in the neighbourhood
of the sally port, various coins were found, chiefly those of Edward 111. and
Cromwell, in very good preservation. There were also some foreign coins, and one of
Edward I., many f r a p e n t s of bombshells, a shattered skull, and other indications of
former warfare. The coins are now in the Antiquarian Museum, and are interesting
from some of them being of a date considerably anterior to the supposed erection of the
tower.a
The ancient fortifications .of the town of Edinburgh, reared under the charter of James
11.) formed, at this part, in reality an advanced wall of the Castle, the charge of which
was probably committed entirely to the garrison. The wall, after extending for a short
way from the Well-house Tower, along the margin of the Loch, was carried up the Castle
bank, and thence over the declivity on the south, until it again took an easterly direction
towards the ancient Overbow Port, at the first turning of the West Bow, so that the whole
of the Esplanade was separated from the town by this defence. There was in the highest
part of the wall, a gate which served as a means of communication with the town by the
Castle Hill, and was styled the Barrier Gate of the Castle. This outer port was temporarily
restored for the reception of George IT., on his visit to the Castle in the year 1822, and it
was again brought into requisition in 1832, in order completely to isolate the garrison,
during the prevalence of Asiatic cholera.
Previous to the enclosure and planting of the Castle bank and the bed of the ancient
North Loch, the Esplanade was the principal promenade of the citizens, and a road led
from the top of the bank, passing in an oblique direction down the north side, by the
Well-house Tower, to St Cuthbert’s Church, some indications of which still remain. This
church road had existed from a very early period, and is mentioned in the charter of
.
1 The following extracts from the Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 332-3, in reference to the siege of the Castle by Sir
William Drury in 1573 (ante, p. 84), embrace various interesting allusions to the local detail :- “ Wpoun the xxij
day of Maij, the south quarter of the toure of the Castell, callit Dauid’s toure, fell through the vehement and continual1
achuting, togidder with some of the foir wall, and of the heid wall beayd Sanct Margaretia set.
“ Wpoun the xxiiij day, the eist quarter of the said tour fell, with the north quarteris of the port cuheis ; the tour
als callit Wallace tour, with some mair of the foir wall, notwithstanding the Castell men kust thair hand with schutting
of small artailzerie. . . . . Wpoun the xxvj day, the hail1 cumpangis of Scotland and Ingland, being quietlie
convenit at vij houris in the mornyng, passed with ledders, ane half to the blookhous, the vther half to Sanct Katherin’a
eet, on the west syd, quhair the syid wea schote doun.” The Caatle vwa at length rendered by Sir William Kirkaldy
on the 29th of the month. In Calderwood’s History, Wodrow Soc., vol. iii. 281, the followiug occurs, of the same
date :-“Captain Nitchell waa layed with his band at Sanct Cuthbert’a Kirk, to atoppe the passage to St Margaret’a
Well.” Also in “The Inventory of Royal Wardrobe,” dcc,, p. 168,-“1tem, am irne yet for Sanct Margareth’a
t.o ur*, ”A &rcch. wlogia Scotica, vol. ii. pp. 469-477. ... MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. defences of the tower were principally directed. The walls are here of very great ...

Book 10  p. 143
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BATTLE OF FLODDEN TO DEATH OF JAMES V. 35
day, with the fist rumours of the disaster, these magistrates issued a proclamation,
couched in plain and simple terms, yet exhibiting such fimness as showed them well
fitted for the trying occasion. It begins, ‘‘ For sa meikle as thair is ane greit rumber’
now laitlie rysin within this toun, tueching our Soverane Lord and his army, of the
quilk we understand thair is cumin na veritie as yet, quhairfore we charge straigtlie, and
commandis that all maner of personis, nyhbours within the samen, have reddy their
fensible geir and wapponis for weir, and compeir thairwith to the said president’s, at
jowing of the commoun bell, for the keeping and defens of the toun against thame that
wald invade the sftlll~n.”~ It likewise warns women not to be seen on the street,
clamouring and crying, but rather to repair to the church, and offer up prayers for the
national welfare.
All the inhabitants, capable bf bearing arms, were thus required to be in readiness ;
twenty-four men (the origin of the old town-guardj, were appointed atl a standing watch ;
and 2500 Scots were forthwith ordered to be levied for purchasing artillery and fortifying
the town.
We have already described the line of the first circumvallations of the city, erected in
the reign of James 11. ; but its narrow limits had speedily proved too confined for the
rising capital, and now with the dread of invasion by a victorious enemy in view, the
inhabitants of the new and fashionable suburb of the Cowgate became keenly alive to
their exposed position beyond the protecting shelter of the city wall.
The necessity of enclosing it seems to have come upon the citizens in the most un-
It is na ae day, but only ten,
Wi’ the high masa an’ the haly sign,
An’ the aisles wi’ the tramp 0’ stalwart men
Sin’ Sanct Qiles his quire had rung
That the Nunc Demittis sung.
But only ten sin’ prince and squire,
In mauger 9’ hell’s or heaven’s forbear,
Had hight to ride, wi’ helm an’ spear,
Three yards on Ynglish mould-
An’ churl, an’ burger bauld,
When Douglas soiight nigh the noon 0’ night
Up the haly quire, whar the glimmerand light
0’ the Virgin’s lamp gae the darknesa,aight
The altar 0’ gude Sanct Giles,
To fill the eerie aisles. ,
Belyve, a8 the boom o’ the mid-mirk hour,
Clang after clang frae Sanct Giles’s tower,
Whar the fretted ribs like a boortree bower
Rang out wi’ clang an’ mane ;
Yak a royal crown U’ stane-
Or the sound was tint-’fore mortal ee
Ne’er saw sic sight, I trow,
Shimmering wi‘ light ilk canopy,
Pillar an’ ribbed arch, an’ fretted key,
WT a wild uneardly low.
An’ Douglas was ware that the haly pile
Wi’ a strange kent thrang waa filled,-
Yearls Angus an’ Crawford, an’ bauld Argyle,
Huntly an’ Lennox, an’ Home the while,
Wi’ mony ma’ noble styled.
An’ priesta stood tip in cope and stale,
In mitre an’ abbot’a weede,
An’ Jamea y’wis abon the whole,
Led up the kirk to win assoyl
Whar the eldritch maea was said.
Let the maw be sung for the unshriven dead !-
An’ grim an’ stalwart, in mouldy weed,
Priest after priest, up the altar lead,
Let the dead’s mass bide their ban !-
Eing Jam- his forbear wan.
Let the dead’s m w sing ! aaid Inchaffrey’s priest-
Now peace to them wha tak‘ their rest,
A’ smoured in bluid on Flodden’s breast !-
Crist’s peace !-Priest Douglas cried.
Dead threap na to the dead ;
Gane was the thrang fme the glymerand aisle,
But or the mornin’ sun ’gan mile,
‘l’was kent that e woman was Scotland’s mail,
A wean wore Scotland‘s crown.
Aa he groped to the kirk yard boun’;
Rumour, ‘ Lord Hailea’ Remarks, p. 147. ... OF FLODDEN TO DEATH OF JAMES V. 35 day, with the fist rumours of the disaster, these magistrates issued a ...

Book 10  p. 37
(Score 0.24)

I4 .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University.
marks Arnot, ? that these Parliamentary visitors
proceeded with great violence and injustice.?
Before the autumn of 1690 the professors who
were faithful to the House of Stuart were expelled
by a royal commission. Proclamation was made
at the Cross, and an edict fixed to it and the
college gates, and at Stirling, Haddington, and
elsewhere, warning the principal and professors,
and all schoolmasters in Edinburgh and the adjacent
counties, to appear before the Committee of
Visitors on the 20th of August, to answer upon
the points contained in the .Act of Parliament.
? ?AZso summoning and warning aZZ the &gees who
haw anything to oyect against the said pinc$aZ,
professors, &c., to appear befare the said Cammittee,
the said day and $ace, to giw in olyedions,
Erc.? After an edict which bespoke that the
country, although it had been subjected to a revolution,
had not acquired a system of liberty nor
the iudiments of justice: after an invitation so
publicly thrown out by the Commissioners of
Parliament in a nation disturbed by religious a d
political factions, it is not to be supposed that
informers would be wanting.? (Ibid.)
Sir John Hall, Knight, the Lord Provost, sat as
president of this inquisition, which met on the day
appointed ; and after adjourning his trial-for such
it was-for eight days, they brought before them
Alexander Monro, who had succeeded Cant as
principal in 1685, and Sir John Hall, addressing
him, bade him answer to the various articles of
his indictment, and commanded the clerk to read
them aloud.
To the first two articles (one of which was that
he had renounced the Protestant faith) the principal
replied extempore. But when he discpvered that the
clerk was about to read from a list, bringing forward
he knew not what charges, ?( he complained of proceedings
so unjust and illegal, desired to know his
accusers, and be allowed? time to prepare his defences.?
Thereupon he was furnished with an unsigned
copy of the informations lodged against him, and
had a few days given him to prepare replies.
Having sent in these, containing an acknowledgment
of certain matters of small moment, and a
denial of the rest, he was asked by the commissioners
if he was prepared to take all the tests, religious
and political, imposed by the new laws of the
Revolution.
To this he replied in the negative, on which a
sentence of deprivation was passed upon him, in
which his acknowledgment of certain charges made
against him and his refusal to embrace the new
formulas were mingled as grounds for the said
sentence. (Presbyterian Inquisition, as quoted by
Arnot.)
Dr. John Strachan,? Professor of Divinity since
1683, was next brought before these commkioners.
Like the principal, he was served with an unsigned
indictment. His case and the proceedings thereon
were identical with those of the principal, and he
too was expelled from his chair; but it does not
appear that any more than these two were served
thus.
Gilbert Rule, the new principal, held his chair
till 1703, and was famous for nothing but seeing
?a ghost ? on one or two occasions, as we learn
from Wodrow?s ?Analecta.?
In the year 1692 the professors of the university
seem to have held several conferences with their
patrons, the Town Council and magistrates, as to
the expediency of restoring, or perhaps establishing
permanently, the oftices of rector and chancellor,
which, owing to civil war and tumult, had fallen into
disuse or been permitted to pass away; and now the
time had come when a spirit of improvement was
developing itself among men of literary tastes in
Scotland, and more particularly among the regents
of her universities generally.
In a memorial drawn up and prepared by the
principal, Gilbert Rule, the professors urged, ?That
in obedience to the commands of the honourable
patrons, they have considered the rise and establishment
of the university; and they find from
authentic documents that she has been in the
exercise of these powers, and for a considerable
time governed in that manner, wherein consists
the distinguishing character of a university from
the lesser seminaries of learning. She continues
in the possession of giving degrees to all the learned
sciences; but her government by a rector has
now, for some considerable time, gone into disuse.
To what causes the sinking the useful office of
rector is most likely to have been owing, they are
unwilling to explore, lest the scrutiny should lead
them into the view of some unhappy differences,
whereof, in their humble opinion, the memory
should not be recalled. It is plain, however, the
university in former times was more in the exercise
of certain rights and privileges, and in certain
respects carried more the outward face of a
iiniversity than she has done for some time past.?
Whether the Lord Provost, Sir John Hall, and
the Council, were hostile to these wishes we know
not, but the memorialists failed to achieve their
end.
In 1694 we hear of an advance in medical education
in Edinburgh, eleven years before the first
professor of anatomy was appointed. In the latter ... .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University. marks Arnot, ? that these Parliamentary visitors proceeded with great ...

Book 5  p. 14
(Score 0.24)

306 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
from her servitude by his Excellency the Persian Ambassador, during his residence in that city
on his way to England. Embracing the Mohammedan faith, her creed enjoins her to observe the
strictest privacy ; and on no account to expose her features, or even her figure, to any of the male
sex, excepting to particular individuals by the special permission of her lord or protector. *
“I am constrained to confess that her conntenance is far more lovely and interesting than
really beautiful ; and it is a mistaken notion that the Circassian women are the most celebrated
for beauty of any of the inhabitants in the countries round the Caucasus, as it is the Georgian
women who are entitled to this distinction. To attempt a description of the female in question,
we may say with great truth, that her eyes are black and remarkably fine, adorned with arched
black eyebrows, and fringed with long eyelashes of the same colour ; and her whole countenance
is expressive of peculiar modesty and a becoming a d e n c e , that is very pleasing ; and, joined
with a natural and easy politeness, and a sweetness of disposition, renders her altogether a most
interesting young creature. Her teeth are beautiful, and her mouth good, though her lips are
rather thick than otherwise. Her nose is far from handsome. Her hair is a fine, soft, and
glossg jet, which she arranges in a very tasteful manner, and highly becoming her countenance,
which, indeed, is of no ordinary description, and particularly when enlivened with a smile. Her
complexion is brunette, but by no means of 80 dark a hue as the pictures in the Print-shops
exhibit to the public eye ; yet several ladies have asserted that her skin is very soft and clear,
and that a Mush has been frequently seen to mantle over her cheek. She is rather below the
middle stature, and is considered a remarkably good figure for a Circassian, who by art acquire
a very slender waist, which makes them broader about the shoulders than is pleasing to the eye
of a European, and destroys the contours of proportionable beauty. She appeared to be,:about
twenty years of age, though it is said she has only arrived at eighteen. Her dialect is Turkish,
which indeed is the general language of Persia, particularly in the northern parts ; the pure
Persian being considered as the language of the Court of Tehran. She has, however, some knowledge
of this, as well as of the English tongue. The name by which she is:distinguished is Dill
Arurn, which are two Persian words, signifying hean! and quiet; but the more general and
appropriate application corresponds with the small and favourite flower called “Heart’# Ease.”
The writer then goes on to state that ‘‘ it proves the superiority of Dil2 Amcm.
as much as it bespeaks the noble and generous disposition of Mirza Aboul
Hassan Khan, that he not only released her from vassalage, but faithfully
adopted her as the partner of his bosom.” To his Excellency’s affection and
anxiety for her safety the writer attribntes her departure by sea, and considers
it “particularly honourable to his feelings that he would rather forego the
pleasures of her society,” than subject her to the unavoidable constraints and
fatigues of an overland journey. The vessel engaged for her conveyance was a
new coppered brig, the Lord Exmouth, fitted up in a comfortable manner for the
voyage. The fair Circassian was accompanied by the Ambassador‘s two nephews,
Mirza Abul Tallib, and Abbas Begg (the latter of whom was in England with
his Excellency on the former embassy), and other confidential servants.
“ At eight o’clock on Monday morning, the 30th September, three carriages mere in attendance
in the immediate vicinity of the residence of the Ambassador, in Charles Street, Berkeley
Square ; and shortly after the first coach was occupied by three of the Persians who were to
accompany her to Persia. In the second coach was seated the Circassian lady, with three other
Persians, two of whom were the Ambassador’s nephews, and a Persian attendant mounted the
coach-box. The last coach contained Lieut.-Colonel DArcy, of the Royal Artillery, who was a
resident in Persia for five years, aud commanded the military party of the embassy under Sir
Gore Ouseley ; and who, for his eminent and extensive services in that country, was elevated by
the Shah to the rank of Khan, with the title of Alijah or Honourable, and invested with the
Persian order of the Lion and Sun. He was accompanied by Captain George Willock (who is
attached to the present embassy from Persia, and is brother to the British Charge d’Affaires at
Tehran), and also by Mr. Percy, the Persian accountant, who likewise acts as a confidential
secretary. They proceeded along the principal streets on their way to the Artichole Tavern, ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. from her servitude by his Excellency the Persian Ambassador, during his residence in ...

Book 9  p. 407
(Score 0.23)

to extinct Scottish regiments, and various weapons
from the field of Culloden, particularly the Doune
steel pistols, of beautiful workmanship, worn by
Highland gentlemen.
Near this rises the Hawk Hi?l, where kings and
nobles practised falconry of old; on the left is
the Gothic arch of the citadel; and on the right
* rises the great mass of the hideous and uncomfortable
infantry barracks, erected partly on the
archery butts, in 1796, and likened by Sir Walter
Scott to a vulgar cotton-mill. This edifice is 150
feet long, and four storeys high to the westward,
where it rises on a massive arcade, and from its
windows can be had a magniticent prospect, extend-
'ing almost to the smoke of Glasgow, and the blue
cone of Ben Lomond, fifty miles distant.
On the south-west is Drury's gun-hattery, so
named from the officer of Scottish Engineers who
built it in 1689, and in its rear is the square prisonhouse,
built in 1840. Passing through the citadel
gate, we find on the left the modern water-tank,
the remains of the old shot-yard, the door of which
has now disappeared; but on the gablet above it
was a thistle, with the initials D.G.M.S. Here is
the king's bastion, on the north-west verge of the
citadel, and on the highest cliff of the Castle rock.
Here, too, are St Margaret's Chapel, which we
have already described, Mons Meg, frowning, as
of old, from the now-ruinous mortar battery, and
a piece of bare rock, the site of a plain modern
chapel, the pointed window of which was once
conspicuous from Princes Street, but which was
demolished by Colonel Moodie, R.E., in expectation
fhat one more commodious would be erected.
But macy years have since passed, and this has
never been done, consequently there is now no
chapel for the use of the troops of any religious
denomination; while the office of chaplain has
also been abolished, at
a time when Edinburgh
has been made a dep8t
centre for Scottish regiments,
and in defiance
of the fact that the
Castle is under the
Presbytery, and is a
parish of the city.
The platform of the
half-moon battery is
510 feet above the level
of the Forth. It is
armed with old 18 and
24 pounders, one of
which is, at one P.M.,
fired by electricity as a
time-gun, by a wire from the Calton Hill. It is
furnished with a lofty flagstaff, an iron grate for
beacon fires, and contains a draw-well IIO feet
deep. From its massive portholes Charles 11. saw
the rout of Cromwell's troops at Lochend in 1650;
and from there the Corsican chief Saoli in 1771,
the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1819, George IV. in
1822, Queen Victoria, and many others of note,
have viewed the city that stretched at their feet
below.
Within this battery is the ancient square or
Grand Parade, where some of the most interesting
buildings in the Castle are to be found, as it is
on the loftiest, most precipitous, and inaccessible
portion of the isolated rock. Here, abutting on
the very verge of the giddy cliff, overhanging the
Grassmarket, several hundred feet below, stands
all that many sieges have left of the ancient royal
palace, forming the southern and easterr. sides of
the quadrangle. The chief feature of the former is
a large battlemented edifice, now nearly destroyed
by its conversion into a military hospital. This
was the ancient hall of the Castle, in length 80
feet by 33 in width, and 27 in height, and
lighted by tall mullioned windows from the south,
wherein Parliaments have sat, kings have feasted
and revelled, ambassadors been received, and
treaties signed for peace or war. Some remains
of its ancient grandeur are yet discernible amid
the new floors and partitions that have been run
through it. At the summit of the principal staircase
is a beautifully-sculptured stone corbel representing
a well-cut female face, ornamented on each
side by a volute and thistle. On this rests one of
the original beams of the open oak roof, and on each
side are smaller beams with many sculptured shields,
all defaced by the whitewash of the barrack
pioneers and hospital orderlies. " The view from
CHEST IN WHICH THE REGALIA WERE FOUND.
the many windows on
this side is scarcely surpassed
by any other in
the capital. Immediately
below are the picturesque
old houses of
the Grassmarket and
West Port, crowned by
the magnificent towers
of Heriot's Hospital.
From this deep abyss
the hum of the neighbouring
city rises up,
mellowed by the distance,
into one pleasing
voice of life and industry
; while far beyond a ... extinct Scottish regiments, and various weapons from the field of Culloden, particularly the Doune steel ...

Book 1  p. 76
(Score 0.23)

castle Stratl CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 165
principal duty as clerk in court was to sit below
the bench, watch the progress of the suits, and
record the decisions orally pronounced, by reducing
them to technical shape.
Prior to living in No. 39 he would appear to
have lived for a time in ig South Castle Street
(1798-g), and in the preceding year to have taken
his bride to his lodging, 198 George Street.
In 1822 Lord Teignmouth visited Edinburgh,
and records in his (? Diary? that he dined here with
Sir Walter Scott, who on that occasion wore the
Highland dress, and was full of the preparations
for the forthcoming visit of George IV. To Lord
Teignmouth the dinner in all its features was a
novelty; and he wrote of it at the time as being
the most interesting at which he ever was present,
as ?( it afforded a more complete exhibition of Highland
spirit and feelings than a tour of the country
might have done.?
Four years afterwards saw the melancholy change
in Sir Walter?s life and affairs, and from his ?? Diary?
we can trace the influence of a darker species of
distress than mere loss of wealth could bring to a
noble spirit such as his. His darling grandson was
sinking apace at Brighton. The misfortunes
against which his manhood struggled with stem
energy were encountered by his affectionate wife
under the disadvantages of enfeebled health ; and
it would seem but too evident that mental pain and
mortification had a great share in hurrying Lady
Scott?s ailments to a fatal end.
He appears to have been much attached to the
house referred to, as the following extract from his
?(Diarf? shows:-(?March 15, 1826.-This morning
I leave No. 39 Castle Street for the last time!
?The cabin was convenient,? and habit made it
agreeable to me. . . . So farewell poor No. 39 !
What a portion of my life has been spent there !
It has sheltered me from the prime of life to its
decline, and now I must bid good-bye to it.?
On that daythe family left Castle Street for Abbotsford,
and in Captain Basil Hall?s ?( Diary? he records
how he came, by mistake, to 39 Castle Street, and
found the door-plate covered with rust, the windows
shuttered up, dusty and comfortless, and from the
side of one a board projected, with the ominous
words ?( To Sell ? thereon. ?( The stairs were unwashed,?
he continues, ?and not a footmark told
of the ancient hospitality which reigned within,
In all nations with which I am acquainted the
fashionable world moves westward, in imitation,
perhaps, of the civilisation ; and, vice vend, those
persons who decline in fortune, which is mostly
equivalent to declining in fashion, shape their course
eastward. Accordingly, by involuntary impulse I
turned my head that way, and inquiring at the
clubs in Princes Street, learned that he now resided
in St. David Street, No. 6.?
On the occasion of the Scott Centenary in
1871 the house in Castle Street was decorated,
and thrown open to the public by its then tenant
for a time. It became the residence of Macvey
Napier, editor of the seventh edition of the
He died in 1847,
and his Life and Correspondence? was published
in 1879.
Early in the century, No. 49, at the corner of
Hill Street, was the residence of Ochterlony of
Guynd, in Forfarshire, a family of whom several
members have since those days settled in Russia,
and a descendant of one, Major-General Ochterlony,
fell in the service of the Emperor at Inkerman,
after bearing a flag of truce to the British
head-quarters.
Charlotte Street and Hope Street lie east and
west respectively ; but the former is chiefly rernarkr
able ?or having at its foot on the north-west side a
monument, in the shape of a lofty and ornate
Eleanor cross, to the memory of Catherine Sinclair,
the authoress of (? Modem Accomplishments? and
many other works, She was born April 17th, 1800,
and died August 6th, 1864. Her sister Margaret,
one of the best known members of old Edinburgh
society, and one of the last survivors of the
Abbotsford circle, died on 4th August, 1879, in
London, in her eighty-seventh year. She had the
curious fortune of being the personal friend of Anne
Scott, Sir Walter?s daughter, and in her extreme youth
of being presented at Court bythe beautiful Duchess
of Gordon. Miss Margaret Sinclair was intimate
with the princesses of the old royal family of
(( Farmer George,? and retained to the last a multitude
of recollections of the Scottish world of two
generations ago.
Encyclopadia Britannic&? ... Stratl CATHERINE SINCLAIR. 165 principal duty as clerk in court was to sit below the bench, watch the ...

Book 3  p. 165
(Score 0.23)

294 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inchkeith.
the other, the gamsons could level their united fire
in any given direction. The situation of No. 3,
or the south-east fort, facing Leith, which is the
largest of the whole, and is certainly the strongest,
is on a sloping, turfcovered plateau, above the
peninsula of rock which ruhs southeastward
through the island.
It will mount two r8-ton guns, on Moncrieff
carriages, and be able to bear upon any vessel
coming westward, or attempting to traverse the
south or north channels. A formidable ditch
. separates the corner in which it stands from the
rest of the island, and the summit of the battery is
on a level with the ground, from which it has been
excavated. After a drawbridge has been crossed,
the fort is entered by a strong iron door, leading
into a covered way. Here are situated the only
two barrack-rooms for troops that have as yet been
erected there.
In one of these resides a sergeant of the Coast
Artillery, and in the other the three gunners under
his orders, to superintend the forts in the meanwhile.
The guns are placed on granite platforms, in the
centre of a circle, formed by a bombproof parapet,
and are to be fired ea barbefte over the slope, and
not through embrasures, as they are worked on the
Moncrieff swivel principle, which permits them to
be turned so as to sweep any point within three
fourths of a circle. The parapets, which are very
massively constructed, have each half a dozen bombproof
caseniates, in which the artillerymen who
work the guns may seek protection with ease and
safety.
In a hollow between two of the batteries there
has been constructed a bombproof subterranean
magazine, in which to store shot, live shell, and
cartridges for the service of the guns. The walls
and roof of this magazine have been formed of
brick, with a thick layer of concrete, and such a
deep covering of earth that any attempt from
without to blow it up must prove futile. A long
stair, winding down into the bowels of the earth, as
it were, leads to where the materials of destruction
are stored.
To preclude any accident which might lead to
the explosion of a magazine from within, the subterranean
passages which lead to them, and are quite
dark, are lighted by a very simple plan. Along the
back of the chambers a long passage has been constructed,
communication with which is obtained by
a private staircase. In this passage are a number
of windows, one into each of the chambers, and
whenever the batteries should happen to be engaged
a man would be sent below to place in each of
the windows lighted candles, which would effectually
light up the chambers, while the pane of glass
would prevent all peril of ignition.
The war material is sent up by a lift which opens
into the passage, each end of which leads to a
battery. Close to each of the latter, and somewhat
beneath them, is seen a covered way, facing the
sea, loopholed for musketry, in case of the near
approach of enemy?s boats.
This passage can also be used as a safe cajonnike
from one work to another, and as a place for the
storage of arms.
In short, more perfect batteries of the kind have
not as yet been constructed. The whole of No. 3
is embedded, as it were, in the earth, and so closely
concealed from view that it can only be discovered
by a practised eye.
The other two forts are on the bluff headlands of
the northern end of the island. That to the northwest,
known as No. I Battery, will amply protect
the upper portion of the Forth, as it can cover the
whole channel down as far as Prestonpans. In
construction it is precisely similar to No. 3, but is
smaller than the other, having accommodation only
for one gun of equal weight and calibre.
The third redoubt, which is similar to No. I,
and is named ?(No 2, North-east Battery,? occupies
the north end of the isle, and in conjunction
with the fort on Kinghorn-ness, commands the
entire north channeL
In July, 1881, a detachment of sixty men of the
Royal Artillery was located on the island to
receive and plant the four i8-ton guns in their
places, and found temporary quarters in tents
pitched in a sheltered hollow on the north-west. It
was at first contemplated to erect barracks, for the
accommodation of a gamson, on the grassy slope
at the south side of Inchkeith; plans were propared
for this, and the foundations were actually
dug, but the usual parsimony of Government in
Scottish matters prevailed, and the order was
countermanded.
To complete the defence of the Forth, the construction
of a powerful battery was begun, in
unison with the Inchkeith forts, in 1878, on Kinghorn-
ness, 150 yards long by 50 broad, with a face
to the beach, which at that point runs north-east
and south-west at right angles to the face of the
north emplacement on Inchke5th.
The graves of many Russian seamen, who were
buried on the isle when a plague was on board
their fleet in the Roads were long visible, and are
referred to in the ? Reminiscences ?? of Carlyle.
In 1803 the lighthouse was first built upon Inchkeith.
It was then a stationary one; b<t in ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inchkeith. the other, the gamsons could level their united fire in any given ...

Book 6  p. 294
(Score 0.23)

170 OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Leith.
The ballast of the war ships ((was cannon-shot of
iron of which we found in the town to the nombre
of iii score thousand? according to the English
account, which is remarkable, as the latter used
stone bullets then, which were also used in the
Armada more than forty years afterwards. The work
from which we quote bears that it was ? Imprynted
at London, in Pawls Churchyarde, by Reynolde
Wolfe, at the signe of ye Brazen Serpent, anno
1554.? During this expedition Edward Clinton,
Earl of Lincoln, whose armour is now preserved
in the Tower of London, was knighted at Leith by
the Earl of Hertford,
Scotland?s day of vengeance came speedily after,
when the English army were defeated with great
slaughter at Ancrum, on the 17th of February,
1545.
After the battle of Pinkie Leith was pillaged and
burnt again, with greater severity than before, and
thirty-five vessels were carried from the harbour.
In 1551 an Englishman was detected in Leith
selling velvets in small pieces to indwellers there,
thereby breaking the acts and infringing the freedom
of the citizens of Edinburgh, for which he was
arrested and fined. Indeed, the Burgh Records of
this time teem with the prosecution of persons
breaking the burgh laws by dealings with the ? unfreemen?
of the seaport ; and so persistently did
the magistrates of Edinburgh act as despots in their
attempts to depress, annoy, and restrain the inhabitants,
that, in the opinion of a local historian,
there was only ?one measure wanting to coniplete
the destruction of the unhappy Leiihers, and
that was an act of the Town Council to cut their
throats !?
In 1554 the Easter Beaconof Leith is referred to
in the Burgh Accounts, and also payments made
about the same time to Alexander, a quarrier at
Granton, for stones and for Gilmerton lime, for
repairs upon the harbour of Leith. These works
were continued until October, 1555, and great
stones are mentioned as having been brought from
the Burghmuir.
The Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, granted
the inhabitants of Leith a contract to erect the town
into a Burgh of Barony, to continue valid till she
could erect it into a Royal Burgh ; and as a preparatory
measure she purchased overtly and for
their use, with money which they themselves furnished,
the superiority of the town from Logan of
Restalrig ; but as she ,failed amid the turmoil of the
time to fulfil her engagements, the people of Leith
alleged that she had been bribed by those of Edinburgh
with zo,ooo merks to break them.
CHAPTER XVIII.
LEITH-HISTORICAL SURVEY (rantinaed).
The Great Siege--Arrival of the French-The Fortifications-Re-capture of Inchkeith-The Town Invested-Arrival of the English Fleet and
Army-SkirmishesOpning of the Batteries-Failure of the Great Assault-Queen Regent?s Death--Treaty of Peace-Relics of the Siege.
FROM 1548 to 1560 Leith, by becoming the fortified
seat of the Court and headquarters of the Queen
Regent?s army and of her French auxi!iaries, figured
prominently as the centre of those stirring events
that occurred during the bitter civil war which
ensued between Mary of Lorraine and the Lords
of the Congregation. Its port received the shipping
and munitions of war which were designed for
her service ; its fortifications ? enclosed alternately
a garrison and an army, whose accoutrements? had
no opportunity of becoming rusted, and its gates
poured forth detachments and sallying parties who
fought many a fierce skirmish with portions of the
Protestant forces on the plain between Leith and
Edinburgh.?
The bloody defeat at Pinkie, the ravage of the
capital and adjacent country, instead of reconciling
the Scots to a matrimonial alliance with England,
caused them to make an offer of their young Queen
to the Dauphin of France, an offer which his father
at once accepted, and he resolved to leave no
means untried to enforce the authority of the
dowager of James V., who was appointed Regent
during the minority of her daughter. The flame
of the Reformation, long stifled in Scotland, had
now burst forth and spread over all the country;
and the Catholic party would have been only a
minority but for the influence of the Queen Regent
and the presence of her French auxiliaries, who
amved in Leith Roads in June, 1548, in twentytwo
galleys and sixty other ships, according to
Calderwood?s History.
Sir Nicholas de Villegaignon, knight of Rhodes,
was admiral of the fleet, which, as soon as it left
Brest, displayed, in place of French colours, the
Red Lion of Scotland, as France and.England were ... OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Leith. The ballast of the war ships ((was cannon-shot of iron of which we found in ...

Book 5  p. 170
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306 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,? and it sometimes came ; to propitiate him,
his moderate demands became, ere he died, an
established claim. Hence it would seem that now
to say to a crew at sea, ?(John Brounger ?s in your
head-sheets,? or ?? OR board of you,? is sufficient to
cause her crew to haul in the dredge, ship their
oars, and pull the boat thrice round in a circle, to
break the evil spell, and enough sometimes to make
the crew abandon work.
But apart from such fancies, the industrious
fishermen of Newhaven still possess the noble
qualities. ascribed to them by the historian of
Leith, in the days when old Dr. Johnston was
their pastor : ?It was no sight of ordinary interest
to see the stem and weather-beaten faces of these
hardy seamen subdued by the influence of religious
feeling into an expression of deep reverence and
humility, before their God. Their devotion seemed
. - I mansion, pleasantly situated on the sea-shore, about
to have acquired an additional solemnity of character,
from a consciousness of the peculiarly
hazardous nature of their occupation, which,
throwing tKem immediately and sensibly on the
protection of their Creator every day of their lives,
had im5ued them with a deep sense of gratitude to
that Being, whose outstretched arm had conducted
their little bark in safety through a hundred storms.?
In the first years of the present century there
was a Newhaven stage, advertised daily to start
from William Bell?s coach-office, opposite the Tron
church, at ten am., three and eight p-m.
We need scarcely add, that Newhaven has long
been celebrated for the excellence and variety of
its fish dinne&, served up in more than one oldfashioned
inn, the best known of which was, perhaps,
near the foot of the slope called the Whale
Brae.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WARDIE, TRINITY, AND GRANTON.
Wardie Muir-Human Remains Found-Banghalm Bower and Trinity Lodge-Christ Church, Trinity-Free Church, Granton Road-Piltoa
-Royston--Camline Park-Grantan-The Piers and Harbours-Morton?s Patent Slip.
WARDIE MUIR must once have been a wide, open,
and desolate space, extending from Inverleith and
Warriston to the shore of the Firth; and from
North Inverleith Mains, of old called Blaw Wearie,
on the west, to Bonnington on the east, traversed
by the narrow streamlet known as Anchorfield
Bum.
Now it is intersected by streets and roads,
studded with fine villas rich in gardens and teeming
with fertility; but how waste and desolate the
muiland must once have been, is evinced b i those
entries in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer
of Scotland, with reference to firing ,Mons Meg,
in the days when royal salutes were sometimes
fired with shotted guns !
On the 3rd of July, 1558, when the Castle
batteries saluted in honour of the Dauphin?s marriage
with Queen Mary, Mons Meg was fired by
the express desire of the Queen Regent; the
pioneers were paid for ?I their jaboris in mounting
Meg furth of her lair to be schote, and for finding
and carrying her bullet from Wardie Muir to the
Castell,? ten shillings Scots.
Wardie is fully two miles north from the Castle,
and near Granton.
native tribes. Several fragments of human remains
were discovered in 1846, along the coast of
Wardie, in excavating the foundations for a bridge
of the Granton Railway ; and during some earlier
operations for the same railway, on the 27th
September, 1844 a silver and a copper coin of
Philip 11. of Spain were found among a quantity
of huiiian bones, intermingled with sand and shells;
and these at the time were supposed to be a
memento of some great galleon of the Spanish
Armada, cast away upon the rocky coast,
In the beginning of the present century, and
before the roads to Queensferry and Granton
were constructed, the chief or only one in this
quarter was that which, between hedgerows and
trees, led to Trinity, and the principal mansions
near it were Bangholm Bower, called in the
Advertiser for 1789 ? the Farm of Bangholms,?
adjoining the lands of Wamston, and which was
offered for lease, with twelve acres of meadow,
?lying immediately westward of Canonmills Loch;??
Lixmount House, in 1810 the residence of Farquharson
of that ilk and Invercauld; Trinity
Lodge, and one or two others. The latter is
described in the Advertiser for 1783 as a large ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie. In this district evidences have been found of the luck,? and it sometimes ...

Book 6  p. 306
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THE CASTLE. 129
Mait.land’s time, and is divided into two stories by a floor which conceals the upper portion
of the chancel arch.
This chapel is, without doubt, the most ancient building now existing in Edinburgh,
and may, with every probability, be regarded as having been the place of worship of
the pious Queen Margaret, during her residence in the Castle, till her death in 1093. It
is in the same style, though of a plainer character, as the earliest portions of Holyrood
Abbey, begun in the year 1128; and it is worthy of remark, that the era of Norman
architecture is one in which many of the most interesting ecclesiastical edifices in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh were founded, including Holyrood Abbey, St Giles’s Church,
and the parish churches of Duddingston, Ratho, Kirkliston, and Dalmeny, all of which,
with the exception of St Giles’s Church, still contain interesting remains of that era.l
The present garrison chapel is almost entirely a modern building, though including in its
walls portions of a former edifice of considerable antiquity. Immediately north of this is
the King’s Bastion, or mortar battery, upon which is placed the famous old cannon, MONS
MEG. This ancient national relic, which is curiously constructed of iron staves and hoops,
was removed to the Tower of London in 1754, in consequence of an order from the Board
of Ordnance to the governor to send thither all unserviceable cannon in the Castle. It lay
there for seventy years, until it was restored to Scotland by George IV., in 1829, mainly
in consequence of the intercessions of Sir Walter Scott. The form of its ancient wooden
carriage is represented on the sculptured stone, already described, over the entrance of the
Ordnance Office, but that having broken down shortly after its return to Scotland, it has
since been mounted on an elegant modern carriage of cast-iron. On this a series of inscriptions
have been introduced, embodying the usually received traditions as to its history,
which derive the name from its supposed construction at Mons, in Flanders. There is good
reason, however, for believing that local repute has erred on this point, and that this
famous piece of artillery is a native of the land to which all its traditions belong. The evidence
for*this interesting fact was first communicated in a letter from that diligent antiquary,
Mr Train, to Sir Walter Scott, and affords proof, from the local traditions of Galloway, that
this huge piece of ordnance was presented to James 11. in 1455, by the M‘Lellans, when he
arrived with an army at Carlingwark, to besiege William Earl of Douglas, in the Castle
of Threave. We have compressed into a note the main facts of this interesting communication
respecting the pedigree of Mons Meg, which Sir Walter thus unhesitatingly attests
in his reply : “ You have traced her propinquity so clearly, as henceforth to set all conjecture
aside.” a
Our attention waa first directed to this chapel by being told, in answer to our inquiries after the antiquities of the
Castle, that a font still existed in a cellar to the west of the garrison chapel ; it proved, on inspection, to be the socket
of one of the chancel pillara. In further confirmation of the early date we are disposed to aasign to this chapel, we may
remark that the building gifted by David I. to his new Abbey, is styled in all the earlier charters, EccZesiu-‘‘ concedimus
ecclesiam, scilicet Caatelli cum omnibus appendiciis,”-a deacription we can hardly conceive referable to so small a
chapel, while thoae of Corstorphine and Libberton are merely C‘apeZZo,4ependencies of the Church of St Cuthbedand
neither the style of this building, nor the probability derived from the practice of the period, admit of the idea that
so small a chapel would be erected apart from the church after its completion.
In “ The inventare of golden and silver werk being in the Castell of Edinburgh,” 8th Nov. 1543, the following items
occur :-“The Chapell geir of silver ouregilt, ane croce of silver with our Lady and Sanct John,-Tua chandleris,-ane
chalice and ane patine,4ne halie watter fatt,” &c., &c., all “of silver ouregilt. Ane croce of
dver,-tua chandleris of silver,-ane bell of silver,-ane halie watter fatt, with the stick of silver,4ne mise of silver
for the mess breid, with the cover,” &c.-Inventory of Royal Wardrobe, &c., 4t0, Edinburgh, 1815, p. 112.
Joseph Train, p. 200.-The Earl of Douglas having seized Sir Patrick M‘Lellan,
’
Chapell geir ungiltc
’ Contemporaries of Burns.
B ... CASTLE. 129 Mait.land’s time, and is divided into two stories by a floor which conceals the upper ...

Book 10  p. 140
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INDEX. 463
Douglas, Daunie, 239
Cause, 163
Douglas, Heron, & Co.’s Bank, 284
Dow Craig, Calton Hill, 82
Dowie, John, 181
Dowie’s Tavern, Libberton’s Wynd, 164, 181
Downie, accused of High Treason, 123
Drama, Scottish, 285, 326
DreM, 14, 45
Dromedary, Exhibition of a, 286
Drowning, The Punishment of, 454
Drum, The, 115
Drumlanrig, 43
Lord, 299
Drummond, Bishop Abernethy, 265
Lord, 296
of Eawthorndeo, 91, 240
Sir Qeorge, 240
Qeorge, 207
Drumaelch, Forreat of, 276
Drury, Sir William, 84,132, 174, 273, 424
Dryden, 103
Duddingatone, Village of, 111
Dudley, Lord, 294
Dumbarton Castle, 2, 53, 130
Dumfries, William Earl of, 140, 141
Dunbar, Battle of, 93
Church, 129
Lord L’Isle, 49
Penelope, Countess of, 140
Qawin, 38
Town of, 50, 63, 77, 321
William, the Poet, 26, 28, 30
Canongate, 277
Donbar’s Close, 95,224
Dundas, Lord President, 243,253
Sir Lawrence, 259
Dundee, Viscount, 106,123,216,217
Dundonald, Earl of,. 163.
Dunfermline Abbey, 3
Dunkeld’a Palace, Bishop of, 319, 320
Dunnybristle House, 391
Dunrobin Castle, 154
Dunsinnane, Lord, 193
Dureward, Allan, Justiciary of Scotland, 5
Durham, Bishop of, 26
Durie, Abbot, Andrew, 261
Abbot, George;257
Lord, 243
Abbot of, 12,257 ’
Durie’s Close, 244
Dyvoura, 223
Ebranke, 2,419, 423
Edgar, Patrick, 139
Edinburgh, Ancient Maps of, 424
Ancient Painting of, 156
Viscount of, 7
Edmonston, Lord, 208
Edmrd I., 2, 4, 6, 132, 321, 399
II., 6,379
III., 132, 384
IV., 19
Edward VI., 48, 51, 58
Nicol. See Udward
Edwin, King of Northumbria, 2, 419
Eglinton, Earl of, 241
Elgin, Countess of, 166
Elibank, Lord, 143,
Elizabeth, Queen, 61, 62, 68, 89,174
Elliot, Sir Gilbert, 256, 332
Mise Jeanie, 332
Elphinstone, Lord, 309
Susannah, Counteea of, 241,289
Sir George, 286
Secretary, 89
Tower, 51
Elphinstone’s Court, 269, 314
Emblems, Paradin’s, 150
Erskine, Lord, 53
of Dun, 75
Sir Alexander, 227
Exchange, Royal, 122 .
Excise Office, 259
Palconer, William, 275
Falkland, 45, 388
Farquharson, Dr, 180
Fenelon, Xonsieur de la Motte, 175
Fentonbarns, Lord, 267
Fergus I., 91
Ferguson, Robert, the Poet, 106,181, 237, 242, 347
Fettes Row, 196
Fiery C r o ~5, 1
Figgate Whins, 244
Fires, 13, 209
Fisher’s Cloae, 169
Flezning, Lord, 22, 266
Robert, the Plotter, 192
Sir Ifalcolm, 16 .
Sir James, 368
Fleshmarket Close, 242
Canongate, 278
Fletcher, Lawrence, Comedian, 286
Flodden Field, Battle of, 31, 34, 38
Fonts, 142, 147, 353
Forbes, Lord, 48
of Milton, Andrew. See Miltor, h d
Duncan, of Culloden, 112, 192, 209
Sir Alexander, 239
Sir William, 212, 252
Foreman, Andrew, 23
Forglen, Lord, 239, 240
Forreat, Mer., Provost of the Kirk-of-Field, 397
Forrester’s Wynd, 181
Forster, Adam, Lord of Nether Liberton, 385
Fortune’s Tavern, 242
Fountain Close, 270
Fountainhall, Lord, 161, 203, 207,287
Fowler, William, the Poet, 240
Francis I., 41
Fraser of Strichen, Alexander, 261
Freemasons, 431
French Ambwador’s Chapel, Covgate, 328
Well, 258, 391
Tibbie, of the Glen, 367 ... 463 Douglas, Daunie, 239 Cause, 163 Douglas, Heron, & Co.’s Bank, 284 Dow Craig, Calton Hill, ...

Book 10  p. 502
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North Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan Hospital-Its Foundation. Object, and Removal-Lady Glenorchy?s Chapel-Her Disputes with the Presbytery-Dr. SnelI
Jones-Demolition of the Chapel and School-Old Physic Gardens Formed-The Gardens-Sir Andrew Balfm-James Sutherland-
Inundated in x68pSutherland?s Efforts to Improve the Gardcn-Professor Hope.
ABOUT IOO feet east of the bridge, and the same
distance south of the theatre which Whitefield
to his dismay saw built in the park of the Orphan
Hospital, stood the latter edifice, the slender,
pointed spire of which was a conspicuous object in
this quarter of the city.
A hospital for the maintenance and education
of orphan children was originally designed by Mr.
Andrew Gardiner, merchant, and some other
citizens, in 1732. The suggestion met with the
approval of the Society for the Propagation of
Christian Knowledge, then located in what was
anciently named Bassandyne?s Close ; and it was
moreover assisted by liberal subscriptions and
collections at the church doors. At first a house
was hired, and thirty orphans placed in it. According
to Maitland, in November, 1733, the
hospital was founded; it stood 340 feet northwest
of the Trinity College Church, and in its
formation a part of the burial ground attached to
the latter was used.
In 1738 the Town Council granted the hospital
a seal of cause, and in 1742 they obtained royal
letters patent creating it a corporation, by which
most of the Scottish officers of State, and the heads
of different societies in Edinburgh, are constituent
members. This chanty is so extensive in its
benevolence, that children from any part of the
British Empire have the right of admission, SO far
as the funds will admit-indigence, and the
number of children in a poor family being the
None, however, are admitted under the age of
seven, or retained after they are past fourteen, as
at that time of life the managers are seldom at a
loss to dispose of them, ?the young folks,? says
Arnot, ? choosing to follow trades, and the public
entertaining so good an opinion of the manner in
which they have been brought up, that manufacturers
and others are very ready to take them into
their employment. There are about,? he adds, in
1779, ?one hundred orpham maintained in this
hospital.?
This number was increased in 1781, when Mr.
Thomas Tod, merchant in Edinburgh, became
treasurer. It was then greatly enlarged for the
better accommodation of the children, ?? and to
enable them to perform a variety of work, from the
. best title to it.
produce of which the expenses of their education
and maintenance were lessened, and healthy and
cheerful exercise furnished, suitable to their years.?
It is remarkable,? says Kincaid, ? that from
January, 1784, to January, 1787, out of from 130 to
140 young children not one has died. A particular
account of the rise, progress, present state,
and intended enlargement of this hospital was
publisted by the treasurer (Mr. Tod), wherein is a
print of the elevation, with two wings,.which the
managers intend to build so soon as the funds will
permit, when there will be room for zoo orphans.?
In its slender spire hung two bells, and therein
also stood the ancient clock of the Netherbow
Port, now in use at the Dean.
The revenues were inconsiderable, and it was
chiefly supported by benefactions and collections
made at the churches in the city. Howard, the
philanthropist, who visited it more than once, and
made himself acquainted with the constitution and
management of this hospital, Acknowledged it to be
one of the best and most useful charities in Europe.
A portrait of him hangs in the new Orphan Hospital
at the Dean, the old building we have described
having been removed in 1845 by the operations
of the North British Railway, and consequently
being now a thing of the past, like the chapel of
Lady Glenorchy, which shared the same fate at the
same time.
This edifice stood in the low ground, between
the Orphan Hospital and the Trinity College
Church, about 300 feet eastward of the north arch
of the Bridge.
Wilhelmina Maxwell, Viscountess Dowaget of
John Viscount Glenorchy, who was a kind of
Scottish Countess of Huntingdon in her day, was
the foundress of this chapel, which was a plain,
lofty stone building, but neatly fitted up- within
with two great galleries, that ran round the sides
of the edifice, and was long a conspicuous object
to all who crossed the Bridge. It was seated for
2,000 persons, and the middle was appropriated to
the poor, who sat there gratis to the number of
some hundreds. ?? Whether,? says Arnot, ?before
Lady Glenorchy founded this institution there were
churches sufficient for accommodating the inhabitants
we shall not pretend to determine. Such,
indeed, is the demand for seats, and so little arg ... Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359 c CHAPTER XLVI: EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ. The Old Orphan ...

Book 2  p. 359
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High Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281
(presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it,
with something under his coat. There can be no
doubt that this was the murderer, and the description
given coincided exactly with the appearance
of Mackoull, Although the boy heard of the murder
before he lkft Leith, he never thought of communicating
what he had seen to the authorities ; he was
shortly after captured and carried to a French prison,
where he remained for many years. Mackoull resided
in Edinburgh from September, 1805, till the
end of 1806, lodging very near the scene of the
murder, and was a frequent visitor at the coffee-
It was raised from the grave, after it had lain
there two days, and the surgeons having made an
incision near the neck, became convinced that
death had been caused by strangulation, so all
supposition of suicide was abandoned. This examination
took place in a church. After the cut
had been sewn up, the body was washed, wrapped
in fresh linen, and James Row, merchant in Edini
burgh, and Philip Stanfield, the disinherited son,
lifted it for deposition in the coffin, when 10 ! on
the side sustained by Philip an effusion of blood
took place, and so ample as to defile both his hands.
printers and publishers.
The World?s End Close was the curious and
appropriate name bestowed upon the last gloomy,
and mysterious-looking alley on the south side of
the High Street, adjacent to the Netherbow Port,
when it lost its oXer name of Sir John Stanfield?s
Close.
At the foot of it an ancient tenement, has a shield
of arms on its lintel, .with the common Edinburgh
legend-?Praisze. the. Lord. for.all.His.giftis,M.S. ;I?
but save this, and a rich Gothic niche, built into a
modern ?land ? of uninteresting aspect, nothing remains
of Stanfield?s Close save the memory of the
dark tragedy connected with the name of the knight.
Sir Jaines Stanfield was one of those English manufacturers
who, by permission of the Scottish Government,
had settled at Newmills, in East Lothian.
He was a respectable man, but the profligacy of
Philip, his eldest son, so greatly afflicted him that
he became melancholy, and he disinherited his heir
by a will. On a day in the November of 1687 he
was found drowned, it wafi alleged, in a pool of
water near his country house at Newmills. Doubts
were started as to whether he had committed
suicide, in consequence of domestic troubles, or had
been murdered. The circumstances of his being
hastily interred, and that Lady Stanfield had a suit
of graveclothes all ready for him before his death,
?seemed to point to the latter; and two surgeons
? Tiditions and Antiquities of Leith.?
36
November, 1806, Mackoull was seized with convulsions,
and threw himself back on his bed and
began to rave.
Tweeddale House, after being quitted by the
British Linen Company for their new office in St.
after handled by the murtherar, it will ;ushe out of
blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for
revenge of the murtherar.?
Accordingly, on the 7th of February, 1688,
Philip was brought to trial at Edinburgh, and after
the household servants had been put to torture
without eliciting anything on the strength of the
mysterious bleeding, according to Fountainhall, save
that he was known to have cursed his father, drunk
to the king?s confusion, and linked the royal name
with those of the Pope, the devil, and Lord Chancellor,
he was sentenced to death. He protested
his innocence to the last, and urged in vain that
his father was a melancholy man, subject to fits;
that once he set out for England, but because his
horse stopped at a certain place, he thought he saw
the finger of God, and returned home ; and that he
once tried to throw himself over a window at the
Nether Bow, probably at his house in the World?s
End Close.
Philip Stanfield was hanged at the Market Cross
on the 24th of February. In consequence of a slip
of the rope, he came down on his knees, and it was
necessary to use more horrible means of strangulation
His tongue was cut out for cursing his
father ; his right hand was struck off for parricide ;
his head was spiked on the East Port of.Haddington,
and his mutilated body was hung in chains
between L.eith and the city. After a few days the
body was stolen fiom the gibbet, and found lying
in a ditch among water. It was chained up again,
time groaning in great anguish, and refusing to
touch the corpse again, while all looked on with
dismay. The incident was at once accepted by
the then Scottish mind in the light of a revelation
of Philip?s guilt as his father?s murderer. ?In a
Andrew Square, became, and is still, the establish- 3 I ment of Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, t!ie well-known
secret niurther,? says King James in his ? Damonology?-?
if the dead carkasse be at any time there ... Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281 (presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it, with something under his ...

Book 2  p. 281
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326 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Libertou.
extended from east to west over all the country.
This inequality in the surface .contributes much
to the ornament of the view, by the agreeable
relief which the eye ever meets with in the change
of objects ; while the universal declivity, which
prevails more or less in every field, is favourable to
the culture of the lands, by allowing a ready descent
to the water which falls from the heavens.? (Agricultural
Survey of Midlothian.)
Situated in a hollow of the landscape, on the
Colinton slope of the Pentlands, is Bonally, with
the Vale of the Leith, and enters the parish here,
on the west side by a lofty aqueduct bridge of eight
arches, and passes along it for two and a half miles.
Near Slateford is Graysmill, where Prince Charles
took up his headquarters in 1745, and met the
deputies sent there from the city to arrange about
its capitulation, and where ensued those deliberations
which Lochiel cut short by entering the High
Street at the head of go0 claymores.
Proceeding eastward, we enter the parish of
Liberton, one of the richest and most beautiful in
its ponds, 482 feet above the
tower, added to a smaller
house, and commanding a pass
among the hills, was finished
in 1845 by Lord Cockburn,
who resided there for many
years.
There are several copious
and excellent springs on the
lands of Swanston, Dreghorn,
and Comistun, from which,
prior to the establishment of
the Water Company in 1819,
to introduce the Cramley
water, the inhabitants of
Edinburgh chiefly procured
that necessary of life.
At Corniston are- the remains
of an extensive camp
ofpre-historic times. Adjacent
to it, at Fairmilehead, tradition
records that a great battle has
been fought ; two large cairns
were erected there, and when
these were removed to serve
for road metal, great quantities
of human bones were found
sea-level. A peel i all the fertile Lothians. Its surface is exquisitely
diversified by broad low ridges,
gently rising swells and intermediate
plains, nowhere obtaining
a sufficient elevation
to be called a hill, save in
the instances of Blackford and
the Braid range. ?As to
relative position,? says a writer,
?? the parish lies in the very
core of the rich hanging plain
or northerly exposed lands of
Midlothian, ahd commands
from its heights prospects the
most sumptuous of the urban
landscape and romantic hills
of the metropolis, the dark
farm and waving outline of
the Pentlands and their spurs,
the minutely-featured scenery
of the Lothians, the Firth of
Forth, the clear coast line, the
white-washed towns and distant
hills of Fife, and the bold
blue sky-line of mountain
The parish itself has a thoul?IE
BATTLE OR CAMUB STONE, COMISTON. ranges away in far perspective.
in and under them. Near \$here they stood there
still remains a relic of the fight, a great whinstone
block, about 20 feet high, known as the Kelstain,
or Battle Stone, and also as Cuvw Stage, from the
name of a Danish commander.
Corniston House, in this quarter, was built by Sir
James Forrest in 1815.
The Hunter?s Tryst, near this, is a well-known
and favourite resort of the citizens of Edinburgh in
summer expeditions, and was frequently the headquarters
of the Six Foot Club.
Slateford, a village of Colinton parish, is two
and a half miles from the west end of Princes
Street. It has. a ?United Secession place of
worship, dating from 1784, and is noted as the
scene of the early pastoral labours of the Rev. Dr.
John Dick The Union Canal is carried across
.
sand attractions, and is dressed out in neatness
of enclosures, profusion of garden-grounds, opulence
of cultivation, elegance or tidiness of. mansion,
village, and cottage, and busy stir and enterprise,
which indicate full consciousness of the immediate
vicinity of the proudest metropolis in Europe.?
One of the highest ridges in the parish is crowned
by the church, which occupies the exact site
of a more ancient fane, of which we have the
first authentic notice in the King?s charter to the
monks of Holyrood, circa 1143-7, when he grants
them ?? that chapel of Liberton, with two oxgates of
land, with all the tithes and rights, etc.,? which had
been made to it by Macbeth-not the usurper, as
Arnot erroneously supnoses, but the Macbeth, or
Macbether, Baron of Liberton, whose name occurs
as witness to several royal charters of David I. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Libertou. extended from east to west over all the country. This inequality in the ...

Book 6  p. 326
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. . 301
the Ambassador, at this period, is from the pen of Lord Radstock, in a letter
addressed to a lady of high rank :-
“Aboul Hassan is in person above the common stature ; and this is in no small degree
increased by a high cap covered with a shawl, and heels a full inch and a half high. He is about
thirty-five years of age. His features are perfectly regular ; his eyes have a peculiar softness in
them, though sometimes animated to the highest degree ; his nose aquiline ; his teeth the most
regular and beautiful imaginable ; and his profile as fine as the pencil could trace. His countenance
is open and full of candour ; and, when in its natural state, is no less mild and dignified.
When conversing and highly pleased, it has a sweetness that nothing can exceed ; and when
animated by argument, it bespeaks a soul replete with energy, and a depth of understanding
rarely to be met with. His manners are truly captivating, graceful, and as engaging as can be
conceived, whilst, at the same time, they are such as ever to command respect, and remind ewii
his very intimates that he is the representative of a great monarch. I have visited the Ambassador
every day since his arrival, excepting one, when in the evening he told Mr. James
Morier that ‘his heart was sick, as he had not seen his friend Lord Radstock during the whole
day.’ * * A few days ago he gave us a grand dinner, at which were present Lord
Winchilsea, Lord Teignmouth, General Grenville, Sir Gore Ouseley, Mr. Vaughan, and four or
five others. Sir Gore Ouseley sat at the head of the table and the Mirza on his left, it being the
side near the fire, Nothing could surpass the grace and ease with which he did the honours of
the entertainment. * * * * He drank but one glass of wine at dinner, and none after,
although he acknowledged he liked wine ; and we kept our seats little short of three hours.
This act of his forbearance and abstinency, from religious motives, might have served as a lesson
to his Christian guests ; but here candour bids me own, they seemed by no means inclined to
follow so excellent an example, though certainly nothing like excess was committed. * * *
When the conversation was serious, the Mirza’s attention, questions, and replies, alike bespoke
a refined and superior Understanding ; and when jocose, he displayed his perfect knowledge of
repartee, and was all life and merriment, * * I accompanied his Excellency the other
night to the opera for the second time. The Ambassador was received at the King’s door, and
with the same ceremony as if he had been of the blood royal. This marked attention pleased
him much ; and he expressed his gratitude with seeming warmth. He appeared to be but little
struck with the beauty or grandeur of the Theatre ; and, to my surprise, held the dancing very
iheap. He laughed heartily at the folly of bringing forward Peter the Great and his Empress as
dancing to divert the throng. ‘What !’ exclaimed he, ‘is it possible that a mighty monarch
and his queen should expose themselves thus 2 how absurd ! how out of nature ! how perfectly
ridiculous ! ’ Soon after, he jokingly said, ‘ When I get back to my own country, and the King
shall ask me, What did the English do to divert you 0 I will answer, Sire, they brought before
me your Majesty’s great enemies, the Emperor and Empress of Russia, and made them dance for
my amusement ! ’ This he repeated with the highest glee, aa if conscious of saying a witty thing.
At the end of the comic opera, at which he often laughed heartily, I asked him
which he liked hest, the serious or the comic opera? Without a moment’s hesitation he replied,
‘ The serious, when I am inclined to cry ; and the comic, when I am inclined to laugh.’
“ I forgot to mention a laughable observation made the other night during the grand ballet.
He asked Sir G. Ouseley what the Empress was going to do with the great chest and the casket
which her slaves were carrying ? Sir G. Ouseley replied, that she waa going to endeavour to bribe
the Pasha to sign a truce and withdraw his troops. ‘ Is that it !’ cries the Mirza, ‘then I’ll
answer for her success ; for those fellows, the Turks, would even sell their father could they
gain a piastre by it.’ He appears to despise and detest the Turks. He told the Tnrkirrh
Ambassador the other morning, when I was present, that he would carry him to the Opera,
where he should first see the Grand Vizer dance and then sell his counw. The stupid Turk
bowed, and seemed thankful, receiving the speech as a compliment. The mind of the.
Ambassador seems to be ever on the stretch, and illled with interesting and important objects
only. His mission is consequently the primary one ; his next is the attainment of useful knowledge.
His questions and answera are endless, when food for an inquisitive mind presents it.vel$ ;
but they am ever to the purpose, scarcely anything frivolous eseapea him, though at times,
particularly at table, no one seems to enjoy pleasantq more, even to playfulness. The
objects which hitherto seem to have made the strongest impressions on the .hfirza’s mind, are
* * * * ... SKETCHES. . 301 the Ambassador, at this period, is from the pen of Lord Radstock, in a ...

Book 9  p. 402
(Score 0.23)

94 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mourd
of the sums set down in their respective subscriptions
towards carrying on the bank, and all and
every the persons subscribing and paying to. the
said stock as aforesaid shall be, and hereby are
declared to be, one body corporate and politic,
by the name and company of THE BANK OF
SCOTLAND,? etc.
The charter, while detailing minutely all that
the bank may do in the way of lending money and
giving laws for its internal government, fails to
define in any way the liability of the shareholders
to each other or to the public. For the space of
twenty-one years it was to be free from all public
burdens, and during that time all other persons in
the realm of Scotland are prohibited from setting
up any rival company.
To preclude the breaking of the bank contrary
to the object in view, it is declared that the sums
of the present subscriptions and shares may only
be conveyed and transmitted by the owners to
others who shall become partners in their place,
or by adjudication or other legal means. It is
also provided by the charter that aH foreigners on
acquiring the bank stock must become ? naturalised
Scotsmen, to all intents and! purposes whatsoever,?
a privilege that became abused, and was abolished
in 1822. The charter further ordains that no
member of the said company shall, upon any
? pretence whatever, directly or indirectly, use,
exercise, or follow any other traffic or trade with
the said joint stock to be employed in the said
bank, or any part thereof, or profits arising therefrom,
excepting the trade of lending 2nd borrowing money
upon interest, and negotiating bills of exchange,
allenarly [i.e., these things only], and no other.?
By various subsequent statutes the capital of
this bank was increased till it stood nominally at
~1,500,000, a third of which has not been called ;
and by the Act 36 and 37 Victoria, cap. gg, further
powers to raise capital were granted, without the
Act being taken advantage of. The additional
amount authorised is ~3,000,000, which would
give a total capital of A~,~OO,OOO sterling.
The monopoly conferred on the bank by the
Parliament of Scotland was not renewed at the
expiry of the first twenty-one years; and on its
being found that banking business was on the
increase, another establishment, the Royal Bank
of Scotland, was chartered in 1727, and immediately
became the rival of its predecessor.
?It purchased up,? says Amot, ?all the notes of
the Bank of Scotland that they (the directors)
could lay hands on, and caused such a run upon
this bank as reduced them to considerable difficulties.
To avoid such distresses for the future,
the Bank of Scotland, on the 29th of November,
1730, began to issue 6 5 notes, payable on demand,
or 65 2s. 6d. six months after their being presented
for payment, in the option of the bank.
On the 12th of December, 1732, they began to
issue AI notes with a similar clause.?
The other banking companies in Scotland found
it convenient to follow the example, and universally
framed their notes with these optional clauses.
They were issued for the most petty sums, and
were currently accepted in payment, insomuch
that notes for five shillings were perfectly common,
and silver was, in a manner, banished from
Scotland. To remedy these banking abuses, an
Act of the British Parliament was passed in 1765,
prohibiting all promissory notes payable to the
bearer under 61 sterling, and also prohibiting and!
declaring void all the optional clauses.
In the year 1774, when the Bank of Scotlan&
obtained an Act to enlarge their capital to
~2,400,000 Scots, or ;~ZOO,OOO sterling, a clause
provided that no individual should possess in
whole, or more than, ~ 4 0 , 0 0 0 in stock, and the
qualification for the offices of governor and directors
was doubled.
The present offices of the Bank of Scotland
were completed from the original design in 1806
by Mr. Richard Cnchton, and the institution was
moved thither in that year from the old, narrow,
and gloomy close where it had transacted business
for one hundred and eleven years.
In digging the foundation of this edifice, the
same obstacle came in the way that eventually
occasioned the fall of the North Bridge. After
excavating to a great depth, no proper foundation
could be found-all being travelled earth. The
quantity of this carted away was such that the
foundations of some of the houses in the nearest
closes were shaken and their walls rent, so that
the occupants had to remove. A solid foundation
was at last found, and the vast structure was reared
at the cost of L75,ooo. T h e quantity of stone and
mortar which IS buried below the present surface is
immense, and perhaps as much of the building is below
the ground as above it,? says Stark in 1820.
?The dead wall on the north of the edifice, where the
declivity is greatest, is covered by a stone curtain,.
ornamented with a balustrade. The south front is.
elegant. A small dome rises from the centre,
and in the front are four projections. A range
of Connthian pilasters decorates the second floor,
and over the door in the recess is a Venetian
window, ornamented with two columns of the
Corinthian order, surmounted by the arms of the
bank.? ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mourd of the sums set down in their respective subscriptions towards carrying on ...

Book 3  p. 94
(Score 0.23)

98 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
minutes the young man breathed his last. And now, quivering in the pangs of dissolution, the old
man lay on his back-his eyes fured-the death-film covering them-and the dead-rattle, as it is
called, indicating the near approach of the end of his earthly troubles. His gaze for a moment
seemed to acquire intelligence ; and with a keen piercing look, peculiar to the dying, he calls to his
wife to come close to him, and says-‘Compauion of my youth and better days, take this clay-cold
hand-it is already dead-and I am fast a-going.’ A few more inarticulate sounds issued from his
livid lips, and he expired. ‘Merciful God 1 my husband-my child too !’ exclaimed the distracted
mother, and sank on the body of her late partner in misery. The shriek of woe transfixed me, and
all the man shook to the centre. When I had in some measure recovered from the stupor this
awful event had thrown me into, I retired, in order to get them decently buried. To provide for
the poor widowed thing and her youngest son, whose case seemed less malignant, came of course
to be considered. The favourable symptoms appearing, and the proper means cautiously used, his
recovery was soon effected ; which greatly alleviated the grief of his mother, who still continued free
of infection, and escaped wonderfully till every apprehension of danger entirely vanished.
“When a reasonable time had elapsed, I learned the story of this family from the unfortunate
widow herself, the particulars of which, so far as I recollect, are nearly the following :-There was
not a happier pair in the whole parish (which lay ou the banks of the Spey) than the father and
mother of this poor family, till, by reason of the introduction of a new set of tenants from a distant
part of the country, the small farmers were ejected ; among whom were the subjects of this simple
narrative. To add to their misfortimes, their third son, a lad about fourteen, was affected with a
white swelling (as it is called) in his knee-joint, which prevented him from walking ; and, when the
family took their departure for the low country, the father and his other two sons were obliged to carry
this poor lame one on a hand-barrow ; and thus travelled onward till they reached Aberdeen, where
they got him put safely into the hospital of that city. But he was soon after dismissed incurable ;
and their little all being nearly spent, they were at a loss what next to do for subsistence. They
were advised to travel to Edinburgh, in order to procure medical assistance for +he lad, and get into
BOme way of gaining an honest livelihood somewhere in or near the capitd. To Edinburgh, therefore,
they directed their course ; and, after a tedious journey of many days, they found themselves within
a short distance of the city. But, by this time, the little money they had saved from the sale of
their effects, was gone ; and they now were reduced to a state of absolute want. To beg they were
ashamed ; but starve they must, in the event they could find no immediate employment. But, from
humane and charitably disposed persons they at last were obliged to implore assistance ; and by this
means they found their way to Edinburgh, where, soon after, the unfortunate lad whom they had
carried in the way already mentioned from Aberdeen, was admitted a patient into the Royal
Infirmary. The high price of labour in the north of England,
compared with that in the south of Scotland, induces many of our Highlanders to go thither, in
order to earn as much as they possibly can, during the seaon of reaping in that quarter. This poor
family, among other reapers, travelled southward-but it was a sad journey to them ; for, being
soon seized with fever and ague, thus were they at once plunged into the deepest distress, far from
their native home, and without a friend in the world to look after them. Not even suffered to
remain any time in once place, they were barbarously hurried from parish to pariah, aa the custom
is, till they reached Edinburgh, where, being safely placed in the hospital, they soon recovered.
But, on making inquiry after the lad left behind when they went to England, they were informed
of his death, which happened a few days before their admission into the Infirmary. They now
were dismissed cured ; but where to take shelter they knew not ! for they had not a soul in the city
to assist them in the smallest matter. Feeble, tottering, and faint with hunger, they wandered
about the streets until the evening, Then they crept into that wretched hovel in which I found them,
as already stated.”
It was now the beginning of harvest.
From this affecting incident sprung the institution of the Edinburgh “ Destitute
Sick Society,” which has existed ever since, and been of incalculable
benefit. Mr. Campbell ha-,+g made the case known to a few friends,’ a sum
was collected amongst them for the widow and son ; and they entered into an
They were, Mr. Robert Scott, teacher of Lady Glenorchy’s school and precentor in the chapel ;
SIr. Rob& M‘Farlane, teacher, and author of a Gaelic vocabulary ; Mr. David Niven, teacher ; Yr.
William Finlay, baker ; and Mr. Alexander Douglas, candlemaker. ... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. minutes the young man breathed his last. And now, quivering in the pangs of dissolution, ...

Book 9  p. 131
(Score 0.23)

Parliament House.] TREATY OF UNION. 163
to regain the throne; for the proposed union
with England had inflamed to a perilous degree
the passions and the patriotism of the nation.
In August the equivalent money sent to Scotland
as a blind to the people for their full participation
in the taxes and old national debt of England, was
pompously brought to Edinburgh m twelve great
waggons, and conveyed to the Castle, escorted by
a regiment of Scottish cavalry, as Defoe tells us,
amid the railing, the reproaches, and the deep
curses of the people, who then thought of nothing
but war, and viewed the so-called equivalent as
the price of their Scottish fame, liberty, and
honour.
In their anathemas, we are told that they spared
not the very horses which drew the waggons, and on
the return of the latter from the fortress their fury
could no longer be restrained, and, unopposed by
the sympathising troops, they dashed the vehicles
to pieces, and assailed the drivers with volleys of
stones, by which many of them were severely
injured.
?It was soon discovered, after all,? says Dr.
Chambers, ? that only LIOO,OOO of the money was
specie, the rest being iu Exchequer bills, which the
Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be
welcome in all parts of Her Majesty?s dominions.
This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the
English had tricked them by sending paper instead
of money. Bills, payable 400 miles of, and which
if lost or burned would be irrecoverable, were a
pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come
under to pay English taxes.??
In the following year, during the sitting of the
Union Parliament, a terrible tumult arose in the
west, led by two men named Montgomery and
Finlay. The latter had been a sergeant in the
Royal Scots, and this enthusiastic veteran burned
the articles of Union at the Cross of Glasgow, and
with the little sum he had received on his discharge,
enlisted men to march to Edinburgh, avowing his
intention of dispersing the Union Parliament,
sacking the House, and storming the Castle. I n
the latter the troops were on the alert, and the
guns and beacons were in readiness. The mob
readily enough took the veteran?s money, but
melted away on the march ; thus, he was captured
and brought in a prisoner to the Castle, escorted by
250 dragoons, and the Parliament continued its
sitting without much interruption.
The Articles of Union were framed by thirty
commissioners acting for England and thirty acting
for Scotland ; and though the troops of both COUTI?
tries were then fighting side by side on the Continent,
such were their mutual relations on each side
of the Tweed, that, as Macaulay says, they could
not possibly have continued for one year more ?? on
the terms on which they had been during the
preceding century, and that there must have been
between them either absolute union or deadly
enmity; and their enmity would bring frightful
calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all the
civilised world Their union would be the best
security for the prosperity of both, for the internal
tranquillity of the island, for the just balance of
power among European states, and for the immunities
of all Protestant countries.?
As the Union debates went on, in vain did the
eloquent Belhaven, on his knees and in tears,
beseech the House to save Scotland from extinction
and degradation; in vain did the nervous
Fletcher, the astute and wary Lockhart, plead for
the fame of their forefathers, and denounce the
measure which was to close the legislative hall
for ever. ? Many a patriotic heart,? says Wilson,
? throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily assembled
in the Parliament Close, to watch the decision
of the Scottish Estates oa the detestable scheme
of a union with England. Again and again its fatetrembled
in the balance, but happily for Scotland,
English bribes outweighed the mistaken qeal ot
Scottish patriotism and Jacobitism, united against
the measure.?
On the 25th of March, 1707, the treaty or
union was ratified by the Estates, and on the zznd
of April the ancient Parliament of Scotland adjourned,
to assemble no more. On that occasion
the Chancellor Seafield made use of a brutal jest,
for which, says Sir Walter Scott, his countrymen
should have destroyed him on the spot.
It is, of course, a matter of common history,
that the legislative union between Scotland and
England was carried by the grossest bribery and
corruption; but the sum actually paid to members
who sat in that last Parliament are not perhaps
so well known, and may be curious to the
reader.
During some financial investigations which were
in progress in 1711 Lockhart discovered and
made public that the sum of Lzo,540 17s. 7d. had
been secretly distributed by Lord Godolphin, the
Treasurer of England, among the baser members ot
the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of inducing
them to vote for the extinction of thek country,
and in his Memoirs of Scotland from the Accession
of Queen Anne,? he gives us the following list of
the receivers, with the actual sum which was paid
to each, and this list was confirmed on oath hy
David Earl of Glasgow, the Treasurer Deputy of
Scotland .
I
. ... House.] TREATY OF UNION. 163 to regain the throne; for the proposed union with England had inflamed to ...

Book 1  p. 163
(Score 0.23)

334 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
? for provisions, and the enemy in confident expectation
of starving them out,asoldier accidentally caught
some fish in his bucket (in the act of drawing water),
which the governor boastingly held out in sight
of the besiegers. On seeing this unexpected store,
the assailants hastily raised the siege, deeming it
hopeless to attempt to starve a garrison that was
so mysteriously supplied.? It is probable that
this episode octurred during the war between the
king?s and queen?s party, which culminated in the
siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1573.
Curriehill Castle, the ancient ruins of which
stand on the opposite bank of the Leith, at a little
distance, and which was the stronghald and ,for
ages the abode of the Skenes, was a place of some
note during that war. Among the six chief places
mentioned as being fortified and garrisoned in the
neighbourhood of Edinburgh are Lennox Tower,
on the loyalists? or queen?s side, and Curriehill
for the king.
In Crawford of Drumsoy?s ?Memoirs of the
Affairs of Scotland,? we find the following, under
date I572 :-
?The siege of Nidderie-Seaton being raised for
the relief of Merchiston, the governor found means
to supply his masters at Edinburgh with some corn
and about fifty or sixty oxen. Those who guarded
the booty mere in their turn taken by the Lairds of
Colington and Curryhill, and imprisoned at Corstorphin.
This galled the loyalists, lest it should
dishearten the governor and garrison of Nidderie;
and to let them see how much they rwented the
loss, the Lord Seaton was sent out with a hundred
horse, who took the Laird of Curryhill out of his
own house, and delivered him to the governor.
The same day he lighted by chance upon Crawford
of Liffnorris, who was coming into Leith, attended
with fifty horse, to assist the Associators. These,
with their leader, were taken without blows, and
were sent next morning to the governor, to keep
Curryhill company, but in a day or two were exchanged
for those at Corstorphin. Seaton, however,
kept the horses to himself, and brought them into
Edinburgh loaded with provisions, which he bought
at a doubleprice from the country people; nor did
the loyalists at any time take so much as one
bushel of corn which they did not pay for, though
they often compelled the owners to sell it.?
Malleny and Baberton, in Cume, are said to
have been the property of James VI. ; and Alexander
Brand, to whom he gave the latter house,
was a favourite of his.
Eastward of, Kinleith, at the north-east end of
the Pentland range, are the remains of a camp
above a pass, through which General Dalyell
marched with the Grey Dragoons and other horse
to attack the Covenanters at Rullion Green, in
1666.
The following is the rofl of the heritors of Currie
Parish in 1691 :-
Lord Ravelrig. Sir John Maitland of Ravelrig
was a senator of the College of Justice, 1689-17 10;
afterward fifth Earl of Lauderdale, who early joined
the Revolution party.
Robert Craig of Riccarton.
John Scott of Malleny.
Alexander Brand of Baberton
Charles Scott of Bavelaw.
Lawrence Cunningham of Balerno, whose family
William Chiesley of Cockburn.
About the niiddle of the last century an English
company endeavoured to work the vein of copper
ore at Eastmiln, but failing to make it profitable,
the attempt was abandoned.
Currie was celebrated in former days as the residence
of several eminent lawyers ; and, curiously
enough, the principal heritors were at one time
nearly all connected with the Court of Session.
Of these, the most eminent were the Skenes of
Curriehill, father and son, said, in the ? Old Statistical
Account,? to have been connected with the
royal family of Scotland.
John Skene of Curriehill came prominently forward
as an advocate in the reign of James VI. In
the year 1578 he appears in a case before the
Privy Council, connected with Hew Campbell of
Loudon, and others, as to the Provostship of the
town of Ayr, and in the following year as Prolocutor
for the magistrates of Stirling, in a case against the
craftsmen of that burgh.
In the year 1588 he was elected to accompany
Sir James Melville of Halhill, the eminent Scottish
memorialist, on a mission to the Court of Denmark.
?I told his Majesty? (James VI.), he records,
?that I would chuse to take with me for a lawyer
Mr. John Skeen. His Majesty said he judged
there were many better lawyers. I said he was best
acquainted with the German customs, and could
make them long harrangues in Latin, and that he
was good, true, and stout, like a Dutchman. Then
his Majesty was content that he should go with
me.?
This mission was concerning the marriage of
Anne of Denmark, and about the Orkney Isles.
In 1594 Sir John Skene of Curriehill was appointed
Lord Clerk Register, and in 1598 he seems
to have shared that office with his son James.
Three years before that he appears to have been an
Octavian-zs the eight lords commissioners, who
was for three centuries resident there. ... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie. ? for provisions, and the enemy in confident expectation of starving them ...

Book 6  p. 334
(Score 0.23)

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