... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and ...
Book 4 p. 238
(Score 0.22)
... Close.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE PARLIAMENT CLOSE.
Probable Extinction of the Court of Session-Memorabilia of ...
Book 1 p. 174
(Score 0.22)
... character of the place inust have been
destroyed. ?? Queen Mary granted the gardens of
-the Greyfriars? ...
Book 1 p. 158
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound,
Sculpture had its origin early in the present
century, though in past times ...
Book 3 p. 90
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wright?s H0u.w~
good behaviour of William Douglas of Hyvelie
(Reg : Privy Council ...
Book 5 p. 34
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyrood.
CHAPTER X,
HOLYKOOD PALACE (continued).
.Queen Mary?s Apartments-Her Amval ...
Book 3 p. 66
(Score 0.22)
... will, in a short space, run a great length. I desire
you may disperse this news abroad, if it be not in ...
Book 1 p. 62
(Score 0.22)
![Parliament House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. -
a vote among themselves in favour of that protest,
declaring it to be founded on the laws of the realm,
for which they were prosecuted before Parliament,
and sharply reprimanded, a circumstance which
gave great offence to the nation..
The affairs ot the Faculty are managed by a
Dean, or President, a Treasurer, Clerk, and selected
Council ; and, besides the usual branches
of a liberal education, those who are admitted
.as advocates must have gone through a regular
course of civil and Scottish law.
Connected with the Court of Session is the
Society of Clerks, or Writers to the Royal Signet,
whose business it is to subscribe the writs that
pass under that signet in Scotland, and practise as
attorneys before the Courts of Session, Justiciary,
and the Jury Court The office of Keeper of the
Signet is a lucrative one, but is performed by a
deputy. The qualifications for admission to this
body are an apprenticeship for five years with one of
the members, after two years? attendance at the University,
and on a course of lectures on conveyancing
given by a lecturer appointed by the Society, and
also on the Scottish law class in the University.
Besides these Writers to the Signet, who enjoy
the right of conducting exclusively certain branches
.of legal procedure, there is another, but? inferior,
society of practitioners, who act as attorneys before
the various Courts, in which they were of long
standing, but were only incorporated in 1797, under
the title of Solicitors before the Supreme Courts,
The Judges of the Courts of Session and Justiciary,
with members of these before-mentioned
corporate bodies, and the officers of Court, form
the College of Justice instituted by James V., and
of which the Judges of the Court of Session enjoy
the title of Senators.
The halls for the administration of justice immediately
adjoin the Parliament House. The Court
af Session is divided into what are nanied the
Outer and Inner Houses. The former consists of
five judges, or Lords Ordinary, occupying separate
Courts, where cases are heard for the first time;
tbe latter comprises two Courts, technically known
.as the First and Second Divisions. Four Judges
sit in each of these, and it is before them that
litigants, if dissatisfied with the Outer House decision,
may bring their cases for final judgment,
unless .afterwards they indulge in the expensive
luxury of appealing to the House of Lords.
The Courts of the Lords Ordinary enter from
the corridor at the south end of the great hall, and
Those of the Inner House from a long lobby on the
east side of it.
Although the .College of Justice was instituted
by James V., and held its first sederunt in the
old Tolbooth on the 27th of May, 1532, it
was first projected by his uncle, the Regent-
Duke of Albany. The Court originally consisted
of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President,
fourteen Lords Ordinary, or Senators (one-half
clergy and one-half laity), and afterwards an indefinite
number of supernumerary judges, designated
Extraordinary Lords. The annual expenses of
this Court were defrayed from the revenues of
the clergy, who bitterly, but vainly, remonstrated
against this taxation. It may not be uninteresting
to give here the names of the first members of the
Supreme Judicature :-
Alexander, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, Lord
President ; Richard Bothwell, Rector of Askirk
(whose father was Provost .of Edinburgh in the
time of James 111,); John Dingwall, Provost of
the Trinity Church; Henry White, Dean of
Brechin ; William Gibson, Dean of Restalrig ;
Thomas Hay, Dean of Dunbar; Robert Reid,
Abbot of Kinloss ; George Kerr, Provost of
Dunglass ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie ; Sir
John Campbell of Lundie ; Sir James Colville
of Easter Wemyss; Sir Adam Otterburne of
Auldhame ; Nicolas Crawford. of Oxengangs ; Sir
Francis Bothwell (who was provost of the city
in 1535); and James Lawson of the Highriggs.
The memoirs which have been preserved of
the administration of justice by the Court of
Session in the olden time are not much to its
honour. The arbitrary nature of it is referred to
by Buchanan, and in the time of James VI. we
find the Lord Chancellor, Sir Alexander Seaton
(Lord Fyvie in 1598), superintending the lawsuits
of a friend, and instructing him in the mode and
manner in which they should be conducted. But
Scott of Scotstarvit gives us a sorry account of
this peer, who owed his preferment to Anne of
Denmark. The strongest proof of the corrupt
nature of the Court is given us by the -4ct passed
by the sixth parliament of. James VI., in 1579,
by which the Lords were prohibited, ? No uther be
thamselves, or be their wives, or servantes, to take
in ony times cumming, bud, bribe, gudes, or geir,
fra quhat-sum-ever person or persones presently
havand, or that hereafter sal1 happen to have
ony actions or causes persewed before them,?
under pain of confiscation (Glendoick?s Acts, fol.).
The necessity for this law plainly evinws that
the secret acceptance of bribes must have been
common among the judges of the time; while,
in other instances, the warlike spirit of the people
paralysed the powers of the Court.
When a noble, or chief of rank, was summoned tu](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p179.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 167")
... House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. -
a vote among themselves in favour of that protest,
declaring it to ...
Book 1 p. 167
(Score 0.22)
... THE CRAIG HOUSE. ? 43
at Marischal College, Mr. Burton was apprenticed
to a legal practitioner in ...
Book 5 p. 43
(Score 0.22)
![270 OLD AND *NEW EDINBURGH. [Brown Square.
Till about 1780 the inhabitants of these districts
formed a distinct class of themselves, and had their
own places of amusement, independent of all the
rest of the city. Nor was it until the New Town
was rather far advanced that the sowfh side lost its
attractions; and we are told that, singular as it
may appear, there was one instance, if not more, of
a gentleman living and dying in this southern district
without having once visited, or even seen, the
New Town, although at the time of his death it
had extended westward to Castle Street. (Scott?s ?? Provincial Antiquities.?)
In the notes to ? Redgauntlet,? the same author
tells us, that in its time Brown Square was hailed
?as an extremely elegant improvement ? on Edmburgh
residences, even witli its meagre plot of
grass and shabby iron railings. It is here he
places the house of Saunders Fairford, where Man
is described as first beholding the mysterious Lady
GreenmanfZe, and as being so bewildered with her
appearance, that he stood as if he had been
senseless. ? The door was opened, out she went,
walked along the pavement, turned down the
close (at the north-east end of the square leading
into the Cowgate), and put the sun, I believe,
into her pocket when she disappeared, so suddenly
did dulness and darkness sink down on the
square when she was no longer visible.?
To show how much this new locality was thought
of, we will here quote a letter in the Edinburgh
Adverfiser of 6th March, 1764 (Vol. I.) :-
?Su,-\Vith pleasure I have observed of late
the improvements we are making in this metropolis,
and there is nothing which pleases me yore than
the taste for elegant buildings, than which nothing
can be a greater ornament to a city, or give a
stranger a greater impression of the improvement
of the inhabitants in polite and liberal arts.
? That very elegant square, called Brown Square,
which, in my opinion, is a very great beauty to the
town, is now almost finished, and last day the
green pasture was railed in. Now, I think, to
complete the whole, an elegant statue in the
middle would be well worth the expense; and I
dare say the gentlemen who possess houses there
would not grudge a small sum to have that part
adorned with an equestrian statue of his present
Majesty George the Thud, and which I should think,
would be contributed to by public subscriptions,
set a-foot for that purpose. Whie we are thus
making such improvements, I am surprised nobody
has ever mentioned an improvement on our
College [the old one was then extant] which, as it
now is, gives strangers but an unfavourable idea of
our University, which, however, is at present so
flourishing. . . . , To have a handsome building
for that purpose is surely the desire of every good
citizen. This could be easily accomplished by
various means. Suppose a lottery should be proposed,
every student I dare say would take a
ticket, and I would venture to ensure the success
of it.?
But George 111. was fated not to have a statue
either in Brown Square or Great King Street, according
to a suggestion some sixty years afterwards
; yet as a proof that the square was deemed
alike fashionable and elegant, we may enumerate
some of those who resided there. . Among them
were the Dowager Lady Elphinstone (daughter of
John sixth Earl of Wigton) who had a house here
in 1784; Henry Pundas (afterwards Viscount
Melville), when a member of the Faculty of Advocates;
Sir Islay Campbell, Bart., of Succoth, in the
days when it was the custom of the senators to
walk to court in the morning, with nicely powdered
wigs, and a small cocked hat in the hand-a practice
retained nearly to the last by Lord Glenlee:
he was afterwards Lord President. He bought
Lord Melville?s house in Brown Square, and after
a time removed to York Place.
His successor in the same residence, No. 15,-
was John Anstruther of that ilk, Advocate, with
whom resided the family of Charles Earl of
Traquair, whose mother was a daughter of Sir
Philip Anstruther of Anstrutherfield. Other residents
were Lord Henderland and the future Lord
President Blair of Avontoun, both when at the bar,
and William Craig, afterwards a Lord of Justiciary
in 1792; Sir John Forbes-Drummond, when a
captain of the Royal Navy, and before he became
Baronet of Hawthornden ; Henry Mackenzie, the
ubiquitous ? Man of Feeling ; ? Lord Woodhouselee,
and the Lord President Miller, whose residence
was the large house (No. 17) with the painted front,
on the north side, the interior of which, with its
frescoes and panelings, is now one of the finest
specimens remaining of a fashionable Edinburgh
mansion of the eighteenth century; and therein
lived and died his son Lord Glenlee, who (uZtimus
Scoforum 2) resisted the attraction of three successive
New Towns, to which all his brethren had
long before fled.
He retained, until within a few years of his death,
the practice referred to, of walking daily to Court,
hat in hand, with a powdered wig, through Brown
Square, down Crombie?s Close, across the Cowgate,
xnd up the Back Stairs to the Parliament Houser
ittended by his valet, and always scrupulously
kessed in black. In 1838, when nearly eighty
years of age, this grand lord of the old school,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p090.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Page 270")
... OLD AND *NEW EDINBURGH. [Brown Square.
Till about 1780 the inhabitants of these districts
formed a distinct ...
Book 4 p. 270
(Score 0.22)
... Spcet.1 PROFESSOR WILSONS MOTHER. I < <
He died of disease of the heart at 52, Queen
Street, on the ...
Book 3 p. 155
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Smn
could be done.? On leaving the church, the
protestors proceeded to ...
Book 3 p. 146
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
Book 2 p. 282
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Leith.
or ripple or burnished face of water, the very
aspect of which is luxury in a ...
Book 5 p. 166
(Score 0.22)
![High Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State for Scotland from 1742 till 1745,
when he resigned the office, on which the Government
at once availed themselves of the opportunity
for leaving it vacant, as it has remained ever since.
He died in 1762, and soon after the carriageentrance
and the fine old terraced garden of the
house, which lay on the slope westward, were
removed to make way for the Episcopal church in
the Cowgate-doomed in turn to be forsaken by
its founders, and even by their successors.
From the Tmeeddale family the mansion passed
into the hands of the British Linen Company, and
became their banking house, until they deserted it
for Moray House in the Canongate, from which they
ultiniatelymigrated to a statelier edifice inSt. Andrew
Square. This company was originally incorpo-
Tated by a charter under the Privy Seal granted by
George 11. on the 6th of July, 1746, at a time
when the mind of the Scottish people was still
agitated by the events of the preceding year and
the result of the battle of Culloden; and it was
deemed an object of the first importance to tranquillise
the country and call forth its resources, so
that the attention of the nation should be directed
to the advantages of trade and manufacture. With
this view the Government, as well as many gentlemen
of rank and fortune, exerted themselves to
promote the linen manufacture, which had been
lately introduced, deeming that it would in time
become the staple manufacture of Scotland, and
provide ample employment for her people, while
.extensive markets for the produce of their labour
would be found alike at home and in the colonies,
then chiefly supplied by the linens of Germany.
By the Dukes of Queensberry and Argyle, who
became the first governors of the British Linen
Company, representations to this effect were made
to Government, and by the Earls of Glencairn, Eglinton,
Galloway, Panmure, and many other peers,
together with the Lord Justice Clerk Fletcher of
Saltoun, afterwards Lord Milton, who was the first
deputy governor, and whose mother, when an exile
in Holland during the troubles, had secretly obtained
a knowledge of the art of weaving and of
dressidg the fine linen known as ? Holland,? and
introduced its manufacture at the village of Saltoun;
by the Lord Justice Clerk Alva ; Provost George
Drummond ; John Coutts, founder of the famous
banking houses of Forbes and Co., and Coutts
and Co. in the Strand; by Henry Home, Lord
Kames ; and many othqs, all of whom urged the
establishment of the company, under royal sanction,
and offered to become subscribers to the undertaking.
A charter was obtained in accordance with their
views and wishes, establishing the British Linen
Company as a corporation, and bestowing upon
it ample privileges, not only to manufacture and
deal in linen fabrics, but also to do all that
might conduce to the promotion thereof; and
authority was given to raise a capital of ~roo,ooo,
to be enlarged by future warrants under the
sign manual of his Majesty, his heirs and successors,
to such sums as the affairs of the company
might .require. After this the company engaged to
a considerable extent in the importation of flax and
the manufacture of yarns and linens, having warehouses
both in Edinburgh and London, and in its
affairs none took a more active part than Lord
Milton, who was an enthusiast in all that related to
the improvement of trade, agriculture, and learning,
in his native country; but it soon became apparent
that the company ? would be of more utility, and
better promote the objects of their institution, by
enlarging the issue of their notes to traders, than
being traders and manufacturers themselves.?
By degrees, therefore, the company withdrew
from all manufacturing operations and speculations,
and finally closed them in 1763, from which year
to the present time their business has been confined
to the discount of bills, advances on accounts,
and other b.ank transactions, in support of Scottish
trade generally, at home and abroad. ?By the
extension of their branch agencies to a great number
of towns,? to quote their own historical report, ? and
the employment in discounts and cash advaqces of
their own funds, as well as of that portion of the
formerly scanty and inactive money capital of Scotland
which has been lodged with the company, they
have been the means of contributing very materially
to the encouragement of useful industry throughout
Scotland, and to her rapid progress in agricultural
and mechanical improvements, and in commercial
intercourse with foreign countries. As regards the
particular object of the institution of the companythe
encouragement of the linen manufa.cture-considerably
more than half of the flax and hemp
imported into the United Kingdom, is now (in
1878) brought to the Scottish ports.?
Now the bank has nearly eighty branch or subbranch
offices over all Scotland alone. The company?s
original capital of AIOO,OOO has been
gradually increased under three additional charters,
granted at different times, under the Great Seal
By Queen Victoria, their fourth charter, dated 19th
March, 1849, ratifies and confirms all, their privileges
and rights, and power was given to augment
their capital to any sum not exceeding A r,5oo,ooo
in all, for banking purposes. The amount of new](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p099.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 279")
... Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State ...
Book 2 p. 279
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate
attendants to say such prayers by her bedside as ? the seventeenth century, ...
Book 3 p. 6
(Score 0.22)
![Newhaven.] REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and fourteen other
prisoners, ?f Radicals ? who had been taken after
the skirmish at Bonny Bridge, by the 10th Hussars
and the Stirlingshire yeomanry. They had been
brought by water from the castle of Stirling, and
were conveyed to gaol from Newhaven in six carriages,
escorted by a macer of justiciary, and the
detachment of a Veteran Battalion.
In the following year, and while railways were
still in the womb of the future, the Scots Magazine
announces, that a gentleman who had left
Belfast on a Thursday, ?reached Glasgow the
same evening, and embarked on board the Tounit
(steamer) at Newhaven on Friday, and arrived at
Aberdeen that night. Had such an event been
predicted fifty years ago, it would have been as
easy to make people believe that this journey would
have been accomplished by means of a balloon.?
About five hundred yards westward oi the stone
pier, a chain pier was constructed in the year 1821,
by Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown, of the
Royal Navy, at the cost of A4,ooo. It is five
hundred feet long, four feet wide, has a depth
at low water of from five to six feet, and served
for the use of the steam packets to Stirling,
Queensferry, and other places above and below
Leith; yet, being unable to offer accommodation for
the bulky steam vessels that frequent the harbour
of the latter or that of Granton, it is now chiefly
used by bathers, and is the head-quarters of the
Forth swimming club.
It was opened on the 14th of October, ISzr,
and was afterwards tested by a weight of twentyone
tons placed upon the different points of
suspension. In 1840 it became the property of
the Alloa Steam Packet Company.
In 1838 Newhaven was erected into a quoad
sma parish, by the aathority of the Presbytery .of
Edinburgh, when a handsome church was erected
for the use of the community, from a design by
John Henderson of Edinburgh.
Near it, in Main Street, is the Free Church,
designed in good Gothic style by James A. Hamilton
of Edinburgh, an elegant feature in the locality,
but chiefly remarkable for the ministry of the late
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, who died in January, 1879-
a man who came of a notable race, as the wellknown
engineers of the same name were his
cousins, as was also Principal Fairbairn of Glasgow.
He was ordained minister at Newhaven in 1838.
The great majority of his congregation were fishermen
and their families, who were always keenly
sensible of the mode in which he prayed for those
who were exposed to the dangers of the deep.
During his long pastorate these prayers were.a
striking feature in his ministrations, and Charles
Reade, while residing in the neighbourhood, frequently
attended Newhaven Free Church, and has,
in his novel of ? Christie Johnstone,? given a lifelike
portrait of his demeanour when administering
consolation, after a case of drowning.
Perhaps the most useful of thii amiable old
pastor?s philanthropic schemes was that of the
reconstruction of the Newhaven fishing fleet. He
perceived early that the boats in use were wholly
unsuited for modem requirements, and some years
before his death he propounded a plan for replacing
them by others having decks, bunks, and
other compartments. As soon as a crew came forward
with a portion of the money required, Dr. Fairbairn
had no difficulty in getting the remainder
advanced. Thirty-three large new boats, each
costing about Lzso, with as much more for fishing
gear, were the result of his kindly labours. They
have all been prosperous, and hundreds of the
inhabitants of Newhaven, when they stood around
his grave, remembered what they owed to the
large-hearted and prudent benevolence of this old
ministei.
In 1864 a local committee was appointed for
the purpose of erecting a breakwater on the west
side of the present pier, so as to form a harbour
for the fishing craft. Plans and specifications
were prepared by Messrs. Stevenson, engineers,
Edinburgh, and the work was estimated at the
probable cost of L;~,OOO ; and while soliciting aid
from the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Trade,
and the ,magistrates of Edinburgh, the fishermen
honourably and promptly volunteered to convey ?
all the stonework necessary in their boats or otherwise
from the quarry at? Qleensferry.
The fishermen of Newhaven rarely intermany
With the women of other fisher communities ; and
a woman of any other class, unacquainted with the
cobbling of nets, baiting and preparation of lines,
the occasional use of a tiller or oar, would be useless
as a fisherman?s wife; hence their continued
intermarriages cause no small confusion in the
nomenclature of this remarkable set of people.
The peculiar melodious and beautiful cry of the
Newhaven oyster-woman-the last of the quaint
old Edinburgh street cries-is well known ; and so
also is their costume ; yet, as in time it may become
a thing of the past, we may give a brief description
of it here. ?A cap of linen or cotton,?J says a
writer in Chambers?s EdinQurgh Journal, ?? surmounted
by a stout napkin tied below the chin,
composes the investiture of the hood ; the showy
structures wherewith other females are adorned
,
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p122.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 303")
... REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and ...
Book 6 p. 303
(Score 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inchkeith.
greatly enhanced the beauty and grandeur of this
interesting prospect by ...
Book 6 p. 292
(Score 0.22)
... him an intimation that he was to be made
prisoner, and advised him to lose no time in
assuming the defensive. ...
Book 1 p. 39
(Score 0.22)
![Convi~ialii] THE SPENDTHRIFT CLUB. 12.5
called one of his brother boars by his proper outof-
club name, the term < Sir ? being only allowed.
The entry-money, fines, and other pecuniary acquisitions,
were hoarded for a grand annual dinner.?
In 1799 some new officials were added, such
as a poet-laureate, champion, archbishop, and chief
grunter, and by that time, as the tone and expenses
of the club had increased, the fines became
very severe, and in the exactions no one met with
any mercy, ?? as it was the interests of all that the
& should bring forth a plenteous farrow.? This
practice led to squabbles, and the grotesque fraternity
was broken up.
The COUNTRY DINNER CLUB was a much more
sensible style of gathering, when some respectable
citizens of good position were wont to meet on the
afternoon of each Saturday about the year 1790 to
dine in an old tavern in Canonmills, then at a
moderate distance from town. They kept their
own particular claret. William Ramsay, a banker,
then residing in Warriston House, was deemed
?( the tongue of the trump to the club,? which entirely
consisted of hearty and honest old citizens,
all of whom have long since gone to their last account.
The EAST INDIA CLUB was formed in 1797, and
held its first meeting in John Bayll?s tavern on
the 13th of January that year, when the Herald
announces that dinner would be on the table at the
then late and fashionable hour of four, but the body
does not seem to have been long in existence ; it
contributed twenty guineas to the sufferers of a fire
in the Cowgate in the spring of 1799, and fifty to
the House of Industry in 1801.
John Bayll managed the ?George Square assemblies,?
which were held in Buccleuch Place.
His tavern was in Shakespeare Square, where his
annual balls and suppers, in 1800, were under the
patronage of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Mrs.
Dundas of Amiston.
Of the CAPE CLUB, which was established on
the 15th of March, 1733, and of which Fergusson
the poet and Runciman the painter were afterwards
members, an account will be found in Vol. I.,
which, however, omitted to give the origin of the
name of that long-existing and merry fraternity,
and which was founded on an old, but rather weak,
Edinburgh joke of the period.
Some well-known burgess of the Calton who WE
in the habit of spending the evening hours with
friends in the city, till after the ten o?clock drum
had been beaten and the Netherbow Port wa:
shut, to obtain egress was under the necessity 01
bribing the porter there, or remaining within the
walls all ni&it. On leaving the gate he had tc
turn acutely to the left to proceed down Leith
Wynd, which this facetious toper termed ?? doubling
the Cape.? Eventually it became a standing joke
in the small circle of Edinburgh then, ?and the
Cape Club owned a regular institution from 1763,?
says Chambers, but its sixty-fifth anniversary is
announced in the HeraZd of 1798, for the 15th of
March as given above.
The SPENDTHRIFT CLUB, was so called in ridicule
of the very moderate indulgence of its members,
whose expenses were limited to fourpence-halfpenny
each night, yet all of them were wealthy or
well-to-do citizens, many of whom usually met after
forenoon church at the. Royal Exchange for a walk
in the country-their plan being to walk in the
direction from whence the wind blew and thus
avoid the smoke of the city. ? In 1824,? says
ChamberS, ?? in the recollection of the senior members,
some of whom were of fifty years? standing,
the house (of meeting) was kept by the widow of a
Lieutenant Hamilton of the army, who recollected
having attended the theatre in the Tennis Court at
Holyrood when the play was the ? Spanish Friar,,
and many of the members of the Union Parliament
were present in the house.?
The meetings of this club were nightly, till reduced
to four weekly, Whist was played for a
halfpenny. Supper originally cost only twopence,
and half a bottle of strong ale, with a dram, cost
twopence-halfpenny more ; a halfpenny to the
servant-maid, was a total of fivepence for a night of
jollity and good fellowship.
The PIOUS CLUB was composed of respectable
and orderly business-men who met every night,
Sundays not excepted, in the Pie-house-hence their
name, a play upon the words. We are told that
?the agreeable uncertainty as to whether their
name arose from their pie& or the circumstance of
their eating piesy kept the club hearty for many
years.?
Fifteen members constituted a full night, a gill of
toddy to each was served out like wine from a d e
canter, and they were supposed to separate at ten
o?clock.
The ANTEMANUM CLUB was composed of men of
respectability, and many who were men of fortune,
who dined together every Saturday. ? Brag? was
their chief game with cards. It was a purely convivial
club, till the era of the Whig party being in
the ascendant led to angry political discussions, and
eventual dissolution.
The SIX FEET CLUB was composed of men who
were of that stature or above it, if possible. It was
an athletic society, and generally met half-yearly at
the Hunter?s Tryst, near Colinton, or similar places,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p136.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 125")
... THE SPENDTHRIFT CLUB. 12.5
called one of his brother boars by his proper outof-
club name, the term ...
Book 5 p. 125
(Score 0.21)
![University,] A STUDENTS? RIOT. I1
placed in the city charter room; and this order
occurs often afterwards, or is referred to thus :-
?? In 1663 the magistrates came down with their
halberts to the college, took away all our charters
and papers, declared the Provost perpetual rector,
though he was chancellor before, and at the same
time discharged university meetings.?
During the summer of 1656 some new buildings
were in progress on the south side of the old
college, as the town council records state that
for the better carrying on thereof, ?there is a
necessitie to break down and demolishe the hous
neirest the Potterrow Port, which now the Court du
Guaird possesseth ; thairfoir ordaines the thesaurer
with John Milne to visite the place, and doe therin
what they find expedient, as weil for demolishing
the said hous as for provyding for the Court du
Guaird utenvayis.?
During the year 1665 some very unpleasant relations
ensued between the university and its civic
patrons, and these originated in a frivolous cause.
It had been the ancient practice of the regents of
all European seminaries to chastise with a birch
rod such of the students as were unruly or committed
a breach of the laws of the college within
its bound. Some punishment of this nature had
been administered to the son of the then Provost,
Sir Andrew Ramsay, Knight, and great offence was
taken thereat.
In imitation of his colleagues and predecessors,
the regent, on this occasion, had used his own
entire discretion as to the mode and amount of
punishment he should inflict ; but the Lord Provost
was highly exasperated, and determining to wreak
his vengeance on the whole university, assumed the
entire executive authority into his own hands.
?? Having proceeded to the college, and exhibited
some very unnecessary symbols of his power within
the city-the halberts, we presume-on the tenth
of November he repaired to the Council Chamber
and procured the following Act- to be passed :-
Th CoumiZ agrees fhut fhe Provosf of Edinburgh,
present and to come, 6e &ways Rector and Governor
uf fhe roZZege in a21 time coming.? The only important
effects which this disagreeable business
produced were, that it was the cause of corporal
punishment being banished from the university,
and that no rector has since been elected,? adds
Bower, writing in 1817. ?The Senatw Arademiclls
have repeatedly made efforts to revive the election
of the ofice of rector, and have as often failed
of success.?
A short time before his death Cromwell made a
grant to the college of &zoo per annum, a sum
which in those days would greatly have added to
the prosperity of the institution ; but he happened
to die in the September of the same year in which
the grant was dated, and as all his Acts were
rescinded at the? Restoration, his intentions towards
the university came to nothing. The expense of
passing the document at the Exchequer cost about
L476 16s. Scots; hence it is extremely doubtful if
the smallest benefit ever came of it in any way.
The year 1680 saw the students of the university
engaged in a serious riot, which created a profound
sensation at the time.
?i After the Restoration, the students,? says
Amot, ? appear to have been pretty much tainted
with the fanatic principles of the Covenanters,?
and they resolved, while the Duke of Albany and
York was at Holyrood, to manifest their zeal by a
solemn procession and burning of the pope in effigy
on Christmas Day, and to that end posted up the
following :-
??I?HESE are to give notice to all Noblemen, Gentlemen,
Citizens, and others, that We, the Students of the Royal College
of Edinburgh (to show our detestation and abhorrence of
the Romish religion, and our zeal and fervency for the Protestant),
do resolve to bum the effigies of Anfi-ch&f, the
Pqe of Rome at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, the 25th of
December instant, at Twelve in the forenoon (being the
festival of Our Saviour?s nativity). And as we hate tumnlts
as we do superstition, we do hereby (under pain of death) discharge
all robbers, thieves, and bawds to come within 40
paces of our company, and such as shall be found disobedient
to these our commands, Sibi Caveant.
? By our Special command, ROBERT BROWN, Secretary
to all our Theatricals and Extra L i t d Divertisements.?
?AN ADVERTISEMENT.
This announcement filled the magistrates with
alarm, as such an exhibition was seriously calculated
to affront the duke and duchess, and, moreover,
to excite a dangerous sedition. According to a
history of, this affair, published for Richard Janeway,
in Queen?s Head Alley, Paternoster Row, 1681,
the students bound themselves by a solemn oath
to support each other, under penalty of a fine, and
they employed a carver, ?who erected then a
wooden Holiness, with clothes, tiiple crown, keys,
and other necessary habiliments,? and by Christmas
Eve all was in readiness for the display, to prevent
which the Lord Provost used every means
at his command.
He sent for Andrew Cant, the principal, and
the regents, whom he enjoined to deter the
students ? with menaces that if they would not, he
would make it a bloody Christmas to them.? He
then went to Holyrood, and had an interview with
the duke and the Lord Chancellor, who threatened
to march the Scottish troops into the town. Meanwhile,
the principal strove to exact oaths and
promises from the students that they would re](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p022.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 11")
... A STUDENTS? RIOT. I1
placed in the city charter room; and this order
occurs often afterwards, or is ...
Book 5 p. 11
(Score 0.21)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
Book 5 p. 94
(Score 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ravelston.
shady with wood, strikes from the Murrayfield Road
northward past the ...
Book 5 p. 106
(Score 0.21)
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