![Le:th.] LANDING OF QUEEN MARY. 179
Thus the whole line of fortifications facing the
city were levelled, but those on the east remained
long entire; and considerable traces of them were
only removed about the beginning of the eighteenth
century.
On the 20th of August, 1560, Queen Mary
landed at the town to take possession of the throne
of her ancestors. The time was about eight in the
morning, and Leith must have presented a different
aspect than in the preceding year, when the cannon
of the besiegers thundered against its walls. No
vestige now remains of the pier which received her,
though it must have been constructed subsequent
to the destruction of the older one by the savage
Earl of Hertford-the pier at which Magdalene of
France, the queen of twenty summer days, had
landed so joyously in the May of 1537.
The keys of St. Anthony?s Port were delivered to
Mary, who was accompanied by her three uncles-
Claude of Lorraine, Duc d?Aumale, who was killed
at the siege of Rochelle thirteen years after; Francis,
Grand Prior of Malta, general of the galleys of
France, who died of fatigue after the battle of
Dreux; and Rend, Marquisd?Elbeuff, who succeeded
Francis as general of the galleys. She was attended
also by her ?? four Maries,? whose names, as given by
Bishop Leslie, were Fleming, Beaton, Livingstone,
and Seaton, who had been all along with her in
France. Buchanan in 1565 mentions five Maries,
and the treasurer?s account at the same date mentions
si;., including two whose names were Simparten
and Wardlaw.
The cheers of the people mingled with the boom
of cannon, and, says Buchansn, ?the dangers she
had undergone, the excellence of her mien, the
delicacy of her beauty, the vigour of her blooming
years, and the elegance of her wit, all joined in her
recommendation.?
As the genial Ettrick Shepherd wrote :-
?? After a youth by woes o?ercast,
After a thousand sorrows past,
The lovely Mary once again
Set foot upon her native plain ;
Kneeled on the pier with modest grace,
And turned to heaven her beauteous face . . . I .
There rode the lords of France and Spain,
Of England, Flanders, and Lorraine ;
While semed thousands round them stood,
From shore of Leith to Holyrood.?
But Knox?s thunder was growling in the distance,
as he records that ?? the very face of heaven did
manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this
country with hir-to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness,
and all impiety; for in the memory of man never
was seyn a more dolorous face of the heaven than
was at her arryvall . . . . . the myst was so thick
that skairse mycht onie man espy another ; .and the
sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two
days after !IJ
Four years after this the poor young queen,
among other shifts to raise money in her difficulties,
mortgaged the superiority of Leith to the city
of Edinburgh, redeemable for 1,000 merks ; and in
1566 she requested the Town Council by a letter
to delay the assumption of that superiority ; but
she could only obtain a short indulgence to prevent
the consequence of her hasty act falling on the
devoted seaport.
In 1567, taking advantage of the general confusion
of the queen?s affairs, on the 4th of July the
Provost, bailies, deacons, and the whole craftsmen
of the city, armed and equipped in warlike array,
with pikes, swords, and arquebuses, marched to
Leith, and went through some evolutions, meant to
represent or constitute the capture and conquest of
the town, and formally trampled its independence
in the dust. From the Links the magistrates
finally marched to the Tolbooth, in the wynd
which still bears its name, and on the stair thereof
held a court, creating bailies, sergeants, clerks, and
deemsters, in virtue of the infeftment made to
them by the queen ; and the superiority thus established
was maintained, too often with despotic
rigour, till Leith attained its independence after the
passing of the Reform Bill in 1832.
During the contention between Morton and the
queen?s party, when the former was compelled with
his followers to take shelter in Leith, where thq
Regent Mar had established his headquarters on
the 12th of January, 1571, a convention, usually
but erroneously called a General Assembly of the
Kirk, was convened there, and sat till the 1st of
February, and in it David Lindsay, minister of
Leith, took a prominent part. The opening sermon
on this occasion was lately reprinted by Principal
Lee. It is now extremely scarce, and is entitled
? Ane sermon preichit befoir the Regent and
nobilitie, in the Kirk of Leith, 1571, by David
Fergussone, minister of the Evangell at Dunfermlyne.
The sermon approvit by John Knox, with
my dead hand but glaid heart, praising God that of
His mercy He lenis such light to His Kirk in this
desolation.?
M?Crie says that the last public service of Knox
was the examination and approval of this sermon.
During the minority of James VI. Leith figured
in many transactions which belong strictly to the
general history of the realm ; thus from November,
1571, till the August of the following year, it was
the seat of the Court of Justiciary, and again in
thus :-](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p190.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 179")
... LANDING OF QUEEN MARY. 179
Thus the whole line of fortifications facing the
city were levelled, but those ...
Book 5 p. 179
(Score 0.82)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
teers and the Royal Midlothian Artillery, with two
field-pieces ; the Royal ...
Book 6 p. 264
(Score 0.82)
... QUEENSFERRY TO MUSSELBURGH.
one called the Block House, and it was here that the fiercest assaults ...
Book 11 p. 153
(Score 0.81)
![Colinton.] JUNIPER GREEN. 323
when the village was occupied on the 18th August
by ten companies of Monk?s Regiment (now the
Coldstream Guards), of which Captain Gough of
Berwick was lieutenant-colonel, and Captain
Holmes of Newcastle, major, prior to the storming
of the fortalices of Redhall and Colinton, before
the 24th of the same month. (?Records: Cold.
Guards.?) Redhall, in after years, was the patrimony
of Captain John Inglis, of H.M.S. Be&
pueux, who, at the battle of Camperdown, whq
confused by the signals of the admiral, shouted
with impatience to his sailing-master, ?? Hang it,
Jock ! doon wi? the helm, and gang iicht into the
middle o?t ! ? closing his telescope as he spoke.
Old Colinton House was, at the period of the
Protectorate, occupied by the Foulis family (now
represented by that of Woodhall in the same parish)
whose name is alleged to be a corruption of the
Norman, as their arms are azure, their bay leaves
uert, in old Norman called fed&. Be that as it
may, the family is older than is stated by Sir Bernard
Burke, as there were two senators of the College
of Justice, each Lord Colinton respectively-James
Foulis in 1532, and John Foulis in 1541; and
there was a James. Fodlis of Colinton, who lived
in the reigns of Mary and James VI., who married
Apes Heriot of Lumphoy, whose tombstone is yet
preserved in an aisle of Colinton Church, and
bears this inscription :-
HERE. LYES. ANE. HONORABIL. WOMAN. A. HERIOT.
SPOVS. TO . J. FOULIS . OF . COLLINT3VN. VAS. QUHA .
DEID . 8 . AUGUST. 1593.
They had four sons-James, who succeeded to
the estate; George, progenitor of the house of
Ravelston ; David, progenitor of the English family
of Ingleby Manor, Yorkshire ; and John, of ?he
Leadhills, whose granddaughter became ancestress
of the Earls of Hopetoun.
Alexander Foulis, of Colinton, was created a
baronet of Nova Scotia in 1634, and his son Sir
James, whose house was stormed by the troops of
Monk, having attended a convention of the estates
in Angus, was betrayed into the hands of the English,
together with the Earls of Leven, Crawford,
Marischal, the Lord Ogilvy, and many others, who
were surprised by a party of Cromwell?s cavalry,
under Colonel Aldridge, on August, 1651, and
taken as prisoners of war to London. He married
Barbara Ainslie of Dolphinton, but, by a case
reported by Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, in 1667,
he would seem to have been in a treaty of marriage
with Dame Margaret Erskine, Lady Tarbet, which
led to a somewhat involved suit before the Lords
of Council and Session. After the Restoration he
was raised to the-Bench as Lord Colinton, and was
succeeded by his son, also a Lord of Session, and
a member of the last Scottish Parliament in 1707,
the year of the Union.
he joined the Duke of Hamilton,
the Earl of Athol, and many others of the nobility
and gentry, in their celebrated protest made by the
Earl of Errol, respecting the most constitutional
defence of the house of legislature, He also
joined in the protest, which declared that an incorpotating
union of the two nations was inconsistent
with the honour of Scotland.?
Further details of this family will be found in
the account of Ravelston (p. 106).
The mansions and villas of many other families
are in this somewhat secluded district ; the principal
one is perhaps the modern seat of the late
Lord Dunfermline, on a beautifully wooded hill
overhanging the village on the south. Colinton
House was built by Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
Bart. Near it, the remains of the old edifice, of the
same name, form a kind of decorative ruin.
Dreghorn Castle, a stately modern edifice, with
a conspicuous round tower, is situated on the
northern slope of the Pentlands, at an elevation of
489 feet above the sea. John Maclaurin, son of
Colin Maclaurin, the eminent mathematician, was
called to the bench as Lord Dreghorn. A learned
correspondence, which took place in 17 go, between
him, Lord Monboddo, and M. Le Chevalier, afterwards
secretary to Talleyrand, on the site of Troy,
will be found in the Scots Magazine for 1810.
The name of this locality is very old, as among
the missing crown charters of Robert II., is one
confirming a lease by Alexander Meygners of
Redhall, to Robert, Earl of Fife and Menteith, of
the barony of Redhall in the shire of Edinburgh,
except Dreghorn and Woodhall; and of the barony
of Glendochart in Perthshire, during the said Earl?s
life. In the early part of the eighteenth century
it was the property of a family named Home.
Near Woodhall, in the parish of Colinton, is the
little modern village of Juniper Green, chiefly
celebrated as being the temporary residence of
Thomas Carlyle, some time after his marriage at
Comely Bank, Stockbridge, where, as he tells us in
his ?? Reminiscences ? (edited by Mr. Froude), ?his
first experience in the difficulties of housekeeping
began.? Carlyle?s state of health required perfect
quiet, if not absolute solitude; but at Juniper
Green, as at Comely Bank, their house was much
frequented by the literary society of the day; and,
among others, by Chalmers, Guthrie, and Lord
Jeffrey, whose intimacy with Carlyle .rapidly increased
after the first visit he paid him at Comely
Bank. ?He was much taken with my little
-4fter that](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p142.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 323")
... JUNIPER GREEN. 323
when the village was occupied on the 18th August
by ten companies of Monk?s ...
Book 6 p. 323
(Score 0.81)
![Restalrig.] ST. MARGARET?S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of Drumsheugh were in all their
glory, there stood St. Margaret?s Well, the entire
edifice of which was removed to the Royal Park,
near Holyrood ; but the pure spring, deemed so
holy as to be the object of pilgrimages in the days
of old, still oozes into the fetid marsh close by.
It was no doubt the source of supply to the
ancient ecclesiastics of the village, and the path
alluded to had become in after times a means of
The structure-for elsewhere it still remains intact
-is octagonal, and entered by a pointed Gothic
doorway, and rises to the height of 4 ft. 6 in. It
is of plain ashlar work, with a stone ledge or seat
running round seven of the sides. From the centre
of the water, which fills the entire floor of the
building, rises a decorated pillar to the same height
as the walls, with grotesque gargoyles, from which
the liquid flows. Above this springs a richly
groined roof, ? presenting, with the ribs that rise
RESTALRIG.
communication between the church there and the
Abbey of Holyrood.
No authentic traces can be found of the history
of this consecrated fountain ; ? but from its name,?
says Billings, ?? it appears to have been dedicated
to the Scottish queen and saint, Margaret, wife of
Malcolm 111.?
In the legend which we have already referred
to in our account of Holyrood, which represents
David I. as being miraculously preserved from the
infuriated white hart, Bellenden records that it
?fled away with gret violence, and evanist in the
same place quhere now springs the Rude Well.?
From its vicinity to the abbey, St. Margaret?s has
been conjectured to be the well referred to.
113
from the corresponding corbels at each of the eight
angles of the building, a singularly rich effect when
illuminated by the reflected light from the water
below.?
When this most picturesque fountain stood in an
unchanged condition by the side of the old winding
path to Restalrig, an ancient elder-tree, With furrowed
and gnarled branches, covered all its grassgrown
top, and a tiny but aged thatched cottage
stood in front of it. Then, too, a mossy bank, rising
out of pleasant meadow land, protected the little
pillared cell; but the inexorable march of modem improvement
came, the old tree and the rustic cottage
were swept away, and the well itselfwas buried under
(See Vol. II., page 311.)
. a hideous station of the North British Railway.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p140.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 129")
... ST. MARGARET?S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of ...
Book 5 p. 129
(Score 0.81)
![Newhaven. ] HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 299
Newhaven was deemed a place of much more
importance in those days,than it has been in subsequent
times.
Thus, in 1554, the works then occupied the
attention of the Provost and Council repeatedly.
In February that year A500 was given for timber
to repair the harbour, to be taken with a portion
of the tax laid on the town for building forts upon
the Borders ; and in 1555 we read of timber again
for Newhaven, brought there by Robert Quintin,
but which was sold by the advice of Sir William
Macdowall, master of the works. (?Burgh Records??)
In the Burgh Account, under date 1554-5, we
find some references to the locality, thus t
?Item, the vj day of July, 1555, for cords to
bind and hang the four Inglismen at Leyth and
Newhaven, iijs.
? Item, geven to Gorge Tod, Adam Purves, and
ane servand, to mak ane gibbet at Newhaven, in
haist and evil wedder (weather), 4s.
? Item, for garroun and plansheour naillis, xxd.
? Item, for drink to them at Newhaven, vj4
?Item, to twa workmen to beir the wrychtis
lomis to the Newhevin and up again, and to beir
the work and set up the gibbet, xxd.?
In the same year extensive works seem to have
been in operation, as, by the Burgh Accounts,
they appear to have extended from August to
November, under Robert Quintin, master of the
works. The entries for masons? wages, timber
work, wrights? wages, ? on Saiterday at evin to thair
supperis,? are given in regular order. John Arduthy
in Leith seems to have contracted for the ? standarts
to the foir face of the Newhevin;? and for
the crane there, eighteen fathoms of ?Danskin tow?
(rope), were purchased fram Peter Turnett?s wife,
at tenpence the fathom.
John Ahannay and Geoge Bennet did the smithwork
at the crane, bulwarks, and worklooms. The
works at Newhaven, commenced in August, 1555,
under John Preston, as City Treasurer, were continued
till the middle of December eventually, under
Sir John Wilson, ?master of work at the Newhevin,?
when they were suspended during winter and resumed
in the spring of 1556 ; and ? drink silver,?
to all the various trades engaged, figures amply
among the items. (? Burgh Accounts.?)
In 1573 the Links of Newhaven were let by the
city, at an annual rent of thirty merks per annum
as grazing ground, thus showing that they must
then have been about the extent of those at Leith.
In 1595 they only produced six merks, and from
this rapid fall Maitland supposes that the sea had
made extensive encroachments on the ground ; and
as they are now nearly swept away, save a space
500 yards by 250, at the foot of the Whale Brae,
we may presume that his conjecture was a correct
one.
Kincaid states that at one period Newhaven had
Links both to the east and west of it. Even
the road that must have bordered the east Links
was swept away, and for years a perilous hole,
known as the ?? Man-trap,? remained in the placea
hole in which, till recently, many a limb was
fractured and many a life lost.
In one of the oldest houses in Newhaven, nearly
opposite the burial-ground, there is a large sculp
tured pediment of remarkable appearance. It is
surmounted by a thistle, with the motto Nemo me
impune Zacessit, on ,a scroll, and the date 1588, a
three-masted ship, with the Scottish ensign at each
truck, pierced for sixteen guns, and below the
motto, in Roman letters,
IN THE NUM OF GOD.
Below this again is a deeply-cut square panel,
decorated with a pair of globes, a quadrant, cross,
staff, and anchor; and beneath these part of the
motto ? Yirtzte sydera ? may, upon very close examination,
still be deciphered; but the history of
the stone, or of the house to which it belonged, is
unknown.
Some hollows near the p?ace were known as the
Fairy Holes, and they are mentioned in the indictment
of Eufame McCulzane for witchcraft, who is
stated to have attended a convention of witches
there in 1591, and also at others called the ?Brume
Hoillis,? where she and many other witches, with
the devil in company, put to sea in riddles.
In 1630 and 1631 we find from ?Dune?s Decisions,?
James Drummond, tacksman to the Lord
Holyroodhouse, of the Tiend Fishes of Newhaven,
(? pursuing spulzie ,? against the fishers there.
The year 1630 was the first year of the tack, and
the fishermen alleged that they had been in use to
pay a particular duty, that was condescended an,
? of all years preceding this year now acclaimed.?
The Lords found there was no necessity to grant
an inhibition, and reserved to themselves the modification
of the duty or quantity to be paid.
Newhaven gave the title of Viscount to an
English family who never had any connection with
the place, when in 1681 Charles 11. raised to the
peerage of Scotland Charles Cheyne, of Cogenho,
in Middlesex (dcscended from an ancient family in
Buckinghamshire), with the titles of ?? Lord Cheyne
and Viscount Newhaven, near Leith, in the county
of Midlothian,? by patent dated at Windsor. His
son, the second Viscount Newhaven, who was
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Bucks by Queen](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p118.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 299")
... ] HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 299
Newhaven was deemed a place of much more
importance in those days,than ...
Book 6 p. 299
(Score 0.81)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Burdiehouse.
intelligence to the enemy, which occasioned the
imprisonment of his ...
Book 6 p. 342
(Score 0.81)
... 44 OLD AND NEW? EDINBURGH. [Gilmerton.
succeeding to the estate of Inverleith. Sir Francis,
who entailed the ...
Book 6 p. 344
(Score 0.81)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Melville Street
pr0mot.e the pleasant intercourse of. those who
practise art either ...
Book 4 p. 210
(Score 0.81)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. CCXXXIV.
MR: THOMAS PAINE,
SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE AMERICAN ...
Book 9 p. 246
(Score 0.8)
... men; at Bilston Burn is Wallace?s camp, in
the form of a half-moon, defended by a broad deep
ditch-a ...
Book 6 p. 356
(Score 0.8)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Founhbridge.
vulcanised rubber-the largest pieces of the material
ever manufactured, ...
Book 4 p. 220
(Score 0.8)
... ROSLIN, HAWTHORNDEN,
most massive and impressive fellows he had ever met, his private feeling, as
he sat ...
Book 11 p. 195
(Score 0.8)
... SKETCHES. 397
There is now ranging up and down
The meanest face e’er came to town :
The pimping ...
Book 9 p. 531
(Score 0.8)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
ately rejoined by the rest of his fleet ; and, after cruising for four months, he
left ...
Book 8 p. 506
(Score 0.8)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. CXXV.
THOMAS MUIR, ESQ. YOUNGER OF HUNTERSHILL.
THE foregoing Print is allowed to ...
Book 8 p. 429
(Score 0.79)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
Church, sometime possessed by Mr. James Hill, grocer, where he realised a
considerable ...
Book 8 p. 503
(Score 0.79)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
ments and opinions from a narrow-minded feeling, nor obtruded them unnecessarily,
or ...
Book 8 p. 295
(Score 0.79)
![New Town.] JAMES CRAIG. I I7
1869 to make way for Grosvenor Street, in excavating
the foundation of which a number of ancient
bronze Caledonian swords were found-the relics
of some pre-historic strife. One was Specially remarkable
for having the hilt and pommel of bronze
cast in one piece with the blade-a form very rare,
there being only one other Scottish example known
-one from Tames, in Aberdeenshire, and now in
the British Museum.
The few houses enumerated alone occupied the
lonely site of the New Town when Gabriel?s Road,
of the poet Thomson, and who engraved thereon
the following appropriate lines from his uncle?s
poem :-
SI August, around, what public works I see !
Lo, stately streets ! 10, squares that court the breeze!
See long canals and
Each part with each, and with the circling main,
whole entwined
nvea join
The names given to the streets and squaresthe
formal array of parallelograms drawn by
Craig-were taken from the royal family chiefly,
latterly a mean, narrow alley, was a delightful
country path, ?? along which,? says Wilson, in I 847,
?some venerable citizens still remember to have
wended their way between green hedges that
skirted the pleasant meadows and cornfields of
Wood?s Farm, and which was in days of yore a
favourite trysting place for lovers, where they
breathed out their teIpder tale of passion beneath
the fragrant hawthorn.?
It ran in an oblique direction through the
ancient hamlet of Silvermills, and its course is yet
indicated by the irregular slant of the garden walls
that separate the little plots behind Duke Street
from the East Queen Street Gardens at the lower
end.
The plan of the proposed new city was prepared
by James Craig, an eminent architect, nephew
? and the tutelary saints of the island, The first
thoroughfare, now-a magnificent terrace, was called
St. Giles Street, after the. ancient patron of the
city ; but on the plan being shown to George 111.
for his approval, he exclaimed, ? Hey, hey !-what,
what!-St. Giles Street !-never do, never do!?
And so, to escape from a vulgar London association
of ideas, it was named Princes Street, after the
future George IV. and the Duke of York.
Craig survived to see his plans only partially
carried out, as he died in 1795, in his fifty-fifth year.
He was the son of Robert Craig, merchant, and
grandson of Robert Craig, who in the beginning of
that century had been a magistrate of Edinburgh.
His mother was Mary, youngest daughter of James
Thomson, minister of Ednam, and sister of the
author of ?The Seasons.?](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p129.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 117")
... Town.] JAMES CRAIG. I I7
1869 to make way for Grosvenor Street, in excavating
the foundation of which a ...
Book 3 p. 117
(Score 0.79)
... of TheoZogy.
Theology, 1620. Andrew Ramsay.
Hebrew, 1642. Julius Conradus Otto.
Divinity, 1702. John ...
Book 5 p. 25
(Score 0.78)
... BI 0 GRAPH1 CAL SKETCHES.
divided in equal portions betwixt his four sisters, one of whom was the mother
of ...
Book 9 p. 324
(Score 0.78)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roslin.
? scratching on a pewter plate two verses, which are
~ preserved among his ...
Book 6 p. 352
(Score 0.78)
... BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
copy. The Poem was divided into three parts ; the first, “ A Description of ...
Book 9 p. 424
(Score 0.78)
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