66
About this time a strange story went abroad
concerning the spectre of Dundee ; the terrible
yet handsome Claverhouse, in his flowing wig and
glittering breastplate, appearing to bis friend the
Earl of Balcarres, then a prisoner in the Castle, and
awaiting tidings of the first battle with keen anxiety.
.\bout daybreak on the morning when Killiecrankie
was fought and lost by the Williamites, the
spectre of Dundee is said to have come to Bal-
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
?After this??(says C. K. Sharpe, in a note to
? Law?s Memorials I), ? it moved towards the
mantelpiece, remained there for a short time in a
leaning posture, and thed walked out of the
? chamber without uttering one word. Lord Balcarres,
in great surprise, though not suspecting that what
he saw WAS an. apparition, called out ?repeatedly on
his friend to stop, but received no answer, and
subsequently learned that at the very moment the
[Edinburgh Castle.?
CHAPTER vIr.
EDINBURGH CASTLE ( G O Z C ~ ~ ~ ) .
The Torture of Neville Payne-Jacobite Plots-Entombing the Regalia-Project for Surprising the Foitress-Right of Sanctuary Abolished-
Lord Drummond?s Plot-Some Jacobite Prisoners-? Rebel Ladies?-James Macgregor-The Castle Vaults-Attempts nt Escape-Fears
as to the Destruction of the Crown, Sword, and Sceptre-Crown-room opened in ~;rg+-Again in 7817, and the Regalia brought forth-Mons
Meg-General Description of the whole Castle.
AMONG the many unfortunates who have pined as
prisoners of state in the Castle, few suffered more
than Henry Neville Payne, an English gentleman,
who was accused of being a Jacobite conspirator.
About the time of the battle of the Boyne, when
the Earl of Annandale, Lord ROSS, Sir Robert
hlontgomerie of Skelmorlie, Robert Fergusson
? the plotter,? and others, were forming a scheme
in Scotland for the restoration of King James,
Payne had been sent there in connection with
it, but was discovered in Dumfriesshire, seized,
and sent to Edinburgh. Lockhart, the Solicitor-
General for Scotland, who happened to be in
London, coolly wrote to the Earl of Melville,
Secretary of State at Edinburgh, saying, ? that there
was no doubt that he (Payne) knew as much as
would hang a thousand; but except you put him
to the torture, he will shame you all. Pray you, put
him in such hands as will have no pity on him!?*
The Council, however, had anticipated these
amiable instructions, and Payne had borne torture
to extremity, by boot and thumbscrews, without
confessing anything. On the loth of December,
under express instruction signed by King William,
and countersigned by Lord Melville, the process
was to be repeated; and this was done in the
presence of the Earl of Crawford, ?with all the
seventy,? he reported, ? that was consistent with
humanity, even unto that pitch that we could not
preserve life and have gone further, but without the
least success. He was so manly and resolute under
his sufferings that such of the Council as were not
Melville?s Coiiespondence.
acquainted with the evidence, were brangled, and
began to give him charity that he might be innocent.
It was surprising that flesh and blood could, without
fainting, endure the heavy penance he was in for
two hours.? This unfortunate Englishman, in his
maimed and shattered condition, was now thrown
into a vault of the Castle, where none had access
to him save a doctor. Again and again it was represented
to the ?I humane and pious King William?
that to keep Payne in prison Id without trial was contrary
to law;? but notwithstanding repeated petitions
for trial and mercy, in defiance of the Bill of
Rights, William allowed him to languish from year
to year for ten years ; until, on the 4th of February,
1701, he was liberated, in broken health, poverty,
and premature old age, without the security for
reappearance, which was customary in such cases.
Many plots were formed by the Jacobites-one
about 1695, by Fraser of Beaufort (the future
Lovat), and another in 1703, to surprise the
Castle, as being deemed the key to the whole
kingdom-but without success ; and soon after the
Union, in 1707, its walls witnessed that which was
deemed ?I the last act of that national tragedy,? the
entombing of thz regalia, which, by the Treaty,
? are never more to be used, but kept constantly
in the Castle of Edinburgh.?
In presence of Colonel Stuart, the constable ; Sir
James Mackenzie, Clerk of the Treasury ; William
Wilson, Deputy-Clerk of Session-the crown,
sceptre, sword of state, and Treasurer?s rod, were
solemnly deposited in their usual receptacle, the
crown-room, on the 26th of March. ?Animated
by the sam- glow of patriotism that fired the
bosom of Belhaven, the Earl Marischal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at this degrading ceremony, and was represented
by his proxy, Wilson, the Clerk of Session,
who took a long protest descriptive of the regalia,
and declaring that they should remain within the
said crown-room, and -never be removed from it
without due intimation being made to the Earl
Marischal. A copy of this protest, beautifully illuminated,
was then deposited with the regalia, a
linen cloth was spread over the whole, and the
great oak chest was secured by three ponderous
locks; and there for a hundred and ten years,
amid silence, obscurity, and dust, lay the crown
that had sparkled on the brows of Bruce, on those
of the gallant Jameses, and on Mary?s auburn hair
-the symbols of Scotland?s elder days, for which
so many myriads of the loyal, the brave, and the
noble, had laid down their lives on the battle-field
-neglected and forgotten.?
Just four months after this obnoxious ceremony,
and while the spirit of antagonism to it rose high in
the land, a gentleman, with only thirty men, undertook
to surprise the fortress, which had in it now a
party of but thirty-five British soldiers, to guard the
equivalent money, ~400,000, and a great quantity
of Scottish specie, which had been called in to be
coined anew. In the memoirs of Kerr of Kerrsland
we are told that the leader of this projected surprise
was to appear with his thirty followers, all well
armed, at noon, on the esplanade, which at that
hour was the chief lounge of gay and fashionable
people. Among these they were to mingle, but
drawing as near to the barrier gate as possible.
While affecting to inquire for a friend in the Castle,
the leader was to shoot the sentinel ; the report of
his pistol was to he the signal on which his men
were to draw their swords, and secure the bridge,
when a hundred men who were to be concealed in
a cellar near were to join them, tear down the
Union Jack, and hoist the Colours of James VIII.
in its place. The originator of this daring scheme
-whose name never transpired-having commu.
nicated it to the well-known intriguer, Kerr of
Kerrsland, while advising him to defer it till the
chevalier, then expected, was off the coast, he
secretly gave information to the Government, which,
Burnbank was a very debauched character, who is
frequently mentioned in Penicuick?s satirical poems,
to put it in a state of defence ; but the great magazine
of arms, the cannon, stores, and 495 barrels of
powder, which had been placed there in 1706, had
all been removed to England. ?But,? says a
writer, this was only in the spirit of centralisation,
which has since been brought to such perfection.?
In 1708, before the departure of the fleet of
Admiral de Fourbin with that expedition which the
appearance of Byng?s squadron caused to fail, a
plan of the Castle had been laid, at Versailles,
before a board of experienced engineer officers,
who unanimously concluded that, with his troops,
cannon, and mortars, M. de Gace would carry the
place in a few hours. A false attack was to be
made on the westward, while three battalions were
to storm the outworks on the east, work their
way under the half-moon, and carry the citadel.
Two Protestant bishops were then to have crowned
the prince in St. Giles?s church as James VIII.
?I The equivalent from England being there,? says
an officer of the expedition, ?would have been a
great supply to us for raising men (having about
400 officers with us who had served in the wars
in Italy), and above 100 chests in money.?
Had M. de Gace actually appeared before the
fortress, its capture would not have cost him much
trouble, as Kerrsland tells us that there were not
then four rounds of powder in it for the batteries !
On the 14th of December, 1714 the Castle was:
by a decree of the Court of Session, deprived of
its ancient ecclesiastical right of sanctuary, derived
from and retained since the monastic institution
of David I., in I 128. Campbell of Burnbank, the
storekeeper, being under caption at the instance of
a creditor, was arrested by a messenger-at-arms,
on which Colonel Stuart, the governor, remembering
the right of sanctuary, released Campbell, expelled
the official, and closed the barriers. Upon
this the creditor petitioned the court, asserting that
the right of sanctuary was lost. In reply it was
asserted that the Castle was not disfranchised, and
that the Castle of Edinburgh, having anciently
been rmtrurn pueZZarum, kas originally a religious
house, as well as the abbey of Holyrood.? But
the Court decided that it had no privilege of
sanctuary ?to hinder the king?s letters, and ordained
Colonel Stuart to deliver Burnbank to a messenger.?
organised among the Hays, Keiths, and Murrays, and was employed by ?Nicoll Muschat of ill
On tidings of this, the Earl of Leven, governor When the seventies exercised by George I. upon
