men of rank, another plot to storm it, at a time
when its garrison was the nsth, or old regiment of
Edinburgh, was formed by Lord John Drummond,
son of the Earl of Perth, with eighty men, mostly
Highlanders, and all of resolute courage. All these
-among whom was a Captain McLean, who had
lost a leg at Killiecrankie, and an Ensign Arthur,
late of the Scots Guards-were promised commissions
under King James, and IOO guineas each, if
ROYAL LODGING AND HALF-MOON BATTERY.
when the plot was marred by-a lady !
In the exultation he felt at the approaching
capture, and the hope he had of lighting the beacon
which was to announce to Fife and the far north
that the Castle was won, Ensign Arthur unfolded
the scheme to his brother, a physician in the city,
who volunteered for the enterprise, but most prudently
told his wife of it, and she, alarmed for his
safety, at once gave information to the Lord Justice
the event succeeded ; and at that crisis-when Mar
was about to fight the battle of Sheriffmuir-it
might have put him in possession of all Scotland.
Drummond contrived to suborn four of the garrison
-a sergeant, Ainslie, to whom he promised a
lieutenancy, a corporal, who was to be made an
ensign, and two privates, who got bribes in money.
On the night of the 8th September, when the
troops marched from the city to fight the Earl of
Mar, the attempt was made. The chosen time,
near twelve o'clock, was dark and stormy, and the
ilrodlcs operandi was to be by escalading the western
walls, near the ancient arched postern. A ladder,
equipped with great hooks to fix it to the cope of
the bastion, and calculated to admit four men
Clerk, Sir Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, who instantly
put himself in communication with Colonel
Stuart. Thus, by the time the conspirators were
at the foot of the wall the whole garrison was
under arms, the sentinels were doubled, and the
ramparts patrolled.
The first party of forty men, led by the resolute
Lord Drummond and the wooden-legged McLean,
had reached the foot of the wall unseen ; already
the ladder had been secured by Sergeant Ainslie,
and the escalade was in the act of ascending, with
pistols in their girdles and swords in their teeth,
when a Lieutenant Lindesay passed with his patrol,
and instantly gave an alarm I The ladder and all
on it fell heavily on the rocks below. A sentinel
them were captured, among others old McLean,
who made a desperate resistance in the West Port
with a musket and bayonet. Many who rolled
down the rocks to the roadway beneath were
severely injured, and taken by the City Guard. A
sentinel was bound hand and foot and thrown into
Macintosh, of Borlum, in his 80th
captivity of fifteen years, for participation
rising of 1715; and for twelve months,
there were confined in a small, horrid, unhealthy
chamber above the portcullis,
many a year as '' the black hole " of
south) where he confessed the whole plot ; the
corporal was mercilessly flogged ; and Sergeant
Ahslie was hanged over the postern gate. Colonel
Stuart was dismissed ; and Brigadier Grant, whose
regiment was added to the garrison, was appointed
temporary governor.
From this period, with the exception of a species
of blockade in 1745, to be related in its place,
the history of the Castle is as uneventful as that of
the Tower of London, save a visit paid to it in t+
time of George I., by Yussuf Juniati, General and
Governor of Damascus.
Many unfortunate Jacobites have suffered most
protracted periods of imprisonment within its walls.
' with her daughters, the Ladies Mary
who were brought in by an escort of twenty
under a ruffianly quartermaster, who
with every indignity, even to tearing weddingring
from Lady Strathallan's finger, and
daughters of their clothes. During the
these noble ladies were in that noisome
the gate, they were without female attendance,
under the almost hourly surveillance sergeants
of the guard. The husband of
was slain at the head of his men on
Culloden, where the Jacobite clans were
by neither skill nor valour, but the sheer
numbers and starvation.
