I02 OLD AYD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarket.
Duke of York and Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke made
some noise in London during the time of the
Regency. The house below those occupied by
Hume and by Boswell was the property and residence
of Andrew Macdowal of Logan, author of the
? Institutional Law of Scotland,? afterwards
elevated to the bench, in 1755, as Lord Bankton.
In another court named Paterson?s, opening on
the Lawnmarket, Margaret Countess Dowager of
Glasgow was resident in 1761, and for some years
before it Her husband, the second ead, died in
1740.
One of the handsomest old houses still existing in
the Lawnmarket is the tall and narrow tenement of
polished ashlar adjoining Tames?s Court. It is of
a marked character, and highly adorned. Of old
it belonged to Sir Robert Bannatyne, but in 1631
was acquired by Thomas Gladstone, a merchant
burgess, and on the western gable are the initials
of himself and wife. In 1634, when the city was
divided for the formation of sixteen companies, in
obedience to an injunction of Charles I., the
second division was ordered to terminate at
?? Thomas Gladstone?s Land,? on the north side of
the street.
In 1771 a dangerous fire occurred in the Lawnmarket,
near the head of the old Bank Close. It
was fidt?discovered by the flames bursting through
the roof of a tall tenement known as Buchanan?s.
It baffled the efforts of three fire-engines and
a number of workmen, and some soldiers of the
22nd regiment. It lasted a whole night, and
created the greatest consternation and some loss
of life. ?The new church and weigh-house were
opened during the fire,? says the Scots Magazine
of 1771, ?for the reception of the goods and
furniture belonging to the sufferers and the inhabitants
of the adjacent buildings, which were kept
under guard.? Damage to the extent of several
thousand pounds was done, and among those who
suffered appear the names of General Lockhart of
Carnwath ; Islay Campbell, advocate ; John Bell,
W.S. ; and Hume d .Ninewells; thus giving a
sample.of those who still abode in the Lawnmarket.
CHAPTER XI.
, THE LAWNMARKET (continued).
Lady Stair?s Close-Gay or Pittendrum-e?Aunt Margarct?s Mmor?--The Marshal h l and Countess of Stair-Mm Femer-Sir Richard
Stcele-Martha Countess of Kincardine-Burns?s Room in Baxter?s Close-The Bridges? Shop in Bank Street-Bailie MacMonm?s
PRIOR to the opening of Bank Street, Lady Stair?s
Close, the first below Gladstone?s Land, was the
chief thoroughfare for foot passengers, taking advantage
of the half-formed Earthen Mound to reach
the New Town. It takes its name from Elizabeth
Countess Dowager of Stair, who was long looked
up to as a leader of fashion in Edinburgh, admission
to her select circle being one of the highest
objects of ambition among the lesser gentry of her
day, when the distinctions of rank and family were
guarded with an angry jealousy of which we have
but little conception now. Lady Stair?s Close is
narrow and dark, for the houses are of great height ;
the house she occupied still remains on the west
side thereof, and was the scene of some romantic
events and traditions, of which Scott made able
use. in his ?Aunt Margaret?s Mirror,? ere it became
the abode of the widow of the Marshal Earl of
Stair, who, when a little boy, had the misfortune to
kill his elder brother, the Master, by the accidental
discharge of a pistol; after which, it is said, that
his mother could never abide him, and sent him
.
in his extreme youth to serve in Flanders as a
volunteer in the Cameronian Regiment,.under the
Earl of Angus. The house occupied by Lady Stair
has oyer its door the pious legend-
? Feare the Lord and depart from cuiZZ,?
with the date 1622, and the initials of its founder
and of his wifeSir Wiiam Gray of Pittendrum,
and Egidia Smith, daughter of Sir John Smith, of
Grothall, near Craigleith, Provost of Edinburgh in
1643. Sir William was a man of great influence in
the time of Charles I. ; and though the ancient title
of Lord Gray reverted to his family, he devoted
himself to commerce, and became one of the
wealthiest Scottish merchants of that age. But
troubles came upon him; he was fined IOO,OOO
merks for corresponding with Montrose, and was
imprisoned, first in the Castle and then in the
Tolbooth till the mitigated penalty of 35,000 merks
was paid. Other exorbitant exactions followed, and
these hastened his death, which took place in
1648. Three years before that event, his daughter
died, in the old house, of the plague. His widow
survived him, and the street was named Lady
Gray?s Close till the advent of Lady Stair, in whose
time the house had a terraced garden that descended
towards the North Loch.
Lady Eleanor Campbell, widow of the great
marshal and diplomatist, John Earl of Stair, was
by paternal descent related to one of the most
celebrated historical figures of the seventeenth
century, being the grand-daughter of the Lord High
Chancellor Loudon, whose talents and influence on
the Covenanting side procured him the enmity of
Charles I.
In her girlhood she had the misfortune to be
united to James Viscount Primrose, of Castlefield,
who died in 1706, a man of dissipated habits and
intolerable temper, who treated her so barbarously
that there were times when she had every reason to
feel that her life was in peril. One morning she
was dressing herself before her mirror, near an open
window, when she saw the viscount suddenly appear
in the room behind her with a drawn rapier in his
hand. He had softly opened the door, and in the
mirror she could see that his face, set white and
savage, indicated that he had nothing less than
murder in his mind, She threw herself out ol
window into the street, and, half-dressed as she
was, fled, with great good sense, to Lord Primrose?s
mother, who had been Mary Scott of Thirlstane,
and received protection ; but no attempt was made
to bring about a. reconciliation, and, though they
had four children, she never lived with him again,
and soon after he went abroad.
During his absence there came to Edinburgh a
certain foreign conjuror, who, among other occuli
powers, professed to be able to inform those preseni
of the movements of the absent, however far the)
might be apart; and the young viscountess wa:
prompted by curiosity to go with a lady friend tc
the abode of the wise man in the Canongate, wear
ing over their heads, by way of disguise, the tartar
plaid then worn by women of the lower classes
After describing the individual in whose move
ments she was interested, and expressing a desirt
to know what he was then about, the conjuror lec
her before a large mirror, in which a number o
colours and forms rapidly assumed the appearanct
of a church with a marriage party before the altar
and in the shadowy bridegroom shk instant11
recognised her absent husband ! She gazed upor
the delineation as if turned to stone, while thc
ceremonial of the marriage seemed to proceed, anc
the clergyman to be on the point of bidding thc
bride and bridegroom join hands, when suddenly i
gentleman in whose face she recognised a brothel
)f her own, came forward, and paused. His face
tssumed an expression of wrath ; drawing his sword
ie rushed upon the bridegroom, who also drew to
iefend himself ; the whole phantasmagoria then
iecame tumultuous and indistinct, and faded comiletely
away. When the viscountess reached home
;he wrote a minute narrative of the event, noting
;he day and hour. This narrative she sealed up in
?resence of a witness and deposited it in a cabinet
Soon after this her brother returned from his travels
tbroad-which brother we are not told, and she
lad three : Hugh the Master of Loudon, Colonel
rohn Campbell of Shankeston, and James, who was
Colonel of the Scots Greys, and was killed at
Fontenoy. She asked him if he heard aught of
:he viscount in his wanderings. He answered,
iniously, ?I wish I may never again hear the
name of that detestable personage mentioned !?
On being questioned he confessed to ?( having met
nis lordship under very strange circumstances.?
While spending some time at Rotterdam he made
the acquaintance of a wealthy merchant who had
% very beautiful daughter, an only child, who, he
informed him, was on the eve of her marriage with
5 Scottish gentleman, and he was invited to the
wedding as a countryman of the bridegroom. He
went accordingly, and though a little too late for
the commencement of the ceremony, was yet in
time to save an innocent girl from becoming the victim
of his own brother-in-law, Viscount Primrose !
Though the deserted wife had proved her willingness
to believe in the magic mirror, by having
committed to writing what she had seen, yet she
was so astonished by her brother?s, tidings, that she
nearly fainted; but something more was to be
learned still. She asked her brother on what day
the circumstance took place, and having been
informed, she gave him her key, and desired him
to bring to her the sealed paper. On its being
opened, it was then found, that at the very moment
when she had seen the roughly-interrupted nuptial
ceremony it had actually been in progress.
Primrose died, as we have said, in the year before
the Union. His widow was still young and beautiful,
but made a resolution never again, after her past
experience, to become a wife ; but the great Earl
Stair, who had been now resident some twenty
years in Edinburgh, and whose public and private
character was irreproachable, earnestly sued for
her hand, yet she firmly announced her intention
of remaining unwedded ; and in his love and desperation
the Earl bethought him of an expedient
indicative of the roughness and indelicacy of the
age. By dint of powerfully bribing her household
he got himself introduced over-night into a small
