162 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament HOUSC
to the High Street scarcely one stone was left
upon another.
?( The Parliament House very hardly escapt,?
he continues, ? all registers confounded ; clerks,
chambers, and processes, in such a confusion, that
the lords and officers of state are just now met in
Rosse?s taverne in order to adjourning of the
sessione by reason of the disorder. Few people
are lost, if any at all ; but there was neither heart
nor hand left amongst them for saveing from the
fyre, nor a drop of water in the cisterns; 20,ooo
hands flitting their trash they knew not wher, and
hardly 20 at work; these babells of ten and fourteen
story high, are down to the ground, and
their fall very terrible. Many rueful spectacles,
such as Crossrig, naked, with a child under his
oxter, hopping for his lyffe; the Fish Mercate,
and all from the Cowgate to Pett-streets Close,
burnt ; the Exchange, vaults and coal-cellars under
the Parliament Close, are still burning.?
Many of the houses that were burned on this
occasion were fourteen storeys in height, seven of
which were below the level of the Close on the
south side. These Souses had been built about
twenty years before, by Thomas Robertson, brewer,
a thriving citizen, whose tomb in the Greyfriars?
Churchyard had an inscription, given. in Monteith?s
Theatre of Mortality, describing him as
?remarkable for piety towards God, loyalty to his
king, and love to his country.? He had given the
Covenant out of his hand to be burned at the Cross
in 1661 on the Restoration ; and now it was remembered
exultingly ? that God in his providence
had sent a burning among his lands.?
But Robertson was beyond the rexh of earthly
retribution, as his tomb bears that he died on the
zIst of September, r686, in the 63rd year of his
age, with the addendum, Yivit postfunera virtus-
(? Virtue survives the grave.?
Before we come to record the great national
tragedy which the Parliament House witnessed in
1707-for a tragedy it w3s then deemed by the
Scottish people-it may be interesting to describe
the yearly ceremony, called the Riding of the
Parliament,? in state, from the Palace to the Hall,
as described by Arnot and others, on the 6th of
May, 1703.
The central streets of the city and Canongate,
being cleared of all vehicles, and a lane formed
by their being inrailed on both sides, none were
permitted to enter but those who formed the
procession, or were officers of the Scottish
regulars, and the trained bands in full uniform.
Outside these rails the streets were lined by the
porch westwards ; next in order stood the Scottish
Foot Guards (two battalions, then as now), under
Zeneral Sir George Ramsay, up to the Netherbow
Port ; from thence to the Parliament House, and
:o the bar thereof, the street was lined by the
:rained bands of the city, the Lord High Constable?s
Guards, and those of the Earl Marischal.
rhe former official being seated in an arm-chair, at
:he door of the House, received the officers, while
:he members being assembled at the Palace of
Holyrood, were then summoned by name, by the
Lord Clerk Registrar, the Lord Lyon King of
Arms, and the heralds, with trumpets sounding,
ifter which the procession began, thus :-
Two mounted trumpeters, with coats and banners, bareheaded.
Two pursuivants in coats and foot mantles, ditto.
Sixty-three Commissioners for burghs on horseback, two
ind two, each having a lackey on foot j the odd number
Nalking alone.
Seventy-seven Commissioners for shires, mounted and
:overed, each having two lackeys on foot.
Fifty-one Lord Barons in their robes, riding two and two,
:ach having a gentleman to support his train, and three
ackeys on foot, wearing above their liveries velvet coats
with the arms of their respective Lords on the breast and
lack embossed on plate, or embroidered in gold or silver.
Nineteen Viscounts ils the former.
Sixty Earls as the former.
Four trumpeters, two and two.
Four pursuivants, two and two.
The heralds, Islay, Ross, Rothesay, Albany, Snowdon,
md Marchmont, in their tabards, two and two, bareheaded.
The Lord Lyon King at Arms, in his tabard, with chain,
obe, bfiton, and foot mantle.
The Sword of State, born by the Earl of Mar.
+I
The Sceptre, borne by the Earl of Crawford.
8 Borne by the Earl of Forfar. b
The purse and commission, borne by the Earl of g
0 Morton. 6
d THE CROWN,
THE DUKE OF QUEENSBERRY, LORD HIGH $ s COMMISSIONER,
With his servants, pages, and footmen.
Four Dukes, two and two.
Gentlemen bearing their trains, and each having eight
Six Marquises, each having six lackeys.
The Duke of Argyle, Colonel of the Horse Guards.
A squadron of Horse Guards.
The Lord High Commissioner was received
;here, at the door of the House, by the Lord
High Constable and the Earl Marischal, between
whom he was led to the throne, followed by the
Usher of the White Rod, while, amid the blowing
3f trumpets, the regalia were laid upon the table
before it.
The year I 706, before the assembling of the last
Parliament. in the old hall, was peculiarly favourable
lackeys.
Scottish Hcrrse Gremdier Guards, from the Palace to any attempt for the then exiled House of Stuart
Parliament House.] TREATY OF UNION. 163
to regain the throne; for the proposed union
with England had inflamed to a perilous degree
the passions and the patriotism of the nation.
In August the equivalent money sent to Scotland
as a blind to the people for their full participation
in the taxes and old national debt of England, was
pompously brought to Edinburgh m twelve great
waggons, and conveyed to the Castle, escorted by
a regiment of Scottish cavalry, as Defoe tells us,
amid the railing, the reproaches, and the deep
curses of the people, who then thought of nothing
but war, and viewed the so-called equivalent as
the price of their Scottish fame, liberty, and
honour.
In their anathemas, we are told that they spared
not the very horses which drew the waggons, and on
the return of the latter from the fortress their fury
could no longer be restrained, and, unopposed by
the sympathising troops, they dashed the vehicles
to pieces, and assailed the drivers with volleys of
stones, by which many of them were severely
injured.
?It was soon discovered, after all,? says Dr.
Chambers, ? that only LIOO,OOO of the money was
specie, the rest being iu Exchequer bills, which the
Bank of England had ignorantly supposed to be
welcome in all parts of Her Majesty?s dominions.
This gave rise to new clamours. It was said the
English had tricked them by sending paper instead
of money. Bills, payable 400 miles of, and which
if lost or burned would be irrecoverable, were a
pretty price for the obligation Scotland had come
under to pay English taxes.??
In the following year, during the sitting of the
Union Parliament, a terrible tumult arose in the
west, led by two men named Montgomery and
Finlay. The latter had been a sergeant in the
Royal Scots, and this enthusiastic veteran burned
the articles of Union at the Cross of Glasgow, and
with the little sum he had received on his discharge,
enlisted men to march to Edinburgh, avowing his
intention of dispersing the Union Parliament,
sacking the House, and storming the Castle. I n
the latter the troops were on the alert, and the
guns and beacons were in readiness. The mob
readily enough took the veteran?s money, but
melted away on the march ; thus, he was captured
and brought in a prisoner to the Castle, escorted by
250 dragoons, and the Parliament continued its
sitting without much interruption.
The Articles of Union were framed by thirty
commissioners acting for England and thirty acting
for Scotland ; and though the troops of both COUTI?
tries were then fighting side by side on the Continent,
such were their mutual relations on each side
of the Tweed, that, as Macaulay says, they could
not possibly have continued for one year more ?? on
the terms on which they had been during the
preceding century, and that there must have been
between them either absolute union or deadly
enmity; and their enmity would bring frightful
calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all the
civilised world Their union would be the best
security for the prosperity of both, for the internal
tranquillity of the island, for the just balance of
power among European states, and for the immunities
of all Protestant countries.?
As the Union debates went on, in vain did the
eloquent Belhaven, on his knees and in tears,
beseech the House to save Scotland from extinction
and degradation; in vain did the nervous
Fletcher, the astute and wary Lockhart, plead for
the fame of their forefathers, and denounce the
measure which was to close the legislative hall
for ever. ? Many a patriotic heart,? says Wilson,
? throbbed amid the dense crowd that daily assembled
in the Parliament Close, to watch the decision
of the Scottish Estates oa the detestable scheme
of a union with England. Again and again its fatetrembled
in the balance, but happily for Scotland,
English bribes outweighed the mistaken qeal ot
Scottish patriotism and Jacobitism, united against
the measure.?
On the 25th of March, 1707, the treaty or
union was ratified by the Estates, and on the zznd
of April the ancient Parliament of Scotland adjourned,
to assemble no more. On that occasion
the Chancellor Seafield made use of a brutal jest,
for which, says Sir Walter Scott, his countrymen
should have destroyed him on the spot.
It is, of course, a matter of common history,
that the legislative union between Scotland and
England was carried by the grossest bribery and
corruption; but the sum actually paid to members
who sat in that last Parliament are not perhaps
so well known, and may be curious to the
reader.
During some financial investigations which were
in progress in 1711 Lockhart discovered and
made public that the sum of Lzo,540 17s. 7d. had
been secretly distributed by Lord Godolphin, the
Treasurer of England, among the baser members ot
the Scottish Parliament, for the purpose of inducing
them to vote for the extinction of thek country,
and in his Memoirs of Scotland from the Accession
of Queen Anne,? he gives us the following list of
the receivers, with the actual sum which was paid
to each, and this list was confirmed on oath hy
David Earl of Glasgow, the Treasurer Deputy of
Scotland .
I
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