TALLY-STICK, BEARING DATE OF 1692.
discovery was made in one of our churches. Some
years ago a chest, without any address, but of
enormous weight, was removed from the Old
Weigh House at Leith, and lodged in the outer
aisle of the old church (a portion of St. Giles?s).
This box had lain for upwards of thirty years at
Leith, and several years in Edinburgh, without a
clainiznt, and, what is still more extraordinary,
without any one ever having had the curiosity to
examine it. On Tuesday, however, some gentlemen
connected with the town caused the mysterious
box to be opened, and, to their surprise
and gratification, they found it contained a
the power which the chamberlain had of regulating
matters in his Court of the Four Burghs respecting
the common welfare was transferred to the general
Convention of Royal Burghs.
This Court was constituted in the reign of
James III., and appointed to be held yearly at
Inverkeithing. By a statute of James VI., the
Convention was appointed to meet four times in
each year, wherever the members chose; and to
avoid confusion, only one was to appear for each
burgh, except the capital, which was to have two.
By a subsequent statute, a majority of the burghs,
came, by whom it was made, or to whom it
belongs, this cannot remain long a secret.
We trust, however, that it will remain as an
ornament in some public place in this city.?
More concerning it was never known, and
ultimately it was placed in its present position,
without its being publicly acknowledged
to be a representation of the unfortunate
prince.
In this Council chamber there meets
yearly that little Scottish Parliament, the
ancient Convention of Royal Burghs.
Their foundation in Scotland is as old,
if not older, than the days of David I.,
who, in his charter to the monks of Holyrood,
describes Edinburgh as a burgh holding
of the king, paying him certain revenues,
beautiful statute of his majesty (?), about
the size of life, cast in bronze. . . . .
Although it is at present unknown from
whence this admirable piece of workmanship
?and having the privilege of free
markets. The judgments of the ( F Y O ~ Scoftish ~ntiq7rurirm -w7?scunr.)
magistrates of burghs were liable
TALLY-STICK, BEARING DATE OF 1692.
to the review of the Lord Great Chamberlain of
Scotland (the first of whom was Herbert, in
IIZS), and his Court of the Four Burghs. He
kept the accounts of the royal revenue and
expenses, and held his circuits or chamberlainayres,
for the better regulation of all towns. But
even his decrees were liable to revision by the
Court of the Four Burghs, composed of certain
burgesses of Edinburgh, Stirling, Roxburgh, and
Berwick, who met ahiiually, at Haddington. to decide,
as a court of last resort, the appeals from
the chamberlain-ayres, and determine upon all
matters affecting the welfare of the royal burghs.
Upon the suppression of the office of chamberlain
(the last of whom was Charles Duke of Lennox, in
1685), the power of controlling magistrates? accounts
was vested in the Exchequer, and the reviewd
of their sentences in the courts of law ; while
. .
or the capital with any other six, were empowered
to call a Convention as often as
they deemed it necessary, and all the other
burghs were obliged to attend it under a.
penalty.
The Convention, consisting of two deputies
from each burgh, now meets ancually at Edinburgh
in the Council Chzmber, and it is
somewhat singular that the Lord Provost,
although only a meniber, is the perpetuai
president, and the city clerks are clerks to
the Convention, during the sittings of which
the magistrates are supposed to keep open
table for the members.
The powers of this Convention chiefly
respect the establishment of regulations concerning
the trade and commerce of Scotland ;
and with this end it has renewed, from time
to time, articles of staple contract with the
town of Campvere, in Holland, of old the
seat of the conservator of Scottish privileges.
As the royal burghs pay a sixth part of the
sum imposed as a land-tax upon
the counties in Scotland, the
Convention is empowered to consider
the state of trade, and the revenues of individual
burghs, and to assess their respective portions
The Convention has also been iii use to examine
the administrative conduct of magistrates in the
matter of burgh revenue (though this comes more
properly under the Court of Exchequer), and to
give sanction upon particular occasions to the
Common Council of burghs to alienate a part of
the burgh estate. The Convention likewise considers
and arranges the political seffs or constitutions
of the different burghs, and regulates matters
concerning elections that may be brought before it.
Before the use of the Council Chamber was
assigned to the Convention it was wont to meet
in an aisle of St. Giles?s church.
Writers? Court-so named from the circumstance
of the Signet Library being once there-adjoins the
Royal Exchange, and a gloomy little cuZ de sac it
Truir Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187
is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it
once contained a tavern of great consideration in
its time, ?The Star and Garter,? kept by a man
named Cleriheugh, who is referred to in ? Guy Mannering,?
for history and romance often march side
by side in Edinburgh, and Scott?s picture of the
strange old tavern is a faithful one. The reader
. of the novel may remember how, on a certain
Saturday night, when in search of Mr. Plzydell,
Dandie Dinmont, guiding Colonel Mannering,
turned into a dark alley, then up a dark stair, and
then into an open door.
While Dandie ?was whistling shrilly for the
waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs,
Mannering looked around him, and could hardly
conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession
and good society should choose such a scene foi
social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance,
the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous.
The passage in which they stood had a window to
the close, which admitted a little Irght in the daytime,
and a villainous compound of smells at all
times, but more especially towards evening. Corresponding
to this window was a borrowed lighl
on the other side of the passage, looking into the
kitchen, which had no direct communication with
the free air, but received in the daytime, at second.
hand, such straggling and obscure light as found
its way from the lane through the window opposite.
At present, the interior of the kitchen was visible
by its own huge fires-a sort of pandemonium,
where men and women, half-dressed, were busied
in baking, boiling, roasting oysters, and preparing
devils on the gridiron; the mistress of the place,
with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling
like that of Megzra from under a round-eared
cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders and giving
them and obeying them all at once, seemed the
presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery
Tegion.?
Yet it was in this tavern, perhaps more than any
other, that the lawyers of the olden time held
their high jinks and many convivialities. Cleriheugh?s
was also a favourite resort of the magistrates
and town councillors when a deep ,libation was
deemed an indispensable element in the adjustment
of all civic affairs; thus, in the last century,
city wags used to tell of a certain treasurer d
Edinburgh, who, on being applied to for new rope
to the Tron Kirk bell, summoned the Council to
consider the appeal. An adjournment to Cleriheugh?s
was of course necessary ; but as one dinnei
was insufficient for the settlement of this weighty
matter, it was not until three had been discussed
that the bill was settled, and the old rope spliced !
Before proceeding with the general history ot
the High Street we will briefly notice that of the
Tron Church, and of the great fire in which it was
on the eve of perishing.
The old Greyfriars, with the other city churches,
being found insufficient for the increasing population,
the Town Council purchased two sites, on
which they intended to erect religious fabrics.
One was on the Castle Hill, where the reservoir
now stands ; the other was where the present Tron
Church is now built. This was in the year 1637,
when the total number of householders, as shown
by the Council records, could not have been much
over 5,000, as a list made four years before ?shows
the numbers to have been 5,071, and the annual
amount ofrents payable by them only ;EI~z,I 18 ss.,
hots money.
Political disturbances retarded the progress of
both these new churches. The one on the Castle
Hill was totally abandoned, after having been
partially destroyed by the English during the siege
in 1650 ; and the other-the proper name of which
is Christ?s Church at the Tron-was not ready for
public worship till 1647, nor was it completely
finished ,till 1663, at the cost of A6,000, so much
did war with England and the contentions of the
Covenanters and Cavaliers retard everything and
impoverish the nation. On front of the tower over
the great doorway a large ornamented panel bears
the city arms in alto-relievo, and beneath them the
inscription-XDEM HANC CHRISTO ET ECCLESIE
SACRARUNT CIVES EDINBGRGENSES,, ANNO Doxr
MDCLI. It is finished internally with an open roof
of timber-work, not unlike that of the Parliament
House.
Much of the material used in the construction of
the sister church on the Castle Hill was pulled
down and used in the walls of the Tron, which the
former was meant closely to resemble, if we may
judge from the plan of Gordon of Rothiemay. 10
1644 the magistrates bought 1,000 stone weight of
copper in Amsterdam to cover the roof; but such
were the exigencies of the time that it was sold,
and stones and lead were substituted in its place.
In 1639 David Mackall, a merchant of Edinburgh;
gave >,so0 merks, or about ;E194 sterling,
to the magistrates in trust, for purchasing land, to
be applied to the maintenance of a chaplain in
the Tron Church, where he was to preach every
Sunday morning at six o?clock, or such other hour
as the wgistrates should appoint They may be
truly said, continues Arnot, ?to have hid this
talent in a napkin. They did not? appoint a
preacher for sixty-four years. As money then
bore ten per cent., although the interest of thii
