190 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Great Fire.
while the weather changed rapidly ; the wind,
accompanied by rain, came in fierce and fitful
gusts, thus adding to the danger and harrowing
interest of the scene, which, from the great size of
the houses, had much in it that was wild and weird.
? About five o?clock,?? says Dr. James Browne, in
his ? Historical Sketch of Edinburgh,? ?the fire
had proceeded so far downwards in the building
occupied by the Coura~rf office, that the upper part
of the front fell inwards with a dreadful crash, the
concussion driving the flames into the middle of
the street. By this time it had communicated with
the houses on the east side of the Old Fish Market
Close, which it burned down in succession ; while
that occupied by Mr. Abraham Thomson, bookbindet,
which had been destroyed a few months
previously by fire and re-built, was crushed in at
one extremity by the fall of the gable. In the Old
Assembly Close it was still more destructive ; the
whole west side, terminating with the .king?s old
Stationery Warehouse, and including the Old Assembly
Hall, then occupied as a warehouse by
Bell and Bradfute, booksellers, being entirely consumed.
These back tenements formed one of the
most massive, and certainly not the least remarkable,
piles of building in the ancient city, and in
former times were inhabited by persons of the
greatest distinction. At this period they presented
a most extraordinary spectacle. A great
part of the southern Zand fell to the ground ; but a
lofty and insulated pile of side wall, broken in the
centre, rested in its fall, so as to form one-half of
an immense pointed arch, and remained for several
days in this inclined position.
?By nine o?clock the steeple of the Tron Church
was discovered to be on fire ; the pyramid became
a mass of flame, the lead of the roof poured over
the masonry in molten streams, and the bell fell
With a crash, as we have narrated, but the church
was chiefly saved by a powerful engine belonging
to the Board of Ordnance. The fire was now
stopped; but the horror and dismay of the people
increased when, at ten that night, a new one broke
forth in the devoted Parliament Square, in the attic
floor of a tenement eleven storeys in height, overlooking
the Cowgate. As this house was far to
windward of the other fire, it was quite impossible
that one could have caused the other-a conclusion
which forced itself upon the minds of all, together
with the startling belief that some desperate incendiaries
had resolved to destroy the city ; while
many went about exclaiming that it was a special
punishment sent from Heaven upon the people for
their sins.?? (Browne, p. 220; Courant of Nov. 18,
1824; &c.)
As the conflagration spread, St. Giles?s and the
Parliament Square resounded with dreadful echoes,
and the scene became more and more appalling,
from the enormous altitude of the buildings; all
efforts of the people were directed to saving the
Parliament House and the Law Courts, and by
five on the morning of Wednesday the scene is
said to have been unspeakably grand and terrific.
Since the English invasion under Hertford in
1544 no such blaze had been seen in the ancient
city. ? Spicular columns of flame shot up majestically
into the atmosphere, which assumed a lurid,
dusky, reddish hue ; dismay, daring, suspense,
fear, sat upon different countenances, intensely
expressive of their various emotions ; the bronzed
faces of the firemen shone momentarily from under
their caps as their heads were raised at each successive
stroke of the engines ; and the very element
by which they attempted to extinguish the conflagration
seemed itself a stream of liquid fire. The
County Hall at one time appeared like a palace of
light ; and the venerable steeple of St. Giles?s reared
itself amid the bright flames like a spectre awakened
to behold the fall and ruin of the devoted city.?
Among those who particularly distinguished themselves
on this terrible occasion were the Lord President,
Charles Hope of Granton ; the Lord Justice
Clerk, Boyle of Shewalton ; the Lord Advocate,
Sir Williani Rae of St. Catherine?s ; the Solicitor-
General, John Hope; the Dean of Faculty ; and
Mr. (afterwards Lord) Cockburn, the well-known
memorialist of his own times.
The Lord Advocate would seem to have been
the most active, and worked for some time at one
of the engines playing on the central tenement at
the head of the Old Assembly Close, thus exerting
himself to save the house in which he first saw the
light. All distinction of rank being lost now in
one common and generous anxiety, one of Sir
Wiiliam?s fellow-labourers at the engine gave him a
hearty slap on the back, exclaiming, at the same
time, ? Wee1 dune, my lord !I?
On the morning of Wednesday, though showers
of sleet and hail fell, the fire continued to rage with
fury in Conn?s Close, to which it had been communicated
by flying embers ; but there the ravages
of this unprecedented and calamitous conflagration
ended. The extent of the mischief done exceeded
all former example. Fronting the High Street
there were destroyed four tenements of six storeys
each, besides the underground storeys ; in Conn?s
Close, two timber-fronted ? lands,? of great antiquity
; in the Old Assembly Close, four houses of
seven storeys each ; in Borthwick?s Close, six great
tenements ; in the Old Fish Market Close, four of
The High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of
calcined and blackened ruins, with gaping windows
and piles of smoking rubbish.
In the Par!iament Square four double tenements
of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and
the incessant cmsh of falling walls made the old
vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest
destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the cancaturist,
always a great attraction to idlers.
During the whole of Thursday the authorities
were occupied in the perplexing task of .examining
the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square. These
being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered,
threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything
in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice presented
such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous
appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down
with cannon. On the next day the ruins were inspected
by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain
(afterwardssir Francis) Head of theRoyal Engineers,
an officer distinguished alike in war and In literature,
who gave in a professional report on the subject,
and to him the task of demolition was assigned.
?
In the meantime offers of assistance from Captain
Hope of H.M.S. BnX, then in Leith Roads,
were accepted, and his seamen, forty in number,
threw a line over the lofty southern gable above
Heron?s Court, but brought down only a small
portion Next day Captain Hope returned to the
attack, with iron cables, chains, and ropes, while
some sappers daringly undermined the eastern wall.
These were sprung, and, as had been predicted by
Captain Head, the enormous mass fell almost
perpendicularly to the grognd.
At the Tron Church, on the last night of every
year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with
patience and good-humour the hands of the illuminated
clock till they indicate one minute past
twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed in
with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general
shaking of hands and congratdlations ensue, and
one and all wish each other ?? A happy New Year,
and mony 0? them.? A busy hum pervades the older
parts of the city; bands of music and bagpipes
strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished
with egg-flip, whiskey, &c., thousands hasten off in
all directions to ?first foot? friends and relations,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HIGH STREET,
A Place for Brawling-First Paved and Lighted-The Meal and Flesh MarketsState of the Streets-Municipal Regulations 16th Century-
Tuleies-The Lairds of Ainh and Wemyss-The Tweedies of Drummelzier-A Mont- Quarrel-The Slaughter of Lord Tarthorwald-
-A Brawl in 1705-Attacking a Sedan Chair-Habits in Lhe Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Girls-Sumptuary Law6
against Women.
BEFORE narrating the wondrous history of the many
quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged
of old, and some of which still diverge, from the
stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable
thoroughfare itself-its gradual progress, changes,
and some of the stirring scenes that have been witnessed
from its windows.
Till so late as the era of building the Royal
Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase
or much alteration since King James VI. rode
forth for England in 1603. ?The extended wall
erected in the memorable year 1513 still formed
the boundary of the city, with the exception of the
enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates remained
kept under the care of jealous warders,
and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as when
the dreaded iiiroads of the Southron summoned
the Burgher Watch to guard their walls. At the
foot of the High Street, the lofty tower and spire
of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, surmounting
the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, interposed
between the city and the ancient burgh of
Canongate.?
On this upward-sloping thoroughfare first rose
the rude huts of the Caledonians, by the side of
the wooded way that led to the Dun upon the rock
-when Pagan rites were celebrated at sunrise on
the bare scalp of Arthur?s Seat-and destined
to become in future years ?the King?s High
Street,? as it was exclusively named in writs and
charters, in so far as it extended from the Nether
Bow to the edifice named Creech?s Land, at the
east end of the Luckenbooths. ?Here,? says a
writer, ? was the battle-ground of Scotland for
centuries, whereon private and party feuds, the
jealousies of nobles and burghers, and not a few of
the contests between the Crown and the people,
were settled at the sword.?
As a place for brawling it was proverbial ; and
thus it was that Colonel Munro, in ?His Expedition
with the Worthy Scots Regiment called
Mackeyes,? levied in 1626, for service in Denmark
