sacres will, in a short space, run a great length. I desire
you may disperse this news abroad, if it be not in town
before your receipt of this ; for that country, and the North
of England, without speedy relief, is jn great danger of
depopulation. And the Duke of Gordon h$th in his possession
the Castle of Edinburgh, whereby he can at pleasure
level that city with the ground. At twelve of the clock yesternight
our Governor, LieutXollonel Billingsley, dispatched
an Express to the Lords Danby and Lumley for drawing their
forces to this town. I received yours to-day, which being
Sabbath-day, I beg your pardon for brevity.
? I was told they see the fires and burnings of those Rebels
at Edinburgh ; this is the beginning of the discovery of the
Popish intrigue. God defend England from the French, and
his Highness the Prince of Orange from the bloody Popish
attempts I
?London : Published by J- Wells, St. Paul?s Alley, St.
Paul?s Churchyard, ~688.?
Tidings of William?s landing filled the Scottish
Presbyterians with the wildest joy, and the magis-
THUMBIKIN.
( F m the Musewnr ofthe Society of Antiguarirs of Scutland.)
trates of Edinburgh, who but two years before
had been extravagant in their protestations to
James VII., were among the first to welcome the
invader; and the city filled fast with bands of
jubilant revolutionists, rendering it unsafe for all of
cavalier tenets to be within the walls. On the 11th
of April, 1688, William and Mxry were proclaimed
at the cross king and queen of Scotland, after an
illegally constituted Convention of the Estates,
which was attended by only thirty representatives,
declared that King James had forfeited all title to
the crown, thus making a vacancy. A great and
sudden change now came over the realm. ? Men,?
says Dr. Chambers, ?who had been lately in
danger of their lives for consciencl sake, or
starving in foreign lands, were now at the head
of affairs! The Earl of Melville, Secretary of
State ; Crawford, President of Parliament ; Argyle,
restored to title and lands, and a Privy Councillor;
Dalrymple of Stair, Hume of Marchmont,
Stewart of Goodtrees, and many other exiles,
came back from Holland, to resume prominent
positions in the public service at home; while
the instruments of the late unhappy Government
were either captives under suspicion, or living
terror-struck at their country houses. Common
people, who had been skulking in mosses from
Claverhouse?s dragoons, were now marshalled into
Y regiment, and planted as a watch on the Perth
md Forfar gentry. There were new figures in the
Privy Council, and none of them ecclesiastical.
There was a wholly new set of senators on the
bench of the Court of Session. It looked like a
sudden shift of scenes in a pantomime rather than
a series of ordinary occurrences.? For three days
and nights Edinburgh was a wild scene of pillage
and rapine. The palace was assailed, the chapel
royal sacked ; and the Duke of Gordon, on finding
that the rabble, drunk and maddened by wine and
spirits found in the cellars of cavalier families who
had fled, were .wantonly firing on his sentinels,
drew up the drawbridge, to cut off all communication
with the city; but finding that his soldiers
were divided in their religious and political
opinions, and that a revolt was impending, he
called a council of officers to frustrate the attempt ;
and the Lieutenant-Governor, Colonel John Winram,
of Liberton and the Inch House, Colonel of
the Scots Foot Guards in 1683, undertook to
watch the men, forty-four of whom it was deemed
necessary to strip of their uniforms and expel from
the fortress. In their place came thirty Highlanders,
onqthe 11th of November, and 300n after
forty-five more, under Gordon of Midstrath.
By the Privy Council the Duke was requested,
as a Roman Catholic, to surrender his command
to the next senior Protestant officer; but he declined,
saying, ?I am bound only to obey King
James VII.?
A few of the Life Guards and Greys, who had
quitted the Scottish army on its revolt, now reached
Edinburgh under the gallant Viscount Dundee,
and their presence served to support the spirits of
the Royalists, but the friends of the Revolution
brought in several companies of infantry, who were
concealed in the suburbs, and 6,000 Cameronians
marched in from the west, under standards inscribed,
?O For Reformation according to the Word
of God,? below an open Bible. These men
nobly rejected all remuneration, saying, with one
voice, ?We have come to serve our country.?
Their presence led to other conspiracies in the
garrisan, and the Duke of Gordon had rather a
harassing time of it.
The friends of William of Orange having formed
a plan for? the assassination of Dundee and Sir
George Mackenzie of Rosehahgh, compelled them
Firinburgh Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. ?At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers-Guardsmenand Greys mingled-Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of, the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a solitary
roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.?
According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the?duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, ?Whither
?Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,? was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameroniaas
beat to ;urns, and they came swarming out of theix
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
ackioion, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earl$
of Tweeddale arid Lothian appeared at the gate d
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender ii
within four-and-twenty houm, and daringly offering
a year?s pay to every soldier who would desert him.
?? My lords,? said he, ?without the express order?
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrendei
this castle.?
By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke 01
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declarec
a traitor. He tossed them some guineas to drink
the health of James VII., adding, with a laugh, ??I
would advise you not to proclaim men traitors whc
wear the king?s coat till they have turned it?
Under the highest penalties, all persons were non
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockadethc
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were addec
300 Highlanders under Argyle. Out of this bodj
there were formed in one day two battalions of thc
line, which still exist-the 25th, or old Edinburgt
regiment, which bears on its colours the tripk
castle, with the motto, ?? Nisi Dominus Frustra,?*
go you ? ?
-
There was a second regiment, called the bth. or Royal Edinburgl
Volunteers, raised by Major-General Sir William Erskine. Bart., in 1777
It served rinder Cornwallis in the American War, and wasdibanded ai
the close thereof. Its Lieuteoant-Colooel was Dundas of Fingask, wh<
died at Guadaoupe
and the 26th, or Cameronians, whose appointments
bear the five-pointed mullet-the .arms of their
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scots
Brigade, from Holland, were on their march, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matters looked darker and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now seventy-four
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were,
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (fomierly King?s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in a
supply of provisions, the
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.
The entire strength
of the garrison, including
okers and gentlemen-
volunteers, was
only eighty-six men,
who had to work
twentv-two Dieces of
@j duke wrote King James -
(exclusive of FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBURGH REfield-
pieces) ranging VOLUTION CLUB.
from 42 to I a-pounders.
They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money, Mnrl in 1688.)
(=nick in 1753 in ~ommn~mmtiom
a d ~,ztrtu 6,. Wiziiam aw
of the recmwy of tkir Rrligwr
and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard !
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hopelessly
invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
Jam& safe arrival in Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve companies,
all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolpacks with
which to form breastworks. A11 within the Castle
who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly from
the want of medical attendance, till the duke?s
family physician contrived to join him, probably by
the postern.
On the 13th of March he heavily cannonaded the
western entrenchments, and by dint of shot and
shell retnded the working parties; but General
Mackay now formed a battery of 18-pounders, at
the Highnggs, opposed to the royal lodging and
the half-moon. On the 3rd of April the Duke discovered
that the house of Coates, the ancient
