38 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
The streets of Edinburgh continued to partake largely of the general misrule that
prevailed throughout the kingdom during the long minority of James V. The Lord Home
had convened a council of the nobility so early as 1515, to devise some remedy for the
anarchy that existed, and at his urgent suggestion, John Duke of Albany was invited
from France to assume the reins of government. On his arrival the same year, “he
wes ressaueit with greit honour, and convoyit to Edinburgh with ane greit cumpany, with
greit blythnes and glore, and thair wes constitute and maid governour of this realme;
and sone thairefter held ane Parliament, and ressaueit the homage of the lordis and thre
estaittis ; quhai’r thair wes mony thingis done for the weill of this cuntrey. Evil1 doaria
wes punnesit; amang the quhilkis ane Petir Moffet, ane greit reyer and theif, was heidit,
and for exampill of vtheris, his head wes put on the West Port of Edinburgh.”’ The
Duke took up his residence at Holyrood, and seems to have immediately proceeded with
the enlargement of the Palace, in continuation of the works which the late King had
carried on till near the close of his life. Numerous entries in the Treasurer’s accounts,
for the year 1515-16, furnish evidence of the building being then in progress.
The new governor, after having made a tour of the kingdom and adopted many stringent
measures for strengthening his party, returned to Edinburgh, and summoned L convention
of the nobility to meet him in the Abbey of Holyrood. But already the Lord Chamberlain
had fallen out of favour, and ‘‘ Prior John Hepburn of St Andrews clamb next the
Governor, and grew great in the Court, and remembered of old malice and envy betwixt
him and the Humes.”’ Lord Home, who had been the sole means of the Duke of Albany’s
elevation to the regency, was suddenly arrested by his orders, along with his brother
William. An old annalist states, that “ the Ducke of Albany tooke the Lord Houme,
the chamberlane, and wardit him in the auld touer of Holyrudhouss, which was foundit by
the said Ducke,” ’ an allusion confirming the previous account of the new works in progress
at the palace. A series of charges were preferred against the brothers, of which the
most remarkable is the accusation by the Earl of Jlurray, the natural son of the late King,
that the Lord Chamberlain had caused the death of his father, ‘ L who, by many witnesses,
was proved to be alive, and seen to have come from the battle of Flowden.” They were
both condemned to be beheaded, and the sentence immediately thereafter put in execution,
“and their heads &t on the Tolbooth of Edinburgh,”6 from whence, as we have seen,
they were removed by their faithful adherents, and laid in consecrated ground.
Throughout the minority of James V. the capital continued to be disturbed by successive
outbreaks of turbulence and riot, from the contentions of the nobility and their
adherents, and especially from the struggles of the rival Earls of Angus and Arran. In
order to suppress this turbulent spirit, the Town Council augmented the salary of the
provost, and appointed four attendants armed with halberts, as a perpetual guard to wait
upon him, but altogether without effect on the restless spirit of the nobles.
During nearly the whole of this time the young monarch resided in the Castle of
Edinburgh, pursuing his education under the tuition of Gawin Dunbar, afterwards Archbishop
of Glasgow ; and his sports, with the aid of his faithful page, Sir David Lindsay ;
Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 5. * Marjoribank’s Annale, Liber Cart. p. lxxi. ’ Hawthornden, p. 85.
Crawfurd‘a Lives, vol. i p. 324. Balfour’a Ann. vol. i. p. 245.
a Pitscottie, vol. ii. p. 296.
BLACKFRIAR'S WYND. 1837.
