136 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
tion for the royal stables, but the approach to it from the Castle must have been by a
very inconvenient and circuitous route, although it was immediately overlooked by the
windows of the royal apartments. It seems more probable that the earliest buildings on
this site were erected in the reign of James IV., when the low ground to the westward
was the scene of frequent tiltings and of magnificent tournaments, the fame of which
spread throughout Europe, and attracted the most daring knights-errant to that chivalrous
Monarch’s Court.’ Considerable accommodation would be required for the horses and
attendants on these occasions, as well as for the noble combatants, among whom the King,
it is we11 known, was no idle spectator ; but the buildings of that- date, which we presume
to have been reared for these public combats, were probably only of a temporary nature, as
they were left without the extended wall, built at the commencement of the following
reign, in 1513, a procedure not likely to have taken place had they been of much value.
Maitland, however, mentions a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the remains of which
were visible in his time (1750) at the foot of the Chapel Wynd; and Kincaid,’ who wrote
towards the close of the century, speaks of them a8 still remaining there ; but since then
they have entirely disappeared, and nothing but the name of the Wynd, which formed the
approach to the chapel, survives to indicate its site. This may, with every probability, be
presumed to have been at the point of junction with that and the Lady’s Wynd, both
evidently named from their proximity to the same chapel.
On this locality, now occupied by the meanest buildings, James IV. was wont to preside
at the jousting5 of the knights and barons of his Court, and to present the meed of honour
to the victor from his own hand; or, as in the famous encounter, already related, between
Sir Patrick Hamilton and a Dutch knight, to watch the combat from the Castle walls, and
from thence to act as umpire of the field. The greater portion of the ancient tilting ground
remained unenclosed when Maitland wrote, and is described by him as a pleasant green,
about one hundred and fifty yards long and fifty broad, adjoining the chapel of the Virgin
Mary, on the west. But this U pleasant green ” is now crowded with slaughter-houses,
tan-pits, and dwellings of the humblest description.
In the challenge in 1571, between Alexander Stewart, younger, of Garlies, and Sir
William Rirkaldy of Grange, the place of combat proposed is, “upon the ground
the baresse be-west the West Port of Edinburgh, the place accustomed, and of old
appointed, for triell of suche matera.”’ The exact site of this interesting spot is now
occupied in part by the western approach, which crosses it immediately beyond the Castle
Bridge; it is defined in one of the title-deeda of the ground, acquired by the City
Improvements Commission, as ‘(,4 11 and hail1 these houses and yards of Orchardfield,
commonly called Livingston’s Yards, comprehending therein that piece of ground called
The Barras.”
The interest attaching to these scenes of ancient feats of arms has been preserved by
successive events almost to our own day. In 1661 the King’s Stables were purchased by
the Town Council for f,lOOO Scots, and the admission of James Boisland, the seller, to the
freedom of the city.4 The right, however, of the new possessors, to whom they would
seem to have been resold, was made a subject of legal investigation at a later date. Foun-
Ante, p. 23. 3 Maitland, p. 172. Kincaid, p. 103. ’ Calderwood‘a Hist, Wnd. Soc., vol. iii. p. 108. Coun. Reg., vol. xx. p. 268, apud Kincaid, p. 103.
