THE LA WNMARKET. I79
to the torture, by special authority of the Estates, to discover if he had any accomplices.’
The very next day he was dragged on a hurdle to the Cross, his right hand struck off
while dive, and then hanged, with the pistol about his neck, after which his body was
hung in chains on the Gallow-lee, between Leith and Edinburgh, and his hand affixed to
the West Port.’ The Castle being then under siege, and held out by the Duke of
Gordon on behalf of King James, a parley was beat by the besiegers, for a cessation of
hostilities during the interment of the President in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard, which
was readily granted.’
The house of Dalry belonged
latterly to William Kirkpatrick,
Esq., of Allisland, whose grandson
related to us that the servants were
afraid to venture alone. into the
back kitchen, and would not, on
any consideration, approach it after
dark, uuder the belief that Chiesly’s
bones had been carried off by his
relatives and buried there, and that the ghost of the murderer haunted the spot. On
his grandfather repairing the garden wall at a later period, an old stone seat, which stood
in a recess in the wall, had to be removed, and underneath was found a skeleton, entire,
except the bones of the right hand ;-without doubt the remains of the assassin, that had
been secretly brought thither from the Callow-lee.
Great exertions were used with the Improvements’ Commissioners to induce them to
preserve the interesting fabric associated with such various characters and national events,
but in vain ;-civic rulers are ever the slowest to appreciate such motives. The demolition
of this, as well as of several surrounding buildings, brought to light numerous fragments
of an earlier erection, evidently of an ecclesiastical character, several of which we have had
engraved. These were used simply as building materials, the carved work being built into
the wall, and the stones squared on the side exposed. Numerous fragments of shafts,
mullions, and the like, also occurred among the ruins ; and an inspection of the earliest
writs and evidents of the property, serve to show that a building of considerable extent
had existed here prior to the Reformation, in connection with Cambuskenneth Abbey.
It is styled, in the earliest of these, “ all and hail1 these lands, houses, and stables, biggit
and waste, lying within ye tenement sometime pertaining to the Comendator and Convent
of Cambuskenneth,” and included both William Little’s mansion to the west, and a portion,
at least,of the buildings in Gosford’s Close, to the east. But the most interesting
and conclusive evidence on this subject is derived from these sculptured fragments rescued
from the ruins of the more recent building ; and judging from them, and from the plainer
1 It is a curious fact connected with the trial, that the Estatea of Parliament paged a special act empowering his
judges to examine him by the torture, although, only ten days after this trial, they declared King James to have
forfaulted the Crown, by illegal assumption and exercise of power, and “that the use of torture, without evidence, is
contrary to law.” ’ Crim. Registers of Edinburgh. h o t ’ s Crim. Trials, pp. 168-173.
Siege of the Castle of Edinburgh, 1689, Bann. Club, p. 47.
YIGmmE.-Carved stone from Old Bank Close, in the collection of A. G. Ellia, Esq.
