L UCKENBOOTHS AND PARLIAMENT CLOSE. 189
It used to be a very interesting sight, on a fine summer morning,’ between seven and
eight o’clock, before the Canongate Kirk bell began to ring for the appointed service, to
see the strange groups of Bbe Gowns of all ages,’ from forty-five to ninety and upwards,
assembling in front of the kirk Venerable looking men, bent with the weight of years ;
some lame, others blind, led by a boy or a wife, whose tartan or hodden-grey told of the
remote districts from whence they had come, or perhaps by a rough Highland dog, looking
equally strange on the streets of the ancient burgh ; while all the old bedemen were
clad in their monastic-looking habits, and with large badges on their breasts. It was
curious thus to see pilgrims from the remotest parts of Scotland and the Isles,-the men
of another generation,-annually returning to the capital, and each contriving to arrive
there on the very day of the King’s birth and bounty. The reverend almoner, however,
could scarcely have had a more inattentive congregation,-a fact probably in Bome degree
to be accounted for by many of them understanding nothing but Gaelic. At the close of
the sermon the bread and ale were distributed, along with their other perquisites, and
thereafter the usual benediction closed the services of the day, though generally before
that point was reached the bedemen had disappeared, each one off to wend his way homeward,
and to ‘‘ pass and repass,” as his large badge expressly bore, until the return of the
annual rendezvous.
Shortly after the accession of her present Majesty, whose youth must have had such
an economic effect on the royal bounty, this curious relic of ancient alms-giving waa shorn
of nearly all its most interesting features. Certain members of the Canongate kirksession,
it is said, were scandalised at the exhibition of the butt of ale at the kirk vestry
door, and possibly also at its exciting so much greater interest with the Queen’s bedemen
than any other portion of the established procedure. Whatever be the reason, the annual
church service has been abandoned; the royal almoner’s name no longer appears in the
list of her Majesty’s Scottish household; and the whole business is now managed in
the most matter-of-fact and commonplace style at the Exchequer Chambers in the
Parliament Square, not far from the ancient scene of this annual distribution of the royal
bounty.
At the west end of the Tolbooth a modern addition existed, as appears in our engraving,
rising only to the height of two stories. This was occupied by shops, while the flat
roof formed a platform whereon all public executions took place, after the abandonment
of the Grassmarket in the year 1785. The west gable of the old building bore the appearance
of rude and hasty construction ; it was without windows, notwithstanding that it
afforded the openest and most suitable aspect for light, and seemed as if it had been so
left for the purpose of future extension. The apartments on the ground floor of the main
building were vaulted with stone, and the greater part of them latterly fitted up for
shops,’ until the demolition of the citadel of the old guard in 1785, Boon after which
those on the north side were converted into a guard-house for the accommodation of that
veteran corps.
James Aikman, tailyeour, heia hous, to the palace of Halyrude how” &c.
appear to have been anciently made at the palace.
From thh last entry, the distribution would
For many years the 4th of June, the Birthday of Gorge 111.
In one of theae Yr Horner, father of the eloquent and gifted Francia Homer, M.P., one of the originatom of the
Edinburgh Review, carried on buainees as a silk mercer.
