226 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
At the foot of this close, however, we again meet with valuable associations connected
with more than one remarkable period in Scottish history. A door-way on the east side of
the close affords access to a handsome, though now ruinous stone stair, guarded by a neatly
carved balustrade and leading to a garden terrace, on which stands a very beautiful old
mansion, that yields in interest to none of the ancient private buildings of the capital. It
presents a semi-hexagonal front to the north, each of the sides of which is surmounted by a
richly carved dormar window, bearing inscriptions boldly cut in large Roman letters, though
now partly defaced. That over the north window is :-
NIHIL - EST * EX OMNI - PARTE a BEATUM a
The windows along the east side appear to have been originally similarly adorned ; two
of their carved tops are built into an outhouse below, on one of which is the inscription,
LAUS. UBIQUE . DEO , and on the other, FELICITER . INFELIX. In the title-deeds of this
ancient building,’ it is described as ‘‘ that tenement of land, of old belonging to Adam,
Bishop of Orkney, Commendator of Holyroodhouse, thereafter to John, Commendator of
Holyroodhouse,” his son, who in 1603, accompanied James to England, receiving on the
journey the keys of the town of Berwick, in his Majesty’s name. Only three years afterwards,
‘‘ the temporalities and spiritualitie ” of Holyrood were erected into a barony in
his behalf, and himself created a Peer by the title of Lord Holyroodhouse. Here, then, is
the mansion of the celebrated Adam Bothwell, who, on the 15th May 1567, officiated at the
ominous marriage-service in the Chapel of Holyrood Palace,a that gave Bothwell legitimate
possession of the unfortunate Queen Mary, whom he had already so completely
secured within his toils. That same night the distich of Ovid was afExed to the Palace
gate :-
Yense mala8 Maio nubere vulgufj dt;
and from the infamy that popularly attached to this fatal union, is traced the vulgar prejudice
that still regards it as unlucky to wed in the month of May. The character of the old
Bishop of Orkney is not one peculiarly meriting admiration. He married the poor Queen
according to the new forms, in despite of the protest of their framers, and he proved equally
pliable where his own interests were concerned. He was one of the first to desert .his royal
mistress’s party; and only two months after celebrating her marriage with the Earl of
Bothwell, he placed the crown on the head of her infant son. The following year he
humbled himself to the Hirk, and engaged ‘‘ to make a sermoun in the kirk of Halierudehous,
and in the end therof to confesse the offence in mazieng the Queine with the Erle of
Bothwell.”
The interior of this ancient building has been so entirely remodelled to adapt it to the
very different uses of later times, that no relic of its early grandeur or of the manners
of its original occupants remain; but one cannot help regarding its chambers with a
Now the property of Messrs Clapperton and Co., by whom it ia occupied as a warehouse. ’ “Within the add chappel, not with the mess, both with preachings.”-Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 111. Keith and
other historians, however, say, ‘(within the great hall, where the council usuallj met”
Ovid’s Fasti, Book v. ‘ Booke of the Univeraall Kirk of Scotland, p. 131.
THE HIGH STREET. 227
melancholy interest, disguised though they are by the changes of modern taste and
manners. The name of the Bishop of Orkney appears at the bond granted by the nobility
to the Earl of Bothwell, immediately before he put in practice his ambitions scheme against
Queen Mary; so that here, in all probability, the rude Earl, and many of the leading
nobles of that eventful period, have met to discuss their daring plans, and to mature the
designs that involved so many in their consequences. Here, too, we may believe both
Mary and James to have been entertained as guests, by father and son, while at the same
board there sat another lovely woman, whose wrongs are so touchingly recorded in the
beautiful old ballad of ‘‘ Lady Ann Bothwell’s Lament.” She was the sister of the first
Lord Holyroodhouse, and is said to have possessed great personal beauty. She was
betrayed into a disgraceful connection with the Honourable
Sir Alexander Erskine, a son of the Earl of Mar,
of whom a portrait still exists by Jamieson. He is
there represented in military dress, with a cuirass and
scarf; but the splendour of his warlike attire is
evidently unnecesary to set off his noble and expressive
countenance. The desertion of the frail beauty by this
gay deceiver was believed by his contemporaries to have
exposed him to the signal vengeance of heaven, on his
being blown up, along with the Earl of Haddington, and
many others of noble birth, in the Castle of Dunglass
in 1640, the powder magazine having been ignited by a
servant boy out of revenge against his master.’ Adam
Bothwell lies buried in the ruined Chapel of Holyrood,
where his monument is still to be seen, attached to the
second pillar from the great east window that once overlooked
the high altar at which Mary gave her hand to
the imbecile Darnley, and not far from the spot-if we
are to believe the contemporary annalist-where she
yielded it to her infamous ravisher.
The fore part of the ancient building in the High Street has been almost entirely
modernised, and faced with a new stone front, but many citizens still living remember
when an ancient timber faqade projected its lofty gables into the street, with tier above
tier, each thrusting out beyond the lower story, while below were the covered piazza and
darkened entrances to the gloomy “laigh shops,’’4 such as may still be seen in the few
examples of old timber lands that have escaped demolition. But this ancient fabric is
associated with another citizen of no less note in his day-“The glorious days of auld,
1 A rude version of this beautiful ballad was printed in 1006, and others have since been given of it by Percy, Jamie-
Scot-
A alight confusion occura in his account, where she is atyled the daughter of Bothwell, Bishop of
The dates seem to leave no doubt that the father waa John, his son, the first who obtained the title of
’ In a Sasine of part of this property, it is styled, “that western laigh booth, or shop, lying within the fore tenemeut . as also that merchant shop entering from the High
son, Kinloch, t c . ; Mr R. Chambers, however, was the first to publish the true hishry of the heroine, in his
tiah Ballads.”
Orkney, tc.
Lord Holyroodhouse.
of Y r Adam Bothwell, under the laigh stair thairof .
Street,” tc.
.
VIoNElTE.-Adam Bothwell’s houae, from the north.
