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.
