240 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
charge of half-a-crown I It finally cost its rash, and, as it appears, vindictive owner, a
penalty of 10,000 merks, the half only of the fine at first awarded against him.
A confused tradition appears to have existed at an early period as to Queen Mary’s
having occupied a part of the ancient building within the close at some time or other.
The Crochallan Eencibles were wont to date their printed circulars from “ Queen Mary’8
council-room,” and the great hall in which they met, and in which also the’ Society of
Antiquaries long held their anniversary meetings, bore the name of the CROWN. In a
history of the close, privately printed by Mr Smellie in 1843, it is stated as a remarkable
fact, that there existed about forty years since a niche in the wall of this room, where
Mary’s crown was said to be deposited when she sat in council! We shrewdly suspect
the whole tradition had its origin in the Crochallan Mint. The building has still the
appearance of having been a mansion of note in earlier times; in addition to the inscriptions
already mentioned, which are beautifully cut in ornamental lettering, it is decorated with
such irregular bold string-courses as form the chief ornaments of the most ancient private
buildings in Edinburgh, and four large and neatly moulded windows are placed so close
together, two on each floor, as to convey the idea of one lofty window divided by a narrow
mullion and transom. In the interior, also, decayed pannelling, and mutilated, yet handsome
oak balustrades still attest the former dignity of the place.
Over a doorway still lower down the close, where the Bill Chamber was during the
greater part of last century, the initials and date W-R C-M - 1616, are cut in large
letters ; and the house immediately below contains the only instance we have met with in
Edinburgh, of a carved inscription over an interior doorway. It occurs above the entrance
to a small inner room in the sunk floor of the house; but the wall rises above the roof,
and is finished with crow-steps, so that the portion now enclosing it appears to be a later
addition. The following is the concise motto, which seems to suggest that its original
purpose was more dignified than its straitened dimensions might seem to imply :-
W. F. ANGVSTA. AD. VSVM. AVGSVTA. B. G.
The initials are those of William Fowler, merchant burgess ; the father, in all probability,
of William Fowler, the poet, who was secretary to Queen Anne of Denmark, and whose
sister was the mother of Drummond of Hawthornden? At a later period this mansion
formed the residence of Sir George Drummond, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, in the years
1683 and 1684, and probably a descendant of the original owner, in whose time the lower
ground appears to have been all laid out in gardens, sloping down to the North Loch, and
adorned with a summer-house, afterwards possessed by Lord Forglen. We are disposed to
smile at the aristocratic retreats of titled and civic dignitaries down these old closes, now
altogether abandoned to squalid poverty ; yet many of them, like this, were undoubtedly
provided with beautiful gardens and pleasure grounds, the charms of which would be
enhanced by their nnpromising and straitened access.
There is reason for believing that the elder William Fowler, born in 1531, was also a poet (vide Archaeol. Scat.
vol. iv. p. 71), so that the burgeae referred to in the text is probably the author of “ The Triumph of Death,” and other
poem4 referred to among the original Drummond MSS. in the library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in a
fragment dated, “ From my house in Erlr. the 9. of Jan. 1590.” The initials B. Q., which are, no doubt, those of his
wife, may yet ierve to identify him as the owper of the old tenement in Anchor Close.
