THE HIGH STREET. 245
house,’’ to which Arnot adds the more definite though scanty information, At the head
of Bell’s ’Wynd there were an hospital and chapel, known by the name of Maison Dieu.’”
Like most other religious establishments and church property, it passed into the hands
of laymen at the Reformation by an arbitrary grant of the crown, so that the original
charters of foundation no longer remain as the evidences of its modern claimants. It is
styled, however, in the earliest titles extant, “ the old land formerly of George, Bishop
of Dunkeld ; ” EO that its foundation may be referred with every probability to the
reign of James V., when George Crighton, who occupied that see from the year 1527
to 1543, founded the hospital of St Thomas near the Watergate, about two years before
his death, and endowed it for the maintenance of certain chaplains and bedemen, (‘ to
celebrate the founder’s anniversary o6it, by solemnly singing in the choir of Holyrood
Church, on the day of his death yearly, the PZaceJo and Dirige, for the repose of his
soul,” &c.~ There can be little doubt, moreover, that the old land, which was only
demolished in the year 1789, was the same mansion of Lord Home, to which Queen
Mary retreated with Darnley, on her return to Edinburgh in 1566, while she was haunted
with the horrible recollections of the recent murder of her favourite, Rizzio, and her mind
revolted from the idea of returning to the palace, the scene of hia assassination, whose
blood-stained floors still called for justice and revenge against the murderers. ‘( Vpoun
the xviij day of the said moneth of Ifarch,” says the contemporary annalist,’ 6‘oup
soueranis lord and ladie, accumpanij t with tua thowsand horssmen come to Edinburgh,
and lugeit not in thair palice of Halyrudhous, bot lugeit in my lord Home’s lugeing, callit
the auld bischope of Dunkell his lugeing, anent the salt trone in Edinburgh; and the
lordis being with thame for the tyme, wes lugeit round about thame within the said burgh.”
Lord Home, who thus entertained Queen Mary and Darnlep as his guests, was, at that
date, so zealous an adherent of the Queen, that Randolph wrote to Cecil from Edinburgh
soon after that he would be created Earl of March ; and although at the battle of Langside
he appeared against her, he afterwards returned to his fidelity, and retained it with
such integrity till his death as involved him in a conviction of treason by her enemies.
In the following reign this ancient tenement became the property of George Heriot, and
the ground rents are still annually payable to the treasurer of the hospital which he
founded.
The portion of. the High Street still marked as the site of this ancient building, is
closely associated with other equally memorable incidents in the life of Queen Mary; for
almost immediately adjoining it, on the east side, formerly stood the famous Black Turnpike
already alluded to,‘ as the town house of Sir Simon Preston, Provost of Edinburgh
in 1567, to which the unhappy Queen was led by her captors, amid the hootings and
execrations of an excited rabble, on the evening of her surrender at Carbery Hill. This
ancient building was one of the most stately and sumptuous edifices of the Old TO,WR It
was lofty and of great extent, and the tradition of Queen Mary’s residence in it had never
been lost sight of. A small apartment, with a window to the High Street, was pointed out
1 Yaitland, p. 189. Arnot, p. 246.
Maitland, p. 154. Keith furnishes this character of the bishop, “A man nobly disposed, very hospitable, and s
magnificent housekeeper ; but in matters of religion not much skilled.” ’ Diurnal of Occurrenta, p. 94. Keith, vol.-ii p. 292. ‘ Ante, p. 79.
