THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 267
separated only by very narrow uprights. It is decorated with string courses and rich
mouldings, and forms a fine specimen of an Old-Town mansion of the sixteenth century.
It is stated by Chambers to be entailed with the estate of the Clerks of Pennycuik, and
to have formed the town residence of their ancestors. This we presume to have been the
later residence of Alexander, fifth Lord Home; the same who entertained Queen Mary
and Lord Darnley in his lodging near the Tron in 1565, and who afterwards turned the
fortune of the field at the Battle of Langside, at the head of his border spearmen. He
was one of the noble captives who surrendered to Sir William Durie on the taking of
Edinburgh Castle in 1573. He was detained a prisoner, while his brave companions
perished on the scaffold; a.nd was only released at last after a tedious captivity, to die
a prisoner at large in his own house-the same, we believe, which stood in Blackfriars’
Wynd. A contemporary writer remarks :-“ Wpoun the secund day of Junij [1575],
Alexander Lord Home wes relevit out of the Castell of Edinburgh, and wardit in his
awne lugeing in the heid of the Frier Wynd, quha wes carijt thairto in ane bed, be ressone
of his great infirmitie of seiknes.”’
Scarcely another portion of the Old Town of Edinburgh was calculated to impress the
thoughtful visitor with the same melancholy feelings of a departed glory, replaced by
squalor and decay, which he experienced after exploring the antiquities of the Blackfriars’
Wynd. There stood the deserted and desecrated fane ; the desolate mansions of proud
and powerful nobles and senators ; and the degraded Palace of the Primate and Cardinal,
where even Scottish monarchs have been fitly entertained; and it seemed for long
as if the ground which Alexander 11. bestowed on the Dominican Monks, as a, special
act of regal munificence, was not possessed of value enough to tempt the labours of the
builder.
Emerging again through the archway at the head of the wynd, which the royal masterprinter
jitted at his pleasure above three centuries ago, an ancient., though greatly
modernised, tenement in the High Street to the east of the wynd attracted the notice of
the local historian as the mansion of Lord President Fentonbarn!, a man of humble origin,
the son of a baker in Edinburgh, whose eminent abilities won him the esteem and the
suffrages of its contemporaries. He owed his fortunes to the favour of James VI., by
whom he was nominated to fill the office of a Lord of Session, and afterwards knighted.
We are inclined to think that it is to him Montgomerie alludes in his satirical sonnets
addressed to M. J. Sharpe-in all probability au epithet of similar origin and signilicance
to that conferred by the Jacobite8 on the favourite advocate of William 111. The poet
had failed in a suit before the Court of Session, seemingly with James Beaton, Archbishop
of Glasgow, and he takes his revenge against “ his Adversars Lawyers,” like other
poets, in satiric rhyme. The lack of ‘‘ gentle blude ” is a special handle against the plebeian
judge in the eyes of the high-born poet ; and his second sonnet, which is sufEcientlp
vituperative, begins :-
A Baxter’s bird, a bluiter beggar borne ! ’
This old mansion was the last survivor of all the long and unbroken range of buildings
between St Giles’s Church and the Nether Bow. In its original state it was one of
l Diurnal of Occurrenta, p. 348. Alexander Montgornerie’s Poems ; complete edition, by Dr Irving, p. 74.
