THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 273
have tint and foirfaltit thair lyvis, lands, and guidis, and ordaynit thair armes to be
rifEin, and thair names and armes to be eleidit out of the buikis thairof for euer.” The
outlawed burgess’s house in the Fountain Close appears to have been immediately seized
by his opponents as a forfeiture to the Queen, in whose name they acted, and to have
been converted into a battery and stronghold for assailing the enemy, for which its lofty
character and vicinity to the city wall peculiarly fitted it. A contemporary historian
relates that ‘‘ the Regent, Johne Erle of Mar, for beseageing of the toun of Edinburgh,
cawsit nyne pece of ordonance, great and small, be broght to the Cannogait, to have
assailzeit the east port of the toun ; bot that place was not thoght commodious, .wharefore
the gunnis war transportit to a fauxburg of the toun, callit Pleasands ; and thairfra they
laid to thair batterie aganis the toun walls, whilk began the tent of September, and shot
at a platfurme whilk was erectit upon a howheid, perteining to Adame Fullartoun.”
Adam Fullarton
speedily returned t o his house at the Nether Bow ; and while the English forces under Sir
William Durie were casting up trenches and planting cannon for the siege of Edinburgh
Castle in the name of the young Eing, he was again chosen a burgess of the Parliament
which assembled in the Tolbooth on the 26th of April 1573.’ This date corresponds with
that carved on the lintel of the old mansion in the Fountain Close. It may be doubted,
however, whether it indicates more than its repair, as it is expressly mentioned by the
contemporary already quoted, that (‘ thaj did litill or na skaith to the said hous and
platforme.”’ We can hardly doubt that this ancient tenement will be viewed with
increasing interest by our local antiquaries, associated as it is with so important a period
of national history. The vincit veritas of the brave old burgher acquires a new force when
we consider the circumstances that dictated its inscription, and the desperate struggle in
which he had borne a leading part, before he returned to carve these pious aphorisms
over the threshold that had so recently been held by his enemies. It only remains to be
mentioned of the Fountain Close, that it formed, at a very recent period, the only direct
access from the High Street to the Cowgate Chapel, while that was the largest and most
fashionable Episcopal Chapel in Edinburgh.
remains at the foot of it, though long since deserted by its noble occupants. It is mentioned
by Defoe among the princely buildings of Edinburgh, ‘( with a plantation of lime
trees behind it, the place not allowing room for a large garden.” This, however, must
have been afterwards remedied, as its pleasure grounds latterly extended down to the
Cowgate. Successive generations of the Tweeddale family have occupied this house, which
continued to be their town residence till the general desertion of the Scottish capital by
the nobility soon after the Union. The old mansion still retains many traces of former
magnificence, notwithstanding the rude changes to which it has been since subjected. Its
builder and f i s t occupant was Lady Pester, the pious founder of the church in Edinburgh
that bears her name.“ By her it was presented to her grandson, John, second Earl of
This desperate and bloody civil war was happily of brief duration.
Immediately below this is the Marquis of Tweeddale’s Close, whose large mansion still ‘
Diurn, of Occurrenta, p. 244. Hist. of Jamee the Sext, Bann. Club, p. 94,
a Diurn. of OCC.p, . 331.
a Dame Margaret Ker, Lady Yester, third daughter of Hark, first Earl of Lothian, WBB born in 1672, the year of
John Knox’s death, so that Tweeddale H o w ia a building of the early part of the seventeenth century. Among the
‘ Hist. of James the Sext, p. 251. Defoe’s Tour, vol. iv. p. 86.
2af
