274 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Tweeddale, a somewhat versatile politician, who joined the standard of Charles I. at
Nottingham, in 1642, during the lifetime of his father. He afterwards adopted the
popular cause, and fought at the head of a Scottish troop at the Battle of Marston Moor.
He assisted at the coronation of Charles 11. at Scone, and sat thereafter in Cromwell’s
Parliament as member for the county of Haddington. He was sworn a privy councillor
to the King on his restoration, and continued in the same by James VII. He lived to
take an active share in the Revolution, and to fill the office of High Chancellor of
Scotland under William 111.) by whom he was created Marquis of Tweeddale, and
afterwards appointed High Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament in 1695, while the
grand project of the Darien expedition was pending. He died at Edinburgh before that
scheme was carried out, and is perhaps as good a specimen as could be selected of the
weathcock politician of uncertain times. The last noble occupant of the old mansion
at the Nether Bow was, we believe, the fourth Marquis, who held the office of Secretary
of State for Scotland from 1742 until its abolition. The fine old gardens, which descended
by a succession of ornamental terraces to the Cowgate, were destroyed to make
way for the Cowgate Chapel, now also forsaken by its original founders. This locality
possesses a mysterious interest to our older citizens, the narrow alley that leads into
Tweeddale Court having been the scene, in 1806, of the murder of Begbie, a porter
of the British Linen Company’s Bank-an occurrence which ranks, among the gossips
of the Scottish capital, with the Ikon Basilike, or the Man in the Iron Mask. !heeddale
House was at that time occupied by the British Linen Banking Company, and. as Begbie
was entering the close in the dusk of the evening, having in his possession 24392,
which he was bringing from the Leith Branch, he was stabbed directly to the heart
with the blow of B knife, and the whole money carried off, without any clue being
found to the perpetrator of the deed. A reward of five hundred guineas was offered
for his discovery, but although some of the notes were found concealed in the grounds
of Bellevue, in the neighbourhood of the town, no trace of the murderer could be
obtained. There ia little doubt, however, that the assassin was James Mackoull, a
native of London, and ‘( a thief by profession,” who had the hardihood to return to
Edinburgh the following year, and take up his residence in Rose Street under the name
of Captain Moffat. He was afterwards implicated in the robbery of the Paisley Union
Bank, when 220,000 were successfully carried off; and though, after years of delay,
he was at length convicted and condemned to be executed, the hardy villain obtained a
reprieve, and died in Edinburgh Jail fourteen years after the perpetration of the
undiscovered murder. The exact spot on which this mysterious deed was efYected is
pointed out to the curious. The murderer must have stood within the entry to a stair
on the right side of the close, at the step of which Begbie bled to death undiscovered,
though within a few feet of the most crowded thoroughfare in the town. The lovers
of the marvellous may still be found occasionally recurring to this riddle, and notlist
of Lady Yester’s “Mortifications ” (MS. Advoc. Lib.) is the following:--“At Edinburgh built and repaired ane
great lodging, in the south side of the High Street, near the Nether Bow, and mortified out of the same me yearly an :
rent 200 m. for the poor in the hoapital beside the College kirk 9’; and yrafter having resolved to bestow ye s‘ lodging,
with the whole furniture yrin to Jo : now E. of Tweeddale, her ay, by consent of the Town Council, ministers, and
kirk sessions, she redeemed the a‘ lodging, and freed it, by payment of 2000 merks, and left the sd lodging only burdened
with 40 m. yearly.’’
THE HIGH STREET AND NETHER BOW. 275
withstanding the elucidation of it referred to above, the question remains with most of
them as interesting and mysterious as at first, “ Who murdered Begbie ? ”
This eastern nook of the Old Town has other associations with men eminent for talents
and noted for their deeds, though tradition has neglected to assign the exact tenements
wherein they dwelt of yore, while mingling with the living crowd. Here was the abode
of Robert Lekprevik, another of our early Scottish printers, to whom it is probable that
Bassendyne succeeded, on his removal to St Andrews in 1570. Here, too, appears to
have been the lodging of Archbishop Sharp. Nicoll tells us that the newly-consecrated
bishops, on the 8th of May 1662, “being all convenit in the Bishop of St Androis hous,
neir to the Neddir Bow, come up all in their gownis, and come to the Parliament, quha
wer resavit with much honour, being convoyit fra the Archebischop of Sant Androis hous
with 2 erles, viz., the Erle of Kellie and the Erle of Weymis.” Of scarce less interest is
the history of a humble barber and wig-maker, who carried on business at the Nether
Bow, where his gifted son, William Falconer, the author of “ The Shipwreck,” is believed
to have been born about 1730. Here, at least, was his home and playground during his
early years, while he shared in the sports and fropcs of the rising generation ; all but
himself long since at rest in forgotten graves.
World’s End Close is the appropriate title of the last alley before we reach the site of
the Nether Bow Port, that terminated of old the boundaries of the walled capital, and
separated it from its courtly rival, the Burgh of Canongate. It is called, in the earliest
title-deed we have seen connected with it, Sir James Stanfield’s Close ; and though the
greater part of it has been recently rebuilt, it still retains a few interesting traces of
former times. Over the doorway of a modern land, a finely carved piece of open tracery
is built into the wall, apparently the top of a very rich Gothic niche, similar to those in
Blyth’s Close and elsewhere ; and on the lintel of an old land at the foot of the close,
there is a shield of arms, now partly defaced, and this variation of the common
m o t t o : - P ~ u ~.~ T~HE . LORD. FOR . AL . HIS . GIFTIS . M . S. With which pious
ascription we bid adieu for a time to Old Edinburgh, properly EO called, and pass into the
ancient Royal Burgh of Canongate.
l Thii, we presume, was Sir James Stanfield of Newmills, or Amesfield, whose death took place in 1688, under
circumstance8 of peculiar mystery. He was found drowned, and suspicion being excited by a bvty funeral, and the
fact, as waa alleged, that his wife had the grave clothea all ready for him before his death, the Privy Council appointed
two surgeona to examine the body, who reported that the corpse bled on being touched by his eldest SO& Philip. .His
servants were apprehended and put to the torture, without eliciting any further proof, and yet, on very vague
circumstantial evidence, added to the miraculous testimony of the murdered man, thp son-a notorious pmfligatewas
condemned to death, and hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh. His tongue waa cut out foe curaing his father,
his right hand struck off for parricide, his head exposed on the east port of Haddington, as nearest the scene of the
murder, and his body hung in chains on the Callow-lee, between Edinburgh and Leith. He died denying his
guilt, and Fountainhall adds, afkr recording sundry miraculous evidences against him: “Thk is a dark case of
divination, to be remitted to the great day; only it ia certain he was a bad youth, and may serve as a beacon to all
profigate persona”
