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.’’
