294 MEMURIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Moray House, which is one of the most remarkable objects of interest in the Canongate,
formed until 1835 part of the entailed estate of the noble house of Moray, in whose
possession it remained exactly two hundred years, having become the property of Margaret,
Countess of Moray, in 1645, by an arrangement with her younger sister, h u e ,
then Countess of Lauderdale, and co-heiress with her of their mother, the Countess of
Home, by whom Moray House was built.’ This noble mansion presents more striking
architectural features than any other private building in Edinburgh, and is associated with
some of the most interesting events in Scottish history. It was erected in the early part
of the reign of Charles I. by Mary, Countess of Home, the eldest daughter of Edward,
Lord Dudley, and then a widow. Her initials, M. H., are sculptured over the large
centre window of the south gable, surmouuted by a ducal coronet; and over the corresponding
window to the north are the lions of Home and Dudley, impaled on a lozenge,
in accordance with the ancient laws of heraldry. The house was erected some years
before the visit of Charles I. to Scotland, and his coronation at Holyrood in 1633. It
can scarcely, therefore, admit of doubt that its halls ’have been graced by the presence of
that unfortunate monarch, though the Countess soon after contributed largely towards the
success of his opponents, as appears by the repayment by the English Parliament, in
1644, of seventy thousand pounds which had been advanced by her to the Scottish
Covenanting Government-an unusually large sum to be found at the disposal of the
dowager of a Scottish earl.
On the first visit of Oliver Cromwell to Edinburgh, in the summer of 1648, he took
up his residence at “ the Lady Home’s lodging, in the Canongate,” as it then continued to
be called; and entered into friendly negotiations with the nobles and leaders of the extreme
party of the Covenanters. According to Guthrie, ‘‘ he did communicate to them his design
in reference to the King, and had their assent thereto ; ” in consequence of which (‘ the
Lady Home’s house, in the Canongate, became an object of mysterious curiosity, from
the general report at the time that the design to execute Charles I. was there first discussed
and approved.”a This, however, which, if it could be relied on, would add so
peculiar an interest to the mansion, must be regarded as the mere cavalier gossip of the
period. Even if we could believe that Cromwell’s designs were matured at that time, he
was too wary a politician to hazard them by such premature and profitless confidence j but
there can be no doubt of the future measures of resistance to the King having formed a
prominent subject in their discussions.
In the year 1650, only two years after the Parliamentary General’s residence in the
Canongate, the fine old mansion was the scene of joyous banquetings and revelry on the
occasion of the marriage of Lord Lorn-afterwards better known as the unfortunate Earl of
Argyle-with Lady Mary Stuart, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Moray. The weddingfeast
took place on the 13th of May, and the friends were still celebrating the auspicious
the cmce of this bruche, thair to remane the space of ane houre.” On the 6th October 1572, the treasurer is ordered
“to vpput and big sufficiently the corce,” which had probably suffered in some of the reforming mobs, and may
have been then, for the first time, elevated on a platform.-Canongate Burgh Register, Mait. Wit. vol. ii. pp. 303, 326.
l The entail was broke by a clause in one of the Acts of the North British Railway Company, who had purchased
the ancient Trinity Hospital for their terminus, and proposed to fit up Moray House in ita stead; an arrangement which
it is to be regretted has not been carried into effect. The name of Regent blul.ray’a House, latterly applied to the old
mansion, is a spurious tradition of very recent origin. - ’ (tuthrie’s Memoira, p. 298. 3 Napier’s Life of Montrose, p, 441.
THE CANONGA TE AND ABBEY SANCTUAR Y. 295
alliance of these two noble families, when, on Saturday the 18th of May, the already
excommunicated and doomed Marquis of Montrose was brought a captive to Edinburgh.
About four o’clock in the’afternoon, the magistrates and guard received their prisoner at
the Water Gate, and, after reading to him his barbarous sentence, he was ignominiously
bound to a low cart provided for the occasion’. The common hangman, who acted as
master of the ceremonies, having uncovered the Marquis, he mounted the horse before
him, and the melancholy procession moved slowly up the Canongate, a band of meaner
prisoners, bound two and two, going bareheaded before him.
The striking contrast presented in this scene is painfully illustrative of the vicissitudes
that accompany civil war. Montrose had fought with and overthrown his great rival the
Marquis of Argyle, father of the young Lord Lorn, and had driven him almost a solitary .
fugitive to the sea, while he wasted his country with &e and sword. As the noble captive
was borne beneath the windows of Moray House, the wedding guests, including the Earl
of Loudoun, then Lord Chancellor, Lord Warriston, and the Countess of Haddington,
along with the Marquis of Argyle, and the bride and bridegroom,’ stepped out on the fine
old stone balcony that overhangs the street to gaze upon their prostrate enemy. It is said
that the Lady Jane Gordon, Countess of Haddington, Argyle’s niece, so far forgot her
sex as to spit upon him as he passed, in her revengeful triumph over their fallen foe.
But the marriage party quailed before the calm gaze of the noble captive. Though
suffering from severe wounds, in addition to the mortification and insult to which he was
exposed, he preserved the same composure and serenity with which he afterwards submitted
to a felon’s death, appearing even on the scaffold-as Nicoll relates-in a style ‘‘ more
becoming a bridegroom, nor a criminal going to the gallows.” On Montrose turning his
eye on the party assembled on the balcony at Moray House to rejoice over his fall, they
shrank back with hasty discomposure, and disappeared from the windows, leaving the
gloomy processiou to wend onward on its way to the T~lbooth.T~h is remarkable incident
acquires a deeper interest, when we consider that three of these onlookers, including the
gay and happy bridegroom, perished by the hand of the executioner on the same fatal
spot to which the gallant Marquis was passing under their gaze.
The period of which we write was one of rapid change. Little more than four
months had elapsed when the army of the Covenanters, with Leslie at its head, was
signally defeated at Dunbar, and the victorious General Cromwell entered the Scottish
capital as a conqueror, and once more took up his quarters at Moray House. Throughout
the winter of 1650, its stately halls were crowded with Parliamentary commissioners and
military and civil courtiers attendant on the General’s levee.4- Its next occupant of note
was the Lord Chancellor Seafield, who appears to have resided there at the period of the
Union, and peopled its historic halls with new associations, as the scene of the numerous
secret deliberations that preceded the ratification of that treaty. The stately old terraced
gardens remain nearly in the same state as when the peers and commoners of the last
Scottish Parliament frequented its avenues. The picturesque summer-house, adorned with
-
It WBB reported that, in 1650, when the Marquia of Montroae was brought up prisoner from the Water Gate in a
cart, this Argile waa feeding his eyea with the eight in the Lady Murrayes balcony in the Canongate, with hir daughter,
his lady, to whom he was new married, and that he waa seen playing and smiling with her.”-Fountainhall’a Historical
Observes, 1685, p. 185. a Nicoll’s Diary, p. 13. Wigton Papera ; Hait. Misc. vol. i i pp. 482, 483. ‘ Ante, p. 95.
