Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time

All Books Kay's Originals Vol. 1 Kay's Originals Vol. 2 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Edinburgh Past and Present Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

Go to: « Kay's Originals Vol. 1 « Kay's Originals Vol. 2 Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time Cover Title Pages Contents List of Illustrations Preface Part 1: Historical Associations Part 1 Ch 1: Earliest Traditions Part 1 Ch 2: From The Accession of The Stuarts to the Death of James III Part 1 Ch 3: From the Accession of James IV to the Battle of Flodden Part 1 Ch 4: From the Battle of Flodden to the Death of James V Part 1 Ch 5: From the Death of James V to the Abdication of Queen Mary Part 1 Ch 6: From the Accession of James VI to the Restoration of Charles II Part 1 Ch 7: Historical Incidents after the Restoration Part 2: Local Antiquities and Traditions Part 2 Ch 1: The Castle Part 2 Ch 2: King's Stables, Castle Barns, and Castle Hill Part 2 Ch 3: The Lawnmarket Part 2 Ch 4: The Tolbooth, Luckenbooths, and Parliament Close Part 2 Ch 5: The High Street Part 2 Ch 6: The High Street and Nether Bow Part 2 Ch 7: The Canongate and Abbey Sanctuary Part 2 Ch 8: St Leonard's, St Mary's Wynd, and The Cowgate Part 2 Ch 9: The West Bow and Suburbs Part 2 Ch 10: Leith, and The New Town Part 2 Ch 11: Ecclesiastical Antiquities Appendix » Edinburgh Past and Present » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. IV » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V » Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI

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.

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