THE CANONGA TE AND ABBEY SANCTUAR Y. 303
on his tomb-which existed in Maitland‘s time in the cemetery attached to Bolyrood
Abbey-after having several times filled the office of bailie of Canongate.’ Both of
these, we may infer from the inscription on the old tenement, were zealous and successful
wielders of the Golfing Club-a virtue which they bequeathed to the younger John
Paterson, the hero of the traditional tale, along with the old land which bears his name.
The styIe of the building conilrms the idea of its having been rebuilt by him, with the
spoils, as we are bound to presume, which he won on Leith Links from “our auld
enemies of England.” The title-deeds, however, render it probable, as we have hinted,
that other stakes had been played for with less success. In 1691, he grants a bond over
the property for 21200 Scots. This is followed by letters of caption and homing, and
other direful symptoms of legal assault, which pursue the poor golfer to his grave, and
remain behind as his aole legacy to his heirs. Paterson appears, from other evidence, to
have been immediately succeeded in the old mansion by John, eecond Lord Bellenden,
who died there in 1704; since which time the Golfer’s Land has run its course, like the
other tenements of this once patrician burgh, and is now occupied by the same class of
plebeian tenants as has everywhere succeeded to the old courtiers of Holyroodx
Whiteford House, a comfortable modern mansion, originally occupied by $3 John
Whiteford, standa immediately behind Janet Hall’s humble dwelling, surrounded by
open gardens, forming the sight of the ancient mansion of the Earls of Wintoun. George,
the fifth Earl, was attainted in consequence of his share in the ill-concerted insurrection
of 1715, and the old edifice, being then forsaken by its noble owners, was abandoned to
solitude and decay. The ground is marked in Edgar’s map as the ruins of the Earl of
Wintoun’s house; and from the importance of the family, and their love of sumptuous
buildings, a8 well as the extensive space the ruins appear to have occupied, it may be presumed
that ‘‘ my Lord Seaton’s house in the Canongate,” where the French Ambassador
Manzeville lodged in 1582,” in no way belied the charming glimpse of its gloomy quadrangle,
with its heavy architraves adorned with armorial bearings and religious devices,
afforded in the lively pages of the ‘‘ Abbot; ” or of its lofty hall, surrounded with suits
of ancient and rusty armour, interchanged with huge massive stone escutcheons, blazoned
with the Seton Arms j all which were 80 utterly thrown away on the headstrong young
page, Roland Grsme. Whiteford House was latterly occupied for many years-till his
death in 1823-by Sir William Macleod Bannatyne, a remarkably pleasing specimen of a
gentleman of Old Edinburgh, before its antique mansions and manners had altogether
fallen under the ban of modern fashion. He was a nephew of Lady Clanranald, who was
confined in the Tower for affording protection to Prime Charles during his wapderings
1 Maitland, p. 160.
The {unerul letter of Lord Bellenden, from whence we have derived the information in the text, affords an 4-
dence of the change of manners since it was iaaued. It ia a~ follows :-“ The honour of your presence to accompany
the corps of my Lord Bellenden, my father, from his lodgings in Paterson’e Land, near the Canongate foot, to his
burial place in the Abay Church, upon Sunday the Bdjnstant, at 8 of the clock in the morning, L8 earnestly desired by
John Bellenden.” Some curious information is given in an “Act in favora of Jamee Donaldmn, to print Buriall Letters,
Mar. 10, 1699;” wherein it appears “That the petitioner bath fallen upon a device for printing or stamping them
in a fine wryt character, . . . by this device the leidges may be both cheiper and sooner served than ordinar, Buriall
Letters being oft times in haste ; Besides thc decency a d ornament of a Border of skeletons’ m o w , and other emalm
of mortality, which the Petitioner has so contrived that it may be added or abstracted at pleasure I”-Documenta relative
to Scottish printing. Mait, Misc. vol. ii. p. 233-4.
* Moyse’s Memoirs, p. 77.
304 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
-so nearly connected are these romantic incidents with our own day. He was raised to
the Bench on the death of Lord Swinton, and took his seat as Lord Bannatyne in 1799.
He was the last survivor of the Mirror Club, and one of the contributors to that early
periodical. His conversational powers were great, and his lively reminiscences of the
eminent men, and the leading events of last century, are referred to by those who
have enjoyed his cheerful society, when in his ninetieth year, as peculiarly vivid and
characteristic.
Among the antique groups of buildings in the Canongate, scarcely any one has more
frequently attracted the artist by the picturesque irregularity of its features than the
White Horse Close-an ancient hostelry to which a fresh interest has been attached by
the magic pen of Scott, who peopled anew its deserted halls with the creations of his
fertile genius. Tradition, with somewhat monotonous pertinacity, a&ms that it acquired
its name from a celebrated and beautiful white palfrey belonging to Queen Mary.’ There
is no reason, however, to think, from the style and character of the building, that it is
any older than the date 1623, which is cut over a dormer window on its south front.
The interest is much more legitimate which associates it with the cavaliers of Prince
Charles’s Court, as the quarters of Captain Waverley during his brief sojourn in the capital.
It forms the main feature in a small paved quadrangle near the foot of the Canongate.
A broad flight of steps leads up to the building, diverging to the right and left from the
first landing, and giving access to two singularly-picturesque timber porches which overhang
the lower story, and form the most prominent features in the view. A steep and
narrow alley passes through below one of these, and leads to the north front of the
building, which we have $elected for our engraving, as an equally characteristic and more
novel scene. Owing to the peculiar slope of the ground, the building rises on this side
to more than double the height of its south front; and a second tier of windows in the steep
roof give it some resemblance to the old Flemish hostels, still occasionally to be met with
by the traveller in Belgium. But while the travellers’ quarters are thus crowded into the
roof, the whole of the ground floor is arched, and fitted up with ample accommodation for
his horses-an arrangement thoroughly in accordance with the Scottish practice in early
times. In an Act passed in the reign of James I., 1425, for the express encouragement
of innkeepers, all travellers stopping at burgh towns are forbid to lodge with their
acquaintance or friends, or in any other quarters, but in “the hostillaries,” with this
exception :-“ Cif it be the personee that leadis monie with them in companie”-i.e.,
Gentlemen attended with a numerous retinuec‘ thai sal1 have friedome to harberie with
theh friends; swa that their horse and their meinze be harberied and ludged in the
commoun hostillaries.” Almost immediately adjoining the north front of the White
Horse Inn was a large tank or pond for watering horses, from whence the name of the
principal gate of the burgh was derived. Here, therefore, was the rendezvous fo; knights
and barons, with their numerous retainers, and the chief scene of the arrival and departure
of all travellers of rank and importance during the seventeenth century, contrasting as
strangely with the provisions of modern refinement as any relic that survives of the
Canongate in these good old times.
The court-yard of the White Horse Inn is completed by an antique tenement towards
The house is now used as a manufactory.
Chambers’s Traditions, vol. ii. p. 295.
