ST LEONARD’S, ST MAR Y’S WYND, AND CO WGA TE. 317
The main entrance on the first floor of the west side is approached, like that on the south,
by a broad flight of steps extending into the court. The doorway is furnished with a very
substantial iron knocker, of old-fashioned proportions and design ; but on the lower
entrance, underneath the stair, there remains a fine specimen of the knocker’s more
ancient predecessor, the Risp, or Tiding Pin, so frequently alluded to in Scottish song,
as in the fine old ballad:-
There came a ghost to Margaret’s door,
And aye he tirled at the pin,
Wi’ mony a grievous groan ;
But answer made she none.‘
The ancient privilege of sanctuary which pertained to these
buildings, as the offices of the Scottish Mint, is curiously illustrated
by the case in Lord Fountainhall’s Reports referred to
above. A complaint was laid before the Privy Council, November
22, 1681, that a cabinet of the Earl of Argyle, which
had been poinded forth of t,he ‘‘ coin-house ” of Edinburgh, for a
debt owing by the Earl’s bond, had been rescued by open violence.
In the debate that follows, its full privileges as “an
asyle, refuge, and sanctuary, to protect and defend the persons
of the servants employed to work there in the service of the
King and kingdom,” as well as their tools and instruments, are
admitted, and the claims of “the abbey, the coin-house, and
such other places as pretend to be sanctuaries,” are all placed
on the same footing, without any final decision as to their
rights.
The Archiepiscopal Palace, whose remains occupied the space
between Toddrick’s and Blackfriars’ Wynd, afforded a striking
example of the revolutions effected by time and changing fashions
on the ancient haunts of those most eminent for rank and power. No doubt could be
entertained, from the appearance of the building, that a large part of it had been
rebuilt in a style more adapted to its humble denizens than to the period when, in the
Cowgate, were the palaces belonging to the princes of the land, nothing there being
humble or ruRtic, but all magnificent I ” It had originally enclosed a small quadrangle,
and nearly the whole of the ground floor was substantially arched with stone, resting on
solid piere, well calculated to afford secure protection against such assaults as it was
frequently exposed to during the raih and tulzies of the sixteenth century.’ The entrance
to the inner courtyard was by an arched passage in Blackfriar$ Wynd, within which a
1 These antique pracuraors of the knocker and bell are still frequently to be met with in the steep turnpikes of the
Old Town, notwithstanding the cupidity of antiquarian collectors: The ring ia drawn up and down the notched iron
rod, and makes a very audible noise within.
“Feb. 8, 1541-2.-Remiasion to John Lausone, John Scot, John Myllar, and John Scot, Ben., for their treasonable
besieging and breaking up the gates and doors of the lodging belonging to James (Archbishop) of SanctandroiS, situite
in the Blackfriars’ Wynd, within the Burgh of Edinburgh, for his capture and apprehension, he being within the said
lodging at the time,” &c.-Pitcairn’s Crim. Trials, p. *257. This waa no doubt an Act
of Privy Council, applied for thereafter.
The Archbishop died in 1539.
