3 20 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
below renders it probable that the Episcopal residence in the ckpital, thus permanently
attached to the See of Dunkeld, was the lodging on the south side of the Cowgate; and
the same ecclesiastical biographer already referred to mentions as one of the good works
of Bishop Brown, the predecessor of Douglas, that he built the south wing of the house
at Edinburgh belonging to the Bishops of Dunkeld.’ It cannot be doubted that the
mansion thus gifted and enlarged was a building well suited by its magnificence for the
abode of the successive dignitaries of the Church who were promoted to that exalted
station, and that it formed another striking feature in this street of palaces. Its vicinity
both to the Archiepiscopal residence and to the Blackfriars’ Church-the later scene of
rescue of Archbishop Beaton by Gawin Douglas-affords a very satisfactory illustration
of one of the most memorable occurrences during the turbulent minority of James V.
The poet, after his ineffectual attempt at mediation, retired with grief to his own
house, and employed himself in acts of devotion suited to the danger to which his friends
were exposed; from thence he rushed out, on learning of the termination of the fray,
in time to interpose effectually on behalf of the warlike priest, who had been personally
engaged in the contest, and, according to Buchanan, “flew about in armour like a firebrand
of sedition.” This old Episcopal residence has other associations of a very
dXerent nature; for we learn from Knox’s history that, when he was summoned to
appear in the Blackfriars’ Church on the 15th of May 1556, and his opponents deserted
their intended attack through fear, “ the said Johne, the same day of the summondis,
tawght in Edinburgh in a peattar audience then ever befoir he had done in that toune :
The place was the Bischope of Dunkellis, his great loodgeing, whare he continewed
in doctrin ten dayis, boyth befoir and after nune.”a A modern land now occupies
the site of Bishop Douglas’s Palace; and the pleasure grounds wherein the poet
was wont to stray, and on which we may suppose him to have exercised his refined
taste and luxurious fancy in realizing such a 46 gardyne of plesance ” as he describes
in the opening stanzas of his Pallis of Honor, is now crowded with mean dwellings
of the artizan and labourer-too much engrossed with the cares of their own
domestic circle to heed the illustrious memories that linger about these lowly habitations.
The range of buildings extending from the Cowgate Port to the Old High School Wynd,
on the south side of the street, still includes several exceedingly picturesque timber-fronted
tenements of an early date ; but none of them possess those characteristics of former magnificence
which were to be seen in the Mint Close. A finely. carved lintel, which surmounted
the doorway of one of a similar range of antique.tenements to the west of the High School
Wpd, has been replaced over the entrance to the modern building, erected on the same
site in 1801. The inscription, of which we furnish a sketch, is boldly cut in an unusual
lain in St Geiles Kirk in Edinburgh, of au annual rent of 6 merks out of the tenement of Donald de Keyle on the N.
nide of the gaite . . . au annual rent. of 40 sh. out of his own house lyand in the Cowgaite, betwixt the land of the
Abbot of Melroa on the east, and of George Cochran on the west,” &c.-23d Jan. 1449 ; MS. Advoc. Lib. “A mortification
made by James [Livingston] Bishop of Dunkeld, to a chaplain of St Martin and Thomas’s Altar, in St Geiles Kirk
of Edinburgh, of an annual rent of E10 out of his tenement lying in the said burgh, on the north side of the Hie
Street,” &.-Ibid. “Confirmation of a charter granted be Thomas [Lauder] Bishop of Dunkeld, to a chaplain of the
Holy Cross Isle, in St Geiles Kirk in Edinburgh,” of divers annual rents, dated 17th March 1480.-Ibid.
.
Vitae Dunkeld. Episc. p. 46. f Knox’s W-orks, Wodrow Soc., vol. i p. 251.
ST LEONARD’S, ST MARY’S WYND, AND CO WGATE. 321
character, and with a shield in the centre, the armorial bearings of which have been
replaced by a brewer’s barrel, the device of its modern owner and occupant. We have
found, on examining ancient charters and title-deeds referring to property in the Cowgate,
much greater difliculty in assigning the exact tenements referred to, from the absence of
such marked and easily recognisable features as serve for a guide in the Bigh Street and
Canongate. All such evidence, however, tends to prove that the chief occupants of this
ancient thoroughfare were eminent for rank and station, and their dwellings appear to
have been chiefly in the front street, showing that, with patrician exclusiveness, traders
were forbid to open their booths within its dignified precincts. Another feature, no less
noticeable, is the extensive possessions which the Church held within its bounds. An
ancient land, for example, which occupied the site of one now standing at the foot of
Blair Street, on the west side, is described in the titles of the adjoining property as pertaining
to the Altar of St Katharine, in the Kirk-of-Field. In 1494, Walter Bertram,
Provost of Edinburgh, bestowed an annual rent from his tenement in the Cowgate “to a
chaplain of St Lawrence’s Altar, in St Giles’ Church.” In 1528, Wm. Chapman “ mortified
to a chaplain in St Giles’ Kirk, at Jesus’ Altar, in a chapel built by himself,” a
tenement and piece of ground in the same street, reserving to ye patrons yrof 26s. 8d.
for repairing the chapel with skletts and glass.” Both Walter Chepman and Thomas
Cameron have already-been named aa similar donors. We shall only notice one more
from the same source :-“A mortification made be Janet Remedy, Lady Bothwell, who
was before spouse to Archibald Earl of Angus, mortefeing to a chaplain in the Marie
Kirk in the Field, beside Edinburgh, her fore land of umqle Hew Berries tenement, and
chamber adjacent y’to, lying in the Cowgait, on the south side of the street, betwixt Ja.
Earl of Buchan’s land on the east, and Thos. Tod’s on ye west.”l We have dready
referred to U the Erle of Maris, now present Regent, lugeing in the Kowgait,’Pin 1572,”
and other eminent laymen will presently appear among the residenters in this patrician
quarter of the town.
The destruction of an ancient tenement in the Cowgate, in the month of June 1787,
when clearing the ground for the building of the South Bridge, brought to light some
curious memorials of an earlier age. The workmen employed in its demolition discovered
a cavity containing a quantity of money for the reception of which it appeared to have
been constructed. The treasure was found, on examination, to consist of a number of
small coins of Edward L commonly called Longshanks, who, in the year 1295, defeated
the Scots at Dunbar, and soon after compelled the Castle of Edinburgh to surrender to his
.
A perfect inventar of Pious Donations. MS. Advocated KO., Diurnal of Occurrenta, p, 299.
2s
