342 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
Such are a few of the great names associated with the ancient thoroughfare which we have
seen so recklessly destroyed, and which, until its sudden doom was pronounced, seemed
like a hale and vigorous octogenarian, that had defied the tooth of time while all around
was being transmuted by his touch.
On the lowest part of the declivity of the Bow, a handsome, though somewhat heavy
conduit, erected by Robert Mane in 1681, bears the name of the Bow-foot Well.
Directly facing this, at the south-west angle of the Grassmarket, there stood of old the
Monastery of the Franciscans or Greyfriars, founded by James I., for the encouragement
of learning. In obedience to an application from that monarch, the Vicar-General of the
Order at Cologne sent over to Scotland some of the brethren, under the guidance of
Cornelius of Zurich, a scholar of great reputation ; but such was the magnzcence of the
monastic buildings prepared for them that it required the persuasive influence of the
Archbishop of St Andrew’s to induce Cornelius to accept the office of Prior. That the
monastery was a sumptuous foundation, according to the times, is proved by its being
assigned for the temporary abode of the Princess, Mary of Guelders, who immediately after
her arrival at Leith, in June 1449, proceeded on horseback, behind the Count de Vere,
to her lodging in the Convent of the Greyfriars in Edinburgh, and there she was visited by
her royal lover, James II., on the following day.’ A few years later it afforded an asylum
to Henry VI. of England, when he fled to Scotland, accompanied by his heroic Queen,
Margaret, and their son, Prince Edward, after the fatal battle of Towton. That a church
would form a prominent feature of this royal foundation can hardly be doubted, and we
are inclined to infer that the existence both of it, and of a churchyard attached to it, long
before Queen Mary’s grant of the gardens of the monastery for the latter purpose, is
implied in such allusions as the following in the Diurnal of Occurrents, July 7, 1571.
(‘ The hail1 merchandis, craftismen, and personis remanand within Edinburgh, maid thair
moustaris in the Gray Frear Kirk yaird; ” and, again, where Birrel in his Diary, April
26, 1598, refers to the (( work at the Gray Friar Kirke,” although the date of erection
of the more modern church is only 1613. The exact site of these monastic buildings is
proved from the titles of the two large stone tenements which present their picturesque
and antique gables to the street, immediately to the west of the entrance from the Cowgate.
The western tenement is described as (( lying within the burgh of Edinburgh, at
the place called the Grayfreres,” while the other is styled that Temple tenement of land,
lying at the head of the Cowgate, near the Cunzie nook, beside the Minor, or Greyfriars,
on the east, and the common King’s High Street, on the north parts.” Beyond this, in
the Candlemaker Row, a curious little timber-fronted tenement appears, with its gable
surmounted with the antique crow-steps we have described on the Mint buildings and
elsewhere ; an open gallery projects in front, and rude little shot windows admit the light
to the decayed and gloomy chambers within. This, we presume, to be the Cunzie nook
referred to above, a place where the Mint had no doubt been established at 6ome early
period, possibly during some of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary of Guize,’
1 Caledonia, voL i p. 599.
“ Vpoun the 21 day of Julij [1559], Jamea, commendatare of Sanctandrois, and Alexander, erle of Glencarne,
with thair assistaria callit the congregatioun, past from Edinburgh to Halyrudhous, and thair tu& and iotromettit with
the irois of the cuneehous, and brocht the same to the said burgh of Edinburgh, to the priour of Sanctandrois lugeing,
