24 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
horsis under the Castle wall, in the barrace,” the Scottish knight’s horse having failed
him in the first onset, they encountered on foot, continuing the contest for a full hour, till
the Dutchman being struck to the ground, the King cast his hat over the Castle wall a8 a
signal to stay the combat, while the heralds and trumpeters proclaimed Sir Patrick the
victor.
A royal experiment, of a more subtle nature, may be worth recording, as a sample of
the manners of the age. The King caused a dumb woman to be transported to the neighbouring
island of Inchkeith, and there being properly lodged and provisioned, two infants
were entrusted to her care, in order to discover by the language they should adopt, what
was the original human tongue. The result seems to have been very satisfactory, as, after
allowing them a suficient time,
it was found that ‘‘ they spak very
guid Ebrew I ”
But it is not alone by knightly
feats of arms, and the rude chivalry
of the Middle Ages, that
the court of James IV. is distinguished.
The Scottish capital,
during his reign, was the residence
of men high in every department
of learning and the arts.
Gawin Douglas, afterwards
Bishop of Dunkeld, the wellknown
author of “ The Palice of
Honour,” and the translator of
Virgil’s Bneid into Scottish
verse, was at this time Provost
of St Giles’s,’ and dedicated his
poem to the
“ Maist gracious Prince ouir Souerain Jamea the Feird,
Supreme honour renoun of cheualrie.”
Dunbar, “ the greatest poet that Scotland has produced,” ’ was in close and familiar
attendance on the court, and with him Kennedy, “ his kindly foe,” and Sir John Ross, and
“ Gentill Roull of Corstorphine,” as well as others afterwards enumerated by Dunbar, in his
“ Lament for the Makaris.” Many characteristic and very graphic allusions to the manners
of the age have been preserved in the poems that still exist, by them affording a curious
insight into the Scottish city and capital of the James’s. Indeed, the local and temporary
allusions that occur in their most serious pieces, are often quaint and amusing, in the highest
degree, as in Kennedy’s “ Passioun of Grist :”-
“ In the Tolbuth then Pilot enterit in,
Callit on Chrid, and sperit gif He wea King I ”
Keith’a Bishops, 8v0, 1824;~. 468. ’ Ellis’ Specimens, Svo, 1845, vol. i. p. 304.
VIGNETTE-North-e118t pillar, St Qiles’s choir.
YAMES IV. TO THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN.
And in Dunbar’s (‘ Droichis part of the Play ; ”I-
“My name is WELTE, thairfor be blyth,
I come heir comfort yow to kyth ;
Supposa that wretcbis wryng and wryth,
All darth I sal1 gar d6 ;
For sekerly, the treuth to tell,
I come amang yow heir to duel1 ;
Fra sound of Sanct Gelis bell,
Nevir think I tu fl6.
‘‘ Quharfor in Scotland come I heir,
With yow to byde and peraeveir,
In Edinburgh, quhar ia meriaat cheir,
Plesans, disport and play ;
Quhilk is the lampe, aod A per se,
Of this regioun, in all de@,
Of welefair, and of hooest8,
Renoune, and riche aray.”
Other local allusions of a similar nature might be selected, but these may suffice as
examples.
In the year 1496, Edinburgh wag visited by the famous Perkin Warbeck,S the
reputed Duke of York, who was murdered in the Tower. He arrived with a rich equipage
and a gallant train of followers, and was received by the King with every token of sincerity,
as the unfortunat,e Richard Plantagenet, son to King Edward IV. It is not easy
now, nor is it our province to decide, how far the King was really imposed on by his
specious tale, or if he was solely actua€ed by reasons of state policy. He undoubtedly
espoused his cause with zeal; involving, as it did, not only a breach with his intended
father-in-law, Henry VII. ; but the immediate prospect of a war with England, an event
seemingly at no time an object of peat dislike to the Scottish nation : and, moreover, testXed
the sincerity of his partizanship, by giving him in marriage his own kinswoman, the
Lady Catherine Gordon, whose beauty long after procured her at the English Court the
name of the White Rose. The peaceful policy of the English Monarch speedily won over
the inclinations of his future son-in-law, and the negotiations were renewed for the mar- .
riage of Jamea with the Princess Margaret; at the same time that, messengers arrived at
Holyrood Palace, bearing, a$ a gift from Pope Julius 11. to the Scottish King, a sword
and diadem wrought ‘with flowers of gold, which had been consecrated by him on Christmas
eve ; ’ the former of which is still preserved among the Scottish regalia, in Edinburgh
Castle.
Fully four years elapsed between the conclusion of the treaty of marriage and its fuElment
; and during that time, the Eing was actively occupied in preparations for the reception
of his bride. Up to this time, the Scottish Kings seem to have resided at the Abbey
of Holyrood, as the abbot’s guests : but he now set earnestly to work, €or the bigging of
a palace beside the Abbay of the Haly Croce,” the only part of which still in existence
is the for-yet ” or vaulted gateway to the Abbey Court, the south wall and other remains
of which may yet be seen in the Court-house of the Abbey, the indications of the arches
of its groined roof being still visible on the outer wall. The Treasurer’s accounts of the
Dunbar’s Poems, vol. ii p. 41.
. 3 Ebwthornden, p. 69.
’ Martial Achieve., voL ii. p. 506. ‘ Liber Cartarurn Sancta3 Cruck, Pref. 58.
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