388 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
striking character. On the centre key-stone of the eastern chapel, the monogram of
the Virgin is inwrought with the leaves of a gracefully sculptured wreath, and the same
is repeated in a simpler form on one of the bosses of the neighbouring aisle. But the
most interesting of these decorations are the heraldic devices which form the prominent
ornaments on the capital of the pillar. These consist, on the south side, of the arm8
of Robert, Duke of Albany, the second son of King Robert 11. ; and, on the north side,
of those of Archibald, fourth Earl of Douglas. In the year 1401, David, Duke of
Rothsay, the unfortunate son of Robert III., was arrested by his uncle, the Duke of
Albany and Governor of Scotland, with the consent of the king his father, who had
been incensed against him by the daily complaints which his uncle contrived to have
carried to the old king’s ear. The circumstances of his death have been pictured with
thrilling effect in the popular pages of (( The Fair Maid of Perth.” He was committed
a close prisoner to the dungeon of Falkland Castle, and there starved to death, notwithstanding
the intervention of a maiden and nurse, who experienced a far different fate
from that assigned by Scott, though their efforts to rescue the Prince from his horrible
death are described with considerable accuracy. “The Blacke Booke of Scone saith,
that the Earle Douglas was with the Governour when he brought the Duke from Saint
Andrew’s to Falkland,” having probably been exasperated against the latter, who was
his own brother-in-law, by the indignity which hiu licentious courses put upon his sister.
Such are the two Scottish nobles whose armorial bearings still grace the capital of the
pillar in the old chapel. It is the only other case in which they are found acting in
concert besides the dark deed already referred to ; and it seems no unreasonable inference
to draw from such a coincidence, that this chapel had been founded and endowed by them
as an expiatory offering for that deed of blood, and its chaplain .probably appointed to say
masses for their victim’s soul. A view of this interesting and beautiful part of the
interior of St Giles’s Church-with the gallery and pews removed-forms the vignette at
the head of the chapter.
The transepts of the church as they existed before 1829, afforded no less satisfactory
evidence of the progress of the building. Distinct traces remained of the termination of
the south transept a few feet beyond the pillars that separated the south aisle of the choir
from Preston’s, or the Assembly Aisle, as it was latterly termed. Beyond this, the
groining of the roof entirely differed from the older portion, exhibiting unequivocal evidence
of being the work of a later age. This part of the Old Church forms-or rather, we
should perhaps say, formed-by far the most interesting portion of the whole building,
from its many associations with the eminent men of other days. Here it was that Walter
Chepman, a burgess of Edinburgh, famous as the introducer of the printing-press to
Scotland, founded and endowed a chaplainry at the. altar of St John the Evangelist, (( in
honour of God, the Virgin Mary, St John the Apostle and Evangelist, and all Saints.”
The charter is dated 1st August 1513, an era of peculiar interest. Scotland was then
rejoicing in all the prosperity and happiness consequent on the wise and beneficent reign
of James IV. Learning was visited with the highest favour of the court, and literature
wat3 rapidly extending its influence under the zealous co-operation of Dunbar, Douglas,
Hume of Godacroft’s Hist. of the Douglases, p. 118. Hume attempts to free the Earl from the charge, but with
little a u c c ~ .
