ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 397
1593, she leaves “ to ewerie ane of the pure folkis in the Hospitall of the Trinitie College,
and of the Toun College of the west end of the College Kirk, iij S. iiij d.”’
One other collegiate church was enclosed within the walls of the ancient capital, known
as that of St Nary in-the-Fields, or, more commonly, the Hirk-of-Field. We have
already referred to it as the scene of one of the most extraordinary deeds of violence that
the history of any age or country records-the murder of Darnley, the husband of Queen
Mary, perpetrated by Bothwell and his accomplices on the night of the 9th of February
1567, when the Provost’s house, in which he lodged, was blown into the air with pnpowder,
involving both Darnley and his servant in the ruins.’ When young Roland
Graeme, the hero of the Ahbot, draws near for the first time to the Scottish capital, under
the guidance of the bluff falconer, Adam Woodcock, he is represented exclaiming on a
sudden-“ Blessed Lady, what goodly house is that which is lying all in ruins so close to
the city? Have they been playing at the Abbot of Unreason here, and ended the gambol
by burning the church ? ” The ruins that excited young Graeme’s astonishment were none
other than those of the Kirk-of-Field, which stood on the sight of the present University
buildings. It appears in the view of 1544, as a large cross church, with a lofty central
tower ; and the general accuracy of this representation is in some degree confirmed by the
correspondence of the tower to another view of it taken immediately after the murder of
Da.mley, when the church was in ruins. The latter drawing, which has evidently been made
in order to convey an accurate idea of the scene of the murder to the English Court, is preserved
in the State Paper Office, and a fac-simile of it is given in Chalmers’ Life of Queeu
Mary. The history of the Collegiate Church of St Mary in-the-Fields presents scarcely
any other feature of interest than that which attaches to it as the scene of so strange and
memorable %tragedy. Its age and its founder are alike unknown. It was governed by a
provost, who, with eight prebendaries and two choristers, composed the college, with the
addition of an hospital for poor bedemen ; and it is probable that its foundation dated no
earlier than the ateenth century, as all the augmentations of it which are mentioned in
the “ Inventar of Pious Donations,” belong to the sixteenth century. Bishop Lesley
records, in 1558, that the Erle of Argyle and all his cumpanie entered in the toune of
Edinburgh without anye resistance, quhair thay war weill receaved; and suddantlie the
Black and Gray Freris places war spulyeit and cassin doune, the hail1 growing treis plucked
up be the ruittis; the Trinitie College and all the prebindaris houses thairof lykewise
cassin doun ; the altaris. and images within Sanct Gelis Kirke and the Kirk-of-Field
destroyed and brint.”’ It seems probable, however, that the Collegiate church of St
’ Nary-in-the-Field was already shorn of its costliest spoils before the Reformers of the
Congregation visited it in 1558. In the ‘( Inventory of the Townis purchase from the
Marquis of Hamilton, in 1613,” with a view to the founding of the college, we have
found a.n abstract of a feu charter granted by Mr Alexander Forrest, provost of the
Collegiate Church of the blessed Mary in-the-Fields‘near Edin’., and by the prebends of
the said church,” bearing date 1554, wherein, among other reasons speciiied, it is
stated : ‘‘ considering that ther houses, especialy ther hospital annexed and incorporated
with ther college, were burnt doun and destroyed by their auld enemies of England, so
that nothing of their said hospital was left, but they are altogether waste and entirely
‘
I Bannatyne Misc., vol. ii p. 221. ante, p. 78. a Lesley, p, 275.
