ECCLESIASTICAL ANTIQUITIES. 41 I
the entrance to the churchyard, at the foot of the Candlemaker Row, the following moral
distich was originally inscribed :-
Remember, Man, as thou goes by,
AE thou art now, 80 once was I ;
As I am now, 80 shalt thou be ;
Remember, Man, that thou must die.’
The principal gateway, opposite the east end of the church, is a work of more recent
construction, and appears, from the records of Monteith, to have involved the destruction
of the monument of no less illustrious a citizen than Alexander Miller, master tailor to
King James VI., who died in the year 1616. The Old Greyfriars’ Church, as it was styled,
was suddenly destroyed by a fire which broke out on the morning of Sunday the 19th of
January 1845, and presented to the astonished parishioners a blazing mass of ruins as they
assembled for the services of the day. It bore on the north-east pillar the date 1613, and
on a panel surmounting the east gable that of 1614, underneath the city arms. It was a
clumsy, inconvenient, and ungainly edifice, with few historical associations and no architectural
beauties to excite any regret at its removaL It is very different, however,
with the surrounding churchyard, which it disfigured with. its lumpish deformity. Its
monuments and other memorials of the illustrious dead who repose there form an object
of attraction no less for their interesting associations than their picturesque beauty ; while
it is memorable in Scottish history as the scene of the signing of the Covenant by the
enthusiastic leaguers of 1638, and the place of captivity, under circumstances of peculiar
cruelty, of the insurgent Covenanters taken in arms at Bothwell Brig. Like other great
cemeteries it forms the peaceful resting-place of rival statesmen and politicians, and of many
strangely diverse in life and fortune. Here mingle the ashes of George Heriot, the father
of the royal goldsmith ; George Buchanan, Alexander Henderson, Sir George Mackenzie,
Sir James Stewart, Principal Carstairs, Sir John de Medina, the painter; Allan Ramsay,
Colin Maclaurin, Thomas Ruddiman, and many others distinguished in their age for rank
or genius.
The Carmelites, or Whitefriars, though introduced into Scotland in the thirteenth
century, did not acquire an establishment in Edinburgh till 1518, when the Provost and
Bailies, conveyed, by charter dated the 13th April, “ to Jo. Malcolme, provincial of the
Carmelites, and his mcceseors, y’ lands of Green-side, with the chapel1 or kirk of the Holy
Cross y’of.” From this we learn that a chapel existed there in ancient times, of which no
other record has been preserved, and adjoining it was a cross called the Rood of Greenside.
It was the scene of martyrdom of David Stratoun and Norman Gourlay, a priest and layman,
who were tried at Holyrood House, in the presence of James V. ; and on the 27th of
August 1534, were led ‘‘ to a place besydis the Roode of Grepsyd, and thair thei two war
boyth hanged and brunt, according to the mercy of the Papisticall Kirk.”’ The tradition
has already been referred to that assigns the same locality for the burning of Major Weir.
On the suppression of the order of Carmelites at the Reformation, John Robertson, a
benevolent merchant, founded on the site of their convent an hospital for lepers, “pursuant
Monteith’s Theatrum Mortalium, p. 1. The last word is evidently intended to be pronounced in the old broad
Scottish fashion, &e. ’ Inventar of Pious Donations. Knox’s Hist., Wodrow Soc., uol i. p. 60.
412 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
to a vow on his receiving a signal mercy from God.” The hospital was placed under the
control of the Town Council, who drew up a series of most gtringent statutes to secure the
good conduct and above all the perfect isolation of the wretched inmates. A gallows was
erected at the end of the hospital to enforce obedience, and eveu the opening of the gate
between sunset and sunrise was declared punishable with the halter. The grassy vale,
within whose natural amphitheatre the earliest exhibitions of the regular drama were
witnessed by the Court of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, and where the crowds of the
neighbouring capital were attracted at one time by the pastimes that accompanied a Wupinschaw,
and at another by the terrors of judicial vengeance, retained till near the close of
last century nearly the same features that led to its selection for such displays in the reign
of James 11. Pennant, writing in 1769, remarks :-‘( In my walk this evening I passed
by a deep and wide hollow beneath the Caltoun Hill, the place where those imaginary
criminals, witches, and sorcerers, in less enlightened times, were burnt ; and where at festive
Bemons the gay and gallant held their tilts and tournaments.” l The locality still retains
its ancient name of Greenside; but the grassy slope, fromwhence it derived its name, ia
now one of the most densely-populated districts of the New Town.
Beyond the Monastery of, the Carmelites, on the outskirts of Leith, at the south-west
corner of St Anthony’s Wynd, stood the Preceptory of St Anthony, founded by Sir
Robert Logan of Restalrig in 1435. This was the only establishment of the order in
Scotland. They followed the rule of St Augustine, and appear to have been a sort of
religious knights, though not Knight Templars, as they are erroneously styled by Maitland,
who has been misled in this by a charter of James VI. The “Rentale Buke,”
containing a list of the benefactors to the preceptory, written on vellum, in the year 1526,
with a few additions in a later hand, is preserved in the Advocates’ Library, wherein ‘‘ It
is statuit and ordanit in our Scheptour for sindri resonabil causis that the saulis of thaim
that has gevin zeirlye perpetual1 rent to this Abbay and Hospital1 of Sanct Antonis besyd
Leith, or has augmentit Goddis seruice be fundacion, or ony vther vays has gevyn substanciusly
of thair gudis to the byggyn reperacion and vphaldyng of the forsaid Abbay and
place, that thai be prayit for euerylk sunday till the day of dome.” a The list of benefactors
which follows exhibits a pretty numerous array, though in the majority of cases the
benefactions are of no great value. The obituary closes in 1499, and in little more than
half a century thereafter, the prayers for the dead, which the chapter of the preceptory
had ordained to last till the day of doom, were abruptly brought to a close, and the church
or preceptory reduced nearly to a heap of ruins, during the siege of Leith in 1560.’ No
other Scottish foundation appears to have been dedicated to this saint, notwithstanding
his celebrity by means of the picturesque legends which the Romish calender associates
with his name. The ancient Hermitage and Chapel of St Anthony, which occupies a site
of such singular beauty underneath the overhanging crags of Arthur’s Seat, are believed
to have formed a dependency of the preceptory at Leith, and to have been placed there to
catch the seaman’s eye as he entered the Firth, or departed on some long and perilous
voyage ; when his vows and offerings wouId be most freely made to the patron saint, and
the hermit who ministered at his altar. No record, however, now remains to add to the
1 Pennant’s Tour, voL i. p. 69, Lit of Benefadora, &c. Bann. Misc., vol. i i p. 299. Ante, p. 66.
