416 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
And again, in speaking of domestic pilgrimages, he assigns to this saint the virtues for
which he was most noted by the citizens of Edinburgh in early times :-
Sa doith our commoun populare,
Quhilk war to lang for till declare,
Thair superstitious pilgramagie,
To monie divers imagis :
Sum to Sanct Roche, with diligence,
To naif thame from the pestilence :
For thair teith to Sanct Apollene ;
To Sanct Tredwell to mend thair em.
The Chapel of St Roque has not escaped the notice of the Lord Lyon King’s poetic eulogist,
among the varied features of the landscape that fill up the magnificent picture, as Lord
Marmion rides under the escort of Sir .David Lindsay to the top of Blackford Hill, in his
approach to the Scottish camp, and looks down on the martial array of the kingdom covering
the wooded links of the Borough Muir. James IT. is there represented as occasionally
wending his way to attend mass at the neighbouring Chapels of St Katherine or St Roque ;
nor is it unlikely that the latter may have been the scene of the monarch’s. latest acts of
devotion, ere he led forth that gallant array to perish around him on the Field of Flodden.
The Church of St John the Baptist, which was afterwards converted into the Chapel of the
Convent of St Katherine de Sienna, was then just completed; but Geoge Lord Setoun,
whose widow founded the convent a few years later, and Adam Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell,
her father, were among the nobles who marshalled their followers around the Scottish
standard, to march to the fatal field where both were slain. In accordance with the attributes
ascribed by Lindsay to St Roque, we find his chapel resorted to by the victims of
the plague, who encamped on the Borough Muir during the prevalence of that dreadful
scourge in the sixteenth century ; and the neighbouring cemetery became the resting-place
of those who fell a prey to the pestilence. Among the statutes of the Burgh is the following
for December 1530, “We do yow to wit, forsamekle a8 James Barbour, master and
gouernour of the foule folk on the Mure, is to be clengit, and hes intromettit with sindry
folkis gudis and clais quhilkis ar lyand in Sanct Rokis Chapell, Thairfor al maner of personis
that has ony clame to the said gudis that thai cum on Tysday nixt to cum to the officiaris,
and thar dais to be clengit, certyfyand thaim, and thai do nocht, that all the said clais gif
thai be of litill avail1 sal be brynt, and the laif to be gevin to the pure folkis.”’ k n o t
relates that this ancient chapel-an engraving of which is given in the re-issue of the
quarto edition of his history-narrowly escaped the demolition to which its proprietor had
doomed it about the middle of last century, owing to the superstitious terrors of the workmen
engaged to pull it down. The march of intellect, however, had made rapid strides ere
its doom was a second time pronounced by a new proprietor early in the present century,
when the whole of this interesting and venerable ruin was swept away, as an unsightly
encumbrance to the estate of a retired tradesman !
The teinds or tithes of the Borough Muir belonged of old to the Abbey of Holyrood;
but this did not interfere with the acquirement of nearly the whole of jts broad lands by
private proprietors, aud their transference to various ecclesiastical foundations. The name
Acta and Statutes, Burgh of Edinburgh. Mait. Misc, vol ii. p. 117.
