APPENDIX. 4-29
of the conhgration. In 1678 the furnishing of the steeple waa completed, by putting up there the old clock
that had formerly belonged to that of the Weigh-house.
The bequest of Thomas Moodie appears to have cost ita trustees some little concern aa to how to dispm of
it, a few years having sufficed to effect very radical changes on the ideas of the civic Council tu to the church
accommodation required by the citizens. The Town of Edinburgh
obtain an act anent Thomas Moodie’s legacy and mortification to them of 20,OOO merks, that in regard
they have no use for a church (which was the end whereto he destined it), that therefore they might be allowed to
invert the same to some other public work The Articles and Parliament recommended the Town to the Privy
Council, to see the will of the defunct fuElled as near as could be; for it comes near to sacrilege to invert a
pious donation. The Town offers to buy with it a peal of Bells to hang in St Gile’s Steeple, tu ring musically
and to warn-to Church, and to build B Tolbooth above the West Port of Edinburgh, and to put Thomas
Moodie’s name and arms thereon. Some thought it better to make it a stipend to tbe Lady Pester’s Kirk, or
to a minister to preach to all the prisoners in the Canongate and Edinburgh Tolbooths, and at the Correctionhouse,
Sunday about.” In the records of the Privy Council, May 15,1688, when Moodie’s bequest was Snally
appropriated towards providing the ejected burghers of Canongate with a Parish Church, it appears that the
annual interest of it had been appropriated to the payment of the Bishop of Edinburgh’s house rent. (Fonntsinhnll‘
s Decisions, voL i p. 505.) The arms of Moodie now form a prominent ornament on the front of the
Canongate Church. In the vestry an elevation of the church is i~servdh,a ving a steeple attached to ita south
front ; but the funds which had been raised for this ornamental addition were appropriated to build the Chapel
of Ease at the head of New Street.
Fountainhall records in 1681 (VOL i p. 156),
LADYP EFYPCEHRvR’ScE -The Inventar of Pious Donations appends to a long list of pious mwtdjicath by
Lady Yester, a genealogical sketch, which we correct and complete from Wood, who thus describw the ecclesiastical
origin of the Lothiin family :--“ Mark Ker, second son of Sir Andrew Ker of Cessford, entering into
holy orders, was promoted in 1546 to the dignity of Abbot of Newbottle ; which station he possessed at the
Reformation, 1560, when he renounced the profession of Popery, and held hie benefice in commendam, . . .
He married Lady Helen Lesly, second daughter of George fourth Earl of Rothes, and by her had issue,
Mark. On the death of hie father in 1584, the Commendatorship of Newbottle, to which the latter had been
provided by Queen Mary in 1567, waa ratified to him by letters under the Qreat Seal ; and he was also
appointed one of the extraordinary Lords of Seasion in his father’s place, 12th November 1584. He had the
lands of Newbottle erected into a barony, with the title of a Baron, 28th July 1587,” &c This waa the father
of Lady Yester, of whom the following account appears in the Inwentar: “The e‘ Dame Margaret Ker was
the eldest [the third] daughter of Mark Commendator of Newbottle, one of the 101 of council and -ion, yrafter
E. of Lothian, procreat betwixt him and LMargaretJ Maxwell, a daughter of Jo. lo/ Herries, In her young
years she was 1st married to Ja Lo. Hay of Yester, and by her wise and vertuous government, she was most
instrumental in preserving and improving of the s‘ estate. By him she had two sons, Jo. 10/ Hay of Pester,
yrafter E. of Tweedale, and Sir Wm. her 2d son, for whom she purchased the Barrone of Lmplam, &c, The s’
Dame Margaret Ker having lived many years a widow, she married Sir Andrew Ker, younger of Fernyhirst,
and procured his father to be made Lo/ Jedburgh. Besides the many Gardens, Buildin- Parka, made be her
in all placea belonging to her husband, in every paroch qr either of her husbands had money-renN she erected
and built Hospitals and e0hooI.a’ After this follows the list, which is altogether -rising, aa evidence of continued
muniticence and benevolent piety ; among which are the following item +
“Towards the building of the Town [Tron?] Kirk of Ehr., &e gifted loo0 m.
“She built an kirk near the High School in Ed’., and bestowed toward the building y’of $lOOOa with 5000
h~ for the use of the minister of $e e‘ church, and a little before her death caused joyne y’to an little Isle for
the use of the minister, q* she lies interred, with an tomb in the wall, with this inscription :-
430 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
I‘ Ita needless to erect a marble Tomb :
The daily bread, that for the hungry womb,
And bread of life thy bounty hath provided,
For hungry mula, all times to be divided ;
World-lasting monuments &all reare,
That shall endure till Christ himself appear.
Pos’d waa thy life ; prepar’d thy happy end ;
Nothing in either wa8 without commend,
Let it be the care of all who live hereafter,
To live and die like Margaret Lady Yeater :
Who died 15 March 1647. Her age 75.”
The old Lady Yester’s Church built in 1644, stood at the corner of the High School Wynd, surrounded by
a churchyard. It is a proof of the flimsy character of modern ecclesiastical edifices, aa well aa the little veneration
they excited in the minds of the worshippers, that this church ha already disappeared, and been rebuilt
considerably to the westward, in a very strange and hondewript style of architecture. The tomb of the foundress,
and a tablet recording her good works, are both rebuilt in the New Church, and we presume her body
has also been removed to the new 64minister‘s little isle.”
N. CORPORATION AND MASONIC HALLS.
CANDLEMAKERs.-The H d of this ancient Corporation still stands at the Candlemaker Row, with the arms
of the Craft boldly cut over the doorway on a large panel, and beneath, their appropriate motto, Omnia rnanitesta
Euce, Internally, however, the hall is subdivided into sundry small apartments ; much more circumscribed
accommodation sufficing for the assembly of the fraternity in these days of gaslight and reform. The Candlemakers
of Edinburgh were incorporated by virtue of a Seal of Cause granted them in 1517, wherein it is
required “That na maner of Man nor Woman occupy the said Craft, as to be ane Maister, and to set up Buit,
bot @he be ane Freman, or ells an Freman’cl Wyfe of the said Craft, allanerlie ; and quhan thay set up Buit,
thay sall pay to Sanct Geil’s Wark, half a mark of sylver, and to the Reparatioun, bylding and uphaldiug of the
Licht of ony misterfull Alter within the College Kirk of Sanct Geils, quhair the said Deykin and Craftismen
thinks maist neidfull, and half ane Mark by and q u h i l l the said Craftismen be furniat of ane Alter of thair
awin. And in lykwayis, ilk Maister and Occupiar of the said Craft, sall, in the Honour of Almichtie God, and
of his blessit Mother, Sanct Marie, and of our Patroun, Sanct Geill, and of all Sanctis of Heaven, sall gifzeirlie
to the helping and furthering of ony guid Reparatioun, either of Licht or ony other neidfull wark till ony Alter
situate within the College Kirk, maist neidfull, Ten Shilling ; and to be gaderit be the Deykin of the said
Craft, ay and quhill thay be provydit of an Alter to thameselfFis ; and he that disobeis the same, the Deykin
and the Leif of the Craft sall poynd with ane Officiar of the Toun, and gar him pay walx to oure Lady’s Alter,
quhill thay get an Alter of thair awin. And that nane of the said Craftismen send ony Lads, Boyis, or Servands,
oppinlie upoun the Hie-gaitt with ony Candill, to roup or to sell in playne Streites, under the payne of escheiting
of the Candill, paying ane pund of walx to oure Lady’s Alter, the first falt,” &c. It doea not appear whether
or not the Craft ever founded an altar or adopted a patron saint of their own, before the new Ziyht of the Reformers
of the Congregation put an end to the whole system of candle-gifta and forfeits to the altars of St Giles’s
Church. The venerable fraternity of Candlemakers still exists, no unworthy sample of a close corporation.
The number of its members amounts to’three, who annually meet for the purpose of electing the o5iice-bearers
of the corporation, and distributing equitably the d r i e s and other perquisite8 accruing to them from ita funds
in return for their onemus duties !
..
