APPENDIX. 43 3
assigned to an earlier reign than that of James VI., while the shape of the shields indicata a much more remote
era
We are indebted to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., for the above spirited etching of Wrychtishousis, a8
seen from the south-west. The principal front of the builcling was to the north-east, and the old tower, which
had formed the nucleus of thia picturesque edifice, and was the most prominent feature in the front view, is seen
here rising above its roof.
VI. PORTEOUS MOB.
A VERY curious allusion to the Porteous Mob occurs in the defence of the celebrated Horne Tooke, on his
trial for libel, in 1777. The judge before whom he pled his own cause was the Earl of Mansfield, whose semicea
were engaged on behalf of the interests of the Scottish capital, at the time when it was sought to subject both
it and and its magistracy to ignominious pains and penalties, in order to gratify the indignant Queen Caroline,
whose unwonted powers as Regent had been insulted by the deed of the rioters, which set her royal pardon at
naught. Lord Mansfield must have known whatever could be communicated to one of the council for the
defence of Edinburgh and its ancient rights, and knowing this, Horne Tooke addresses him :-“ I shall not
trouble you to repeat the particulars of the affair of Captain Porteous at Edinburgh. These gentlemen are so
little pleased with military execution upon themselves, that Porteous was charged by them with murder, he was
prosecuted, convicted, and when he was reprieved after sentence, the people of the town executed that man
themselves, so little did they approve of military execution. Now, gentlemen, there are at thia moment people
of reputation, living in credit, rnaking fortunes under the Croion, who were concerned in that very fmt-who were
concerned in the execution of Porteous. I do not speak it to censure them ; for, however irregular the act, my
mind approves of it.”--“ Trial of John Horne, Esq., for a libel, before the Right Hon. William Earl of Mansfield,
in the Court of King’s Bench, 4th July 1777.” The libel for which he was tried, was a vehement attack
on the conduct of the Ministry on the breaking out of the American war. The verdict involved him both in a
tedious imprisonment and a fine of s200. It can hardly, therefore, be supposed that the defendant would
unadvisedly risk such a statement, so that it affords a singular corroboration of the traditions that represent the
higher classes to have furnished the chief leaders in the Porteoua Mob. We have been told by an old citizen
that Lord Mansfield was himself affirmed to have been among the rioters on the night of Porteoua’s execution ;
but that is exceedingly improbable, m he had then been practising for five years at the English Bar.
.
VII. LADY ANN BOTHWELL’S LAMENT.”
THE account of the heroine of thia beautiful ballad given in the text (page 227) iS hcorrect In “The
Scottish Ballada,” p. 133, it is remarked :-‘‘ The editor, by the assistance of a valued antiquarian friend, is
enabled now to lay a true and certain histoq of the heroine before the public. ‘ Lady Am Bothwell,‘ waa
no other than the Honourable h aBo thwell, sister of Bothwell Bishop of Orkney, at the Reformation, but
who was afterwards raised to a temporal peerage under the title of Lord Holyroodhouse.” As this account is
necessarily wrong, since it was not the Bishop, but his eldest son John, who was created Lord Holpodhouse, Lady
Ann has been described in the text as the daughter of the latter. The following, however, is the h e narrative,
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