APPENDIX. 437
airmy, wer all present. Thair wes a gaird, also, of the maist able burgwis of the bun, quha did gaird the
crow, tabill and streitis during this feast, all of thame weill apperrellit, and with partizens in thair handia, to
the number of four or fyve hundreth persones or thaiiby, in Tery gude equipage and ordor. And in the meantyme,
quhyll thai wer thus feasting at the CroFe, the haill bellie in Edinburgh and Cannogait did reing, the
drumes did beatt, trumpettia soundit, the haill troupes on horsbak, and sodgeria on fute being also within the
toun at this tyme and upone service, with the haill inhabitantes, both men, wemen, and chyldrene, gave thair
severall volyes. Thair wer numberis of trumpettia and trumpettouris at this solempnitie, quha actit thak
pairtes formalie. Farder, at nycht thair wes bonefpes put out throw the haill streitis of Edinburgh, and fyre
workis both thair and at the Castell of Edinburgh, and within the Citidaill of Leith, that nicht, in abundance,
till eftir xij houris and moir. Thair wer also sex violeg thrie of them base violes, playing thair continuallie.
Thair .wer also sum musicians placed thair, quha wer resolvit to act thair pairtes, and wer willing and reddy,
bot by ressone of the frequent acclamationes and cryes of the pepill universallie throw the haill bun, thair
purpos wes interruptit. Bachus also, being set upone ane punzeon of wyne upon the frontische pece of the
Croce with hi~l cumerhaldis, wes not ydle. And in the end of this solempnitie, the effigia of that notable
tyrant and traytor Oliver, being set up upone a pole, and the Devill upone aneuther, upone the Castell HiU of
Edinburgh ; it wes ordored by fyre wark, ingyne, and trayne, the devill did chase that traytour, and persewit
him still, till he blew him in the air.”
BURNINGTH E POPE.-of a somewhat different character are the proceedings with which the populace celebrated
the Christmas of 1680, in defiance of the more hospitable intentions of the Magistrates, who were anxious
that no occurrence of an unpalatable nature should d ethe serenity of the Duke of York, who had come to
Scotland as Commissioner and representative of his royal brother Charles II., at the meeting of the Scottish
Estates. The following is the account of these proceedings furnished by Lord Fountainhall, in his Hietorical
Observes :-
“On the 26 of Dece.mber 1680, being Christmas day, some of the schollars of the Colledge of Edinburgh
having contributed together for the making ane effigies and image of the Pope, they entred in a bond and combination
to burne him after a solemne procession on Yuille day, and gave oaths on to another for the secrecy of
it ; yet it came abroad, and a Councell being called ou the 24 of December, at night, for preventing it, they
ordered the King’s forces to be brought within the City of Edinburgh to oppose it, and seized on some English
boyes of the name of Gray and others the next morning in thair beds, and imprisoned thame. Yet all this did
. not divert the designe, but, by a witty stratagem, the boyes carried a portrait to the Castlehil (as if this blind
had been the true on, and they had intended to carry it in procession doune the street9 and performe ther ceremony
and pageantrie in the Abbey Court over against the Duke of Albanies windows), which made all the
forces draw up at the West Bow head, and in the Grasse Mercat, leist the boyes should escape by coming doune
the South Back of the Castle, and thus having stopped all avenues aa they thought, thir boyes escaped by
running doune vennels leadig to the North Loch side, and other boyes carried the true effigies from the
Grammar Schooll yeard to the head of Blackfreis Wind, and that on the Hy-Street, h t clodded the picture
with dirt, and then set fyre to the pouder within the trunk of his body, and so departed. This was highlie
resented by some as ane inhospitall affront, deaigned to the Duke OP York (though it was only to his religion and
not to himselfe), being a stranger among us (though he be deschended of Scots blood), and that it was but ane
aperie of the London apprenticecl, who had done the like before, and that it opened the Papists’ mouths to call
UI) cruelL But what the boyes did in show, the Papists ware wont to do to us as ha?reticka in reality ; and 8ome
thought boyes might as well sport themselfes with this, as miniaters in the pulpit afErme the Popes to have
been bougereq hsreticks, adulterers, sorcerers, sodomites, &c. ; the punishment whereof by all laws is Vivi
comburium, burning alive ; and it waa a compensation for his excommunicating all Protestants yearly on this
day. In summe, it was a childish folly, and scarse deserved so much notice should have been taken of it.,’
The same incremation of his Holiness was re-enacted on the succeeding Cbistmas of 1681, accompanied
.
438 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
with some additional proceedings characteristic of the temper of the Government, and the consequent reaction
produced on the popular *d. Fountainhall remarks :-((We see a great s t i r made for thecolleginem burning
the Pope at Christmas 1680 ; this year the boyes and prentices forboor ther solemnity on Zuille day, because it
happened to be a Sunday, but they had it on the 26th of December at night. Ther preparations were BO quiet
that none suspected it this year ; they brought him to the Croce, and fixed his chair in that place wher the
gallows stands, he was trucked up in a red goune and a mitar with 2 keyea over his arme, a crucifix in on
hand and the oath of the Test in the other, then they put fyre to him, and it brunt lenthy till it came to the
pouder at which he blew up in the air, While they ware at this employment ther ware lightnings and claps
of thunder, which is very unusuall at that season of the year. At this tyme many things were done in mockerie
.of the Test : on I shall tell. The children of Heriots Hospital1 finding that the dog which keiped the yairds
of that Hospitd had a public charge and office, they ordained him to take the Test, and offered him the paper,
but he, loving a bone rather than it, absolutely refused it ; then they rubbed it over with butter (which they
called ane Explication of the Teat in imitation of Argile), and he licked of the butter but did spite out the
paper, for which they held a jurie on him, and in derision of the sentence against Argile, they found the dog
guilty of treason, and actually hanged him,”
X, WEST BOW. MAJOR WEIR
IN our account of Major weir (Part ii. chap. ixi), his sister is styled Gnzel Weir, in accordance with Master
Jam Frazw’s Providential Passages, a MS. from which Mr George Sinclair has evidently borrowed the
greater portion of his account of the Major, without acknowledging the source of his information. In Law’s
Memorials, however, as well as h Shclair’s BaSatan’8 Ittvisible WorZd Discovered, she bears the name of Jean
Weir, by which she is most frequently alluded to. One of the witnesses examined on the trial of this noted
wizard, as appears from the Crimiltal Record in the Register EIouse of Edinburgh, wag “ Maister John Sinclare,
minister at Ormistoune,” who deponed, among other strange items of evidence, that (‘having asked him if he
had seen the deivell, he answered, that any fealling he ever hade of him was in the dark I”-Law‘a Memorials,
note, p. 26.
Projecta for improving the Old Town of Edinburgh, and for extending it beyond its ancient limits, appear
to have engaged gened attention even so early a3 the reign of Charles II., when the court and levees of the
Duke of York at Holyrood, revived somewhat of the old life and splendour of the Scottish capital, which her
citizens had so long been strangers to. On account of the narrow limits of the Old Town, its inhabitanta were
on nearly the same familiar footing a8 those of a country village ; and schemes of improvement that might now
lie unheeded for years in the hands of some civic committee, were then discussed at every club and changehouse,
until they became incorporated among the $xed idem of the population, affording at any time a ready
theme for the display of wisdom by that industrious class of idlers, usually composed of retired traders,
country lairda, and half-pay officers, to whom a subject for grumbling over, and improving in theory, is aa
necessary as daily food.
In Cough’s British Topography (vol. ii p. 674), the following account appears of an ingenious model of
Edinburgh, constructed about the middle of last century. It was, no doubt, furnished to the author by George
Paton, and shows how early some of the improvement schemes, which have since cost the citizens so much both
in antipuitier and taxes, were made the subject of reforming speculations, and favourably entertained as
desirable alterations on the mug and closely-packed little Scottish capital of the eighteenth century:-
