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Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time

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APPENDIX. 443 all these oppressive exactions is imposed on INGELBDEA UMPF BAVILLEa, nd a proportinnately severe tine is required from hie vassals.-(Lord Hades’s Annals, vol. i p. 288.) This, therefore, indicates one of the chief leaders of the Scota against their English invaders. His fine was to extend over a perid of ten yeara, long before which Edwad was in his grave, and nearly every place of strength in Scotland had been wreated from his imbecile son, There seems little reason to doubt that Ingelram de Umtravile would early avail himself of an opportunity to renounce a foreign ydce burdened by such exactions, and to bear his part in expelling the invaders from the kingdom. The following, however, is the very different account of Nisbet, in hie ‘‘ Historical and Critical remarks on the Ragman Roll” (p. 11), if it refer to the eame person :- “Ingelramus de Umphravile was a branch of the Umfraville family that were Englishmen, but posRessed of 8 great estate in Angus, and elsewhere, which they lost, because they would not renounce their allegiance to England, and turn honest Scotsmen. In the rolls of King Robert I., there are charters of lands granted by that Prince, upon the narratix-e that the lands had formerly belonged, and forfeited to the Crown, by the attainder of Ingelramus de Umphramk.” At an early date the Scottish Umfradles occupied a high rank. In 1243, Gilbert de Umfraville, Lord of Pmdhow and Herbottil, in Northumberland, became Earl of Angus, by right of his marriage with Matilda, Countess in her own right. The name of Cilleberto de Umframuill appears aa a witnew to a confirmation of one of the charters of Holyrood Abbey, granted by William the Lyon (Liber Cartarurn Sancte Crucis, p. 24) ; and in a Rubsequent charter in the same reign he appears as bestowing a carukate of land in Kinard on the w e Abbey (Ibid, p. 34). These notes can afford at best only grounds for surmise as to the knight whose memorial cross was not altogether demolished till the year 1810. The base of it, which remained on ita ancient site till that recent date, was a mass of whinstone, measuring fully five feet square, by about three feet high above ground. There was a square hole in the centre of it, wherein the shaft of the cross- had been inserted. We are informed that it was broken up and used for paving the road. The poet Claudero, of whom some account is given in a succeeding note, haa dedicated an elegy to the “Tun efield Nine,’’ On the Pollution of St Lemrd’s Hill, a conseerated and ancient burial-place, near EdinburgLn The following stanzas will be sufficient to account for the complete eradication of every vestige of its hospital and graves from the ancient site :- . “ The High Priest there, with art and care, Hath purg’d with gardner‘a skill, And trench‘d out bones of Adam’s sons, Repoa’d in Leonard’s Hill ! “ Graves of the dead, thrown up with spade, Where long they slept full s t i And turnips grow, from human POW, Upon St Leonard’a Hill 1 ” XIV. GREYFRIARS’ MONASTERY. THE residence of Henry VI. of England, as well as his heroic Queen and their son, at the Greyfriars Monastery in the Grassmarket, after the total overthrow of that unfortunate monarch’s adherents at the Battle of Towton, i a referred to in the description of the Grassmarket (pages 17 and 342). Thevisit of Henry to the Scottish capital has, however, been altogether denied by aome writers. The following note by Sir W, Scott, on the fifth canto of Marmion, ought to place this at least beyond doubt :-
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444 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH. 46 Henry VI. with his Queen, his heir, and the chiefs of his family, fled to Scotland after the fatal Battle of Towton. In this note a doubt was formerly expressed, whether Henry VI. came to Edinburgh, though his Queen certainly did ; Mr Pinkerton inclining to believe that he remained at Kirkcudbright. But my noble friend Lord Napier has pointed out to me a grant by Henry of an annuity of forty marks to his Lordship’s ancestor, John Napier, subscribed by the King bimself at Edinburgh, the 28th day of August, in the thirtyninth year of his reign, which corresponds to the year of God, 1461. This grant, Douglas, with hies usual neglect of accuracy, dates in 1368. But this emr being corrected from the copy in Macfarlane’s MSS. pp. 119, 120, removes all scepticism on the subject of Henry VI. being really at Edinburgh. John Napier was son and heir of Sir Alexander Napier, and about this time was Provost of Edinburgh. The hospitable reception of the distressed monarch and his family called forth on Scotland the encomium of Molinet, a contemporary poet. The English people, he say$- Ung nouveau roj crhrent, Par despiteux vouloir, Le vieil en debouthent, Et aon legitime hoir, Qui fugtyf alla prendre D’ESCOEleS g~a rand. De tous sieclea le mendre, Et le plus tollerant.’”-RecoUectim des Awanturea. No such doubt8 seem to have been entertained by earlier writers on the question ‘of Henry’s entertainment at Edinburgh. The author of the Martial Achievements remarks,in his Life of James 111. (Abercombie’s Martial Achievements, vol. ii. p. 384) :-‘A battle ensued between Caxton and Towton, King Edward gained the day, and King Henry, hearing of the event (for he waa not allowed to be at the battle, his presence being thought fatal to either of the parties that had it), hastened with his wife and only 80% first to Berwick, where be left the Duke of Somerset, and then to Edinburgh, where he was received with uncommon civility, being honourably lodged and royally entertained by the joint consent of the then Regents.” The same writer, after detailing various negotiations, and the final agreement entered into, between Henry and the administrators of Government in Scotland, James 111. being then a minor, adds :-<( Thpe transactions being completed, the indefatigable Queen of England left the King, her husband, at his lodgings in the Grey- Frierspf Edinburgh, where hi3 own inclinations to devotion and solitude made him choose to reside, and went with her son into France.”--(Ibid, p. 386.) XV. THE WHITEFRIARS’ MONASTERY. Tsnfollowing curious fact, relating to the Monastery of the Carmelite Friars, founded at Qreenside, under the Calton Hill, in the year 1526, is appended in the form of a note to the description of this monastic order, in the third part of I‘ Lectures on the,Xeligioues ‘Antiquitsees of Edinburgh, by a Member of the Holy Guild of St Joseph” @. 129), and is stated, we have reason to believe, on the authority of a well-known Scottish antiquary :- I( The humble brother of our Holy Quild who is now engaged in an endeavour to form a dloaadicon ~ C O & canurn, informsme, onundoubted anthority, that the succession of the Priors of Greenside is still perpetuated in bhe Carmelite Convent at Rome, and his informant has Been the friar who bore the title of I! PacZre Prwre di Greemide.” . . . . . . .
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