454 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
any reasonable doubt entertahed, it shows that both King James VI. aud his Queen, Anne of Denmark, have
been entertained there by the Magistrates of the city, in the palmy days of Old Edinburgh :-“1598, May 2.-
The 2 of Maii, the Duck of Holsten got ane banquet in MMman’s ludging, given by the toune of Ed‘. The
Kings M. and the Queine being both y’ ther wes grate solemnitie and mirrines at the said banquet”-(Fragment
of Scottish History, Diary, p, 46.)
QUEENSBEBRHYo usE.-In a foot-note at page 298, it is suggested that Queensberry House oocupies the
site of a mansion built by the celebrated Lord Halton, afterwards Earl of Lauderdale, in 1681. The following
entry in Fountainhall’s Decisions, omitted, like many other of the old Judge’s curious details, in the printed
folio, proves that the house is the same which was built by Lord Halton, and afterwards disposed of to the first
Duke of Queensberry :-
“81 Junij 1686.-By a letter from his Majesty, Queensberry is laid asyde €rom all hi~ places and offices, as
his place in the Treasurie, Priv Counsell, Session, &c., and desired not to goe out of Tome, till he cleared his
accounts. So he bought Lauderdale’s House in the Cannongate.”
XX. THE PILLORY.
BRANDINAGN D MmLATINa.-The strange and barbarous punishmente recorded both by old diarists, and
in the Scottish criminal records, as put in force at the Cross or Tron of Edinburgh, afford no inapt
illustration of the gradual and very slow abandonment of the cruel practices of uncivilised times. In the
sixteenth century, burning or branding on the cheeks, cutting off the ears, and the like savage mutilations were
adjudged for the slightest crimes or misdemeanors. On the 5th May 1530, for example, ‘‘ William Kar oblissis
him that he sall nocht be sene into the fische merkat, nother byand nor selland fische, vnder the pane of
cutting of his lug and bannasing of the toune, t o t gif he haif ane horse of his aune till bring fische to the
merket till sell vniuersale as vther strangearia dois till OUT Souerane Lordis legis.”-(Acts and Statutes of the
Burgh of Edinburgh, Mait. Misc., voL ii p. 101.) At this period the Greyfriars or Bristo Port appears to have
been a usual scene for such judicial terrors. On the 1st July 1530, “Patrick Gowanlok, fleschour, duelland
in the Abbot of Melrosis lugying within this toune,” is banished the town for ever, under pain of death, for
harbouring a woman infected with the pestilence ; “And at the half of his moveable gudia be applyit to
the common workis of this toune for his dehlt, And ala that his seruand woman csllit Jonet Gowane, quhilk
is infekkit, for hir conceling the said seiknes, and passand iu pilgrimage, scho haiffand the pestilens apone hir
that .who ealbe brynt on baith the cheikis and ban& thie toune for ever vnder the pane of deid. And quk
that lykis till sed ju-stice execute in this mater, that thai mm to the Grayfrier port incontinent q&r thai aall et?
the samys put till mtioun.”-(Ibid, p. 106.)
- - .
DROWNINB.--of a different nature is the following scene enacted in the year 1530, without the Greyfriar’s - Port, which was then an unenclosed common on the outskirts of the Borough. Muir, and remained in that state
till it was included within the precincts of the latest extension of the town walls in 1618. Drowning in
the North Loch, and elsewhere, was a frequent punishment inflicted on females. “The quhilk day Katryne
Heriot is convict be ane assise for the thiftus steling and conseling of twa stekis of bukrum within this tovne,
and als of commoun theift, and als for the bringing of this contagius seiknes furth of Leith to this toune, and
brekin of the statuti8 maid tharapone, For the quhilk causes echo i a adiuyit to be drounit in the Quare11 holZw at
the CrayfTere port, mncr incontinent, and that we8 gevin for dome.”-(Ibid, p. 113.) The workmen engaged in
draining the ancient bed of the Nprth Loch in the spring of 1820, discovered. a large coffin of thick fir deals,
