298 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Mary?s Wynd.
the maintenance of the beads-+eople of that hospital ;
and every person who refused to collect thus, was
fined forty pence Scots, for the use of the poor.
At this period the chaplain?s salary was only six
shillings and eightpence per annum. Spottiswoode
tells us that in the chartularies of St. Giles,
?the nuns of St. Mary?s Wynd, in the city of
Edinburgh, are recorded,? and in the statutes of
the burgh, enacted during a terrible plague in
15~0, a reference to the chapel is made in the case
of Marion Clerk, who was convicted by an assize
of concealing her infection, and attending, with
many others, mass in ?? the chapell of Sanct Mary
Wynd, on Sonday,? and thereby risking the safety
of all. For this crime the poor woman was ordained
to suffer death by drowning at the Quarry
Holes, near the east end of the Calton Hill.
In 1562 great excitement was occasioned in the
city by an act of violence perpetrated by the
notorious Earl of Bothwell, who, with the aid of the
Marquis d?Elbeuf, Lord John of Coldinghame, and
other wild spirits, broke up the doors of Cuthbert
Ramsay?s house in St. Mary?s Wynd one night,
while searching, sword in hand, for his daughterin-
law, Alison Craig, a celebrated courtesan, who,
though living under the protection of ?? the godly
Er1 of Arrane,? as Knox records in very coarse
language, yet contrived to be on very good terms
with other nobles who were his avowed enemies.
A strong remonstrance was presented to the Queen
on this subject, beseeching her to punish the
perpetrators ; but as that was no easy matter, the
brawl was hushed up, and, thus emboldened, Both.
well and other gallants proceeded to play wildei
pranks in the streets during the night, till Gavin
Hamilton, Abbot of Kilwinning, who had joined
the Reformation party, resolved to curb thell
violence by the strodg hand. According to the his
tories of Knox and Keith, he armed all his followers.
sallied forth to oppose the revellers, and a seriour
conflict ensued in the street, between the Crosr
and Tron. Crossbow bolts and hackbut shots fie\\
far and near, while the alarm-bells summoned thc
burghers to ?the redding of the fray,? and riva
leaders came sallying forth as hate or humour lec
them, to join in the riot ; till the Earls of Murraj
and Huntley, who were then residing at Holyrood
by order of the Queen, marched up the Canongatt
with all the armed men they could muster, anc
crushed the tumult. Bothwell afterwards, by thc
mediation of Knox, effected a reconciliation witlthe
Earl of Arran, the Abbot of Kilwinning, anc
others who were his enemies.
In the subsequent conflicts of 1572, the house?
in Leith Wynd and St. Mary?s Wynd were unroofed
.
nd all the doors and windows of those on the west
ide of the latter were built up, among other prejarations
made by Sir William Kirkaldy to defend
he town against the king?s men. At a still later
Late in the same year all the houses at the head
if each of those wynds were ?tane doun,? and
10 doubt on this occasion the chapel of St. Mary
vould be ruined and dismantled with the rest.
Again in 1650, when preparations were made to
lefend the city against Cromwell, Nicoll records
n his quaint diary, that the magistrates demolished
ill the houses ?? in St. Marie Wynd, that the enymie
ould haif no schelter thair,? and that the cannon
nounted on the Netherbow might?have free pas-
?age for their shot.
At the foot of the wynd was situated the Cow-
;ate Port, a city gate constructed as a portion of
he second wall in 1513. At a subsequent date
tnother was erected across the wynd, at its junction
Kith the Pleasance; it figures in Rothiemay?s map as
he Portaplatea Sancte Marie, a large arched buildng
with gables at each end, and in Gordon?s day
t was seldom without the head, hands, or quarters
if some unfortunate, such as Garnock and other
Zovenanters, displayed on its spike?. On the approach
of the Highlanders in 1715, it was demolished,
the citizens believing themselves unable
to defend it; but a portion of its wall, with one
rusty spike thereon, remained until 1837,when it was
removed to make way for a new Heriot?s school.
The whole alley was long, and until quite recently
a species of great Rag Fair, where all manner of
cast-off garments were exposed for sale, the walls
literally appearing to be clothed with them from
end to end.
In a house which had its entrance from the east
side of the wynd, but the windows of which opened
to the Canongate, there long resided two maiden
ladies of the now extinct house of Traquair-the
Ladies Barbara and Margaret Stuart-twin sisters,
the children of Charles fourth Earl of Traquair
(who died in 1741), and his Countess, Mary Maxwell,
of the noble house of Nithsdale. The last of
these two, Lady Barbara, died on the 15th of
December, 1794, and they were among some of
the last of note who lingered in the Old Town.
? They drew out their innocent lives in this place,?
says Robert Chambers, ?where latterly one of
their favourite amusements was to make dolls, and
little beds for them to lie on-a practice not quite
uncommon in days long gone by, being to some
degree followed by Queen Mary.?
In the tenement opposite the site of SL Mary?s
chapel, on the east side of the wynd, and forming
the portion of it that led into Boyd?s Close, there
St. Mary?s Wynd.1 THE ? WHITE HORSE? INN. 299
long dwelt the celebrated artistic decorator of
many of the best old houses in Edinburgh, John
Norrie, whose workshop adjoined the coach-house
of Lord Milton, and both of which were converted
into stables for Boyd?s famous old ?White Horse ?
Inn, one of the great hostelries of Edinburgh, in
the days when ?? hotels? were unknown, and when
guests, except those whose business was of a very
temporary nature, usually repaired to lodging-houses,
of which the most famous in 1754 was Mrs. Thomson?s
at the Cross, who, as per advertisement, served
people who had not their own silver plate, tea
china, table china, and tea linen, with all these
luxuries, together with wines and spirits.
When the famous patriot chief, Pasquale de
Paoli, had been driven into exile by the French
invaders of Corsica, among other places in his
wanderings he came to Edinburgh in the autumn
of 177 I, accompanied by the Polish Ambassador,
Count Burzyuski; and on the 3rd of September
they arrived at Peter Ramsay?s ? White Horse ?I
Inn, in St. Mary?s Wynd, from whence he was
immediately taken home by Boswell to his house
in James?s Court, while the Count became the
guest of his neighbour, Dr. John Gregory, ?to
whom they brought a letter from the ingenious
Mrs. Montague.? Boswell introduced Paoli to
Lord Kames, Dr. Robertson, David Hume, and
others, who though greatly his seniors, admitted
him into their circle, and he showed him over
the Castle, Holyrood, Duddingston, and other
places. Ramsay?s inn was chiefly famous for its
stables, and in that establishment he realised a large
fortune.
In I 776 he advertised that, exclusive of some part
of his premises recently offered for sale, he possessed
? a good house for entertainment, good stables for
above one hundred horses, and sheds for above
twenty carriages.? He retired from business in
St. Mary?s Wynd in 1790, with above LIO,OOO,
according to one account, and his death is thus
recorded in the ?Scottish Register.? ?Jan. I,
1794. At his son?s house of Gogar, Co. Edinburgh,
Peter Ramsay, Esq., formerly an eminent
innkeeper at the Cowgate Port, in which station he
acquired upwards of ~ 3 0 , 0 0 0 . He has left one
son, William Ramsay, jun., Esq., banker in Edinburgh,
and one daughter, the widow of Captain
Mansfield, of the South Fencible Regiment, who
lost his life at Leith in 1779, when attempting to
quell a mutiny.?
Eoyd?s Close, or the White Horse Close, as it
was often called, opened into Boyd?s Entry from
St. Mary?s Wynd. The inn there was more modern,
and was larger than Ramsay?s, but had, like his,
the principal rooms above the stables ; and at this
White Horse? it was that Dr. Johnson, on arriving
at Edinburgh on the 17th of August, 1773,
put up, and from whence he sent his curt note to
Boswel1:-
?( Saturday night :-<? Mr. Johnson sends his
compliments to Mr. Boswell, being just arrived at
Boyd?s.?
And here it was, as we have related, that Boswell
found him storming at the waiter, when he and
William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, repaired
thither, and received an instalment of that domineering
manner which excited the aristocratic
contempt that old Lord Auchinleck so freely
expressed for ?? the dominie the auld English
dominie, that keepit a schule and ca?ad it an
acaademy.?
In Boyd?s ?? White Horse Inn ? one particularly
large room was the scene of many a marriage between
runaway English couples ; and on a window,
written with a diamond, were long to be seen the
remarkable names of
Jeremiah and Sarah Bmtham, I 768.
? James Eoyd, the keeper of this inn, was addicted
to horse racing, and his victories on the
turf, or rather on Leith sands, are frequently chronicled
in journals of that day. It is said that he
was one time on the brink of ruin, when he was
saved by a lucky run with a white horse, which
in gratitude he kept idle all the rest of its days,
besides setting up its portrait as his sign. He
eventually retired from this ? dirty and dismal? inn
with a fortune of several thousand pounds ; and, as
a curious note upon the impression which its
slovenliness conveyed to Dr. Johnson, it may be
stated as a fact, well authenticated, that, at the
time of his giving up the house he possessed
napery to the value of five hundred pounds.?
St. Mary?s Wynd was, in 1869, the first scene of
the operations of the trustees who acted under the
Improvement Act of 1867, when they commenced
to pull down the buildings between it and Gullan?s
Close, in the Canongate. By this time it had
become one of the most wretched slums in the
city, a narrow and stifling alley, to navigate the
intricacies of which required some courage. I t
was scarcely possible to avoid coming in contact
with cast-off apparel of all kinds, or stumbling
against piles of old boots, pots, pans, and furniture.
Under designs furnished for the upper part by the
late David Cousin, who for many years occupied
an important official post in connection with the
municipality, and for the lower part by Mr. Lessels,
another architect, the wynd has now become a
