I94 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
especially to the removal of the numerous middens,
the repair of the roads and streets, and also the
expected hospitality of the city, as we find that
soon after the inhabitants were assessed to support
the queen and her retinue till Holyrood Palace was
prepared to receive her. They were also compelled
+o defray their proportion of the expense of his
return.
Five years before this, in 1584, to prevent the
incessant broils and riots that took place in High
Street and elsewhere at night, it was enacted thai
by ten o?clock forty strokes should be given on the
great bell, after which any person found abroad wa:
to be imprisoned during the magistrate?s pleasure,
and fined forty shillings Scots ; while for the bettei
regulation of the nightly watch the city was divided
into thirty quarters, over each of which the magis.
trates appointed two commanders, one a merchant,
the other a craftsman, as also an officer to summon
the citizens occasionally to take into consideration
the affairs connected with these several divisions.
(Council Register.)
And now to glance briefly at the tdziex, or combats,
for so were they named of old, of which the
High Street has been the scene.
Apart from the famous brawl named ?Cleanse
the Causeway,? already described, and that in which
the Laird of Stainhouse fell with the French in
1560, a considerable amount of blood has been
shed in this old thoroughfare.
After the battle of Melrose, in 1526, there ensued
a deadly feud between the border clans of
Scott and Ken; which culminated in the slaughter
of Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleuch,
by the Kerrs, in October, 1551, in the High Street.
?? Bards long shall tell
How Lord Walter fell !
When startled burghers fled afar,
The furies of the Border war,
When the streets of High Dunedin
Saw lances gleam and falchions redden,
And heard the slogan?s deadly yell-
Then the chief of Branxholm fell !?
Nor was the feud between these two families
stanched till forty-five years later, when the chiefs
of both paraded the High Street with their followers
amicably, but it was expected their first
meeting would decide their quarrel.
On the 24th of November, 1567, about two in
the afternoon, the Laird of Airth and Sir John
Wemyss of that ilk, ?met upon the Hie Gait of
Edinburgh,? according to Birrel, ?and they and
their followers fought a bloody skirmish, when
many were hurt on both sides by shot of pistol.?
On this the Privy Council issued, but in vain,
an edict against the wearing of culverins, dags,
pistolets, or other ?? firewerks.?
The latter seem to have been adopted or in use
earlier in Scotland than in the sister kingdom. At
the raid of the Redswire, the English archers were
routed by the volleys of the Scottish hackbuttiers ;
and here we find, as the author of ?Domestic
Annals? notes, ?that sword and buckler were at
this time (1567) the ordinary gear of gallant men
in England-a comparatively harmless furnishing ;
but we see that small fire-arms were used in Scotland.?
On the 7th December, three years after this, the
Hoppringles and Elliots chanced to encounter in
the same place-hostile parties knew each other
well then by their badges, livery, and banners-and
a terrible slaughter would have ensued had not the
armed citizens, according to the ? Diurnal of Occurrents,?
redLi-i. e., separated-them by main
force.
A feud, which for many years disturbed the
upper valley of the Tweed, resulted in a tulzie in
the streets which is not without gome picturesque
details. It was occasioned by the slaughter
of Veitch of Dawick?s son, in June, 1590, by or
through James Tweedie of Drummelzier, to revenge
which, rames Veitch younger of Synton, and
Andrew Veitch, brother of the Laird of Tourhope,
slew John Tweedie, tutor of Drummelzier and burgess
of Edinburgh, as he walked in the public
streets. Too much blood had been shed now for
the matter to end there.
The Veitches were arrested, but the Laird of
Dawick came to the rescue with 10,000 inerks bail,
and their fiberation was ordered by the king ; but
they were barely free before they effected the
slaughter of James Geddes of Glenhegden, head
or chief of his family, with whom they, too,
were at feud; and the recital of this crime, as
given in the ?Privy Council Record,? affords a
curious insight into the modus opernndi of a daylight
brawl in the streets at that time. We modernise
it thus :-
James Geddes, being in Edinburgh for the space
of some eight days, openly and publicly met, almost
daily in the High Street, the Laird of Drummelzier.
The latter fearing an attack, albeit that
Geddes was always alone, planted spies and retainers
about the house in which he lived and
other places to which he was in the habit of repairing.
It chanced that on the 29th of December,
1592, James Geddes being in the Cowgate, getting
his horse.shod at the booth of David Lindsay, and
being altogether careless of his safety, Drummelzier
was informed of his whereabouts, and dividing all
