High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth on slaughter intent.
He directed his brothers John and Robert
Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of
Quarter, and others, to Conn?s Close, which was
directly opposite to the smith?s booth; while he,
accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of
the Gudeman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field)
Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut
off the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as
he was seen standing at the booth door with his
back to them, they shot him down with their
pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on
the spot.
For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the
Castle; but they contrived to compromise the
matter with the king, making many fair promises ;
yet when he was resident at St. James?s, in 1611,
he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper
Tweeddale were as bitter as ever.
On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or
combat, ensued in the High Street between the
Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others.
10 explain the cause of this we must refer to
Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of
February, in the preceding year, John Graham of
Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Montrose),
was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by
three or four score of armed men for his protection,
when Sir Janies Sandilands, accompanied by his
friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed
I company, met him. As they had recently been
in dispute before the Court about Some temple
lands, Graham thought he was about to be attacked,
and prepared to make resistance. The
duke told him to proceed on his journey, and that
no one would molest him; but the advice was
barely given when some stray shots were fired by
the party of the judge, who was at once attacked,
and fell wounded. He was borne bleeding into
an adjacent house, whither a French boy, page to
Sir Alexander Stewart, a friend of Sandilands, followed,
and plunged a dagger into him, thus ending
a lawsuit according to the taste of the age.
Hence it was that when, in the following year,
John Earl of Montrose-a noble then about fifty
years old, who had been chancellor of the jury that
condemned the Regent Morton, and moreover was
Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom-met Sir
James Sandilands in the High Street, he deemed
it his duty to avenge the death of the Laird of
Halyards. On the first amval of the earl in Edinburgh
Sir James had been strongly recommended
by his friends to quit it, as his enemies were too
strong for him ; but instead of doing so he desired
the aid and assistance of all his kinsmen and
friends, who joined him forthwith, and the two
parties meeting on the 19th of January, near the
Salt Tron, a general attack with swords and hack
buts begun. One account states that John, Master
of Montrose (and father of the great Marquis), first
began the fray; another that it was begun by Sir
James Sandilands, who was cut down and severely
wounded by more than one musket-shot, and
would have been slain outright but for the valour
of a friend named Captain Lockhart. The Lord
Chancellor was in great peril, for the combat was
waged furiously about him, and, according to the
? Historie of King James the Sext,? he was driven
back fighting ?to the College of Justice ( i e . , the
Tolbooth). The magistrates of the town with
fencible weapons separatit the parties for that time ;
and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on his party,
for he himself was left for dead, and a cousingerman
of his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain,
and many hurt.? On the side of the earl only one
was killed, but many were wounded.
On the 17th of June, 1605, there was fought in
the High Street a combat between the Lairds of
Edzell and Pittarrow, with many followers on both
sides. It lasted, says Balfour in his AnnaZes, from
nine at night till two next morning, with loss and
many injuries. The Privy Council committed the
leaders to prison.
The next tulzie of which we read arose from the
following circumstance :-
Captain James Stewart (at one time Earl of
Arran) having been slain in 1596 by Sir James
Douglas of Parkhead, a natural son of the Regent
Morton, who cut off his .head at a place called
Catslack, and carried it on a spear, ?leaving his
body to be devoured by dogs and swine;? this
act was not allowed to pass unrevenged by the
house of Ochiltree, to which the captain-who had
been commander of the Royal Guard-belonged.
But as at that time a man of rank in Scotland
could not be treated as a malefactor for slaughter
committed in pursuance of a feud, the offence was
expiated by an assythement. The king strove
vainly to effect a reconciliation ; but for years the
Imds Ochiltree and Douglas (the latter of whom
was created Lord Torthorwald in 1590 by James
VI.) were at open variance.
It chanced that on the 14th of July, 1608, that
Lord Torthonvald was walking in the High Street
a little below the Cross, between six and seven in
the morning, alone and unattended, when he suddenly
met William Stewart, a nephew of the man
he had slain. Unable to restrain the sudden rage
that filled him, Stewart drew his sword, and ere
