334 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 11746.
b
ONE of the most important events in the annals
of Edinburgh was the erection of the North
Bridge, by means of which, in spite of years of
opposition, the long-suggested plan for having a
his just and honourable cause.?? His wife pleaded
for his pardon at the feet of George 11. in vain,
and, like the others, ?he died with his last breath
imploring a blessing on Prince Charles.?
Lord Arundel of Wardour relates the following
anecdote :-? Many years after the Stuart rising,
the Duke of Cumberland being present at a ball
at Bath, indicated as a person with whom he
would like to dance, a beautiful girl, the daughter
of Major Macdonald who was executed at Carlisle,
and the circumstances of whose last moments
supplied Sir Walter Scott with the incidents of
M?Ivor?s execution in ? Waverley.? The lady rose
in deference to the prince, but replied in a tone
which utterly discomfited his Royal Highness,
? NO, sir, I will never dance with the murderer yf
my father/ ? ?
The Duke, with an army overwhelming in numbers,
as contrasted with that of Charles, passed
through Edinburgh on the ~ 1 s t of February, 1746,
not marching at the head of his troops, like the
latter, but travelling in a coach-and-six presented
to him by the Earl of Hopetoun; and on being
joined by 6,000 Hessians, who landed under the
Landgrave at Leith, he proceeded to obliterate
? all memory of the last disagreeable affair ? as the
rout at Falkirk was named. As he passed up
the Canongate and High Street he is said to have
expressed great surprise at the .number of broken
windows he saw ; but when informed that this was
the result of a recent illumination in his honour,
and that a shattered casement indicated the residence
of a Jacobite, he laughed heartily, remarking,
?that he was better content with this explanation,
ill as it omened to himself and his family, than
he could have been with his first impression,
which ascribed the circumstance to poverty or
negligence.?
A vast mob followed his coach, which passed
through the Grassmarket, and quitted the city by
new and enlarged city, beyond the walls an&
barriers of the old one, was eventually and successfully
developed to an extent far beyond what
its enthusiastic and patriotic projectors caul$.
the West Port, en route to Culloden, and ?at midnight
on Saturday the 19th of April Viscount
Bury, colonel of the 20th Regiment, aide-de-camp.
to the Duke of Cumberland, reined up his jaded
horse at the Castle gate, bearer of a despatch t e
the Lieutenant-General, announcing the victory ;.
and at two o?clock on the morning of Sunday a.
salute from the batteries informed the startled and
anxious citizens that, quenched in blood on the.
Muir of Drummossie, the star of the Stuarts had
sunk for ever.?
The standard of Charles, which Tullybardine.
unfurled in Glenfinnan, and thirteen others belonging
to chiefs, with several pieces of artillery and a
quantity of arms, were brought to the Castle and
lodged in the arsenal, where some of the latter
still remain; and one field-piece, which was placed
on abattery to the westward, was long an object
of interest to the people. With a spite that seems.
childish now, by order of Cumberland those
standards, whose insignia were all significant ot
high descent and old achievement, were camed ia
procession to the Cross. The common hangmall.
bore that of Charles, thirteen Tronmen, or sweeps,.
bore the rest, and all were flung into a fire,
guarded by the 44th Regiment, while the heralds
proclaimed the name of each chief to whom they
belonged-hchiel, Clanranald, Keppoch, Glengarry,
and so forth ; while the crowd looked on in
silence. By this proceeding, so petty in its character,
Cumberland failed alike to inflict an injuryon
the character of the chiefs or their faithful
followers, among whom, at that dire time, the
bayonet, the gibbet, the torch, and the axe, were
everywhere at work; and, when we consider his.
blighted life and reputation in the long years that
followed, it seems that it would have been well had
the Young Chevalier, the ?bonnie Prince Charlie ?
of so much idolatry, found his grave on the Moor
of Culloden.
. .
North Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335
have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though
not carried out till the early years of George 111.?~
reign, it had been projected in the latter end of
the reign of Charles 11.
The idea was first suggested when James VII.,
as Duke of Albany and York, was resident Royal
Commissioner at Holyrood, in the zenith of the
only popularity he ever had in Scotland. Vast
numbers of the Scottish nobility and gentry flocked
.around him, and the old people of the middle of
xhe eighteenth century used to recall with delight
the magnificence and brilliance of the court he
gathered in the long-deserted palace, and the
general air of satisfaction which pervaded the
entire city.
Despite the recent turmoils and sufferings consequent
on the barbarous severity with which the
Covenanters had been treated, Edinburgh was prosperous,
and its magistrates bestowed noble presents
upon their royal guest; but the best proof of the
city?s prosperity was the new and then startling idea
s f having an extended royalty and a North Bridge,
;and this idea the Duke of Albany warmly patronised
and encouraged, and towards it gave the citizens a
grant in the following terms :-
?That, when they should have occasion to
enlarge their city by purchasing ground without
tthe town, or to build bridges or arches for the accomplishing
of the same, not only were the propietors
of such lands obliged to part With the same
an reasonable terms, but when in possession thereof,
they are to be erected into a regality in favour of
the citizens ; and after finishing the Canongate
church, the city is to have the surplus of the
20,ooo merks given by Thomas Moodie, in the
year 1649, with the interest thereof; and as all
public streets belong to the king, the vaults and
cellars under those of Edinburgh being forfeited to
the Crown, by their being built without leave or
consent of his majesty, he granted all the said
vaults or cellars to the town, together with a power
to oblige the proprietors of houses, to lay before
their. respective tenements large flat stones for the
conveniency of walking.?
James VII. had fully at heart the good of Edinburgh,
and but for the events of the Revolution
the improvements of the city would have commenced
seventy-two years sooner than they did, but
the neglect of subsequent monarchs fell heavily alike
on the capital and the kingdom. ?Unfortunately,?
. :says Robert Chambers, ?the advantages which
Edinburgh enjoyed under this system of things
were destined to be of short duration. Her royal
:guest departed, with all his family and retinue, in
May, 1682. In six years more he was lost both
:o Edinburgh and Britain; and ?a stranger filled
:he Stuart?s throne,? under whose dynasty Scotland
?ined long in undeserved reprobation.?
The desertion of the city consequent on the
Union made all prospect of progress seem hopeless,
yet some there were who never forgot the cherished
idea of an extended royalty. Among various
plans, the most remarkable for its foresight was that
3f John eighteenth Lord Erskine and eleventh
Earl of Mar, who was exiled for his share in the
insurrection of I 7 I 5.
His sole amusement during the years of the long
exile in which he died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732
was to draw plans and designs for the good of his
beloved native country and its capital; and the
paper to which we refer is one written by him in
1725, and mentioned in vol. 8 of the ?Old Statistical
Account of Scotland,? published in 1793.
?All ways of improving Edinburgh should be
thought on : as in particular, making a Zarge bridge
flfhree arch, over the ground betwixt the North
Loch and Physic Gardens, from the High Street at
Liberton?s Wynd to the Multersey Hill, where
many fine streets might be built, as the inhabitants
increased. The access to them would be easy on
all hands, and the situation would be agreeable and
convenient, having a noble prospect of all the fine
ground towards the sea, the Firth of Forth, and
coast of Fife. One long street in a straight line,
where the Long Gate is now (Princes Street?) ; on
one side of it would be a fine opportunity for
gardens down to the North Loch, and one, on the
other side, towards Broughton. No houses to be
on the bridge, the breadth of the North Loch ; but
selling the places or the ends for houses, and the
vaults and arches below for warehouses and cellars,
the charge of the bridge might be defrayed.
? Another bridge might also be made on the other
side of the towq, and almost as useful and commodious
as that on the north. The place where it
could most easily be made is St. Mary?s Wynd, and
the Pleasance. The hollow there is not so deep, as
where the other bridge is proposed, so that it is
thought that two storeys of arches might raise it near
the level with the street at the head of St. Mary?s
Wynd. Betwixt the south end of the Pleasance and
the Potter-row, and from thence to Bristo Street,
and by the back of the wall at Heriot?s Hospital, are
fine situations for houses and gardens. There would
be fine avenues to the town, and outlets for airing
and walking by these bridges ; and Edinburgh, from
being a bad incommodious situation, would become
a very beneficial and convenient one ; and to make
it still more so, a branch of that river, called the
Water of Leith, misht, it is thought, be brought
