364 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray?s Hill.
+
CHAPTER XLVII.
MOULTRAY?S HILL-HER MAJESTY?S GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE.
The Moultrays of :hat Ilk-Village of Moultray?s Hill-The Chapel of St. Ninian-St. James?s SquaeBuuker?s Hill-Mr. Dundas-Robert
Burns?s House-State of the Scottish Records-Indifference .of the Government in r74c-The Register House built-Its Objects and
Sie-Curious Documents prc;erved in this House-lhe Office of Lord Clerk Register-The Secretary?s Register-The Register of
Sasines-The Lyon King .f Arms-Sir Dnrid Lindesay-Sir James Balfour-Sir Alexander ErskintNcw Register House-Great
and Privy Seals of Scotland-The Wellington Statue.
AT the north end of the bridge, and immediately
opposite it and the New General Post Office, the
ground forming the east end of the main ridge
onwhich the New Town
is built rises to some
elevation, and bore the
name of Multrie?s or
Moultray?s Hill, which
Lord Hailes in his ?Annals
? supposes to be the
corruption of two Gaelic
words ?signifying the covert
or receptacle of the
wild boar;? but it would
appear rather to have
taken its name from the
fact of its being the residence
of the Moultrays of
Seafield, a baronial Fifeshire
family of eminence
in the time of James IV.,
whose lonely old tower
stands in ruins upon a
wave-washed rock near
K i n g h o r n. Alexander
Stemart of Grenane (ancestor
of the Earls of Galloway),
who fell: at Flodden,
left sixteen daughters, one
of whom was married to
Moultray of Seafield, and
another to Tours of Inverassize,?
in a criminal trial, as recorded by Pitcairn.
In 1715 Alexander Malloch of Moultray?s Hill
quitted this ancient house at Edinburgh, to join the
DK. JOHN HOPE. (AferKay.)
leith, whose castle in those days would be quite
visible from the height where St. James?s Square
stands. The name first occurs in Scottish records,
in the time of David II., when ? I Henry Multra?
had the lands of Greenhill, near Edinburgh, of
Henry Braid of that ilk.
On the 7th of February, 1549, John Moultray of
Seafield signed a charter in the chartulary of
Dunfermline. In 1559, the laird being of the
Catholic faction, had to furnish the insurgent lords
with corn and cattle. They besieged his tower, and
took him prisoner, but released him on parole not
to assist the queen regent?s French troops. In 1559
Moultray of Seafield m?as chancellor of ?ane
Highlanders under Brigadier
Macintosh of Borlum,
but was shot dead in mistake
by them near the
village of Jock?s Lodge;
and after 1739 the older
family, which became
extinct, was represented
by the Moultrays of Rescobie.
From the abode of this
old race, then, Moultray?s
Hilltook itsname. Gordon
of Rothiemay?s map shows
a large quadrangular edifice,
with gables and dormer
windows crowning the
apex of the hill, which may
be the residence of the
family referred to ; but by
1701 quite a suburban
village had sprung up in
that quarter, the occupants
of which, weavers and
other tradesmen, had the
quarrel, recorded elsewhere,
withthe magistrates
of Edinburgh, who, to
punish them, closed Halkerston?s
Wynd Port, and, by the loch sluice,
flooded the pathway that led to their houses.
In 1765 the village seems to have consisted of at
least ten distinct blocks of several houses each,
surrounded by gardens and parks, on each side
of the extreme east end of the Long Gate (now
Princes Street), and from thence Leith Street takes
precisely the curve of the old road, on its way to
join the Walk.
At the eastern foot of this hill, exactly where now
stands the western pier of the Regent Bridge, deep
down in a narrow hollow, stood the ancient chapel
of St. Ninian (or St. Ringan, ?whose fame,? says
Nirnmo, ?? has been embalmed in the many churches
