High Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1598 AND 1618. I99
is bought by courtiers, gentlemen, and the best
sort of citizens. They drink pure,aines, not with
sugar, as we English, yet at feasts they put comfits
in the wine, after the French manner; but they
had not our vintner?s fraud to mix their wines.
*? I did not see nor hear that they have any public
inns, with signs hanging out ; but the better sort of
? citizens brew ale (which will distemper a stranger?s
body), and then some citizens will entertain passengers
upon acquaintance or entreaty (i.e., introductioh).
Their bedsteads were then like cupboards
in the wall (i.e., box beds), to be opened and shut
at pleasure, so we climbed up to our beds. They
used but one sheet, open at the sides and top, but
close at the feet. When passengers go to bed, their
custom is to present them a sleeping cup of wine
at parting. The country people and merchants
used to drink largely, the gentlemen somewhat
more sparingly; yet the very courtiers, by nightmeetings
and entertaining any strangers, used to
drink healths, not without excess ; and to speak the
truth without offence, the excess of drinking was
far greater among the Scots than the English.
*? Myself being at the Court was invited by some
gentlemen to supper, and being forewarned to fear
this excess, would not promise to sup with them
but upon*condition that my inviter would be my
protection from large drinking. . . . The husbandmen
in Scotland, the servants, and almost all
the country, did wear coarse cloth made at home,
of grey or sky colour, and flat blew caps, very
broad. The merchants in cities were attired in
English or French cloth, of pale colour, or mingled
black and blew. The gentlemen did wear English
cloth or silk, or light stuffs, little or nothing adorned
with silk lace, much less with silver or gold ; and
all followed the French fashion, especially at
Court.
?Gentlewomen married did wear close upper
bodies, after the German manner, with large whalebone
sleeves, after the French manner; short
cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and large
falling bands about their necks. The unmarried of
all sorts (?) did go bareheaded, and wear short
cloaks, with close linen sleeves on their arms, like
the virgins of Germany. The inferior sort of
citizen?s wives and the women of the country did
wear cloaks ,made of a coarse stuff, of two or three
colours, in checker work, vulgarly called jZodun
(i.e., tartan plaiding).
?To conclude, they would not at this time be
attired after the English fashion in any sort; but
the men, especially at Court, followed the French
fashion ; and the women, both in Court and city,
as well -in cloaks as naked heads and close
sleeves on the arms, and all other garments, follow
the fashion of the women in Germany.?
On the 20th of June, 1610, the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh exhibited to his Council two gowns, one
black, the other red, trimmed with sable, the gift
of King James, as patterns of the robes to be worn
by him and the bailies of the city; and in 1667
Charles 11. gave Sir Alexander Ramsay, Provost in
that year, a letter, stating that the chief magistrate
of Edinburgh should have the same precedence in
Scotland as the Mayor of London has in England,
and that no other provost should have the title of
?I Lord Provost ?-a privilege which has, however,
since been modified.
l h e attention of King James, who never forgot
the interests of his native city, was drawn in 1618
to two abuses in its police. Notwithstanding the
warning given by the fire of 1584, it was still cus
tomary for ?baxters and browsters? (i.e., bakers
and brewers) to keep great stacks of heather, whins,
and peatq in the very heart of the High Street and
other thoroughfares, to the great hazard of all adjacent
buildings, and many who were disposed to
erect houses within the walls were deterred from
doing so by the risks to be run ; while, moreover,
candle-makers and butchers were allowed to pursue
their avocations within the city, to the disgust and
annoeance of civil and honest neighbours, and of
the nobility and country people,? who came in
about their private affairs, and thus a royal procla-
.mation was issued against these abuses. The idea
of a cleaning department.of police never occurred
to the good folks of those days ; hence, in the following
year, the plan adopted was that each inhabitant
should keep clean that part of each street
before his own bounds.
In 1618 Edinburgh was visited by Taylor the
Water Poet, and his description of it is as truthful
as it is amusing :-? So, leaving the castle, as it is
both defensive against any opposition and magnifick
for lodging and receipt, I descended lower to
the city, wherein I observed the fairest and goodliest
street mine eyes ever beheld, for I did
never see or hear of a street of that length (which
is half a mile English from the castle to a fair port,
which they call the Nether Bow); and from that
port the street which they call the Kenny-gate
(Canongate) is one quarter of a mile more, down
to the king?s palace, called Holyrood House ; the
buildings on each side of the way being all of
squared stone, five, six, and seven storeys high, and
many bye-lanes and closes on each side of the way,
wherein are gentlemen?s houses, much fairer than
the buildings in the High Street, fur in the High
Street the merchants and tradesmen. do dwell, but
