OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
High Street and other thoroughfares, where they
indulged in wild humours and committed heinous
crimes. At this time-1611-the old system of
lighting had ceased to exist ; and after twilight the
main street and those narrow steep alleys, like stone
chasms, diverging from it, were all sunk in Cimmerian
gloom, into which no man ventured to
penetrate without his sword and lantern.
In 1631 the Town Council passed an Act forbidding
all women to wear plaids over their heads
or faces, under a penalty of A5 Scots and forfeiture
of the garment. But so little attention was paid
to the Act by ladies, some of whom were of
rank, that the incensed Council in 1633 passed a
new one, strictly enjoining all women, of whatever
quality, not to wear a plaid under pain of corporal
punishment, and granted liberty to any person
to seize and appropriate the plaid as their own
property.
As the fair offenders paid not the least attention
to these ridiculous Acts, in 1636 the Provost, David
Aikenhead, and the Council, passed a thundering
enactment, that no females residing in their jurisdiction
should either wear plaids or cover their
faces with anything whatsoever, velvet masks not
being uncommon among Scottish ladies in those
days.
U Forsaemikell as, notwithstanding of divers and
sundrie laudabill actes and statutis, maid be the
Provost, Baillies, and Counsall of this Burgh in
former tymes, discharing that barbarous and uncivil1
habitte of women wearing plaids; zit, such
has been the impudencie of monie of them, that
Thus runs the ukase :-
they have conthewit the foresaid barbarous habitte,
and has addcd thereto the wearing of their gownes
and petticottes about their heads and faces, so that
the same has become the ordinar habitte of all
women within the cittie, to the general imputation of
their sex, matrones not to be decerned from . . .
and lowse living women, to their owne dishonour
and scandal of the cittie ; which the Provost,
Baillies, and Counsall have taken into their serious
consideration ; thairfore, have statute and ordaynit,
&c., that none, of whatsomever degrie or qualitie,
presume, after this day, under the payne of
escheitt of the said plaids, not onlie be such as
shall be appoyntit for that effect, but be all persons
who shall challenge the same. And that nae women
weir thair gownes or petticottes about thair heads
and faces, under the payne of ten pundis to be
payit by women of qualitie for the first falt, twenty
pundis for the second, and under such furder paynes
as sal1 pleas the Counsall to inflict upon them for
the third falt; and under the payne of fourtie
shillings to be payit be servandis and others of
lower degrie for the first falt, five pundis for the
second, and banishment from the cittie for the
third falt ; and ordaynes this present statute to be
intimate throwgh this Burgh be Sound of Drum,
that nane pretend ignorance hereof.?
The Act fell pointless, as did another passed in
1648, against the coquettish Scottish mantilZa, and
till nearly the close of the last century a tartan
plaid, or screen, was the common headdress ok
women of the lower order in Edinburgh, as everywhere
else in Scotland.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HIGH STREET (conlinurd)
The City in xgg8-Fynes Matison on the Manners of the Inhabitants-The ? Lord ? Provost of Edinburgh-Police of the City-Taylor the Water
Poet-Banquets at the Cross-The hard Case of the Earl of Tmquair-A Visit of HansThe Quack and his Acrobats-A Procession of
Covenanters-Early Stages and Street Coaches-Sale of a Dancing-girl-Constables appointed in 17q-FirSt Number of the Courani-The
CaZedmiaB Memry-Carting away of the 5trata of Street FiIth-Condition of old Houses.
BEFORE proceeding with the general history of the
city, it may not be uninteresting to the reader if we
quote the following description of the manners of
the inhabitants in 1598, but to be taken under great
reservation :-
U Myself,? says Monson, in his Ifincrav, ?was
at a knight?s house, who had many servants to
attend him, that brought in his meat with their
heads covered with blew caps (Le., bonnets), the
table being more than half furnished with great
platters of porridge, each having (in them) a little
piece of sodden meat; and when the table was
served, the servants sat down with ? us ; but the
upper mess, instead of porridge, had a pullet, with
some prunes in the broth. And I observed no art
of cookery, or furniture of household stuff, but
rather a rude neglect of both, though myself and
my companion, sent from the Governor of Berwick,
about Bordering affairs, were entertained in their
best manner. The Scots living then in factions,
used to keep many followers, and so consumed their
revenue of victuals, living in some want of money.
They vulgarly eat hearth cakes of oats, but in cities
have also wheaten bread, which for the most part
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
