,204 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
CHAPTER XXIIL
THE HIGH STREET (continuedJ.
The Black Turnpike-Bitter Receytion of Queen Mary-hmbie?s Bannrr-Mary in the Black Turnpike-The House of Fentonbarns-Its
Picturesque Appearance-The House of Bassandyne the Printer, 1574-? tllshop?s Land,? Town House of Archbishop Spottiswood-Its
various Tenants-Sir Stuart Thriepland -The Town-house of the Hendersons of Fordel-The Lodging of the Earls of Crawford-The
First Shop of Allan Ramsay-The Religious Feeling of the People-Anmm House-The First Shop of Constable and Co.-Manners and
Millar, Booksellers.
ON the south side of this great thoroughfare
and immediately opposite to the City Guard House,
stood the famous Black Turnpike. It occupied
the ground westward of the Tron church, and
now left vacant as the entrance to Hunter?s Square,
It is described as a magnificent edifice by Maitland,
and one that, if not disfigured by one of those
timber fronts (of the days of James IV.), would be
the most sumptuous building perhaps in Edinburgh.
But, like many others, it had rather a painful
history. [See view, p. 136.1
? A principal proprietor of this building,? says
Maitland, ?has been pleased to show me a deed
wherein George Robertson of Lochart, burgess of
F,dinburgh, built the said tenement, which refutes
the idle story of its being built by Kenneth 111.?
The above-mentioned deed is dated Dec. 6, 1461,
and, in the year 1508, the same author relates that
James IV. empowered the Edinburghers to farm or
let the Burghmuir, which they immediately cleared
of wood; and in order to encourage people to
buy this wood, the Town Council enacted that all
persons might extend the fronts of their houses
seven feet into the street, whereby the High Street
was reduced fourteen feet in breadth, and the
appearance of the houses much injured.
There is evidence that in the 16th century the
Black Turnpike had belonged to George Crichton,
Bishop of Dunkeld, in 1527, and Lord Privy Seal.
In 1567 it was the town mansion of the provost of
the city, Sir Simon Preston of Craigmillar, Balgay,
and that ilk, ancestor of the Earls of Desmond in
Ireland. It was to this edifice that Mary Queen of
Scots was brought a prisoner, about nine in the
evening of Sunday the 15th of June, by the confederate
lords and their troops, after they violated
the treaty by which she surrendered to them at
Carberry Hill.
On the march towards the city the soldiers
treated Mary with the utmost insolence and indignity,
pouring upon her an unceasing torrent of
epithets the most opprobrious and revolting to a
female. Whichever way she turned an emblematic
banner of white taffety, representing the dead body
of the murdered Darnley, with the little king kneeling
beside it, was held up before her eyes, stretched
out between two spears. She wept; her young
heart was wrung with terrible anguish ; she uttered
the most mournful complaints, and could scarcely
be kept in her saddle. This celebrated but
obnoxious standard belonged to the band or
company of Captain Lambie, a hired soldier of the
Government, slain afterwards, in 1585, in a clan
battle on Johnston Moor. Instead of conveying
Mary to Holyrood, as Sir William Kirkaldy had
promised, in the name of the Lords, they led her
through the dark and narrow wynds of the crowded
city, surrounded by a fierce, bigoted, and petulant
mob, who loaded the air with hootings and insulting
cries. The innumerable windows of the lofty
houses, and the outside stair-heads -then the
distinguishing features of a Scottish street-were
crowded with spectators, who railed at her in
unison with the crowd below. Mary cried aloud
to all gentlemen, who in those days were easily
distinguished by the richness of their attire, and
superiority of their air-? I am your queen, your
own native princess; oh, suffer me not to be
abused thus !? ? But alas for Scottish gallantry,
the age of chivalry had passed away!? says the
author of ? Kirkaldy?s Memoirs,? whose authorities
are Calderwood, Melville, and Balfour. ?? Mary?s
face was pale from fear and grief; her eyes were
swollen with tears ; her auburn hair hung in disorder
about her shoulders ; her fair form was
poorly attired in a riding tunic; she was exhausted
with fatigue, and covered with the summer
dust of the roadway, agitated by the march of so
many men; in short, she was scarcely recognis
able; yet thus, like some vile criminal led to
execution, she was conducted to the house of Sir
Simon Preston of Craigmillar. The soldiers of
the Confederates were long of passing through the
gates; the crowd was so dense, and the streets
were so narrow, that they filed through, man
by man.?
At the Black Turnpike she was barbarously
thrust into a small stone chamber, only thirteen
feet square by eight high, and locked up like a
felon-she, the Queen of Scotland, the heiress of
England, and the dowager of France! It was
then ten o?clock ; the city was almost -dark, but
fierce tumult and noise reigned without
And this was the queen of whom the scholarly
High Street. THE BLACK TURNPIKE.
