very probable that the Earl may often have been
a guest in that old mansion, and King James himself
in later years. The bishop, who married Margaret
Murray of Touchadam, died in 1593, and
was succeeded in the old mansion by his son John
Bothwell, designed of Auldhamer, who accompanied
King James to England, and was created Lord
Holyroodhouse, in the peerage of Scotland, in 1607.
Here dwelt his sister Anne, a woman of remarkable
beauty, whose wrongs are so touchingly re-
THE EXCISE OFFICE AT THE NETHERBOW. (After a Pkotograplr & A k x d e r A. Ingir.)
?? an English villain,? according to Balfour-a servsnt
boy, out of revenge against his master.
In the Scots Magazine for 1774 we have a
notice of the death of Eleonora Bothwell, daughter
of the deceased Henry, Lord Holyroodhouse.
Alexander, his son, Master of Holyroodhouse,
who died about the middle of the last century,
ended the line of the family, of whom no relic now
remains save the tomb of Bishop Adam, which
still exists in Holyrood chapel On the front of
.corded in the sweet old ballad known as ? Lady
Anne Bothwell?s Lament.? She was betrayed in a
.disgraceful Ziaison by Sir Alexander Erskine (a son
af John, 14th Earl of Mar), of whom a portrait by
Jamieson is still extant, and represents him in the military
dress of his time-a handsome man in a cuirass
.and scarf, with a face full of nobility of expression.
The lady?s name does not appear in the Douglas
peerage ; but her cruel desertion by Sir Alexander
was confidently believed at the time to have justly
exposed him to the vengeance of heaven, for he
perished with the Earl of Haddington and others
in the Castle of Dunglas, which was blown up by
guhpowder in 1640, through the instrumentality of
the third pillar from the east is a tablet with his
arms-a chevron, between three trefoils slipped,
with a crescent, and a very long inscription, the
first six lines of which run thus :-
? Hic reconditus jacet nobilissimus vir
Dominus Adamus Bothuelius, Episcopus,
Orcadum et Zethlandiz : Commendatonus Ifonasteni,
Sancti Crucis ; Senator et Consiliarius
Regius : qui obiit anno ztatis suz 67,
23 die Meosis August4 Anno Domini 1593.?
The ancient edifice is associated with an eminent
citizen, who lived in later but not less troublesome
and warlike times, Sir William Dick, ancestor of
the present baronets of Prestonfield. The south,
High Street.] SIR WILLIAM DICK. 221
and only remaining part of the bishop?s house has
been completely modernised, and faced with a new
stone front j ?but many citizens still (in 1847) remember
when an ancient timber faGade projected
its lofty gables into the street, with tier above tier,
then astonishing sum of ~zoo,ooo sterling, and
whose chequered history presents one of the most
striking examples of the instability of human affairs.
farming the Crown rents of the northern isles at
He came of Orkney people, and began life by ?.
. THE NETHER BOW PORT, FROM THE HIGH STREET.
(Frmn an 0n;PrircJ Draw& ammxg tk Kirg?s Prints nnd Drawings, BriiiSk Muscnm.)
far out beyond the lower storey, while below were
the covered piazza and darkened entrances to the
gloomy laigh shops, such as may still be seen
in the few examples of old timber lands that have
escaped demolition? (Wilson).
Here then abode Sir William Dick of Braid, provost
of the city in 1638, whose wealth was so great
that he was believed to have discovered the philosopheis
stone, though his fortune only reached the
.&,ooo sterling, after which he established an
active trade with the Baltic and Mediterranean,
and made, moreover, a profitable business by the
negotiation of bills of exchange with Holland.
?? He had ships on every sea, and could ride on his
own lands from North Berwick to near Linlithgow,
his wealth centreing in a warehouse in the Luckenbooths,
on the site of that now (in 1859) occupied
by John Clapperton and Co.?
