226 OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street,
Europe or America as a handy yet comprehensive
book of ready reference, and of which the learned
and ingenious Dr. Andrew Findlater acted as editor.
In 1849 William purchased the estate of Glenormiston,
and ten years after made a valuable gift
to his native town, in the form of a suite of buildings,
including a public reading-room, a good
library, lecture-hall, museum, and art gallery, designated
the ?Chambers Institution ;? and in 1864
he issued his ?History of Peeblesshire,? an able
example of local annals. In 1865 he was elected
Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and inaugurated the
great architectural improvements set afoot in the
more ancient parts of the city ; and in 1872 the
University conferred upon him the degree of
LL.D. I
In 1860-1 the brothers projected that important
work which gave Robert Chambers his death-blow
-? The Book of Days : a Miscellany of Popular
Antiquities in connection with the Calendar, including
Anecdote, Biography, History, Curiosities of
Literature, &c., SLc.,? a large work, in two volumes
of 840 pages each. Disappointed in promised
literary aid, Robert wqs compelled to perform the
@eater part of this work alone, and during the
winter of 186r-2 ?he might be seen every day in
the British Museum, working hard at this fatal
book; The mental strain broke him down;
domestic bereavements aggravated the effects of
ill-health, and with it, though he lived to finish his
?Life of Smollett,? his literary career closed. He
died at St. Andrews in the beginning of the year
1870.?
Still hale and healthy, and as full of intellectual
vigour as when he handled the old printing press
in his little shop in Leith Walk, William?s pen was
yet busy, and produced, in 1860, ?The Youth?s
Companion and Counsellor;? in 1862, ?? Something
of Italy: in 1870, ?Wintering at Mentone p in
1871, ?? France, its History and Revolutions f
and, in 1872, an affectionate ?Memoir? of his
brother Robert, and ?Ailie Gilroy,? a simple and
pathetic little story.
? In reviewing the life of this eminent publisher,?
says a writer in the Nafiond Forfraif GaZlery,
<? one may say that he has so lived as to teach the
world how the good old-fashioned commonplace
virtues can be exalted into the loftiest range of
moral heroism ; that he has left on record a grand
and manly example of self-help which time can
never obliterate from the admiring memory of
succeeding generations. Life has to him been a
sacred trust, to be used for helping on the advancement
of humanity, and for aiding the diffusion of
knowledge. The moral to be drawn from his
biography is that, with macly self-trust, with high
and noble aims, with fair education, and with
diligence, a man may, no matter how poor he be
at the outset of his career, struggle upwards and
onwards to fill a high social position, and enjoy no
ordinary share of earthly honours and possessions.?
At the establishment of the Messrs. Chambers
fully two hundred hands are constantly employed,
and their premises in Warriston Close (which have
also an entrance from the High Street) form one of
the interesting sights in the city.
Lower down the-Close stood a large and handsome
house, having a Gothic niche at its entrance,
which was covered with armorial bearings and many
sorely obliterated inscriptions, of which onlythe fragment
of one was traceable-Gracia Dei Thomas 1:
This was the town residence of Sir Thomas
Craig of Riccarton, a man of eminent learning and
great nobility of character, and who practised as
a lawyer for fully forty years, during the stormy
reigns of Mary and James VI. In 1564 he was
made Justice Depute, and found time to give to
the world some very able poems-one on the birth
of James, and another on his departure for England,
are preserved in the DeZifiG Poefamm Scofurwi.
He steadily refused the honour of knighthood, yet
was always called Sir Thomas Craig, in conforniity
to a royal edict on the subject.
He wrote a treatise on the independent sovereignty
of Scotland, which was rendered into
wretched English by Ridpath, and published in
1675. He was Advocate for the Church, when he
died at Edinburgh, on the 26th of February, r608,
and was succeeded in the old house, as well as his
estate, by his eldest son, Sir Lewis Craig, born in
1569, and called to the bench in 1604, as Lord
Wrightslands, while his father was still a pleader at
the bar. After his time his house had as occupiers,
first Sir George Urquhart of Cromarty, and next
Sir Robert Baird, Bart., of Saughton Hall, who died
in 1714.
But by far the most celebrated residenter in this
venerable alley was he who gave it the name it
bears, Sir Archibald Johnston Lord Warriston,
whose estate, still so named, lies eastward of Inverleith
Row. The son of Johnston of Beirholm
(once a merchant in Edinburgh), by his wife Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Thomas Craig (above mentioned),
this celebrated lawyer, subtle statesman,
and somewhat juggling politician, was called to the
bar in 1633, and would appear to have purchased
from his cousin, Sir Lewis Craig, a house in the
close, adjoining his own.
In 1637 he began to take a prominent part in
the bitter disputes of the period, and Bishop Bur
High Street.] MARY KINGS CLOSE 227
net tells us that he was a man of such unflagging
zeal that he barely allowed himself three hours? sleep
out of the twenty-four. On the renewal of the
Covenant, in 1638, he and the celebrated Alexander
Henderson were appointed to revise and
adapt that national document to the circumstances
of the times; and at the memorable assembly
which met at Glasgow Johnston was unanimously
elected clerk, and was constituted Procurator for
the Church. ? He took a prominent share in resisting
the unjust interference of Charles I: in Scottish
affairs, and in 1638, on the royal edict being proclaimed
from the Cross of Edinburgh, which set at
defiance the popular opposition to Episcopacy, he
boldly appeared on the scaffold erected near it,
and read aloud the famous protest drawn up in
the name of the Tables, while the mob compelled
the six royal heralds to remain while this counterdefiance
in the name of Scotland was being read
In 1641, when Charles visited Edinburgh for the
second time, Johnston was knighted and made a
Lord of Session, and after sitting in the Parliament
of Scotland in 1644, he attended, as one of the
Commissioners, the assembly of divines at Westminster.
In the following year he was Lord Advocate;
and in 1649 he performed one of his last
official duties, proclaiming Charles 11. King of
Scotland, on the 5th of February, 1650.
After the battle of Dunbar he was weak enough
to accept ofice under the Protectorate, as Clerk
Registrar; and after the death of Cromwell he
acted as one of the Committee of Public Safety,
when the feeble and timid Richard Cromwell withdrew
from public life ; and this last portion of his
career, together with the mode in which he had
prosecuted and persecuted the fallen Cavaliers, and
refused to concur in the treaty of Breda, sealed
his doom when the Restoration came. He was
forfeited in exile and condemned to death on the
15th of May, 1651.
An emissary of the Scottish ministry discovered
his retreat at Rouen, and, with the aid of the
French authorities, he was sent to the Tower, and
from thence to Edinburgh, where, with every mark
of indignity, he was publicly executed on the same
spot where, five-and-twenty years before, he had
defied the proclamation of Charles I. This was
on the n2nd of July, 1663, and he died with the
utmost constancy and Christian fortitude. And
now the busy establishment of one of the most
enterprising of Scottish publishing firms occupies
the site of the old mansion, in which he must many
a time have entertained such men as Alexander
Henderson, the Marquises Argyle, Rothes, and Callander,
the gallant Sir Alexander Leslie, the somewhat
double-dealing Monk, perhaps Cromwell too.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HIGH STREET (continued).
Mary King?s Close-Who was Mary ?-Scourged by the Plague of 1645-Its Mystery-Drummond?s Epigram-Prof. Sinclair?s ?I Satan?s Invisible
World Discovered?--Mr. and Mrs. Coltheart?s Ghostly Visitors-The Clox finally abandoned to Goblins-Craig?s Close-Andro Hart,
Bookseller and Printer-Andro?s Spear-A Menagerie in Craig?s CIosc-The Isle of Man Arms--The Cape Club-Its Mysteries and O f f i c a ~
--Installation of a Knight-ProvinciaI Cape Clubs-The Poker Club-How it Originated-Members-Office-bearers-Old Stamp Office
Court-Fortune?s Tavern-The beautiful Countess of EgIinton-Her Patronage of Lettters-Her Family-Interview with Dr. Johnson-
Murderous Riot in the Close-Removal of the Stamp Office.
MARY KING?S Close was long a place of terror to
the superstitious, as one of the last retreats of the
desolating plague of 1645. ?Who Mary King
was is now unknown, but though the alley is roofless
and ruined,? says one, writing of it in 1845,
?with weeds, wall-flowers, grass, and even little
trees, flourishing luxuriantly among the falling
walls, her name may still be seen painted on the
street corner.?
For some generations after the plague-in which
most of itsinhabitants perished-its houses remained
closed, and gradually it became a place of mystery
and horror, the abode of a thousand spectres and
nameless terrors, for superstition peopled it with
inhabitants, whom all feared and none cared to
succeed. ?Those who had been foolhardy enough
to peep through the windows after nightfall saw
the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged
in their wonted occupations ; headless forms danced
through the moonlit apartments ; on one occasion
a godly minister and two pious elders were scared
out of their senses by the terrible vision of a raw
head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded
from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished
a sword above their heads ; and many other terrors,
which are duly chronicled in ?Satan?s Invisible
World;?? yet it was down this place that the wild
young Master of Gray dragged the fair Mistress
Carnegie, whom, sword in hand, he had abducted
from her father?s house at the head of twelve men-at
