High Street.] THE REGENT MORTON. 259
the king?s chamber j the lie was given, and a somewhat
ribald altercation followed, but nothing occurred
for nearly three weeks after, till Sir William
Stewart, when coming down the High Street with
a party of his friends, met Bothwell, accompanied
by the Master of Gray and others, going up.
A collision between two such parties was inevitable,
and, in the spirit of the times, unavoidable.
Sword and dagger were instantly resorted to, and
in the general fight Sir William Stewart slew a friend
of Bothwell?s, but in doing so lost his sword, and,
being defenceless, was compelled to fly into
Blackfriars Wynd. Thither the vengeful Bothwell
pursued him ; and as he stood unarmed against a
wall, ?strake him in at the back and out at the
belly, and killed him.?
For this Bothwell found it necessary to keep
out of the way only for a few days ; and such
events so commonly occurred, that it is not curious
to find the General Assembly, exactly a week
after this combat, proceeding qnietly with the
usual work of choosiiig a Moderator, providing for
ministers, and denouncing Popery, exactly as they
do in the reign of Queen Victoria.
The next most remarkable event was in 1668,
when, on Saturday the 9th of July, James Sharpe,
Archbishop of St. Andrews, whose residence was
then in the Wynd, so narrowly escaped assassination.
His apostacy from the Covenant, and unrelenting
persecution of his former compatriots, its adherents,
had roused the bitterness of the people against
him. He was seated in his coach, at the head of
the Wynd, waiting for Andrew Honeyman, Bishop
of Orkney, when Mitchell, a fanatical assassin and
preacher, and bosom friend of the infamous Major
Weir, with whom he was then boarding in the
house of Mrs. Grise1 Whiteford in the Cowgate,
fired a pistol at the primate, but, missing him,
dangerously wounded the Bishop of Orkney. He
was immediately seized, and, with little regard
to morality or justice, put to the torture, without
eliciting any confession ; . and after two years
seclusion on the Bass Rock, he was brought to
Edinburgh in 1676, and executed in the Grassmarket,
to strike terror into the Covenanters ; but
history has shown that their hearts never knew
what terror was.
Sir William Honeyman, Bart., Lord Armadale in
1797, was the fourth in descent from the bishop
who was wounded on this occasion by a poisoned
bullet, as it is affirmed.
While much of the west side of Blackfriars
Wynd was left standing, the east, in the city improvements,
was completely swept away. On the
latter side, near the head of the wynd, was a
house with a decorated lintel, inscribed-IN. THE.
LORD. IS. MY. nom. 1564. The ground floor of
it consisted of one great apartment, the roof or
ceiling of which was upheld by a massive stone
column. This hall formed the meeting-place of
those who adhered to the Covenanted Kirk, after
the Revolution of 1688, and was long known as
? The Auld Cameronian Meeting-house,? and in
the upper storey thereof tradition alleges that
Nicol Muschat, the murderer, lived, when a student?
attending the university.
On the west side of the Wynd was the ancient
residence of the Earls of Morton, with a handsome
ogee door-head and elaborate mouldings, shafted
jambs, and in the tympanum of the lintel a
coroneted shield supported by unicorns, though
the arms of the family have always had two savages,
or wild men, hence the edifice is supposed to be of a
date anterior to the days of the Regent. Yet it is
distinctly described, in a disposition by Archibald
Douglas younger of Whittinghame, as ? that tenement
which was sometime the Earl of Morton?s,??
from which, according to Wilson, it may be inferred
to have been the residence of his direct ancestor,
John second Earl of Morton, who sat in the Parliament
of James IV. in 1504, and whose grandson,
William Douglas of Whittinghame, was created
a senator of the College of Justice in 1575.
Tradition has unvaryingly alleged this house to
have been that of the Regent Morton, in those
days when the king?s men and queen?s men were
fighting all over the city, and Kirkaldy of Grange
was bent upon driving him out of it ; and here no
doubt it was that he had his body-guard, which
was commanded by Alexander Montgomery the
poet, whom Melvil in his diary mentions as
?Captain Montgomery, a good honest man, and
the Regent?s domestic ; ? and the house is often
referred to, during the, civil wars of that period,
before he attained the Regency.
While Lennox was in office, Morton projected
the assassination of the Laird of Drumquhasel, whom
the former confined to his residence in Leith as a
protection. This Morton deemed an affront to
himself, and prepared to leave Leith and the king?s
standard together. ?? Alarmed .by the probable
loss of the most influential earl of the house of
Douglas, the weak Regent, affecting to be ignorant
of his wrathful intentions, sent a servant to acquaint
him that ?he meant to dine with him that day,?
? I am sorry I cannot have the high honour of his
lordship?s company,? replied the haughty earl ; ? my
business is pressing, and obliges me to leave Leith
without even bidding him adieu.? Lennox was
