262 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
other services, Charles Philip Count d?artois,
brother of the ill-fated Louis XVI., and his son
the Duc d?Angoul&me, while, in the earlier years
of their exile, they resided at Holyrood, by
permission of the British Government, though the
people of Scotland liked to view it as in virtue of
the ancient Alliance; and a most humble place
of worship it must have seemed to the count,
who is described as having been ?the most
gay, gaudy, fluttering, accomplished, luxurious,
and expensive prince in Europe.? A doorway inscribed
in antique characters of the 16th century,
Miserwe mei Dew, gave access to this chapel. It
bore a shield in the centre with three mullets in
chief, a plain cross, and two swords saltire-waysthe
coat armorial of some long-forgotten race.
Another old building adjoined, above the door
of which was the pious legend ranged in two lines,
The feeir of the Lordis the Qegynning of al visdome,
but as to the generations of men that dwelt there
not even a tradition remains.
Lower down, at the south-west corner of the
Wynd, there formerly stood the English Episcopal
Chapel, founded, in 1722, by the Lord Chief Baron
Smith of the Exchequer Court, for a clergyman
qualified to take the oaths to Government. To
endow it he vested a sum in the public funds for
the purpose of yielding A40 per annum to the
incumbent, and left the management in seven
trustees nominated by himself. The Baron?s
chapel existed for exactly a century; it was demolished
in 1822, after serving as a place of worship
for all loyal and devout Episcopal High
Churchmen at a time when Episcopacy and
Jacobitism were nearly synonymous terms in Scotland.
It was the most fashionable church in the
city, and there it was that Dr. Johnson sat in 1773,
when on his visit to Boswell. When this edifice
was founded, according to Arnot, it was intended
that its congregation should unite with others of
the Episcopal persuasion in the new chapel ; but
the incumbent, differing from his hearers about the
mode of his settlement there, chose to withdraw
himself again to that in which he was already
established.
.? After the accession of George III., ?certain
officious people ? lodged information against some
of the Episcopal clergymen ; ?? but,? says Amot,
? the officers of state, imitating the liberality and
clemency of their gracious master, discountenanced
such idle and invidious endeavours at oppression.?
In the Blackfriars Wynd-though in what part
thereof is not precisely known now, unless on the
site of Baron Smith?s chapel-the semi-royal House
of Sinclair had a town. mansion. They were
Princes and Earls of Orkney, Lords of Roslin,
Dukes of Oldenburg, and had a list oE titles that
has been noted for its almost Spanish tediousness.
In his magnificence, Earl William-who built
Roslin Chapel, was High Chancellor in 1455, and
ambassador to England in the same year-far surpassed
what had often sufficed for the kings
of Scotland. His princess, Margaret Douglas,
daughter of Archibald Duke of Touraine, according
to Father Hay, in his ?Genealogie of the
Sainte Claires of Rosslyn,? was waited upon by
? seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three
were daughters of noblemen, all cloathed in velvets
and silks, with their chains of gold and other pertinents
; together with two hundred riding gentlemen,
who accompanied her in all her journeys.
She had carried before her, when she went to
Edinburgh, if it were darke, eighty lighted torches.
Her lodging was at the foot of Blackfryer Wynde ;
so that in a word, none matched her in all the
country, save the Queen?s Majesty.?? Father
Hay tells us, too, that Earl William ?kept a great
court, and was royally served at his own table in
vessels of gold and silver : Lord Dirleton being his
master of the household, Lord Borthwick his cup
bearer, and Lord Fleming his carver, in whose
absence they had deputies, viz., Stewart, Laird of
Drumlanng ; Tweedie, Laird of Drumrnelzier; and
Sandilands, Laird of Calder. He had his halls
and other apartments richly adorned with embroidered
hangings.?
At the south-west end of the Wynd, and abutting
on the Cowgate, where its high octagon turret,
on six rows of corbels springing from a stone
shaft, was for ages a prominent feature, stood
the archiepiscopal palace, deemed in its time
one of the most palatial edifices of old Edinburgh.
It formed two sides of a quadrangle, with aporfe
rochlre that gave access to a court behind, and was
built by James Bethune, who was Archbishop of
Glasgow (1508-1524), Lord Chancellor of Scotland
in I 5 I 2, and one of the Lords Regent, under
the Duke of Albany, during the stormy minority of
James V. Pitscottie distinctlyrefers to it as the
xrchbishop?s house, ?? quhilk he biggit in the Freiris
Wynd,? and Keith records that over the door of it
were the arms of the family of Bethune, to be seen
in his time. But they had disappeared long before
the demolition of the house, the ancient risp of which
was sold among the collection of the late C. Kirkpatrick
Sharpe, in 1851. Another from the same
house is in the museum of the Scottish Antiquaries
The stone bearing the coat of arms was also in his
possession, and it is thus referred to by &bet in
