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
High Street.] CARDINAL BEATON?S HDUSE. 263
his Heraldry :-? With us (the Scots) angels
have been frequently made use of as supporters.
Cardinal Beaton had his, supported by two angels,
in Dalmatic habits, or, as some say, priestly ones,
which are yet to be seen on his lodgings in Blackfriars
Wynd.? The cardinal?s arms, as borne on
his archiepiscopal seal, are Bethune and Balfour
quarterly, with a cross-crosslet-headed pastoral
staff, and the tasselled hat over all.
Upon all the buildings erected by the archbishop
?his armorial bearings were conspicuously displayed,?
says Wilson, ?and a large stone tablet
remained, till a few years since, over the archway
of Blackfriars Wynd, leading into the inner court,
supported by two angels in Dalmatic habits, and
surmounted by a crest, sufficiently defaced to enable
antiquaries to discover in it either a mitre or a
cardinal?s hat, according as their theory of the original
ownership inclined towards the archbishop
or his more celebrated nephew the cardinal.?
Occupying the space between Blackfriars Wynd
and Toddrick?s Wynd, the archiepiscopal palace
afforded a striking example of the revolutions
effected by time and change of manners on the
ancient abodes of the opulent and the noble. As
it appeared before its demolition no doubt could
be entertained that some portions of it had been
rebuilt, to suit the requirements of its last humble
denizens, but much remained to form connectinglinks
in the long chain of ages, The whole of the
entrance floor had been strongly groined with stone,
built on solid pillars, calculated to afford protection
during the brawls and conflicts of the times.
Within the arched passage that led from the
Wynd a broad flight of steps led to the first floor
of the palace, a mode of construction common in
those days, when the architect had to cogsider
security, and how the residents might resist an attack
till terms were obtained, or succour came.
In early times the whole of the space occupied by
the Mint in the Cowgate and other buildings to
the north thereof had been the garden grounds of
the archiepiscopal residence.
Here it was, as we have related, that the Earl
of Arran and his armed adherents held their stormy
conclave on the 30th of April, 1520, concerting the
capture and death of Angus, whose war array held
the High Street and barricaded the close-heads ;
and liere it WLS that Gawain Douglas, the Bishop of
Dunkeld, and translator of Virgil, whose two brothers
fell at Flodden, called on the archbishop,
and strove to keep the peace in vain, for the prelate
was already in his armour, and the dreadful conflict
of ? Cleanse the Causeway ? ensued, giving
victory to the Douglases, and compelling the
fugitive archbishop, during 1525, the time they
were.in power, to seek safety in the disguise of a
shepherd, and, literally, crook in hand, to tend
flocks of sheep on Bograin-knowe, not far from his
diocesan city of Glasgow.
James V, took up his abode in the archiepiscopal
palace in 1528, preparatory to the meeting of
Parliament, and the archbishop, who had been one
of the most active promoters of his liberation from
the Douglas faction, became his host and entertainer.
Here, in after years, resided his nephew,
David Beaton, the formidable cardinal, who, in
1547, was murdered so barbarously in the castle of
St. Andrew, and here also was literally the cradle
of the now farnous High School of Edinburgh, as it
was occupied as the ?Grammar Skule? in 1555,
while that edifice, which stood eahward of the
Kirk-of-field, was in course of erection,
We next hear of the little paiace in the reign of
Mary. On the 8th of February, 1562, her brother,
the Lord James Stewart, ? newly created Earl of
Mar (afterwards Moray) ? was married upon Agnes
Keith, daughter to William Earl Marischal,? says
the Diurnal of Occurrents, (? in the kirk of Sanct
Geil, in Edinburgh, with solemnity as the like has
not been seen before; the hale nobility of this
realm being there present, and convoyit them down
to Holyrood House, where the banquet was made,
the queen?s grace thereat.? After music and
dancing, casting of fire-balls, tilting with fire-spears,
and much jollity, next evening the queen, with all
her court, came up in state from Holyraod ?to
the cardinal?s lodging in the Blackfriar Wynd,
which was preparit and hung maist honourably.?
Then the queen and her courtiers had a joyous
supper, after which all the young craftsmen of the
city came in their armour, and conveyed her back
to Holyrood. Up Blackfriars Wynd, past the
house of the late cardinal, Queen Mary proceeded
on the fatal night of the 9th of February, 1567,
about the same time nearly that Bothwell and his
accomplices passed down the next alley, on their
way to the Kirk-of-field. She had dined that day
at Holyrood, and about eight in the evening went
to sup with the Bishop of Argyle. At nine she
rose from the table, and accompanied by the Earls
of Argyle, Cassilis, and Huntly, escorted by her
archer-guard and torch-bearers, went to visit
Darnley in the lonely Kirk-of-field, intending to
remain there for the night, but returned home. As
she was proceeding, three of Bothwell?s retainers,
Dalgleish, Powrie, and Wilson, in their depositions,
stated that after conveying the powder-bags to
the convent gate, at the foot of the Blackfriars
Wynd, they saw ?the Qucnes grace gangand
