278 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
Close was seized, and a battery erected on the
summit thereof to assail the King?s men. In the
?Histone of James Sext? we are told that the
Regent Earl of Mar brought nine pieces of ordnance
up the Canongate to assail the Netherbow Port,
but changed their position to a fauxbourg of the
town, callit Pleasands, ? from whence to batter the
Flodden wall and to oppose a platform of guns
erected on the house of Adam Fullerton.
When this sharp but brief civil disorder ended,
Adam returned to his strong mansion in the Fountain
Close once more, and on the 4th of December,
1572, he and Mr. John Paterson appear together
as Commissaries for the city of Edinburgh, and
the supposition is, that the date, 1573, referred
to repairs upon the house, after what it had
suffered from the cannon of Mar. Thus, says
Wilson, ?the nincit veritu of the brave old
burgher acquires a new force, when we consider
the circumstznces that dictated its inscription, and
the desperate struggle in which he had borne a
leading part, before he returned to carve these
pious aphorisms over the threshold that had so
recently been held by his enemies.?
With a view to enlarging the library of the
College of Physicians, in 1704, that body purchased
from Sir James Mackenzie his house and
ground at the foot of the Fountain Close. The
price paid was 3,500 rnerks (A194 8s. Iod.). To
this, in seven years afterwards, was added an
adjoining property, which connected it with the
Cowgate, ? then a genteel and busy thoroughfare,??
and for which 2,300 merks (A127 15s. 6d.) were
given. From Edgar?s map it appears that the
premises thus acquired by the College of Physicians
were more extensive than those occupied
by any individual or any other public body in
the city. The ground was laid out in gardens
and shrubbery, and was an object of great admiration
and envy to the nobility and gentry, ta
several of whom the privilege of using the pleasure
grounds was accorded as a favour. Considering
the locality now, how strangely does all this
read !
The?whole of the buildings must have been in
a dilapidated, if not ruinous state, for expensive
repairs were found to be necessary on first taking
possession, and the same head of expenditure
constantly recurs in accounts of the treasurer 01
the College; and so early as 1711 a design was
pioposed for the erection of a new hall at the foot
of the Fountain Close ; and after nine years? delay,
2,900 merks were borrowed, and a new building
erected, but it was sold in 1720 for E%oo, as a site
for the new Episcopal Chapel.
Till the erection of St. Paul?s in York Place, the
Fountain Close formed the only direct communication
to this the largest and most fashionable
Episcopal church in Edinburgh, that which was
built near the Cowgate Port in 1771.
Tweeddale?s Close, the next alley on the east,.
was the scene of a terrible crime, the memory of
which, though enacted so long ago as 1806, is still.
fresh in the city. The stately house which gave
its name to the Close, and was the town residence
of the Marquises of Tweeddale, still remains,
though the ? plantation of lime-trees behind it,?
mentioned by Defoe in his ? Tour,? and shown in
seven great rows on Edgais map, is a thing of
the past.
Even after the general desertion of Edinburgh
by the Scottish noblesse at the Union, this fine old
mansion (which, notwithstanding great changes,
still retains traces of magniticence) was for a time
the constant residence of the Tweeddale family.
It was first built and occupied by Dame Margaret
Kerr Lady Yester, daughter of Mark first Earl of
Lothian. She was born in 1572, and was wife of
James the seventh Lord Yester, in whose family
there occurred a singular event. His page, Hepburn,
accused his Master of the Horse of a design
to poison him; the latter denied it; the affair
was brought before the Council, who agreed that
it should be determined by single combat, in 1595,
and this is supposed to have been the last of such
judicial trials by battle in Scotland.
By Lady Yester, who founded the church that
still bears her name in the city, the mansion, with
all its furniture, was bestowed upon her grandson,
John second Earl of Tweeddale (and ninth Lord
Yester), who joined Charles I. when he unfurled
his standard at Nottingham in 1642. Six years
subsequently, when a Scottish army under the
Duke of Hamilton, was raised, to rescue Charles
from the English, the Earl, then Lord Yester, commanded
the East Lothian regiment of 1,200 men,
After the execution of Charles I. he continued
with the regal party in Scotland, assisted at the
coronation of Charles II., and against Crornwell
he defended his castle of Neidpath longer than any
place south of the Forth, except Borthwick. With
all this loyalty to his native princes, he came
early into the Revolution movement, and in 1692
was created, by William III., Marquis of Tweeddale,
with the office of Lord High Chancellor of
Scotland, and died five years afterwards.
The next occupant of the house, John, second
Marquis, received LI,OOO for his vote at the
Union, and was one of the first set of sixteen
representative peers. The last of the family who
