102 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Galton Hill,
thirteenth century, it was not until 1518, when the
Provost James, Earl of Arran, and the Bailies of the
city, conveyed by tharter, under date 13th April, to
John Malcolme, Provipcial of the Carmelites, and
his successors, their lands of Greenside, and the
chapel or kirk of the Holy Cross there, The
latter had been an edifice built at some remote
period, of which no record now remains, but it
served as the nucleus of this CarmeIite monastery,
nearly the last of the religious foundations in
Scotland prior to the Reformation.
In December, 1520, the Provost (Robert Logan
.of Coatfield), the 3ailies and Council, again con-
Jerred the ground and place of ? the Greensyde to
the Freris Carmelitis, now beand in the Ferry, for
their reparation and bigging to be maid,? and Sir
Thomas Cannye was constituted chaplain thereof.
From this it would appear that the friary had
,been in progress, and that till ready for their
Teception the priests were located at the Queens-
.ferry, most probably in the Carmelite monastery
built there in 1380 by Sir George Dundas of
that ilk. . In October, 1525, Sir Thomas, chaplain
.of the pkce and kirk of the Rood of Greenside,
got seisin ?thairof be the guid town,?
.and delivered the keys into the hands of the
magistrates in favour of Friar John Malcolmson,
.??Jro mareraZZ (sic) of the ordour,?
In 1534, two persons, named David Straiton
and Norman Gourlay, the latter a priest, were
tried for heresy and sentenced to be burned at
the stake. On the 27th of August they were
d e d to the Rood of Greenside, and there suffered
.that terrible death. After the suppression of the
-order, the buildings mus, have been tenantless
until 1591, when they were converted into a
hospital for lepers, founded by John Robertson,
a benevolent merchant of the city, ?pursuant to
a vow on his receiving a signal mercy from God.?
? At the institution of this hospital,? says Arnot,
.?? seven lepers, all of them inhabitants of Edinburgh,
were admitted in one day. The seventy of the
lregulations which the magistrates appointed to be
.observed by those admitted, segregating them
from the rest of mankind, and commanding them
to remain within its walls day and night, demonstrate
the loathsome and infectious nature of the
distemper.? A gallows whereon to hang those
who violated the rules was erected at one end of
the hospital, and even to open its gate between
sunset and sunrise ensured the penalty of death.
It is a curious circumstance that, though not a
stone remains of the once sequestered Carmelite
monastery, there is still perpetuated, as in the case
of the abbots of Westminster, in the convent of the
Carmelites at Rome, an official who bears the title
of IZ Padre Priore rii Greenside. (?Lectures on
the Antiquities of Edin.,? 184s.)
In- the low valley which skirts the north-eastern
base of the hill, now occupied by workshops and
busy manufactories, was the place for holding
tournaments, open-air plays, and revels.
In 1456 King James 11. granted under his
great seal, in favour of the magistrates and community
of the city and their successors for ever,
the valley and low ground lying betwixt the rock
called Cragingalt on the east, and the common
way and passage on the west (now known as Greenside)
for performing thereon tournaments, sports,
and other warlike deeds, at the pleasure of the
king and his successors. This grant was &ted
at Edinburgh, 13th of August, in presence of the
Bishops of St, Andrews and Brechin, the Lords
Erskine, Montgomery, Darnley, Lyle, and others,
This place witnessed the earIiest efforts of the
dramatic muse in Scotland, for many of those pieces
in the Scottish language by Sir David Lindesay,
such as his ?? Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaits,?
were acted in the play field there, ?when weather
served,? between 1539 and 1544 ; but in consequence
of the tendency of these representations to
expose the lives of the Scottish clergy, by a council
of the Church, held at the Black Friary in March,
1558, Sir David?s books were ordered to be burned
by the public executioner.
? The Pleasant Satyre ? was played at Greenside,
in 1544, in presence of the Queen Regent, ?as is
mentioned,? says Wilson, ?by Henry Charteris, the
bookseller, who sat patiently nine hours on the
bank to witness the play. It so far surpasses any
effort of contemporary English dramatists, that it
renders the barrenness of the Scottish muse in .
this department afterwards the more apparent.?
Ten years subsequent a new place would seem
to have been required, as we find in the ?Burgh
Records? in 1554, the magistrates ordaining their
treasurer, Robert Grahame, to pay ?? the Maister
of Werke the soume of xlij Zi xiij s iiij d, makand
in hale the soume of IOO merks, and that to
complete the play field, now bigging in the
Greensid.?
This place continued to be used as the scene of
feats of arms until the reign of Mary, and there,
Pennant relates, Bothwell first attracted her attention,
by leaping his horse into the ring, after
galioping ?down the dangerous steeps of the
the adjacent hill ?-a very apocryphal story. Until
the middle-of the last century this place was all
unchanged. ? In my walk this evening,? he writes
in 1769, ?I passed by a deep and wide hollow
?
