182 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughton.
superiority of Broughton was yielded by the
Crown, partly in payment of debts due by Charles I.
to the hospital. Thenceforward the barony* was
governed by a bailie, named by the Governors
of the Hospital, who possessed to the full the
baronial powers of pit and gallows over theiI
tenants therein.
Prior to this, in 1629, Kincaid of Warriston was
pursued before the Baron-bailie, but the case was
remitted to the Lord Justice General and the
Judgp, who remitted the affair to the Council.
In 1650, during some portions of the campaign
that preceded the battle of Dunbar, General Leslie
made Broughton his head-quarters, when he threw
up those lines of defence from the base of the
Calton Hill-to Leith, and so completely baffled
Cromwell?s advance upon the city.
After the barony came into the possession ol
Heriot?s Hospital, the Common Council of the
city, on the 17th of July, 1661, gave a grant to
William Johnstone, then Baron-bailie, ? of the
goods and chattels of women condemned for
witchcraft, and which were thereby escheated to
the said bailie.??
On this remarkable grant, Maitland observes in
his History : ? Wherefore, it is not to be wondered
at that innocent persons should be convicted of a
crime they could not be guilty of, when their effects
fall to the judge or judges.?
In 1715, during the insurrection, a party of
Highlanders marching through Broughton were
cannonaded from the Castle, and a six-pound shot
that went through a barn on this occasion, is preserved
in the Antiquarian Museum.
In 1717 Broughton was the scene of the trial
and execution in a remarkable case of murder,
which made famous the old pathway known as
Gabriel?s Road. By some strange misconception,
in ?? Peter?s Letters to his Kinsfolk,? the murderer
is called ?Gabriel,? and in a work called ?Celebrated
Trials? (in six volumes), he is called the
Rev. Thomas Hunter, whereas in reality his name
was Robert Irvine. Of this road, to which we
have already referred, Chambers gives us the following
description :-? Previous to 1767 the eye of
a person perched in a favourable situation in the
Old Town surveyed the whole ground on which
the New Town was built. Inimediately beyond
the North Loch was a range of grass fields called
Bearford?s Parks, from the name of the proprietor,
Hepbum? of Bearford, in East Lothian. Bounding
these on the north, in the line of the subsequent
Princes Street, was a road enclosed by two dry
stone walls, called the Lang Dykes. . . , .
The main mass of ground, originally rough with
whins and broom, but latterly forming what was
called Wood?s Farm, was crossed obliquely by a
road extending between Silver Mills, a rural hamlet
on the mill course of the Leith, and the passage
into the Old Town at the bottom of Halkerston?s
Wynd. There are still some tracesof this
road. You will see it leave Silver Mills behind
West Cumberland Street. Behind Duke Street,
on the west side, the boundary wall of the Queen
Street garden is oblique, in consequence of its
having passed that way. Finally, it terminates in a
short oblique passage behind the Register House,
wherein stood till lately ? Ambrose?s Tavern.
This short passage bore the name of Gabriel?s
Road, and was supposed to do so in connection
with a remarkable murder of which it was the
scene.?
Mr. James Gordon, of Ellon, in Aberdeenshire,
a rich merchant of Edinburgh, and once a bailie
there, in the early part of the eighteenth century
had a villa on the north side of the city, somewhere
between this road and the village of Broughton.
His family consisted of his wife, two sons, and a
daughter, these being all of tender age. He had a
tutor for his two boys-John and Alexander-a
licentiate of the Church, named Robert Irvine, who
was of respectable attainments, but had a somewhat
gloomy disposition. Views of predestination,
drawn from some work of Flavel?s, belonging to
the college library, had taken possession of his
mind, which had, perhaps, some infirmity ready to
be acted upon by external circumstances and dismal
impulses.
Having cast eyes of admiration on a pretty
servant-maid in Mr. Gordon?s house, he was
tempted to take some liberties with her, which
were observed, and mentioned incidentally by his
pupils. For this he was reprimanded by Mr.
Gordon, but on apologising, was forgiven. Into
Irvine?s morbid and sensitive nature the affront, or
rebuke, sank deeply, and a thirst for revenge
possessed him. For three days he revolved the
insane idea of cutting off Mr. Gordon?s three
children, and on the 28th of April, 1717, he found
an opportunity of partially accomplishing his terrible
purpose.
It was Sunday, and Mr. and Mrs. Gordon went
to spend the afternoon with a friend in the city,
taking their little daughter with them. Irvine, left
with the two boys, took them out for a walk along
the then broomy and grassy slope, where now York
Place and St. Andrew Square are situated. While
the boys ran about gathering flowers and pursuing
butterflies, he sat whetting the knife with which
he meant to destroy them !
