31 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Canongate
33 Canongate.] THE EARL OF SEAFIELD-AND THE UNION.
matures were affixed to the Act of Union, while the
cries of the exasperated mob rang in the streets
without the barred gates.
When James VII. so rashly urged those measures
in 1686 which were believed to be a prelude to
the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy,
under the guise of toleration, a new Scottish
ministry was formed, but chiefly consisting of
members of the king?s own faith. Among these
w i s the proprietor of this old house, Alexander
Earl of Moray, a recent convert from Protestantism,
then Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament,
and as such the representative of royalty in festive
hall as well as the Senate j and his mansion, being
Lord Lorne?s marriage-that Lorne better known
.as the luckless Earl of Argyle-with Lady Mary
Stuart, of the House of Moray.
In the highest terrace of the old garden an
ancient thorn-tree was pointed out as having been
planted by Queen Mary-a popular delusion, born
of the story that the house had belonged to her
hother, the subtle Regent ; but there.long remained
ahe old stone summer-house, surmounted by two
foul and degrading bribery connected with that
event took place within its walls, may safely be
inferred from the fact that it was the residence of
the Earl of Seafield,.then Lord High Chancellor, and
one of the commissioners for the negotiation of the
treaty, by which he pocketed j64g0, paid by the
Earl of Godolphin: and he it was who, on giving
the royal assent by touching the Act of Union with
I the sceptre, said, with a brutal laugh, ?? There?s an
? end of an auld sang.?
From those days Moray House ceased, like
many others, to be the scene of state pageantries.
For a time it became the ofice of the British Linen
Company?s Bank. Then the entail was broken
in the very centre of what was then the most aristocratic
quarter of the city, was admirably suited
for his courtly receptions, all the more so that
about that period the spacious gardens on the
south were, like those of Heriot?s Hospital, a kind
of public promenade or lounging place, as would
appear chiefly from a play called ? The Assembly,?
written by the witty Dr. Pitcairn in 1692.
The union of the kingdoms is the next historical
