232 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
and a place on the south side of the market, zoo
feet below, the father slid down it in half a minute.
The son performed the same feat, blowing a trumpet
all the way, to the astonishment of a vast
crowd of spectators.
Three days afterwards there was a repetition of
the performance, ? at the desire of several people
of quality,? when after sliding down, the father made
his way up to the battery again, firing a pistol,
striking.? These houses were not so old, however,
as the order of the Templars, but having been built
upon their land, and being also the heritage of the
Hospitallers, and forming, as such, a portion of the
barony of Drem, had affixed to them the iron
cross in remembrance of certain legal titles and
privileges which are to this day productive of
solid benefits.
With the Temple Close, which was entered by a
THE TEMPLE LANDS. GRASSMARKET. (From a Drawing by Gcorge W. Simson.)
beating a drum, and proclaiming that while up
there he could defy the whole Court of Session.
The whole of the south side of the Grassmarket
had been pulled down and re-built at intervals
before 1879.
Among the oldest edifices that once stood here
were unquestionably the Temple tenements and
the Greyfriars Monastery. In describing the execution
of Porteous, which took place in front of the
former, Scott says :-?? The uncommon height and
antique appearance of these houses, some of which
were formerly the property of the Knights Templar
and the Knights of St. John, and still exhibit
on their fronts and gables the iron cross of their
orders, gave additional effect to a scene in itself so
narrow arch beneath them, they have been entirely
swept away since 1870.
Immediately to the westward of them was one of
the most modem houses in this quarter, through
which entered Hunter?s Close, above the arch of
which was inscribed ANNO DOM. MDCLXXI., and
it was from the dyer?s pole in front of this tenement
that Porteous was hanged in 1736. ?The
long range of buildings that extend beyond this,?
says Wilson, writing in 1847, ?presents as singular
and varied a group of antique tenements as either
artist or antiquary could desire. Finials of curious
and grotesque shapes surmount the crowstepped
gables, and every variety of form and elevation
diversifies the skyline of their roofs and chimneys,
Grassmarket.] THE GREYFRIARS MONASTERY. 233
while behind the noble pile of Heriot?s Hospital thereof, Henry granted to them a charter empowertowers
above them, as a counterpart to the old I ing the latter to trade to any part of England,
Castle that rises majestically over the north side of subject to no other duties than those payable by
the same area Many antique features are dis- the most highly favoured natives of that country,
cernible here. Several of the older houses are in acknowledgment, as he states, of the humane
built with bartizaned roofs and ornamental copings, i and honourable treatment he met with from the
designed to afford their inmates an uninterrupted
view of the magnificent pageants
that were wont of old to defile through
the wide area below, or of the gloomy
tragedies that were so frequently enacted
here between the Restoration and the
Revolution. ?
Towards the south-east end of the market
place stood the ancient monastery of Grey
Friars, opposite where the Bow Foot Well,
erected in 1681, now stands. James I., a
monarch, who by many salutary laws and
the encouragement of learning, endeavoured
to civilise the country, long barbarised
by wars with England, established this
monastery. In obedience to a requisition
made by him to the Vicar-General of the
Order at Cologne, a body of Franciscans
came hither under Comelius of Zurich, a
scholar of great reputation. The house
prepared for their reception proved so
magnificent for the times, says Arnot, that
in the spirit of humility and self-denial
they declined to live in it, and could only
be prevailed upon to do so at the earnest
request of the Archbishop of St. Andrews
; consequently a considerable time
must have elapsed ere they were finally
established in the Grassmarket. There
they taught divinity and philosophy till
the Reformation, when their spacious and
beautiful gardens, that extended up the
slope towards the town wall, were bestowed
on the citizens as a cemetery by Queen
Mary.
That the monastery was a sumptuous
edifice according to the times, is proved
by its being assigned for the temporary
abode of the Princess Mary of Gueldres, who after
her arrival at Leith in June, 1449, rode thither on
a pillion behind the Count de Vere, and was visited
by her future husband, James II., on the following
In 1461, after the battle of Towton, its roof
afforded shelter to the luckless Henry VI. of England
when he fled to Scotland, together with his
heroic Queen Margaret and their son Prince
Edward. The fugitives were so hospitably entertained
by the court and citizens, that in requital
day.
78
EAST END OF THE GRASSMARKET, SHOWING THE WEST BOW,
(FaC-iitRik of an Eichiwg by Jam8 S h of RnbXaw.)
THE GALLOWS, AND OLD CORN MARKET.
Provost and burgesses of Edinburgh. As the
house of Lancaster never regained the English
throne, the charter survives only as an acknowledgment
of Henry?s gratitude. How long the latter
resided in the Grassmarket does not precisely
appear. Balfour states that in 1465, Henry VI.,
? having lurked long under the Scotts King?s wing
as a privat man, resolves in a disgyssed habit to
enter England.? His future fate belongs to English
history, but his flight from Scotland evidently
was the result of a treaty of truce, in Feb., 1464. I
