OLD AND NEW EDINBUKGH. [Heriot?s Hospital. 366
with the idea of founding an institution in his native
city, somewhat like Christ?s Hospital, and in
the arrangements for this he was assisted by his
cousin Adam Lautie, a notary in Edinburgh. Having
thus set his house in order, he died peacefully
in London on the 12th of February, 1Gz3, a year
before his royal master James VI., and was buried
at St. Martins-in-the-Fields,
The whole of his large property, the legacies
excepted, was by him bequeathed to the civic
authorities and clergy of Edinburgh, for the eiection
and maintenance of a hospital ?for the education,
nursing, and upbringing of youth, being
puir orphans and fatherless children of decayet burgesses
and freemen of the said burgh, destitute, and
left without means.?
Of what wealth Heriot died possessed is uncertain,
says Arnot ; but probably it was not under
~50,000. The town council and clergy employed
Sir John Hay of Barns, afterwards Lord Clerk
Register, to settle accounts with Heriot?s English
debtors. Among these we find the famous Robin
Carr, Earl of Somerset, the dispute being about a
jewelled sword, valued at between g400 and As00
by the Earl, but at A890 by the executors.
Heriot had furnished jewels to Charles I. when
the latter went to Spain in 1623, and whenhe ascended
the throne, his debt for these, due to Heriot,
was paid to the trustees in part of the purchasemoney
of the Barony of Broughton, the crown
lands in the vicinity of the city.
The account settled between Sir John Hay and
the Governm of the Hospital, 12th of May, 1647,
and afterwards approved by a decree of the Court
of Session, after deducting legacies, bad debts, and
compositions for debts resting by the Crown,
amounted to A23,625 10s. 34d. sterling (Amot),
and on the 1st July, 1628, the governors began to
rear the magnificent hospital on the then open
ridge of the High Riggs; but the progress of the
work was interrupted by the troubles of subsequent
years.
Who designed Heriot?s Hospital has been more
than once a vexed question, and though the edifice
is of a date so recent, this is one of the many architectural
mysteries of Europe. Among other fallacies, a
popular one is that the architect was Inigo Jones,
but for this assertion there is not the faintest
shadow of proof, as his name does not appear in any
single document or record connected with Heriot?s
Hospital, though the names of several ?? Master
Masoq? are commemorated in connection with
the progess of the work, and the house contains a
portrait of William Aytoun, master mason, engraved
in Constable?s memoir of Heriot, published in 1822,
8
a cadet of the house of Inchdairnie in Fifes!
iire.
When the edifice was first founded the master cf
works was William Wallace, who had under him
an overseer. 0; foreman named Andrew Donaldson,
who, says Billings, seems to have been in reality
the master mason, while William Wallace was the
architect.
On his death the Governors recorded their high
sense of ?his extraordinay panes and grait a i r he
had in that wark baith by his advyce, and in the
building of the same.? , l h e contract made in the
year 1632, with William Aytoun, his successor, has
been preserved ; and it appears to bc just the sort
of agreement that would be made with an architect
in the present day, whose duty it was to follow
up, wholly or in part, the plans of his predecessar.
?lhs, Aytoun became bound (? to devyse, plott, and
sett down what he sal1 think meittest for the decornient
of the said wark ?and pattern thereof
alreddie begun, when any defect is found; and
to make with his awin handis the haill mowlds,
alsweil of tymber, as of stane, belanging generally
to the said wark, and generally the said William
Aytoun binds and obliges him to do all and quhatsumevir
umquihle William Wallace, last Maister
Maissone at the said wark, aither did or intended
to be done at the same.?
The arrangements for the erection of the building
were onginally conducted by a Dr. Balcanquall, a
native of the city, one of the executors under
Heriot?s last will, and who drew up the statutes.
He had been a chaplain to James VI., and Master
of the Savoy in the Strand. The edifice progressed
till 1639, when there was a stoppage from want uf
funds ; the tenants of the lands in which the property
of the institution was vested being unable to
pay their rents amid the tumult of the civil war. In
the records, however, of the payments made about
this period, we find the following extraordinary
items :-
aut Murch.-?I?o ye 6wemen yt drew ye cairt xxviijs
wit ye chainyeis to zame vii lib. ijs.
iiij lib iiijs. ond yair handis
in ye cairt xijs.
For 6 shakellis to ye wemeinis hands,
Mair for 14 lokis for yair waists
For ane qwhip for ye gentlwemen
What species of ?gentlwemen? they were who
were thus shackled, chained, whipped, and harnessed
to a cart, it is difficult to conceive.
In 1642 the work was recommenced in March,
and there is an instruction that the two front
towers be plat-formed, with ane bartisane about
ilk ane .of them.? -4nd in July, 1649, ? George
Heriot?s Hospital.1 WALTER BALCANQU.-II,L. 367
Waucllop Thesauer,? is ordained ? to take down
the stonewark of the south-west tower, and to make
(it) the same as the north-west and north-east
towers ar, and this to be done with all diligence.?
In Rothiemay?s view of the Hospital, published
in 1647, he shows it enclosed by the crenelated
ramparts of the city from the present tower in the
Vennel, and including the other three on the west
and south.
A high wall, with a handsome gateway, bounds
it above the Grassmarket, and on the west a long
wall separates it from the Greyfriars churchyard,
and the entire side of the present Forrest Road.
Gordon?s view is still more remarkable for showing a
lofty spire above the doorway, and the two southern
towers surmounted by cupolas, which they certainly
A somewhat similar view (which has been reproduced
here,* on p. 368) will be found in Slezer?s
?? Theatrum Scotiz,? under the title of Boghengieght.
How this name (which is the name of one
of the Duke of Gordon?s seats) came to be applied
by the engraver to Heriot?s Hospital is not known.
The hospital was filled with the wounded of the
English army, brought thither from the battle-field
of Dunbar by CromwelL And it was used for sick
and wounded soldiers by General Monk, till about
1658, when the governors prevailed upon him to
remove them, accommodation being provided for
them elsewhere,
During this period the governors granted an
annual pension of A55 to a near relation of Heriot,
but not until they had received two urgent notes
from Cromwell. This pension was afterwards resigned.
Many improvements and additions were
made, and the total expenses amounted then to
upwards of ~30,000, when in 1659 it was opened
for the reception of boys on the 11th April, when
30 were admitted. In August they numbered forty,
In 1660 the number was 52; in 1693 it was
130; and in 1793 140.
Fifteen years before the opening of the hospital,
the life of Dr. Walter Balcanquall, the trustee
whom Maitland curiously calls its architect, had
come to a grievous end. The son of the Rev.
Walter Balcanquall, a minister of Edinburgh for
forty-three years, he had graduated at Oxford as
Bachelor of Divinity, and was admitted a Fellow
on the 8th September, 1611; in 1618 he represented-
whiIe royal chaplain-the Scottish Church
at the Synod of Dort, and his letters concerning
that convocation, addressed to Sir Dudley Carleton,
? had till about 1692.
The Editor is indebted to Mr. D. F. Lowe, M.A.. House-Governor
of Heriot?s Hospital, fer assistance very kindly rendered in the matter
cfiUu&ations.
are preserved in Hale?s ?Golden Remains.? 1:
was after he had been successively Dean of
Rochester 2nd of Durham that he was one of
Heriot?s three trustees. In 1638 he accompanied
the Marquis of Hamilton, Royal Commissioner, as
chaplain ; and some doubts of his dealings on this
ahd subsequent occasions rendered him obnoxious to
the Presbyterians of Scotland and the Puritans of
England; and in July, 1641, he and five others
having been denounced as incendiaries by the Scottish
Parliament, after being persecuted, pillaged, and
sequestrated by the Puritans, he shared the falling
fortunes of Cliarles I. He was thrown into Chirk
Castle, Denbighshire, where he died on Christmas
Day, 1645, just after the battle of Naseby, and a
splendid nionunient to his memory was subsequently
erected in the parish churcli of Chirk: by Sir Thomas
Myddleton.
In the hospital records for 1675 is the following,
under date May 3rd :-?There is a necessity that
the steeple of the hospital be finished, and a top
put thereon. Ro. Miln, Master Mason, to think on
a drawing thereof against the next council meeting.,?
But nothing appears to have been done by the
king?s master mason, for on the Ioth?July, Deacon
Sandilands was ordered to put a roof and top on the
said steeple in accordance with a design furnished
by Sir IVilliam Bruce, the architect of Holyrood
Palace.
In 1680, about the time that the obnoxious test
was made the subject of so much mockery,
Fountainhall mentions that ?( the children of
Heriot?s Hospitall, finding that the dog which
keiped the yards of that hospital1 had a public
charge and office, ordained him to take the test,
and offered him the paper ; but he, loving a bone
rather than it, absolutely refused it. Then they
rubbed it over with butter (which they called an
Explication of the Test in imitation of Argile), and
he licked off the butter and did spit out the paper,
for which they held a jurie on him, and in derision
of the sentence against Argile, they found the dog
guilty of treason, and actually hanged him.?
In 1692 the Council Records refer to the abolition
of the cupolas, the appearance of which in old
views of the hospital have caused some discussion
among antiquaries.
?The council having visited the fabric of the
hospital, and found that the south-east quarter
thereof is not yet finished and completed, and that
the south-west quarter is finished and completed by
a pavilion turret of lead, an& that the north-east
and north-west corners of the said fibnc are
covered with a pavilion roof of lead; therefore,
and for making the whole fabric of the said
