During the great plague of 1568 a huge pit,
wherein to bury the victims, was ordered to be dug
in the ?? Greyfriars KirRyaird,?? as Maitland records,
thus again indicating the existence of a church here
long anterior to the erection of the present one.
Here, about eight in the evening of the 2nd June,
1581,was brought from the scaffold, whereon it had
lain for four hours, covered by an old cloak, the headless
body of James Douglas, Earl of Morton, n-ho
GRRYYFBIARS CHURCH.
In this city of the dead have been interred so
vast a number of men of eminence that the mere
enumeration of their names would make a volume,
and we can but select a few. Here lie thirty-seven
chief magistrates of the city j twenty-three principals
and professors of the university, many of them
of more than European celebrity ; thirty-three of
the most distinguished lawyers of their day-one
a Vice Chancellor of Engknd and Master of the
the murder of King Henry. It was borne by
common porters, and interred in the place there set
apart for criminals, most probably where now the
Martyrs? Monument stands. Xone of his friends
dared follow it to the grave, or show their affection
or respect to the deceased Earl by any sign of
outward griet
In 1587 the king having ordered a general
weapon-shawing, the Council, on the 15th July, ordained
by proclamation a muster of the citizens in
the Greyfriars Kirkyard, ?? boddin in feir ofweir, and
arrayet in their best armour, to witt, either pike
or speer, and the armour effeuand thairto, or with
hakbuts and the armour effeirand thairto, and nocht
with halbarts or Jedburgh staffes.?
the Court of Chancery; six Lords President of the
Supreme Court of Scotland ; twenty-two senators
of the College of Justice, anda host of men distinguished
for the splendour of their genius, piety, and
worth.
Here too lie, in unrecorded thousands, citizens
of more humble position, dust piled over dust, till
the soil of the burial-place is now high above the
level of the adjacent Candlemaker Row-the dust
of those who lived and breathed, and walked OUT
streets in days gone by, when as yet Edinburgh was
confined in the narrower limits of the Old Town.
?The graves are so crowded on each other,?
says Amot, writing in 1779, ?? that the sextons fiequently
cannot avoid in opening a npe grave
