238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and September, and the facts
were fully proved against them. A letter from
Downie, treasurer of the Committee of Ways and
Means, to Walter Millar, Perth, acknowledging the
receipt of LIS, on which he gave a coloured
account of the recent riots in the theatre on the
performance of ?? Charles I.? was produced and
identified; and Robert Orrock stated that Downie
accompanied Watt to his place at the Water of Leith,
where the order was given for the pikes.
William Brown said that he had made fifteen of
these weapons, by order of Watt, to whom he
delivered them, receiving 22s. 6d. for the fifteen.
Other evidence at great length was led, a verdict of
guilty was returned, and sentence of death was
passed upon the prisoners-to have their bowels
torn out, and to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
The punishment of Downie was commuted to
transportation ; and on the royal clemency being
announced to him he burst into tears, and kneeling
on the floor of the vault above the portcullis
he exclaimed, in ecstasy, ?Oh, glory be to God,
and thanks to the king! Thanks to him for his
goodness ! I will pray for him as long as I live !
He had a wife and children,. and for years had
enjoyed the reputation of being a sober and respectable
mechanic.
Previous to his execution Watt made a full confession
of the aims and objects contemplated by
the committees and their ramifications throughout
Britain. He was in his thirty-sixth year, and was
the natural son of a gentleman of fortune in Angus.
He was executed on the 15th October, 1794 The
magistrates, Principal Baird, the. city guard,. and
town officers, with their halberds, conducted him
from the Castle to the place of death at the end of
the Tolbooth about two o?clock, The sheriff and
his substitute were there, in black, with white
gloves and rods. The hurdle was painted black, but
drawn by a snow-white horse. It was surrounded
by constables and zoo of the Argyle Fencible
Highlanders, stepping to the ?? Dead March.?
Watt was a picture of the most abject dejection.
He was wrapped up in an old greatcoat, and wore
a red night-cap, which, on the platform, he exchanged
for a white one and a round hat ; but his
whole appearance was wretched and pitiful in the
extreme, and all unlike that of a man willing to
die for conscience, or for country?s sake. After
his body had hung for thirty minutes, it was cut
down lifeless and placed on a table ; the executioner
then Came forward with a large axe, and
with two strokes severed from the body the head,
which fell into a basket, and was then held up by
the hair, in the ancient form, by the executioner, who
exclaimed, ?? This is the head of a traitor !
The crowd on this occasion was slow in collecting,
but became numerous at last, and showed little
agitation when the drop fell; ?but the appearance
of the axe,? says the Annual Regzkter, ?a
sight for which they were totally unprepared, produced
a shock instantaneous as electricity; and
when it was uplifted such a general shriek or shout
of horror burst forth as made the executioner delay
his blow, while numbers .rushed off in all directions
to avoid the sight.? The remains were
next put into a coffin and conveyed away. The
handcuffs used to secure Watt while a prisoner in
the Castle were, in 1841, presented by Miss Walker
of Drumsheugh to the Antiquarian Museum, where
they are still preserved.
C H A P T E R XXXI.
THE COWGATE.
?The Cuwgate-Origin and Gend History of the Thoroughfare-First Houses built the-TheVernour?s Tenement-Alexander Ale-Division
of the City in ~gx-?Dichting the Calsayy in qrS-The Cowgate Port-Beggars in 1616Gilbert B1akha.I-Names ofthe most Ancient
Closes-The North Side of the Street-MacLcllan?s Land-Mrs Syme-John Nimmo-Dr. Qraham-The How of Si Thomas Hope
and Lady Mar-The Old Back Stairs-Tragic Story of Captain Caylq-Old Meal Market-Riots in 1763-The Episcopal Chapel, now
St. Pauick?s Roman Catholic Church-Trial of the Rev. Mr. Fitzsimmons
THE Cowgate is, and has always been, one of the
most remarkable streets in the ancient city. A
continuation of the south back of the Canongate
it runs along the deepest part of a very deep gorge,
into which Blair, Niddry, and St. Mary?s Streets,
with many other alleys, descend rapidly from the
north and others from the south, and though high
in its lines of antique houses, it passes underneath
the overspanning central arch of the South Bridge
and the more spacious one of George IV. Bridge,
and, though very narrow, is not quite straight.
For generations it has been the most densely
peopled and poorest district in the metropolis, the
most picturesque and squalid, and, when viewed
Coweate.1 VERNOUR?S
from the two bridges named, it seems to cower in
its gorge, a narrow and dusky river of quaint and
black architecture, yet teeming with life, bustle,
and animation. Its length from where the Cowgate
Port stood to the foot of the Candlemaker
Row is about 800 yards.
. I t is difficult to imagine the time when it was
probably a narrow country way, bordered by hedgerows,
skirting the base of the slope whereon lay
the churchyard of St. Giles?s, ere houses began to
appear upon its lie, ,and it acquired its name,
which is now proved to have been originally the
Sou?gate, or South Street.
One of the earliest buildings immediately adjacent
to the Cowgate must have been the ancient chapel
of the Holyrood, which stood in the nether kirkyard
of St. Giles?s till the Reformation, when the
materials of it were used in the construction of the
New Tolbooth. Building here must have begun
early in the 15th century.
In 1428 John Vernour gave a land (i.e., a tenement)
near the town of Edinburgh, on the south
side thereof, in the street called Cowgate, to
Richard Lundy, a monk of Melrose,? for twenty
shillings yearly. He or his heirs were to have the
refusal of it if it were sold. (?Monastic Ann,?
Tevio tdale.)
In 1440 William Vernour, according to the
same authority, granted this tenement to Richard
Lundy, then Abbot of Melrose, without reserve, for
thirteen shillings and fourpence yearly; and in
1493, Patrick, Abbot of Holyrood, confirmed the
monks of Melrose in possession of their land called
the Holy Rood Acre between the common Vennel,
and another acre which they had beside the highway
near the Canongate, for six shillings and eightpence
yearly.
On the 31st May, 1498, James IV. granted to
Sir. John Ramsay of Balmain (previously Lord
Bothwell under James 111.) a tenement and
orchard in the Cowgate. This property is referred
to in a charter under the Great Seal, dated 19th
October, 1488, to Robert Colville, director of the
chancery, of lands in the Cowgate of Edinburgh,
once the property of Sir James Liddell, knight, ?et
postea johannis Ramsay, oZim nunntpafi Domini
BoifhveZe,? now in the king?s hands by the forfeiture
first of Sir James Liddell, and of tenements
of John Ramsay.
Many quaint timber-fronted houses existed in
the Cowgate, as elsewhere in the city. Such
mansions were in favour throughout Europe generally
in the 15th century, and Edinburgh was only
influenced by the then prevailing taste of which
so many fine examples still remain in Nuremberg
.
TENEMENT. 239
and Chester ; and in Edinburgh open piazzas and
galleries projecting from the actual ashlar or original
front of the house were long the fashion-the
former for the display of goods for sale, and the
latter for lounging or promenading in; and here
and there are still lingering in the Cowgate mansions,
past which James 111. and IV. may have
ridden, and whose occupants buckled on their mail
to fight on Flodden Hill and in Pinkey Cleugh.
Men of a rank superior to any of which modem
Edinburgh can boast had their dwellings in the
Cowgate, which rapidly became a fashionable and
aristocratic quarter, being deemed open and airy.
An old author who wrote in 1530, Alexander
Alesse, and who was born in the city in 1500, tells
us that ?the nobility and chief senators of the
city dwell in the Cowgate-via vaccarum in qud
hrabifanf pdfriXi et senafores urbis,? and that U the
palaces of the chief men of the nation are also
there ; that none of the houses are mean or vulgar,
but, on the contrary, all are magnificent-ubi nihJ
Aunt& aui rusticum, sed omnia magzzjfca P
Much of the street must have sprung into existence
before the wall of James 11. was demolished,
in which the High Street alone stood; and it was
chiefly for the protection of this highly-esteemed
suburb that the greater wall was erected after the
battle of Flodden.
A notarial instrument in 1509 cpncerning a
tenement belonging to Christina Lamb on the
south side near the Vennel (or wynd) from the Kirk
of Field, describes it as partly enclosed with pales
of wood fixed in the earth and having waste land
adjoining it.
In the division of the city into three quarters in
I 5 I 2, the 6rst from the east side of Forester?s Wynd,
on both sides of the High Street, and under the
wall to the Castle Hill, was to be held by Thomas
Wardlaw. The second quarter, from the Tolbooth
Stair, ?? quhak Walter Young dwellis in the north
part of the gaitt to the Lopley Stane,? to beunder
the said Walter; and the third quarter from the
latter stone to Forester?s Wynd ?in the sowth
pairt of the gaitt, with part of the Cowgate, to be
under George Dickson.?
In 1518, concerning the ?Dichting of the
Calsay,? it was ordained by the magistrates, that
all the inhabitants should clean the portion thereof
before their own houses and booths ?als weill in
the Kowgaitt venellis as on the Hie Gaitt,? and
that all tar barrels and wooden pipes be removed
from the streets under pain of escheat. In 1547
and 1548 strict orders were issued with reference
to the gwds at the city gates, and no man who was
skilled in any kind of gunnery was to quit the tom
