2 66 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Cowgate.
provided by the said charter, that each person commencing
business for himself shall be worth three
pairs of shear?, and of ability to pay for one stock
.of white cloth, whereby he may be in a condition
to make good any damages to those who employ
him.
In the same year (1500) the tailors were incorporated
on the 26th August, prior to which, as a
society, they possessed the altar of St. Anne in St.
Giles?s, and they only had their old rules and regulations
embodied in their charter from the Council.
Another seal of cause was issued to them thirty
years afterwards, in the reign of James V.
The Corporation of Candlemakers first appears
in 1517. They had no altar of their own in St.
Giles?s, but certain fines provided by their charter
wete to be paid towards the sustenance of any
?? misterfull alter within the College Kirk of Sanct
Geils.? The craftsmen were forbidden to send
boys or servants to sell candles in the streets, under
pain of forfeit, and paying ?ane pund of walx
to Our Lady altar, after the first fault p two
pounds of wax for the second, and such punishment
as the magistrates may award for the third. No
member was to take an apprentice for less than
four years, and all women were to be ?expellit the
said craft, bot freemennis wyffes of the craft
allanerlie.?
The above charter was confirmed by James VI.
in 1597, though the corporation lost the privilege
in 1582 of sending a member to the Common
Council, by failing to produce their charter, and
signing the reference made in that year to the
arbiters appointed by James, at the time the late
constitution of the burgh was established, and remained
unchanged till the passing of the Reform
Bill in 1832.
We may here mention that a manufactory for
soap is first mentioned, agrd November, 1554,
when the magistrates granted a I? license to Johnne
Gaittis, Inglisman, to brew saip within the fredome
of this burgh for the space of ane yeir nixt heirafter?
and to sell the same in lasts, halflasts,
barrels, half-barrels, and firkins. But after this, till
about 1621, it was chiefly imported from Flanders.
The Baxters (or bakers) obtained their charter
on the 20th of March, 1522, but the trade must
have possessed one before, as it sets forth that in
times of troublethe original document had been lost
By this seal of cause it appears that they had in
SL Gdes?s an altar dedicated to ?Sanct Cubart.?
But the chaplain thereof, instead of being supported
by fines, as the priests of the other corporations
were, obtained his food by going from house to
house among the members of the guild in rotation.
The sole privilege of baking bread within the city
was vested in its members, ,but bread baked without
the walls might be sold, the corporation having,
however, control over it, or the power of examining
the weight and quality of ?the flour baiks and
fadges that cumes fra landwart into this toune to
sell.?
The city records contain many references to the
Baxters before the date above given. Thus in
1443, the time when they might bake and sell
?(mayne breid,? was only at ?Whitsunday, St.
Giles?s Mass, Yule and Pasche.? In 1482, in buying
flour from beyond the sea they were to pay multure,
as if from the common mills. In 1503 Baxters
convicted of baking cakes that were under weight
were threatened with penalties. In 1510 there
was an agreement between the farmers of the
city mills and the Baxters as to grinding at the
mills, with reference to the quantities to be ground
when water was scarce. In 1523 the Baxters
were ordained to ?baik thair breid sufficientlie
and weill dryit ;? the twopenny loaf to weigh ten
ounces from thenceforward, ? under pain of tynsale
of their fredome,? and escheat of the bread, which
is to be marked with their irons as heretofore. In .
April, 1548, the city Baxters were ordered to hrnish
bread for the army in the field at a given rate,
and the corporation promised to do so, in the presence
of the Lords Dunkeld, Rothes, Galloway,
Dunfermline, and Seaton; but in July the troops
would seem to have declined to receive the bread
which the trade had on hand ; thus U outland Baxters
were charged not to bring any bread to market
for three days.?
We have elsewhere (Vol. I., 382-3) had occasion
to refer to the Corporation of Barber-surgeons,
whose charter, dated 1st July, 1505, binds them
to ?uphold ane altar in the College Kirk of Sanct
Geill, in honour of God and Sanct Mongow.? They
were bound to know something of anatomy, the
?nature and complexioun of every member of
humanis (sic) body,? and all the veins of the same,
and ? in quhilk member the srbe Am dominahim
for tk time,? &c.
In 1542 we read of four surgeons sent from the
city to the borders, for the care of those wounded by
the English. (? Pitcairn?s Trials,? I.) And in 1558
the corporation sent twenty-five of their number,
including apprentices, to join the force raised for
the defence of Edinburgh against ? our auld inemyes
of Ingland.? (? List of Fellows, R.C.S. Edin.?) By
Queen Mary they were exempted from serving on
assizes.
The arms of this corporation were azure, on a
fesse argent, a naked man fesse-ways, between a
The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial
crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base
a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border,
charged with instruments used by the society. To
the surgeons. were added the apothecaries.
James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and
science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and
chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche,
whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie
tells us that James was ?ane singular guid chirurgione,?
and in his daily expense book, singular
entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people
to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :-
?Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit
furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.
?Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith
drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.?
The barbers were frequently refractory, and
brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e
adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union
of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up
the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation
by an Act of Council, on the 25th February,
1657, as already mentioned in the account of
the old Royal College of Surgeons.
The first admitted after the change, was Christopher
Irving, recorded as ?? ane free chmgone,?
without the usual words ?and barber,? after his
name. He was physician to James VII., and from
him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are
descended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY.
The Candlemaker Row--The ? Cunzie Nook?-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers? Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+
Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside
--Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital-
-Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its
Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of
ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The
.
Theatre ofvari.&s.
THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion
of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and
Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in
1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to
Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion
of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their
head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their
defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335.
In Charles I.?s time a close line of street with a
great open space behind occupied the whole of the
east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead.
The west side was the boundary wall of the
churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three
houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie
Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as
a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted
with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery
projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit
the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers
therein.? This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook,
a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab
Cshed at some early period, possibly during some
of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary
of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation
?past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit
With the ernis of the Cunzehous.?
On the west side, near the present entrance to
the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of
the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which
gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the
craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong
panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto,
. Omnia man;jesfa Zuce.
Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences,
smaller accommodation sufficing for the
fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little
more than in name. In 1847 the number of its
members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically
for various purposes, connected with the corporation
and its funds.
Edgar?s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the
close row of houses that existed along the whole of
the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and
nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith
the central Meadow Walk.
Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir
James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in
1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the
street was a place ?of considerable bustle; the
Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from
Paterson?s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time,
