Kik-of-Field.] THE PROVOST?S HOUSE.
by the gate elsewhere already described as being
at the head of the College Wynd, in those days
known as ? The Wynd of the Blessed Virgin Maryin-
the-Fields.?
It was on the 31st of January, 1567, that the
weak, worthless, and debauched, but handsome,
Henry, Lord Darnley, King-consort of Scotland, was
brought to the place of his doom, in the house of
the Provost of the Kirk-of-Field.
Long ere that time his conduct had deprived
hini of authority, character, and adherents, and he
had been confined to bed in Glasgow by small-pox
There he was visited and nursed by Mary, who, as
Carte states, had that disease in her infancy, and
having no fears for it, attended hini with a sudden
and renewed tenderness that surprised and-as her
enemies say-alarmed him.
By the proceedings before the Commissioners at
York, 9th December, 1568, it would appear that it
had been Mary?s intention to take him to her
favourite residence, Craigmillar, when one of his
friends, named Crawford, hinted that she treated
him ? too like a prisoner j ? adding, ? Why should
you not be taken to one of your own houses in
Edinburgh ? ?
Mary and Darnley left Glasgow on the 27th of
January, and travelled by easy stages to Edinburgh,
which they reached four days after, and Bothwell
met them with an armed escort at a short distance
from the city on the western road, and accompanied
them to the House of the Kirk-of-Field, which
the ambitious earl and the secretary Lethington
were both of opinion was well suited for an invalid,
being suburban, and surrounded by open grounds
and gardens, and occupied by Robert Balfour,
brother of Sir Janies Baltour of Pittendreich, who,
though Lord Clerk Register, and author of the
well-known ? Practicks of Scots Law,? had nevertheless
drawn up the secret bond for the
murder of the king.
The large and commodious house of the Duke of
Chatelherault in the Kirk-of-Field Wynd was about
to be prepared for his residence ; but that idea was
overruled. Balfour?s house was selected ; a chamber
therein was newly hung with tapestry for him,
2nd a new bed of black figured velvet provided for
his use, by order of the queen.
? The Kirk-of-Field,? says Melvil, ? in which the
king was lodged, in a place of good air, where he
might best recover his health,? was so called, we
have said, because it was beyond the more ancient
city wall ; but the new wall built after Flodden
enclosed the church as well as the houses of the
Provost and Prebendaries. ?In the extended line
of wall,? says Bell, ?? what was (latterly) called the
(Laing, Vol 11.)
3
Potterrow Port was at first denominated the Kirkof-
FFld Port, from its vicinity to the. church of
that name. The wall ran from this port along
the south side of the present College Street and
the north side of Drunimond Street, where a part is
still to be seen in its original state. The house
stood at some distance from the kirk, and the
latter from the period of the Reformation had fallen
into decay. The city had not yet stretched
in this direction much farther than the Cowgate.
Between that street and the town wall were the
Dominican Convent of the Black Friars, with its
alms-houses for the poor, and gardens covering the
site of the old High School and the Royal Infirmary,
and the Kirk-of-Field, with its Provost?s residence.
The Kirk-of-Field House stood very nearly
on the site of the present north-west corner of
Drummond Street. It fronted the west, having its
southern gavel so close upon the town wall that a
little postern door entered immediately through the
wall into the kitchen. It contained only four
apartments. . . . Below, a small passage went
through from the front door to the back of the
house, upon the right-hand of which was the kitchen,
and upon the left a room furnished as a bedroom
for the queen when she chose to remain all ?
night. Passing out at the back door there was a
turnpike stair behind, which, after the old fashion
of Scottish houses, led up to the second storey.?
Above, there were two rooms corresponding with
those below. Damley?s chamber was immediately
over Mary?s; and on the other side of the lobby
above the kitchen, ? a garde robe,? or ? little gallery,?
which was used as a servant?s room, and which had
a window in the gavel looking through the town
wall, and corresponding with the postern door below.
Immediately beyond this wall was a lane,
shut in by another wall, to the south of which
were extensive gardens.?? (?Life of Queen Mary,?
chap. XX.)
Darnley occupied the upper chamber mentioned,
while his three immediate servants, Taylor, Nelson,
and Edward Simmons, had the gallery. The door
at the foot of the staircase having been removed,
and used as a cover for ?the vat,? or species of
bath in which Darnley during his loathsome
disease was bathed, the house was without other
security than the portal doors of the gateway.
During much of the time that he was here Mary
attended him with all her old affection and with
assiduous care, passing most of each day in his
society, and sleeping for several nights in the lower *
chamber. The marks of tenderness and love
which she showed him partially dispelled those
fears which the sullen and suspicious Darnley had
4 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Kirk-of-Field.
begun to entertain of his own safety ; for he knew
that he had many bitter enemies, against whom he
trusted that her presence would protect him,
Many persons are said to have suspected Bothwell?s
fell purpose, but none dared apprise him of
his danger, ? as he revealed all,? says Mehil, ? to
some of his own servants, who were not honest.?
Three days before the murder, the Lord Robert
Stuart, Mary?s illegitimate brother, warned Darnley
that if he did not quit the Kirk-of-Field ?? it would
cost him his life.?
Darnley informed Mary of this, on which she
sent for her brother, and inquired his meaning in
her husband?s presence ; but Lord Robert, afraid
of involving himself with Bothwell and the many
noble and powerful adherents of that personage,
denied ever having made any such statement.
?? This information,? adds Melvil, ?? moved the Earl
of Bothwell to haste forward with his enterprise.?
He had secured either the tacit assent or active
co-operation of the Earls of Huntley, Argyle, Caithness,
and the future Regent Morton, of Archibald
Douglas, and many others of the leading lords and
officers of state ; and in addition to these conspirators
of high rank, he had received a number of
other unscrupulous wretches, with whom Scotland
seemed at that time to abound.
Four of these, Wilson, Powrie, Dalgleish, and
French Paris, were only humble retainers; but
other four who were active in the Kirk-of-Field
tragedy were John Hepburn of Bolton, John Hay
of Tallo, the Laird of Ormiston, and Hob Ormiston
his uncle.
Bothwell artfully contrived to get the Frenchman
Paris, who had been long in his service, taken into
that of the queen about this period, and thus
render important service by obtaining the door-key
of the Kirk-of-Field House, from which impressions
were taken and counterfeits made.
If the depositions of this villain are to be
credited, it was not until Wednesday, the 5th of
February (1567), that the plot was revealed to him,
and that on seeing him grow faint-hearted at dread
of his own danger, Bothwell asked him, impatiently,
more than once, what he thought of it. ?Pardon
me, sir,? replied Paris, ? if I tell you my opinion
according to my poor mind.?
?What ! are you going to preach to me ? asked
Bothwzll, scornfully.
Paris ultimately consented to act; and it
would seem that Bothwell for a few days was un.
decided, like his four chief accomplices, whether to
slay Darnley when walking in the garden or sleep
ing in bed, or to blow the house and its inmates up
together. Eventually a quantity of Government
?owder was brought from the Castle of Dunbar to
Bothwell?s house, near Holyrood, and Paris was
nstructed to admit Hay, Hepburn, and Ormiston
.nto the queen?s room, below that of Darnley, from
which he, to blacken her, alleged she removed a
valuable coverlet-a very unlikely act of parsimony
3n her part.
On the night of Sunday, the 9th of February, all
was ready for the dreadful project. When the dusk
fell Bothwell assembled the conspirators at his own
house, znd, according to the depositions of Powrie,
Dalgleish, Tallo, and others, allotted to each the
prim part he was to play. He was well aware that
the queen had dined that day at the palace, and
that in the evening she was to sup with the Bishop
of Argyle in the house of Mr. John Balfour, with
whom the prelate lodged.
At nine she left the supper-table, and, accompanied
by the Earls of ?Argyle, Huntley, and
Cassilis, went to visit Darnley at the Kirk-of-
Field before returning to Holyrood, where she
was to be present at a masque in honour of the
marriage of Margaret Carwood, one of her favourite
attendants.
Meanwhile, Dalgleish, Powrie, and U?ilson, were
conveying the powder in bags from Bothwell?s
house to the convent gate at the foot of the Blackfriars
Wynd, where it was received by Hay of Tallo,
Hepburn of Bolton and Ormiston, who desired them
to return home.
Bothwell, who had been present with her at the
banquet of the bishop, quitted the table at the
same time as Mary, but left her and walked up and
down the Cowgate while the powder was being
received and deposited. By his orders a large
empty barrel was deposited in the Dominican
garden. Into this all the bags of powder were to
have been placed, but as the lower back door of
the Provost?s house was too small to admit it, they
were conveyed in separately, and placed in a heap
on the floor of the room beneath that in which the
victim then lay a-bed.
At length all was in readiness ; the queen had
departed by torchlight to the Holyrood masque,
attended by Bothwell, and Ormiston had withdrawn;
but Hay and Hepburn, with their false
keys, remained in the room with the powder. Paris,
who had in his pocket the key of the queen?s room
in the Kirk-of-Field, followed her train to the palace.
If, again, any credit can be given to the confession
of Pans, he stated that on entering the .
ball-room where the masquers were dancing, a
melancholy seized him, and he remained apart from
all; on which Bothwell accosted him angrily,
saying that if he retained that gloomy visage in
