Munayfield.] ROSEEURN HOUSE. 103
WHEN YOU
WILL ENTER
AT CHRIST
HIS DOOR
AYE MIND
YOU THE ROOM
TO THE POOR.
frages of the Saints,? and is still used after vespers
in all Roman Catholic churches, is a curious feature
in a Scottish house of post-Reformation times.
Westward of Coltbridge there is pointed out a
spot where Cromwell?s forces occupied the rising
ground in I 650, after his repulse before Edinburgh,
and where he was again out-generalled by the
gallant Sir David Leslie, whose army was posted
by the Water of Leith and the marshy fields along
its banks.
Tradition assigns to R~seburn House the honour
of having given quarters for that night to Oliver
Cromwell, which is probable enough, as it is in
the immediate vicinity of the position assumed by
his army; and with this tradition the history, if
it can be called so, of Roseburn ends.
In levelling some mounds here, some few years
since, ?some stone coffins were found,? says
LINTEL AT ROSEBURN HOUSE.
the portion of a legend, GOD KEIP OURE CROWNE,
AND SEND GUDE SUCCESSION, and the date 1526.
The other lintel is over an inner door, and has a
shield with two coats of arms impaled : in the first
canton are three rose-buds, between a chevron
charged with mullets ; in the second canton are
three fish, fess-wise ; in the panel are the initials
M. R. and K. F. ; and underneath the legend and
date, ? All my hoip is in ye Lord, I j62.?
Why this house-the whole lower storey of which
is strongly vaulted with massive stone-should be
decorated with the royal arms, it is impossible to
learn now, but to that circumstance, and perhaps to
the date 1562, and the initials M. R., evidently those
of the proprietor, may be assigned the unsupported
local tradition, which associates it with the presence
there of Mary and Bothwell j but the house was
evidently in existence when the latter seized the
former on the adjacent highway. According to Mr.
James Thomson, the present occupant of Roseburn
House, whose forefathers have resided in it for
more than a century, tradition names one of the
apartments ?Queen Mary?s room,? being, it is said,
the room in which she slept when she lived there.
The long legend, which is taken from the ? Suf.
Daniel Wilson, ?and a large quantity of human
bones, evidently of a very ancient date, as they
crumbled to pieces on being exposed to the air ;
but the tradition of the neighbouring hamlet is
that they were the remains ot some of Cromwell?s
troopers. Our informant,? he adds, ? the present
intelligent occupant of Roseburn House, mentioned
the curious fact that among the remains
dug up were the bones of a human leg, with fragments
of a wooden coffin, or case of the requisite
dimensions, in which it had evidently been buried
apart.?
North-west of Coltbridge House and Hall lies
Murrayfield, over which the town is spreading fast
in the form ot stately villas. Early in the last
century it was the property of Archibald Murray of
Murrayfield, Advocate, whose son Alexander, a
Senator of the College of Justice, was born, in 1736,
at Edinburgh. Being early designed for the Bar,
he became a member of the Faculty of Advocates
in 1758, and three years after was appointed sheriff
at Peebles.
In 1765 he succeeded his father as one of the
Commissaries of Edinburgh, and a few years after
saw him Solicitor-General for Scotland, in place of
104 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Beechwood.
Henry Dundas, appointed Lord Advocate. After
being Member for Peebles, he was raised to the
bench, assuming the title of Lord Henderland, from
an estate he possessed in that county. He was
what is called a double-gowned Senator. He also
held the office of Clerk of the Pipe in the Scottish
Exchequer Court, an office which, through the
interest of Lord Melville, was subsequently held
by his sons. He died of cholera morbus in 1796.
He saw much hard service during the American
War of Independence, and was second in command
at the battle of Guildford, when the colonists,
under General Green, were defeated on the 15th of
March, 1781. He commenced the action at the
head of his division, the movements of which were
successful on every point. ? I have been particularly
indebted to Major-General Leslie for his
gallantry and exertion, as well as his assistance in
ROSEBURN HOUSE.
Westward of Murrayfield, on the southern slope
of Corstorphine Hill, is Beechwood, embosomed
among trees, the beautiful seat of the Dundases,
Baronets of Dunira and Comrie, Perthshire. It
is said that it caught the eye of the Duke of
Cumberland, when marching past it in 1746, and
he remarked that ?it was the handsomest villa
he had seen, and most like those in England.?
In the last century it was the property and
residence of Lieutenant-General the Hon. Alexander
Leslie, Colonei of the 9th Regiment, brother
of the 6th Earl of Leven and Melville, who began
his military career as an ensign in the Scots Foot
Guards in 1753, and attained the rank of Major-
General in 1779. His mother was a daughter of
Monypenny of Pitmilly, in Fifeshire.
every other part of the service,? wrote Lord Cornwallis
in one of his despatches.
Leslie was appointed to the command of the
9th Foot on the 4th July, 1788, and from that
time held the rank of Lieutenant-GeneraL In
1794, while second in command of the forces in
Scotland, in consequence of a mutiny among the
Breadalbane Highland Fencibles at Glasgow, he
left Edinburgh with Sir James Stewart and Colonel
Montgomerie (afterwards Earl of Eglinton) to take
command of the troops collected to enforce order.
By the judicious conduct of Lord Adam Gordon,
the Commander-in-Chief, who knew enough of the
recently raised regiment to be aware ? that Highlanders
may be led, not driven,? an appeal to force
was avoided, and the four ringleaders were brought
