Beechwood.] SIR ROBERT DUNDAS OF BEECHWOOD. 105
to the Castle of Edinburgh under a strong escort of
their comrades.
General Leslie, and Lieutenant MacLean the
adjutant, having accompanied this party a little
way out of Glasgow, were, on their return, assailed
by a mob which sympathised with the Highlanders
and accused them of being active in sending
away the prisoners. The tumult increased,
stones were thrown ; General Leslie was knocked
down, and he and MacLean had to seek shelter
these documents were not formally executed, were
confused in their terms, and good for nothing in a
legal sense, Mrs. Rutherford of Edgerstoun very
generously fulfilled to the utmost what she conceived
to be the intentions of her father.
Sir Robert Dundas, Bart., of Beechwood, like the
preceding, figures in the pages of Kay. He was
one of the principal Clerks of Session, and Deputy
Lord Privy Seal of Scotland. He was born in
June, 1761, and was descended from the Dundases
BEECHWOOD.
in the house of the Lord Provost till peace
officers came, and a company of Fencibles. One
of the mutineers was shot, by sentence of a
court-martial. The others were sent to America.
On his way back to Edinburgh General Leslie
was seized with a dangerous illness, and died at
' Beechwood House on the 27th of December,
'794.
No will could be found among the General's repositories
at Beechwood, and it was presumed that
he had died intestate. However, a few days after
the filneral, two holograph papers were discovered,
bequeathing legacies to the amount of L7,ooo
among some of his relations and friends, particularly
.&I,OOO each to two natural daughters. Although
110
of Amiston, the common ancestor of whom was
knighted by Charles I., and appointed to the
bench by Charles 11. Educated as a Writer to
the Signet, he was made deputy-keeper of Sashes,
and in 1820 a principal Clerk of Session. He was
one of the original members of the old Royal
Edinburgh Volunteers, of which corps he was a
lieutenant in 1794. He purchased from Lord
Melville the estate of Dunira in Perthshire, and
succeeded to the baronetcy and the estate of
Beechwood on the death of his uncle General Sir
David Dundas, G.C.B., who was for some time
Commander-in-Chief of the forces. Sir Robert
died in 1835.
A winding rural carriage-way, umbrageous and
106 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ravelston.
shady with wood, strikes from the Murrayfield Road
northward past the ancient and modem houses of
Ravelston. The latter is a large square-built mansion
; the former is quaint, gable-ended and crowstepped,
and almost hidden among high old walls
and venerable trees.
In the ? Burgh Records,? under date I 5 I I, the
Quarry at Ravelston appears to have been let to
Robert Cuninghame, by ? William Rynde, in the
name and behalf of John Rynde, clerk, prebender
of Ravelston,? with the consent of the magistrates
and council, patrons of the same.
On the old house are two lintels, the inscriptions
on which are traceable. The first date is doubtless
that of its erection ; the second of some alteration
or repair.
GF-NE QUID NIMIS. 1622. J B.
These are the initials of George Foulis of Ravelston
and Janet Bannatyne his wife. The other is
on a beautiful mantelpiece, now built up in the old
garden as a grotto, and runs thus, but in one long
line :-
The first over the enpance bears,
IM. AR. 1624. YE . ALSO . AS . LIVELY . STONES .
ARE . BUILT . AS , A SPIRITVAL . HOVSE.-I PETER.
The tomb of George Foulis of Ravelston was
in the Greyfriars Churchyard, and the inscription
thereon is given in Latin and English in Monteith?s
? Theatre of Mortality, 1704.?
He is styled that excellent man, George Foulis
of Ravelstoun, of the noble family of Colintoun,
Master of the king?s mint, bailie of the city of
Edinburgh, and sixteen years a Councillor. He
died on the 28th of May, 1633, in his sixty-fourth
year. The death and?burial are also recorded ol
?I his dearest spouse, Janet Bannatyne, with whom
he lived twenty-nine years in the greatest concord.?
It
was one of these daughters that Andrew Hill, a
musician, was tried for abducting, on the 4th of
September, 1654. One of the many specific
charges against this person, is that with reference
to the said Marian Foulis, daughter of Foulis of
Ravelston : ?he used sorceries and enchantments
-namely, roots and herbs-with which he boasted
that he could gain the affection of any woman he
pleased,? and which he used to this young lady.
?The jury acquitted him of sorcery, strange to record
in those times, ? as a foolish boaster of his skill
in herbs and roots for captivating women,? but
condemned him for the abduction ; and while the
judges delayed for fifteen days to pass sentence he
was so eaten and torn by vermin in prison that
he died !
In 1661 John Foulis of Ravelston was created
a baronet of Nova Scotia
The tomb records that he left six daughters.
In his notes to ?Waverley,? Sir Walter Scott refers
to the quaint old Scottish garden of Ravelston
House, with its terraces, its grass walks, and stone
statues, as having, in some measure, suggested to
him the garden of Tullyveolan.
The baronetcy of Ravelston was forfeited by the
second who bore it, Sir Archibald, who was beheaded
for adherence to Prince Charles, at Carlisle, in
I 746, and the lineal representatives of the line are
the Foulises, Baronets of Colinton, who represent
alike the families of Colinton, Woodhall, and
Ravelston.
The second baronet of the latter line, who was,
says Burke, the son of the first baronet?s eldest
son, George Primrose Foulis, by whom the lands of
Dunihac, were inherited in right of his mother
Margaret, daughter of Sir Archibald Primrose, and
mother of the first Earl of Rosebery, bore the
designation of Sir Archibald Primrose of Ravelston,
whose family motto was 27iure etjure.
In time the lands of Ravelston were acquired
by the Keith family, and in 1822, Alexander Keith
of Ravelston and Dunnottar, Knight-Marischal .of
Scotland, was created a baronet by George IV.
during his visit to Edinburgh. Dying without
issue in 1832, the title became extinct, and the
office of Knight-Marischal passed to the Earl of
Erroll as Lord High Constable of Scotland.
No. 43 Queen Street was the town residence of
the Keith family at the time of the royal visit.
A writer in BZackwood?s Magazine, on oldfashioned
Scottish society, refers to Mrs. Keith of
Ravelston, thus :-
?? Exemplary matrons of unimpeachable morals
were broad in speech and indelicate in thought,
without ever dreaming of actual evil. So the
respectable Mrs. Keith of Ravelston commissioned
Scott, in her old age, to procure a copy
of Mrs. Behn?s novels for her edification. Shk
was so shocked on her first attempt at a perusal
of them, that she told him to take ? his bonny book
away.? Yet, she observed, that when a young
woman she had heard them read aloud in a company
that saw no shadow of impropriety in them.
And whatever were the faults of old Scottish
society, with its sins of excess and its shortcomings
in refinement, there is no disputing that
its ladies were strictly virtuous, and that such slips
as that of the heroine of ? Baloo, my Boy,? were so
rare as to be deemed worthy of recording in rhymes.
So the reformation of manners was as satisfactory
as it was easy, since the foundations of the new
superstructure were sound.?
From Ravelston a rural road leads to Craigcrook
Castle, which for thirty-four years was the
