Restalrig.] LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I?-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of Elizabeth or the other conspirators as to the disposal
of his person.
Logan?s connection with this astounding treason
remained unknown till nine years after his death,
when the correspondence between him and the
Earl of Gowrie was discovered in possession of
Sprott, a notary at Eyemouth, who had stolen
them from a man named John Bain, to whom
they had been entrusted. Sprott was executed,
and Logan?s bones were brought into court to
havea sentence passed upon them, when it was
ordained ?that the memorie?and dignitie of the
said umqle Robert Logan be extiiict and abolisheit,?
his arms riven and deleted from all books
of arms and all his goods escheated.
The poor remains of the daring old conspirator,
were then retaken to the church of St. Mary at
Leith and re-interred j and during the alterations
in that edifice, in 1847, a coffin covered with the
richest purple velvet was found in a place where
no interment had taken place for years, and the
bones in it were supposed by antiquaries to be
those of the turbulent Logan, the last laird of
Restalrig.
His lands, in part, with the patronage of South
Leith, were afterwards bestowed upon James
Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino ; but the name still
lingered in Restalrig, as in 1613 we find that
John Logan a portioner there, was fined LI,OOO
for hearing mass at the Netherbow with James of
Jerusalem.
Logan was forfeited in 1609, but his lands had
been lost to him before his death, as Nether Gogar
was purchased from him in I 596, by Andrew Logan
of Coatfield, Restalrig in 1604 by Balmerino, who
was interred, in 1612, in thevaulted mausoleum beside
the church ; ?and the English army,? says
Scotstarvit, ? on their coming to Scotland, in 1650,
expecting to have found treasures in that place,
hearing that lead coffins were there, raised up his
body and threw it on the streets, because they
could get no advantage or money, when they expected
so much.?
In 1633 Charles I. passed through, or near,
Restalrig, on his way to the Lang Gate, prior to
entering the city by the West Port.
William Nisbet of Dirleton was entailed in the
lands of Restalrig in 1725, and after the attainder
and execution of her husband, Arthur Lord Balmerino,
in I 746, his widow-Elizzbeth, daughter
of a Captain Chalmers-constantly resided in the
village, and there she died on the 5th January, 1767.
Other persons of good position dwelt in the
village in those days; among them we may note
?
Sir James Campbell of Aberuehill, many years a
Commissioner of the Customs, who died there 13th
May, 1754, and was buried in the churchyard ; and
in 1764, Lady Katharine Gordon, eldest daughter
of the Earl of Aboyne, whose demise there is
recorded in the first volume of the Edinburgh
Adverhjer.
Lord Alemoor, whose town house was in Niddry?s
Wynd, was resident at Hawkhill, where he died in
1776 ; and five years before that period the village
was the scene of great festal rejoicings, when
Patrick Macdowal of Freugh, fifth Earl of Dumfries,
was married to Miss Peggy Crawford, daughter of
Ronald Crawford, Esq., of Restalng.?
From Peter Williamson?s Directory it appears
that Restalrig was the residence, in 1784, of Alexander
Lockhart, the famous Lord Covington. In
the same year a man named James Tytler, who had
ascended in a balloon from the adjacent Comely
Gardens, had a narrow escape in this quarter. He
was a poor man, who supported himself and his
family by the use of his pen, and he conceived the
idea of going up in a balloon on the Montgolfier
principle ; but finding that he could not carry a firestove
with him, in his desperation and disappointment
he sprang into his car with no other sustaining
power than a common crate used for packing
earthenware; thus his balloon came suddenly
down in the road near Restalrig. For a wonder
Tytler was uninjured; and though he did not
reach a greater altitude than three hundred feet,
nor traverse a greater distance than half a mile, yet
his name must ever be mentioned as that of the
first Briton who ascended with a balloon, and who
was the first man who so ascended in Britain.?
It is impossible to forget that the pretty village,
latterly famous chiefly as a place for tea-gardens
and strawbemy-parties, was, in the middle of the
last century, the scene of some of the privations
of the college life of the fine old Rector Adam of
the High School, author of ?Roman Antiquities,?
and other classical works. In 1758 he lodged
there in the house of a Mr. Watson, and afterwards
with a gardener. The latter, says Adam, in some
of his MS. memoranda (quoted by Dr. Steven),
was a Seceder, a very industrious man, who had
family worship punctually morning and evening,
in which I cordially joined, and alternately said
prayers. After breakfast I went to town to attend
my classes and my private pupils. For dinner I
had three small coarse loaves called baps, which I
got for a penny-farthing. As I was now always
dressed in my best clothes, I was ashamed to buy
these from a baker in the street. I therefore went
down to a baker?s in the middle of a close. I put
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Restalrig.
them in my pocket and went up some public staircase
to eat them, without beer or water. In this
manner I lived at the rate of little more than fourpence
a day, including everything." In the following
season he lived in Edinburgh, and added to
his baps a little broth.
In 1760, when only in his nineteenth year,
Adam-one of that army of great men who have
made Scotland what she is to-day-obtained the
head mastership of Watson's Hospital.
This place was the patrimony of the Nisbet
family, already referred to in our account of the
ancient house of Dean, wherein it is related that
Sir Patrick Nisbet of Craigantinnie, who was created
a baronet of Nova Scotia in 1669, was subsequently
designated '' of Dean," having exchanged his paternal
lands for that barony with his second cousin,
Alexander Nisbet.
The latter, having had a quarrel with Macdougall
of Mackerston, went abroad to fight a duel with
1Hti Huudr: OF THE LnGANS OF RESTALRIG, LOCH END. (PUYfh Uftter a Skr4ch by fhe Author J J I ~ C in 1847.)
Year after year Restalrig was the favourite
summer residence of the Rev. Hugh Blair, author
of the well-known " Lectures on Rhetoric and
Belles-lettres," who died on the 27th of December
1800. ,
A little way north-east of Restalrig village stands
the ancient house of Craigantinnie, once a simple
oblong-shaped mansion, about four storeys in height,
with crowstepped gables, and circular turrets ; but
during the early part of this century made much
more ornate, with many handsome additions, and
having a striking aspect-like a gay Scoto-French
chheau-among the old trees near it, and when
viewed from the grassy irrigated meadows that lie
between it and the sea.
him, in 1682, attended by Sir William Scott of
Harden, and Ensign Douglas, of Douglas's Regiment,
the Royal Scots, as seconds. .On their
return the Privy Council placed the whole four in
separate rooms in the Tolbooth, till the matter
should be inquired into ; but the principals were,
upon petition, set at liberty a few days after, on
giving bonds for their reappearance.
On the death of Sir Alexander Nisbet at the
battle of Toumay, unmarried, the estates and title
reverted to his uncle, Sir Alexander, who was succeeded
by his eldest son Sir Henry ; upon whose
decease the title devolved upon his brother Sir
John, who died in 1776.
In that year the latter was succeeded by his
