166 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Leith.
or ripple or burnished face of water, the very
aspect of which is luxury in a summer day.?
North Leith is bounded on the north ?by the
Firth of Forth, on the south and east by the stream
which gives its name to the whole locality, dividing
it from South Leith, and on the south and west
by St. Cuthbert?s. It is oblong in form, and has
an area of only 517 acres, Its surface is nearly a
uniform level, and with the exception of some
garden grounds is covered by streets and villas.
Between North Leith and Xewhaven the coast has
been to a considerable extent washed away by the
encroaching waves of the Firth, but has now received
the aid of strong stone bulwarks to protect
it from further loss.
The Links of North Leith, which lay along the
coast, were let in 1595 at the annual rent of six
merks, while those of South Leith were let at a rent
of thirty, so the former must have been one-fifth of
the extent of the latter, or a quarter of a mile long
by three hundred yards in breadth. For many
years the last vestiges of these have disappeared
and what must formerly have been a beautiful and
grassy plain is now an irreclaimable waste, where
not partially occupied by the railway and goods
station, regularly flooded by the tide, and displaying
at low water a thick expansion of stones and
pebbles, washed free from mould or soil.
The earliest reference td Leith in history is in
King David?s famous charter to Holyrood, aim
1143-7, whereir. he gives the water, fishings, and
meadows to the canons serving God therein, ?? and
Broctan, with its right marches ; and that Tnverlet
which is nearest the harbour, and with the half of
the fishing, and with a whole tithe of all the fishing
that belongs to the church of St. Cuthbert.?
This charter of King David is either repeated or
quoted in all subsequent grants by charter, or purchases
of superiority, referring to Leith ; and by it
there would seem to have been in that early age
some species of harbour where the Leith joins the
Firth of Forth ; but there is again a reference to it
in 1313, when all the vessels there were burned by
the English during the war waged by Edward II.,
which ended in the following year at Bannockburn.
On the 28th of May, 1329, King Robert I. began
all the future troubles of Leith by a grant of it to
the city of Edinburgh, in the following terms :-
U Robert, by the grace of God King of Scots, to
all good men of his land, greeting: Know ye that
we have given, granted, and to perform let, and by
this our present charter confirmed, to the burgesses
of our burgh of Edinburgh, our foresaid burgh of
Edinburgh, together with the port of Leith, mills,
and their pertinents, to have and to hold, to the
said burgesses and their successors, of us and our
heirs, freely, quietly, fully, and honourably, by all.
their right meithes and marches, with all the commodities,
liberties, and easements which justiy pertained
to the said burgh in the time of King:
Alexander, our predecessor last deceased, of good
memory ; paying, therefore, the said burgesses and
their successors, to us and our heirs, yearly, fiftytwo
merks sterling, at the terms of Whitsunday, and
Martinmas in winter, by equal proportions. In
witness whereof we have commanded our seal to
be affixed to our present charter. Tesfihs, Walter
of Twynham, our Chancellor ; Thomas Randolph,
Earl of Moray, Lord of Annandale and Man, our
nephew ; Janies, Lord of Douglas ; Gilbert of Hay,
our Constable ; Robert of Keith, our Marischal1 of
Scotland, and Adam Moore, knights. At Cardross,
the 28th of May, in the twenty-fourth year of our
reign.? (Burgh Charters, No. iv.)
From the date of this document a contest for the
right of superiority commenced, and till the present
century Leith was never free from the trammels
imposed upon it by the city of Edinburgh ; and the
town council, not content with the privileges given
by Robert Bruce, eventually got possession of the
ground adjacent to the harbour, on the banks of
the river.
In those days the population of the infant port
must have been very small. In the index of missing
royal charters in the time of King Robert II.,
there is one to John Gray, Clerk Register, ? of ane
tenement in Leith,? and another to the monastery
of Melrose of a tenement in the same place;
and in 1357, among those?who entered into an
obligation to pay the ransom of King David II.,
then a prisoner of war in England, we find
? William of Leith,? no doubt a merchant of substance
in his day.
Thomas of Leith, or another bearing the same
name, witnessed a charter of David, Earl of Orkney,
in 1391.
Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, a man of heartless,
greedy, and rapacious character, began to
contest the-citizens? claim or right of superiority
over Leith, and obliged them to take a concession
of it from him by purchase or charter, dated the
31st of May, 1398 ; and to this document we have
referred in a preceding chapter. Prior to this, says
Maitland, the course of traffic was restricted by
him ?to the use of a narrow and inconvenient lane,
a little beneath the Tolbooth Wynd, now called the
Burgess Close.?
As we have related in the account of Restalrig,
Sir Robert Logan granted to the community of
Edinburgh a right to the waste lands in the vicinity
(Burgh Charters, Xo. vi.)
