Merchiston.] THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, Bart.
In 1870 the original use to which the foundation
was put underwent a change, and the hospital
became a great public school for boys and girls.
At the western extremity of what was the Burghmuir,
near where lately was an old village of that
name (at the point where the Colinton road diverges
from that which leads to Biggar), there stands, yet
unchanged amid all its new surroundings, the
ancient castle of Merchiston, the whilom seat of a
race second to none in Scotland for rank and talent
-the Napiers, now Lords Napier and Ettrick. It
is a lofty square tower, surmounted by corbelled
battlements, a ape-house, and tall chimneys. It
was once surrounded by a moat, and had a secret
avenue or means of escape into the fields to the
north. As to when it was built, or by whom, no
record now remains.
In the missing rolls of Robert I., the lands of
Merchiston and Dalry, in the county of Edinburgh,
belonged in his reign to William Bisset, and under
David II., the former belonged to William de
Sancto Claro, on the resignation of Williani Bisset,
according to Robertson?s ?Index,? in which we find
a royal charter, ?datum est apud Dundee,? 14th
August, 1367, to John of Cragyof the lands of
Merchiston, which John of Creigchton had resigned.
So the estate would seem to have had several
proprietors before it came into the hands of
Alexander Napier, who was Provost of Edinburgh
in 1438, and by this acquisition Merchiston became
the chief title of his family.
His son, Sir Alexander, who was Comptroller of
Scotland under James 11. in 1450, and went on a
pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury in the
following year-for which he had safe-conduct from
the King of England-was Provost of Edinburgh
between 1469 and 1471- He was ambassador to
the Court of the Golden Fleece in 1473, and was
no stranger to Charles the Bold ; the tenor of his
instructions to whom from James II., shows that he
visited Bruges a d the court of Burgundy before
that year, in 1468, when he was present at the
Tournament of the Golden Fleece, and selected a
suit of brilliant armour for his sovereign.
Sir Alexander, fifth of Merchiston, fell at Flodden
with James IV.
John Napier of Merchiston was Provost 17th
of May, 1484, and his son and successor, Sir Archibald,
founded a chaplaincy and altar in honour of St.
Salvator in St. Giles?s Church in November, 1493.
His grandson, Sir Archibald Napier, who married
a daughter of Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, was
slain at the battle of Pinkie, in 1547.
Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston and Edinbellie,
who was latterly Master of the Mint to
James VI., was father of John Napier the
celebrated inventor of the Logarithms, who was
born in Merchiston Castle in 1550, fgur years after
the birth of Tycho Brahe, and fourteen before that
of Galileo, at a time when the Reformation in
Scotland was just commencing, as in the preceding?
year John Knox had been released from the
French galleys, and was then enjoying royal
patronage in England. His mother was Janet,
only daughter of Sir Francis Bothwell, and sister
of Adam, Bishop of Orkney. At the time of his
birth his father was only sixteen years of age. He
was educated at St. Salvator?s College, St. Andrews,
where he matriculated 1562-3, and afterwards spent
several years in France, the Low Countries, and
Italy; he applied himself closely to the study of
mathematics, and it is conjectured that he gained
a taste for that branch of learning during his residence
abroad, especially in Itily, where at that
time were many mathematicians of high repute.
While abroad young Napier escaped some perils
that existed at home. In 150s a dreadful pest
broke out in Edinburgh, and his father and family
were exposed to the contagion, ? by the vicinity,?
says Mark Napier, ?? of his mansion to the Burghmuir,
upon which waste the infected were driven
out to grovel and die, under the very walls of
Merchiston.?
In his earlier years his studies took a deep theological
turn, the fruits of which appeared in his
? Plain Discovery of the Revelation of St John,?
which he published at Edinburgh in 1593, and
dedicated to James VI. But some twenty years
before that time his studies must have been sorely
interrupted, as his old ancestral fortalice lay in the
very centre of the field of strife, when Kirkaldy
held out the castle for Queen Mary, and the savage
Douglas wars surged wildly round its walls.
On the 2nd April, 1572, John Napier, then in his
twenty-second year, was betrothed to Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir James Stirling of Keir ; but as he
had incurred the displeasure of the queen?s party
by taking no active share in her interests, on the
18th of July he was arrested by the Laid of Minto,
and sent a prisoner to the Castle of Edinburgh,
then governed by Sir TVilliam Kirkaldy, who in the
preceding year had bombarded Merchiston with
his iron guns because certain soldiers of the king?s
party occupied it, and cut off provisions coming
north for the use of his garrison. The solitary
tower formed the key of the southern approach
to the city ; thus, whoever triumphed, it became the
object of the opponent?s enmity.
36 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Merchistom
captain named ScougaL
After a hard struggle, during which several were
killed and wounded, they stormed the outworks,
and set them on fire to smoke the defenders out of
the donjon keep ; but a body of the king's men
veyed to Leith, and hanged, while he had a narrow
escape, his horse being killed under him by a shot
from Holyrood Palace, Another conflict of a
more serious nature occurred before Merchiston
on the last day of the same month.
attack by firing forty guns from the Castle of Edinburgh.
The men of Scougal (who were mortally wounded)
fled over the Links and adjacent fields in all
directions, hotly pursued by the Laird of Blairquhan.
On the 10th of the subsequent June the
queen's troops, under George, Earl of Huntly, with
a small train of artillery, made another attack upon
Merchiston, while their cavalry scoured all the
fields between it and Blackford-fields now covered
with long lines of stately and beautiful villas-bringing
in forty head of cattle and sheep. By the time
the guns had played on Merchiston from two till
four o'clock p.m., two decided breaches were made
in the walls. The garrison was about to capitulate,
when the assemblage of a number of people, whom
the noise of the cannonade had attracted, was
mistaken for king's troops ; those of Huntly be,came
party of twenty-four men-at-arms rode forth to
forage. The well-stocked fields in the neighbourhood
of the fortalice were the constant scene of
enterprise, and on this occasion the foragers
collected many oxen, besides other spoil, which
they were driving triumphantly into town. They
were pursued, however, by Patrick Home of the
Heugh, who commanded the Regent's Light
Horsemen. The foraging party, whom hunger
had rendered desperate, contrived to keep their
pursuers, amounting to eighty spears, at bay till
they neared Merchiston, when the king's garrison
issued forth, and re-captured the cattle, the collectors
of which '' alighted from their horses, which they
suffered to go loose, and faught CreauZZ'iee," till succoured
from the town, when the fight turned in
their favour. In this conflict, Home of the Heugh,
Sir Patrick Home of Polwarth, four more gentle
