Cmigmillar.] CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. Si
Robert XI., ?of the lands of Craigmillar, in Vic
du Edinburgh, whilk William de Capella resigned,
sustennand an archer in the king?s army.? (Robertson?s
? Index?)
Under the same monarch, some time after,
another charter was granted, confirming ?John de
Capella, keeper of the king?s chapel, in the lands of
Erolly (sic), whilk Simon de Prestoun resigned ; he,
John, performing the same service in the king?s
chapel that his predecessors used to perform for
the third part of Craigmillar.?
The date 1474 above the principal gate probably
refers to some repairs. Four years afterwards,
William, a successor of Sir Simon Preston,
was a member of the parliament which met at
Edinburgh June I, 1478. He had the title .of
Domine de Craigmillar, the residence of his race
for nearly three hundred years.
In 1479 this castle became connected with a
dark and mysterious State tragedy. The Duke
of Albany was accused of conspiring treasonably
with the English against the life of his brother,
James III., but made his escape from Edinburgh
Castle, as related in Volume I. Their younger
brother John, Earl of Mar, was placed a prisoner
in Craigmillar on the same charges. James 111.
did not possess, it was alleged, the true characteristics
of a king in those days. He loved music,
architecture, poetry, and study. ?He was ane
man that loved solitude,? says Pitscottie, ?and
desired never to hear of warre ?-a desire that the
Scottish noblemen never? cared to patronise.
Mar, a handsome and gay fellow, ? knew nothing
but nobility.? He was a keen hunter, a sportsman,
and breeder of horses for warlike purposes.
Whether Mar was guilty or not of the treasons which
were alleged against him will never be known, but
certain it is that he never left his captivity alive.
Old annalists say that he chose his own mode 01
death, and had his veins opened in a warm bath
but Drummond, in his ? History of the Jameses,?
says he was seized by fever and delirium in Craig
millar, and was? removed to the Canongate, wherc
he died in the hands of the king?s physician, eithei
from a too profuse use of phlebotomy, or from his
having, in a fit of frenzy, torn off the bandages.
In 1517 Balfour records that the young king
James V. was removed from Edinburgh to Craig
millar, and the queen-mother was not permitted tc
see him, in consequence of the pestilence ther
raging. But he resided here frequently. In 1544
it is stated in the ? Diurnal of Occurents ? that thc
fortress was too hastily surrendered to the Englisl
invaders, who sacked and burned it.
By far the most interesting associations of Craig
nillar, like so many other castles in the south of
kotland, are those in which Queen Mary behrs a
)art, as she made it a favourite country retreat.
Within its walls was drawn up by Sir James
Balfour, with unique legal solemnity, the bond of
Dardey?s murder, and there signed by so many
iobles of the first rank, who pledged themselves
o stand by Bothwell with life and limb, in weal or
woe, after its perpetration, which bond of blood the
wily lawyer afterwards destroyed.
Some months after the murder of Rizzio, and
while the grasping and avaricious statesmen of the
!ay were watching the estrangement of Nary and
ier husband, on the 2nd December, 1560, Le
3oc, the French Ambassador, wrote thus to the
4rchbishop of Glasgow :-? The Queen is for the
xesent at Craigmillar, about a league distant from
.his city. She is in the hands of the physicians,
and I do assure you is not at all well, and do
Jelieve the principal part of her disease to consist
n deep grief and sorrow. Nor does it seem possible
to make her forget the same. Still she repeats
ihese words--?lcould wish to be dead!??
Craigmillar narrowly escaped being stained with
the blood of the dissolute Darnley. It would zppear
that when he returned from Glasgow, early in
1567, instead of lodging him in the fatal Kirk-0?-
Field, the first idea of the conspirators was to bring ,
him hither, when it was suggested that his recovery
from his odious disease might be aided by the
sanitary use of a bath--? an ominous proposal to a
prince, who might remember what tradition stated
to have happened ninety years earlier within the
same walls.?
The vicinity abounds with traditions of the
hapless Mary. Her bed closet is still pointed out ;
and on the east side of the road, at Little France,
a hamlet below the castle walls, wherein some of
her French retinue was quartered, a gigantic
plane-the largest in the Lothians-is to this day
called ? Queen Mary?s Tree,?? from the unauthenticated
tradition that her own hands planted it, and
as such it has been visited by generations. In
recent storms it was likely to suffer ; and Mr. Gilmour
of Craigmillar, in September, 1881, after consulting
the best authorities, had a portion of the
upper branches sawn off to preserve the rest
In ?? the Douglas wars,? subsequent to the time
when Mary was a captive and exile, Craigmillar
bore its part, especially as a prison ; and terrible
times these were, when towns, villages, and castles
were stormed and pillaged, as if the opposite
factions were inspired by the demon of destruction
-when torture and death were added to military
execution, and the hapless prisoners were hurried
