writing of the siege, he says, ? upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called St.
Anthony?s Kirk, was battered down.? And we
have already referred to the Act of Council in 1560,
by which it was ordered that this block house and
the curtain-wall facing Edinburgh should be levelled
to the sound.
. Immediately opposite St;. Mary?s Church stands
the Trinity House of Leith, erected on the site of
the original edifice bearing that name,
This Seaman?s Hospital was dedicated to the
Holy Trinity, and the insctiption which adorned
the ancient building is now built into the south
wall of the new one, facing St. Giles?s Street, and
.
ters :-
?IN THE NAME OF THE
LORD,
YE MASTERIS AND MARINERIS
BYLIS THIS HOVS
TO YE POVR.
ANNO DOMINI, ~555.?
In the east wing of the
present edifice there is preserved
a stone, on which is
carved a cross-staff and
other nautical instruments
of the sixteenth century,
an anchor, and two globes,
with the motto :-
apply those dues in the maintenance of a hospital
for the keeping of ?poor, old, infirm, and weak
matiners.?
Long previous to 1797, the association, though
calling itself ?? The Corporation of .Shipmasters of
the Trinity House of Leith,? was?. A corporation
only by the courtesy of popular language, and posseised
merely the powers of a charitable body ; but
in that year it was erected by charter into a
corporate body, whose office-bearers were to be a
master, assistant and deputy-=aster, a manager,
treasurer, and clerk, and was vested with powersreserving,
however, those of the Corporation of the
city of Edinburgh-to examine, and under its
? Zmtituted 1380. Buiit rj55. RebuiZt 1816.?
?The date of this foundation,? says Daniel
Wilson is curious, Its dedication implies that it
originated with the adherents of the ancient faith,
while the date of the old inscription indicates the
very period when the Queen Regent assumed the
reins of government. That same year John Knox
landed at Leith on his return from exile ; and only
three years later, the last convocation of the Roman
Catholic clergy that ever assembled in Scotland
hnder the sanction of its laws was held in the
Blackfriars Church at Edinburgh, and signalised
its final session by proscribing Sir David Lindsay?s
writings, and enacting that his buik should be
abolished and burnt.? ?
From time immemorial the shipmasters and
mariners of Leith received from all vessels of the
port, and all Scottish vessels visiting it, certain
duties, called ? prirno gilt,? which were expended in
aiding poor seamen ; and about the middle of the
sixteenth century they acquired a legal right to
tained, but they were then ( I 7 7 9) all out-pensioners.
In the inventory of deeds belonging to this
institution is enumerated :-? Ane charter granted
by Mathew Forrester, in favour of the foresaide
mariners of Leith, of thesaid land of ye hospital
bankes, and for undercallit ye grounds lying in Leith. . . also saide yeird. . . dated 26 July, 1567,
sealit and subscnbit be the saide Mat. Forrester,
Prebender of St. Antoine, near Leith.? (?< M o n s
ticon Scotz.?)
During the Protectorate the ample vaults under
the old Trinity House (now or latterly used as wine
stores) were filled with the munition of Monk?s
troops, for which they paid a rent.
? By his Highness? council1 in Scotland, for the
governing theirof: these are to require z,ooo
forthwith out of such moneys dew or schal come
to the hands of the Customes, out of the third part
of the profits arysing from the Excyse in Scotland,
to pay \Villiam Robertson (collector for the poore
of Trinitie House in Leyth) the sornme of A3 15s.
224 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
sterling, for a yeir?s rent of a vault under the said
Trinitie House, imployed to lay in stores for the
m y , determining the 8th of March last. . . .
Given at Edinburgh the last day of Apryl, 1657.
Sic subm-ibifur, GEORGE MONK, F. SCROPE,
Quathetham? i.e. Wetham. ((( Trinity House Records.?)
In 1800 the master and assistants of the Trinity
House recommended, as the best means of rendering
safer the navigation on the east coast of Scotland,
of the old one, in a Grecian style of architecture,
in 1817, at the modest expense of Az,soo.
In the large hall for the meeting of the masters
are a portrait of Mary of Lorraine, by Mytens, and a
model of the ship in which she came to Scotland.
Among other portraits, there is one of Admiral
Lord Duncan; and among other pictures of interest,
the late David Scott?s huge painting of ?? Vasco de
Gama passing the Cape of Good Hope.?
A building mysteriously named the Kantore
THE TRINITY HOUSE.
the establishment of a lighthouse, or floating light,
on the Inchcape, or Bell Rock, off the mouth of
the Tay; and, adds the Edinburgh ChronicZe for
that year, ?they have also recommended all the
towns and burghs of the east coast to consider
what sort of light would be best, in what manner
it should be erected, and what duties should be
levied on the shipping, and what shipping) for its
erection and support ; ? and there, six years afterwards,
was begun that famous feat of engineering,
the Bell Rock Lighthouse, on the reef which
had proved so fatal to many a mariner in past
times, and which forms the subject of one of
Southey?s fine ballads.
- The present Trinity House was built on the site
(probabIy a corruption of the Flemish word kanfoor,
a place of business) stood of old in the Kirkgate,
in the immediate vicinity of St., Mary?s
Church, and was intimately associated with the
ecclesiastical history of Leith. It was latterly a
species of prison-house. When an appearance of
religion was necessary to all men in Scotland, the
Kantore was used as a place of temporary durance
for those who incurred in any way the censure of
the Kirk Session. ?Offences of the most trivial
nature were most severely punished,? says a writer,
(? and a system of espionage was maintained, from
which there was hardly any possibility of escape.
Either Leith must, in former times, have exceeded
in wickedness the other parts of Scotland, or the
