222 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. rLeith
He adds that the most striking feature is the
curiously decorated doorway, an ogee arch, filled
in with rich Gothic tracery, surmounting a square
lintel, finished with the head of a lion, which seems
to hold the arch suspended in its mouth. ?On
either side is a sculptured shield, on one of which
a monogram is cut, characterised by the usual inexplicable
ingenuity of these riddles, with the date
1631.?
The other shield bears, 1st and 4th the lion rampant,
2nd and 3rd a ship, a smaller shield with a
chevron, and a motto round the whole, Sic Pvit est
Et erit. The monogram is distinctly the four initial
fetters of John Stewart, Earl of Carrick.
The arms, says Wilson, are neither those of Lord
Balmerino, ?? nor of his ancestor, James Elphinstone
(Lord Coupar), to whom the coroneted ?C? might
be supposed to refer. The Earls of Crawford are
also known to have had a house in Leith, but the
arms in no degree correspond with those borne by
any of these families.?
On the 13th September, ~643, John, Earl of
Carrick, sold the house and grounds to John, Lord
Balmerino, whose family retained it as a residence
till the attainder of the last peer in 1746.
In 1650, during the defence of the city against
Cromwell, Charles II., after being feasted in the
Parliament House on the 29th of July, ?thairafter
went down to Leith,? says Nicoll, in his ?Diary,?
? t o &e ludging belonging to the Lord Balmerinoch,
appointit for his resait during his abyding in
Leith.?
Balfour records in his ?Annals ? that Anna Kerr,
hdow of John, Lord Balmenno, second sister of
Robert, Earl of Somerset, Viscount Rochester, ? deprted
this lyffe at Leith,? on the 15th February,
1650, and was solemnly interred at Restalrig.
The part borne in history by Arthur, sixth and
last lord of this family, is inseparably connected
with the adventures of Prince Charles Edward. He
.was born in the year of the Revolution, and held a
captain?s commission under Queen Anne in Vis-
-count Shannon?s Foot, the 25th, or Regiment of
Edinburgh, This he resigned to take up arms
under the Earl of Mar, and fought at Sheriffmuir,
after which he, entered the French service, wherein
he remained till the death of his brother Alexander,
who, as the Gentfernan?s Magazine records, expired
at Leith in October, 1733. His father, anxious
for his retum home, sent him a free pardon from
Government when he was residing at Berne, in
Switzerland, but he would not accept it until ? he
had obtained the permission of James VIII. to do
so ; ?? after which, the twenty years? exile returned,
and was joyfiully received by his aged father. When
Prince Charles landed in the memorable year, 1745,
Arthur Elphinstone was among the first to join
him, and was appointed colonel and captain of thc
second troop of Life Guards, under Lord Elcho,
attending his person.
He was at the capture of Carlisle, the advance
to and retreat from Derby, and was present with
the Corps de Reserve at the victory of Falkirk. He
succeeded his brother as Lord Balmerino on the
5th January, 1746, and was taken prisoner at Culloden,
committed to the Tower, and executed with
the Earl of Kilmarnock in the August of the
same year. His conduct at his death was marked
by the most glorious firmness and intrepidity. By
his wife, Margaret (whom we have referred to elsewhere),
daughter of Captain Chalmers of Leith, he
left no issue, so the male line of this branch of the
house of Elphinstone became extinct.
His estates werC confiscated, and the patronage
of the first &arge of South Leith reverted to fhe
Crown. In 1746, ?? Elizabeth, dowager of Balmerino?
(widow of James, fifth lord), applied by
petition to ?? My Lords Commissioners of Edinburgh?
for the sum of A97 ss., on the plea
U that your petitioner?s said deceast lord having
died on the 6th day of January, I 746, the petitioner
did aliment his ?family from that time till the Whitsunday
thereafter.? And the widow, baroness of
Arthur-decdatus-was reduced to an aliment of
forty pounds a year, ?graciously granted by the
House of Hanover,? adds Robertson, who, in a footnote,
gives us a touching little letter of hers, written
in London on the day after her husband?s execution,
addressed to her sister, ME. Borthwick.
In 1755 the house and lands of Balmerino were
purchased by James, Earl of Moray, K.T., from the
Scottish Barons of Exchequer, and six months afterwards
the noble earl sold them to Lady Baird of
Newbyth. She, in r762, was succeeded by her
brother, General St. Clair ot St. Clair ; and after
being in possession of Lieutenant-General Robert
Horne EIphinstone of Logie-Elphinstone, the Leith
property was acquired by William Sibbald, merchant
there, for ?LI1475.
The once stately mansion was now subdivided,
and occupied by tenants of the humblest class, until
it was acquired by the Catholic Bishop of Edinburgh
in 1848, for the purpose of erecting a chapel an4
schools, for the sum of ;61,8oo.
On thewest sideof the Kirkgate, the first old edifice
of note was the Block House of St. Anthony, built
in 1559, adjoining St. Anthony?s Port, and in the
immediate vicinity of St. Anthony?s Street and
Lane. This is the edifice which Lindsay, in his
When Chronicles,? confounds with the ?? Kirk.?
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.
