... Church.
sum had been paid but once in ten years, yet, if it
had been properly managed, the accumulated ...
Vol. 1 p. 188 (Rel. 2.17)
... Church 1 THE TRON CHURCH. 187
is, into which the sun scarcely penetrates. But it
once contained a tavern of ...
Vol. 1 p. 187 (Rel. 2.06)
... ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
remainder of the structure cannot be earlier than
the close of the ...
Vol. 6 p. 252 (Rel. 1.71)
... though in a foreign army. After suffering
a month's imprisonment, they were glad to profess
PLAN OF ...
Vol. 2 p. 197 (Rel. 1.38)
... B
CHAPTER XV.
. THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES. PAGE
SL Giles’s Church-The Patron Saint-Its Wgh and early ...
Vol. 2 p. 387 (Rel. 1.31)
![The Royal Excharge.] THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 183 -
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE-THE TRON CHURCH-THE GREAT FIRE OF NOVEMBER, 1824.
The Royal Exchange-Laying the Foundation Stonc-Ddption of the Exchange-The Mysterious Statue-The Council Cbarnber-hventiom
of Royal Burghs : Constitution thereof, and Powers-Writen’ Court-The “ Star and Garter” Tavern-Sir Walter Scott’s Account
of the Scene at Cleriheugh‘s-Lawyers’ High Jinks-The Tron Church-Histor] of the Old Church-Tht Gnat Fire of rSa~-lnciden~s
of the Conflagration-The Ruins Undermined-Blown up by Captain Head of the Engineers,
Ira 1753 we discover the first symptoms of vitality
in Edinburgh after the Union, when the pitiful
sum of A1,500 was subscribed by the convention
of royal burghs, for the purpose of “ beautifying
the city,” and the projected Royal Exchange was
fairly taken in hand.
If wealth had not increased much, the population
had, and by the middle of the eighteenth
century the citizens had begun to find the inconvenience
they laboured under by being confined
within the old Flodden wall, and that the city was
still destitute of such public buildings as were
necessary for the accommodation of those societies
which were formed, or forming, in all other capitals,
to direct the business of the nation, and provide
for the general welfare ; and so men of tas‘te, rank,
and opulence, began to bestir themselves in Edinburgh
at last.
Many ancient alleys and closes, whose names
are well-nigh forgotten now, were demolished on
the north side of the Righ Street, to procure a
site for the new Royal Exchange. Some of these
had already become ruinous, and must have been
of vast antiquity. Many beautifully-sculptured
stones belonging to houses there were built into
the curious tower, erected by Mr. Walter Ross at
the Dean, and are now in a similar tower at Portobello,
Others were scattered about the garden
grounds at the foot of the Castle rock, and still
show the important character of some of the
edifices demolished. Among them there was a
lintel, discovered when clearing out the bed 01
the North Loch, with the initials IS. (and the
date 1658), supposed to be those of Jaines tenth
Lord Somerville, who, after serving long in the
Venetian army, died at a great age in 1677.
On the 13th of September, 1753, the first stone
of the new Exchange was laid by George Drummond,
then Grand Master of the Scottish Masons,
whose memory as a patriotic magistrate is still remembered
with respect in Edinburgh. A triumphal
arch, a gallery for the magistrates, and covered
stands for the spectators, enclosed the arena.
“The procession was very grand and regular,”
says the Gentleman’s Magazine for that year.
each lodge of maSons, of which there were
thirteen, walked in procession by themselves, all
uncovered, amounting to 672, most of whom were
operative masons.” The military paid proper
honours to the company on this occasion, and escorted
the procession in a suitable manner. The
Grand Master and the present substitute were
preceded by the Lord Provost, magistrates, and
council, in their robes, with the city sword, mace,
&c., carried before them, accompanied by the
directors of the scheme.
All day the foundation-stone lay open, that the
people might see it, with the Latin inscription on
the plate, which runs thus in English :-
“ GEORGE DKUMMOND,
Of the Society of Freemasons in Scotland Grand Master,
Thrice Provost of the City of Edinburgh,
Three hundred Brother Masons attending,
In presence of many persons of distinction,
The Magistrates and Citizens of Edinburgh,
And of every rank of people an innumerable multitude,
And all Applaudipg ;
For convenience of the inhabitants of Edinburgh,
And the public ornament,
Laid this stone,
Wdliam Alexander being Provost,
On the 13th September, 1753. of the Era of Masonry 5753,
And of the reign of George II., King of Great Britain,
the 27th yea.”
In the stone were deposited two medals, one
bearing the profile and name of the Grand Master,
the other having the masonic arms, with the collar
of St. Andrew, and the legend, “ In the Lord is
all our trust.”
Though the stone was thus laid in 1753, the
work was not fairly begun till the following year,
nor was it finished till 1761, at the expense of
A31,5oo, including the price of the area on which
it is built ; but it never answered the purpose for
which it was intended-its paved quadrangle and
handsome Palladian arcades were never used by
the mercantile class, who persisted in meeting, as
of old, at the Cross, or where it stood.
Save that its front and western arcades have
been converted into shops, it remains unchanged
since it was thus described by Arnot, and the back I
view of it, which faces the New Town, catches the
eye at once, by its vast bulk and stupendous height,
IOO feet, all of polished ashlar, now blackened with -
the smoke of years :--.“The Exchange is a large
and elegant building, with a court in the -centre.
,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p195.gif "Volume 1 Page 183")
... Royal Excharge.] THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 183 -
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE-THE TRON CHURCH-THE GREAT FIRE OF ...
Vol. 1 p. 183 (Rel. 1.26)
![c
152 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Leith Walk,
In I 748 the thoroughfare is described as “a very
handsome gravel walk, twenty feet broad, which is
kept in good repair at the public expense, and no
horses suffered to come upon it.” In 1763 two
stage coaches, with three horses, a driver, and
postilion each, ran between Edinburgh and Leith
every hour, consuming an hour on the way, from
8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ; and at that time there were no
other stage coaches in Scotland, except one which
set out at long intervals for London.
Before that nothing had been done, though in
1774 the Week0 Magazine announced that “a new
road for carriages is to be made betwixt Edinburgh
and Leith. It is to be continued from the end of
the New Bridge by the side of Clelland’s Gardens
and Leith Walk. [Clelland‘s Feu was where Leith
Terrace is now.] We hear that the expense of it
is to be defrayed by subscription.”
In I779 Arnot states that “so great is the concourse
of people passing between Edinburgh and
HIGH STREET, PORTOBELLO.
In 1769, when Provost Drummond built the
North Bridge, he gave out that it was to improve
the access to Leith, and on this pretence, to conciliate
opposition to his scheme, upon the plate in
the foundation-stone of the bridge it is solely described
as the opening of a new road to Leith;
and after it was opened the Walk became freely
used for carriages, but without any regard being
paid to its condition, or any system established
for keeping it in repair ; thus, consequently, it fell
into a state of disorder “from which it was not
rescued till after the commencement of the present
century, when a splendid causeway was formed at
a great expense by the city of Edinburgh, and a
toll erected for its payment.”
Leith, and so much are the stage coaches employed,
that they pass and re-pass between these towns
156 times daily. Each of these carriages holds
four persons.” The fare in some was 2hd.; in
others, gd.
In December, 1799, the Herald announces that
the magistrates had ordered forty oil lamps for
Leith Walk, ‘‘ which necessary k~iprovement,” adds
the editor, will, we understand, soon tzke place.”
Among some reminiscences, which appeared
about thirty years ago, we. have a description of
Anderson’s Leith stage, ‘ I which took an hour and
a half to go from the Tron Church to the shore. A
great lumbering affair on four wheels, the two fore
1 painted yellow, the two hind red, having formerly](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p163.gif "Volume 5 Page 152")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Leith Walk,
In I 748 the thoroughfare is described as “a very
handsome gravel ...
Vol. 5 p. 152 (Rel. 1.26)
... Street.! BISHOP BOTHWELL. 219 .
CHAPTEX X Y v r .
THE. HIGH STREET ( ~ ~ ~ f h t d ) .
The Ancient ...
Vol. 2 p. 219 (Rel. 1.22)
... House
PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN THE PRESENT DAY.
the Earl of Marchmont
Earl of Cromarty . . . . 300 0 ...
Vol. 1 p. 164 (Rel. 1.21)
![High Street.] THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH. I93
case with the High Street. -The mansions in the
diverging streets, narrow, steep, gloomy, and illventilated,
became perilous abodes in times of fire
or pestilence.
Those who dwelt in the upper storeys avoided
the toil of descending the steep wheel-stairs that
led to the street, and the entire dkbris of the household
was flung from the windows, regardless of who
or what might be below, especially after nightfall ;
hence the cries of “ Haud your hand ! ” “ Get
lanterns, were ordered to be hung up, by such persons
and in such places as the magistrates should
appoint, there to continue burning for the space of
four hours--i.e., from five till nine o’clock in the
evening.
In consequence of the great assiduity oi the
Provost (Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie), the
Town Council added to his annual allowance 6100
Scots for his clothing and spicery, with two hogs.
heads of wine for his greater state ; and soon after
THE OLD TRON CHURCH. (From am Engraving itr Amt’s “Nistwy ozEdinbrrwh.”)
out 0’ the gait!” or “Gardez Peau!” a shout
copied from the French, were incessant. Another
source of filth and annoyance was the circumstance
that every inhabitant had his own dunghill in the
street, opposite his own door j while the thoroughfkes
were further encumbered and encroached
upon by outside stone stairs, many of which still
remain. Under these were kept swine, which were
allowed to roam the streets (as in old Paris). and
act the part of scavengers, and be alternately the
pets and the terror of the children.
By Acts of Council, 15th October, 1553-5,
the mounds of household garbage were ordained
to be removed, the swine to be prevented from
being a pest in the streets, in which buwefs or
25
another Act was passed, ordaining that the (male)
servants of the inhabitants should attend him with
lighted torches from the vespers or evening prayers
to his own house.
But despite the Acts quoted the streets were not
thoroughly cleared or cleaned for more than sixty
years after. WhenKing JaniesVI., having celebrated
his marriage with Anne of Denmark, on the zznd
October, 1589, was about to return home, he wrote
one of his characteristic epistles to the Provost,
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie :-“ Here we are
drinking and driving in the add way,” and adding,
“for GoZs sake see n’ things are nulf at our hanucoming.”
James did not wish to be exposed in
the eyes of his foreign attendants, and he alludes](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p013.gif "Volume 2 Page 193")
... Street.] THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH. I93
case with the High Street. -The mansions in the
diverging streets, ...
Vol. 2 p. 193 (Rel. 1.21)
![The Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known engraver. The engines
came promptly enough ; but, from some unknown
cause, an hour elapsed before they were in working
order, and by that time the terrible element had
raged with such fierceness and rapidity that, by
eleven o'clock the upper portion of this tenement,
including six storeys, forming the eastern 'division
of a uniform pile of buildings, was one mass of
roaring flames, which, as the breeze was from the
to their elevated position, or the roar of the gathering
conflagration, the shouts of the crowd, and
wailing of women and children, their cries were
unheard for a time, until it was too late. The
whole tenement was lost, together with extensive
ranges of buildings in the old Fish Market and
Assembly Closes, to -which it was the means of
communicating the flames.
While these tall and stately edifices were yielding
to destruction, the night grew calm and still, and
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.
sooth-west, turned them, as they burst from the
gaping windows, in the direction of a house to the
eastward, the strong' gable of which saved it from
the destruction which seemed imminent.
Two tenements to the westward were less fortunate,
and as, from the narrowness of the ancient
close, it was impossible to work the engines, they
soon were involved in one frightful and appalling
blaze. Great fears mere now entertained for the
venerable Courant office; nor was it long before
the fire seized on its upper storey, at the very time
when some brave fellows got upon the roof of a
tenement to the westward, and shouted to the firemen
to give them a pipe, by which they could
piay upon the adjoining roof, But, owing either
I the sparks emitted by the flames shot upwards as if
spouted from a volcano, and descended like the
thickest drift or snow-storm, affecting the respiration
of all. A dusky, lurid red tinged the clouds,
and the glare shone on the Castle wdls, the
rocks of the Calton, the beetling crags, and all the
city spires. Scores of lofty chimneys, set on fire
by the falling sparks, added to the growing horror
of the scene ; and for a considerable time the Tron
Church was completely enveloped in this perilous
shower of embers.
About one in the morning of the 16th the alarm
of fire was given from a house directly oppoife to
the burning masses, and, though groundless, it
added to the deepening Consternation. Mean](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p201.gif "Volume 1 Page 189")
... Great Fire.] THE GREAT FIRE. 189
Assemlily Close, then occupied as a workshop by
Kirkwood, a well-known ...
Vol. 1 p. 189 (Rel. 1.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LHol~lrood.
and intriguing apostbte as one of the greatest and
best men of his ...
Vol. 3 p. 60 (Rel. 1.14)
![West Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve their past ill-conduct by noisily .
preparing to raise forces to defend themselves in
case of a second visit from the Highlanders.
the General Assembly met in the church, and
passed an Act, which, however necessary, perhaps,
in those harassing times, concerning ‘‘ the sine and
guilte of the king and his house,” caused much
suffering to the Covenanters after the Restoration.
It was known by the name of the West Kirk Act,
and was approved by Parliament the same day.
Subsequently, during his siege of the castle
Cromwell made the church a barrack; hence its
roof and windows were destroyed by the guns of
the fortress, and soon little was left of it but the
bare walls, which were repaired, and opened for
service in 1655.
For some years subsequent the sole troubles
of the incumbents were breaches
of “the Sabbath,” such as when
William Gillespie, in 1659, was
“fund carrying watter, and his
wyfe knoking beir,” for which
they had to make public repentance,
or filling people for
“taking snuff in tyme of sermon,”
contrary to the Act of
18th June, 1640; till 1665,
when the ‘‘ great mutiny” in
the parish occurred, and the
minister, William Gordon, for
“ keeping of festivals,” was
railed at by the people, who
closed the doors against him,
for which a man and a woman,
according to Wodrow, were
scourged through Edinburgh.
At the Revolution, those
of ground to the west was added to it (including
the garden,with trees, shown in Gordon’s Map), from
the old boundary to the present west gate at the
Lothian Road. About the same time several
heritors requested permission to inter their dead
in the little or Wester-kirk, which had been a
species of ruin since the invasion of Cromwell.
In 1745, after the victory of the Highlanders at
Prestonpans, a message was sent to the ministers
of the city, in the name cf “Charles, Prince Regent,”
desiring them to preach next day, Sunday,
as usual; but many, alarmed by the defeat of Cope,
sought refuge in the country, and no public worship
was performed within the city, save by a
ST. CUTHBERT’S CHURCH.
(From Cmdm of Potkicmay’s Mu@.)
ministers who had been ejected in 1661, and were
yet alive, returned to their charges. Among them
was Mr. David Williamson, who, in 1689, was
settled in St. Cuthbert’s manse ; but not quietly,
for the castle, defended by the Duke of Gordon,
was undergoing its last disastrous siege by the
troops oC William, and the church suffered so much
damage from shot and shell, that for many months
after the surrender in June, the people were unable
to use it, and the repairs amounted to LI,~OO.
If tradition has not wronged him, Mr. Williamson
is the well-known (‘ Dainty Davie” of Scottish
song, who had six wives ere the seventh, Jean.
Straiton, survived him. He died in August, 1706,
and was buried in the churchyard, where the
vicinity of the grave is alone indicated by the
letters D. W. cut on the front of the tomb in which
he lies.
The ancient cemetery on the knoll having been
found too small for the increasing population and
consequent number of interments, in 1701 a piece
clergyman named Hog a t t h e
Tron.
It was otherwise, however,
at St. Cuthbert’s, the incumbent
of which was then the Rev.
Neil McVicar, yho preached
to a crowded congregation,
many of whom were armed
Highlanders, before whom he
prayed for George 11. and also
for Charles Edward in a fashion
of his own, recorded thus by
Ray, in his history of the time,
and others :-
‘(Bless the king! Thou
knowest what king I mean.
May the crown sit long on his
head. As for that young man
who has come among us to
seek an earthly crown, we](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p145.gif "Volume 3 Page 133")
... Church.] MR. NEIL MWICAR. I33 -
those of other sections of the city, took courage, and
sought to retrieve ...
Vol. 3 p. 133 (Rel. 1.14)
... OLD -4ND NEW EDINBURGH. urffrey Street
of The Friend of India, and author of the “Life
of Dr. IVilson of ...
Vol. 2 p. 290 (Rel. 0.99)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS . xi ..
P
Deacon Brodie . . . . . . . .
The First Interview in 1786: Deacon Brodie ...
Vol. 2 p. 393 (Rel. 0.96)
![Cowgate.] ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council in 1616 describes
Edinburgh as infested by strong and idle vagabonds,
having their resorts “in some parts of the Cowgate,
Canongate, Potterrow, West Port, &c., where
they ordinarily convene every night, and pass their
time in all kind of not and filthy lechery, to the
offence and displeasure of God,” lying all day on
CLOSES. 241
Close in 1514; Todrig’s Wynd is mentioned in
1456, when Patrick Donald granted two merks
yearly from his tenement therein for repairing the
altar of St. Hubert, and in 1500 a bailie named
Todrig, was assaulted with drawn swords in his
own house by two men, who were taken to the Tron,
and had their hands stricken through.
Carrubber‘s Close was probably named from
“ William of Caribris,” one of the three bailies in
THE COWGATE, FROM THE PORT TO COLLEGE WYND, 1646. ( A f b cfdsthumay.)
17. The Cowgate ; 44, Peebles Wynd ; 45, Merlin’s Wynd ; 46, Niddry’s Wynd ; 47, Dickson’s Close : 50, Gnfs Wynd ; 5% St Mad5 w p d ;
h St Mary’s Wpd Suburbs ; I; Cov&e Port ; g, Si M a j s Wynd Port ; 53, The College Wynd ; 54. Robertson’s Wynd ; 55. High
School Wynd ; q, Lady Yeser‘s Kirk ; .r, The High School ; w, The College ; y, S i M;uy of the Fields, or the Kirk of Fields ; 25, The
Town Wall.
the causeway, extorting alms with “ shameful exclamations,”
to such an extent that passengers could
neither walk nor confer in the streets without being
impeded and pestered by them ; hence the magistrates
gave orders to expel them wholesale from the
city and keep it clear of them.
The Burgh Records throw some light on the
names of certain of the oldest closes-those running
between the central street and the Cowgate, as being
the residences or erections of old and influential
citizens. Thus Niddry’s Wynd is doubtless connected
with Robert Niddry, a magistrate in 1437 ;
Cant’s Close with Adam Cant, who was Dean of
Guild in 1450, though it is called Alexander Cant’s
79
1454, as doubtless Con’s Close was from John Con,
a wealthy flesher of 1508. William Foular’s Close
is mentioned in 1521, when Bessie Symourtoun
is ordered to be burned there on the cheeks and
banished for passing gear infected with the pest ;
and Mauchan’s Close was no doubt connected
with the name of John Mauchane, one of the bailies
in 1523; Lord Eorthwick’s Close is frequently
mentioned before 1530, and Francis Bell’s Close
occurs in the City Treasurer‘s Accounts, under date
1554. Liberton’s Wynd is mentioned in a charter
by James 111. in 1474, and the old protocol books of
the city refer to it frequently in the twelve years
preceding Flodden ; William Liberton’s heirs are](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p061.gif "Volume 4 Page 241")
... ANCIENT
Both these relics are now preserved in the
Museum of Antiquities.
An act of the Privy Council ...
Vol. 4 p. 241 (Rel. 0.91)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfirs Church.
King‘s Commissioner, the severity of these vile
persecutions was ...
Vol. 4 p. 378 (Rel. 0.91)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Wardie.
In this district evidences have been found of the
luck,” and it sometimes ...
Vol. 6 p. 306 (Rel. 0.89)
... N ~ S , attracted by the dampness of the soil,
where for ages the artificial loch lay. A few feet
eastward of ...
Vol. 1 p. 82 (Rel. 0.82)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. LSouth Bridge. 376
In 1837 he succeeded Professor Macvey Napier
as Librarian to the Signet ...
Vol. 2 p. 377 (Rel. 0.81)
... lock was placed upon it for the same purpose.
In 1647 only three open thoroughfares are shown
OLD AND ...
Vol. 3 p. 17 (Rel. 0.81)
![The Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire argent, under the imperial
crown, surmounted by a thistle j and in base
a castle argent, masoned sable, within a border,
charged with instruments used by the society. To
the surgeons. were added the apothecaries.
James IV., one of the greatest patrons of art and
science in his time, dabbled a little in surgery and
chemistry, and had an assistant, John the Leeche,
whom he brought from the Continent. Pitscottie
tells us that James was “ane singular guid chirurgione,”
and in his daily expense book, singular
entries occur in 1491, of payments made to people
to let him bleed them and pull their teeth :-
“Item, to ane fallow, because the King pullit
furtht his twtht, xviii shillings.
“Item, to Kynnard, ye barbour, for tua teith
drawin furtht of his hed be the King, xvci sh.”
The barbers were frequently refractory, and
brought the surgeons into the Court of Session t e
adjust rights, real or imagined. But after the union
of the latter with the apothecaries, they gave up
the barber craft, and were formed into one corporation
by an Act of Council, on the 25th February,
1657, as already mentioned in the account of
the old Royal College of Surgeons.
The first admitted after the change, was Christopher
Irving, recorded as ‘‘ ane free chmgone,”
without the usual words “and barber,” after his
name. He was physician to James VII., and from
him the Irvings of Castle Irving, in .Ireland, are
descended.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SOCIETY.
The Candlemaker Row--The “ Cunzie Nook”-Tbe of Charles 1.-The Candlemakers’ Hall--The Afhk of Dr. Symons-The Society, IS+
Brown Square-Proposed Statue to George III., x~-Di&nguished Inhabitants-Si IsIay Campbell-Lard Glenlec-Haigof Beimerside
--Si John Lerlie-Miss Jeannie Elliot-Argyle Square-Origin of it-Dr. Hugh Bkit-The Sutties of that Ilk-Trades Maiden Hospital-
-Mint0 House and the Elliots-New Medical School-Baptist Church-Chambers Strect-Idustrial Museum of Sdence and Art-Its
Great Hall and adjoining Halls-Aim of the Architect-Contents and Models briefly glanced at-New Watt Institution and School of
ArtsPhrenoloEical Museum-New Free Tron Church-New Tiainiing College of the Church of Scotland-The Dental Hospita-The
.
Theatre ofvari.&s.
THE Candlemaker Row is simply the first portion
of the old way that led from the Grassmarket and
Cowgate-head, where Sir John Inglis resided in
1784, to the lands of Bnsto, and thence on to
Powburn ; and it was down this way that a portion
of the routed Flemings, with Guy of Namur at their
head, fled towards the Castle rock, after their
defeat on the Burghmuir in 1335.
In Charles I.’s time a close line of street with a
great open space behind occupied the whole of the
east side, from the Greyfriars Port to the Cowgatehead.
The west side was the boundary wall of the
churchyard, save at the foot, where two or three
houses appear in 1647, one of which, as the Cunzie
Nook, is no doubt that referred to by Wilson as
a curious little timber-fronted tenement, surmounted
with antique crow-steps ; an open gallery
projects in front, and rude little; shot-windows admit
the light to the decayed and gloomy chambers
therein.” This, we presume, to be the Cunzie Nook,
a place where the Mint had no doubt been estab
Cshed at some early period, possibly during some
of the strange proceedings in the Regency of Mary
of Guise, when the Lords of the Congregation
“past to Holyroodhous, and tuik and intromettit
With the ernis of the Cunzehous.”
On the west side, near the present entrance to
the churchyard of the Greyfriars, stands the hall of
the ancient Corporation of the Candlemakers, which
gave its name to the Row, with the arms of the
craft boldly cut over the doorway, on a large oblong
panel, and, beneath, their appropriate motto,
. Omnia man;jesfa Zuce.
Internally, the hall is subdivided into many residences,
smaller accommodation sufficing for the
fraternity in this age of gas, so that it exists little
more than in name. In 1847 the number of its
members amounted to only fhw, who met periodically
for various purposes, connected with the corporation
and its funds.
Edgar‘s plan shows, in the eighteenth century, the
close row of houses that existed along the whole of
the west side, from the Bristo Port to the foot, and
nearly till Forrest Road was opened up in a linewith
the central Meadow Walk.
Humble though this locality may seem now, Sir
James Dunbar, Bart., of Dum, rented No. ZI in
1810, latterly a carting office. In those days the
street was a place ‘of considerable bustle; the
Hawick dilligence started twice weekly from
Paterson’s Inn, a well-known hostel in its time,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p087.gif "Volume 4 Page 267")
... Cowgate.] THE CUNZIE NOOK. 267
dexter hand palmed, and in its palm an eye. In
the dexter canton, a saltire ...
Vol. 4 p. 267 (Rel. 0.8)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Canongate.
the days that were no more. ‘* No funeral hearse,”
says Lockhart, ...
Vol. 3 p. 28 (Rel. 0.79)
... 99 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
. Stirling-Maxwell, Sir Wm., 11. 86,
. Stitchill, Laird of I. 169
.Stockbridge, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 390 (Rel. 0.79)
![Kirk-of-Field.] BOTHWELL DENOUNCED. 7
of the Canongate to Bothwell’s lodging, near the
palace, at the gates of which they were again
challenged by the Archers of the Guard-a corps
which existed from 1562 to 1567-who asked “if
they knew what noise that was they heard a short
time before.” They replied that they did not.
Rushing to his house, Bothwell called for something
to drink, and throwing off his clothes, went
to bed.
Tidings that the house had been blown up and
the king slain spread fast through the startled
city, and George Hackett, a servant of the palace,
communicated these to Bothwell, whom he found
in “ane great effray pitch-black,” and excited.
Then with assumed coolness he inquired “what
was the matter ? ” On being distinctly informed,
he began to shout “Treason!” and on being
joined by the Earl of Huntley, he repaired at once
to the presence of the queen.
By dawn the whole area of the Kirk-of-Field
was crowded by citizens, who found that the three
servants who slept in the gallery were buried in the
ruins, out of which Nelson was dragged alive.
In Holyrood the queen kept her bed in a darkened
room, while a proclamation was issued, offering
the then tolerable sum of L2,ooo Scots to
any who would give information as to the perpetrators
of the crime. On the same day the body of
Darnley was brought to Holyrood Chapel, and
after being embalmed by Maistre Mastin Picauet,
‘ I ypothegar,” was interred on Saturday night, without
the presence of any of the nobles or officers
of state, except the Lord Justice Clerk Bellenden
and Sir James Traquair.
Bothwell was denounced as the murderer by a
paper fixed on the Tolbooth Gate. But though the
earl was ultimately brought to trial, no precisely
proper inquiry into the startling atrocity was made
by the officers of the Crown.
A bill fastened on the Tron Beam, declared
that the smith who furnished the false keys to the
king’s apartment would, on due security being
given, point out his employers ; and other placards,
on one of which were written the queen’s initials,
M.R., were posted elsewhere-manifestations of
public feeling that rendered Bothwell so furious
that he rode through the city at the head of a band
of his armed vassals, swearing that he “ would wash
his hands” in the blood of the authors, could he
but discover them ; and from that time forward he
watched all who approached him with a jealous
eye, and a hand on his dagger.
When that part of the city wall which immediately
adjoined the house of the Kirk-of-Field
was demolished in 1854, it was found to be five
feet thick, and contained among its rubble many
fragments of a Gothic church or other edifice, and
three cannon-balls, one of 24 pounds’ weight, were
found in it.
In the records of the Privy Council in 1599, we
find an order for denouncing and putting to the
horn Robert Balfour, Provost of the Kirk-of-Field,
for having failed to appear before the Lords, and
answer “ to sic thingis as sauld have been inquirit
of him at his cuming.” The Provost, brother of
the notorious Sir James, had been outlawed or forfeited
in 157 I, as there rested upon both the charge
of having been chief agents in the murder or
Darnley.
He was ultimately remitted and pardoned, and
this was ratified by Parliament in 1584, when he
and his posterity were allowed to enjoy all their
possessions,‘‘ providing alwayis that these presentis
be not extendit to repossess and restoir the said
Robert to bny ryt he has, or he may pretend, to ye
Provostrie of ye Kirk-of-Field, sumtym situat within
the libertie of ye burgh of Edinburgh.”
In this same year, 1584, the Town Council were
greatly excited by a serious affray that ensued at
the Kirk-of-Field Port, and to prevent the recurrence
of a similar disorder, ordained that on the
ringing of the alarm bell the inhabitants were all to
convene in their several quarters under their bailies,
“ in armour and good order.” And subsequently,
to prevent broils by night-walkers, they ordered
I‘ that at 10 o’clock fifty strokes would be given on
the great bell, after which none should be upon the
streets, under a penalty of Azo Scots, and imprisonment
during the town’s pleasure.” (“ Council
Records.”)
A fragment of ruin connected with the Kirk-of-
Field is shown as extant in 1647 in Gordon’s map,
near what is now the north-west corner of Drumrnond
Street, and close to the old University. A
group ot trees appear to the eastward, and a garden
to the iiorth.
(Tytler.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p018.gif "Volume 5 Page 7")
... BOTHWELL DENOUNCED. 7
of the Canongate to Bothwell’s lodging, near the
palace, at the gates of ...
Vol. 5 p. 7 (Rel. 0.78)
![OLD LEITH STACF.. Leith Walk.]
VIEWS IN PORTOBELLO.
I, Ramsag h e ; n, The Established Church ; & High Street, looking eart; + Town Hall ; 5 Episcopalisn Church.
116](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p164.gif "Volume 5 Page 153")
... LEITH STACF.. Leith Walk.]
VIEWS IN PORTOBELLO.
I, Ramsag h e ; n, The Established Church ; & High ...
Vol. 5 p. 153 (Rel. 0.77)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Great Fire.
while the weather changed rapidly ; the wind,
accompanied by rain, ...
Vol. 1 p. 190 (Rel. 0.77)
... Street. NIDDRY’S WYND. 245
to protect the powdered head of loftily-dressed
hair, when walking or driving, ...
Vol. 2 p. 245 (Rel. 0.71)
... AND NEW EDINEURGH. [South Bridge.
. . .~ 374
in 1765, and two ancient thoroughfares, the Wynds
of Marlin and ...
Vol. 2 p. 374 (Rel. 0.71)
![Leith] MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM. 191
the further strengthened by the fact that the Speedy
Return, a Scottish ship, had been absent unusually
long, and the rumours regarding her fate were
very much akin to the confessions of the crew of
the Worcester.
A report of these circumstances having reached
the Privy Council, the arrest was ordered of Captain
Green and thirteen of his crew on charges of
piracy and murder. The evidence produced against
them would scarcely be held sufficient by a jury of
the present day to warrant a conviction; but the
Scots, in their justly inflamed and insulted spirit,
viewed the matter otherwise, and a sentence of
death was passed. This judgment rendered many
uneasy, as it might be an insuperable bar to the
union, and even lead to open strife, as the relations
in which the two countries stood to each other were
always precarious ; and even Macaulay admits “that
the two kingdoms could not possibly have continued
another year on the terms on which they had been
during the preceding century.” The Privy Council
were thus reluctant to put the sentence into execution,
and respited the fourteen Englishmen ; but
there arose from the people a cry for vengeance
which it was impossible to resist. On the day appointed
for the execution, the 11th of April, the
populace gathered h vast numbers at the. Cross
and in the Parliament Square ; they menaced the
Lords‘of the Council, from which the Lord Chancellor
chanced to pass in his coach. Some one
cried aloud that “ the prisoners had been reprieved.”
On this the fury of the people became boundless ;
they stopped at the Tron church the coach of the
Chancellor-the pitiful Far1 of Seafield-and
dragged him out of it, and had he not been rescued
and conveyed into Mylne Square by some friends,
would have slain him ; so, continues Arnot, it became
absolutely necessary to appease the enraged
multitude by the blood of the criminals. This was
but the fruit of the affairs of Darien and Glencoe.
Now the people for miles around were pouring
into the city, and it was known that beyond doubt
the luckless Englishmen would be tom from the
Tolbooth and put to a sudden death.
Thus the Council was compelled to yield, and
did so only in time, as thousands who had gathered
at Leith to see the execution were now adding to
those who filled the streets of the city, and at
eleven in the forenoon word came forth that three
would be hanged-namely, Captain Green, the first
mate Madder, and Simpson, the gunner.
According to Analecfu Scofica they were brought
forth into the seething masses, amid shouts and
execrations, under an escort of the Town Guard,
and marched on foot through the Canongate to the
Water Port of Leith, where a battalion of the Foot
Guards and a body of the Horse Guards were
drawn up. “ There was the greatest confluence of
people there that I ever saw in my life,” says
Wodrow; “for they cared not how far they were
off so be it they saw.”
The three were hanged upon a gibbet erected
within high-water mark, and the rest of the crew,
after being detained in prison till autumn, were set
at liberty; and it is said that there were afterwards
good reasons to believe that Captain Drummond,
whom they were accused of slaying on the high seas,
was alive in India after the fate of Green and his
two brother officers had been sealed. (Burton’s
‘’ Crim. Trials.”)
On the site of the present Custom House was
built the Fury (a line-of-battle ship, according tb
Lawson‘s “Gazetteer”) and the first of that rate
built in Scotland after the Union.
In I 7 I 2 the first census of Edinburgh and Leith
was taken, and both towns contained only about
48,000 souls.
The insurrection of 1715, under the Earl of
Mar, made Leith the arena of some exciting scenes.
The Earl declined to leave the vicinity of Perth
with his army, and could not co-operate with the
petty insurrection under Forster in the north of
England, as a fleet under Sir John Jennings, Admiral
of the White, including the RqaC Anm, Pew4
Phnix, Dover Custk, and other frigates, held the
Firth of Forth, and the King‘s troops under Argyle
were gathering in the southern Lowlands. But, as
it was essential that a detachment from Mar‘s army
should join General Forster, it was arranged that
2,500 Highlanders, under old Brigadier Mackintosh
of Borlum-one of the most gallant and resolute
spirits of the age-should attempt to elude the fleet
and reach the Lothians.
The brigadier took possession of all the boats
belonging to the numerous fisher villages on the
Fife coast, and as the gathering of such a fleet as
these, with the bustle of mooring and provisioning
them, was sure to reveal the object in view, a
clever trick was adopted to put all scouts on a false
scent.
All the boats not required by the brigadier he
sent to the neighbourhood of Burntisland, as if he
only waited to cross the Firth there, on which the
fleet left its anchorage and rather wantonly began
to cannonade the fort and craft in the harbour.
While the ships were thus fully occupied, Mackintosh,
dividing his troops in two columns, crossed the
water from Elie, Pittenweem, and Crail, twenty miles
eastward, on the nights of the 12th and 13thOctober,
without the loss of a single boat, and lwded](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p202.gif "Volume 5 Page 191")
... MACKINTOSH OF BORLUM. 191
the further strengthened by the fact that the Speedy
Return, a Scottish ship, ...
Vol. 5 p. 191 (Rel. 0.7)
![Queen Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of laughter.”
No. 62 Queen Street was inhabited by Lord
Jeffrey from 1802 till 1810. In the following year
it became the residence of Sir John Leslie, K.H.,
Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Edinburgh, who in 1800 invented the differential
thermometer, one of the most beautiful and delicate
instruments that inductive genius‘ ever contrived
as a help to experimental research ; and the
results of his inquiries concerning the nature and
laws of heat, in which he was so much aided by
this exquisite instrument, were published in 1804,
in his celebrated “Essay on the Nature and Propagation
of Heat.” Sir John Leslie was one of
those many self-made men who are peculiarly the
glory of Scotland, for he was the son of a poor
joiner in Largo, yet he attained to the highest
honours a university can bestow. In 1832, along
with Herschel, Brewster, Hams, Nichols, and others,
on the recommendation of Lord Brougham, he was
created a Knight of the Guelphic Order, but died
in the November of that year from an attack of
erysipelas.
No. 64 was, and is still, the town residence of
the Earls of Weniyss, but has had many other
tenants. Among others here resided ‘‘ Lang Sandy
Gordon? as he was named in those days of simple
and unassuming familiarity, the son of William,
second Earl of Aberdeen, who was admitted an
advocate in 1759, and became Stewart-depute of
Kirkcudbright in 1764. Twenty years afterwards
he was raised to the bench as Lord Rockville, and
resided long in the close which bore .that name on
the Castle Hill, and afterwards in Queen Street
He was remarkable for his manly beauty and
handsome figure. He was a member of the Crochallan
Club, and a great convivialist. Walking
down the High Street one day, when the pavement
was unsafe by ice, he fell, and broke his arm.
He was conveyed to Provost Elder‘s shop, opposite
the Tron church, where surgical aid was procured
and his arm dressed ; but, unfortunately, when his
friends were conveying him to his new home at
No. 64, one of the chairmen fell and overturned
the sedan in the street, which unsettled the splinting
of his lordship’s arm, and ultimately brought on
afever, of which he died on the 13th of March,
‘792.
No. 64 was afterwards occupied by Sir James
Grant, Bart., of Grant, usually known as “the
good Sir James.” His town house, with extensive
stable-offices, had previously been at the ,foot of
the Canongate, where it was advertised for sale
in 1797, as “ presently possessed by Professor
Stewart.” At a period when the extensive Highland
proprietors were driving whole colonies of
people from the abodes of their forefathers, and
compelling them to seek on distant shores that
shelter which was denied them on their own, and
“when absenteeism and the vices of courtly intrigue
and fashionable dissipation had sapped the
morality of too many of our landholders, Sir James
Grant escaped the contagion, and during a long
life was distingifished for the possession of those
virtues which are the surest bulwarks of the peace,
happiness, and strength of a country. Possessed
of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous
tenantry, his exertions seemed to be equally devoted
to the progressive improvement of the one
and the present comfort and enjoyment of the
other.” ’
Among his clau he raised two regiments of Highland
Fencibles within a few months of each other.
One was numbered as the 97th, or Strathspey
Regiment, 1,800 strong, and a portion of it joined
the 4nnd for service in the West Indies. Sir
James died at Castle Grant in 181 I.
No. 66, now offices, was occupied by Stewart of
Castle Stewart ; and in No. 68 lived George Joseph
Bell, Advocate, Professor of Law, and author of
“ Principles of the Law of Scotland.” No. 7 I, in
181 I, was the residence of Francis, Lord Napier,
who served in the American war under General.
Burgoyne, but left the army in 1789. He took a
leading part in many local affiirs, was Grand
Master Mason of Scotland, Colonel of the Hopetoun
Fencibles in 1793, Commissioner to the
General Assembly in 1802, and a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish
Manufactures and Fisheries.
His prominently aquiline face and figure were
long remarkable in Edinburgh ; though, at a time
when gentlemen usually wore gaudy coloursfrequently
a crimson or purple coat, a green plush
vest, black breeches, and white stockings-when
not in uniform, he always dressed plainly, and with
the nicest attention to propriety. An anecdote of
his finical taste is thus given in Lockhart’s “Life
of Scott ” :-
“Lord and Lady Napier arrived at Castlemilk
(in Lanarkshire), with the intention of staying a
week, but next morning it was announced that a
circumstance had occurred which rendered it indispensable
for them to return without delay to
their own seat in Selkirkshire. It was impossible
for Lady Stewart to extract any further explanation
at the moment, but it afterwards turned out that
Lord Napier’s valet had committed the grievous
mistake of packing up a set of neckcloths which](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p169.gif "Volume 3 Page 157")
... Street.] SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT. I57
own performance that he tumbled off his chair in a
fit of ...
Vol. 3 p. 157 (Rel. 0.7)
![The High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen but frightful heaps of
calcined and blackened ruins, with gaping windows
and piles of smoking rubbish.
In the Par!iament Square four double tenements
of from seven to eleven storeys also perished, and
the incessant cmsh of falling walls made the old
vicinity re-echo. Among other places of interest
destroyed here was the shop of Kay, the cancaturist,
always a great attraction to idlers.
During the whole of Thursday the authorities
were occupied in the perplexing task of .examining
the ruined edifices in the Parliament Square. These
being of enormous height and dreadfully shattered,
threatened, by their fall, destruction to everything
in their vicinity. One eleven-storeyed edifice presented
such a very striking, terrible, and dangerous
appearance, that it was proposed to batter it down
with cannon. On the next day the ruins were inspected
by Admiral Sir David Milne, and Captain
(afterwardssir Francis) Head of theRoyal Engineers,
an officer distinguished alike in war and In literature,
who gave in a professional report on the subject,
and to him the task of demolition was assigned.
’
In the meantime offers of assistance from Captain
Hope of H.M.S. BnX, then in Leith Roads,
were accepted, and his seamen, forty in number,
threw a line over the lofty southern gable above
Heron’s Court, but brought down only a small
portion Next day Captain Hope returned to the
attack, with iron cables, chains, and ropes, while
some sappers daringly undermined the eastern wall.
These were sprung, and, as had been predicted by
Captain Head, the enormous mass fell almost
perpendicularly to the grognd.
At the Tron Church, on the last night of every
year, there gathers a vast crowd, who watch with
patience and good-humour the hands of the illuminated
clock till they indicate one minute past
twelve, and then the New Year is welcomed in
with ringing cheers, joy, and hilarity. A general
shaking of hands and congratdlations ensue, and
one and all wish each other ‘‘ A happy New Year,
and mony 0’ them.” A busy hum pervades the older
parts of the city; bands of music and bagpipes
strike up in many a street and wynd; and, furnished
with egg-flip, whiskey, &c., thousands hasten off in
all directions to “first foot” friends and relations,
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HIGH STREET,
A Place for Brawling-First Paved and Lighted-The Meal and Flesh MarketsState of the Streets-Municipal Regulations 16th Century-
Tuleies-The Lairds of Ainh and Wemyss-The Tweedies of Drummelzier-A Mont- Quarrel-The Slaughter of Lord Tarthorwald-
-A Brawl in 1705-Attacking a Sedan Chair-Habits in Lhe Seventeenth Century-Abduction of Women and Girls-Sumptuary Law6
against Women.
BEFORE narrating the wondrous history of the many
quaint and ancient closes and wynds which diverged
of old, and some of which still diverge, from the
stately High Street, we shall treat of that venerable
thoroughfare itself-its gradual progress, changes,
and some of the stirring scenes that have been witnessed
from its windows.
Till so late as the era of building the Royal
Exchange Edinburgh had been without increase
or much alteration since King James VI. rode
forth for England in 1603. “The extended wall
erected in the memorable year 1513 still formed
the boundary of the city, with the exception of the
enclosure of the Highriggs. The ancient gates remained
kept under the care of jealous warders,
and nightly closed at an early hour ; even as when
the dreaded iiiroads of the Southron summoned
the Burgher Watch to guard their walls. At the
foot of the High Street, the lofty tower and spire
of the Nether Bow Port terminated the vista, surmounting
the old Temple Bar of Edinburgh, interposed
between the city and the ancient burgh of
Canongate.”
On this upward-sloping thoroughfare first rose
the rude huts of the Caledonians, by the side of
the wooded way that led to the Dun upon the rock
-when Pagan rites were celebrated at sunrise on
the bare scalp of Arthur‘s Seat-and destined
to become in future years “the King’s High
Street,” as it was exclusively named in writs and
charters, in so far as it extended from the Nether
Bow to the edifice named Creech’s Land, at the
east end of the Luckenbooths. “Here,” says a
writer, “ was the battle-ground of Scotland for
centuries, whereon private and party feuds, the
jealousies of nobles and burghers, and not a few of
the contests between the Crown and the people,
were settled at the sword.”
As a place for brawling it was proverbial ; and
thus it was that Colonel Munro, in “His Expedition
with the Worthy Scots Regiment called
Mackeyes,” levied in 1626, for service in Denmark](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p203.gif "Volume 1 Page 191")
... High Street.] THE HIGH STREET.
six storeys each ; in short, down as far as the Cowgate
nothing was to be seen ...
Vol. 1 p. 191 (Rel. 0.7)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
CHAPTER XXIIL
THE HIGH STREET (continuedJ.
The Black Turnpike-Bitter ...
Vol. 2 p. 204 (Rel. 0.69)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd.
In 1650 it was used as a hospital for the wounded
soldiers of General ...
Vol. 2 p. 302 (Rel. 0.67)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGR, [High Street.
Torthorwald could defend himself, ran him through
the body, and slew him ...
Vol. 2 p. 196 (Rel. 0.67)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Andrew Square.
old Scottish school. His habits were active, anc
he was fond of ...
Vol. 3 p. 170 (Rel. 0.65)
![&rnbers Street.] INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 275
metalhrgy and constructive materials, for ceramic
.and vitreous manufactures, the decorative arts,
guise of various animals, seek to aid 0; hinder its ' ascent.
textile manufactures, food, education, chemistry,
materia medica, photography, &c.
The whole floor is covered with articles illustrative
of the arts of construction, such as products
.of the clay-fields, fire and brick clays, and terra-
-cottas. Cements and artificial stones stand next
in order, followed by illustrations of the mode of
quarrying real stone ; adjoining these are stones
dressed for building purposes, and others carved
for ornamental uses.
Oriental stone carving is illustrated by a set of
magnificent plaster casts from one of the- most
famous gates of Delhi, made by order of the
Indian Government. The sanitary appliances used
in building are likewise exhibited here ; also slate
.and its uses, with materials for surface decorations,
.and woods for house timber and furniture.
Among the more prominent objects are large
.models of Scottish lighthouses, presented by the
Commissioners of Northern Lights, of St. Peter's at
Rome, St Paul's at London, and the Bourse in
Berlin, together with a singularly elegant carton-
.pierre ceiling ornament, and finely designed mantelpiece,
that were originally prepared for Montagu
House.
In the centre of the hall are some beautiful
.specimens of large guns and breechloading fieldpieces,
with balls and shells, and a fine model of
-the bridge over the Beulah in Westmoreland.
A hall devoted to the exhibition of flint and clay
products, and illustrations of glass and pottery, is
in the angle behind the great and east saloons.
'The art Potteries of Lambeth are here represented
by beautiful vases and plaques, and other articles
in the style of old Flemish stoneware. There are
.also fine examples of the Frenchfuiencr, by Deck
-of Paris, including a splendid dish painted by
Anker, and very interesting samples of Persian
-pottery as old as t b fourteenth century.
There is a magnificent collection of Venetian
.glass, comprising nearly 400 pieces, made by the
Abbot Zanetti of Murano, in Lombardy; while
modern mosaic work is exemplified by a beautiful
,reredos by Salviati, representing the Last Supper.
The beauty of ancient tile work is here exhibited
in some exquisite fragments from Constantinople,
These formed, originally, part of the
.several decorations of the mosque of Broussa, in
Anatolia, which was destroyed by an earthquake.
In rich blue on a white ground they display a
variety of curious conceptions, one of which represents
the human soul shooting aloft as a tall
=cypress tree, while good and evil spirits, under the
Near these are placed, first, illustrations of colliery
work, then of metallurgical operations, and lastly,
the manufacture of metals. The first, or lower
gallery of this hall, contains specimens of the arts
in connection with clothing, and the textile fabrics
generally and their processes ; wood, silk, cotton,
hemp, linen, jute, felt, silk, and straw-hat making,
leather, fur, and also manufactures from bone, ivory,
horn, tortoise-shell, feathers, hair-gut, gutta-percha,
india-rubber, &c. ; and the upper gallery contains
the collection illustrative of chemistry, the chemical
arts, materia medica, and philosophical instruments.
The department of machinery contains a speci
men, presented by the inventor. of Lister's wool
combing machine, which, by providing the means
of combing long wools mechanically, effected an
enormous change in the worsted trade of Yorkshire.
*
In the front of the east wing is the lecture
room, having accommodation for 800 sitters
Above it is a large apartment, seventy feet in
length by fifty broad, containing a fine display of
miner'als and fossils. One of the most interesting
features in this department is the large and valuable
collection of fossils which belonged to Hugh
Miller.
The ethnological specimens are ranged in hahdsome
cases around the walls. The natural his.
tor). hall contains on its ground floor a general
collection of mammalia, including a complete
grouping of British animals. The first gallery
contains an ample collection of birds and shells,
&c; the upper gallery, reptiles and fishes. In
the hall is suspended the skeleton of a whale
seventy-nine feet in length.
On the north side of Chambers Street is the new
Watt Institution and School of Arts, erected in
lieu of that of which we have already given a history
in Adam Square. (VoL I., pp. 379, 380.) It was
erected in 1872-3 from designs by David Rhind,
and is two storeys in height, with a pavilion at
its west end, and above its entrance porch the
handsome statue of James Watt which stood in
the demolished square.
Beside this institution stands the Phrenological
Museum, on the north side, forming a conjoint
building With it, and containing a carefully assorted
collection of human skulls some of them being of
great antiquity. It was formerly in Surgeon Square,
High School Yard.
The new Free Tron Church stands here, nearly
Sec "Great Industries of Great Britain." VoL I., pp. 107-8;
II., b](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p095.gif "Volume 4 Page 275")
... Street.] INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM. 275
metalhrgy and constructive materials, for ceramic
.and vitreous ...
Vol. 4 p. 275 (Rel. 0.65)
... Lawomarket.1 MAJOR SOMERVILLE. 9s
visitor could be fully visCd before admission was
accorded. In many other ...
Vol. 1 p. 95 (Rel. 0.6)
... burned, and ‘‘ that ilk mail in Edinburgh have
his lumes (vents) full of watter in the nycht, under
pain ...
Vol. 1 p. 122 (Rel. 0.6)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Nether Bow.
with cannon stone-shot in 1544, ere advancing
;against the Castle. “ ...
Vol. 2 p. 218 (Rel. 0.6)
![rrs PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who was suing a divorce
against his wife, the Earl of Bothwell forcibly
dragged out one of the most important witnesses,
and carrying him to his castle of Cricliton, eleven
miles distant, threatened to hang him if he uttered
a word.
On the charge of being a “ Papist,” among many
other prisoners in the Tolbooth in 1628, was the
Countess of Abercorn, where her health became
broken by confinement, and the misery of a
prison which, if it was loathsome in the reign of
George III., must have been something terrible in
the days orCharles I. In 1621 she obtained a
licence to go to the baths of Bristol, but failing
to leave the city, was lodged for six months in the
Canongate gaol. After she had been under restraint
in various places for three years, she was permitted
to remain ir. the earl’s house at Paisley, in March
1631, on condition that she “ reset no Jesuits,”
and to return if required under a penalty of 5,000
merks.
Taken seriatim, the records of the Tolbooth
contain volumes of entries made in the following
brief fashion :-
“1662, June 10.-John Kincaid put in ward
by warrant of the Lords of the Privy Council, for
‘ pricking of persons suspected of witchcraft anwarranfably.’
Liberated on finding caution not to
do so again.
“-June 10.-Robert Binning for falsehood ;
hanged with the false papers about his neck.
“--4ug. q.-Robert Reid for murder. His
head struck from his body at the mercat cross.
“- Dec. 4.-James Ridpath, tinker ; to be qhupitt
from Castle-hill to Netherbow, burned on the
cheek with the Toun’s common mark, and banished
the kicgdom, for the crime of double adultery.
‘‘ 1663, March ~g.-ATexander Kennedy; hanged
for raising false bonds and aritts.
“-March z I.-Aucht Qwakers; liberated, certifying
if again troubling the place, the next prison
shall be the Correction House.
“- July 8.-Katherine Reid ; hanged for
theft.
“-July &--Sir Archibald Johnston of Wamston;
treason. Hanged, his head cut off and placed
on the Netherbow.
“ - July I 8.-Bessie Brebner ; hansed for
murder.
‘I -Aug. zS.-The Provost of Kirkcudbright ;
banished for keeping his house during a tumult.
“ - Oct. 5.-William Dodds ; beheaded for
murder.”
And so on in grim monotony, till we come to
the last five entries in the old record, which is
quite incomplete.
1728, Oct. zs.-John Gibson; forging a
declaration, 18th January, 1727. His lug nailed
to the Tron, and dismissed.
‘( 1751, March 18.-Helen Torrance :md Jean
Waldie were executed this day, for stealing a child,
eight or nine years of age, and selling its body to
the surgeons for dissection. Alive on Tuesday when
carried OK, and dead on Friday, with an incision in
the belly, but sewn up again.
“ I 7 5 6, May 4.-Sir William Dalrymple of Cousland;
for shooting at Capt. Hen. Dalrymple of
Fordell, with a pistol at the Cross of Edinburgh.
Liberated’on 14th May, on bail for 6,000 merks,
to answer any complaint.
“ 1752, Jan. 10.-Norman Ross ; hanged and
hung in chains between Leith and Edinburgh, for
issassinating Lady Bailie, sister to Home of
Wedderburn.
‘ I 1757, Feb. 4.-Janies Rose, Excise Officer at
Muthill ; banished to America for forging receipts
for arrears.”
It was a peculiarity of the Tolbooth, that through
clanship, or some other influence, nearly every
criminal of rank confined in it achieved an escape.
Robert fourth Lord Burleigh, a half insane peer,
who was one of the commissioners for executing
the office of Lord Register in 1689, and who
married a daughter of the Earl of hfelville about
the time of the Union, assassinated a schoolmaster
who had married a girl to whom he had paid improper
addresses, was committed to the Tolbooth,
and sentenced to death; and of his first attempt
to escape the following story is told He was
carried out of the prison in a large trunk, to be
conveyed to Leith, on the back of a powerful
porter, who was to put hini on board a vessel
about to sail for the Continent. It chanced that
when slinging the trunk on his back, the porter
did so with Lord Burleigh‘s head doiwnnmost, thus
it had to sustain the weight of his whole body.
The posture was agony, the way long and rough,
but life was dear. Unconscious of his actual
burden, the porter reached the Netherbow Port,
where an acquaintance asked him “whither he
was going?” ‘:TO Leith,” was the reply. “ Is the
work good enough to afford a glass before going
farther?” was the next question. The porter said
it was; and tossed down the trunk with such
violence that it elicited a scream from Lord Burleigh,
who instantly fainted.
Scared and astounded, the porter wrenched open
the trunk, when its luckless inmate was found
cramped, doubled-up, and senseless. A crowd](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p139.gif "Volume 1 Page 127")
... PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who ...
Vol. 1 p. 127 (Rel. 0.59)
![High Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth on slaughter intent.
He directed his brothers John and Robert
Tweedie, Porteous of Hawkshaw, Crichton of
Quarter, and others, to Conn’s Close, which was
directly opposite to the smith’s booth; while he,
accompanied by John and Adam Tweedie, sons of
the Gudeman of Dura, passed to the Kirk (of Field)
Wynd, a little to the westward of the booth, to cut
off the victim if he hewed a way to escape ; but as
he was seen standing at the booth door with his
back to them, they shot him down with their
pistols in cold blood, and left him lying dead on
the spot.
For this the Tweedies were imprisoned in the
Castle; but they contrived to compromise the
matter with the king, making many fair promises ;
yet when he was resident at St. James’s, in 1611,
he heard that the feud and the fighting in Upper
Tweeddale were as bitter as ever.
On the 19th of January, 1594, a sharp tulzie, or
combat, ensued in the High Street between the
Earl of Montrose, Sir James Sandilands, and others.
10 explain the cause of this we must refer to
Calderwood, who tells us that on the 13th of
February, in the preceding year, John Graham of
Halyards, a Lord of Session (a kinsman of Montrose),
was passing down Leith Wynd, attended by
three or four score of armed men for his protection,
when Sir Janies Sandilands, accompanied by his
friend Ludovic Duke of Lennox, with an armed
I company, met him. As they had recently been
in dispute before the Court about Some temple
lands, Graham thought he was about to be attacked,
and prepared to make resistance. The
duke told him to proceed on his journey, and that
no one would molest him; but the advice was
barely given when some stray shots were fired by
the party of the judge, who was at once attacked,
and fell wounded. He was borne bleeding into
an adjacent house, whither a French boy, page to
Sir Alexander Stewart, a friend of Sandilands, followed,
and plunged a dagger into him, thus ending
a lawsuit according to the taste of the age.
Hence it was that when, in the following year,
John Earl of Montrose-a noble then about fifty
years old, who had been chancellor of the jury that
condemned the Regent Morton, and moreover was
Lord High Chancellor of the kingdom-met Sir
James Sandilands in the High Street, he deemed
it his duty to avenge the death of the Laird of
Halyards. On the first amval of the earl in Edinburgh
Sir James had been strongly recommended
by his friends to quit it, as his enemies were too
strong for him ; but instead of doing so he desired
the aid and assistance of all his kinsmen and
friends, who joined him forthwith, and the two
parties meeting on the 19th of January, near the
Salt Tron, a general attack with swords and hack
buts begun. One account states that John, Master
of Montrose (and father of the great Marquis), first
began the fray; another that it was begun by Sir
James Sandilands, who was cut down and severely
wounded by more than one musket-shot, and
would have been slain outright but for the valour
of a friend named Captain Lockhart. The Lord
Chancellor was in great peril, for the combat was
waged furiously about him, and, according to the
“ Historie of King James the Sext,” he was driven
back fighting “to the College of Justice ( i e . , the
Tolbooth). The magistrates of the town with
fencible weapons separatit the parties for that time ;
and the greatest skaith Sir James gat on his party,
for he himself was left for dead, and a cousingerman
of his, callit Crawford of Kerse, was slain,
and many hurt.” On the side of the earl only one
was killed, but many were wounded.
On the 17th of June, 1605, there was fought in
the High Street a combat between the Lairds of
Edzell and Pittarrow, with many followers on both
sides. It lasted, says Balfour in his AnnaZes, from
nine at night till two next morning, with loss and
many injuries. The Privy Council committed the
leaders to prison.
The next tulzie of which we read arose from the
following circumstance :-
Captain James Stewart (at one time Earl of
Arran) having been slain in 1596 by Sir James
Douglas of Parkhead, a natural son of the Regent
Morton, who cut off his .head at a place called
Catslack, and carried it on a spear, “leaving his
body to be devoured by dogs and swine;” this
act was not allowed to pass unrevenged by the
house of Ochiltree, to which the captain-who had
been commander of the Royal Guard-belonged.
But as at that time a man of rank in Scotland
could not be treated as a malefactor for slaughter
committed in pursuance of a feud, the offence was
expiated by an assythement. The king strove
vainly to effect a reconciliation ; but for years the
Imds Ochiltree and Douglas (the latter of whom
was created Lord Torthorwald in 1590 by James
VI.) were at open variance.
It chanced that on the 14th of July, 1608, that
Lord Torthonvald was walking in the High Street
a little below the Cross, between six and seven in
the morning, alone and unattended, when he suddenly
met William Stewart, a nephew of the man
he had slain. Unable to restrain the sudden rage
that filled him, Stewart drew his sword, and ere](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p015.gif "Volume 2 Page 195")
... Street.] TULZIES IN THE HIGH STREET. 195 - -
his own friends and servants into two armed parties,
set forth ...
Vol. 2 p. 195 (Rel. 0.59)
![238 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and hailk hir lands callit the King’s
Werk in Leith, within the boundis specifit in the
infeftment maid to him thairupon, quhilkis than
-war alluterlie decayit, and sensyne are reparit and
re-edifit, he the said Johne Chisholnie, to the policy
.and great decoration of this realme, in that office,
place, and sight of all strangeris and utheris re-
- sortand to the Schore of Leith.”
In 1575 it had been converted into a hospital
- for the plague-stricken ; but when granted to Bernard
Lindsay in 1613, he was empowered to keep
four taverns in the buildings, together with the
tennis-court, for the then favourite pastime of
‘catchpel. It continued to be used for that purpose
till the year 1649, when it was taken pos-
2 session of by the magistrates of Edinburgh, and
. converted into a weigh-house.
“ In what part of the building Bemard Lindsay
commenced tavern-keeping we are unable to say,”
observes Campbell, in his “ History of Leith,” “ but
.are more than half disposed to believe it was that
old house which projects into Bernard Street, and
is situated nearly opposife the British Linen Com-
,pany’s Bank.” ‘‘ The house alluded to,” adds
Robertson on this, “has a carved stone in front,
representing a rainbow rising from the clouds, with
a date 165-, the last figure being obliterated, and
-can hatre no reference to Bernard Lindsay.”
The tennis-court of the latter would seem to have
been frequently patronised by the great Marquis of
Montrose in his youth, as in his ‘‘ Household Accounts,”
under date 1627, are the following entries
.(Mait. Club Edit.) :-
‘‘ Item to the poor, my Lord taking coch . . qs.
Item, carrying the graith to Leth . . . . 8s.
Item, to some poor there . . . . . . 3s
Item, to my Lord Nepar’s cochman . .
Item, for balls in the Tinnes Court of Leth..
. . 6s. Sd.
16s.”
The first memorial of Bernard Lindsay is in
the Parish Records ” of South Leith, and is dated
17th July, 1589 :-“ The quhilk days comperit
up Bemard Lindsay and Barbara Logan, and gave
their names to be proclamit and mareit, within
this date and Michaelmas.-JoHN LOGANE, Cautioper.”
Another record, 2nnd September, I 633, bears
that the Session “ allowis burial to Barbara Logane,
-.elict of Bernard Lindsaye, besyde her husbande in
the kirk-yeard, in contentation yairof, 100 merks to
be given to the poor.”
From Bernard Lindsay, the name of the present
Bernard Street is derived. Bernard’s Nook has
long been known. ‘‘ In the ‘ Council Records’ of
Edinburgh, 1647,” says Robertson, “is the following
entry :-‘ To the purchase of the Kingis Werk,
in Leith, 4,500 lib. Scot.’ A previous entry, 1627,
refers to dealing with the sons of Bernard Lindsay,
‘for their house in Leith to be a custom-house. . . .’
We have no record that any buildings existed beyond
the bounds of the walls or the present
Bernard Street at this time, the earliest dates on
the seaward part of the Shore being 1674-1681.”
The old Weigh-house, or Tron of Leith, stood
within Bernard’s Nook, on the west side of the
street ; but local, though unsupported, tradition
asserts that the original signal-tower and lighthouse
of Leith stood in the Broad Wynd.
Wilson thus refers to the relic of the Wark
already mentioned :-‘‘ A large stone panel, which
bore the date 1650-the year immediately succeeding
the appropriation of the King‘s Wark to
civic purposes-appeared in the north gable of the
old weigh-house, which till recently occupied its
site, with the curious device of a rainbow carved
in bold relief springing at either end from a bank
of clouds.”
“ So,” says Arnot, ‘‘ this fabric, which was reared
for the sports and recreations of a Court, was
speedily to be the scene of the ignoble labours of
carmen and porters, engaged in the drudgery of
weighing hemp and of iron.”
Eastward of the King’s Wark, between Bernard‘s
Street and chapel, lies the locality once so curiously
designated Little London, and which, according to
Kincaid, measured ninety feet from east to west,
by seventy-five broad over the walls. “ How it
acquired the name of Little London is now
unknown,” says Camphell, in his “ History ” ;
“but it was so-called in the year 1674, We do
not see, however,” he absurdly remarks, “that it
could have obtained this appellation from any
other circumstauce than its having had some
real or supposed resemblance to the [English]
metropolis.”
As the views preserved of Little London show it
to have consisted of only four houses or so, and
these of two storeys high, connected by a dead
wall with one doorway, facing Bemard Street in
1800, Campbell’s theory is untenable. It is much
more probable that it derived its name from being
the quarters or cantonments of those 1,500 English
soldiers who, under Sir Williani Drury, Marshal of
Berwick, came from England in April, 1573, to
assist the Regent Morton’s Scottish Companies in
the reduction of Edinburgh Castle. These men
departed from Leith on the 16th of the following
June, and it has been supposed that a few of them
may have been induced to remain, and the locality
thus won the name of Little London, in the same](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p057.gif "Volume 6 Page 238")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
-to hir lovite suitore, Johne Chisholme, his airis and
. assignais, all and ...
Vol. 6 p. 238 (Rel. 0.59)
![THE OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act of stern discipline, when
drunkards were compelled to ride the wooden
horse, with muskets tied to their feet, and “ a drinking
cup,” as Nicoll names it, on their head. ‘‘ The
chronicles of this place of petty durance, could
they now be recovered, would furnish many an
amusing scrap of antiquated scandal, interspersed
at rare intervals with the graver deeds of such
disciplinarians as the Protector, or the famous sack
of the Porteous mob. There such fair offenders as
the witty 2nd eccentric Miss Mackenzie, daughter
of Lord Royston, found at times a night’s lodging,
when she and her maid sallied out aspreux chma-
Ciers in search of adventures. Occasionally even
grave jidge or learned lawyer, surprised out of
his official decorum by the temptation of a jovial
club, was astonished, oh awaking, tu find himself
within its impartial walls, among such strange bedfellows
as the chances of the night had offered
to its vigilant guardians.’’ A slated building of
one storey in height, it consisted of four apartments.
In the western end was the captain’s room;
there was also a “ Burghers’ room,” for special prisoners
; in the centre was a common hall ; and at
the east end was an apartment devoted to the
use of the Tron-men, or city sweeps. Under
the captain’s room was the black-hole, in which
coals and refractory prisoners were kept. In I 785
this unsightly edifice was razed to the ground,
an3 the soldiers of the Guard, after occupying the
new Assembly Rooms, had their head-quarters
finally assigned them on the ground floor of the
old Tolbooth.
It is impossible to quit our memorials of the
latter without a special reference to the famous
old City Guard, with which it was inseparably
connected.
In the alarm caused by the defeat at Flodden,
all male inhabitants of the’ city were required to
be in arms and readiness, while twenty-four men
were selected as a permanent or standing watch,
and in them originated the City Guard, which,
however, was not completely constituted until
1648, when the Town Council appointed a body
of sixty men to be raised, whereof the captain
was, says Amot, “to have the monthly pay of
LII 2s. 3d. sterling, two lieutenants of E2 each,
two sergeants of AI 5s., three corporals of AI,
and the private men 15s. each per month.”
No regular fund being provided to defray this
expense, after a time the old method of “watching
and warding,” every fourth citizen to be on duty in
arms each night, was resumed; but those, he adds,
on whom this service was incumbent, became so re-
,
-
laxed in discipline, that the Privy Council informed
the magistrates that if they did not provide an
efficient guard to preserve order in the city, the
regular troops of the Scottish army would be
quartered in it
Upon this threat forty armed men were raised as.
a guard in 1679, and in consequence of an event
which occurred in 1682, this number was increased
to 108 men. The event referred to was a riot,
caused by an attempt to carry off a number of
lads who had been placed in the Tolbooth for
trivial offences, to serve the Prince of Orange as.
soldiers. As they were being marched to Leith,
under escort, a crowd led by women attacked the
latter. By order of Major Keith, commanding, the
soldiers fired upon the people ; seven men and two
women were shot, and twenty-two fell wounded.
One of the women being with child, it was cut from
her and baptised in the street. The excitement of
this affair caused the augmentation of the guard, for
whose maintenance a regular tax was levied, while
Patrick Grahame, a younger son of Inchbraikiethe
same officer whom Macaulay so persistently
confounds with Claverhouse-was appointed captain,
with the concurrence of the Duke of York
and Albany. Their pay was 6d. daily, the drummers’
IS., and the sergeants’ IS. 6d. In 1685
Patnck Grahame, “ captain of His Majesty’s
company of Foot, within the town of Edinburgh
(the City Guard), was empowered to import 300
ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with
wrappings and other necessaries, for the clothing
of the corps, this being in regard that the manufactories
are not able to furnish His Majesty’s
(Scottish) forces with cloth and other necessaries.”
After the time of the Revolution the number of
the corps was very fluctuating, and for a period,
after 1750, it consisted usually of only seventy-five
men, a force most unequal to the duty to be done.
“The Lord Provost is commander of this useful
corps,” wrote Amot, in 1779. “ The men are properly
disciplined, and fire remarkably well. Within
these two years some disorderly soldiers in one of
the marching regiments, having conceived an umbrage
at tha Town Guard, attacked them. They
were double in number to the party of the Town
Guard, who, in the scuffle, severely wounded some
of their assailants, and made the whole prisoners.”
By day they were armed with muskets and bayonets ;
at night with Lochaber axes. They were mostly
Highlanders, all old soldiers, many of whom had
served in the Scots brigades in Holland. In the
city they took precedence of all troops of the line.
At a monthly inspection of the corps in 1789 the
Lord Provost found a soldier in the ranks who had](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p147.gif "Volume 1 Page 135")
... OLD TOWN GUARD. I35 The Tolbooth.]
impartial rule of the Cromwellian period, formed
the scene of many an act ...
Vol. 1 p. 135 (Rel. 0.58)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
belonged to different vehicles. It is standing opposite
the Tron Kirk. ...
Vol. 5 p. 154 (Rel. 0.58)
![St. Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the pungent
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount writes thus
of the processionists :-
THE NORMAN DOORWAY, ST. GILES’S WHICH WAS DE~TKOYEL) IOWAKDS THE END OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (From a Drawing by an no^ nbont 1799.)
The Lady aisle, where Preston’s ,gave lay and
the altar stood, was part of what forms now the
south aisle of the choir called the High Church, and
“ Fy on you fostereris of idolatrie !
That till ane did stok does sik reverence
Feir ye nocht God, to commit sik offence,
To gar suppresse sik greit abusion;
Sal1 be nocht else, bot clene confusion.”
In presens of the pepill publicklie ;
I counsall you do yit ywr diligence,
Do ye nocht sa, I dreid your recompense,
on that altar many of the earliest recorded gifts
were bestowed.
The constant additions made to St. Giles’s
church, from the exchequer of the city, or by contributions
of wealthy burgesses, cannot but be
regarded as a singular evidence of the great](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p153.gif "Volume 1 Page 141")
... Gild’s Church.] SIR DAVID LINDESAY ON THE PROCESSIONISTS. 14r
In his “Monarchie,” finished in 1553, the ...
Vol. 1 p. 141 (Rel. 0.58)
![ROBERT MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found in the grand and sublime
of Nature, and his style is marked chiefly by
vigour, power, and breadth of effect-strong light
and deep shadow. As a man and a Christian
minister, his life was simple, pure, and irreproachable,
his disposition kind, affable, and benevolent.
He died of apoplexy in 1840, in his sixty-second
year.
The city must have had some interest in the loch,
as in the Burgh accounts for 1554 we read:-
‘‘ Item : twa masons twa weeks to big the Park Dyke
at the loch side of Dudding‘ston, and foreanent it
again on Priestfield syde, ilk man in the week xv’.
summa iijIi.
(‘Item : for ane lang tree to put in the wall that
lyes far in the loch for outganging of ziyld beistis
v?.” ’ (“ Burgh Records.”)
The town or lands of Duddingston are included
in an act of ratification to James, Lord Lindsay of
the Byers, in 1592.
In the Acts of Sederunt for February, 1650, we
find Alexander Craig, in-dweller in the hamlet,
pilloried at the Tron of Edinburgh,. and placarded
as being a “ lying witness ” in an action-at-law
concerning the pedigree of John Rob in Duddingston;
but among the few reminiscences of this
place may be mentioned the curious hoax which
the episcopal incumbent thereof at the Restoration
played upon Cardinal de Retz.
This gentleman, whose name was Robert Monteith,
had unfortunately become involved in an
amour with a lady in the vicinity, the wife of Sir
James Hamilton of Prestonfield, and was cpmpelled
to fly from the scene of his disgrace. He
was the son of a humble man employed in the
salmon-fishing above Alloa ; but on repairing to
Paris, and after attaching himself to M. de la
Porte, Grand Prior of France, and soliciting employment
from Cardinal de Retz, he stated he was
“one of the Monteith family in Scotland.” The
cardinal replied that he knew the family well, but
asked to which branch he belonged. “To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net,” replied the unabashed
adventurer.
The cardinal replied that this was a branch he
had never heard of, but added that he believed
it was, no doubt, a very ancient and illustrious
family. Monteith was patronised by the cardinal,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Notre Dame,
and made him his secretary, in which capacity he
distinguished himself by his elegance and purity,
in the French language. This strange man is
author of a well-known work, published in folio,
entitled, “ Hisfoa’re des TroubZes de &andBretap,
depuis Z’an 1633 juspu’a Z‘an 1649, pur Robed
Menfet de Salmonet.
It was dedicated to the Coadjutor Archbishop of
Pans, with a portrait of the author; and a trans- .
lation of it, by Captain James Ogilvie, was published
in 1735 by G. Strachan, at the “Golden Ball,”
in Cornhill.
In the year of the Revolution we find the
beautiful loch of Duddingston, as an adjunct to
the Royal Park, mentioned in a case before the
Privy Council on the 6th March.
The late Duke of Lauderdale having placed
some swans thereon, his clever duchess, who was
carrying on a legal contest With his heirs, deemed
herself entitled to take away some of those birds
when she chose; but Sir James Dick, now proprietor
of the %ch, broke a lock-fast place in
which she had put them, and set them once more
upon the water. The irate dowager raised an
action against him, which was decided in her
favour, but in defiance of this, the baronet turned
all the swans off the loch ; on which the Duke of
Hamilton, as Heritable Keeper of the palace, came
to the rescue, as Fountainhall records, alleging
that the loch bounded the King’s Park, and that
all the wild animals belonged to him ; they were,
therefore, restored to their former haunts.
Of the loch and the landsof Priestfield (orPrestonfield),
Cockburn says, in his “Memorials” :-“I know
the place thoroughly. The reeds were then regularly .
cut over by means of short scythes with very long
handles, close to the ground, and this (system)
made Duddingston nearly twice its present size”
Otters are found in its waters, and a solitary
badger has at times provoked a stubborn chase.
The loch is in summer covered by flocks of dusky
coots, where they remain till the closing of the ice
excludes them from the water, when they emigrate
to the coast, and return With the first thaw.
Wild duck, teal, and water-hens, also frequent it,
and swans breed there prolifically, and form one
of its most picturesque ornaments. The pike, the
perch, and a profusion of eels, which are killed by
the barbed sexdent, also abound there.
In winter here it is that skating is practised as an
art by the Edinburgh Club. “The writer recalls
with pleasure,” says the author of the “Book of
Days,” “skating exhibitions which he saw there early
in the present century, when Henry Cockburn,
and the philanthropist James Sipson, were conspicuous
amongst the most accomplished of the
club for their handsome figures and great skill in
the art. The scene of that loch ‘ in full bearing J
on a clear winter day, with its busy and stirring
multitude of sliders, skaters, and curlers, the snowy
Paris, 166 I.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p135.gif "Volume 4 Page 315")
... MONTEITH. . 3’5 Duddingston.]
incumbent of Duddingston in 1805. His favourite
subjects were to be found ...
Vol. 4 p. 315 (Rel. 0.57)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Etreet.
the gentlemen’s mansions and goodliest houses are
obscurely founded in ...
Vol. 2 p. 200 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castlc.
brother Sir James, with two burgesses of the City,
were drawn ...
Vol. 1 p. 50 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
vestments, bearing the arm-bone of the saint ; then
they passed the Cross, the fountain ...
Vol. 3 p. 62 (Rel. 0.56)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Mary’s Wynd.
the maintenance of the beads-+eople of that hospital ;
and every ...
Vol. 2 p. 298 (Rel. 0.55)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
CATHEDRAL, 1787 (aper
The Canongate Tolbooth . . . . . . I
The Burgh Seal of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 392 (Rel. 0.53)
... Giles’s Church.
was a place frequently assigned in bills for the
payment of money.
The transept, called at ...
Vol. 1 p. 144 (Rel. 0.52)
![West Church.] THE LOTHIAN ROAD. =37
towards Bruntsfield Links, had long been projected,
but owing to the objections raised by the
proprietors of many barns, byres, and sheds which
stood in the way, the plan could not be matured,
till after several years of trouble and speculation j
in length by twenty paces in breadth." This
scheme he concerted with address, and executed
with nautical promptitude It happened to be the
winter season, when many men were unemployed.
He had no difficulty in collecting several hundreds
ST. CUTHBERT'S CHURCH.
and when at last the proposal was about to be of these at the Kirkbraehcad upon the appointed
agreed to by the opposing parties, the broad and ' morning before sunrise, when he gave them all a
stately road was-to the surprise of the public and ' plentiful breakfast of porter, whisky, and bread and
mortification of the opposition-made in one day ! cheese, after which, just as the sun rose, he ordered
'' some to tear down' en-
John Clerk, Bart., of Pennicuik (an' officer: of't'hc ! dlosuresi others to unroof and demolish cottages,
in 1784). laid a bet with a friend to the effect I with to fill up the natural hollow (near the church-
" that he. would, between sunrise and sunset, ' yard gate) to the required height. The inhabitants,
execute the line of road, extending nearly a mile 1 dismayed at so vast a force and so summary a
It so happened that a gentleman, said to be! Sir. 1 th,e% ,to* set to, work
royal navy, who succeeded his father, Sir George, I and a considerahle portion to bring' earth where-
66](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p149.gif "Volume 3 Page 137")
... Church.] THE LOTHIAN ROAD. =37
towards Bruntsfield Links, had long been projected,
but owing to the ...
Vol. 3 p. 137 (Rel. 0.52)
... College Church (restored) . . . . 289
Victoria Street and Terrace, from George Iv. Bridge. ...
Vol. 2 p. 394 (Rel. 0.52)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd. 304
of the building, among these; on a buttress, at the
west angle of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 304 (Rel. 0.52)
... was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this ...
Vol. 3 p. 29 (Rel. 0.52)
... KIRK-OF-FIELD. (Alto an Etching by /awes Skenc cf Rubirlaw).
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER I.
THE KIRK OF ...
Vol. 5 p. 1 (Rel. 0.49)
![THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound]
one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than
sufficed to purchase the site of the college-the
old Guise Palace, with its adjacent closes-and to
erect the edifice, while others were built at
Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Plans by W. H. Playfair, architect, were prepared
and adopted, after a public competition had
been resorted to, and the new buildings were at
once proceeded with. The foundation stone was
iaid on the 4th of June, 1846, by Dr. Chalmers,
~ The stairs on the south side of the quadrangle
lead to the Free Assembly Hall, on the exact site
of the Guise Palace. It was erected from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of A7,000, which was
collected by ladies alone belonging to the Free
Church throughout Scotland.
The structure was four years in completion, and
was opened on the 6th of November, 1850,under the
sanction of the Commission of the Free General
Assembly, by their moderator, Dr. N. Paterson,
LIBRARY OF THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. (Fwm o P/wtozm#h by G. W. Wi&on and Co.)
exactly one year previous to the day which saw his
remains consigned to the tomb. The ultimate cost
was ;646,506 8s. Iod., including the price of the
ground, Ero,ooo.
The buildings are in the English collegiate style,
combining the common Tudor with somd of the later
Gothic They form an open quadrangle (entered
by a handsome groined archway), 165 feet from
east to west and 177 from south to north, including
on the east the Free High Church. The edifice
has two square towers (having each four crocketed
pinnacles), IZI feet in height, buttressed at the
corners from base to summit. There is a third
tower, 95 feet in height. The college contains
seven great class-rooms, a senate hall, a students'
hall, and a library, the latter adorned with a
statue of Dr, Chalmers as Principal, by Steel
61
who delivered a sermon and also a special address
to the professors and students. Subsequently, this
inaugural sermon and the introductory lectures
delivered on the same occasion to their several
classes by Professors Cunningham, Buchanan,
Bannerman, Duncan, Black, Macdougal, Fraser,
and Fleming, were published in a volume, as a
record of that event.
The constitution of this college is the same as
that of the Free Church colleges elsewhere. The
Acts of Assembly provide for vesting college
property and funds, for the election of professors,
and for the general management and superintendence
of college business. The college buildings
are vested in trustees appointed by the Church.
A select committee is also appointed bp the
j General Assembly, consisting of " eleven ministers](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p109.gif "Volume 3 Page 97")
... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 97 The Mound]
one persons ;61,ooo each, a sum which more than
sufficed to purchase the ...
Vol. 3 p. 97 (Rel. 0.49)
...
THE ABBEY PILLAGED. 57
troops retnrned to complete the destruction of the
abbey, which in the ...
Vol. 3 p. 57 (Rel. 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Broughton.
been placed along both sides of a road that ran
east and west; those on ...
Vol. 3 p. 184 (Rel. 0.47)
... by King Alexander II., and in its earliest charters
named Mansio Re@, as he had bestowed upon
the monks a ...
Vol. 4 p. 285 (Rel. 0.47)
... Leith Wynd.1 THE DUCHESS OF LENNOX
Pont, an illustrious Venetian who came to Scotland
in the train of Mary of ...
Vol. 2 p. 305 (Rel. 0.47)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
sion opposite to the church of St. Ninian, but is
now rebuilt into a modern ...
Vol. 6 p. 256 (Rel. 0.47)
... of the corps would make their last actual
appearance in public at the laying of the foundation
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 138 (Rel. 0.47)
... PETTER h GALPlll k CO LITH.LONDON.
ST. GILES’S CHURCH.
E. Old Record Room.
2. Entrance to Old Record ...
Vol. 6 p. 188 (Rel. 0.46)
... are decayit, and made some sheep-folds, and some
sa ruinous that none dare enter into thame for
fear of ...
Vol. 3 p. 49 (Rel. 0.46)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Rimarton. 3 2 0
1) OLD SAUGHTON BRIDGE ; 2, OLD SAUGHTON HOUSE ; 3, BARNTON HOUSE ; 4, ...
Vol. 6 p. 320 (Rel. 0.46)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstrophinc
- ~- I
CRAIGCROOK IN THE PRESENT DAY.
than doubled all the specie ...
Vol. 5 p. 112 (Rel. 0.46)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. WolJlmd
mted with several mouldings, partly circular and
partly hexagonal. The eagle ...
Vol. 3 p. 48 (Rel. 0.44)
... INDEX. 371
118-121 ; tomb of, Corstorphine
Church, 111. 121
Forrester’s Wynd, I. 121. 122, 148,
219, ...
Vol. 6 p. 377 (Rel. 0.44)
... restored, but in somewhat doubtful taste, by
Thomas Hamilton, architect, and a new square
tower, terminating ...
Vol. 6 p. 220 (Rel. 0.44)
![Corstorphine.] CORSTORPHINE CHURCH. 115
was no side road into which he could have disappeared.
He returned home perplexed by the
oddness of the circumstance, when the first thing
he learned was, that during his absence this friend
had been killed by his horse falling in the Candlemakers
Row.’’
The church of Corstorphine is one of the most
interesting old edifices in the Lothians. It has
been generally supposed, says a writer, that Scotland,
while possessed of great and grand remains
of Gothic architecture, is deficient in those antique
rural village churches, whose square towers and
ivied buttresses so harmonise with the soft landscape
scenery of England, and that their place is
too often occupied by the hideous barn-like structure
of times subsequent to the Reformation. But
among the retiring niinor beauties of Gothic architecture
in Scotland, one of the principal is the
picturesque little church of Corstorphine.
It is a plain edifice of mixed date, says Billings
in his ‘‘ Antiquities,” the period of the Decorated
Gothic predominating. It is in the form of a cross,
with an additional transept on one of the sides;
but some irregularities in the height and character
of the different parts make them seem asif they
were irregularly clustered together without design.
A portion of the roof is still covered with old-&ey
flagstone. A small square belfry-tower at the west
end is surmounted by a short octagonal spire, the
ornate string’ mouldings on which suggest an idea
of the papal tiara
As the church of the parish, it is kept in tolerably
decent order, and it is truly amazing how it
escaped the destructive fury of the Reformers.
This edifice was not the original parish church,
which stood near it, but a separate establishment,
founded and richly endowed by the pious enthusiasm
of the ancient family whose tombs it contains,
and whose once great castle adjoined it.
Notices have been found of a chapel attached to
the manor of Corstorphine, but subordinate to the
church of St. Cuthbert, so far back as 1128, and
this chapel became the old parish church referred
to. Thus, in the Holyrood charter of King DavidI.,
1143-7, he grants to the monks there the two
chapels which pertain to the church of St. Cuthbert,
‘‘ to wit, Crostorfin, with two oxgates and six
acres of land, and the chapel of Libertun with two
oxgates of land.”
In the immediate vicinity of that very ancient
chapel there was founded ancther chapel towards
the end of the fourteenth century, by Sir Adam
Forrester of Corstorphine; and that edifice is sup
posed to form a portion of the present existing
church, because after its erection no mention whatever
has been found of the second chapel as a
separate edifice.
.The building with which we have now to do
was founded in 1429, as an inscription on the wall
of the chancel, and other authorities, testify, by Sir
John Forrester of Corstorphine, Lord High Chamberlain
of Scotland in 1425, and dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, for a provost, five prebendaries,
and two singing boys. It was a collegiate church,
to which belonged those of Corstorphine, Dalmahoy,
Hatton, Cramond, Colinton, &c. The tiends
of Ratho, and half of those of Adderton and Upper
Gogar, were appropriated to the revenues of this
college.
“Sir John consigned the annual rents of one hundred
and twenty ducats in gold to the church,” says
the author of the “New Statistical Account,” “on
condition that he and his successors should have the
patronage of the appointments, and on the understanding
that if the kirk of Ratho were united to
the provostry, other four or five prebendaries
should be added to the establishment, and maintained
out of the fruits of the benefice of Ratho.
Pope Eugenius IV. sanctioned this foundation by a
bull, in which he directed the Abbot of Holyroodhouse,
a$ his Apostolic Vicar, to ascertain whether
the foundation and consignation had been made in
terms of the original grant, and on being satisfied
on these points, to unite and incorporate the church
of Ratho with its rights, emoluments, and pertinents
to the college for ever.”
The first provost of this establishment was
Nicholas Bannatyne, who died there in 1470, and
was buried in the church, where his epitaph still
remains.
When Dunbar wrote his beautiful ‘ I Lament for
the Makaris,” he embalmed among the last Scottish
poets of his time, as taken by Death, “ the gentle
Roull of Corstorphine,” one of the first provosts of
the church-
‘( He has tane Rod1 of Aberdeen,
A d gentle Rod1 of Corstorphine ;
Twa better fellows did nae man see :
Timor mortis conturbat me.”
There was, says the “ The Book of Bon Accord,”
a Thomas Roull, who was Provost of Aberdeen in
1416, and it is conjectured that the baid was of the
same family ; but whatever the works of the latter
were, nothing is known of him now, save his name,
as recorded by Dunbar.
In the year 1475, Hugh Bar, a burgess of Edinburgh,
founded an additional chaplaincy in this
then much-favoured church. “ The chaplain, in
addition to the performance of daily masses for
the souls of the king andqueen, the lords of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p126.gif "Volume 5 Page 115")
... CORSTORPHINE CHURCH. 115
was no side road into which he could have disappeared.
He returned home ...
Vol. 5 p. 115 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 397 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 399 (Rel. 0.44)
... -4NU NEW EDINBURGH. ... v11t
CHAPTER XXXIV.
INCHKEITH.
PAGE
The Defences of Leith-Inchkeith Forts-%. ...
Vol. 6 p. 398 (Rel. 0.44)
... Giles’s Churchyard.
INTERIOR OF THE HIGH CHURCH, ST. GILES’S.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ST. ...
Vol. 1 p. 148 (Rel. 0.43)
... -
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF ...
Vol. 6 p. 396 (Rel. 0.42)
... OLD AND NET
into the royal presence, the king became alarmed,
and retired into the Tolbooth, amid shouts ...
Vol. 1 p. 146 (Rel. 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ S t . Giles Street.
In course of time the politics of the Couranf
graduallychanged, ...
Vol. 2 p. 288 (Rel. 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
cost of .&3oo, and has two ornamental fronts;
respectively with Ionic ...
Vol. 6 p. 244 (Rel. 0.41)
![THE EARLY CHURCH. I39 St. Giles’s Church.]
of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to away. The first stone church was probably of
every felon as he passed their gate to Newgate.
Among the places enumerated by Simon Dunelmensis,
of Durham, as belonging to the see
.of Lindkfarn in 854, when Earnulph, who removed
it to Chester-le-Street, was bishop, he includes
that of Edinburgh. From this it must
be distinctly inferred that a church of some
kind existed on the long slope that led to Dun
Edin, but no authentic record of it occurs till the
reign of King Alexander II., when Baldred deacon
of Lothian, and John perpetual vicar of the
church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, attached their
seals to copies of certain Papal bulls and charters
of the church of Megginche, a dependency of the
church of Holyrood ; and (according to the Liber
Cartaruni Sanctae Crucis) on the Sunday before the
feast of St. Thomas, in the year 1293, Donoca,
daughter of John, son of Herveus, resigned certain
Iands to the monastery of Holyrood, in full consis-,
Norman architecture. A beautiful Norman dborway,
which stood below the third window from the
west, was wantonly destroyed towards the end of
the eighteenth century. ‘‘ This fragment,” says
Wilson, “sufficiently enables us to picture the
little parish church of St. Giles in the reign of
David I. Built in the massive style of the early
Norman period, it would consist simply of a nave
and chancel, united by a rich Norman chancel
arch, altogether occupying only a portion of the
centre of the present nave. Small circular-headed
windows, decorated with zig-zag mouldings, would
admit the light to its sombre interior; while its
west front was in all probability surmounted by
a simple belfry, from whence the bell would summon
the natives of the hamlet to matins and
vespers, and with slow measured sounds toll their
knell, as they were laid in the neighbouring churchyard.
This ancient church was never entire4 detory,
held in the church of St. Giles. Its solid masonry was probably very
is again mentioned, when William the bishop of St. forces of Edward 11. in 1322, when Holyrood was
,%ndrews confirmed numerous gifts bestowed upon spoiled, or by those of his son in 1335, when
the abbey and its dependencies. In 1359 King the whole country was wasted with fire and sword.
David II., by a charter under his great seal, con- The town was again subjected to the like violence,
Catharine in the church of St. Giles all the lands I conflagration of 1385, when the English army
.of Upper Merchiston, the gift of Roger Hog, under Richard 11. occupied the town for five days,
burgess of Edinburgh. It is more than probable and then laid it and the abbey of Holyrood in
961, and built up again within the year. Of what ’ the original fabric by the piety of private donors,
must the materials have been? asks Maitland. I or by the zeal of its own clergy to adapt it to
Burned again in 1187, it was rebuilt on arches of, the wants of the rising town. In all the changes
.stone--“ a wonderful work,” say the authors of the that it underwent for above seven centuries, the
day. I original north door, with its beautifully recessed
A portion of the church of St. Giles was arched ’ Norman arches and grotesque decorations, always
I with stone in 1380, as would appear from a con- commanded the veneration of the innovators, and I tract noted by Maitland, who has also preserved remained as a precious relic of the past, until the
the terms of another contract, made in 1387, be- tasteless improvers of the eighteenth century de-.
tween the provost and community of Edinburgh I molished it without a cause, and probably for no
on one hand, an? two masons on the other, for the better reason than to evade the cost of its repair !”
construction of five separate vaulted chapels along I In the year 1462 great additions and repairs.
the south side of the church, the architectural appear to have been in progress, for the Town.
features of which prove its existence at a period Council then passed a law that all persons selling
I long before any of these dates, and when Edin- corn before it was entered should forfeit one chal-
I der to church work. In the year 1466 it was I burgh was merely a cluster of thatched huts.
The edifice, as it now stands, is a building erected into a collegiate church by James III.,.
including the work of many different and remote the foundation consisting (according to Keitli and
I periods. By all men of taste and letters in Edin- others) of a provost, curate, sixteen prebendaries,.
burgh it has been a general subject of regret that sacristan, beadle, minister of the choir, and four
the restoration in 1829 was conducted in a man- choristers. - Various sums of money, lands, tithes,
ner so barbarous and irreverent, that many of its &c., were appropriated for the support of the new
In an Act ’ molished.
passed in 1319, in the reign of Robert I., the church I partially affected by the ravages of the invading
firmed to the chaplain officiating at the altar of St. i probably with results little more lasting, by the
that the first church on the site was of wood. St. i ashes. The Norman architecture disappeared
Paul’s Cathedral, at London, was burned down in I piecemeal, as chapels and aisles were added to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p151.gif "Volume 1 Page 139")
... EARLY CHURCH. I39 St. Giles’s Church.]
of that hospital used to present a bowl of ale to away. The first ...
Vol. 1 p. 139 (Rel. 0.41)
... ix
CHAPTER XLII.
JAURISTON.
The New UniveAity Buildmgs-The Estimates and Ammmodation-George Watsods ...
Vol. 4 p. 391 (Rel. 0.41)
... INDEX.
Christ’s Church at the Tron, I. 187
Christ‘s Church. Castle Hill. I. 82
Chrystie ...
Vol. 6 p. 373 (Rel. 0.41)
![The Cowgate.] THE CORPORATIONS. 265
of the first places where woollen goods were made,
and had, at one time, the most important wool
market in Britain.
The hatmakers were formed into a corporation
in 1473, when ten masters of the craft presented
a petition to that effect; but the bonnet-makers
did not receive their seal of cause till 1530, prior to
which they had been united with the walkers and
shearers, with whom they were bound to uphold
the al+a of St Mark in St Giles’s Church. In
the articles and conditions it contained ; but it is
said that a seal was issued In 1508, Thomas
Greg, (‘ Kirk-master of the flescheour craft,” OD
behalf of the same, brought before the Council a
complaint, that certain persons, not‘ freemen of the
craft or the burgh, interfered with their privileges,
and had them forbidden to sell meat, except on
Sunday and Monday, the free market days, “ quhill
thai obtene thair fredome.”
The coopers were incorporated in 1489, binding
-
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE. -
1685 an Act of Parliament confirmed all their
privileges, together with those of the litsters, or
dyers. About the middle of the seventeenth century,
owing to the spread of the use of hats, instead of
the national bonnet, among the upper classes, this
society was reduced to so low a condition that
its members could neither support their families or
the expense of a society.
The fleshers were a very old corporation, but
the precise date of their charter is not very clear.
In 1483 regulations concerning the fleshers dealing
in fish in Lent, &c, were issued by the magistrates,
whom they petitioned in 1488 for a seal of
cause, which petition was taken into consideration by
the Council, who ratified and confirmed the whole of
83
themselves to uphold the altar of St. John in St.
Giles’s Church.
The walkers obtained their seal of cause in
August, 1500. They had an altar in the same
church dedicated to SS. Mark, Philip, and Jacob,
to which the following among other fees were
paid :-
Each master, on taking an apprentice paid ten
shillings Scots ; and on any master taking into his
service, either the apprentice or journeyman of any
other master, he paid twenty shillings Scots ; if any
craftsman was found working with cards in the
country, he was to forfeit the sum of fifteen shillings
Scots, to be equally divided between the work of
Si Giles’s, their altar, and the informer. It is also](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p085.gif "Volume 4 Page 265")
... Cowgate.] THE CORPORATIONS. 265
of the first places where woollen goods were made,
and had, at one time, the ...
Vol. 4 p. 265 (Rel. 0.4)
... StreetJ LORD BALMERINIO’S . HOUSE. 2’3
was promoted to the abbacy by James V. in 1539,
and was canonised ...
Vol. 2 p. 213 (Rel. 0.4)
... INDEX. 371
Black Watch, 11. 89, 138, 149, 179.
Black Wigs ClLb, 111. 123
Blackwood, Hnilie, 111. ...
Vol. 6 p. 371 (Rel. 0.4)
![1628, by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were actually cut away for this ignoble
purpose, while the lower tracery of the windows
was destroyed by their lean-to roofs, just as we
may see still in the instance of many churches
in Belgium. These wretched edifices were called
the Krames, yet, as if to show that some reverence
was still paid to the sanctity of the place, the
Town Council decreed, ‘‘ that no tradesman should
be admitted to these shops except bookbinders,
mortmakers (i.e. watchmakers)] jewellers, and goldsmiths.”
“ Bookbinders,” says Robert Chambers,
“must be in this instance meant to signify booksellers,
the latter term being then unknown in
Scotland ;” but within the memory of many still
Displaying double-beaded winged dmgons clustering round a central rose with the hook of the altar lam?.
Sanction was given in the early part of 1878
by the municipal authorities for extensive restorations,
to be conducted in a spirit and taste un
known to thebarbarous “improvers” of 1829. At
the head of the restoration committee was placed
Dr. Rilliam Chambers, the well-known publisher
and author. According to the plans laid before
it, the last of the temporary partitions were to be
removed, the rich-shaped pillars embedded therein
to be uncovered and restored ; the galleries and
pews swept away, when the church will assume its
old cruciform aspect. “ By these operations the
Montrose aisle will be uncovered, and form an
interesting historical object. Provision is made
for the Knights of the Thistle, if they should desire
it, erecting their stalls, as is done by the Knights of
east angle of the church. Another account says
they were named from the infamous Lady March,
wife of the Earl of Arran, the profligate chancellor
of James VI., from whom the nine o’clock bell
was also named “The Lady Bell,” as it was rung
an hour later to suit herself. An old gentlewoman
mentioned in the ‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” who
died in 1802, was wont to own that she had, in
her youth, seen both the sfdtue and the steps ; but
it is extremely unlikely that the former would
escape the iconoclasts of 1559, who left the church
almost a ruin.
But time has accomplished a change that John
Knox and “Jenny Geddes” could fittle foresee !
was ordered for the church. “The instrument,”
says the Scofsmzn, “consists of two full manuals
and a pedal organ of full compass. The great
organ contains eleven stops, and one of sixteen
feet in metal. There are eleven stops in the
swell organ, and one of sixteen feet in wood.
The pedal organ contains five stops, including two
of sixteen feet in wood, and one of sixteen feet in
metal. In the great organ there is to be a silver
clarionet of eight feet; a patent pneumatic action
is fitted to the keys, and the organ will be blown
by a double cylinder hydraulic engine.”
In its most palmy days old St. Gilas’s couldnevei
boast of such “a kist 0’ whistles ” as this !](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p159.gif "Volume 1 Page 147")
... by numerous wooden booths being stuck up
all around it, chiefly between the buttresses, some
of which were ...
Vol. 1 p. 147 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW
Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free
Assembly were held in it.
Here, too, in ...
Vol. 5 p. 88 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
When peace came, Messrs. McVicar and Pitcairn,
his coadjutor, continued ...
Vol. 3 p. 134 (Rel. 0.4)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Vol. 4 p. 224 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound.
arts classes as well as those for theology; and
accordingly Mr. Patrick C. ...
Vol. 3 p. 96 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
the 27th October, 1592, by ‘(the hail1 elderes, deacones,
and honest ...
Vol. 3 p. 132 (Rel. 0.39)
![Leith Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303
near its site stands one of the fine and spacious
school houses erected for the School Board.
At the foot of Leith Wynd, on the west side,
there was founded on the 5th of March, 1462, by
royal charter, the collegiate church of the Holy
Trinity, by Mary, Queen of Scotland, daughter of
Arnold Duke of Gueldres, grand-daughter of John
Duke of Burgundy, and widow of James II., slain
about two years before by the bursting of a cannon
at Roxburgh. Her great firniness on that disastrous
occasion, and during the few remaining
years of her own life, proves her to have been a
princess of no ordinary
strength of
mind. She took
an active part in
goyerning the stormy
kingdom of her son,
and died in 1463.
Her early death may
account for the nave
never being built,
though it was not
unusual for devout
persons in that age
of church buliding,
to erect as much
as they could finish,
and leave to the
devotion of posterity
the completion of
the rest. Pitscottie
tells us that she OLD COLLEGIATE SEALS,
his office shall be adjudged vacant, and the same
shall, by the Provost and Chapter, with consent of
the Ordinary, be conferred upon another. If any
of the said prebendaries shall keep a $ye-maker,
and shall not dismiss her, after being therein admonished
thereto by the Provost, his prebend shall
be adjudged vacant, and conferred on another, by
consent of the Ordinary as aforesaid.
“ The Provost of the said college, whenever the
office of provostry shall become vacant, shall by
us and our successors, Kings of Scotland, be presented
to the Ordinary; and the vicars belonging
to the out-churches
aforesaid shall be
presented by the
Provost and Chapter
of the said college
to the Ordinary,
fromwhomtheyshall
receive canonical institution;
and no
prebendary shall be
instituted unless he
can read and sing
plainly, count and
discount, and that
the boys may be
found docile in the
premises. And we
further appoint and
ordain, that whenever
any of the said
‘RINITY COLLEGE CHURCH. prebendwies shall
“was buried in the
Trinitie College, quhilk she built hirself.” Her
grave was violated at the Reformation.
The church was dedicated “to the Holy Trinity,
to the ever blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, to
3t. Ninian the Confessor, and to all the saints and
elect people of God.” The foundation was for a
provost, eight prebendaries, and two clerks, and
with much minuteness several ecclesiastical benefices
and portions of land were assigned for the
support of the several offices ; and in the charter
there are some provisions of a peculiar character,
in Scotland at least, and curiously illustrative of
the age and its manners :-
“Aud we appoint that none of the said preben-
,daries or clerks absent themselves from their offices
without the leave of the Provost, to whom it shall
not be lawful to allow any of them above the space
of fifteen days at a time, unless it be on extraordiaary
occasions, and then not without consent of
the chapter ; and whosoever of the said prebendaries
or clerks shall act contrary to this ordinance,
iead mass,‘ he shall,
after the same, in his sacerdotal habits, repair to
the tomb of the foundress with hyssop, and there
read the prayer Dep-ofmdis, together with that of
the faithful, and exhortation to excite the people to
devotion.’’ .
Thechoir of this church from the apse to the
west enclosure of the rood tower was go feet long,
and 70 feet from transept to transept window ; the
north aisle was 12 feet broad, and the south g feet.
It is a tradition in masonry that the north aisles of
all Catholic churches were wider than the south,
to commemorate the alleged circumstance of the
Saviour‘s head, on the cross, falling on his right
shoulder. In digging the foundation of the Scott
monument, an old quarry 40 feet deep was discovered,
and from it the stones from which the
church was built were taken. With the exception
of Holyrood, it was the finest example of decorated
English Gothic architecture in the city, with many
of the peculiarities of the age to which it belonged.
Various armorial bearings adorned different parts](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p123.gif "Volume 2 Page 303")
... Wynd.] TRINITY COLLEGE. 303
near its site stands one of the fine and spacious
school houses erected for the ...
Vol. 2 p. 303 (Rel. 0.39)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roxburgh Place.
sion, belonging to the Lords Ross and to the age
of stately ceremony ...
Vol. 4 p. 338 (Rel. 0.39)
![Greyfriars Church.] TOMBS.
TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD.
1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. McKenzie commonly called '' Blocd McKenzie " 16gz; 3, Wilhm CarJtarrs Rdomer,
and Principal of the Uhiversity of Edinburgh, 17x5 ; 4, Ebtranrx to the South Gmu$ known 85 ihq Covenant4 Rim ; 5, J&nhYhG
Keeper of the Signet, 1614 ; 4 C M y ol DaLy, 1633 ; 7, William Adam, Archirat, 1748, and W b h h n , D.D., 1793.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p201.gif "Volume 4 Page 381")
... Church.] TOMBS.
TOMBS IN GREYFRIARS CHURCHYARD.
1. The hlartyrs' Monument : o Monument of Sir G. ...
Vol. 4 p. 381 (Rel. 0.38)
![Greyfrian Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the inhabitants having greatly
increased, and the churches of the city being insufficient
for their accommodation, the magistrates,
in 1612, says Ariiot, ordered a new one to be
built on the ground formerly belonging to the Greyfriars,
and bestowed on them by Queen Mary for
a public cemetery; but he makes no mention of
any preceding church, on which the present edifice
might have been engrafted.
The eastern entrance from the Candlemaker
Row was formed at some time subsequent to the
erection or opening of this church.
On the 28th of February 1638, the National
Covenant was first subscribed at the Greyfriars
Church, when the aggressive measures of Charles I.
roused in arms the whole of Scotland, which then,
happily for herself, was not, by the desertion of her
nobles and the abolition of her officers of state, unable
to resist lawless encroachment ; and her sons
seemed to come forth as one man in defence of
the Church, which had then no more vigorous u p
holder than the future Marquis of Montrose. ‘‘ In
the old church of the Greyfriars,” to quote his
memoirs (London, 1858), ‘‘ which stands upon an
eminence south of the ancient capital, and within
the wall of 1513, amid quaint and smoke-encrusted
tombs, and many headstones sunk deep in the long,
rank grass-where now the furious Covenanter,
Henderson, and Rosehaugh, ‘ that persecutor of
the saints of God,’ as the Whigs named him, are
lying side by side in peace among the dead of ages,
the Covenant, written on a sheet of parchment one
ell square, and so named because it resembled
those which God is said to have made with the
children of Israel, was laid before the representatives
of the nation, and there it was signed by a
mighty concourse, who, with uplifted hands, with
weeping eyes, and drawn swords, animated by the
same glorious enthusiasm which fired the crusaders
at the voice of Peter the Hermit, vowed, with the
assistance of the supreme God, to dedicate life and
fortune to the cause of Scotland’s Church and the
maintenance of their solemn engagement, which
professed the reformed faith and bitterly abjured
the doctrines and dogmas of the Church of Rome
-for with such they classed the canons and the
liturgy of Laud.”
It was first subscribed by the congregation of the
Greyfriars ; but the first name really appended to it
was that of the venerable and irreproachable Earl
of Sutherland. Montrose and other peers followed
his example, and it afterwards was sent round the
churches of the city; thus it speedily became sa
xowded with names on both sides, says Maithd,
:hat not the smallest space was left for more,
It appears that when there was so little,room
;eft to sign on, the subscriptions were shortened by
inserting only the initials of the Covenanters’ names,
3f which the margins and other parts were so full
that it was a difficult task to number them. By a
cursoryview Maitland estimated themat about 5,000.
By order of the General Committee every fourth
man in Scotland was numbered as a soldier.
In 1650 the church was desecrated, and all its
wood-work wasted and destroyed by the soldiers
of Cromwell. Nine years afterwards, when Monk
was in Edinburgh with his own regiment (now
the Coldstream Guards) and Colonel Morgan’s, ‘
on the 19th of October, he mustered them in the
High Street, in all the bravery of their steeplecrowned
hats, falling bands, calfskin boots, with
niatchlocks and bandoleers, some time prior to his
march southward to achieve the Restoration, From
that street he marched them (doubtless by theRest
Bow) to the Greyfriars Church, where he told his
officers that he “ was resolved to make the military
power subordinate to the civil, and that since they
had protection and entertainment from the Parliament,
it was their duty to serve it and obey it
against all opposition.” The officers and soldiers
unanimously declared that they would live and die
with him.
In the year 1679 the Greyfriars Church and its
burying-ground witnessed a pitiful sight, when that
city of the dead was crowded, almost to excess, by
those unhappy Covenanters whom the prisons could
not contain, after the rising at Bothwell had been
quenched in blood. These unhappy people had
been collected, principally in the vicinity of Bathgate,
by the cavalry, then employed in “ dragooning,”
or riding down the country, and after being
driven like herds of cattle, to the number of 1,200,
tied two and two, to the capital, they were penned
up in the Greyfriars Churchyard, among the graves
and gloomy old tombs of all kinds, and there they
were watched and guarded day and night, openly in
sight of the citizens.
Since Heselrig destroyed the Scottish prisoners
after Dunbar (for which he was arraigned by the
House of Commons) no such piteous sight had
been witnessed on British ground. They were of
both sexes and of all ages, and there they lay five
long months, 1,200 souls, exposed to the suq by
day and the dew by night-the rain, the wind, and
the storm-with no other roof than the changing
sky, and no other bed than the rank grass that
grew in its hideous luxuriance from the graves beneath
them. All were brutally treatedby their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p195.gif "Volume 4 Page 375")
... Church.] THE COVENANT. 375
and Lord Scrope represented their respective
monarchs.
The number of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 375 (Rel. 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
oxen, and other things belonging to a field, by the
hands of him, namely, ...
Vol. 5 p. 132 (Rel. 0.38)
![Pottobello.] CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. I47
burgh, Portobello returns one member to the
House of Commons.
The Established parish church was built in
1810 as a chapel of ease, at the cost of only
A2,650, but was enlarged in 1815. The Relief
Chapel, belonging to a congregation formed in
1834, was built in 1825, and purchased in the
former-named year by the minister, the Rev. David
Crawford. St. John’s Catholic chapel (once Episcopal)
in Brighton Place, was originally in 1826 a
school is situated in the Niddry Road, about
half a mile from the centre of the town, and was
erected in 1875-6 at the cost of L7,ooo. It is a
handsome edifice in the collegiate style for the
accommodation of about 600 scholars.
In form Portobello is partially compact or continuous.
Its entire length is traversed by the High
.Street (or line of the old Musselburgh Road), is
called at its north-west end and for the remaining
part Abercorn Street; and what-were the town an
PLAN OF PORTOBELLO.
villa, purchased in 1834 by the Bishop of Edinburgh
for A600. The United Secession chapel is of
recent erection, and belongs to a congregation
formed in 1834. The Independent chapel was
built in 1835, and belongs to the congregation
which erected it. St. Mark’s Episcopal chapel is
private property, and used to be rented at A40
yearly by the congregation, which was established
in 1825. It was consecrated by Bishop Sandford
in 1828. Another church, with a fine spire, has
recently been erected in the High Street, for
a congregation of United Presbyterians. A Free
church stands at the east end of the main street.
It was erected in 1876-7, and is a handsome
Gothic edifice with a massive tower. A public
old one and a marketing community-would be
the Cross, is a point at which the main thoroughfare
is divided into two parts, and where Bathgate
goes off to the sea, and Brighton Place towards
Duddingston.
The suite of hot and cold salt-water baths was
erected in 1806 at the cost of A4,000, and overlooks
the beach, between the foot of Bath Street
and that of Regent Street.
Much enlargement of the town eastward of the
railway station, and even past Joppa, to comprise
a crescent, terraces, and lines of villas, was planned
in the spring of 1876, and a projection of the new
Marine Parade, which is 26 feet wide, was planned
300 yards eastward about the same time. At right](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p158.gif "Volume 5 Page 147")
... CHURCHES AND CHAPELS. I47
burgh, Portobello returns one member to the
House of Commons.
The ...
Vol. 5 p. 147 (Rel. 0.38)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. IHolyrood
these ecclesiastical foundations :-The Priory of St.
Mary’s Isle, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 46 (Rel. 0.38)
... Giles’s Church. The whole were contained in
twenty large boxes, and amounted to several tons
in weight. Dr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 384 (Rel. 0.37)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
Mr. Andrew Anderson, printer to the King’s most
Excellent Majesty, for Mr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 256 (Rel. 0.37)
... F e Tolbooth. 124
as the- martlet did in Macbeth’s castle. Of
later years .these booths have degenerated ...
Vol. 1 p. 124 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
By interdict the directors were compelled to give
access to the well, ...
Vol. 5 p. 130 (Rel. 0.36)
... directly at the south-eastern base of Arthur's
Seat, and has long'been one of the daily ...
Vol. 4 p. 314 (Rel. 0.36)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Street. --
already been made in the account of that institution,
of which he ...
Vol. 3 p. 144 (Rel. 0.35)
![THE TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton also granted to St. Cuth
bert’s Church the tithes and oblations of Legbor
nard, a church which cannot now be traced.
The name is supposed to be a corruption o
Lepertoun, as there stood here a hospital fo
lepers, of which all vestiges have disappeared ; bu
the lands thereof in some old writs (according tc
the “New Statistical Account”) were called “Spital
town.”
At Nether Liberton, three-quarters of a mile nortl
of the church, was a mill, worked of course by thc
Braid Burn, which David I, bestowed upon tht
monks of Holyrood, as a tithe thereof, ‘‘wit1
thirty cartloads from the bush of Liberton,” gift!
confirmed by William the Lion under the Grea
Seal circa I I 7 1-7.
The Black Friars at Edinburgh received fivc
pounds sterling annually from this mill at Nethei
Liberton, by a charter from King Robert I.
Prior to the date of King David’s charter, thc
church of Liberton belonged to St. Cuthbert’s
The patronage of it, with an acre of land adjoining
it, was bestowed by Sir John Maxwell of that iik
in 1367, on the monastery of Kilwinning,pro sahh
aniiiim SUE et Agnetis sponsiz SUE.
This gift was confirmed by King David 11.
By David 11. the lands of Over Liberton,
‘( quhilk Allan Baroune resigned,” were gifted tc
John Wigham ; and by the same monarch the land:
of Nether Liberton were gifted to William Ramsay,
of Dalhousie, knight, and Agnes, his spouse, 24th
October, 1369. At a later period he granted a
charter “to David Libbertoun, of the office of
sergandrie of the overward of the Constabularie of
Edinburgh, with the lands of Over Libbertoun
pertaining thereto.” (“ Robertson’s Index.”)
Adam Forrester (ancestor of the Corstorphine
family) was Laird of Nether Liberton in 1387, for
estates changed proprietors quickly in those troublesome
times, and we have already reterred to him
as one of those who, with the Provost Andrew
Yichtson, made arrangements for certain extensive
additions to the church of St. Giles in that year.
William of Liberton was provost of the city in
1429, and ten years subsequently with William
Douglas of Hawthornden, Meclielson of Herdmanston
(now Harviston), and others, he witnessed
the charter of Patrick, abbot of Holyrood, to Sir
Yatrick Logan, Lord. of Restalrig, of the office of
bailie of St. Leonard’s. (“ Burgh Charters,” No.
At Liberton there was standing till about 1840
a tall peel-house or tower, which was believed to
XXVI.)
have been the residence of Macbeth and other
barons of Liberton, and which must not be confounded
with the solitary square tower that stands
to the westward of the road that leads into the
heart of the Braid Hills, and is traditionally said to
have been the abode of a troublesome robber
laud, who waylaid provisions coming to the city
markets.
The former had an old dial-stone, inscribed
‘‘ God’s Providence is our Inheritance.”
Near the present Liberton Tower the remains
of a Celtic cross were found embedded in a wall in
1863, by the late James Drummond, R.S.A. It
was covered with knot-work.
The old church-or chapel it was more probably
-at Kirk-Liberton, is supposed to have been dedicated
to the Virgin Mary-there having been a
holy spring near it, called our Lady’s Well-and
it had attached to it a glebe of two oxgates of
land.
In the vicinity was a place called Kilmartin,
which seemed to indicate the site of some ancient
and now forgotten chapel.
In.1240 the chapelry of Liberton was disjoined by
David Benham, Bishop of St. Andrews and Great
Chamberlain to the King, from the parish of St.
Cuthbert’s, and constituted a rectory belonging to
the Abbey of Holyrood, and from then till the
Reformation it was served by a vicar.
For a brief period subsequent to 1633, it was a
prebend of the short-lived and most inglorious
bishopric of Edinburgh ; and at the final abolition
thereof it reverted to the disposal of the Crown.
The parochial registers date from 1639.
When the old church was demolished prior to
:he erection of the new, in 1815, there was found
very mysteriously embedded in its basement an
ron medal of the thirteenth century, inscribed in
xncient Russian characters “ THE GRAND PRINCE
3 ~ . ALEXANDER YAROSLAVITCH NEVSKOI.”
The old church is said to have been a picuresque
edifice not unlike that now at Corstor-
Ihine ; the new one is a tolerably handsome semi-
Gothic structure, designed by Gillespie Graham,
,eated for 1,430 persons, and having a square
ower with four ornamental pinnacles, forming a
)leasing and prominent object in the landscape
outhward of the city.
Subordinate to the church there were in Catholic
imes three chapels-one built by James V. at
3rigend’ already referred to ; a second at Niddrie,
ounded by Robert Wauchope of Niddrie, in 1389,
.nd dedicated to “ Our .Lady,” but which is now
inly commemorated by its burying-ground-which
ontinues to be in use-and a few faint traces of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p146.gif "Volume 6 Page 327")
... TOWER 327 Liberton.]
between 1124 and 1153, according to the Lih
Cartarvm Sanchz Crwis.
Macbeth of Liberton ...
Vol. 6 p. 327 (Rel. 0.35)
... and the founder’s own mother and wife, and
of all the faithful dead, was specially directed, at
the ...
Vol. 5 p. 116 (Rel. 0.35)
... 6 1 0 each. The benefits of the endowments are
still destined to burgesses, their wives or children
not ...
Vol. 2 p. 308 (Rel. 0.35)
![Holyrood. I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid church from my ren
of Edinburgh forty shillings, from Stirling twentj
shillings, and from Perth forty shillings ; and ont
toft in Stirling, and the draught of one net foi
tishing ; and one toft in my Burgh of Edinburgh
free and quit of all custom and exaction ; and ont
toft in Berwick, and the draught of two nets ir
Scypwell ; one toft in Renfrew of five perches, tht
‘draught of one net for salmon, and to fish thert
for herrings freely ; and I forbid any one to exact
from you or your men any customs therefor.
‘‘ I moreover grant to the aforesaid canons from
my exchequer yearly ten pounds for the lights o
the church, for the works of that church, anc
repairing these works for ever. I charge, more
over, all my servants and foresters of Stirlingshirt
and Clackmannan, that the abbot and convent havt
free power in all my woods and forests, of taking
as much timber as they please for the building 01
their church and of their houses, and for any purpost
of theirs; and I enjoin that their men who take
timber for their use in the said woods have my
firm peace, and so that ye do not permit them tc
be disturbed in any way ; and the swine, the property
of the aforesaid church, I grant in all my
woods to be quit of pannage [food].
‘‘ I grant, moreover, to the aforesaid canons the
half of the fat, tallow, and hides of the slaughter 01
Edinburgh ; and a tithe of all the whales and seabeasts
which fall to me from Avon to Coldbrandspath;
and a tithe of all my pleas and gains from
Avon to Coldbrandspath ; and the half of my tithe
of cane, and of my pleas and gains of Cantyre and
Argyll ; and all the skins of rams, ewes, and lambs
of the castle and of Linlithgow which die of my
flock ; and eight chalders of malt and eight of meal,
with thirty *cart-loads of bush from Liberton ; and
one of my mills of Dean; and a tithe of the mill
of Liberton, and of Dean, and of the new mill of
*Edinburgh, and of Craggenemarf, as much as I
.have for the same in my domain, and as much as
JVuieth the White gave them of alms of the same
Crag. I
‘ ‘‘ I grant likewise to them leave to establish a
burgh between that church and my burgh.* And
. I grant that the burgesses have common right of
selling their wares and of buying in my market,
‘freely and quit of claim and custom, in like manner
.as my own burgesses ; and I forbid that any one
take in this burgh, bread, ale, or cloth, or any ware
-by force, or without consent of the burgesses. I
grant, moreover, that the canons be quit of toll
. Here them is no mention of the town of Hcr6Crgrrs, alleged to haw
occupied the site of the Canongate.
and of all custom in all my burghs and throughout
all my land: to wit, all things that they buy
and sell.
“And I forbid any one to take pledge on the
land of the Holy Rood, unless the abbot of that
place shall have refused to do right and justice. I
will, moreover, that they hold all that is above
written as freely and quietly as I hold my own
lands ; and I will that the abbot hold his court as
freely, fully, and honourably as the Bishop of St.
Andrews and the Abbots of Dunfermline and
Kelso hold their courts.
“Witnesses tRobert Bishop of St. Andrews,
John Bishop of Glasgow, Henry my son, William
my grandson, Edward the Chancellor, Ilerbert the
Chamberlain, Gillemichael the Earl, Gospatrick the
brother of Dolphin, Robert of Montague, Robert
of Burneville, Peter of Brus, Norman the Sheriff,
Oggu, Leising, Gillise, William of Grahani, Turston
of Crechtune, Blein the Archdeacon, Aelfric the
Chaplain, Walerain the Chaplain.” l-
This document is interesting from its simplicity,
and curious as mentioning mzny places still known
under the same names. 1
The canons regular of the order of St. Augustine
were brought there from St. Andrews in Fifeshire.
The order was first established in Scotlayd
by Alexander I. in 1114, and ere long possessed
twenty-eight monasteries or foundations in tqe
So, in process of time, ‘‘ in the hollow betweqn
two hills ” where King David was saved from the
white hart, there rose the great abbey house,
with its stately cruciform church, having three
:ewers, of which but a fragment now remainsT
i melancholy ruin. Till its completion the canods
Mere housed in the Castle, where they resided till
rbout 1176, occupying an edifice which had preiliously
been a nunnery.
The southern aisle of the nave is the only part
if the church on which a roof remains, and of the
whole range of beautifully clustered pillars on the
iorth side but two fragments alone survive. The
mtire ruin retains numerous traces of the original
vork of the twelfth century, though enriched by
he additions of subsequent ages. With reference
o the view of it in the old print which has been
:opied in these pages,$ it has been observed
hat therein “the abbey church appears with a
econd square tower, uniform with the one still
tanding at the north of the great doorway. The
ransepts are about the usual proportions, but the
:hoir is much shorter than it is proved from other
kingdom. I
-
t “Charters relatiagta Cityof E&bwgh,“&u xr43-x5+ao. 4ta. 1871.
f see ante, vol. i, p. 5.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p054.gif "Volume 3 Page 42")
... I KING DAVID’S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the ...
Vol. 3 p. 42 (Rel. 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. -
CHAPTER VI.
THE VALLEY OF THE WATER OF LEITH.
PAGE
Lady Sinclair of ...
Vol. 6 p. 394 (Rel. 0.35)
![Leith.1 THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 259
EASTWARD of Leith lie those open downs called
the Links, once of much greater extent than we
find them, and doubtless at one time connected
ground to the westward of the pier, when it was
blowing fresh, with a heavy sea, and before any
assistance could be given she was driven upon
the beach, near the citadel, having beaten off her
rudder and otherwise considerably damaged herself
[sic]. They are employed in taking out the
cargo, and if the weather continues moderate, it
is expected she will be got off.”
The waves of the sea are now distant nearly two
thousand feet north from the spot where the wreck
took place.
Three of the bastions, and two of the gates of
the citadel, were standing when the old “Statistical
Account ” was published, in 1793.
Before quitting this quarter of North Leith we
may quote the following rather melancholy account
given of the latter in 1779, in a work entitled “The
Modem British Traveller,” folio, and now probably
out of print.
About a mile from the city is Leith, which may
be called the warehouse of Edinburgh. It is
divided into two parts by a small rivulet, over
which is a neat bridge of three arches. That part
called South Leith is both large and populous ; it
has an exceeding handsome church, a jail, a
custom-house [the old one in the Tolbooth Wynd],
but the streets are irregular, nor do any of the
buildings merit particular attention. It was
formerly fortified, but the works were destroyed
by the English in 1559 [?I, and not any remains
are now to be seen. That part called North
Leith is a very poor place, without any publick
building, except an old Gothic church ; there is a
small dock, but it is only capable of admitting
ships of a hundred and fifty tons. The harbour is
generally crowded with vessels from different parts;
and from here to Kinghorn, in Fifeshire, the
passage-boat crosses every tide, except on Sundays. . . . Great numbers of the citizens of Edin-
’burgh resort to Leith on parties of pleasure, and
to regale themselves with the sea air and oysters,
which are caught here in great abundance. . . .
with the wide, open, and sandy waste that extended
beyond the Figgate Burn to Magdalene
Bridge,
The town is under the jurisdiction of a bailiff CT],
but it may be called a part of, and is subject to the
jurisdiction of, Edinburgh, in virtue of a charter
granted by King Robert the Eruce.”
The Manners’ Church, a rather handsome building,
with two smail spires facing the east, is built
upon a portion of the site of the citadel, and
schools are attached to it. The church was designed
by John Henderson of Edinburgh, and
was erected in 1840.
In this quarter Sand Port Street, which led to the
then beach, with a few old houses neax the citadel,
and the old church of St. Ninian, comprised the.
whole of North Leith at the time of the Union.
There the oldest graving-dock was constructed in
1720, and it yet remains, behind a house not far
from the bridge, dated-according to Parker
Lawson-162 2.
The present custom-house of Leith was built in
1812, on the site where H.M. ship Fu~y was built
in I 780 ; and an old native of Leith, who saw her
launched, had the circumstance impressed upon
his memory, as he related to Robertson (whose
“Antiquities ” were published in 185 I), “by a carpenter
having been killed by the falling of the
shores.”
The edifice cost A12,617, is handsome, and in
the Grecian style, adorned in front with pillars and
pediment It stands at the North Leith end of the
lower drawbridge.
The officials here consist of a collector, twb
chief clerks, three first and seven second-class
clerks, with one extra ; eight writers, two surveyors,
eighteen examining officers, and a principal coast
officer for Fisherrow. The long room is handsome,
and very different from its predecessor in the Tolbooth
Wynd, which was simply divided by long
poles, through which entries were passed.
In May, 1882, the building at Dock Place (in
this quarter) known as the Sailors’ Home, was
converted into the Mercantile Marine Department
and Government Navigation School.
C H A P T E R XXIX.
LEITH -THE LINKS.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p078.gif "Volume 6 Page 259")
... THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 259
EASTWARD of Leith lie those open downs called
the Links, once of much greater extent ...
Vol. 6 p. 259 (Rel. 0.35)
![farswade.] CAPTAIN PHILIP LOCKHART. 357
was shot, and the other two performed the like
to his body ;‘then they were shot, and laid together,
without a coffin, in a pit digged for the purpose.
Which tragical scene being thus finished, Mr.
Nairne and Mr. Lockhart were decently buried.’’
(“ Letter to a friend in the king’s camp,” Perth,
Count Lockhart was succeeded by his son
1 7 1 5 )
turesqueness and romance to any in Scotland.
The river seems all the way to be merrily frdicsome,
and rushing along a shelving gradient, now hiding
itself behind rocks and weeping wood, and making
sudden, but always mirthful, transitions in its
moods.”
A few ancient and many modem mansions and
villas stud the banks of the glen above the ancient
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-INTERIOR. (A/& a Phtograph 6y G. W. Wiison & Co.)
Charles. In the early years of the present century,
Dryden was the property of George Mercer, a son
of Mercer of Pittuchar, in Perthshire.
In this quarter, on the north bank of the Esk, are
the church and village of Lasswade, amid scenery
remarkable for its varied beauty. The bed of the
Esk lies through a deep, singularly romantic, long,
and bold ravine, always steep, sometimes perpendicular
and overhanging, and everywhere covered
with the richest copsewood. ‘‘ Recesses, contractions,
irregularities, rapid and circling sinuosities,
combine with the remarkably varied surface of its
sides, to render its scenery equal in mingled picvillage
of Lasswade, whose bridge spans the river,
and the name of which Chalmers, in his ‘‘Caledonia,’’
believes to be derived from a ‘‘ well-watered
pasturage of common use, or Zaeswc, in Saxon a
common, and iueyde, a meadow.” In an old Dutch
map it is spelt Lesserwade, supposed to mean the
opposite of Legenvood-the smaller wood in contrast
to some greater one.
The parish of Melville was added to that of
Lasswade in 1633.
In the time of James 111. the ancient Church of
Lasswade was, by the Pope’s authority, detached
from St. Salvador’s College at St Andrews, to
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p176.gif "Volume 6 Page 357")
... CAPTAIN PHILIP LOCKHART. 357
was shot, and the other two performed the like
to his body ;‘then they ...
Vol. 6 p. 357 (Rel. 0.35)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge
they occupied when obtained, that we are tempted to
conclude the ...
Vol. 2 p. 360 (Rel. 0.35)
... it belonged, and annexed to Restalrig. It
stood on high ground, where its ancient square
belfry tower, ...
Vol. 6 p. 358 (Rel. 0.34)
... granting a charter to Robert Winton
“of the barony of Hirdmanston, called Curry.”
(Robertson’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 332 (Rel. 0.34)
... Sciennu.1 CRAIGMILLAR ASYLUM. SI
former, but he could not take it down without pur
chasing the latter also. ...
Vol. 5 p. 51 (Rel. 0.34)
... - OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church.
mode of procedure, made no resistance; and so
.active were the workmen ...
Vol. 3 p. 138 (Rel. 0.34)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ hlorningside.
reported to the Privy Council that he and the
Napiers of Edinbellie, ...
Vol. 5 p. 38 (Rel. 0.34)
![North Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY. 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they stickle zealously, if by it
they could get a minister presented by the legal
patron to be rejected; while they did not insist
upon the stipend being properly secured ; while
they agreed to permit Lady Glenorchy to dispose
without control, upon those pious offerings which
should have been applied towards the support of
the chanty workhouse; while they, in fact, eluded
that right of patronage over all churches in this city,
the chapel to all the privileges it had enjoyed
by the countenance and protection of the
Presbytery.
In 1776 Lady Glenorchy invited Dr. Thomas
Snell Jones, a Wesleyan Methodist, to accept the
charge of her chapel, and after being ordained to
the office of pastor by the Scottish Presbytery of
London he became settled as incumbent on the
25th of July, 1779, and from that date continued
to labour as such, until about three years before his
holding communion with the Established ministers,
which is vested in the magistrates of Edinburgh ;
and while they had no powver to depose from the
benefice in this chapel the minister installed by
them in case of his errors in life or doctrine !”
To avoid unpleasantness, Mr. Balfour, like Mr.
Grove, declined the charge.
It was now that the matter came before the
Synod, which not only gave judgment in the
matter, but forbade all ministers or probationers
within their bounds to preach in this unlucky
chapel, or to employ the minister of it in any
capacity. From this sentence the Presbytery of
Edinburgh appealed to the next General Assembly
of the Church, which reversed it, and restored
46
death, which occurred on the 3rd of March, 1837,
a period of nearly fiRyeight years.
He preached the funeral sermon on the demise
of Lady Glenorchy on the 17th July, 1786, in
her forty-fourth year. She was buried, by her
own desire, in avault in the centre of the chapel
By a settlement made some time before her death,
she endowed the latter with a school which wac
built near it. Therein, a hundred poor children
were taught to read and write. It was managed
by trustees, with instructions which secure its perpetuity.
Lady Glenorchy’s Free Church schooI is
now at Greenside.
In I 792 Dr. Jones had as a colleague, Dr. Greville
Ewing, afterwards editor of 2’’ Missionary](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p181.gif "Volume 2 Page 361")
... Bridge.] LADY GLENORCHY. 361
they dispensed with the ‘moderation of the call,’
a form about which they ...
Vol. 2 p. 361 (Rel. 0.34)
![Victoria Street.] THE MECHANICS’ LIBRARY. 291
CHAPTER XXXV.
SOME OF THE NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE FLODDEN WALL (concZuded).
Victoria Street and Ter-The India Buildings-Mechanics’ Subscription Library-George IV. BridgeSt. Augustine’s Church-Martyrs’
Church-Chamber of the Hiehland and Amicultural Societv--SherifP Court Buildings and Solicitors’ Hall-Johnstone Terrace-St. John’s -
Free Church-The Church of Scotland Training College.
VICTORIA STREET, which opens from the west side
of George IV. Bridge, and was formed as the result
of the same improvement Scheme by which
that stately bridge itself was erected, from the
north end of the Highland and Agricultural Society’s
Chambers curves downward to the northeast
corner of the Grassmarket, embracing in that
curve the last remains of the ancient West Bow.
Some portions of its architecture are remarkably
ornate, especially the upper portion of its south
side, where stands the massive pile, covered in
many parts with rich carving, named the India
Buildings, in the old Scottish baronial style, of
unique construction, consisting of numerous offices,
entered from a series of circular galleries, and
erected in 1867-8, containing the Scottish Chamber
of Agriculture, which was instituted in November,
1864. Its objects are to watch over the interests
of practical agriculture, to promote the advancement
of that science by the discussion of all subjects
relating to it, and to consider questions that
may be introduced into Parliament connected with
it. The business of the Chamber is managed by
a president, vice-president, and twenty directors,
twelve of whom are tenant farmers. It holds fixed
meetings at Perth in autumn, and at Edinburgh
in November, annually; and all meetings are open
to the press.
In the centre of the southern part of the street
is St. John’s Established church, built in 1838, in
a mixed style of architecture, with a Saxon doorway.
It is faced on the north side by a handsome
terrace, portions of which rise from an open arcade,
and include a Primitive Methodist church, or
Ebenezer chapel, and an Original Secession
church. Victoria Terrace is crossed at its western
end bya flight of steps, which seem to continue
the old line of access afforded by the Upper West
Bow.
No. 5 Victoria Terrace gives access to one of
the most valuable institutions in the city-the
Edinburgh Mechanics’ Subscription Library. It
was established in 1825, when its first president
was Mr. Robert Hay, a printer, and Mr. John
Dunn, afterwards a well-known optician, was vicepresident,
and it has now had a prosperous career
of more than half a century.
The library is divided into thirteen sections :-
I, Arts and Sciences ; 2, Geography and Statistics ;
3, History; 4, Voyages, Travels, and Personal
Adventures ; 5, Biography ; 6, Theology ; 7, Law ;
8, Essays; 9, Poetry and the Drama; 10, Novels
and Romances ; I I, Miscellaneous ; I 2, Pamphlets ;
13, Periodicals. Each of these sections has a particular
classification, and they are all constantly
receiving additions, so as to CaNy out the original
object of the institution-“ To procure an extensive
collection of books on the general literature
of the country, including the most popular works
on science.”
Thus every department of British literature is
amply represented on its shelves, and at a charge
so moderate as to be within the reach of all classes
of the community: the entry-money being only
2s. 6d., and the quarterly payments IS. 6d.
The management of this library has always been
vested in its own members, and few societies adhere
so rigidly to their original design as the
Mechanics’ Library has done. It has, from the
first, adapted itself to the pecuniary circumstances
of the working man, and from the commencement
it has been a self-supporting institution ; though
in its infancy its prosperity was greatly accelerated,
as its records attest, by liberal donations of works
in almost every class of literature. Among the
earliest contributors in this generous spirit, besides
many of its own members, were Sir James Hall,
Bart., of Dunglas, so eminent for his attainments
in geological and chemical science; his son,
Captain Basil Hall, R.N., the well-known author ;
Mr. Leonard Horner ; and the leading publishers
of the day-Messrs. Archibald Constable, William
Blackwood, Adam Black, Waugh and Innes, with
John Murray of London. Some of them were
munificent in their gifts, “ besides granting credit
to any amount required-an accommodation of
vital service to an infant institution.”
The property of the library is vested in trustees,
who consist of two individuals chosen by vote
every fifth year, in addition to “the Convener of
the Trades of the City of Edinburgh, the principal.
librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, and the
principal librarian to the Society of Writers to Her
Majesty‘s Signet, for the time being.”
The right of reading descends to the heirs](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p111.gif "Volume 2 Page 291")
... Street.] THE MECHANICS’ LIBRARY. 291
CHAPTER XXXV.
SOME OF THE NEW STREETS WITHIN THE AREA OF THE ...
Vol. 2 p. 291 (Rel. 0.33)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS . .
THE UNIVERSITY.-~~ontirpi~ce.
PAGE
The Kirk-of-Field . . . . . . . I
Rough Sketch of ...
Vol. 6 p. 401 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
bestowed by the piety of private donors on the
hospital of St. Anthony, and ...
Vol. 6 p. 218 (Rel. 0.33)
... THE REV. JOHN LOGAN.
The first Protestant minister of Leith, at the
settlement of the Reformation in 1560, ...
Vol. 6 p. 219 (Rel. 0.33)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bristo Sheet.
g died; but Scotland was not then, nor for long
after, susjected to the ...
Vol. 4 p. 326 (Rel. 0.33)
![Leith] ST. NINIAN’S CHAPEL 251
the eighty-seventh year of his age, and was able
to transact business until a very short time before
his death. He was succeeded in the baronetcy
by his eldest son, Sir Thomas Gladstone, of Fasque
and Balfour, M.P. for Queenborough and other
places successively in England.
Gladstone Place, near the Links, has been
so named in honour of this family.
From the top of the Sheriff Brae and Mill Lane,
Great Junction Street, a broad and spacious
thoroughfare, extends eastward for the distance of
two thousand feet to the foot of Leith Walk.
Here, on the south side, are the United Presbyterian
church, the neat Methodist chapel, and a
large and handsome edifice erected in 1839 as a
school, and liberally endowed by Dr. Bell, founder
of the Madras system of education, at a cost of
f;IO,OOO.
C H A P T E R X X V I I I ,
NORTH LEITH.
The Chapel and Church of St. NiniaPParish Created-Its Records-Rev. George Wishart-Rev. John Knox-Rev. Dr. Johnston-The Burial-
Ground-New North Leith ChurchlFree Church-Old Grammar SchoolXobourg Street-St. Nicholas Church-The Citadel-Its
Remains-Houses within k--Beach and Sands of North Leith-New Custom How-Shipping Inwards and Outwards.
ON crossing the river we find ourselves in North
Leith, which is thus described by Kincaid in
‘787 :-
“ With regard to North Leith, very little alteration
has taken place here for a century past. It consists
of one street running north-east from the bridge,
six hundred feet long, and about forty in breadth
where broadest. On each side are many narrow
lanesand closes, those on the south side leading
down to the carpenters’ yards by the side of the
river, and those on the north to the gardens belonging
to the inhabitants. From the bridge a
road leads to the citadel, in length 520 feet ; then
IOO feet west, and we enter the remains of the old
fortification, on the top of which a dwelling-house
is now erected. The buiIdings in this place are in
general very mean in their appearance, and inhabited
by peopIe who let rooms during the summer
season to persons who bathe in the salt water.”
One of the leading features of North Leith, when
viewed from any point of view, is the quaint spire
of its.old church, on the west bank of the river,
near the end of the upper drawbridge, abandoned
now to secular purposes, separated from its ancient
burying-ground (which still remains, With its many
tombstones, half sunk amid the long rank grass
of ages), and lifting its withered and storm-worn
outline, as if in deprecation of the squalor by which
it is surrounded, and the neglect and contumely
heaped on its venerable history.
North Leith, which contains the first, or original
docks, and anciently comprehended the citadel
and the chief seat of traffic, was long a congeries
of low, quaint-looking old houses, huddled
into groups or irregular lines, and straddling their
way amid nuisances in back and front, very much
the style of a Spanish or Portuguese town of the
present day; but since 1818 it has undergone great
and renovating changes, and, besides being disenambered
of the citadel and masses of crumbling
houses, it has some streets that may vie with the
second or third thoroughfares of Edinburgh.
As stated in our general history of Leith, Robert
Ballantyne, Abbot of Holyrood, towards the close
of the fifteenth century, built a handsome bridge
of three stone arches over the Water of Leith, to
connect the southern with the northern quarter of
the rising seaport, and so011 after its completion he
erected and endowed near its northern end a chapel,
dedicated to the honour of God, the Virgin Mary,
and St. Ninian, the apostle of Galloway, Having
considerable possessions in Leith, €he abbot a p
pointed two. chaplains to officiate in this chapel,
who were ta receive all the profits accruing from a
house which he had built at the southern end of
this bridge, with A4 yearly out of other tenements
he possessed in South Leith.
In addition to the offerings made in the chapel,
the tolls or duties accruing from this new bridge
were to be employed in its repair and that of the
chapel, but all surplus the charitable abbot ordained
was to be given to the poor; and this charter of
foundation was confirmed by James IV., of gallant
memory, on the 1st of January, 1493. (Maitland.)
This chapel was built with the full consent of
the Chapter of Holyrood, and with the approbation
of William, Archbishop of St Andrews ; and-as a.
dependency of the church of the Holy Crossthe
land whereon it stood is termed the Rudest&
in a charter of Queen Mary, dated 1569.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p070.gif "Volume 6 Page 251")
... ST. NINIAN’S CHAPEL 251
the eighty-seventh year of his age, and was able
to transact business until a ...
Vol. 6 p. 251 (Rel. 0.33)
![Greyfriars Church.] DR ERSKINE. 379
I manhood was a sitter in the Old Greyfriars, and his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Scott,” says an old tutor of
Sir Walter, writing to Lockhart, “ every Sabbath,
when well and at home, attended with their fine
young family of children and their domestic servants-
a sight so amicable and exemplary as
often to excite in my breast a glow of heart-felt
satisfaction.”
In “ Guy Mannering,” Scott introduces this old
church-now, with St. Giles’s, the most interesting
place of worship in the city-and its two most distinguished
incumbents. When Colonel Mannering
came to Edinburgh (where, as we have already
said, Romance and History march curiously side
from all quarters for the first service, a mass of
. blackened ruins. It has since been repaired at
considerable expense, adorned with several beautiful
memorial windows, the triplet one in the
south aisle being to the Scottish historian, George
Buchanan.
Among the ancient tombs within the church
were those of Sir William Oliphant, King‘s Advocate,
who died in 1628 ; and of Sir David Falconer,
of Newton, Lord President of the Court of Session,
who spent the last day of his life seated on the
bench in court.
The antiquity of our Scottish churchyards, and the
care taken of them, greatly impressed Dr. Southey
strangely contrasted with a black wig, without a ‘
grain of powder ; a narrow chest and stooping
posture; hands which, placed like props on each
side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather to support
the person than to assist the gesticulation of
the preacher ; a gown (not even that of Geneva), a
tumbled band, and a gesture which seemed scarcely
voluntary, were the first circumstances which struck
a stranger.”
Dr. Erskine, previously minister of the New
Greyfriars, was the author of voluminous theological
works, which are known, perhaps, in Scotland
only. After ministering at the Greyfriars for fortyfive
years, he died in January, 1803, and was buried
in the churchyard
Principal Robertson pre-deceased him. He died
in June, 1793, in the seventy-first year of his age,
and was interred in the same burying-ground.
The Old Greyfriars was suddenly destroyed on
the morning of Sunday, 19th January, 1845, by a
fire, and presented to the startled people, assembling
greatest, grandest, and most renowned, who have
lived during a period of three hundred years.
In the year 1562 the Town Council made an
application to Queen Mary to grant them the site
and yards of the Greyfriars Monastery, to form a
a new burial-place, as ‘‘ being somewhat distant
from the town.” Mary, in reply, granted their request
at once, and appointed the Greyfriars yard,
or garden, to be devoted in future to the use specified,
and as St Giles’s Churchyard soon after began
to be abandoned, no doubt interments here would
proceed rapidly ; all the more so that the other
burial-places of the city had become desecrated.
‘‘ Before the Reformation,” says Wilson, “there
were the Blackfriars Kirkyard, where the Surgical
Hospital or old High School now stands ; the
Kirk-of-Field-now occupied by the college,
Trinity College, Holyrood Abbey, St. Roque’s ’
and St. Leonard’s Kirkyards. In all these places
human bones are still found on digging to any
depth.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p199.gif "Volume 4 Page 379")
... Church.] DR ERSKINE. 379
I manhood was a sitter in the Old Greyfriars, and his
parents, Mr. and Mrs. ...
Vol. 4 p. 379 (Rel. 0.32)
... V
CHAPTER XV.
T H E CALTON H I L L .
e .
?AGS
Origin of the Name-Ghbet and Battery them-The Quarry ...
Vol. 4 p. 387 (Rel. 0.32)
![Leith.] THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two legends, “Feir the
Lord,” and “The feir of the Lord is the beginning
of a1 wisdome.”
This part of the town-about the foot of St.
Andrew’s Street-is said to have borne anciently
the name of St. Leonard’s. There the Street
diverges into two alleys : one narrow and gloomy,
which bears the imposing title of Parliament Court ;
and the other called Sheephead Wynd, in which
there remains a very ancient edifice, the ground
floor of which is formed of arches constructed like
those of the old house described in the Kirkgate,
and bearing the date 1579, with the initials D. W.,
M. W. Though small and greatly dilapidated, it
is ornamented with string-courses and mouldings ;
and it was not without some traces of old importance
and grandeur amid its decay and degradation,
until it was entirely altered in 1859.
This house is said to have received the local
name of the Gun Stone, from the circumstance of
a stone cannon ball of considerable size having
been fired into it during some invasion by an
English ship of war. Local tradition avers that
for many years this bullet formed an ornament on
the summit of the square projecting staircase of
the house.
Near Cable’s Wynd, which adjoins this alley, and
between it and King Street, at a spot called
Meeting-house Green, are the relics of a building
formerly used as a place of worship, and although
it does not date farther back than the Revolution
.of 1688, it is oddly enough called “John Knox’s
Church.”
The records of South Leith parish bear that in
1692, ‘‘ the magistrates of Edinburgh, and members
of the Presbytery there, with a confused company
of the people, entered the church by breaking open
the locks of the doors and putting on new ones,
and so caused guard the church doors with halberts,
rang the bells, and possessed Mr. Wishart of
the church, against which all irregular proceedings
public protests were taken.”
Previous to this he would seem to have officiated
in a kind of chapel-of-ease established near Cable’s
Wynd, by permission of James VII. in 1687.
Soon after the forcible induction recorded, he
came to the church with a guard of halberdiers,
accompanied by the magistrates of Leith, and took
possession of the Session House, compelling the
“ prelatick Session ” to hold their meeting in the
adjacent Kantore. More unseemly matters followed,
for in December of the year 1692, when a
meeting was held in South Leith Church to hear
any objections that might be niade against the legal
induction of the Rev. Mr. Wishart, an adherent of
Mr. Kay, ‘‘ one of the prelatick incumbents,” protested
loudly against the whole proceedings.
Upon this, “Mr. Livingstone, a brewer at the
Craigend (or Calton), rose up, and, in presence of
the Presbytery, did most violently fall upon the
commissioner, and buffeted him and nipped his
cheeks, and had many base expressions to him.”
Others now fell on the luckless commissioner,
who was ultimately thrust into the Tolbooth of
Leith by a magistrate, for daring to do that which
the Presbytery had suggested. Mr. Kay’s session
were next driven out of the Kantore, on the door
of which another lock was placed.
It has been supposed that the ousted episcopal
incumbent formed his adherents into a small congregation,
as he remained long iu Leith, and died
at his house in the Yardheads there so lately as
November, 1719, in the seventieth year of his age.
His successor, tile Rev. Robert Forbes, was minister
of an episcopal chapel in Leith, according to an
anonymous writer, ‘‘ very shortly after Mr: Kay’s
death, and records a baptism as having been performed
‘ in my room in ye Yardheads.’ ”
The history of the Meeting-house near Cable’s
Wynd is rather obscure, but it seems to have been
generally used as a place of worship. The last
occasion was during a visit of John Wesley, the
great founder of Methodism. He was announced
to preach in it; but so grcat a concourse of people
assembled, that the edifice was incapable of accommodating
them, so he addressed the multitude
on the Meeting-house Green. LI house near it,
says The Srofsinan in 1879, is pointed out as “the
Manse.”
The Tolbooth TVynd is about five hundred an&
fifty feet in length, from where the old signal-tower
stood, at the foot of the Kirkgate, to the site of a
now removed building called Old Babylon, which
stood upon the Shore.
The second old thoroughfare of Leith was undoubtedly
the picturesque Tolbooth Wynd, as the
principal approach to the harbour, after it superseded
the more ancient Burgess Close.
It was down this street that, in the age when
Leith was noted for its dark superstitions and eccentric
inhabitants, the denizens therein, regularly
on stormy nights or those preceding a storm,
heard with horror, at midnight, the thundering
noise of “the twelve o‘clock coach,” a great oatafalque-
looking vehicle, driven by a tall, gaunt figure
without a head, drawn by black horses, also headless,
and supposed to be occupied by a mysterious
female.
Near the eastern end of the wynd there stood
,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p046.gif "Volume 6 Page 227")
... THE TOLBOOTH WYND. 1 0
marrow alley adjoining the latter, a house bearing
the date 1688 has the two ...
Vol. 6 p. 227 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyrood.
thirty-two days. He was then brought forth, nude,
in presence of a ...
Vol. 3 p. 56 (Rel. 0.32)
... COBOURG STREET. 255
ing is the inscription on the pedestal-‘ This memorial
of David Johnston, D.D., who ...
Vol. 6 p. 255 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Arthur’s Seat.
to the cone from the base by the way of St. Anthony’s
Well, for a ...
Vol. 4 p. 312 (Rel. 0.32)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church.
and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six
battalions of ...
Vol. 4 p. 374 (Rel. 0.32)
![Bmghton.]
The new Catholic and Apostolic church, a conspicuous
and spacious edifice, stands north of
all those mentioned at the corner of East London
Street. It was founded in November, 1873, and
opened with much ceremony in April, 1876. It is
in a kind of Norman style, after designs by R.
Anderson, and measures zoo feet long, is 45 feet
in height to the wall-head, and 64 to the apex
EAST LONDON STREET.
of the internal roof. It comprises a nave, chancel,
and baptistry. The nave measures IOO feet in
length, by 45 in breadth; is divided into five
bays, marked externally by buttresses, and has
at each corner a massive square turret surmounted
by a pinnacle rising as high as the 1;dge of the
roof. The chancel measures 614 feet, and communicates
with the nave.
PICARDY VILLAGE AND GAYFIELD HOUSE. (Aft# CkrR of Ekiin.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE NORTHERN NEW TOWN.
Picardy Place-Lords Eldm and Craig - Si David Milne-John Abetnumbie-Lard Newton-Commissionex Osbome-St. Paul's Church-
St. George's Chapel-Willii Douglas, Artist-Professor Playfair-General Scott of Bellevue-Drummond P k c d . K. Sharpc of Hoddam
--Lord Robertson-Abercrombic Place and Heriot Row-Miss Femer-House in which H. McKenAe died-Rev. A. Aliin-Great King
Street-% R. Christison--Si W illiam Hamilton-Si William Ab-L-ard Colonsay, &c.
THE northern New Town, of which we now propose
to relate the progress and history, i; separated
from the southern by the undulating and extensive
range of Queen Street Gardens, which occupy a
portion of the slope that shelves down towards the
valley of the Water of Leith.
It is also in a parallelogram extending, from the
quarter we have just been describing, westward to ,
72
the Queensferry Road, and northward to the line
of Fettes Row. It has crescental curves in some
of its main lines, with squares, and is constructed
in a much grander style of architecture than the
original New Town of 1767. Generally, it wqs
begun about 1802, and nearly completed by 1822.
In the eastern part of this parallelogram are Picardy
Place, York Place, Forth and Albany Streets,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p197.gif "Volume 3 Page 185")
... new Catholic and Apostolic church, a conspicuous
and spacious edifice, stands north of
all those ...
Vol. 3 p. 185 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [West Church,
and by an assessment on the real property within
the parish; the expense ...
Vol. 3 p. 136 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. frhe Cowgate.
The skinners would seem to have been created
into a corporation in 1474, ...
Vol. 4 p. 264 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
PAGE
The First Trades Maiden Hospital, 1830 . . . 273
TheIndustrialMuseum . , . ...
Vol. 4 p. 394 (Rel. 0.31)
![REGENT MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot parts-the charger springs-
Wild rises tumult’s startling roar !
And Murray’s plumy helmet rings-
Rings on the ground to rise no mare ! ”
When his remains were committed to the tomb in
which they still lie, the thousands who crowded
the church were moved to tears by the burning
eloquence of Knox. “Vpoun the xiiij day of the
moneth of Februar, 1570,” says the “ Diurnal of
Occurrents” “ my lord Regentis corpis, being brocht
in ane bote be sey, frz Stirling to Leith, quhair it
was keipit in Johne Wairdlaw his hous, and thereafter
cary it to the Palace of Holyrudhous, wes
transportit fra the said Palace to the College Kirk
the Regent Murray, the Regent Morton, and his
great rival, John Stewart Earl of Athole, are buried ;
and adjoining the aisle where the sorely mangled
remains of the great Marquis of Montrose were
so royally interred on the 7th of January, 1661.
The Regent’s tomb, now fully restored, stands
on the west side of the south transept, and on
many accounts is an object of peculiar interest.
Erected to the memory of one who played so conspicuous
a part in one of the most momentous
periods of Scottish history, it is well calculated to
interference of the General Assembly, and a riot
ensued.
The portion of the church which contained
these monuments was eftered by a door adjoining
the Parliament Close, and, as it was never shut,
“the gude regent’s aisle,” as it was named,
became a common place for appointments and
loungers. Thus French Paris-Queen Mary’o
servant-in his confession respecting the murder
of King Henry, stated that during the communings
which took place before that dark deed was resolved
on, he one day “took his mantle and sword
and went to prumencr (walk) in the high church.”
Probably in consequence of the veneration entertained
for the memory of the Regent, his tomb
rouse many a stirring association.
All readers of
history know how the Regent
fell under the bullet
of Bothwellhaugh, at Linlithgow,
in avenging the
wrongs inflicted on his
wife, the heiress of Woodhouselee.
As the “Cadyow
Ballad ” has it-
“ ’Mid pennoned spears a stately
Proud Murray’s plumage
Scarce could his trampling
So close the minions crow-
“ From the raised vizor’s shade,
Dark rolling, glanced the
And his steel truncheon waved
Seemed marshalling the iron
“But yet his saddened brow
A passing shade of doubt
Some fiend was whispering in
grove,
floated high ;
charger move,
ded nigh.
his eye,
ranks along ;
on high,
throng,
confessed,
and awe ;
his breast,
~
of Sanctgeill, in this manner; that is to say,
.i‘illiam Kirkaldie of Grange, Knycht, raid fra the
said palace in dule weid, bearing ane pensal!
quherin was contenit ane Reid Lyon; after him
followit Colvill of Cleishe, Maister (of the) Houshold
to the said Regent, with ane quherin was
contenit my lords regentis armes and bage.” The
Earls of Mar, Athole, Glencairn, the Lords
Ruthven, Methven, and Lindsay, the Master of
Graham, and many other nobles, bore the body
through the church to the grave, where it “was
JOHN KNOX’S PULPIT, ST. GILES’S.
(From tk Scottish Anfaquarinn Museum).
buryit in Sanct Anthonie’s
yle.” On the front of the
restored tomb is the ancient
brass plate, bearing
an inscription composed
by George Buchanan :-
’( Iur060 Stuvarto, Mwm’e Cornifi,
Scotie Prwqi;
Vim, a t a t i s szw, longe opt*
mo : a6 inirnik,
0mni.- rnemorie deterrimis, ex
insdiis exfindo,
Ceu pafn‘ commwni, pafna
mcprens $omit.’’
Opposite, on the north side
of the west transept, was
the tomb in which the Earl
of Athole, Chancellor of
Scotland, who died suddenly
at Stirling, not without
suspicion of poison,
was interred with great
solemnity on the 4th of
July, 1579. A cross was
used on this occasion, and
as flambeaux were borne,
according to Calderwood,
the funeral probably occurred
at night ; these paraphernalia
led to the usual](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p155.gif "Volume 1 Page 143")
... MURRAY’S FUNERAL. 143 St. Giles’s Church.]
Beware of injured Rothwellhaugh !
“ The death-shot ...
Vol. 1 p. 143 (Rel. 0.31)
... the great plague of 1568 a huge pit,
wherein to bury the victims, was ordered to be dug
in the ‘‘ ...
Vol. 4 p. 380 (Rel. 0.31)
... and without the aid of which he could perform
nothing, was cast in also, and it was remarked
by the ...
Vol. 2 p. 312 (Rel. 0.31)
... Churqh. SIR HENRY WELLWOOD MONCRIEFF. I35
and gloomy vault ; “a memorial alike of the demolished
fane and ...
Vol. 3 p. 135 (Rel. 0.31)
![’ klth] KING JAMES V1.5 HOSPITAL 217
Barker, whose office ceased to exist after the Burgh
Reform Bill of 1833.
The seal of the preceptory is preserved in the
Antiquarian Museum. It bears the figure of St.
Anthonyina hermit’s garb, with a book in one
hand, a staff in the other, and by his side is a sow
with a bell at its neck. Over his head is a capital
T, which the brethren had sewn in blue cloth on
their black tunics. Around is the legend,
S. Cornmum PreceptoriC Sancfi Anthunii, Propc L&cht.
there when the ground was opened to lay down
gas-pipes; and in the title deeds of a property
here, “ the churchyard of St. Anthony ” is mentioned
as one of the boundaries.
The grotesque association of St. Anthony with a
sow is because the latter was supposed to represent
gluttony, which the saint is said to have overcome ;
and the further to conquer Satan, a consecrated
bell is suspended from his alleged ally the pig.
On the east side of the Kirkgate stood King
ST. MARY’S (SOUTH LEITH) CHURCH, 1820. (After .Ytme+.)
Sir David Lindesay of the Mount refers in his
vigorous way to
“The gruntil of St. Anthony’s sow,
There was an aisle, with an altar therein, dedicated
to him in the parish church of St. Giles; and among
the jewels of James 111. is enumerated “Sanct
Antonis cors,” with a diamond, a ruby, and a great
pearl,
Save the fragments of some old vaults, not a
vestige of the preceptory now remains, though its
name is still preserved in St. Anthony’s Street,
which opens westward off the Kirkgate, and is sup
posed to pass through what was its cemetery, as
large quantities of human bones were exhumed
Quhilk bore his holy bell.”
124
James’s Hospital, built in 1614 by the sixth monarch
of that name, and the site of which now forms
part of the present burying-ground. At the southeast
angle of the old churchyard, says Wilson, there
is an ‘‘ elegant Gothic pediment surmounting the
boundary wall and adorned with the Scottish regalia,
sculptured in high relief with the initials
J. R. 6., while a large panel below bears the
royal arms and initials of Charles 11. very boldly
executed. These insignia of royalty are intended
to mark the spot on which KiEg James’s Hospital
stood-a benevolent foundation which owed no
more to the royal patron whose name it bore than
the confirmation by his charter in 1614 of a portion
of those revenues which had been long before](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p036.gif "Volume 6 Page 217")
... klth] KING JAMES V1.5 HOSPITAL 217
Barker, whose office ceased to exist after the Burgh
Reform Bill of ...
Vol. 6 p. 217 (Rel. 0.31)
... vii
. CHAPTER XXXI.
PAGE ALLEYS OF THE HIGH STREET (continued).
Blackfriars Wynd-The Grant of ...
Vol. 2 p. 389 (Rel. 0.31)
![Greyfriars Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, Alexander
Monro $rimus, the great anatomist, and Alexander
Monro secwidm, who in 1756 was admitted joint
Professor of Anatomy and Surgery with his distinguished
father.
In the same ground, in 1799, were laid Professor
Joseph Black, the great chemist ; Dr. Hugh Blair, in
1800 ; Henry Mackenzie, “ the Man of Feeling,” in
1831 ; Alexander Tytler, another distinguished
Zittivatear; John Kay, the caricaturist, in 1826 ;
and Dr. McCrie, the well-known biographer of John
Knox.
The monument to Dr. Hugh Hair was erected
in 1817, and is placed on the south side of the
church, in the same compartment with that of Professor
MacLaurin. Thus, one of the most eminent
philosophers and one of the most distinguished
preachers that Scotland has produced are commemorated
side by side.
On the eastern gable of the Old Greyfriars
Church, a grim, repellent, and remarkable monument
catches the eye. In the centre is sculptured
a skeleton, festooned around with surgical implements,
but the inscription is nearly obliterated by
time and the fire of the church, yet it is always an
object of much curiosity.
It marks the grave of James Borthwick, whose
portrait is the oldest now hanging in the Hall of
the Royal College of Surgeons, the incorporation
of which he entered in 1645 ; he was a cadet of
the House of Crookston, and nearly related to
Lord Borthwick, who defended his castle of that
name against Oliver Cromwell after the battle
of Dunbar. He acquired the estate of Stow, in
which he was succeeded by his son James, who
erected this hideously grotesque memorial to his
memory.
Another monument of a different kind, in the
form of a brass plate inserted into a stone, on the
western wall of the church, bore some fine elegiac
verses to the memory of Francisca, daughter of
‘< Alexander Swinton, advocate ; who died . . . . .
aged 7 years.”
But these verses were quite obliterated by 1816.
They ran thus :-
“ The sweetest children, like these transient flowers,
Which please the fancy for a few short hours,-
Lovely at morning, see them burst in birth,
At evening withered-scattered on the earth,
Their stay, their place, shall never more be known,
Save traits enpven on those hearts alone
That fostered these frail buds while here beneath ;
Yes, these shall triumph o’er the powers of death,
Shall spring eternal in the parent’s mind
Till hence transplanted to a realm refined.”
Northward of the two churches stands the tomb
and grave of Duncan Ban Maclntyre, commonly
known in the Highlands as Donnachan ban nun
Oran, who died in the year 1812, and who, though
he fought at Falkirk, outlived all the bards and
nearly all the warriors associated in the Highland
heart with the last chivalrous struggle for the House
of Stuart.
A handsome monument marks the place where
his ashes lie. Though little known in the Lowlands,
Duncan is deemed one of the-sweetest of
the Gaelic poets, and was so humble in his wants
that he had no higher ambition than to become a
soldier in the old City Guard.
The burial-place of Sir Walter Scott’s family lies
on the west side of the ground. “ Our family,” he
wrote, “heretofore (Dec., 1819) buried close by the
entrance to Heriot’s Hospital, on the southern or
left-hand. side as you pass from the churchyard.”
Here the father, Walter Scott, W.S., and several of
his children who died in the old house in the College
Wynd, are interred. Mrs. Scott, her sisters,
and her brother, Dr. Rutherford, are interred in
the burial-ground attached to St. John’s Church, at
the west end of Princes Street. Sir Walter purchased
a piece of ground there, “moved by its
extreme seclusion, privacy, and security; for,” as
he wrote to brother Thomas, who was paymaster
of the 70th Foot, conveying an account of their
mother‘s death, “when poor Jack (their brother)
was buried in the Greyfriars Churchyard, where my
father and Anne (their sister) lie, I thought their
graves more encroached upon than I liked to
witness.”
The Greyfriars Churchyard is, curiously enough,
noted as being the scene of Scott’s first love affair
with a handsome young woman. Lockhart tells us
that their acquaintance began in that place of
dreary associations, “ when the rain was beginning
to fall one Sunday, as the congregation were dispersing.
Scott happened to offer his umbrella, and
the tender being accepted, so escorted her to her
residence, which proved to be at no great distance
from his own. I have neither the power nor the
wish,” adds his biographer, ‘‘ to give in detail the
sequel to this story. It is sufficient to szy that
after he had through several long years nodrished
the dream of an ultimate union with this lady-
Margaret, daughter of Sir John and Lady Jane
Stewart Belshes of Invermay-his hopes terminated
in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes,
Bart., of Pitsligo.”
In December, 1879, there were interred in the
Greyfriars Churchyard, under the direction of the
city authorities, the great quantity of human bones](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p203.gif "Volume 4 Page 383")
... Church.] SCOTT’S FIRST LOVE AFFAIR. ’ 383
son, buried respectively I 7 67 and I 8 I 7, ...
Vol. 4 p. 383 (Rel. 0.31)
... CoWgab.1 THE EPISCOPAL CHAPEL.
to preach openly, by taking the oaths to Govemment,
had been founded in ...
Vol. 4 p. 247 (Rel. 0.31)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. lcolinton.
the Belitice Puetaruni Scuiurum. He was a convert
to the Protestant ...
Vol. 6 p. 322 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Northumberland Street.
A noted antiquary, he was Correspondant du
Comitk Imp2riaZ des ...
Vol. 4 p. 198 (Rel. 0.3)
![Restalrig.] THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir walls of this
monument of idolatry ” were roofed over in 1837,
as has been stated.
An ancient crypt, or mausoleum, of large diniensions
and octangular in form, stands on the south
side of the church. Internally it is constructed with
a good groined roof, and some venerable yews cast
their shadow over the soil that has accumulated
above it, and in which they have taken root. It is
believed to have been erected by Sir Robert Logan,
knight, of Restalrig, who died in 1439, according
to the obituary of the Preceptory of St. Anthony at
Leith, and it has been used as a last resting-place
for several of his successors. Some antiquaries,
however, have supposed that it was undoubtedly
attached to the college, perhaps as a chapter-house,
or as a chapel of St. Triduana, but constructed on
the model of St. Margaret’s Well. Among others
buried here is “LADY JANEr KER, LADY RESTALRIG,
QUHA DEPARTED THIS LIFE 17th MAY, 1526.”
Wilson, in his ‘‘ Reminiscences,” mentions that
‘‘ Restalrig kirkyard was the favourite cemetery of
the Nonjuring Scottish Episcopalians of the last
century, when the use of the burial service was
proscribed in the city burial-grounds ; ” and a strong
division of dead cavalry have been interred there
from the adjacent barracks. From Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe he quotes a story of a quarrel carried
beyond the grave, which may be read upon a flat
stone near that old crypt.
Of the latter wrote Sharpe, “I believe it belongs
to Lord Bute, and that application was made to him
to allow Miss Hay-whom I well knew-daughter
of Hay of Restalrig, Prince Charles’s forfeited
secretary, to be buried in the vault. This was
refused, and she lies outside the door. May the
earth lie light on her, old lady kind and vener.
able !”
In 1609 the legal rights of the church and parish
of Restalrig, with all their revenues and pertinents,
were formally conferred upon the church of South
Leith.
In 1492, John Fraser, dean of Restalrig, wa?
appointed Lord Clerk Register; and in 154C
another dean, John Sinclair, was made Lord 01
Session, and was afterwards Bishop of Brechin and
Lord President of the Court of Session. He it war
who performed the marriage ceremony for Queen
* Mary and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. In 1592
the deanery was dissolved by Act of Parliament,
and divided between “ the parsonage of Leswadc
and parsonage of Dalkeith, maid by Mr. Georgt
Ramsay, dean of Restalrig.”
After the Logans-of whom elsewhere-tht
Lords Balmerino held the lands of Restalrig till
their forfeiture in I 746, and during the whole period
of their possession, appropriated the vaults of the
forsaken and dilapidated church as the burial-place
of themselves and their immediate relations. From
them it passed to the Earls of Bute, with whose
family it still remains.
In the burying-ground here, amid a host of
ancient tombs, are some of modem date, marking
where lie the father of Lord Brougham ; Louis
Cauvin, who founded the hospital which bears his
name at Duddingston ; the eccentric doctor known
as Lang Sandy Wood,” and his kindred, including
the late Lord Wood ; and Lieutenant-Colonel
William Rickson, of the I 9th Foot, a brave and distinguished
soldier, the comrade and attached friend
of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. His death is thus
recorded in the Scots Magazine for 1770 :-cr At
his house in Broughton, Lieutenant-Colonel William
Rickson, Quartermaster-General and Superintendent
of Roads in North Britain.” His widow died
so lately as 1811, as her tomb at Restalrig bears,
‘‘ in the fortieth year of her widowhood”
Here, too, was interred, in 1720, the Rev. Alexander
Rose, the last titular bishop of Edinburgh.
In tracing out the ancient barons of Restalrig,
among the earliest known is Thomas of Restalrig,
nxa 1210, whose name appears in the Regktruum
de DunferrnZine as Sheriff of Edinburgh.
In the Macfarlane MSS. in the Advocates’
Library, there is a charter of his to the Priory of
Inchcolm, in the Firth of Forth, circa 1217, very
interesting from the localities therein referred to,
and the tenor of which runs thus in English :-
“To all seeing or hearing these writings,
Thomas of Lestalrig wishes health. Know ye,
that for the good of my soul, and the souls of all
my predecessors and successors, and the soul of
my wife, I have given and conceded, and by this
my charter have confirmed, to God and the canons
of the church of St. Columba on the Isle, and the
canons of the same serving God, and that may yet
serve Him forever, that whole land which Baldwin
Comyn was wont to hold from me in the town of
Leith, namely, that land which is next and adjoining
on the south to that land which belonged to
Ernauld of Leith, and to twenty-four acres and a
half of arable land in my estate of Lestalrig in that
field which is called Horstanes, on the west part of
the same field, and on the north part of the high
road between Edinburgh and Leith (it., the Easter
Road) in pure and perpetual gift to be held by
them, with all its pertinents and easements, and
with common pasture belocging to such land, and
with free ingress and egress, with carriage, team,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p142.gif "Volume 5 Page 131")
... THE CHURCHYARD. 131
That the church was not utterly destroyed is
proved by the fact that the choir ...
Vol. 5 p. 131 (Rel. 0.3)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Kirk-of-Field.
land of umyle Hew Berrie’s tenement and chamber
adjacent yr to, lying ...
Vol. 5 p. 2 (Rel. 0.3)
![THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and most effectively re-decorated
by David Bryce, R.S.A., in 1868-70. It now
presents a lofty, broad, and arch-based rear front of
colossal proportions to Princes Street, from whence,
and every other poiiit of view, it forms a conspicuous
mass, standing boldly from among the
many others that form the varied outline of the
Old Town, and consists of the great old centre with
new wings, surmounted by a fine dome, crowned
by a gilded figure of Fame, seven feet high. In
length the facade measures 175 feet; and 112 in
height from the pavement in Bank Street to the
summit, and is embellished all round with much
force and variety, in details of a Grecian style.
The height of the campanile towers is ninety feet.
The bank has above seventy branches ; the subscribed
capital in 1878 was A1,875,000 ; the paidup
capital LI,Z~O,OOO. There are a governor (the
Earl of Stair, K.T.), a deputy, twelve ordinary
and twelve extra-ordinary directors.
The Bank of Scotland issues drafts on other
places in Scotland besides those in which it has
branches, and also on the chief towns in England
and Ireland, and it has correspondents throughout
the whole continent of Europe, as well as in
British America, the States, India, China, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere-a ramification
of business beyond the wildest dreams oi
John Holland and the original projectors of the
establishment in the old Bank Close in 1695.
Concerning the Earthen Mound, the late Alex.
ander Trotter of Dreghorn had a scheme foi
joining the Qld Town to the New, and yet avoiding
Bank Street, by sinking the upper end of the
mound to the leve! of Princes Street, and carrying
the Bank Street end of it eastward along the north
of the Bank of Scotland, in the form of a handsomc
terrace, and thence south into the High Street b)
an opening right upon St. Giles’s Church. Thf
next project was one by the late Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder. He also proposed to bring down thc
south end of the mound “to the level of Prince;
Street, and then to cut a Roman arch through thc
Lawnmarket and under the houses, so as to pas!
on a level to George Square. This,” say!
Cockburn, “was both practical and easy, but i
was not expounded till too late.’’
Not far from the Bank of Scotland, in I(
North Bank Street, ensconced among the might!
mass of buildings that overlook the mound, arc
the offices of the National Security Savings Ban1
of.Edinburgh, established under statute in 1836, an(
certified in terms of the Act 26 and 27 Victoria
cap. 87, managed by a chairman and cominittel
I
if management, the Bank of Scotland being
reasurer.
Of this most useful institution for the benefit of
,he thrifty poorer classes, suffice it to say, as a
ample of its working, that on striking the yearly
iccounts on the 20th of November, 1880, “the
balance due to depositors was on that date
&r,305,27g 14s. 7d., and that the assets at the
same date were x1,3og,3g2 Ss., invested with the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt, and A3,1o4 3s. gd., at the credit of the
3ank’s account in the Bank of Scotland, making
the total assets L1,312,496 11s. gd., which, after
ieductionof the above sum of L1,305,279 14s. 7d.,
leaves a clear surplus of A7916 17s. zd. at the
:redit of the trustees.”
The managers are, ex oficio, the Lord Provost,
the Lord Advocate, the senior Bailie of the city,
:he Members of Parliament for the city, county,
md Leith, the Provost of Leith, the Solicitor-
General, the Convener of the Trades, the Lord
Dean of Guild, and the Master of the Merchant
Company.
In the sanie block of buildings are the offices of
the Free Church of Scotland, occupying the site of
the demolished half of James’s Court. They were
erected in 1851-61, and are in a somewhat
Rorid variety of the Scottish baronial style, from
designs by the late David Cousin.
In striking contrast to the terraced beauty of the
New Town, the south side of the vale of the old
loch, from the North Bridge to the esplanade of
the Castle, is overhung by the dark and lofty gables
and abutments of those towering edifices which
terminate the northern alleys of the High Street,
and the general grouping of which presents an
aspect of equal romance and sublimity. From
amid these sombre masses, standing out in the
white purity of new freestone, are the towers and
facade of the Free Church College and Assembly
Hall, at the head of the Mound.
Into the history of the crises which called
these edifices into existence we need not enter
here, but true it is, as Macaulay says, that for the
sake of religious opinion the Scots have made
sacrifices for which there is no parallel in the
annals of England; and when, at the Disruption,
so many clergymen of the Scottish Church cast
their bread upon the waters, in that spirit of
independence and self-reliance so characteristic of
the race, they could scarcely have foreseen the
great success of their movement.
This new college was the first of those instituted
in connection with the Free Church. The idea
was origipally entertained of making provision for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p107.gif "Volume 3 Page 95")
... FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and ...
Vol. 3 p. 95 (Rel. 0.3)
... THE GAELIC CHAPEL. 235
target, andnogentlemantookthe road without pistols
in his holsters, and was ...
Vol. 4 p. 235 (Rel. 0.3)
![Charlotte Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; and in 1811 William
Robertson, Lord Robertson, a senator of 1805,
occupied No. 42. He was the eldest son of Dr.
Robertson the historian, and in 1779 was chosen
Procurator of the Church of Scotland, after ,a close
contest, in which he was opposed by the Hon.
Henry Erskine. His personal appearance is
described in “ Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.”
He retired from the bench in 1826, in consequence
of deafness, and died in November, 1835.
On the western side of the Square, and terminating
with fine effect the long vista of George
Street from the east, is St. George’s Church, the
foundation of which was laid on the 14th of May,
1811. It was built from a design furnished by
Robert Reid, king’s architect The celebrated
Adam likewise furnished a plan for this church,
which was relinquished in consequence of the
expense it would have involved. The whole building,
with the exception of the dome, which is a
noble one, and seen to advantage from any point,
is heavy in appearance, meagre in detail, and
hideous in conception, and its ultimate expense
greatly exceeded the estimates and the sum for
which the more elegant design of Adam could have
been carried out. It cost A33,ooo, is calculated
to accommodate only 1,600 persons, and was opened
for public worship in 1814. It was intended in
its upper part to be a large miniature or reduced
copy of St. Paul’s in London, and is in a kind of
Grzco-Italian style, with a lofty but meagre Ionic
portico and surmounting an Attic Corinthian colonnade
; it rests on a square ground plan measuring
IIZ feet each way, and culminates in the dome,
surmounted by a lantern, cupola, and cross, the
last at the height of 160 feet from the ground.
The original design included two minarets, which
have not as yet been added.
It is chiefly celebrated as the scene of the ministrations
of Andrew Thomson, D.D., an eminent
divine who was fixed upon as its pastor in 1814.
He died suddenly on the 9th of February, 1831,
greatly beloved and lamented by the citizens in
general and his congregation in particular, and now
he lies in a piece of ground connected with the
churchyard of St. Cuthbert.
In Charlotte Place, behind the church, are the
atelier of Sir John Steel the eminent sculptor, and
a music-room called St. Cecilia’s Hall, with an
orchestra space for 250 performers and seats for
500 hearers.
In the centre of the Square is the memorial to
the Prince Consort, which was inaugurated with
much state by the Queen in person, attended by
the magistrates and archer guard, &c., in August,
1876. It cost A16,500, and is mainly from
the studio of Steel It is a quasi-pyramidal structure,
about thirty-two feet high, with a colossal
equestrian statue of the Prince as its central and
upper figure ; it is erected on an oblong Peterhead
granite pedestal, fully seventeen feet high, and
exhibiting emblematic bas-reliefs in the panels,
with four groups of statues on square blocks, projecting
from the corners of the basement; the
prince is shown in the uniform of a field marshal.
Of all the many statues that have been erected
to his memory, this in Charlotte Square is perhaps
one of the best and most pleasing.
With this chapter we close the history of what
may be regarded as thejt-st New Town, which was
designed in 1767, laid out, as we have seen, in a
parallelogram the sides of which measure 3,900
feet by 1,090.
The year 1755 was the period when Edinburgh
seemed really to wake from the sleep and torpor
that followed the Union, and a few imprdvements
began in the Old Town. After that period, says
Kincaid, writing in 1794, “ it is moderate to say
that not less than ~3,000,000 sterling has been
expended in building and public improvements.”
Thirty-five years ago,” says the Edinburgh
Adverther for 1823, “ there were scarcely a dozen
sliops in the New Town; now, in Princes Street,
with the exception of hotels and the Albyn Club
Room, they reach to Hanover Street.”
In the present day the whole .area we have described
is mainly occupied by shops, with the exception
of Charlotte Square and a small portion of
Queen Street.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p187.gif "Volume 3 Page 175")
... Square.] THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. I75
His neighbour and brother senator Lord Dundrennan
occupied No. 35 ; ...
Vol. 3 p. 175 (Rel. 0.29)
... Gilds Churchyard. THE CHURCHYARD. I49
were a hospital and chapel known by the name
of the “Maison Dieu.” ...
Vol. 1 p. 149 (Rel. 0.29)
![THE NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes cognisance. It grants annually ten bursaries
of L z o each, and five of LIO each, to be
competed for by pupils of schools approved .of by
the directors.
The Society’s vested capital now’ amounts to
&o,ooo, and its annual revenue reaches more than
&,~oo, besides the receipts for general shows,
The Argyle Fund, for the education of young Highland
gentlemen for the navy, now amounts to
A5,639, and was instituted by John fifth Duke of
Argyle, the original president of the Society.
From its chambers, No. 3, George IV. Bridge, surveying
a width of range and multiplicity of objects
worthy of its wealth and intellect, its opulence of
power and resource, the Soqiety promotes the erection
of towns and bridges, the formation of roads,
the experiments and enterprises of agriculture, the
improvement of farm stock, the sheltering processes
of planting, the extension of fisheries, the introduction
of manufactures, the adaptation of machinery
to all useful arts, the ready co-operation of
’ local influence with legislative and public measures,
the diffusion of practical knowledge of all that may
tend to the general good of the Scottish nation,
and the consolidation of the Highlanders and
Lowlanders into one great fraternal community.
“ The Society awards large and numerous premiums
to stimulate desiderated enterprises, and in
1828 began the publication of the Quarter0 lown
d of Agridtztre, for prize essays and the dissemination
of the newest practical information ; it
patronises great annual cattle shows successively in
different towns, and by means of them excites and
directs a stirring and creditable spirit of emulation
among graziers, and, in general, it keeps in play
upon the community, a variety of influences which,
as far as regards mere earthly well-being, have
singularly transformed and beautified its character.”
Its arms are a figure of Caledonia on a pedestal,
between two youths-one a Highland reaper, the
other a ploughboy-being crowned. The motto is,
Sem$er armis nunc et industria. The Highland
Society’s hall and chamber form a very symmetrical
and also ornamental edifice, with a beautiful sculpture
of its coat of arms from the chisel of A.. H.
Kitchie. It formerly contained a most interesting
agricultural museum, which has been removed elsewhere.
Simil7.r societies on the same model have
since been established-by England in 1838, and
by Ireland in 1841.
The other edifice referred to, the Sheriff’s Court
Buildings, contiguous to the open arches over the
Cowgate, was erected in 1865-8, from designs
by David Bryce, at a cost of more than A44,ooo. -
It rises from a low basement, with an extensive
and imposing flank to the south, and presents in
its fapde an ornate variety of the Italian style
of architecture ; but within exhibits simply the
usual features of legal courts, with three subordinate
official chambers, unless we except the Society
hall of the solicitors-at-law, a minor legal body in
Edinburgh, which was incorporated by royal charter
in 1780, and only certain members of which are
qualified to act as agents before the Supreme Courts.
Johnstone Terrace, King’s Road, and Castle
Terrace crossing the King’s Bridge, the foundation
stone of which was laid in 1827, unitedly extend
about go0 yards along the southern limb, or southwestern
skirt of the Castle Rock, connecting the
head of the Lawnmarket with the Lothian Road,
at a point about 180 yards south of the west end
of Princes Street. These were formed between
1825 and 1836, to afford improved access to the
Old Town from the westward. They are collectively
called the New Western Approach, and apart
from being a very questionable improvement as
regards artistic taste, have destroyed the amenity
of the Castle Rock, and lessened its strength as a
fortress.
In Johnstone Terrace, to which we shall confine
ourselves for the present, at the eastern end,
resting at the corner of the Old West Bow, is St.
John’s Free Church, a handsome edifice in a mixed
style of early Gothic It was built from designs
furnished by Robert Hamilton in 1847, and is
chiefly famous for its congregation having enjoyed
for some years the ministry of the celebrated Dr.
Guthrie, and of Dr. Williani Hanna, a graduate of
the University of Glasgow, who was ordained to
the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in 1835,
and who is so well known as the author of “Wycliffe
and the Huguenots,” and as the affectionate
biographer of Chalmers.
Westward of this edifice is St. Columba’s Episcopal
church, also a Gothic structure, but of an earlier
style, with a low, square battlemented tower;
built in 1845.
At the cost of about ;GIO,OOO, the Normal School
of the Church of Scotland was built westward of it,
in 1845, and is a large and handsome edifice.
It is called the Normal School, or Church of
Scotland Training College. It is under the control
and management of the Education Committee of
the Church. It is a double college, and like that
in Glasgow, trains both masters and mistresses.
The course of training extends over two years,
and none are admitted as students but those who
have passed a preliminary examination ; but the
committee exercise their discretion in making their](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p115.gif "Volume 2 Page 295")
... NORMAL SCHOOL. 295 George IV. Bridge.]
highly qualified examiners, on every point of which
it takes ...
Vol. 2 p. 295 (Rel. 0.29)
... GOVERNMENT OF THE BURGH. 3
{oundation charter of the latter, I likewise grant
go the said canons the ...
Vol. 3 p. 3 (Rel. 0.29)
![The Water of Leith.] ST. BERNARD’S WELL. 75
To protect it, a stone covering of some kind was
proposed, and in that year the foundation thereof
was actually laid by ‘‘ Alexander Drummond,
brother of Provost Drummond, lately British Consul
at Aleppo, and Provincial Grand Master of all
the Lodges in Asia and Europe holding of the
Grand Lodge, Scotland.” The brethren in their
insignia were present, the spring was named St.
Bernard’s Well, and the subject inspired the local
muse of Claudero.
A silly legend tells how St. Bernard, being sent
on a mission to the Scottish Court, was met with
so cold a reception that, in chagrin, he came to
this picturesque valley, and occupied a cave in
the vicinity of the well, to which his attention was
attracted by the number of birds that resorted to
it, and ere long he announced its virtues to the
people There is undoubtedly a cave, and of no
inconsiderable dimensions, in the cliffs to the westward,
and it is now entirely hidden by the boundarywall
at the back of Randolph Cliff; but, unfortunately
for the legend, in the Bollandists there are
at least three St Bernards, not one of whom ever
was on British soil.
The present well-a handsome Doric temple,
with a dome, designed by Nasmyth, after the Sybils’
Temple at Tivoli-was really founded by Lord
Gardenstone in May, 1789, after he had derived
great benefit from drinking the waters. “The
foundation stone was laid,” says the Advertiser for
that year, ‘‘ in presence of several gentlemen of the
neighbourhood.” A metal plate was sunk into it
with the following inscription ;-
‘< Erected for the benefit of the Public, at the sole expense
of Francis Garden, Esq., of Troupe, one of the senators of
the College of Justice, A.D. 1789. Alexander Nasmyth,
Architect ; John Wilson, Buiider.”
A fine statue of Hygeia, by Coade of London,
was placed within the pillars of the temple. For
thirty years after its erection it was untouched by
the hand of mischief, but now it is so battered
by stones as to be a perfect wreck. Since the
days of Lord Gardenstone the well has always
been more or less frequented. A careful analysis
of the water by Dr. Stevenson Macadam, showed
that it resembled closely the Harrogate springs.
The morning is the best time for drinking it.
During some recent drainage operations the water
entirely disappeared, and it was thought the public
would lose the benefit of it for ever; but after a
time it returned, with its medicinal virtues stronger
than ever.
A plain little circular building was erected in
1810 over another spring that existed a little to
the westward of St. Bernard’s, by Mr. Macdonald
of Stockbridge, who named it St. George’s Well.
The water is said to be the sameas that of the
former, but if so, no use has been made of it for
many years past. From its vicinity to the well.
Upper Dean Terrace, when first built, was called
Mineral Street. In those days India Place was
called Athole Street; Leggat’s Land was Braid’s
Row; and Veitch’s Square (built by a reputable
old baker of that name) was called Virgin’s Square.
The removal of the greater part of the latter,
which consisted of four rows of cottages, thirty in
number, and all thatched with straw, alters one of
the most quaint localities in old Stockbridge. Each
consisted only of a “but and a ben”-i.e., two
apartments-and in the centre was a spacious
bleaching green, past which flowed the Leith, in
those days pure and limpid. The cottages were
chiefly. if not wholly, occupied by blanchtsseuses,
and hence its name.
The great playground of the village children was
the open and flat piece of land in the Haugh, near
Inverleith, known as the Whins, covered now by
Hugh Miller Place and nine other streets of artisans’
houses.
In past times flour-mills and tan-pits were the
chief means of affording work for the people of
Stockbridge. About 1814 a china manufactory
was started on a small scale on the Dean Bank
grounds, near where Saxe-Coburg Place stands
now. It proved a failure, but some pieces of the
“Stockbridge china” are still preserved in the
Industrial Museum.
As population increased in this district new
churches were required. Claremont Street Chapel,
now called St. Bernard’s Church, was built for
those who were connected with the Establishment,
at a cost of ~4,000, and opened in November, 1823.
Its first incumbent was the Rev. James Henderson of
Berwick, afterwards of Free St. Enoch’s, Glasgow.
About the year 1826, persons connected with
the Relief Church built Dean Street Church in
the narrow street at the back of the great crescent,
and named it St. Bernards Chapel. It was after- ‘
wards sold to the United Secession body. In the
year 1843, at the Disruption, the Rev. Alexander
Brown, of St. Bernard’s, with a great portion of his
congregation, withdrew from the Church of Scotland,
and formed Free St. Bernard’s; and, more recently,
additional accommodation has been provided for
those of that persuasion by the re-erection in its
own mass, at Deanhaugh Street, of St. George’s
Free Church, which was built in the Norman style
of architecture, for the Rev. Dr. Candlish, at St.
Cuthbert’s Lane.
Mrs. Gordon is correct in stating that Stockbridge](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p086.gif "Volume 5 Page 75")
... Water of Leith.] ST. BERNARD’S WELL. 75
To protect it, a stone covering of some kind was
proposed, and in ...
Vol. 5 p. 75 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Edinburgh Castle.
entrance to the apartment in which her daughter
was delivered of ...
Vol. 1 p. 78 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
The first volume of the ‘‘ Parochial Records ”
begins in January, 1605, ...
Vol. 6 p. 254 (Rel. 0.29)
... West Chum.: MR. ROBER’T PONT. 13x1
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHURCH OF ST. CUTHBERT.
Iiirtory and ...
Vol. 3 p. 131 (Rel. 0.29)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [~dpUCd.
proper exertions been made for their repair and
preservation, particularly by ...
Vol. 3 p. 58 (Rel. 0.29)
![Manor Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of the close of the ceremony,
and immediately the choir, along with other officials
of ‘the church in surplices stationed in the garden,
sung the hymn “Praise ye the Lord, ye Heavens
in the nave and clerestory bear the arms of many
ancient Scottish families,
Away to the westward of the quarter we have
described, at the delta of the old Glasgow and
Dalry roads, where for several generations stood
ST. MAPY7S CATHEDRAL, INTERIOR VIEW. (Fpom a Phofosrnph by G. W. Wikm ad Co., ACrdem.)
by the Lord Provost.
Sir Gilbert Scott did not live to see the completion
of this cathedral, which is one of the many
lasting monuments of his skill as an architect.
Among the gifts to the cathedral are a peal of ten
bells presented by Dean Montgomery ; the great
from Glasgow by wings upon the two roads, formed
a junction and halted, while the officers had breakfast
or dinner before pushing on to the Castle by
the Lang Dykes and latterly by Princes Street and ,
the Earthern Mound-is the Haymarket Railway
Station, the first or original terminus of the Edin](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p033.gif "Volume 4 Page 213")
... Place.] HAYMARKET STATION. 213
A shot fired from the belfry apprised the multi-
&de far down below of ...
Vol. 4 p. 213 (Rel. 0.28)
![Leith.] ST. JAMES’S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF BRAE.
Constitution Street-Pirates Executed-St. James’s Episcopal Church-Town H a l l S t . John’s Church-Exchange Buildings-Head-quarten of
the Leith Rifle Volunteen4ld Signal-Tower-The Shore-Old and New Ship Taverns--The Markets-The Coal Hill-Ancient Council
House-The Peat Ne&-Shim Bme-Tibbie Fowler of the Glen-St. Thomas’s Church and Asylum-The Gladstone Family-Creat
Junction Road.
CONSTITUTION STREET, which lies parallel to, and
eastward of the Kirkgate, nearly in a line with the
eastern face of the ancient fortifications, is about
2,500 feet in lehgth, and soon after its formation
was the scene of the last execution within what is
termed (‘ flood-mark.” The doomed prisoners were
two foreign seamen, whose crime and sentence
excited much interest at the time.
Peter Heaman and Francois Gautiez were accused
of piracy and murder in seizing the briglane
of Gibraltar, on her voyage from that place to
the Brazils, freighted with a valuable cargo, including
38,180 Spanish dollars, and in barbarously
killing Johnson the master, and Paterson a seaman,
and confining Smith and Sinclair, two other
seamen, in the forecastle, where they tried to suffocate
them with smoke, but eventually compelled
them to assist in navigating the vessel, which they
. afterwards sank off the coast of Ross-shire. They
landed the specie in eight barrels on the Isle of
Lewis, where they were apprehended.
This was in thesummer of 1822, and they were,
after a trial before the Court of Justiciary, sentenced
by the Judge-Admiral to be executed on the 9th of
’ the subsequent January, “on the sands of Leith,
within the flood-mark, and their bodies to be afterwards
given to Dr. Munro for dissection.”
On the day named they were conveyed from the
Calton gaol, under a strong escort of the dragoon
.guards, accompanied by the magistrates of the city,
who had white rods projecting from the windows of
the carriages in which they sat, to a gibbet erected
‘ at the foot of Constitution Street-oi raiher, the
. northern continuation thereof-and there hanged.
Heaman was a native of Carlscrona, in Sweden ;
Gautiez wa8 a Frenchman. The bodies were put
4 in coffins, and conveyed by a corporal’s escort of
’ dragoons to the rooms of the professor of anatomy.
During the execution the great bell of South Leith
church was ttilled with minute strokes, and the
papers of the day state that “ the crowd of spectators
was immense, particularly cn the sands, being little
short of from forty to fifty thousand; but, owing to
the excellent manner in which everything was
In 1823 the same thoroughfare witnessed another
legal punishment, when Thomas Hay, who had
- arranged, not the slightest accident happened.”
been tried and convicted of an attempt at assassination,
was flogged through the town by the common
executioner, and banished for fourteen years.
Between Constitution Street and the Links stands
St. James’s Episcopalian church, an ornate edifice
in the Gothic style, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott,
having a fine steeple, containing a chime of bells,
It was built in 1862-3, succeeding a previous chapel
of 1805 (erectedatthe cost ofx1,6ro)on an adjacent
site (of which a view is given on p. 240), and to which
attention was frequently drawn from the literary
celebrity of its minister, Dr. Michael Russell, the
author of a continuation o€ Prideaux’s Connection
of Sacred and Profane History,” and other works.
According to h o t , the congregation had an origin
that was not uncommon in the eighteenth century,
when the persecution
was set on foot against those of the Episcopal
communion in Scotland who did not take the
oaths required by law, the meeting-house in Leith
was shut up by the sheriff of the county. Persons
of this persuasion being thus deprived of the form
of worship their principles approved, brought from
the neighbouring country Mr. John Paul, an English
clergyman, who opened this chapel on the 23rd
June, 1749. It is called St. James’s chapel. Till
of late the congregation only rented it, but within
these few years they purchased it for Azoo. The
clergyman has about L60 a year salary, and the
organist ten guineas. These are paid out of the
seat rents, collections, and voluntary contributions
among the hearers. It is, perhaps, needless to add
that there are one or more meeting-houses for
sectaries in this place (Leith), for in Scotland there
are few towns, whether of importance! or insighificant,
whether populous or otherwise, where there
are not congregations of sectaries.”
The congregation of St. James’s chapel received,
in about the year 1810, the accession of a nonjuring
congregation of an earlier date, says a writer
in 1851, referring, doubtless, to that formed in the
time of the Rev. Mr. Paul.
The Leith Post Office is at the corner of Mitchell
and Constitution Streets; it was built in 1876, is
very small, and in a rather meagre Italian style.
The Town Hall, which is at the corner of Constitution
and Charlotte Streets, was built in 1827, at a
After the battle of Culloden,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p062.gif "Volume 6 Page 243")
... ST. JAMES’S CHAPEL. 243
CHAPTER XXVII.
LEITH-CONSTITUTION STREET, THE SHORE, COAL HILL, AND SHERIFF ...
Vol. 6 p. 243 (Rel. 0.28)
... GEORGE HERIOT. 363
diameter and 22 feet high; one school-room, 52
feet long by 26 wide ; and two ...
Vol. 4 p. 363 (Rel. 0.28)
... neighbouring .collegiate church, to a brewer’s
granary and spirit vault ! The ground floor had
been ...
Vol. 4 p. 252 (Rel. 0.28)
... --
CHAPTER I
THE KIRK OF ST. MARY-IN-THE-FIELDS.
YhCD
Memorabilia of the Edifice-Its ...
Vol. 6 p. 393 (Rel. 0.28)
![307 - Trinity.] EASTER AND WESTER PILTON.
Now Trinity possesses a great number of handsome
villas in intersecting streets, a railway station,
and an Episcopal chapel called Christ Church,
which figured in a trial before the law courts of
Scotland, that made much noise in its time-the
Yelverton case.
At Wardie, not far from it, there died, in only
his thirty-eighth year, Edward Forbes, who, after
being a Professor in King’s College, London, was
appointed to the chair of Natural History in the
University of Edinburgh in May, 1854. He was
a man of distinguished talent and of an affectionate
nature, his last words being “ My own wife 1 ” when
she inquired, as he was dying, if he knew her.
Soon after she contracted a marriage with the
Hon. Major Yelverton, whose battefy of artillery
had just returned from Sebastopol, and was
quartered in Leith Fort. The marriage took place
in the little church at Trinity, and was barely
announced before the Major was arrested on a
charge of bigamy by the late Miss Theresa Longworth,
with whom he had contracted, it was
averred, an irregular marriage in Edinburgh. Before
this she had joined the Sisters of Chanty at T’arna,
and lived a life of adventure. Not satisfied with the
Scottish marriage, they went through another ceremony
before a Catholic priest in Ireland, where the
ceremony was declared legal, and she was accepted
as Mrs. Yelverton. She then endeavoured to
prove a Scottish marriage, by habit and repute, residence
at Circus Place, and elsewhere, but judgment
was given against her by the late Lord Ardmillan,
and after twenty years of wandering all over the
world, writing books of travel, she died at Natal in
September, 1881, retaining to the last the title of
Viscountess, acguired on old Lord Avonmore’s
death.
Horatio Macculloch, R.S.A., the well-known
landscape painter, lived latterly in a villa adjoining
Trinity Grove, and died there on the 15th June,
1867.
In 1836 some plans were prepared by Messrs.
Grainger and Miller, the eminent Edinburgh engineers,
and boldly designed for the construction of
a regular wet dock at Trinity, with a breakwater
outer harbour of twenty acres in extent, westward
of Newhaven pier and the sunken rock known as
the West Bush ; but the proposal met with no support,
and the whole scheme was abandoned.
On the noble road leading westward to
Queensfeny there was completed in April, 1880,
near the head of the Granton thoroughfare, a
Free Church for the congregation of Granton and
Wardie, which, since its organisation in 1876, under
the Rev. P. C. Purves, had occupied an iron building
near Wardie Crescent. The edifice is an ornament
to the swiftly-growing locality. The relative
proportions of the nave, aisles, and transepts, are
planned to form a ground area large enough tg
accommodate the increasing congregation, and
galleries can be added if required. This area is
nearly all within the nave, and is lighted by the
windows of the clerestory, which has flying buttresses.
The style is Early English, the pulpit is of
oak on a stone pedestal. This church has a tower
seventy-five feet high, and arrests the eye, as it
stands on a species of ridge between the city and
the sea.
Ashbrook, Wardieburn House, and other handsome
mansions, have been erected westward, and
ere long the old farmsteading of Windlestrawlee
(opposite North Inverleith Mains) will, of course,
disappear. It is called ‘‘ Winliestraley ” in Kincaid’s
‘‘ Local Gazetteer” for 1787, and is said to take its
name from ‘‘ windlestrae (the name given to crested
dogstail grass- Cynosurus prisfatus), and applied
in Scotland to bent and stalks of grass found OII
moorish ground.”
An old property long known as Cargilfield, lay to
the north-east of it, and to the westward are Easter
and Wester Pilton, an older property still, which
has changed owners several times.
On the 16th of May, 1610, Peter Rollock, of
Pilton, had a seat on the bench as Lord Pilton.
He had no predecessor. He had been removed,
when Bishop of Dunkeld (in 1603), says Lord
Hailes, that the number of extraordinary lards
might be reduced to four, and he was restored by
the king’s letter, with a special proviso that this
should not be precedent of establishing a fifth extraordinary
lord. The lands-or a portion thereof
-afterwards became a part of the barony of Royston,
formed in favour of Viscount Tarbet; but
previous to that had been in possession of a family
named Macculloch, as Monteith in his “ Theatre
of Mortality,” inserts the epitaph upon the tomb on
the east side of the Greyfriars Church, of Sir Hugh
Macculloch, of Pilton, Knight, descended from the
ancient family of Macculloch of CadbolI. He died
in August, 1688, and the stone was erected by his
son James. About I 780 Pilton became the property
of Sir Philip Ainslie, whose eldest daughter Jean
was married there, in 1801, to Lord Doune, eldest
son of the Earl of Moray-a marriage that does not
appear in the “Peerages ” generally, but is recorded
in the Edinburgh HeruZd for that year. She was his
second wife, the first being a daughter of General
Scott of Bellevue and Balcomie. Lord Doune
then resided, and for a few years before, in the old
Wrightshouse, or ‘‘ Bruntsfield Castle,” as it is](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p126.gif "Volume 6 Page 307")
... - Trinity.] EASTER AND WESTER PILTON.
Now Trinity possesses a great number of handsome
villas in intersecting ...
Vol. 6 p. 307 (Rel. 0.28)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Corstorphine.
of the House of Orkney. He is represented in
armour of the fifteenth ...
Vol. 5 p. 118 (Rel. 0.27)
![Holyrood.] ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse of all
classes of the people, and, escorted by a bodyguard
of 300 men-at-arms, all cap-d+e, with
the citizens also in their armour, under Patrick
Cockburn of Nevtbigging, Provost of Edinburgh
and Governor of the Castle, was escorted to the
monastery of the Greyfriars, where she was warmly
welcomed by her future husband, then in his
twentietb year, and was visited by the queenmother
on the following day.
The week which intervened between her arrival
and‘her marriage was spent in a series of magnificent
entertainments, during which, from her great
beauty and charms of manner, she won the devoted
affection of the loyal nobles and people.
A contemporary chronicler has given a minute
account of one of the many chivalrous tournaments
that took place, in which three Burgundian nobles,
two of them brothers named Lalain, and the thud
HervC Meriadet, challenged any three Scottish
knights to joust with lance, battle-axe, sword, and
dagger, a defiance at once accepted by Sir James
Douglas, James Douglas of Lochleven, and Sir
John Ross of Halkhead, Constable of Renfrew.
Lances were shivered and sword and axe resorted
to with nearly equal fortune, till the king threw
down his truncheon and ended the combat.
The royal marriage, which took place in the
church at Holyrood amid universal joy, concluded
these stirring scenes. At the bridal feast the first
dish was in the form of a boar’s head, painted and
stuck full df tufts of coarse flax, served up on an
enormous platter, with thirty-two banners, bearing
the arms of the king and principal nobles ; and the
flax was set aflame, amid the acclamations of the
numerous assembly that filled the banquet-hall.
Ten years after Holyrood beheld a sorrowful
scene, when, in 1460, James, who had been slain
by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh
on the 3rd August, in his thirtieth year, was
laid in the royal vault, “with the teares of his
people and his hail1 army,” says Balfour.
In 1467 there came from Rome, dated zznd
February, the bull of Pope Paul II., granting, on
the petition of the provost, bailies, and community
of the city, a con~mission to the Bishop of Galloway,
“et dilectojZio Abbafi Monasterii Sancta Cmcis mini
viuros de Rdynburgh,” to erect the Church of St.
Giles into a collegiate institution.
Two years afterwards Holyrood was again the
scene of nuptial festivities, when the Parliamen!
met, and Margaret of Norway, Denmark, and
Sweden, escorted by the Earl of Arran and a
gallant train of Scottish aad Danish nobles, landed
at Leith in July, 1469. She was in her sixteenth
year, and had as her dowry the isles of Orkney
and Shetland, over which her ancestors had hitherto
claimed feudal superiority. James III., her
husband, had barely completed his eighteenth
year when they were married in the abbey church,
where she was crowned queenconsort. ‘‘ The marriage
and coronation gave occasion to prolonged
festivities in the metropolis and plentiful congratulations
throughout the kingdom. Nor was the
flattering welcome undeserved by the queen ; in the
bloom of youth and beauty, amiable and virtuous,
educated in all the feminine accomplishments of
the age, and so richly endowed, she brought as
valuable an accession of lustre to the court as of
territory to the kingdom.”
In 1477 there arrived “heir in grate pompe,”
says Balfour, “Husman, the legate of Pope
Xystus the Fourth,” to enforce the sentence of
deprivation and imprisonment pronounced by Hjs
Holiness upon Patrick Graham, Archbishop of St.
Andrews, an eminent and unfortunate dignitary of
the Church of Scotland. He was the first who
bore that rank, and on making a journey to Rome,
returned as legate, and thus gained the displeasure
of the king and of the clergy, who dreaded his
power. He was shut up in the monastery of Inchcolm,
and finally in the castle of Lochleven. Meanwhile,
in the following year, William Schivez, a
great courtier and favourite of the king, was
solemnly consecrated in Holyrood Church by the
papal legate, from whose hands he received a pall,
the ensign of archiepiscopal dignity, and with great
solemnity was proclaimed ‘‘ Primate and Legate of
the realm of Scotland.” His luckless rival died
of a broken heart, and was buried in St. Serf‘s
Isle, where his remains were recently discovered,
buried in a peculiar posture, with the knees drawn
up and the hands down by the side.
In 1531, when Robert Cairncross was abbot,
there occurred an event, known as “ the miracle of
John Scott,” which made some noise in its time.
This man, a citizen of Edinburgh, having taken
shelter from his creditors in the sanctuary of Holyrood,
subsisted there, it is alleged, for forty days
without food of any kind.
Impressed by this circumstance, of which some
exaggerated account had perhaps been given to
him, James V. ordered his apparel to be changed
and strictly searched. He ordered also that he
should be conveyed from Holyrood to a vaulted
room in David‘s Tower in the castle, where he was
barred from access by all and closely guarded.
Daily a small allowance of bread and water were
placed before him, but he abstained from both for](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p067.gif "Volume 3 Page 55")
... ROYAT, MARRIAGES. 55
with the Dukes of Savoy and Burgundy. She
landed at Leith amid a vast concourse ...
Vol. 3 p. 55 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Smn
could be done.” On leaving the church, the
protestors proceeded to ...
Vol. 3 p. 146 (Rel. 0.27)
![kith.] THE CITADEL 2S7
General Monk no doubt used all the stones of
the two edifices in the erection of his citadel, which
is thus described by John Ray, in his Itinerary,
when he visited Scotland in the year 1661 :-
“ At Leith we saw one of those citadels built by
and stores. There is also a good capacious chapel,
the piazza, or void space within, as large as Trinity
College (Cambridge) great court.”
This important stronghold, which must have
measured at least 400 feet one way, by 250 the
NORTH LEITH CHURCH.
the Protector, one of the best fortifications we ever
beheld, passing fair and sumptuous. There are
three forts (bastions?) advanced above the rest,
and two platfomis ; the works round about are
faced with freestone towards the ditch, and are
almost as high as the highest buildings therein, and
withal, thick and substantial. Below are very pleasant,
convenient, and well-built houses, for the
governor, officers, and soldiers, and for magazines
other (and been in some manner adapted to the
acute angle of the old fortifications there), costing,
says Wilson, “upwards of LIOO,OOO sterling, fell a
sacrifice, soon after the Restoration, to the cupidity
of the monarch and the narrow-minded jealousy
of the Town Council of Edinburgh.”
All that remains of the citadel now are some old
buildings, called, perhaps traditionally, ‘‘ Cromwell’s
Barracks”-near which was found an old](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p076.gif "Volume 6 Page 257")
... THE CITADEL 2S7
General Monk no doubt used all the stones of
the two edifices in the erection of his ...
Vol. 6 p. 257 (Rel. 0.27)
![LddI.1 JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of their
acquaintance the loan of a pair of saddlebags,
in which to deposit the MS.”
The latter was also rejected by Garrick, “with
the mortifying declaration that it was totally unfit
for the stage.” Yet it was brought out at Edinburgh
by Digges, on the 14th December, 1756,
and produced that storm of fanaticism to which
we have referred in a former part of this work. It
had a run then unprecedented, and though a rather
dull work, has maintained a certain popularity
almost to the present day.
To escape the censiires of the kirk, he resigned
HOME. 241
his living, and published several other tragedies;
and after the accession of George 111. to the
throne he received a pension of A300 per
annum. In 1763 he obtained the then sinecure
appointment of Conservator of Scottish Privileges
at Campvere (in succession to George Lind, Provost
of Edinburgh)] and also the office of Commissioner
for Sick and Wounded Seamen. In 1779 he removed
to Edinburgh, where he spent the latter
years of his life, and married a lady of his own
name, by whom he had no children.
Home’s ‘‘ Douglas” is now no longer regarded
as the marvel of genius it once was ; but the author
was acknowledged in his lifetime to be vain of it,
ST. JAMES’S EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH, 1882. (Affta a Pho#ogm#h by Nr.1. Clrapman.)](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p060.gif "Volume 6 Page 241")
... JOHN
coat in which he rode, Dr. Carlyle turned a little
out of the road to procure from a clergyman of ...
Vol. 6 p. 241 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Infirmary Street.
._
Freirs xx li. owing to them, at this last Fasterns
evin, for ...
Vol. 4 p. 286 (Rel. 0.27)
![44 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During the levelling of the
ground around the palace, and digging a foundation
for the substantial rai!ing with which it was
recently enclosed, the workmen came upon the
the present rampart wall, when near the same site
two stone coffins of the twelfth century, now in
the nave, were found. Each is six feet four inches.
in length, inside measurement.
In the abbey was preserved, enshrined in silver,.
CROFT-AN-RIGH HOUSE.
zealous veneration in the great cathedral near the
The texture of this remarkable cross was
said to have been of such a nature that no mortal
artificer could tell whether it was of wood, horn, OG
, field.
of other early buildings [perhaps the abbey
house?], and from their being in the direct line
of the building it is not improbable that a Lady
chapel or other addition to the abbey church
may have stood to the east of the choir. . . .
A curious relic of the ancient tenants of the
monastery was found by the vorkmen, consisting
of a skull, which had no doubt formed the solitary
companion of one of the monks. It had a hole in
the top of the cranium, which served, most probably,
for securing a crucifix, and over the brow
‘ was traced in antique characters, Memento mori.
This solitary relic of the furniture of the abbey
was procured by the late Sir Patrick Walker, and
is still in possession of his family.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p056.gif "Volume 3 Page 44")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood
of it having perhaps been reduced to ruins before
the view was taken. During ...
Vol. 3 p. 44 (Rel. 0.27)
... OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Cowgate.
showed that the barrel had been placed so as to collect
the rain water from ...
Vol. 4 p. 246 (Rel. 0.27)
... 26 ’ OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [PrinerSSma.
The tower, as originally designed, terminated in
an open lantern, ...
Vol. 3 p. 126 (Rel. 0.27)
... Old High S:hoo!.l THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 287
college, the pulpits, desks, lofts, and seats, were;
says Nicol, (( ...
Vol. 4 p. 287 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBVRGH. [Leith.
London, at the request of Lord Balgonie, afterwards
Earl of Leven.
People of ...
Vol. 6 p. 250 (Rel. 0.26)
... 88 OLD ANI) NEW EDINBURGH. [York Place
His lordship was so fond of card-playing that
he was wont to say, ...
Vol. 3 p. 188 (Rel. 0.26)
![Leith.] THE OLD TOLBCTOTH. 229
During the persecution under the Duke of
Lauderdale, Mr. John Gregg, who had been
formerly minister at Skirling, in Peeblesshire, was
apprehended and imprisoned in the Tolbooth for
house of his
that he died, was sentenced to be scourged on her
bare back from the Tolbooth of Edinburgh to the
Nether Bow, and from the Tolbooth of Leith to
the door of Isabel Lesly, and from there to the
brother-in-law
at Leith Mills.
Bass, to be detained
there
among many
other sufferers
for conscience
the Bass for “ abusing and railing ’I at Mr. Thomas
Wilkie, minister of North Leith, but in the May
of the same year he was brought back to Leith,
and thrust into the Tolbooth, where he lay for
quired for service in Leith. In 1763, a thief, who
was discovered in a peculiar manner, became, till
tried, an inmate of this old prison,
A Scottish sailor, who had served on board the
In 1678, Fi
:Ill c- - Hector Allan, -
a Quaker seaman
in Leith, TOLBOOTH wy
TABLET OF THsee.
In April, 1713, a prisoner named Jean Ramsay,
who had dragged a weak and infirm man from his
bed in the house of Isabel Lesly in Leith, near
the South Church, and used him with such severity
the water, and he found it to be his own.
The subsequent inquiry did not prove pleasant
to the half-drowned thief, who was forthwith taken
into custody, and committed to the Tolbooth.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p048.gif "Volume 6 Page 229")
... THE OLD TOLBCTOTH. 229
During the persecution under the Duke of
Lauderdale, Mr. John Gregg, who had ...
Vol. 6 p. 229 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [St. Giles's Church.
establishment, and Maitland gives us a roll of the
forty ...
Vol. 1 p. 140 (Rel. 0.26)
... FIRST THOROUGHFARE. Leith1
THE KIRKGATE.
CHAPTER XXIII.
LEITH - THE KIRKGATE.
The Kirkgate-Eastside-Tavern ...
Vol. 6 p. 213 (Rel. 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig,
Baron Norton was remarkable for his constant
attention to all religious ...
Vol. 5 p. 128 (Rel. 0.26)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. cst. Andrew Sq-
ST. ANDREW SQUARE,
The Royal Eank of Scotland.
The Scottish Provident ...
Vol. 3 p. 172 (Rel. 0.26)
![Leith.] THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in repair, for holding wines and
other provisions for the king's use.
This Bernard Lindsay it was whom Taylor
mentions in his '' Penniless Pilgrimage " as having
Moreover, the King's Wark was placed most
advantageously at the mouth of the harbour, to
serve as -a defence against any enemy who might
approach it from the seaward. It thus partook
somewhat of the character of a citadel; and this
BERNARD STREET.
given him so warm a welcome at Leith in
1618.
That some funds were derivable from the King's
Wark to the Crown is proved by the frequent
payments with which it was burdened by several
of our monarchs. Thus, in the year 1477 James
111. granted out of it a perpetual annuity of twelve
marks Scots, for support of a chaplain to officiate
at the altar of c'the upper chapel in the collegiate
church of the Blessed Virgin Mary at
Restalrig."
seems to have been implied by the infeftment
granted by Queen Mary in 1564 to John Chisho!ia,
Master or Comptroller of the Royal Artillery,
who would appear to have repaired the buildings
which, no doubt, shared in the general conflagrations
that signalised the English invasions of 1544
and 1547. and the queen, on the completion
of his work, thus confirms her grant to the
comptroller :-
U Efter Her Heinis lauchful age, and revocation
made in parIiament, hir majestie sett in feu farme](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p056.gif "Volume 6 Page 237")
... THE KING'S WARK. 237
~
Arnot adds. It was to keep one of the cellars in
the King's Wark in ...
Vol. 6 p. 237 (Rel. 0.26)
![Holyrood.] THE ABBEY CHURCH IN RUINS. 59
and cannon were two ship’s masts, fully rigged,
one on the right bearing the Scottish flag, another
on the left bearing the English. ‘‘ Above all these
rose the beautiful eastem window, shedding a flood
of light along the nave, eclipsing the fourteen
windows of the clerestory. The floor was laid
with ornamental tiles, some portions of which are
yet preserved.”
In the royal yacht there came to Leith from
London an altar, vestments, and images, to complete
the restoration of the church to its ancient uses.
As if to hasten on the destruction of his house,
James VII., not content with securing to his
Catholic subjects within the precincts of Holyrood
that degree of religious toleration now enjoyed
by every British subject, had mass celebrated there,
and established a college of priests, whose rules
were published on the zznd of March, 1688, inviting
people to send their children there, to be
educated gratis, as Fountainhall records. He also
appointed a Catholic printer, named Watson (who
availed himself of the protection afforded by the
sanctuary) to be “ King‘s printer in Holyrood ;”
and obtained a right from the Privy Council
to print all the “ prognostications at Edinburgh,”
an interesting fact which accounts for the number
of old books bearing Holyrood on their
title-pages. Prior to all this, on St. Andrew’s
Day, 30th November, the whole church was
sprinkled with holy water, re-consecrated, and a
sermon was preached in it by a priest named
Widerington.
Tidings of the landing of William of Orange
roused the Presbyterian mobs to take summary vengeance,
and on being joined by the students of the
University, they assailed the palace and chapel royal.
The guard, IOO strong-“ the brats of Belia1”-
under Captain Wallace, opened a fire upon them,
killing twelve and wounding many more, but they
were ultimately compelled to give way, and the
chapel doors were burst open. The whole interior
was instantly gutted and destroyed, and
the magnificent throne, stalls, and orgab, were
ruthlessly tom down, conveyed to the Cross, and
there consigned to the flames, amid the frantic
shrieks and yells of thousands. Not content with
all this, in a spirit of mad sacrilege, the mob, now
grown lawless, burst into the royal vault, tore some
of the leaden coffins asunder, and, according to
Amot, camed off the lids.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the rooG
which had become ruinous, was restored with flagstones
in a manner too ponderous for the ancient
arches, which gave way beneath the superincumbent
weight on the 2nd of December, 1768; and again
the people of Edinburgh became seized by a spirit
of the foullest desecration, and from thenceforward,
until a comparafively recent period, the ruined
church remained open to all, and was appropriated ‘
tu the vilest uses. Grose thus describes what he
saw when the rubbish had been partly cleared
away :-“ When we lately visited it we saw in the
middle of the chapel the columns which had been
borne down by the weight of the roof. Upon
looking into the vaults which were open, we found
that what had escaped the fury of the mob at the
Revolution became a prey to the mobwho ransacked
it after it fell. In A.D. 1776 we had seen the body
of James V. and others in their leaden coffins;
the coffins are now stolen. The head of Queen
Margaret (Magdalene?), which was then entire, and
even beautiful, and the skull of Damley, were also
stolen, and were last traced to the collection of a
statuary in Edinburgh.”
In 1795 the great east window was blown out
in a violent storm, but in 1816 was restored from
its own remains, which lay scattered about on the
ground. In the latter year the north-west tower,
latterly used as a vestry, was still covered by an
ogee leaden roof.
The west front of what remains, though the W0i-k
perhaps of different periods, is in the most beautiful
style of Early English, and the boldly-cut heads
in its sculptured arcade and rich variety of ornament
in the doorway are universally admired.
The windows above it were additions made so
latelyas the time of Charles I., and the inscriptions
which that upfortunate king had carved on the
Ornamental tablet between them is a striking illustration
of the vanity of human hopes. One runs :-
Ultimately this also fell.
“Basiluam ham, Carolus Rex, @firnus imtaxravit, 1633.”
The other :-
“HE SHALL ESTABLISH ANE HOUSE FOR MY NAME, AND I
WILL ESTABLISH THE THRONE OF HIS KINGDOM FOR
EVER.”
In the north-west tower is amarble monument to
Robert, Viscount Belhaven, who was interred there
in January, 1639. His nephews, Sir Archibald and
Sir Robert Douglas, placed there that splendid
memorial to perpetuate hisvirtues as a man and
steadiness as a patriot. A row of tombs of Scottish
nobility and others lie in the north aisle. The
Roxburgh aisle adjoins the royal vault in the
south aisle, and in front of it lies the tomb of the
Countess of Errol, who died in 1808. Close by.
it is that of the Bishop of Orkney, already referred
to. “ A flattering inscription enumerates the.
bishop’s titles, and represents this worldly hypocrite](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p071.gif "Volume 3 Page 59")
... THE ABBEY CHURCH IN RUINS. 59
and cannon were two ship’s masts, fully rigged,
one on the right ...
Vol. 3 p. 59 (Rel. 0.26)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Scotland. But it does not appear that any of
this family ever sat in Parliament. The title ...
Vol. 6 p. 316 (Rel. 0.25)
... 14 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. . [Castle Terrace.
Place, and now chiefly used as a coal dep8t.
Some of the merchants ...
Vol. 4 p. 214 (Rel. 0.25)
... 1,,firwry Strert.1 1NFIRMARY SUGGESTED.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE OLD ROYAL INFIRMARY-SURGEON SQUARE.
The Old Royal ...
Vol. 4 p. 297 (Rel. 0.25)
... 283, 335, 343 343
III, 140; dew of, II. 169
vanous buildings in, 11. 172; it!
early residents, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 389 (Rel. 0.25)
... the street, reached Holyrood, where he
sought sanctuary in the chapel of St. Augustine;
there his English ...
Vol. 3 p. 53 (Rel. 0.25)
... with legends, dates, and coats of arms,
for ages formed one of the most important features
of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 32 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Some English writers have denied that Henry
was ever in Edinburgh at any ...
Vol. 4 p. 234 (Rel. 0.25)
... 48 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. LCowgate.
the historian) became senior minister of the Cowgate
chapel.
One of his ...
Vol. 4 p. 248 (Rel. 0.25)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Victoria Terrace. 292
of subscribers, and is transferable under certain
rules.
Judging ...
Vol. 2 p. 292 (Rel. 0.25)
![North Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan Hospital-Its Foundation. Object, and Removal-Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel-Her Disputes with the Presbytery-Dr. SnelI
Jones-Demolition of the Chapel and School-Old Physic Gardens Formed-The Gardens-Sir Andrew Balfm-James Sutherland-
Inundated in x68pSutherland‘s Efforts to Improve the Gardcn-Professor Hope.
ABOUT IOO feet east of the bridge, and the same
distance south of the theatre which Whitefield
to his dismay saw built in the park of the Orphan
Hospital, stood the latter edifice, the slender,
pointed spire of which was a conspicuous object in
this quarter of the city.
A hospital for the maintenance and education
of orphan children was originally designed by Mr.
Andrew Gardiner, merchant, and some other
citizens, in 1732. The suggestion met with the
approval of the Society for the Propagation of
Christian Knowledge, then located in what was
anciently named Bassandyne’s Close ; and it was
moreover assisted by liberal subscriptions and
collections at the church doors. At first a house
was hired, and thirty orphans placed in it. According
to Maitland, in November, 1733, the
hospital was founded; it stood 340 feet northwest
of the Trinity College Church, and in its
formation a part of the burial ground attached to
the latter was used.
In 1738 the Town Council granted the hospital
a seal of cause, and in 1742 they obtained royal
letters patent creating it a corporation, by which
most of the Scottish officers of State, and the heads
of different societies in Edinburgh, are constituent
members. This chanty is so extensive in its
benevolence, that children from any part of the
British Empire have the right of admission, SO far
as the funds will admit-indigence, and the
number of children in a poor family being the
None, however, are admitted under the age of
seven, or retained after they are past fourteen, as
at that time of life the managers are seldom at a
loss to dispose of them, “the young folks,” says
Arnot, “ choosing to follow trades, and the public
entertaining so good an opinion of the manner in
which they have been brought up, that manufacturers
and others are very ready to take them into
their employment. There are about,” he adds, in
1779, “one hundred orpham maintained in this
hospital.”
This number was increased in 1781, when Mr.
Thomas Tod, merchant in Edinburgh, became
treasurer. It was then greatly enlarged for the
better accommodation of the children, ‘‘ and to
enable them to perform a variety of work, from the
. best title to it.
produce of which the expenses of their education
and maintenance were lessened, and healthy and
cheerful exercise furnished, suitable to their years.”
It is remarkable,” says Kincaid, “ that from
January, 1784, to January, 1787, out of from 130 to
140 young children not one has died. A particular
account of the rise, progress, present state,
and intended enlargement of this hospital was
publisted by the treasurer (Mr. Tod), wherein is a
print of the elevation, with two wings,.which the
managers intend to build so soon as the funds will
permit, when there will be room for zoo orphans.”
In its slender spire hung two bells, and therein
also stood the ancient clock of the Netherbow
Port, now in use at the Dean.
The revenues were inconsiderable, and it was
chiefly supported by benefactions and collections
made at the churches in the city. Howard, the
philanthropist, who visited it more than once, and
made himself acquainted with the constitution and
management of this hospital, Acknowledged it to be
one of the best and most useful charities in Europe.
A portrait of him hangs in the new Orphan Hospital
at the Dean, the old building we have described
having been removed in 1845 by the operations
of the North British Railway, and consequently
being now a thing of the past, like the chapel of
Lady Glenorchy, which shared the same fate at the
same time.
This edifice stood in the low ground, between
the Orphan Hospital and the Trinity College
Church, about 300 feet eastward of the north arch
of the Bridge.
Wilhelmina Maxwell, Viscountess Dowaget of
John Viscount Glenorchy, who was a kind of
Scottish Countess of Huntingdon in her day, was
the foundress of this chapel, which was a plain,
lofty stone building, but neatly fitted up- within
with two great galleries, that ran round the sides
of the edifice, and was long a conspicuous object
to all who crossed the Bridge. It was seated for
2,000 persons, and the middle was appropriated to
the poor, who sat there gratis to the number of
some hundreds. ‘‘ Whether,” says Arnot, “before
Lady Glenorchy founded this institution there were
churches sufficient for accommodating the inhabitants
we shall not pretend to determine. Such,
indeed, is the demand for seats, and so little arg](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p179.gif "Volume 2 Page 359")
... Bridge.] THE ORPHAN HOSPITAL 359
c
CHAPTER XLVI:
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE (concZdeJJ.
The Old Orphan ...
Vol. 2 p. 359 (Rel. 0.25)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
This marriage is also referred to by Nisbet in
his Heraldry,” Vol. I., so ...
Vol. 6 p. 248 (Rel. 0.25)
![Hawthornden,] HAWTHORNDEN. 353
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-THE @' 'PRENTICE PILLAR." (From a Phtogra#h by G. W. WiAm Ct Co.)
CHAPTER XLII.
THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH-(codinwed).
Hawthornden-The Abernethys-The Drummonds-The Cavalier and Poet-The Cavern+Wallace's Cave and Camp-Count Lockhart's
Monument-Captain Philip Lockhart of Dryden--Lauwade-The Ancient Church-The Coal Seams-"The Gray Brother "--soolt-De
Quincey-Clerk of Eldin.
HAWTHORNDEN, the well-known seat of the Drummond
family, stands on the south bank of the
North Esk, amidst exquisitely picturesque and
romantic scenery. Constructed with reference to
strength, it surmounts to the very edge a grey and
almost insulated cliff, which starts perpendicularly
up from the brawling river. There it is perched
high in air amid a wooded ravine, through which
the Esk flows between two walls of lofty and
141
abrupt rock, covered by a wonderful profusion of
foliage, interwoven with festoons of ivy-a literal
jungle of mosses, ferns, and creepers. The greatest
charm of the almost oppressive solitude is due
to the bold variety of outline, and the contrast of
colour, which at every spot the landscape exhibit.
On the summit of that insulated rock are still
the ruins of a fortalice of unknown antiquity4
vaulted tower, fifteen feet square internally, with](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p172.gif "Volume 6 Page 353")
... HAWTHORNDEN. 353
ROSLIN CHAPEL :-THE @' 'PRENTICE PILLAR." (From a Phtogra#h by G. W. ...
Vol. 6 p. 353 (Rel. 0.25)
![Holyrood.] SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47
between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and
Sir William Oliphant, in connection with the forfeited
estate of William of Monte Alto. Another
species of Parliament was held at Holyrood on
the 10th of February, in the year 1333-4, when
Edward 111. received the enforced homage of his
creature Baliol.
XVI. JOHN II., abbot, appears as a witness to
three charters in 1338, granted to William of
Livingston, William of Creighton, and Henry of
Brade (Braid?).
XVII. BARTHOLOMEW, abbot in 1342.
XVIII. THOMAS, abbot, witnessed a charter to
William Douglas of that ilk, Sir James of Sandilands,
and the Lady Elenora Bruce, relict of Alexander
Earl of Carrick, nephew of Robert I., of the
lands of the West Calder. On the 8th of May,
1366, a council was held at Holyrood, at which the
Scottish nobles treated with ridicule and contempt
the pretensions of the kings of England, and sanctioned
an assessment for the ransom of David II.,
taken prisoner at the battle of Durham. That
monarch was buried before the high altar in 1371,
and Edward 111. granted a safe conduct to certain
persons proceeding to Flanders to provide for the
tomb in which he was placed.
XIX. JOHN III., abbot on the 11th of January,
~372. During his term of office, John of Gaunt
Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III., was
hospitably entertained at Holyrood, when compelled
to take flight from his enemies in England.
XX. DAVID, abbot on the 18th of January, in
the thirteenth year of Robert 11. The abbey was
burned by the armyof Richard 11. whose army
encamped at Restalrig; but it was soon after
repaired. David is mentioned in a charter dated
at Perth, 1384-5.
XXI. JOHN (formerly Dean of Leith) was abbot
on the 8th of May, 1386. His name occurs in
several charters and other documents, and for the
last time in the indenture or lease of the Canonmills
to the city of Edinburgh, 12th September,
1423. In his time Henry IV. spared the monastery
in gratitude for the kindness of the monks to
his exiled father John of Gaunt.
XXII. PATRICK, abbot 5th September, 1435.
In his term of office James II., who had been born
in the abbey, was crowned there in his sixth year,
on the 25th March, 1436-7; and anothet high
ceremony was performed in the same church when
Mary of Gueldres was crowned -as Queen Consort
in July, 1449. In the preceding year, John Bishop
of Galloway elect became an inmate of the abbey,
and was buried in the cloisters.
XXIII. JAMES, abbot 26th April, 14~0.
XXIV. ARCHIBALD CRAWFORD, abbot in 1457.
He was son of Sir William‘ Crawford of Haining,
and had previously been Prior of Holytood. In
1450 he was one of the commissioners who treated
with the English at Coventry concerning a truce ;
and again in 1474, concerning a marriage between
James Duke of Rothesay and the Princess Cecile,
second daughter of Edward IV. of England. He
was Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in 1480.
He died in 1483. On the abbey church (according
to Crawford) his arms were carved niore than
thirty times. “He added the buttresses on the
walls of the north and south aisles, and probably
built the rich doorway which opens into the north
aisle.” Many finely executed coats armorial are
found over the niches, among them Abbot Crawford’s
frequently- fesse ermine, with a star of five
points, in chief, surmounted by an abbot’s mitre
resting on a pastoral staff.
XXV. ROBERT BELLENDEN, abbot in 1486,
when commissioner concerning a truce with
England. He was still abbot in 1498, and his
virtues are celebrated by his namesake, the archdean
of Moray, canon of ROSS, and translator of
Boece, who says ‘‘ he left the abbey, and died ane
Chartour-monk.” In 1507 the Papal legate presented
James IV., in the name of Pope Julius II.,
in the church, amid a brilliant crowd of nobles,
with a purple crown adorned by golden lilies, and
a sword of state studded with gems, which is still
preserved in the Castle of Edinburgh. He also
brought a bull, bestowing upon James the title of
Defender of the Faith. Abbot Bellenden, in 1493,
founded a chapel in North Leith, dedicated to St.
Ninian, latterly degraded into a victual granary
The causes moving the abbot to build this chapei,
independent of the spiritual wants of the people,
were manifold, as set forth in the charter of
erection. The bridge connecting North and South
Leith, over which he levied toll, was erected at the
same time.
XXVI. GEORGE CRICHTOUN, abbot in 1515,
and Lord Privy Seal, was promoted to the see of
Uunkeld in 1528. As we have recorded elsewhere,
he was the founder of the Hospital of St. Thomas,
near the Water Gate. An interesting relic of his
abbacy exists at present in England.
About the year 1750, when a grave was being
dug in the chancel of St Stephen’s church, St.
Albans, in Hertfordshire, there was found buried
in the soil an ancient lectern bearing his name, and
which is supposed to have been concealed there at
some time during the Civil Wars. It is of cast
brass, and handsonie in design, consisting of an eagle
with expanded wings, supported by a shaft deco-
The piers still remain.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p059.gif "Volume 3 Page 47")
... SUCCESSION. OF ABBOTS. 47
between Randolph the famous’ Earl of Moray and
Sir William Oliphant, in ...
Vol. 3 p. 47 (Rel. 0.25)
![coate3 Street.] ST, MARY’S CATHEDRAL 211
ward of Princes Street, this estate includes the sites
of Coates Crescent, Melville,Walker, Stafford Streets,
and other thoroughfares, yielding a rental of aboul
&zo,ooo yearly, and representing a capital oi
~400,000, the whole of which, in 1870, was be
queathed by the late Misses Walker of Coates and
Drumsheugh, for the erection of a cathedral for the
Scottish Episcopal Church, dedicated to St. Maq
facing the west end of Melville Street.
Miss Mary Walker-the last of an old Episcopalian
family-died in 1871, her sister Barbara having
pre-deceased her. The foundation-stone was laid
with impressive ceremony, by the Duke of Buccleuchj
assisted by some zoo clergy and laymen 01
the Episcopal communion on the zIst of May, 1874;
and when fully completed it will be the largest and
most beautiful church that has been erected in
Scotland, or perhaps in Great Britain since the
Reformation. The total cost, when finished, will
be about .&132,567.
The architect, Sir Gilbert Scott, founded his
design on the early Pointed style of architecture.
The axis of this cathedral coincides with the
centre of Melville Street, its site being immediately
to the south of Coates House, the sole example of
an old Scottish mansion surviving in the New Town.
The form adopted is that of a cruciform church, the
general effect being enhanced by the introduction
to the central tower of two minor, though still lofty,
towers at the western end. The plan embraces a
choir with north and south aisles ; at the intersection
of the transepts rises the central or rood tower,‘z75
feet inheight; the total length of the edifice externally
is 278 feet 2 inches, and the breath 98 feet 6 inches.
The choir is 60 feet 9 inches long and 29 broad,
with aisles 16 feet wide, divided into two great and
four minar bays by beautifully clustered columps.
From the floor to the key-stones of the vaulting,
which is all of stone, the height is 58 feet. The
transepts, which project by one ‘bay beyond the
nave and choir, are .35 feet 4 inches long, by 30
feet g inches broad, with aisles above 13 feet wide.
This unusual proportion of breadth -was given to
the transepts to provide ample accommodation for
congregational purposes. To the north of the north
chancel aisle is the library, an apartment measuring
30 feet by I 9 feet. The main entrance of the church
is from Palmerston Place, opposite what are grotesquely
named Grosvenor Gardens. This elevation
is the most imposing modern Gothic fapde in Scotland,
severe in its purity, and rich in elaboration.
The most important features here are the portal and
great west window. The shafts and flanking arches
of the former are of red granite, from Shap in Westmoreland,
harmonising well with the fine nunmore
and Polmaise freestone of which the edifice i s built.
In the vesica of the centre pediment is a seated
figure of the Saviour, supporting with the left hand
a lamb, and with the outstretched right holding a
key. Around is the legend :-
SALVABITUR”
“EGO SUM OSTIUM; PER ME SI QUIS INTROIERIT
In the spandrils are figures of St. Peter and
John the Baptist. Below this grouping are ranged
along the door lintel angels bearing a scroll inscribed-
“TU ES CHRISTUS FILIUS DEI.”
The side elevations of the nave present the
usual features of the early Pointed style, the walls
of the aisle being substantially buttressed, dividing
the length into five bays, in each of which is a
double window. Above the clerestory runs a bold
cotnice, and from the wall head there springs a high
pitched roof. In the gable of the south transept is
anotherportal, the mouldings of which are exquisitely
carved. The window consists of three lancets separated
by massively clustered buttress shafts. Above
it is a rose window 24 feet in diameter, filled
in with geometrical tracery. Above it are five
pointed niches, containing statues of St. Paul and
St. Luke, Titus, Silas, and Timotheus.
the gable of the north transept has some features
peculiarly its own. The wheel window, 24 feet
in diameter, is of a later period than that in the
south gable, Over it is a statue of David. As
usual in cathedrals, the choir has been treated
with greater elaboration of design and detail than
the nave, especially in the triforium and clerestory.
The gable fronting Melville Street is nearly
occupied by a triple lancet window, the apex of
the arches being 54 feet from the ground. Above
is an arcade, the arches of which are filled by
statues of the mother of our Lord and the four
Evangelists. In the vesica is a figure of the
Saviour surrounded by angels in the act of adoration.
The four shafted and clustered pillars of the roodtower,
though framed to support a superincumbent
mass of no less than 6,000 tons, are finely proportioned
and even light in appearance. The tower
rises square from the roof in beautiful proportions,
the transition to the octagonal form taking place
at the height of 120 feet from the foundation.
Viewed from any point, the nave, with its longdrawn
aisles and interlacing arches, has a peculiarly
p n d and impressive effect. Designed in the
style of the twelfth century, the font stands in the
baptistery under the south-west tower. It is
massive, of yellowish alabaster streaked with red
Though treated in a somewhat similar manner, ,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p031.gif "Volume 4 Page 211")
... Street.] ST, MARY’S CATHEDRAL 211
ward of Princes Street, this estate includes the sites
of Coates ...
Vol. 4 p. 211 (Rel. 0.25)
![Greyfriars Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved their
escape, but many died. All this, at the hands of their
own countrymen, these poor people had to endurethe
stubborn Scottish peasant, with his pride and
rectitude of heart, his tender, it might be weak and
ailing wife, with his infants and his aged parents.
to administer to the wants of the prisoners there
was one lady who was wont to come attended by
a young daughter possessed of considerable personal
attractions. Periodically they came to the iron gate
with food and raiment, collected among the charitable,
and between the young lady and one of the
A ROYAL EDINBURGH VOLUNTEER. (p?W7?J a Print Of tk Psriod.)
Some who signed a bond never to take up arms
against the Government were released ; others
found rest amid the graves on which they lay;
the remainder, to the number of two hundred and
fifty-seven, were sent to be sold as slaves in Barbadoes,
Jamaica, and New Jersey, but many were
drowned at sea
“ From the gloom of this sad story there is shed
one ray of romance,” says Chambers, in his ‘‘ Traditions.”
Among the sympathising people who dared
B6
younger captives an attachment sprang up.
Doubtless she loved him for the dangers he had
dared, and he loved her because she pitied them.
In happier days, long after, when their constancy
had been well tried by an exile which he suffered
in the plantations, this pair were married and settled
in Edinburgh, where they had sons and daughters.
A respectable elderly citizen,” adds Chambers,
‘‘ tells me he is descended from them”
After the Duke of Albany and York came, as](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p197.gif "Volume 4 Page 377")
... Church.] PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS. 371
guards, and a few, driven almost mad, achieved ...
Vol. 4 p. 377 (Rel. 0.25)
![The Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the head of the bank, and so
going down to the said North Loch,” &c.
This right of proprietary seems clear enough,
yet Lord Neaves decided in favour of the Crown,
and found that the ground adjacent to the
Castle of Edinburgh, including the Esplanade and
the north and south banks or braes,” belonged,
(‘jure coronte, to Her Majesty as part and pertinent
of the said Castle.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE CASTLE HILL (cmclded).
Dr. Guthrie’s Original Ragged School-Old Houses in the Streetof the Castle Hill-Duke of Gordon’s House, Blair’s Close-Webster‘s
CloscDr. Alex. Webster-Boswell’s Court-Hyndford House-Assembly Hall-Houses of the Marquis of Argyle, Sir Andrew Kcnnedy,
the Earl of Cassillis, the Laird of Cockpen--Lord Semple’s House-Lord Semple-Palace of Mary of Gub-Its Fate.
ON the north side of this thoroughfare-which,
within 150 years ago, was one of the most
aristocratic quarters of the old city-two great
breaches have been made: one when the Free
Church College was built in 1846, and the other, a
little later, when Short’s Observatory was built in
Ramsay Lane, together with the Original Ragged
School, which owes its existence to the philanthropic
efforts of the late Dr. Guthrie, who, with
Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, took
so leading a part in the pon-intrusion controversy,
which ended in the disruption in 1843 and the
institution of the Free Church of Scotland. In 1847
Guthrie’s fervent and heart-stirring appeals on behalf
of the homeless and destitute children, the little
street Arabs of the Scottish capital, led to the
establishment of the Edinburgh Original Ragged
Industrial School, which has been productive of
incalculable benefit to the children of the poorer
classes of the city, by affording them the blessing of
a good common and Christian education, by training
them in habits of industry, enabling them to
earn an honest livelihood, and fitting them for
the duties of life,
All children are excluded who attend regular
day-schools, whose parents have a regular income,
or who receive support or education from the parochial
board; and the Association consists of all subscribers
of 10s. and upwards per annum, or donors
of A5 and upwards; and the general plan upon
which this ragged school and its branch establishment
at Leith Walk, are conducted is as follows,
viz.:-“To give children an adequate allowance of
food for their daily support; to instruct them in
reading, writing, and arithmetic ; to train them in
habits of industry, by instructing and employing
them in such sorts of work as are suited to their
years; to teach them the truths of the Gospel,
making the Holy Scriptures the groundwork of
instruction. On Sabbath the children shall receive
food as on other days, and such religious instruction
as shall be arranged by the acting committee,”
which consists of not less than twelve members.
To this most excellent institution no children
are admissible who are above fourteen or under five
years of age, and they must either be natives of
Edinburgh or resident there at least twelve months
prior to application for admission, though, in special
cases, it may be limited to six. None are admitted
or retained who labour under infectious disease, or
whose mental or bodily constitution renders them
incapable of profiting by the institution. All must ,
attend church on Sunday, and no formula of
doctrine is taught to which their parents may
object ; and children are excused from attendance
at school or worship on Sunday whose parents
object to their attendance, but who undertake that
the children are otherwise religiously instructed in
the tenets of the communion to which they belong,
provided they are in a condition to be entrusted
with the care of their children.
Such were the broad, generous, and liberal views
of Dr. Guthne, and most ably have they been
carried out.
According to the Report for 187g-which may
be taken as fairly typical of the work done in this
eminently useful institution-there was an average
attendance. in the Ramsay Lane Schools of 216
boys and 89 girls. The Industrial Department
comprises carpentry, box-making, shoemaking, and
tailoring, and the net, profits made by the boys
in these branches amounted to &;I& 14s. 5+d.
Besides this the boys do all the washing, help the
cook, make their beds, and wash the rooms they
occupy twice a week. The washing done by boys
was estimated at A130, and the girls, equally
industrious, did work to the value (including the
washing) of A109 7s.
Full of years and honour, Dr. Thomas Guthne
died 24th February, 1873.
Memories of these old houses that have passed
away, yet remain, while on the opposite side of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p099.gif "Volume 1 Page 87")
... Castle Hill.] THE RAGGED SCHOOL. 87
the said burgh situated under the Castle Hill t+
wards the north, to the ...
Vol. 1 p. 87 (Rel. 0.24)
![The water of Leith.] GEORGE RANKINE LUKE 81
memoir of him was prefixed by Dr. Leonhard
Schmitz to his last work, which was published six
years after his death, which occurred in his seventyfourth
year, at No. 21, St. Bernard’s Crescent, on
the 9th of July, 1859.
Academy, everywhere bearing off more prizes than
any of his contemporaries. Leaving the last in
1853, he w’ent to the University of Glasgow, and
at the close of the first session, when in his. seventeenth
year, he carried off the two gold medals
ST. STEPHEN’S CHURCH.
Our list of Stockbridge notabilities would be
incomplete were we to omit the name of one
whose fame, had he been spared, might have
been very glorious : young George Rankine Luke,
a Snell Exhibitioner at Baliol College, and one of
the most brilliant students at Oxford. Born in
Brunswick Street, in March, 1836, the son of Mr.
Tames Luke, a master baker, he passed speedily
through the ranks of the Hamilton Place Academy,
the Circus Place School, and the Edinburgh
107
for the senior Latin and Greek, three prizes for
Greek and Latin composition, the prize for the
Latin Blackstone, and the Muirhead prize. The
close of the second year saw him win the medal
for the Greek Blackstone, the highest classical
honour the University offers, Professor Lushington’s
final Greek prize, another for Logic, and for
Composition four others.
In 1855, as a Snell Exhibitioner at Oxford, he
, rapidly gained the Gaisford prizes for Greek prose](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p092.gif "Volume 5 Page 81")
... water of Leith.] GEORGE RANKINE LUKE 81
memoir of him was prefixed by Dr. Leonhard
Schmitz to his last work, ...
Vol. 5 p. 81 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canangate.
~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~
house of the burgh. It was established by ...
Vol. 3 p. 20 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canangate.
~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~~~ ~
house of the burgh. It was established by ...
Vol. 3 p. 19 (Rel. 0.24)
... CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. -
CHAPTER I.
THE CANONGATE.
Its Origin-Songs concerning ...
Vol. 3 p. 1 (Rel. 0.24)
... made the ornate edifice we find it now, with
‘oriel windows and clustering turrets. He was
author of “The ...
Vol. 5 p. 50 (Rel. 0.24)
![Gnonpnte.] JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of “John
Paterson,” while the quatrain was the production
of Dr. Pitcairn, and is referred to in the first
volume of Gilbert Stuart’s Edinburgh Magazine
andRevim for 1774, and may be rendered thus:
--“In the year when Paterson won the prize in
golfing, a game peculiar to the Scots (in which his
ancestors had nine times won the same honour), he
then raised this mansion, a victory more honourable
than all the rest.”
According to tradition, two English nobles at
Holyrood had a discussion with the royal duke
as to the native country of golf, which he was
frequently in the habit of playing on the Links of
Leith with the Duke of Lauderdale and others,
and which the two strangers insisted to be an
English game as well, No evidence of this being
forthcoming, while many Scottish Parliamentary
edicts, some as old as the days of James II., in
1457, could be quoted concerning the said game,
the Englishmen, who both vaunted their expertness,
offered to test the legitimacy of their pretensions
on the result of a match to be played by them
against His Royal Highness and any other .Scotsman
he chose to select. After careful inquiry he
chose a man named John Paterson, a poor shoemaker
in the Canongate, but the worthy descendant
of a long line of illustrious golfers, and the association
will by no means surprise, even in the present
age, those who practise the game in the true old
Scottish spirit The strangers were ignominiously
beaten, and the heir to the throne had the best of
this practical argument, while Paterson’s merits
were rewarded by the stake played for, and he
built the house now standing in the Canongate.
On its summit he placed the Paterson arms-three
pelicans vuZned; on a chief three mullets ; crest,
a dexter-hand grasping a golf club, with the wellold
and well-known tradition, Chambers says, “it
must be admitted there is some uncertainty. The
house, the arms, and the inscriptions only indicate
that Paterson built the house after being victor at
golf, and that Pitcairn had a hand in decorating it.’’
In this doubt Wilson goes further, and believes
that the Golfers’ Land was Zmt, not won, by the
gambling propensities of its owner. It was acquired
by Nicol Paterson in 1609, a maltman in Leith,
and from him it passed, in 1632, to his son John
(and Agnes Lyel, his spouse), who died 23rd April,
1663, as appears by the epitaph upon his tomb in
the churchyard of Holyrood, which was extant in
Maitland’s time, and the strange epitaph on which
is given at length by Monteith. He would appear
to have been many times Bailie of the Canongate.
known mOttO-FAR AND SURE. Concerning this
Both Nicol and John, it may be inferred from the
inscriptions on the ancient edifice, were able and
successful golfers. The style of the bNilding, says
Wilson, confirms the idea that it had been rebuilt
by him “with the spoils, as we are bound to
presume, which he won on Leith Links, from ‘OUT
auld enemies of England.’ The title-deeds, however,
render it probable that other stakes had been
played for with less success. In 1691 he grants
a bond over the property for A400 Scots. This is
followed by letters of caption and hornhg, and
other direful symptoms of legal assault, which
pursue the poor golfer to his grave, and remain
behind as his sole legacy to his heirs.”
The whole tradition, however, is too serious to
be entirely overlooked, but may be taken by the
reader €or what it seems worth.
Bailie Paterson’s successor in the old mansion
was John, second Lord Bellenden of Broughton
and Auchnoule, Heritable Vsher of the Exchequer,
who married Mary, Countess Dowager of Dalhousie,
and daughter of the Earl of Drogheda. Therein
he died in 1704, and was buried in the Abbey
Church ; and as the Union speedily followed, like
other tenements so long occupied by the old
courtiers in this quarter, the Golfers’ Land became,
as we find it now, the abode of plebeians.
Immediately adjoining the Abbey Court-house
was an old, dilapidated, and gable-ended mansion
of no great height, but of considerable extent,
which was long indicated by oral tradition as the
abode of David Rizzio. It has now given place
to buildings connected with the Free Church of
Scotland. Opposite these still remain some of
the older tenements of this once patrician burgh,
distinguishable by their lofty windows filled in with
small square panes of glass ; and on the south side
of the street, at its very eastern end, a series of
pointed arches along the walls of the Sanctuary
Court-house, alone remain to indicate the venerable
Gothic porch and gate-house of the once famous,
Abbey of Holyrood, beneath which all that was
great and good, and much that was ignoble and
bad have passed and repassed in the days that are
no more.
. This edifice, of which views from the east and
west are still preserved, is supposed to have been
the work of “the good-Abbot Ballantyne,” who
rebuilt the north side of the church in 1490, and
to whom we shall have occasion to refer elsewhere.
His own mansion, or lodging, stood here on the
north side of the street, and the remains of it,
together With the porch, were recklessly destroyed
and removed by the Hereditary Keeper of the
Palace in 1753.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p023.gif "Volume 3 Page 11")
... JVHN PATERSON. I1
The latter is an anagram on the name of “John
Paterson,” while the quatrain was ...
Vol. 3 p. 11 (Rel. 0.24)
... by the hand of the Major-General commanding.
From the “ Archieologia Scotica ” we cull ...
Vol. 1 p. 56 (Rel. 0.24)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called ...
Vol. 6 p. 222 (Rel. 0.24)
... of the siege, he says, “ upon the twentieth
day, the principal block-house of Leith, called ...
Vol. 6 p. 223 (Rel. 0.24)
... .OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER VIII.
HOLYROOD ABBEY (mnrZu&d).
PAGE
Charter of W X i I.-Trial of the ...
Vol. 4 p. 386 (Rel. 0.24)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Mound
and ten elders, of whom five shall retire ‘by
rotation from year to year, ...
Vol. 3 p. 98 (Rel. 0.24)
![Newhaven.] REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and fourteen other
prisoners, ‘f Radicals ” who had been taken after
the skirmish at Bonny Bridge, by the 10th Hussars
and the Stirlingshire yeomanry. They had been
brought by water from the castle of Stirling, and
were conveyed to gaol from Newhaven in six carriages,
escorted by a macer of justiciary, and the
detachment of a Veteran Battalion.
In the following year, and while railways were
still in the womb of the future, the Scots Magazine
announces, that a gentleman who had left
Belfast on a Thursday, “reached Glasgow the
same evening, and embarked on board the Tounit
(steamer) at Newhaven on Friday, and arrived at
Aberdeen that night. Had such an event been
predicted fifty years ago, it would have been as
easy to make people believe that this journey would
have been accomplished by means of a balloon.”
About five hundred yards westward oi the stone
pier, a chain pier was constructed in the year 1821,
by Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown, of the
Royal Navy, at the cost of A4,ooo. It is five
hundred feet long, four feet wide, has a depth
at low water of from five to six feet, and served
for the use of the steam packets to Stirling,
Queensferry, and other places above and below
Leith; yet, being unable to offer accommodation for
the bulky steam vessels that frequent the harbour
of the latter or that of Granton, it is now chiefly
used by bathers, and is the head-quarters of the
Forth swimming club.
It was opened on the 14th of October, ISzr,
and was afterwards tested by a weight of twentyone
tons placed upon the different points of
suspension. In 1840 it became the property of
the Alloa Steam Packet Company.
In 1838 Newhaven was erected into a quoad
sma parish, by the aathority of the Presbytery .of
Edinburgh, when a handsome church was erected
for the use of the community, from a design by
John Henderson of Edinburgh.
Near it, in Main Street, is the Free Church,
designed in good Gothic style by James A. Hamilton
of Edinburgh, an elegant feature in the locality,
but chiefly remarkable for the ministry of the late
Rev. Dr. Fairbairn, who died in January, 1879-
a man who came of a notable race, as the wellknown
engineers of the same name were his
cousins, as was also Principal Fairbairn of Glasgow.
He was ordained minister at Newhaven in 1838.
The great majority of his congregation were fishermen
and their families, who were always keenly
sensible of the mode in which he prayed for those
who were exposed to the dangers of the deep.
During his long pastorate these prayers were.a
striking feature in his ministrations, and Charles
Reade, while residing in the neighbourhood, frequently
attended Newhaven Free Church, and has,
in his novel of “ Christie Johnstone,” given a lifelike
portrait of his demeanour when administering
consolation, after a case of drowning.
Perhaps the most useful of thii amiable old
pastor’s philanthropic schemes was that of the
reconstruction of the Newhaven fishing fleet. He
perceived early that the boats in use were wholly
unsuited for modem requirements, and some years
before his death he propounded a plan for replacing
them by others having decks, bunks, and
other compartments. As soon as a crew came forward
with a portion of the money required, Dr. Fairbairn
had no difficulty in getting the remainder
advanced. Thirty-three large new boats, each
costing about Lzso, with as much more for fishing
gear, were the result of his kindly labours. They
have all been prosperous, and hundreds of the
inhabitants of Newhaven, when they stood around
his grave, remembered what they owed to the
large-hearted and prudent benevolence of this old
ministei.
In 1864 a local committee was appointed for
the purpose of erecting a breakwater on the west
side of the present pier, so as to form a harbour
for the fishing craft. Plans and specifications
were prepared by Messrs. Stevenson, engineers,
Edinburgh, and the work was estimated at the
probable cost of L;~,OOO ; and while soliciting aid
from the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Trade,
and the ,magistrates of Edinburgh, the fishermen
honourably and promptly volunteered to convey ’
all the stonework necessary in their boats or otherwise
from the quarry at‘ Qleensferry.
The fishermen of Newhaven rarely intermany
With the women of other fisher communities ; and
a woman of any other class, unacquainted with the
cobbling of nets, baiting and preparation of lines,
the occasional use of a tiller or oar, would be useless
as a fisherman’s wife; hence their continued
intermarriages cause no small confusion in the
nomenclature of this remarkable set of people.
The peculiar melodious and beautiful cry of the
Newhaven oyster-woman-the last of the quaint
old Edinburgh street cries-is well known ; and so
also is their costume ; yet, as in time it may become
a thing of the past, we may give a brief description
of it here. “A cap of linen or cotton,’J says a
writer in Chambers’s EdinQurgh Journal, ‘‘ surmounted
by a stout napkin tied below the chin,
composes the investiture of the hood ; the showy
structures wherewith other females are adorned
,
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p122.gif "Volume 6 Page 303")
... REV. DR. FAIRBAIRN. 303
In 1820 there were landed at the old stone
pier of Newhaven, John Baud and ...
Vol. 6 p. 303 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. me Old High Schaol‘
display the dresses so used should be given to the
poor.”
For ...
Vol. 4 p. 290 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Uuhnsrone Terrace.
selection, without regard to the Government order of
merit. The ...
Vol. 2 p. 296 (Rel. 0.23)
... Bridge. __ 362 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Magazine (started in Edinburgh), and minister of’ son of Sir ...
Vol. 2 p. 362 (Rel. 0.23)
![Craigcrook.] HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands of Craigcrook appear to have belonged
in the fourteenth century to the noble family of
Graham. By a deed bearing date 9th April, 1362,
Patrick Graham, Lord of Kinpunt, and David
Graham, Lord of Dundaff, make them over to
John de Alyncrum, burgess of Edinburgh. He
in turn settled them on a chaplain officiating at
“Our Lady’s altar,” in the church of St. Giles,
and his successors to be nominated by the magistrates
of Edinburgh.
John de Alyncrum states his donation of those
lands of Craigcrook, was “ to be for the salvation
of the souls of the late king and queen (Robert
and Elizabeth), of the present King David, and of
all their predecessors and successors ; for the salvation
of the souls of all the burghers of Edinburgh,
their predecessors and successors ; of his own father
and mother, brothers, sisters, etc. ; then of himself
and of his wife; and, finally, of all faithful souls
deceased.”
The rental of Craigcrook in the year 1368 was
only A6 6s. 8d. Scots per annum; and in 1376 it
was let at that rate in feu farm, to Patrick and
John Lepars.
At an early period it became the property of
the Adamsons. William Adamson was bailie of
Edinburgh in 1513, and one of the guardians of
the city after the battle of Flodden, and Williim
Adamson of Craigcrook, burgess of Edinburgh
(and probably son of the preceding), was killed at
the battle of Pinkie, in 1547 ; and by him or his
immediate successors, most probably the present
castle was built-an edifice wbich Wood, in his
learned ‘‘ History of Cramond Parish,” regards
as one of the most ancient in the parish.
In consequence of the approaching Reformation,
the proceeds of the lands were no longer required
for pious purposes, and the latter were made over by
Sir Simon Prestonof Craigmillar, when Provost, to Sir
Edward Marj oribanks, styled Prebend of Craigcrook.
They were next held for a year, by George Kirkaldy,
brother of Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange in
Fifeshire, Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, who
engaged to pay for them A27 6s. 8d. Scots.
In June, 1542, they reverted again to Sir Edward
Majoribanks, who assigned them in perpetual feufarm
to William Adamson before-named. This
wealthy burgess had acquired much property in
the vicinity, including Craigleith, Cammo, Groat
Hall, Clermiston, Southfield, and part of Cramond
Regis. After Pinkie he was succeeded by his son
William, and Craigcrook continued to pass through
several generations of his heirs, till it came into
~~
the hands of Robert Adamson, who, in 1656, sold
to different persons the whole of his property.
Craigcrook was purchased by John Muir, merchant
in Edinburgh, whose son sold it to Sir John
Hall, Lord Provost of the city in 1689-92. He was
created a baronet in 1687, and was ancestor of the
Halls of Dunglass, on the acquisition of which, in
East Lothian, he sold Craigcrook to Walter Pringle,
advocate, from whose son it was purchased by John
Strachan, clerk to the signet.
When the latter died in 1719, he left the whole
of his property, with North Clermiston and the
rest of his fortune, both in land and movables
(save some small sums to his relations) ‘‘ mortified
for charitable purposes,”
The regulations were that the rents should be
given to poor old men and women and orphans ;
that the trustees should be “two advocates, two
Writers to the Signet, and the Presbytery of Edinburgh,
at the sight of the Lords of Session, and any
two of these members,” for whose trouble one
hundred merks yearly is allowed.
There are also allowed to the advocates, poor
fifty merks Scots, and to those of the writers to the
signet one hundred merks ; also twenty pounds
annually for a Bible to one of the members of the
Presbytery, beginning with the moderator and
going through the rest in rotation.
This deed is dated the 24th September, 1712.
The persons constituted trustees by it held a meeting
and passed resolutions respecting several
points which had not been regulated in the will. A
clerk and factor, each with a yearly allowance of
twenty pounds, were appointed to receive the
money, pay it out, and keep the books.
They resolved that no old person should be
admitted under the age of sixty-five, nor any orphan
above the age of twelve; and that no annuity
should exceed five pounds.
Among the names in a charter by William
Forbes, Provost of the Collegiate Church of St.
Giles, granting to that church a part of the ground
lying contiguous to his manse for a burial-place,
dated at Edinburgh, 14th January, 1477-8, there
appears that of Ricardus Robed, jrebena‘anks de
Cragmk mansepropie (“ Burgh Charters.”)
Over the outer gate of the courtyard a shield
bore what was supposed to have been the arms of
the Adamsons, and the date 1626 ; but Craigcrook
has evidently been erected a century before that
period. At that time its occupant was Walter
Adamson, who succeeded his father Willian~
Adamson in 1621, and whose sister, Catharine,
married Robert Melville of Raith, according to
the Douglas Peerage.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p118.gif "Volume 5 Page 107")
... HISTORY OF CRAIGCROOK. 107
summer residence of Lord Jeffrey-deeply secluded
amid coppice.
The lands ...
Vol. 5 p. 107 (Rel. 0.23)
![Bell’s Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the Canongate, in January)
1794, while that street and much of the neighbour.
hood around it were still the centre of the literaq
and fashionable society of the then secluded
capital of Scotland.
Thus she was old enough to have seen and
known many who were “ QUt with the Prince ” b
1745, and reminiscences of these people and 01
their days were ever a favourite theme with hei
when she had a sympathetic listener. “Old
maiden ladies,” she was wont to say, with a sort 01
sad pitifulness in her tone, “were the last lea1
Jacobites in Edinburgh ; spinsterhood in its loneli.
ness remained then ever true to Prince Charlit
and the vanished dreams of youth.” Lady Sinclaii
used to relate how in the old Episcopal Chapel in
the Cowgate, now St. Patrick‘s Church, the last
solitary representative of these Jacobite ladies nevei
failed to close her prayer-book and stand erect, in
d e n t protest, when the prayer for King George 111.
‘( and the reigning family ” was read in the Church
Service. Early in her girlhood her family removed
from St. John Street to Picardy Place, and the
following adventure, which she used to relate,
curiously evinces the difference between the social
customs of the early years of this century and those
of the present day.
“ Once, when she was returning from a ball, the
bearers of her sedan-chair had their bonnets carried
off by the wind, while the street oil-lamps were
blown out, and the ‘ Donalds ’ departed in pursuit
of their head-gear. It was customary in those
times for gentlemen to escort the sedan-chairs
that held their fair partners of the evening, and
the two gentlemen who were with her-the Duke
af Argyle and Sir John Clerk of Penicuickseized
hold of the spokes and carried her home.
‘Gentlemen were gentlemen in those days,’ she was
wont to add, ‘and Edinburgh was the proper
residence of the Scottish aristocracy-not an inn
.or a half-way house between London and the
Highland muirs.’ ”
In 1821 she was married to Mr. Sinclair, afterwards
Sir John Sinclair, Bart., of Dunbeath, and
for fifty years afterwards her home was at the
House of Barock, in Caithness, where her influence
among the poor was ever felt and gratefully
acknowledged. She was a staunch and
amusingly active Liberal, and, with faculties clear
and unimpaired in the last week of her long life,
noted and commented on Mr. Gladstone’s famous
“ hlidlothian speeches,” and rejoiced over his
success. She was always scrupulously dressed,
and in the drawing-room down to the day of
her death. She saw all her children die before
her, in early or middle life; her eldest, Colonel
Sinclair, dying in India in his forty-fifth year. After
Sir John’s death she settled in Edinburgh.
“I am the last leaf on the outmost bough,”
she was wont to say, “and want to fall where I
was born.” And so she passed away.
When she was interred within the Chapel Royal
at Holyrood, it was supposed that she would be one
of the last to whom that privilege would be accorded.
It was not so ; for the remains of James,
Earl of Caithness, who died in America, were laid
there in April, 1881.
The Dean, or Den, seems to have been the old
general name for the rocky hollow now spanned
by the stately bridge of Telford.
Bell’s Mills, a hamlet deep down in a grassy
glen, with an old bridge, aver which for ages lay
the only road to the Queensferry, and now overshadowed
by fashionable terraces and crescents, is
described by Kincaid in 1787 as a village, “one and
three-quarter niiles north-west of Edinburgh, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, and .a quarter
of a mile west of West Leith village.” * It received
its name from an old proprietor of the
flour-mills, which are still grinding there, and have
been long in existence. ‘‘ On Thursday night
last,” says the Zdinburgh Advertseer of 3rd January:
1764, “ the high wall at Bells Brae, near the
Water of Leith Bridge, fell down, by which accident
the footpath and part of the turnpike road are
carried away, which makes it hazardous for carriages.
This notice may be of use to those who have
occasion to pass that road.”
At the head of the road here, near the Dean
Bridge, is a Free Church, built soon after the
Disruption-a little edifice in the Saxon style, with
a square tower ; and a quaint little ancient crowstepped
building, once a toll-house, has built into
it some of the old sculpture from the Dean House.
At the foot of the road, adjoining Bell’s Mills
Bridge, are old Sunbury distillery and house, in a
lelta formed by the Leith, which sweeps under a
steep and well-wooded bank which is the boundary
3f the Dean Cemetery.
The Water of Leith village, which bears marks of
peat antiquity, is fast disappearing amid the enxoachments
of modern streets, and yet all that renains
of it, deep down in the rocky hollow, where
:he stream, flowing under its quaint old bridge,
3etween ancient mills, pours in a foaming sheet
wer a high, broad weir, is wonderfully striking
ind picturesque. Dates, inscriptions, crowstepped
:ables, and other features of the seventeenth
:entury, abound here in profusion.
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p074.gif "Volume 5 Page 63")
... Mills.] LADY SINCLAIR. 63
portray. She was born Margaret Learmouth, at
~ 6 , St John Street, in the ...
Vol. 5 p. 63 (Rel. 0.23)
... past there, and how to betray his mistres;
for they could not chuse a more fitte man than
him to do such ...
Vol. 2 p. 261 (Rel. 0.23)
... might be baptised in Protestant form,
The queen only replied by placing the child in
his arms. Then the ...
Vol. 1 p. 47 (Rel. 0.23)
![The Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the Sciennes.
The convent was erected under a Bull of Pope
Lax., and also by a charter of James V. This
Bull informs us that the convent was created
hough the influence of the families of Seton,
Lord Seton, refusing all offers of mamage, became
a nun at the Sciennes, and dying in her seventyeighth
year, was buried there, according to the
history of her house.
The chapel of St. John the Eaptist became
that of the new convent, which, up to the middle
MR. DUNCAN MCLAREN. (Froma Pkofo~roph &y/. G. Tunny.)
Douglas of Glenbervie, and Lauder of the Bass,
the land being given by the venerable Sir John
Crawford. The first prioress was the widowed
Lady Seton ; “ ane nobill and wyse Ladye,” says
Sir Richard hlaitland, “sche gydit hir sonnis
leving quhill he was cumit to age, and thereafter
she passit and remainit at the place of Senis, on
the Borrow Mure.” There she died in 1558, and
was buried in the choir of Seton church, beside
her husband, whose body had been brought from
Flodden.
Katharine, second daughter of George, fourth
of the skteenth century, received various augmentations-
among others, a tenement in the Cowgate.
The nuns made annual processions to the altar
of St. Katharine in St. Margaret’s Chapel at Liberton;
and it was remarked, says- the editor of
ArcAauZqia Scutica, that the man who demolished
the latter never prospered after.
In 1541 the magistrates took in feu from the
nuns their arable land, lying outside the Greyfriars’
Port, and, curious to say, it is on a portion of this
that the new Convent of St. Katharine was founded,
about 1860. Within the grounds on the north side](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p064.gif "Volume 5 Page 53")
... Saennes.] ST. KATHARINE’S CONVENT. 53
“Papingo,” makes Chastity flee for refuge to the
sisters of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 53 (Rel. 0.23)
... Giles.
elasticity which the nation displayed in its endless ’ naceus,” in the Harleian Collection in the ...
Vol. 1 p. 142 (Rel. 0.23)
![THE AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of the High Street, parallel to St.
Giles's church, from which they were separated
by a close and gloomy lane for foot passengers
alone, and the appellation was shared by the
opposite portion of the main street itself. This
singular obstruction, for such it was, existed from
among whom we may well include the well-known
firm of Messrs. M'Laren and Sons.
It was pierced in the middle by a passage called
the Auld Kirk Style, which led to the old north
door of St. Giles's, and there it was that in 1526
the Lairds of Lochinvar and Drumlanrig slew Sir
Thomas MacLellan of Bombie (ancestor of the
'
CREECH'S LAND. (Frmn an Ewaving ix Air "Fugitive Pircer.")
' the reign of James 111. till 1817, and the name is
supposed to have been conferred on the shops
in that situation as being close buuths, to distinguish
them from the open ones, which then lined the great
street on both sides, Zacken signifying close, thus
implying a certain superiority to the ancient traders
in these booths ; and it was considered remarkable
that amid all the changes of the old town there
is still in this locality an unusual proportion of
mercers, clothiers? and drapers, of very old standing,
a0
Lords Kirkcudbright), with whom they mere at
feud-an act for which neither of them was ever
questioned or punished.
Prior to the year 18 I I there remained unchanged
in the Luckenbooths two lofty houses of great
strength and antiquity, one of which contained
the town residence of Sir John Byres, Bart., of
Coates, an estate now covered by the west end of
new Edinburgh. He was a gentleman who made
a great figure in the city during the reign of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p165.gif "Volume 1 Page 153")
... AULD KIRK STYLE. I53 The Luckenbootha.]
turesque and heavily-eaved buildings, stood in the
thoroughfare of ...
Vol. 1 p. 153 (Rel. 0.23)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [ Burghmuir.
hollows are still discernible, and in them thc
Scots Foot Guards were ...
Vol. 5 p. 30 (Rel. 0.23)
... cross was raised, " In memory of Colonel
Kenneth Douglas Mackenzie, C.B., who served for
forty-two ...
Vol. 1 p. 80 (Rel. 0.23)
... to his new monastery were the churches
of St. Cuthbert. and of the Castle, among which
one plot of land ...
Vol. 1 p. 20 (Rel. 0.22)
![The Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83
massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched
roof, whilom the property of Sir John Smith, Provost
of the city in 1643, whose daughter figured
as the heroine of the strange story connected with
the legend of the Morocco Land in the Canongate,
and whose sister (Giles Smith) was wife of Sir
William Gray of Pittendrum.
St. Cuthbert’s Poorhouse, a great quadrangular
edifice, stands in the eastern vicinity of Craigleith
Quarry. It was built in 1866-7, at a cost of
jG40,000, and has amenities of situation and
elegance of structure very rarely associated with
a residence for the poor.
Eastward of Stockbridge, and almost forming an
integral part of it, lies the now nearly absorbed and
half extinct, but ancient, village of Silvermills, a secluded
hamlet once, clustering by the ancient milllade,
and which of old lay within the Earony of
Broughton. It was chiefly occupied by tanners,
whose branch of trade is still carried on there by
the lade, which runs under Clarence Street: through
the village, and passes on to Canonmills. Some of
the houses still show designs of thistles and roses
on gablets, With the crowsteps of the sixteenth
century.
A little to the west of St. Stephen’s Church, a
narrow lane leads downward to the village, passing
through what was apparently the main street, and
emerges at Henderson Row, so called from the
Lord Provost of that name. According to
Chambers, a walk on a summer day from the old
city to the village, a hundred years ago, was considered
a very delightful one, and much ‘adopted
by idlers, the roads being then through corn-fields
and pleasant nursery-grounds.
No notice, says Chambers, has ever been taken
of Silvermills in any of the books regarding Edicburgh,
nor has any attempt ever been made to
account for its somewhat piquant name. “I
shall endeavour to do so,” he adds. “In 1607
silver was found in considerable abundance at
Hilderstone, in Linlithgowshire, on the property of
the gentleman who figures as Tarn 0’ the Cowgate.
Thirty-eight barrels of ore were sent to the mint in
the Tower of London to be tried, and were found
to give twenty-four ounces of silver for every
hundredweight. Expert persons were placed upon
the mine, and mills were erected upon the Water
of Leith for the melting and fining the ore. The
sagacious owner gave the mine the name of Go8s
BZessing. By-and-bye the king heard of it, and,
thinking it improper that any such fountain of
wealth should belong to a private person, purchased
‘ God‘s Blessing’ for L~,OOO, that it might
be worked upon a larger scale for the benefit of
the public But somehow, from the time it left
the hands of the original owner, ‘ God’s Blessing’
ceased to be anything like so fertile as it had been,
and in time the king withdrew from the enterprise,
a great loser. The Silvermills I conceive to have
been a part of the abandoned plant.”
This derivation seems extremely probable, but
Wilson thinks the name may have originated in
some of the alchemical projects of James IV., or
his son, James V.
city,” says the Edinburgh Week& Magazine for
January, 1774, “we are informed of a very singular
accident. On the nights of the zznd, 23rd, and
24th inst., the Canonmills dam, by reason of the
intenseness of the frost, was so gorged with ice and
snow, that at last the water, finding no vent, stagnated
to such a degree that it overfIowed the
lower floors of the houses in Silvermills, which
obliged many of the inhabitants to remove to the
risi,ng grounds adjacent. One family in particular,
not perceiving their danger till they observed the
cradle with a child in it afloat, and all the furniture
swimming, found it necessary to make their
escape out of the back windows, and were carried
on horseback to dry land.”
St. Stephen’s Established Church, at the foot
of St. Vincent Street, towers in a huge mass over
Silvermills, and was built in 1826-8, after designs
by W. H. Playfair, It is a massive octagonal
structure in mixed Roman style, with a grand, yet
simple, entrance porch, and a square tower 165 feet
high. It contains above 1,600 sittings. The parish
was disjoined from the conterminous parishes in
1828 by the Presbytery of Edinburgh and the Teind
Court. Itwas opened on Sunday, the 20th December,
1828, when the well-known Dr, Brunton preached
to the Lord Provost and magistrates in their official
robes, and the Rev. Henry Grey officiated in the
afternoon.
In an old mansion, immediately behind where
this church now stands, were born Robert Scott
Lauder, R.S. A., and his brother, James Eckford
Lauder, RSA., two artists of considerable note in
their time. The former was born in 1803, and for
some years, after attaining a name, resided in.No. 7,
Carlton Street. A love of art was early manifested
by him, and acquaintance with his young neighbour,
David Roberts, fostered it. The latter instructed
him in the mode of mixing colours, and urged him
to follow art as a profession ; thus, in his youth he
entered the Trustees’ Academy, then under the
care of Mr. Andrew Wilson.
After this he went to London, and worked with
great assiduity in the British Museum. In 1826
“From Silvermills, a little northward of this .](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p094.gif "Volume 5 Page 83")
... Water of Leith.] THE LAUDERS. 83
massive little mansion of Groat Hall, with a thatched
roof, whilom the ...
Vol. 5 p. 83 (Rel. 0.22)
![The Water of Leith.] DANIEL STEWART. 67
with sword and sash, wig and cocked hat, queue
and ruffles. After looking at him steadily, but sadly,
the figure melted away; and, as usual with such
spectral appearances, it is alleged young Nisbet was
shot at the same moment, in an encounter with the
colonists.
In 1784 the Dean House was the residence of
Thomas Miller, Lord Barskimming, and Lord
Justice Clerk. In 1845 it was pulled down, when
the ground whereon it had stood so long was
acquired by a cemetery company, and now-save
the sculptured stones we have described--no relic
remains of the old Nisbets of Dean but their burial
place at the West Church-a gloomy chamber of
the dead, choked up with rank nettles and hemlock.
By 1881 the old village of Dean was entirely
cleared away. Near its centre stood the blacksmith’s
forge of Robert Orrock, who was indicted for
manufacturing pikes for the Friends of the People
in 1792. He and his friend, Arthur McEwan,
publican in Dean Side, Water of Leith village,
were legally examined at the time, and it is supposed
that many of the pikes were thrown into the
World’s End Pool, below the waterfall at the
Damhead. South of the smithy was the village
school, long taught by “ auld Dominie Fergusson.”
North of it stood the old farmhouse and steading
of the Dean Farm, all swept away like the quaint
old village, which’was wont to be a bustling place
when the commander-in-chief of the forces in
Scotland tenanted the Dean, and mounted orderlies
came galloping up the steep brae, and often reined
up their horses at the “Speed the Plough” alehouse,
before the stately gate.
Somewhere in the immediate vicinity of this
old village a meeting-house was erected in 1687
for the Rev. David Williamson, of St. Cuthbert’s,
who was denounced as a rebel, and intercommuned
in 1674 for holding conventicles, but was sheltered
secretly in the Dean House by Sir Patrick Nisbet.
In 1689 he was restored to his charge at the West
Church, and was one of the commissioners sent to
congratulate King William on his accession to the
throne.
Now all the site of the village and farms, and
the land between them and the Dean Bridge, is
covered by noble streets, such as Buckingham
Terrace and Belgrave Crescent, the position of
which is truly grand. In 1876 a movement was
se: on foot by the proprietors of this crescent, led
by Sir James Falshaw, Bart, then Lord Provost,
which resulted in the purchase of the ground between
it and the Dean village, at a cost of about
A5,ooo. In that year it was nearlyall covered by
kitchen gardens, ruinous buildings, and brokendown
fences. These and the irregularities of the
place have been removed, while the natural undulations,
which add such beauty to the modem
gardens, have been preserved, and the plantations
and walks are laid out with artistic effect,
The new parish church-which was built in
1836, in the Gothic style, for accommodation of
the inhabitants of the Water of Leith village1 and
those of the village of Dean-stands on the western
side of the old Dean Path.
Farther westward is Stewart’s Hospital, built in
1849-53, after designs by David Rhind, at a cost
of about ~30,000, in a mixture of the latest
domestic Gothic, with something of the old castellated
Scottish style. It comprises a quadrangle,
about 230 feet in length by IOO feet in minimum
breadth, and has two main towers, each 120 feet
high, with several turrets.
Mr. Daniel Stewart, of the Scottish Exchequer,
who died in 1814, left the residue of his property,
amounting (after the erection and endowment of a
free school in his native parish of Logieraitj to
about ;G13,000, with some property in the old
town, to accumulate for the purpose of founding a
hospital for the maintenance of boys, the children
of honest and industrious parents, whose circumstances
do not enable them suitably to support and
educate their children at other schools. Poor boys
of the name of Stewart and Macfarlane, resident
within Edinburgh and the suburbs, were always
to have a preference. The age for admission was
to be from seven to ten, and that for leaving at
fourteen .
The Merchant Company, as governors, taking
advantage of the powers given them by the provisional
order obtained in 1870, opened the hospital
as a,day school in the September of that
year. The education provided is of a very superior
order, qualifying the pupils for commercial
or professional life, and for the universities. The
course of study includes English, Latin, Greek,
French, German, and all the usual branches, including
drill, fencing, and gymnastics.
The Orphan Hospital at the Dean was erected
in 1833, after elegant designs by Thomas Hamilton,
at a cost of A16,000, in succession to the
older foundation, which we have already described
as standing eastward of the North Bridge, on the
site of the railway terminus. It comprises a large
central block, with two projecting wings, a portico
of Tuscan columns, and two light, elegant quadrangular
towers with arches, and has within its
clock-turret on the summit of its front the ancient
clock of the Nether Bow Port.
Its white facade stands boldly and pleasingly](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p078.gif "Volume 5 Page 67")
... Water of Leith.] DANIEL STEWART. 67
with sword and sash, wig and cocked hat, queue
and ruffles. After looking ...
Vol. 5 p. 67 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Wynd.
broad and spacious thoroughfare, named St. Mary’s
Street, presenting on ...
Vol. 2 p. 300 (Rel. 0.22)
![Kolyrood.] THE COFFIN OF JAMES V. 65
Appended to this scroll was a minute of thei
possessions, with a hint of the pecuniary advantager
to result from forfeiture. This dangerous policy
James repelled by exclaiming, ‘‘ Pack you, javels !
(knaves). Get you to your religious charges ; reform
your lives, and be not instruments of discord
between me and my nobles, or else I shall reform
you, not as the King of Denmark does, by im
prisonment, nor yet as the King of England does
by hanging and heading, but by sharp swords,
if I hear of such hotion of you again ! ”
From this speech it has been suppqsed that
Jxnes contemplated some reform in the then
dissolute Church. But the rout at Solway
followed; his heart was broken, and on learning
the birth of his daughter Mary, he died in despair
at Falkland, yet, says Pitscottie, holding up his
hands to God, as he yielded his spirit. He was
interred in the royal vault, in December, 1542,
at Holyrood, where, according to a MS. in the
Advocates’ Library, his body was seen by the Earl
of Forfar, the Lord Strathnaver, and others, who
examined that vault in 1683. “We viewed the
body of James V. It lyeth within ane wodden
coffin, and is coverit with ane lead coffin. There
seemed to be hair upon the head still. The
body was two lengths of my staff with twa inches
more, which is twae inches and more above twae
Scots elms, for I measured the staff with an ellwand
afterward. The body was coloured black with ye
balsam that preserved it, and which was lyke
melted pitch. The Earl of Forfar took the measure
with his staf lykewayes” On the coffin was the
inscription, flhstris Scoturum, Rex Jacobus, gus
Nominis E, with the dates of his age and death.
The first regent after that event was James,
second Earl of Arran (afterwards Duke of Chatelherault,
who had been godfather to James, the
little Duke of Rothesay, next heir to the crown,
failing the issue of the infant Queen Mary), and in
1545 this high official was solemnly invested at
Holyrood, together with the Earls of Angus, Huntly,
and Argyle, with the collar and robes of St.
Michael, sent by the King of France, and at the
hands of the Lyon King of Arms.
We have related how the Church suffered at
the hands of English pillagers after Pinkie, in
1547. The Palace did not escape. Seacombe, in
his ‘‘ History of the House of Stanley,” mentions
that Norns, of Speke Hall, Lancashire, an
English commander at that battle, plundered
from Holyrood all or most of the princely
library of the deceased King of Scots, James V.,
“particularly four large folios, said to contain
the Records and Laws of Scotland at that time.”
He also describes a grand piece of wainscot,
now in Speke Hall, as having been brought from
the palace, but this is considered, from its style,
doubtful.
During the turmoils and troubles that ensued
after Mary of Guise assumed the regency, her
proposal, on the suggestion of the French Court,
to form a Scottish standing army like that of
France, so exasperated the nobles and barons,
that three hundred of them assembled at
Holyrood in 1555, and after denouncing the
measure in strong terms, deputed the Laird of
Wemyss and Sir James Sandilands of Calder to
remonstrate with her on the unconstitutional step
she was meditating, urging that Scotland had
never wanted brave defenders to fight her battles
in time of peril, and that they would never submit
to this innovation on their ancient customsc
This spirited remonstrance from Holyrood had the
desired effect, as the regent abandoned her pro--
ject. She came, after an absence, to the palace in
the November of the following year, when the
magistrates presented her with a quantity of new
wine, and dismissed McCalzean, an assessor of the
city, who spoke to her insultingly in the palace on
the affairs of Edinburgh; and in the following
February she received and entertained the ambassador
of the Duke of Muscovy, who had been
shipwrecked on his way to England, whither she
sent him, escorted by 500 lances, under the Lord
Home.
After the death of Mary of Guise and the arrival
of her daughter to assume the crown of her ancestors,
the most stirring scenes in the history of the
palace pass in review.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p077.gif "Volume 3 Page 65")
... THE COFFIN OF JAMES V. 65
Appended to this scroll was a minute of thei
possessions, with a hint of the ...
Vol. 3 p. 65 (Rel. 0.22)
![TU Cowpate.] THE HAMMERMEN. 263
reference to those trades which form the United
Incorporation of Hammermen, and to the old city
companies and trades in generaL
‘6 The Hammerer’s Seill of Cause,” was issued
on the 2nd Nay, 1483, by Sir Patrick Baron of
Spittalfield, Knight, Provost ‘of the City, Patrick
Balbirge of that ilk, David Crawford of St. Giles’s
Grange, and Archibald Todrig, being bailies ; and
under the general name are’included at that time,
blacksmiths, goldsmiths, lorimers, saddlers, cutlers,
buckler-makers, armourers, (( and all others
within the said burgh of Edinburgh.” Pewterers
were afterwards included, and a heckle-maker so
lately as 1609. By the rule of the corporation it
was statute and ordained, that ‘‘ na hammerman,
maister, feitman, servand, nor utheris, tak vpon
hand fra this tyme furth, to exercise or use ony
mair craftis but alanerly ane, and to live thairupon,
sua that his brether craftismen be not hurt throu
his large exercitation and exceeding of boundis,”
Src. And all the privileges of the haminermen
were ratified by Act of Parliament so recently
as September, 1681, when shearsmiths appear as
members of the corporation. In those days all the
operations of industry were treated as secrets.
Each trade was a craft, and those who followed
it were called craftsmen ; and skilled artisans were
‘‘ cunning men.” (Smiles.)
The Hammermen’s seal bears the effigyof St.
Eloi, in apostolical vestments, in a church porch
surmounted by five pinnacles, holding in one hand
a hammer, and in the other a key, with the legend,
(( Sig2lum commune artis tudiatorum.”
By the end of the 16th century the manufacture
of offensive weapons predominated over all other
trades in the city. The essay-piece ofa cutler, prior
to his admission to the corporation, was a wellfinished
“quhinzier,” or sword; and there were
gaird-makers, whose business consisted in fashioning
the hilts ; dalmascars, who gilded weapons and
armour. In 1582 sword blades were damascened
at Edinburgh ; but ‘‘ Hew Vans, dalmascar, was
ordained not to buy blades to sell again,” his business
being confined to gilding steel. There were
also the belt-makers, who wrought military girdles ;
dag-makers, who made hackbutts (short guns),
and dags, or pistols ; but all these various trades
became associated in the general one of armourers
or gunsmiths, as the wearing of weapons
began to fall into desuetude, and other arts connected
with civilisation and luxury began to take
their places.
In 1586 a locksmith is first found in Edinburgh,
where he was the cnly one, and could only make
a ‘‘ kist-lock.” Tirling-pins, wooden latches, and
transom bars, were the appurtenances of doors
before his time generally. But by 1609, “as the
security of property increased,” says Chambers,
the essay was a kist-lock and a hing and bois
lock with ane double plate lock ;” and, in 1644,
‘‘ a key and sprent band were added to the essay.”
In 1682 “a cruik and cruik band’ were further
added; and in 1728, for the safety of the liegeq
the locksmiths’ essay was appointed to be ‘‘ a cruik
and cruik-band, a pass-lock with a round filled
bridge, not cut or broke in the backside, with nobs
and jamb bound.” The trade of a shearsmith
appears first in 1595 in Edinburgh, and in 1613
Thomas Duncan, the first tinkler in the city was
admitted a hammerman. The trade of a pewterer
is found as far back as 1588; the first knockmaker
(or clockmaker) appears in 1647, but his
business was so limited that he added thereto
the making of locks. (“ Traditions of Edin.”) In
1664 the first white iron smith was admitted a
hammerman, and the first harnessmaker, though
lorimers-manufacturers of the iron-work used in
saddlery-were members. since 1483. The first
maker of surgical instruments in Edinburgh was
Paul Martin, a French Protestant refugee, in 1691.
In 1720 the first pin-maker appears ; and in 1764
the first edge-tool maker, and the first manufacturer
of fish-hooks.
By the first charter of the hammermen all a p
plicants for admission were examined by the
deacons and masters of their respective arts, as to
their qualifications ; and any member found guilty
of a bre?ch of any one of the articles contained in
their charter, was fined eight shillings Scots towards
the support of the corporation’s altar of St. Eloi in
St Giles’s Church and the chaplain thereof. The
goldsmiths were separated from the hammermen in
1581 ; but since then many other crafts have joined
them, including gunsmiths, watchmakers, founders,
braziers, and coppersmiths.
The cordiners, or shoemakers, were first created
into a society by the magistrates on the 28th of
July, 1449 (according to Maitland), in terms of
which each master of the trade who kept a booth
within the town, paid one penny Scots, and the;.
servants one halfpenny, towards the support of
their altar of St. Crispin, in St. Giles’s Church. A
new seal of cause was granted to them in 1509, and
another in 1586, which enacted that their shops were
not to be open on Sundays after g AM., and that no
work was to be done on that day under pain of twenty
shillings fine. It also regulated the days of the
week on which leather boots and shoes could be sold
by strangers in booths. This charter was confirmed
on 6th March, 1598, by James VI., in considera](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p083.gif "Volume 4 Page 263")
... Cowpate.] THE HAMMERMEN. 263
reference to those trades which form the United
Incorporation of Hammermen, and ...
Vol. 4 p. 263 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD APU'D NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER XXII.
ST. ANDREW SQUARE.
PAGE
St. Andrew Sq-Lst .of Early R e s i d e ...
Vol. 4 p. 388 (Rel. 0.22)
... a man named Clark, in the Fleshmarket Close.
He had the tact and art to keep his secret profligacy
unknown, ...
Vol. 1 p. 113 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Castle HX
one going plump down a vent they set up a shout
of joy. Sir David ...
Vol. 1 p. 90 (Rel. 0.22)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Aliison Squam
Chloris of some of his finest lyrics, the daughter of
a prosperous ...
Vol. 4 p. 332 (Rel. 0.21)
... from Restalrig, where it had been all hut
buried under the workshops of the North British
Railway ; but now ...
Vol. 4 p. 313 (Rel. 0.21)
... BEARING DATE OF 1692.
discovery was made in one of our churches. Some
years ago a chest, without ...
Vol. 1 p. 186 (Rel. 0.21)
... the east wing of the Museum of Science
and Art. It was erected in 1876-7, and presents
a central block ...
Vol. 4 p. 276 (Rel. 0.21)
![St. Giles Street] THE DAILY REVIBW: 289
the vehicle for the dissemination of the rich vein
of humour which ran through his character,
His qualities as a writer in a daily journal were
amply displayed during the six years he edited the
Ddy Review, and a melancholy interest attaches
to his connection with that journal, as he literally
“died in harness.” His great reading gave him
genuine mind and culture, was ever and anon made
evident, sometimes with curious solicitude.” When
death came upon Mr. Manson he was only in his
forty-ninth year, and had not been confined by illness
to the house for a single day. After breakfast,
he had seated himself in his study to write a leader
welcoming John Bright to Edinburgh j and the few
*
TRINITY COLLEGE CHURCH (RESTORED).
extensive resources, while his long study of public
matters and knowledge of past political transactions
were remarkable, or equalled only in the parallel
instance of Alexander Russel, of the Scotsman
His tastes were various ; for in classic authors and
in the Scottish vernacuIar he was equally at home.
“He could scourge pretenders, but he loved to
welcome every genline accession to our literary
treasures, and to give a fresh and advantageous
setting to any gFms that might be found in the
volume with which he had to deaL Indeed, amid
the rough strokes of political war, his regard for
any opponent whom he believed to be a man of
31
lines he wrote were penned, as usual, without a
single elision, when Mrs. Manson entering the
room about twelve o’clock, saw him lying back
in his chair, as she supposed asleep-but it was
the sleep of death. This was on the 2nd of November,
1868.
Mr. Manson, who was long regretted by men
of many professions pver the length and breadth
of the kingdom, and by friends who mourned
him as a genial acquaintance, was succeeded by
the late Henry Kingsley, who occupied the editonal
chair for eighteen months, and who was
succeeded in turn by Dr. George Smith, formerly](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p109.gif "Volume 2 Page 289")
... Giles Street] THE DAILY REVIBW: 289
the vehicle for the dissemination of the rich vein
of humour which ran ...
Vol. 2 p. 289 (Rel. 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine’s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of ...
Vol. 6 p. 329 (Rel. 0.21)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cunie.
East of St. Katherine’s is a rising ground now
called Grace Mount, and of ...
Vol. 6 p. 330 (Rel. 0.21)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
after nnmixous schemes and suggestions, the North
Bridge was widened in ...
Vol. 2 p. 340 (Rel. 0.2)
... OLD.‘ AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The City Crosa.
by the Figgate-burn ere he marched to storm
Dunbar.”
There ...
Vol. 1 p. 150 (Rel. 0.2)
... - OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
- 52 -
set at liberty ; but on the suppression of the order
throughout Scotland, ...
Vol. 3 p. 52 (Rel. 0.2)
![Braid.] THE LANDS OF BRAID. 41
the city on the south, and directly overlook
Morningside. Their greatest altitude is 700 feet
According to one traditional legend, these hills
were the scene of “ Johnnie 0’ Braidislee’s ” woeful
hunting, as related in the old ballad.
exposed to more than one
military visitation from
the garrison in Edinburgh
Castle. Knox’s secretary
records that on the 25th
May twelve soldiers came
to Braid, when the laird
was at supper, and
rifled the house of the
miller. Braid appeared,
but was treated with contempt,
and was told that
they would bum the house
about his ears if he did
not surrender to Captain
Melville, who was one of
the eight sons of Sir lames
Melville of Raith, and his
lady Helen Napier of Merchiston.
Though called “ a
quiet man,” the wrath of
the laird was roused, and
he rushed forth at the
head of his domestics,
the north bank of the latter stream, which meanders
close to it, and which takes its rise in the bosom
of the Pentlands, near the Roman camp above
Bonally.
It is a two-storeyed villa, with a pavilion roof
CHRIST. CHURCH, MORNINGSIDE.
armed with an enormous two-handed sword, and
cut down one of the soldiers, who fired their hackbuts
without effect, and were eventually put to flight.
In the early part of the eighteenth century Braid
belonged to a family named Brown, and a great
portion of it in the present century had passed into
the possession of Gordon of Cluny.
between the Braid Hills and Blackford, stands the
beautiful retreat called the Hermitage of Braid, on
In a romantic, sequestered, and woody dell,
102
and little corner turrets, in that grotesque style of
castellated architecture adopted at Gillespie’s
Hospital, and is evidently designed by the same
architect, though built about the year 1780. It
was the property of Charles Gordon of Cluny,
father of the ill-fated Countess of Stair, the once
beautiful “Jacky Gordon,” whose marriage was
annulled in 1804, after which it frequently formed
her solitary residence. It afterwards became the
property of the widow of the late John Gordon of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p052.gif "Volume 5 Page 41")
... THE LANDS OF BRAID. 41
the city on the south, and directly overlook
Morningside. Their greatest altitude ...
Vol. 5 p. 41 (Rel. 0.2)
... Uasc.1 LOCKHART ASSASSINATED.
we must suppose he was separated, swore to have
vengeance. He was ...
Vol. 1 p. 117 (Rel. 0.2)
![The Water of Leith.] WALTER ROSS, W.S. 73
now at Abbotsford, where Sir Walter Scott took
them in 1824. This tower was divided into two
apartments, an upper and a lower ; the entrance to
the former was by an outside stair, and was used
as a summer-house. On the roof was a wellpainted
subject from the heathen mythology, and
the whole details of the apartment were very handsome.
On the 11th of March, 1789, Mr. ROSS, who
was Registrar of Distillery Licences in Scotland,
of St. Bernard’s. The bower is on the spot where
two lovers were killed by the falling of a sand-bank
upon them.”
For several years after his death the upper part
of the tower was occupied by the person who
acted as night-watchman in this quarter, while the
lower was used as a stable, In 1818, with reference
to future building operations, the remains of
Mr. Ross were taken up, and re-interred in the
West Church burying-ground. The extension of
THE WATER OF LEITH, 1825. (A/%-? Edank.)
and was a man distinguished for talent, humour,
and suavity of manner, dropped down in a fit,
and suddenly expired. He would seem to have
had some prevision of such a fate, as by his
particular request his body was kept eight days,
and was interred near his tower with the coffin-lid
open.
‘‘ Yesterday, at one o’clock,’’ says the Edinburgh
Advertiser for March zoth, 1789, “ the remains of
the late Mr. Walter Ross were, agreeable to his
own desire, interred in a bower laid out by himself
for that purpose, and encircled with myrtle, near
the beautiful and romantic tower which he had
been at so much trouble and expense in getting
erected, on the most elevated part of his grounds
106
Anne Street, in 1825, caused the removal of his.
tower to be necessary. It was accordingly demolished,
and most of the sculptures were carted
away as rubbish.
In the ‘‘ Traditions of Edinburgh,” we are told
that after he had finished his pleasure-grounds,
Mr. Ross was much enraged by nightly trespassers,
and advertised spring-guns and man-traps without
avail. At last he conceived the idea of procuring
a human leg from the Royal Infirmary, and
dressing it up with a stocking, shoe, and .buckle,
sent it through the town, borne aloft by the crier,
proclaiming that “ it had been found last night in
Mr. Walter Ross’s policy at Stockbridge, and
offering to restore it to the disconsolate owner.’’](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p084.gif "Volume 5 Page 73")
... Water of Leith.] WALTER ROSS, W.S. 73
now at Abbotsford, where Sir Walter Scott took
them in 1824. This tower ...
Vol. 5 p. 73 (Rel. 0.2)
![Kik-of-Field.] THE PROVOST’S HOUSE.
by the gate elsewhere already described as being
at the head of the College Wynd, in those days
known as “ The Wynd of the Blessed Virgin Maryin-
the-Fields.”
It was on the 31st of January, 1567, that the
weak, worthless, and debauched, but handsome,
Henry, Lord Darnley, King-consort of Scotland, was
brought to the place of his doom, in the house of
the Provost of the Kirk-of-Field.
Long ere that time his conduct had deprived
hini of authority, character, and adherents, and he
had been confined to bed in Glasgow by small-pox
There he was visited and nursed by Mary, who, as
Carte states, had that disease in her infancy, and
having no fears for it, attended hini with a sudden
and renewed tenderness that surprised and-as her
enemies say-alarmed him.
By the proceedings before the Commissioners at
York, 9th December, 1568, it would appear that it
had been Mary’s intention to take him to her
favourite residence, Craigmillar, when one of his
friends, named Crawford, hinted that she treated
him “ too like a prisoner j ” adding, “ Why should
you not be taken to one of your own houses in
Edinburgh ? ”
Mary and Darnley left Glasgow on the 27th of
January, and travelled by easy stages to Edinburgh,
which they reached four days after, and Bothwell
met them with an armed escort at a short distance
from the city on the western road, and accompanied
them to the House of the Kirk-of-Field, which
the ambitious earl and the secretary Lethington
were both of opinion was well suited for an invalid,
being suburban, and surrounded by open grounds
and gardens, and occupied by Robert Balfour,
brother of Sir Janies Baltour of Pittendreich, who,
though Lord Clerk Register, and author of the
well-known “ Practicks of Scots Law,” had nevertheless
drawn up the secret bond for the
murder of the king.
The large and commodious house of the Duke of
Chatelherault in the Kirk-of-Field Wynd was about
to be prepared for his residence ; but that idea was
overruled. Balfour’s house was selected ; a chamber
therein was newly hung with tapestry for him,
2nd a new bed of black figured velvet provided for
his use, by order of the queen.
“ The Kirk-of-Field,” says Melvil, “ in which the
king was lodged, in a place of good air, where he
might best recover his health,” was so called, we
have said, because it was beyond the more ancient
city wall ; but the new wall built after Flodden
enclosed the church as well as the houses of the
Provost and Prebendaries. “In the extended line
of wall,” says Bell, ‘‘ what was (latterly) called the
(Laing, Vol 11.)
3
Potterrow Port was at first denominated the Kirkof-
FFld Port, from its vicinity to the. church of
that name. The wall ran from this port along
the south side of the present College Street and
the north side of Drunimond Street, where a part is
still to be seen in its original state. The house
stood at some distance from the kirk, and the
latter from the period of the Reformation had fallen
into decay. The city had not yet stretched
in this direction much farther than the Cowgate.
Between that street and the town wall were the
Dominican Convent of the Black Friars, with its
alms-houses for the poor, and gardens covering the
site of the old High School and the Royal Infirmary,
and the Kirk-of-Field, with its Provost’s residence.
The Kirk-of-Field House stood very nearly
on the site of the present north-west corner of
Drummond Street. It fronted the west, having its
southern gavel so close upon the town wall that a
little postern door entered immediately through the
wall into the kitchen. It contained only four
apartments. . . . Below, a small passage went
through from the front door to the back of the
house, upon the right-hand of which was the kitchen,
and upon the left a room furnished as a bedroom
for the queen when she chose to remain all ’
night. Passing out at the back door there was a
turnpike stair behind, which, after the old fashion
of Scottish houses, led up to the second storey.‘
Above, there were two rooms corresponding with
those below. Damley’s chamber was immediately
over Mary’s; and on the other side of the lobby
above the kitchen, ‘ a garde robe,’ or ‘ little gallery,’
which was used as a servant’s room, and which had
a window in the gavel looking through the town
wall, and corresponding with the postern door below.
Immediately beyond this wall was a lane,
shut in by another wall, to the south of which
were extensive gardens.’’ (“Life of Queen Mary,”
chap. XX.)
Darnley occupied the upper chamber mentioned,
while his three immediate servants, Taylor, Nelson,
and Edward Simmons, had the gallery. The door
at the foot of the staircase having been removed,
and used as a cover for “the vat,” or species of
bath in which Darnley during his loathsome
disease was bathed, the house was without other
security than the portal doors of the gateway.
During much of the time that he was here Mary
attended him with all her old affection and with
assiduous care, passing most of each day in his
society, and sleeping for several nights in the lower *
chamber. The marks of tenderness and love
which she showed him partially dispelled those
fears which the sullen and suspicious Darnley had](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p014.gif "Volume 5 Page 3")
... THE PROVOST’S HOUSE.
by the gate elsewhere already described as being
at the head of the College ...
Vol. 5 p. 3 (Rel. 0.2)
... the additional accommodation required by
its shipping and commercial interests, including the
provision of ...
Vol. 6 p. 284 (Rel. 0.2)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [COrStOrphiie.
fact came to her kcoivledge. Inspired with fury
she repaired at once to ...
Vol. 5 p. 120 (Rel. 0.2)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughtoa --
REMAINS OF THE VILLAGE OF OLD RROUGHTON, Isj2.
(From a Drawing by Gcorp ...
Vol. 3 p. 180 (Rel. 0.2)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
cessarily woven up with the warlike, even from the
days when our forefathers, with ...
Vol. 6 p. 368 (Rel. 0.2)
![SIR WILLIAM FETTES. ’73 Charlotte Square.]
Canongate, after which he removed to Charlotte
Square, and finally to that house in George Street
in which he died. He was resident in Charlotte
Square before 1802, as was also the Earl of Minto.
John Lamond of Lamond and that ilk, in Argyleshire,
whose son John commanded the second
He was for many years a contractor for military
stores, and in 1800 was chosen a Director of the ’ British Linen Company, in which he ultimately held
stock-the result of his own perseverance and
honest industry-to a large amount. He had in
the meantime entered the Town Council, in which
CHARLOTTE SQUARE, SHOWING ST. GEORGB’S CHURCH.
to the bar in 1822 and raised to the bench in May,
1854. Mrs. Oliphant of Rossie had No. 10, and No.
13 was at the same time (about 1810) the residence
of Sir William Fettes, Bart., of Comely Bank, the
founder of the magnificent college which bears his
name. He was born at Edinburgh on the 25th of
June, 1750, and nine years afterwards attended the
High School class taught by Mr. John Gilchrist.
At the early age of eighteen he began business as
a tea and wine merchant in Smith’s Land, High
Street, an occupation which he combined for twenty
years with that of an underwriter, besides being
connected with establishments at Leeds, Durham,
and Newcastle. His name appears in Wiiliamson’s
Directory for 1788-90 as “ William Fettes, grocer,
ofice he held for the then usual period of two years,
and for a second time in 1805 and 1806. In 1804
between the two occasions, on the 12th May he
was created a baronet. In 1787 he married Mark,
daughter of Dr. John Malcolm of Ayr. The only
child of this marriage was a son, William, born in
1787. He became a member of the Faculty of
Advocates in 1810, and gave early promise of future
eminence, but died at Berlin on the 13th of June,
1815.
Retiring from business in 1800, Sir William took
up his abode in Charlotte Square, and devoted
himself to the management of several estates which
he purchased at different times, in various parts of
The principal of these were Comely ~ Scotland.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p185.gif "Volume 3 Page 173")
... WILLIAM FETTES. ’73 Charlotte Square.]
Canongate, after which he removed to Charlotte
Square, and finally ...
Vol. 3 p. 173 (Rel. 0.2)
... in March, 1566, a gift of all the patronages
and endowments in the city, which had belonged
to the ...
Vol. 4 p. 288 (Rel. 0.2)
![Broughton Street.] THE CALEDONIAN THEATRE. 179
was the band of the 78th, where hung the shields
of Picton and Achmuty, and a brilliant star, with
the mottoes Assnye and Mnida. “Under this
orchestra was a beautiful transparency, representing
an old Scotsman with his bonnet, giving a
hearty welcome to two soldiers of the 42nd and
78th regiments, while a bonny lassie is peeping out
from a cottage door; the background formed a
landscape, with Edinburgh Castle in the distance.”
At eleven o’clock came famous old Neil Gow,
with his band of violins, and the ball-which was
long remembered in Edinburgh-began.
After some time Corri’s Rooms were called the
Pantheon, and in December, 1823, the house was
again opened under the new appellation of the
Caledonian Theatre (which it held for years afterwards),
by Mr. Henry Johnstone, an old Edinburgh
favourite and luckless native of the city.
The papers of the time announce that the dancing
and tumbling of the Pantheon “are superseded;
and, excepting that melodramas are presented in
place of regular tragedies and comedies, the Caledonian
Theatre in no respect difters in the nature
and style of its entertainments from the regular
theatre.” One of the first pieces brought out was
The. Orphan of Geneva.
“The house is dingy and even dirty,” says the
WeekQIoumaZ for that year, ‘< and very defectively
lighted. This is not at all in harmony with Mr.
Johnstone’s usual enterprise, and calls for amendment.
The name of CaZedonian is perhaps conceived
to be a kind of apology for the clumsy
tartan hangings over some of the boxes; but we
can by no means comprehend why the house was
not re-painted. The visitor cannot fail to be immediately
struck with the contrast of its dingy hue, with
the freshness and beauty of the Theatre Royal.”
Mr. Johnstone’s losses compelled him, after a
time, to relinquish management. He left Edinburgh,
and did not return to it till 1830, when
he played four nights .at the same theatre, then
leased by Mr. Bass. Poor Johnstone, an actor
much admired in London, but every wayunfortunate,
eventually went to America.
The theatre was afterwards called the Adelphi,
and was burned in 1853, during the management
of Mr. R. H. Wyndham. On its site was rebuilt
the Queen’s Theatre and Opera House, under the
same enterprising manager, long one of the greatest
theatrical favourites in Edinburgh ; but this also
was destroyed by fire in 1865, when several lives
were lost by the falling of a wall. By a singular
fatality it was a third time completely gutted by
fire ten years afterwards, but was reconstructed in
the latter part of 1875, and reopened in January,
1876, prior to which Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham had
taken their farewell of the stage and of Edinburgh.
It is a h3ndsome building, with a portico, and is
adorned with medallions of Shakspere, Scott,
Molihre, and Goethe. Although erected within the
walls of the theatre burned on the 6th of February,
1875, it is almost entirely a new building internally,
different from all its predecessors, greatly improved,
and seated for 2,300 persons. The works have
been designed and executed by C. J. Phipps, F.S.A.,
architect of the Gaiety Theatre, London.
Immediately adjoining this theatre-the gable
wall being a mutual one-is St. Mary’s Roman
Catholic chapel, now the pro-cathedral of the
Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, whose
residence is in the narrow lane to the northward.
It was built in 1813, from designs by James
Gillespie Graham, architect, at the expense of
iE;8,ooo. In the original elevations more omament
was introduced than it was found there were
funds to execute, as these were chiefly raised by
subscription among the Catholics of Edinburgh,
then a small, and still a poor, congregation. The
dimensions of this edifice within the walls are
IIO feet by 57. The eastern front, in which is
the entrance, is ornamented by two central pinnacles
70 feet high, and the adoption of the Gothic
style in this small chapel jirst led to the adoption
of a similar style in various other re!igious edifices
since erected in the city. It possesses a very good
organ, and above the altar is a fine painting of the
Saviour dead. It was presented to the church by
Miss Chalmers, daughter of Sir G. Chalmers.
Some prelates of the Catholic Church lie buried
before the high altar, among them Bishops
Alexander Cameron and Andrew Carruthers. The
interment of the former excited much interest in
Edinburgh in 1Sz8, the funeral obsequies being in
a style never seen in Scotland since the Reformation,
and also from the general esteem in which
the bishop was held by all. He was born in
1747, and went to the Scottish College at Rome
in 1760, and bore away all the prizes Returning
to Scotland in 1772, he was Missionary Apostolic
in Strathearn till 1780, when he was consecrated
at Madeira, and, succeeding Bishop Hay, had re
sided permanently in Edinburgh since 1806.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p191.gif "Volume 3 Page 179")
... Street.] THE CALEDONIAN THEATRE. 179
was the band of the 78th, where hung the shields
of Picton and ...
Vol. 3 p. 179 (Rel. 0.2)
![North Bridge.] MRS. SIDDONS. 34s
her first engagement the appearances of Mrs.
Siddons were as follows :-
May zznd, Venice Preserved.
24th, The Gamester.
” 26th, Venice Preserved.
” zfth, The Gamester.
” zgth, Mourning Bride.
June Ist, Douglas.
” 3rd. Isabella.
” Sth, Jane Shore
with a magnificent piece of plate. The Courunt
tells us that during her performance of Lady
Randolph U there was not a dry eye in the whole
house.” During the summer of 1785 she was again ‘.
in Edinburgh, and played on eighteen nights, her
receipts being more than handsome, averaging
about A120 per night, and Azoo for the Gamester.
Never did the old theatre behold such a firorc
1 as Mrs. Siddons excited, and during the time of
VIEW FROM THE BACK OF SHAKESPEARE SQUARE. ( A f t r EdatA.)
June fth, Douglas.
”
” loth, Mourning Bride.
”
gth, Grecian Daughter (her beneht).
11th. Grecian Daughter (for the benefit of the
Charity Workhouse).
Kay gives us an etching of her appearance as
Lady Randolph, in a powdered toupee ; but costume
was not a study then, nor for long after. Indeed,
Donaldson, in his I‘ Recollections of an Actor,”
mentions, “In 1815, in Scotland, I have seen
Macbeth dressed in a red officer’s coat, sash, blue
pants, Hessian boots, and cocked hat !”
On the ~ z t h of June Mrs. ,Siddons departed for
She’had shared A50 for ten nights ; at
her benefit she drew &so, and was presented
I Dublin:
44
her second engagement nothing was thought of or
talked of but her wondrous power as an actress,
and vast crowds gathered not at night, but in the
day, hours before the doors were open, to secure
places. It became necessary to admit then1 at
three in the afternoon ; then the crowds began to
gather at twelve to obtain admittance at three;
and a certain set of gentlemen, by subscribing
&zoo as a guarantee beforehand, considered
themselves very fortunate in securing a private and
early entrance to the pit; and eventually the
General Assembly of the Church, then in session,
were compelled to arrange their meetings with
reference to the appearance of Mrs. Siddons.
“People came from distant places, even from](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p165.gif "Volume 2 Page 345")
... Bridge.] MRS. SIDDONS. 34s
her first engagement the appearances of Mrs.
Siddons were as follows :-
May ...
Vol. 2 p. 345 (Rel. 0.2)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Cowgate.
farlane sent for the magistrates, who secured the
house and servants. -4 ...
Vol. 4 p. 244 (Rel. 0.2)
... Hope Pukl “THE DOUGLAS CAUSE.”
THE BURGH LOCH.. (Aftw a Plwtagrajh o f t h OnginaZ, bypermission of thc M ...
Vol. 4 p. 349 (Rel. 0.19)
![Burghmuir.] ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the site of which is now
the great square modem mansion which bears its
name. In a street here, called Greenhill Gardens,
there stands a remarkable parterre, or open burialplace,
wherein lie the remains of more than one proprietor
of the estate. A tomb bears the initials
J. L. and E. R., being those of “John Livingstone
and Elizabeth Rig, his spouse,” who acquired
the lands of Greenhill in 1636 ; and the adjacent
thoroughbre, named Chamberlain Road, is so
called from an official of the city, named Fairholme,
who is also buried there.
A dispute-Temple and Halliday with Adam
Cairns of Greenhill -is reported before the
lords in 1706, concerning a tenement in the
Lawnmarket, which would seem to have been
“spoiled and deteriorated” in the fire of 1701.
(Fountainhall.)
In 1741 Mr. Thomas Fairholme, merchant in
Edinburgh, married Miss Warrender, daughter of
Sir George Warrender of Bruntsfield, and his death
at Greenhill is reported in the Scuts Magazine for
1771. There was a tenement called Fairholme
Land in the High Street, immediately adjoinicg
the Royal Exchange on the east, as appears from
the Scuts Magazine of 1754, probab!y erected by
Bailie Fairholme, a magistrate in the time of
Charles 11.
Kay gives us a portrait of George Fairholme of
Greenhill (and of Green-know, Berwickshire), who,
with his younger brother, William of Chapel, had
long resided in Holland, where they became
wealthy bankers, and where the former cultivated
a natural taste for the fine arts, and in after life
became celebrated as a judicious collector of
pictures, and of etchings by Rembrandt, all of
which became the property of his nephew, Adam
Fairholme of Chapel, Berwickshire. He died in
his seventieth year, in 1800, and was interred in
the family burying-place at Greenhill.
In a disposition of the lands of the latter estate
by George Fairholme, in favour of Thomas Wright,
dated 16th, and recorded 18th February, 1790, in
the sheriffs’ books at Edinburgh, the preservation of
the old family tomb, which forms so singular a
feature in a modern street, is thus provided for :-
“ Reserving nevertheless to me the liberty and
privilege of burying the dead of my own family,
and such of my relations to whom I, during my
own lifetime, shall communicate such privilege, in
the burial-place built upon the said lands, and
‘Teserving likewise access to me and my heirs to
repair the said burial-place from time to time, as we
shall think proper.”
’ Greenhill became lztterly the property of the
Stuart-Forbeses of Pitsligo, baronets.
After passing the old mansion named East
Morningside House, the White House Loan joins
at right angles the ancient thoroughfare named the
Grange Loan, which led of old from the Linton
Road to St. Giles’s Grange, and latterly the Causewayside.
On the south side of it a modern villa takes its
name of St. Roque from an ancient chapel which
stood there, and the ruins of which were extant
within the memory of many of the last generation.
The chapels of St. Roque and St. John, on the
Burghmuir, were both dependencies of St. Cuthbert’s
Church. The historian of the latter absurdly
conceives it to have been named from a French
ambassador, Lecroc, who was in Scotland in 1567.
The date of its foundation is involved in obscurity;
but entries occur in the Treasurer‘s Accounts for
1507, when on St. Roque’s Day (15th August) James
IV. made an offering of thirteen shillings. “ That
this refers to the chapel on the Burghmuir is
proved,” says Wilson, “ by the evidence of two
charters signed by the king at Edinburgh on the
same day.”
Arnot gives a view of the chapel from the northeast,
showing the remains of a large pointed window,
that had once been filled in with Gothic tracery;
and states that it is owing “to the superstitious
awe of the people that one stone of this chapel has
been left upon another-a superstition which, had
it been more constant in its operations, might have
checked the tearing zeal of reformation. About
thirty years ago the proprietor of the ground
employed masons to pull down the walls of the
chape! ; the scaffolding gave way ; the tradesmen
were killed. The accident was looked upon as a
judgment against those who were demolishing thk
house of God. No entreaties nor bribes by the
proprietor could prevail upon tradesmen to accomplish
its demolition.”
It was a belief of old that St. Roque’s intercession
could protect all from pestilence, as he was
distinguished for his piety and labours during a
plague in Italy in 1348. Thus Sir David Lindesay
says of-
1‘- Superstitious pilgramages
To monie divers imagis ;
Sum to Sanct Roche with diligence,
To saif them from the pestilence.”
Thus it is, in accordance with the attributes ascribed
in Church legends to St. Roque, that we find
his chapel constantly resorted to by the victims of
the plague encamped on the Burghmuir, during the
prevalence of that scourge in the sixteenth century.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p058.gif "Volume 5 Page 47")
... ST. ROQUES CHAPEL. 47
Greenhill, whereon stood an old gable-ended and
gableted manor-house, on the ...
Vol. 5 p. 47 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Doddingston.
hills around glistening in the sun, the ring of the
ice, the shouts of ...
Vol. 4 p. 316 (Rel. 0.19)
... KATHERINE OSWALD, WITCH. 339
The same Sir John seems to have possessed
property in East Lothian.
In ...
Vol. 6 p. 339 (Rel. 0.19)
... THE BOURSE. 231
U Throughout these troublesome days, a little episcopal
congregation was kept together in ...
Vol. 6 p. 231 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Holyroob
chateau of Chantilly, from plans by the royal
architect, Sir William Bruce of ...
Vol. 3 p. 74 (Rel. 0.19)
![Princes Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1783. 119
vincial towns were combined in the case of Edinburgh
She was the titular capital of Scotland, and
as such, was looked up to with pride and veneration
by the nation at large. She was then the
residence of many of the old Scottish nobility, and
the exclusion of the British from the Continent,
during a long, protracted war, made her, either for
business, society, or education, the favourite resort
of strangers. She was the headquarters of the
legal profession at a time when both the Scottish
bench and bar were rendered illustrious by a numbet
of men celebrated far their learning, eloquence, and
wit. She was the head-quarters of the Scottish
Church, whose pulpits and General Assembly were
adorned by divines of great eminence and piety.
Lastly, she was the chief seat of scholarship, and
the chosen home of literature and science north of
the Tweed.”
With the Edinburgh of those days ,and of the
present we have now deal
CHAPTER XVII.
PRINCES STREET.
A Glance at Society-Change of BIanners, &-The Irish Giants-Poole’s Coffee-house-Shop of Constable 8 Co.-Weir’s Muscum, 1794-
The Grand Duke Nichoh-North British Insurance Life Association4ld Tax Office and New Club-Craig of Ricarton-“?he
White Rose of Scotland”‘-St. John’s Chapel-Its Tower and Vaults, &.-The Scott Monument and its MUseum-The Statues of Professor
Wilson, Allan Ramsay, Adam Black, Sir James Sirnpson, and Dr. Livingstone-The General Improvements in Princes Street.
IN 1774 a proposal to erect buildings on the south
side of Princes Street-a lamentable error in taste
it would have proved-led to an interdict by the
Court of Session, which ended in a reference to
the House of Lords, on which occasion Imd
Mansfield made a long and able speech, and the
result was, that the amenity of Princes Street was
maintained, and it became in time the magnificent
terrace we now find it.
Of the city in 1783 some glimpses are given us
in the ‘‘ Letters of Theophrastus,” appended to the
second edition of “Arnot.” In that year the
revenue of the Post Office was only ~ 4 0 , 0 0 0 .
There were four coaches to Leith, running every
half hour, and there were 1,268 four-wheeled carriages
and 338 two-wheeled paying duty. The
oystercellars had become numerous, and were
places of fashionable resort. A maid-servant’s
wages were about f;4 yearly. In 1763 they wore
plain cloaks or plaids; but in 1783 “silk, caps,
ribbons, ruffles, false. hair, and flounced. petticoats.”
In 1783 a number of bathing-machines had been
adopted at Leith. People of the middle class and
above it dined about four o’clock, after which no
business was done, and gentlemen were at no pains
to conceal their impatience till the ladies retired.
Attendance at church . was, much neglected, and
people did not think it “genteel” to take their
domestics with them. “In 1783 the daughters
even of tradesmen consume the moriings at the
toilet (to which rouge is now an appendage) or in
strolling from the perfumer‘s to the milliner’s.
They would blush to be seeri at market. The
cares of the family devolve upon a housekeeper,
’
and Miss employs those heavy hours when she
is disengaged from public or private amusements
in improving her mind from the precious stores of
a circulating library.” In that year a regular cockpit
was built for cock-fighting, where all distinctions
of rank and character were levelled. The weekly
concert of music began at seven o’clock, and
mistresses of boarding-schools, &c., would not allow
their pupils to go about unattended ; whereas,
twenty years before “young ladies might have
walked the streets in perfect security at all hours.”
In I 783 six criminals lay under sentence of death
in Edinburgh in one week, whereas it1 1763 three
was an average for the whole kingdom in a year.
A great number of the servant-maids still continued
“ their abhorrence of wearing shoes and stockings
in the morning.” The Register House was unfinished,
‘‘ or occupied by pigeons only,” and the
Records “ were kept in a dur.geon called the high
Parliament House.”
The High Street alone was protected by the
guard. The New Town to the north, and all the
streets and new squares to the south, were totally
unwatched ; and the soldiers of the guard still preserved
“the purity of their native Gaelic, so that
few of the citizens understand, or are understood
by them ;” while the king‘s birthday and the last
night of the year were ‘‘ devoted to drunkenness,
outrage, and riot, instead of loyalty, peace, and
harmony,” as of old.
One of the earliest improvements in the extended
royalty was lighting it with oil lamps; but in
the Adnerh’ser for 1789 we are told that “while all
strangers admire the beauty and regularity of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p131.gif "Volume 3 Page 119")
... Street.] EDINBURGH IN 1783. 119
vincial towns were combined in the case of Edinburgh
She was the titular ...
Vol. 3 p. 119 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
prisoners, who were praying intently, when Sir
Adolphus Oughton stepped ...
Vol. 6 p. 196 (Rel. 0.19)
![Colstorphine.] THE FORRESTERS. 119
of land, in any proper place;” and in 1383 there
followed another charter from the same king concerning
“ the twenty merks yearly from the farmes
of Edinburgh.” (Burgh Charters.) In the preceding
year this influential citizen had been made
Sheriff of Edinburgh and of Lothian.
In 1390 he was made Lord Privy Seal, and
negotiated several treaties with England; but in
1402 he followed Douglas in his famous English
raid, which ended in the battle of Homildon Hill,
where he fell into the hands of Hotspur, but was
ransomed. He died in the Castle of Corstorphine
on the 13th of October, leaving, by his wife, Agnes
Dundas of Fingask, two sons, Sir John, his heir,
and Thomas, who got the adjacent lands of Drylaw
by a charter, under Robert Duke of Albany, dated
‘‘ at Corstorfyne,” 1406, and witnessed among others
by Gilbert, Bishop of Aberdeen, then Lord Chancellor,
George of Preston, and others.
Sir John Forrester obtained a grant of the barony
of Ochtertyre, in favour of him and his first wife
in 1407, and from Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney,
he obtained an annuity of twelve merks yearly,
out of the coal-works at Dysart, till repaid thirty
nobles, “which he lent the said earl in his great
necessity.’’
In 1424 he was one of the hostages for the
ransom of James I., with whom he stood so high
in favour that he was made Master of the Household
and Lord High Chamberlain, according to
Douglas, and Lord Chancellor, according to Beatson’s
Lists. His second wife was Jean Sinclair, daughter
of Henry Earl of Orkney. He founded the collegiate
church of which we have given a description,
and in 1425 an altar to St Ninian in the
church of St. Giles’s, requiring the chaplain there
to say perpetual prayers for the souls of James I.
and Queen Jane, and of himself and Margaret his
deceased wife.
He died in 1440, and was succeeded by his son
Sir John, who lived in stormy times, and whose
lands of Corstorphine were subjected to fire and
sword, and ravaged in 1445 by the forces of the
Lord Chancellor, Sir William Crichton, whose lands
of Crichton he had previously spoiled.
By his wife, Marian Stewart of Dalswhton, he
had Archibald his heir, and Matthew, to whom
James III., in 1487, gave a grant of the lands of
Barnton. Then followed in succession, Sir Alexander
Forrester, and two Sir Jameses. On the
death of the last without heirs Corstorphine devolved
on his younger brother Henry, who married
Helen Preston of Craigmillar.
Their son GerJrge was a man of talent and probity.
He stooci high in favour with Charles I.,
who made him a baronet in 1625, and eight years
afterwards a peer, by the title of Lord Forrester
of Corstorphine. By his wife Christian he had
several daughters-Helen, who became Lady Ross
of Hawkhead ; Jean, married to. lames Baillie of
Torwoodhead, son of Lieutenant-General William
Baillie, famous in the annals of the covenanthg
wars ; and Lilias, married to William, another son
of the same officer, And now we approach the
dark tragedy which, for a time, even in those days,
gave Corstorphine Castle a temble notoriety.
George, first Lord Forrester, having no male
heir, made a resignation of his estates and honours
into the hands of the king, and obtained a new
patent from Charles II., to himself in life-rent,
and after his decease, “to, or in favour of, his
daughter Jean and her husband the said James
Baillie and the heirs procreate betwixt them ;
whom failing, to the nearest lawful heir-male of the
said James whatever, they carrying the name and
arms of Forrester ; the said James being designed
Master of Forrester during George’s life.”
This patent is dated 13th August, 1650, a few
weeks before the battle of Worcester. He died
soon after, and was succeeded by his son-in-law,
whose wife is said to have sunk into an earlygrave,
in consequence of his having an intrigue with one
of her sisters.
James Lord Forrester married, secondly, a
daughter of the famous old Cavalier general, Patrick
Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Brentford, by whom,
says Burke, “he had three sons and two daughters,
all of whom assumed the name of Ruthven,”
while Sir Robert Douglas states that he died
without any heir, and omits to record the mode of
his death.
He was a zealous Presbyterian, and for those of
that persuasion, in prelatic times, built a special
meeting-house in Corstorphine ; this did not prevent
him from forming a dangerous intrigue with
a handsome woman named Christian Nimmo,
wife of a merchant in Edinburgh, and the scandal
was increased in consequence of the lady being
the niece of his first wife and grand-daughter of
the first Lord Forrester. She was a woman of a
violent and impulsive character, and was said to
carry a weapon concealed about her person. - It
is further stated that she was mutually related to
Mrs. Bedford, a remarkably wicked woman, who
had murdered her husband a few years before, and
to that Lady Warriston who was beheaded for the
same crime in 1600 ; thus she was not a woman to
be treated lightly.
Lord Forrester, when intoxicated, had on one
occasion spoken of her opprobriously, and this](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p130.gif "Volume 5 Page 119")
... THE FORRESTERS. 119
of land, in any proper place;” and in 1383 there
followed another charter ...
Vol. 5 p. 119 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
to extinguish the flames. On the same daya grand
assault was to be made.
By ...
Vol. 5 p. 176 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
sterling, for a yeir‘s rent of a vault under the said
Trinitie House, ...
Vol. 6 p. 224 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD -4ND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
on the verge of destitution ; and DIsraeli writes of
him thus in his “ ...
Vol. 5 p. 160 (Rel. 0.19)
![The Old High School.] RECTORS AND TEACHERS, 291
, in use to teach in those mornings and forenoons.
And considering that the ordinary Latin rudiments
in use to be taught children at their beginning to
the Latin tongue is difficult and hard for beginners,
and that Wedderburn’s Rudiments are more plain
and easy, the Council ordain the said masters in
time coming, to teach and begin their scholars with
Wedderburn’s Rudiments in place of the Latin
Rudiments in use as taught formerly. Ro. CHIESLIE,
Provost.’’
David Wedderburn, whose work is thus referred
to, was born about 1570, and was the accomplished
author of many learned works, and died, it is supposed,
about 1644, soon after the publication of
his ‘‘ Centuria Tertia.”
In 1699 A40 Scots was voted by the magistrates
to procure books as a reward for the best scholars,
and when the century closed the institution was in
a most creditable condition, and they-as patrons
-declared that ‘‘ not a few persons that are now
eminent for piety and learning, both in Church and
State, had been educated there.”
In the year I 7 I 6 there was an outbreak among
the scholars for some reason now unknown ; but
they seem to have conducted themselves in an outrageous
manner, demolishing every pane of glass
in the school, and also of Lady Yester’s church,
levelling to the earth even the solid stone wall
which enclosed the school-yard. About this time
the janitor of the institution was David Malloch, a
man distinguished in after life as author of the
beautiful ballad of “ William and Margaret,” a poet
and miscellaneous writer, and under-secretary to the
Prince of Wales in 1733; to please the English
ear, he changed his name to Mallet, and became
an avowed infidel, and a venal author of the worst
description. Dr. Steven refers to his receipt as
being extant, dated 2nd February, 1718, “for
sixteen shillings and eight pence sterling, being his
full salary for the preceding half-year. That was
the exact period he held the office.”
In 1736 we again hear of the BZeis-siher, cca
profitable relic of popery, which it seemed difficult
to relinquish.” Heartburnings had arisen because
it had become doubtful in what way the Candlemas
offerings should be apportioned between the rector
and masters; thus, on the 28th January in that
year, the Council resolved that the rector himself,
and no other, shall collect, not only his own quarterly
fees, but also the fee of one shilling from
each scholar in the other classes. The Council
also transferred the right from the master of the
third, to the mzster of the first elementary class,
to demand a shilling quarterly from each pupil in
the rector’s class; and declared that the rector
and four masters should favourably receive from
the scholars themselves whatever benevolence or
Candlemas offerings might be presented.”
Thomas Ruddiman, the eminent grammarian and
scholar, who was born at Boyndie in 1674 and
who in 1724 began to vary his great literary
undertakings by printing the ancient Cdedonian
Mercqv, about I 737 established-together with
the rector, the masters, and thirty-one other persons-
a species of provident association for their
own benefit and that of their widows and children,
and adopting as the title of the society, “The
Company of the Professors and Teachers of the
liberal arts and sciences, or any branch or part
thereof, in the City of Edinburgh and dependencies
thereof.”
The co-partners were all taxed equally; but
owing to inequalities in the yearly contributions, a
dissolution nearly took place after an existence of
fifty years; but the association rallied, and stcl
exists in a flourishing condition.
One of the most popular masters in the early
part of the eighteenth century was Mr. James
Barclay, who was appointed in June, 1742, and
whose experience as a teacher, attainments, and
character, caused him to be remembered by his
scholars long after his removal to Dalkeith, where
he died in 1765.
When Henry Mackenzie, author of the ‘‘ Man of
Feeling,” was verging on his eightieth year, he
contributed to Dr. Steven’s CL History,” his reminiscences
of the school in his own early years,
between 1752 and 1757, which we are tempted to
quote at length :-
“Rector Lees, a very respectable, grave, and
gentlemanlike man, father or uncle, I am not sure
which, of Lees, the Secretary for Ireland. He
maintained great dignity, treating the other masters
somewhat de had a bar; severe, and rather too
intolerant of dulness, but kind to more promising
talents. It will not be thought vanity, I trust-for
I speak with the sincerity and correctness of a
third person-when I say that I was rather a
favourite with him, and used for several years after
he resigned his office to drink tea with him at his
house in a large land or building at the country
end of the suburb called Pleasance, built by one
Hunter, a tailor, whence it got the name of
‘ Hunter‘s Folly,’ or the Castle 0’ Clouts.’
cc MAsrERs continued-Ersf, or youngest class,
when I was put to school, Farquhar, a native of
Banffshire, cousin-german of Farquhar, author of
admired-and indeed t h q may be called admirable-
sermons, and of Mr. Farquhar, the Vicar of
Hayes, a sort of Parson Adams,’ a favourite ot](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p111.gif "Volume 4 Page 291")
... Old High School.] RECTORS AND TEACHERS, 291
, in use to teach in those mornings and forenoons.
And ...
Vol. 4 p. 291 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [George Street.
that sum has been called. It is expressly provided
by the charter of ...
Vol. 3 p. 148 (Rel. 0.19)
... THE MELVILLES..
/
LASSWADE CnuKCH, 1773. (Afdw an Etching by Yohn Clerk of E(din.1
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE ...
Vol. 6 p. 361 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Dab.
~~ ~~
Cuthbert’s, in 1831, for .&2,500, and seated for
1,300.
The church ...
Vol. 4 p. 216 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [Newton.
gift ratified by Bishop Richard and Pope Gregory.
There are many places in ...
Vol. 6 p. 364 (Rel. 0.19)
... all is considered, and we further know that
the building was strong enough to have lasted
many more ages, ...
Vol. 1 p. 94 (Rel. 0.19)
... 18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [cogs.
p. baronet of Nova Scotia by James VII., in
1687.
The close of the family is ...
Vol. 6 p. 318 (Rel. 0.19)
... THE FORRESTERS. I21
took the name of Ruthven, and occupied the castle,
the family honours and ...
Vol. 5 p. 121 (Rel. 0.19)
... 1 A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. ‘3
one with a dark lantern ; but notwithstanding that
a pardon and zoo ...
Vol. 5 p. 13 (Rel. 0.19)
![THE PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in a few minutes the Sieur de
la Roche lay dead, with a sword thrust in his body,
while Isaac had a finger nearly hewn OK
The guard now came on the scene, and Mowat
was found under an outer stair, with a bent sword
in his hand, bloody from point to hilt, his hand
wounded, and the sleeves of his coat stained with
blood. On seeing the dead body, he viewed it
without emotion, and merely remarked that he
wondered who had slain him.
The Master, Mowat, and James Sinclair the writer,
were all tried for the murder of Elias Poiret before
the Court of Justiciary, but the jury brought in a
verdict of not proven. The whole affair might
have been easily explained, but for heat of temper,
intemperance, and the ready resort to arms so usual
in those days. The three Frenchmen concerned in
it were Protestant refugees who were serving as
privates in the Scottish Life Guards. The Mastet
of Tarbet became Earl of Cromarty in 1714 and
survived the death of Poiret forty years. Two of
his sons, who were officers in the Scots-Dutch
Brigade, perished at sea, and his eldest, the third
and last Earl of Cromarty, was nearly brought to
Tower Hill in 1746 for his loyalty to the House of
Stuart.
No. 141 Kirkgate was long the place of business
of Mr. Alexander Watson, who is chiefly remarkable
as being the nephew and close correspondent
of a very remarkable man, who frequently resided
with him-Robert Watson, who was made Principal
of the Scots College at Paris by the Emperor
Napoleon I., an office which he held for six years.
It was to his nephew at Leith, after his escape to
Rome (having been tried at the Old Bailey as
President of a Corresponding Society), he confided
his discovery of a large mass of correspondence
known as “ The Stuart Papers,” which he
purchased (as stated in the Courunt for 1819.)
In one of his letters, dated London, 6th April,
1818, he states that they consist ofhalf a million of
pieces, and are valued at ~300,000. ‘‘ The Pope,
however, took military possession of them, under
the protest that they were of too much importance
to belong to a private individual. I protested
against the arbitrary proceedings of his Holiness.
The Prince Regent sent two ships of war to Civita
Vecchia to bring them to London, and they are
now in Carlton House.”
To his nephew in the Kirkgate he subsequently
wrote that a Royal Commissiolr under the Great
Seal (including Sir James Mackintosh) was a p
pointed to examine these valuable papers ; and in
1824 he wrote that amongst other things of some
value which have fallen into my possession, are the
carriage and tent-bed of Bonaparte, taken at the
battle of Waterloo. Further events will decide
to what purposes I may apply it (the carriage),
though it is probable I shall keep it for my own
use.”
This singular person committed suicide in 1838,
by strangling himself in a London tavern, in the
ninety-second year of his age--“a case of suicide,”
it was said, “unparalleled in the annals of sorrow.”
On the east side of the Kirkgate, to take the
edifices in succession there, there was founded by
Robert Logan of Restalrig, in 1435, a preceptory
for the canons of St. Anthony, the only establkhment
of the kind in Scotland.
Arnot, in his history, unthinkingly mentions ‘‘ the
monastery of Knights Templars of St. Anthony”
at Leith. These canons, says Chalmers, “ seem to
have been an order of religious knights, not
Templars. The only document in which they are
called Templars is a charter of James VI. in 1614,
giving away their establishment and revenues; and
this mistake of an ignorant clerk is wildly repeated
by Arnot.”
Their church, burying-ground, and gardens were
in St. Anthony’s Wynd, an alley off the Kirkgate ;
and the first community was brought from St
Anthony of Vienne, the seat of the order in France
They were formed in honour of St. Anthony, the
patriarch of monks, who was born at Coma, a
village of Heraclea on the borders of Arcadia, in
A.D.‘z~I, and whose sister was placed in the first
convent that is recorded in history. A hermit by
habit, he dwelt long in the ruins of an old castle
that overlooked the Nile; and after his death (said
to have been in 356) his body was deposited in the
church of La Motte St. Didier, at Vienne, when,
according to old traditions, those labouring under
the pest known as St. ,4nthony’s Fire-a species of
erysipelas-were miraculously cured by praying at
his shrine.
Gaston, a noble of Vienne, and his son Gironde,
filled with awe, we are told, by these wonderful
cures, devoted their lives and estates to found a
hospital for those who laboured under this disease,
and seven others joined them in their attendance
on the sick; and on these Hospitaller Brethren
Boniface VIII. bestowed the Benedictine Priory
of Vienne, giving them the rules of St. Austin, and
declaring the Abbot General of this new orderthe
Canons Regular of St, Anthony. The superiors
of the subordinate preceptones were called commanders,
says Alban Butler, “ and their houses are
called commandenes, as when they were Hospitallers”
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p034.gif "Volume 6 Page 215")
... PRECEPTORY OF ST. ANTHONY. 215 Leith]
not making any deliberate assault ; but a pistol
shot was heard, and in ...
Vol. 6 p. 215 (Rel. 0.19)
... “ Church History,” were licensed by the
king ! This interdict was annulled by proclamation
at the Market ...
Vol. 3 p. 40 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
Close was seized, and a battery erected on the
summit thereof to assail ...
Vol. 2 p. 278 (Rel. 0.19)
![Restalrig.] LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I”-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of Elizabeth or the other conspirators as to the disposal
of his person.
Logan’s connection with this astounding treason
remained unknown till nine years after his death,
when the correspondence between him and the
Earl of Gowrie was discovered in possession of
Sprott, a notary at Eyemouth, who had stolen
them from a man named John Bain, to whom
they had been entrusted. Sprott was executed,
and Logan’s bones were brought into court to
havea sentence passed upon them, when it was
ordained “that the memorie’and dignitie of the
said umqle Robert Logan be extiiict and abolisheit,”
his arms riven and deleted from all books
of arms and all his goods escheated.
The poor remains of the daring old conspirator,
were then retaken to the church of St. Mary at
Leith and re-interred j and during the alterations
in that edifice, in 1847, a coffin covered with the
richest purple velvet was found in a place where
no interment had taken place for years, and the
bones in it were supposed by antiquaries to be
those of the turbulent Logan, the last laird of
Restalrig.
His lands, in part, with the patronage of South
Leith, were afterwards bestowed upon James
Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino ; but the name still
lingered in Restalrig, as in 1613 we find that
John Logan a portioner there, was fined LI,OOO
for hearing mass at the Netherbow with James of
Jerusalem.
Logan was forfeited in 1609, but his lands had
been lost to him before his death, as Nether Gogar
was purchased from him in I 596, by Andrew Logan
of Coatfield, Restalrig in 1604 by Balmerino, who
was interred, in 1612, in thevaulted mausoleum beside
the church ; “and the English army,’ says
Scotstarvit, “ on their coming to Scotland, in 1650,
expecting to have found treasures in that place,
hearing that lead coffins were there, raised up his
body and threw it on the streets, because they
could get no advantage or money, when they expected
so much.”
In 1633 Charles I. passed through, or near,
Restalrig, on his way to the Lang Gate, prior to
entering the city by the West Port.
William Nisbet of Dirleton was entailed in the
lands of Restalrig in 1725, and after the attainder
and execution of her husband, Arthur Lord Balmerino,
in I 746, his widow-Elizzbeth, daughter
of a Captain Chalmers-constantly resided in the
village, and there she died on the 5th January, 1767.
Other persons of good position dwelt in the
village in those days; among them we may note
’
Sir James Campbell of Aberuehill, many years a
Commissioner of the Customs, who died there 13th
May, 1754, and was buried in the churchyard ; and
in 1764, Lady Katharine Gordon, eldest daughter
of the Earl of Aboyne, whose demise there is
recorded in the first volume of the Edinburgh
Adverhjer.
Lord Alemoor, whose town house was in Niddry’s
Wynd, was resident at Hawkhill, where he died in
1776 ; and five years before that period the village
was the scene of great festal rejoicings, when
Patrick Macdowal of Freugh, fifth Earl of Dumfries,
was married to Miss Peggy Crawford, daughter of
Ronald Crawford, Esq., of Restalng.”
From Peter Williamson’s Directory it appears
that Restalrig was the residence, in 1784, of Alexander
Lockhart, the famous Lord Covington. In
the same year a man named James Tytler, who had
ascended in a balloon from the adjacent Comely
Gardens, had a narrow escape in this quarter. He
was a poor man, who supported himself and his
family by the use of his pen, and he conceived the
idea of going up in a balloon on the Montgolfier
principle ; but finding that he could not carry a firestove
with him, in his desperation and disappointment
he sprang into his car with no other sustaining
power than a common crate used for packing
earthenware; thus his balloon came suddenly
down in the road near Restalrig. For a wonder
Tytler was uninjured; and though he did not
reach a greater altitude than three hundred feet,
nor traverse a greater distance than half a mile, yet
his name must ever be mentioned as that of the
first Briton who ascended with a balloon, and who
was the first man who so ascended in Britain.”
It is impossible to forget that the pretty village,
latterly famous chiefly as a place for tea-gardens
and strawbemy-parties, was, in the middle of the
last century, the scene of some of the privations
of the college life of the fine old Rector Adam of
the High School, author of “Roman Antiquities,”
and other classical works. In 1758 he lodged
there in the house of a Mr. Watson, and afterwards
with a gardener. The latter, says Adam, in some
of his MS. memoranda (quoted by Dr. Steven),
was a Seceder, a very industrious man, who had
family worship punctually morning and evening,
in which I cordially joined, and alternately said
prayers. After breakfast I went to town to attend
my classes and my private pupils. For dinner I
had three small coarse loaves called baps, which I
got for a penny-farthing. As I was now always
dressed in my best clothes, I was ashamed to buy
these from a baker in the street. I therefore went
down to a baker‘s in the middle of a close. I put](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p146.gif "Volume 5 Page 135")
... LHL LA31 UP THE LOGANS. I35 -_7n T I”-
,
sible eyrie, Fast Castle, there to await the orders
of ...
Vol. 5 p. 135 (Rel. 0.19)
![Parliament House.] THE COURT
It has been said-with what truth it is impossible
to tell-that, when Cromwell appointed.
eleven Commissioners (three of whom were Eng-
4ishmen) for the administration of justice at Edinburgh,
their decisions were most impartial ; and,
on hearing them lauded after the Restoration had
-replaced the old lords on the Bench, the Presi-
.dent, Gilmour of Craigmillar, said, angrily, ‘‘ Deil
thank them-a wheen Kinless loons ! The grave
=of one of these Englishmen, George Smith, was
-
long pointed out in the abbey church, where
he was buried by torchlight in 1657. (Lamont’s
So far down as 1737 traces of bribery and in-
‘fluence in the Court are to be found, and proof
,of this is given in the curious and rare book
named the ‘‘ Court of Session Garland.”
In a lawsuit, pending 23rd November, 1735,
‘Thomas Gibson of Dune, agent for Foulis of
‘Woodhall, writes to his employer thus :-“ I have
spoken to Strachan, and several of the lords, who
are all surprised Sir F. (Francis Kinloch, Bart., of
Gilmerton) should stand that plea. By Lord St.
Clair‘s advice, Mrs. Kinloch is to wait on Lady
Caunie to-morrow, to cause her to ask the favour
Diary).
OF SESSION. 169
of Lady St. Clair to solicit Lady Betty Elphingston
(Elizabeth Primrose of Carrington) and Lady
Dun. My lord proniises to back his lady, and
to ply both their lords ; also Leven and his cousin
Murkle (a Lord of Session in 1733). He is your
good friend, and wishes success; he is jealous
Mrs. Mackie will side with her cousin Beattie. St.
Clair says Leven has only once gone wrong upon
his Rand since he was a Lord of Session. Mrs.
Kinloch has been with Miss Pringle, NewhalL
Young Dr. Pringle is a good agent there, and
discourses Lord Newhall strongCy an the law of
Lord Newhall was Sir Walter Pnngle, Knight,
son of the Laird of Stitchill, Lord of Session in
1718. But such would seem to have been the
influences that were used to obtain decisions in
the olden time; and, before quitting the subject of
the Parliament House we may recall a few of the
most notable senators, the memory of whose names
still lingers there.
The most distinguished lawyer of the seventeenth
century was undoubtedly Sir John Lauder,
Lord Fountainhall, son of a bailie of Edinburgh.
He was born there in 1646 ; and, after being at
nature.” b
PLAN OF THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE AND LAW COURTS.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p181.gif "Volume 1 Page 169")
... House.] THE COURT
It has been said-with what truth it is impossible
to tell-that, when Cromwell ...
Vol. 1 p. 169 (Rel. 0.19)
... OLD .AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Heriot’s Hospital.
as being in the vicinity of St. Giles’s church. There
he ...
Vol. 4 p. 364 (Rel. 0.19)
... on her dusky summit ranged,
Within its steepy limits pent
By bulwark, line, and battlement,
And flanking ...
Vol. 3 p. 152 (Rel. 0.19)
![Castle Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the larger scenes. The
proscenium was 32 feet wide by 32 feet in height,
with an availabie width behind of 74 feet, expanding
backwards to 114 feet.
The lighting was achieved ‘by a central sunlight
and lamps hung on the partition walls. The ventilation
was admirable, and the temperature was
regulated by steam-pipes throughout the house.
But the career of this fine edifice as a theatre
was very brief, and proved how inadequate Edinburgh
is, from the peculiar tastes and wishes of
its people, to supply audiences for more than two
or three such places of entertainment. It speedily
proved a failure, and being in the inarket was
purchased by the members of the United Presbyterian
Church, who converted it into a theological
hall, suited for an audience of 2,ooo in all.
The total cost of the building to the denomination,
including the purchase of the theatre, amounted
to ~47,000. Two flats under the street $oor are
fitted up as fireproof stores, which will cover in all
an area of 3,500 square yards.
In connection with this defunct theatre it was
proposed to have a winter garden and aquarium.
Near it the eye is arrested by a vast pile of new
buildings, fantastic and unique in design and
detail, the architect of which has certainly been
fortunate, at least, in striking out something
original, if almost indescribable, in domestic architecture.
Free St. Cuthbert’s Church is in Spittal Street,
which is named from Provost Sir James Spittal,
and is terminated by the King’s Bridge at the base
of the Castle Rock.
All this area of ground and that lying a little
to the westward have the general name of the
Castle Barns, a designation still preserved in a
little street near Port Hopetoun. A map of the
suburbs, in 1798, shows Castle Barns to be an
isolated hamlet or double row of houses on Lhe
Falkirk Road, distant about 250 yards from the
little pavilion-roofed villa still standing at the Main
Point. Maitland alleges that somewhere thereabout
an ediiice was erected for the accommodation
of the royal retinue when the king resided
in the Castle; and perhaps such may have been
the case, but the name implies its having been
the grange or farm attached to the fortress, and
this idea is confirmed by early maps, when a considerable
portion of the ground now lying on both
sides of the Lothian Road is included under the
general term.
On the plateau at the head of the latter, bordered
on the south-east by the ancient way to Fountainbridge,
stands one of the most hideous features
of Edinburgh-the Canal Basinl with its surrounding
stores and offices. 8
In 1817 an Act of Parliament was procured,
giving power to a joint stock company to cut a
a canal from Edinburgh to the Forth and Clyde
Canal at a point about four miles before the communication
of the latter with the Forth. The canal
was begun in the following year and completed in
1822. The chief objects of it were the transmission
of heavy goods and the conveyance of passengers
between the capital and Glasgow-a system long
since abandoned ; the importation to the former
of large coal supplies from places to the *estward,
and the exportation of manure from the city into
agricultural districts. The eastern termination,
calledPort Hopetoun, occasioned the rapid erect;on
of a somewhat important suburb, where before there
stood only a few scattered houses surrounded by
fields and groves of pretty trees; but the canal,
though a considerable benefit to the city in prerailway
times, has drained a great deal of money
from its shareholders.
Though opened in 182, the canal was considerably
advanced in the year preceding. In the
Week0 Journd for November 7, 1821, we read
that “from the present state of the works, the
shortening of the days, and the probability of being
retarded by the weather, it seems scarcely possible
that the trade of this navigation can be opened up
sooner than the second month of spring, which
will be exactly four years from its commencement.
Much has been done within the last few months
on the west end of the line, while at the east end
the forming of the basin, which is now ready to
receive the water, together with the numerous
bridges necessary in the first quarter of a mile, have
required great attention. , Of the passage boats
building at the west end of Lochrin distillery, two
of which we mentioned some time ago as being
in a forward state, one is now completed ; she is
in every respect an elegant and comfortable vessel,
and is called the FZoora Mac Ivor; the second is
considerably advanced, and a third boat after the
same model as the others is commenced building.”
In the same (now defunct) periodical, for 1st
January, 1822, we learn that the RZora, “the first
of the Union Canal Company’s passage boats, was
yesterday launched from the company’s building
yard, at the back of Gilmore Place.”
One of the best features of street architecture
that sprung up in this quarter after the formation
of the canal was Gardiner’s Crescent., with its
chapel, which was purchased from the United
Secession Congregation by the Kirk Session of St.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p035.gif "Volume 4 Page 215")
... Terrace.] THE UNION CANAL 215
newest mechanical appliances, including hydraulic
machinery for shifting the ...
Vol. 4 p. 215 (Rel. 0.19)
![Restalrig.] ST. MARGARET’S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of Drumsheugh were in all their
glory, there stood St. Margaret’s Well, the entire
edifice of which was removed to the Royal Park,
near Holyrood ; but the pure spring, deemed so
holy as to be the object of pilgrimages in the days
of old, still oozes into the fetid marsh close by.
It was no doubt the source of supply to the
ancient ecclesiastics of the village, and the path
alluded to had become in after times a means of
The structure-for elsewhere it still remains intact
-is octagonal, and entered by a pointed Gothic
doorway, and rises to the height of 4 ft. 6 in. It
is of plain ashlar work, with a stone ledge or seat
running round seven of the sides. From the centre
of the water, which fills the entire floor of the
building, rises a decorated pillar to the same height
as the walls, with grotesque gargoyles, from which
the liquid flows. Above this springs a richly
groined roof, “ presenting, with the ribs that rise
RESTALRIG.
communication between the church there and the
Abbey of Holyrood.
No authentic traces can be found of the history
of this consecrated fountain ; “ but from its name,”
says Billings, ‘‘ it appears to have been dedicated
to the Scottish queen and saint, Margaret, wife of
Malcolm 111.”
In the legend which we have already referred
to in our account of Holyrood, which represents
David I. as being miraculously preserved from the
infuriated white hart, Bellenden records that it
“fled away with gret violence, and evanist in the
same place quhere now springs the Rude Well.”
From its vicinity to the abbey, St. Margaret‘s has
been conjectured to be the well referred to.
113
from the corresponding corbels at each of the eight
angles of the building, a singularly rich effect when
illuminated by the reflected light from the water
below.”
When this most picturesque fountain stood in an
unchanged condition by the side of the old winding
path to Restalrig, an ancient elder-tree, With furrowed
and gnarled branches, covered all its grassgrown
top, and a tiny but aged thatched cottage
stood in front of it. Then, too, a mossy bank, rising
out of pleasant meadow land, protected the little
pillared cell; but the inexorable march of modem improvement
came, the old tree and the rustic cottage
were swept away, and the well itselfwas buried under
(See Vol. II., page 311.)
. a hideous station of the North British Railway.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p140.gif "Volume 5 Page 129")
... ST. MARGARET’S WELL. 129
By the south side of what was once an old forest
path when the oaks of ...
Vol. 5 p. 129 (Rel. 0.19)
... PGrt.1 THE LAWSONS. 22;
of Cromwell, expelled the General Assembly from
Edinburgh, literally drumming the ...
Vol. 4 p. 223 (Rel. 0.19)
... IV., while preparing for his fatal invasion
rn 1513, went daily to the Castle to inspect and
prove his ...
Vol. 1 p. 36 (Rel. 0.19)
... --It OLD AND‘ NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street,
Baron of the Exchequer Court in 1748, and grandson
of James of ...
Vol. 2 p. 214 (Rel. 0.19)
![Restalrig.] DRURY’S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth Earl of Douglas, Lord
of Bothwell, Galloway, and Annandale, Duke of
Touraine aud Marshal of France, resided in 1440,
in which year he died at Restalrig, of a malignant
fever.
In 1444 Sir John Logan of Restalrig was sheriff
of Edinburgh ; and in 1508 James Logan, of the
same place, was Sheriff-deputy.
Twenty-one years before the latter date an
calsay lyand, and the town desolate.” In the
following year, Holinshed records that “ the Lord
Grey, Lieutenant of the Inglis’ armie,” during the
siege of Leith, “ludged in the town of Lestalrike,
in the Dean’s house, and part of the Demi-lances
and other horsemen lay in the same towne.”
A little way north-westward of Restalrig, midway
between the place named Hawkhill and the upper
Quarry Holes, near the Easter Road, there occurred
on the 16th of June, 1571, a disastrous skirmish, de-
~
RESTALRIG CHURCH IN THE PRESENT DAYEnglish
army had encamped at Restalrig, under the
Duke of Gloucester, who spared the city at the
request of the Duke of Albany and on receiving
many rich presents fiom the citizens, while James
III., in the hand of rebel peers, was a species of
captive in the castle of Edinburgh.
In 1559 the then secluded village was the scene
of one of the many skirmishes that took place between
the troops of the Queen Regent and those
of the Lords of the Congregation, in which the
latter were baffled, “driven through the myre at
Restalrig-worried at the Craigingate ” (i.e., the
Calton), and on the 6th of November,’ “ at even
in the nycht,” they departed ‘‘ furth of Edinburgh
to Lynlithgow, and left their artailzerie on the
signated the BZack Saturday, or Drury’s peace,”
as it was sometimes named, through the alleged
treachery of the English ambassador.
Provoked by a bravado on the part of the Earl
of Morton, who held Leith, and who came forth
with horse and foot to the Hawkhill, the Earl of
Huntly, at the head of a body of Queen Mary‘s
followers, with a train of guns, issued out of Edinburgh,
and halted at the Quarry Holes, where he
was visited by Sir William Drury, the ambassador
of Queen Elizabeth, who had been with Morton in
Leith during the preceding night. His proposed
object was an amicable adjustment of differences,
to the end that no loss of life should ensue between
those who were countrymen, and, in too](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p144.gif "Volume 5 Page 133")
... DRURY’S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth ...
Vol. 5 p. 133 (Rel. 0.18)
![Leith.] THE FORTIFICATIONS. 17r
then at peace. A small force under Monsieur de
la Chapelle Biron had already preceded this main
body, which consisted of between six and seven
thousand well-trained soldiers, all led by officers of
high rank and approved valour.
Andre de Montelambert, Sieur &Esse, commanded
the whole ; 2,000 of these men were of the
regular infantry of France, and were commanded
by Coligny, the Seigneur d’Andelot, who for his
bravery at the siege of Calais, afterwards was presented
with the house of the last English governor,
Lord Dunford. His father, Gaspard de Coligny,
was a marshal of France in 1516. Gaspare di
Strozzi, Prior of Capua, a Florentine cavalier (exiled
by Alessandro I., Grand Duke of Tuscany), was
colonel of the Italians ; the Rhinegrave led 3,000
Germans ; Octavian, an old cavalier of Milan, led
1,000 arquebussiers on horseback ; Dunois was
captain of the Compagrries d’Oru’omance ; Brissac
D’Etanges was colonel of the horse. Another
noble armament, which was to follow under the
Marquis d‘Elbeuff, was cast away on the coast of
Holland, and only 900 of its soldiers reached
Scotland, under the Count de Martigues.
In the following year D’Esse was superseded in
the command by Paul de la Barthe, Seigneur de
Termes, a knight of St, Michael, who brought with
him IOO cuirassiers, zoo horse, and 1,000 infantry.
He was appointed marshal of France in 1555.
Prior to the arrival of these auxiliaries, Leith
seems to have been completely an open town ; but
Andre de Montelambert, as a basis for future operations,
at once saw the importance of fortifying it,
dependent as he was almost entirely upon support
from the Continent, and having a necessity for a
place to retreat into in case of reverse; so he at
once proceeded to enclose the seaport with strong
and regular works, carried out on the scientific principles
of the time.
As not a vestige of these works now remain, it is
useless to speculate on the probable height or composition
of the ramparts, which were most probably
massive earthworks, in many places faced
with stone, and must have been furnished with a
ferre-plene all round, to enable the gamson to pass
. and re-pass ; and no doubt the work would be efficiently
done, as the French have ever evinced the
highest talent for military engineering.
The works erected then were of a very irregular
kind, partaking generally of a somewhat triangular
form, the smallest base of which presented to
Leith Links on the eastward a frontage of about
2,000 feet from point to point of the flankers or
bastions.
In the centre of this was one great projecting
bastion, 600 feet in length, in the h e of the present
Constitution Street
Ramsay’s Fort, usually called the first bastion,
adjoined the river in the line of BernarC‘s Street
with a curtain nearly 500 feet long, the second
bastion terminating the frontage described as to the
Links. The present line of Leith Walk would seem
to have entered the town by St. Anthony’s Port,
between the third and fourth bastion.
A gate in the walls is indicated by Maitland as
being at the foot of the Bonnington Road, near the
fifth bastion, from whence the works extended to
the riveq which was crossed by a wooden bridge
near the sixth bastion. Port St. Nicholas-so called
from the then adjacent church-entered at the
seventh bastion, which was flanked far out at a very
acute angle, evidently to enclose the church and
burying-ground ; and from thence the fortifications,
with a sea front of 1,200 feet, extended to the eighth
bastion, which adjoined the Sand Port, near where
the Custom House standsnow. The two bastions
at the harbour mouth would no doubt be built
wholly of stone, and heavily armed with guns to
defend the entrance.
Kincaid states that in his time some vestiges of
a ditch and bastion existed westward of the citadel.
Where the Exchange Buildings now stand there
long remained a narrow mound of earth a hundred
yards long and of considerable height, which in the
last century was much frequented by the belles of
Leith as a lofty and airy promenade, to which there
was an ascent by steps. It was called the “ Ladies’
Walk,” and was, no doubt, the remains of the
work adjoining the second bastion of AndI;e de
Montelambert.
The wall near the third bastion, when it became
reduced to a mere mound of earth, formed for a
time a portion of South Leith burying-ground.
“ An unfortunate and unthinking wight of a seacaptain,”
sayscampbell, in his “History,)) “tempted,
we presume, by the devil, once took it in his head
to ballast his ship with this sacred earth. The consequence,
tradition has it, of this sacrilegious act
was, that neither the wicked captain nor his ship,
after putting to sea, was ever heard of again.”
Montelambert D’Esse could barely have had his
fortifications completed when, as already noted, he
was superseded in the command by a senior officer,
Paul de la Barthe, the Seigneur de Termes, one of
whose first measures was to drive the English out
of Inchkeith, where a detachment of them had been
occupying the old castle. The general operations
of the French army at Haddington and elsewhere,
after being joined by 5,000 Scottish troops under
the Governor, lie apart from the history of Leith;](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p182.gif "Volume 5 Page 171")
... THE FORTIFICATIONS. 17r
then at peace. A small force under Monsieur de
la Chapelle Biron had already ...
Vol. 5 p. 171 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Melville Street
pr0mot.e the pleasant intercourse of. those who
practise art either ...
Vol. 4 p. 210 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH .
~
PACE
Leith Roads. 1824 . . . . . . . 276
Tlu East and West Piers. Leith . . To ...
Vol. 6 p. 402 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Ainslie Place.
To the philosopher we have already referred in
our account of Lothian ...
Vol. 4 p. 206 (Rel. 0.18)
... blood of the Trojans. In Albanye (now called
Scotland) he edified the Castell of Alclude, which
is Dumbreyton ...
Vol. 1 p. 15 (Rel. 0.18)
![Queen Street.] SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON. I53
office by Sir James Montgomery of Stanhope.
Early in the next century the house was the
residence of Sir William Cunningham, Bart, and in
more recent years had as an occupant the gallant
Sir Neil Douglas, Commander of the Forces in
Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle, who
commanded the Cameron Highlanders in the war
with France, and was contused by a ball at Quatre
Bras. It is now occupied by tlic Edinburgh Institution
for Education, the head of which is Dr.
Fergusson, F.R.S.E.
Nos. g and 10 were removed in 1844 to make
way for the present hall of the Royal College of
Physicians, on the demolition of the former one in
George Street. The foundation stone was laid on
the 8th of August, 1844, by the then president,
Dr. Renton, in presence of the Fellows of the
college and others. In it were deposited a copy of
the first edition of the “ Edinburgn Pharmacopeia,”
containing a list .of the Fellows of the college; a
work concerning its private affairs, printed several
years before ; an Edinburgh Almanac for the
current year; several British coins, and a silver
plate with a suitable Latin inscription.
It was designed by Thomas Hamilton, and ’is
adorned in front with an Attic Corinthian tetrastyle,
sunqounted by a common Corinthian distyle, and
is handsomely adorned by colossal statues of
iBsculapius, Hippocrates, and Hygeia ; but it was
barely completed when, ample though its accommodation
appeared to be, the rapid additions to
its library and the great increase in the number of
Fellows, consequent on a reduction of the money
entry, and other changes, seemed to .render an
extension necessary.
In No. 11 are the offices of the E&hurgh
Gazette, the representative of the paper started by
Captain Donaldson in 1699, and re-issued by the
same person in March, I 707.
Sir Henry Wellwood Moncriff, Bart., D.D., a
distinguished divine, wha for half a century was
one .of the brightest ornaments of the Scottish
Church, resided in No. 13 during the first years of
the present century. He died in August, 1827,
and his second, son, James, a senator, under the
title of Lord Moncrieff, succeeded to the baronetcy,
which is one of the oldest in Scotland, having
been conferred by Charles I. in 1626.
It was afterwards occupied by the Scottish
Heritable Security Company.
-The next house westward was the residence, at
the same time, of William Honeyman of Graemsay,
who was elevated to the bench as Lord Armadale,
and created a baronet in 1804. He had been pre.
viously Sheriff of the county of Lanarkshire. ‘He mar.
88
*ied a daughter of Lord Braxfield, and died in 1825,
eaving ,behind him a reputation for considerable
dent and sound judgment, both as a barrister and
udge. He had two sons in the army-Patrick,
who served in the old -28th Light Dragoons, and
Robert, who died in Jamaica in 1809, Lieutenant-
Clolonel of the 18th Royal Irish.
His house is now occupied by the site of the
Zaledonian United Service Club, erected in 1853.
In 1811 No. 27 was the residence of General
Sraham Stirling, an old and distinguished officer,
whose family still occupy it. In the same year
4lexander Keith of Ravelston, Hereditary Knight
Marshal of Scotland, occupied No. 43. Behind the
louse line stands St. Luke’s Free Church, which has
i fictitious street front in the Tudor style, with two
-ichly crocketed finials.
No. 38 was the house of George Paton, ‘Advocate,
md afterwards Lord Justice Clerk, whose suicide
nade much sensation in Edinburgh a few years
1go.
In No. 52 lived and died one of the most illus-
:rious citizens of Edinburgh-Professor Sir James .
Young Sirnpson, Bart., who came to Edinburgh a
poor and nearly friendless student, yet in time
ittained, as Professor of Midwifery in the University
and as the discoverer of extended uses of chlorolorm,
a colossal fame, not only in Europe, but
wherever the English language is spoken. He
obtained the chair of midwifery in r840, and seven
years after made his great discovery. In 1849 he
was elected President of the Edinburgh College
of Physicians; in 1852 President of the Medico-
Chirurgical Society ; and ‘in the following year,
under circumstances of the greatest klat, Foreign
Associate of the French Academy of Medicine ‘
In 1856 the French Academy of Sciences awarded
him the “ Monthyon Prize ” of 2,000 francs for the
benefits he conferred on humanity by the introduction
of anmthesia by chloroform into the practice
of surgery and midwifery.
A few weeks earlief, for the same noble cause, he
won the royal order of St. Olaf, from Oscar, King
of Sweden, and in 1866 was created a baronet of
Great Britain. His ,professional writings are too
numerous to be recorded here, suffice it to say
that they have been translated into every European
language.
No man ever attracted so many visitors to Edinburgh
as Sir James Simpson, for many Came to see
him who were not invalids. His house in Queeu
Street was the centre of attraction for men -of
letters and science from all parts of the worldphysicians,
naturalists, antiquarians, and literati of
all kinds were daily to be met at his table. His](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p165.gif "Volume 3 Page 153")
... Street.] SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON. I53
office by Sir James Montgomery of Stanhope.
Early in the next century ...
Vol. 3 p. 153 (Rel. 0.18)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Craigmillar.
-- 58
competition, the first prize for the chapel, &c., was
awarded to ...
Vol. 5 p. 58 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Burghmuir.
great forest of Drumsheugh, wherein the white.
bull, the Caledonian boar, ...
Vol. 5 p. 28 (Rel. 0.18)
![NioiLson Street.] JOHN MACLAREN. 337
spend a portion of each day in education, often
passing an hour or more daily in learning to read
by means of raised letters, under the direction of
the chaplain.
One of the most remarkable inmates here was
John Maclaren, who deserves to be recorded for
his wonderful memory. He was a native of Edinburgh,
and lost his sight by small-pox in infancy.
He was admitted into the first asylum ir. Shakespeare
Square in 1793, and was the last survivor
In West Richmond Street, which opens off the
east side of Nicolson Street, is the McCrie Free
Church, so named from being long the scene of
the labours of Dr. Thomas McCric, the zealous
biographer of Knox and Melville. Near it, a large
archway leads into a small and dingy-looking court,
named Simon Square, crowded by a humble, but
dense population ; yet it has associations intimately
connected with literature and the fine arts, for
there a poor young student from Rnnandale, named
SURGEONS’ HALL.
of the original members. With little exception,
he had committed the whole of the Scriptures to
memory, and was most earnest in his pious efforts
to instruct the blind boys of the institution in portions
of the sacred volume. He could repeat an
entire passage of the Bible, naming chapter and
verse, wherever it might be opened for him. As
age came upon him the later events of his life eluded
his memory, while all that it had secured of the
earlier remained distinct to the last. Throughout
his long career he was distinguished by his zeal
in promoting the spiritual welfare and temporal
comfort of the little community of which he was
a member, and also for 3 life of increasing industry,
which closed on the 14th of November, 1840.
91
Thomas Carlyle, lodged when he first came to
Edinburgh, and in a narrow alley called Paul
Street David Wilkie took up his abode on his
arrival in Edinburgh in 1799.
He was then in his fourteenth year; and so little
was thought of his turn for art, that it required all
the powerful influence of the kind old Earl of
Leven to obtain him admission as a student at the
Academy of the Board of Trustees. The room he
occupied in Paul Street was a little back one, about
ten feet square, at the top of a common stair on
the south side of the alley, and near the Pleasance.
From this he removed to a better lodging in East
Richmond Street, and from thence to an attic in
Palmer‘s Lane, West Nicolson Street, where hq](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p157.gif "Volume 4 Page 337")
... Street.] JOHN MACLAREN. 337
spend a portion of each day in education, often
passing an hour or more ...
Vol. 4 p. 337 (Rel. 0.18)
![THE OLD WORKHOUSE. 325 Bristo Street.]
cambrick ” bears the earl’s coronet above his
initial R. Three guineas’ reward was offered for
any one who would return Polly “to her owner,”
either at John’s Coffee House, “or the Earl of
Rosebeme at Denham’s Land, Bristow, and no
questions will be asked. She is a London girl,
and what they call a Cockney.” There are in
the advertisement a great many arguments and
inducements used by the earl to induce the fair
was a park called Forglens Park, upon part of
which the New Bridge is built,” says a writer in
1775, “and the rest feued out by the magistrates
to different persons, upon which there are now
many good houses erected This park used to
pay AI o yearly.”
At midsummer, in 1743, this house was opened
for the reception of the poor, who were employed
according to their ability, and allowed twopence
DARIEN HOUSE, 1750.
one to return, and the whole are wound up by the
following elegant couplet :-
“ My Lord desires Polly Rich,
To mind on Lord Roseberrie’s dear little Fish.“
(Scottish/ournal, Vol. I.)
Westward of Bristo Street, in the large open field
described, there was erected in 1743 the Workhouse.
It was four storeys in height, very spacious, but plain,
massive, and dingy, with a pedimented or gabled
centre, whereat hung a huge bell, and in which
there were three tall arched windows of the chapel
or hall. It stood zoo feet south-west of the Bristo
Port, on a part of the ground then denominated
the High Riggs, and the expense of the edifice was
defrayed by the voluntary contributions of the
inhabitants ; and for its use, “among other subjects,
out of every shilling they earned. The annual
expense of maintaining each person in those days
amounted to A4 IOS., and was defrayed by a tax
of two per cent. on the valued rents of the city, the
dues of the dead, or the passing bell, burial
warrants, green turfs, half the profits of the Ladies’
Assembly Room, the collections at the church
doors, and other voluntary contributions. It was
early proposed to establish a permanent poor rate,
but this was opposed by the members of the College
of Justice, on the plea that they were not liable to
local burdens.
The number maintained in this now defunct
edifice from the 1st of January, 1777, to the 1st
of January, 1778, was only 484 adults, of both
sexes, of whom 52 died; 180 children, of whom](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p145.gif "Volume 4 Page 325")
... OLD WORKHOUSE. 325 Bristo Street.]
cambrick ” bears the earl’s coronet above his
initial R. Three ...
Vol. 4 p. 325 (Rel. 0.18)
... at sea, yet he adds, “our numbers
amounted to 700, and with the loss of three we
made ourselves ...
Vol. 5 p. 173 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bonnington.
In April, 1747, the Countess of Hugh, third Earl
of Marchmont (Anne ...
Vol. 5 p. 90 (Rel. 0.18)
... PALACE BURNED AND REPAIRED. 73
~
gesse !”’ Then the castle fired a salute, while
silver was scattered to ...
Vol. 3 p. 73 (Rel. 0.18)
![The Water of Leith.] EDINBURGH ACADEMY, 85
son Row. This useful and charitable institution
was established in 1810, but the present house
was founded on the 22nd of May, 1823, the stone
being laid by one of the senior pupils, in presence of
his voiceless companions, “ whose looks,” says the
Edinburgh Advertiser, cc bespoke the feelings of
their minds, and which would have been a sufficient
recompense to the contributors for the building,
had they been witnesses of the scene.”
Children whose parents or guardians reside
’
county, the Dean of Guild, and certain councillors.
The committee of management of this institution is
entirely composed of ladies.
When digging the foundations of this edifice, in
April, 1823, several rude earthen urns, containing
human bones, were found at various depths under
the surface. There were likewise discovered some
vaults or cavities, formed of unhewn stone, which
also contained human bones, but there were no
inscriptions, carving, or accessory object, to indi-
CANONMILLS LOCH AND HOUSE, 1830. C mm OII Oil ~.i~tiq&/. Kir;i)
in Edinburgh or Leith are admissible as day
scholars, and are taught the same branches of
instruction as the other children, but on the
payment of such fees as the directors may determine.
The annual public examination of these deaf
and dumb pupils takes place in summer, when
visitors are invited to question them, by means of
the manual alphabet, upon their knowledge of
Scripture history and religion, English composition,
geography, history, and arithmetic. There have
also been Government examinations in drawing.
A little way westward of this edifice stands the
Dean Bank Institution, for the religious, moral,
and industrial trainingof young girls, under the
directorship of the Lord Provost, the sheriff of the
cate the age to which these relics of pre-historic
Edinburgh belonged.
That great educational institution, the Edinburgh
Academy, in Henderson Row, some two hundred
and sixty yards north of St. Stephen’s Church, was
founded on the 30th June, 1823, in a park feued by
the directors from the governors of Heriot’s Hospital.
In the stone were deposited a copper plate,
with a long Latin inscription, and the names of the
directors, with three bottles, containing a list of the
contributors, maps of the city, and other objects.
It was designed by Mr. William Burn, and is
a somewhat low and plain-looking edifice, in
the Grecian style, with a pillared portico, and is
constructed with reference more to internal accom](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p096.gif "Volume 5 Page 85")
... Water of Leith.] EDINBURGH ACADEMY, 85
son Row. This useful and charitable institution
was established in ...
Vol. 5 p. 85 (Rel. 0.18)
![202 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.armorial he adopted was argent, a tree or, with two
ships under sail.
It was still time of truce when Henry, mortified
by the defeat of his five ships, exhorted his most
.able seamen “ to purge away this stain cast on the
English name,” and offered the then noble pension
of &I,OOO per annum to any man who could
accomplish Wood’s death or capture ; and the task
was taken in hand by Sir Stephen Bull (originally
a merchant of London), who, with three of Henry’s
largest ships manned by picked crews, and having
on board companies of crossbowmen, pikemen, and
many volunteers of valour and good birth, sailed
from the Thames in July, 1490, and entering the
Firth of Forth, came to anchor under the lee of
the Isle of May, there to await the return of Wood
from Sluys, and for whose approach he kept boats
scouting to seaward.
On the morning of the 18th of August the two
ships of Wood hove in sight, and were greeted with
exultant cheers by the crews of Bull, who set
some inlets of wine abroach, and gave the orders
to unmoor and clear away for battle.
Wood recognised the foe, and donninghis armour,
gave orders to clear away too ; and his brief ha-
Iangue, modernised, is thus given by Lindesay of
Pitscottie and others :-
“ My lads, these are the foes who would convey
us in bonds to the foot of an English king, but by
your courage and the help of God they shall fail !
Repair every man to his station-charge home,
gunners-cross-bowmen to the tops-two-handed
swords to the fore-rooms-lime-pots and fire-balls in
the tops ! Be stout, men, and true for the honour
of Scotland and your own sakes. Hurrah!”
Shouts followed, and stoups of wine went round.
His second in command was Sir David Falconer,
who was afterwards slain at Tantallon. The result
of the battle that ensued is well known. It was
continued for two days and a night, during which
the ships were all grappled together, and drifted
into the Firth of Tay, where the English were all
taken, and carried as prizes into the harbour of
Dundee. Wood presented Sir Stephen Bull and
his surviving officers to Jarnes IV., who dismissed
them unransomed, with their ships, “ because they
fought not for gain, but glory,” and Henry dissemkled
his rage by returning thanks.
For this victory Wood obtained the sea town as
well as the nether town of Largo, and soon afteI
his skilful eye recommended the Bay of Gourock ta
James as a capable harbour. In 1503 he led a
fleet against the insurgent chiefs of the Isles. Hi$
many brilliant services lie apart from the immediate
history of Leith. Suffice it to say that he was pre.
I
sent at the battle of Linlithgow in 1526, and
wrapped the dead body of Lennox in his own
scarlet mantle. Age was coming on him after this,
and he retired to his castle of Largo, where he
seems to have lived somewhat like old Commodore
Trunnion, for there is still shown the track of a
canal formed by his order, on which he was rowed
to mass daily in Largo church in a barge by his
old crew, who were all located around him, He is
supposed to have died abodt 1540, and was buried
in Largo church. One of his sons was a senator
of the College of Justice in 1562 ; and Sir Andrew
Wood, third of the House of Largo, was Comptroller
of Scotland in 1585.
Like himself, the Bartons, the shipmates and
friends of Sir -4ndrew, all attained high honour
and fame, though their origin was more distinguished
than his, and they were long remembered
among the fighting captains of Leith.
John Barton, a merchant of Leith in the time of
James III., had three sons : Sir Andrew, the hero
of the famous nautical ballad, who was slain in the
Downs in 151 I, but whose descendants still exist ;
Sir Robert of Overbarnton in 1508, Comptroller
of the Household to James V. in 1520; John, an
eminent naval commander under James 111. and
James IV., who died in t 5 13,and was buried at Kirkcudbright.
The Comptroller’s son Robert married
the heiress of Sir John Mowbray of Barnbougle, who
died in 151 y ; and his descendants became extinct
in the person of Sir Robert of Overbarnton, Barnbougle,
and Inverkeithing. Our authorities for these
and a few other memoranda concerning this old
Leith family are a “Memoir of the Familyof Barton,
&c.,” by J. Stedman, Esq., of Bath (which is scarce,
only twelve copies having been printed), Tytler,
Pinkerton, and others.
For three generations the Bartons of Leith seem
to have had a kind of family war with the Portuguese,
and their quarrel began in the year 1476,
when John Barton, senior, on putting to sea froin
Sluys, in Flanders, in a king’s ship, the ]iZiai’nnn,
laden with a valuable cargo, was unexpectedly
attacked by two armed Portuguese caravels, commanded
respectively by Juan Velasquez and Juan
Pret. The JiZiana was taken ; many of her crew
were slain or captured, the rest were thrust into a
boat and cut adrift. Among the latter was old John
Barton, who proceeded to Lisbon to seek indemnity,
but in vain; and he is said by one account to
have been assassinated by Pret or Velasquez to put
an end to the affair. By another he is stated to have
been alive in 1507, and in command of a ship
called the Liun, which was seized at Campvere, in
Zealand-unless it can be that the John referred to](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p021.gif "Volume 6 Page 202")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
.armorial he adopted was argent, a tree or, with two
ships under sail.
It was ...
Vol. 6 p. 202 (Rel. 0.18)
... 1543, when the traitorous Scottish nobles of
what was named the English faction, leagued with
Henry VIII. ...
Vol. 5 p. 169 (Rel. 0.18)
![Bomington] THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,”
though coloured by High Church prejudices,
is deemed a useful narration and very candid record
of the most controverted part of our national
annals, while the State documents used in its compilation
have proved of the greatest value to every
subsequent writer on the same subject. Very
curious is the list of subscribers, as being, says
Chambers, a complete muster-roll of the whole
Jacobite nobility and gentry of the period, including
among others the famous Rob Roy, the outlaw !
The bishop performed the marriage ceremony of
that ill-starred pair, Sir George Stewart of Grandtully
and Lady Jane Douglas, on the 4th of August, I 746.
In I 7 5 5 he published his well-known “ Catalogue
of Scottish Bishops,” a mine of valuable knowledge
to future writers.
The latter years of his useful and blameless life,
during which he was in frequent correspondence
with the gallant Marshal Keith, were all spent at
the secluded villa of Bonnyhaugh, which belonged
to himself. There he died on the 27th of January,
1757, in his seventy-sixth year, and was borne,
amid the tears of the Episcopai communion, to his
last home in the Canongate churchyard. There he
lies, a few feet from the western wall, where a plain
stone bearing his name was only erected recently.
In 1766 Alexander Le Grand was entailed in the
lands and estates of Bonnington.
In 1796 the bridge of Bonnington, which was of
timber, having been swept away by a flood, a
boat was substituted till 1798, when another wooden
bridge was erected at the expense of A30.
Here in Breadalbane Street, northward of some
steam mills and iron-works, stands the Bonnington
Sugar-refining Company’s premises, formed by a few
merchants of Edinburgh andLeith about 1865, where
they carry on an extensive and thriving business.
The property and manor house of Stewartfield
in this quarter, is westward of Bonnington, a square
edifice with one enormous chimney rising through a
pavilion-shaped roof. We have referred to the entail
of Alexander Le Grand, of Bonnington, in 1766.
The Scots Magazine for 1770 records an alliance
between the two proprietors here thus :-“At Edinburgh,
Richard Le Grand, Esq., of Bonnington
(son of the preceding?), to Miss May Stewart,
daughter of James Stewart of Stewartfield, Esq.”
On the north side of the Bonnington Road, and
not far from Bonnington House, stands that of
Pilrig, an old rough-cast and gable-ended mansion
among aged trees, that no doubt occupies the site
of a much older edifice, probably a fortalice.
In 1584 Henry Nisbett, burgess of Edinburgh,
became caution before the Lords of the Privy
Council, for Patrick Monypenny of Pilrig, John
Kincaid of Warriston, Clement Kincaid of the
Coates, Stephen Kincaid, John Matheson, and
James Crawford, feuars of a part of the Barony
of Broughton, that they shall pay to Adam Bishop
of Orkney, commendator of Holyrood House,
“what they ow-e him for his relief of the last
taxation of _f;zo,ooo, over and above the sum of
€15, already consigned in the hands of the col-
Lector of the said collection.”
In 1601 we find the same Laird of Pilrig engaged
in a brawl, “forming a specimen of the
second class of outrages.” He (Patrick Monypenny)
stated to the Lords of Council that he had
a wish to let a part of his lands of Pilrig, called the
Round Haugh, to Harry Robertson and Andrew
Alis, for his own utility and profit. But on a certain
day, not satisfied, David UuA; a doughty indweller in
Leith, came to these per‘sons, and uttering ferocious
menaces against them in the event of their occupying
these lands, effectually prevented them from
doing so.
Duff next, accompanied by two men named
Matheson, on the 2nd of March, 1601, attacked
the servants of the Laird of Pilrig, as they were
at labour on the lands in question, with similar
speeches, threatening them with death if they persisted
in working there; and in the night they,
or other persons instigated by them, had come
and broken their plough, and cast it into the
Water of Leith. “John Matheson,” continues the
indictment, ‘‘ after breaking the complenar‘s plew,
came to John Porteous’s house, and bade him gang
now betwix the Flew stilts and see how she wald go
till the morning:’ adding that he would have his
head broken if he ever divulged who had broken
the plough,
The furious Duff, not contentwith all this,trampled
and destroyed the tilled land. In this case the
accused were dismissed from the bar, but only, it
would appear, through hard swearing in their own
cause.
There died at Pilrig, according to the Scots
Magazine for 1767, Margaret, daughter of the late
Sir Johnstone Elphinstone of Logie, in the month of
January ; and in the subsequent June, Lady Elphinstone,
his widow. The Elphinstones of Logie were
baronets of 1701.
These ladies were probably visitors, as the then
proprietor and occupant of the mansion was James
Balfour of Pilng, who was born in 1703, and became
a member of the Faculty of Advocates on
the 14th of November, 1730, Three years later
on the death of Mr. Bayne, Professor of Scottish
Law in the University of Edinburgh, he and Mr.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p102.gif "Volume 5 Page 91")
... THE LAIRDS OF PILRIG. 91
His History of the Church and State of Scotland,”
though coloured by High ...
Vol. 5 p. 91 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH [The West Bow.
by Victoria Terrace, replaced in one part by a
flight of stairs, in ...
Vol. 2 p. 310 (Rel. 0.18)
![New Town.] ’ . WOOD’S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep hollow, where Bell’s Mills
lie, and by Broughton Loan at the other end of the
northern ridge.
Bearford‘s Parks on the west, and Wood’s Farm
on the east, formed the bulk of this portion of the
site; St. George’s Church is now in the centre of
the former, and Wemyss Place of the latter. The
hamlet and manor house of Moultray’s Hill arc now
occupied by the Register House; and where the
Royal Bank stands was a cottage called “Peace
and Plenty,” from its signboard near Gabriel’s
Road, “ where ambulative citizens regaled themselves
with curds and cream,’’ and Broughton was
deemed so far afield that people went there for
the summer months under the belief that they
were some distance from ‘town, just as people
used to go to Powburn and Tipperlinn fifty years
later.
Henry Mackenzie, author of “The Man of
Feeling,” who died in 1831, remembered shooting
snipes, hares, and partridges upon Wood’s Farm.
The latter was a tract of ground extending frGm
Canon Mills on the north, to Bearford‘s Parks on
the south, and was long in possession of Mr. Wood,
of Warriston, and in the house thereon, his son,
the famous “Lang Sandy Wood,” was born in
1725. It stood on the area between where Queen
Street and Heriot Row are now, and “many still
alive,” says Chambers, writing in 1824, “remember
of the fields bearing as fair and rich a crop of
wheat as they may now be said to bear houses.
Game used to be plentiful upon these groundsin
particular partridges and hares . . . . . Woodcocks
and snipe were to be had in all the damp
and low-lying situations, such as the Well-house
Tower, the Hunter’s Bog, and the borders of
Canon Mills Loch. Wild ducks were frequently
shot in the meadows, where in winter they are
sometimes yet to be found. Bruntsfield Links,
and the ground towards the Braid Hills abounded
in hares.”
In the list of Fellows of the Royal College of
Surgeons, Alexander Wood and his brother Thomas
are recorded, under date 1756 and 1715 respectively,
as the sons of “Thomas Wood, farmer on
the north side of Edinburgh, Stockbridge Road,“
now called Church Lane.
A tradition exists, that about 1730 the magistrates
offered to a residenter in Canon Mills all the
ground between Gabriel’s Road and the Gallowlee,
in perpetual fee, at the annual rent of a crown
bowl of punch; but so worthless was the land then,
producing only whim and heather, that the offer
was rejected. (L‘ Old Houses in Edinburgh.”)
The land referred to is now worth more than
A15,ooo per annum. .
Prior to the commencement of the new town,
the only other edifices. on the site were the Kirkbraehead
House, Drumsheugh House, near the old
Ferry Road, and the Manor House of Coates.
Drumsheugh House, of which nothing now remains
but its ancient rookery in Randolph Crescent,
was removed recently. Therein the famous
Chevaliei Johnstone, Assistant A.D.C. to Prince
Charles; was concealed for a time by Lady Jane
Douglas, after the battle of Culloden, till he escaped
to England, in the disguise of a pedlar.
Alexander Lord Colville of Culross, a distinguished
Admiral of the White, resided there s u b
sequently. He served at Carthagena in 1741, at
Quebec and Louisbourg in the days of Wolfe, and
died at Drumsheugh on the zIst of May, 1770.
His widow, Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of
Alexander Earl of Kellie, resided there for some
years after, together with her brother, the Honourable
Andrew Erskine, an officer of the old 71st,
disbanded in 1763, an eccentric character, who
figures among Kay’s Portraits, and who in
1793 was drowned in the Forth, opposite Caroline
Park. Lady Colville died at Drumsheugh in
the following year, when the house and lands
thereof reverted to her brother-in-law, John Lord
Colville of Culross. And so lately as 1811 the
mansion was occupied by James Erskine, Esq.,.
of Cambus.
Southward of Drumsheugh lay Bearford’s Parks,.
mentioned as “ Terras de Barfurd ” in an Act in.
favour of Lord Newbattle in 1587, named from
Hepburn of Bearford in Haddingtonshire.
In 1767 the Earl of Morton proposed to have a
wooden bridge thrown across the North Loch
from these parks to the foot of Warriston’s Close, but
the magistrates objected, on the plea that the property
at the dose foot was worth A20,ooo. The
proposed bridge was to be on a line with “the
highest level ground of Robertson’s and Wood’s
Farms.” In the Edinburgh Adnediser for 1783
the magistrates announced that Hallow Fair was
to be “held in the Middle Bearford’s Park.”
Lord Fountainhall, under dates 1693 and 1695,
records a dispute between Robert Hepburn of
Bearford and the administrators of Heriot’s hospital,
concerning “the mortified annual rents
acclaimed out of his tenement in Edinburgh, called
the Black Turnpike,” and again in 1710, of an
action he raised against the Duchess of Buccleuch,
in which Sir Robert Hepburn of Bearford,
in I 633, is referred to, all probably of the same family.
The lands and houses of Easter and Wester](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p127.gif "Volume 3 Page 115")
... Town.] ’ . WOOD’S FARM. 11.5
Lang Dykes; by the old Queensferry Road that
I descended into the deep ...
Vol. 3 p. 115 (Rel. 0.18)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moultray’s Hill.
-
dedicated to him,”) but by whom founded or when,
is quite ...
Vol. 2 p. 366 (Rel. 0.18)
![west Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,” and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both inconvenient and circuitous.
It has been supposed that the earliest buildings
-on this site had been erected in the reign of James
IV., when the low ground to the westward was the
scene of those magnificent tournaments, which drew
to that princely monarch7s court the most brilliant
chivalry in Europe, and where those combats ensued
of which the king was seldom an idle spectator.
This tilting ground remained open and unen-
~
appointed for triell of suche matters.” Latterly
the place bore the name of Livingstone’s Yards.
We have mentioned the acquisition by the city
of the king‘s stables at the Restoration. Lord
Fountainhall records, under date I rth March,
1685, a reduction pursued by the Duke of Queensberry,
as Governor of the Castle, against Thomas
Boreland and other possessors of these stables, as
part of the Castle precincts and property. Boreland
and others asserted that they held their property in
THE GRASSMARKET, FROM THE WEST PORT, 1825. (Afhh’wbmk.)
closed when Maitland wrote. and is described by I virtue of a feu granted in the reign of James V.,
him as a pleasant green space, 150 yards long, by
50 broad, adjoining the Chapel of Our Lady ; but
this “pleasant green” is now intersected by the‘
hideous Kingsbridge ; one portion is occupied by
the Royal Horse Bazaar and St. Cuthbert’s Free
Church, while the rest is made odious by tan-pits,
slaughter-houses, and other dwellings of various
descriptions.
Calderwood records that in the challenge to
mortal combat, in 1571, between Sir William
I Kirkaldy of Grange, and Alexander Stewart
younger of Garlies, they were to fight “upon the
ground, the Baresse, be-west the West Port of
Edinburgh, the place accustomed and of old ,
I
77
but the judges decided that unless thedefenders
could prove a legal dissolution of the royal possession,
they must be held as the king‘s stables, and
be accordingly annexed to the crown of Scotland
Thomas Boreland’s house, one which long figured
in every view of the Castle from the foot of Vennel
{see Vol. I., p. 80), has recently been pulled down.
It was a handsome and substantial edifice of three
storeys in height, including the dormer windows,
crow-stepped, and having three most picturesque
gables in front, with a finely moulded door, on the
lintel of which were inscribed a date and legend :-
T. B. v. B. 1675.
FEAR. GOD. HONOR . THE. KING.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p045.gif "Volume 4 Page 225")
... Port.] THE TILTING GROUND. 225
centuries,” and the access thereto from the Castle
must have been both ...
Vol. 4 p. 225 (Rel. 0.18)
![Canonmills.] THE ROYAL GYMNASIUM. 87
to search for and seize them for his own use.
Hunter also prosecuted him for throwing his wife
into the mill-lade and using opprobrious language,
for which he was fined 650 sterling, and obliged
to find caution.
A hundred years later saw a more serious tumult
in Canonmills.
In 1784 there was a great scarcity of food in
Edinburgh, on account of the distilleries, which
were said by some to consume enormous quantities
of oatmeal and other grain unfermented, and
to this the high prices were ascribed. A large mob
proceeded from the town to Canonmills, and attacked
the great distillery of the Messrs. Haig
there j but meeting with an unexpected resistance
from the workmen, who, as the attack had been
expected, were fully supplied with arms, they retired,
but not until some of their number had been
killed, and the “Riot Act” read by the sheriff,
Baron Cockburn, father of Lord Cockburn. TheiI
next attempt was on the house of the latter;
but on learning that troops had been sent for, they
desisted. In these riots, the mob, which assembled
by tuckof drum, was charged by the troops, and
several of the former were severely wounded.
These were the gth, or East Norfolk Regiment,
under the command of Colonel John Campbell 01
Blythswood, then stationed in the Castle.
During the height of the riot, says a little “Histoq
of Broughton,” a private carriage passed through thc
village, and as it was said to contain one of thc
Haigs, it was stopped, amid threats and shouts
Some of the mob opened the door, as the bIindr
had been drawn, and on looking in, saw that th<
occupant was a lady; the carriage was therefore
without further interruption, allowed to proceed tc
its destination-Heriot’s Hill.
On the 8th of September subsequently, two of thf
rioters, in pursuance of their sentence, were whippei
through the streets of Edinburgh, and afterwards
transported for fourteen years.
In the famous “Chaldee MS.,” chapter iv.
reference is made to “a lean man who hath hi!
dwelling by the great pool to the north of the Nelr
City.” This was Mr. Patnck Neill, a well-knowr
citizen, whose house was near the Loch side.
In this quarter we now find the Patent Roya
Gymnasium, one of the most remarkable anc
attractive places of amusement of its kind in Edin
burgh, and few visitors leave the city without seeing
it. At considerable expense it was constructed bj
Mr. Cox of Gorge House, for the purpose of afford
ing healthful and exhilarating recreation in the ope1
air to great numbers at once, and in April, 1865
was publicly opened by the provosts, magistrates
tnd councillors of Edinburgh and Leith, accom-
?anied by all the leading inhabitants of the city and
:ounty.
Among the many remarkable contrivances here
was a vast “rotary boat,” 471 feet in circumference,
seated for 600 rowers ; a “ giant see-saw,” named
I‘ Chang,” IOO feet long and seven feet broad, supported
on an axle, and capable of containing zoo
?ersons, alternately elevating them to a height of
ifty feet, and then sinking almost to the ground;
i “ velocipede paddle merry-go-round,” 160 feet
in Circumference, seated for 6co persons, who propel
the machine by sitting astride on the rim, and
push their feet against the ground ; a “ self-adjust-
Lng trapeze,” in five series of three each, enabling
gymnasts to swing by the hands 130 feet from one
trapeze to the other; a “compound pendulum
swing,” capable of holding about IOO persons, and
kept in motion by their own exertions.
Here, too, are a vast number of vaulting and
climbing poles, rotary ladders, stilts, spring-boards,
quoits, balls, bowls, and little boats and canoes on
ponds, propelled by novel and amusing methods.
In winter the ground is prepared for skaters on a
few inches of frozen water, and when lighted up at
night by hundreds of lights, the scene, with its
musical accessories, is one of wonderful brightness,
gaiety, colour, and incessant motion.
Here, also, is an athletic hall, with an instructor
always in attendance, and velocipedes, with the
largest training velocipede course in Scotland. The
charges of admission are very moderate, so as to
meet the wants of children as well as of adults.
A little eastward of this is a large and handsome
school-house, built and maintained by the congregation
of St. Mary’s Church. A great Board
School towers up close by. Here, too, was Scotland
Street Railway Station, and the northern entrance
of the longsince disused tunnel underground to
what is now called ~e Waverley Station at Princes
Street.
A little way northward of Canonmills, on the
north bank of the Water of Leith, near a new bridge
of three arches, which supersedes one of considerable
antiquity, that had but one high arch, is the
peculiar edifice known as Tanfield Hall. It is an
extensive suite of buildings, designed, it has been
said, to represent a Moorish fortress, but was erected
in 1825 as oil gasworks, and speedily turned to
other purposes. In 1835 it was the scene of a
great banquet, given by his admirers to Daniel
O’Connell; and in 1843 of the constituting of the
first General Assembly of the Free Church, when
the clergy first composing it quitted in a body the
Establishment,as described in our account of George](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p098.gif "Volume 5 Page 87")
... THE ROYAL GYMNASIUM. 87
to search for and seize them for his own use.
Hunter also prosecuted him for ...
Vol. 5 p. 87 (Rel. 0.18)
![High Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson’s and Cant’s Closes-The House of the “ Scottish Hogarth ” and the Knight of Tillybole-Rosehaugh’s, or Strichen’s, Close-House 01
the Abbots of Melrose-Sir Georye Yaclteuzie of Rosehaugh-Lady h n e Dick-Lord Strichen-The hlanncls of 1730-Pmvost Grieve-
John Dhu, Corporal of the City Guard-Lady Lovat’s Land-Walter Chnpman, Printer-Lady Lovat.
DICKSON’S CLOSE, numbered as 118, below the
modern Niddry Street, gave access to a handsome
and substantial edifice, supposed to be the work of
that excellent artificer Robert Mylne, who built the
modern portion of Holyrood and s3 rnacy houses
of an improved character in the city about the time
of the Revolution. Its earlier occupants are unknown,
but herein dwelt David Allan, known as
the “ Scottish Hogarth,” a historical painter of
undoubted genius, who, on the death of hlexander
Runciman, in 1786, was appointed director and
master of the academy established by the board of
trustees for manufacturers in Scotland.
While resident in Dickson’s Close he published,
in 1788, an edition of the “Gentle Shepherd,” with
characteristic etchings, and, some time after, a collection
of the most humorous old Scottish songs with
similar drawings ; these, with his illustrations of
“ The Cottar’s Saturday Night ” and the satire,
humour, and spirit of his other etchings in aquatinta,
won him a high reputation as a successful
delineator of character and nature. His drawing
classes met in the old college, but he received
private pupils at his house in Dickson’s Close after
his marriage, on the 15th November, 1788. His
terms were, as advertised in the Nucz~ry, one
guinea per month for three lessons in the week,
which in those simple days would restrict his pupils
to the wealthy and fashionable class of sqciety.
He died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August, 1796.
Lower down the close, on the same side, a
quaint old tenement, doomed to destruction by the
Improvements Act, 1867, showed on the coved bedcorbel
of its crowstepped gable the arms of Haliburton,
impaled with another coat armorial, with
the peculiar feature of a double window corbelled
out ; and in a deed extant, dated 1582, its first proprietor
is named Master James Haliburton. Afterwards
it was the residence of Sir John Haliday, of
Tillybole, and formed a part of Cant’s Close.
Its appearance in 1868 has been preserved to us
by R. Chambers, in a brief description in his
‘‘ Traditions . ” According to this authority: it was
two storeys in height, the second storey being
reached by an outside stair, within a small courtyard,
which had originally been shut by a gate.
The stone pillars of the gateway were decorated
with balls at the top, after the fashion of entrances
to the grounds of a country mansion. It was a
picturesque building in the style of the sixteenth
century in Scotland. As it resembled a neat oldfashioned
country house, it was odd to find it
jammed up amid the tall edifices of this confined
alley. Ascending the stair, the interior consisted
of three or four apartments, with elaborately-carved
stucco ceilings. The principal room had a double
window on the west to Dickson’s Close.
In 1735 this mansion was the abode of Robert
Geddes, Gird of Scotstoun in Peeblesshire, who sold
it to George Wight, a burgess of Edinburgh, after
which it became deteriorated, and its stuccoed
apartments, froin the attics to the ground floor,
became each the dwelling of a separate family, and
a scene of squalor and wretchedness.
A considerable portion of the edifices in Cant’s
Close mere once ecclesiastical, and belonged to
the prebendaries of the collegiate church, founded
at Ciichton in 1449, by Sir William Crichton of
that ilk, Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
In Kosehaugh’s Close, now called Strichen’s, the
next alley on the east, was the town-house of the
princely mitred abbots of Melrose. In Catholic
times the great dignitaries of the church had all
their houses in Edinburgh ; the Archbishop of St.
dndrews resided at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd ;
the Bishop of Dunkeld in the Cowgate ; the Abbot
of Dunfermline at the Netherbow ; the Abbot of
Cambuskenneth in the Lawnmarket ; and the Abbot
of Melrose in the close we have named, and his
“ludging” had a garden which extend’ed down to
the Cowgate, and up the opposite slope on the
west side of the Pleasance, within the city wall.
The house of the abbot, a large and massive
building enclosing a small square or court in the
centre of it, was entered from Strichen’s Close.
‘‘ The whole building has evidently undergone
great alterations,’’ says the description of it written
in 1847; “a carved stone bears a large and very
boldlycut shield, with two coats of arms impaled,
and the date 1600. There seems no reason to
doubt, however, that the main portion of the
abbot’s residence still remains. The lower storey is
strongly vaulted, and is evidently the work of an
early date. The smalrquadrangle also is quite in
character with the period assumed for the building;
and at its north-west angle is Cant’s Close,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p073.gif "Volume 2 Page 253")
... Street.] HOUSE OF THE ABBOTS OF MELROSE. 253
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH STREET (caitfirzued).
Dickson’s and ...
Vol. 2 p. 253 (Rel. 0.18)
![Fanester’s Wynd.] THE “MIRROR” CLUB. rzr
i “The Diurnal of Occurrents” records, that in
1566, John Sinclair, Bishop of Brechin, Dean of
Restalrig, and Lord President of the College of
Justice, died in Forrester‘s Wynd, in the house of
James Mossman, probably the same man who was a
goldsmith in Edinburgh at that time, and whose
father, also Jarnes Mossrnan, enclosed with the
present four arches the crown of Scotland, by
order of James V., when Henry VIII. closed
the crown of England. In consequence of the
houses being set on fire by the *Castle guns under
Kirkaldy, in 1572, it was ordered that all the
thatched houses between Beith’s J7ynd and St.
Giles’s should be unroofed, and that all stacks of
heather should be carried away from the streets
Fleshmarket Close ; but oftener, perhaps, in Lucky
Dunbar’s, a house situated in an alley that led
between Liberton’s Wynd and that of Forrester’s
Wynd. This Club commenced its publication of
the Mirror in January, 1729, and terminated it in
May, 1780. It was a folio sheet, published weekly
at three-halfpence. The *Lounger, to which Lord
Craig contributed largely, was commenced, by the
staff of the Mirror, on the 6th ot February, 1785,
and continued weekly till the 6th of January, 1787.
paid to their morals, behaviour, and every branch
of education.”
In this quarter Turk’s Close, Carthrae’s, Forrester’s,
and Beith’s Wynds, all stood on the slope
between Liberton’s Wynd and St. Giles’s Church ;
but every stone of these had been swept away many
years before the great breach made by the new
bridge was projected. Forrester‘s Wynd occurs so
often in local annals that it must have been a place
of some consideration.
JOHN DOWIE’S TAVERN. (Fs~m fk Engraving in How’$ YearBwk.’)
Among the members of this literary Club were Mr.
Alexander Abercrombie, afterwards Lord Abercrombie
; Lord Bannatyne ; Mr. George Home,
Clerk of Session ; Gordon of Newhall ; and a Mr.
George Ogilvie ; among their correspondents were
Lord Hailes, Mr. Baron Hurne, Dr. Beattie, and
many other eminent literary men of the time ; but
of the IOI papers of the Lounger, fifty-seven are
the production of Henry Mackenzie, including his
general review of Burns’s poems, already referred to.
In Liberton’s Wynd, we find from the Ediduygh
Advertiser of 1783, that the Misses Preston,
daughters of the late minister of Narkinch, had a
boarding school for young ladies, whose parents
“may depend that the greatest attention will be
18](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p133.gif "Volume 1 Page 121")
... Wynd.] THE “MIRROR” CLUB. rzr
i “The Diurnal of Occurrents” records, that in
1566, John ...
Vol. 1 p. 121 (Rel. 0.18)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Buccleuch Place. 346
way, and from thence along the Gibbet Street
northward, to where it ...
Vol. 4 p. 346 (Rel. 0.18)
... permanent and undisputed capital of Scotland.
Sorrow and indignation spread over all the realm
when the fate ...
Vol. 1 p. 29 (Rel. 0.18)
![High Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune’s tavern, removed from Skinner‘s Close to
a house at the north-west corner of Nicolson
Square, and latterly at No. 2, St. Andrew Square
(now the London Hotel), where he died, in his
eightieth year, in ISOZ.
In his lordship’s time the office of Commissioner
to the Church, which he held from 1783 to 1801, was
attended with more “pomp and circumstance”
Treasurer, under date February, 1562-3 :-
“ Item, allowit to the carpenter, be payment maid
to Johne Achesoun, Maister Congreave, to Maister
William M‘Dowgale, Maister of Werk, for expensis
maide be him vpon the bigging of the Cwnge-house,
within the castell of Edinburgh, and beting of the
qvnge-hous within the Palice of Halierud-house,
fra the xi. day of Februar, 1559, zens, to the
Comniissioner proceeded on foot, escorted by his
guard of honour.
South Gray’s, or the Mint Close, was one of the
stateliest alleys in the old city, and herein stood the
Cunzie flous, as the Scottish Mint was named
(after its removal from near Holyrood in Queen
Mary’s time) till the Union in 1707, and until lately
its sombre and massive tower of finely polished
ashlar projecting into the narrow thoroughfare of
Cowgate, for three hundred and four years formed
one of the leading features of the latter, and to the
last the old edifice retained many traces of the important
operations that once went on within its
walls.
The first Mint House had been originally erected
in the outer court of the palace of Holyrood, somewhere
near the Horse Wynd, fromwhence, for greater
safety, it was removed to the castle, in which a new
Mint House had been built in 1559, as shown by
edifices of the period,” says Wilson, describing
the edifice prior to its removal. “The whole
building was probably intended, when completed,
to form a quadrangle, surrounded on every side by
the same substantial walls, well suited for defence
against any ordinary assault, while its halls were
lighted from the enclosed court. The small windows
in this part of the building remain in their
original state, being divided by an oaken transom,
and the under part closed by a pair of folding
shutters. The massive ashlar walls are relieved
by ornamental stringcourses, and surmounted by
crowsteps of the earliest form and elegant proportions.
. . . . The internal marks of former
magnificence are more interesting than their external
ones, notwithstanding the humble uses to
which the buildings have latterly been applied ;
in particular some portions of a very fine oak
ceiling still remain, wrought in Gothic panelling,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p087.gif "Volume 2 Page 267")
... Street.] THE ROYAL MINT. 267
Fortune’s tavern, removed from Skinner‘s Close to
a house at the north-west ...
Vol. 2 p. 267 (Rel. 0.17)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Drum.
the resort of the curious still, according to Fullarton’s
“Gazetteer,” ...
Vol. 6 p. 346 (Rel. 0.17)
![Edinburgh Castle.] KIRKALDY’S SURRENDER. 49
fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St. Cuthbeds church ; while the fifth, under Sir
Thomas‘Sutton, was on the line of Princes Street,
and faced King Davids Tower.
All these guns opened simultaneously on Sunday,
the 17th of May, by salvoes; and the shrieks of
the women in the Castle were distinctly heard
in the camp of the Regent and in the city.
The fire was maintained on both sides with unabated
vigour-nor were the arquebuses idle-till
the 23rd, when Sutton’s guns having breached
sieged depended chiefly for water. This great
battery then covered half of the Esplanade
Holinshed mentions another spring, St. Margaret‘s
Well, from which Kirkaldy’s men secretly obtained
water till the besiegers poisoned it ! By this time
the survivors were so exhausted by toil and want
of food as to be scarcely able to bear armour, or
work the remaining guns. On the 28th Kirkaldy
requested a parley by beat of drum, and was
lowered over the ruins by ropes in his armour, to
arrange a capitulation ; but Morton would hear
ANCIENT POSTERN hND TURRET NEAR THE QUEEN’S POST.
Davfd’s Tower, the enormous mass, with all its
guns and men, and with a roar as of thunder, came
crashing over the rocks, and masses of it must have
fallen into the loch zoo feet below. The Gate
Tower with the portcullis and Wallace’s Tower,
were battered down by the 24th. The guns of
the queen’s garrison were nearly silenced, now, and
cries of despair were heard. The great square
Peel and the Constable’s Tower, with the curtain
between, armed with brass cannon-dikes of
great antiquity-came crashing down in succession,
and their d&is choked up the still existing drawwells.
Still the garrison did not quite lose
heart, until the besiegers got passession of the
Spur, within which was the well on which the bea
of nothing now save an unconditional surrender,
so the red flag of defiance was pulled down on the
following day. By the Regent’s order the Scottish
companies occupied the breaches, with orders to
exclude all Englishmen. “The governor delivered
his sword to Sir William Drury on receiving the
‘solemn assurance of being restored to his estatc
and liberty at the intercession of Q-ueen Elizabeth
The remnant of his gamson marched into the city
in armour with banners displayed ; there came
forth, with the Lord Home, twelve knights, zoo
soldiers, and ten boys, with several ladies, including
the Countess of Argyle.” The brave commander
was basely delivered up by Drury to the
I vindictive power of the Regent j and he and his](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p061.gif "Volume 1 Page 49")
... Castle.] KIRKALDY’S SURRENDER. 49
fourth, under Sir Henry Lee, were somewhere near
St. Cuthbeds ...
Vol. 1 p. 49 (Rel. 0.17)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
On the east side of the walk, overlooking the
steep and deep Greenside ...
Vol. 5 p. 158 (Rel. 0.17)
... Street. THE sco-rr MONUMENT. 127
- -
Beattie, James Thomson, and John Home, adorn
the west front j those ...
Vol. 3 p. 127 (Rel. 0.17)
![West Bow.1 THE TEMPLE LANDS. 321
and diversion from other patients, and his lucrum
assans, he has lost more than &so sterling, and
craves that sum as his fee and the recompense of
his damage.”
But as it was represented for the Laird of Netherplace,
that he had done his work unskilfully, and
In the city the order possessed several flat-roofed
tenements, known as the Temple Lands, and one
archway, numbered as 145, on the south side of the
Grassmarket, led to what was called the Temple
Close, but they have all been removed. It was
a lofty pile, and is mentioned in a charter of
that the sum of seyenteen
guineas was sufficient
payment.
At the foot of the
Bow, and on the west
side chiefly, were a few
old tenements, that,
in consequence of
being built upon
ground which had
originally belonged to
the Knights of the
Temple, were styled
Templar Lands, and
were distinguished by
having iron crosses on
their fronts and gables.
In the “Heart of
Midlothian,” Scott
describes them as being
of uncommon
height and antique
appearance ; but of
late years they have
all disappeared.
It was during the
Grand Mastership of
Everhard de Bar, and
while that brave warrior,
with only 130
knights of the order,
, was fighting under the
banner of Louis VII.
at Damascus, that the
Grand Priory of Scotland
was instituted,
~~
KOMIEU’S HOUSE.
( F Y o ~ a Measured Dnrwing by T. Hamilton, pzr6Zislud in 1830.)
and the knight who presided over it was then
styled Magziter Domus T’YZi in Sotid, when
lands were bestowed on the order,first by King
David I., and then by many others. To all the
property belonging to the Temple a great value
was attached, from the circumstance that it
afforded, until the extinction of heritable jurisdictions
in 1747, the benefit of sanctuary; thus
the Temple tenements in Fifeshire are still termed
houses of refuge.
Tempillands, lyand
next ye Gray Friers’
Yard;” and in 1598,
“a temple tenement
lyand near the Gray
Friars ’ Yett ” was confirmed
to James Kent
(Torphichen Charters).
On these the
iron cross was visible
in 1824.
On the dissolution
of the order all this
property in Scotland
was bestowed upon
their rivals, the
Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem ; and the
houses referred to became
eventually a part
of the barony of Drem
(of old a Temple
Priory) in Haddingtonshire,
the baron of
which used to hold
courts in them occasionally,
and here, till
I 747, were harboured
persons not free of
the city corporations, I
to the great annoyance
of the adherents of
local monopoly ; but
so lately as 1731, on
the 24th of August,
the Temple vassals
were ordered by the Bailie of Lord Torphichen,
to erect the cross of St. John “on the Templelands
within Burgh, amerciating [fining] such as
did not affix the said cross.’’ This was a strange
enactment in a country where it is still doubtful
whether such an emblem can figure as an ornament
upon a tomb or church. CIearly there must have
been some disinclination to affix the crosses,
otherwise the regulation would scarcely have been
passed.
buildings
shops
templar
knights](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p141.gif "Volume 2 Page 321")
... Bow.1 THE TEMPLE LANDS. 321
and diversion from other patients, and his lucrum
assans, he has lost more than ...
Vol. 2 p. 321 (Rel. 0.16)
... BRUNSTANE HOUSE. I49
side of the streets when the cavalcade was to pass,
and through this flesh and blood ...
Vol. 5 p. 149 (Rel. 0.16)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament Close.
for a considerable amount, binding themselves to
support the ...
Vol. 1 p. 182 (Rel. 0.16)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
ROBERT CHAMBERS.
(From a *ate PkOtog~U#h.)
1
volume by the firm in ...
Vol. 2 p. 224 (Rel. 0.15)
... INDEX. 385 -
Nisbet Lord 111. 67
Nisbet: Sir .&exander. 111. 136
Nisbet Sir Henry 111. 136
Nisbet: ...
Vol. 6 p. 385 (Rel. 0.14)
... an age as different in every respect from tht
present as the wilds of North America are differenl
from the ...
Vol. 1 p. 98 (Rel. 0.14)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
before them with licht torches,” on which Powrie,
as if ...
Vol. 2 p. 264 (Rel. 0.14)
... BURNS, 107
in the rooms of Stewart, Blair, or Robertson. . , .
But Edinburgh offered tables and ...
Vol. 1 p. 107 (Rel. 0.14)
... GENERAL INDEX.
Tytlm of Woodhouselee, William,
Tytler, the aeronaut, 111. 135
I. 155
U
Umbrella First ...
Vol. 6 p. 391 (Rel. 0.14)
... OF ILLUSTRATIONS .
--c-
THE OLD CHURCH OF ST . CUTHBERT’S AND THE NORTH LOCH (after CZffSh of ...
Vol. 2 p. 392 (Rel. 0.14)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
CHAPTER VII.
PAGE
EDINBURGH CASTLE (conclzded). .
The Torture of Neville ...
Vol. 2 p. 386 (Rel. 0.14)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
C
Cable’s Wynd, Leith, XI. 226, 227
Caddies,orstreetmesngers, I. 151,
Cadell and ...
Vol. 6 p. 372 (Rel. 0.13)
... view below Cramond
Brig, 111. '317
Cramond Bridge, 11. 63, 111. 1x1
CramondChurch 111. 316 ...
Vol. 6 p. 374 (Rel. 0.13)
![Cockburn Street.] MACLAREN
tiny sheet at first. “To the daily and bi-weekly
editions, a weekly publication, composed of selections
from the others, was added in 1860, representing
also the venerable CaZedoninn Mercury. A
few years ago the bi-weekly paper was merged into
the daily edition, whicA most of the subscribers
had come to prefer. In all its various forms
the Scofsman has enjoyed a most gratifying run of
prosperity.”
By 1820 the paper having become firmly established,
Mr. Maclaren resumed the editorship,
and very few persons now can have an idea of the
magni6de of- the task he
had to undertake. “Corruption
and arrogance,” says
the memoir already quoted,
“ were the characteristics of
the party in power-in
power in a sense of which
in these days we know
nothing. The people of
Scotland were absolutely
without voice either in vote
or speech. Parliamentary
elections, municipal government,
the management of
public bodies-everything
was in the hands of a few
hundred persons. In Edinburgh,
for instance, the
member of Parliament was
elected and the government
of the city camed on by
thirty - two persons, and
almost all these thirty-two
took their directions from
4ND RUSSEL 285
of the proudest proofs of his mechanical sagacity is
his having clearly foreseen and boldly proclaimed the
certain success of locomotion by railways, while as
yet the whole subject was in embryo or deemed a
wild delusion. A series of his articles on this
matter appeared in the Scofsman for December,
1824 and were translated into nearly every
European language; and Smiles, in his life of
Stephenson, emphatically acknowledges Maclaren’s
keen foresight in the subject. His great conversational
and social qualities lie apart from the
history of his journal, which he continued to edit
till compelled by ill-health
UEXANDER RUSSEL.
(Fmm a Phfograjh by 7. Moffat, Edidurgk.)
the Government of the day, or its proconsul.
Public meetings were almost unknown, and a free
press may be said to have never had an existence.
Lord Cockburn, in his ‘ Life of Jeffrey,’ says :-‘ I
doubt if there was a public meeting held in Edinburgh
between the year 1795 and the year 1820,’
and adds, in 1852, that ‘ excepting some vulgar,
stupid, and rash’ newspapers which lasted only
a few days, there was ‘no respectable opposition
paper, till the appearance of the Scofsman, which
for thirty-five years has done so much for the
popular cause, not merely by talent, spirit, and
consistency, but by independent moderation.”’
Its tone from the first had been that of a decided
Whig, and in church matters that of a ‘‘ voluntary.”
Apart from his ceaseless editorial labours, Mr.
Maclaren enriched the literature of his country by
many literary and scientific works, the enumeration
of which is somewhat unnecessary here ; but one
td resign in 1847. He
died in 1866, sfter having
lived in comparative retirement
at his suburban
villa in the Grange Loan, in
his eighty-fourth year, having
been born in 1782, at
Ormiston, in West Lothian.
In the management of
the paper he was ably succeeded
by Alexander Russel,
a native of Edinburgh,
who, after editing one or
two provincial journals,
became connected with the
Scotsmen in 1845, as assistant
editor. . He was a Whig
of the old Fox school, and
contributed many brilliant
articles to the Edinburgh
and Quurferb Reviews, the
“Encyclopzedia Britannica,”
and also B/ackwood’s Magazine.
As editor of the Scotsman he soon attracted
the attention of Mr. Cobden and other
leaders of the Anti-corn-law agitation, and his
pen was actively employed in furtherance of the
objects of the League ; and among the first subjects
to which he turned his attention in the S2ofsman
was the painful question of Highland destitution in
1847. A notable local conflict in which the paper
took a special interest was that of ~ 8 5 6 , on the
final retirement of Macaulay from the representation
of Edinburgh, and the return of Adam Black,
the eminent publisher ; and among many matters
to which this great Scottish journal lent all its
weight and advocacy in subsequent years, was the
great centenary of Robert Bums.
To the change in the Stamp Act we have already
referred-a change which, by the introduction of
daily papers, entailed an enormous increase of
work upon the editors ; but we are told that “ Mr.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p105.gif "Volume 2 Page 285")
... Street.] MACLAREN
tiny sheet at first. “To the daily and bi-weekly
editions, a weekly publication, ...
Vol. 2 p. 285 (Rel. 0.13)
![Leith Walk.] MCCULLOCH OF ARDWELL.
~ _ _ _
ofArdwell, a commissioner of the Scottish Customs,
and a man famous in his time for hospitality, pleasantry,
and wit, and known as a spouter of halfinjury
to the new and’splendid one at Inverleith
Row.
Shrub Hill, the villa on a little eminence north.
ward of the Botanical Gardens, in 1800 was the
property of the dowager Lady Maxwell, and appears
as such in the map of 1804. She was Lady Maxwell
of Monreith, whose husband died in 1771, and
whose second daughter Jane became Duchess of
Gordon in 1767,
The Leith Directory for 1811 gives Lady Nairn
a residence in Pilrig Street, but she must have
held this title through Scottish courtesy, as the
attainted peerage was not restored by Act of Parliament
till 17th June, 1824. She must have been
Brabazon Wheeler, widow of Lieut.-Colonel John
Nairn, who but for the attainder would have succeeded
as fourth Lord Nairn.
Pilrig Free Church, at the north corner of this
street and Leith Walk, was built in 1861-2, and
is in the early Decorated Gothic style, with a double
transept, and has a handsome steeple 150 feet in
height.
The fine old but unused avenue of stately trees,
that opened westward from the Walk to the old
Manor House of Pilrig, has now given place to a
street of workmen’s houses, named after the pro.
prietor, Balfour Street, and lower down, near the
bottom of the Walk, is Springfield Street, named ,
he may he is no mean hand at an epigram.’
Ardwell came forward to apologise for his fun.
“My dear sir,” said Foote, “no apology is nechaise
with four horses from the Kh$s Arms Inn,
at the same time that two strangers did so in another
vehicle, and with difficulty amid the drifted
snow they all reached the summit of Erickstane
Brae, a lofty hill at the head of Clydesdale, along
the side of which, above a most perilous declivity,
the public road passes.
,Further progress being impossible, a consultation
was held, and they all resolved to return to Moffat ;
but, as wheeling the carriage round proved a dangerous
operation, “ Wee Davie ” was wrapped up
and laid on the snow till that was accomplished,
and after reaching the inn Ardwell discovered that
his two companions were Samuel Foote the cele.
brated player and another favourite son of Thalia.
On reaching the inn, Foote entered it in no good
humour-as he walked with difficulty, having lost a
leg-and ordered breakfast, while his luggage was
taken off the chaise; and after this was done, he
€ound a written paper affixed to the panel. In
some anger he demanded, “What rascal has been
placarding this ribaldry on my carriage I” Then
pausing, however, he read the following lines :-
“ While Boreas his flaky storm did guide,
Deep covering every hill o’er Tweed and Clyde,
The North-wind god spied travellers seeking way,
Sternly he cried : ‘ Retun your steps, I say ;
Let not OIK hot, ’tis my behest, urofane
time.”
It would appear that in the winter of 1774-5
Mr. McCulloch visited his country mansion of
Ardwell (near Gatehouse in Kirkcudbright), which
is still possessed by his descendants, in order to be
present at an election, together with a friend named
Mouat. After a week or two they set out on their
return to Edinburgh, Mr. McCulloch bringing with
him his infant son, familiarly known as “Wee
Davie,” and the trio, after quitting Dumfries, were
compelled by a snowstorm to tarry at Moffat for
the nighr Early next morning they departed in a
occasion when afterwards at the Theatre Royal, he
set apart a night or two for a social meeting with
I McCulloch of Ardwell, at Springfield, on Leith
Walk. “In the parlour, on the right hand side in
entering the house, the largest of the row,” says
Chambers in 1869, “ Foote, the celebrated wit of
the day, has frequently been associated with many
Edinburgh and Leith worthies, when and where he
was wont to keep the table in a roar.”
McCulloch of Ardwell died in 1794 in his fiftythird
year. “ Wee Davie” died thirty years afterwards
at Cheltenham.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p174.gif "Volume 5 Page 163")
... Walk.] MCCULLOCH OF ARDWELL.
~ _ _ _
ofArdwell, a commissioner of the Scottish Customs,
and a man famous ...
Vol. 5 p. 163 (Rel. 0.13)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 382 (Rel. 0.13)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 383 (Rel. 0.13)
... 111. *333, 334 .
Leopdd Place,’IlI. 158; Greenside
Church from, Ill. * 161
Leper Hospital, ...
Vol. 6 p. 384 (Rel. 0.13)
![Edinburgh Cad:.] CORONATION OF CHARLES I. 51
and long it was since Edinburgh had been
the scene of anything so magnificent. Every
window was crowded with eager faces, and every
house was gay with flowers, banners, and tapestry.
*‘ Mounted on a roan horse, and having a saddle
of rich velvet sweeping the ground, and massive with
pasements of gold, Alexander Clark, the Provost,
appeared at the head of the bailies and council to
meet the king, while the long perspective of the
crowded street ( then terminated by the spire of
the Nether Bow) was lined (as Spalding says) by
a brave company of soldiers, all clad in white
satin doublets, black velvet .breeches, and silk
stockings, with hats, feathers, scarfs, and bands.
Thesegallants haddaintymuskets, pikes, and gilded
partisans. Six trumpeters, in gold lace and scarlet,
preceded the procession, which moved slowly from
But most of the assembled multitude looked
darkly and doubtfully on. In almost every heart
there lurked the secret dread of that tampering
with the Scottish Church which for years had been
conspicuous.
Charles, with great solemnity, was crowned king
of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland, by the
Bishop of St. Andrews, who placed the crown upon
his head; and on the 18th July he left Edinburgh
on his return to London. Under the mal-influence
of the zealot Laud ruin and civil war soon came,
when Episcopacy was imposed upon the people,
A committee of Covenanters was speedily formed
at Edinburgh, and when the king’s commissioner
arrived, in 1638, he found the Castle beset by
armed men. His efforts at mediation were futile ;
and famous old “Jenny Geddes” took the initiative
the- Privy Seal;
Morton the Treasuw’s golden mace,with its globe of
sparkling beryl ; the York and Norroy English kingsat-
arms with their heralds, pursuivants, and trumpeters
in tabards blazing with gold and embroidery;
Sir James Balfour, the Scottish Lion king, preceding
the spurs, sword, sceptre, and crown, borne
by earls. Then came the Lord High Constable,
riding, with ,his blton, supported by the Great
Chamberlain and Earl Marshal, preceding Charles,
who was arrayed in &robe of purple velvet once
worn by James IV., and having a foot-cloth embroidered
with silver and pearls, and his long train
upborne by the young Lords Lorne, Annan, Dalkeith,
and Kinfauns Then came the Gentlemen
Pensioners, marching with partisans uplifted ; then
the Yeomen of the Guard, clad in doublets of
russet velvet, with the royal arms raised in embossed
work of silver and gold on the back and
breast of each coat-each company commanded
by an earL The gentlemen of the Scottish Horse
Guards were all armed d la cuirassier, and carried
swords, petronels, and musketoons.”
of trained Scottish
officers and soldiers, who had been pushing
their fortune by the shores of the Elbe and the
Rhine, in Sweden and Germany, came pouring
home to enrol under the banner of the Covenant ;
a general attack was concerted on every fortress
in Scotland; and the surprise of Edinburgh was
undertaken by the commander of the army, Sir
Alexander Leslie of Balgonie, Marshal of Sweden
under Gustavus Adolphus-a soldier second to
This he achieved successfully on the evening of
the 28th March, when he blew in the barrier gate
with a petard. The Covenanters rushed through
the Spur sword in hand, and the. second gate fell
before their sledge-hammers, and then Haldane of
Gleneagles, the governor, gave up his sword.
That night ieslie gave the Covenanting lords a
banquet in the hall of the Castle, .w&reon they
hoisted their blue standard with. the miotto, “ For
an oppressed kirk and broken’ Covenant” Montrose’s
regiment, 1,500 strong, replaced the gamson ;
Lord Bdmerbo was appointed goxernor, and many](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p063.gif "Volume 1 Page 51")
... Cad:.] CORONATION OF CHARLES I. 51
and long it was since Edinburgh had been
the scene of anything so ...
Vol. 1 p. 51 (Rel. 0.13)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [New Tom.
- ~~~~ ~ ~
Cockburn, the former spoke thus affectionately
.of the High ...
Vol. 3 p. 114 (Rel. 0.13)
![H o l y d . ] MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 79
bade them farewell in the Gallery of the Kings,
while a vast concourse assembled outside, all
wearing the white cockade. Another: multitude
was collected at Newhaven, where the Fishermen's
Society formed a kind of body-guard to cover the
embarkation.
'' A few gentlemen," says the editor of " Kay's
Portraits," " among whom were Colonel Macdonel,
the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Gillis, John Robinson,
Esq., and Dr. Browne, accompanied His
Majesty on board the steamer, which they did not
leave till she was under weigh. The distress of the
king, and particularly of the dauphin, at being
obliged to quit a country to which they were so
warmly attached was in the highest degree affecting.
The Duc de Bordeaux wept bitterly, and the Duc
d'AngouEme, embracing Mr. Gillis d la 3ranfaise,
gave unrestrained scope to his emotion. The act
of parting with one so beloved, whom he had
known and distinguished in the salons of the
Tuileries and St. Cloud, long before his family had
sought an asylum in the tenantless halls of Holyrood,
quite overcame his fortitude, and excited
feelings too powerful to be repressed. When this
ill-fated family bade adieu to our shores they
carried with them the grateful benedictions of the
poor, and the respect of all men of all parties who
honour misfortune when ennobled by virtue."
In Edinburgh it is well known that had H.K.H.
the late Prince Consort-whose love of the picturesque
and historic led him to appreciate its
natural beauties-survived a few years longer, many
improvements would have taken place at Holyrood
; and to him it is said those are owing which
have already been effected.
Southward of the palace, the unsightly old tenements
and enclosed gardens at St. Anne's Yard
were swept away, including a quaint-looking dairy
belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, and by
1857-8-9 the royal garden was extended south
some 500 feet from the wall of the south wing, and
a new approach was made from the Abbey Hill,
a handsome new guard-house was built, and the
carved door of the old garden replaced in the wall
between it and the fragment of the old abbey
porch ; and it was during the residence of H.R.H.
the Prince of Wales at Holyrood that the beautiful
fountain in the Palace Yard was completed, on the
model of the ancient one that stands in ruin nowy
in the quadrangle of Linlithgow, and which is
referred to by Defoe in his "Tour in Great
Britain."
The fountain rises from a basin twenty-four feet in
diameter to the height of twenty-eight feet, divided
into threestages, andby flying buttresses has theeffect
of a triple crown. From the upper of these the water
flows through twenty ornate gurgoils into three
successive basins. The basement is of a massive
character, divided by buttresses into eight spaces,
each containing a lion's head gurgoil. This is surmounted
by eight panels having rich cusping, and
between these rise pedestals and pinnacles. The
former support heraldic figures with shields. These
consist of the unicorn bearing the Scottish shield, a
lion bearing a shield charged with the arm of
James IV. and his queen, Margaret of England;
a deer supports two shields, with the arms of the
queens of James V., Magdalene of France, and
Mary of Guise ; and the griffin holds the shields of
James IV. and his queen, Margaret of Denmark.
The pinnacles are highly floriated, and ,enriched
with flowers and medallions
It is in every way a marvellous piece of stone
carving. The flying buttresses connecting the stages
are deeply cusped. On the second stage are eight
figures typical of the sixteenth century, representing
soldiers, courtiers, musicians,' and a lady-falconer,
each two feet six inches in height. On the upper
stage are four archers of the Scottish Guard, supporting
the imperial crown. It occupies the site whereon
for some years stood a statue of Queen Victoria,
which has now disappeared.
Still, as of old, since the union of the cron-ns:
for a fortnight in each year the Lord High Conimissioner
to the General Assembly of the Church
of Scotland holds semi-royal state in Holyrood,
gives banquets in its halls, and holds his ledes in
the Gallery of the Kings.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p091.gif "Volume 3 Page 79")
... o l y d . ] MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 79
bade them farewell in the Gallery of the Kings,
while a vast concourse ...
Vol. 3 p. 79 (Rel. 0.13)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
THE mansion of the Earls of Iiyndford immediately
adjoined that of the ...
Vol. 2 p. 274 (Rel. 0.12)
... INDEX.
Abbey Church, I-IoIyod, 11. 28,
I; west front of, 11. 53, mass
celebrated there, 11. 59; ...
Vol. 6 p. 369 (Rel. 0.12)
... 18 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University.
meant as a check upon the teacher and the taught,
as it depended upon ...
Vol. 5 p. 18 (Rel. 0.12)
... INDEX. 379
.Her!or brewery, The, 11.374
Henot free schools, 11. 374 37:
Heriot Kow, 11.1~5, 158,194, ...
Vol. 6 p. 378 (Rel. 0.12)
... of reptiles. “ Thus was dissipated the illusion,
founded on the Burdiehouse fossils, that saurian
. ...
Vol. 6 p. 343 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
up to the full average of poets, yet his vanity was
of a very inoffensive ...
Vol. 6 p. 242 (Rel. 0.12)
![THE MESSRS, NELSON. 355 The Meadows.]
G. H., cut in wood, remained in Several parts of the
l?ouse. The Rev. Dr. Steven, gpvernor of the
hospital, presented a coloured drawing of the house
to the Messrs. Nelson, as “the country residence
of the founder of the hospital.” It perished in the
fire of 1878, but another is preserved.
The house was also, about 1800, the abode of an
aged lady, well known to those of Jacobite proclivities
in Edinburgh, Mrs. Hannah Robertson, an
alleged grand-daughter of Charles II., and whose
sister was ancestress of the Mercers of Gorthy.
She died in 1808.
The well-known firm of the Messrs. Nelson and
Sons was originally established by the late Mr.
Thomas Nelson, whose first business premises were
in a small corner shop at the head of the West Bow,
only lately removed, where he published cheap
editions of the “ Scots Worthies,” Baxter’s “Saints’
Rest,” and similar works; but it was not until
his sons entered the business that the work of the
firm was placed upon a wider basis.
Mr. Nelson was born at a village called Throsk,
near Stirling, in 1780. When twenty years of age
he went to London, and after experiencing his own
share of difficulties, familiar to young men in
pushing their way in the world, he at last entered
the service of a publishing house in Paternoster
Row. This determined the course of his career.
One of his early associates in London was the late
Mr. Kejly, publisher, afterwards raised to the Lord
Mayor’s chair. Mr. Nelson had begun by this time
to show that love for the standard works of the old
theological school which characterised him in afteI
iife. He remained for some years in London, and
then came to Edinburgh, where he soon signalized
himself as a publisher.
Cheap issues are a common feature of the
publishing trade of the country now, but it was
otherwise in the beginning of the century, and he
was among the first to introduce the new order 01
things by the publication of works like those ol
Paley, Leighton, Romaine, Newton, and many
ithers.
For several years in the latter part of his life
le was more or less of an invalid. He died, at the
ige of eighty, on the 23rd of March, 1861. He
.ies buried in Edinburgh in the Grange cemetery,
iext to the grave of Hugh Miller.
The Messrs. Nelsons’ range of offices at Hope
Park were on a scale surpassing any similar place
2f business in Edinburgh, as it consisted of three
:onjoined blocks of neat and plain design, forming
as many sides of a square. In the main building
were three floors, and machinery was used
wherever it was available, and by means of that
and an admirably organised system of the division
of labour, the amount of literary work turned out
was enormous. The process of stereotyping, which
was invented by Mr. William Ged, a goldsmith in
Edinburgh, and has been brought to the highest
perfection in the place of its birth, was here greatly
in practice. By 1870 the Messrs. Nelson employed
fully 600 workpeople, the half of whom were young
women, and on theii own premises they manufactured
all the inks used in printing, and the varnishes
for bookbinding.
The whole of their extensive premises were destroyed
by a calamitous fire, after which the Messrs.
Nelson erected new offices and workshops upon
several acres of land, known as Parkside, with a
fine frontage to the old Dalkeith Road, south of
“The Castle of Clouts,” and near what was called
of old the Gibbet TolL
Erected by the Messrs. Nelson in 1881, two
handsome pillars, surmounted respectively by
the Unicorn and Lion, now ornament the entrance
to the Melville Drive at the east end of the
Meadows. These pillars stand near the site of
their former premises, and were erected as a gift to
the city, in commemoration of the kindness and
sympathy shown to tkm by the magistrates at the
time of the great fire.
CHAPTER XLII.
LAURISTON.
The New University B u i l d h ~ l ’ h c Estimates and Accommodation-George Watson’s Hospital-Founded-Opened and Sold--The New
Infirmary-Its Capabilities for Accommodation-Simpwn Memorial Hospital-Sick C h i l M s Hospital-Mberdust Maiden Haspitai-
Watson’s SchoobIauriston United Resbyterian Church-St. Catharine’s Convent.
IN the district of Lauriston we find quite a cluster
of charitable institutions ; but before treating of the
more ancient one-Heriot’s Hospital-we shall
describe those edifices which lie between the street
and the northern walk of the Meadows
In the city map of 1787, after Watson’s Hospital,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p175.gif "Volume 4 Page 355")
... MESSRS, NELSON. 355 The Meadows.]
G. H., cut in wood, remained in Several parts of the
l?ouse. The Rev. Dr. ...
Vol. 4 p. 355 (Rel. 0.12)
... I COURSE OF STUDIES. 19
~ ~ ~~ - ~~
Save Glasgow, all the Colleges complied with I translate, in the ...
Vol. 5 p. 19 (Rel. 0.12)
![Canongate.] MORAY HOUSE. 31
fined here under a guard of Cromwell’s soldiers,
effected their escape by rending their blankets
and sheets into strips. In January, 1675, the
captain of the Edinburgh Tolbooth complained
to the Lords of Council that his brother official
in the Canongate used to set debtors at liberty
at his own free will, or by consent of the creditor
by whom they were imprisoned without pemiission
accorded.
After the erection of the Calton gaol this edifice
was used for the incarceration of debtors alone;
and the number therein in October, 1834, was only
seventeen, so little had it come to be wanted for
that purpose.
Within a court adjoining the Tolbooth was the
old Magdalene Asylum, instituted in 1797 for the
reception of about sixty females j but the foundation-
stone of a new one was laid in October, 1805,
by the Provost, Sir
William Fettes, Bart, in
presence of the clergy
and a great concourse
of citizens. “In the
stone was deposited a
sealed bottle, containing
various papers relating
to the nse, progress, and
by an arrangement with her younger sister, Anne
Home, then Countess of Lauderdale, by whom the
mansion was built. “It is old and it is magnificent,
but its age and magnificence are both different
from those of the lofty piled-up houses of
the Scottish aristocracy of the Stuart dynasty.”
Devoid of the narrow, suspicious apertures,
barred and loopholed, which connect old Scottish
houses with the external air, the entrances and
proportions of this house are noble, spacious,
and pleasing, though the exterior ha$ little ornament
save the balcony, on enormous trusses, projecting
into the street, with ornate entablatures
over their great windows and the stone spires of
its gateway. There are two fine rooms within,
both of them dome-roofed and covered with designs
in bas-relief,
The initials of its builder, M. H., surmounted
by a coronet, are sculp
THE STOCKS, FROM THE CANONGATE TOLBOOTH.
(Now in the Scottisk A ~ ~ ~ w w % z R Mfucum.)
present state of the
asylum.” This institution was afterwards transferred
to Dalry.
A little below St. -John Street, within a court,
stood the old British Linen Hall, opened in 1766
by the Board of Manufactures for the Sale and
Custody of Scottish Linens-an institution to be
treated of at greater length when we come to its
new home on the Earthen Mound. Among the
curious booth-holders therein was (( old John
Guthrie, latterly of the firm of Guthrie and Tait,
Nicholson Street,’’ who figures in “ Kay’s Portraits,”
and whose bookstall in the hall-after he ceased
being a travelling chapman-was the resort of all
the curious book collectors of the time, till he
removed to the Nether Bow.
A little below the Canongate Church there
was still standing a house, occupied in 1761 by
Sir James Livingstone of Glentenan, which possessed
stables, hay-lofts, and a spacious flowergarden.
By far the most important private edifice still
remaining in this region of ancient grandeur and
modern squalor is that which is usually styled
Moray House, being a portion of the entailed property
of that noble family, in whose possession it
remained exactly zoo years, having become the
property of Margaret Countess of Moray in 1645
tured on the south &-
dow, and over another
on the north are the
lions of Home and
Dudley impaled in a
lozenge, for she was the
daughter of Lord Dudley
Viscount Lyle, and
then the widow of Alexander
first Earl of Home, who accompanied
James VI. into England. She erected the house
some years before the coronation of Charles I.
at Edinburgh in 1633; and she contributed
largely to the enemies of his crown, as appears
by a repayment to her by the English Parliament
of ~ 7 0 , 0 0 0 advanced by her in aid‘ of the
Covenanters; and hence, no doubt, it was, that
when Cromwell gained his victory over the
Duke of Hamilton in the north of England, we
are told, when the (then) Marquis of Argyle conducted
Cromwell and Lambert, with their army,
to Edinburgh, they kept their quarters at the
Lady Home’s house in the Canongate, according
to Guthrie, and there, adds Sir James Turner,
they came to the terrible conclusion ‘( that fhere
was a necessitie fa fake away fhe King‘s Zzyee;’’ so
that if these old walls had a tongue they might
reveal dark conferences connected with the most
dreadful events of that sorrowful time. In conclave
with Cromwell and Argyle were the.Earls of
Loudon and Lothian, the Lords Arbuthnot, Elcho,
and Burleigh, with Blair, Dixon, Guthrie, and other
Puritans. Here, two years subsequently, occurred,
on the balcony, the cruel and ungenerous episode
connected with the fallen Montrose, amid the
joyous banquetings and revelry on the occasicn of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p043.gif "Volume 3 Page 31")
... MORAY HOUSE. 31
fined here under a guard of Cromwell’s soldiers,
effected their escape by rending ...
Vol. 3 p. 31 (Rel. 0.12)
... BANK OF SCOTLAND. 93 The Mound. J
whereof are to be applied for ever for the support of
decayed and ...
Vol. 3 p. 93 (Rel. 0.12)
![High Sir=er.] ABUUCTlON OF LADY GRANGE. 2.19
in, and to see him and my children when going
out ; and I made his relations and my own speak
to him, and was always in hopes that God would
show him his sin of putting away his wife contrary
to the laws of God and man; and this was nc
secret, for the President of the Session, and sonit
of the Lords, the Solicitor-General, and some oi
the advocates and ministers of Edinburgh, know
all this to be truth, When I lost all hopes, then I
resolved to go to London.”
Lord Grange’s account is somewhat different.
She tormented him and the children by reproachful
cries from her windows; and he states, that “in his
house, at the bottom Qf Niddry’s Wynd, where
there 5 a court, through which one enters the
house, one time among others, when it was full of
chairs, chairmen, and footmen, who attended the
company that were with himself, or his sister Lady
Jane Paterson (wife of Sir Hugh Paterson of Bannockburn),
then keeping house together, she came
into this court, and among that mob shamelessly
cried up to the windows injurious reproaches, and
would not go away, though h e a t e d , till hearing
the late Lord Lovat’s voice” she would seem
then to have retired. He also asserts that one
day she assailed him in church ; on another, she
compelled him to take refuge in a tavern, and
threatened even to assault him on the Bench.
Tradition asserts that Lord Grange was dissipated,
restless, intriguing, and was concerned in
some Jacobite plots subsequently to the battle of
Sheriffmuir ; that in revenge his wife threatened to
inform the Government; and there is proof, from
one of his own letters, that she had actually taken
her seat in one of the occasional stages which then
ran between Edinburgh and London, and he bribed
her to give her seat to another traveller, after which
he would seem to have resolved upon “sequestrating
her,” as he phrased it ; and in a long Ietter written
by herself, and dated January 26th, 1741, she gives
an ample detail of how this was effected.
The plot was concerted between Lord Grange
and some west Highland chiefs, among whom was
the unscrupulous old Lord Lovat. A party of
Highlanders, wearing the livery of the latter, made
their way into her lodgings in Niddry’s Wynd on
the evening of the zznd January, 1730, seized her
with violence, knocking out some of her teeth, and,
tying a cloth over her head, bore her forth, as if she
had been a corpse.
“I heard voices about me,” .she relates ; “ but
being blindfolded I could not discover who they
were. They had a [sedan] chair at the stair-foot,
which they put me in ; and there was a man in the
chair who took me on his knee, and I made all the
32
struggle I could; but he held me fast in his arms,
and hindered me to put my hands to my mouth,
which I attempted to do, being tied down. The
chair carried me off very fast, and took me without
the ports; and when they had opened the chair
and taken the cloth OK my head to let me get air,
I perceived, it being clear moonlight, that I was a
little way from the Multer’s Hill,* and the man on
whose knee I sat was Alexander Foster, of Carsebonny,
who had there six or seven horses and men
with him, who said all these were his servants,
though I knew some of them to be my Lord
Lovat’s servants, who rode along. One of them
was called Alexander Frazer, and the other James
Frazer, and his groom, whose name I know not.”
From that night Niddry’s Wynd knew her no
more. She had two sons grown to manhood at
the time she was so mysteriously spirited away;
her daughter was married to John Earl of Kintore;
yet none of her relations ever made the slightest
stir in the matter, though the Aberdeenshire seat
of the Earl was once suggested as a place of residence
for her.
Leaving the vicinity of Edinburgh by the Lang
Gate, a ride of twenty miles brought her, with her
captors, to Muiravonside, where she was secured,
under guard, in the house of John hfacleod, advocate;
but a man being posted near her bed, she
could neither enter it nor take repose. Next night
she was secured farther 0% in an old solitary tower,
at Wester Polmaise, where for fourteen weeks she
was kept in a room, the windows of which were
boarded over, access to the garden even being
denied her.
On the 12th of August a Highlander named
Alexander Grant suddenly appeared, and announced
that she must prepare for the road again ;
and by her captors, who gave out that she was
insane, she was conveyed by rough and secluded
ways, where she could neither ride nor walk, but
had to be borne in their arms, sleeping at night in
bothy, till she found herself on the shore of Loch
Hourn, an arm of the sea, in the land of Glengarry.
Then “bitterly did she weep and implore compassion,
but the Highlanders understood not her
language, and though they had done so, a departure
kom the orders which had been given them was
lot to be expected from men of their character,”
tnd she was hurried on board of a ship.
There she learned that she was now in the cus-
:ody of Alexander Macdonald, tacksman of Heiskar,
t small island three leagues westward of North
Uist, belonging to Sir Alexander Macdonald of
__I.-
* Where now the Register House stands,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p069.gif "Volume 2 Page 249")
... Sir=er.] ABUUCTlON OF LADY GRANGE. 2.19
in, and to see him and my children when going
out ; and I made his ...
Vol. 2 p. 249 (Rel. 0.12)
![High Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281
(presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it,
with something under his coat. There can be no
doubt that this was the murderer, and the description
given coincided exactly with the appearance
of Mackoull, Although the boy heard of the murder
before he lkft Leith, he never thought of communicating
what he had seen to the authorities ; he was
shortly after captured and carried to a French prison,
where he remained for many years. Mackoull resided
in Edinburgh from September, 1805, till the
end of 1806, lodging very near the scene of the
murder, and was a frequent visitor at the coffee-
It was raised from the grave, after it had lain
there two days, and the surgeons having made an
incision near the neck, became convinced that
death had been caused by strangulation, so all
supposition of suicide was abandoned. This examination
took place in a church. After the cut
had been sewn up, the body was washed, wrapped
in fresh linen, and James Row, merchant in Edini
burgh, and Philip Stanfield, the disinherited son,
lifted it for deposition in the coffin, when 10 ! on
the side sustained by Philip an effusion of blood
took place, and so ample as to defile both his hands.
printers and publishers.
The World’s End Close was the curious and
appropriate name bestowed upon the last gloomy,
and mysterious-looking alley on the south side of
the High Street, adjacent to the Netherbow Port,
when it lost its oXer name of Sir John Stanfield’s
Close.
At the foot of it an ancient tenement, has a shield
of arms on its lintel, .with the common Edinburgh
legend-“Praisze. the. Lord. for.all.His.giftis,M.S. ;I’
but save this, and a rich Gothic niche, built into a
modern “land ” of uninteresting aspect, nothing remains
of Stanfield‘s Close save the memory of the
dark tragedy connected with the name of the knight.
Sir Jaines Stanfield was one of those English manufacturers
who, by permission of the Scottish Government,
had settled at Newmills, in East Lothian.
He was a respectable man, but the profligacy of
Philip, his eldest son, so greatly afflicted him that
he became melancholy, and he disinherited his heir
by a will. On a day in the November of 1687 he
was found drowned, it wafi alleged, in a pool of
water near his country house at Newmills. Doubts
were started as to whether he had committed
suicide, in consequence of domestic troubles, or had
been murdered. The circumstances of his being
hastily interred, and that Lady Stanfield had a suit
of graveclothes all ready for him before his death,
‘seemed to point to the latter; and two surgeons
“ Tiditions and Antiquities of Leith.”
36
November, 1806, Mackoull was seized with convulsions,
and threw himself back on his bed and
began to rave.
Tweeddale House, after being quitted by the
British Linen Company for their new office in St.
after handled by the murtherar, it will ;ushe out of
blood, as if the blood were crying to heaven for
revenge of the murtherar.”
Accordingly, on the 7th of February, 1688,
Philip was brought to trial at Edinburgh, and after
the household servants had been put to torture
without eliciting anything on the strength of the
mysterious bleeding, according to Fountainhall, save
that he was known to have cursed his father, drunk
to the king’s confusion, and linked the royal name
with those of the Pope, the devil, and Lord Chancellor,
he was sentenced to death. He protested
his innocence to the last, and urged in vain that
his father was a melancholy man, subject to fits;
that once he set out for England, but because his
horse stopped at a certain place, he thought he saw
the finger of God, and returned home ; and that he
once tried to throw himself over a window at the
Nether Bow, probably at his house in the World’s
End Close.
Philip Stanfield was hanged at the Market Cross
on the 24th of February. In consequence of a slip
of the rope, he came down on his knees, and it was
necessary to use more horrible means of strangulation
His tongue was cut out for cursing his
father ; his right hand was struck off for parricide ;
his head was spiked on the East Port of.Haddington,
and his mutilated body was hung in chains
between L.eith and the city. After a few days the
body was stolen fiom the gibbet, and found lying
in a ditch among water. It was chained up again,
time groaning in great anguish, and refusing to
touch the corpse again, while all looked on with
dismay. The incident was at once accepted by
the then Scottish mind in the light of a revelation
of Philip’s guilt as his father’s murderer. “In a
Andrew Square, became, and is still, the establish- 3 I ment of Messrs. Oliver and Boyd, t!ie well-known
secret niurther,” says King James in his ‘ Damonology’-“
if the dead carkasse be at any time there](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p101.gif "Volume 2 Page 281")
... Street.] PHILIP STANFIELD. 281
(presumed) Custom House of ice^ running out of it,
with something under his ...
Vol. 2 p. 281 (Rel. 0.12)
... INDEX.
299, 307, 342 ; Lord Provost, 11.
282 283 293' hisfuneral I 155
Kindid, b a d , of Coates ...
Vol. 6 p. 381 (Rel. 0.12)
![University.] THE PROFESSORS AND THE TOWN COUNCIL. 15 -
endof the year named, a body was, for the first
time, regularly dissected in the city, after the celebrated
Dr. Archibald Pitcairn-who left a distinguished
position as a professor of medicine in the
University of Leyden, to marry a lady of Edinburgh
-had been induced to settle there, and seek a
practice. . . ,
The Doctor, on the 14th of October, wrote to his
friend 1)r. Gray, of London, stating that he was
making efforts to obtain from the magistrates subjects
for dissectiod, such as the bodies of those who
died in the ,House of Correction at Paul’s Work,
and had none to bury them. “We offer,” he says,
I‘ to wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them
after dissection at our own charges, which now the
town does; yet there is great opposition by the
chief surgeons, who neither eat hay nor suffer the
oxen to eat it. I do propose, if this be granted, to
make better improvements in anatomy than have
been made at Leyden these thirty years; for I
think most or all anatomists have neglected or
not known what was most useful for a physician.”
The person who moved ostensibly in this matter
was Alexander Monteith, who entered the Colleg?
of Surgeons in December, 1691. He was a prominent
Jacobite, and owner of Todshaugh, now
called Foxhall, in West Lothian. He was an eminent
surgeon, and a friend of Pitcairn’s. The Town
Council on the 24th of October, in compliance with
his urgent request, granted to him the bodies of
those who died in the House of Correction and
of all foundlings who died at the breast.
They gave him, at the same time, a room for dissection,
with permission to inter the mutilated remains
in the College Kirk Cemetery, stipulating
that he should inter all intestines within forty-eight
hours, the rest of the body within ten days, and that
his prelections should only be in the winter season.
Though the College of Surgeons did not generally
oppose this new movement, they greatly disliked
his exclusive permission from the Council,
and proposed to give demonstrations in anatomy
as well, asking for the unclaimed bodies of those
who died in the streets, and also of foundlings.
Their petition was granted, on the understanding
that they should have a regular anatomical theatre
ready before the Michaelmas of 1697 ; but it was
not until 1705 that the Anatomical Chair was
founded in the university.
In 1703 a struggle for emancipation from the
Town Council was made by the professors. It had
-wen usual f9r the former body to appoint a day for
graduation, or laureation, as it was named in those
days. This was for the first or senior class; and to
preside at this learned ceremony a certain portion
of the somewhat unlearned civic patrons were
regularly deputed, with their robes, insignia, and
halberdiers, to at ten d.
The professors, as may be supposed, were becoming
very impatient of this yearly interference
with their internal arrangements, and perhaps imagined,
not unnaturally, that literature, science,
and philosophy, could derive but little lustre .‘ from
the presence of men who, generally speaking, would
have ears which heard not, and understandings
which could not perceive.”
Thus they bethought them of a plan whereby they
hoped to get rid of such officious visitors in all
time coming.
Accordingly, when all the professors met in the
Old College Hall, on the 20th of January, 1703,
they, as an independent faculty, adopted the following
resolution :-
“ The Faculty of Philosophy within the city of
Edinburgh, taking to their consideration the reasons
offered by Mr. Scott . why his magistrand class
should be privately graduated, and being satisfied
with the same, do unanimously, according to fheir
undoubfed yighf, confained in the charfer of erection,
and their constant and uninterrupted custom in
such cases, appoint the said class to be laureated
privately upon the last Thursday of April next,
being the twenty-seventh day of the said month.
Signed by order, and in presence of the Faculty, by
Robert Anderson, CZerk.”
This was deemed by the Provost and bailies as
the very tocsin of rebellion, and roused at once
their wrath. A visitation accordingly followed, by
the Lord Provost, Sir Hugh Cunningham, Knight,
and the bailies, with the inevitable halberdiers, in
the library of the college on the 15th of the following
month ; there he informed the Senatus that
among many other contumacious things,. he had become
cognisant <‘ of an unwarrantable act of the
masters of that college, viz., the Professors of
Philosophy, Humanity, Mathematics, and Church
Iiistory, wherein they assert themselves a FiicuZty,
empowered by the charter of erection to appoint,
&C.”
It is difficult to know how this quarrel might
have ended, had not the Lord Advocate, as
mediator between the parties, effected a compromise,
which, however, implied a surrender of
the asserted point at issue by the four professors ;
at the same time, so resolute were the magistrates
and Council in their intention of upholding and
defending their privileges as patrms of the
university, that Bailie Blackwood, in the name of
the rest, declared that the Council of the city
“would not be satisfied with the masters simply](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p026.gif "Volume 5 Page 15")
... THE PROFESSORS AND THE TOWN COUNCIL. 15 -
endof the year named, a body was, for the first
time, ...
Vol. 5 p. 15 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Libertou.
extended from east to west over all the country.
This inequality in the ...
Vol. 6 p. 326 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
C H A P T E R X X X I I I .
LEITH-TIIE DOCKS.
New Docks proposed-Apathy of ...
Vol. 6 p. 282 (Rel. 0.12)
![Leith Walk.] THE REV. JOHN KELLOE. I55
of sand, much of it was carted away, and, with the
ashes of the malefactors of centuries, converted into
mortar, and used in the erection of the New Town.
So far from being a knoll, the place is now a hollow.
It is related that, every day while the carts were
taking away the sand, the proprietor of the knoll
stood regularly at the place receiving the money in
return, and “every little sum he got was converted
into liquor, and applied to the comfort of his inner
man. A public-house was at length erected oe the
spot for his particular behoof; and, assuredly, as
long as the Gallow Lee lasted this house did not
want custom, Perhaps, familiar as the reader may
be with stories of sots who have drunk away their
last coin, he never before heard of this thing being
done in so literal a manner.”
It immediately adjoined the place known as
Shrub Hill. Ordinary malefactors were hanged at
the Cross in the Grassmarket, or on the shore of
Leith ; but the Gallow Lee was latterly the special
place for the execution of witches, and for hanging
in chains the bodies of those who had committed
great crimes. Sometimes only a hand or other limb
was gibbeted here, while the rest of the body was
buried elsewhere. Among the most noted executions
and gibbetings here, we may add the following
to those which have been referred to incidentally
elsewhere in our pages :-
Crawford of Drumsoy records that two criminals
were burned to death here in 1570; and then he
relates an execution at the same place in the autumn
of the year, which made some excitement even in
the Scotland of those days.
Mr. John Kelloe, minister of Spott, near DunSar,
being seized by a sudden remorse of conscience,
came to Edinburgh, and judicially made confession
of a crime which otherwise would never have been
proved against him. He had been married to a
poor but very handsome and attractive girl, “ very
witty and fond, a very little woman, but well
shap’d,” before he got the benefice of Spott, after
which he began to propose to himself a second
marriage with the wealthy daughter of a laird,
whose name Crawford omits, provided he could by
any means rid himself of his first wife, to whom
now he began to behave harshly and petulantly.
To prepare the way for the execution of his design,
and to conceal it when done, he suddenly began to
dissemble in his treatment of her ; his manner was
full of tenderness, kindness, and delicacy.
“She who now thought herself the happiest of
her sex,” continues Crawford in his “ Memoirs,”
written in I 705, “ effusively strove to make him so
too, and hastened her own ruin ; for, upon a Sunday
morning, as she was saying her prayers upon
her knees, he came softly behind her, put a rope
(which he had kept all night in his pocket) about
her neck, and after he had strangled her tied her up
to an iron hook which a day or two before he had
purposely nailed to the ceiling of the room. This
done, he bolted his gate, crept out of his parlour
window, stept demurely to church, and charmed
his hearers with a most excellent sermon.”
The murderer next imited two or three of his
parishioners to sup with him, telling them casually,
as it were, that ‘‘ his wife was not well, and of late
somewhat inclined to melancholy ; that she had not’
come to kirk that day, but would be glad to see
them at her house.” On knocking at the gate, the
Rev. Mr. Kelloe affected to be much astonished
that there was no response. Ultimately he and his
guests were obliged to make a forcible entrance, and
the murdered wife was found hanging from the
hook to which her corpse had been attached. The
reverend incumbent of Spott now feigned grief
and counterfeited sorrow so much to the life that
his neighbours almost forgot to mourn for the dead
so much were they afraid of losing the living.
However, these forged tears, by the mercy of
God to this great offender, suddenly became real
ones.”
Tortured by conscience, after six weeks of misery
he made a confession of his crime to the schoolmaster
of Dunbar, according to Crawford-to
Andrew Simpson, minister there, according to the
“ Historie of King James the Sext ”-and after
being convicted, on his own confession, at Edinburgh,
he was conveyed to the Gallow Lee, on the
4th of October, and strangled. His corpse was
then consumed by fire and the ashes scattered on
the air. ‘‘ Never did any man appear more penitent
or less fearful of death. He was attended from
the prison to the stake by three of the clergy, and
by the way he rather instructed them than received
any assistance from them.”
A century or so later and we have some appalling
accounts of the cremation of so-called witches
at the terrible Gallow Lee.
In 1678 five were (mercifully) strangled first and
burnt to ashes there, by sentence of the Lords;
and other four, their companions, were burned
at Painston Muk, in their own parish. The accusations
against them were intimacy with the devil,
dancing with him, renouncing their baptism, and
being kissed by him, though his lip3 were icy cold,
and his breath like damp air ; taking a communion
at his hands, when ‘‘ the bread was like wafers, the
drink sometimes blood and other times like black
moss water,’’ and much more to the same purpose,
all of which is gravely recorded by Lord Fountain](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p166.gif "Volume 5 Page 155")
... Walk.] THE REV. JOHN KELLOE. I55
of sand, much of it was carted away, and, with the
ashes of the ...
Vol. 5 p. 155 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canongate
4‘ History of Music j ” Dr. Gregory ; David Xllan ;
Lord Cromarty; and ...
Vol. 3 p. 30 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AYD NEW EDINBURGH. [The Lawnmarket.
Duke of York and Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke made
some noise in London ...
Vol. 1 p. 102 (Rel. 0.12)
... AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Canonmills. 86
modation than external display, and yet is not
unsuited to the ...
Vol. 5 p. 86 (Rel. 0.12)
... ROMAN AND OTUER ANTIQUITIES. 331
locality; But the ‘‘ Old Statistical Account ” has
the following ...
Vol. 6 p. 331 (Rel. 0.12)
![canongate.] ROXBURGH HOUSE. 15
~~ House, there stood in those days the mansion of
the Earls of Roxburgh, surrounded by a beautiful
As a set-off against these items, we have the following,
in 1660-1, when Argyle’s fate came :-
To Alexander Davidson for a new axe to ye
Maiden, and is to maintain it all ye days of his
life . . . . . * . . . . p 12 o
To 4 Drummers when ArgyZe and Swzjtton were
brought from Leith . . . . . 14 8 o
To 17 extra Drummers, a days, when Montrose
was buried and Argyle executed . . , 21 12 o
The marquis was interred amid great pomp in
the Church of St. Giles at the Restoration; but
when a search was made for his remains in the
Chepman aisle, in April, 1879, no trace of them
whatever could be found there.
Amid the gloom and’horror of scenes such as
these executions, and the general events of the wars
of the Covenant, all traces of gaiety, and especially
of theatrical entertainments, disappeared in Edinburgh,
as forbidden displays; but in January,. 1659,
the citizens were regaled with the sight of a travelling
dromedary, the first that had ever been in
Scotland. Nicoll describes it as “ane heigh great
beast, callit ane dummodary, quhilk being keepit
clos in the Canongate, none had a sight of it, without
three pence the person. . . . . It was
very big, and of great height, cloven futted like
unto a kow, and on the bak ane saitt, as it were
a sadill to sit on. Thair was brocht in with it ane
lytill baboun, faced lyke unto an aip.”
In 1686 the public attendance at mass by some
of the officers of state excited a tumult in the city,
and many persons of rank were insulted on returning
therefrom by the rioters. One of these, a
journeyman baker, was, by order of the Privy
Council, whipped through the Canongate, and
ultimately the Foot Guards had to fire on the mob
that assembled.
In that year an Act of Parliament empowered
the magistrates to impose a tax of A500 sterling
yearly, for three years, to cleanse the town and
Canongate, and free both from beggars ; and in 1687
the whole members of the College of Justice voluntarily
offered to bear their full share of this tax,
and appointed two of their body to be present when
it was levied.
In 1692 we find an instance in the Canongate
of one of the many troubles which in those days
arose from corporation privileges, by which the
poor and industrious tradesman was made the
victim of monopoly.
In the open ground which now surrounds Milton
I which performs the whole journey in thirteen days,
I without any stoppage (if God permit), having eighty
Fepairs in this house, when Thomas Kinloch, Dea-
:on of the Wrights in the Canongate, came with
Jthers, and violently carried off all the tools of
Somerville and his workmen, on the plea that they
were not freemen of the burgh; and when the
tools were demanded formally, two days after,
they were withheld.
Robert, Earl of Roxburgh (who afterwards died
m his travels abroad), was then a minor, but his
curators resented the proceedings of Kinloch, and
sued him for riot and *oppression. Apparently, if
the Roxburgh mansion had been subject to the
jurisdiction of the Canongate, the Privy Council
would have given no redress ; but when the earl’s
ancestor, in 1636, had given up the superiority
of the Canongate, as he reserved his house to be
holden of the Crown, it was found that the local
corporation had no right to interfere with his
workmen, and Somerville’s tools were restored to
him by order of the Council.
Earl Robert was succeeded in this house by his
brother John, fifth Earl and first Duke of Roxburgh,
K.G., who sold his Union vote for LSOO,
became Secretary of State for Scotland in 1716,
and died in 1741.
Long ere that time the effect of the Union had
done its worst upon the old court burgh. Maitland,
writing in 1753, says :-“This place has suffered
more by the inion of the kingdoms than all the
other parts of Scotland : for having, before that
period, been the residence of the chief of the
Scottish nobility, it was thqn in a flourishing condition
; but being deserted by them, many of their
houses are fallen down, and others in a ruinous
condition ; it is in a piteous case ! ”
Five years after the Union we find a London
coach announced as starting from the Capongate,
the advertisement for which, with regard to expedition,
comfort, and economy, presents a curious contrast
to the announcements of to-day, and is worth
giving at length, as we find it in the NkwcastZe
Cau~unt of October, I 7 I 2.
“ Edinburgh, Berwick, Newcastle, Durham, and
London Stage-coach begins on Monday, 13th
October, 1712. All that desire to pass from
Edinbro’ to London, or from London to Edinbro’,
or any place on that road, let them repair to Mr.
John Baillie’s, at the Coach and Horses at the head
of the Canongate, every Saturday, or the Black
Swan in Holborn, every other Monday, at both of
which places they may be received in a stagexoach](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p027.gif "Volume 3 Page 15")
... ROXBURGH HOUSE. 15
~~ House, there stood in those days the mansion of
the Earls of Roxburgh, ...
Vol. 3 p. 15 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Coltbridge;.
from Inverleith Row, and a third from the narrow
lane leading to East ...
Vol. 5 p. 102 (Rel. 0.12)
... of Belhaven, the Earl Marischal, after having
opposed the Union in all its stages, refused to be
present at ...
Vol. 1 p. 67 (Rel. 0.12)
... RIT. ITO. CELIO. HADKIANO
ANTONINOA.U G. Pro. PATRIP. ATRIB.
Although the Roman military ...
Vol. 1 p. 10 (Rel. 0.12)
![Waniston.] LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew estranged from him,
and eventually her heart became filled with a
deadly hatred.
An old and attached nurse began to whisper of
a means of revenge and relief from her married
thraldom, and thus she was induced to tamper
with a young man named Robert Weir, a servant
or vassal of her father at Dunipace, to become her
instrument.
At an early hour in the morning of the 2nd of
July, Weir came to the place of Warriston, and
being admitted by the lady to the chamber of her
husband, beat him to death with his clenched fists.
He then fled, while the lady and her nurse remained
at home. Both were immediately seized,
subjected to a summary trial of some kind before
the magistrates, and sentenced to death ; the lady
to have “ her heade struck frae her bodie ” at the
Canongate Cross.
In the brief interval between sentence and execution,
this unfortunate young girl, who was only
twenty-one, was brought, by the impressive discourse
of a good and amiable clergyman, from a
state of callous indifference to a keen sense of
her crime, and also of religious resignation. Her
case was reported in a small pamphlet of the day,
entitled, “Memorial of the Conversion of Jean
Livingston (Lady Waniston), with an account of
her carriage at her execution ”-a dark chapter of
Edinburgh social history, reprinted by Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe. “She stated, that on Weir
assaulting her husband, she went to the hall, and
waited till the deed was done. She thought she
still heard the pitiful cries uttered by her husband
while struggling with his murderer.” She tried to
. weep, but not a tear could she shed, and could
only regard her approaching death as a just expiation
of her crime.
Deeply mortified by the latter and its consequences,
her relations used every effort to secure
as much privacy as was possible for the execution;
hence it was arranged that while her nurse
was being burned on the Castle Hill at four o’clock
in the morning, thus attracting the attention of
all who might be out of bed at that time, Lady
Waniston should be taken to the Girth Cross, at
the east end of the town, and there executed by
the Maiden.
“The whole way as she went to the place,”
says the pamphlet referred to, “ she behaved herself
so cheerfully as if she was going to her
wedding, and not to her death. When she came
to the scaffold, and was carried up upon it, she
looked up to the Maiden with two longsome looks,
for she had never seen it before.
of her, to which all that saw her will bear record,
that her only countenance moved [sic, meaning
that its expression alone was touching], although
she had not spoken a word; for there appeared
such majesty in her countenance and visage, and
such a heavenly courage in gesture, that many
said, ‘That woman is gifted with a higher spirit
than any man or woman’s! ’”
She read an address to the spectators at the four
corners of the scaffold, and continued to utter
expressions of devotion till the swift descent of
the axe decapitated her. Balfour, in his “Annals,”
gives the year 1599 as the date of this tragedy.
Four years after Weir was taken, and on the
26th January, 1606, was broken on the wheel, a
punishment scarcely ever before inflicted in Scotland.
In the year 1619 Thomas Kincaid of Wamston
was returned heir to his father Patrick Kincaid of
Warriston, in a tenement in Edinburgh. This was
probably the property that was advertised in the
Couranf of 1761, as about to be sold, “that
great stone tenement of land lying at the head of
the old Bank Close, commonly called Warriston’s
Land, south side of the Lawn Market, consisting
of three bedchambers, a dining-room, kitchen, and
garret.” There is no mention of a drawing-room,
such apartments being scarcely known in the Edinburgh
of those days.
In 1663 another proprietor of Warriston came
to a tragic end, and to him we have already referred
in our account of Waniston’s Close.
This was Sir Archibald Johnston, who was known
as Lord Warriston in his legal capacity. He wag
an advocate of 1633. In 1641 he was a Lord of
Session. He was made Lord Clerk Register by
Cromwell, who also created him a peer,under the title
of Lord Wamston, and as such he sat for a time
in the Upper House in Parliament. After the
Restoration he was forfeited, and fled, but was
brought to Edinburgh and executed at the Marke
Cross, as we have recorded in Chapter XXV. ct.
Volume I.
Wodrow, in his “History of the Church of
Scotland,” states that Wamston’s memoirs, in his
handwriting, in the form of a diary, are still extant ;
if so, they have never seen the light. His character,
admirably drawn in terse language by his nephew,
Bishop Burnet, is thus given in the U History of his
Own Times,” Vol. 1.:-
“ Waniston was my own uncle. He was a man of
great application ; could seldom sleep above three
hours in the twenty-four. He studied the law
carefully, and had a great quickness of thought,
This I may say ,
.
*](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p110.gif "Volume 5 Page 99")
... LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew ...
Vol. 5 p. 99 (Rel. 0.12)
![Burghmuir.] GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found :-
In virtue of a bet in 1798, Mr. Scales of Leith,
and Mr. Smellie, a printer, were selected to perform
..
King , . . . . . . . ixs.
1503, Feb. 22. Item, xij Golf Balls to the King iiijs.
1506. Item, the 28th day of Julii for ij Golf Clubbes to the
King . . . . . . . ijs.
During the reign of James VI. the business of
club making had become one of some importance,
and by a letter, dated Holyrood, 4th April, 1603,
William Mayne, Bowyer, burgess of Edinburgh, is
appointed maker of bows, arrows, spears, and clubs
to the king. From thenceforward the game took a
firm hold of the people as a national pastime, and
it seems to have been a favourite one with Henry,
Duke of Rothesay, and with the great Marquis of
Montrose, as the many entries in his ‘‘ Household
Book ” prove. ‘‘ Even kings themselves,” says a
writer in the Sots Magazine for 1792, “did not
decline the princely sport; and it will not be
displeasing to the Society of Edinburgh Golfers to
be informed that the two last crowned heads that
ever visited this country (Charles I. .and James
VII.) used to practise golf on the Links of Leith,
now occupied by the society for the same purpose.”
In 1744 the city gave a silver club, valued at
LIS, to be played for on the 1st of April annually
by the Edinburgh Company of Golfers, the victor
to be styled captain for the time, and to append
a gold or silver -medal to the club, bearing his
name and date of victory. The Honourable Company
was incorporated by a charter froni the
magistrates in 1800, and could boast of the most
illustrious Scotsmen of the day among its members.
Until the year 1792 St. Andrews had a species of
monopoly in the manufacture of golf balls. They
are small and hard, and of old were always stuffed
with feathers. The clubs are from three to four
feet long. “The heads are of brass,” says Dr.
Walker, in a letter to the famous Dr. Carlyle of
Inveresk ; ‘‘ and the face with which the ball is
struck is perfectly smooth, having no inclination,
such as might have a tendency to raise the ball
from the ground. The game may be played by
any number, either in parties against each other,
or each person for himself, and the contest is to
hole the course in the fewest strokes.”
“Far!” or “Fore!” is the signal cry before the ball
is struck, to warn loiterers or spectators; and
“Far and Surc !” is a common motto with golf clubs.
.
the Erle of Bothwile . . . . xlijs
Feb. 4- Item to Golf‘ Clubbes and Ballis to the
the church. They were allowed the use of six
balls each. These‘ all went considerably higher
than the vane, and were found in the Advocate’s
Close, on the north side of the High Street.
Duncan Forbes, the Lord President, was so fond
of golf that he was wont to play on the sands of
Leith when the Links were covered with snow.
Kay gives us a portrait of a famous old golfer,
Andrew McKellar, known as the “Cock o’ the
Green,” in the act of striking the ball. This enthusiast
spent entire days on Bruntsfield Links,
club in hand, and was often there by night too,
playing at the “short holes” by lantern light
Andrew died about 1813.
Bruntsfield Links and those of Musselburgh are
the favourite places yet of the Edinburgh Club ;
but the St. Andrews meetings are so numerously
attended that the old city by the sea has been
denominated the MefropoZis of golfing.
In a miscellaneous collection, entitled “ Mistura
Curiosa,” a song in praise of golf has two verses
“ I love the game of golf, my boys, though there are folks in
Who, when upon the Links they walk, delight to run it
But then those folks who don’t love golf, of coursc, can’t
The fond love that exists between the golfer and his friend.
“For on the green the new command, that ye love one
Is, as a rule, kept better by a golfer than a brother;
For if he’s struck, a brother’s rage is not so soon appeased,
But the harder that Zhit my friend, the better he is pleased.”
Until the Royal Park at Holyrood was opened
up, levelled, and improved, at the suggestion of the
late Prince Consort, Bruntsfield Links was the
invariable place for garrison reviews and field days
by the troops ; but >neither they nor any one else
can interfere with the vested rights of the golfers
to play over any part of the open ground at all
times.
On the summit of the green slope now crowned
by the hideous edifice known as Gillespie’s Hospital,
a picturesque mansion of very great antiquity,
quadrangular in form, striking in outline, with its
peel-tower, turrets, crowstepped gables and gablets,
thus :-
town
down ;
comprehend
another,
1 east corner of the Parliament Square over the
weathercock of St. Giles’s, 161 feet from the base of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p042.gif "Volume 5 Page 31")
... GOLF ON BRUNTSFIELD LINKS. 31
Lord High Treasurer, under James IV., the following
entries are found ...
Vol. 5 p. 31 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
Soon after, Mr. Ross advertised that he found
‘‘ the general voice ...
Vol. 2 p. 342 (Rel. 0.12)
... THE SCOTTISH TEMPLARS. 51
ances of the order from the Master of England,
who received them from the ...
Vol. 3 p. 51 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket:
houses which were inhabited by this gang were
well chosen for the ...
Vol. 4 p. 230 (Rel. 0.12)
![Arlhur‘s Seat.] DR. JOHN BELL 303
sity of Edinburgh that the Medical Society has
contributed much to the prosperity and reputation
of this school of physic.”
Such are still the objects of the Royal Medical
Society, which has now, however, quitted its old
hall and chambers for newer premises in 7 Melbourne
Place. Its staff consists of four presidents,
two honorary secretaries, curators of the library
and museum, with a treasurer and sub-librarian.
Many old citizens of good position had residences
in and near the High School yards and
Surgeon Square. Among these was Mr. George
Sinclair of Ulbster, who married Janet daughter of
Lord Strathmore, and who had a house of seven
rooms in the yard, which was advertised in the
Courant of 1761. His son was the eminent agriculturist,
and first baronet of the family.
In 1790 a theatre for dissections and an anatomical
museum were erected in Surgeon Square
by Dr. John Bell, the eminent anatomist, who was
born in the city on the 12th May, 1763, and who
most successfully applied the science of anatomy
to practical surgery-a profession to which, curiously
enough, he had from his birth been devoted by
his father. The latter,about a month before the
child’s birth, had-when in his 59th yea-undergone
with successapainful surgicaloperation, and his gratitude
led him tovowhe would rear his son John to the
cause of medicine for the relief of mankind ; and
after leaving the High School the boy was duly
apprenticed to Mr. Alexander Wood, surgeon, and
soon distinguished himself in chemistry, midwifery,
and surgery, and then anatomy, which had been
somewhat overlooked by Munro.
In the third year after his anatomical theatre
had been opened in the now obscure little square,
he published his “ Anatomy of the Human Body,”
consisting of a description of the action and play
of the bones, muscles, and joints. In 1797 appeared
the second volume, treating of the heart
and arteries. During a brilliant career, he devoted
himself with zeal to his profession, till in 1816 he
was thrown from his horse, receiving a shock from
which his constitution never recovered.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
AKTHUR’S SEAT AND ITS VICINITY.
The Sanctuary-Geology of the Hill-Origin of its Name, and that of the Craigs-The Park Walls, 2554-A Banquet alfrrsc6The Pestilence
-A Duel-“The Guttit Haddie”-Mutiny of the Old 78th Regiment-Proposed House on the Summit-bfuschat and his Cairn-
Radical Road Formed-May Day-Skeletons found at the Wells 0’ Wearic-Park Improvements-The Hunter’s Bog-Legend of the
Hangman’s big-Duddingston-The Church-Rev. J. Thomson-Robert Monteith-The Loch-Its Sw-ans-Skatcrs--The Duddingston
Thoro-The Argyle and Abercorn FamilisThe Earl of Mob-Lady Flon. HastingsCnuvin’s Hospica-Parson’s Grecn-St.
Anlhonfs Chapel and Well-The Volunteer Renew before the Queen.
TAKING up the history of the districts of the city
in groups as we have done, we now come to Arthur‘s
Seat, which is already well-nigh surrounded, especially
on the west and north, by streets and
mansions.
Towering to the height of 822 feet above the
Forth, this hill, with the Craigs of Salisbury, occupies
the greater portion of the ancient Sanctuary of
Holyrood, which included the royal park (first
enclosed and improved from a condition of natural
forest by James V. and Queen Mary), St. Anne’s
Yard and the Duke’s Walk (both now obliterated),
the Hermitage of St. Anthony, the Hunter’s Bog,
and the southern parks as far as Duddingston, a
tract of five miles in circumference, in which persons
were safe from their creditors for twenty-four
hours, after which they must take out a Protectim,
as it was called, issued by the bailie of the abbey ;
the debtors were then at liberty to go where they
pleased on Sundays, without molestation j but later
legal alterations have rendered retirement to the
Sanctuary to a certain extent unnecessary.
The recent formation of the Queen’s Drive
round the hill, and the introduction of the rifle
ranges in the valley to the north of it, have destroyed
the wonderful solitude which for ages
reigned there, even in the vicinity of a busy and
stormy capital. Prior to these changes, and in
some parts even yet, the district bore the character
which Arnot gave it when he wrote :-“ Seldom are
human beings to be met in this lonely vale, or any
creature to be seen, but the sheep feeding on the
mountains, or the hawks and ravens winging their
flight among the rocks’: The aspect of the lionshaped
mountain and the outline of the craig
are known to every one. There is something certainly
grand and awful in the front of mighty slope
and broken rock and precipice, which the latter
present to the city. Greenstone, which has been
upheaved through strata surfaced with sandstone](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p123.gif "Volume 4 Page 303")
... Seat.] DR. JOHN BELL 303
sity of Edinburgh that the Medical Society has
contributed much to the ...
Vol. 4 p. 303 (Rel. 0.12)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even ...
Vol. 3 p. 50 (Rel. 0.11)
![Leith] THE GLASS WORKS. 2 3 9
fashion that the hamlet near Craigmillar was namec
“Little France” from the French servants o
Mary.
U In a small garden attached to one of the house:
in Little London,” says a writer, whose anecdote
we give for what it is worth, “ there was a flowerplot
which was tended with peculiar care long
after its original possessors had gone the way 01
all flesh, and it was believed that the body of a
young and beautiful female who committed suicide
was interred here. The peculiar circumstances
attending her death, and the locality made choice
of for her interment, combined to throw romantic
interest over her fate and fortunes, and
her story was handed-down from one generation
to another.”
In Bernard Street, a spacious and well-edificed
thoroughfare, was built, in 1806, the office of the
Leith Bank, a neat but small edifice, consisting of
two floors ; a handsome dome rises from the north
front, and a projection ornamented with four Ionic
columns, and having thin pilasters of the same.
decorates the building. It is now the National
Bank of Scotland Branch.
Since then, many other banking offices have been
established in the same street, including that of
the Union Bank, built in 1871 after designs by
James Simpson, having a three-storeyed front in the
Italian style, with a handsome cornice and balustrade,
and a telling-room measuring 34 feet by 32 ;
the National Bank of Scotland ; the Clydesdale
and British Linen Company’s Banks; many insurance
offices; and in No. 37 is the house of the
Leith Merchants’ Club.
Bernard Street joins Baltic Street, at the southeast
corner of which is the spacious and stately
Corn Exchange, which is so ample in extent as to
be frequently used as a drill-hall by the entire
battalion of Leith Rifle Volunteers.
North of Baltic Street are the old Glass Works
The Bottle House Company, as it was named,
began to manufacture glass vessels in North Leith
in 1746, but their establishment was burnt down
during the first year of the partnership. Thus, in
1747 the new brick houses were built on the sands
of South Leith, near the present Salamander Street,
and as ~e demand for bottles increased, they
built an additional one in 1764, though, according
to Bremner, glass was manufactured in Leith so
early as 1682.
Seven cones, or furnaces, were built, but in later
years only two have been in operation. In the
year 1777 CO less -than 15,8834 cwts. were made
here in Leith, the Government duty on which
amounted to A2,779 odd ; but as there are now
many other bottle manufactories in Scotland, thetrade
is no longer confined to the old houses that.
adjoin Baltic and Salamander Streets.
A writer in the Bet, an old extinct &dinburgh,
periodical, writing in 1792, says that about thirty
years before there was only one glass company in.
Scotland, the hands working one-half the year in
Glasgow, and the other half at Leith, and adds :-
“NOW there are six glass-houses in Leith alone,.
besides many others in different parts of the
tountry. At the time I mention nothing else
than bottles of coarse green glass were made there,
and to that article the Glass House Company in
Leith confined their efforts, till about a dozen yearsagoI
when they began to make fine glass for phials.
and other articles of that nature. About four yearsago
they introduced the manufacture of crown
glass for windows, which they now make in great
perfection, and in considerable quantities. After
they began to manufacture white glass, they fzll
into the way of cutting it for ornament and engraving
upon it. In this last department they havereached
a higher degree of perfection than it hasperhaps
anywhere else ever attained. A young
man who was bred to that business, having discovered
a taste in designing, and an elegance of
execution that was very uncommon, the proprietors
of the works were at pains to give him every aid in
the art of drawing that this place can afford, and
he has exhibited some specimens of his powers in
that line that are believed to be unrivalled. It is.
but yesterday that this Glass House Company (who
are in a very flourishing state), encouraged by their
success in other respects, introduced the art of
preparing glass in imitation of gems, and of cutting
it in facets, and working it into elegant fomis for
chandeliers and other ornamental kinds of furniture.
In this department their first attempts have
been highly successful, and they have now executed
some pieces of work that they need not be ashamed
to compare with the best that can be procured
elsewhere.”
The works of the Glass House Company at
Leith were advertised as for sale in the Courani
of 1813, which stated that they were valued at
~40,000, with a valuable steam-engine of sixteen
horse power, valued at E2 1,000.
Quality Street, and the fine long thoroughfare
named Constitution Street, open into Bernard
Street. Robertson gives us a drawing of an old and
richly-moulded doorway of a tenement, in the
rorrner street, having on its lintel the initials P. P.,
E. G., and the date 1710. At the corner of Quality
Street stands St. John’s Free Church, which was
built in 1870-1, at a cost of about A7,500, and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p058.gif "Volume 6 Page 239")
... THE GLASS WORKS. 2 3 9
fashion that the hamlet near Craigmillar was namec
“Little France” from the ...
Vol. 6 p. 239 (Rel. 0.11)
... Arbuthnot, who twice held the chair in
1815, and again in 1821. He was created a
baronet by the King in ...
Vol. 4 p. 284 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Water of Leith
name doesnot appear in the Baronage) was Sheriff and
Provost of ...
Vol. 5 p. 62 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, [High Street.
’ arms, and took her by boat across the loch that
rippled at the foot ...
Vol. 2 p. 228 (Rel. 0.11)
... HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ISLAND. 29T
~~~~~ ~ ~~
land harbour, was repulsed in an attempt upon
St. ...
Vol. 6 p. 291 (Rel. 0.11)
... monarchs-a new era began in its history,
and it took a stahding as the chief burgh in
Scotland, the ...
Vol. 1 p. 27 (Rel. 0.11)
... Grange.! GRANGE HOUSE. 49
“The chapel of St. Roque,” says Wilson, ‘‘ has
not escaped the notice of ...
Vol. 5 p. 49 (Rel. 0.11)
![High Street.] THE POKER CLUB. a31
The only publication of sterling merit which enlivened
the occasion that called it forth was ‘‘ The
History in the Proceedings of Margaret, commonly
called Peg,” written in imitation of Dr. Arbuthnot’s
“History of John Bull.” In the memoirs of Dr.
Carlyle of Inveresk an amusing account is given
of the Poker Club, of which he was a zealous and
constant attender. About the third or fourth meeting
of the club, after 1/62, he mentions that members
were at a loss for a name for it, and wished one
that should be of uncertain meaning, and not so
directly offensive as that of Militia Club, whereupon
Adam Fergusson, the eminent historian and moral
philosopher, suggested the name of Poker, which
the members understood, and which would “be
an enigma to the public.”
It comprehended all the Ziterati of Edinburgh
and its neighbourhood, most of whom-like Robertson,
Hair, and Hume-had been members of the
select society (those only excepted who were enemies
to the Scottish militia scheme), together with a
great many country gentlemen whose national and
Jacobite proclivities led them to resent the invidious
line drawn between Scotland and England.
Sir William Pulteney Johnston was secretary of
the Poker Club, with two members, whom he was
to consult anent its publications in a laughing hour.
‘‘ Andrew Crosbie, advocate, was appointed assassin
to the club, in case any service of that sort should
be needed ; but David Hume was named for his
assistant, so that between the plus and minus there
was no hazard of much bloodshed.”
After a time the club removed its meetings to
Fortune’s Tavern, at the Cross K$, in the Stamp
Office Close, where the dinners became so showy
and expensive that attendance began to decrease,
and new members came in “who had no title to be
there, and were not congenial” (the common fate
of all clubs generally) “and so by death and desertion
the Poker began to dwindle away, though
a bold attempt was made to revive it in 1787 by
some young men of talent and spirit.” When Cap.
tain James Edgar, one of the original Pokers, was
in Paris in 1773, during the flourishing time of the
club, he was asked by D’Alembert to go with him
to their club of literati, to which he replied with
something of bluntness, I‘ that the company 01
literati was no novelty to him, for he had a club at
Edinburgh composed, he believed, of the ablest
men in Europe. This” (adds Dr. Carlyle, whose
original MS. Lord Kames quoted) “was no singular
opinion ; for the most enlightened foreigners
had formed the same estimate of the literary society
of Edinburgh at that time. The Princess Dashkoff,
disputing with me one day at Buxton about the
superiority of Edinburgh as a residence to most of
the cities of Europe, when I had alleged various
particulars, in which I thought we excelled, ‘ No,’
said she, ‘but I know one article you have not
mentioned in which I must give you clearly the
precedence, which is, that of all the societies of nieii
of talent I have met with in n;y travels, yours is the
first in point of abilities.’ ”
A few steps farther down the street bring us
to the entrance of the Old Stamp Office Close,
wherein was the tavern just referred to, Fortune’s,
one in the greatest vogue between 1760 and 1770.
“The gay men of the city,’’ we are told, the
scholarly and the philosophical, with the common
citizens, all flocked hither; and here the Royal
Commissioner for the General Assembly held his
leve‘es, and hence proceeded to church with his
co~tt!gz, then- additionally splendid fiom having ladies
walking in it in their court dresses, as well as
gentlemen.”
Thz house occupied by this famous tavern had
been in former times the residence of Alexander
ninth Earl of Eglinton, and his Countess Susanna
Kennedy of the house of Colzean, reputed the most
beautiful woman of her time.
From the magnificent but privately printed
Memorials of the hfontgomeries,” we learn many
interesting particulars of this noble couple, who
dwelt in the Old Stamp Office Close. Whether
their abode there was the same as that stated, of
which we have an inventory, in the time of ’
Hugh third Earl of Eglinton, “at his house in
Edinburgh, 3rd March, 1563,” given in the “ Memorials,”
we have no means of determining. . Earl
Alexander was one of those patriarchal old Scottish
lords who lived to a great age. He was thrice
married, and left a progeny whose names are interspersed
throughout the pages of the Douglas
peerage. His last Countess, Susanna, was the
daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy, a sturdy old
cavalier, who made himself conspicuous in the
wars of Dundee. She was one of the co-heiresses
of David Leslie Lord Newark, the Covenanting
general whom Cromwell defeated at Dunbar.
She was six feet in height, extremely handsome,
with a brilliantly fair complexion, and a face of
“ the most bewitching loveliness.” She had many
admirers, Sir John Clerk of Penicuick among
others; but her friends had always hoped she
would marry the Earl of Eglinton, though he was
more than old enough to have been her father,
and when a stray hawk, with his iordship’s name
on its bells, alighted on her shoulder as she was
one day walking in her father’s garden at Colzean.
it was deemed an infallible omen of her future.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p051.gif "Volume 2 Page 231")
... Street.] THE POKER CLUB. a31
The only publication of sterling merit which enlivened
the occasion that called ...
Vol. 2 p. 231 (Rel. 0.11)
... New Haileal LORI) HAILES.
made condemnation seem just as the doom of
Providence to the criminals themselves, ...
Vol. 6 p. 367 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and ...
Vol. 4 p. 238 (Rel. 0.11)
![Univmity,] THE MUSEUMS. 27
brated cavalier-poet, bequeathed his entire library
to the University, and the gift is deemed a valuable
one, from the rare specimens of our early literature
which enriches the collection. Among the chief
donors whose gifts are extensive and valuable
may be named Principal Adamson, Dr. Robert
Johnston, the Rev. James Nairne of Wemyss, Dr.
John Stevenson, who held the chair of Logic and
Metaphysics from 1730 till 1774, Dr. William
Thomson, Professor of Anatomy at Oxford ; and
in 1872 the library received a very valuable
donation from J. 0. Halliwell, the eminent Shaksperian
critic, a collection of works relating to
Shakspere, and formed by him at great cost.
The average collection of the university extends
to about 150,000 volumes, and 700 volumes of
MSS. The university possesses above seventy
valuable portraits and busts of ancient and modern
alumni, most of which are kept in the Senate Hall
and librar).. The latter possesses a fine copy of
Fordun’s Sotichronicon (on vellum) in folio, from
which Goodall’s edition of 1775 was printed.
The Museum of Natural History was established
in 1812, in connection Kith the university, and
contains a most valuable zoological, geological,
and mineralogical collection, the greater portion of
which was formed by the exertions of Professor
Robert Jamieson, who was fifty years Professor of
Natural History (from 1804 to 1854) and Regius
keeper of the museum. In 1854 it was transferred
by the Town Council (at that time patrons of the
university) to Government, under whose control it
has since remained. The whole of the collections
have been now removed to the Natural History
department of the adjoining museum of Science
and Art ; but are available for the educational purposes
of the university, and are freely accessible to
the students of the natural history class.
The Anatomical Museum was founded in 1800
by Dr. Alexander Monro secz~~zdus, who presented
his own anatomical collection and that of his
father to the University, “ to be used by his future
successors in office, for the purpose of demonstrating
and explaining the structure, physiology,
and diseases of the human body.”
In 1859 Sir David Monro, M.D., presented a
considerable collection of anatomical preparations,
formed by his talented father, Dr. Alexander
Monro teyfiw. Many valuable additions have been
made since then ; among them, some by the late
John Goodsir, Professor of Anatomy, 1846-1867,
more especially iii the comparative department ;
and since his death the Senatus purchased from his
representatives his private museum and added it
to the collection, which now contains many thousand
specimens illustrative of human anatomy,
both normal and pathological, and of comparative
anatomy.
There are minor museums in connection with
the classes of natural philosophy, midwifery, materia
medica and botany, and one was recently constructed
by Professor Geikie for the use of the
geological class.
In October, 1881, nearly the whole of the great
anatomical collection referred to here, including
the skeletons of the infamous Burke and one of
his victims known as ‘‘ Daft Jamie,” was removed
from the old to the new University buildings at
huriston.
REFERENCES TO THE PLAN ON PAGE 21.
A, Entrance ; B E, Passages ; c c, Stairs to Divinity Class and Janitors’
Houses ; D D, Porters’ Lodges ; E, Faculty Room or Senatus Academicus
; F, Professor‘s House ; c, Principal’s House ; H, Professo<s How :
J, Professor’s House : K, Chemistry Class: L, Preparation Room:
H, Professor of Chemistry’s House; N, Stairs to Gallery and Upper
Preparation Room of Chemistry Class ; 0, Royal Society ; P, Lobby to
Royal Society : Q, Camage-way to Great Court : R, Arcades for footpassengers
: s s s s, Corridors of Communication : T T, Lobby and
Class for Practice of Physick : U, Civil Law Class Room ; w, Preparation
Room or Anatomical Museum; xx, Anatomical Theatre and
Lobby ; Y Y U, Painting Rooms and private m m : z, Great Hall for
Graduations, Lc., with Loggia and two staircases to the Galleries above;
a, Class for the Theory of Physick ; b, Mathematical Class, Professor’s
Room, Instrument Room, Lobby, &c. ; c, Universal History and Antiquity
Class, with the Professor’s Room: d, Class and Lobby for the
Professor of Humanity ; e, Museum for Natural History ; f, Class for
Natural History ; g, Guard Hall and Lobby : h, Librarian’s House ;
i, Professor’s How; k, Profe.swr df Divinity’s House. The Houses
marked F, H, J, and i arc to be possessed by the Professors of Humanity,
Greek, Hebrew, and Mathematics
CHAPTER 111.
THE DISTRICT OF THE BURGHMUIR.
The Muster by James 111.-Burghmuir feued by James lV.-Muster before Flodden-Relics thereof-The Pest-The Skirmish of Lowsie Low-
A Duel in 17zz-Valleyfield House and Leven Lodge-Barclay Free Church-Bruntsfield Links and the Golf Clubs.
THE tract of the Burghmuir, of which the name
alone remains, and which extended from the water
of the South loch on the north, to the foot of the
almost unchanged Braid Hills on the south ; from
Dalry on the west, to St. Leonard’s Craigs on the
east, formed no inconsiderable portion of the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p038.gif "Volume 5 Page 27")
... THE MUSEUMS. 27
brated cavalier-poet, bequeathed his entire library
to the University, and the gift is ...
Vol. 5 p. 27 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith.
It was built accordingly, and is for the reception
and maintenance of men and ...
Vol. 6 p. 266 (Rel. 0.11)
![Parliament House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. -
a vote among themselves in favour of that protest,
declaring it to be founded on the laws of the realm,
for which they were prosecuted before Parliament,
and sharply reprimanded, a circumstance which
gave great offence to the nation..
The affairs ot the Faculty are managed by a
Dean, or President, a Treasurer, Clerk, and selected
Council ; and, besides the usual branches
of a liberal education, those who are admitted
.as advocates must have gone through a regular
course of civil and Scottish law.
Connected with the Court of Session is the
Society of Clerks, or Writers to the Royal Signet,
whose business it is to subscribe the writs that
pass under that signet in Scotland, and practise as
attorneys before the Courts of Session, Justiciary,
and the Jury Court The office of Keeper of the
Signet is a lucrative one, but is performed by a
deputy. The qualifications for admission to this
body are an apprenticeship for five years with one of
the members, after two years’ attendance at the University,
and on a course of lectures on conveyancing
given by a lecturer appointed by the Society, and
also on the Scottish law class in the University.
Besides these Writers to the Signet, who enjoy
the right of conducting exclusively certain branches
.of legal procedure, there is another, but‘ inferior,
society of practitioners, who act as attorneys before
the various Courts, in which they were of long
standing, but were only incorporated in 1797, under
the title of Solicitors before the Supreme Courts,
The Judges of the Courts of Session and Justiciary,
with members of these before-mentioned
corporate bodies, and the officers of Court, form
the College of Justice instituted by James V., and
of which the Judges of the Court of Session enjoy
the title of Senators.
The halls for the administration of justice immediately
adjoin the Parliament House. The Court
af Session is divided into what are nanied the
Outer and Inner Houses. The former consists of
five judges, or Lords Ordinary, occupying separate
Courts, where cases are heard for the first time;
tbe latter comprises two Courts, technically known
.as the First and Second Divisions. Four Judges
sit in each of these, and it is before them that
litigants, if dissatisfied with the Outer House decision,
may bring their cases for final judgment,
unless .afterwards they indulge in the expensive
luxury of appealing to the House of Lords.
The Courts of the Lords Ordinary enter from
the corridor at the south end of the great hall, and
Those of the Inner House from a long lobby on the
east side of it.
Although the .College of Justice was instituted
by James V., and held its first sederunt in the
old Tolbooth on the 27th of May, 1532, it
was first projected by his uncle, the Regent-
Duke of Albany. The Court originally consisted
of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President,
fourteen Lords Ordinary, or Senators (one-half
clergy and one-half laity), and afterwards an indefinite
number of supernumerary judges, designated
Extraordinary Lords. The annual expenses of
this Court were defrayed from the revenues of
the clergy, who bitterly, but vainly, remonstrated
against this taxation. It may not be uninteresting
to give here the names of the first members of the
Supreme Judicature :-
Alexander, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, Lord
President ; Richard Bothwell, Rector of Askirk
(whose father was Provost .of Edinburgh in the
time of James 111,); John Dingwall, Provost of
the Trinity Church; Henry White, Dean of
Brechin ; William Gibson, Dean of Restalrig ;
Thomas Hay, Dean of Dunbar; Robert Reid,
Abbot of Kinloss ; George Kerr, Provost of
Dunglass ; Sir William Scott of Balwearie ; Sir
John Campbell of Lundie ; Sir James Colville
of Easter Wemyss; Sir Adam Otterburne of
Auldhame ; Nicolas Crawford. of Oxengangs ; Sir
Francis Bothwell (who was provost of the city
in 1535); and James Lawson of the Highriggs.
The memoirs which have been preserved of
the administration of justice by the Court of
Session in the olden time are not much to its
honour. The arbitrary nature of it is referred to
by Buchanan, and in the time of James VI. we
find the Lord Chancellor, Sir Alexander Seaton
(Lord Fyvie in 1598), superintending the lawsuits
of a friend, and instructing him in the mode and
manner in which they should be conducted. But
Scott of Scotstarvit gives us a sorry account of
this peer, who owed his preferment to Anne of
Denmark. The strongest proof of the corrupt
nature of the Court is given us by the -4ct passed
by the sixth parliament of. James VI., in 1579,
by which the Lords were prohibited, “ No uther be
thamselves, or be their wives, or servantes, to take
in ony times cumming, bud, bribe, gudes, or geir,
fra quhat-sum-ever person or persones presently
havand, or that hereafter sal1 happen to have
ony actions or causes persewed before them,”
under pain of confiscation (Glendoick’s Acts, fol.).
The necessity for this law plainly evinws that
the secret acceptance of bribes must have been
common among the judges of the time; while,
in other instances, the warlike spirit of the people
paralysed the powers of the Court.
When a noble, or chief of rank, was summoned tu](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p179.gif "Volume 1 Page 167")
... House.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. -
a vote among themselves in favour of that protest,
declaring it to ...
Vol. 1 p. 167 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. (The West Bow.
thundering back again; being neither more nor
less than Satan come in ...
Vol. 2 p. 314 (Rel. 0.11)
... in the old house, of the plague. His widow
survived him, and the street was named Lady
Gray’s Close till ...
Vol. 1 p. 103 (Rel. 0.11)
... Spcet.1 PROFESSOR WILSONS MOTHER. I < <
He died of disease of the heart at 52, Queen
Street, on the ...
Vol. 3 p. 155 (Rel. 0.11)
... whom she took up her abode. After having
effectually lulled all suspicion, she affected to remember
a vow ...
Vol. 1 p. 30 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
style, with many ornate gables, dormer windows,
%ut was a second time ...
Vol. 2 p. 282 (Rel. 0.11)
![North Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335
have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though
not carried out till the early years of George 111.’~
reign, it had been projected in the latter end of
the reign of Charles 11.
The idea was first suggested when James VII.,
as Duke of Albany and York, was resident Royal
Commissioner at Holyrood, in the zenith of the
only popularity he ever had in Scotland. Vast
numbers of the Scottish nobility and gentry flocked
.around him, and the old people of the middle of
xhe eighteenth century used to recall with delight
the magnificence and brilliance of the court he
gathered in the long-deserted palace, and the
general air of satisfaction which pervaded the
entire city.
Despite the recent turmoils and sufferings consequent
on the barbarous severity with which the
Covenanters had been treated, Edinburgh was prosperous,
and its magistrates bestowed noble presents
upon their royal guest; but the best proof of the
city’s prosperity was the new and then startling idea
s f having an extended royalty and a North Bridge,
;and this idea the Duke of Albany warmly patronised
and encouraged, and towards it gave the citizens a
grant in the following terms :-
“That, when they should have occasion to
enlarge their city by purchasing ground without
tthe town, or to build bridges or arches for the accomplishing
of the same, not only were the propietors
of such lands obliged to part With the same
an reasonable terms, but when in possession thereof,
they are to be erected into a regality in favour of
the citizens ; and after finishing the Canongate
church, the city is to have the surplus of the
20,ooo merks given by Thomas Moodie, in the
year 1649, with the interest thereof; and as all
public streets belong to the king, the vaults and
cellars under those of Edinburgh being forfeited to
the Crown, by their being built without leave or
consent of his majesty, he granted all the said
vaults or cellars to the town, together with a power
to oblige the proprietors of houses, to lay before
their. respective tenements large flat stones for the
conveniency of walking.”
James VII. had fully at heart the good of Edinburgh,
and but for the events of the Revolution
the improvements of the city would have commenced
seventy-two years sooner than they did, but
the neglect of subsequent monarchs fell heavily alike
on the capital and the kingdom. “Unfortunately,”
. :says Robert Chambers, “the advantages which
Edinburgh enjoyed under this system of things
were destined to be of short duration. Her royal
:guest departed, with all his family and retinue, in
May, 1682. In six years more he was lost both
:o Edinburgh and Britain; and ‘a stranger filled
:he Stuart’s throne,’ under whose dynasty Scotland
?ined long in undeserved reprobation.”
The desertion of the city consequent on the
Union made all prospect of progress seem hopeless,
yet some there were who never forgot the cherished
idea of an extended royalty. Among various
plans, the most remarkable for its foresight was that
3f John eighteenth Lord Erskine and eleventh
Earl of Mar, who was exiled for his share in the
insurrection of I 7 I 5.
His sole amusement during the years of the long
exile in which he died at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1732
was to draw plans and designs for the good of his
beloved native country and its capital; and the
paper to which we refer is one written by him in
1725, and mentioned in vol. 8 of the “Old Statistical
Account of Scotland,” published in 1793.
“All ways of improving Edinburgh should be
thought on : as in particular, making a Zarge bridge
flfhree arch, over the ground betwixt the North
Loch and Physic Gardens, from the High Street at
Liberton’s Wynd to the Multersey Hill, where
many fine streets might be built, as the inhabitants
increased. The access to them would be easy on
all hands, and the situation would be agreeable and
convenient, having a noble prospect of all the fine
ground towards the sea, the Firth of Forth, and
coast of Fife. One long street in a straight line,
where the Long Gate is now (Princes Street?) ; on
one side of it would be a fine opportunity for
gardens down to the North Loch, and one, on the
other side, towards Broughton. No houses to be
on the bridge, the breadth of the North Loch ; but
selling the places or the ends for houses, and the
vaults and arches below for warehouses and cellars,
the charge of the bridge might be defrayed.
“ Another bridge might also be made on the other
side of the towq, and almost as useful and commodious
as that on the north. The place where it
could most easily be made is St. Mary‘s Wynd, and
the Pleasance. The hollow there is not so deep, as
where the other bridge is proposed, so that it is
thought that two storeys of arches might raise it near
the level with the street at the head of St. Mary’s
Wynd. Betwixt the south end of the Pleasance and
the Potter-row, and from thence to Bristo Street,
and by the back of the wall at Heriot‘s Hospital, are
fine situations for houses and gardens. There would
be fine avenues to the town, and outlets for airing
and walking by these bridges ; and Edinburgh, from
being a bad incommodious situation, would become
a very beneficial and convenient one ; and to make
it still more so, a branch of that river, called the
Water of Leith, misht, it is thought, be brought](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p155.gif "Volume 2 Page 335")
... Bridge.] JOHN EARL OF MAR. 335
have foreseen; we say long-suggested, for, though
not carried out till the ...
Vol. 2 p. 335 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Leith.
or ripple or burnished face of water, the very
aspect of which is luxury in a ...
Vol. 5 p. 166 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
helmet, now preserved in the Antiquarian Museum
-and the entrance gate or ...
Vol. 6 p. 258 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Iauwade
families of note. Philip became sheriff of the
Mearns, and ancestor of the ...
Vol. 6 p. 362 (Rel. 0.11)
![High Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State for Scotland from 1742 till 1745,
when he resigned the office, on which the Government
at once availed themselves of the opportunity
for leaving it vacant, as it has remained ever since.
He died in 1762, and soon after the carriageentrance
and the fine old terraced garden of the
house, which lay on the slope westward, were
removed to make way for the Episcopal church in
the Cowgate-doomed in turn to be forsaken by
its founders, and even by their successors.
From the Tmeeddale family the mansion passed
into the hands of the British Linen Company, and
became their banking house, until they deserted it
for Moray House in the Canongate, from which they
ultiniatelymigrated to a statelier edifice inSt. Andrew
Square. This company was originally incorpo-
Tated by a charter under the Privy Seal granted by
George 11. on the 6th of July, 1746, at a time
when the mind of the Scottish people was still
agitated by the events of the preceding year and
the result of the battle of Culloden; and it was
deemed an object of the first importance to tranquillise
the country and call forth its resources, so
that the attention of the nation should be directed
to the advantages of trade and manufacture. With
this view the Government, as well as many gentlemen
of rank and fortune, exerted themselves to
promote the linen manufacture, which had been
lately introduced, deeming that it would in time
become the staple manufacture of Scotland, and
provide ample employment for her people, while
.extensive markets for the produce of their labour
would be found alike at home and in the colonies,
then chiefly supplied by the linens of Germany.
By the Dukes of Queensberry and Argyle, who
became the first governors of the British Linen
Company, representations to this effect were made
to Government, and by the Earls of Glencairn, Eglinton,
Galloway, Panmure, and many other peers,
together with the Lord Justice Clerk Fletcher of
Saltoun, afterwards Lord Milton, who was the first
deputy governor, and whose mother, when an exile
in Holland during the troubles, had secretly obtained
a knowledge of the art of weaving and of
dressidg the fine linen known as “ Holland,” and
introduced its manufacture at the village of Saltoun;
by the Lord Justice Clerk Alva ; Provost George
Drummond ; John Coutts, founder of the famous
banking houses of Forbes and Co., and Coutts
and Co. in the Strand; by Henry Home, Lord
Kames ; and many othqs, all of whom urged the
establishment of the company, under royal sanction,
and offered to become subscribers to the undertaking.
A charter was obtained in accordance with their
views and wishes, establishing the British Linen
Company as a corporation, and bestowing upon
it ample privileges, not only to manufacture and
deal in linen fabrics, but also to do all that
might conduce to the promotion thereof; and
authority was given to raise a capital of ~roo,ooo,
to be enlarged by future warrants under the
sign manual of his Majesty, his heirs and successors,
to such sums as the affairs of the company
might .require. After this the company engaged to
a considerable extent in the importation of flax and
the manufacture of yarns and linens, having warehouses
both in Edinburgh and London, and in its
affairs none took a more active part than Lord
Milton, who was an enthusiast in all that related to
the improvement of trade, agriculture, and learning,
in his native country; but it soon became apparent
that the company “ would be of more utility, and
better promote the objects of their institution, by
enlarging the issue of their notes to traders, than
being traders and manufacturers themselves.”
By degrees, therefore, the company withdrew
from all manufacturing operations and speculations,
and finally closed them in 1763, from which year
to the present time their business has been confined
to the discount of bills, advances on accounts,
and other b.ank transactions, in support of Scottish
trade generally, at home and abroad. “By the
extension of their branch agencies to a great number
of towns,” to quote their own historical report, “ and
the employment in discounts and cash advaqces of
their own funds, as well as of that portion of the
formerly scanty and inactive money capital of Scotland
which has been lodged with the company, they
have been the means of contributing very materially
to the encouragement of useful industry throughout
Scotland, and to her rapid progress in agricultural
and mechanical improvements, and in commercial
intercourse with foreign countries. As regards the
particular object of the institution of the companythe
encouragement of the linen manufa.cture-considerably
more than half of the flax and hemp
imported into the United Kingdom, is now (in
1878) brought to the Scottish ports.”
Now the bank has nearly eighty branch or subbranch
offices over all Scotland alone. The company’s
original capital of AIOO,OOO has been
gradually increased under three additional charters,
granted at different times, under the Great Seal
By Queen Victoria, their fourth charter, dated 19th
March, 1849, ratifies and confirms all, their privileges
and rights, and power was given to augment
their capital to any sum not exceeding A r,5oo,ooo
in all, for banking purposes. The amount of new](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p099.gif "Volume 2 Page 279")
... Street.] THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY. 279
resided here was John, fourth Marquis, who was
Secretary of State ...
Vol. 2 p. 279 (Rel. 0.11)
... him an intimation that he was to be made
prisoner, and advised him to lose no time in
assuming the defensive. ...
Vol. 1 p. 39 (Rel. 0.11)
![Convi~ialii] THE SPENDTHRIFT CLUB. 12.5
called one of his brother boars by his proper outof-
club name, the term < Sir ’ being only allowed.
The entry-money, fines, and other pecuniary acquisitions,
were hoarded for a grand annual dinner.”
In 1799 some new officials were added, such
as a poet-laureate, champion, archbishop, and chief
grunter, and by that time, as the tone and expenses
of the club had increased, the fines became
very severe, and in the exactions no one met with
any mercy, ‘‘ as it was the interests of all that the
& should bring forth a plenteous farrow.” This
practice led to squabbles, and the grotesque fraternity
was broken up.
The COUNTRY DINNER CLUB was a much more
sensible style of gathering, when some respectable
citizens of good position were wont to meet on the
afternoon of each Saturday about the year 1790 to
dine in an old tavern in Canonmills, then at a
moderate distance from town. They kept their
own particular claret. William Ramsay, a banker,
then residing in Warriston House, was deemed
‘( the tongue of the trump to the club,” which entirely
consisted of hearty and honest old citizens,
all of whom have long since gone to their last account.
The EAST INDIA CLUB was formed in 1797, and
held its first meeting in John Bayll’s tavern on
the 13th of January that year, when the Herald
announces that dinner would be on the table at the
then late and fashionable hour of four, but the body
does not seem to have been long in existence ; it
contributed twenty guineas to the sufferers of a fire
in the Cowgate in the spring of 1799, and fifty to
the House of Industry in 1801.
John Bayll managed the “George Square assemblies,”
which were held in Buccleuch Place.
His tavern was in Shakespeare Square, where his
annual balls and suppers, in 1800, were under the
patronage of the Duchess of Buccleuch and Mrs.
Dundas of Amiston.
Of the CAPE CLUB, which was established on
the 15th of March, 1733, and of which Fergusson
the poet and Runciman the painter were afterwards
members, an account will be found in Vol. I.,
which, however, omitted to give the origin of the
name of that long-existing and merry fraternity,
and which was founded on an old, but rather weak,
Edinburgh joke of the period.
Some well-known burgess of the Calton who WE
in the habit of spending the evening hours with
friends in the city, till after the ten o’clock drum
had been beaten and the Netherbow Port wa:
shut, to obtain egress was under the necessity 01
bribing the porter there, or remaining within the
walls all ni&it. On leaving the gate he had tc
turn acutely to the left to proceed down Leith
Wynd, which this facetious toper termed ‘‘ doubling
the Cape.” Eventually it became a standing joke
in the small circle of Edinburgh then, “and the
Cape Club owned a regular institution from 1763,”
says Chambers, but its sixty-fifth anniversary is
announced in the HeraZd of 1798, for the 15th of
March as given above.
The SPENDTHRIFT CLUB, was so called in ridicule
of the very moderate indulgence of its members,
whose expenses were limited to fourpence-halfpenny
each night, yet all of them were wealthy or
well-to-do citizens, many of whom usually met after
forenoon church at the. Royal Exchange for a walk
in the country-their plan being to walk in the
direction from whence the wind blew and thus
avoid the smoke of the city. “ In 1824,” says
ChamberS, ‘‘ in the recollection of the senior members,
some of whom were of fifty years’ standing,
the house (of meeting) was kept by the widow of a
Lieutenant Hamilton of the army, who recollected
having attended the theatre in the Tennis Court at
Holyrood when the play was the ‘ Spanish Friar,,
and many of the members of the Union Parliament
were present in the house.”
The meetings of this club were nightly, till reduced
to four weekly, Whist was played for a
halfpenny. Supper originally cost only twopence,
and half a bottle of strong ale, with a dram, cost
twopence-halfpenny more ; a halfpenny to the
servant-maid, was a total of fivepence for a night of
jollity and good fellowship.
The PIOUS CLUB was composed of respectable
and orderly business-men who met every night,
Sundays not excepted, in the Pie-house-hence their
name, a play upon the words. We are told that
“the agreeable uncertainty as to whether their
name arose from their pie& or the circumstance of
their eating piesy kept the club hearty for many
years.”
Fifteen members constituted a full night, a gill of
toddy to each was served out like wine from a d e
canter, and they were supposed to separate at ten
o’clock.
The ANTEMANUM CLUB was composed of men of
respectability, and many who were men of fortune,
who dined together every Saturday. “ Brag” was
their chief game with cards. It was a purely convivial
club, till the era of the Whig party being in
the ascendant led to angry political discussions, and
eventual dissolution.
The SIX FEET CLUB was composed of men who
were of that stature or above it, if possible. It was
an athletic society, and generally met half-yearly at
the Hunter‘s Tryst, near Colinton, or similar places,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p136.gif "Volume 5 Page 125")
... THE SPENDTHRIFT CLUB. 12.5
called one of his brother boars by his proper outof-
club name, the term ...
Vol. 5 p. 125 (Rel. 0.11)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
Vol. 5 p. 94 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Roslin
minute decorations of the latest species of the
Tudor age. It is impossible to ...
Vol. 6 p. 350 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. 1174S- .
to England or theremote districts of Scotland. The
old Chevalier was ...
Vol. 2 p. 330 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Pr’nees Street.
New Town, they are surprised at its being so badly
lighted and ...
Vol. 3 p. 120 (Rel. 0.11)
![THE ROYAL INFIRMARY. 299 h6rmary Street]
students to witness surgical operations. The Infirmary
has separate wards for male and female
patients, and a ward which is used as a Lock
hospital ; but even in ordinary periods the building
had become utterly incompetent for the service
of Edinburgh, and during the prevalence of an epidemic
afforded but a mere fraction of the required
accommodation, and hence the erection of its magnificent
successor, to which we shall refer elsewhere.
The Earl of Hopetoun, in 1742, and for the last
twenty-five years of his life, generously contributed
A400 per annum to the institution when it was
young and struggling. In 1750 Dr. Archibald Kerr
of Jamaica bequeathed to it an estate worth
E218 11s. 5d. yearly; and five years afterwards
the Treasury made it a gift of jG8,ooo j yet it has
never met with the support from Government. that
it ought to have done, and which similar institutions
in London receive.
But the institution owed most of its brilliant
success to Lord Provost Drummond. Among his
associates in this good work he had the honoured
members of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons
in Edinburgh, ever first in all works of goodness and
charity; and the first Dr. Munro, Professor of
Anatomy, was singularly sanguine of the complete
success of the undertaking.
That portion of the house which was founded by
the Earl of Cromarty was opened for the reception
of patients in December, 1741. The theatre described
was made to serve the purposes also of a
chapel, and twelve cells on the ground floor, for cases
of delirium fremens, being found unnecessary, were
converted into kitchens and larders, &c. The
grounds around the house, consisting of two acres,
and long bounded on- the south by the city wall,
were laid out into grass walks for the convalescents,
and ultimately the house was amply supplied with
water from the city reservoir.
In the years 1743-4 the sick soldiers of the
regiments quartered in the Castle were accommodated
in the Infirmary; and in the stormy
period of the '45 it was of necessity converted into
a great military hospital for the sick and wounded
troops of both armies engaged at Prestonpans and
elsewhere ; and in I 748 the surgeon-apothecaries,
who since 1729 had given all manner of medical
aid gratis, were feed for the first time. Wounded
from our armies in Flanders have been sent there
for treatment.
In 1748, after paying for the site, building,
furniture, &c., the stock of the institution amounted
to &5,00o; and sick patients not wishing to be resident
were invited to apply for advice on Mondays
and Fridays, and were in cases of necessity
admitted as supernumeraries at the rate of 6d. per
day. About this time there was handed over an
Invalid Grant made by Government to the city,
on consideration of sixty beds being retained for
the use of all soldiers who paid 4d. per diem for
accommodation, This sum, &3, 2 70, was fully made
over to the managers, who, for some time afteqfound
themselves called upon to entertain so many military
patients, that a guard had to be mounted on
the house to enforce order; and liberty was obtained
to deposit all dead patients in Lady Yester's
churchyard, on the opposite side of the street.
Hitherto the physicians had, with exemplary
fidelity, attended the patients in rotation j but in
January, 1751, the managers on being empowered
by the general court of contributors, selected Dr.
David Clerk and Dr, Colin Drummond, physicians
in ordinary, paying them the small honorarium of
;E30 annually.
The University made offer to continue its
services, together with those of the ordinary physicians,
which offer was gladly accepted; and
though the practice fell into disuse, they were long
continued in monthly rotation. To the option of
the two ordinary physicians was left the visiting
of the patients conjointly, or by each taking his
own department. "It was their duty to sign the
tickets of admission and dismission. In case of any
unforeseen occurrences or dangerous distemper, the
matron or clerks were permitted to use this authe
rity ; the physicians en their amval, however, were
expected to append their signatures to the tickets.
The good and economy of the house from the first,
induced the managers to appoint two of their
number to visit the institution once every month,
who were enjoined to inquire how far the patients
were contented with their treatment, and to note
what they found inconsistent with the ordinary
regulations : their remarks to be entered in a book
of reports, to come under review at the first meeting
of managers." (" Journal of Antiq.," VoL 11.)
In 1754 some abuses prevailed in the mode of
dispensing medicines to the out-door patients,
detrimental to the finances ; an order was given for
a more judicious and sparing distribution. In the
following pear application was made to the Town
Council, as well as to the Presbytery of the Church,
to raise money at their several churches to provide
a ward for sick servants-which had been found
one of the most useful in the house. From its
first institution the ministers of the city had, in
monthly rotation, conducted the religious services ;
but in the middle of 1756 the managers appointed
aregular chaplain, whose duty it was to preach
every Monday in the theatre for surgical operations.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p119.gif "Volume 4 Page 299")
... ROYAL INFIRMARY. 299 h6rmary Street]
students to witness surgical operations. The Infirmary
has separate ...
Vol. 4 p. 299 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street.
likely to have arisen. It happened by accident
that the Earl of ...
Vol. 2 p. 210 (Rel. 0.11)
... CAPTAIN CAYLEY. 243
Bridge, with a boldly moulded doorway, inscribed,
TECUM HABITA, 1616,
(i.e., “ ...
Vol. 4 p. 243 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
less than eight feet of this loose earth between his
shovels and the ...
Vol. 2 p. 338 (Rel. 0.11)
![Leith] SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in the chambers
of the old tenement referred to, on the Coal Hill,
and it is, says Robertson, decorated with a rosethe
emblem of his connectian with Henry VIII. of
England-and the thistle for Scotland. Then
followed that war to which Morton’s ferocity imparted
a character so savage that ere long quarter
was neither given nor taken. And amidst it, in
connection with some private feud, some of the
followers of Sir William Kirkaldy, although they
had been ordered merely to use their batons, slew
Henry Setoun on the Shore of Leith, while his feet
were tripped up by an anchor. In escaping to
Edinburgh, one of them was taken and lodged in
the Tolbooth there ; but Kirkaldy came down from
the Castle with a party of his garrison, beat in the
doors, and rescued him, after which he seized ‘‘ the
victualls brought into Leith from the merchants,
and (did} provide all necessarie furniture to endure
a long siege, till supplie was sent from forrane
nations.” (Calderwood.)
On the death of Lennox, John, Earl of Mar, was
made Regent, and fixed his head-quarters in the
same old tenement at the Coal Hill, Morton being
again chief lieutenant.
From the presence of these peers here, it is
probable that the adjacent gloomy, and now filthy,
court, so grotesquely called Parliament Square, obtained
its name, which seems to have been formerly
the Peat Neuk. The old Council House has been
doomed to perish by the new improvement scheme.
In December, 1797, it was ordered by the Lord
Provost, Magistrates, and Council of Edinburgh,
through the deputy shore-master at Leith, that every
vessel coming into the port with coals for public
sale, was to have a berth immediately on her arrival
off the Coal Hill, and that all other vessels were to
unmoor for that purpose, while no shore duties
were to be charged for coal vessels. (HeyaZd and
ChyonicZe, No. 1,215.)
The adjacent Peat Neuk, for years during the
last century and the beginning of the present,
afforded a shelter to those reckless and abandoned
characters who abound in every seaport ; while in
that portion of the town between the Coal Hill and
the foot of the Tolbooth Wynd were a number of
ancient and ruinous houses, the abode of wandering
outcasts, from whom no rent was ever derived
or expected. It was further alleged, in the early
part of the nineteenth century, to be the favourite
haunt of disembodied spirits, whose crimes or
sufferings in life compelled them to wander ; so,
every way, the Coal Hill seems to have been an
unpleasant, as it is still an unsavoury, locality.
From thence, another quarter known as the
Sheriff, or Shirra Brae, extends in a south-westerly
direction, still abounding in ancient houses. Here,
facing the Coal Hill, there stood, till 1840, a very
fine old edifice, described as having been the residence
of a Logan of Restalrig. The dormer
windows, which rose high above the eaves, were
elaborately sculptured with many dates and quaint
devices. Some of these have been preserved in
the north wall of the manse of St. Thomas’s Church.
One of them displays a shield charged with a heart,
surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, with the initials 1.L
and the date 1636 ; another has the initials I.L.,
M.C., with the date 24 Dec., 1636; a third has
the initials M.C., with a shield; while a fourth
gablet has the initials D.D., M.C., and the comparatively
recent date I 734
The supposed grandsoq of the luckless Logan
of the Gowrie conspiracy married Isabel Fowler,
daughter of Ludovic Fowler of Burncastle (says
Robertson), the famous “ Tibbie Fowler ” of
Scottish song, and here she is said to have resided ;
but her husband has been otherwise said to have
been a collateral of the ancient house of Restalrig,
as it is recorded, under date 12th June, 1572-
Majestro Joanne Logan de Shireff Braye,” who
poitpones the case of Christian Gudsonne, wife of
Andrew Burne in Leith, “dilatit of the mutilation
of Willkm Burne, burgess of Edinburgh, of his
foremost finger be byting thereof.”
In the chartulary, says Robertson, we have also
John Logane of the Coatfield (Kirkgate), and George
Logane of Bonnington Mills is repeatedly alluded
to; ‘‘ and we believe,” he adds, that these branches
“existed as early as the charter of King David.”
The old house at Bmnington still shows a curious
doorway, surmounted by a carefully sculptured
tablet bearing a shield, with a chevron and three
fleurs-de-lis; crest, a ship with sails furled. The
motto and date are obliterated.
. Another writer supposes that if the old house on
the Sheriff Brae was really the residence of George
Logan, it may have been acquired by marriage,
“ seeing that the forfeiture of the family possessions
occurred so shortly before ; and this in itself affords
some colour to the tradition that he was the successhl
wooer of Tibbie Fowler.”
In support of this, the historian of Leith says :-
‘f We think it not improbable that it was Tibbie’s
tocher that enabled Logan, who was ruined by the
attainder of 1609, to build the elegant mansion on
the Sheriff Brae. The marriage contract between
Logan and Isabella Fowler (supposed to be the
Tibbie of the song) is now in possession of a
gentleman in Leith.”](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p066.gif "Volume 6 Page 247")
... SH EKIFF BRAE. 247
Leith by the rebels of Mary Queen of Scots, the
Earl of Lennox opened his council in ...
Vol. 6 p. 247 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Bmughton.
superiority of Broughton was yielded by the
Crown, partly in payment of ...
Vol. 3 p. 182 (Rel. 0.11)
... Hospital.1 WALTER BALCANQU.-II,L. 367
Waucllop Thesauer,” is ordained “ to take down
the stonewark ...
Vol. 4 p. 367 (Rel. 0.11)
![Albany Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19=
Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in
1773, but he resigned it ten years afterwards. In
1785 he was appointed joint Professor of Mathematics
in the University of Edinburgh with the
celebrated Adam Ferguson, LL.D., and discharged
the duties of that chair till the death of
his friend Professor Robinson, in 1805, when he
was appointed his successor. Among his works
are “ Elements of Geometry ” published in I 796 ;
“Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the
Earth ” in 1804; ‘‘ Outlines of Natural Philosophy;”
besides many papers to the scientific department
of the Edinburgh &view and to various other
periodicals.
He died at No. 2, Albany Street, in his seventieth
year, on the 20th of July, 1819. An unfinished
‘‘ Memoir of John Clerk of Eldin,” the inventor of
naval tactics, left by him in manuscript, was
published after his death in the ninth volume of
the “ Edinburgh Transactions.” An interesting account
of the character and merits of this illustrious
mathematician, from the pen of Lord Jeffrey,
was inserted in the ‘‘ Encyclopzdia Britannica ”
and in the memoir prefixed to his works by his
nephew, and a noble monument to his memory
is erected on the Calton Hill.
Northwards of the old village of Broughton,
in the beginning of the present century, the land
was partly covered with trees ; a road led fkom it
to Canonmills by Bellevue to Newhaven, while
another road, by the water of Leith, led westward.
In the centre of what are now the Drummond
Place Gardens stood a country house belonging
to the Lord Provost Drummond, and long inhabited
by him ; he feued seven acres from the
Governors of Heriot’s Hospital. The approach to
this house was by an avenue, now covered by West
London Street, and which entered from the north
road to Canonmills.
On the site of that house General Scott of Balcolnie
subsequently built the large square threestoreyed
mansion of Bellevue, afterwards converted
into the Excise Office, and removed when the
Edinburgh, Perth, and Dundee Railway Company
constructed the now disused tunnel from Princes
Street to the foot of Scotland Street.
In 1802 the l a d s of Bellevue were advertised
to be sold “by roup within the Justiciary
Court Roomy for feuing purposes, but years
elapsed before anything was done in the way of
building. In 1823 the papers announce that
‘‘ preparations are making for levelling Bellevue
Gardens and filling up the sand-pits in that
neighbourhood, with a view to finishing Bellevue
Crescent, which will connect the New Town with
Canonmills on one side, as it is already connected
with Stockbridge on the other.”
By that year Drummond Place was nearly completed,
and the south half of Bellevue Crescent
was finished and occupied; St. Mary’s parish church
was founded and finished in 1824 from designs b j
Mr. Thomas Brown, at the cost of A13,ooo for
1,800 hearers. It has a spire of considerable elegance,
168 feet in height.
General Scott, the proprietor of Bellevue, was
one of the most noted gamblers of his time. It
is related of him that being one night at Stapleton’s,
when a messenger brought him tidings that Mrs.
Scott had been delivered of a daughter, he turned
laughingly to the company, and said, “You see,
gentlemen, I must be under the necessity of
doubling my stakes, in order to make a fortune for
this little girl.“ He accordingly played rather
deeper than usual, in consequence of which, after
a fiw hours’ play, he found himself a loser by
A8,ooo. This gave occasion for some of the
company to rally him on his ‘‘ daughter‘s fortune,”
but the general had an equanimity of temper
that nothing could ruffle, and a judgment in play
superior to most gamesters. He replied that he
had still a perfect dependence on the luck of the
night, and to make his words good he played steadily
on, and about seven in the morning, besides
clearing his .&8,000, he brought home A15,ooo.
His eldest daughter, Henrietta, became Duchess
of Portland.
Drummond Place was named after the eminent
George Drummond, son of the Laird of Newton, a
branch of the Perth family, who was no less than
six times Lord Provost of the city, and who died
in 1776, in the eightieth year of his age.
The two most remarkable denizens of this
quarter were Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddam
(previously of 93, Princes Street) and Lord
Robertson.
Among the attractions of Edinburgh during the
bygone half of the present century, and accessible
only to a privileged few, were the residence
and society of the former gentleman. Born of an
ancient Scottish family, and connected in many
ways with the historical associations of his country,
by his reputation as a literary man no less than
by his high Cavalier and Jacobite tenets, Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe was long looked up to as one
of the chief authorities on all questions connected
with Scottish antiquities.
No. 93, Princes Street, the house of Mrs. Sharpe
of Hoddam, was the home of her son till the time
of her death, and there he was visited by Scotc
Thomas Thomson, and those of the next genera](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p203.gif "Volume 3 Page 191")
... Street.] GENERAL SCOTT. 19=
Gray was ordained his successor to that charge in
1773, but he resigned it ten ...
Vol. 3 p. 191 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Restalrig.
latter married a lady whom Burke calls “Miss
Alston, of America,” and ...
Vol. 5 p. 138 (Rel. 0.11)
![High Street.] MARY KINGS CLOSE 227
net tells us that he was a man of such unflagging
zeal that he barely allowed himself three hours’ sleep
out of the twenty-four. On the renewal of the
Covenant, in 1638, he and the celebrated Alexander
Henderson were appointed to revise and
adapt that national document to the circumstances
of the times; and at the memorable assembly
which met at Glasgow Johnston was unanimously
elected clerk, and was constituted Procurator for
the Church. ’ He took a prominent share in resisting
the unjust interference of Charles I: in Scottish
affairs, and in 1638, on the royal edict being proclaimed
from the Cross of Edinburgh, which set at
defiance the popular opposition to Episcopacy, he
boldly appeared on the scaffold erected near it,
and read aloud the famous protest drawn up in
the name of the Tables, while the mob compelled
the six royal heralds to remain while this counterdefiance
in the name of Scotland was being read
In 1641, when Charles visited Edinburgh for the
second time, Johnston was knighted and made a
Lord of Session, and after sitting in the Parliament
of Scotland in 1644, he attended, as one of the
Commissioners, the assembly of divines at Westminster.
In the following year he was Lord Advocate;
and in 1649 he performed one of his last
official duties, proclaiming Charles 11. King of
Scotland, on the 5th of February, 1650.
After the battle of Dunbar he was weak enough
to accept ofice under the Protectorate, as Clerk
Registrar; and after the death of Cromwell he
acted as one of the Committee of Public Safety,
when the feeble and timid Richard Cromwell withdrew
from public life ; and this last portion of his
career, together with the mode in which he had
prosecuted and persecuted the fallen Cavaliers, and
refused to concur in the treaty of Breda, sealed
his doom when the Restoration came. He was
forfeited in exile and condemned to death on the
15th of May, 1651.
An emissary of the Scottish ministry discovered
his retreat at Rouen, and, with the aid of the
French authorities, he was sent to the Tower, and
from thence to Edinburgh, where, with every mark
of indignity, he was publicly executed on the same
spot where, five-and-twenty years before, he had
defied the proclamation of Charles I. This was
on the n2nd of July, 1663, and he died with the
utmost constancy and Christian fortitude. And
now the busy establishment of one of the most
enterprising of Scottish publishing firms occupies
the site of the old mansion, in which he must many
a time have entertained such men as Alexander
Henderson, the Marquises Argyle, Rothes, and Callander,
the gallant Sir Alexander Leslie, the somewhat
double-dealing Monk, perhaps Cromwell too.
CHAPTER XXVI.
HIGH STREET (continued).
Mary King’s Close-Who was Mary ?-Scourged by the Plague of 1645-Its Mystery-Drummond‘s Epigram-Prof. Sinclair‘s ‘I Satan’s Invisible
World Discovered“--Mr. and Mrs. Coltheart’s Ghostly Visitors-The Clox finally abandoned to Goblins-Craig’s Close-Andro Hart,
Bookseller and Printer-Andro’s Spear-A Menagerie in Craig’s CIosc-The Isle of Man Arms--The Cape Club-Its Mysteries and O f f i c a ~
--Installation of a Knight-ProvinciaI Cape Clubs-The Poker Club-How it Originated-Members-Office-bearers-Old Stamp Office
Court-Fortune’s Tavern-The beautiful Countess of EgIinton-Her Patronage of Lettters-Her Family-Interview with Dr. Johnson-
Murderous Riot in the Close-Removal of the Stamp Office.
MARY KING’S Close was long a place of terror to
the superstitious, as one of the last retreats of the
desolating plague of 1645. “Who Mary King
was is now unknown, but though the alley is roofless
and ruined,” says one, writing of it in 1845,
“with weeds, wall-flowers, grass, and even little
trees, flourishing luxuriantly among the falling
walls, her name may still be seen painted on the
street corner.”
For some generations after the plague-in which
most of itsinhabitants perished-its houses remained
closed, and gradually it became a place of mystery
and horror, the abode of a thousand spectres and
nameless terrors, for superstition peopled it with
inhabitants, whom all feared and none cared to
succeed. “Those who had been foolhardy enough
to peep through the windows after nightfall saw
the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged
in their wonted occupations ; headless forms danced
through the moonlit apartments ; on one occasion
a godly minister and two pious elders were scared
out of their senses by the terrible vision of a raw
head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded
from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished
a sword above their heads ; and many other terrors,
which are duly chronicled in ‘Satan’s Invisible
World;’” yet it was down this place that the wild
young Master of Gray dragged the fair Mistress
Carnegie, whom, sword in hand, he had abducted
from her father’s house at the head of twelve men-at](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p047.gif "Volume 2 Page 227")
... Street.] MARY KINGS CLOSE 227
net tells us that he was a man of such unflagging
zeal that he barely allowed ...
Vol. 2 p. 227 (Rel. 0.11)
![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.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p046.gif "Volume 5 Page 35")
... THE NAPIERS OF MERCHISTON. 35
likeness of the founder, painted by Sir James
Foulis of Woodhall, ...
Vol. 5 p. 35 (Rel. 0.11)
![Rase Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ‘59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns of Rose Street ‘‘ to
the hymeneal altar.” In hiswrath, Creech threatened
an action against the editor, whose contradiction
made matters worse :-“ In a former number we
noticed the intended marriage between Bailie
Creech of Edinburgh and the beautiful Miss Bums
of the same place. We have now the authority of
that gentleman to say that the proposed marriage
is not to take place, matters having been otherwise
arranged, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties
and their respective friends.” After a few years of
unenviable notoriety, says the editor of *‘ Kay,”
Miss Burns fell into a decline, and died in 1792 at
Roslin, where a stone in the churchyard records
her name and the date of her demise.
In the same year of this squabble we find a
ball advertised in connection with the now unfashionable
locality of Rose Street, thus :-“ Mr.
Sealey (teacher of dancing) begs to acquaint his
friends and the public that his ball is iixed for the
20th of March next, and that in order to accommodate
his scholars in the New Town, he proposes
opening a school in Rose Street, Young’s Land,
opposite to the Physicians’ Hall, the 24th of that
month, where he intends to teach on Tuesdays
and Fridays from nine in the morning, and the
remainder of the week at his school in Foulis’s
Close, as formerly.” In 1796 we find among
its residents Sir Samuel Egerton Leigh, Knight, of
South Carolina, whose lady “ was safely delivered
of a son on Wednesday morning (16th March) at
her lodgings in Rose Street.”
Sir Samuel was the second son of Sir Egerton
high, His Majesty’s AttorneyGenerd for South
Carolina, and he died at Edinburgh in the ensuing
January. He had a sister, married to the youngest
brother of Sir Thomas Burnet of Leya
This son, born at Edinburgh in 1796, succeeded
in ISIS to the baronetcy, on the death of his uncle,
Sir Egerton, who married Theodosia (relict of
Captain John Donellan), daughter of Sir Edward,
and sister of Sir Theodosius Edward Boughton,
for the murder of whom by poison the captain was
executed at Warwick in 1781,
It was in Dr. John Brown’s Chapel in Rose
Street, that Robert Pollok, the well-known author
of “The Course of Time,” who was a licentiate of
the United Secession Church, preached his only
sermon, and soon after ordination he was attacked
by that pulmonary disease of which he died in
1827.
In 1810 No. 82 was “Mrs. Bruce’s fashionable
boarding-school,” and many persons of the greatest
respectability occupied the common stairs, particularly
to the westward ; and in Thistle Street were
many residents of very good position.
Thus No. z was the house, in 1784, of Sir
John Gordon, Bart. ; and Sir Alexander Don, Bart.,
of Newton Don, lived in No. 4, when Lady Don
Dowager resided in No. 53, George Street (he had
been one of the d h u s in France who were seized
when passing through it during the short peace of
1802), and a Mrs. Colonel Ross occupied No. 17,
Under the name of Hill Street this thoroughfare
is continued westward, between Fredenck Street
and Castle Street, all the houses being “selfcontained.”
The Right Hon. Charles Hope of
Granton, Lord Justice Clerk, had his chambers in
No. 6 (now writers’ offices) in ~808 ; Buchanan of
Auchintorlie lived in No. I I, and Clark of Comrie
in No. 9, now also legal offices. In one of the houses
here resided, and was married in 1822, as mentioned
in Bkrckwoad’s Magazine for that year, Charles
Edward Stuart, styled latterly Count d’Albany
(whose son, the Carlist colonel, married a daughter
of the Earl of Errol), and who, with his brother, John
Sobieski Stuarf attracted much attention in the city
and Scotland generally, between that period and
1847, and of whom various accounts have been
given. They gave themselves out as the grandsons
of Charles Edward Stuart, but were said to be
the sons of a Captain Thomas Allan, R.N., and
grandsons of Admiral John Carter Allan, who died
in 1800.
Seven broad and handsome streets, running south
and north, intersect the great parallelogram of the
New Town. It was at the corner of one of those
streets-but which we are not told-that Robert
Burns first saw, in 1787, Mrs. Graham, so celebrated
for her wonderful beauty, and whose husband
commanded in the Castle of Stirling.
From the summit of the ridge, where each of
these streets cross George Street, are commanded
superb views : on one side the old town, and on
the other the northern New Town, and away to the
hills of Fife and Kinross.
According to “ Peter Williamson’s Directory,”
Hugo Arnot, the historian, had taken up his abode
in the Meuse Lane of South St. Andrew Street
in 1784. His own name was Pollock, but he
changed it to Arnot on succeeding to the estate of
Balcormo, in Fifeshire. In his fifteenth year hC
became afflicted with asthma, and through life was
reduced to the attenuation of a skeleton. Admitted
an advocate in 1772, he ever took a deep interest
in all local matters, and published various essays
thereon, and his exertions in promoting the
improvements then in progress in Edinburgh were
which is now the New Town dispensary. c](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p171.gif "Volume 3 Page 159")
... Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ‘59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns ...
Vol. 3 p. 159 (Rel. 0.11)
... Streei.1 THE DARIEN SCHEME. 323
C H A P T E R XXXVIIP.
BRISTO AND THE POTTERROW.
Bristo Street-The Darien ...
Vol. 4 p. 323 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [IFeriot Row.
lady weak poems, which were noticed by Lockhart
in the Quarterly Rmim, ...
Vol. 4 p. 194 (Rel. 0.11)
... Cowgate. 262 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Chapel, and quhat expensis he makis thaeron
sal be allowit to him in his ...
Vol. 4 p. 262 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
and verse, the Ireland Scholarship, and a studentship
at Christ ...
Vol. 5 p. 82 (Rel. 0.11)
... Edinburgh Castle, tome and tower,
God grant thou sinke for sinne,
An that even for the black dinner
Earle ...
Vol. 1 p. 31 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. ’ [Leith.
preachers, who though profound unbelievers in any
kind of consecration, ...
Vol. 5 p. 174 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Gregfriars Church.
encroaching on one not fit to be touched ! The
whole presents a ...
Vol. 4 p. 382 (Rel. 0.11)
... brave prince, demanded instant restitution, and,
at the head of an army, laid siege to the Normans
in the ...
Vol. 1 p. 18 (Rel. 0.11)
![Wton Hill.] THE BURGH OF CALTON. 103 r
beneath the Caltoun Hill, the .place where those
imaginary criminals, witches, and sorcerers in less
enlightened times were burned ; and where at
festive seasons the gay and gallant held their tilts
and tournaments.”
On the north-westem shoulder of the hill stands
the modern Established Church of Greenside, at
the end of the Royal Terrace, a conspicuous and
attractive feature among the few architectural
decorations of that district. Its tower rises IOO feet
above the porch, is twenty feet square, and contains
a bell of 10 cwt.
The main street of the old barony of the Calton
was named, from the ancient chapel which stood
there, St. Ninian’s Row, and a place so called
still exists; and the date and name ST. NINIAN’S
Row, 1752, yet remains on the ancient well. 01
old, the street named the High Calton, was known
as the Craig End.
In those days’a body existed known as the
High Constables of the Calton, but the new
Municipality Act having extinguished the ancient
boundaries of the city, the constabulary, in 1857,
adopted the following resolution, which is written
on vellum, to the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland :-
“ The district of Calton, or Caldton, formed at
one time part of the estate.of the Elphinstone
family, one of whom-% James, third son of the
third Lord Elphinstone-was created Lord &Imerino
in 1603-4 In 1631 the then Lord
Balmerino granted a charter to the trades of
Calton, constituting them a society or corporation ;
and in 1669 a royal charter was obtained from
Charles II., erecting the district into a burgh of
barony. A court was held by a bailie appointed
by the lord of the manor, and there was founded in
. connectiontherewith, the Societyof Highconstables
of Calton, who have been elected by, and have
continued to act under, the orders of succeeding
Baron Bailies. Although no mention is made 01
our various constabulary bodies in the ‘ Municipality
Extension Act, 1856,’ the venerable office
of Baron Bailie has thereby become extinct, and
the .ancient burghs of Canongate, Calton, Eastern
and Western Portsburgh, are now annexed to the
city. UnGer these circumstances the constabulary
of Calton held an extraordinary meeting on the
17th of March, 1857, at which, infer alia, the
following inotion was carried with acclamation, viz.
‘ That the burgh having ceased to exist, the con
stabulary, in order that some of the relics and
other insignia belonging to this body should be
preserved for the inspection of future generations,
unanimously resolve to present as a free gift to the
Royal Society of Antiquaries of Scotland the.
following, viz :-Constabulary baton, I 747, moderator‘
s official baton, marble bowl, moderator’?
state staff, silver-mounted horn with fourteefi
medals, members’ small baton; report on the
origin and standing of the High Constables OF
Calton, 1855, and the laws of the society, 1847.’”
These relics of the defunct little burgh are
consequently now preserved at the museum in the
Royal Institution.
A kind of round tower, or the basement thereof,
is shown above the south-west angle of the CaltoE
cliffs in Gordon’s view in 1647 ; but of any such
edifice no record remains ; and in the hollow where
Nottingham Place lies now, a group of five isolated
houses, called “ Mud Island,” appears in the maps.
of 1787 and 1798. In 1796, and at many other
times, the magistrates ordained that “ All-hallowfair
be held on the lands of Calton Hill,” as an
open and uncnclosed place, certainly a perilous one,
for tipsy drovers and obstinate cattle. An agriculturist
named Smith farmed the hill and lands
adjacent, now covered by great masses of building,
for several years, till about the close of the 18th
century; and his son, Dr. John Smith, who was
born in 1798, died only in February, 1879, afterbeing
fifty years physician tQ the old charity workhouse
in Forrest Road, .
In 1798, when the Rev. Rowland Hill (thefamous
son of Sir Rowland Hill, of Shropshire).
visited Edinburgh for the first time, he preached
in some of the churches every other day, but the
crowds became so immense, that at last he was
induced to hold forth from a platform erected on
the Calton Hili, where his audience was reckoned.
at not less than 10,000, and the interest excited by
his eloquence is said to have been beyond all
precedent. On his return from the West, he
preached on the hill again to several audiences,.
and on the last of these occasions, when a collection,
was made for the charity workhouse, fully zo,oom
were present. Long years after, when speaking to a.
friend of the multitude whom he had addressed,
there, he said, pleasantly, “ Well do I remember
the spot ; but I understand that it has now been
converted into a den of thieves,” referring to the
gaol now built on the ground where his platform
stood.
The first great cba,nge in the aspect of the hill
was effected by the formation of the Regent Road,
which was cut through the old burying-ground, the
soil of which avenue was decently carted away,
covered with white palls, and full of remnants of
humanity, to the new Calton burying-ground on]
the southern slope ; and the second was the open](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p115.gif "Volume 3 Page 103")
... Hill.] THE BURGH OF CALTON. 103 r
beneath the Caltoun Hill, the .place where those
imaginary criminals, ...
Vol. 3 p. 103 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Heriot’s Hospital
the four blocks at each angle of the quadrangle
are furnished ...
Vol. 4 p. 370 (Rel. 0.11)
![Colinton.] JUNIPER GREEN. 323
when the village was occupied on the 18th August
by ten companies of Monk’s Regiment (now the
Coldstream Guards), of which Captain Gough of
Berwick was lieutenant-colonel, and Captain
Holmes of Newcastle, major, prior to the storming
of the fortalices of Redhall and Colinton, before
the 24th of the same month. (“Records: Cold.
Guards.”) Redhall, in after years, was the patrimony
of Captain John Inglis, of H.M.S. Be&
pueux, who, at the battle of Camperdown, whq
confused by the signals of the admiral, shouted
with impatience to his sailing-master, ‘‘ Hang it,
Jock ! doon wi’ the helm, and gang iicht into the
middle o’t ! ” closing his telescope as he spoke.
Old Colinton House was, at the period of the
Protectorate, occupied by the Foulis family (now
represented by that of Woodhall in the same parish)
whose name is alleged to be a corruption of the
Norman, as their arms are azure, their bay leaves
uert, in old Norman called fed&. Be that as it
may, the family is older than is stated by Sir Bernard
Burke, as there were two senators of the College
of Justice, each Lord Colinton respectively-James
Foulis in 1532, and John Foulis in 1541; and
there was a James. Fodlis of Colinton, who lived
in the reigns of Mary and James VI., who married
Apes Heriot of Lumphoy, whose tombstone is yet
preserved in an aisle of Colinton Church, and
bears this inscription :-
HERE. LYES. ANE. HONORABIL. WOMAN. A. HERIOT.
SPOVS. TO . J. FOULIS . OF . COLLINT3VN. VAS. QUHA .
DEID . 8 . AUGUST. 1593.
They had four sons-James, who succeeded to
the estate; George, progenitor of the house of
Ravelston ; David, progenitor of the English family
of Ingleby Manor, Yorkshire ; and John, of ?he
Leadhills, whose granddaughter became ancestress
of the Earls of Hopetoun.
Alexander Foulis, of Colinton, was created a
baronet of Nova Scotia in 1634, and his son Sir
James, whose house was stormed by the troops of
Monk, having attended a convention of the estates
in Angus, was betrayed into the hands of the English,
together with the Earls of Leven, Crawford,
Marischal, the Lord Ogilvy, and many others, who
were surprised by a party of Cromwell’s cavalry,
under Colonel Aldridge, on August, 1651, and
taken as prisoners of war to London. He married
Barbara Ainslie of Dolphinton, but, by a case
reported by Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, in 1667,
he would seem to have been in a treaty of marriage
with Dame Margaret Erskine, Lady Tarbet, which
led to a somewhat involved suit before the Lords
of Council and Session. After the Restoration he
was raised to the-Bench as Lord Colinton, and was
succeeded by his son, also a Lord of Session, and
a member of the last Scottish Parliament in 1707,
the year of the Union.
he joined the Duke of Hamilton,
the Earl of Athol, and many others of the nobility
and gentry, in their celebrated protest made by the
Earl of Errol, respecting the most constitutional
defence of the house of legislature, He also
joined in the protest, which declared that an incorpotating
union of the two nations was inconsistent
with the honour of Scotland.”
Further details of this family will be found in
the account of Ravelston (p. 106).
The mansions and villas of many other families
are in this somewhat secluded district ; the principal
one is perhaps the modern seat of the late
Lord Dunfermline, on a beautifully wooded hill
overhanging the village on the south. Colinton
House was built by Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
Bart. Near it, the remains of the old edifice, of the
same name, form a kind of decorative ruin.
Dreghorn Castle, a stately modern edifice, with
a conspicuous round tower, is situated on the
northern slope of the Pentlands, at an elevation of
489 feet above the sea. John Maclaurin, son of
Colin Maclaurin, the eminent mathematician, was
called to the bench as Lord Dreghorn. A learned
correspondence, which took place in 17 go, between
him, Lord Monboddo, and M. Le Chevalier, afterwards
secretary to Talleyrand, on the site of Troy,
will be found in the Scots Magazine for 1810.
The name of this locality is very old, as among
the missing crown charters of Robert II., is one
confirming a lease by Alexander Meygners of
Redhall, to Robert, Earl of Fife and Menteith, of
the barony of Redhall in the shire of Edinburgh,
except Dreghorn and Woodhall; and of the barony
of Glendochart in Perthshire, during the said Earl’s
life. In the early part of the eighteenth century
it was the property of a family named Home.
Near Woodhall, in the parish of Colinton, is the
little modern village of Juniper Green, chiefly
celebrated as being the temporary residence of
Thomas Carlyle, some time after his marriage at
Comely Bank, Stockbridge, where, as he tells us in
his ‘‘ Reminiscences ” (edited by Mr. Froude), “his
first experience in the difficulties of housekeeping
began.” Carlyle’s state of health required perfect
quiet, if not absolute solitude; but at Juniper
Green, as at Comely Bank, their house was much
frequented by the literary society of the day; and,
among others, by Chalmers, Guthrie, and Lord
Jeffrey, whose intimacy with Carlyle .rapidly increased
after the first visit he paid him at Comely
Bank. “He was much taken with my little
-4fter that](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p142.gif "Volume 6 Page 323")
... JUNIPER GREEN. 323
when the village was occupied on the 18th August
by ten companies of Monk’s ...
Vol. 6 p. 323 (Rel. 0.11)
![Canongate.] THE TENNIS COURT. ’ 39
Scotland, and who for some years had been Commissioner
to the General Assembly. In this house
he died, 28th July, 1767, as recorded in the Scots
Magazine, and was succeeded by his son, Major-
General the Earl of Ancrum, Colonel of the 11th
Light Dragoons (now Hussars). His second son,
Lord Robert, had been killed at Culloden.
His marchioness, Margaret, the daughter of Sir
Thomas Nicholson, Bart., of Kempnay, who survived
him twenty years, resided in Lothian Hut
till her death. It was afterwards occupied by the
dowager of the ‘ fourth Marquis, Lady Caroline
D’Arcy, who was only daughter of Robert Earl
of Holderness, and great-grand-daughter of Charles
Louis, the Elector Palatine, a lady whose character
is remembered traditionally to have been both
grand and amiable. Latterly the Hut was the
residence of Professor Dugald Stewart, who, about
the end of the last century, entertained there many
English pupils of high rank. Among them, perhaps
the most eminent was Henry Temple, afterwards
Lord Palmerston, whose education, commenced
at Harrow, was continued at the University
of Edinburgh. When he re-visited the latter city in
1865, during his stay he was made aware that an
aged woman, named Peggie Forbes, who had been
a servant with Dugald Stewart at Lothian Hut,
was still alive, and residing at No. I, Rankeillor
Street. There the great statesman visited her, and
expressed the pleasure he felt at renewing the
acquaintance of the old domestic.
Lothian Hut, the scene of Dugald Stewart’s
most important literary labours, was pulled down
ih 1825, to make room for a brewery ; but a house
of the same period, at the south-west corner of the
Horse Wynd, bears still the name of Lothian
Vale.
A little to the eastward of the present White
Horse hostel, and immediately adjoining the Water
Gate, stood the Hospital of St. Thomas, founded
in 154r by George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld,
“dedicated to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and
all the saints.” It consisted of an almshouse and
chapel, the bedesmen of which were “to celebrate
the founder’s anniversary obit. by solemnly singing
in the choir of Holyrood church yearly, on the
day of his death, ‘the Placebo and Dinie for the
repose of his soul ” and the soul of the King of
Scotland. “ Special care,” says Amot, “ was taken
in allotting money for providing candles to be
lighted during the anniversary ma.ss of requiem,
and the number and size of the tapers were fixed
with a precision which shows the importance in
which these circumstances were held by the founder.
The number of masses, paternosters, aye-marias,
and credos, to be said by the chaplain and bedesmen
is distinctly ascertained.”
The patronage of the institution was vested by
the founder in himself and a certain series of representatives
named by him.
In 1617, with the consent of David Crichton of
Lugton, the patron, who had retained possession
of the endowments, the magistrates of the Canongate
purchased the chapel and almshouse from the
chaplains and bedesmen, and converted the institution
into a hospital for the poor of the burgh.
Over the entrance they placed the Canongate arms,
supported by a pair of ‘cripples, an old man and
woman, with the inscription-
HELP HERE THE POORE, AS ZE WALD GOD DID ZOV.
JUNE 19, 1617.
The magistrates of the Canongate sold the patronage
of the institution in 1634 to the Kirk Session,
by whom its revenues “ were entirely embezzled f
by 1747 the buildings were turned into coachhouses,
and in 1787 were pulled down, and replaced
by modem houses of hideous aspect.
On the opposite side of the Water Gate was the
Royal Tennis Court, the buildings of which are
very distinctly shown in Gordon’s map of 1647.
Maitland says it was anciently called the Catchpel,
from Cache, a game now called Fives, a favourite
amusement in Scotland as early as the reign of
James IV. The house, a long, narrow building,
with a court, after being a weavers’ workhouse,
was burned down in 1771, and rebuilt in the
tasteless fashion of that period ; but the locality is
full of interest, as being connected not only with
the game of tennis, as played there by the Duke
of Albany, Law the great financial schemer, and
others, but the early and obscure history of the
stage in Scotland.
In 1554 there was a ‘‘litill farsche and play
maid be William Lauder,” and acted before the
Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, for which he was
rewarded by two silver cups. Where it was acted
is not stated. Neither are we told where was perlormed
another play, “ made by Robert Simple ”
at Edinburgh, before the grim Lord Regent and
others of the nobility in 1567, and for which the
mthor was paid ;E66 13s. 4d.
The next record of .a post-Reformation theatre is
in the time of James VI. when several companies
came from London for the amusement of the court,
including one of which Shakspere was a member,
though his appearance cannot be substantiated.
In 1599 the company of English comedians was
interdicted by the clergy and Kirk Session,
though their performances, says Spottiswoode in](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p051.gif "Volume 3 Page 39")
... THE TENNIS COURT. ’ 39
Scotland, and who for some years had been Commissioner
to the General ...
Vol. 3 p. 39 (Rel. 0.11)
![Leith Wynd.] THE TRINITY HOSPITAL. 307
was abandoned. At length, as stated, Robert
Pont, in. 1585, resigned all his rights and interests
in the establishment, for the sum of 300 merks
down, and an annuity of A160 Scots.
In 1587 an Act was passed revoking all grants
made during the king’s minority, of hospitals,
Maiso’ss Dieu, and “ lands or rentis appertaining
thereto,” the object of which was, that they might
be applied to this original purpose-the sustentation
of the poor, and not to the aggrandisement of
mere individuals ; and in this Act it was specially
ordained, that the rents of the Trinity College,
“ quhilk is now decayit,” be .assigned to “ the new
hospital1 erectit be the Provest, Baillies, and
Counsall;” and thus it became for ever a corporation
charity, for which a suitable edifice was found
by simply repairing the ruinous buildings, occupied
of old by the Provost and prebends, south of the
church, and on the west side of the wynd.
It was a fine specimen of the architecture and
monastic accommodation of the age in which it
was erected. It was two storeys high, and formed
two sides of a square, and though far from ornamental,
its air of extreme antiquity, the smallness
and depth of its windows, its silent, melancholy,
and deserted aspect, in the very heart of a crowded
city, and latterly amid the uproar and bustle of the
fast-encroaching railway, seldom failed to strike the
passer with a mysterious interest.
Along the interior of the upper storey of the
longer side there was a gallery, about half the
width of the house, lighted from the west, which
served alike as a library (consisting chiefly of
quaint old books of dry divinity), a promenade, and
grand corridor, winged with a range of little rooms,
some whilom the prebends’ cells, each of which had
a bed, table, and chair, for a single occupant The
other parts of the building were more modem
sitting rooms, the erection of the sixteenth century,
when it became destined to support decayed
burgesses of Edinburgh, their wives and unmarried
children, above fifty years of age. “Five men
and two women were first admitted into it,” says
h o t , “ and, the number gradually increasing,
amounted AD. 1700 to fifty-four persons. It was
found, however, that the funds of the hospital
could not then support so many, and the number
of persons maintained in it,has frequently varied.
At present (‘779) there are within the hospital
forty men and women, and, there are besides twentysix
out-pensioners. The latter have E 6 a year,
the former are maintained in a very comfortable
manner. Each person has a convenient room.
The men are each allowed a hat, a pair of breeches,
a pair of shoes, a pair of stackings, two shirts, and
two neckcloths, yearly; and every other year a
coat‘and waistcoat The women have yearly, a
pair of shoes, pair of stockings, two shifts; and
every other year a gown and petticoat. For buying
petty necessaries the men are allowed 6s. Sd.,
the women 6s. 6d., yearly. Of food, each person
has a daily allowance of twelve ounces of household
bread; and of ale, the men a Scots pint each,
the women two-thirds of a pint. For breakfast
they have oatmeal-porridge, and for dinner, four
days in the week, broth and boiled meat, two days
roast meat, and each Monday, in lieu of flesh, the
men are allowed zd., the women rid. apiece.”
Such was this old charity towards the close of
the eighteenth century. The inmates were of a
class above the common, and whom a poor-house
life would have degraded, yet quarrels, even riots,
among them were 80 frequent, that the attention of
the governors had more than once to be called
to the subject, though they met only at meals
and evening worship. Yet, occasionally, some
belonged to the better classes of society. Lord
Cockburn, writing in 1840, says:-“One of the
present female pensioners is ninety-six. She was
sitting beside her own fire. The chaplain shook her
kindly by the hand, and asked her how she was.
‘ Very weel-just in my creeping ordinary.’ There
is one Catholic here, a merry little woman, obviously
with some gentle blood in her veins, and delighted
to allude to it. This book she got from Sir John
Something ; her great friend had been Lady something
Cunningham ; and her spinet was the oldest
that had ever been made ; to convince me of which
she opened it, and pointed exultingly to the year
I 776. Neither she nor the ninety-six-year-old
was in an ark, but in a small room. On overhearing
my name, she said she was once at Miss Brandon’s
boarding-school, in Bristo Street, with a Miss
Matilda Cockburn, ‘ a pretty little girl.’ I told her
that I remembered that school quite well, and that
the little girl was my sister ; and then I added as a
joke, that all the girls at that school were said
to have been pretty, and all light-headed, and given
to flirtation ; the tumult revived in the vestal’s veins.
Delighted with the imputation, she rubbed her
hands together, and giggled till she wept.” The
octogenarian he refers to was a Miss Gibb, and
the last nearly of the old original inmates.
By 1850 the revenues amounted to about
#,ooo per annum.
At its demolition, in 1845, forty-two persons
were maintained within the hospital, who then
received pensions of A26 each. Those elected
since that period receive L20 yearly each; one
hundred and twenty others have an annual allowance](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p127.gif "Volume 2 Page 307")
... Wynd.] THE TRINITY HOSPITAL. 307
was abandoned. At length, as stated, Robert
Pont, in. 1585, resigned all ...
Vol. 2 p. 307 (Rel. 0.11)
... some stone coffins, or cists, were found by
the workmen, when preparing the ground for the - -
erection of ...
Vol. 5 p. 71 (Rel. 0.11)
![St Andrew Square] ROYAL BANK
bank. The other existing banks have all been
constituted by contracts of co-partnery since the
year 1825, and, with the exception of the Caledonian
Banking Company, are all carrying on
business under the Companies Act of 1862. With
this office is incorporated No. 41, which, in 1830,
was the shop of Messrs. Robert Cadell and Co.,
the eminent booksellers and publishers.
The Royal Bank of Scotland occupies a pre
minent position on the west side of the square, in a
deep recess between the British Linen Company
and the Scottish Provident Institution.
It was originally the town house of Sir Lawrence
Dundas, Bart., and was one of the first houses
built in the square, on what we believe was intended
as the place for st. Andrew’s church. The
house was designed by Sir William Chambers, on
the model of a much-admired villa near Rome, and
executed by William Jamieson, mason. Though
of an ancient family, Sir Lawrence was the architect
of his own fortune, and amassed wealth as a conimissary-
general with the army in Flanders, 1748 to
1759. He was the second son of Thomas Dundas,
a bailie of Edinburgh, whose diffculties brought
him to bankruptcy, and for a time Sir Lawrence
served behind a counter, He was created a
baronet in 1762, with remainder, in default of
male issue, to his elder brother, Thomas Dundas,
who had succeeded to the estate of Fingask. His
son Thomas was raised to the peerage of Great
Britain as Baron Dundas of Aske, in Yorkshire, in
August, 1794 and became ancestor of the Earls of
Zetland.
About 1820 the Royal Bank, which had so long
conducted its business in the Old Bank Close in
the High Street, removed to the house of Sir
Lawrence Dundas.
We have thus shown that St. Andrew Square is
now as great a mart for business as it was once a
fashionable quarter, and some idea may be had of
the magnitude of the interests here at stake when
it is stated that the liabilities-that is, the total sums
insured-of the six leading insurance houses alone
exceed ~45,ooo,ooo, and that their annual income
is upwards of ~1,8oo,ooo-a revenue greater than
that of several States !
Melville’s monument, in the centre of the square,
was erected in 1821, in memory of Henry Dundas,
first Viscount Melville, who was Lord Advocate in
1775, and filled some high official situations in the
Government of Britain during the administration
of William Pitt He was raised to the peerage in
OF SCOTLAND. 171
1802, and underwent much persecution in 1805
for alleged malversation in his office as treasurer to
the navy; but after a trial by his peers was triumphantly
judged not guilty.
Designed by William Burn, this monument consists
of pedestal, pillar, and statue, rising to the
height of 150 feet, niodelled after the Trajan
column at Rome, but fluted and not ornamented
with sculpture; the statue is 14 feet in height.
The cost was _f;8,ooo, defrayed-8s the inverse
side of the plate in the foundation stone states
-“by the voluntary contribbtions of the officers,
petty-officers, seamen, and marines of these united
kingdoms.” It was laid by Admirals Sir D a d
Milne and Otway, naval commander-inchief in
Scotland, after prayer by Principal Baird, on the
anniversary of Lord Melville’s birthday. In the
stone was deposited a great plate of pure gold,
bearing the inscription. A plate of silver bearing
the names of the committee was laid in the stone
at the same time.
The Hopetoun monument, within the recess in
front of the Royal Bank, is in memory of Sir John
Hope, fourth Earl of Hopetoun, G.C.H., Colonel
of the gznd Gordon Highlanders, who died in
1823, a distinguished Peninsular officer, who assumed
the command of the army at Corunna, on
the fall of his countryman Sir John Moore. It was
erected in 1835, and comprises a bronze statue, in
Roman costume, leaning on a pawing charger.
West Register Street, which immediately adjoins
St. Andrew Square, is a compound of several
short thoroughfares, and contains the site of
‘( Ambrose’s Tavern,” the scene of Professor NIson’s
famous “Noctes Ambrosianze,” with a remnant
of the once narrow old country pathway
known as Gabriel’s Road. cG Ambrose’s Tavern,”
a tall, three-storeyed edifice, like a country farmhouse,
enjoyed much repute independent of the
“Noctes,” and was removed in 1864. Hogg, the
Ettrick .Shepherd, who was fond of all athletic
sports and manly exercises, was long made to
figure conspicuously in these Noctes ” in BZack3
wmZs Magazine, which gave his name a celebrity
beyond that acquired by his own writings.
At one of the corners of West Register Street is
the great palatial paper warehouse of the Messrs
Cowan, one of the most elaborately ornate busiqess
establishments in the city, which was erected in
1865, by the Messrs. Beattie, at a cost of about
A7,000, and has two ornamental fronts with chaste
and elegant details in the florid Italian styk](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p183.gif "Volume 3 Page 171")
... Andrew Square] ROYAL BANK
bank. The other existing banks have all been
constituted by contracts of co-partnery ...
Vol. 3 p. 171 (Rel. 0.11)
![Abbeyhill.] BARON NORTON. I27
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DISTRICT OF RESTALRIG.
Abhey Hill-Baron Norton-Alex. Campbell and “ Albyn’s Anthology ”--Comely Gardens-Easter Road-St. Margaret’s Well-Church and
Legend of St. Triduana-Made Collegiate by James 111.-The Mausoleum-Old Bardns of Restalrig-pe Logans, &c.-Conflict of
Black Saturday-Residents of Note-First Balloon in Britain-Rector Adams-The Nisbets of Craigantinnie and Dean-The Millers-
The Craieantinnie Tomb and Marbles-The Marionville Traeedv-The Hamlet of Jock‘o Lodge-Mail-bag Robberies in seventeenth and - _
eighteenth centuries-Piershill House and Barracks.
AT the Abbey Hill, an old house-in that antiquated
but once fashionable suburb, which grew
up in the vicinity of the palace of Holyrood-with
groups of venerable trees around it, which are now,
like itself, all swept away to make room for the present
Abbeyhill station and railway to Leith, there
lived long the Hon. Fletcher Norton, appointed one
of the Barons of the Scottish Exchequer in 1776,
with a salary of &2,865 per annum, deemed a handsome
income in those days.
He was the second son of Fletcher Norton of
Grantley in Yorkshire, who was Attorney-General
of England in 1762, and was elevated to the British
peerage in 1782, as Lord Grantley.
He came to Scotland at a time when prejudices
then against England and Englishmen were strong
and deep, for the rancour excited by the affair of
1745, about thirty years before, was revived by the
periodical publication of the Nhth Briton, but
Baron Norton soon won the regard of all who knew
him. His conduct as a judge increased the respect
which his behaviour in private life obtained, His
perspicacity easily discovered the true merits of any
cause before him, while his dignified and conciliatory
manner, joined to the universal confidence
which prevailed in his rigid impartiality, reconciled
to him even those who suffered by such verdicts as
were given against them in consequence of his
charges to the juries.
He married in 1793 a Scottish lady, a Miss Balmain,
and in the Edinburgh society of his time stood
high in the estimation of all, “as a husband, father,
friend, and master,” according to a print of 1820.
“ His fund of information-of anecdotes admirably
told-his social disposition, and the gentlemanly
pleasantness of his manner, made his society to be
universally coveted. Resentment had no place in
his bosom. He seemed almost insensible to injury
so immediately did he pardon it. Amongst his
various pensioners were several who had shown
marked ingratitude ; but distress, with him, covered
every offence against himself.”
He was a warm patron of the amiable and enthusiastic,
but somewhat luckless Alexander Campbell,
author of “ The Grampians Desolate,” which
“fell dead ” from the press, and editor of “ Albyn’s
Anthology,” who writes thus in the preface to the
first volume of that book in 1816, and which, we
may mention, was a “ collection of melodies and
local poetry peculiar to Scotland and the isles ” :-
“ So far back as the year 1780, while as yet the
editor of ‘Albyn’s Anthology’ was an organist to
one of the Episcopal chapels in Edinburgh, he projected
the present work. Finding but small encouragement
at that period, and his attention being
directed to pursuits of quite a different nature, the
plan was dropped, till by an accidental turn of conversation
at a gentleman’s table, the Hon. Fletcher
Norton gave a spur to the speculation now in its
career. He with that warmth of benevolence
peculiarly his own, offered his influence with the
Royal Highland Society of Scotland, of which he is
a member of long standing, and in conformity with
the zeal he has uniformly manifested for everything
connected with the distinction and prosperity of our
ancient realm, on the editor giving him a rough
outline of the present undertaking, the Hon. Baron
put it into the hands of Henry Mackenzie, Esq., of
the Exchequer, and Lord Bannatyne, whose influence
in the society is deservedly great. And
immediately on Mr. Mackenzie laying it before a
select committee for music, John H. Forbes, Esq.
(afterwards Lord Medwyn), as convener of the
committee, convened it, and the result was a recommendation
to the society at large, who embraced
the project cordially, voted a sum to enable the
editor to pursue his plan ; and forthwith he set out
on a tour through the Highlands and western
islands. Having performed a journey (in pursuit
of materials for the present work) of between eleven
and twelve hundred miles, in which he collected
191 specimens of melodies and Gaelic vocal poetry,
he returned to Edinburgh, and laid the fruits of
his gleanings before the society, who were pleased
to honour with their approbation his success in
attempting to collect and preserve the perishing remains
of what is so closely interwoven with the
history and literature of Scot!and.”
From thenceforth the ‘‘ Anthology” was a success,
and a second volume appeared in 1818. Under
the influence of Baron Norton, Campbell got many
able contributors, among whom appear the names
of Scott, Hogg, Mrs. Grant of Laggan, RIaturin, and
Jamieson.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p138.gif "Volume 5 Page 127")
... BARON NORTON. I27
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DISTRICT OF RESTALRIG.
Abhey Hill-Baron Norton-Alex. Campbell ...
Vol. 5 p. 127 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street
other services, Charles Philip Count d’artois,
brother of the ill-fated ...
Vol. 2 p. 262 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Loch.
whose windows perhaps the accident occurred
“that the fox will not set ...
Vol. 3 p. 82 (Rel. 0.11)
![High Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It occupied the western side of Lockhart’s
Court, and was accessible only by a deep
archway.
In an Act passed in 158r, ‘<Anent the Cuinzie,”
Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, Provost of Edinburgh,
and Nicol Edward, whose houses were both
in this wynd, are mentioned with others. The
latter appears in 1585 in the Parliament as Commissary
for Edinburgh, together with Michael Gilbert;
and in 1587 he appears again in an Act of
Parliament in favour of the Flemish craftsmen,
whom James VI. was desirous of encouraging ; but,
!est they should produce inferior work at Scottish
prices, his Majesty, with the advice of Council,
hes appointit, constitute, and ordainit, ane honest
and discreit man, Nicolas Uduart, burgess of Edinburgh,
to be visitor and overseer of the said craftsmen’s
hail warks, steiks, and pieces . . . the said
Nicolas sal have sic dueties as is contenit within
the buke, as is commonly usit to be payit therfore
in Flanderis, Holland, or Ingland ; I’ in virtue
of all of which Nicholas was freed froin all watching,
warding, and all charges and impositions.
In that court dwelt, in 17534761, George Lockhart
of Carnwath One of the thirteen roonis in his
house contained a mantelpiece of singular magnificence,
that reached the lofty ceiling; but the
house had a peculiar accessory, in the shape of (‘ a
profound dungeon, which was only accessible by a
secret trapdoor, opening through the floor of a
small closet, the most remote of a suite of rooms
extending along the south and west sides of the
court. Perhaps at a time when to be rich was
neither so common nor so safe as now, Provost
Edward might conceal his hoards in this massy
more.”
The north side of Lockhart’s Court was long
occupied by the family of Bruce of Kinnaird, the
celebrated traveller.
In Niddry‘s Wynd, a little below Provost Edward’s
house on the opposite side, stood St.
Mary’s Chapel, dedicated to God and the Blessed
Virgin Mary, according to Arnot, in 1505. Its
foundress was Elizabeth, daughter of James, Lord
Livingstone, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and
Countess of Ross-then widow of John Earl of
Ross and Lord of the Isles, who, undeterred by
the miserable fate of his father, drew on him, by
his treasonable practices, the just vengeance of
James III., and died in 1498.
Colville of Easter U‘emyss, and afterwards
Richardson of Smeaton, became proprietors and
patrons of this religious foundation ; and about
the year 1600, James Chaliners, a macer before the
Court of Session, acquired a right to the chapel,
and in 1618 the Corporations of Wrights and
Masons, known by the name of the United Incorporations
of Mary’s Chapel, purchased this subject,
“where they still possess, and where they hold
meetings,” says Arnot, writing in 1779.
In the CaZedonian Mercury for 1736 we read
that on St. Andrew’s Day the masters and wardens
of forty masonic lodges met in St. Mary’s Chapel,
and unanimously elected as their grand-master
William Sinclair of Roslin, the representative of
an ancient though reduced family, connected for
several generations with Scottish freemasonry.
For this ancient chapel a modern edifice was
substituted, long before the demolition of Niddry’s
Wynd; but the masonic lodge of Mary’s Chapel
still exists, and we believe holds its meetings
there.
Religious services were last conducted in the
new edifice when Viscountess Glenorchy hired it.
She was zealous in the cause of religion, and conceived
a plan of having a place of worship in
which ministers of every orthodox denomination
might preach; and for this purpose she had St.
Mary’s Chapel opened on Wednesday, the 7th
March, 1770, by the Rev. Mr. Middleton, the
minister of a small Episcopal chapel at Dalkeith ;
but she failed to secure the ministrations of any
clergyman of the Established Church, though in
1779 the Rev. William Logan, of South Leith, a
poet of some eminence in his time, gave his course
of lectures on the philosophy of history in the
chapel, prior to offering himself as a candidate for
the chair of civil history in the University.
On the east side of Niddry’s Wynd, nearly opp0-
site to Lockhart’s Court, was a handsome house,
which early in the eighteenth century was inhabited
by the Hon. James Erskine, a senator, better
known by his legal and territorial appellation of
Lord Grange, brother of John Earl of Mar, who
led’ the great rising in 1715 on behalf of the
Stuarts. He was born in 1679, and was called to
the Scottish bar in 1705. He took no share in
the Jacobite enterprise which led to the forfeiture
of his brother, and the loss, ultimately of
the last remains of the once great inheritance in
the north from which the ancient family took its
name.
He affected to be a zealous Presbyterian and
adherent of the House of Hanover, and as such he
figures prominently in the ‘‘ Diary” of the indus .
trious \ffodrow, supplying that writer with many
shreds of the Court gossip, which he loved so
dearly ; but Lord Grange is chiefly remembered for
the romantic story of his wife, which has long filled](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p067.gif "Volume 2 Page 247")
... Street.] ST. MARY’S CHA4PEL. 247
made out by Latinising his name into Nz’choZaus
Ea’wfirtus. It ...
Vol. 2 p. 247 (Rel. 0.11)
... OJ,D AND NEW EDINBURGH. -. -
by a clause in one of the Acts of the North British
Railway; and since 1847 it ...
Vol. 3 p. 34 (Rel. 0.11)
... Heriot’s Ho.pital.1 THE EDINBURGH VOLUNTEERS.
By the Act of Parliament referred to, the governors
were ...
Vol. 4 p. 371 (Rel. 0.11)
![High Street.] CARRUBBER’S CLOSE. 239
the name of “ the Hanoverian usurpers ” from all
their devotions. But the humble chapels with
which these old Scottish Episcopalians contented
themselves in Carrubber‘s Close, Skinner’s Close,
and elsewhere, present a wonderful contrast’ to their
St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s in the Edinburgh of
to-day.
In this close was the house of Robert Ainslie’s
master, during Burns’s visit to Edinburgh, Mr.
Samuel Mitchelson, a great musical amateur ; and
here it was that occurred the famous “Haggis
Scene,”described by Smollett in “Humphrey Clinker.”
At the table of Mitchelson the poet was a frequent
guest, while on another floor of the old Clam Shell
Land, as it was named, dwelt another friend of
Burns’s, the elder Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo,
prior to his removal to the New Town. On the
second floor of an ancient stone land at the head
.of the close dwelt Captain Matthew Henderson,
a well-known antiquary, a gentleman of agreeable
and dignified manners, who was a hero of Minden,
and .a member of the Crochallan Club, and dined
constactly at Fortune’s tavern.
He died in 1789, and Bums wrote a powerful
elegy on him as “ a gentleman who held the patent
for his honours immediately from Almighty God.”
“ I loved the man much, and have not flattered his
memory,” said Burns in a note to the elegy, which
contains sixteen verses. The old captain was one
whom all men liked. “ In our travelling party,”
says Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas in his
(suppressed) Memoirs, “ was Matthew Henderson,
then (I 759) and afterwards well known and much
esteemed in the town of Edinburgh, at that time
an officer in the 25th Regiment of Foot, and, like
myself, on his way to join the army; and I may say
with truth, that in the course of a long life I have
never known a more estimable character than
Matthew Henderson.”
This close was the scene of the unsuccessful
speculation of another poet, for here Allan Ramsay
made a bold attempt to establish his theatre,
which was roughly closed by the magistrates in
1737, after it had been barely opened, for which
he took a poet’s vengeance in rhyme in the
GenlZmn’s Magazine. The edifice, which stood
at the foot of the close, was quizzically named
st. Andrew’s Chapel, and in 1773 was the arena
for the debates of a famous speculative club named
the Pantheon.
Five years subsequently Hind Dr. Moyes, the
clever lecturer on natural philosophy, held forth
therein to audiences both fashionable and select,
on optics, the property’of light, and so forth. It
was afterwards occupied by Mr. John Barclay,
founder of the Bereans, whose chief tenet was, that
the knowledge of the existence of God is derived
from revelation and not from Scripture.
From him and his followers Ramsay’s luckless
theatre passed to the Rev. Mr. Tait and other
founders of the Rowites, during whose occupancy
the pulpit was frequently filled by the celebrated
Edward Irving. The Relief and Secession congregations
have also had it in succession; the
Catholics have used it as a schoolroom ; and till
its demolition to make way for Jeffrey Street, it
has been the arena of a strange oZZapodda of per
sonages and purposes.
In Carrubber’s Close stood the ancient Tailor‘s
Hall, the meeting-place of a corporation whose
charter, granted to them by the Town Council, is
dated 20th October, 1531, and with their original
one, was further confirmed by charters from James V.
and JamesVI. Theyhad analtar in St. Giles’sChurch
dedicated to their patron St. Ann, and the date of
their seal of cause is 1500. They had also an
altar dedicated to St. Ann in the Abbey church,
erected in 1554 by permission of Robert Commendator
of Holyrood.
The fine old hall in the Cowgate has long
since been abandoned by the Corporation, which
still exists; and in their other place of meeting
in Carrubber’s Close an autograph letter of
King James VI., which hung framed and glazed
over the old fireplace, was long one of its chief
features.
It was dated in 1594, and ran thus; but afew
lines will suffice for a specimen :-
“Dekin and remanent Maisters and Brethren of the
Tailyer Craft within oure burgh of Edinburgh, we g e t
zow weilL
“Forsaemeikle as, respecting the gude service of AZexander
MilZer, in making and working the abulzements of our
awn person, minding to continue him in oure service, as ain
maist fit and meit persone. We laitlie recommendit him into
zow be oure letter of requiest, desiring you to receive and
admit him gratis to the libertie and fredom of the said craft,
as a thing maist requisite for him, having the a i r of our
awin wark, notwithstanding that he was not prenteis
amongk zow, according to your ancient liberties and priviliges
had in the contraie. M‘illing zow at this our requiest to
dispense him thereanent, &c, JAMES R.”
The king‘s request was no doubt granted, and
the Alexander Miller to whom it referred died in
1616, a reputable burgess, whose tomb in the
Greyfriars’ churchyard was inscribed thus by
his heirs :-
“AZexundro Milka, Jorobi Mug. Brit. FY&, &c.,
Regis Sarion; adfiltrni vifre, frinrario, hmedes. F. C. *it
annb 57, obiit Principis et Civium iauta decoratus, Anno
1616. Maii 2.’’](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p059.gif "Volume 2 Page 239")
... Street.] CARRUBBER’S CLOSE. 239
the name of “ the Hanoverian usurpers ” from all
their devotions. But ...
Vol. 2 p. 239 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Water of Leith.
CHAPTER VIII.
VALLEY OF THE WATER OF LEITH (concluded).
Eminent ...
Vol. 5 p. 78 (Rel. 0.11)
... Sq-I MISS JEANNIE ELLIOT. =7*
-was compelled to have recourse to a sedan chair
by which he was wont to be ...
Vol. 4 p. 271 (Rel. 0.11)
![Currie.] DR. JAMES ANDERSON. . 335
were appointed to look after the king’s exchequer,
“properties, and casualties,” were named. (“Moyses’
Memoirs.”)
In April, 1598, he witnessed at Stirling the
contract between James VL, Ludovick Stewart,
Duke of Lennox, and Hugh, fifth Earl of Eglinton,
for the marriage of the latter and Gabriella,
sister of the duke.
He is best known in Scottish legal literature by
his treatise ‘‘ De Verborum Significatione,” and the
edition of the ‘‘ Regiam Majestatem,” but Lord
Hailes doubted if his knowledge of Scottish antiquities
was equal to his industry.
In 1607, with reference to the latter work, Sir
James Balfour records in his Annales” that ‘‘ The
ancient Lawes of Scotland, collected by s” John
Skeene, Clerke of Register, on the Lordes of the
Privey Counsall’s recommendation to the King,
by their letters of the 4th of Marche this yeire
wer ordained to be published and printed, on his
Majestie’s charges.”
This work, which was printed in folio at Edinburgh
in 1609, is entitled “ REGIAM MAJESTATEM
SCOTIR;. The auld lawes and constitutions of Scotland,
faithfullie collected furth of the Register, and
other auld authentick Bukes, from the dayes of King
hlalcolme the Second vntill the time of King Jame
the First.” It contains the Quoniam Attachianzentq
or Baron Laws, the Burgh Laws, the Forest Law:
of William the Lion, and many other quaint anc
curious statutes.
His son, Sir James Skene of Curriehill, succeedec
Thomas, Earl of Mehose, as President of thc
Court of Session in 1626. At what time he w;1!
made a baronet of Nova Scotia is unknown, bui
his death as such is thus recorded by Balfour :-
“The 20 of October (1663) deyed s” Jame:
Skeine of Curriehill, Knight and Barronet, Presi
dent of the Colledge of Justice, at his auen houssc
in Edinburghe, and was interred in the Greyfriar:
ther.” Re was buried within the church, when
his tomb was found a few years ago; and tht
house in which he died is that described as bein;
“beside the Grammar School,” within the south
east angle of the Flodden wall, and in after years
the official residence of the Professor of Divinity.
Sir Archibald Johnston (Lord Warriston) wa:
a considerable heritor in the parish of Currie
Maitland (Lord Ravelrig) we have already referrec
to, and also to Sir Thomas Craig of Riccarton
“The Scotts of hlalleny, father and son, were like
wise eminent lawyers at the same period, and tht
latter had a seat on the bench,” says the “Olc
Statistical Account” ; but if so, his name does no1
appear in the list of senators at that time.
(“ Eglinton Memorials.”)
.
The late General Thomas Scott of Malleny, who
lied at the age of ninety-six, served on the contilent
of Europe, and in the American War under
.he Marquis of Cornwallis.
He entered the army when a boy, and was a
:aptain in the 53rd Foot in October, 1777. It is
-ecorded of him that he carried some very impor-
:ant despatches in the barrel of his spontoon with
ucess and dexterity, passing through the American
hes in the disguise of aa armed pedler. These
services were recognised by Lord Melbourne, who
gave him a pension without solkitation.
He belonged latterly to the Scots Brigade ; was
t major-general of 1808, and a lieutenant-general
af 1813.
In 1882 his ancient patrimony of Malleny was
purchased by the Earl of Rosebery.
James Anderson, LLD., a miscellaneous writer
of considerable eminence, the son of a farmer, was
born at Hermiston, near Currie, in 1739, “His
ancestors had been farmers,” says the Sots Magazine
for 1809, “and had for several generations
farmed the same land, which circumstance is supposed
to have introduced him to that branch of
knowledge which formed the chief occupation of
his life.”
Among the companions of his youth, born in
the same hamlet, was Dr. James Anderson, who in
the early years of the present century was Physician-
General of the Forces in Madras. They were
related, educated together, and maintained a correspondence
throughout life.
Losing his father at the age of fifteen, he entered
upon the management of his ancestral farm, and
at the same time attended the chemistry class of
Dr. Cullen in the University of Edinburgh, studying
also several collateral branches of science. He
adopted a number of improvements, one of which,
the introduction of a small two-horse plough, was
afterwards so common in Scotland.
Amid his ’ agricultural labours, so great was his
thirst for knowledge, and so steady his application,
that he contrived to acquire a considerable stock
of information; and in 1771, under the nouz de
phme of “ Agricola,” he contributed to Ruddiman’s
Edinburgh Week4 Xagazine a series of “ Essays
on Planting,” which were afterwards published in
a volume. In 1773 he furnished the article
Monsoon” to the first edition of the EmycZopdia
Britannica,. in which, curiously enough, he
confidently predicted the failure of’captain Cook‘s
first expedition in search of a southern polar continent.
Previous to ,1777 he had removed from Hermistop
to a large uncultivated farm, consisting of](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p154.gif "Volume 6 Page 335")
... DR. JAMES ANDERSON. . 335
were appointed to look after the king’s exchequer,
“properties, and ...
Vol. 6 p. 335 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
brunt in assis, and all thair moveable guidis to be
escheat.”
On the 6th of ...
Vol. 5 p. 182 (Rel. 0.11)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Chambers Street.
Britannica” In 1763 he was Treasurer of the
Navy, and died at ...
Vol. 4 p. 274 (Rel. 0.11)
... thrown down to facilitate the act. J’ames
Hay had been provided with a key that opened the
long-unused ...
Vol. 1 p. 134 (Rel. 0.11)
![George Street.] THE BLACKWOODS. I39
CHAP,TER XIX.
GEORGE STREET.
Major Andrew Faser-The Father of Miss Femer-Grant of Kilgraston-William Blackwoad and his Magazine-The Mother of Sir Waltn
Scott-Sir John Hay, Banker-Colquhoun of Killermont-Mrs. Murray of Henderland-The Houses of Sir J. W. Gomon, Sir Jam-
Hall. and Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster-St. Andrew's Church-Scene of the Disruption-Physicians' Hall-Glance at the Histcry of thecollege
of Physicians-Sold and Removed-The Commercial Bank-Its Constitution-Assembly Rooms-Rules of 17+Banquet to Black
Watch-" The Author of Waverley"-The Music Hall-The New Union Bank-Its Formation, &c.-The Mlasonic Hall-Watsoa'E
Pictureof Bums-Statues of George IV., Pitt, and Chalmers. .
PREVIOUS to the brilliant streets and squares
erected in the northern and western portions of
new Edinburgh, George Street was said to have no
rival in the world ; and even yet, after having undergone
many changes, for combined length, space,
uniformity, and magnificence of vista, whether
viewed from the east or west, it may well be
pronounced unparalleled. Straight as an arrow
flies, it is like its sister streets, but is 1x5 feet
broad. Here a great fossil tree was found in 1852.
A portion of the street on the south side, near
the west end, long bore the name of the Tontine,
and owing to some legal dispute, which left the
houses there mfinished, they were occupied as
infantry barracks during the war with France.
Nos. 3 and 5 (the latter once the residence of
Major Andrew Fraser and cf William Creech the
eminent bookseller) forni the office of the Standard
Life Assurance Company, in the tympanum of
which, over four fine Corinthian pilasters, is a
sculptured group from the chisel of Sir John Steel,
representing the parable of the Ten Virgins. In
George Street are about thirty different insurance
offices, or their branches, all more or less ornate
in architecture, and several banks.
In No. 19, on the same side, is the Caledonian,
the oldest Scottish insurance company (having
been founded in June, 1805). Previously the
office had been in Bank Street. A royal charter
was granted to the company in May, 1810, and
twenty-three years afterwards the business of life
assurance was added to that of fire insurance.
No. 25 George Street was the residence (from
1784 till his death, in 18zg), of Mr. James Ferrier,
Principal Clerk of Session, and father of Miss
Susan Ferrier, the authoress of " Marriage," &c.
He was a keen whist player, and every night of his
life had a rubber, which occasionally included Lady
Augusta Clavering, daughter of his friend and client
John, fifth Duke of Argyll, and old Dr. Hamilton,
usually designated " Cocked Hat " Hamilton, from
the fact of his being one of the last in Edinburgh
who bore that head-piece. When victorious, he
wcdd snap his fingers and caper about the room,
to tbe manifest indignation of Mr. Ferrier, who
would express it to his partner in the words, "Lady
Augusta, did you ever see such rediculous leevity
in an auld man 7 " Robert Burns used also to be
a guest at No. 25, and was prescnt on one occasion
when some magnificent Gobelins tapestry arrived
there for the Duke of Argyll on its way to Inverary
Castle. Mrs. Piozzi also, when in Edinburgh, dined
there. Next door lived the Misses Edmonstone,
of the Duntreath family, and with them pitched
battles at whist were of frequent nightly occurrence.
These old ladies figure in " Marriage " as
Aunts Jacky, Grizzy, and Nicky; they were grandnieces
of the fourth Duke of Argyll. The eldest
Miss Ferrier was one of the Edinburgh beauties in
her day ; and Bums once happening to meet her,
while turning the corner of George Street, felt suddenly
inspired, and wrote the lines to her enclosed
in an elegy on the death of Sir D. H. Hair. Miss
Ferrier and Miss Penelope, Macdonald of Clanronald,
were rival belles ; the former married
General Graham ot Stirling Castle, the latter Lord
Belhaven.
In No. 32 dwelt Francis Grant of Kilgraston,
father of Sir Francis Grant, President of the Royal
Academy, born in 1803 ; and No. 35, now a shop,
was the town house of the Hairs of Balthayock, in
Perthshire.
No. 45 has long been famous as the establishment
of Messrs. Blackwood, the eminent publishers.
William Blackwood, the founder of the magazine
which stills bears his name, and on the model of
which so many high-class periodicals have been
started in the sister kingdom, was born at Edinburgh
in 1776, and after being apprenticed to the
ancient bookselling firni of Bell and Bradfute, and
engaging in various connections with other bibliopoles,
in 1804 he commenced as a dealer in old
books on the South Bridge, in No. 64, but soon
after became agent for several London publishing
houses. In 1S16 he disposed of his vast stock of
classical and antiquarian books, I 5,000 volumes in
number, and removing to No. 17 Princes Street,
thenceforward devoted his energies to the business
of a-general publisher, and No. 17 is to this day a
bookseller's shop.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v3p151.gif "Volume 3 Page 139")
... Street.] THE BLACKWOODS. I39
CHAP,TER XIX.
GEORGE STREET.
Major Andrew Faser-The Father of Miss ...
Vol. 3 p. 139 (Rel. 0.11)
![Firinburgh Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers-Guardsmenand Greys mingled-Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of, the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a solitary
roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.”
According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the’duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, “Whither
“Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,” was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameroniaas
beat to ;urns, and they came swarming out of theix
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
ackioion, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earl$
of Tweeddale arid Lothian appeared at the gate d
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender ii
within four-and-twenty houm, and daringly offering
a year’s pay to every soldier who would desert him.
‘‘ My lords,” said he, “without the express order?
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrendei
this castle.”
By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke 01
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declarec
a traitor. He tossed them some guineas to drink
the health of James VII., adding, with a laugh, ‘‘I
would advise you not to proclaim men traitors whc
wear the king’s coat till they have turned it”
Under the highest penalties, all persons were non
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockadethc
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were addec
300 Highlanders under Argyle. Out of this bodj
there were formed in one day two battalions of thc
line, which still exist-the 25th, or old Edinburgt
regiment, which bears on its colours the tripk
castle, with the motto, ‘‘ Nisi Dominus Frustra,”*
go you ? ”
-
There was a second regiment, called the bth. or Royal Edinburgl
Volunteers, raised by Major-General Sir William Erskine. Bart., in 1777
It served rinder Cornwallis in the American War, and wasdibanded ai
the close thereof. Its Lieuteoant-Colooel was Dundas of Fingask, wh<
died at Guadaoupe
and the 26th, or Cameronians, whose appointments
bear the five-pointed mullet-the .arms of their
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scots
Brigade, from Holland, were on their march, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matters looked darker and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now seventy-four
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were,
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (fomierly King’s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in a
supply of provisions, the
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.
The entire strength
of the garrison, including
okers and gentlemen-
volunteers, was
only eighty-six men,
who had to work
twentv-two Dieces of
@j duke wrote King James -
(exclusive of FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBURGH REfield-
pieces) ranging VOLUTION CLUB.
from 42 to I a-pounders.
They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money, Mnrl in 1688.)
(=nick in 1753 in ~ommn~mmtiom
a d ~,ztrtu 6,. Wiziiam aw
of the recmwy of tkir Rrligwr
and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard !
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hopelessly
invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
Jam& safe arrival in Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve companies,
all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolpacks with
which to form breastworks. A11 within the Castle
who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly from
the want of medical attendance, till the duke’s
family physician contrived to join him, probably by
the postern.
On the 13th of March he heavily cannonaded the
western entrenchments, and by dint of shot and
shell retnded the working parties; but General
Mackay now formed a battery of 18-pounders, at
the Highnggs, opposed to the royal lodging and
the half-moon. On the 3rd of April the Duke discovered
that the house of Coates, the ancient](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p076.gif "Volume 1 Page 64")
... Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 64 (Rel. 0.11)
![Firinburgh Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his forlorn band, consisting of sixty cavalier
troopers-Guardsmenand Greys mingled-Dundee,
the idol of his party, quitted Edinburgh by the
Leith Wynd Port; and, through a telescope, the
Duke of Gordon watched them as they wound
past the venerable church of, the Holy Trinity,
among the cottages and gardens of Moutries Hill,
and as they rode westward by the Lang Gate, a solitary
roadway bordered by fields and farmhouses.”
According to Balcarres this was on the 18th of
March, 1689, and as Gordon wished to confer with
the viscount, the latter, on seeing a red flag waved
at the western postern, rode down the Kirk Brae,
and, quitting his horse, all heavily accoutred as he
was, climbed the steep rock to hold that conference
of which so little was ever known. He is said to
have advised the’duke to leave the Castle in charge
of Winram, on whom they could depend, and seek
their fortunes together among the loyal clans in the
north. But the duke declined, adding, “Whither
“Wherever the shade of Montrose may direct
me,” was the pensive and poetical reply, and then
they parted to meet no more. But the moment
Dundee was gone the drums of the Cameroniaas
beat to ;urns, and they came swarming out of theix
places of concealment, mustering for immediate
ackioion, while, in the name of the Estates, the Earl$
of Tweeddale arid Lothian appeared at the gate d
the fortress, requesting the duke to surrender ii
within four-and-twenty houm, and daringly offering
a year’s pay to every soldier who would desert him.
‘‘ My lords,” said he, “without the express order?
of my royal master, James VII., I cannot surrendei
this castle.”
By the heralds and pursuivants the Duke 01
Gordon was now, as the only alternative, declarec
a traitor. He tossed them some guineas to drink
the health of James VII., adding, with a laugh, ‘‘I
would advise you not to proclaim men traitors whc
wear the king’s coat till they have turned it”
Under the highest penalties, all persons were non
forbidden to correspond with him or his garrison
and the Earl of Leven was ordered to blockadethc
rock with his Cameronians, to whom were addec
300 Highlanders under Argyle. Out of this bodj
there were formed in one day two battalions of thc
line, which still exist-the 25th, or old Edinburgt
regiment, which bears on its colours the tripk
castle, with the motto, ‘‘ Nisi Dominus Frustra,”*
go you ? ”
-
There was a second regiment, called the bth. or Royal Edinburgl
Volunteers, raised by Major-General Sir William Erskine. Bart., in 1777
It served rinder Cornwallis in the American War, and wasdibanded ai
the close thereof. Its Lieuteoant-Colooel was Dundas of Fingask, wh<
died at Guadaoupe
and the 26th, or Cameronians, whose appointments
bear the five-pointed mullet-the .arms of their
first colonel ; while three battalions of the Scots
Brigade, from Holland, were on their march, under
Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury, to
press the siege. Daily matters looked darker and
darker for the gallant Gordon, for now seventy-four
rank and file demanded their discharges, and were,
like their predecessors, stripped and expelled.
The gates were then barricaded, and preparations
made for resistance to the last; but though Sir
James Grant of Dalvey (fomierly King’s Advocate),
and Gordon of Edintore, contrived to throw in a
supply of provisions, the
that he could not hold
out beyond the month
of June unless relieved.
The entire strength
of the garrison, including
okers and gentlemen-
volunteers, was
only eighty-six men,
who had to work
twentv-two Dieces of
@j duke wrote King James -
(exclusive of FACSIMILE OF THE MEDAL
OF THE EDINBURGH REfield-
pieces) ranging VOLUTION CLUB.
from 42 to I a-pounders.
They had no doctor, no
engineer, no money, Mnrl in 1688.)
(=nick in 1753 in ~ommn~mmtiom
a d ~,ztrtu 6,. Wiziiam aw
of the recmwy of tkir Rrligwr
and only thirty barrels of powder in actual quantity.
It was truly a desperate hazard !
By the 18th the entire rock was fully and hopelessly
invested by the Earl of Leven, a Brandenburg
colonel, who displayed a great want of skill; and on
the following night the battlements were blazing
with bonfires and tar barrels in honour of King
Jam& safe arrival in Ireland, of which tidings had
probably been given by Grant of Dalvey. On the
25th came Mackay, with the three battalions of
the Scots Brigade, each consisting of twelve companies,
all splendidly-trained soldiers, a brigade of
guns, and a great quantity of woolpacks with
which to form breastworks. A11 within the Castle
who had gun-shot wounds suffered greatly from
the want of medical attendance, till the duke’s
family physician contrived to join him, probably by
the postern.
On the 13th of March he heavily cannonaded the
western entrenchments, and by dint of shot and
shell retnded the working parties; but General
Mackay now formed a battery of 18-pounders, at
the Highnggs, opposed to the royal lodging and
the half-moon. On the 3rd of April the Duke discovered
that the house of Coates, the ancient](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v1p075.gif "Volume 1 Page 63")
... Castle.] THE. REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH. 63
and all loyalists to quit the city. “At the head
of his ...
Vol. 1 p. 63 (Rel. 0.11)
... THE HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. . 75
’ blew gowns, each having got thirty-five shillings in
a purse, came up ...
Vol. 3 p. 75 (Rel. 0.1)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Hume, Alexander, High School
H u e , don. Baron David, I. 121,
I66 11.-
Hum;, David. ...
Vol. 6 p. 379 (Rel. 0.1)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Hume, Alexander, High School
H u e , don. Baron David, I. 121,
I66 11.-
Hum;, David. ...
Vol. 6 p. 380 (Rel. 0.1)
![388 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
2307 33O7 3447.3501 359s
at er, 11. 255; hls fat er
house, 11. 340, *PI; his mdkk
11. 142, 340; his various resi
dences, 11. 163 -164, 165 111.
359; @~study,'II. 163; las; resi
dence in bdtnburgh, 11.210 ; hi!
birthplace, 11.251~255 ; his par
trait, 11. 254; his arms, 11. *a54
his school Me, 11. 293, 294, 326
111. 8 ; his childhood 11. 30
burial-place ofhisfamil;, 11. 383
hls first love ib.; his son, 11,
294 ; his dauihter 11.165
Scott, Anne (sir &alter Scott'!
daughter), 11. 165
Scott of Balcomie, General, 11.191,
201, 269, 111. 42, 307; anecdote
of, 11. 191 ; his wife, 111. 124
Scott of Bavelaw 111. 331
Scott of Branxhoim, Sir Water, I.
194
ScottofBuccleuch Sir Waiter,]. zz:
Smtt of Cauldhou& 11. 2.9
Scott of Harden, Slr Wllliam, I.
Scott'of Kirkstyle I. 210
Scott ofMalleny;i.hefamiIyof, 111.
a02 111. 136
. .
334,335
Scott of Scotstanit, Sir John, I.
167, zm, 11. 3, 223, Ill. 135,199,
ScottbfThirlstane SirFrancis,I.z71
Scott ofThirlstan;, Patrick, 11. a y
Swtt. Lieut.-Col. (Sir Walter'sson),
2903 317. 343, 364
11. 294
Scott, David, the painter, 11. 92,
111. 68, 78, 223
Scott ohn Miracle of, 11. 55, 56
Scottl dicLe1, €1.
Scott: William. Greek professor.
111; 15 .
16~
k t t centenary, The first, 11. 150,
scb;'is Close, 11.271
kott's monument, I. *r 11. 126,
127, *12g ; statnetteson'it II. 1z1
Scottlsh Academv of Paint& 11. -.
90s 9'
Scottish Antiquar$n Society, 1.
Scottlsh Baptist meeting-house,
Scottrsh Barrack office 11.42
Scottish Chamber ofA&ulture, I.
Scottish currency, Value of the, in
258, 270
+le Square, 11.274
291
1707, 1.270
Scottish Episcopal chapels, I. 278
Scottish Episcopalians, The, I. 239,
Scottish Equitable Asurance Sc-
Scottish Hentable Security Com-
111. 231
ciety, 11. 170
PanY 11. I53
Scottish Horse Guards The I. 5'
Scottish judge+ Emhent, i. 167,
Scottish Liberal Club 11. 125
Scottish matrons, S& spirit of,
169-173
Sck?sh Miniitem' Widows' Fund,
ScottLhmonarchs, Portraits of the,
11. 378
11. 73, 74,177
Scottish National Fire and Life
Scottish Naval anh Militarv
Assurance Company 11.168
Academy, 11. 138
Scottish MV~, Formation of a, 111.
Sc%h Provident Institution, 11.
168
Scottish Records State of I. 367
11. 119 ; the& removal' to thi
Register House, I. 368
Scottish ReformationSocietp I. 294
Scottish Rights Association i1. 150
Scottish Roscius, The, I. ;47 ; his
Scottiih School of Design 11. 86
ScottishTemplars, Trialsifthe, 11.
ScotkhTreacury Room, The, 1.178
Scottish Union and National Inwife
ib.
46 50, 51, 111. 130
surance Company, 11. 170, 171 * 172
Scottish Universities Act, 111.24
Scottish Vulcanite Company, I1
Scotttsk Widows' Fund, 11. 1%
Scou&l, John, the painter, I. 22:
Sculptured stone, Newhaven, I1
Sea Penctbles The 111. 303
Seafield Cha&ello: I. 163
Seafield' Earl of 11: 33 111. 191
Seafield' Leith ill. 14; 263 266
Seafie1d'Hous;and B a d , Hi. 26c
Seafield Toll 111. 286
Sea-fight in k i t h harbour. A. 111
219, 220
168 172
223, 11. 90
299 *3?
duel on the site of rb.
, . r83,-184
the, 11. 307-310
Seaforth Highlanders, Revolt (
Seaforth, Kenneth Mackenzie. Ea
of 11. 307, 3 9
Seaiorth, Franci Lord, 111. IOI
Seal of Edinburgh, The Commox
his son, i6.
1. *a
Se&an'sHospital, Leith, 111.22:
Seamen, Wages of the Leith. 111
278
Leith 111. 278
Seamen's Friendly Society, Th
Seaton,'Sir Alexander, I. 167
Seceders, 'lhe, 1. 323,325, 333
Secession and Relief Church=
Union of the 111. 88
Secret subtenahean pLssages,Edii
burgh Castle, I. 82
Secretary's Register The I. 370
Sedan chairs, Use o( in Edinburgl
11. 120, 343 ; number of in 1775
11. 282 ; fracas resulting from th
useof, 111. 13
Sederunt, ~ c t s oP I. IW 11.315
Seqave, Sir Johdde, Ilk 351
Selkirk. Earl of, I. 274, 373 11.144
166,205,III. 122; mansion ofthc
1. *273, 274, '276, 11. 246, 249
Selkirk Countess of, 11. 335
Sellars"Ciose, I. 55
Semple, Lords, I. 91,92,11.3oo,35
Semple's Close I. 91
Senate Hall, Edinburgh University
111. 23, 24, 27
Session, Court of, I. 166, 167, 337
11. 174; probable extinction a
the, I. 174
Seton, Lord, 11. 35, 52 ; Lady, 111
52, 53.
Seton, Sir Alexander, III.49,318
Seton family, The, 111. 53, 54, 24
>ton House I1 35
Seven sist2;s oi Borthwick."The
I. 36
%mow Lord Webb 11.347
SbakesGe Club Tie, 111.126
Shakespeare in dinburgh, 11.39
Shakespeare Square, I. 218, 340
343, 336, 47, 3531 11. 176, 336
337 ;new 20, the back of, 1. *34!
Shandwick Place, 11. z q , 210
Shank I. 254
Sharp:, James, Archbishop of St
Andrews, 1. 215 259; his son':
residence, 111. 385
Sharpe of Hoddam Charles Kirk
patrick, 11.191, I&, 193, 243,342
111.99, IZO, 131, 230 ; saleofhir
curiosities, 11. 193
Sharpe of Hoddam, Mrs., 11. 26
Shearsmith, The first, 11. 26
Sheephead Wynd, Leith, 113 227
Shellycoat, The demon, Ill. 282
Shepherds' Ha' 111. 144
Sheridan, the a&, I.
Sheriff Brae, or Shirra &ge, Leith,
111. 247 248 250 ~51,*253,zBs
Sheriff Coirt, i. 166
Sheriff Court Buildings, I. 294, 29:
Sheriff Hall, 111. 16 , 963
ship Hotel,Theold,fxtth, III.rg5,
245 246. the new 111. 245 246
;hipduildiAg at LeAh, Newkven,
&c. 111.281
jhip&ng, Numberof, in Leith, 111.
188 'go 276 277; lawsrespening'the
i11. ;75
jhipmast'ers' Widows' Fund, The,
111. 278
jhoemakers' C!ose, 11. 10, 19
Shoemakers' Lands 11. g 10
Shore, The, Leith,' 111. '177, 184
'94, 1959 207, 209, 21% 227. 22g
Short'Sanh The 111. 282
Short's O&rvat&y, I. 87, 91, I1
'05
ShrubHill 111. 155 163
Sibbald- Si Rohert i 123 167 201
304,&, 363,II. ;4;, I I i . r6;,33:
Sibbald, James, booksellexand anu
quary, I. 181 111. 154
Siddons Mrs.: 1. 108, 343, 344
amusing anecdote of, 111. 24a
Siddons, Henry, 1. 348, 11.125~17:
Siddons, Mrs. Henry, I. 348, 349
350,351,111. 158,159 ; her grand
father, I. 351
Sidey Dr. J. A. 11. 305,347
Signe;, Keeper df the I. 367, $8
librarian of the (sm Ikng, David
Silvermills, The, 11. 117, 182, 111
Sd~~nrulls House, 111.
Sirnon Master of Lovat, 9.3z57, 251
Simon'square, 11.337
Simond, theFrenchtraveller, 11.18:
Simony, Practice of 111. 116
Simple, Robert, the'player, 11. 9
Simpson, Professor Sir Jame
'156, &,170,315,362, III.79,xa
Simpson the architect, 111. 339
Sinclair 'EVI w i l l i I. 661 ; hi
prince& I.&?,III.&7; hisstyb
oflivini ib.
Sinclair(o; St. clair) family, E ~ I !
history of the, 11. 247,111. 34
Sinclairof Dunbeath, Sir John, If1
63 ; Dame, 111. 62, 63
Siclair, Si John, the agriculturist
11. 17, 120, 126, 144, 172; hi
daughter Catherine 11. 126 165
Sinclau, Sir William, k d the kigt
School affray of 1595, I. no
111 297.
Siucl;ir of Roslin, Sir William, 111
354
Sinclair, Henry first Lord, 11. 251
Sinclair ot Ulbster George 11.30:
Sinclair of Murkle: Lady, iI. 188
Sinclair, John, Bishop of Brechin
Sinclair, Lady Janet, 11. 17~ IM
Sinclair ofstevenaon, Lady, 11. 33:
Sinclair, Catherine, 11. 126, 165
Kinclair, Margaret, 11. 165
Sinclair, the actor, I. 350
Sinclair Fountain, The, 11. 126
Kiclair's, Professor, " Satan's In.
viribleWorld Discovered."I.~z8.
236 238 245,246, 247, PhtC 31
345 ; $er popularity, 1. 345, 346
8- 84.
Young 11. 130. 153, 154, 155
I. 121
Street 11. *r64
Six FeeiClub The 111. 125. 326
jkene, M a j o r h d r a l Robert, 11.
310
jkene of Rubislaw Sir W. Scott's
friend 11.98 163'III.86,145,3jq
jkenes :f CurAehiil, The, 111.334,
Sir Jam- and Sir John, 11.302,
4kinners The 11. 264,111. z
jkinner'i Cl&, I. 139, 266, 167,
3aney's Hotel, I. 222
ilnteford, I. 323, 111. 326
jlaughterhousea, The city 11. 218
ilezer, Captain, author ofl" Theatrum
Scotire," 11. ,367, 111. 350
heaton's Clore Leith 111. 226
hellie, Williad, thepkter, I. 235,
236,383.11. 87, 1p0 111.31
imellie, the naturalist: 11. 311
imith, Provost Sir John, I. 102, no,
11 "
I.II.334, 335
11.247
i%h; Lord Chief Baron, Episcopal
chapel founded by I. 262 11.247
imith, Adam, I. 114 156, i36, 273,
11. 17, 21, 161, 194, 111. 240;
residence of, 11. 21 ; graye of,
with, Alexander, the poet, 111.
102, 30!
Nmith George, I. 113 *117; rob- be4 in concern whh Deacon
Hrodie, I. 113-115
mith, Sydney, 11. 203
11. 29
Smith, Dr. John, the physician, 11,
SZA the banker, Deathof, 11.18,
Smollett, Tobu., I.@, 155,239,lI.
26 127, 111. 262. his sister 11.
26'; his wife, ib. f his h o d , 11.
-e '"
Smythe Sir Jeremiahand theDutch
Snuff-taking in church, an offence,
fleet, i. 58,111. re8
11. 133
Society Close, I. 213, -14
SocietyofEdiburghGolfers III.31
Society for the PropagaAon of
Chrlstian Knowledge, I. 214, 359
Society Port, The, II.231,234,268,
2% 274, 346
Soldiersof EdinburghCastle, Tomb
in memoryof 11. 30
Soldiers first iuartered in Leith,
III. '931 I94
Solicitors before the Supremecourt,
Library of I. 123
Solway, ad of 11.37
Solway, Rout &, 11. 64,65
Sothern the actor, 1. 351
Somers"tavern I. 120
Somerset Dulce of I, 43
Somervilie, Lards,'I. 150, 155,183.
316,II. 161 111. 346
Somervjlle fai!nily, The, 111. 346
Somerville Bartholomew, I. 97, 314
Somerville: Major, and Capt. Crawford
Encounter between I. 95
Somerhle mansion The i. 314
Sounding-boards I i 32d
South back of ;he Longate, 11.
238, 245
South Blacket Place 111. 55, 56
South Bridge, I. 24;. 373-382, 11.
139,238 251 274 282 2 8, 334,
359, I d . I&; %e ;or8 commenced,
I. 374; valueof thesite,
ib.
South Bridge Street I 374 111.23
South Castle Street '11: 82 '165
South Clerk Street,'III. 5;
SouthCollegeStreet 1I.330,111.23
South Foulis' Close,'I. 276
South Frederick Street 11. 92
South Gray's C l m 1. ;673 274
South Leith, 111. r&, 165, 166,188,
South Leith, b+dge of, 11. 47
South Leith bunal-ground, 111.171
South Leith Freechurch, 111.1~8,
South Leith Poor-house 111.249
South Lach,The, 1. 8, h . 2 7
South Hanover Street, 11. 162, 192
South Niddry Street, 11. 251
South St.Andrew Street II.99,159
South St. David Street.'II. oz. 160
193, 210, 21
266
, ~. -162
Southern Market The, 11. 346
Southfield 111. I&
Spalding Pund. The, 11. 92
Spalding Peter 11. 92
Spaldina: the dtorian. 11. 10. 111. . _. . .
211
Spence, Thomas, Bishop of Aber-
Spence Willim I. 59 6a
Spendthrift Clud, I.he,'III. r z ~
Spjttal, Sir James, 11. 215
Spittal Street, 11. 215, 223
Spattiswc.de, Archbishop, I. 287,
298, 11. 39, 111. 2x9 ; hls house,
I. 208
Spottigwoode I. 166
Sputtkwood 'John, Superintendent
of Lothid I. 46 208
Spottkwood Road,'I11. 46
Springfield, 111. 356, 360
Springfield Street, 111. 163
Spur, The, Edinburgh Castle, 1.36,
Spylaw 111. 34
Spynie'Lord I. mg IIZ. 113
St. Andrew the Apoitle I. 261
St. Asdrew'saltar. Hol;rwd. 11. z8
deen, I. 300, 301
49, 5x1 52, 54, 86, 218
St. Andrew's Chapel, 'Carrubbeis
St. Andrew's Church. Geom
Close, I. 239.11. 242
Street, 11. 120, 144, *145, 14,
17' ; interior of, 11. 148
9t. Andrew's Hall, 1. 302
St. Andrew's Lane, 11.160
3t. Andrew's Port, I. 366
3. Andrew's Square, I. 2r7, 222,
267, 279, 11. 110, 118, 136, 161,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p207.gif "Volume 6 Page 388")
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
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at er, 11. 255; hls fat er
house, 11. 340, *PI; his ...
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![Lord Provost?.] THE DUNDAS RIOTS. 281
daughter of the head of the firm. When he took
ofice politics ran high, The much-needed reform
of the royal burghs had been keenly agitated
for some time previous, and a motion on the subject,
negatived in the House of Commons by a
majority of 26, incensed the Scottish public to a
great degree, while Lord Melville, Secretary of
State, by his opposition to the question, rendered
himself so obnoxious, that in many parts of Scotland
he was burned in effigy. In this state of excitement
Provost Stirling and others in authority at
Edinburgh looked forward to the King’s birthdaythe
4th of June, 1792-with considerable uneasiness,
and provoked mischief by inaugurating the festival by
sending strong patrols of cavalry through the streets
at a quick pace with swords drawn. Instead of
having the desired effect, the people became furious
at this display, and hissed and hooted the cavalry
with mocking cries of “Johnnie Cope.” In the
afternoon, when the provost and magistrates were
assembled in the Parliament House to drink the
usual loyal toasts, a mob mustered in the square, and
amused themselves after a custom long peculiar to
Edinburgh on this day, of throwing dead cats at
each other, and at the City Guard who were under
arms to fire volleys after every toast.
Some cavalry officers incautiously appeared at this
time, and, on being insulted, brought up their men
to clear the streets, and, after considerable stonethrowing,
the mob dispersed. Next evening it
re-assembled before the house of Mr. Dundas in
George Square, with a figure of straw hung from a
pole. When about to burn the effigy they were
attacked by some of Mr. Dundas’s friends-among
others, it is said, by his neighbours, the naval hero
of Camperdown, and Sir Patrick Murray of
Ochtertyre. These gentlemen retired to Dundas’s
house, the windows of which were smashed by the
mob, which next attacked the residence of the
Lord Advocate, Dundas of Amiston. On this it
became necessary to bring down the 53rd Re$-
ment from the Castle ; the Riot Act was read, the
people were fired on, and many fell wounded, some
mortally, who were found dead next day in the
Meadows and elsewhere. This put an end to the
disturbances for that night ; but on Wednesday
evening the mob assembled in the New Town with
the intention of destroying the house of Provost
Stirling at the south-east corner of St. Andrew
Square, where they broke the City Guards’ sentry
boxes to pieces. But, as an appointed signal, the
ancient beacon-fire, was set aflame in the Castle,
the Bind frigate sent ashore her marines at Leith,
and the cavalry came galloping ih from the eastward,
an which the mob separated finally.
By this time Provost Stirling had sought shelter
In the Castle from the mob, who were on the point
Jf throwing Dr. Alexander Wood (known as Lang
Sandy) over the North Bridge in mistake for him.
For his zeal, however, he was made a baronet of
Great Britain. The year 1795 was one of great
listress in the city ; Lord Cockbum tells us that
16,000 persons (about an eighth of the population)
were fed by charity, and the exact quantity of food
each family should consume was specified by public
proclamation. In 1793 a penny post was established
in Edinburgh, extending to Leith, Musselburgh,
Dalkeith, and Prestonpans. Sir James
Stirling latterly resided at the west end of Queen
Street, and died in February, 1805.
Sir William Fettes, Lord Provost in 1800 and
1804, we have elsewhere referred to ; but William
Coulter, a wealthy hosier in the High Street, who
succeeded to the civic chair in 1808, was chiefly remarkable
for dying in office, like Alexander Kina
i d thirty years before, and for the magnificence
with which his funeral obsequies were celebrated.
He died at Morningside Lodge, and the cortkge
was preceded by the First R E. Volunteers, and
the officers of the three Regiments of Edinburgh
local militia, and the body was in a canopied
hearse, drawn by six horses, each led by a groom in
deep mourning. On it lay the chain of office, and
his sword and sash as colonel of the volunteers.
A man of great stature, in a peculiar costume,
bore the banner of the City. When the body was
lowered into the grave, the senior herald broke and
threw therein the rod of office, while the volunteers,
drawn up in a line near the Greyfriars’ Church,
fired three funeral volleys.
Sir John Marjoribanks, Bart., Lord Provost in
1813, was the son of Marjoribanks of Lees, an
eminent wine merchant in Bordeaux, and his
mother was the daughter of Archibald Stewart, Lord
Provost of the city in the memorable ’45. Sir John
was a partner in the banking-house of Mansfield,
Ranisay, and Co., and while in the civic chair was
the chief promoter of the Regent Bridge and Calton
Gaol, though the former had been projected by Sir
James Hunter Blair in 1784 When the freedom
of thedty was given to Lord Lynedoch, “the gallant
Graham,” Sir John gave h k a magnificent dinner,
on the 12th of August, I815-two months after
Waterloo. There were present the Earl of Morton,
Lord Audley, Sir David Dundas, the Lord Chief
Baron, the Lord Chief Commissioner, Sir James
Douglas, Sir Howard Elphinstone, and about a
hundred of the most notable men in Edinburgh,
the freedom of which was presented to Lord
Lynedoch in a box of gold ; and at the conclusion](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v4p103.gif "Volume 4 Page 283")
... Provost?.] THE DUNDAS RIOTS. 281
daughter of the head of the firm. When he took
ofice politics ran high, The ...
Vol. 4 p. 283 (Rel. 0.1)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street,
Europe or America as a handy yet comprehensive
book of ready reference, ...
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... OLD AND NEW' EDINBURGH.
'Plague in Leith, The 111. 180,186
Plainstane's close ~ i . ...
Vol. 6 p. 386 (Rel. 0.1)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
pilgrimage to on May Day, I. 379
geology of the hill 11. 303, 304
origin of the name: ...
Vol. 6 p. 370 (Rel. 0.09)
... 344 341, 111. 158; Foote's
attack on Whitefield I. 342
Whiteford, Sir John, I.'106,~82, 11.
35 ...
Vol. 6 p. 392 (Rel. 0.09)
![GENERAL INDEX. 387
Rhind. David. architect. 11. 147
275, '2 6, I I t . 67 244 .
Rhmd, {anet, ToAb of, 11. 262
Riccarton, 111. 319; its loca
history, 111. 321
Riccarton House 111. 322
Richard 11. of E h a n d . 11. 2
Richardson, Messrs., tobacconists
Richardson, W.L.,theartist, 111.8:
Richmond Court 11. 338
Richmond Stree; 11. 188 333, 332
Riding School ?he 11. 1>8
Riding School'Lani, 11. 135
Riddell's Close, I. 110, 1rr,z82, ng:
Riddell's Land, I. 98, 110, 11. 9
Riddle Sir Jama 11. 187 194
Riddle's Close, Liith, 111: 226, 22(
Ri ht of sanctuary, Edinburgt
tastle deorived of the. I. 67
111. 34
, ,
Rillbank IiI. 55
Riots at ;he Cananmills, 111. 87
Risps, or ancient knockers, I. 94
237, 271, 11. 253
35'
Ristori, Madam, the actress, I
Ritchie, the sculptor, 11. 134, 147
336
Ritchie, hitch, 111. 79
Ritchie, Prof. Uavid 11. rg6
Ritchie. William. iditor of thq
Scoto;mm, I. 284
of the Scottish bank note: RE25 and 5s.. 11. 94
Rirzio, David, Murder of, I. 6, 50
92. 3173 11. 41, 58, 66,68, 70, 71
92; abude of. 11. 11,111. 361
Rivio Joseph 11. 68, 70,
Robe4 Abbot)of H~lyrood,~II. 3
Rober;[., 11. 307, 111. 35, 94, 166
Robert II., I. 26, 27. 142, 11. 3
Robeh III., I. 27, 11. 54,111. 317
Robert Bruce, I. 23,24,III. 199,34:
Robert Gourlays house, 1. 116
327,343, 348
323 338, 348.354. 362
331, 354, 355
278, 111. 32, 59, 118, 166, 315
*rao 123 &. David. the oainter. 11. 80 Robei
III. +, 83; his p;rents,lI~. 7;
78; his birthplace, 111. -77, 78
Robertson, Patrick, Lord, 11. 156
175, 191, 193, 19% zoo, 111. 126
240; Lockhart's description 0:
him, 11. I 3 ; Lockhart'sepitaph:
an him, I?. 194
Robertson, Dr., I. 101, 231, 236
271, 273, 11. 27, 194: tomb of
11. * 381. (See also the two fol
Iaving articles)
Robertson, Principal, 1. 106, 261
(See tkc $re.
11. 255, 281, 24% 293. 378, 379
111. 20, 22, 23,45.
ceding andfolrauing artider)
Robertson, the historian, 11. 168
his death, 111. 49; his materna
niece, Lord Brougham's mother
11. 168. (See the two precedizg
Robertson Memorial Estahlishec
Chutch, 111. 50
Robertson, Dr., the Leith historian
111. 167, 173, 218, 219, zzo, 222
226, zA, 229, 23r. 235, 236, 238.
239,245, 2471 249, 256, 259:
2697 2701 276
Robertson Mr I. 175
Robertsonlof zochart, George, I.
204 206
Robekson of Lude, Lieut.-General.
111. 34 ; his black Servant, ib.
Robertson, Geordie, 11. 3'6
Kcbertson, John, and the lepers,
11. I02
Robertson Mrs. Hannah reputed
grand-diughter of Chahes II.,
Robertson's Close, 11. 250, 251
Robertson's Land, I. 178
"Robin Hood,"Gameof, forbidden,
I . 116, 277 ; riot in wnsequence,
II.21,355
1. 126
"Robin Mend-the-Market," 111.
274
RobRoy, 111,9r; thesonsof,I.70;
popularity of the play of, I. 349,
350
Rob Roy's purse, 11. 87
Rohinson, Professor, 11. 86, 191
Rohinson's Land, I. 264
FWwn, the actor, I. 351
Rocheid of Inverleith, Sir James, I
Rocheid family The 111. 94
Rocheid of 1n;erleith James, 111.
95 ; his encounter d t h the Duke
of hlontaw, ib. ; his mother, ib.
111.94, 343
architect. 11. 184
5, 6
Rollinson, the comedian, I. 350
Rollo, Lord, I. 208
Rollock, Hercules, 11. 288, 289
Rullock of Pilton Peter 111. 307
Rollock Robert,' PrinApal of the
Univirsity, I1 -78,111.8,9,16,2
Roman CatholicJchapels attacked
by the mob, 11. 282
Roman Eagle Hall I. IrI
Romanism, BurleAue on 11. 289
Roman relics and coins i. 10
Roman road near Portdbello. I. 10. . . * I2
I. +I0
319
Roman urn foundnear DeanBridge,
Romieu, Paul, the clockmaker, I.
Rood Chapel, Broughton, 111. 151
Rose, Bishop Alexander, 11. 22,
Rosebery, Archibald Earl of, I.
Rosebery Earls of I. g 111. 106
Rosebery: Lord, IiI. :5, 3 5
Rosebery James Ear? of, ?I. 324:
singula; advertisement, ib.
Rosehaugh, the persecutor, 11. 331,
375
Rosehaughs Close I. 253 25
Rose Court, Georie Stree;, If. 1x8
Rosehill, DavidLord, 111. 30
ROM Street, 11. 146, 158, 159, 163,
Rose Street Lane, 11. 150
Rosebank Cemetery, 111. 89
Roseburn Howe 111. I-, 103,
*104; lintel at: III. *Io3; 111-
scriptions at, ib.
Roseburn Mqltings, 111. 102
Rosevale Place 111. 266
Roslin Castle, iII. 346, 3 , *348,
351 ; its early history, 141. 347-
s p ; the St. Clairs (Sinclairs),
111. 131
2572 11. 1042 109
96
say, D a d ) ' ;, Lords, I. 66, 11.326, 339,111.
362
Ross of Hawkhead, Lord, 111.260
Ross, John Earl of I. 247
ROSS David comedian, I. 341, 342
Koss: Walte:, the antiquary, I. 230,
Ross House 11. 338, 339
Ross Park iI. 338, 339
Rosslyn. Earls of, I. 271-273, 111.
33% 111. 71-73
349-
Rosr's Court I. 91
Ross's Towe:. or " Follv."
Rothes, Earls of, I. 159, 11. p, 218,
Rothesay, Duke of, 1. 26, 27. 142,
Rothesay, Earl of, 11. 65
Rothesay Place, 111. 62
Kothiemay, Lady, 1. 281
Rotten Row, Leith, 111. 167. 235
Kotunda The 11. 83
Roubilkk, the'sculptor I. 159
Routing Well, The, 11). 364
Row, Colonel Archibald, I. zoz ; his
wife s tomb, 1. 203
Row, the Church hiatorian, 111.260
Rowites The I. 239
Rowland Hili, the preacher, 11. 103
Roxburgh, Dukes of,I. 128,223,Il.
' 5 , '23
Roxburgh, Earls of, I. 223, 11. 3,
15,50,181,111.57; houseof 11.34
Roxburgh, Dr., botanist, IIi. 162
258
11. 47, 243. 111. 31, 32
Roxburgh Close I. 223
Roxburgh Club,'I. 375
Roxburgh parish 11. 135
Roxburgh Place 'I. 362 111 338
Roxburgh Terrice, 11. j38
Royal apartments in Holpood
Xowl dank. I. 217. 222, 24% 11.
Palace Piate 15
Fro 115, 136 170"171 *17a'
the, 1. 182
335337 *?40
*IQ) its curator 111. 98
111. 71
b y a i Bank Ciose, iI1. h 4 ; fire in
hsyal Blindksylum andschool, 11.
Royal Bo;anic Gardens, 111. gb,
Royal kircus, 11. '195, 199, *ZOI,
Royal Collegeof Physicians, I. 362,
11. 247
Royal Company of Archers 11.348
3, 354; their hall, Ii. * 3 y :
Royal Crescent 111. a6
Royal Edinbuigh Asylum, 111.
25,53
39
Royal Edinburgh Volunteers, I. 63,
Royal Exchange, The, I. 79, 183-
187, *r8 191, 228, 229, a42, 255,
11. 281 ?I]. 125 ;.plan of the, I.
* t 8 8 ; ;he Council Chamber, I.
11. 307. *377, 111. 105, 264
184, 186, Pkfc 7; back of the
Royal Exchange, Plafe 10
Royal family, Submission by the
Jacobites to the, 11. 247
Royal gardens, Holyrood Palace,
11. "65 *69, 9
Royal H~ghlanJ Society, 111. 127
Royal Horse Bazaar 11.225
Royal Hotel, 11. I&; its distinguhhed
guests, ib.
Royal Infirmary, 11. 146, 147, 28r,
282,296, 298-302, 359, 111. 114;
thenewbuilding 11.358,359,*361
Royal Institution,'The, 11. 83, 86,
88. 01. 0 2 : in 1810. 11. *84: at ..
present -11. "85 ='
Royal Lhth Volunteers, The, 111.
198, 264
burgh Castle, I. 32, 36, *68
Royal Life Guards 11. 217
Royal lodging, 0; palace, Edin-
Roval Maternitv Hosnital. 11.2'1
Royal Maternity and $impson hie-
Royal Medical S&iety, I. 123, 11.
morial Hospital 11. 362
yx.303, 111. 266, 311
Royal Riding School, 11. 334, 335
Royal Scots Grey Dragoons I. 64
Rqyal Scottish Academy, 11:86,88,
Royal Scottlsh Naval and Military
Royal Scotkh Volunteer review,
Royal Society, l h e , 11. 83, 86, 204,
89, 9x7 921, I97
Academy 11. 335
11. 320, 354. Plate 23
111. 77
~Oy.2 Terrace 11.103
Royal Terrace'Gardens, 111. 158
Royal tournaments, I. 35
Royston, Lord I. rrr,273,III.310,
311 ; eccenhc pranks of his
daughter, I. 111,135,III.11q, 312
Royston, III.308,310
Koyston Ca5tle, 111. 311
Ruddiman, Thorn=, grammarian,
I. 110, 123, 11. 291, 382, 111. 363
Ruddiman, theprinter, 11.310,III.
Ruglen, Earl of, 111. 122, 3'7
Ruins of the old Market Closeafter
Rule, Principal Gilbert, 111. 14, 16
Rullion Green, 111. p. 334. *337
Rumhold, Richard, 1. 59, 60
Runciman. the oainter. I. oz. axo.
363
the fire, I. *177.
Russell Bishop of Leith 111. 187
Russell: Rev. 'Dr. h d a e l , 111.
Russell the actor I. 350
Rutheriord, Lord: 11. 98, 174, 111.
RutAerford Sir John 11. 356
Rutherford: Alison, iI. 156
Rutherford, Andrew, 11. 156
Rutherford, Dr., the fint inventor
243
68 ITI
of gas, I. 274, 276, 11. 383; hu
nephew, Sir Walter Scott, I. 276
Rutherford the botanist 11. 1zo
Rutherford: Anne(Si WAterScott's
mother) 11. 142
Rutherfurd-Clark, Lord, 111.26
Ruthven David Lord I. 178
Ruthven: Williarn Loh I. 6 206
215, 316, 11. 66, 70, 71; II1.'174!
his dagger I. 317
Ruthven Si; Patrick, I. 52, 54, 95
Ruthven' the printer 11.18 111.271
Ruthven's Land L i d I. 5x6
Rutland Street, \I. I$, zog
Ryan, the actor, 11.23
S
Sabbath, Breaches of the, 11. 132,
Sadler Sir Ralph, 111. 154 20)
Sailin;, Early restrictions on, III.
I33
'59
ailors' Home, Leith, 111. a59
'Salamander Land," The, 1. 142
Salamander Street, Leith, 111. 239
Salisbury, Earl of I1 305
Salisbury Craigs, \. I&, 384,II. 60,
161, 303, 305, 34, 3'372 311. 111,
142
Salisbury Road 111. 55
Salmon, Charle;, the local poet, 11.
310
111. 164
Salmon Pool, The, Water of Leith,
Salt Backet The, 11. 178
Saltoun, h i d , 11. 343, 344
Fmpson's Grave,!I. 319
Sarnsou's Ribs, I. 11. 11. 312,
313
Sancto Claro, W i l l i de, 111. 35
Sanctuary Court-house, 11. 11
Sand Port Leith 111.171, 177,281
Sand PoriStreet' Leith 111. 259
Sandford Bishod 11. 1:6 111. 147
Sandford: Sir Dakel K. iI. 126
Sand-glasses, Use of, in law courts,
Sandiland, James, 111. 42
Sandilands, Sir James, I. 195, 245,
302 11. 47 65 111. 116
Sandhand's ho;e I 240
Saughton Bridge'IiI. 319, *3zo
Saughton Hall, iII. 19
Saughton House, I d . 3 9 , * 320; a
drunken brawl I11 19
Saughton Laan knd,'dl. 319
Saunders Street, 111. 76
Saxe-Coburg Place 111. 75
Schmitz, Dr.Leonhh, 11.111,III.
School House Wynd, 111.2
School Lane, 111. 28
Sciennes Court, 111. 54
Sciennes Hall 111. 51
Sciennes Hill house 111. 55
Sciennes b a n III. \4
Sciennes, The,' 111. 29, 50, 51, $2,
I. I72
81
Scott William Lord Stowell, I. 299
Scott: LordJdhn, 111. 322
Scott, Sir Gilbert, the architect, 11.
111, 213, 111. 243
Scott, Sir John, 1. 210
Scott, Sir Walter, I. 3, 7, 12, 7'. 75,
1077 '23,1% 1% 150, 1549 163.
166, 171,173, 179, 182, 211, 222,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p206.gif "Volume 6 Page 387")
... INDEX. 387
Rhind. David. architect. 11. 147
275, '2 6, I I t . 67 244 .
Rhmd, {anet, ToAb of, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 387 (Rel. 0.05)
![3 76 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Xrskine, Lady Elizabeth, 11. 115
3rskine. Mrs. Mary, 11. 272, 362
Erskine Club, 11. 27
2scape of risoners from Edinburgh
Ssk, The river, 111. 318, 346, 353,
3% 361, 364;
Sskgrove, Lord,\I.d, 120,111.367
Ssplanade, The, I. 79, 83, 86
Esten, Mrs., the actress, I. 346,
Castle, &tempted, I. 71
3557 357, 358, 35
the coal seams 171. 358, 359
11. 778
Edinburgh Dock, Leith, 111. 284,
Edinburgh Duke of 111. 288
Edinburgh' Dukedok of 111. 126
Edinburghkducational Ihstitution,
Edinburgh Hospital for Incurables,
Edinburgh IndustrialSchool, I. 264,
Edinburgh Institution for Educa-
286, 287
11. 158
111. 55
* 265
tion
Edinb
Educafion 11. 344
Edinburgh ~teruyInstitute,III.g~
Edinburgh Mechanics' Subscription
tion If. 200
Edindlrrgh Kruinv, The, I. 339,
11. 143 191 203 47 111. 43
Edinburih difle b k n t e e r Hall,
11. 326
Edinburgh School of Art, I. 379,380
Edinbureh Theatrical Fund Asso-
Gr; ~ ~ a t e ' 2 9
,gh kolunteer Artillery, I.
286, 323
Edinburgh Volunteers, 11. 76, 82,
188, 219, 371, 372, 373. 374>'"377r
Edidurgk We&& jrrumal, 111.
799 82, 89, 143, 754
Edzn6argh WreRly IWagozitre, I.
3331 11. 3 53 111.83, 1:4~ IS?, 744
Edinburgh toung Mens Chnstran
Association I. 379
Edmonston 6dge, 1. 43, 111. 338
Edmonstone, Lord, 111. 339
Edmonstone, Colonel, 11. 161
Edmouctone 111. 339
EAmonstone'House, 111. 338, '31;
its owners, 111. 338, 33
Edmonstone of Duntreat;, 11. 139,
111. 338
Edmonstones The 111. 338, 339
Edward I., 1.'23, i1. 46,111.41~43,
351 ; captures Edinburgh Castle,
111.39
338
Elcho, Lord, I. 326,327.11.31~318,
Elder. Lord Provost. 11. IW. 176.
322, 111. 198, zzz, 366
, -.. . .
17?.'282. 111. 21
Eldii, Li&t.-Col&el, 11. 371
Elder Street, 11. 176
Eldin, Lord, II., 186, 187, 111. 167,
260; hisfondnessforuts, 11. 186'
;cadent at the sale ofhis effects.
11.
Eldin:%hn Clerk of, 11. 186, 191
Eldin douse, 111. 359
Electric time-ball, The, 11. 108
Elgin Earl of I. 107, 336
Elibak, PatAck Lord, I. 83, 101,
Elizabeth Countess of Ross, I. 246
Elizabeth: Queen, I. 47. 49, 111.
174, 175, 178 : her death, I. zoz
Elllock, Lord, 111. 142
Elliot, Sir George, I. 210
11. 27, 166, 351
Elliot Sir Gilbert, 11. 273
Ellio; Sir ohn 111. 340
Elliot: Archaid architect, 11. 188
Klliot of Minto, sir Gilbert, 11. 161
Elliot of Minto, Miss Jeannie,
Elliot thepublisher I. 181 111.154
Elm Place Leith, iII. 268
Elm Row Leith Walk, II1.154,158
Elphinstdne, Lord, 11. 103, 352
Elphinstone, James, Lord Balme-
Elphidstone, Charles Lord, 11.174 ;
Elphinstone, 3owager Lady, 11.
authoress, 11. a71
rino 111. 135
his sons, i6.
279
11. 274
'36
Elphinstone, Admiral Sir Charles,
Elphinstone, Lieut.-Gen. Lord, 11.
Elphmstone, Sir Howard, 11. a83
Elphinstone, Sir James, I. 271, 11.
Elphinstone Sir ohn 111. 42
Elphinstone' Sir fohnitone, 111. 91
Elphinstone: Hon. Alexander, 111.
262, 263
Elphinstone Court, I. 271--274,
*27z ; distinguished residents in,
203. 111.128
I. 271-274
Elphinstone of Barnton, Lord Bal-
Elphinstone, The Master of, 111.
merino, 111. 317
182
Elphinstone family, The, 111. azz
Elphinstone, Mistress of, I. 257
Elphinetones of Lopie, The, 111. 91
Emery, the actor, I. 348
" Encyclopredia Britannica." The,
I. ZII, 223, 339,Il. 126,165, 111.
En myhe's Well, 1. 276, 277
English Episcopal Chapel, I. 262
English in Scotland, The, I. 23, 24,
II!. 3+, 35: ; driven out, I. 25
English invasion expected, 11. 330
Englishmen captured by Scotsmen,
7$ 247
1. 3'
Entablature above the Gateway,
Edinburgh Castle I. 51
Environs of Edinbdrgh, The, 111.
314-368 : map of, 111. * 325
EpimplChapel Cowgate 11.247
*q9, 111. 63 ;'its bell, iI. 247 i
its ministers, i6.
Episcopal €hapel, Leith, Theearly,
111. 230
Episcopacy in Edinburgh, Attempt
to enforce,.I. 51 144 208, 11. 131,
a46, 375 ; its sekcei at one time
@armed by stealth, 111. 231
Euiscoualian Church. Portobello.
-111. i '53
Errol, Earl of, I. 147, 11. 159, 318,
111. 323 ; Countess of, II.59,166,
3x8
Erskine. Tohn. Earl of Mar. I. *37. . ...
44 335- .
Ersdine, Lord Chancellor, 11. 111,
Erskine, John Lord, 11. zrg, 111.
z87, 111. 271
31?
111. 318
Erskme, Sir Alexander, I. 220,371,
Erskine of Cynbq Sir Charles, I.
37'
Erskine, Sir Harry, 11. 344
Erskine, SirThomas 111. 318
Erskme, Gen. Sir Wham, 11.307
Erskine Sir William I. 63 111.258
Erskingof Alva, Chgles h r d Justice-
clerk I. 236 237
Erskineof &a, SiiCharles, 11.243
Erskine of Cardross, I. 282
Erskine of Carnock 11.379
Erskine of Dun II.'67, 68
Enkine of Foikst, Capt. James
Erskine of Mar, John Francis, 11.
Erskme of Scotscraig, Sir Arthur,
Erskine of Torrie, Sir James, 11.89
Enkine, Hon. Andrew. 11.115
Erskine. Hon. Henrv. 1. 115, 15%
Francis, 11. 282
249
11. 70
166, G5, II.26,122; 143, 163, rig;
Enkme, Hon. James, I. 247 (sec
Grange, Erskine, Lord)
Erskine, Dr. John, 11. 37
Erskine, Lady Barbara, I?. 319,320
248, 339, 111. 34, 362
Eton Tekace, 111. 74
Ettrick Shepherd, The (see Hogg,
Etty, the painter, 11. 89, 91
Evers Lord I. 43
Ewbank, John, the painter, 11. 19,
Ewing, Greville, I. 361, 362
Exchange, The I. 176 178
Exchange Buiidings, 'Leith, 111.
1713 244, "245
Exchequer, The, I. 178
Excise Office, The, 1. IIZ, 113, 217,
*zm, 11. 23, 110, 191. 259, 260;
robberies at the, I. n2--114
Excise Office, Drummond Place, 11. * rgz, 111. '24
Execution of English pirates at
Leith, 111. 190, 191
Executions for various offences, I.
83. 84. 867 115, 117, 122, 1 6 2347
281, 332, 11. 228, 230,231, 238
(set &sa Grassmarket)
James)
111. 79
F
Faed, the painter, 11. 89, 111. 82
Fairbairn, Rev. Dr., 111. 303, *304;
Fairfax Admiral d r W. G., 11. 198
Fairho<me Adam 111. 47
Fairholm: Bailie' 111. 47
Fairholme: Jam,;, 111. 46, 47
Fairholme, George, 111. 47
Fairholme Thomas, 111. 47
Fairies' or Ha gis Knowe, 11. 319
Fair Maid of 8alloway, The, I. 31
Fairnielee, Alan of, Provost, 11. 278
Fairy Boy, The, 11. 101
Fairy Halec Newhaven 111. 299
Falcon Had, 111. 39 ; 'its owner,
Falconer, hliss, 111. 38
Falconer of Borrowstounnes. Sir
his philanthropy 111. 303
111. 38
David, Lord President, II.'379,
Falconer Patrick 111. 365
Falconer' Will& author of the
Falconer ofHalkertoun.Lord.II.97~
111. 199, 202, 206
"Shipkreck," I.'216
Falkirk, Battle of (see battl&] "-_
Falkirk Road, 11. 215
False news, Easy circulation of,
I. 60
11. &A. *&F. 111. 67
Falshaw, Sir James, Lord Provost,
FalshawStreG; 111.
Fast Castle, 111. 37, 134, 135
Faucit, Mis Helen, actress, I. 351
Fenton, Viscount, 111. 318
Fentonbams, Lord, I. 207
Fenwick, the ainter, 11. 1%
Fergusson Large (Lord Her.
mand) i. 170 173 11. 207; hir
defenh of the '45pr?lsoners, I. 17c
Fergussan, Sir C. Dalrymple, 111.
367
Fergusson, Robert, poet, I. I q ,
119, 230, 238, 348, 11. 127. 194,
310, 324, 38, 111. 125, 295, 269
tomb of If. * 30
Fergusso;, Robert, I' the plotter,'
I. 66
Fergusson of Pitfour Jams I. 202
Fergusson, Dr. A&, histokm, I.
123,236,11.27,29,191,111.55,24~
Fergussoii, Dr., the friend of H u e ,
1. 99
Fergusson, Dr., 11. 153
Ferrier, James, Clerk of Session,
11. 139
Ferrier, Miss Susan, novelist, I.
106, 11. 139, 194; her husband,
Ferries of Leith, The ancient, 111.
Ferry Rcad, 11.82, I I ~ , 116,111.64
11. 139
211,212
Fettes, Lord Provost Sir William,
11.31. 173,283.111.82, 97 ; Lady,
11. 318
Fettes College, 111. *Eo, 82, 97, 288
Fettes, the painter, 11. 89
Fettes Row, I. 135, 11. 185
Feuds of the Newhaven and her.
toil ns fishermen 111. 300 01
Fife, Earl of, I. 350,'II. 86, &86,
146 ; Lady, 111. 265
Figgate Burn. 111. 143, 144, 146,
259, 263
Figgate hluir, 111 142, 143
Figgate Whins 111. 144, 236
Filby, Goldsmih's tailor, 11. a51
Fincaytle Lord 11. 120
Fingzie Glace, Leith, 111. 266
Finlay, Wilson's friend, 11. 199
Fire of 1824, Ruins of the, I. ' 185
Fire, SirW. Scott'ssto ofa, 11.5 6
First Parliament of Tames VIi.
Cavalcadeat theopening of, I.%;
FirthofForth,The, 11.151.319,III.
164, 165, 166, 169, 180, 181, 188,
191, 192, 1931 198, 201, 202, 209,
2x2, 228, 270. 274, 282, 287, 312,
Fishermen, Rigits of the Newhaven,
111. 301
Fisher's Close, I. I I I . 11. 242
Fish-hwks, First mmufacturer of.
314, 3227 326, 66
11. 263
" Fishwives' Causeway," I. 10, 12,
Fishwomen ot Musselburgh, 11. 22
F.( sec . also Newhaven)
itzsimmons, Rev. Mr., 11. 248
Flaxman the sculptor, 11. 135
Fleming,'Lurd, I. 40, 262, 111.~98,
349; marriage of 11. 306
Flemihg, Sir lame;, I. 196
Fleshers The 11. 265
Flesh Mkket,'The,I. 1gz,21g,II.17
Fleshmarket Close, 1.113, 1~1,138,
*232, 236, 338, 11. 77 ; formerly
the Provost's office 11. 227
Fletcher Laurence cbmedian, 11.40
Fletche;ofSaltoui, 11.34, 111. go,
Flockhart's tavern 11. 333
Flodden Field Ba;Lle of(reeBatt1es)
Flodden Wall: The, I. 38, + 40,183,
278, 381, 11. 221, 239, 339 a
Flora Macdonald, 11. 87, ~ 1 4 ~ 124
Faod riots 111. 87
Football, k'rohibition of, 111. p
Foote, the comedian, I. 342, 343,
Fwte, Maria, actresq, I. 350
Forks Lord 11. 194
Forbeid Cuioden, Lord President
Duncan 1. 159,161, 166, 330, 11.
83,382;'his fondness for golf, 111.
31, 262 ; his biographer, 111. 43
Forbes Sir John Stuart 11. 151
~ o r h ' of Pitsligo, sir killiam, I.
142, 143, 188, ?93, 318,'11I. 47:
244, 323 ; his wife, 11. 383
Forks, Prof. Edward, t he naturalist,
111. 68 242, 307
Forbes df Tolquhoun, Sir Alexander,
I. 236
Forks-Drummond, Sir JohnJI. 270
Forks The Master of 1. 8
F o r k : Rev. Rokrt: Bisiop of
Fordun, John de, I. 297, 11. 53,
Fordyce of Aytoun, I. 275
Foreign clothiers. Introduction of,
111. 144, 165
150
111. 163
158, 176, 179-181, 239 11. 120
Caithness, 111. 231
111. 27
Forglen, Lord, I. 235, 236
Forglen's Park, 11. 325
Forres Street 11.
Forrest of domiston, Sir James,
Lord Provost, 11. 284, 111. 326
Forrest Road, 11. 103, ~ 6 7 ~ 323.326,
Forrest's Coffee-house, Edinburgh,
Forrester Lord 111. 119
Forrester: Sir kdam, I. 122, 278,
Forrester Sir Andrew, 11. 24
Forrester: Sir John, I, 31, Ill. 115,
367
111. 210 .
111. 115, 118, 327
11% 318
Forreater Lords, 111. 119-121
Forreste; family, The, 111. 116,](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p195.gif "Volume 6 Page 376")
... 76 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Xrskine, Lady Elizabeth, 11. 115
3rskine. Mrs. Mary, 11. 272, 362
Erskine Club, 11. ...
Vol. 6 p. 376 (Rel. 0.05)
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