... worth consideration ; but, interesting as it is, it
need not detain us long here.
In the ? Myrvyian, or ...
Book 1 p. 14
(Score 0.44)
... OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. me West Bow.
sorely. Keeping on the defensive, Westerhall
gave way step by step, ...
Book 2 p. 316
(Score 0.43)
... end we might pass to Heaven with all this
gear! But fie on the knave Death !-that will
come whether ye will ...
Book 3 p. 68
(Score 0.43)
![Leith.] DEATH OF JAMES 111. 201
1488-he embarked in one of Sir Andrew?s ships
then anchored in the Roads of Leith, and landed
from it in Fifeshire. As the Admiral had been lying
there for some time, intending to sail to Flanders,
the Barons, now in arms against the Crown, spread
a report that James had fled, surprised the castle
of Dunbar, furnished themselves with arms and
ammunition out of the royal arsenal, ? and,? says
Abercrombie, ? overran the three Lothians and
the Merse, rifling and plundering all honest men.?
In April, 1488, the king re-crossed the Forth in
the admiral?s ship, and, marching past Stirling,
pitched his standard near Blackness, where his
army mustered thirty thousand, and some say
forty thousand, strong, but was disbanded after an
indecisive skirmish. Fresh intrigues ensued that
belong to general history; two other armies, in
all amounting to nearly seventy thousand men,
took the field James 111. had no alternative but
to take flight in the ships of Wood, then cruising
in the Forth, or to resort to the sword on the 11th
June, 1488.
His army took up a position near the Bum of
Sauchie, while ?? Sir Andrew Wood, attending to
the fortune of war, sailed up the silver winding of
the beautiful river with the FZmw and YelZow
CaraveZ, and continued during the whole of that
cloudless day to cruise between dusky Alloa and
the rich Carse of Stirling, then clothed im all the
glory of summer.? On the right bank of the river
he kept several boats ready to receive the king if
defeat-as it eventually did-fell upon him, and
he often landed, with his brothers John and Robert
and a body of men, to yield any assistance in his
power.
While attempting to reach the ships James was
barbarously slain, and was lying dead in a mill
that still stands by the wayside, when rumour went
that he had reached the YeZZow Caravd Thus
Wood received a message in the name of the Duke
of Rothesay (afterwards James IV.), as to the truth
of this story; but Sir Andrew declared that the
king was not with him, and refilsed to go on shore,
when invited, without hostages for his own safety.
The Lords Fleming and Seaton came on board
in this capacity, and landing at Leith the admiral
was conducted to the presence of the Prince, who
was then a captive and tool in the hands of the
rebels, and only in his sixteenth year. Wood was
arrayed in handsome armour, and so dignified was
he in aspect, and so much did he resemble the
king his master, that the Prince, who had seen little
of the latter, shed tears, and said, timidly-
?? Sir, are you my father? ?
. Then this true old Scottish mariner, heedless of
123
the titled crowd which regarded him with bitter
hostility, and touched to the heart by the question,
also burst into tears, and said-
? I am not your father, but his faithful servant,
and the enemy of all who have occasioned his
downfall ! ?
? Where is the king, and who are those you took
on board after the battle?? demanded several of
the rebel lords.
?? As for the king, I know nothing of him. Finding
our efforts to fight for or to save him vain, my
brother and I returned to our ships.? He added,
says Buchanan, ?that if the king were alive he
would obey none but him; ,and that if slain, he
would revenge him ! ?
He then went off to the ships, but just in time
to save the hostages, whom his impatient brothers
were about to hang at the yard-arm. The lords
now wanted the mariners of Leith to arm their
ships, and attack Wood; but, to a man, they
declined.
In the early part of 1489 Henry of England, to
make profit out of the still disturbed state of Scotland,
sent five of his largest ships to waste and burn
the sea-coast villages of Fife and the Lothians ; and
the young James IV., in wrath at these proceedings,
requested Sir Andrew Wood to appear before the
Privy Council and take measures to curb the outrages
of the English.
He at once undertook to attack them ; but James,
as they outnumbered him by three, advised him to
equip more vessels.
?? No: he replied,? ?? I shall only take my own
two-the FZower and the Jl?ellow Carard.?
Accordingly, .with the first fair wind on a day in
February, he dropped down the Firth, and found
the plunder-laden English vessels hovering off
Dunbar, and which Tytler surmises to have been
pirates, as they came in time of truce. Wood at
once engaged them, and after an obstinate conflict,
of which no details are preserved, he brought them
all prizes into Leith. He presented their captains
to the young king, who now further rewarded him on
the 11th March, 1490, with the lands of Balbegnoth,
the superiority of Inchkeith, the lands of
Dron and Newbyrn ; and by a charter under the
Great Seal, 18th May, 1491, he granted to Sir
Andrew Wood ? license to build a castfe at Largo
with gates of iron as a reward for the great services
done and losses sustained by the said Andrew, and
for those services which there was no doubt he
would yet render.? This castle, fragments of which
yet remain, he appears to have built, with some
adjacent houses, by the hands of English pirates
whom he had captured at sea; and the coat](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p020.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 201")
... DEATH OF JAMES 111. 201
1488-he embarked in one of Sir Andrew?s ships
then anchored in the Roads of ...
Book 6 p. 201
(Score 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Merchistom
captain named ScougaL
After a hard struggle, during which several ...
Book 5 p. 36
(Score 0.43)
... VI. TO RESTORATION OF CHARLES 11. 97
to the street, at the head of the West Bow, till 1822, when it was ...
Book 10 p. 106
(Score 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Water of Leith
name doesnot appear in the Baronage) was Sheriff and
Provost of ...
Book 5 p. 62
(Score 0.43)
![Beechwood.] SIR ROBERT DUNDAS OF BEECHWOOD. 105
to the Castle of Edinburgh under a strong escort of
their comrades.
General Leslie, and Lieutenant MacLean the
adjutant, having accompanied this party a little
way out of Glasgow, were, on their return, assailed
by a mob which sympathised with the Highlanders
and accused them of being active in sending
away the prisoners. The tumult increased,
stones were thrown ; General Leslie was knocked
down, and he and MacLean had to seek shelter
these documents were not formally executed, were
confused in their terms, and good for nothing in a
legal sense, Mrs. Rutherford of Edgerstoun very
generously fulfilled to the utmost what she conceived
to be the intentions of her father.
Sir Robert Dundas, Bart., of Beechwood, like the
preceding, figures in the pages of Kay. He was
one of the principal Clerks of Session, and Deputy
Lord Privy Seal of Scotland. He was born in
June, 1761, and was descended from the Dundases
BEECHWOOD.
in the house of the Lord Provost till peace
officers came, and a company of Fencibles. One
of the mutineers was shot, by sentence of a
court-martial. The others were sent to America.
On his way back to Edinburgh General Leslie
was seized with a dangerous illness, and died at
' Beechwood House on the 27th of December,
'794.
No will could be found among the General's repositories
at Beechwood, and it was presumed that
he had died intestate. However, a few days after
the filneral, two holograph papers were discovered,
bequeathing legacies to the amount of L7,ooo
among some of his relations and friends, particularly
.&I,OOO each to two natural daughters. Although
110
of Amiston, the common ancestor of whom was
knighted by Charles I., and appointed to the
bench by Charles 11. Educated as a Writer to
the Signet, he was made deputy-keeper of Sashes,
and in 1820 a principal Clerk of Session. He was
one of the original members of the old Royal
Edinburgh Volunteers, of which corps he was a
lieutenant in 1794. He purchased from Lord
Melville the estate of Dunira in Perthshire, and
succeeded to the baronetcy and the estate of
Beechwood on the death of his uncle General Sir
David Dundas, G.C.B., who was for some time
Commander-in-Chief of the forces. Sir Robert
died in 1835.
A winding rural carriage-way, umbrageous and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p116.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 105")
... SIR ROBERT DUNDAS OF BEECHWOOD. 105
to the Castle of Edinburgh under a strong escort of
their ...
Book 5 p. 105
(Score 0.43)
... NISBET$ OF DEAN. 65 The Water of Leith.1
Embosomed among venerable trees, the old
house of a baronial family, ...
Book 5 p. 65
(Score 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [North Bridge.
from somewhere about Coltbridge, to fill, and run
through the North ...
Book 2 p. 336
(Score 0.43)
... made the ornate edifice we find it now, with
?oriel windows and clustering turrets. He was
author of ?The ...
Book 5 p. 50
(Score 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Grassmarket.
Watt and Downie, they were brought to trial respectively
in August and ...
Book 4 p. 238
(Score 0.43)
... reign of James 111. there were two or three
vessels called ?royal,? and among them often
appears the ...
Book 6 p. 200
(Score 0.43)
![Leith Walk.] GAYFIELD HOUSE. IGI
ceeded to the title, which is now extinct. The
latter?s sister, Maria Whiteford, afterwards Mrs.
Cranston, was the heroine of Bums?s song, ?The
Idass 0? Ballochmyle,? her father being one of the
poet?s earliest and warmest patrons.
The Gayfield quarter seems to have been rather
aristocratic in those days. In 1767, David, sixth
Earl of Leven, who had once been a captain in the
army, occupied Gayfield House, where in that year
his sister, Lady Betty, was married to John, Earl of
Walk is shown edificed from the corner of Picardy
Place to where we now find Gayfield Square,
which, when it was first erected, was called Gayfield
Place. West London Street was then called
Anglia Street, and its western continuation, in
which old Gayfield House is now included, was not
contemplated. North of this house is shown a
large area, ? Mrs. D. Hope?s feu ;? and between it
and the Walk was the old Botanical Garden.
In 1783 Sir John Whiteford, Bart., of that ilk,
Gordon, relict of Sir Alexander Gordon of Lesmoir,
Bart., died there.
Gayfield House is now a veterinary college.
In 1800 Sir John Wardlaw, Bart., of Pitreavie,
resided in Gayfield Square ; and there his wife, the
daughter of Mitchell of Pitteadie (a ruined castle
in Fifeshire), died in that year. He was a colonel
in the army, and died in 1823, a lieutenantcolonel
of the 4th West India Regiment.
No. I, Gayfield Place, was long the residence of
BOARD SCHOOL, LOVER?S LOAN.
a well-known citizen in his time, Patrick Crichton,
whose father was a coachbuilder in the Canongate,
and who, in 1805, was appointed lieutenantcolonel
commandant of the 2nd Regiment of Edinburgh
Local Militia. He had entered the army when
young, and attained the rank of captain in the
57th Regiment, with which he served during the
American war, distinguishing himself so much that
he received the public thanks of the comrnanderin-
chief. Among his friends and brother-oficers.
then was Andrew Watson, whose brother George
founded the Scottish Academy. When the war was
over he retired, and entered into partnership with
his father ; and on the first formation of the Volunteers,
in consequence of his great military e x p](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p172.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 161")
... Walk.] GAYFIELD HOUSE. IGI
ceeded to the title, which is now extinct. The
latter?s sister, Maria Whiteford, ...
Book 5 p. 161
(Score 0.43)
... OLD THEATRE ROYAL, IN PROCESS PP DEMOLITION.
CHAPTER XLV.
EAST SIDE OF THE NORTH BRIDGE ...
Book 2 p. 353
(Score 0.43)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Greyfriars Church.
and, forming a part of her volunteer forces, six
battalions of ...
Book 4 p. 374
(Score 0.43)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 119")
... THE FORRESTERS. 119
of land, in any proper place;? and in 1383 there
followed another charter from ...
Book 5 p. 119
(Score 0.43)
... were committed prisoners to his care, and
remained there till the pacification of Berwick.
On the 19th ...
Book 1 p. 52
(Score 0.42)
... ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE. I09
them in the middle of the West Bow, and offered
to write the bond which they ...
Book 5 p. 109
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW
Street; and till 1856 the annual sittings of the Free
Assembly were held in it.
Here, too, in ...
Book 5 p. 88
(Score 0.42)
... AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 75
Pinkie, was the same who got built for himself the even more stately ...
Book 11 p. 120
(Score 0.42)
![BARBARA NAPIER 3?9 The West Bow.]
tlength, involving that of many others; but a portion
of the charges against her will suffice as a sample
of the whole, from U Pitcairn?s Trials.?
?? Satan had informed the witches that James VI.
sf Scotland was the greatest enemy he had, and
the latter?s visit to Norway, to bring over his queen,
seemed to afford an opportunity for his destrucition.
Accordingly, Dr. Fiar of Tranent, the
.devil?s secretary, summoned a great gathering of
witches on Hallow Eve, when zoo of them embarked,
each in a riddle or sieve, with much mirth
.and jollity; and after cruising about somewhere on
the ocean with Satan, who rolled himself before
them on the waves, dimly seen, but resembling a
huge haystack in size and aspect, he delivered to
-one of the company, named Robert Grierson, a
cat, which had been drawn previously nine times
through a crook, giving the order to ?cast the same
into the sea.? ?
This remarkable charm was intended to raise
such a furious tempest as would infallibly drown
the king and queen, then on their homeward
lroyage from Christiania, which, if any credit may
be given to the declaration of James (who greedily
swallowed the story), was not without some effect,
as the ship which conveyed him encountered a
furious contrary wind, while all the rest of the fleet
.had a fair one and a smooth sea.
On this, Barbara Napier and her infernal companions,
after regaling themselves with wine out of
their sieves, landed, and proceeded in procession
t o North Berwick Kirk, where the devil awaited
them in the pulpit, singing as they went-
?? Cummer go ye before, cummer go ye ;
Cif ye winna gang before, cummer let me.?
Sir James Melville gives us a most distinct account
-of the devil?s appearance on this auspicious ocusion.
His body was like iron; ?his faice was
terrible; his nose like the bek of an egle;? he
had claws like those of a griffin on his hands and
>feet. He then called the roll to see that all were
present, and all did him homage in a manner
.equally humiliating and indecorous, which does
not admit of description here.
All this absurdity being proved against Barbara
Napier, she was sentenced, with many others, on
the 11th of May, 1590, to be burnt ?at a stake sett
on the Castle HiU, with barrells, coales, heather,
and powder;? but when the torch was about to
be applied, pregnancy was alleged, according to
? Calderwood?s Historie,? as a just and sufficient
Cause for staying proceedings; the execution was
delayed, and ultimately the unfortunate creature
was set at liberty by order of James VI, Now
nothing remains of these Napiers but their tomb
and burial-place on the north side of the choir of
St. Giles?s.
In the basement of the house which was once
theirs was the booth from which the rioters, on the
night of the 7th September, 1736, obtained the
rope with which they hanged Porteous. It was
then rented by a woman named Jeffrey, a dealer in
miscellaneous wares, who offered them the rope
gratis when she learned for what purpose it was
required, but one of the conspirators threw a
guinea on the counter as payment. The house of
the Napiers was demolished in 1833.
Opposite the mansion of Provost Stewart, and
also outside the Bow Port, but on the east side of
the bend, was a tenement known as ?the Clockmaker?s
Land,? which was demolished in 1835, to
make way for what is now Victoria Street, but
which ?took its name from an eminent watchmaker,
a native of France, named Paul ,Romieu, who is
said to have occupied it from the time of Charles
11. (about 1675) till the beginning of the eighteenth
century. In front of the house there remained,
until its demolition, one of the wonders of the
Bow-a curious piece of mechanism, which formed
the sign of the ingenious Paul Romieu. It projected
over the street from the third storey-a gilded
ball representing the moon, which was made to
revolve by means of clockwork. A large iron
key of antique form, which was found among the
ruins of this house, is preserved in the hfuseum of
Antiquities.
Among the oldest edifices in ]this part of the
street was one which bore the singular name of
the ?? Mahogany Land,? having an outer stair protected
by a screen of wood. There was no date
to record its erection, but its ceilings were curiously
adorned by paintings precisely similar to those
which were found in the palace of Mary of Guise
in the Castle Hill ; and no record remained of its
generations of inmates, save that, like others about
to be mentioned, it bore the iron cross of the
Temple, and also the legend-which, from being a
simply moral apophthegm, and not Biblical, was
supposed to be anterior to the Reformation-22 .
yt. fhZis . overcommis, (i.e., ?He that bears overcomes.?)
There was also a half-obliterated shield.
For ages the Bow was famous as the chief place
for whitesmiths, and till about the time of its demcr
lition there was scarcely a shop in it occupied by
any other tradesmen, and even on Sunday the
ceaseless clatter of their hammers on all hands
rang from morning till night.
Behind the Mahogany Land ? lay several steep,
narrow, and gloomy closes, containing the most](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p139.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 319")
... NAPIER 3?9 The West Bow.]
tlength, involving that of many others; but a portion
of the charges against ...
Book 2 p. 319
(Score 0.42)
... 425
1645.-About this date two drawings of Edinburgh appear to have been made, from which engravings ...
Book 10 p. 464
(Score 0.42)
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