... House
PARLIAMENT HOUSE IN THE PRESENT DAY.
the Earl of Marchmont
Earl of Cromarty . . . . 300 0 ...
Book 1 p. 164
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Dab.
~~ ~~
Cuthbert?s, in 1831, for .&2,500, and seated for
1,300.
The church ...
Book 4 p. 216
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND PEW EDINBUKGH. [Leith.
on the coast of East Lothian, from whence the way
to England was open and ...
Book 5 p. 192
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [1745!.
CEIAFTER XL.
E D I N B U R G H IN 1745.
Provost Stewart-Advance of the ...
Book 2 p. 322
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
~ ~~ ~~ ~
period, and in 1736- one of unusual brilliance
was given in ...
Book 3 p. 76
(Score 0.42)
... him an intimation that he was to be made
prisoner, and advised him to lose no time in
assuming the defensive. ...
Book 1 p. 39
(Score 0.42)
... . OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Inverleith.
the long hill on the south side of the West Port,
from Cowfeeder Row to ...
Book 5 p. 94
(Score 0.42)
... OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [Cowgate.
showed that the barrel had been placed so as to collect
the rain water from ...
Book 4 p. 246
(Score 0.42)
... 16 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
We shall only add, that until our civic rulers manifest, by some such act, 8 regard ...
Book 10 p. 127
(Score 0.42)
... 40 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Moredun.
and a father, his afflicted widow and daughters
erect this memorial of ...
Book 6 p. 340
(Score 0.42)
... Qeorge, 42,247
Buck Stane, 124
Bullock, William, 8
Bud, John, the Poet, 88, 316
Burgess ...
Book 10 p. 500
(Score 0.42)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 127")
... PRISONERS. 7 127 The Talbooth.]
was sitting in the Tolbooth hearing the case of the
Laud of Craigmillar, who ...
Book 1 p. 127
(Score 0.42)
... 1 A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. ?3
one with a dark lantern ; but notwithstanding that
a pardon and zoo ...
Book 5 p. 13
(Score 0.42)
![Koslin.] THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the means of communication between
the two being by a steep descent of steps. Its use
has sorely puzzled antiquaries, though it forms a
handsome little chapel, with ribbed arches and roof
of stone. Under its eastern window is an altar, and
there is a piscina and anibry for the sacramental
plate, together with a comfortable fireplace and a
rob+ of closets.
?? Its domestic appurtenances,? says a writer,
clearly- show. it. to have been the <house of: the
priestvrcustodier of the chapel, and the ecclesiastical?types
first named were for his private nieditation
; and thus the puzzle ceases.?
Near the,chapel is St, Mathew?s Well. The
parish of Roslin possesses many relics and traditions
of the famous three battles which were fought
there in one day-the 24th of February, 1302 :-
? Three triumphs in a day,
Three hosts subdued in one,
Beneath one common sun !?
Three armies scattered like the spray
On the 26th of January, 1302, the cruel and
treacherous Edward I. of England concluded a
treaty of truce-not peace-with Scotland, while,
on the other hand, he prepared to renew the war
against her. To this end he marched in an army
of 2o,ooo--Some say 30,ooo-men, chiefly cavalry,
under Sir John de Segrave, with orders?less to
fight than to waste and devastate the already wasted
country.
To obtain ptovisions with more ease, Segrave
marched his force in three columns, each a mile or
two apart, and the 24th of February saw them on
the north bank of the Esk, at three places, still
indicated by crossed swords on the county map ;
the first at Roslin ; the second . at Loanhead, on
high ground, still named, from the battle, ? Killrig,?
north of the village ; and the third at Park Bum,
near Gilmerton Grange.
Meanwhile, Sir John Comyn, Guardian of the
Kingdom, and Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver Castle
(the friend and comrade of Wallace), Heritable
Sheriff of Tweeddale, after mustering a force of
only 8,000 men-but men carefully selected and
well armed-marched from Biggar in the night,
and in the dull grey light of the February morning,
in the wooded glen near Roslin Castle, came
suddenly on the first column, under Segrave.
Animated by a just thirst for vengeance, the
Scots made a furious attack, and Segrave was
rapidly routed, wounded, and taken prisoner, together
with his brother, his son, sixteen knights,
and thirty esquires, called sergeants by the rhyming
English chronicler Langtoft.
.
The contest was barely over when the second
column, alarmed by the fugitives, advanced from its
camp at Loanhead, ?? and weary though the Scots
were with their forced night march, flushed with
their first success, and full of the most rancorous
hate of their invaders, they rushed to the charge,
and though the conflict was fiercer, were victorious.
A vast quantity of pillage fell into their hands,
together with Sir Ralph the Cofferer, a paymaster
of the English army.?
The second victory had barely been achieved,
when the third division, under Sir Robert Neville,
with all its arms and armour glittering in the
morning sun, came in sight, advancing from the
neighbourhood of Gilmerton, at a time when
many of the Scots had laid aside a portion of their
arms and helmets, and were preparing some to eat,
and others to sleep.
Frase; and Comyn at first thought of retiring,
but that was impracticable, as Neville was so close
upon, them. They flew from rank to rank, says
Tytler, ?and having equipped the camp followers
in the arms of their slain enemies, they made a
furious charge on the English, and routed them
with great slaughter.?
Before the second and third encounters took
place, old historians state that the Scots had recourse
to the cruel practice of slaying their prisoners,
which was likely enough in keeping with the spirit
with which the wanton English war was conducted
in those days. Sir Ralph the Cofferer begged Fraser
to spare his life, offering a large ransom for it.
? Your coat of mail is no priestly habit,? replied
Sir Simon. ? Where is thine alb-where thy hood ?
Often have you robbed us all and done us grievous
wrong, and now is our time to sum up the account,
and exact strict payment.??
With these words he hewed off the gauntleted
hands of the degraded priest, and then by one
stroke severed his head from his body.
Old English writers always attribute the glory of
the day to Wallace ; but he was not present. The
pursuit lasted sixteen miles, even as far as Biggar,
and 12,000 of the enemy perished, says Sir James
Balfour. English historians have attempted to
conceal the triple defeat of their countrymen on
this occasion. They state that Sir Robert Neville?s
division stayed behind to hear mass, and repelled the
third Scottish attack, adding that none who heard
mass that morning were slain. But, unfortunately
for this statement, Neville himself was among the
dead ; and Langtoft, in his very minute account of
the battle, admits that the English were utterly
routed.
Many places in the vicinity still bear names con-
.](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p170.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 351")
... THE THREE BATTLES ON ONE DAY. 351
hillside, and not beneath, but is attached to its
eastern end, the ...
Book 6 p. 351
(Score 0.42)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 42")
... I KING DAVID?S CHARTER. 43
sake of trade ; and if it happen that they do no
come, I grant the aforesaid ...
Book 3 p. 42
(Score 0.41)
... THE VALE OF THE ESK. '37
Charles I., and his despondency over the state of the times, the evidence ...
Book 11 p. 196
(Score 0.41)
![The West Bow.] MAJOR WEIR?S HOUSE. 3 13
an extraordinary quantity of yarn, in the time that
it would have taken four women to do so.
At the place of execution in the Grassmarket a
frenzy seized her, and the wretched old creature
began to rend her garments, in order, as she
shrieked, that she might die ?? with all the shame
she could ! ?
Undeterred by her fate, ten other old women
were in the same year burned in Edinburgh for
alleged dabbling in witchcraft.
flaming torches, as if a multitude of people were
there, all laughing merrily. ?This sight, at so
dead a time of night, no people being in the windows
belonging to the close, made her and her
servant haste home, declaring all that they saw to
the rest of the family.?
?For upwards of a century after Major Weir?s
death he continued to be the bugbear of the Bow,
and his house remained uninhabited. His apparition,?
says Chambers, ?? was frequently seen at
MAJOR WEIR?S LAND.
(Fmm a Measrrrrd Drawing by Thomas HamiZton, #idZiskcd in 183a)
The reverend Professor who compiled ? Satan?s
Invisible World,? relates that a few nights before
the major made his astounding confession, the
wife of a neighbour, when descending from the
Castle Hill towards the Bow-head, saw three
women in different windows, shouting, laughing,
and clapping their hands. She passed on, and
when abreast of Major Weir?s door, she saw a
woman of twice mortal stature arise from the street.
Filled with great fear, she desired her maid, who
bore a lantern, to hasten on, but the tall spectre
still kept ahead of them, uttering shouts of ?unmeasurable
laughter,? till they came to the narrow
alley called the Stinking Close, into which the
spectre turned, and which was seen to be full of
40
night, flitting like a black and silent shadow about
the street. His house, though known to be deserted
by everything human, was sometimes observed at
midnight to be full of lights, and heard to emit
strange sounds, as of dancing, howling, and, what
is strangest of all, spinning. Some people occasionally
saw the major issue from the low close at
midnight, mounted on a black horse without a
head, and gallop off in a whirlwind of flame. Nay,
sometimes the whole inhabitants of the Bow would
be roused from their sleep at an early hour in the
morning by the sound of a coach and six, first
rattling up the Lawnmarket, and then thundering
down the Bow, stopping at the head of the terrible
close for a few minutes, and then rattling and](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p133.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 313")
... West Bow.] MAJOR WEIR?S HOUSE. 3 13
an extraordinary quantity of yarn, in the time that
it would have taken ...
Book 2 p. 313
(Score 0.41)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Weat Port.
~~ ~
the dreadful Irish murders in 1828; but its repute
was very ...
Book 4 p. 224
(Score 0.41)
... SKETCHES. 235
of Edinburgh, aged about seventy years.
held the incumbency for full forty ...
Book 8 p. 331
(Score 0.41)
... EDINBURGH PAST AND PRESENT.
intricacies and associations of the other. Even now, although many
changes have ...
Book 11 p. 18
(Score 0.41)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 159")
... Street.] HUG0 ARNOT. ?59
announced that Bailie Creech, of literary celebrity,
was about to lead Miss Burns ...
Book 3 p. 159
(Score 0.41)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 133")
... DRURY?S TREACHERY. x3.z
on it now. Here it probably was that the powerful
Archibald Douglas, fifth ...
Book 5 p. 133
(Score 0.41)
... was accordingly built for them, at the
expense, says h o t , of Az,400 sterling. A portion
of this ...
Book 3 p. 29
(Score 0.41)
Go back to Edinburgh Bookshelf
The scans of Edinburgh Bookshelf are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. I Page 189")
