... 283, 335, 343 343
III, 140; dew of, II. 169
vanous buildings in, 11. 172; it!
early residents, 11. ...
Book 6 p. 389
(Score 0.26)
... ROMAN AND OTUER ANTIQUITIES. 331
locality; But the ?? Old Statistical Account ? has
the following version ...
Book 6 p. 331
(Score 0.26)
... AND NEW EDINBUKGH. [I eith.
and Mary, constituting their uncle, Rend, Marquis
dElbeuf, Regent of Scotland. ...
Book 5 p. 178
(Score 0.26)
![High Street.] THE DEATH OF KNOX. 215
same chamber, was so sodainly amazed that she
took sickness and dyed ;I, an absurd fabrication, as
in the year after his death a pension was granted
to her and her three daughters, and she is known
to have been alive till about the end of the
sixteenth century.
In that old house, the abode of plebeians now,
have sat and debated again and again such men
as the Regent Murray, the cruel and crafty
Morton, the Lords Boyd, Ruthven, Ochiltree, and
the half-savage Lindsay-
? He whose iron eye
Oft saw fair Mary weep in vain; ?
Johnstone of Elphinstone, Fairiie, Campbell of
Kinyeoncleugh, Douglas of Drumlanrig, and all
who were the intimates of Knox ; and its old walls
have witnessed much and heard much that history
may never unravel.
It was while resident here that Knox?s enemies
are said-for there is little proof of the statement
-to have put a price upon his head, and that his
most faithful friends were under the necessity of
keeping watch around it during the night, and of
appointing a guard for the protection of his person
at times when he went abroad. When under
danger of hostility from the queen?s garrison in
the Castle, in the spring of 1571, M?Crie tells us
that ?one evening a musket-ball was fired in at
his window and lodged in the roof of the apartment
in which he was sitting. It happened that
he sat at the time in a different part of the room
from that which he had been accustomed to
occupy, otherwise the ball, from the direction it
took, must have struck him.?
It was probably after this that he retreated for a
time to St. Andrews, but he returned to his manse
in the end of August, 1572, while Kirkaldy was
still vigorously defending the fortress for his exiled
queen.
His bodily infirmities now increased daily, and
on the 11th of November he was attacked with a
cough which confined him to bed.
Two days before that he had conducted the
services at the induction of his colleague, Mr.
James Lawson, in St. Giles?s, and though he was
greatly debilitated, he performed the important
duties that devolved upon him with something of
his wonted fire and energy to those who heard
him for the last time. He then came down from
the pulpit, and leaning on his staff, and supported
by his faithful secretary, Richard Bannatyne (one
account says by his wife), he walked slowly down
the street to his own house, accompanied by the
whole congregation, watching, for the last time, his
feeble steps.
During his last illness, which endured about a
fortnight, he was visited by many of the principal
nobles and reformed preachers, to all of whom he
gave much advice; and on Monday, the 24th of
November, 1572, he expired in his sixty-seventh
year, having been born in 1505, during the reign
of James IV.
From this house his body was conveyed to its
last resting-place, on the south side of St. Gileo?s,
accompanied by a mighty multitude of all ranks,
where the newly-appointed Regent Morton pronounced
over the closing grave his well-known
eulogiuni.
That eastern nook of the old city, known as the
Nether Eow has many associations connected with
it besides the manse of Knox
Therein was the abode of Robert Lekprevik,
one of the earliest of Scottish printers, to whose
business it is supposed Bassandyne succeeded on
his removal to St. Andrews in 1570; and there, in
16 13, the authorities discovered that a residenter
named James Stewart, ? commonly called James of
Jerusalem, a noted Papist, and re-setter of seminary
prints,? was wont to have mass celebrated in his
house by Robert Philip, a priest returned from
Rome. Both men were arrested and tried on this
charge, together with a third, John Logan, portioner,
of Restalrig, who had formed one of the
small and secret congregation in Stewart?s house
in the Nether Bow. ?One cannot, in these days
of tolerance,? says Dr. Chambers, ? read without a
strange sense of uncouthness the solemn expressions
of horror employed in the dittays of the king?s advocates
against the offenders, being precisely the
same expressions that were used against heinous
offences of a more tangible nature.?
Logan was fined LI,OOO, and compelled to express
public penitence; and Philip and Stewart
were condemned to banishment from the realm of
Scotland.
In the Nether Bow was the residence of James
Sharp, who had been consecrated with great pomp
at Westminster, as Archbishop of St. Andrews, on
the 15th of November, 1661-a prelate famous for
his unrelenting persecution of the faithful adherents
of the Covenant which followed his elevation, and
justly increased the general odium of his character,
and who perished under the hands of pitiless assassins
on Magus Muir, in 1679.
Nicoll, the diarist, tells us, that on the 8th of
May, 1662, all the newly consecrated bishops were
convened in their gowns at the house of the Archbishop,
in the Nether Bow, from whence they proceeded
in state to the Parliament House, conducted
by two peers, the Earl of Kellie (who had been](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v2p035.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. II Page 215")
... Street.] THE DEATH OF KNOX. 215
same chamber, was so sodainly amazed that she
took sickness and dyed ;I, an ...
Book 2 p. 215
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith Walk.
Roman, and which spans the bum where it flows
through a wooded and sylvan ...
Book 5 p. 150
(Score 0.26)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. III Page 179")
... Street.] THE CALEDONIAN THEATRE. 179
was the band of the 78th, where hung the shields
of Picton and ...
Book 3 p. 179
(Score 0.26)
![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 "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 99")
... LORD WARRISTON. 99
family, the Laird of Dunipace ; but, owing to some
alleged ill-treatment, she grew ...
Book 5 p. 99
(Score 0.26)
![Portobello.] THE FIGGATE MUIR ?43
to the line of the turnpike road. The whole surface
of the district round them is studded with
buildings, and has only so far subsided from the
urban character as to acquire for these, whether
villa or cottage, the graceful accompaninients of
garden or hedge-row. ?A stroll from the beautified
city to Piershill,? says a writer, ?when the
musical bands of the barracks are striving to drown
the soft and carolling melodies of the little songsters
on the hedges and trees at the subsession ot
Arthur?s Seat, and when? the blue Firth, with its
many-tinted canopy of clouds, and its picturesque
display of islets and steamers, and little smiling
boats on its waters, vies with the luxuriant lands
upon its shore to win the award due to beauty, is
indescribably delightful.?
C H A P T E R X I V .
PORTOBELLO.
Portolxll~The Site before the Houses-The Figgate Muir-Stone Coffins-A Meeting with Cromwell-A Curious Raae--Portobello Hut-
Robbqrs-Willkq Jamieson?s Feuing-Sir W. Scott and ?The Lay ?-Portobello Tower-Review of Yeomanry and H i g h d e w
Hugh Miller-David Laing-Joppa-Magdalene Bridge-Brunstane House.
PORTOBELLO, now a Parliamentary burgh, and
favourite bathing quarter of the citizens, occupies a
locality known for ages as the Figgate Muir, a once
desolate expanse of muir-land, which perhaps was
a portion of the forest of Drumsheugh, but which
latterly was covered With whins and furze, bordered
by a broad sandy beach, and extending from Magdalene
Bridge on the south perhaps to where Seafield
now lies, on the north-west.
Through this waste flowed the Figgate Bum out
of Duddingston Loch, a continuation of the Braid.
Figgate is said to be a corruption of the Saxon
word for a cow?s-ditch, and here ?the monks of
Holyrood were wont to pasture their cattle.
Traces of early inhabitants were found here
in 1821, when three stone cofiins?were discovered
under a tumulus of sand, midway between Portobello
and Craigantinnie. These were rudely put
together, and each contained a human skeleton.
?? The bones were quite entire,?? says the Week&
JournnZ for that year, ?and from their position it
would appear that the bodies had been buried with
their legs across. At the head of each was deposited
a number of flints, from which it is conjectured
the inhumation had taken place before the
use of metal in this country; and, what is very
remarkable, the roots of some shrubs had penetrated
the coffins and skulls of the skeletons, about which
and the ribs they had curiously twisted themselves.
The cavities of the skeletons indeed were quite
filled with vegetable matter.?
It was on the Figgate Muir that, during the
War of Independence, Sir William Wallace in 1296
mustered his zoo patriots to join Robert Lauder
and Crystal Seton at Musselblirgh for the pursuit
of the traitor Earl of Dunbar, whom they fought at
Inverwick, afterwards taking his castle at Dunbar.
In the Register of the Privy Council, January,
1584, in a bond of caution for David Preston of
Craigmillar, Robert Pacok in Brigend, Thomas
Pacok in Cameron, and others, are named as sureties
that John Hutchison, mirchant and burgess
of Edinburgh, shall be left peaceably in possession
of the lands ?? callit Kingis medow, besyde the
said burgh, and of that pairt thairof nixt adjacent
to the bume callit the Figott Burne, on the north
side of the same, being a proper pairt and pertinent
of the saidis landis of Kingis Medow.?
Among the witnesses is George Ramsay, Dean of
Restalrig.
We next hear of this locality in 1650, when it
was supposed to be the scene of a secret meeting,
?? half way between Leith and Musselburgh Rocks,
at low water,? between Oliver Cromwell and the
Scottish leaders, each attended by a hundred
horse, when any question the latter proposed to
ask he agreed to answer, but declined to admit
alike of animadversion or reply. A part of this
alleged conference is said to have been-
? Why did you put the king to death ?
?? Because he was a tyrant, and deserved death.?
? Why did you dissolve the Parliament ? I?
?? Because they .were greater tyrants than the
king, and required dissolution.?
The Mercurius CaZtdoonius of 1661 records a very
different scene here, under the name of the Thicket
Burn, when a foot-race was run from thence to the
summit of Arthur?s Seat by twelve browster-wives,
?all of them in a condition which makes violent
exertion unsuitable to the female form.? The prizes
on this occasiofi were, for the first, a hundredweight
of cheese and ?a budge11 of Dunkeld aquavite,
andarumpkin of Brunswick rum for the second, set
down by the Dutch midwife. The next day six](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v5p154.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. V Page 143")
... THE FIGGATE MUIR ?43
to the line of the turnpike road. The whole surface
of the district round them ...
Book 5 p. 143
(Score 0.26)
![Leith.] SCENES UN THE LINKS. 263
a teacher of fencing and cock-fighting in Edinburgh,
published an ? Essay on the Innocent and Royal
Recreation and Art of Cocking,? from which it
may be learned that he it was who introduced it
intQ the metropolis of Scotland, and entered into
it con amot-e.
?I am not ashamed to declare to the world,?
he wrote, ?that I have a specialveneration and
esteem for those gentlemen, without and about this
city; who have entered in society for propagating
and establishing the royal recreation of cocking, in
order to which they have already erected a cockpit
in the Links of Leith; and I earnestly wish
that their generous and laudable example may be
imitated in that degree that, in cock-war, village
may be engaged against village, city against city,
kingdom against kingdom-nay, father against son
-until all the wars in Europe, where so much
Christian blood is spilt, may be turned into the
innocent pastime of cocking.?
This barbarous amusement was long a fancy of
the Scottish people, and the slain buds and fugies
(or cravens) became a perquisite of the village
schoolmaster.
On the 23rd of December, 1729, the Hon. Alexander,
Elphinstone (before mentioned), who was
leading a life of idleness and pleasure in Leith,
while his brother was in exile, met a Lieutenant
Swift, of Lord Cadogan?s regiment (latterly the 4th
or King?s Own), at the house of Mr. Michael
Watson, in Leitk
Some hot words had arisen between them, and
Elphinstone rose haughtily to depart ; but before he
went he touched Swift on the shoulder with the
point of his sword, and intimated that he expected
to receive satisfaction next morning on the Links.
Accordingly the two met at eleven in the forenoon,
and in this comparatively public place (as it
appears now) fought a duel with their swords.
Swift received a mortal wound in the breast, and
expired.
For this, Alexander Elphinstone was indicted
before the High Court of Justiciary, but the case
never came on for trial, and he died without
molestation at his father?s house in Coatfield Lane,
three years after. Referring to his peaceful sport
with Captain Porteous, the author of the ? Domestic
Annals ? says ? that no one could have imagined,
as that cheerful game was going on, that both the
players were not many years after to have blood
upon their hands, one of them to take on the murderer?
s mark upon this very field.?
Several military executions have taken placethere,
and among them we may note two.
The first recorded is that of a drummer, who was
shot there on the 23rd of February, 1686, by sentence
of a court-martial, for having, it was alleged,
said that he ?? had it in his heart to run his sword
through any Papist,? on the occasion when the Foot
Guards and other troops, under General Dalzell and
the Earl of Linlithgow, were under arms to quell the
famous ?Anti-Popish Riot,? made by the students
of the university.
One of the last instances was in 1754.
On the 4th of November in that year, John
Ramsbottom and James Burgess, deserters from
General the Hon. James Stuart?s regiment (latterly
the 37th Foot), were escorted from Edinburgh
Cast19 to Leith Links to be shot. The former
suffered, but the latter was pardoned.
His reprieve from death was only intimated to
him when he had been ordered to kneel, and the
firing? party were drawn up with their arms m
readiness. The shock so affected him that he
fainted, and lay on the grass for some time
motionless ; but the temble lesson would seem to
have been given to him in vain, as in the Scots
Magazine for the same year and month it is announced
that ?James Burgess, the deserter so
lately pardoned when on his knees to be shot, was
so far from being reformed by such a near view of
death, that immediately after he was guilty of theft,
for which he received a thousand lashes on the
parade in the Castle of Edinburgh, on November
zznd, and was drummed out of the regiment with
a rope round his neck.?
During the great plague of 1645 the ailing were
hutted in hundreds on the Links, and under its
turf their bones lie in numbers, as they were interred
where they died, with their blankets as
shrouds. Balfour, in his ? Annales,? records that
in the same year the people of Leith petitioned
Parliament, in consequence of this fearful pest, to
have 500 bolls of meal for their poor out of the
public magazines, which were accordingly given,
and a subscription was opened for them in certain
shires.
A hundred years afterwards saw the same ground
studded with the tents of a cavalry camp, when,
prior to the total rout of the king?s troops at
Prestonpans, Hamilton?s Dragoons (now the 14th
Hussars) occupied the Links, from whence theymarched,
by the way of Seafield and the Figgate
Muir, to join Sir John Cope.
During the old war with France the Links were
frequently adopted as a kind of Campus Marrius
for the many volunteer corps :hen enrolled in the
vicinity.
On the 4th of June, 1797, they had an unusual
display in honour of the king?s birthday and the](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p082.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 263")
... SCENES UN THE LINKS. 263
a teacher of fencing and cock-fighting in Edinburgh,
published an ? Essay on the ...
Book 6 p. 263
(Score 0.26)
... Captain Matthew, 252
Bailie, 214
Qeorge, 192
Henry L of England, 377,378
.II. of England, ...
Book 10 p. 504
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Hope Park.
British House of Lords, would have left the fortress
of honours and of ...
Book 4 p. 350
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Stmt.
were also struck some very small copper coins
called pennies, worth ...
Book 2 p. 270
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [The Inch.
CHAPTER XL.
THE ENVIRONS OF EDINBURGH (continued).
The Inch Honse-The ...
Book 6 p. 338
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Parliament House.
the old High School in 1659, and studying law
at Leyden, became a ...
Book 1 p. 170
(Score 0.26)
... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. Holyrood.
Wllliam, who had property in Broughton, after his
death, none bore even ...
Book 3 p. 50
(Score 0.26)
... lock was placed upon it for the same purpose.
In 1647 only three open thoroughfares are shown
OLD AND ...
Book 3 p. 17
(Score 0.25)
... the two boys to him, he upbraided
them with their informing upon him, and told them
that they must ...
Book 3 p. 183
(Score 0.25)
... HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ISLAND. 29T
~~~~~ ~ ~~
land harbour, was repulsed in an attempt upon
St. ...
Book 6 p. 291
(Score 0.25)
![Leith] THE SUGAR HOUSE COMPANY. 235
In addition to the imperatively required sanitary
reform which this sqheme will effect in a few years,
the new thoroughfare will be of great commercial
utility, and present an easy gradient from the shore
to Leith Walk.
The area scheduled contains about 3,500 inhabitants,
but when the works are completed
nearly double that number will be accommodated.
The sum to be borrowed from the Public Works
Loan Commissioners was fixed at ~GIOO,OOO,
payable in thirty years, about 1911 ; but in 1881
the Home Secretary intimated his intention of
recommending a loan of cf70,000, which, in the
meantime, was deemed suiticient.
The ancient street named Water Lane, with
all its adjacent alleys, is not included in this scheme
of removal and improvement. It runs tortuously,
at an angle, from the foot of the Kirkgate to
Bemard Street, and is about seven hundred yards
in length. This thoroughfare was anciently called
the Rotten ROW ; and in the map given by Robertson
in his ?? Antiquities,?? that name is borne by an
alley ne+r the foot of it, running parallel with
Chapel Lane.
In the inventory of ?( Pious Donations ? made to
the Brethren Predicators in Edinburgh, under date
14th May, 1473, is one by ?John Sudgine, of
30s. 4d. out of his tenement of Leith on the south
side of the water thereof, between Alan Nepar?s
land on the east, and Rotten Row on the west.?
Alan Napier?s land, ?on the east side of the
common vennel called the Ratounrow,? is referred
to in King James 111.?~ charter to the Black Friars,
under the same date. (?Burgh Charters,? No.
43.) It was so named from being built of houses
of mitim, or rough timber.
On Mary of Guise and Lorraine choosing Leith
as an occasional residence, she is stated by Maitland
to have erected a dwelling-house in the Rotten
Row, near the corner of the present Quality Street,
and that the royal arms of Scotland, which were
in front thereof, were, when it was taken down,
rebuilt into the wall of a mansion opposite, ?? and
the said Mary, for the convenience of holding
councils, erected a spacious and handsome edifice
for her privy council to meet in.?
This is supposed to refer to a stately house on
the Coal Hill (facing the river), and to be treated
of when we come to that quarter of Leith.
The beautifully sculptured stone which bears
the arms of Scotland impaled with those of Guise,
surmounted by an imperial crown and the boldlycut
legend,
MARIA. DE. LORRAINE.
REGINA. SCOTIA. 1560,
and surrounded by the richest scroll-work, still
exists in Leith. It was long preserved in the
north wall of the old Tolbooth; and on the
demolition of the latter, after undergoing various
adventures, has now ?been rebuilt,? says Dr,
Robertson, ?? into the original window of St. Mary,
which has been erected in Albany Street,NorthLeith.?
This is the last relic of that house in which
Mary, the queen-regent (prior to her death in the
castle), spent the last year of her sorrowful life,
embittered by the strife of hostile factions and the
din of civil war-?an ominous preparation for her
unfortunate daughter?s assumption of the sceptre
which was then wielded in her name.?
Another ancient house in the same street bore a
legend similar to one already given :-
?THEY ARE WELCOME HERE
QHA THE LORD DO FEIR, 1574.?
It was demolished in I 83 2.
In this street was the establishment of the old
Leith Sugar House Company. The circumstances
that Leith was acentral port for carrying on West
Indian trade, where vessels could then be fitted
out more easily than on the Clyde, and at a lower
rate than at London-besides the savings on freight
and charges-eneouraged the West Indian planter
?to make it a place for his consignments. Thus a
house for baking sugars was set up in Edinburgh
in 1751, and the manufacture was still carried on
in 1779 by the company that instituted it.
That of Leith was begun in 1757 by a company,
consisting chiefly of Edinburgh bankers ; but by
1762 their capital was totally lost, and for some
time the Sugar House remained unoccupied, till
some speculative Englishmen took a lease of it,
and revived the manufacture.
As these men were altogether without capital,
and had to fall back upon ruinous schemes to
support their false credit, they were soon involved
in complete failure, but were succeeded by the
Messrs. Parkers, who kept up the manufacture for
about five years.
?? The house,? says h o t , ?? was then purchased
by a set of merchants in Leith, who, as they began
with sufficient capital, as they have employed in
the work the best refiners of sugar that could be
procured in London, and as they pay attention
to the business, promise to conduct it with every
prospect of success.?
But be that as it may, in B e Advertiser for
1783, ?the whole houses and subjects belonging
to and employed by the Leith Sugar House Company,
together with the coppers, coolers, and
whole utensils used in the trade,? are announced](images/thumbs/old_new_edin_v6p054.gif "Old and New Edinburgh Vol. VI Page 235")
... THE SUGAR HOUSE COMPANY. 235
In addition to the imperatively required sanitary
reform which this sqheme ...
Book 6 p. 235
(Score 0.25)
... and theottadeni, in imitation of their practice,
had adopted the cremation of their dead, yvhile
adhering ...
Book 1 p. 11
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... KATHERINE OSWALD, WITCH. 339
The same Sir John seems to have possessed
property in East Lothian.
In ...
Book 6 p. 339
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... New Haileal LORI) HAILES.
made condemnation seem just as the doom of
Providence to the criminals themselves, ...
Book 6 p. 367
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... OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Leith
for many generations an ancient and lofty signaltower,
the summit of which was ...
Book 6 p. 228
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