MARQUIS OF MONTROSE. 105 



once overspread the Borough-moor, so that when fires occurred in this district, 

 their progress was rapid, and cousequences most disastrous. We remember 

 one of these — the most terrific in appearance that can be imagined, and like 

 the conflagration of some vast b&cJier. But this calamity has been followed, 

 within the last few years, by one still more extensive, in which — as if to give 

 melancholy confirmation to the ancient prediction* — much that was venerable 

 for its primitive character has disappeared. 



The Canongate Church, though considered handsome in its day, is no longer 

 so. Later times demand a more elaborate architecture ; and the deer's head 

 sculptured on its front is rather " an ambiguous symbol, when found on a 

 consecrated edifice." In this church-yard is the tombstone erected to the memory 

 of Robert Ferguson, by Robert Burns!— names that awaken the proudest 

 recollections of all that is most beautiful and lasting in Scottish song. 



In passing the Girth-cross — the place where so many crimes have been 

 expiated on the scafibld, or at the stake— we shall briefly advert to the marquis 

 of Montrose, the last noble victim who here sealed his loyalty by an ignominious 

 death. Betrayed where he had trusted his safety, and carried prisoner to 

 Edinburgh, after the defeat at Invercarron, he was met at the Canongate 

 by the magistrates,-]- and, pinioned by the executioner and exposed on an 

 open cart, conducted to the common jail. While thus paraded bareheaded 

 to the gaze of the rabble, the marquis of Argyll— whose no less ignominious 

 doom was silently approaching^ — sat with his friend on a balcony opposite, 

 to witness and sanction by his presence the degrading spectacle. But the 

 sympathy of the people, as they surrounded the melancholy pageant, and observed 

 the dignified demeanour with which the fallen hero met the gaze of his exulting 



* In former times much superstitious terror used to be excited by the occurrence of fires in the Canon- 

 gate. " In one of these," says Sir Walter Scott, " when the flames were at their height, the tumult wliich 

 usually attends such a scene was suddenly checked by an unexpected apparition ! A beautiful female, in a 

 night-dress, extremely rich, but at least half a century ol.l, appeared in the very midst of the flames, and 

 uttered these tremendous words in her vernacular idiom—' Ance burned— twice burned-the third time 

 I'll scare yea'!' The belief in this story was formerly so strong, that, on a fire breaking out, and seeming 

 to approach the fatal spot, there was a good deal of anxiety manifested lest the apparition should make 

 good her denunciation."— See the mysterious tradition, with its attendant circumstances, in a note to 

 " Rokeby." 



t While the magistrates were preparing to receive Charles II. they went out, accompanied by the hang- 

 man, to introduce the great Montrose, who was executed at their Cross with every circumstance of brutal 

 exultation. — Arnot, p. 129-131. 



X On the 27th May, 16G1, Argyll was sentenced to he beheaded as a traitor, and his head affixed to the 

 same place where that of Montrose had formerly been exposed. — " In a word," says his biographer, " this 

 nobleman had piety for a Christian, sense for a counsellor, fortitude for a martyr, and soul for a king.' 

 Both, indeed, met their fate with the most heroic indiflerence. 



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