EDINBURGH 



2797 



EDINBURGH 



Roses, set to work to strengthen 

 the defences of their city. The 

 king's garden on the N. side, now 

 occupied by the Waverley rly. 

 station and lines, was inundated 

 by a dam thrown across the E. end, 

 thereby forming the North Loch, 

 whence a wall was built round the 

 E. and S. sides of the city to the 

 Castle Rock near the West Bow. 



During the reign of James IV 

 (1488-1513) the revival of learning 

 first made itself felt in Edinburgh. 

 The guild of chirurgeon barbers 

 received a royal charter in 1505, 

 to develop under a fresh charter in 

 1684 into the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of Edinburgh, Tn 1507 

 the first printing press in Scotland 

 was established in Edinburgh. 

 But a new era of bloodshed was 

 inaugurated on Flodden Field in 

 1513, where James IV was killed 

 with the flower of Scottish nobility 

 and gentry. In 1544 the earl of 

 Hertford sacked and burnt Edin- 

 burgh, wrecked Holyrood Abbey, 

 drove away the monks, and gutted 

 ths palace, but was repulsed in 

 attacking the castle. He returned 

 in 1547 under his new name of 

 Protector Somerset, and completed 

 the destruction of Holyrood. 

 The Scottish Reformation 



In the 16th century Edinburgh 

 became the vortex of the Scot- 

 tish Reformation. Parliament en- 

 acted the establishment of the 

 Protestant religion in 1560, pro- 

 scribing the Mass under penalty 

 of death. Queen Mary, returning as 

 a young widow to the capital which 

 she had left as a child of six years, 

 found the churches stripped of 

 all adornment, the altars wrecked, 

 the clergy, secular and regular, of 

 her own faith banished, while from 

 the pulpits Knox, Bruce, and other 

 zealots hurled vehement denuncia- 

 tion against the Scarlet Woman. 

 Knox laid the foundation of that 

 system of national education to 

 which Edinburgh owes so much of 

 her distinction as a seat of learning 

 and letters ; but, dying in 1572, 

 he did not live to see the founda- 

 tion of the university in 1583. 



Queen Mary's personal reign 

 covered no more than six stormy 

 years, perhaps the darkest and 

 bloodiest in the whole history of 

 Edinburgh. Conspicuous among 

 the crimes perpetrated were the 

 slaughter in Mary's presence of her 

 favourite, David Rizzio, in 1566, 

 and the murder of Darnley in 1567. 



The city, which is believed to 

 have contained at the time some 

 30,000 inhabitants, suffered con- 

 siderably in trade when James VI 

 succeeded to the throne of England 

 and removed his court to London. 

 He promised to revisit Edinburgh 

 every third year, but fourteen 



years went by before he returned 

 for the first and last time. Charles I 

 was crowned in Holyrood in 1633, 

 eight years after his accession 

 the only coronation ever per- 

 formed in the Scottish capital, 

 except that of James II in 1437. 

 In 1637 the city was thrown into 

 ferment when Charles sent Laud's 

 liturgy to Edinburgh, with a com- 

 mand that it was to be used in all 

 the churches. Edinburgh had been 

 staunchly loyal hitherto ; but this 

 gave immediate birth to the 

 National Covenant which was 

 signed in Greyfriars Churchyard, 

 Feb. 28, 1638. The obnoxious 

 liturgy was withdrawn, Sept. 17, 

 but things had gone too far ; the 

 Covenanters were under arms, and 

 in 1639 Sir Alexander Leslie, one 

 of Gustavus Adolphus's veterans, 

 stormed and captured Edinburgh 

 Castle. After the pacification of 

 Berwick, it was handed back in 

 1640 to Sir Patrick Ruthven, who 

 also had served long under Gus- 

 tavus Adolphus, for the king ; but 

 when war broke out afresh in June, 

 it was captured once more by the 

 Covenanters under Leslie. 



In 1642, when King Charles took 

 the field against his Parliament, 

 the people of Edinburgh were fer- 

 vid Covenanters ; but the Scottish 

 privy council declared for the king 

 by eleven votes to nine. On Aug. 

 2, 1643, the general assembly pro- 

 mulgated the Solemn League and 

 Covenant, which sought to impose 

 Presbyterianism by compulsion 

 on both England and Scotland. 

 Charles I having been executed 

 Jan. 30, 1649, the Scottish Estates 

 caused his son to be proclaimed 

 king at the Mercat Cross of Edin- 

 burgh on Feb. 5, but the Covenan- 

 ters would have none of him. 

 Covenanters and Anti-Jacobites 



The duke of Hamilton, the earl 

 of Huntly, and the marquess of 

 Montrose were executed in succes- 

 sion in Edinburgh. Cromwell in- 

 vaded Scotland, July 22, 1650, 

 utterly defeated Leslie's Covenan- 

 ters at Dunbar on Sept. 3, took 

 possession of Edinburgh and pro- 

 claimed the Commonwealth. Ten 

 years later, at the Restoration, 

 " the Maiden," an instrument 

 similar to the guillotine, was set to 

 work at the Mercat Cross. 



In 1688 the Edinburgh popu- 

 lace was vehemently anti- Jacobite. 

 King James VII and II had es- 

 caped to France, but the mob over- 

 powered the guard in Holyrood 

 Palace ; wrecked the abbey church, 

 which had been redecorated as the 

 Chapel Royal, and, bursting open 

 the royal burial place, scattered 

 the bones of Scottish kings and 

 queens. The duke of Gordon still 

 held the castle for the king, and 



his historic parting with Dundee, 

 when that intrepid soldier rode 

 from the Nether Bow to his death 

 at Killiecrankie, forms the subject 

 of Scott's lyric Bonnie Dundee. 



The city was riotously convulsed 

 during the proceedings in the 

 Scottish Parliament over the legis- 

 lative union with England in 1707. 

 It was little affected by the 

 Jacobite rising of 1715, but in 

 1745 Prince Charles Edward, after 

 defeating Sir John Cope at Pres- 

 tonpans, took possession of Edin- 

 burgh, proclaimed his father king 

 James VIII at the Mercat Cross, 

 and held a brilliant court at Holy- 

 rood for more than two months. 

 Intellectual Edinburgh 



Notwithstanding the loss of 

 custom and prestige caused by the 

 departure of James I and his court 

 in 1603, the misery and bloodshed 

 entailed by the civil wars and re- 

 ligious persecution of the 17th 

 century, and the further loss con- 

 sequent on the union of Parlia- 

 ments in 1707, Edinburgh con- 

 tinued to advance both materially 

 and intellectually. Allan Ramsay 

 the Elder, 1686-1758, who began 

 life as a wig-maker, must be 

 honoured as chief pioneer in the 

 revival of literature, for he founded 

 the literary coterie called the 

 Select Society, reconstructed in 

 1755 as the Society for Encouraging 

 Art, Science, and Industry. The 

 torch which he kindled was passed 

 from hand to hand by such writers 

 as James Hamilton of Bangour, 

 Thomson of The Seasons, David 

 Hume the historian, John Home 

 the tragedian, Dalrymple Lord 

 Hailes, Home Lord Kames, Bur- 

 nett Lord Monboddo, " Jupiter " 

 Carlyle, Adam Smith, political 

 economist, and Henry Mackenzie, 

 the " Man of Feeling," who intro- 

 duced Burns to Edinburgh society 

 in 1787. These created a literary 

 atmosphere which lingers in the 

 Scottish capital to this day, having 

 received fresh vigour from Jeffrey, 

 Brougham, Lockhart, " Christo- 

 pher North," and, most illustrious 

 of all, Walter Scott. 



Of social gaiety in Edinburgh 

 there was no lack in the 18th cen- 

 tury. Scotland had entered at the 

 Union of 1707 on a period of pros- 

 perous industry which had been 

 impossible during the war with 

 England and the civil wars of the 

 17th century. The revival of agri- 

 culture set country gentlemen at 

 work reclaiming waste lands ; 

 their increasing revenues enabled 

 them to bring their families to 

 town for the season to lodge in 

 " lands " (flats, as they would be 

 called now), erected high over the 

 malodorous, crowded '- wynds " 

 and courts opening out of the High 



