346 ARTHUR SEAT— HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE 



its slopes and hollows. In 1564, while still a queen compara- 

 tively free from care, she held an open air banquet in the 

 valley of the Hunter's Bog, occupied since 1858 by the 

 Eifle Ranges, but containing in the sixteenth century an 

 artificial lake, the dam of which may still be traced. The 

 joyous occasion was the marriage of the Lord Chancellor, 

 John, fifth Lord Fleming, to Elizabeth, heiress of Eobert, 

 the Master of Ross. Coming to more warlike passages, and 

 passing over the doubtful episode of Salisbury's encampment, 

 we find it recorded that in 1572, the Regent Mar, in addition 

 to assailing the Queen's Party, established in the City and 

 Castle, from the Calton Hill and from trenches cast up in 

 the Pleasance, mounted ordnance on the escarpment of the 

 Crags " to ding Edinburgh with." Arthur Seat was for a 

 time the pivot of the military operations of 1650, in which 

 Cromwell was foiled by the watchful Lesley in his attempt 

 to capture the city from the East ; the English, says Nicol 

 in his Diary, "placed their whole horse in and about 

 Restalrig, the foot at that place callit Jokis Lodge, and 

 the cannon at the foot of Salisbury Hill, within the park 

 dyke, and played with their cannon against the Scottish 

 leaguer in St. Leonard's Crags." Thirty years later, in 

 another national crisis — in expectation of the news of the 

 landing of William of Orange — a beacon was erected on 

 Arthur Seat, to be lighted in communication with those set 

 on the Garlton Hill, North Berwick Law, and St. Abb's. 



In 1745, the "Young Pretender" entered the Palace and 

 capital of his ancestors by way of the Hill ; he traversed 

 on foot the Hunter's Bog; "mounting a bay gelding at 

 the Haggis Knowe, he was greeted by a cheering crowd 

 in the Duke's Walk, and by a cannon ball from the Castle, 

 which struck James V.'s tower as the Prince alighted in 

 front of Holyrood." In September the Highland Host were 

 encamped on the eastern shoulder of Arthur Seat, under 

 Dunsappie Rock ; from thence, on the morning of the 20th, 

 they started, with pipes playing, for the the field of Preston- 

 pans, Prince Charlie dramatically "drawing his claymore 

 and flinging away the scabbard." In 1778 — thirty three 

 years later, almost to the day — came "the affair of the 

 Wild MacOraws." The newly embodied Seaforth Regiment, 



