Francis Stewart, Earl Bothwell (b. c. December 1562 – d. April 1612, Naples), was Commendator of Kelso Abbey and Coldingham Priory, a Privy Counsellor and Lord High Admiral of Scotland. Like his stepfather, Archibald Douglas, Parson of Douglas, he was a notorious conspirator, who died in disgrace. Francis was the first cousin of King James VI of Scotland (they were both grandsons of James V of Scotland). Francis’s maternal uncle James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell was the chief suspect of having murdered James VI’s father Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. for more click here
Archive for 2012
Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012The Mad Earl of Bothwell
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012In 1594 Restalrig was the scene of one of those
stormy raids that the “mad Earl of Bothwell”
caused so frequently, to the torment of James VI.
The earl, at the head of an armed force, was in
Leith, and broke out in open rebellion, when,
on the 3rd of April, the king, after sermon, summoned
the people of Edinburgh in arms, and moved
towards Leith, from whence Bothwell instantly
issued at the head of 500 mounted men-at-arms,
and took up a position at the Hawkhill near
Restalrig. Fearing, however, the strength of the
citizens, he made a detour, and galloped through
Duddingstone. Lord Home with his lances followed
him to ” the Woomet,” says Birrel, probably
meaning Woolmet, near Dalkeith, when Bothwell
faced about, and compelled him to retire in turn,
but not without bloodshed.
source-Old and New Edinburgh
James Tytler
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012From Peter Williamson’s Directory it appears
that Restalrig was the residence, in 1784, of Alexander
Lockhart, the famous Lord Covington. In
the same year a man named James Tytler, who had
ascended in a balloon from the adjacent Comely
Gardens, had a narrow escape in this quarter. He
was a poor man, who supported himself and his
family by the use of his pen, and he conceived the
idea of going up in a balloon on the Montgolfier
principle; but finding that he could not carry a firestove
with him, in his desperation and disappointment
he sprang into his car with no other sustaining
power than a common crate used for packing
earthenware; thus his balloon came suddenly
down in the road near Restalrig. ” For a wonder
Tytler was uninjured; and though he did not
reach a greater altitude than three hundred feet,
nor traverse a greater distance than half a mile, yet
his’name must ever be mentioned as that of the
first Briton who ascended with a balloon, and who
was the first man who so ascended in Britain.”
source-Old and New Edinburgh
Logan’s lands
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012Logan’s lands, in part, with the patronage of South
Leith, were afterwards bestowed upon James
Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino; but the name still
lingered in Restalrig, as in 1613 we find that
John Logan a portioner there, was fined ,£1,000
for hearing mass at the Netherbow with James of
Jerusalem.
Logan was forfeited in 1609, but his lands had
been lost to him before his death, as Nether Gogar
was purchased from him in 1596, by Andrew Logan
of Coalfield, Restalrig in 1604 by Balmerino, who
was interred, in 1612, in the vaulted mausoleum beside
the church ; ” and the English army/ says
Scotstarvit, “on their coming to Scotland, in 1650,
expecting to have found treasures in that place,
hearing that lead coffins were there, raised up his
body and threw it on the streets, because they
could get no advantage or money, when they expected
so much.”
source-Old and New Edinburgh
Logan’s connection with The Gowrie Conspiracy
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012Logan’s connection with The Gowrie Conspiracy
remained unknown till nine years after his death,
when the correspondence between him and the
Earl of Gowrie was discovered in possession of
Sprott, a notary at Eyemouth, who had stolen
them from a man named John Bain, to whom
they had been entrusted. Sprott was executed,
and Logan’s bones were brought into court to
have a sentence passed upon them, when it was
ordained ” that the memorie and dignitie of the
said umqle Robert Logan be extinct and abolisheit,”
his arms riven and deleted from all books
of arms and all his goods escheated.
The poor remains of the daring old conspirator,
were then re-taken to the church of St. Mary at
Leith and re-interred; and during the alterations
in that edifice, in 1847, a coffin covered with the
richest purple velvet>was found in a place where
no interment had taken place for years, and the
bones in it were supposed by antiquaries to be
those of the turbulent Logan, the last laird of
Restalrig.
source-Old and New Edinburgh
The twelve o’clock coach
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012The Tolbooth Wynd is about five hundred and
fifty feet in length, from where the old signal-tower
stood, at the foot of the Kirkgate, to the site of a
now removed building called Old Babylon, which
stood upon the Shore.
The second old thoroughfare of Leith was undoubtedly
the picturesque Tolbooth Wynd, as the
principal approach to the harbour, after it superseded
the more ancient Burgess Close.
It was down this street that, in the age when
Leith was noted for its dark superstitions and eccentric
inhabitants, the denizens therein, regularly
on stormy nights or those preceding a storm,
heard with horror, at midnight, the thundering
noise of “the twelve o’clock coach,” a great catafalque-
looking vehicle, driven by a tall, gaunt figure
without a head, drawn by black horses, also headless,
and supposed to be occupied by a mysterious
female.
source-Old and New Edinburgh
Meeting-house Green (Now removed)
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012Near Cable’s Wynd, which adjoins this alley, and
between it and King Street, at a spot called
Meeting-house Green, are the relics of a building
formerly used as a place of worship, and although
it does not date farther back than the Revolution
of 1688, it is oddly enough called “John Knox’s
Church.”
The records of South Leith parish bear that in
1692, ” the magistrates of Edinburgh, and members
of the Presbytery there, with a confused company
of the people, entered the church by breaking open
the locks of the doors and putting on new ones,
and so caused guard the church doors with halberts,
rang the bells, and possessed Mr. Wishart of
the church, against which all irregular proceedings
public protests were taken.”
Previous to this he would seem to have officiated
in a kind of chapel-of-ease established near Cable’s
Wynd, by permission of James VII. in 1687.
Soon after the forcible induction recorded, he
came to the church with a guard of halberdiers,
accompanied by the magistrates of Leith, and took
possession of the Session House, compelling the
“prelatick Session” to hold their meeting in the
adjacent Kantore. More unseemly matters followed,
for in December of the year 1692, when a
meeting was held in South Leith Church to hear
any objections that might be made against the legal
induction of the Rev. Mr. Wishart, an adherent of
Mr. Kay, “one of the prelatick incumbents,” protested
loudly against the whole proceedings.
Upon this, ” Mr. Livingstone, a brewer at the
Craigend (or Calton), rose up, and, in ‘presence of
the Presbytery, did most vicftently fall upon the
commissioner, and buffeted him and nipped his
cheeks, and had many base expressions to him.”
Others now fell on the luckless commissioner,
who was ultimately thrust into the Tolbooth of
Leith by a magistrate, for daring to do that which
the Presbytery had suggested. Mr. Kay’s session
were next driven out of the Kantore, on the door
of which another lock was placed.
It has been supposed that the ousted episcopal
incumbent forced his adherents into a small congregation,
as he remained long in Leith, and died
at his house in the Yardheads there so lately as
November, 1719, in the. seventieth year of his age.
His successor, the Rev. Robert Forbes, was minister
of an episcopal chapel in Leith, according to an
anonymous writer, ” very shortly after Mr. Kay’s
death, and records a baptism as having been performed
‘ in my room in ye Yardheads.’ ”
The history of the Meeting-house near Cable’s
Wynd is rather obscure, but it seems to have been
generally used as a place of worship. The last
occasion was during a visit of John Wesley, the
great founder of Methodism. He was announced
to preach in it; but so great a concourse of people
assembled, that the edifice was incapable of accommodating
them, so’ he addressed the multitude
on the Meeting-house Green. A house near it,
says The Scotsman in 1879, is pointed out as “the
Manse.”
source-Old and New Edinburgh
Way of St. James
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012The Way of St. James or St. James’ Way (Spanish: El Camino de Santiago, Galician: O Camiño de Santiago, French: Chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, German: Jakobsweg, Basque: Done Jakue bidea) is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried. for more click here
Leonard of Noblac
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012Leonard of Noblac or of Limoges or de Noblet (also known as Lienard, Linhart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard) (died traditionally in 559), is a Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in Haute-Vienne, in the Limousin (region) of France. for more click here
St. Leonard’s (as described in 1883, Now removed)
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012This part of the town—about the foot of St.
Andrew’s Street—is said to have borne anciently
the name of St. Leonard’s. There the street
diverges into two alleys : one narrow and gloomy,
which bears the imposing title of Parliament Court;
and the other called Sheephead Wynd, in which
there remains a very ancient edifice, the ground
floor of which is formed of arches constructed like
those of the old house described in the Kirkgate,
and bearing the date 1579, with the initials D. W.,
M. W. Though small and greatly dilapidated, it
is ornamented with string-courses and mouldings;
and it was not without some traces of old importance
and grandeur amid its decay and degradation,
until it was entirely altered in 1859.
This house is said to have received the local
name of the Gun Stone, from the circumstance of
a. stone cannon ball of considerable size having
been fired into it during some invasion by an
English ship of war. Local tradition avers that
for many years this bullet formed an ornament on
the summit of the square projecting staircase of
the house.
source-Old and New Edinburgh
