Читать книгу Traditions of Edinburgh - Robert Chambers - Страница 33

Table of Contents

Amongst the buildings removed to make way for George IV. Bridge were those of a short blind alley in the Lawnmarket, called the Old Bank Close. Composed wholly of solid goodly structures, this close had an air of dignity that might have almost reconciled a modern gentleman to live in it. One of these, crossing and closing the bottom, had been the Bank of Scotland—the Auld Bank, as it used to be half-affectionately called in Edinburgh—previously to the erection of the present handsome edifice in Bank Street. From this establishment the close had taken its name; but it had previously been called Hope’s Close, from its being the residence of a son of the celebrated Sir Thomas Hope, King’s Advocate in the reign of Charles I.

House of Robert Gourlay.

The house of oldest date in the close was one on the west side, of substantial and even handsome appearance, long and lofty, and presenting some peculiarities of structure nearly unique in our city. There was first a door for the ground-floor, about which there was nothing remarkable. Then there was a door leading by the stair to the first floor, and bearing this legend and date upon the architrave:

IN THE IS AL MY TRAIST: 1569.

Close beside this door was another, leading by a longer, but distinct though adjacent stair to the second floor, and presenting on the architrave the initials R. G. From this floor there was an internal stair contained in a projecting turret, which connected it with the higher floor. Thus, it will be observed, there were three houses in this building, each having a distinct access; a nicety of arrangement which, together with the excellence of the masonry, was calculated to create a more respectful impression regarding the domestic ideas of our ancestors in Queen Mary’s time than most persons are prepared for. Finally, in the triangular space surmounting an attic window were the initials of a married couple, D. G., M. S.

Our surprise is naturally somewhat increased when we learn that the builder and first possessor of this house does not appear to have been a man of rank, or one likely to own unusual wealth. His name was Robert Gourlay, and his profession a humble one connected with the law—namely, that of a messenger-at-arms. In the second book of Charters in the Canongate council-house, Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, and commendator of Holyrood, gave the office of messenger or officer-at-arms to the Abbey to Robert Gourlay, messenger, ‘our lovit familiar servitor,’ with a salary of forty pounds, and other perquisites. This was the Robert Gourlay who built the noble tenement in the Old Bank Close; and through his official functions it came into connection with an interesting historical event. In May 1581, when the ex-Regent Morton was brought to Edinburgh to suffer death, he was—as we learn from the memoirs of Moyses, a contemporary—‘lodged in Robert Gourlay’s house, and there keeped by the waged men.’ Gourlay had been able to accommodate in his house those whom it was his professional duty to take in charge as prisoners. Here, then, must have taken place those remarkable conferences between Morton and certain clergymen, in which, with the prospect of death before him, he protested his innocence of Darnley’s death, while confessing to a foreknowledge of it. Morton must have resided in the house from May 29, when he arrived in Edinburgh, till June 2, when he fell under the stroke of the ‘Maiden.’ In the ensuing year, as we learn from the authority just quoted, De la Motte, the French ambassador, was lodged in ‘Gourlay’s House.’

David Gourlay—probably the individual whose initials appeared on the attic—described as son of John Gourlay, customer, and doubtless grandson of the first man Robert—disposed of the house in 1637 to Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall in liferent, and to his second son, Sir Thomas Hope of Kerse.[52] We may suppose ‘the Advocate’ to have thus provided a mansion for one of his children. A grandson in 1696 disposed of the upper floor to Hugh Blair, merchant in Edinburgh—the grandfather, I presume, of the celebrated Dr Hugh Blair.

This portion of the house was occupied early in the last century by Lord Aberuchil, one of King William’s judges, remarkable for the large fortune he accumulated. About 1780 his descendant, Sir James Campbell of Aberuchil, resided in it while educating his family. It was afterwards occupied by Robert Stewart, writer, extensively known in Perthshire by the name of Rob Uncle, on account of the immense number of his nephews and nieces, amongst the former of whom was the late worthy General Stewart of Garth, author of the work on the Highland regiments.

The building used by the bank was also a substantial one. Over the architrave was the legend:

SPES ALTERÆ VITÆ,

with a device emblematising the resurrection—namely, a couple of cross-bones with wheat-stalks springing from them, and the date 1588. Latterly it was occupied as the University Printing-office, and when I visited it in 1824 it contained an old wooden press, which was believed to be the identical one which Prince Charles carried with him from Glasgow to Bannockburn to print his gazettes, but then used as a proof-press, like a good hunter reduced to the sand-cart. This house was removed in 1834, having been previously sold by the Commissioners of Improvements for £150. The purchaser got a larger sum for a leaden roof unexpectedly found upon it. When the house was demolished, it was discovered that every window-shutter had a communication by wires with an intricate piece of machinery in the garret, designed to operate upon a bell hung at a corner on the outside, so that not a window could have been forced without giving an alarm.

In the Cowgate, little more than fifty yards from the site of this building, there is a bulky old mansion, believed to have been the residence of the celebrated King’s Advocate Hope, himself, the ancestor of all the considerable men of this name now in Scotland. One can easily see, amidst all the disgrace into which it has fallen, something remarkable in this house, with two entrances from the street, and two porte-cochères leading to other accesses in the rear. Over one door is the legend:

TECUM HABITA: 1616;[53]

over the other a half-obliterated line, known to have been

AT HOSPES HUMO.

Courtyard, Hope House.

One often finds significant voices proceeding from the builders of these old houses, generally to express humility. Sir Thomas here quotes a well-known passage in Persius, as if to tell the beholder to confine himself to a criticism of his own house; and then, with more certain humility, uses a passage of the Psalms (cxix. 19): ‘I am a stranger upon earth,’ the latter being an anagram of his own name, thus spelt: Thomas Houpe. It is impossible without a passing sensation of melancholy to behold this house, and to think how truly the obscurity of its history, and the wretchedness into which it has fallen, realise the philosophy of the anagram. Verily, the great statesman who once lived here in dignity and the respect of men was but as a stranger who tarried in the place for a night, and was gone.

The Diary of Sir Thomas Hope, printed for the Bannatyne Club (1843), is a curious record of the public duties of a great law-officer in the age to which it refers, as well as of the mixture of worldly and spiritual things in which the venerable dignitary was engaged. He is indefatigable in his religious duties and his endeavours to advance the interests of his family; at the same time full of kindly feeling about his sons’ wives and their little family matters, never failing, for one thing, to tell how much the midwife got for her attendance on these ladies. There are many passages respecting his prayers, and the ‘answers’ he obtained to them, especially during the agonies of the opening civil war. He prays, for instance, that the Lord would pity his people, and then hears the words: ‘I will preserve and saiff my people’—‘but quhither be me or some other, I dar not say.’ On another occasion, at the time when the Covenanting army was mustering for Dunse Law to oppose King Charles, Sir Thomas tells that, praying: ‘Lord, pitie thy pure [i.e. poor] kirk, for their is no help in man!’ he heard a voice saying: ‘I will pitie it;’ ‘for quhilk I blissit the Lord;’ immediately after which he goes on: ‘Lent to John my long carabin of rowet wark all indentit;’ &c.[54]

The Countess of Mar, daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox, died of a deadly brash in Sir Thomas’s house in the Cowgate, May 11, 1644.

It is worthy of notice that the Hopes are one of several Scottish families, possessing high rank and great wealth, which trace their descent to merchants in Edinburgh. ‘The Hopes are of French extraction, from Picardy. It is said they were originally Houblon, and had their name from the plant [hop], and not from esperance [the virtue in the mind]. The first that came over was a domestic of Magdalene of France, queen of James V.; and of him are descended all the eminent families of Hopes. This John Hope set up as a merchant of Edinburgh, and his son, by Bessie or Elizabeth Cumming, is marked as a member of our first Protestant General Assembly, anno 1560.’[55]