One of the characteristic features of Edinburgh in old times was its Town-guard, a body of military in the service of the magistrates for the purposes of a police, but dressed and armed in all respects as soldiers. Composed for the most part of old Highlanders, of uncouth aspect and speech, dressed in a dingy red uniform with cocked hats, and often exchanging the musket for an antique native weapon called the Lochaber axe, these men were (at least in latter times) an unfailing subject of mirth to the citizens, particularly the younger ones. In my recollection they had a sort of Patmos in the ground-floor of the Old Tolbooth, where a few of them might constantly be seen on duty, endeavouring to look as formidable as possible to the little boys who might be passing by. On such occasions as executions, or races at Leith, or the meeting of the General Assembly, they rose into a certain degree of consequence; but in general they could hardly be considered as of any practical utility. Their numbers were at that time much reduced—only twenty-five privates, two sergeants, two corporals, and a couple of drummers. Every night did their drum beat through the Old Town at eight o’clock, as a kind of curfew. No other drum, it seems, was allowed to sound on the High Street between the Luckenbooths and Netherbow. They also had an old practice of giving a charivari on the drum on the night of a marriage before the lodgings of the bridegroom; of course not without the expectation of something wherewithal to drink the health of the young couple. A strange remnant of old times altogether were the Town Rats, as the poor old fellows were disrespectfully called by the boys, in allusion to the hue of their uniform.

Previous to 1805, when an unarmed police was established for the protection of the streets, the Town-guard had consisted of three equally large companies, each with a lieutenant (complimentarily called captain) at its head. Then it was a somewhat more respectable body, not only as being larger, but invested with a really useful purpose. The unruly and the vicious stood in some awe of a troop of men bearing lethal weapons, and generally somewhat frank in the use of them. If sometimes roughly handled on kings’ birthdays and other exciting occasions, they in their turn did not fail to treat cavalierly enough any unfortunate roisterer whom they might find breaking the peace. They had, previous to 1785, a guard-house in the middle of the High Street, the ‘black hole’ of which had rather a bad character among the bucks and the frail ladies. One of their sergeants in those days, by name John Dhu, is commemorated by Scott as the fiercest-looking fellow he ever saw. If we might judge from poor Robert Fergusson, they were truly formidable in his time. He says:

He adds, apostrophising the irascible veterans:

The affair at the execution of Wilson the smuggler in 1736, when, under command of Porteous, they fired upon and killed many of the mob, may be regarded as a peculiarly impressive example of the stern relation in which they stood to the populace of a former age.

The great bulk of the corps was drawn either from the Highlands directly or from the Highland regiments. A humble Highlander considered it as getting a berth when he was enlisted into the Edinburgh Guard. Of this feeling we have a remarkable illustration in an anecdote which I was told by the late Mr Alexander Campbell regarding the Highland bard, Duncan Macintyre, usually called Donacha Bhan. This man, really an exquisite poet to those understanding his language, became the object of a kind interest to many educated persons in Perthshire, his native county. The Earl of Breadalbane sent to let him know that he wished to befriend him, and was anxious to procure him some situation that might put him comparatively at his ease. Poor Duncan returned his thanks, and asked his lordship’s interest—to get him into the Edinburgh Town-guard—pay, sixpence a day! What sort of material these men would have proved in the hands of the magistrates if Provost Stewart had attempted by their means and the other forces at his command to hold out the city against Prince Charlie seems hardly to be matter of doubt. I was told the following anecdote of a member of the corps, on good authority. Robert Stewart, a descendant of the Stewarts of Bonskeid in Athole, was then a private in the City-guard. When General Hawley left Edinburgh to meet the Highland army in the west country, Stewart had just been relieved from duty for the customary period of two days. Instantly forming his plan of action, he set off with his gun, passed through the English troops on their march, and joined those of the Prince. Stewart fought next day like a hero in the battle of Falkirk, where the Prince had the best of it; and next morning our Town-guardsman was back to Edinburgh in time to go upon duty at the proper hour. The captain of his company suspected what business Robert and his gun had been engaged in, but preserved a friendly silence.

The Gutter-blood people of Edinburgh had an extravagant idea of the antiquity of the Guard, led probably by a fallacy arising from the antiquity of the individual men. They used to have a strange story—too ridiculous, one would have thought, for a moment’s credence anywhere—that the Town-guard existed before the Christian era. When the Romans invaded Britain, some of the Town-guard joined them; and three were actually present in Pilate’s guard at the Crucifixion! In reality, the corps took its rise in the difficulties brought on by bad government in 1682, when, at the instigation of the Duke of York, it was found necessary to raise a body of 108 armed men, under a trusty commander, simply to keep the people in check.[155]

Fifty years ago (1824) the so-called captaincies of the Guard were snug appointments, in great request among respectable old citizens who had not succeeded in business. Kay has given us some illustrations of these extraordinary specimens of soldier-craft, one of whom was nineteen stone. Captain Gordon of Gordonstown, representative of one of the oldest families in Scotland, found himself obliged by fortune to accept of one of these situations.

Scott, writing his Heart of Mid-Lothian in 1817, says: ‘Of late, the gradual diminution of these civic soldiers reminds one of the abatement of King Lear’s hundred knights. The edicts of each set of succeeding magistrates have, like those of Goneril and Regan, diminished this venerable band with similar question—“What need have we of five-and-twenty?—ten?—five?” and now it is nearly come to: “What need we one?” A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen of an old gray-headed and gray-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features, but bent double by age; dressed in an old-fashioned cocked-hat, bound with white tape instead of silver lace, and in coat, waistcoat, and breeches of a muddy-coloured red; bearing in his withered hand an ancient weapon, called a Lochaber axe—a long pole, namely, with an axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet. Such a phantom of former days still creeps, I have been informed, round the statue of Charles II. in the Parliament Square, as if the image of a Stuart were the last refuge for any memorial of our ancient manners,’ &c. At the close of this very year, the ‘What need we one?’ was asked, and answered in the negative; and the corps was accordingly dissolved. ‘Their last march to do duty at Hallow Fair had something in it affecting. Their drums and fifes had been wont, in better days, to play on this joyous occasion the lively tune of

but on this final occasion the afflicted veterans moved slowly to the dirge of

The half-serious pathos of Scott regarding this corps becomes wholly so when we learn that a couple of members survived to make an actual last public appearance in the procession which consecrated his richly deserved monument, August 15, 1846.