And marked with many a seamy scar.”

So sang Burns, when “from marking wildflowers on the banks of Ayr,” he “sheltered,” and was feted and petted in the “honoured shade” of the capital of Scotland. And Sir Walter Scott, in describing Marmion’s approach to the city on a summer’s morning, cannot, from a full proud heart, refrain from introducing his own personality:—

Doubtless, as a picturesque town, Edinburgh stands in the foremost rank. The natural configuration of the ground in ridges and hollows, and the commanding prospects from its heights of undulating landscape, of broad Frith, of distant hills, and of the adjacent Arthur’s Seat, like a couchant lion guarding the town, are striking, and stir up any poetic feeling that may be lurking in the heart. In the architecture there is a strange and incongruous mingling of the modern and the antique, of the genuine and the meretricious. There are many interesting historical memorials, and very many reminders of the everyday present. Buildings and monuments bring cherished and illustrious names to our mind; other names are obtruded which we would gladly forget. But no one can, from the Castle bastions, see the panorama of the city and its surroundings, without intense interest, and an admiration which will abide in the memory.

In 647, Edwin, the son of Ella, Saxon King of Northumbria, extended his conquests beyond the Forth. He re-fortified the rock-castle, called Puellerum, and to the little town which rose up around it, was given the name of Edwinsburgh. In 1128, Edinburgh was made a Royal burgh by David I. In 1215, a Parliament of Alexander II. met here for the first time. In 1296, the title of the chief magistrate was changed from Alderman to Provost.

In 1424, James I. was, at £40,000, ransomed from his long and unjust imprisonment in England: the towns of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Perth, and Dundee, guaranteeing the ransom. James had, on his parole, been free to move about England; and he soon saw how far behind her his own land was in agriculture and commerce. To amend this he made laws, which to us seem meddlesome and going into petty details, but doubtless were then useful and progressive. For the prevention of fires in buildings it was advisable to enact that “hempe, lint and straw be not put in houses aboone or near fires,” and that “nae licht be fetched from ane house to ane uther but within covered weshel or lanterne.” The lofty piles of buildings for which the older town of Edinburgh is now remarkable, were in the fifteenth century represented by wooden houses not exceeding two stories in height; for we find that in providing against fires, Parliament ordained that “at the common cost aucht twenty-fute ladders be made, and kept in a ready place in the town, for that use and none other.” From the murder of James I. in Perth, in 1456, Edinburgh dates as the capital, and where Parliaments were exclusively held.

In 1496, in order to qualify the eldest sons of barons and freeholders for exercising the functions of sheriffs (holding judicial powers in a Scottish county) and ordinary justices, it was enacted that such be sent to grammar schools, and there remain, “quhill they be competentlie founded and have perfite Latin; and thereafter to remain three zeirs at the schules of art and jure; so that they may have knowledge and onderstanding of the laws.” The population of Edinburgh was then about 8,000.

When, in 1503, Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., came to Scotland as the bride of James IV., the King met her at Dalkeith, and the royal lovers made their entry into Edinburgh, “the Kyng riding on a pallafroy, with the princesse behind him, and so through the toun.” Ten years later came, on the 10th September, the sad news of Flodden, fought on the previous day; when the brave but fool-hardy King, and the flower of Scottish manhood “were a’ wede away.” At first it was consternation and the confusion of despair; but soon order and new energy prevailed. Under pains of forfeiture of life and goods, all citizens capable of bearing arms were convoked to form, with the stragglers from Flodden, a fresh army: the older citizens were to defend the city. The women were, under a threat of banishment, forbidden to cry and clamour in the streets; the better sort were to go to church and pray for their country; and thereafter to mind their business at home, and not encumber the streets.

In 1543, under the regency of the Earl of Arran, an Act was passed permitting the scriptures to be read in the vulgar tongue, and the Reformation ideas began to be bruited about. Twelve years later, statues in St. Giles’ Church, of the Virgin and certain saints were destroyed; but the then Regent, Mary of Guise, by threatenings, given strength to by her French troops, contrived to keep down open revolt against the old faith. But in 1558, on the festival day of St. Giles, the patron saint of Edinburgh, and for which festival the priests and monks had made great preparation, it was discovered that the image of the saint had been taken from the church during the previous night, and thrown into the North Loch. The priests got a smaller statue from the Greyfriars, this the people called in derision “the bairn-saint.” The Queen-Regent was in the procession. She must have been a woman of strong character; in her presence all went smoothly, but having left, the populace tore the little St. Giles to pieces, hustling and dispersing the priests.

From the death of the Queen-Regent, and the withdrawal of the French troops in 1560, the Protestant cause was in the ascendancy. An Act was passed denouncing Popery, and sanctioning the hastily compiled Confession of Faith. Penalties on Catholic worship, very similar to those under which Protestants had groaned, and which they had bitterly denounced, were imposed. Any one celebrating mass or being present at its celebration, was to be punished by forfeiture of goods for the first offence, by banishment for the second, and by death for the third. Queen Mary, then in France, and her husband Francis, who held from Mary the crown-matrimonial of Scotland, refused to ratify the Acts, and insulted the messenger of the Parliament.

Next year, 1561, Mary, now a widow, and as such having lost her high position at the French court, returned to Scotland. She waited upon the deck of the vessel which was taking her from the land of her youth, until its shores faded from her tear-dimmed eyes. “Farewell, beloved France,” she sobbed, “I shall never behold thee again.” When, on the first day of September, she made her public entry into Edinburgh, never had the city shown such an exuberance of warm enthusiasm. The procession included all the foremost citizens, Protestant and Catholic, clad in velvet and satin; twelve citizens supporting the canopy over the triumphal car, where, like an Helen in her matchless loveliness, sat the young Queen. When on the following Sunday she attended mass at Holyrood, her Catholic servants were insulted, and the crowd could hardly be restrained from interrupting the service. And so began the hurley-burley, through six years little other than a civil war; a time of confusion, of plotting and counter-plotting, of intolerance, of malice and revenge; that fair figure with the dove’s eyes, but also with a determined will and an unswerving purpose, ever emerging into the foreground, now an object of admiration, and then for denunciation, but always for the highest interest and the profoundest pity.

After Marys enforced abdication in Lochleven Castle, on 29th July, 1567, her year-old son James was proclaimed King. The Earl of Morton, head of the powerful Douglas family, taking, in the child’s name, the usual coronation oaths. Mary’s half-brother, the Earl of Murray, became Regent. Three years later Murray, whilst riding in State through Linlithgow, was shot dead in revenge for a private injury. Then followed two years of discord and confusion from rival factions; and then, 1572, Morton became Regent, and was the master-power in the kingdom. For eight years he was the controlling influence. He was haughty and revengeful, and at the same time avaricious and corrupt; so he made many enemies, and these plotted his destruction. One day when the King, now fourteen years of age, was sitting in Council, one of James’s favourites entered the chamber abruptly, fell on his knees before the King, and accused Morton of having been concerned in the murder of the King’s father, Lord Darnley. Morton replied that instead of having been in the plot, he had himself been most active in dragging to light and punishing the conspirators. He now demanded a fair trial; but fair trials were not then general. Morton’s servants were put to the torture to extort damnatory evidence, and several known enemies were on the jury; so he was found guilty of having been “art and part” in Darnley’s murder. To the last he denied having advised or aided in the foul deed; but it is probable that he knew that it was in purpose. He suffered death by decapitation at Edinburgh, in June, 1581, the instrument of death being a rough form of guillotine, called the Maiden, which, it is said, he introduced into Scotland from Yorkshire. The gruesome machine is now in the Edinburgh Antiquarian Museum.

In 1596, James, now thirty years of age, quarrelled with his capital. There was in all the Stuart kings a strong strain of the old faith in what hearts they had; or, there was at least a very strong dislike of the independent, self-assertive idea which was the basis of the Presbyterian Church. James granted certain favours, which we should now think simply common rights, to his Catholic nobles, and this roused the ire of the Kirk, then ever ready to testify against popery, to assert for itself the right of free judgment in religious matters, but practically to deny this right to others. A standing Council of the Church was formed out of Edinburgh and provincial Presbyteries; inflammatory sermons were preached, and the King, refusing to receive a petition demanding that the laws against papacy be stringently enforced, was mobbed, and seditious cries were raised.

James hastily removed the Court to Linlithgow, ordering the courts of law to follow him there; and he ordered the magistrates to seize and imprison the Council of Ministers as promoters of sedition. The magistrates, anxious to regain the King’s favour, were preparing to obey him when the ministers fled to Newcastle. The King’s unwonted promptitude and decision, seem to have borne down all opposition. On the 1st of January, 1596-7, he re-entered Edinburgh between a double file of guards, chiefly from the wild Highland and border clans, which lined the streets. The magistrates on their knees submitted to him in most abject terms, and many of the nobles pleaded for pardon. James was not a large-minded man,—the more humble they, the more inexorable he. He gave three of his lords charge of the city, declaring that it had forfeited all its corporate privileges, was liable to all the penalties of treason, and deserved to be razed to the ground. We learn that Elizabeth interceded for the penitent city, which, deprived of its magistrates, deserted by its ministers, and proscribed by the King, was in the lowest depth of despondency. James relented so far as to absolve the city on the payment of a fine of 20,000 marks, and the forfeiture to the crown of the houses of the recreant ministers.

Elizabeth died in March 1603, and James was at once proclaimed King of England, and warmly invited to take up his residence in London. On the Sunday previous to his departure he was present at the service in St. Giles’ Church. At the close of the service he rose and addressed the congregation in a speech full of kindly expressions, declaring his abiding affection and regard for his native land; and the sighs and tears of the people shewed how their hearts were moved by his words.

Fifteen years later, James was again in Edinburgh. His progress from Berwick was one continued ovation. In every town which he passed through, flattering panegyrics, in Latin or Greek, were addressed to him. As he entered Edinburgh by the West Port, he was met by the magistrates in their robes, and the town-clerk read a long address replete with compliments, so inflated and exaggerative, that the dedication to “the most high and mighty Prince James,” of the authorised translation of the Bible, reads comparatively flat and commonplace. Afterwards, the king was sumptuously entertained, and presented with 10,000 marks in a silver basin.

Just at this time, the invention of logarithms, by a Scotch laird, John Napier of Merchiston, near Edinburgh, was becoming known in the then comparatively restricted scientific world. Logarithms are prepared tables of numbers, by which complex problems in trigonometry, and the tedious extraction of roots, can be performed by the simpler rules of arithmetic. To the well-educated, they save much time and labour; in the art of navigation, they enable the mariner who may be unskilled in mathematics, to work out the most intricate calculations. In all vessels on the open seas, when observations can be taken, in all mathematical schools and astronomical observatories, logarithms are in daily use. As with other things, familiarity discounts our wonder at their aptitude and value; but the estimate by scientists of Napier’s invention is, that it ranks amongst British contributions to science, second only to Newton’s Principia. Kepler regarded Napier as one of the greatest men of his age; and in the roll of those who were foremost in establishing real science in Europe, his is the only name which can be placed alongside the names of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo.

The long sloping street called the Canongate, which reaches down from the centre of the Old Town to Holyrood, was, with its tributary lanes and closes, created a Burgh of Regality by King David the First. It was outside the walls of Edinburgh, and had its own Council of Bailies, Deacons of Trades, and Burgesses. The Canongate is full of old memories. There is the house of John Knox, the sturdy Reformer and typical presbyterian. There is the Tolbooth—the Heart of Midlothian. From the balcony of that old mansion, called Moray House, a gay party were, in 1650, with malicious and triumphant eyes, looking down upon a crowd through which was slowly wending a low cart, in which was ignominiously bound down that spent thunderbolt of war, Montrose—he is on his way to execution. Aye, but in after years two in that jubilant party—Argyles, father and son—will both also pass up that street amidst jeering crowds, and to similar fates.

Edinburgh Castle is the central feature of the city. Its site is on the summit of a huge isolated rock of eruptive basalt,—rising on the north side,—out of the valley, now a garden, which divides the new from the old town, to about 175 feet of perpendicular height. The castle, with the slopes, occupies fully six acres of ground, and includes barrack accommodation for 2,000 men; the armoury is calculated to contain 30,000 stands of arms. On the Argyle bastion there is a huge piece of old artillery called Mons Meg; it is constructed of wrought iron, and had burst at the muzzle at its last discharge. Its liner is formed of longitudinal bars,—these are strongly hooped; it is thus allied in construction to that of present ordnance, and, rude as the work is, it shows the comparative high state of iron manufacture amongst the Dutch several centuries ago.

The castle was used by Malcolm Canmore and his saintly queen, Margaret, as a royal residence. The oldest building on the plateau which crowns the rock, is St. Margaret’s Chapel, said to have been used by the queen. On two sides of the quadrangle called Palace Yard are an ancient hall which has just been restored, and a suite of residential apartments. In a small turret-chamber, Mary’s son, James, was born. In a well-protected room adjoining, the regalia of Scotland—crown, sceptre, sword of state, and other insignia—are shewn.

The ancient regalia were “conveyed, the wise it call,” out of Scotland by Edward I. Robert Bruce was crowned at Scone with only a makeshift crown; but it also fell into the hands of the English. The present crown is, from the style of its workmanship, supposed to have been made in the later years of Bruce’s reign. It was first used in the coronation of David II., in 1329. Later sovereigns added to the ornamentation. The sword of state was presented to James V. by Pope Julius II. There are also certain jewels which were restored to Scotland at the death of Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts.

When Cromwell invaded Scotland, the regalia were, for security, taken by the Earl Marischal to his own strong castle of Dunottar, in Kincardineshire. When this castle was besieged by General Monk, the regalia—known to be there by the English—were, by a feminine stratagem, carried out by Mrs. Grainger, the wife of the minister of the neighbouring church of Kinneff. The minister buried them in the church, and there they remained until the Restoration.

At the Union, in 1707, the Scottish Estates passed a resolution that the regalia were never to be removed from Scotland. A hundred years after the whereabouts was unknown,—their very existence a matter of doubt. The following extract is from the article “Edinburgh,” in the “Edinburgh Encyclopedia,” edited by Sir David Brewster, published about 1815:—

“At the time of the Union, the Scottish regalia were, with much solemnity, deposited in a strong iron-barred room, entered from a narrow staircase; but most probably prudential reasons have long ago led to their destruction or removal. They were too dangerous insignias of royalty to lie within the reach of the disaffected during the rebellions of the last century. Towards its close, however, some doubts were raised, and a warrant to search was issued to certain official persons. Nothing was found but an old locked chest covered with dust, and the deputation did not think that they were authorized to break this open. So the search was abandoned, and an opportunity, not likely to recur, of ascertaining whether the regalia were really in existence, was lost.”

The italics are ours. In 1818, the regalia were found in a search ordered by George IV.—then Prince Regent—in that same old chest, which is still in evidence at the back of the jewel room.

Holyrood Palace, founded by David I., in 1158, was originally an abbey of St. Augustine canons. The ruins of the church evidence the grandeur of the ancient structure. Of a later date is the north-west wing of the palace,—a portion of which was a royal residence of successive sovereigns. One of the complaints against James III. was that he here preferred the society of poets and musicians, to that of the ruder nobility. James IV. was also partial to artists and literary men. In his Marmion, Sir Walter Scott has the quatrain:—

Sir David was in the first half of the sixteenth century the leading poet in Scotland. When a boy he was page of honour to the infant king, James V.,—carrying him on his back,—his playmate, and, in a sense, his tutor. Sir David addresses the king, giving some early reminiscences:—

The suite of apartments occupied by Queen Mary are still left, with a portion of the old furniture and hangings. As we wander through the rooms, we can, in fancy, see Mary in the audience chamber, in one of her distressing interviews with the leaders of the Reformation,—when most unjustifiable demands were made on her that, against conscience and conviction, she should renounce the faith in which she had been nurtured,—should change her religion to accommodate the popular change. Or, in the private supper-room, see her and her ladies at their needlework; or hear one of these ladies sing an old Scots ballad of loves gone astray, and with a sad ending. Then Rizzio’s rich baritone rises in an Italian strain; and then there is on these stairs the trampling of armed men, and foul murder is done before the eyes of a queen and an expectant mother; and her life is never the same again.

Little more than this wing of the palace was left by a fire, in 1650, when Cromwell’s soldiers were quartered in the building. All the newer portion was built in the reign of Charles II. The picture gallery is 150 feet long, and contains portraits (?) of 106 ancient Scottish kings. Here, in the autumn of 1745, Prince Charles Edward held his mimic court. At every general parliamentary election the sixteen representative Scottish peers are chosen in this hall.

James VI. repaired and embellished the church, providing it with an organ, a throne, and twelve stalls for the Knights of the Thistle. The roof fell in in 1768, and the fine eastern window yielded to a violent tempest in 1795. Since then the church—the sepulchre of Scottish kings and queens—has been allowed to become a ruin.