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HERE are two main points of interest in Edinburgh:
these are the Castle and Holyrood. Nothing else approaches them. They
gather into themselves the whole tragic interest of old Scots life and
history, and if we balance the one against the other we ought to give the
preference to the Castle,— but I am not sure that we do. Holyrood has
rarer and choicer moments; it is more life-like and pathetic. In its old
rooms the past actually lives for you again. The very dust in its chapel
is "dropt from the ruined sides of kings." Amidst the bustling activities
of the Castle, its ugly barracks and storehouses, you feel yourself in a
modem fortress; but put yourself away from the present, listen to the
voices of the past, and you are at the very core and centre of old
Scotland. Busy as it is, all is mere nothing,—the ghosts have it here as
always in Edinburgh, - to-day is unreal and shadowy, it is the past that
lives. In one thing the Castle is an easy first; Edinburgh is the city of
beautiful and picturesque views, of sudden and magic effects, and
simply because the Castle is the highest
inhabited spot, you have the best prospect therefrom. Even at the
Esplanade, before you enter the gate, you are charmed, but you scarce dare
look, or you spoil the better prospect from the Argyll Battery, and when
you get there, you feel obliged to pause till you get up above on the
King’s Bastion. Better take in all that the Esplanade will give you and
pick up on the higher reaches what still remains unseen from the lower. I
need not dwell on that view, a word must suffice. There to the north,
rising sharply to the ridge and then sinking away for two miles to the
sea, are the Gardens and Princes Street, and the ordered sequence of the
New Town, and the huge mass of modem building that threatens to fill up
all to the shore. And then there are the waters of the Firth,—that noble
arm of the sea, with, as R. L. Stevenson puts it, "Ships tacking for the
Baltic," and no end of other places one might add. And beyond is Fife and
a background of great hills. To the east the old town runs down the ridge
towards Holyrood, how obvious the comparison to the vertebrate frame, the
closes north and south, marking the ribs running off from it! On the south
your eye runs down and up again to the College and all the group of
academic buildings, to the open fields beyond, still not quite covered
with the rising tide of bricks and mortar. And beyond all round are the
hills, "as the mountains are about Jerusalem." Most prominent, because
near at hand, the Lion Hill keeps its stately watch and guard over this
precious relic of the past, this city of dreams and memories. How these
hills ring round Edinburgh; what character and grandeur they give it! "I
will lift mine eyes to the hills," so must everyone in Edinburgh say.
It will not take you long to walk
over the Castle. True, there are eleven acres of it, but only part rivets
your attention, and only part is accessible. I remember one recent visit
of my own. It was a beautiful autumn day; soldiers were drilling on the
Esplanade, tourists were lounging about, and I lounged too and gazed at
the monuments. These are to dead-and-gone soldiers of all ranks, from the
Duke of York downwards. The Duke of York, modern as he is, is the most
ancient of the lot. Crimean wars, Indian wars, South African wars are all
commemorated, but not the stirring incidents of the place. The needs of
the day were terribly exacting. In that old Scots life men were making
history, not memorials. Everything you see has suffered change again and
again. This Esplanade, for instance, is over 300 feet long and
300 feet broad; it is level, and you
walk over the moat and under the portcullis into the Castle from it as
from a level, but this is only since 1753. Before that it was rough,
untended ground, sloping downwards towards the city, and there was a
flight of steps by which you gained the level of the drawbridge. But when
the Royal Exchange was built a huge mass of superfluous earth was on hand,
and was used to level it up.
Inside, you are soon in the
Argyll Battery. The particular Argyll this commemorates was John, Duke of
Argyll and Greenwich, who commanded the Government forces at Sheriffmuir.
"Argyll the states bold thunder born
to wield,
And shake alike the senate and
the field."
Thus Pope, in one of those neat
couplets of which he knew so excellently the trick. His Grace
was a favourite of men of letters; you
remember the beneficent part he plays in The Heart of Midlothian.
The Castle is intimately connected with the tragic fate of two other
Argylls, namely, the Marquis of Argyll, called Gillespie Grumach, from his
villainous squint, which quite spoilt a naturally sanctimonious set of
features, and his son, the Earl
of Argyll. They were warded in the Argyll Tower, which you reach by some
steps on the left. There is nothing but a table of photos in the little
rooms of the prison, nothing for the imagination to catch hold of and so
call back those mournful scenes of death and ruin.
Next comes the King’s Bastion,
wherefrom there is the view and whereon is no less a person than Mons Meg,
that centuries-old fetish of the Scots folk, that idol of the Scots
school-boy. "Munsch Meg" (to give phonetically the popular pronunciation)
would not claim your particular notice, for ‘tis but an old, uncouth mass
of metal, were it not for its history. That is lost in antiquity. Once
‘twas believed that Meg was a Flemish lass, and Mons recalled her place of
birth. (To this effect runs the inscription on the metal.) Others said
that it was made by command of James II. for the siege of Threave Castle,
the last stronghold of the Douglas, and that it was cast by a local
artisan, one M’Kim of Mollance. Meg was the name of his
good lady, and it was his
humour to trace a likeness between the voice,
which you augur was neither soft nor
low, of his wife Meg, and the thunder of the gun, and there you have the
name a little contracted. The huge piece was dragged into position, a peck
of powder and a granite ball, vaguely described as "the weight of a
Carsphairn cow," were rammed in, the match was applied, and off went Meg
with a roar which shook the firmament. Margaret, the Fair Maid of
Galloway, was raising with beringed band a cup of wine to her lips, when
lo! enter the cannon ball and off goes the hand, ring and all! Meg roared
once again and the castle surrendered at discretion. Local tradition
pointed out the spot where Meg was cast. The two bullets were found and
accounted for, nay, the very ring, with Margaret’s name on it, turned up
in due course, and who could doubt the story after that? Meg was a great
favourite with the old Scots Kings. They dragged her about with enormous
trouble, and with no very appreciable advantage, to various parts of
Scotland, and even into England and back again. She was covered with
emblazoned cloth, decked with ribbons, pipes played before her as she was
taken up and down from the Castle, and if this soothed her martial soul
she was not less susceptible to the more subtle flattery implied in the
greasing of her mouth; for all these things charges appear in the royal
accounts. "The great iron
murderer Meg" was Cromwell’s unflattering account of her in 1650, but
Cromwell was an Englishman, and rather brutal in method and speech. In
1681 Meg, who had served the Stuarts so long, may be said to have died in
their service, just before they lost for ever the throne of Britain. A
salute was fired in honour of James, Duke of York, afterwards James VII.
of Scotland and II. of England. It was done badly, or Meg was effete; at
any rate she burst.
"Oh wellawins! Mons Meg for you,
‘Twas firing cracked
thy muckle mou!"
so sings Ferguson.
Yet Meg’s adventures were not over.
In 1753 she travelled south to the Tower of London, and only came back
through Scott’s influence in 1829, when with pipers and cheering mobs she
was escorted to her old place.
Just behind Mons Meg is the little
chapel or oratory of St Margaret, the very place in truth where the
sainted queen worshipped. It is one of the oldest churches in Britain. It
is small,—the nave is little over 16 ft. by 10 ft. It is plain and bare.
You see at once that the stained glass is modern; a Latin inscription
tells how, after long and shameful neglect, it was restored by Queen
Victoria who, we are reminded, surely not from pride but that the
continuity of Britain and its history might thus be set forth, was herself
a descendant of Margaret. There are many places in Edinburgh which lay
strong hold on you, none more than this tiny ancient cell perched high on
the rock. It has that pathetic touch which tirls "the heart-strings, thro’
the breast, A’ to the life," and is the peculiar and profound charm, not
of this place alone but scarcely anywhere so much as of this place. You
move on to the quadrangle. The western side is modern and worthless from
our point of view. I ought here to say that the general aspect of
Edinburgh Castle is now much as it was when rebuilt after the siege of
1573. That was so destructive that, after the rebuilding, it was mainly
new, and it never was seriously attacked by force again. A very old aspect
is supposed to be preserved in the towers which constitute the city coat
of arms.
Some memorable precious bits have
endured through the centuries. One is the Parliament Hall. Not so very
long ago it was a whitewashed military hospital, but one wealthy Edinburgh
publisher restored St Giles’ and laudable rivalry inspired another to
restore parts of the Castle. And so this place is now beautifully done up,
with arms and effigies of men in complete armour of various periods, and
targets of bulls’ hide and so forth, and these set off the stone floor and
oak arched roof and the huge fireplace and the deep recessed windows, and
you think it a fine impressive old hall. "Do not touch" is written
everywhere. How violently the Scots have swung round from one extreme to
another, from callous disregard to over-anxious care! You learn with
interest that deep down in the bowels of the rock are huge cavernous
prisons, where for long years those who were hated or feared by men in
authority have lain in darkness and sorrow. And here too, were confined
the prisoners taken in the French wars, and what sort of life they led you
gather from the lively narrative of St Ives. Here, too, was
confined that whimsical gentleman who appears in Scott’s Rob Roy as
the son of the illustrious freebooter, and in Catriona as the
father of the heroine, and his adventures in fact were just as exciting as
those in fiction, for did he not escape, disguised as an old cobbler, and
all through a clever trick of a tall and handsome daughter? You are musing
as to what her name really was, when a more august call reminds that you
are keeping waiting a more impressive figure than fiction ever drew, for
almost next door are the Mary apartments. And they show you the little
room where James VI. of Scotland and I. of England was born, the most
important event it has been called in the history of Britain.
Photograph of the Scottish Crown Jewels taken by Ranald
McIntyre
There is still something else to
see, for in another room are the Honours of Scotland, the crown, the
sceptre, and the sword of state and some other lesser wonders. What a
history is theirs! After the battle of Dunbar the Scots authorities easily
surmised that Cromwell would presently be hunting far and wide for those
treasures whose money value rumour had considerably exaggerated. They were
snatched off to the Castle of Dunnottar in Kincardineshire, not very far
from Aberdeen, a well-fortified place on a high rock that was almost an
island. The English discovered their whereabouts, and were soon pressing
round the castle, which was defended by Ogilvy of Barras. The place was
safe against attack, but it was starved into surrender. In the end Mr
Grainger, the minister of the parish, his wife, and the governor of the
castle concocted an ingenious stratagem to save the jewels. First a rumour
was set flying that they had been taken to the continent by one of the
Earl Marischal’s family, then Mrs Grainger, with happy audacity, conveyed
them from the castle, hid under some bundles of lint which she bad
obtained permission to remove. At dead of night the minister buried the
Honours under the pulpit of his church. He unearthed them from time to
time to see that they were safe, to renew the wrappings, perhaps to gloat
in secret over his hidden treasure. You envy him those private nocturnal
visits to the august gems. He needed something to sustain his fortitude.
When the castle gave in, where were the Regalia? asked the victors in
angry amazement. They got no answer. Threats, prison, torture, were all in
vain. The jewels lay safe till the Restoration, when compliments and
rewards were distributed to all concerned.
At the Union in 1707 it was rumoured
they were to be taken to England, albeit it was provided by the Act itself
that they should be kept in Scotland. And then they were locked up in the
huge black kist you see in. the room, and people forgot all about them,
till at last in1817 the indefatigable Sir Walter got the Prince Regent to
move the government for a commission to search for them. Scott was there
when the kist was opened (4th February 1818), and his emotion proved that
he at least thought the matter of national importance, and so fitly the
Castle continues to guard, as it has done through the centuries, these
gems, bright not merely with their own sparkle, but with the greater
lustre of august memories, those memorials of the ancient kingdom of
Scotland. |
