THE OLD EDINBURGH CROSS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2137, 20 March 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE OLD EDINBURGH CROSS.

" DUNIDIS'S Glross, a pillared stone, Rose on a turret octagon ; But n<»w is razed that monument, Whance royal edicts ran?, And the voice of Scotland's law went forth, In glorious trumpet clan?." So wrote Scott in " Marmion" of the Cross which is the subject of our remark)*. "Razed" though it was then, itn destined to ba restored. ' ' As your great historic city is the capital of Midlothian, no less than of the kingom of Scotland, I earnestly desire, in the character of representative of the county, to leave behind me this small but visible record of grateful acknowledgment and sincere affection conferred in a form closely associated with local and national traditions." Those are hflmc of the graceful words in which Mr G-ladstone in 18S5 sought permission from the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to restore " the ftuld Mercat Cross" which has stood in that great historic city for so many generation?. The Cross was swept away in barbarous fashion in 1756. It originall y stood close by S. Giles's Church, was a battlemented octagon tower, furnished with four angular turrets. It was sixteen feet in diameter, and fifteen feet high. From this rose the centre pillar, also octagon, twenty feet iv height,' snr mounted by a beautiful Gothic capital, terminated by a crowned unicorn. History tells urn that it was reerected in 1617 ; but for ver^ many years nothing but a shaft has remained to recall the suggestive memories whioh duster round one of the most interesting neighbourhoods in the Scottish capital. The chief ornaments of the ancient edfice have, however been preserved : the heads in basso-relievo, whioh Hurraounted seven of the arches, have been ittributed liy eminent antiquaries to the remote period of the Lower Empire. Four of those heads were procured by Sir Walter Scott, and preserved at Abbotsford along with the great stone font or basin which used to flow with wine on holidays ; and as Mr Gladstone is such an ardent admirer of Scott* works, he could in no way bettter evince his gratitude to that favourite writer than by adding to the attractions of " Anld Reekie." The central pillar since 1866 has been enclosed within a railing on the north side of thf choir of S. Giles's ; a crowned unicorn surmounts it, bearing a pennon blazoned with a silver St. Andrew s Cross on one side, and on the other an anchor as the fity crest. So much for th,e architectural character of this, relic of antiquity. It will be more of interest, perhaps, to many, to note what the Cross could witness to if it might speak— of tho ancient days in Snotland's history. " From the side of that venerable shaft royal proclamations, ••olemn denunciations of excommunication and outlawry, involving ruin and death, went forth for ages, and strange and terrible have been the scenes, the cruelties, the exeutions, the absurdities it has witnessed. From its battlements, by tradition, mimic heralds of the unseen world fited the gallant James and all our Scottish chivalry to appear in the domains of Pluto immediately before the march of the army to Flodden." Within sight of it the ancient " Tolbooth" reared its gloomy front, and although ifc was demolished ia 1817, Sir Walter Scott has handed down a lrstory of it not to be forgotten. Sir Walter's description of the Porteous riots has superseded all other versions of that tragic episode. The Tolbooth was built by the citizens of Edinburgh in the sixteenth century. It was destined for the accomomodation of Parliament, as well as the High Courts of Justice. It was also set apart as a place of confinment for prisoners charged with criminal offences and arrested for debt. When a new Parliament House was erected in 1640, the Tolbooth was occupied as a prison only, and the Mercat (Jross may be regarded as its companion in the history of those gloomy days of human crime and suffering which recall the worst times of the French Bastille. Under the shadow of the Cross deeds of real horror have been enacted. It was there that Sir James Tarbut, a Roman Catholic priest, was pilloried in his vestments, with a chalice bound to his hands, and he was pelted ta death with "his Eister egga." Sir William Kirkaldy was^hangecl there, and following- him his enemy, Moreton. Here, too, Montrose met his doom with the calm dignity so well described by Prefessor Aytoun : — "For truth and right 'gainst treason's might, This hand hath always striven, And ye raised it up for a witness still In the eyes of earth and heaven. Then nail my head on yonder tower, Given every town a limb, And God wh> raide shall gather them ; I go from you to Him !" Amid every ignominy that could be heaped upon them, mauy of Montrose's cavalier comrades, and the two Arpyles, father and son, rendered up their lives on this fatal bpot. One hideous scene enacted at the old cros* was that which ended the life of oue Patrick Macgregor, who, with ten other cateians accused of cattle lifting and many wild pranks on the shores of Loch Lomond, when brought to Edinburgh, were drawn bnckwards on a hurdle to the cross on tho 27th of July, 1536, and there hanged ; Gilderoy and John Forbes suffering on a higher gallows than thn rest, and, moreover, having thoir heads and hands struck off, to be affixed to the oity gates. The Cross could toll stori*" out of number of the scourging, the branding, the ear-nailing, the nose-pinch-ing, the tongue-boring, &a. &c. • and one record is given of the puuishmenthere inflicted in Nicoll'fl dairy. The occasion was in 1652, " Twa Engliscbes, for drinking the kind's health, were takin and bun lat Edinburgh Croce, quhair either of tbatne resavit thirty-nine quhipen on their naiked bakes and shoulders ; thairafter their lugs wereimillit to the gallows ; rhe ane had his lug cuttit from the ruitt with a razor ; the uther b*ing also naillit to tho gibbet had his mouth ikobifc, and his tong being drawn out the full length, was bound together betwix t.va sticks, hard togeider, with an skainzie korid, for the space of half one hour thereby." Under such circumstances as these there is littlo wonder at the abundant grounds there arc for believing that thu memories of the Mercat Cross, the Tolbooth, the Church of S. Giles, and of Parliament Square, will never be effaced from the minds of Scotchmen in whatever part of the world their fortunes may be cast. When Mr Jefferson Da via visited Edinburgh, shortly after the conclusion of the American Civil War, in company with Dr Charles Mackay, the ex- President of the extinct Confederate States was so penetrated by the " genius loci" that he said it wuuld have been worth to him. as much as an army of fifty thousand men had he been able to invoke it between 1861 and 1865 on the other side of the Atlantic But it is not altogether for tho horrible memories that interest is excited in the memorial. There have been festire occasions at the Cross. From its platform the royal edicts were proclaimed, banquet/ were held thereon, end the font or basin before referred to on those occasions ran with wine. During the reign of the two first Georges it was customary for the magistrates to pledge their loyalty from thin centre and cynosure of the city. It was there that fair ladies and chivalrous men welcomed Prince Charles after the tout of Preston pans. He was proclaimed from the platform of tho Cross.' In later times the Cross was tho resort of citizens —a sort of rialto where in those days tho merchants most did congregate. It has been suggested that Mr Gladstone may from the steps of the restored Cross address his constituents of Midlothian some day No doubt as royal edicts were proclaimed therefrom in the past they may be in tho future ; at any rate, few will doubt that Mr Gladstone could hardly have thought of a better way of keeping his raomory alive in the oity to which he haa always been ardently ftUa.oh.ed.