There are many full-blooded golfers who, if in the light of knowledge
and experience they could have their choice to live their golfing lives
over again, with the special advantage of picking their own period and
place for play, would hold up their hands for Leith and the closing
years of the seventeenth century. They could be greatly earnest about
their golf in those days, and there was colour and richness about it.
Here it was that King Charles was playing his game when the news came to
him, according to famous tradition, of the insurrection and rebellion in
Ireland. And another future King of England is generally believed to
have played great games on Leith links, and perhaps the most interesting
monument of ancient golf that remains to us to-day is still to be found
in Edinburgh, commemorating a great game that was once played, in which
James, Duke of York, afterwards James II., had a hand. This house is
that old one in Canongate which is numbered 77, on the north side a
little above Queensberry House. On the wall above what at one time was
the doorway of this house there is a stone bearing this inscription in
Latin: “Cum victor ludo scotis qui proprius esset ter tres victores post
redimitus avos patersonus humo tunc educebat in altum hanc quae victores
tot tulit una domum”; and, separately, there is the line in English, “I
hate no person,” which effectually settles the name of the man most
concerned, as the letters of these words are nothing more than an
anagrammatical transposition of the letters of the name of John
Patersone, who is the hero of the story of the great game. High up, near
the top of this five-storey building, is another tablet bearing a coat
of arms, on which there are three pelicans and three mullets, while for
crest there is a dexter hand grasping a golf club, and the motto is “Far
and sure.” The point of the story is that this house was built by a poor
cobbler out of a share of the proceeds of a wager won by the Duke on a
foursome, in which he, the cobbler, was his partner.
The generally accepted story, in which there is no hole to be picked, is
that one day, during their attendance at the Scottish Court, two English
noblemen, who had played a little golf in their time, had a discussion,
in which the Duke of York joined, as to whether it were more of an
English or a Scottish game. Eventually it was determined that the
question, so far as their own satisfaction was concerned, should be
decided by an appeal to the game itself, that is to say, the Englishmen,
who affected to be of mind that it was an English game, agreed that they
would play the Duke and any other Scotsman that he would choose to
partner him for a large stake of money. The Duke conceived that he could
do himself a little good in the affair, since his acceptance of such a
challenge and his standing forward in the name of Scotland would be good
for the sustenance of his claim to the character of a Scot, and would
please the people of the country. So the match being made, the Duke sent
out agents to scour the town in search of the best partner for him that
they could find, and when found he was to be brought forward,
irrespective of his circumstances or his station in life. Eventually the
man whom they selected for this onerous task was the poor shoemaker who
went by the name of John Patersone. He was very fearful as to how he
should perform with so much responsibility depending upon him; but the
Duke was evidently a good golfer, to the extent that he encouraged his
partner and did his utmost to make him feel comfortable, whereupon
Patersone braced himself for the struggle and said that he would do his
best. The Duke and the cobbler were easily victorious, whereupon the
former gave his partner the half of the stake that he had won, and with
this money the house in Canongate was built, the Duke himself causing
the escutcheon, bearing the arms of the family of Patersone, to be fixed
in the wall.