His son Archibald (the young Niddrie of William Wauchope's notes)
was a friend and companion of Francis, Lord Bothwell, and was
concerned in the attack on the palace of Holyrood, December 27,
1591. (See _History and Genealogy of the Family of Wauchope of
Niddrie-Merschell_, by James Paterson, 1858. Privately printed.)
When the year 1745 brought Prince Charles to this country to make his
gallant attempt to win back his father's throne, the Laird of Niddrie
collected a considerable sum of money for the royal cause. The prince
was encamped at Duddingston, but, as some of the enemy's troops lay
between that village and Niddrie, it was difficult to convey the
money to him. The plan the laird adopted was this: he sent his son
(my great-great-grandfather), a boy about six years old, in charge of
his tutor, with a large basket of fruit as a present to the prince.
The money was carefully concealed at the bottom of the basket. The
boy passed through the enemy's lines in safety, they suspecting
nothing, and reached the royal camp, where he delivered the money
into the prince's own hands. A few days afterwards, as the prince was
marching out with his troops, he perceived the boy walking with his
tutor on the farther side of a hedge. He stopped and said, "Is that
the young Laird of Niddrie?" and, desiring the tutor to lift him over
the hedge, he took him up in his arms and gave him his blessing.
This was not the only time that the Laird of Niddrie sent supplies
to his royal master, for, on another occasion, the money was
successfully taken to the prince by one of the Yetholm tenants, a man
named Thomson, who packed the coins in a load of hay, and succeeded
in crossing the country undiscovered. As a reward for his courage
and loyalty, the laird gave him his farm rent free from that time.
The laird's own family were of divided opinions. His wife, a Hume,
Lord Kimmerghame's daughter, was a Whig, like all her family. She
had a cousin, a Sandilands, in the Hanoverian army. He was wounded
at Prestonpans. She went out secretly and brought him back from the
field of battle; and, unknown to her husband, lodged him in some safe
place, and attended him till he was better.
When all hope of the royal cause was lost, the Wauchopes appear to
have reconciled themselves to the reigning family, and the young
Laird fought at Minden in the British army. It is to this that Sir
Walter Scott alludes:
Come, stately Niddrie, auld and true,
Girt with the sword that Minden knew.
We have o'er few such lairds as you.
He was a singularly handsome man, and there is a fine portrait of him
in his old age, by Raeburn, at Niddrie.
Another link with the old Jacobite days lasted well into this
century, in the person of Lucky Brown, who lived at one of the
lodges. She had been Mrs. Wauchope's nurse, and was a Cumberland
woman by birth. In the '45, she was living near Carlisle with her
father, and when Prince Charles passed their house on his march
south, they had breakfast laid out for him on the "louping-on stane."
He stopped and breakfasted there. A few months later, when the
Hanoverians fastened the heads of the executed Jacobites over the
gates of Carlisle, Lucky Brown and another young woman got a ladder,
and went in the dead of the night, and took down every head, carried
them away in their aprons, and buried them. My aunt, Lady John
Scott, remembers Lucky Brown quite well, and she has often heard her
grandfather tell the story of his expedition to the prince's camp.
It is a curious thing that when that laird of Niddrie succeeded to
the property in the last century, the workers in the coal-mines were
still in a state of slavery. They were bought and sold with the pits,
and they and their families were in bondage for ever. Mrs. Wauchope's
aunt, Miss Johnstone of Hilton, "Aunt Soph," who was always a great
deal at Niddrie, used to sing "The Coalbearer's Lamentation," a song
sung by these people.
When I was engaged a coal-bearer to be,
When I was engaged a coal-bearer to be,
Through all the coal-pits,
I maun wear the dron brats.[39]
If my heart it should break,
I can never won free!
[39] _Dron brats_, a kind of apron worn behind. (Jamieson's
_Dictionary_.)
The house has been very much altered and added to at different
times. The original castle stood a little to the eastward. After
its destruction in 1596, the present house was built by Sir Francis
Wauchope, "Young Niddrie's" son, but it has been very much altered
and modernized since. The King's Room, where Charles I. slept, has
completely disappeared, the floor having been taken out to heighten
the hall below. There used to be a ghost called Jenny Traill, which
haunted a room up a little steep stair near the roof. She was
supposed to have killed herself there, but I have never heard of her
appearance of late years.
In very old days, a large and thriving village clustered on both
sides of the stream, round the old keep of Niddrie. At one time it
contained three hundred families, three breweries, and fourteen
houses that sold liquor. That has long been swept away. A few houses
still remain at the north-east corner of the park, where Niddrie Mill
formerly stood. My aunt remembered a family named Simon that lived
here. They had been from father to son bakers to the Wauchopes for
nearly five hundred years; but they died out in the time of Colonel
Wauchope's father.
Four important roads meet at this spot,--the one from Edinburgh,
the one from Musselburgh, the one by which we have just travelled
from Edmonstone, and the one to Portobello, which we now follow. We
are fast approaching the sea, but, as to-day's walk is already long
enough, we shall leave Portobello to be described to-morrow; and,
taking the first turn to the left, we very soon find ourselves facing
the gates of Duddingston House. The crowned antelopes that surmount
the gate-pillars show that this is Abercorn property. It is a flat,
uninteresting park, well-wooded, with a summer-house like a Grecian
temple, forming a _point-de-vue_ from the house, which was built in
1768 after designs by Sir William Chambers, and cost £30,000.
The original owners of Duddingston, after the Reformation had
dispossessed the monks of Kelso, were a family named Thomson, created
later Baronets of Nova Scotia, and now extinct. In 1674 it became
the property of the Duke of Lauderdale, and after his death, his
duchess continued to live there. It was then that the lawsuit took
place between her and Sir James Dick, respecting the swans which she
had placed on Duddingston Loch, and which he, as owner of the loch,
had shut up. The duchess won her point at last, with the help of the
Duke of Hamilton, who, as keeper of the King's Park, interfered on
her behalf. Duddingston passed as pin-money to her daughter (by her
first marriage), Elizabeth Tollemache, who married the first Duke
of Argyle. She lived here constantly, and her son, the famous Duke
of Argyle and Greenwich, was brought up here. In 1745 the place was
sold to the Abercorns, who still possess it. They have not lived here
for many years, and now it is always let. Prior to the purchase of
Sandringham, there was some idea of its being bought for the Prince
of Wales, but the plan came to nothing.
The road we are following skirts the park, and after crossing the
Braid Burn, which runs out of an ornamental piece of water just
above us, we come to some substantial and comfortable-looking
villas surrounded with shrubberies and gardens. The road in front
of us leads to Piershill, but we take the one to the left, and soon
reach the other entrance to Duddingston House. Here formerly stood
a thorn-tree of great age and immense size. It was called "Queen
Mary's Tree," though it was known to have existed as far back as the
reign of Alexander I. (1107), when it was one of the landmarks of the
property on which it grew. A storm in 1840 tore it up by the roots.
We now see the little village of Duddingston, nestling between the
hill and the loch. The church stands on a rocky knowe just above
the water, and two narrow roads (for streets we can hardly call
them), bordered with houses, gardens, and orchards thrown together
in picturesque confusion, make up the rest of the village. The house
in which Prince Charles and his staff slept before Prestonpans lies
a little back from the main road, while his army was encamped on
the sunny slopes behind, which rise without a break to the edge of
Dunsappie. As we pass the church, we see the "louping-on stane,"
so necessary in the days when our forefathers invariably rode
everywhere. The "jougs" still hang close by on the wall behind.
Though rusty now, they were once the terror and the punishment of
wrong-doers, who stood there, as in a pillory, with the iron collar
firmly clasped round the offender's neck.
[Illustration]
The church, which is of great antiquity, belonged to the Tironensian
Monks of Kelso.[40] Twice since the Reformation has its pulpit
been filled by very remarkable men, who have each left a memory
behind,--the one by his pen, the other by his brush. The first,
Robert Monteith (so much better known as Mentet de Salmonet), had a
curious and romantic story. He was the son of a poor fisherman on the
Forth, above Alloa; but, having shown much quickness and aptitude for
learning, he was educated for the ministry, and eventually, in 1630,
obtained the living of Duddingston.
[40] Tironensian Monks, a branch of the Benedictines, so called from
the Abbey of Tiron in France, from which they were brought by David
I. in 1113, and planted at Selkirk. He removed them to Kelso in 1126.
(See _Registrum Cartarum de Kelso_, Ban. Club, 1846.)
The care of this small parish gave little scope to a bold, restless
nature like Monteith's. The intriguing spirit that possessed him
wearied of the petty incidents of his daily life, and, in an hour of
idleness, the flame of an absorbing passion was lit in his breast
by the beautiful eyes of Lady Hamilton of Priestfield.[41] Sir
James was absent in England, Monteith was a daring and unscrupulous
lover, and used every art to win her affection, in which at last he
succeeded. It is easy to imagine the hours of stolen happiness that
followed,--how, in the soft summer twilight, Monteith would unmoor
the boat which lay hidden in the deep shadows below the church, and
steal noiselessly across the loch to where his love was waiting.
Many a moonlight evening must the two have wandered hand in hand
between the high clipped hedges, and lingered in the shady bowers of
Priestfield; but to dreams like these there is generally a bitter
wakening, and when Sir James returned, rumour was not slow to tell
him why his lady's eyes now turned coldly from him, and gazed ever
over the blue waters to Duddingston. Monteith had to fly. What was
Lady Hamilton's fate,--we do not know; but, as in the history of
the family she is set down as having had a long life, and borne her
husband many children, we can infer that he forgave her, and that
years brought forgetfulness in their train.[42]
[41] She was Anne Hepburn, a famous beauty, eldest daughter of Sir
Patrick Hepburn of Waughton, and wife of Sir James Hamilton of
Priestfield, second son of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington.
[42] See Scot's _Staggering State_, edited with notes by Charles
Rogers.
This love was the turning-point of Monteith's life. He never saw his
native land again, but in the new one that adopted him he won honours
and fortune far above the lot of the Scottish minister. He abjured
the Protestant faith, and became secretary to Cardinal de Retz,
who bestowed on him a canonry in Nôtre Dame. When first soliciting
the Cardinal's favour, the latter asked him to which branch of the
Monteith family he belonged. With ready wit he answered, "To the
Monteiths of Salmon-net," alluding to his father's occupation. The
Cardinal replied he did not know the name, but had no doubt it was
an ancient and illustrious family; and as Monteith or Mentet de
Salmonet he was hereafter known. He was remarkable for the elegance
and purity with which he spoke the French language; but to us he is
best known by his folio work, _Historie des Troubles de la Grande
Bretagne depuis l'an 1633 jusques 1649_, which he published in 1661,
and dedicated to the Cardinal-Coadjutor.
Nearly two centuries after Monteith's time, John Thomson, the famous
painter, was minister of Duddingston. He was born near Girvan in
1778, and in 1805 was given the living of Duddingston, where he spent
the remaining thirty-five years of his life. From his boyhood he had
been devoted to art. Nasmyth was his master, but he greatly formed
his style on that of Claude Lorraine. Like him, he possessed, in an
unusual degree, the art of pictorial composition. His chiaroscuro
was bold and effective, his colouring agreeable, and an undefinable
charm is given to his pictures by the poetical suggestiveness that
underlies them. His works are greatly valued. Two very fine examples
hang in the Scottish National Gallery. Thomson was a great friend of
Sir Walter Scott, for whom he painted the picture of Fast Castle, now
at Abbotsford. He formed one of the brilliant circle which was then
the glory of Edinburgh.
Leaving Duddingston, we enter the Queen's Park, and, struggling with
difficulty up the steep, rocky pass, called Windygoul (where even
on the calmest day gusts are always eddying), we see before and
above us the grand basaltic columns known as "Samson's Ribs." To
the left, down the slope, are the Wells o' Wearie, often celebrated
in song;[43] and before us lies St. Leonards, so imperishably
associated with _The Heart of Midlothian_, that a cottage used to
be pointed out as that of "Douce Davie Deans." Now even that has
disappeared, in the wilderness of new houses that has completely
changed St. Leonards. The eastern side of the crags, being within the
boundary of the park, alone retains its original character.
[43] Two of these songs, being less well known than others, I quote
from the versions given me by Lady John Scott.