We have now arrived at the _Bow-foot_, about which there is nothing
remarkable to be told, except that here, and along one side of the
Grassmarket, are several houses marked by a cross on some conspicuous
part—either an actual iron cross, or one represented in sculpture.
This seems a strange circumstance in a country where it was even
held doubtful, twenty years ago, whether one could be placed as an
ornament on the top of a church tower. The explanation is that these
houses were built upon lands originally the property of the Knights
Templars, and the cross has ever since been kept up upon them, not
from any veneration for that ancient society, neither upon any kind
of religious ground; the sole object has been to fix in remembrance
certain legal titles and privileges which have been transmitted into
secular hands from that source, and which are to this day productive of
solid benefits. A hundred years ago, the houses thus marked were held
as part of the barony of Drem in Haddingtonshire, the baron of which
used to hold courts in them occasionally; and here were harboured many
persons not free of the city corporations, to the great annoyance of
the adherents of local monopoly. At length, the abolition of heritable
jurisdictions in 1747 extinguished this little barony, but not
certain other legal rights connected with the _Templar Lands_, which,
however, it might be more troublesome to explain than advantageous
to know.
[Illustration: GRASSMARKET
from west end of Cowgate.