The central row of buildings—the _Luckenbooths proper_—was not wholly
taken away till 1817. The narrow passage left between it and the
church will ever be memorable to all who knew Edinburgh in those days,
on account of the strange scene of traffic which it presented—each
recess, angle, and coign of vantage in the wall of the church being
occupied by little shops, of the nature of Bryce’s, devoted to the sale
of gloves, toys, lollipops, &c. These were the _Krames_, so famous at
Edinburgh firesides. Singular places of business they assuredly were;
often not presenting more space than a good church-pew, yet supporting
by their commerce respectable citizenly families, from which would
occasionally come men of some consequence in society. At the same spot
the constable (Earl of Errol) was wont to sit upon a chair at the
ridings of the parliament, when ceremonially receiving the members as
they alighted.
I am told that one such place, not more than seven feet by three, had
been occupied by a glover named Kennedy, who with his gentle dame
stood there retailing their wares for a time sufficient to witness the
rise and fall of dynasties, never enjoying all that time the comfort
of a fire, even in the coldest weather! This was a specimen of the
life led by these patient creatures; many of whom, upon the demolition
of their lath and plaster tenements, retired from business with
little competencies. Their rents were from £3 to £6 per annum; and it
appears that, huddled as the town then was around them, they had no
inconsiderable custom. At the end of the row, under the angle of the
church, was a brief stair, called _The Lady’s Steps_, thought to be a
corruption of _Our Lady’s Steps_, with reference to a statue of the
Virgin, the niche for which was seen in the east wall of the church
till the renovation of the building in 1830. Sir George Mackenzie,
however, in his _Observations on the Statutes_, states that the Lady’s
Steps were so called from the infamous Lady March (wife of the Earl
of Arran, James VI.’s profligate chancellor), from whom also the nine
o’clock evening-bell, being ordered by her to an hour later, came to be
called _The Lady’s Bell_. When men made bargains at the Cross, it was
customary for them to go up to the Lady’s Steps, and there consummate
the negotiation by wetting thumbs or paying _arles_.