One of the characteristic features of Edinburgh in old times was its
Town-guard, a body of military in the service of the magistrates for
the purposes of a police, but dressed and armed in all respects as
soldiers. Composed for the most part of old Highlanders, of uncouth
aspect and speech, dressed in a dingy red uniform with cocked hats, and
often exchanging the musket for an antique native weapon called the
Lochaber axe, these men were (at least in latter times) an unfailing
subject of mirth to the citizens, particularly the younger ones. In
my recollection they had a sort of Patmos in the ground-floor of the
Old Tolbooth, where a few of them might constantly be seen on duty,
endeavouring to look as formidable as possible to the little boys who
might be passing by. On such occasions as executions, or races at
Leith, or the meeting of the General Assembly, they rose into a certain
degree of consequence; but in general they could hardly be considered
as of any practical utility. Their numbers were at that time much
reduced—only twenty-five privates, two sergeants, two corporals, and
a couple of drummers. Every night did their drum beat through the Old
Town at eight o’clock, as a kind of curfew. No other drum, it seems,
was allowed to sound on the High Street between the Luckenbooths and
Netherbow. They also had an old practice of giving a _charivari_ on the
drum on the night of a marriage before the lodgings of the bridegroom;
of course not without the expectation of something wherewithal to
drink the health of the young couple. A strange remnant of old
times altogether were the _Town Rats_, as the poor old fellows were
disrespectfully called by the boys, in allusion to the hue of their
uniform.
Previous to 1805, when an unarmed police was established for the
protection of the streets, the Town-guard had consisted of three
equally large companies, each with a lieutenant (complimentarily called
captain) at its head. Then it was a somewhat more respectable body,
not only as being larger, but invested with a really useful purpose.
The unruly and the vicious stood in some awe of a troop of men bearing
lethal weapons, and generally somewhat frank in the use of them. If
sometimes roughly handled on kings’ birthdays and other exciting
occasions, they in their turn did not fail to treat cavalierly enough
any unfortunate roisterer whom they might find breaking the peace. They
had, previous to 1785, a guard-house in the middle of the High Street,
the ‘black hole’ of which had rather a bad character among the bucks
and the frail ladies. One of their sergeants in those days, by name
John Dhu, is commemorated by Scott as the fiercest-looking fellow he
ever saw. If we might judge from poor Robert Fergusson, they were truly
formidable in his time. He says:
‘And thou, great god o’ aquavitæ,
Wha sway’st the empire o’ this city; ...
Be thou prepared
To hedge us frae that _black banditti_,
The City-guard.’
He adds, apostrophising the irascible veterans:
‘Oh, soldiers, for your ain dear sakes,
For Scotland’s love—the land o’ cakes—
Gi’e not her bairns sae deadly paiks,
Nor be sae rude,
Wi’ firelock and Lochaber axe,
As spill their blude!’
The affair at the execution of Wilson the smuggler in 1736, when, under
command of Porteous, they fired upon and killed many of the mob, may be
regarded as a peculiarly impressive example of the stern relation in
which they stood to the populace of a former age.
The great bulk of the corps was drawn either from the Highlands
directly or from the Highland regiments. A humble Highlander considered
it as getting a _berth_ when he was enlisted into the Edinburgh Guard.
Of this feeling we have a remarkable illustration in an anecdote
which I was told by the late Mr Alexander Campbell regarding the
Highland bard, Duncan Macintyre, usually called _Donacha Bhan_. This
man, really an exquisite poet to those understanding his language,
became the object of a kind interest to many educated persons in
Perthshire, his native county. The Earl of Breadalbane sent to let
him know that he wished to befriend him, and was anxious to procure
him some situation that might put him comparatively at his ease. Poor
Duncan returned his thanks, and asked his lordship’s interest—to get
him into the Edinburgh Town-guard—pay, sixpence a day! What sort of
material these men would have proved in the hands of the magistrates
if Provost Stewart had attempted by their means and the other forces at
his command to hold out the city against Prince Charlie seems hardly
to be matter of doubt. I was told the following anecdote of a member
of the corps, on good authority. Robert Stewart, a descendant of the
Stewarts of Bonskeid in Athole, was then a private in the City-guard.
When General Hawley left Edinburgh to meet the Highland army in
the west country, Stewart had just been relieved from duty for the
customary period of two days. Instantly forming his plan of action,
he set off with his gun, passed through the English troops on their
march, and joined those of the Prince. Stewart fought next day like a
hero in the battle of Falkirk, where the Prince had the best of it;
and next morning our Town-guardsman was back to Edinburgh in time to
go upon duty at the proper hour. The captain of his company suspected
what business Robert and his gun had been engaged in, but preserved a
friendly silence.
The _Gutter-blood_ people of Edinburgh had an extravagant idea of
the antiquity of the Guard, led probably by a fallacy arising from
the antiquity of the individual men. They used to have a strange
story—too ridiculous, one would have thought, for a moment’s credence
anywhere—that the Town-guard existed before the Christian era. When
the Romans invaded Britain, some of the Town-guard joined them; and
three were actually present in Pilate’s guard at the Crucifixion! In
reality, the corps took its rise in the difficulties brought on by bad
government in 1682, when, at the instigation of the Duke of York, it
was found necessary to raise a body of 108 armed men, under a trusty
commander, simply to keep the people in check.[155]
Fifty years ago (1824) the so-called captaincies of the Guard were snug
appointments, in great request among respectable old citizens who had
not succeeded in business. Kay has given us some illustrations of these
extraordinary specimens of soldier-craft, one of whom was nineteen
stone. Captain Gordon of Gordonstown, representative of one of the
oldest families in Scotland, found himself obliged by fortune to accept
of one of these situations.
Scott, writing his _Heart of Mid-Lothian_ in 1817, says: ‘Of late, the
gradual diminution of these civic soldiers reminds one of the abatement
of King Lear’s hundred knights. The edicts of each set of succeeding
magistrates have, like those of Goneril and Regan, diminished
this venerable band with similar question—“What need have we of
five-and-twenty?—ten?—five?” and now it is nearly come to: “What
need we one?” A spectre may indeed here and there still be seen of an
old gray-headed and gray-bearded Highlander, with war-worn features,
but bent double by age; dressed in an old-fashioned cocked-hat, bound
with white tape instead of silver lace, and in coat, waistcoat, and
breeches of a muddy-coloured red; bearing in his withered hand an
ancient weapon, called a Lochaber axe—a long pole, namely, with an
axe at the extremity, and a hook at the back of the hatchet. Such a
phantom of former days still creeps, I have been informed, round the
statue of Charles II. in the Parliament Square, as if the image of a
Stuart were the last refuge for any memorial of our ancient manners,’
&c. At the close of this very year, the ‘What need we one?’ was asked,
and answered in the negative; and the corps was accordingly dissolved.
‘Their last march to do duty at Hallow Fair had something in it
affecting. Their drums and fifes had been wont, in better days, to play
on this joyous occasion the lively tune of
“Jockey to the fair;”
but on this final occasion the afflicted veterans moved slowly to the
dirge of
“The last time I came owre the muir.”’[156]
The half-serious pathos of Scott regarding this corps becomes wholly
so when we learn that a couple of members survived to make an actual
last public appearance in the procession which consecrated his richly
deserved monument, August 15, 1846.