So early as 1449, Thomas Lauder, canon of Aberdeen, granted an
endowment of 40s. annually to a chaplain in St Giles’s Church, ‘out of
his own house lying in the Cowgaite, betwixt the land of the Abbot of
Melrose on the east, and of George Cochrane on the west.’ This appears
to have been the same Thomas Lauder who was preceptor to James II.,
and who ultimately became Bishop of Dunkeld. We are told that, besides
many other munificent acts, he purchased a lodging in Edinburgh _for
himself and his successors_.[204] That its situation was the same as
that above described appears from a charter of Thomas Cameron, in 1498,
referring to a house on the south side of the Cowgate, ‘betwixt _the
Bishop of Dunkeld’s land on the east_, and William Rappilowe’s on the
west, the common street on the north, and the gait that leads to the
Kirk-of-Field on the south.’
[Illustration: THE COWGATE.
‘Nothing is humble or homely, but everything magnificent!’