A court of old buildings, in a massive style of architecture, existed,
previous to 1829, on a spot in the Cowgate now occupied by the southern
piers of George IV. Bridge. In the middle of the last century it was
used as the Excise-office; but even this was a kind of declension
from its original character. It is certain that the celebrated Thomas
Hamilton, first Earl of Haddington, President of the Court of Session,
and Secretary of State for Scotland, lived here at the end of the
sixteenth century, renting the house from Macgill of Rankeillour.[209]
This distinguished person, from the circumstance of his living here,
was endowed by his master, King James, with the nickname of TAM O’ THE
COWGATE, under which title he is now better remembered than by any
other.
The earl, who had risen through high legal offices to the peerage, and
who was equally noted for his penetration as a judge, his industry
as a collector of decisions, and his talent for amassing wealth,
was one evening, after a day’s hard labour in the public service,
solacing himself with a friend over a flask of wine in his house in the
Cowgate[210]—attired, for his better ease, in a nightgown, cap, and
slippers—when he was suddenly disturbed by a great hubbub which arose
under his window in the street. This soon turned out to be a _bicker_
between the High School youths and those of the College; and it also
appeared that the latter, fully victorious, were, notwithstanding a
valiant defence, in the act of driving their antagonists before them.
The Earl of Haddington’s sympathies were awakened in favour of the
retiring party, for he had been brought up at the High School, and
going thence to complete his education at Paris, had no similar reason
to affect the College. He therefore sprang up, dashed into the street,
sided with and rallied the fugitives, and took a most animated share
in the combat that ensued, so that finally the High School youths,
acquiring fresh strength and valour at seeing themselves befriended by
the prime judge and privy-councillor of their country (though not in
his most formidable habiliments), succeeded in turning the scale of
victory upon the College youths, in spite of their superior individual
ages and strength. The earl, who assumed the command of the party, and
excited their spirits by word as well as action, was not content till
he had pursued the Collegianers through the Grassmarket, and out at
the West Port, the gate of which he locked against their return, thus
compelling them to spend the night in the suburbs and the fields. He
then returned home in triumph to his castle of comfort in the Cowgate,
and resumed the enjoyment of his friend and flask. We can easily
imagine what a rare jest this must have been for King Jamie.
[Illustration: A Court of Old Buildings.]
When this monarch visited Scotland in 1617, he found the old statesman
very rich, and was informed that the people believed him to be in
possession of the Philosopher’s Stone; there being no other feasible
mode of accounting for his immense wealth, which rather seemed the
effect of supernatural agency than of worldly prudence or talent. King
James, quite tickled with the idea of the Philosopher’s Stone, and
of so enviable a talisman having fallen into the hands of a Scottish
judge, was not long in letting his friend and gossip know of the story
which he had heard respecting him. The Lord President immediately
invited the king, and the rest of the company present, to come to his
house next day, when he would both do his best to give them a good
dinner and lay open to them the mystery of the Philosopher’s Stone.
This agreeable invitation was of course accepted; and the next day
saw his Cowgate _palazzo_ thronged with king and courtiers, all of
whom the President feasted to their hearts’ content. After dinner
the king reminded him of his Philosopher’s Stone, and expressed his
anxiety to be speedily made acquainted with so rare a treasure, when
the pawky lord addressed His Majesty and the company in a short
speech, concluding with this information, that his whole secret lay
in two simple and familiar maxims—‘Never put off till to-morrow what
can be done to-day; nor ever trust to another’s hand what your own
can execute.’ He might have added, from the works of an illustrious
contemporary:
‘This is the only witchcraft I have used;’
and none could have been more effectual.
A ludicrous idea is obtained from the following anecdote of the
estimation in which the wisdom of the Earl of Haddington was held by
the king, and at the same time, perhaps, of that singular monarch’s
usual mode of speech. It must be understood, by way of prefatory
illustration, that King James, who was the author of the earl’s popular
appellation, ‘_Tam o’ the Cowgate_,’ had a custom of bestowing such
ridiculous _sobriquets_ on his principal councillors and courtiers.
Thus he conferred upon that grave and sagacious statesman, John, Earl
of Mar, the nickname _Jock o’ Sklates_—probably in allusion to some
circumstance which occurred in their young days when they were the
fellow-pupils of Buchanan. On hearing of a meditated alliance between
the Haddington and Mar families, His Majesty exclaimed, betwixt jest
and earnest: ‘The Lord hand a grup o’ me! If Tam o’ the Cowgate’s
son marry Jock o’ Sklates’s daughter, what’s to come o’ _me_?’ The
good-natured monarch probably apprehended that so close a union betwixt
two of his most subtle statesmen might make them too much for their
master—as hounds are most dangerous when they hunt in couples.
The Earl of Haddington died in 1637, full of years and honours. At
Tyningham, the seat of his family, there are two portraits of his
lordship, one a half-length, the other a head; as also his state-dress;
and it is a circumstance too characteristic to be overlooked that in
the crimson-velvet breeches there are no fewer than _nine pockets_!
Among many of the earl’s papers which remain in Tyningham House, one
contains a memorandum conveying a curious idea of the way in which
public and political affairs were then managed in Scotland. The paper
details the heads of a petition in his own handwriting to the Privy
Council, and at the end is a note ‘to _gar_ [that is, make] the
chancellor’ do something else in his behalf.
A younger son of Tam o’ the Cowgate was a person of much ingenuity, and
was popularly known, for what reason I cannot tell, by the nickname
of ‘Dear Sandie Hamilton.’ He had a foundry in the Potterrow, where
he fabricated the cannon employed in the first Covenanting war in
1639. This artillery, be it remarked, was not formed exclusively of
metal. The greater part of the composition was leather; and yet, we
are informed, they did some considerable execution at the battle of
Newburnford, above Newcastle (August 28, 1640), where the Scots drove
a large advanced party of Charles I.’s troops before them, thereby
causing the king to enter into a new treaty. The cannon, which were
commonly called ‘Dear Sandie’s Stoups,’ were carried in swivel fashion
between two horses.
The Excise-office had been removed, about 1730, from the Parliament
Square to the house occupied many years before by Tam o’ the Cowgate.
It afforded excellent accommodations for this important public office.
The principal room on the second floor, towards the Cowgate, was a very
superb one, having a stucco ceiling divided into square compartments,
each of which contained some elegant device. To the rear of the house
was a bowling-green, which the Commissioners of Excise let on lease
to a person of the name of Thomson. In those days bowling was a much
more prevalent amusement than now, being chiefly a favourite with the
graver order of the citizens. There were then no fewer than three
bowling-greens in the grounds around Heriot’s Hospital; one in the
Canongate, near the Tolbooth; another on the opposite side of the
street; another immediately behind the palace of Holyrood House, where
the Duke of York used to play when in Scotland; and perhaps several
others scattered about the outskirts of the town. The arena behind the
Excise-office was called Thomson’s Green, from the name of the man who
kept it; and it may be worth while to remind the reader that it is
alluded to in that pleasant-spirited poem by Allan Ramsay, in imitation
of the _Vides ut alta_ of Horace:
‘Driving their ba’s frae whins or tee,
There’s no ae gouffer to be seen,
Nor doucer folk wysing a-jee
The byas bowls on Tamson’s green.’
The green was latterly occupied by the relict of this Thomson; and
among the bad debts on the Excise books, all of which are yearly
brought forward and enumerated, there still stands a sum of something
more than six pounds against Widow Thomson, being the last half-year’s
rent of _the green_, which the poor woman had been unable to pay.
The north side of Brown’s Square was built upon part of this space
of ground; the rest remained a vacant area for the recreation of the
people dwelling in Merchant Street, until the erection of the bridge,
which has overrun that, as well as every other part of the scene of
this article.[211]