As if there had been some destiny in the matter, the Greyfriars
Churchyard became connected with another remarkable event in the
religious troubles of the seventeenth century. At the south-west
angle, accessible by an old gateway bearing emblems of mortality, and
which is fitted with an iron-rail gate of very old workmanship, is a
kind of supplement to the burying-ground—an oblong space, now having
a line of sepulchral enclosures on each side, but formerly empty.
On these enclosures the visitor may remark, as he passes, certain
names venerable in the history of science and of letters; as, for
instance, Joseph Black and Alexander Tytler. On one he sees the name of
Gilbert Innes of Stow, who left a million, to take six feet of earth
here. These, however, do not form the matter in point. Every lesser
particular becomes trivial beside the extraordinary use to which the
place was put by the Government in the year 1679. Several hundred of
the prisoners taken at Bothwell Bridge were confined here in the open
air, under circumstances of privation now scarcely credible. They had
hardly anything either to lie upon or to cover them; their allowance of
provision was four ounces of bread per day, with water derived from one
of the city pipes, which passed near the place. They were guarded by
day by eight and through the night by twenty-four men; and the soldiers
were told that if any prisoner escaped, they should answer it life for
life by cast of dice. If any prisoner rose from the ground by night, he
was shot at. Women alone were permitted to commune with them, and bring
them food or clothes; but these had often to stand at the entrance
from morning till night without getting access, and were frequently
insulted and maltreated by the soldiers, without the prisoners being
able to protect them, although in many cases related by the most
endearing ties. In the course of several weeks a considerable number
of the prisoners had been liberated upon signing a bond, in which they
promised never again to take up arms against the king or without his
authority; but it appears that about four hundred, refusing mercy on
such terms, were kept in this frightful bivouac for five months, being
only allowed at the approach of winter to have shingle huts erected
over them, which was boasted of as a great mercy. Finally, on the 15th
of November, a remnant, numbering two hundred and fifty-seven, were put
on board a ship to be sent to Barbadoes. The vessel was wrecked on one
of the Orkney Islands, when only about forty came ashore alive.
From the gloom of this sad history there is shed one ray of romance.
Amongst the charitable women of Edinburgh who came to minister to
the prisoners, there was one attended by a daughter—a young and, at
least by right of romance, a fair girl. Every few days they approached
this iron gate with food and clothes, either from their own stores
or collected among neighbours. Between the young lady and one of the
juvenile prisoners an attachment sprang up. Doubtless she loved him for
the dangers he had passed in so good a cause, and he loved her because
she pitied them. In happier days, long after, when their constancy had
been well tried by an exile which he suffered in the plantations, this
pair were married, and settled in Edinburgh, where they had sons and
daughters. A respectable elderly citizen tells me he is descended from
them.[231]