In the Canongate, on the south side, is a large, gloomy building,
enclosed in a court, and now used as a refuge for destitute persons.
This was formerly the town mansion of the Dukes of Queensberry, and
a scene, of course, of stately life and high political affairs. It
was built by the first duke, the willing minister of the last two
Stuarts—he who also built Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, which he
never slept in but one night, and with regard to which it is told that
he left the accounts for the building tied up with this inscription:
‘The deil pyke out his een that looks herein!’ Duke William was a noted
money-maker and land-acquirer. No little laird of his neighbourhood
had any chance with him for the retention of his family property.
He was something still worse in the eyes of the common people—a
_persecutor_; that is, one siding against the Presbyterian cause.
There is a story in one of their favourite books of his having died
of the _morbus pediculosus_, by way of a judgment upon him for his
wickedness. In reality, he died of some ordinary fever. It is also
stated, from the same authority, that about the time when his grace
died, a Scotch skipper, being in Sicily, saw one day a coach-and-six
driving to Mount Etna, while a diabolic voice exclaimed: ‘Open to the
Duke of Drumlanrig!’—‘which proves, by the way,’ says Mr Sharpe, ‘that
the devil’s porter is no herald. In fact,’ adds this acute critic,
‘the legend is borrowed from the story of Antonio the Rich, in George
Sandys’s _Travels_.’[260]
It appears, from family letters, that the first duchess often resided
in the Canongate mansion, while her husband occupied Sanquhar Castle.
The lady was unfortunately given to drink, and there is a letter of
hers in which she pathetically describes her situation to a country
friend, left alone in Queensberry House with only a few bottles of
wine, one of which, having been drawn, had turned out sour. Sour wine
being prejudicial to her health, it was fearful to think of what might
prove the quality of the remaining bottles.
The son of this couple, James, second duke, must ever be memorable as
the main instrument in carrying through the Union. His character has
been variously depicted. By Defoe, in his _History of the Union_, it is
liberally panegyrised. ‘I think I have,’ says he, ‘given demonstrations
to the world that I will flatter no man.’ Yet he could not refrain from
extolling the ‘prudence, calmness, and temper’ which the duke showed
during that difficult crisis. Unfortunately the author of _Robinson
Crusoe_, though not a flatterer, could not insure himself against the
usual prepossessions of a partisan. Boldness the duke must certainly
have possessed, for during the ferments attending the parliamentary
proceedings on that occasion, he continued daily to drive between his
lodgings in Holyrood and the Parliament House, notwithstanding several
intimations that his life was threatened. His grace’s eldest son,
James, was an idiot of the most unhappy sort—rabid and gluttonous,
and early grew to an immense height, which is testified by his coffin
in the family vault at Durisdeer, still to be seen, of great length
and unornamented with the heraldic follies which bedizen the violated
remains of his relatives. A tale of mystery and horror is preserved by
tradition respecting this monstrous being. While the family resided in
Edinburgh, he was always kept confined in a ground apartment, in the
western wing of the house, upon the windows of which, till within these
few years, the boards still remained by which the dreadful receptacle
was darkened to prevent the idiot from looking out or being seen. On
the day the Union was passed, all Edinburgh crowded to the Parliament
Close to await the issue of the debate, and to mob the chief promoters
of the detested measure on their leaving the House. The whole household
of the commissioner went _en masse_, with perhaps a somewhat different
object, and among the rest was the man whose duty it was to watch and
attend Lord Drumlanrig. Two members of the family alone were left
behind—the madman himself, and a little kitchen-boy who turned the
spit. The insane being, hearing everything unusually still around, the
house being deserted, and the Canongate like a city of the dead, and
observing his keeper to be absent, broke loose from his confinement,
and roamed wildly through the house. It is supposed that the savoury
odour of the preparations for dinner led him to the kitchen, where he
found the little turnspit quietly seated by the fire. He seized the
boy, killed him, took the meat from the fire, and spitted the body of
his victim, which he half-roasted, and was found devouring when the
duke, with his domestics, returned from his triumph. The idiot survived
his father many years, though he did not succeed him upon his death
in 1711, when the titles devolved upon Charles, the younger brother.
He is known to have died in England. This horrid act of his child was,
according to the common sort of people, the judgment of God upon him
for his wicked concern in the Union—the greatest blessing, as it has
happened, that ever was conferred upon Scotland by any statesman.
[Illustration: Allan Ramsay’s Shop, High Street.]
Charles, third Duke of Queensberry, who was born in Queensberry House,
resided occasionally in it when he visited Scotland; but as he was
much engaged in attending the court during the earlier part of his
life, his stay here was seldom of long continuance. After his grace
and the duchess embroiled themselves with the court (1729), on account
of the support which they gave to the poet Gay, they came to Scotland,
and resided for some time here. The author of the _Beggar’s Opera_
accompanied them, and remained about a month, part of which was given
to Dumfriesshire. Tradition in Edinburgh used to point out an attic in
an old house opposite to Queensberry House, where, as an appropriate
abode for a poet, his patrons are said to have stowed him. It was said
he wrote the _Beggar’s Opera_ there—an entirely gratuitous assumption.
In the progress of the history of his writings, nothing of consequence
occurs at this time. He had finished the second part of the opera a
short while before. After his return to the south, he is found engaged
in ‘new writing a damned play, which he wrote several years before,
called _The Wife of Bath_; a task which he accomplished while living
with the Duke of Queensberry in Oxfordshire, during the ensuing months
of August, September, and October.’[261] It is known, however, that
while in Edinburgh, he haunted the shop of Allan Ramsay, in the
Luckenbooths—the flat above that well-remembered and classical shop
so long kept by Mr Creech, from which issued the _Mirror_, _Lounger_,
and other works of name, and where for a long course of years all the
_literati_ of Edinburgh used to assemble every day, like merchants at
an Exchange. Here Ramsay amused Gay by pointing out to him the chief
public characters of the city as they met in the forenoon at the Cross.
Here, too, Gay read the _Gentle Shepherd_, and studied the Scottish
language, so that upon his return to England he was enabled to make
Pope appreciate the beauties of that delightful pastoral. He is said
also to have spent some of his time with the sons of mirth and humour
in an alehouse opposite to Queensberry House, kept by one Janet Hall.
_Jenny Ha’s_, as the place was called, was a noted house for drinking
claret from the butt within the recollection of old gentlemen living in
my time.
[Illustration: Jenny Ha’s Ale-House.]
While Gay was at Drumlanrig, he employed himself in picking out a great
number of the best books from the library, which were sent to England,
whether for his own use or the duke’s is not known.
Duchess Catherine was a most extraordinary lady, eccentric to a degree
undoubtedly bordering on madness. Her beauty has been celebrated by
Pope not in very elegant terms:
‘Since Queensberry to strip there’s no compelling,
’Tis from a handmaid we must take a Helen.’
Prior had, at an early period of her life, depainted her irrepressible
temper:
‘Thus Kitty, beautiful and young,
And wild as colt untamed,
Bespoke the fair from whom she sprang,
By little rage inflamed;
Inflamed with rage at sad restraint,
Which wise mamma ordained;
And sorely vexed to play the saint,
Whilst wit and beauty reigned.
“Shall I thumb holy books, confined
With Abigails forsaken?
Kitty’s for other things designed,
Or I am much mistaken.
Must Lady Jenny frisk about,
And visit with her cousins?
At balls must she make all the rout,
And bring home hearts by dozens?
What has she better, pray, than I?
What hidden charms to boast,
That all mankind for her should die,
Whilst I am scarce a toast?
Dearest mamma, for once let me,
Unchained, my fortune try;
I’ll have my earl as well as she,
Or know the reason why.
I’ll soon with Jenny’s pride quit score,
Make all her lovers fall;
They’ll grieve I was not loosed before,
She, I was loosed at all.”
Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way;
Kitty, at heart’s desire,
Obtained the chariot for a day,
And set the world on fire!’
It is an undoubted fact that, before her marriage, she had been
confined in a _strait-jacket_ on account of mental derangement; and
her conduct in married life was frequently such as to entitle her to a
repetition of the same treatment. She was, in reality, at all times to
a certain extent insane, though the politeness of fashionable society
and the flattery of her poetical friends seem to have succeeded in
passing off her extravagances as owing to an agreeable freedom of
carriage and vivacity of mind. Her brother was as clever and as mad as
herself, and used to amuse himself by hiding a book in his library, and
hunting for it after he had forgot where it was deposited.
Her grace was no admirer of Scottish manners. One of their habits she
particularly detested—the custom of eating off the end of a knife.
When people dined with her at Drumlanrig, and began to lift their food
in this manner, she used to scream out and beseech them not to cut
their throats; and then she would confound the offending persons by
sending them a silver spoon or fork upon a salver.[262]
When in Scotland her grace always dressed herself in the garb of a
peasant-girl. Her object seems to have been to ridicule and put out
of countenance the stately dresses and demeanour of the Scottish
gentlewomen who visited her. One evening some country ladies paid her
a visit, dressed in their best brocades, as for some state occasion.
Her grace proposed a walk, and they were of course under the necessity
of trooping off, to the utter discomfiture of their starched-up frills
and flounces. Her grace at last pretended to be tired, sat down upon
the dirtiest dunghill she could find, at the end of a farmhouse,
and saying, ‘Pray, ladies, be seated,’ invited her poor draggled
companions to plant themselves round about her. They stood so much in
awe of her that they durst not refuse; and of course her grace had the
satisfaction of afterwards laughing at the destruction of their silks.
When she went out to an evening entertainment, and found a tea-equipage
paraded which she thought too fine for the rank of the owner, she
would contrive to overset the table and break the china. The forced
politeness of her hosts on such occasions, and the assurances which
they made her grace that no harm was done, &c., delighted her
exceedingly.
Her custom of dressing like a _paysanne_ once occasioned her grace a
disagreeable adventure at a review. On her attempting to approach the
duke, the guard, not knowing her rank or relation to him, pushed her
rudely back. This threw her into such a passion that she could not be
appeased till his grace assured her that the men had all been soundly
flogged for their insolence.
An anecdote scarcely less laughable is told of her grace as occurring
at court, where she carried to the same extreme her attachment to
plain-dealing and plain-dressing. An edict had been issued forbidding
the ladies to appear at the drawing-room in aprons. This was
disregarded by the duchess, whose rustic costume would not have been
complete without that piece of dress. On approaching the door she was
stopped by the lord in waiting, who told her that he could not possibly
give her grace admission in that guise, when she, without a moment’s
hesitation, stripped off her apron, threw it in his lordship’s face,
and walked on, in her brown gown and petticoat, into the brilliant
circle!
Her caprices were endless. At one time when a ball had been announced
at Drumlanrig, after the company were all assembled her grace took a
headache, declared that she could bear no noise, and sat in a chair
in the dancing-room, uttering a thousand peevish complaints. Lord
Drumlanrig, who understood her humour, said: ‘Madam, I know how to
cure you;’ and taking hold of her immense elbow-chair, which moved on
castors, rolled her several times backwards and forwards across the
saloon, till she began to laugh heartily—after which the festivities
were allowed to commence.
The duchess certainly, both in her conversation and letters, displayed
a great degree of wit and quickness of mind. Yet nobody perhaps, saving
Gay, ever loved her. She seems to have been one of those beings who are
too much feared, admired, or envied, to be loved.
The duke, on the contrary, who was a man of ordinary mind, had the
affection and esteem of all. His temper and dispositions were sweet
and amiable in the extreme. His benevolence, extending beyond his
fellow-creatures, was exercised even upon his old horses, none of which
he would ever permit to be killed or sold. He allowed the veterans of
his stud free range in some parks near Drumlanrig, where, retired from
active life, they got leave to die decent and natural deaths. Upon his
grace’s decease, however, in 1778, these luckless pensioners were all
put up to sale by his heartless successor; and it was a painful sight
to see the feeble and pampered animals forced by their new masters to
drag carts, &c., till they broke down and died on the roads and in the
ditches.
Duke Charles’s eldest son, Lord Drumlanrig, was altogether mad. He had
contracted himself to one lady when he married another. The lady who
became his wife was a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun, and a most
amiable woman. He loved her tenderly, as she deserved; but owing to
the unfortunate contract which he had engaged in, they were never
happy. They were often observed in the beautiful pleasure-grounds at
Drumlanrig weeping bitterly together. These hapless circumstances had
such a fatal effect upon him that during a journey to London in 1754
he rode on before the coach in which the duchess travelled, and shot
himself with one of his own pistols. It was given out that the pistol
had gone off by chance.
There is just one other tradition of Drumlanrig to be noticed. The
castle, being a very large and roomy mansion, had of course a ghost,
said to be the spirit of a Lady Anne Douglas. This unhappy phantom used
to walk about the house, terrifying everybody, with her head in one
hand and her fan in the other—are we to suppose, fanning her face?
On the death of the Good Duke, as he was called, in 1778, the title and
estates devolved on his cousin, the Earl of March, so well remembered
as a sporting character and debauchee of the old school by the name of
_Old Q._ In his time Queensberry House was occupied by other persons,
for he had little inclination to spend his time in Scotland. And this
brings to mind an anecdote highly illustrative of the wretchedness of
such a life as his. When professing, towards the close of his days,
to be eaten up with ennui, and incapable of any longer taking an
interest in anything, it was suggested that he might go down to his
Scotch estates and live among his tenantry. ‘I’ve tried that,’ said the
_blasé_ aristocrat; ‘it is not amusing.’ In 1801 he caused Queensberry
House to be stripped of its ornaments and sold. With fifty-eight
fire-rooms, and a gallery seventy feet long, besides a garden, it was
offered at the surprisingly low upset price of £900. The Government
purchased it for a barrack. Thus has passed away the [home of the]
Douglas of Queensberry from its old place in Edinburgh, where doubtless
the money-making duke thought it would stand for ever.