Walks near Edinburgh 12

Walks near Edinburgh 12

When all hope of the royal cause was lost, the Wauchopes appear to

have reconciled themselves to the reigning family, and the young

Laird fought at Minden in the British army. It is to this that Sir

Walter Scott alludes:

 

Come, stately Niddrie, auld and true,

Girt with the sword that Minden knew.

We have o'er few such lairds as you.

 

He was a singularly handsome man, and there is a fine portrait of him

in his old age, by Raeburn, at Niddrie.

 

Another link with the old Jacobite days lasted well into this

century, in the person of Lucky Brown, who lived at one of the

lodges. She had been Mrs. Wauchope's nurse, and was a Cumberland

woman by birth. In the '45, she was living near Carlisle with her

father, and when Prince Charles passed their house on his march

south, they had breakfast laid out for him on the "louping-on stane."

He stopped and breakfasted there. A few months later, when the

Hanoverians fastened the heads of the executed Jacobites over the

gates of Carlisle, Lucky Brown and another young woman got a ladder,

and went in the dead of the night, and took down every head, carried

them away in their aprons, and buried them. My aunt, Lady John

Scott, remembers Lucky Brown quite well, and she has often heard her

grandfather tell the story of his expedition to the prince's camp.

 

It is a curious thing that when that laird of Niddrie succeeded to

the property in the last century, the workers in the coal-mines were

still in a state of slavery. They were bought and sold with the pits,

and they and their families were in bondage for ever. Mrs. Wauchope's

aunt, Miss Johnstone of Hilton, "Aunt Soph," who was always a great

deal at Niddrie, used to sing "The Coalbearer's Lamentation," a song

sung by these people.

 

When I was engaged a coal-bearer to be,

When I was engaged a coal-bearer to be,

Through all the coal-pits,

I maun wear the dron brats.[39]

If my heart it should break,

I can never won free!

 

[39] _Dron brats_, a kind of apron worn behind. (Jamieson's

_Dictionary_.)

 

The house has been very much altered and added to at different

times. The original castle stood a little to the eastward. After

its destruction in 1596, the present house was built by Sir Francis

Wauchope, "Young Niddrie's" son, but it has been very much altered

and modernized since. The King's Room, where Charles I. slept, has

completely disappeared, the floor having been taken out to heighten

the hall below. There used to be a ghost called Jenny Traill, which

haunted a room up a little steep stair near the roof. She was

supposed to have killed herself there, but I have never heard of her

appearance of late years.

 

In very old days, a large and thriving village clustered on both

sides of the stream, round the old keep of Niddrie. At one time it

contained three hundred families, three breweries, and fourteen

houses that sold liquor. That has long been swept away. A few houses

still remain at the north-east corner of the park, where Niddrie Mill

formerly stood. My aunt remembered a family named Simon that lived

here. They had been from father to son bakers to the Wauchopes for

nearly five hundred years; but they died out in the time of Colonel

Wauchope's father.

 

Four important roads meet at this spot,--the one from Edinburgh,

the one from Musselburgh, the one by which we have just travelled

from Edmonstone, and the one to Portobello, which we now follow. We

are fast approaching the sea, but, as to-day's walk is already long

enough, we shall leave Portobello to be described to-morrow; and,

taking the first turn to the left, we very soon find ourselves facing

the gates of Duddingston House. The crowned antelopes that surmount

the gate-pillars show that this is Abercorn property. It is a flat,

uninteresting park, well-wooded, with a summer-house like a Grecian

temple, forming a _point-de-vue_ from the house, which was built in

1768 after designs by Sir William Chambers, and cost £30,000.

 

The original owners of Duddingston, after the Reformation had

dispossessed the monks of Kelso, were a family named Thomson, created

later Baronets of Nova Scotia, and now extinct. In 1674 it became

the property of the Duke of Lauderdale, and after his death, his

duchess continued to live there. It was then that the lawsuit took

place between her and Sir James Dick, respecting the swans which she

had placed on Duddingston Loch, and which he, as owner of the loch,

had shut up. The duchess won her point at last, with the help of the

Duke of Hamilton, who, as keeper of the King's Park, interfered on

her behalf. Duddingston passed as pin-money to her daughter (by her

first marriage), Elizabeth Tollemache, who married the first Duke

of Argyle. She lived here constantly, and her son, the famous Duke

of Argyle and Greenwich, was brought up here. In 1745 the place was

sold to the Abercorns, who still possess it. They have not lived here

for many years, and now it is always let. Prior to the purchase of

Sandringham, there was some idea of its being bought for the Prince

of Wales, but the plan came to nothing.

 

The road we are following skirts the park, and after crossing the

Braid Burn, which runs out of an ornamental piece of water just

above us, we come to some substantial and comfortable-looking

villas surrounded with shrubberies and gardens. The road in front

of us leads to Piershill, but we take the one to the left, and soon

reach the other entrance to Duddingston House. Here formerly stood

a thorn-tree of great age and immense size. It was called "Queen

Mary's Tree," though it was known to have existed as far back as the

reign of Alexander I. (1107), when it was one of the landmarks of the

property on which it grew. A storm in 1840 tore it up by the roots.

 

We now see the little village of Duddingston, nestling between the

hill and the loch. The church stands on a rocky knowe just above

the water, and two narrow roads (for streets we can hardly call

them), bordered with houses, gardens, and orchards thrown together

in picturesque confusion, make up the rest of the village. The house

in which Prince Charles and his staff slept before Prestonpans lies

a little back from the main road, while his army was encamped on

the sunny slopes behind, which rise without a break to the edge of

Dunsappie. As we pass the church, we see the "louping-on stane,"

so necessary in the days when our forefathers invariably rode

everywhere. The "jougs" still hang close by on the wall behind.

Though rusty now, they were once the terror and the punishment of

wrong-doers, who stood there, as in a pillory, with the iron collar

firmly clasped round the offender's neck.

 

[Illustration]

 

The church, which is of great antiquity, belonged to the Tironensian

Monks of Kelso.[40] Twice since the Reformation has its pulpit

been filled by very remarkable men, who have each left a memory

behind,--the one by his pen, the other by his brush. The first,

Robert Monteith (so much better known as Mentet de Salmonet), had a

curious and romantic story. He was the son of a poor fisherman on the

Forth, above Alloa; but, having shown much quickness and aptitude for

learning, he was educated for the ministry, and eventually, in 1630,

obtained the living of Duddingston.

 

[40] Tironensian Monks, a branch of the Benedictines, so called from

the Abbey of Tiron in France, from which they were brought by David

I. in 1113, and planted at Selkirk. He removed them to Kelso in 1126.

(See _Registrum Cartarum de Kelso_, Ban. Club, 1846.)

 

The care of this small parish gave little scope to a bold, restless

nature like Monteith's. The intriguing spirit that possessed him

wearied of the petty incidents of his daily life, and, in an hour of

idleness, the flame of an absorbing passion was lit in his breast

by the beautiful eyes of Lady Hamilton of Priestfield.[41] Sir

James was absent in England, Monteith was a daring and unscrupulous

lover, and used every art to win her affection, in which at last he

succeeded. It is easy to imagine the hours of stolen happiness that

followed,--how, in the soft summer twilight, Monteith would unmoor

the boat which lay hidden in the deep shadows below the church, and

steal noiselessly across the loch to where his love was waiting.

Many a moonlight evening must the two have wandered hand in hand

between the high clipped hedges, and lingered in the shady bowers of

Priestfield; but to dreams like these there is generally a bitter

wakening, and when Sir James returned, rumour was not slow to tell

him why his lady's eyes now turned coldly from him, and gazed ever

over the blue waters to Duddingston. Monteith had to fly. What was

Lady Hamilton's fate,--we do not know; but, as in the history of

the family she is set down as having had a long life, and borne her

husband many children, we can infer that he forgave her, and that

years brought forgetfulness in their train.[42]

 

[41] She was Anne Hepburn, a famous beauty, eldest daughter of Sir

Patrick Hepburn of Waughton, and wife of Sir James Hamilton of

Priestfield, second son of Thomas, first Earl of Haddington.

 

[42] See Scot's _Staggering State_, edited with notes by Charles

Rogers.

 

This love was the turning-point of Monteith's life. He never saw his

native land again, but in the new one that adopted him he won honours

and fortune far above the lot of the Scottish minister. He abjured

the Protestant faith, and became secretary to Cardinal de Retz,

who bestowed on him a canonry in Nôtre Dame. When first soliciting

the Cardinal's favour, the latter asked him to which branch of the

Monteith family he belonged. With ready wit he answered, "To the

Monteiths of Salmon-net," alluding to his father's occupation. The

Cardinal replied he did not know the name, but had no doubt it was

an ancient and illustrious family; and as Monteith or Mentet de

Salmonet he was hereafter known. He was remarkable for the elegance

and purity with which he spoke the French language; but to us he is

best known by his folio work, _Historie des Troubles de la Grande

Bretagne depuis l'an 1633 jusques 1649_, which he published in 1661,

and dedicated to the Cardinal-Coadjutor.

 

Nearly two centuries after Monteith's time, John Thomson, the famous

painter, was minister of Duddingston. He was born near Girvan in

1778, and in 1805 was given the living of Duddingston, where he spent

the remaining thirty-five years of his life. From his boyhood he had

been devoted to art. Nasmyth was his master, but he greatly formed

his style on that of Claude Lorraine. Like him, he possessed, in an

unusual degree, the art of pictorial composition. His chiaroscuro

was bold and effective, his colouring agreeable, and an undefinable

charm is given to his pictures by the poetical suggestiveness that

underlies them. His works are greatly valued. Two very fine examples

hang in the Scottish National Gallery. Thomson was a great friend of

Sir Walter Scott, for whom he painted the picture of Fast Castle, now

at Abbotsford. He formed one of the brilliant circle which was then

the glory of Edinburgh.

 

Leaving Duddingston, we enter the Queen's Park, and, struggling with

difficulty up the steep, rocky pass, called Windygoul (where even

on the calmest day gusts are always eddying), we see before and

above us the grand basaltic columns known as "Samson's Ribs." To

the left, down the slope, are the Wells o' Wearie, often celebrated

in song;[43] and before us lies St. Leonards, so imperishably

associated with _The Heart of Midlothian_, that a cottage used to

be pointed out as that of "Douce Davie Deans." Now even that has

disappeared, in the wilderness of new houses that has completely

changed St. Leonards. The eastern side of the crags, being within the

boundary of the park, alone retains its original character.[43] Two of these songs, being less well known than others, I quote from the versions given me by Lady John Scott.