Walks near Edinburgh 16

Walks near Edinburgh 16

Clermiston Lee still rises steep and bare behind the village, but the

old castle of the Foresters, which then stood below it, has vanished;

only a few stones remaining to show where it once was. Gone, too,

is their town house in Forester's Wynd,--gone is their very name!

The proud and ancient title of Lord Forester of Corstorphine has

passed by inheritance to an English earl, and is merged in the higher

honours of Verulam. The tombs alone of the old knights remain in the

beautiful church, which, altered and mutilated as it is, still bears

traces of its past glory.

 

The first Forester who possessed Corstorphine was Sir Adam. He was

a gallant knight, who fought by the side of the Douglas at Homildon

Hill, and fell a captive into Hotspur's hands. He was ransomed, but

three years later (1405) he died at Corstorphine, full of years and

honours. His son, Sir John, was Great Chamberlain of Scotland, and

Master of the Household to James I. In his time the church was built

(1444), and erected into a collegiate foundation, with a provost,

four prebendaries, and two singing boys. It has been conjectured that

one of the first provosts was the "Gentill Rowll," whom Dunbar, in

his beautiful "Lament of the Makaris," bemoans as one of those whom

Death "has tane out of this countrie."

 

He has tane Rowll of Abirdeen

And gentill Rowll of Corstorphyne;

Twa bettir fallowis did no man sie,

_Timor mortis conturbat me_.

 

His name is embalmed with those of other poets of his day, Chaucer,

Wyntoun, Blind Harry, Barbour; but it is doubtful if a line of his

writings has come down to us.[52] When we enter the old church where

he officiated, we shall be sadly disappointed. The requirements of

a Presbyterian place of worship have altered it so much from its

original form, that we must shut our eyes, and throw our minds back

into former days, before we can picture it, or even understand it at

all. What is now the porch was then the chancel, but the altar-tombs

have been spared, with their recumbent effigies.

 

[52] There is a poem in the Bannatyne MS. termed "Rowll's Cursing."

Whether written by him, or only in his name, is not known. "The

following passage in it," writes the learned Lord Hailes, "determines

the era at which he lived:--

 

----and now of Rome that beiris the rod,

Undir the hevin to lowse and bind,

Paip Alexander.

 

The Pontiff here meant must have been the virtuous Alexander VI.,

who was _Divine Vicegerent_, from 1492 to 1503." In _Select Remains

of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland_, printed by Dr. Laing in

1822, the poem is given, and entitled

 

The cursing of Sir John Rowlis

Upoun the steilars of his fowlis;

 

but to which of the two Rowlls this refers is unknown.

 

"Two of the altar-tombs," to quote Wilson's vivid description,

"occupy arched recesses in the chancel, one of them being the

monument of Sir John Forester, the founder of the collegiate church,

and his lady, apparently a St. Clair of Orkney, judging from the arms

impaled with the Foresters' on one of the sculptured shields. The

knight and lady are in armour and dress of the fifteenth century,

and the latter clasps her breviary in her hands. In the other

monument, supposed to represent the son of the founder and his wife,

the lady's hands are meekly crossed over her breast. The supposed

Crusader lies apart on his altar-tomb in the south transept, with his

dog at his feet. He is traditionally affirmed to be Bernard, Lord of

Aubigny, who died at the castle of Corstorphine, while on an embassy

to the court of James IV. in 1508; but the monument is of older

date, and the shield bears the Foresters' own heraldic hunting horns

stringed."[53] One shield impaled with Forester bears the _fesse

cheque_ of Stuart,--perhaps for Marion Stewart, Lady Dalswinton, wife

of the second Sir John Forester.

 

[53] Wilson's _Reminiscences of Old Edinburgh_.

 

[Illustration: _Tomb in Corstorphine Church_.]

 

The church is built in the form of a cross, and part of the roof is

still covered with the old grey flagstones. A small square belfry

tower at the west end is surmounted by a short octagonal spire, with

richly ornamented string mouldings. In the pre-Reformation days,

the provostry of Corstorphine was a lucrative and much sought after

office. In the beginning of the sixteenth century it was held by the

Robert Cairncross who bears an unenviable reputation in Buchanan's

history, by the manner in which he obtained the Abbey of Holyrood,

without subjecting himself to the law against simony. Having

ascertained that the abbot was at the point of death, he wagered a

considerable sum with the king that he would _not_ be offered the

first vacant benefice, and lost his bet by being appointed Abbot of

Holyrood.

 

Putting on one side such wild legends as derive the name of

Corstorphine from _Croix d'or fin_, the golden cross presented to the

church by some mythical French noble, it seems far more probable that

the village was called after the "Cross of Torphin;" though of that

there are now no traces left. Probably it was erected by the same

Torphin who gave his name to one of the outlying spurs of Pentland,

which is still called Torphin Hill, and stands in Colinton parish.

Tradition says he was an archdeacon of Lothian, but his name carries

one back to the early Saxon invaders of the land. In old days a loch

stretched over what now is fertile plain; and the Water of Leith,

which ran out of it, was deep enough for the Lords Forrester to

bring their provisions up from Edinburgh by boat to their castle of

Corstorphine, which stood close to the north-west corner of the loch.

 

At this castle a terrible crime was committed in August 1679. George,

the first Lord Forester, had no son, and, to prevent the extinction

of the family name, he resigned his honours into Charles II.'s hands,

and obtained a fresh patent in favour of his daughter Jean and her

husband, James Baillie of Torwoodhead, who accordingly succeeded

as second Lord Forester. This nobleman's first wife had died

childless, it is said, heart-broken at the neglect and indignities

she suffered at his hands. He was a second time a widower,--having

married a daughter of the old Cavalier general, Patrick Ruthven,

Earl of Forth and Brentford, by whom he had five children, all of

whom bore their mother's name of Ruthven,--when popular rumour

accused him of carrying on an intrigue with the beautiful Christian

Nimmo,[54] the wife of a merchant in Edinburgh. She was a great deal

younger than himself, and a niece of his first wife's. This near

relationship greatly increased the scandal, which was aggravated by

Lord Forester having always professed to be a religious man, and a

rigid Presbyterian. Mrs. Nimmo, besides being a very beautiful woman,

was of a violent and impulsive nature. She was believed always to

carry a sword under her petticoats,[55] and so was not a person to

be treated lightly, especially by those who reflected what blood ran

in her veins,--a Mrs. Bedford, who had murdered her husband a few

years before, being her cousin-german. She was also related to the

unhappy Lady Warriston, who suffered death for the same crime in

1600. Lord Forester's passion for her appears to have cooled; and,

shutting his eyes to possible consequences, he permitted himself in

one of his carouses to speak more than lightly of her. This came to

her ears, and, seized with fury, she went at once to his castle at

Corstorphine. He was absent when she arrived, drinking at a tavern in

the village. She sent for him, and met him in the garden, close to

the old dovecot, where a violent altercation took place between them.

In the midst of it, she snatched the sword from his side, ran him

through the body, and killed him.

 

[54] She was Christian Hamilton, daughter of Grange Hamilton, and

maternal grand-daughter of the first Lord Forester.

 

[55] Kirkton's _History of the Church of Scotland_, edited with notes

by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, page 184.

 

"The inhabitants of the village," writes Charles Sharpe, "still

relate some circumstances of the murder, not recorded by

Fountainhall. Mrs. Nimmo, attended by her maid, had gone from

Edinburgh to the castle of Corstorphine." After the murder, "she

took refuge in a garret of the castle, but was discovered by one of

her slippers, which dropped through a crevice in the floor. It need

hardly be added that, till lately, the inhabitants of the village

were greatly annoyed, of a moonlight night, by the appearance of a

woman clothed in white, with a bloody sword in her hand, wandering

and waiting near the pigeon-house." She was seized and brought

before the sheriff in Edinburgh. She confessed her crime, but

pleaded that Lord Forester, being ferocious and intoxicated with

drink, had drawn his sword; that, to save herself, she had snatched

it from him, and that in the struggle he had fallen upon it, and

so killed himself. In spite of this defence, sentence of death was

passed upon her, which she contrived to have postponed for two

months, under a false pretext of her condition. During this interval

she escaped one evening from the Tolbooth, disguised as a man, but

she was recaptured next day at Fala Mill, and beheaded at the Market

Cross on the 12th November 1679. At her execution she appeared

dressed in deep mourning, with a long veil, which, before laying her

head on the block, she took off, and replaced with a white taffeta

hood. She met her fate with great courage.[56] It was said at the

time that, in spite of his professed Presbyterianism, a dispensation

from the Pope to marry Mrs. Nimmo was found among Lord Forester's

papers, and that his delay in using it had caused her fury.

 

[56] Fountainhall's _Historical Notices_, vol. i. p. 231-233.

 

By the terms of the patent, the barony and lands of Corstorphine

passed to Lord Forester's nephew, William Baillie, his mother having

been Lilias, youngest daughter of the first baron. He became third

Lord Forester, and in his line the title has since remained.

 

The fertile pastures that surround Corstorphine provided our

forefathers with that favourite delicacy, known as Corstorphine

cream. It was a variety of the old Scottish dish called "Hattit Kit,"

and much resembled it.[57]

 

[57] This preparation of milk is very ancient, and probably

originated among the Tartars, by whom it was made of mares' milk, and

called _Koumiss_. It is believed to have been introduced into this

country by the wandering Eastern tribes, who, leaving their native

Phœnicia, gradually spread themselves along the north of Africa,

and, leaving traces of their passage in the Basque Provinces and

Brittany, colonised first Cornwall, and then the western coast of

this island; and a few of whose customs still linger among us. There

is a very interesting dissertation on this subject in _The Pillars of

Hercules_, by the late David Urquhart, M. P.

 

About a quarter of a mile to the west of Corstorphine, the high road

divides in two,--the branch to the right making its way by Linlithgow

to the north; the other leading straight on, and reaching Glasgow

eventually. Though it is out of the direction of this walk, and we

shall have to retrace our steps to this point, we would pray our

kind companions to go with us as far along the first-named road as

the bridge which crosses the Almond near Kirkliston, and joins the

counties of West and Midlothian. It is not more than a mile and

a half off, and, just before reaching it, we turn aside, along a

rough cart track leading into a field. This field lies in the angle

between the Almond and the impetuous little Gogar Burn, which we have

crossed without noticing; and about the centre, on slightly rising

ground, stands the object of our search--the end of our pilgrimage.