LADY LOVAT.
The widow of the rebel Lord Lovat spent a great portion of a long widowhood and died (1796) in a house at the head of Blackfriars Wynd.
Her ladyship was a niece of the first Duke of Argyll, and born, as she herself expressed it, in the year Ten—that is, 1710. The politic Mac Shemus[197] marked her out as a suitable second wife, in consideration of the value of the Argyll connection. As he was above thirty years her senior, and not famed for the tenderest treatment of his former spouse, or for any other amiable trait of disposition, she endeavoured, by all gentle means, to avoid the match; but it was at length effected through the intervention of her relations, and she was carried north to take her place in the semi-barbarous state which her husband held at Castle Downie.
Nothing but misery could have been expected from such an alliance. The poor young lady, while treated with external decorum, was in private subjected to such usage as might have tried the spirit of a Griselda. She was occasionally kept confined in a room by herself, from which she was not allowed to come forth even at meals, only a scanty supply of coarse food being sent to her from his lordship’s table. When pregnant, her husband coolly told her that if she brought forth a girl he would put it on the back of the fire. His eldest son by the former marriage was a sickly child. Lovat therefore deemed it necessary to raise a strong motive in the step-mother for the child being taken due care of during his absence in the Lowlands. On going from home, he would calmly inform her that any harm befalling the boys in his absence would be attended with the penalty of her own death, for in that event he would undoubtedly shoot her through the head. It is added that she did, from this in addition to other motives, take an unusual degree of care of her step-son, who ever after felt towards her the tenderest love and gratitude. One is disposed to believe that there must be some exaggeration in these stories; and yet when we consider that it is an historical fact that Lovat applied to Prince Charles for a warrant to take President Forbes dead or alive (Forbes being his friend and daily intimate), it seems no extravagance that he should have acted in this manner to his wife. Sir Walter Scott tells an additional story, which helps out the picture. ‘A lady, the intimate friend of her youth, was instructed to visit Lady Lovat, as if by accident, to ascertain the truth of those rumours concerning her husband’s conduct which had reached the ears of her family. She was received by Lord Lovat with an extravagant affectation of welcome, and with many assurances of the happiness his lady would receive from seeing her. The chief then went to the lonely tower in which Lady Lovat was secluded, without decent clothes, and even without sufficient nourishment. He laid a dress before her becoming her rank, commanded her to put it on, to appear, and to receive her friend as if she were the mistress of the house; in which she was, in fact, a naked and half-starved prisoner. And such was the strict watch which he maintained, and the terror which his character inspired, that the visitor durst not ask, nor Lady Lovat communicate, anything respecting her real situation.’[198] Afterwards, by a letter rolled up in a clew of yarn and dropped over a window to a confidential person, she was enabled to let her friends know how matters actually stood; and steps were then taken to obtain her separation from her husband. When, some years later, his political perfidy had brought him to the Tower—forgetting all past injuries, and thinking only of her duty as a wife, Lady Lovat offered to come to London to attend him. He returned an answer, declining the proposal, and containing the only expressions of kindness and regard which she had ever received from him since her marriage.
The singular character of Lord Lovat makes almost every particular regarding him worth collecting.
Previous to 1745, when the late Mr Alexander Baillie of Dochfour was a student at the grammar-school of Inverness, cock-fights were very common among the boys. This detestable sport, by the way, was encouraged by the schoolmasters of those days, who derived a profit from the beaten cocks, or, as they were called, fugies, which became, at the end of every game, their appropriated perquisite. In pursuit of cocks, Mr Baillie went to visit his friends in the Aird, and in the course of his researches was introduced to Lord Lovat, whose policy it was, on all occasions, to show great attentions to his neighbours and their children. The situation in which his lordship was found by the schoolboy was, if not quite unprecedented, nevertheless rather surprising. He was stretched out in bed between two Highland lasses, who, on being seen, affected out of modesty to hide their faces under the bedclothes. The old lord accounted for this strange scene by saying that his blood had become cold, and he was obliged to supply the want of heat by the application of animal warmth.
It is said that he lay in bed for the most part of the two years preceding the Rebellion; till, hearing of Prince Charles’s arrival in Arisaig, he roused himself with sudden vehemence, crying to an attendant: ‘Lassie, bring me my brogues—I’ll rise noo!’
One of his odd fancies was to send a retainer every day to Loch Ness, a distance of eight miles, for the water he drank.
His intimacy with his neighbour President Forbes is an amusing affair, for the men must have secretly known full well what each other was, and yet policy made them keep on decent terms for a long course of years. Lovat’s son by the subject of this notice—the Honourable Archibald Campbell Fraser—was a boy at Petty school in 1745. The President sometimes invited him to dinner. One day, pulling a handful of foreign gold pieces out of his pocket, he carelessly asked the boy if he had ever seen such coins before. Here was a stroke worthy of Lovat himself, for undoubtedly he meant thus to be informed whether the lord of Castle Downie was accustomed to get remittances for the Chevalier’s cause from abroad.
After the death of Lord Lovat, there arose some demur about his lady’s jointure, which was only £190 per annum. It was not paid to her for several years, during which, being destitute of other resources, she lived with one of her sisters. Some of her numerous friends—among the rest, Lord Strichen—offered her the loan of money to purchase a house and suffice for present maintenance. But she did not choose to encumber herself with debts which she had no certain prospect of repaying. At length the dispute about her jointure was settled in a favourable manner, and her ladyship received in a lump the amount of past dues, out of which she expended £500 in purchasing a house at the head of Blackfriars Wynd,[199] and a further sum upon a suite of plain substantial furniture.
It would surprise a modern dowager to know how much good Lady Lovat contrived to do amongst her fellow-creatures with this small allowance. It is said that the succeeding Lady of Lovat, with a jointure of £4000, was less distinguished for her benefactions. In Lady Lovat’s dusky mansion, with a waiting-maid, cook, and footboy, she not only maintained herself in the style of a gentlewoman, but could welcome every kind of Highland cousin to a plain but hospitable board, and even afford permanent shelter to several unfortunate friends. A certain Lady Dorothy Primrose, who was her niece, lived with her for several years, using the best portion of her house, namely, the rooms fronting the High Street, while she herself was contented with the duller apartments towards the wynd. There was another desolate old person, styled Mistress of Elphinstone, whom Lady Lovat supported as a friend and equal for many years. Not by habit a card-player herself, she would make up a whist-party every week for the benefit of the Mistress. At length the poor Mistress came to a sad fate. A wicked, perhaps half-crazy boy, grandson to her ladyship, having taken an antipathy to his venerable relative, put poison into the oatmeal porridge which she was accustomed to take at supper. Feeling unwell that night, she did not eat any, and the Mistress took the porridge instead, of which she died. The boy was sent away, and died in obscurity.
An unostentatious but sincere piety marked the character of Lady Lovat. Perhaps her notions of Providence were carried to the verge of a kind of fatalism; for not merely did she receive all crosses and troubles as trials arranged for her benefit by a Higher Hand, but when a neighbouring house on one occasion took fire, she sat unmoved in her own mansion, notwithstanding the entreaties of the magistrates, who ordered a sedan to be brought for her removal. She said if her hour was come, it would be vain to try to elude her fate; and if it was not come, she would be safe where she was. She had a conscientiousness almost ludicrously nice. If detained from church on any occasion, she always doubled her usual oblation at the plate next time. When her chimney took fire, she sent her fine to the Town-guard before they knew the circumstance. Even the tax-collector experienced her ultra-rectitude. When he came to examine her windows, she took him to a closet lighted by a single pane, looking into a narrow passage between two houses. He hesitated about charging for such a small modicum of light, but her ladyship insisted on his taking note of it.[200]
Lady Lovat was of small stature, had been thought a beauty, and retained in advanced old age much of her youthful delicacy of features and complexion. Her countenance bore a remarkably sweet and pleasing expression. When at home, her dress was a red silk gown, with ruffled cuffs, and sleeves puckered like a man’s shirt; a fly-cap, encircling the head, with a mob-cap laid across it, falling down over the cheeks, and tied under the chin; her hair dressed and powdered; a double muslin handkerchief round the neck and bosom; lammer-beads; a white lawn apron, edged with lace; black stockings with red gushets; high-heeled shoes.[201] She usually went abroad in a chair, as I have been informed by the daughter of a lady who was one of the first inhabitants of the New Town, and whom Lady Lovat regularly visited there once every three months. As her chair emerged from the head of Blackfriars Wynd, any one who saw her sitting in it, so neat and fresh and clean, would have taken her for a queen in waxwork, pasted up in a glass-case.
Lady Lovat was intimate with Lady Jane Douglas; and one of the strongest evidences in favour of Lord Douglas being the son of that lady[202] was the following remarkable circumstance: Lady Lovat, passing by a house in the High Street, saw a child at a window, and remarked to a friend who was with her: ‘If I thought Lady Jane Douglas could be in Edinburgh, I would say that was her child—he is so like her!’ Upon returning home, she found a note from Lady Jane, informing her that she had just arrived in Edinburgh, and had taken lodgings in —— Land, which proved to be the house in which Lady Lovat had observed the child, and that child was young Archibald Douglas. Lady Lovat was a person of such strict integrity that no consideration could have tempted her to say what she did not think; and at the time she saw the child, she had no reason to suppose that Lady Jane was in Scotland.
Such was the generosity of her disposition that when her grandson Simon was studying law, she at various times presented him with £50, and when he was to pass as an advocate she sent him £100. It was wonderful how she could spare such sums from her small jointure. Whole tribes of grand-nephews and grand-nieces experienced the goodness of her heart, and loved her with almost filial affection. She frequently spoke to them of her misfortunes, and was accustomed to say: ‘I dare say, bairns, the events of my life would make a good novelle; but they have been of so strange a nature that nobody would believe them’—meaning that they wanted the vraisemblance necessary in fiction. She contemplated the approach of death with fortitude, and in anticipation of her obsequies, had her grave-clothes ready and the stair whitewashed. Yet the disposal of her poor remains little troubled her. When asked by her son if she wished to be placed in the burial-vault at Beaufort, she said: ‘’Deed, Archie, ye needna put yoursel’ to ony fash about me, for I dinna care though ye lay me aneath that hearthstane!’ After all, it chanced, from some misarrangements, that her funeral was not very promptly executed; whereupon a Miss Hepburn of Humbie, living in a floor above, remarked, ’she wondered what they were keeping her sae lang for—stinkin’ a’ the stair.’ This gives some idea of circumstances connected with Old Town life.
The conduct of her ladyship’s son in life was distinguished by a degree of eccentricity which, in connection with that of his son already stated, tends to raise a question as to the character of Lord Lovat, and make us suspect that wickedness so great as his could only result from a certain unsoundness of mind. It is admitted, however, that the eldest son, Simon, who rose to be a major-general in the army, was a man of respectable character. He retained nothing of his father but a genius for making fine speeches.[203] The late Mrs Murray of Henderland told me she was present at a supper-party given by some gentleman in the Horse Wynd, where General Fraser, eating his egg, said to the hostess: ‘Mrs ——, other people’s eggs overflow with milk; but yours run over with cream!’
[THE COWGATE.]
House of Gavin Douglas the Poet—Skirmish of Cleanse-the-Causeway—College Wynd—Birthplace of Sir Walter Scott—The Horse Wynd—Tam o’ the Cowgate—Magdalen Chapel.
Looking at the present state of this ancient street, it is impossible to hear without a smile the description of it given by Alexander Alesse about the year 1530—Ubi nihil est humile aut rusticum, sed omnia magnifica! (‘Where nothing is humble or homely, but everything magnificent!’) The street was, he tells us, that in which the nobles and judges resided, and where the palaces of princes were situated. The idea usually entertained of its early history is that it rose as an elegant suburb after the year 1460, when the existing city, consisting of the High Street alone, was enclosed in a wall. It would appear, however, that some part of it was built before that time, and that it was in an advanced, if not complete, state as a street not long after. It was to enclose this esteemed suburb that the city wall was extended after the battle of Flodden.