Bow Street, which, if I remember rightly, runs into Grass Market from High Street, was formerly known as West Bow, from an arch or bow in the city wall. We passed down this quaint old street, which used to be the principal avenue by which carriages reached the upper part of the city. It was a curve of lofty houses, filthy kennels, and noisy children, spirit-shops, groceries, and garbage; yet up this street had ridden, in old times, Anne of Denmark, James I., Charles I., Oliver Cromwell, Charles II., and James II. It was down this street that the Earl of Argyle and Marquis of Montrose were dragged, in the hangman's cart, to execution in the Grass Market, which is situated at its foot, and to which I have previously alluded. Porteous was also dragged down through this street to execution, by the rioters who took him from his jailers.
In the old city we visited a court called Dunbar's Close, where, after the victory of Dunbar, some of Cromwell's soldiers were quartered. Here remains a carved inscription, said to bear the oldest date in the city. It reads as follows:
St. Giles Church, in High Street, is a notable building, and was, in popish times, the cathedral of the city, named after St. Giles, Edinburgh's patron saint. I will not tire the reader with a visit to its interior; but it was here that took place that incident, which every school-boy recollects, of Jenny Geddes throwing her stool at the head of the officiating clergyman, upon his attempt to read the liturgy as prescribed by Archbishop Laud, and which it was proposed to introduce into Scotland.
The "Solemn League and Covenant" was sworn to and signed in this church, in 1643. Just within the railings surrounding the old church stands the shaft of the old cross of Edinburgh; and the site of the Tollbooth, which figures in Scott's novels, is marked, near by, by the figure of a heart in the pavement—"The Heart of Mid-Lothian." Numerous other points of historic interest might be enumerated, did space permit. We must, as we pass rapidly on, not forget to take a view of the quaint old rookery-looking mansion of John Knox, the Reformer, with a steep flight of steps, leading up to a door high above the sidewalk, and the inscription upon it, which I could not read, but which I was informed was
and the massive-looking old Canon Gate Tollbooth, erected in the reign of James VI. On we go through the Canon Gate, till we emerge in the open space in front of that ancient dwelling-place of Scottish royalty, Holyrood Palace.
Holyrood Palace is interesting from the numerous important events in Scottish history that have transpired within its walls. It is a great quadrangular building, with a court-yard ninety-four feet square. Its front is flanked with double castellated towers, the tops peaked, and looking something like the lid of an old-fashioned coffee-pot, or an inverted tin tunnel, with the pipe cut off. The embellishments in front of the entrance to the palace and the beautiful fountain were completed under the direction, and at the expense, of the late Prince Albert. The palace is said to have been founded by James IV., quite early in the year 1500, and it was his chief residence up to the time of his death, at Flodden, in 1513. Some of the events that give it its historic celebrity are those that transpired during the life of Mary, Queen of Scots, who made it her ordinary residence after her return to her native country, in 1561. It was here that Mary was married to Darnley, and we were shown the piece of stone flagging upon which they knelt during the ceremony, and which we profaned with our own knees, with true tourist fervor; here that Rizzio, or, as they spell it in Scotland, Riccio, was murdered in her very presence; here that she married Bothwell, endured those fiery discussions with the Scotch Reformers, and wept at the rude and coarse upbraidings of John Knox; here that James VI. brought his queen, Anne of Denmark, in 1590, and had her crowned in the chapel; here, also, was Charles I. crowned, and here, after the battle of Dunbar, in 1650, did Cromwell quarter a part of his forces.
In modern times, George IV. visited the palace in 1822, granting, after his departure, over twenty thousand pounds for repairs and improvements; and in 1850, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and the royal children made a visit there, and since that time she stops annually on her way to and from her Highland residence at the Castle of Balmoral, for a brief period here at old Holyrood.
To those familiar at all, from reading history or the romances and poems, with those events in which this old pile occupies a prominent position, it of course possesses a great interest.