Kings and Queens came and went for the better part of a century, but none of them came to Edinburgh, or even to Scotland, for you cannot count the fugitive visit of the Old Pretender as anything at all. It was not till Prince Charles Edward Stuart made the memorable descent on the capital in the ’45 that I can again take up the easy thread of my narrative. Here anecdotes are abundant, but the most too well known for quotation: they tell of the cowardice of the citizens and the daring simplicity of the Highlanders. The capture of the city was without opposition. A burgher taking a walk saw a Highlander astride a gun, and said to him that surely he did not belong to the troops that were there yesterday. “Och no,” quoth the Celt, “she pe relieved.” According to all accounts, the invading army behaved well. An exception was the man who presented a musket at the head of a respectable shopkeeper, and when the trembling cit asked what he wanted, replied, “A bawbee.” This modest request being instantly complied with, they parted the best of friends. The demands of others did not rise beyond a pinch of snuff, and one hopes it was not required in an equally heroic manner. The day of Charles’s entry, his father as King and himself as Regent were proclaimed at the Cross by the heralds in their antique garb and with their antique rites, and conspicuous among the attendant throng was the beautiful Mrs. Murray of Broughton on horseback with a drawn sword, covered with white cockades, the conspicuous Stuart emblem. With her it was the one supreme moment of a life that was presently obscured in shadows. Her husband’s reputation as traitor still lay in the future. You remember how Scott’s father, Whig as he was, dashed to pieces the cup that Murray had touched, so that neither he nor any of his family might ever use it? At that same Cross, not many months after, the standards of the clans and of Charles were burnt by the hangman and Tron men or sweeps by the order of Cumberland, the least generous of foes. In the crowd there must have been many who had gazed on the other ceremonial. What a complete circuit fortune’s wheel had made! Amidst the festivities of Holyrood those things were not foreseen. Then came Prestonpans, with many a legend grave or gay. I will not repeat in detail those almost threadbare stories of the Highland estimation of the plunder: how that chocolate was Johnny Cope’s salve, and the watch that stopped was a beast that had died, and a pack-saddle was a fortune, and so forth. Here is perhaps the quaintest anecdote of misadventure. Two volunteers, one of them destined to the bench as Lord Gardenstone, were detailed to watch the precincts of Musselburgh. They were both convivial “cusses”: they knew every tavern in Edinburgh and every change-house in the far and near suburbs: they remembered a little den noted for its oysters and its sherry—possibly an odd combination, but the stomachs of young Edinburgh were invincible. At any rate, they made themselves merry. But there were limbs of the law, active or “stickit,” on the other side, and one as he prowled about espied the pair, and seized them without difficulty as they tried to negotiate that narrow bridge which still crosses the Esk at Musselburgh. They were dragged to the camp at Duddingston, and were about to be hanged as spies, but escaped through the intercession of still another lawyer, Colquhoun Grant, an adherent of the Prince. This same Colquhoun was a remarkable person, and distinguished himself greatly at Preston. He seized the horse of an English officer and pursued a great body of dragoons with awe-inspiring Gaelic curses. On, on went the panic-stricken mob, with Grant at their heels so close that he entered the Netherbow with them, and was just behind them at the Castle. He stuck his dirk into the gate, rode slowly down the High Street, ordered the Netherbow Port to be thrown open, and the frightened attendants were only too glad to see the back of him. In after years he beat his sword to a ploughshare, or rather a pen, and became a highly prosperous Writer to the Signet of Auld Reekie. It is related by Kay that Ross of Pitcarnie, a less fortunate Jacobite, used to extract “loans” from him by artful references to his exploits at Preston and Falkirk. The cowardice of the regular troops is difficult to account for, but there was more excuse for the volunteers, of whom many comical stories are told. The best is that of John Maclure the writing-master, who wound a quire of writing-paper round his manly bosom, on which he had written in his best hand, with all the appropriate flourishes, “This is the body of John Maclure, pray give it a Christian burial.” However, when once the Prince was in, the citizens preserved a strict neutrality. Of sentimental Jacobites like Allan Ramsay we hear not a word: they lay low and said nothing. What could they do but wait upon time? One clergyman was bold enough, at any rate, namely, the Rev. Neil M‘Vicar, incumbent of St. Cuthbert’s, who kept on praying for King George during the whole time of the Jacobite occupation: “As for this young man who has come among us seeking an earthly crown, we beseech Thee that he may obtain what is far better, a heavenly one.” Archibald Stewart was then Provost, and he was said to have Jacobite leanings. His house was by the West Bow, and here, it was rumoured, he gave a secret banquet to Charles and some of his chiefs. The folk in the Castle heard of this, and sent down a party of soldiers to seize the Prince. Just as they were entering the house the guests disappeared into a cabinet, which was really an entrance to a trap stair, and so got off. The story is obviously false. Stewart was afterwards tried for neglect of duty during the Rebellion, and the proceedings, which lasted an inordinate time—the longest then on record—resulted in his triumphant acquittal. The Government had never omitted a damning piece of evidence like this—if the thing had happened. One comic and instructive touch will pave my way to the next episode. A certain Mrs. Irvine died in Edinburgh in the year 1837 at the age of ninety-nine years or so, if the story be true which makes her a young child in the ’45. She was with her nurse in front of the Palace, where a Highlander was on guard: she was much attracted by his kilt, she advanced and seized it, and even pulled it up a little way. The nurse was in a state of terror, but the soldier only smiled and said a few kind words to the child. The moral of this story is that till the Highlanders took the city the kilt was a practically unknown garment to the folk in the capital. Six years before Mrs. Irvine died, to wit in 1831, she saw the setting up at the intersection of George Street and Hanover Street of the imposing statue by Chantrey which commemorates the visit of George IV. to Scotland. This visit was from 14th August to 29th August 1822. Sir Walter Scott stage-managed the business, and Lockhart has pointed out how odd the whole thing was. Scott was a Lowlander, and surely better read than any other in the history of his country, and who better knew that the history of Scotland is the history of the Lowlands, that Edinburgh was a Lowland capital, that the Highlands were of no account, save as disturbing forces? Yet, blinded by the picturesque effect, he ran the show as if the Highlands and the Highlands alone were Scotland. Chieftains were imported thence, Scott was dressed as a Highlander, George was dressed as a Highlander, Sir William Curtis, London alderman, was dressed as a Highlander: the whole thing trembled on the verge of burlesque. The silver St. Andrew’s cross that Scott presented to the King when he landed had a Gaelic inscription! The King, not to be outdone, called for a bottle of Highland whisky and pledged Sir Walter there and then, and Sir Walter begged the glass that had touched the Royal lips, for an heirloom no doubt. He got it, thrust it into his coat-tail pocket, and presently reduced it to fragments in a moment of forgetfulness by sitting on it. There, fortunately, the thing was left: they did not try to reconstitute it, after the fashion of the Portland Vase in the British Museum. George IV. had a fine if somewhat corpulent figure (Leigh Hunt wrote to Archibald Constable at an earlier period that he had suffered imprisonment for not thinking the Prince Regent slender and laudable), and no doubt in the Highland garb he made a “very pretty man,” but the knight from London was even more corpulent, Byron sings in The Age of Bronze:
“He caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt,
While thronged the Chiefs of every Highland clan
To hail their brother Vich Ian an Alderman.”
“Faar’s yer speen?” (Where’s your spoon?) said an envious and mocking Aberdeen bailie, to the no small discomfiture of the London knight, as he strutted to and fro, believing that his costume was accurate in every detail. Lockhart hints that possibly Scott invented the story to soothe the King’s wounded feelings. On the 24th of August the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh entertained the King in Parliament House to a great banquet. The King gave one toast, “The Chieftains and Clans of Scotland, and prosperity to the Land of Cakes.” He also attended a performance of Rob Roy at the theatre. Carlyle was in Edinburgh at the time, and fled in horror from what he called the “efflorescence of the flunkeyisms,” but everybody else seemed pleased, and voted the thing a great success. No doubt it gave official stamp to what is perhaps still the ordinary English view of Scotland. The odd thing is that Scott himself never grasped the Highland character—at least, where has he drawn one for us? Rob Roy and Helen Macgregor and Fergus M‘Ivor and Flora M‘Ivor are mere creatures of melodrama, but the Bailie and Mattie and Jeanie Deans and Davie Deans and the Antiquary and Edie Ochiltree and Andrew Fairservice and Mause and Cuddie Hedrigg are real beings of flesh and blood. We have met them or their likes on the muir or at the close fit, or on the High Street or in the kirk.
Twenty years passed, and a British Sovereign again comes to Scotland. On the 1st of September in 1842 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert arrived at Granton. They duly proceeded towards Edinburgh. The Lord Provost and Bailies ought to have met them at Canonmills to present the keys of the city, but they were “conspicuous by their absence,” and the Royal party had to go to Dalkeith (like George the Fourth, they put up for the time in the Duke of Buccleuch’s huge palace there). The local wits waxed merry; they swore that my Lord Provost and his fellows had over-slept themselves, and a parody of a well-known song rang unpleasantly in civic ears:
“Hey, Jamie Forrest,
Are ye waukin’ yet,
Or are yer byles
Snoring yet?”