'Twas in Craigmillar's dusky hall That first I lent my ear To that deep tempter Lethington, With Moray bending near.
Aytoun—"Bothwell."
[ [36] Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. i. part iii. p. 235.
[ [37] Various derivations have been given of the name of Niddrie Marischal. It is said to have been originally a hunting-seat of the king's, and therefore called Nid-du-Roy. The Rev. Mr. Whyte—the historian of Liberton parish—derives it from the Gaelic Niadh and Ri, "the King's Champion." The addition of Merschell, Marischal, or Marshal, as it is variously spelt, and which distinguishes it from Niddrie Seton in West Lothian, arose, say Sir George Mackenzie, Nesbit, and others, from "the heads of this family of Wauchope of Niddrie having been hereditary Bailies to Keith Lords Marischal, and Marischal-Deputes in Midlothian; from the Lords Marischal they had the lands of Niddry designed Niddry Marischal." The Rev. Mr. Whyte repeats this statement, with the verbal confirmation of Lord Hailes—no mean authority; but we must confess we have not met with anything like proof of the fact. (History and Genealogy of the Family of Wauchope.)
[ [38] "The estate was again forfaulted in Archibald's time, father to Francis, my great-grandfather, because he followed Queen Mary; and possibly having some power at that time, satisfied his own bold humour in disobliging his neighbours. He mutilated the Laird of Woolmet, and never rid without a great following of horsemen, whom he maintained, and gave to every man a piece of land as a gratuity, which continued during their service. The house at that time was of long standing, capable to lodge a hundred strangers, and lay most eastwards from the place it now stands in. It was then burnt by his neighbours, after he broke his neck in Skinner's Close (Edinburgh), being alarmed by his man, and thinking to save himself out of a storm window, while his enemies were already in great number at his door, with design to murder or take him prisoner." (MS. Notes by William Wauchope, 1700.)
There seems to have been a hereditary friendship between the Bothwell family and the Wauchopes. Robert Wauchope is the "young Niddrie" mentioned in the following lines, as riding with James, Earl of Bothwell, to intercept the queen and carry her off to Dunbar—
Hay, bid the trumpet sound the march, Go, Bolton, to the van; Young Niddrie follows with the rear. Set forward, every man!
Aytoun—"Bothwell."
His son Archibald (the young Niddrie of William Wauchope's notes) was a friend and companion of Francis, Lord Bothwell, and was concerned in the attack on the palace of Holyrood, December 27, 1591. (See History and Genealogy of the Family of Wauchope of Niddrie-Merschell, by James Paterson, 1858. Privately printed.)