He changed the water into wine.
But when, to honour Brunswick’s birth,
Our tribunes mounted the Theâtre,
He would not countenance their mirth,
But turned their claret into water!’
FORENOON AT THE CROSS.
As the place where state proclamations were always made, where the execution of noted state criminals took place, and where many important public ceremonials were enacted, the Cross of Edinburgh is invested with numberless associations of a most interesting kind, extending over several centuries. Here took place the mysterious midnight proclamation, summoning the Flodden lords to the domains of Pluto, as described so strikingly in Marmion; the witness being ‘Mr Richard Lawson, ill-disposed, ganging in his gallery fore-stair.’ Here did King James VI. bring together his barbarous nobles, and make them shake hands over a feast partaken of before the eyes of the people. Here did the Covenanting lords read their protests against Charles’s feeble proclamations. Here fell Montrose, Huntly, the Argylls, Warriston, and many others of note, victims of political dissension. Here were fountains set a-flowing with the blood-red wine, to celebrate the passing of kings along the causeway. And here, as a last notable fact, were Prince Charles and his father proclaimed by their devoted Highlanders, amidst screams of pipe and blare of trumpet, while the beautiful Mrs Murray of Broughton sat beside the party on horseback, adorned with white ribbons, and with a drawn sword in her hand! How strange it seems that a time should at length have come when a set of magistrates thought this structure an encumbrance to the street, and had it removed. This event took place in 1756—the ornamental stones dispersed, the pillar taken to the park at Drum.[152]