The Royal Mile (of Edinburgh). A Comprehensive Guide

98 Pages·2017·37.676 MB·English

by  Jan-Andrew Henderson

• l
JAN-ANDREW
HENDERSON
-
-

The Royal Mile
A Comprehensive Guide
Jan-Andrew Henderson
Photographs by Jan-Andrew Henderson
and Theresa Groth
..
I
AMBERLEY
For my daughter Scarlet
(Who was born in Australia and didn't really get to see the Mile)
The great street, which I do take to be an English mile long, and is the best-paved street
with boulder stones that I have ever seen.
Sir William Brereton ( r 604-61)
Perhaps the largest, longest, and finest street for buildings and number of inhabitants not in
Britain only, but in the World.
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)
This accursed, stinking, reeky mass of stones and lime and dung.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
The main side streets are narrow, filthy and with six storey houses ... poverty and misery
seem to peep out of the open hatches which normally serve as windows.
Hans Christian Anderson ( 180 5-7 5)
First published 2017
Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP
www.amberley-books.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may !Ye
reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form
Copyright© Jan-Andrew Henderson, 2017 or by any electronic, mechanical or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including
The right of Jan-Andrew Henderson to be identified photocopying and recording, or in any information
as the Author of this work has been asserted in storage or retrieval system, without the permission
accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and in writing from the Publishers.
Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
Photographs by A catalogue record for this book is available from
Theresa Groth and Jan-Andrew Henderson. the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 4456 5845 2 (print) Origination by Amberley Publishing.
ISBN 978 1 4456 5846 9 (ebook) Printed in Great Britain.
Contents
Introduction 4
1 The Castle and Esplanade 10
2 Castlehill 13
3 Lawnmarket 22
4 High Street: Part I 32
5 Parliament Square 34
6 High Street: Part II 42
7 Canongate 68
8 Abbey Strand 88
References 93
Acknowledgements 96
About the Author 96
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Introduction
There are several guides to the Royal Mile, so why choose this particular one? Well, put
simply, it's got everything. All the little closes, wynds and courts running off the main street
that people often ignore, with a handy rating guide to the most interesting ones. It contains
the significant buildings and monuments, noted pubs, restaurants and visitor attractions. It
recounts the bloody and spectacular history, including all the movers and shakers who lived
here. It even lists haunted sites, of which Edinburgh is particularly proud. And it's written
by an award-winning novelist and former tour guide, who spent more than twenty years
working on the Mile. That would be me. Nice to meet you.
The book is simple to use. You start at Edinburgh Castle on top of the street and work
your way to Holyrood Palace at the bottom. Everything is either marked north (the
left-hand side going down) or south (the right-hand side going down). By the time you get
to the end, you'll be an expert on one of the most fascinating streets in the world and can
annoy your friends with your extensive knowledge and endless fun facts (which are also
included). Plus it has nice pictures.
So, off you go, and have a great time. Take an umbrella, though. The weather is as
unpredictable as the sights you'll encounter.
A Brief History of the Royal Mile
The Royal Mile is the main street of Edinburgh's Old Town. And the Old Town pretty
much was Edinburgh for much of the capital's long history, until the New Town was begun
in the eighteenth century.
The Mile runs down the spine of a glaciated ridge and towers over the rest of Edinburgh.
At the top is the castle, perched on a large basalt rock, the perfect defensive site. At the
bottom is Holyrood Abbey and Palace, where the queen stays when she's on her holidays.
In between is all the cool stuff.
There has been a settlement on the ridge for millennia and it's a fair bet there was some
sort of fortress on Castle Rock all that time, which, of course, meant fighting. Lots of
fighting.
The Romans invaded in the first century AD and took the place from a Celtic tribe called
the Votadini. When they left in the fifth century to shore up a crumbling empire, Castle
Rock was regained by descendants of the Votadini - known as the Gododdin. They, in turn,
succumbed to assault by Anglo-Saxon Northumbrians in the seventh century. In the tenth
century the Northumbrians retreated as well, and Edinburgh came under the rule of the
Scots. All this time, primitive dwellings were spreading down the Mile and, in the twelfth
century, the Scots king David I (1 084-1 r 53) established Edinburgh as one of Scotland's
earliest royal burghs.
The medieval Old Town was very different to the one we see now. Wooden houses lined
the top of the ridge and pastures called 'enclosures' stretched down the slopes on either side
to green fields and farmland. It was all very pastoral and life on the early Mile seems to
Introduction 5
have been similar to the rest of Europe for several centuries. The writer Froissart, visiting in
13 84, called it the 'Paris of Scotland' and it seems to have remained a bustling but agreeable
place until the fifteenth century. Well, as agreeable as a town riven with internal strife,
possessing no sanitation, medicine or law enforcement and constantly fighting either the
highlanders or the English could manage.
Things started to get really interesting in the fourteenth century when Robert II
( 13 16-90) came to power, the first of fourteen Stewart kings. From then on the fate of this
dynasty would be inextricably linked with that of the Mile, which wasn't always a good
thing for either.
Robert II and Robert III (1337-1406) set the pattern for this love-hate relationship
between Scotland's capital and its Stewart monarchs. Both Roberts were feeble rulers and
allowed the southern Scots nobles to pretty much do what they liked - which was generally
bleed the peasants dry, rebel against the Crown and periodically invade England - who
would then retaliate. The result was centuries of bloodshed, with the Mile at its centre.
Before he died, sickly Robert III sent his heir to France in order to escape the clutches of
unruly nobles. Unfortunately, the future James I (1394-1437) was captured by the English
en route and held to ransom for seventeen years. When it became apparent that the Scottish
aristocracy had no intention of ever paying up, the English let him go.
James returned to Edinburgh in 1420 an angry man with big ideas on ruling his country.
But the nobles, who had gotten used to doing what they liked, weren't going to put up with
that kind of interference and eventually murdered him.
James II (1430-60) came to power at six years old and spent years throwing off the yoke
of his powerful barons. Feeling he was on a winning streak, he decided to wipe out the last
English strongholds in the borders, still clinging on a century after Scotland's successful
Wars of Independence. Bad decision. At the siege of Roxburgh Castle, he was blown up by
one of his own cannon.
James III ( 14 51-8 8) was so unpopular his own son joined the mutiny that saw his father
killed in battle. That's teenage rebellion on an epic scale.
James IV (1473-1513), however, seemed cut from a different cloth. A charming and
intelligent man, Edinburgh seemed set to flourish under his rule. Then he threw it all away.
To aid the French in another pointless war against England, he marched south with the
greatest army Scotland had ever produced. They met a tiny English force at Flodden and
were wiped out, along with their king.
Knowing they had left themselves wide open to counter-attack, the people of Edinburgh
frantically began extending their defences, resulting in a formidable barrier known as the
Flodden Wall. Though spectacularly useless at keeping invaders away, the barrier remained
for 250 years, effectively stopping the Old Town from expanding.
As the population grew, more and more dwellings were crammed into the Mile, until the
green land narrowed to muddy little strips between towering buildings. Enclosures became
the aptly named 'closes', many of which still exist. Buildings grew taller and taller, resulting in
'lands' of up to fifteen storeys. Out of space and unable to erect edifices any higher, city builders
began to dig down and sideways into the ridge. This created the legendary Underground City,
which I cover in my book The Town Blow The Ground. Yes, that's a shameless plug.
This unique situation resulted in the Royal Mile being one of the most visually impressive
sights you could imagine, and an utterly horrendous place to live. Plague. Civil war.
Invasion. Overcrowding. Filth. Poverty. Crime. We had it all.
And, in the middle of this muck and misery, a religious conflict developed that would
tear the city apart. Tired of corruption in the Catholic Church, sixteenth-century Protestant
6 The Royal Mile: A Comprehensive Guide
'Reformers' began a violent fight for the faith of Edinburgh's population, both sides
ignoring the fact that the citizens needed a bath and a sandwich more than a theological
punch-up.
The Stewarts, meanwhile, were still having their monumental run of bad luck. James V
( 1512-42) was kept a virtual prisoner by the Scots aristocracy until he escaped and asserted
his power. Like his father, he then aided the French by sending a huge army against a tiny
English force. Again the Scots were sent packing, at the Battle of Solway Moss. This defeat
wrecked the king's health and he died the same week as his heir was born. Mary Queen of
Scots (1542-87) became the monarch at six days old.
This event was watched carefully by Henry VIII of England ( 1491-15 4 7), who saw an
opportunity to destroy Scotland's annoying alliance with the French by marrying the child
to his own son. When Mary's French mum declined the offer, Henry began the 'Rough
Wooing', marching north and burning the Old Town to the ground. Mary was sent to
France and didn't return until she was nineteen.
She came back to a city that was rougher than a Mexican border town on payday. The
fiery reformer preacher John Knox (c. 1513-72) railed against Catholics, women and Mary
Queen of Scots - who had the misfortune to be all three. Plague regularly struck, witch
burning was common, and torture was frequently used to get confessions out of anyone
unlucky enough to be accused.
Mary's return exacerbated the conflict between Edinburgh's Catholics and the reformed
'Presbyterian' Protestants. Either too na'ive or too ambitious to acknowledge how
precarious her position really was, her strong will and independent character caused a civil
war. Forced to abdicate by her own nobles (no surprise there), she eventually fled south.
Fearing the Scot's queen would become a figurehead for the Catholic cause in England, not
to mention the fact that she had a strong claim to inherit the English throne, Elizabeth I
( 15 3 3-1603) imprisoned then executed her - dying peacefully of old age was not a trait the
Stewarts were familiar with. (As a footnote, Mary changed the name Stewart to Stuart to
make it easier for her French courtiers to pronounce. So I'll stick with Stuart from now on).
When Elizabeth died childless, Mary's claim to be heir to the English throne became a
belated reality and her son,James VI (1566-1625 ), found himself James I of Britain.
The Scots were ecstatic. After hundreds of years trying to invade their old adversary,
England had been handed to them on a plate!
James saw things a little differently. He promptly left Edinburgh, relocated to London
and only came back once, presumably to collect his stuff. While James settled down and
Englified himself, an even larger religious feud was brewing up north, one in which the
Mile would take a central role. Once again the consequences would be disastrous for
the city.
By 15 60 the Catholics were a spent force and the Presbyterians had become utterly
fanatical about their religion. Scotland was dirt poor. Nothing grew here. It rained all the
time. The highlands were a no-go area filled with hairy men in plaid. Even their king hated
them.
Since they were not a world player in any other department, the southern Scots elevated
their church to dizzy heights. England on the other hand had a more relaxed form of
Protestantism, called Episcopalinism - basically a reformed version of the Catholic Church,
with the king replacing the pope as its head. It even had bishops.
James I had a go at dampening the Scots religious fervour by introducing Episcopalinism
into Edinburgh and was quickly forced into a U-turn when threatened with an uprising.
His son, Charles I (1600-49), had no such qualms.
Introduction 7
Unlike his father, Charles made no secret of his Catholic sympathies. He couldn't force
that on anybody; even the English barely tolerated a papist on the throne. Episcopalinism,
however, was closer to Catholicism than Presbyterianism and Charles was determined to
make it Scotland's official religion.
The conflict came to a head in 1637, when the king ordered an Episcopalian prayer book
be read out in St Giles' Cathedral on the Mile. A riot ensued that quickly escalated into
a movement. In 1638, Edinburgh's Presbyterians drew up a mission statement called the
National Covenant in Greyfriars Kirkyard, just off the Mile. These 'Covenanters' would
only remain loyal to Charles if he stopped trying to mess with their religion. Pig-headed
Charles didn't stop and the Covenanters went to war with their own monarch.
The overbearing and despotic king had little sympathy in England, where the
Parliamentarians also rose up against him, beginning the English Civil War. Charles was
defeated with Covenanter assistance and the Parliamentarian leader, Oliver Cromwell
(1599-1658), executed him.
The Scots were horrified. Despite a treaty with Cromwell and years spent fighting the
tyrannical ruler, even the staunchest Presbyterian took this as a national affront. The
Stuarts were the line of Scots kings and the English couldn't just go around chopping their
heads off. In Parliament Square, the Covenanters proclaimed Charles I's young son to be
Charles II (1630-85).
Mind you, they didn't want him turning out like his father. So the Covenanter leader,
the Marquess of Argyll (1607-61), kept the young man a virtual prisoner until he had been
moulded into a good Protestant.
Cromwell retaliated by invading and occupying Edinburgh, forcing the new monarch
into exile and wrecking the town. As dictatorial as he was puritanical, Cromwell's eventual
death left a void that only the re-establishment of the monarchy could fill.
So Charles II returned from the Continent and, determined never to be a pawn again,
set about crushing the Covenanter movement. He was a wily man who hid his Catholic
leanings but, when he died, his brother James II (1633-1701) inherited the throne. And he
didn't. The Stuarts were not big on learning from past mistakes.
In 1689 his English subjects, fearing the re-emergence of a Catholic royal dynasty, revolted
yet again. The Glorious Revolution saw James II ousted by his Dutch brother-in-law, who
became William III (1650-1702). It was the end of the House of Stuart and the beginning
of the Hanoverian line, which continues to this day.
Edinburgh citizens were ambivalent about the change. Stuart or not, they didn't want to
support a deposed Catholic has-been and were tired of being the poorest and most dismal
capital in Europe. Instead they poured their energies into a project they hoped would make
Scotland a rival to the other great powers of the world. An attempt to set up a trading
colony in South America on the Ismuth of Panama.
It was an epic disaster that ruined the economy and gave England an opportunity to
absorb their closest rival. In return for financial aid, the Parliament in Edinburgh was
dissolved and, in 1707, Scotland officially united with its old enemy.
You might think that union with a larger, richer, more stable nation would make
Edinburgh a calmer place. Not at all. Famously, the highlanders rallied to the Jacobite
(Stuart) cause. In 1715 they swept south, almost taking the city before retreating in the face
of William's army.
In 1745 they were back, this time led by James' grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie
(1720-88). He succeeded in capturing and occupying Edinburgh but it was a short-lived
victory, for government forces were massing against them in vastly superior numbers.
8 The Royal Mile: A Comprehensive Guide
A year later the highlanders were annihilated at the Battle of Culloden and the Jacobite
cause ended forever.
Things were finally looking up for the Mile. For the first time the city seemed safe from
invasion, so the council allowed the Flodden Wall to crumble and the population moved
away from the Old Town ridge.
By the end of the eighteenth century Edinburgh was undergoing an astonishing
renaissance. A magnificent New Town was built and Edinburgh became the heart of the
Scottish Enlightenment, transformed from a squalid little backwater to fame as the 'Athens
of the North'. Southern Scots suddenly found themselves world leaders in philosophy,
architecture, economics, education, law, medicine and science - becoming the backbone
of a budding British Empire. Fantastic. Except everybody who was anybody left the Mile
and moved to the recently constructed New Town. And, into this vacuum, poured a very
different kind of resident.
They came from the highlands, where the clearances had emptied the land of Jacobite
crofters in favour of sheep. They came from the countryside, where the Agricultural
Revolution was replacing workers with machines and the Industrial Revolution pulled
them towards the city. Most of all, they came from Ireland, where a potato famine had
caused starvation and mass-emigration.
Between the years 1800 and 1830, the population of the Old Town doubled. And the
new citizens were dirt poor. While Edinburgh's luminaries in the New Town went about
changing the world, the Royal Mile descended into a quagmire of brutality, poverty,
overcrowding, corruption and felony.
It wasn't until nineteenth century that the town council were goaded into drastic action.
Between 1860 and 1900 almost two-thirds of the ancient buildings in the Old Town were
demolished and the inhabitants moved to other areas. This relentless march of progress
continued with more slum clearances in the twentieth century, leaving the Mile pretty
much as you see it today. You still get a palpable sense of the street's former claustrophobic
conditions, especially when it's filled with tourists. But much of what you see is relatively
modern, unless you're from the USA or Australia. In which case, it's still ancient.
Which brings us to the present. What exactly is the Royal Mile now? It has enjoyed too
much fame to slide into obscurity and is determined to have its cake and eat it too. So
we have become all the things visitors expect of us. You'll be bombarded by tartan tat,
whisky and hats with red hair sticking out. That's really the highlands, the area we spent
so long despising and fighting. Despite our Presbyterian heritage, we have become known
as a party city and welcome stag and hen groups, though residents secretly hate them. The
street where sourpuss Presbyterians regularly shut down theatres is the focal point of the
world's largest arts festival. We even host a yearly Pagan parade. John Knox (who banned
Christmas for being too Pagan) would be turning in his grave, if there wasn't a car park
built over it.
Edinburgh also has a carefully nurtured reputation as one of the most haunted cities on
earth, packed with ghost tours. That status, and none of the tours, existed before the 1980s.
But the Mile does have history. And what a history it is. Fortunately, there's plenty left to
give a real sense of what went on. So let's go find it.
For handy reference, I've divided the Royal Mile into seven sections: the Castle and
Esplanade, Castlehill, Lawnmarket, Parliament Square, High Street, Canongate and Abbey
Strand. (Oddly enough, the term 'Royal Mile' is fairly recent too, coined by the historian
W. M. Gilbert in 1901). The obvious place to start is at the top of the ridge, for this is where
the history of the Old Town began.