Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

ROSLIN
family till the appointment was surrendered to trie
craft by the last heir male of line in 1736. Of the Sir
William who lived in Bruce's time, a legend is told
that he added Pentland to his lands by the fleetness of
two hounds. A white deer had often on the Pentland
Hills baulked the royal hounds, and on the king's ask-
ing one day whether any of his nobles had swifter dogs
than his own, Sir William St Clair offered to wager
his head that his two dogs, Help and Hold, would kill
the deer before it could cross a certain burn. Bruce
promised at once to give the forest of Pentland to the
knight if he kept his promise. The deer was killed
exactly at the burn, and so Sir William acquired
the lands of Logan House, Kirkton, and Carncraig, and
as, at a critical moment in the chase, he had invoked
the aid of St Katherine, he erected the chapel of St
Katherine in the Hopes on the Pentland Hills, now
buried beneath the waters of the Compensation Pond.
In connection with the event the rhyme addressed by
Douglas to his dogs has been preserved : —
' Help ! Hold ! gin ye may,
Or Rosslyn tynes his head this day.
The seat here was the Castle of Eoslin, which
occupies an almost isolated rock to the SSE of the
village, and in a most romantic position, overhanging a
beautiful reach of the glen. The site is completely
cut off from the bank behind by a deep transverse gully,
across which a narrow single arch bridge affords the only
access to the castle. The situation, though pleasant,
seems but ill chosen for a place of strengh, for it is
commanded by heights which press closely upon it, and
look almost right down upon the tops of its chimneys.
At what time the original castle was built is not
known. An early castle seems to have been on a
different site, near the present chapel ; but probably the
oldest part of the present building, a peel tower to the
SE of the entrance, was erected by the Sir William St
Clair who was one of the band of knights who set out
with Bruce's heart to Palestine, and who fell righting
against the Moors in 1330. The great SW or donjon
tower was added about 60 years later by Henry,
the second Earl of Orkney, and large additions, show-
ing French features, were made by his successor, the
third Earl, who kept his semi-regal court here, and was,
according to Father Hay, ' royally served at his own
table, in vessels of gold and silver ; Lord Dirleton
being his master-household, Lord Borthwick his cup-
bearer, and Lord Fleming his carver. He had his halls
and other apartments richly adorned with embroidered
hangings. His princess, Elizabeth Douglas, was served
by 75 gentlewomen, whereof 53 were daughters of
noblemen, all clothed in velvet and silks, with their
chains of gold and other ornaments, and was attended
by 200 riding gentlemen in all journies, and if it
happened to be dark when she went to Edinburgh,
where her lodgings were at the foot of Black Fryar's
Wynd, 80 lighted torches were carried before her.'
For such magnificence, a magnificent dwelling must
have been needed, but as the Father did not write till
nearly 250 years after these events, he may have drawn
somewhat on his imagination. Indeed, with all her
grandeur, the princess does not seem to have been at all
particular on some points, for we find that she kept
dogs, of which she was very fond, in her bedroom, and
even allowed them to whelp there, a circumstance that
indirectly led to the destruction by fire of the greater
part of the castle about 1452. It must have been repaired
again very rapidly, for in 1455 we find it selected as the
prison of Sir William Hamilton, who had been con-
cerned in the Douglas rebellion. In 1544 it was almost
totally destroyed by the English, during Hertford's
invasion, and after being partially restored after 1580,
was again injured in 1650 by General Monk, who
plundered it after battering down the NW side. It was
restored about 1682, but was again damaged by a mob
in 1688 ; and Cardonell's pieture a century later, and
Grose's in 1790, show it utterly dilapidated — a mere
rueful apology for the once grand fabric, whose name of
260
ROSLIN
Roslin Castle is so intimately associated with ballad
and song. The more modern portion to the SE is still
inhabited. Over the fire-place of the great hall are the
arms of Sir William Sinclair, who carried out the
restorations at the end of the 16th century, and those
of his wife, while his son's initials and the date 1622
are on the lintel of the door leading to the great stair-
case. The ceiling of the dining-room is also richly
ornamented, and has the Rosslyn arms in the centre
and the date 1622. The oldest portion of the old
building is the triple tier of vaulted chambers on the
KW, partly cut out of the rock. Some of them have
been dungeons, others sleeping rooms for retainers, and
one has evidently been the kitchen. Below is a garden,
now noted for the excellence of its strawberries.
In the 16th, and the beginning of the 17th, century,
Roslin was a favourite haunt of the Gypsies, whose
introduction into the neighbourhood is attributed to Sir
William St Clair, Lord Justice General, who in 1559,
' returning from Edinburgh to Roslin, delivered once an
Egyptian from the gibbet on the burghmuir ; upon
which account the whole body of Gypsies were of old
accustomed to gather in the stanks* of Roslin every
year, where they acted several plays during the months
of May and June. There are two towers which were
allowed them for their residence, the one called Robin
Hood, the other Little John.' A body of them
seem subsequently to have settled down in the neigh-
bourhood, for in 1628 the privy council ordered the
Gypsies to be expelled from Roslin, ' where they have a
peaceable abode, as if they were lawful subjects.'
Roslin Chapel stands to the SE of the village, on
the brow of the high ground overlooking the glen of
the North Esk. The eminence which it occupies is
called College Hill. The name chapel which is^ popu-
larly given to it is incorrect, for the building is
simply all that was ever constructed — the chancel and
Lady chapel— of what was intended to be the collegiate
church of Rosslyn, erected on a cruciform plan after the
usual manner of such buildings. Although the founda-
tions of the whole seem to have been laid — those of the
nave being dug up about the beginning of the present
century — yet the portion actually built never got
beyond the chancel and the eastern walls of the
transepts. This part is 69 feet 8 inches long, 35
feet broad, and 41 feet 9 inches high to the top
of the arched roof. The central aisle with clerestory
is 15 feet wide, and on either side of it are aisles
of five bays. At the E end is the Lady chapel,
much lower in height than the rest of the building —
the arched roof being only 15 feet from the pavement —
and separated from it by a double row of three pillars.
The floor is one step higher than in the other parts of
the building, and the four altars seem to have been
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St Matthew, St Andrew,
and St Peter. Reached by a flight of stairs in the SE
corner, and stretching away to the E, is what is known
as the crypt, and which 'has been a subject of sad
puzzling to antiquarian brains. Was it a chapel, as
generally asserted? Under the eastern window there
was the stone altar ; there is the piscina and the aumbry
for the sacramental plate — but what else ? A fire-place
(which has its chimney), a goodly array of closets, a
doorway, once communicating with the outside, and a
second door, leading to an inner room or rooms. Its
domestic appurtenances clearly show it to have been
the house of the priestly custodier of the chapel, and
the ecclesiastical types first named were for his private
meditations ; and thus the puzzle ceases,' so at least says
Dr Hill Burton, though there are certain difficulties in
the way still, as the crypt is contemporaneous with the
design for a complete church. Though used as a sacristy
afterwards, it seems more probable that it was originally
a chapel with a small vestry on the NE and an entrance
apartment on the SE. It is 15 feet high, 14 wide, and
36 long, and has a barrel roof. It is partly subterranean,
* Stank generally means a pool or a ditch, but in this and other
places the meaning must be flat, perhaps even marshy, ground
near a stream.