Part 35
Her caprices were endless. At one time when a ball had been announced at Drumlanrig, after the company were all assembled her grace took a headache, declared that she could bear no noise, and sat in a chair in the dancing-room, uttering a thousand peevish complaints. Lord Drumlanrig, who understood her humour, said: ‘Madam, I know how to cure you;’ and taking hold of her immense elbow-chair, which moved on castors, rolled her several times backwards and forwards across the saloon, till she began to laugh heartily—after which the festivities were allowed to commence.
The duchess certainly, both in her conversation and letters, displayed a great degree of wit and quickness of mind. Yet nobody perhaps, saving Gay, ever loved her. She seems to have been one of those beings who are too much feared, admired, or envied, to be loved.
The duke, on the contrary, who was a man of ordinary mind, had the affection and esteem of all. His temper and dispositions were sweet and amiable in the extreme. His benevolence, extending beyond his fellow-creatures, was exercised even upon his old horses, none of which he would ever permit to be killed or sold. He allowed the veterans of his stud free range in some parks near Drumlanrig, where, retired from active life, they got leave to die decent and natural deaths. Upon his grace’s decease, however, in 1778, these luckless pensioners were all put up to sale by his heartless successor; and it was a painful sight to see the feeble and pampered animals forced by their new masters to drag carts, &c., till they broke down and died on the roads and in the ditches.
Duke Charles’s eldest son, Lord Drumlanrig, was altogether mad. He had contracted himself to one lady when he married another. The lady who became his wife was a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun, and a most amiable woman. He loved her tenderly, as she deserved; but owing to the unfortunate contract which he had engaged in, they were never happy. They were often observed in the beautiful pleasure-grounds at Drumlanrig weeping bitterly together. These hapless circumstances had such a fatal effect upon him that during a journey to London in 1754 he rode on before the coach in which the duchess travelled, and shot himself with one of his own pistols. It was given out that the pistol had gone off by chance.
There is just one other tradition of Drumlanrig to be noticed. The castle, being a very large and roomy mansion, had of course a ghost, said to be the spirit of a Lady Anne Douglas. This unhappy phantom used to walk about the house, terrifying everybody, with her head in one hand and her fan in the other—are we to suppose, fanning her face?
On the death of the Good Duke, as he was called, in 1778, the title and estates devolved on his cousin, the Earl of March, so well remembered as a sporting character and debauchee of the old school by the name of _Old Q._ In his time Queensberry House was occupied by other persons, for he had little inclination to spend his time in Scotland. And this brings to mind an anecdote highly illustrative of the wretchedness of such a life as his. When professing, towards the close of his days, to be eaten up with ennui, and incapable of any longer taking an interest in anything, it was suggested that he might go down to his Scotch estates and live among his tenantry. ‘I’ve tried that,’ said the _blasé_ aristocrat; ‘it is not amusing.’ In 1801 he caused Queensberry House to be stripped of its ornaments and sold. With fifty-eight fire-rooms, and a gallery seventy feet long, besides a garden, it was offered at the surprisingly low upset price of £900. The Government purchased it for a barrack. Thus has passed away the [home of the] Douglas of Queensberry from its old place in Edinburgh, where doubtless the money-making duke thought it would stand for ever.
FOOTNOTES
[260] Introduction to Law’s _Memorials_, p. lxxx.
[261] See letters of Gay, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, in Scott’s edition of Swift.
[262] In a letter from Gay to Swift, dated February 15, 1727-8, we find the subject illustrated as follows: ‘As to my favours from great men, I am in the same state you left me; but I am a great deal happier, as I have expectations. The Duchess of Queensberry has signalised her friendship to me upon this occasion [the bringing out of the _Beggar’s Opera_] in such a conspicuous manner, that I hope (for her sake) you will take care to put your fork to all its proper uses, and suffer nobody for the future to put their knives in their mouth.’
In the _P.S._ to a letter from Gay to Swift, dated Middleton Stoney, November 9, 1729, Gay says: ‘To the lady I live with I owe my life and fortune. Think of her with respect—value and esteem her as I do—and never more despise a fork with three prongs. I wish, too, you would not eat from the point of your knife. She has so much goodness, virtue, and generosity, that if you knew her, you would have a pleasure in obeying her as I do. She often wishes she had known you.’
TENNIS COURT.
EARLY THEATRICALS—THE CANONGATE THEATRE—DIGGES AND MRS BELLAMY—A THEATRICAL RIOT.
‘Just without the Water-gate,’ says Maitland, ‘on the eastern side of the street, was the Royal Tennis Court, anciently called the Catchpel [from Cache, a game since called _Fives_, and a favourite amusement in Scotland so early as the reign of James IV.].’ The house—a long, narrow building with a court—was burned down in modern times, and rebuilt for workshops. Yet the place continues to possess some interest as connected with the early and obscure history of the stage in Scotland, not to speak of the tennis itself, which was a fashionable amusement in Scotland in the seventeenth century, and here played by the Duke of York, Law the financial schemer, and other remarkable persons.
The first known appearance of the post-reformation theatre in Edinburgh was in the reign of King James VI., when several companies came from London, chiefly for the amusement of the Court, including one to which Shakespeare is known to have belonged, though his personal attendance cannot be substantiated. There was no such thing, probably, as a play acted in Edinburgh from the departure of James in 1603 till the arrival of his grandson, the Duke of York, in 1680.
Threatened by the Whig party in the House of Commons with an exclusion from the throne of England on account of his adherence to popery, this prince made use of his exile in Scotland to conciliate the nobles, and attach them to his person. His beautiful young wife, Mary of Modena, and his second daughter, the _Lady Anne_, assisted by giving parties at the palace—where, by the bye, tea was now first introduced into Scotland. Easy and obliging in their manners, these ladies revived the entertainment of the masque, and took parts themselves in the performance. At length, for his own amusement and that of his friends, James had some of his own company of players brought down to Holyrood and established in a little theatre, which was fitted up in the Tennis Court. On this occasion the remainder of the company playing at Oxford apologised for the diminution of their strength in the following lines written by Dryden:
‘Discord and plots, which have undone our age, With the same ruin have o’erwhelmed the stage. Our house has suffered in the common woe; We have been troubled with Scots rebels too. Our brethren have from Thames to Tweed departed, And of our sisters, all the kinder-hearted To Edinburgh gone, or coached or carted. With bonny _Blew cap_ there they act all night, For Scotch half-crowns—in English threepence hight. One nymph to whom fat Sir John Falstaff’s lean, There, with her single person, fills the scene. Another, with long use and age decayed, Died here old woman, and there rose a maid. Our trusty door-keeper, of former time, There struts and swaggers in heroic rhyme. Tack but a copper lace to drugget suit, And there’s a hero made without dispute; And that which was a capon’s tail before, Becomes a plume for Indian emperor. But all his subjects, to express the care Of imitation, go like Indians bare. Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing, It might perhaps a new rebellion bring; The Scot who wore it would be chosen king.’
We learn from Fountainhall’s _Diary_ that on the celebration of the king’s birthday, 1681, the duke honoured the magistrates of the city with his presence in the theatre—namely, this theatre in the Tennis Court.
No further glimpse of our city’s theatrical history is obtained till 1705, when we find a Mr Abel announcing a concert in the Tennis Court, under the patronage of the Duke of Argyll, then acting as the queen’s commissioner to the Parliament. It is probable that the concert was only a cloak to some theatrical representation. This is the more likely from a tradition already mentioned of some old members of the Spendthrift Club who once frequented the tavern of a Mrs Hamilton, whose husband recollected having attended the theatre in the Tennis Court at Holyrood House, when the play was _The Spanish Friar_, and many members of the Union Parliament were present in the house.
Theatrical amusements appear to have been continued at the Tennis Court in the year 1710, if we are to place any reliance upon the following anecdote: When Mrs Siddons came to Edinburgh in 1784, the late Mr Alexander Campbell, author of the _History of Scottish Poetry_, asked Miss Pitcairn, daughter of Dr Pitcairn, to accompany him to one of the representations. The old lady refused, saying with coquettish vivacity: ‘Laddie, wad ye ha’e an auld lass like me to be running after the play-actors—me that hasna been at a theatre since I gaed wi’ papa to the Canongate in the year _ten_?’ The theatre was in those days encouraged chiefly by such Jacobites as Dr Pitcairn. It was denounced by the clergy as a hotbed of vice and profanity.
After this we hear no more of the theatre in the Tennis Court. The next place where the drama set up its head was in a house in Carrubber’s Close, under the management of an Italian lady styled Signora Violante, who paid two visits to Edinburgh. After her came, in 1726, one Tony Alston, who set up his scenes in the same house, and whose first prologue was written by Ramsay: it may be found in the works of that poet. In 1727 the Society of High Constables, of which Ramsay was then a member, endeavoured to ‘suppress the abominable stage-plays lately set up by Anthony Alston.’[263] Mr Alston played for a season or two, under the fulminations of the clergy and a prosecution on their part in the Court of Session.
CANONGATE THEATRE.
From a period subsequent to 1727 till after the year 1753, the Tailors’ Hall in the Cowgate[264] was used as a theatre by itinerating companies, who met with some success notwithstanding the incessant hostility of the clergy.[265] It was a house which in theatrical phrase, could hold from £40 to £45. A split in the company here concerned led to the erection, in 1746-7, of a theatre at the bottom of a close in the Canongate, nearly opposite to the head of New Street. This house, capable of holding about £70—the boxes being half-a-crown and pit one and sixpence—was for several years the scene of good acting under Lee, Digges, Mrs Bellamy, and Mrs Ward. We learn from Henry Mackenzie that the tragedy of _Douglas_, which first appeared here in 1756, was most respectably acted—the two ladies above mentioned playing respectively Young Norval and Lady Randolph.[266] The personal elegance of Digges—understood to be the natural son of a man of rank—and the beauty of Mrs Bellamy were a theme of interest amongst old people fifty years ago; but their scandalous life was of course regarded with horror by the mass of respectable society. They lived in a small country-house at Bonnington, between Edinburgh and Leith. It is remembered that Mrs Bellamy was extremely fond of singing-birds, and kept many about her. When emigrating to Glasgow, she had her feathered favourites carried by a porter all the way that they might not suffer from the jolting of a carriage. Scotch people wondered to hear of ten guineas being expended on this occasion. Persons under the social ban for their irregular lives often win the love of individuals by their benevolence and sweetness of disposition—qualities, it is remarked, not unlikely to have been partly concerned in their first trespasses. This was the case with Mrs Bellamy. Her waiting-maid, Annie Waterstone, who is mentioned in her _Memoirs_, lived many years after in Edinburgh, and continued to the last to adore the memory of her mistress. Nay, she was, from this cause, a zealous friend of all kinds of players, and never would allow a slighting remark upon them to pass unreproved. It was curious to find in a poor old Scotchwoman of the humbler class such a sympathy with the follies and eccentricities of the children of Thespis.
While under the temporary management of two Edinburgh citizens extremely ill-qualified for the charge—one of them, by the bye, a Mr David Beatt, who had read the rebel proclamations from the Cross in 1745—a sad accident befell the Canongate playhouse. Dissensions of a dire kind had broken out in the company. The public, as usual, was divided between them. Two classes of persons—the gentlemen of the bar and the students of the university[267]—were especially zealous as partisans. Things were at that pass when a trivial incident will precipitate them to the most fearful conclusion. One night, when _Hamlet_ was the play, a riot took place of so desperate a description that at length the house was set on fire. It being now necessary for the authorities to interfere, the Town-guard was called forth, and marched to the scene of disturbance; but though many of that veteran corps had faced the worst at Blenheim and Dettingen, they felt it as a totally different thing to be brought to action in a place which they regarded as a peculiar domain of the Father of Evil. When ordered, therefore, by their commander to advance into the house and across the stage, the poor fellows fairly stopped short amidst the scenes, the glaring colours of which at once surprised and terrified them. Indignant at their pusillanimity, the bold captain seized a musket, and placing himself in an attitude equal to anything that had ever appeared on those boards, exclaimed: ‘Now, my lads, follow _me_!’ But just at the moment that he was going to rush on and charge the rioters, a trap-door on which he trod gave way, and in an instant the heroic leader had sunk out of sight, as if by magic. This was too much for the excited nerves of the guard; they immediately vacated the house, leaving the devil to make his own of it; and accordingly it was completely destroyed. It is added that when the captain by-and-by reappeared, they received him in the quality of a gentleman from the other world; nor could they all at once be undeceived, even when he cursed them in vigorous Gaelic for a pack of cowardly scoundrels.
The Canongate theatre revived for a short time, and had the honour to be the first house in our city in which the drama was acted with a license. It was opened with this privilege by Mr Ross on the 9th December 1767, when the play was _The Earl of Essex_, and a general prologue was spoken, the composition of James Boswell. Soon after, being deserted for the present building in the New Town,[268] it fell into ruin; in which state it formed the subject of a mock elegy to the muse of Robert Fergusson. The reader will perhaps be amused with the following extract from that poem:
‘Can I contemplate on those dreary scenes Of mouldering desolation, and forbid The voice elegiac, and the falling tear! No more from box to box the basket, piled With oranges as radiant as the spheres, Shall with their luscious virtues charm the sense Of taste or smell. No more the gaudy beau, With handkerchief in lavender well drenched, Or bergamot, or [in] rose-waters pure, With flavoriferous sweets shall chase away The pestilential fumes of vulgar cits, Who, in impatience for the curtain’s rise, Amused the lingering moments, and applied Thirst-quenching porter to their parched lips. Alas! how sadly altered is the scene! For lo! those sacred walls, that late were brushed By rustling silks and waving capuchines, Are now become the sport of wrinkled Time! Those walls that late have echoed to the voice Of stern King Richard, to the seat transformed Of crawling spiders and detested moths, Who in the lonely crevices reside, Or gender in the beams, that have upheld Gods, demigods, and all the joyous crew Of thunderers in the galleries above.’
FOOTNOTES
[263] Record of that Society.
[264] The date over the exterior gateway of the Tailors’ Hall, towards the Cowgate, is 1644; but it is ascertained that the corporation had its hall at this place at an earlier period. An assembly of between two and three hundred clergymen was held here on Tuesday the 27th of February 1638 in order to consider the National Covenant, which was presented to the public next day in the Greyfriars Church. We are informed by the Earl of Rothes, in his _Relations_ of the transactions of this period, in which he bore so distinguished a part, that some few objected to certain points in it; but being taken aside into the garden attached to this hall, and there lectured on the necessity of mutual concession for the sake of the general cause, they were soon brought to give their entire assent.
[265] The announcements of entertainments given at this fashionable place of amusement in the eighteenth century make amusing reading to-day. ‘February 17, 1743. We hear that on Monday 21st instant, at the Tailors’ Hall, Cowgate, at the desire of several ladies of distinction, will be performed a concert of vocal and instrumental music. After which will be given gratis _Richard the Third_, containing several historical passages. To which will be added gratis “The Mock Lawyer.” Tickets for the Concert (on which _are_ [sic] printed a new device called Apology and Evasion) to be had at the Exchange and John’s Coffee-houses, and at Mr Este’s lodgings at Mr Monro’s, musician in the Cowgate, near Tailors’ Hall. As Mrs Este’s present condition will not admit a personal application, she hopes the ladies notwithstanding will grace her concert.’
[266] Among the audience on the first night of the performance of _Douglas_ were the two daughters of John and Lady Susan Renton, one of whom, Eleanor, was the mother of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to whom the author in his ‘Introductory Notice’ expresses his indebtedness for assistance on the first appearance of this work. And it was for attending one of the performances that the minister of Liberton Church brought himself under sentence of six weeks’ suspension by the Presbytery of Edinburgh—a sentence modified in consideration of his plea that though he attended the play, ‘he concealed himself as well as he could to avoid giving offence.’
[267] Maitland, in his _History of Edinburgh_, 1753, says that the encouragement given to the diversions at the house ‘is so very great, ’tis to be feared it will terminate in the _destruction of the university_. Such diversions,’ he adds, ‘are noways becoming a seat of the Muses.’
[268] The Theatre Royal in Shakespeare Square, where the General Post Office now stands.
MARIONVILLE—STORY OF CAPTAIN MACRAE.