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n6 Sir J. Balfour Paul
remaining of the Pre-reformation religious houses. It then
enclosed the house of the Observantine Grey Friars, and turning
sharply to the north, then west, and finally north again,
finished
its circuit at the Castle. The natural features of the locality, the
North Loch and the marshy ground about it, were supposed to
be a sufficient protection on the north side. Such was the area of
the city proper in the years immediately after Flodden, and no
important change took place in it for many years. Outside the
Nether Port the Canongate stretched down to Holyrood, a burgh
in its own right, with handsome houses and pleasant gardens, and
possessing no less than three crosses, that of St. John at the head
of the street, the Market Cross in the middle, and the Girth
Cross near the Abbey. The Canongate had gates, but does not
none of
seem to have been enclosed by any wall, at all events by
a defensive character.
But we have one contemporary account which gives an idea of
the size of Edinburgh down to within four years of Hertford's
invasion. This was written by a native of the town, Alexander
Alasius or Alesse, who was born about 1 500 ; as he left the
country in 1532, owing to his having embraced the reformed
faith, the account may not be absolutely up to date, and it is but
a meagre one at best. He mentions Arthur's Seat, the Calton
Hill, which he styles
Collis Apri, the hill of the wild boar, and
the Castle. The last, he is
says, impregnable and inaccessible
except from the town side ; on the rock ' vultures nidificant,'
probably meaning hawks, and the more daring of the Edinburgh
boys used to harry their nests. He then alludes to the Abbey of
Holyrood, with the adjoining palace of the king lying amid
gardens of great amenity by the side of a lake at the foot of
Arthur's Seat. There are two large paved streets, one he calls the
Via Regia, or High Street, and the other is evidently the
Cowgate. After
alluding to the religious houses of the Grey
Friars, the Black Friars, the Church of St. Mary in the Fields, and
the
Trinity College Hospital, he tells us that the town was built
not of brick but of unhewn and square stones, and with the
pardonable exaggeration of an exiled native says
that the houses
may stand comparison with great palaces. After alluding
to St.
Giles* he comes back to the Palace of Holyrood house, which he
describes as *
amplissimus et superbissimus.' He mentions the
Canongate as a suburb, and says that the Cowgate, now an
obnoxious purlieu, was the residence of the rank and fashion of
the day.