White Horse Close

Maybe Mary Queen of Scots stabled her white horse here, or maybe not.   In any event that is one of the theories behind the name.   But yesterday we mentioned Montrose - the general of the defeated Royalist army at Philiphaugh.   Five years earlier he was on the other side - a Covenanter.   It is recorded that some of the leaders of the Covenanting Party in Scotland, including Montrose, attempted to set out from the White Horse Inn in this close for Berwick to parley with King Charles 1.  A riotous mob blocked their way and only Montrose got through.    He gradually transferred his allegiance to the King.   A decade later, in 1650, he passed the head of the close again, entering Edinburgh at the foot of the Canongate as a captive on his way to trial and execution for treason.