later, when King James deemed Holyrood an unsafe residence, by reason that the Earl of Bothwell was scouring about in quest of him, he had up-putting for several days in the house of the rich merchant, Robert Gourlay. I may enumerate a few other considerable merchants of this period, all of whom had good houses in the city, where they dwelt as well as carried on business. In what was latterly called Brodie’s Close, between Macmoran’s and Gourlay’s houses, lived William Little of Over-Libberton, at one time provost, and the ancestor of the family now represented by Mr Little Gilmour of the Inch. It connects merchandise in an interesting manner with professional and literary things, that Clement, the brother of William, was the commissary of Edinburgh, and one of the greatest benefactors to the infant university. Provost Little’s house, dated 1570, was taken down so lately as 1836, having continued all the time an entailed property of the family. The _North British Advertiser_ printing-office now stands on its site. Nicol Udwart, an active and wealthy merchant, had a stately house surrounding a square court in Niddry’s Wynd; and there King James was living in February 1591, when the Bonny Earl of Moray was slaughtered at Dunnibrissle. A neighbour of Udwart, styled Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, also a wealthy merchant, and at one time provost of the city, gave accommodation at the same time to the Chancellor Maitland. On another occasion, a little earlier, we hear of King James living with William Fowler, who was also a merchant in Edinburgh. The king, it is stated, went out to hunt, promising to return to dinner in Fowler’s house at _one o’clock_. Fowler lived in the Anchor Close, and his house, in which, as we see, he had entertained royalty, was taken down only three months ago by the Railway Access Company. It stood, indeed, in a narrow alley; but it had the advantage of a free aspect over the country to the north of the city. In the index to the state-papers connected with Scotland, lately published by Mr Thorpe, William Fowler figures as a partisan of the English protestant interest, continually engaged in giving information to Sir Francis Walsingham.