In the year 1617, the "ald croce," was taken down and "translated by the devise of certain mariners of Leith, from the place where it stood past the memory of man to a place beneath in the High Street." The stone for building the new substructure was "brocht frae the Deyne," and on the 25th March "the Croce of Edinburgh was put upon the new seat;" the total cost of its removal and re-erection being £4486 5s. 6d. (Scots). Amid the Puritan violence of the Protectorate, the cross was defaced, among other things the Royal arms were torn down, and "the crown that was on the unicorn was hung upon the gallows by these treacherous villains;" as a consequence the city accounts show payments for repairs to Robert Mylne, a descendant of John Mylne, who had been one of the "Master measones" at the re-erection. At this time the cross, or some part of it, perhaps the heraldic carvings, was adorned with colour, a sum being given "to George Porteous for painting the Croce." On March 13th, 1756, the Market Cross of Edinburgh was demolished. Some of the carved medallions which had decorated it passed years later into the hands of Sir Walter Scott, by whom they were built into a wall at Abbotsford, where they now are. The pillar, which was allowed to fall and break in the course of demolition, was acquired by Lord Somerville, who set it up near his house at Drum. The site was marked out with stones, and a plain stone pillar "was erected on the side of a well in High Street, adjacent to the place where the cross stood, which, by act of Siderunt, was declared to be the Market Cross of Edinburgh from that period." But even this was not allowed to remain long, the chief argument for the removal both of it and of its great predecessor being the alleged obstruction which it offered to traffic.