The Cathedral Square abuts upon one of the most squalid neighbourhoods in Glasgow, but it is here that the oldest domestic building in the city stands. The stranger’s attention is first attracted to it by the legend, “Provand’s Lordship,” painted across the weathered stone frontage over the hairdresser’s shop that occupies part of the ground floor. Then, glancing at the high-pitched roof and the corbie-stepped gables, characteristic of old Scottish architecture, he will perceive that he is indeed contemplating a very reverend building. It was, in fact, originally erected during the episcopacy of Bishop Muirhead, 1455-73, as a manse for certain of the clergy of the Cathedral, and this portion of the building still exhibits a shield of the Bishop’s arms: three acorns, on a bend. In 1570, shortly after the Reformation had dispossessed the clergy of their properties, William Baillie, who had been granted the Provand’s Lordship lands and houses by Queen Mary in 1565, added the wing that now fronts upon the street. Here, in 1565, before that addition was made, the Queen stayed on her visit to Glasgow. The visitor, exploring the ancient and interesting, but miserably uncomfortable, rooms, will, more than ever, suspect that the goodness of the “good old days” is a myth. [Sidenote: _PROVAND’S LORDSHIP_] But why “Provand’s Lordship”? You might stand all day in the crowded Cathedral Square, and canvass all who passed; and yet no one would be able to tell you, unless indeed you happened upon one of the leading spirits of the “Provand’s Lordship Literary Club,” Dr. Robert B. Lothian, Messrs. R. H. Arnott, Thos. Lugton, and Jas. Murphy, who have just purchased the property. [Illustration: THE OLDEST HOUSE IN GLASGOW.] According to those, and other, authorities, the house was in the first instance erected as a residence for the priest in charge of St. Nicholas’ Hospital, and afterwards became the residence of one of the Cathedral prebendaries—the Prebendary of Balarnock, whose prebend included a long strip of land extending from the Cathedral to Cowlairs and Provanhall, five miles away to the east, where the country-house of himself and those who succeeded him still stands. He was Lord of the Manor of Provan, and so were his secular successors. Thus “Provand’s Lordship,” a title Lord Rosebery, speaking in October 1907 at a dinner given by the “Provand’s Lordship Literary Club,” professed himself unable to understand. But what that sorry fugitive figure of political failure cannot comprehend is not, it will be seen, after all, so difficult of comprehension. XXXVII