Mrs Noyce kept on being prosecuted, appearing immaculately clad on her many court appearances. But she carried on, keeping her thoughts to herself. She probably echoed the complaint of another madam, Margaret Sempill, in the 19th Century: when she was accused by the Kirk of keeping prostitutes — in particular the very pretty Katherine Lenton, who slept with the French Amabassador — she commented: ‘I get the name, but others the profit.’ She was whipped for her cheek. The French Ambassador was not troubled.
Over recent years, Fry’s series of Scottish histories have built a splendid track record of overturning cherished myths. Edinburgh’s fabled respectability is just one of them. On a larger scale, he argues that the reason this famously beautiful city has kept its looks and its charm over the years has been a combination of English influence, and the lack of a strongly-based class system. He challenges head-on the late Hugh Trevor-Roper — Lord Dacre — who argued that the Scots have invented a completely spurious medieval history for themselves, full of great kings who were said to have brought civilised values to the country; not only were they an invention, claimed Dacre, it was not until the Union that Scotland came into its own.
Nonsense, says Fry, and introduces King David I, the 12th-century monarch, who built the best of Edinburgh Castle as well as the Abbey of Holyrood, thus giving the city its defining spine — the Royal Mile. He brought in monastic orders from Europe, founded a mercantile class, created the royal burgh, and made Edinburgh, for the first time, the centre of political power — a position it has held ever since. David was not, of course, a Scot, but was created the Earl of Huntingdon and learned his royal duties at the English court. But, like many English people who drift north, he took to the place and stayed.
Fry also challenges some inconvenient beliefs with a brusqueness that may cause the odd seizure in the bars of Rose Street. The first is that the Scottish Enlightenment came about because of an intellectual ferment engendered by thinkers and philosophers who happened also to be patriotic Scots. On the contrary, says Fry, they were distinctly unenthusiastic about Scotland and its traditions. He points to Francis Jeffrey, the redoubtable editor of the Edinburgh Review, in its time the most influential literary magazine in Europe. Jeffrey affected an English accent — or perhaps a strangulated Edinburgh accent — and felt that Scotland was infinitely better ruled from London than it had ever been from Edinburgh. He attacked ‘the horrid system of being ruled by a native jobbing Scot’. His biographer, Henry Cockburn, wrote that ‘the nearer we can propose to make ourselves to England the better’. David Hume echoed this disdain for Scottish institutions and Scottish history, remarking: ‘It is not probable that a nation, so rude and unpolished, would be possessed of any history, which deserves much to be regretted,’ a very Trevor-Roper thing to say.
So how did Edinburgh survive, not only as a triumphant capital city, but as an architectural jewel? The glib answer is: nature’s gift. Its seven hills, its castle rock, its marvelous position overlooking the Firth of Forth, gave it first prize in the lottery of life. But it benefited also from the peculiar and pugnacious character of its people, and because it was not dominated by the upper classes — or toffs, as Fry prefers to call them. This levelling off — still true today — whereby the distinction between the classes is far less marked than it would be in London, goes back a long way. Fry tells a wonderful story about James V, who liked wandering incognito around Edinburgh. One day he was threatened with attack by robbers, and was rescued by a miller in Cramond. The king invited his saviour back to Holyrood, without revealing his identity. The king, he said, would be the only one wearing a hat. When they walked into the Palace, everyone bowed. The miller turned to his new friend in amazement, and said: ‘Then, it must either be you or me!’
Because, until the building of the New Town in the 18th Century, everyone — royalty, the aristocracy, merchants and workers — all lived within a stone’s throw of each other, it was hard to maintain airs and graces. Politicians who had fallen out with the people, were ‘peebled wi’ stanes’ in Walter Scott’s phrase, if they progressed down the street unguarded. Dukes, like Queensberry, had to take care as they walked up the Canongate. Even James VI — First of England — described by Fry as ‘not just queer but peculiar’, was greeted more as a relative who was going away for a bit, than a monarch taking leave of his country, when he announced to the congregation in St Giles that he was leaving for England.
Behind all this, mercantile Edinburgh was keeping the place going. One of the revelations of Fry’s book is how few real money-makers drove the city forward. In the aftermath of the Union, it was estimated that just 300 rich merchants were keeping Edinburgh’s head above water. Later, of course, it became a serious wealth creator.
Fry’s range is impressive. His account of Edinburgh is in the style of Peter Ackroyd’s history of London — digging into its dark corners rather than maintaining a historian’s narrative. Where he strays is in attempting too broad a historical account, not just of Edinburgh, but of Scotland. It might have been better if he had concentrated on the sex.
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