Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 2.djvu/80

FOURTH PERIOD 64 NIDDHIE MARISCHALL HOUSE pay Sir James for it in hard cash, and this left him so embarrassed that he had to take service in Holland, where he remained many years. On the way home from that country, after his affairs had assumed a more settled aspect, he fell ill, and died at Holy Isle about the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century. His son, Sir John, succeeded, and finished the addition, begun by his father, attached to the old tower. His initials occur along with those of his wife, Dame Anna Hamilton (Hamilton of Redhouse), on the east dormer (Fig. 530), while his father's initials and those of his wife, Dame Jean Sandilands, are carved on the west dormer, and on the centre one is the date 1636. At this time the old tower was completely gutted (the vaulted roof however being left), and within the four walls of the tower was placed the staircase for the addition. It is a fine staircase, with rounded pilasters at the ends of the newel, somewhat like those of the latest staircase of Crichton Castle. The landing of the stair (Fig. 531) is very stately and massive, being probably one of the finest things of the kind that we have left us. The newel wall is carried up as a parapet, with broad moulded cope, and at each angle carries elaborately carved vases. The parapet of the tower above the corbelling (Fig. 530) is quite distinct in style of masonry from the lower part, to which it fits on rather clumsily. This is the work of Sir John, who likewise, says the MS. note-book, " covered the tower-head with copper, which the English tirred and carried off with them." The dining-room of the house is interesting ; the walls are adorned with portraits let into panels, the place of honour over the fireplace being occupied with Sir William Wallace. This portrait has been lithographed in Wallace and His Times, by the late James Paterson, and it has a very striking resemblance to an engraving in the Pictorial History of Scotland, taken from a portrait of Wallace at Cheltenham. But the portrait has, of course, no value as a representation of the great hero. The ceiling of this room has an ornamental compartment running across its centre, while the end com- partments are plain, and probably this unusual treatment is intentional. It is twice dated 1662, or twenty-six years after the house was built, and it is entirely decorated with loyal devices in honour of the restoration of Charles n., an event which Sir John contributed not a little to bring about. In the above year he received from the King a confirmatory charter of Niddrie Marischall, and lands in Roxburghshire; and doubtless he decorated the centre of his dining-room ceiling in honour of both events, so that it is at once a tribute of his loyalty and gratitude. It also contains a vain-glorious inscription, twice repeated NOBIS H^EC INVICTA MISERUNT - 108 PROAM. There was a chapel here, founded in 1502 in honour of God and the