Edinburgh Cape Club
Encyclopedia
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
-based society which was first established in the 18th century. It is one of many Convivial Edinburgh Societies which were extant in the 18th century, but the only (known) one which survives to the present day.
It was founded initially to support a Scottish Militia.
It is known mostly for its connections to the poet Robert Fergusson
Robert Fergusson
Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson followed an essentially bohemian life course in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish enlightenment...
.
The original Edinburgh Cape Club
The club was originally founded in the 1700s but not formally constituted until 1764. Its main meeting place was The Isle of Man Arms, at the bottom of Craigs Close in the Old Town of Edinburgh. It met on a nightly basis, where "high jinks" would ensue.Its insignia were a cape, or crown, worn by the Sovereign of the Cape, and two maces in the form of huge steel pokers (which can still be seen the Royal Museum of Scotland).
Tom Lancashire was the first Sovereign of the club after 1764, as Sir Cape - all members took a Knights pseudonym upon joining -while the title of Sir Poker was taken by its oldest member, James Aitken.
David Herd
David Herd (anthologist)
David Herd was a Scottish anthologist who was a noted collector of national ballads.-Biography:The son of a farmer in the parish of Marykirk in Kincardineshire, he became clerk to an accountant in Edinburgh, where he became a well-known figure among the literary men...
(a collector of Scottish Ballad Poetry) succeeded Lancashire as Sovereign and took the pseudonym Sir Scrape. The Knight Recorder (Club Secretary) of this time was Jacob More
Jacob More
Jacob More was a British landscape painter.-Biography:Jacob More was born in Edinburgh. He studied landscape and decorative painting with James Norie's firm...
, the Scottish Landscape Painter.
When a Knight of the Cape was inaugurated he was led forward by his sponsors, and kneeling before the Sovereign, had to grasp the poker and take an oath of fidelity, while all Knights stood with Pokers raised to acknowledge acceptance :-
"I devoutly swear by this light,
To be a true and faithful knight,
With all my might,
Both Day and night,
So help me Poker!"
Among the more famous members of the original Cape were Deacon William Brodie
William Brodie
William Brodie , more commonly known by his prestigious title of Deacon Brodie, was a Scottish cabinet-maker, deacon of the trades guild and Edinburgh city councillor, who maintained a secret life as a burglar, partly for the thrill, and partly to fund his gambling.-Career:By day, Brodie was a...
(the inspiration behind Robert Louis Stephenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde") and painters Alexander Runciman
Alexander Runciman
Alexander Runciman was a Scottish painter of historical and mythological subjects. He was the elder brother of John Runciman, also a painter....
and Sir Henry Raeburn
Henry Raeburn
Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...
.
The entrance fee to the club was originally half-a-crown, but eventually it rose to a guinea, but so economical were its members, that among the last entries in the minutes of this time was one to the effect that suppers should be at "the old price of 4 and a half Pennies a head".
Robert Fergusson and The Cape Club
Fergusson joined the Cape Club in October 1772.Delighting in its quasi-masonic rituals, Fergusson took on the nickname 'Sir Precenter', and hymned the Cape's exploits. A drawing of him is thought to survive in the Club's Minute Book (National Library of Scotland). At the Cape he mixed with ordinary tradesmen as well as with artistic figures such as David Herd and Alexander Runciman, who painted Fergusson's portrait, now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and to whom Fergusson addressed some comic verses.
Fergusson also wrote the Poem "Auld Reekie" , which he dedicated to his fellow Knights of The Cape.
On 2 July 1774 the Cape Club took up a collection to aid Fergusson after the onset of his illness. He died on 17 October 1774, and was buried on 19 October in the Canongate Kirkyard.
Present day Edinburgh Cape Society
The Edinburgh Cape Society was reconstituted in the 1960s, following the research of James Grubb, who became The Cape Society's first Sovereign after reconstitution, aka Sir Dun Eiden. To this day, the Society holds its monthly meetings in Edinburgh.External links
- Old and New Edinburgh, Description of The Cape and other Edinburgh clubs of the 18th century.
- http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=O39333 Original Cape Manuscripts at The Scottish National Archive
- http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_se/fergusson/auld.html "Auld Reekie" , Fergussons Poem to the Cape.
- http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d148/cullyvan/2006TurtleFeast/ Edinburgh Cape Society Turtle Feast , 2006
- * http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd285/dezzyb_photos/ Edinburgh Cape Society Turtle Feast , 2007
- http://books.google.com/books?id=wEzn7dyyqdkC&pg=PR121&dq=concordia+fratrum+decus&ei=bcoIR_qIDpCU7wKHp8HWAg, Further Descriptions of The Cape Club from The Works of Robert Fergusson by Alexander Balloch GrosartAlexander Balloch GrosartAlexander Balloch Grosart was a Scottish clergyman and literary editor. He is chiefly remembered for reprinting much rare Elizabethan literature, a work which he undertook because of his interest in Puritan theology.-Life:...
, 1851 (Harvard College Library). - http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media_collection/6/PG%201863.jpg Portrait of Fergusson by Alexander RuncimanAlexander RuncimanAlexander Runciman was a Scottish painter of historical and mythological subjects. He was the elder brother of John Runciman, also a painter....
in the National Gallery of ScotlandNational Gallery of ScotlandThe National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
