There is one particularly gruesome and disconcerting tomb in Greyfriars Kirkyard, which is on the West Wall. This is the family tomb for the Chiesley’s. It features a spatchcocked skeleton, wearing a crown whilst floating in a skull soup, looking as if it has just given birth to a basketball. One may well ask “why” would the Chiesley Family choose such imagery for their family memorial. Well this is a rather “colourful” family, which had some rather unusual lifestyles and stories. Let’s just consider three members of this family, Robert Chiesley, his brother John and John’s daughter, Rachel.
Robert Chiesley was a successful Merchant, who lost a fortune in the Darien Scheme and then lost his mind, ending his days as a resident in Bedlam, just a few yards from Greyfriars Kirkyard.
John Chiesley abandoned his wife after they had 10 children together. When Judge Lockhart ordered John to pay alimony to his wife he was so offended that he followed the Judge home and shot him dead in the street. He never denied the Murder, simply saying he was judging the Judge for his outrageous verdict. John was tortured, then taken to the gallows, where his right hand was cut off and he was then hung in chains with his gun tied around his neck. Ever since his ghost has been named Johnny One Arm.
But it was John’s Daughter, Rachel, who perhaps had the maddest life. Rachel was only ten years old when her Father was executed and she grew up to be quite a “wild lady”. It is said that she fell pregnant by James Erskine, aka Lord Grange, then forced him to marry her by holding a gun to his head. She went on to have 9 children with Erskine.
When she discovered he had a mistress she variously threatened to commit suicide, or to run naked through the streets of Edinburgh, or to expose Erskine for his Jacobite sympathies, something that could have got him in to a heap of trouble. So Erskine arranged for Rachel to be kidnapped. He made up a story that she had died and he arranged a funeral at Greyfriars to prove it. Meanwhile Rachel was taken to a tiny, barely habited island off North Uist called Husker, where she lived in very basic conditions for two years, before being moved to a tiny stone hut on St Kilda (called a Cleit) where she was held in even worse conditions for 6 years. She wrote that “I was in great miserie in the Husker but I’m ten times worse and worse here”.
At the age of 61 rumours that she was being held on St Kilda caused a rescue party to set sail to find her, but she had been moved, eventually ending up on Skye. She was initially housed in a cave, before a humble cottage became her secret home for the final few years of her life. Initially she was buried under the cover of darkness at Waternish. When her existence and death became known, another well attended funeral was held for her, in which the coffin was apparently filled with stones. Her story became very popular and features in many songs, poems, novels and even a play.
So next time you are in Greyfriars Kirkyard, take a look at the gruesome Chiesley Tomb and reflect on what a Mad, Bad, Dangerous & Tormented family they were.
