Robert Gourlay (merchant)

[4] The English ambassador in Edinburgh Henry Killigrew sent news of the incident to Francis Walsingham saying that it caused "some little grudging" and "unkindness" between the Kirk and Regent Morton.

[5] However, the historian Michael Lynch however suggests the affair did not cause a significant rift between Morton and the clergy.

[7] The National Records of Scotland has a number of receipts for payments made by Gourlay from the customs for the expenses of the royal household and Edinburgh Castle.

[8] He was exempt from tax, and complained to the Privy Council of Scotland when he was made to contribute £30 Scots to the Burgh fund for the Entry of James VI into Edinburgh in 1579.

In December 1582 he undertook to pay several royal debts to Edinburgh merchants totalling 550 French gold "crowns of the sun" out of the town's customs.

The house was built on the Royal Mile on the south side of the Lawnmarket on lands and vacant lots, known as "waste", belonging to Gourlay and Helen Cruik and partly over an old lane called "Mauchan's Close".

[11] James VI allowed the right of Robert Gourlay and Helen Cruik to have blocked Mauchan's close with a wall or "dyke" in 1588 and 1589.

[17] After the castle surrendered Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, his wife Margaret Learmonth, his brother, Alexander Home, 5th Lord Home, William Maitland of Lethington, his wife Mary Fleming the Lady Lethington, Henry Echlin of Pittadro, and the Countess of Argyll, Janet Cunningham were taken to the house as prisoners.

[23] In another version of the escape story, Sempill's sister, Jean, Lady Ross, bought him a silk rope baked in a pie.

[25] James VI of Scotland found it convenient to lodge in the house on several occasions, rather than stay at Holyrood Palace.