Major Thomas Weir was a real person. A dedicated Presbyterian, he was said to be a Lanarkshire man and a soldier during the religious and civil wars of the 1640s. He was sent with the Scottish Army to Ireland in 1641 to help suppress the rising there, so would doubtless have seen his share in the horrors of that campaign.
When he was major of the Edinburgh City Guard, Weir wore a dark cloak and strode along the streets looking down to the ground, while his big nose made him look even more formidable. Weir was one of the guards when the Royalist Marquis of Montrose was carried to his execution and tormented the prisoner as much as he was able. He was famed for his piety and power of prayer, never married and lived with his sister, first in a house in the Cowgate and later in a small courty
