men dwelt, that they would bring them to abide process of law when complained of, or otherwise drive them from their grounds. It was further decreed, that the clans, chiefs, and chieftains, as well on the Highlands as on the Borders, with the principal branches of each surname who depended upon their several captains by reason of blood or neighbourhood, should find hostages or pledges for keeping good rule in time coming, under pain of the execution of these hostages unto the death, in case transgression should happen without amends being made by delivery of the criminal. These hostages were to be kept in close prison until the chiefs by whom they were entered in pledge found security that they would not break ward, that is, make their escape. But no such security being found, the hostages were to be placed in free ward: that is, were to remain prisoners on parole at their own expense in the families of such inland gentlemen and barous as should be assigned to take charge of them respectively, the Borderers being quartered on the north, and the Highlanders on the south side of the Forth; which barons were bound, under a penalty of L.200, not to license their departure. The clans who should fail to enter such pledges within the time assigned, were to be pursued as incorrigible freebooters, with fire and sword. To render the provisions of this act yet more effectual, it was appointed (chap. 96) that all Highlanders and Borderers should return from the inland country to the place of their birth (chap. 97): That all the clans should be entered in a register, with the names of the hostages or sureties, and of the landlords or bailies. Also (chap. 98), that vagabonds and broken men, for whom no sureties or pledges were entered, as belonging to no known clan, should find security to undergo the law, under pain of being denounced rebels. Also (chap. 100), that the security found by the feudal landlords and bailies to present such offenders as dwelt on their lands to regular trial was distinct from, and independent of, that which should be found by the patriarchal captain, head, or chieftain of the clan, and that each subsisted and might be acted on without prejudice to the other. These securi ties being obtained, it was provided, that when goods or cattle were carried off by the individuals of any clan, the party injured should intimate the robbery to the chief, charging him to make restitution within fifteen days, wherein if he failed, the injured party should have action against him, and other principal persons of the clan to the amount of his loss.

These, and other minute regulations to the same purpose, show that the clan system had become too powerful for the government, and that, in order to check the disorders to which it gave rise, the legislature were obliged to adopt its own principle, and hold the chief, or patriarch of the tribe, as liable for all the misdeeds of the surname.

The rolls which were made up in consequence of these acts of parliament, give us an enumeration of the nobles and barons (several of whom were themselves also chiefs) who possessed property in the disturbed Border districts, and also of the clans who dwelt in them.

Roll of the Names of the Landlords and Bailies of Lands dwelling on the Borders, where broken Men have dwelt and presently dwell. A. D. 1587.

MIDDLE MARCH.

The Earl of Bothwell (formerly Hepburn, then Stuart.) - The Laird of Fairnyherst (Kerr.) The Earl of Angus (Douglas.) The Laird of Buckclench (Scott.) The Sheriff of Teviotdale (Douglas of Cavers)-The Laird of Bedroule (Turnbull.)-The Laird of Wauchop. -The Lord Herries (formerly Harries, then Maxwell.)-The Laird of Howpaisley (Scott.)-George Turnbull of Halronle. -The Laird of Littledene (Kerr.) -The Laird of Drumlanrigg (Douglas.)-The Laird of Chisholme (Chisholme.)

The Lord Maxwell (Maxwell.) -The Laird of Drumlanrigg (Douglas.) The Laird of Johnston (Johnstone.)-The Laird of Applegirth (Jardine.) - The Laird of Holinends (Carruthers.) The Laird of Gratney (Johnstone.) -The Lord Herries (Maxwell.)The Laird of Dunwiddie. -The Laird of Lochinvar (Gordon.)

The Roll of the Clans that have Captains and Chieftains on whom they depend oftimes against the Will of their Landlords, and of some special Persons of Branches of the said Clans.

MIDDLE MARCH.

Elliots (Laird of Lairistoun.)-Armstrongs (Laird of Mangertoun.)-Nicksons.

-Crossers.

WEST MARCH.

Scotts of Ewsedale. §-Beatisons. **-Littles (chief unknown)-Thomsons (ch'ef unknown.)-Glendinnings (Glendonwyne of that Ilk.)-Irvings (Irving of Bonshaw.) Bells (believed to be Bell of Blacket House)-Carruthers (Laird of Holmends.)-Grahames. Johnstones (Laird of Johnstone.)-Jardanes (Laird of Applegirth girth)-Moffetts (chief unknown, but the name being territorial, it is probably an ancient clan.)-Latiiners (chief unknown.)

A little work, called "Monipenny's Chronicle,†" published in 1597 and 1633, gives, among other particulars concerning Scotland, a list of the principal clans and surnames on the Borders not landed, as well as of the chief riders and men of name among them. From this authority, we add the following list of foraying, or riding clans, as they were termed, not found in the parliamentary roll of 1587. It commences with the east marches, which, being in a state of comparative good order, were not included under the severe enactments of 1587.

EAST MARCHES.

Bromfields (chief, Bromfield of Gordon Mains, or of that Ilk.)-Trotters (chief unknown.)-Diksons (chief unknown.)-Redpeth (Laird of Redpath.)-Gradens (Laird of Graden originally originally their chief.) - Youngs (chief unknown.) - Pringles (believed to be Pringle of of Galashiels.)- Tates (Tait of Pirn.)-Middlemast (chief unknown.)-Burns (chief unknown.) - Dalgleishes (Dalgleish of that Ilk.)-Davisons (Davison of Symiston.)-Pyles (Pyle, or Peele, of Milnheuch.)-Robisons (chief unknown-a Cumberland clan.)-Ainslies (chief unknown.)-Olivers (chief unknown-believed to be Lustruther.)-Laidlaws (chief unknown: it is said by tradition the family came from Ireland, and that the name was originally Ludlow.)

LIDDESDALE.

Parks (chief, John of Park.)-Hendersons (chief unknown.)

WEST MARCHES.

Carliles (Lord Carlile.)-Romes, Gasses (Clans now almost extinct-chiefs unknown.)

An equally absolute authority is the enumeration which is put by Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, in his very curious drama called the Partium, into the mouth of Common Thift, a Borderer, and who, being brought to condign punishment, takes leave of his countrymen and companions in iniquity :

"Adieu, my brother Annan thieves,
That helpit me in my mischieves,
Adieu, Crossars, Nicksons, and Bells,
Oft have we fared through the fells;
Adieu, Robsons, Hanslies, and Pyles,
That in our craft have mony wiles,
Littles, Trumbulls, § and Armstrongs;
Adieu, all thieves that me belongs,
Taylors, Eurwings,** and Elwands,++
Speedy of foot and light of hands:
The Scots of Ewesdail and the Græmes,
I have na time to tell your names;
With King Correction be ye fangit,
Believe right sure ye will be hangit."

* The chief of the Grahames is unknown. The clan were rather English than Scottish. They inhabited the Debateable Land.

† [The small volume entitled The Abridgment, or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles, from Fergusius's, the first, &c., with a true description of the whole realme of Scotland, &c., is rarely to be met with per se. It is, however, reprinted in the first volume of Wylie's Miscellanea Scotica, & vols. 12mo. Glasgow, 1818-20.]

† Ainslie, as now spelled and pronounced.

9 § The popular pronunciation of Turnbull.

**

Spelled Curwings: the same with Irving, which is sometimes popularly pronounced Euring as if †† Elwands, or Elwoods, the old way of spelling Elliot.

PROVINCIAL ANTIQUITIES

:

OF

SCOTLAND.

CRICHTON CASTLE.

THE Castle of Crichton is situated on the banks of the Tyne, there an inconsiderable stream, ten miles south from Edinburgh, and about two miles above the village of Pathhead, on the Lauder road. The river flows through a grassy valley, bounded by sloping banks, which, at least till of late, being chiefly covered with copse and underwood, formed a wild and beautiful fringe to the level pasture-land through which the brook winds. The stream itself is more deep, sluggish, and slow, than most of the Scottish rivers, and in that particular rather resembles those of South Britain. The very high prices which alders have lately borne, owing to their forming the most proper charcoal for making gunpowder, has occasioned the fall of many of those natural thickets. But it is to be hoped, that the demand for this formidable article of merchandise will not be again so imperative, and that the proprietors may have leisure to replace these coppices by more permanent plantations.

The Castle was built at different periods, and forms, on the whole, one large square pile of irregular height, enclosing an inner court. It is situated upon a sharp angle of the almost precipitous bank which we have mentioned as the boundary of the dale. The lofty, massive, and solid architecture impress the spectator with an emotion rather of awe than of beauty. Yet the interior is so far from being of a rude character, than we shall hereafter have occasion to notice its architectural merits. At present, we propose to introduce the reader to the general history of the buildings, so far as it has been traced, as well as of its first possessors, to whom the Castle and Barony gave

name.

The family of Crichton was ancient and honourable, but remained long among the rank of lesser barons, and owed its great rise to the genius and talent of an individual statesman, distinguished for policy and intrigue beyond what is usual in a dark age. The name being territorial, and derived from the neighbouring village, seems to have

1

been assumed about the period when surnames became common in Scotland. A William de Crichtoun occurs in the Lennox Chartulary about 1240, and a Thomas de Crichton figures in the Ragman Roll in 1296; a wretched document, to which a name seems to have been accidentally affixed as contemptuous as it deserved, since by its tenor most of the ancient families of Scotland submitted to Edward III.† More honourable records afterwards distinguish a Sir John de Crichton in the reign of David Bruce. A William de Crichton is frequently mentioned in the end of the fourteenth century; and finally, a John Crichton had a charter of that barony from Robert III. These ancient Lords of the Castle and Barony of Crichton, although men of note and estate, were still numbered among the lesser barons, who were not entitled to the rank of nobility.

Sir William Crichton, son of the last-mentioned baron, with talents and a disposition not unlike to those which distinguished Ras Michael at the Court of Gondar was destined to rise to a greater eminence, and attain more celebrity, than his ancestors. He appears to have been one of the first laymen in Scotland who attained eminence, rather from political than military talents, and flourished in the reigns of James I. and his successor-a period, fertile in strange turns of fortune, of which our imperfect records have presented but

A. D.

A. D.

a dubious history. Sir William de Crichton early attended 1423. the court, being one of the persons despatched to congratulate James I. on his marriage, and, on the king's return to Scotland, he became master of the royal household. Three 1426. years afterwards he was one of the envoys sent to treat for the establishment of a perpetual peace with Erick, king of Denmark, and seems ever after to have been the personal favourite of his sovereign and to have acted the part of a courtier and minister with an address then very unusual in Scotland. In justice to this statesman we ought to add, that to be the adherent of the crown during this period, was, in fact, to be the friend of civil liberty and of the free administration of justice. The people as yet did not exist as an order of the state, and the immediate oppressors of law and freedom were the band of aristocratic nobility, who set the laws of the kingdom and authority of the sovereign at equal defiance.

A. D

The sudden and violent death of James I. threw loose all the rules and bands of government which his wisdom had 1437. begun to introduce; for it was ever the misfortune of Scotland, to lose her wisest and bravest rulers at the moment when she most needed them. The exorbitant power of the Douglasses outbalanced the feeble authority of an infant prince. But the wise

Wood's Peerage, vol. i., p. 603.

† Nisbet's Remarks on Ragman's Roll, Heraldry, vol. ij., p. 42. † [See Bruce's Travels in Abyssinia.]