258 The Scottish Naturalist. 



1524-26 (Patrick) ; and of bonnet-pieces} subsequently known as 

 ducats, in 1539-42. At this period the mines were first worked 

 by a company of German miners, by whom the " ore " was sent 

 to Germany to be ''refined;" and subsequently (1539-42) by a 

 body of French miners. The Crawford gold was now spoken of 

 as " the king's own gold," and the king was very proud of it. He 

 showed this pride in various ways. In the first place, he took his 

 second queen — Mary of Guise — personally to visit the district ; 

 and in the next, it was at his marriage-feast with this queen in 

 France that he caused to be placed before each guest a vessel 

 full of bonnet-pieces, minted in his own Scotch mint of Crawford 

 gold, telling the assembled company " that these were the choice 

 fruits which grew in his country." ^ He also sent a piece of un- 

 molten or ''unwrought gold of the myne " as a present to his 

 father-in-law, the Duke of Guise, in France (Fittis). Moreover, not 

 only were the Queen's crown, a belt, and no doubt other ornaments, 

 made of this " gold of mynd," but the arches of the king's own 

 crown — the present crown of Scotland, as preserved in Edinburgh 

 Castle, which additions were made by the king himself — were 

 manufactured of his " own gold," so that they " may be regarded 

 as composed of genuine Scottish gold of the mine" (Fittis). 



III. Reign of Janies VI. — In 1567-68, Cornelius de Vols, a Dutch- 

 man^ got a nineteen years' licence to work the Crawford mines. 

 He raised a joint-stock company, with a capital oi jQA^xd^ em- 

 ploying 120 men and women. He was commissioned by London 

 merchants, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, to " discover the 

 gold vein or bed" (Calvert), which was supposed to be the source 

 of all the Crawford gold. He was followed by another Dutch- 

 man, Abrahajn Grey, better known as " Greybeard," who is tlie 

 hero of another " tradition," comparable with that of the bonnet- 

 pieces, and which may be quite as veracious, or the reverse. In 

 his case, what figures is a golden basin filled with gold coins [uni- 

 corns), both being made of Crawford gold ; the said cornucopia 



1 So called "from the capberet or bonnet wliich James V, wears in his 

 portrait on the obverse of this coin" (Fittis) ; that bonnet probably which the 

 king delighted to wear at Stirling in his capacity of the " Gudeman of Ballan- 

 geich." 



^ Various other versions of this story are given, including the "tradition" 

 which assigns the place of the incident to Crawford Castle, and describes the 

 magnates who were astonished by the nature of the dessert presented to them 

 as the French ambassadors, who were hunting with the king as his guests in 

 the said castle (Porteous). Calvert speaks of " covered cups filled with native 

 gold " being presented " as specimens of Scotch fruit." 



