74 The Kindly Tenants. 



the matter. He gives as his main authority the MSS. of Mr 

 Syme, Writer to the Signet, but the whole note looks like as if 

 he had, according to his practice before writing his novels, visited 

 and made himself well acquainted with the whole district. And 

 it must be remembered that Sir Walter Scott was a learned 

 lawyer. The note is therefore of special interest: — "I cannot 

 leave the subject of Lochmaben without noticing an extraordinary 

 and anomalous class of landed proprietors who dwell in the 

 neighbourhood of that burgh. These are the inhabitants of four 

 small villages, near the ancient castle, called the Four Towns of 

 Lochmaben. They themselves are termed the King's I'entallers, 

 or kindly tenants, under which denomination each of them has a 

 right of an allodial nature to a small piece of ground. It is said 

 that these people are the descendants of Robert Bruce's menials^ 

 to whom he assigned, in reward of their faithful service, these 

 portions of land, burdened only with the payment of certain quit 

 rents and grassums, or fines upon the entry of a new tenant. 

 The right of the rentallers is in essence a right of property, but 

 in form only a right of lease, of which they appeal for the 

 foundation to the rent-rolls of the lord of the castle and manor. 

 This possession by rental, or by simple entry upon the rent-roll, 

 was anciently a common and peculiarly sacred species of pro- 

 perty, granted by a chief to his faithful followers, the connection 

 of landlord and tenant being esteemed of a nature too necessary 

 to be formal where there was honour on the one side and grati. 

 tude upon the other. But, in the case of subjects granting a 

 ri»ht of this kind, it was held to expire with the life of the 

 granter, unless his heir chose to renew it, and also upon the death 

 of the rentaller himself, unless especially granted to his heirs, by 

 which only his first was understood. Hence in modern days 

 the kindly tenants have entirely disappeared from the land. 

 Fortunately for the inhabitants of the Four Towns of Lochmaben^ 

 the maxim, that the King can never die, prevents their right of 

 of property from reverting to the Crown." 



Sir Walter Scott says that the tradition is that the kindlie 

 tenants are the descendants of King Robert the Bruce's menials. 

 I have not heard of this tradition in the district, but I certainly 

 have heard that they were the followers. And this form of the 

 tradition is more likely to be true from the large number that 

 there must at first have been of the kindly tenants. As might 

 be expected, the right of the kindly tenants to occupy their lands 



