46 Transactions. 



Scotland,"* thinks is Dumfries. This is the Caer Peris, or 

 Caer Pheris of Nennius, which Mr Skene is of opinion be- 

 came, by change of dialect, Dumfries, 



Be this as it may, the natural advantages of the place 

 were seen. An important town arose, and in the time of 

 William the Lyon it was made a royal burgh, having then 

 also both a fort or castle and a church. The castle went, 

 even at that early time, by the name of the old castle. This 

 appears from a charter, supposed by Chalmers, in his Cale- 

 donia,-f- to have passed between the years 1175 and 1189, 

 wherein King William grants to Joceline, Bishop of Glasgow, 

 toftum ilium apud Dumfries quod est inter vetus castellwra 

 et ecclesiam — ^the toft or messuage of land situate and lying 

 between the old castle and the church. 



The Castle was in all likelihood a residence of the Lords 

 t)f Galloway, The situation of the town in the district — ^the 

 erection of a Monastery occupying a large space in the very 

 heart of the town, and the grant by Devorgille of bridge 

 dues to the convent, — all tend to shew a great power in the 

 family over the town. And in one charter Alan, Lord of 

 Galloway, is familiarly described as Alan de Dumfries, 



This Alan, Lord of Galloway, was a great man, Buch- 

 anan calls him Scotorum longe potentissimus,\ by far the 

 greatest noble in the kingdom. 



He married for a second wife the eldest daughter of 

 David, Earl of Huntingdon, the King's next brother, — a 

 marriage from which important consequences followed in the 

 history of Scotland. And it was the eldest of his two childi'en 

 by this marriage, Dervorgille, who founded the Monastery. 



The date of the foundation is, I believe, not exactly 

 known. But if we run over the events of her life in connec- 

 tion with her character and disposition, and with the charac- 

 ter of the age in which she lived, we shall perhaps arrive at 

 an approximate, or at least not improbable time, 



* Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol, 4, p. 169. 



f Chalmers* Caledonia, vol. 3, p. 135, note. 



i Buchauan Ber. Scot. Hist., Lib. 7. 



