Transactions. 25 



other Burns associations, and from the original give here a trans- 

 cript of its text. 



Letter Francis Grose to Major Hiitton. 



Carse, July 4th, 1789. 



Dear Sir,— I am just returned from Galway {sic) and have 

 drawn the Abbeys of Puudrennan and Glenluce. There are no 

 remains of Galset or Withorne, nor the least of Dumfries. 

 . . . I have collected several heraldic sculptures at Glenluce 

 and Dundrennan, with the ground plan of the latter. The parcel 

 contaming the numbers, &c., shall be sent off this week. — I am, 

 &c., Frs. Grose. 



Note. — In the Hutton collection of MSS. there are this and 

 other ground plans of the monastery of Dundrennan carefully 

 recorded. 



The nearest town to the monastery of D. was the ancient 

 regal burgh of St. Cuthbert, Kirkcudbright, the seat of the Courts 

 of Law, of trade and commerce, as well as the occasional residence 

 of the Lord Bishop of Galloway, who here owned several extensive 

 baronies attached to his see of Whithorn. King James the Fourth 

 and his Queen Margaret of England seem to have visited Kirkcud- 

 bright more than once on their way to the shrine of St. Ninian, 

 at Whithorn. The town of Kirkcudbright would seem to have 

 risen into wider forms of existence in the middle of the 15th cen- 

 tury, and on the general Forfalture of the ancient and noble 

 family of Douglas in the year 1455, which is also that of the oldest 

 surviving charter of the burgh of Kirkcudbright, granted to them 

 by their patrons, the Stewartian Jameses. The most memorable 

 visit of King James the Fourth would seem to have been in anno 

 1508, when he was hospitably entertained by the Corporation of 

 the place, presided over by Maclellan, the Baron, " Laird of 

 Bombie," who as the hereditary baillie of the extensive baronies 

 of the Bishop of Galloway lying around the town they became to 

 some considerable extent the natural presiding aldermen, provosts, 

 and general defensive guardians of the capital town of a wide and 

 important ancient Stewartry of Galloway. On this occasion it 

 was that the King made to the inhabitant community of Kirkcud- 

 bright his first grant of the Castle of Kirkcudbright and its prob- 

 ably extensive landed belongings, many of which are yet at this 

 day in their corporate possession. These gifts would seem to 



