An Antiquary's Notes. 405 



Callander; a third was Robert Livingstone, comptroller. The 

 first of these was that Earl of Crawford whose " band ' ' or 

 alliance with Douglas was to cost Douglas his life. In Septem- 

 ber, 1449, Sir Alexander of Livingstone, Lord of Callander, was 

 arrested for treason, tried, convicted, disgraced, forfeited, and 

 imprisoned. Robert Livingstone, the comptroller, was tried too, 

 was convicted and was executed. The Livingstone faction was 

 overthrown in blood, and "all put down," says the chronicler 

 of the town, "all put down that thai put up." It 

 was a beginning of troubles which were hasting to become history 

 and to overwhelm more than the Livingstones. This document 

 marks in a unique manner the summit of the Douglas power 

 just as that family was visibly and perilously near to that pitch 

 of insolent ambition which provoked the catastrophe of the 

 assassination of 1452. 



A Dumfries Sasine. 



The final subject of brief comment was found in a notarial 

 document concerning Crukitakyr on the road from the Chapel of 

 St. Mary the Virgin at Castledikis, dated 26 March, 1332. The 

 deed was expede by Thomas Connelsonne, a name met with, 

 elsewhere, as that of a practising notary of the period, and its 

 interest lay in the mention of the castle chapel of St. Mary in 

 Castledykes. My excuse for introducing it is that I might make 

 a suggestion to this society. The amount of historical informa- 

 tion that is contained in the instruments of sasine is, of course, 

 prodigious, and there are in Dumfriesshire several very valuable 

 protocol books which are the places where they are contained. 

 There are one or two in Mr Grierson's hands as town clerk, and 

 one or two in the possession of the Buccleuch family, and I 

 would ask this society to consider whether it could not do the 

 country a great service by organising means whereby these 

 protocol books might be, if not edited in full — which would 

 involve a considerable amount of labour— at least calendared. 

 There can be no doubt that the body of territorial, genealogical, 

 topographical, political, and, indeed, national records embodied 

 in these documents would be a great god-send to Scottish history, 

 and it would reflect the utmost credit on the society that carried 

 through the work. 



