Transactions. 129 



to £395 18s 8d Scot (Keith's Hist, app., p. 185). What 

 remained of the property of this monastery after much waste was 

 vested in the King by the General Annexation Act in 1587. In 

 1617 an Act of Parliament was passed dissolving the said annexa- 

 tion as to the whole temporal property of the Abbey, and the 

 spiritual property of the same, consisting of their parish churches 

 of Holywood, Dunscore, Penpont, Tynron, and Kirkconnel, par- 

 sonages and vicarages, with their titlies and revenues, in order 

 that the King might grant the whole to John Murray, of Loch- 

 maben, and his heirs, and might erect the same into a free 

 barony, to be called the barony of Holywood, for the yearly 

 payment of .£20 Scots, in name of blench ferm {Acts Pari. Scot. 

 iv., 575). Murray accordingly obtained a charter of the whole 

 on the 9tli of April, 1618, and it was ratified in Parliament on 

 the 4th August, 1621 {Ibid, iv., 665). Murray, who had l)een 

 about, the King from his youth, and was one of the grooms of the 

 bed-chamber, acquired from the King before this the barony of 

 Lochmaben and other property in Dumfriesshire. 



Thomas Campbell, the last abbot of Holywood, was prosecuted 

 by the Regent Murray for assisting Queen Mary after her escape 

 from Lochleven, and lie was forfeited on the 19th August, 1568 

 (Acts Pari., iii., 54). A charter of grants of lands by tliis abbot 

 Thomas to John Charteris, in Rydingwood, dated 7th June, 1548, 

 is in the National Museum of Antiquities. The seal attached to 

 this charter is similar to one figured by Laing {Scottish Seals, ii., 

 p. 202, pi. XV., 2). It is circular, in the centre a bird sitting on 

 a tree ; in the lower part are two cstoiles, legend — s coe abbis 

 ET CONVENTI SAC NEMORis — " Common Seal of the Abbey and 

 Convent of Sacra Nemoris." 



III. Meteorological Azotes on the past Winter. 

 By Mr Patrick Dudgeon. 



The exceptional characteristics connected with the winter of 

 1890-91 deserve more than a passing notice, and the few subjoined 

 notes may perhaps be thought worth placing on the records of 

 the Society for reference at any subsequent period : — 



Much attention has been given of late years to the subject of 

 meteorology, and although in the present state of the science it 

 appears impossible to deduce anything like true conclusions as to 



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