Book IL] THE BORDER MEETINGS. loi 



that the lords of council thought proper to issue a 

 proclamation forbidding the race to take place." — ■ 

 " Domestic Annals of Scotland," vol. i., p. 410. 



" Towards the end of this year the Regent Morton 

 was at Dumfries, holding justice-courts for the punish- 

 ment of the Borderers. ' Many were pun- Scotland 

 ished by their purses rather than their lives. 1575. 



■R /r 1 r T- 1 1 1-1 ^^^ Border 



Many gentlemen 01 bngland came thither Meetings: 

 to behold the Regent's court, where there ^"^"^^^ ^^^•^'• 

 was great provocation made for the running of horses. 

 By chance my Lord Hamilton had there a horse sae 

 weel bridled and sae speedy, that although he was of a 

 meaner stature than other horses that essayit their 

 speed, he overran them all a great way upon Solway 

 Sands, whereby he obtained great praise both of 

 England and Scotland at that time' (Historie of King 

 James the Sext)." — " Domestic Annals of Scotland," 

 by Robert Chambers, vol. i., p. 103. 



Among the early fathers of the Turf in Scotland, 

 it seems that David Home of Wedderburn, who 

 died in 1574, was conspicuous among his sporting 

 contemporaries. He was a gentleman of good status 

 in Berwickshire, and father of the David Home of 

 Godscroft, to whom Scottish literature owes the 

 " History of the House of Douglas." The son has 

 left us a portraiture of the father, which, even 

 when we make a good allowance for filial partiality, 

 must be held as showing that such society in the 

 seventeenth century was not without estimable mem- 

 bers. "He died in the fiftieth year of his age, of a 

 consumption, being the first (as is said) of his family 



