40 Earty ECCLESIASTICAL History OF DUNSCORE. 
of the Privy Council, under date 1605, to the effect that 
John Kirkpatrick of Alisland, ‘‘ having a seat in the Kirk 
of Dunscore quhich belonged to him and his predicessors 
for 8 or 9 score years, and Sir William Griersone of Lag 
having, with convocation of the ledgies, casten doun the 
same and built another in plaice thairof for his own use, he 
is ordained to enter prison in Edinburgh castle; and John, 
son of John Kirkpatrick of Ilisland, and Matthew Baillie, 
sister son and servant of the said John, elder, having cuttit 
doun and hawkt all the forsaid seat in peices,—for quhilk 
the said John, elder, is ordered to enter prison in the forsaid 
castle.”’ 
If these were the methods of the parishioners in dis- 
puting about a pew, it is not wonderful that we should be 
told forty years later that the church was altogether ruinous, 
a great part having already fallen down, and the rest 
‘* standing upon propis and stoupis,’’ so that the parishioners 
‘* daere not for hazard of their life repaire thearto for Godis 
worship.’ Even in those stern days this condition of | 
” 
things seens to have been regarded by the ecclesiastical 
authorities as a sufficient excuse for non-attendance at 
church. At all events, they recognised the necessity for 
some action being taken; and in the year 1645 a petition 
for the transplanting of the church was presented to Parlia- 
ment by James Grierson of Dalgoner and James Kirko of 
Sundaywell for themselves, and as having power from the 
minister and parishioners of Dunscore. The petition nar- 
rated the deplorable state of the structure and the incom- 
modious situation of the church, seeing that it was at one 
end of a parish which was ten miles long. The petition 
also stated that the Presbytery and Synod of Dumfries had 
considered these representations, along with a cross petition 
by Jean Stirling, lady Carse, and Harbert Maxwell, her 
son, and had resolved that there was a necessity for trans- 
planting the church to the lands of Dalgoner, lying in the 
middle of the parish, that a new church should be built, and 
that the heritors, parishioners, and possessors should con- 
tribute proportionately to the cost of building the church, 
manse, and churchyard walls. After hearing the parties, 
