16 Anniversary Address. 



marks be zeir. Thir four zeiris bypast it has not been 800 

 marks. It may continue to pay zeirlie 10 chaldors victuall 

 or thereby, eommunibus annis."''' 



It is there stated that the United Parishes were then in the 

 Presbytery of Earlston and not of Kelso. It may be of 

 sufficient interest to state, what I have learned from the 

 Eev. Dr Leishman of Linton, a former President of our Club, 

 that in 1593, as Scott says, of the Kelso Parishes, Kelso, 

 Roxburgh, Sprouston, Linton, Makerstoun, Morebattle, and 

 Mow, were in the Presbytery of Jedburgh ; while those of 

 Stichill, Home, Ednara, and Nenthorn were in that of Duns. 

 The first notice of a Kelso Presbytery is on 2nd February 1604." 

 The Eecords of the General Assembly of 1581 and 1583 set 

 Kelso Presbytery down as one of the Presbyteries which 

 was to be, though not yet established. To return to Scott, 

 he says that the Presbytery of Earlstoun was not erected 

 till 1613. It was taken out of the existing Presbytery of 

 Melrose, with Gordon and Smailholm, disjoined from Kelso. 

 That Presbytery of Earlston has no Records earlier than 

 the Revolution, nor the Synod of Merse and Teviotdale 

 any earlier than the Restoration. The likelihood is that 

 Stichill was handed over to Earlston i;i 1613. (Scott 

 makes a mistake in saying, under Ednam, that that Parish 

 was transferred to Earlston 1st August 1620. This is 

 disproved by the entry in the Records of the Presbytery 

 of Kelso receiving Mr Johne Clappertoun, who, on Ist August 

 1620, "presented ane permission from the Bishop of St. 

 Andrews permitting him to desert his awin Presbytery, and 

 adhere to the next adjacent Presbytery; so he was accepted 

 by us, and took upon him the exercises the next day." 

 Probably Scott took the next adjacent Presbytery to mean 

 Earlston, and put it down so.) Up to 1638 Stichill was in the 

 Presbytery of Earlston. The downfall of Episcopacy, in that 

 year, necessitated a new constitution of things, when the northern 

 parishes disappear from the Records of Kelso Presbytery, 

 which at first numbered only five ministers, at Kelso, Roxburgh, 

 Sprouston, Yetholm, and Morebattle. Linton was, during the 

 current incumbency, held in plurality with Yetholm till 1619. 

 The cause of this break up and reunion one can guess at. 



'^ Statistical Account of certain Parishes in 1627. 

 ■'" Fasti, p. 455. 



