Midside Maggie's Girdle. 357 



Walter told, in a few words, the substance of the romantic 

 story with which the Girdle is associated. 



In 1869 the date of the manufacture of the Girdle had 

 not been ascertained; but subsequently (in 1889) Mr Alex. 

 J. S. Brook of 87 George Street, Edinburgh, acquired such 

 a knowledge of the Hall Marks and Register of Gold and 

 Silver Smiths in Edinburgh, as enabled him to identify the 

 maker of the Girdle as Adam AUane, junr., admitted gold- 

 smith in Edinburgh in 1589; and the Deacon of the Craft 

 — whose stamp the Girdle bears — as Eobert Denneistoun, 

 who held the office of Deacon in 1608-9. Thus fixing the 

 date of the manufacture of the Girdle to have been 1608-9. 

 Other facts had come to light, which afforded legitimate 

 ground for the conjecture that the letters "B.C." — engraved 

 on the Circular Plate attached to the Girdle — were the 

 initial letters of Barbara Cranstoun of Murraystoun (now 

 Morriston) and Corsbie, who was married to Sir James 

 Seton of Gordon in 1611; and the Girdle was again 

 exhibited to the Club on 6th June 1894, with notes regard- 

 ing the date of its manufacture and these initial letters. 



It is not necessary further to refer to what may be found 

 in the Proceedings of the Club regarding the Girdle, and 

 in the Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., Vol. x., p. 321, and Yol. 

 XXIII., p. 445 ; but as the information, on which the romance 

 connected with the Girdle is founded, rests largely on 

 tradition, it may not be out of place to indicate that the 

 history of the descent of the tradition is far from being 

 hopelessly complicated or obscure. 



The date of the presentation of the Girdle, by the Duke 

 of Lauderdale, to Midside Maggie (the wife of Thomas 

 Hardie, Tollishill, whatever her name was) must have been 

 about the year 1672. A Simon Hardie, who was tenant in 

 Westmains farm, near Lauder, in 1737, was born in 1669 

 (died 1747, and buried in Lauder Churchyard) and had as 

 his wife Janet Allan, who was born in 1675, and died 1735; 

 and Simon Hardie and his wife Janet had a son, Thomas 

 Hardie, who was born in 1712, and died in 1781; and on 

 8th August 1737 this Thomas Hardie married Agnes Grieve. 

 (The marriage contract between Thomas and Agnes, which 

 exists, and the tombstone in Lauder Churchyard, make this 

 all quite plain.) Thomas Hardie and Agnes Grieve had 



