Report of the Meetings for 1892. 59 



noble houses of Winton, Eglinton, Tweeddale, Blantyre, etc., to 

 whom Mr Hay is related. There were also shown a very inter- 

 esting series of relies connected with the Eoyal House of Stuart, 

 including- a silver draught board which belonged to Mary Queen 

 of Scots, presented by her to Margaret Seton (one of the Queen's 

 Maries), and brought into the Hay family by her descendant, the 

 Hon. Elizabeth Setou already mentioned; also ten gold coins 

 (one of them of Queen Mary) ; a Royal Standard rescued by 

 Edmund Hay, ancestor of Mrs Hay, at the battle of Worcester ; 

 a beautifully printed missal.with the Arms of George Lord Seton, 

 its original owner, stamped on the binding ; a deed signed by 

 Queen Mary ; another signed by her son James YI., countersigned 

 Q-owrie and Blantyre ; a lock of the hair of Prince Charles 

 Edward Stuart, and one of his brother, the Cardinal Duke of 

 York ; and one of the originals of the National Covenant, which 

 is believed to have accompanied the Covenanting army on Duns 

 Law. It bears the signatures of many of the local supporters of 

 the Covenanting cause understood to have been adhibited on 

 the Law. There are also preserved in the Castle several ex- 

 quisitely illuminated books of devotion executed in the fifteenth 

 century. 



One of these illuminated Books of Hoars is highly interesting and 

 important, as it bears internal evidence of having been owned and used in 

 Scotland. The number of such books is exceedingly small. The first 

 Reformers destroyed them, as relics of superstition, wherever they were 

 found, and surviving examples are so rare that they may be counted 

 almost on the fingers of one hand. The miniatures, borders, and initial 

 letters which adorn this precious little volume are evidently the 

 work of a Flemish artist, and are executed in the best style of the 

 school. In the Litany are found the names of St. Ninian, St. Columba, 

 St. Palladius, and other Scottish Saints, showing that the book was 

 written for a Scottish owner ; and the obit notices in the Kalendar, and 

 other entries on the fly leaves at the end, would seem to indicate that it 

 had been in the possession of an ecclesiastic connected with the Cathedral 

 church of Aberdeen, and related to the family of Lauder of the Bass. 

 It is not known how it came to Duns Castle, but the conjecture is per- 

 missible — in the absence of any definite information — that it was handed 

 over, along with the titles of Bdington, when that estate was acquired by 

 the first William Hay of Druramelzier from John Fairholme of Baberton, 

 who had married a descendant of the Landers. I subjoin the more note- 

 worthy entries ; — 



11th June. Obitus elizabet lander q. ob. m^ccoc^ xciiii. 

 3rd November. Dedioatio ecolie. cathedral, aberdonen. 

 23rd December. Obitus magri roberti brown 1460, 



