religioun at Aberdeene, March 1592."

The names

of " Alexander Straquhan" of Thornton and Wishart of Pittarrow are also in the list. He had three sons-John, Robert, and Francis.

John Middleton, the eldest son, had a charter of resignation of the lands by his father, dated 20th December 1595. He was the last of the family to be numbered among the proprietors of the parish, having disposed of the lands of Kilnhill and Bent on the 3d November 1606, and the same day received the lands of "Murton, Cauldhame, Roishill, and others." From that date the family took the designation of Middleton of Caldhame. The history of the family was thus removed from the limits of the parish, but their close relationship to some of its proprietors may give interest to a few sentences on their future.

John was succeeded on Caldhame by his brother, Robert Middleton, who, when sitting in his own house, was killed by soldiers of the Marquis of Montrose in 1645. He was the father of the first Earl of Middleton, who, by distinguished service, raised himself to rank and power, though he failed to dignify the position which his undoubted ability had acquired.

John Middleton, son of Robert Middleton and Catherine Strachan (who was of the family of Thornton), was born about the year 1619. He entered the army as a "pikeman," but was a captain under the leadership of Montrose as early as 1639. About that time he married Grissel Durham, daughter of the laird of Pitkerrow, who must have been considerably older than himself. She

had been twice previously married. Her first husband was Alexander Fotheringham of Ballindrone. In 1630 she was married to Sir Gilbert Ramsay, fiar of Balmain; but her union with him must have been dissolved in the lifetime of the parties, as Sir Gilbert subsequently married a daughter of Auchinleck of Ballandro, and lived many years afterwards. When Montrose espoused the side of the king, General Middleton was his most resolute opponent and the chief instrument of his defeat. After a few years he became a zealous Royalist, and accompanied Charles II. in his exile to France. He was created Earl of Middleton, Lord Clermont and Fettercairn, in 1656, and the patent of his earldom is dated after the Restoration, 1st October 1660. His subsequent life was one first of great splendour, and then of comparative disgrace. His brilliant talents had to contend with a degrading habit of drunkenness, which reduced him in a few years from the position of the most influential subject in Scotland to the unimportant office of Governor of Tangiers in Africa, where he died in 1673. The estates and titles were forfeited in 1695, in the person of Charles, the second Earl, who was a warm adherent of the exiled King James.

Returning to the lands of Kilnhill and Bent, John Middleton conveyed them in 1606 to "John Livingston of Donypace, James Livingston of Cauldhame, his brother, and David Barclay, fiar of Matheris," his brother-in-law. He had resigned the lands without receiving the king's consent, and they were forfeited to the Crown in consequence. The forfeiture was soon recalled; and there is a charter of the following year, bestowing the lands upon "James

Livingston, lawful son of John Livingston of Donypace." The Livingstones of Dunipace were descended from a brother of the first Lord Livingstone, a title afterwards exchanged for Earl of Linlithgow. There is no record of how long Livingstone was in possession of Kilnhill and Bent. It was probably he who in 1613 acquired the barony of Inglismaldie, then known as the barony of Craigs, which was obtained that year by a Livingstone, and disponed in 1635 by one of the name to Sir John Carnegie. It is certain, however, that during these years the lands were reunited to the Haulkerton estate.

CLARKHILL AND LATCH.

These were the names of two holdings which, for a lengthened period, formed separate possessions, and were incorporated with Haulkerton about the same time as the lands of Bent, of which they are now a part. They were probably part of the possessions of the Middletons and James Livingstone, and may at a much earlier period have been in the hands of the Falconers. Clarkhill may have been originally the residence of an official in the Royal household, when the king was at Kincardine. In an old charter "Peter le Faukener" is designated "clericus regis (the king's clerk) under Alexander II., who reigned from 1214 to 1249. The name survived in the parish at least until 1763, when James Blacklaws, shoemaker in "Clerkhill," lodged a petition with the kirk-session. Latch has transmitted its name to the present day, indicating a ditch on the farm of Bent.

CHAPTER VIII.

BARONY OF SCOTSTON, ALIAS POWBURN.

The Scots

The origin of the name of Scotston will probably suggest itself to any one who bears the history of those earlier centuries in mind. The inhabitants of these parts were not Scots, but Picts. were originally from Ireland; and they established themselves in Argyll during the sixth century. They gradually extended their dominion northwards, but it was only after the lapse of centuries that they penetrated into the north-eastern part of the country. Individuals and families, from time to time, came and settled in Pictland; and the holdings which they acquired, by right or might, were called by the aborigines the "Scottistowns."

Who the stranger may have been who thus settled in the immediate vicinity of the lands of Conveth, cannot of course be known. Perhaps he may at once have become a vassal of the Kirk, for the earliest record shows that Scottistown was the property of the Abbey of Arbroath, and was conferred, along with Conveth and Haulkerton, on Sir John Wishart of Pittarrow about 1246. It probably found its way before long into the possession of the Keith family; but the earliest certain notice of it after that date is in the second half of the fifteenth century, when it formed a constituent part of the barony of Scotston, alias Powburn, which included Over Scotston, Calsayend (Bowtory ?), and Powburn. The formation of

the name of Powburn is somewhat peculiar, the latter syllable being but a translation of the former, "Pow" meaning "burn." It is probable that Powburn had formed, at a very early period, one of the extensive estates of the Marischal family; but it is in this combination also that the earliest record of it exists.

The first notice of the barony is a precept for infefting William Meldrum as heir to his mother, Annabella Forbes, 7th November 1467. He was probably related through his father to the Meldrums of that Ilk, an old baronial family of Aberdeenshire, the male line of which had failed in 1417 on the death of William de Meldrum, when the family estate passed to the husband of his heiress, William Seton, the first of the Setons of Meldrum. Annabella Forbes may have been the daughter of the first Lord Forbes, the widow of Patrick, Master of Gray, who owned the lands of Kinneff, and died before 1st September 1464. If so, she was an ancestress of the noble family of Gray, and her union with a second husband must have been of short duration. It is certain, at all events, that William Meldrum was a mere child when he succeeded his mother. His son, George Meldrum, who followed in possession, granted, 31st July 1543, a bond to John Allardes of that Ilk, relative to contract of excambion between them.

The family of Allardice traced its founder to the time of William the Lion, who gave charters of the lands of Alrethes, or Allardice, to the first of the name. Cardinal Beaton, in 1544, granted to John Allardice a charter of resignation of the lands and