OR, THE HISTORY OF AN ANCIENT CHURCH WITH AN ACCOUNT OF ITS CHAPELS, CHANTRIES BY THE REV. JOHN FERGUSON MINISTER OF LINLITHGOW "There is no district, no town, no parish whose history is not INTRODUCTION TO FREEMAN's Sketches and Travel in Normandy and Maine. OLIVER & BOYD EDINBURGH: TWEEDDALE COURT LONDON: 10 PATERNOSTER ROW, E. C. 1905 το THE PROVOST, MAGISTRATES, AND TOWN COUNCIL OF LINLITHGOW ESPECIALLY TO EX-PROVOST ANDREW GILMOUR AND PROVOST ROBERT JAMIESON UNDER WHOSE KINDLY REGIMEN THE AUTHOR HAS SPENT THE HAPPIEST PART OF HIS LIFE, THIS BOOK, THE STORY OF A CHURCH WHICH, SINCE THE EARLIEST TIMES, HAS BEEN CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH THE LIFE AND INTERESTS OF THE ANCIENT BURGH, IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED PREFACE SINCE I became minister of Linlithgow, now over a quarter of a century ago, I have made it my pastime to collect information regarding the ancient church in which it is my privilege to minister. At first, this was done merely to gratify a natural curiosity, and with no intention of ever using the information collected; the information itself, moreover, was of such a scrappy character that it did not give much promise of any ultimate result; but as the accumulation increased, there began to appear the possibility of a consecutive narrative, and then the thought occurred to me, that I might endeavour to weave the whole into a web. The pattern, now that the web is before me, is, I fear, rather indistinct, and the web itself far from perfect, but, such as it is, I venture to place it before the public. The sources whence the information has been taken I have indicated in the footnotes. For the earlier chapters, the chief source has been the Chartularies of several of our ancient Religious Houses; and for the later, the Records of the Burgh and Kirk-session of Linlithgow. In some chapters I have given merely the name of the source, while in others I have quoted the proof in extenso. My reason for doing so is, that I am anxious to give portions of an ancient MS. volume-the Liber curiae capitalis burgi de Linlithqwin so far as it bears on ecclesiastical affairs, a wider circulation than it has yet received, albeit the efforts of the numerous Clubs and Societies, which have been formed for the publication of such documents. I have also printed in the Appendix two charters, two Instruments of Sasine, and a |