James, another son of this family, was bred a soldier in France and Germany; having returned to Scotland he became a favourite of Charles I., and was created Lord Almond in 1633; seven years afterwards he was created Earl of Callender. He was LieutenantGeneral under the Duke of Hamilton in the expedition to England for the relief of Charles.

Nearly as remarkable a man as the great Sir Alexander Livingston in the fifteenth century, was Sir James Livingston of Kilsyth, in the seventeenth. He was brother of the Sir William mentioned above, who died 1627, and as guardian of Sir William's son and grandson, he had charge of the estate until the death of the latter in 1647, when he himself succeeded; until then his title was Sir James of Bencloich. He acquired that and various other properties by means of doubtful honesty, but not very different from what were usual at that time. While many of the principal families were still quarreling over the spoil of the Church, Sir James sought quietly to turn the popular tide of covenanting enthusiasm to profitable account. Prior to, and more particularly after the triumphant success of the popular party at Philiphaugh, he ingratiated himself with the clergy and the ruling men of the day, so as to obtain their confidence. At the same time he professed secretly to sympathise with, and favour the unfortunate partizans of Montrose, who were branded with the name of malignants. On the one side he incited the Covenanters to treat the malignants with extreme oppression, burnings, harryings, fines, again and again; on the other side he lent money to the Royalists, first, for enabling them to assist Montrose, and afterwards, for enabling them to pay the fines. Montrose's partizans alleged that much of the money so lent was but the proceeds of the exactions which came under his control. The loans were secured by bonds over lands, under which he took immediate possession, with right to assume the property at the end of twelve years, failing redemption; and he took care to so manage that the poor borrowers never were in a condition to redeem. He applied the savings at Kilsyth estate during the minority of his grand nephew, in the purchase of superiorities held by unfortunate Royalists and others in his neighbourhood, and in buying up the lands of smaller owners. Having thus become owner and superior of extensive properties in Campsie as well as Kilsyth, he had them erected into the Baronies of Kilsyth and Campsie. Soon after the restoration of Charles II. to the throne, Sir James ingratiated himself at Court, and was created Viscount

Kilsyth, Lord Campsie, &c. In 1655 he built, at the Village of Kilsyth, a mansion-house or castle. The original castle of the family had been near the village, on higher ground, and there had been another near Colzium, which probably had been occupied by cadets of the family. The first viscount did not long enjoy his honours, as he died in London the same year they had been confirmed.

James, the second viscount, succeeded in 1661, a minor, and died without issue, 1700.

William, the third viscount, was second son of the first viscount. He succeeded in 1700, and, having engaged in the rebellion of 1715, his estates were forfeited. He was greatly addicted to jollification. While plotting with his friends for the rebellion, he and they had sederunts in an inn at Kilsyth, which occasionally lasted more than a week, during which time they consumed incredible quantities of claret, and hardly ever went to bed. He died at Rome, 1733. In connection with the jovial reunions of the last Earl of Kilsyth and his friends, it was my intention to exhibit to this meeting a drinking cup or quaich which belonged to that nobleman's family, and which it is said was cherished by them as having been their family quaich since the days of the first Living, or at least for many generations. I regret that an accident has prevented me from producing it at this meeting.

The cup or quaich is not in itself more remarkable than many of a like kind which the very ancient inhabitants of this and other northern countries were in the habit of using. It is of stone, apparently green stone, or perhaps grey granite, circular, about three and a-half inches wide at rim, and two and a-half inches deep internally, and has two projecting handles, or luggs as they were called; this is the true form and character of the ancient drinking cup in which the men of the olden time loved to quaff hearty libations, the drinker rising at table, raising it in his two hands breast high, expressing his ardent wishes for the welfare of all round, and eke of absent friends, then, after emptying it within his lips, turning it upside down in token of his devotion, and finally refilling and passing it to his neighbour that he might do likewise.

To suppose that the stone cup was the only kind in use at any particular period would be an idle fancy; gold, silver, and chrystal were also used, probably from the days of Tubal Cain downwards. But there was a northern superstition in favour of the stone cup, as the sacred, the divine, the genuine cup of the gods.

To drink from a golden cup might be becoming at great court, ceremonial feast, or in the halls of high nobility, where all was stately and cold; but when the heart warmed in the intense sympathy of friendship, then was expression given to earnest feelings from the cup long hallowed by the friends of the roof tree-the cup which belonged to our forefathers before us.

The Kilsyth Cup was given by the last Lord Kilsyth to a confidential servant, said to have been his forester, named Marshall, whose great grandson still lives near Kilsyth, and from whom I received it. While preparations for the rising in 1715 were in progress, and after it, Marshall had made himself peculiarly useful to his master by conveying secret messages, keeping guard, obtaining information, assisting to conceal, and sometimes affording valuable aid under danger and privation. Before leaving the country for the continent, to be out of the way of the government authorities, who, if he had been captured, would have had him tried for high treason, the Lord Kilsyth presented to his faithful forester this old cup as a token of his gratitude. The simple act may seem to us unimportant, yet there was in it what no language could express. It was the last act of parting from family greatness-an ancient house had fallen. Its members had long faithfully served their sovereign. They had dared one more faithful effort in the hope of replacing on the throne its rightful master, under whose ancestors they had often proved their fidelity. Now were they deserted by craven compatriots, and the proud viscount felt that only one faithful servant man stood by him. It was Marshall, and to Marshall he handed over the family Cup.

I wish to exhibit to this meeting another article which belonged to the old Kilsyth Livingstons. It is a halbert of very superior workmanship. The shaft is of fine oak, octagonal in section, alternate. sides strengthened by slips of iron and nails, with round projecting heads at two inches apart, and the other sides fluted in the wood, an elegantly formed spear twelve inches long, having at its base a crown-shaped ornament, under which are the cut and hold projections elaborately worked in perforated decoration. This article came into the possession of the Gartshore family, and the present much honoured head of that house, Colonel Gartshore, holds the ancient weapon in great respect as a relic of the Kilsyth Livingstons.

The head of another halbert which has been in the family of a person of the name of John Kerr, Townhead, Kirkintilloch, for more

than two centuries, is here shown along with the other. It is good of its kind, but of inferior workmanship as compared with the Kilsyth one.

The Kilsyth Estates and Teinds were sold by the Crown to the York Buildings' Company. Campbell of Shawfield became Tacksman of both, and held them until their sale in 1784 to Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Dunbreath, grandfather of the present Sir Archibald.

It is thus seen that the Kilsyth Livingstons were detached from the Callander stock about 1450, and that they were proprietors of Kilsyth Estates during two centuries and a-half, and of the Campsie Barony rather more than half a century.

At the time of the rebellion, 1715, the titles of Linlithgow and Callander were enjoyed by James, fifth Earl of Linlithgow, and fourth Earl of Callander. He also joined in that rebellion, and his estates and titles were forfeited. These lands were likewise sold to the York Buildings' Company, and upon the bankruptcy of that Company they were purchased at judicial sale by William Forbes, grandfather of the present Mr. Forbes of Callander. The earl died on the continent.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE GLASGOW ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

NO. XII.

ON THE ORIGIN, CORONATION, AND JURISDICTION OF THE LORD LYON KING OF ARMS:

BY

SHERIFF STRATHERN.

[Read at a Meeting of the Society held at Glasgow on 14th January, 1861.]

It is not within the limits of the subject on which I propose to enter, to consider the origin or purposes of armouries at any considerable length, the more especially as a very excellent paper has already been read in this Society, wherein several of the peculiarities of heraldry have been treated. But I find it impossible to omit some reference to this interesting theme as introductory to my prelection, although I disavow all pretension to skill in the art of armoury, and simply submit, as a gleaner, the fruits of my reading.

The early enthusiastic writers on heraldry ascribe to it a very ancient origin indeed, and have expended both learning and illtemper in the vindication of their opinions. Thus we are gravely assured by a writer of the fifteenth century that heraldic ensigns were primarily borne by the "hierarchy of the skies." "At hevyn,” says the author of the Boke of St. Albans, “I will begin where were V. orderis of aungelis, and now stand but IV., in cote armoris of knawlege, encrowned ful hye with precious stones, where Lucifer, with mylionys of aungelis, owt of hevyn fell into hell and oyder places, and ben holdyn ther in bondage; and all (the remaining angels) were erected in hevyn of gentill nature."

The gentility of the great ancestor of our race is stoutly contended for, and, that his claim to that distinction might not want support, Sylvanus Morgan, an imaginative armorist of the seventeenth century, in his scarce work, The Sphere of Gentry deduced from the Principles of Nature, has assigned to Adam two coats of arms-one as borne in Eden-(where he neither used, nor needed coat for covering nor arms for defence) and another suited to his condition after the fall. The first was a plain red shield, decorated, in the language of