Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Setoun of Meldrum, John Leslie of Wardes, William Leslie of Balquhain, Alexander Leslie of that Ilk, and thair accomplices, to the number of 80 spears or thereby, at the solicitation of John Collisone elder, who was an inhabitant and burgess, attacked the town under silence of night, and slew and wounded a considerable number of the citizens.i Some proceedings followed on this camisado, but the dispute was settled by mutual arbiters; and in 1627, we find that Leslie of Balquhain and Leslie of Wardes, in presence of the Lord Justice and componitouris, became bound, for themselves and kin, that the town should not be molested by them in time coming.2 The causes of this outrage have hitherto not been well understood. From some of the ordinances and statutes enacted by the community at the time, it appears quite clear that the disputes took their rise from the interference of the country barons with the elections of the provost, and other municipal officers of the burgh, under the pretence of their having tacks of part of the town's freedom-lands, and also being honorary burgesses of the town. These statutes are contained in a volume (apparently the original manuscript) now in the General Register House at Edinburgh, (where it was recently discovered,) which, as appears from another entry, was called the town's " Buk of Statutis " In this volume alone many of the statutes passed by the community in the early part of the sixteenth century are to be found, as they were not engrossed in the Council Register. On 26th May, 1525, The baill body of the guid tonne, reuoluand and considerand quhow thair honorable progeni- touris hes leuit as the kingis frie burgesses thir mony yeiris bygane, past memorie of man, quhen thai haf bene diuers and mony tymes inuadit boytht be lordis and ge...