been victualled upon feudal principles; for each parish in the stewartry was burdened with the yearly payment of a lardner mart cow, i.e. a cow fit for being killed and salted at Martinmas, for winter provisions.  The right of levying these cattle was retained by the Nithesdale family, when they sold the castle and estate, in 1704, and they did not cease to exercise it till their attainder.—­Fountainhall’s Decisions, Vol.  I. p. 688.

This same castle of the Thrieve was, A.D. 1451-2, the scene of an outrageous and cruel insult upon the royal authority.  The fortress was then held by William VIII.  Earl of Douglas, who, in fact, possessed a more unlimited authority over the southern districts of Scotland, than the reigning monarch.  The earl had, on some pretence, seized and imprisoned a baron, called Maclellan, tutor of Bombie, whom he threatened to bring to trial, by his power of hereditary jurisdiction.  The uncle of this gentleman, Sir Patrick Gray of Foulis, who commanded the body-guard of James II., obtained from that prince a warrant, requiring from Earl Douglas the body of the prisoner.  When Gray appeared, the earl instantly suspected his errand.  “You have not dined,” said he, without suffering him to open his commission:  “it is ill talking between a full man and a fasting.”  While Gray was at meat, the unfortunate prisoner was, by Douglas’s command, led forth to the court-yard and beheaded.  When the repast was finished, the king’s letter was presented and opened.  “Sir Patrick,” says Douglas, leading Gray to the court, “right glad had I been to honour the king’s messenger; but you have come too late.  Yonder lies your sister’s son, without the head:  you are welcome to his dead body.”  Gray, having mounted his horse, turned to the earl, and expressed his wrath in a deadly oath, that he would requite the injury with Douglas’s heart’s blood.—­“To horse!” cried the haughty baron, and the messenger of his prince was pursued till within a few miles of Edinburgh.  Gray, however, had an opportunity of keeping his vow; for, being upon guard in the king’s anti-chamber at Stirling, when James, incensed at the insolence of the earl, struck him with his dagger, Sir Patrick rushed in, and dispatched him with a pole-axe.  The castle of Thrieve was the last of the fortresses which held out for the house of Douglas, after their grand rebellion in 1553.  James II. writes an account of the exile of this potent family, to Charles VII. of France, 8th July, 1555; and adds, that all their castles had been yielded to him, Excepto duntaxat castro de Trefe, per nostres fideles impraesentiarum obsesso; quod domino concedente in brevi obtinere speramus.—­Pinkerton’s History, Appendix, Vol.  I. p. 486.—­See Pitscottie’s History, Godscroft, &c.

And most part of his friends were, there,—­P. 269. v. 3.  The ancestor of the present Mr. Maxwell of Broomholm is particularly mentioned in Glenriddell’s MS. as having attended his chieftain in his distress, and as having received a grant of lands, in reward of this manifestation of attachment.