[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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PKESTWICK DRUM.
An' sic, alas ! has been the lot
0' Prest'ick ancient drum.
These lines, which possess much of the simplicity of ancient times, >
appeard in the Ayr and Wigtonshire Courier upwards of twenty
years ago. We, however, do not know the author. The following \
note was appended to them :— " The original charter of Prestwick is \
now lost, but is referred to in the renewed grant by James VI. of
Scotland.
Bruce having at first been unsuccessful, after passing some
time in exile, re-appeared in Arran, and crossing the Frith, landed on
Prestwick shore, where the inhabitants joined his standard in considerable
force ; for which service the king was pleased to erect their
into a barony, with a jurisdiction extending from the water of
Ayr to the water of Irvine."
It is a popular belief, both among the freemen of Prestwick and the
freemen of Newton-upon-Ayr, that they obtained their privileges from
^
Robert the Bruce, in consequence of their services during the war of ^^
independence. There may be some foundation for this belief; but, in
the case of Prestwick at least, it is certain that the right of jurisdicdiction,
alluded to in the foregoing note, was conferred before the
days of Bruce. " The charter of James VI., in 1600, would carry
it back to the reign of Kenneth III., but there is no probability that
these pretensions rested on any authority other than vague tradition,
and the puerile taste with which this prince ever sought to
array himself in the visionary plumes of fabulous antiquity. The family
of Stewart, whose origin has been traced to an Anglo-Norman
descent, obtained possession of this division of Kyle, which has ever
since been contradistinguished by the addition of their name,*
about the middle of the twelfth century ; and it is not improbable
that its erection into a burgh may have been consequent on such separation
of the bailiwick. It is at least pretty certain, tha.t from
about this time the burgh of Prestwick became the juridical seat of
the barony or bailiwick of Kyle- Stewart, whilst the burgh of Ayr
remained as the seat of authority in that of Kyle-Regis, certainly the
residuary portion of the original district. From the time of Wil-
* Kyle-Stewart.
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