Vol 5 - Dumfriesshire & Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian ...

I'ra'usactions. 19than the date usually given. In the course o£ the ages prior tothis artistic structure, the stone bridge of the 13th century, thereevidently must have been some practical link of communicationconnecting the town and religious communities with their Troqueerlands on the opposite shore of the Nith, and the inhabitants ofGalloway generally speaking. We think it probable that someI'udely constructed bridge of wood may have preceded thisstructure.stoneThis supposition is rendered the more probable, seeingthat in 1609 a petition to thePrivy Council anent "the brig ofDrumfries, which the saidis Lordis knawis is a verrie large brigof mony bowis," the petitioners further allege and explain as tothe then threatened hindrance " of the ordinar passage over thewattir of Nith, sein na boat dar ga upon that wattar but in calmeand fair wedder in respect it has so swift and violent a course."From the earliest ages we find the Dumfriesians have cherished anamiable predilection in favour of this their "Auld Brig" of Dumfriesand of Nith, a predilection the depth of which, in the reignof King James the Sixth, manifests itself in the fervidly amiablelanguage and prayer of their petition anent its threatened ruin,as we may by and bye see in detail. The ancient King's town ofDumfries, as the great seat of the courts of law, of oldest timeheld within the Castle of Dumfries, with its monastery, mills,commerce, and shipping, must in a very real sense have been thenatural central capital town of the shire, as well as of a muchwider superficial area of a land in which towns were as few asfar between in the undeveloped ages of the history of Dumfriesand Galloway. As the shipping of the port of Dumfries on theNith is in some sort allied with the history of the Bridge of Nith,we here add what may to some extent be considered as one ofthe foundation vouchers of its descriptive limits and history, asthey were understood to have been in the first year of the reignof Henrie and Marie, King and Queen of Scots. We the morewillingly do so seeing that the preparatory narrative of the causeitself contains some interesting summary of the constitutionalhistory of the ancient Burghs Royal ofDumfries and Kirkcudbright,which although otherwise not unknown here receivespositive and ofiicial confirmation. We need hardly say that sofar as the Burgh of Kirkcudbright is concerned no older surnameoan tliere well have been there than that of the Maclelland ofBombie, which is associated with the narrative of their BurghalCharter, dated Perth, 26th October, 1455, wherein the reigning