who was to have a house near the church where he might fitly entertain the bishop and the abbot of Arbroath when they should visit Inverness, and this vicar was to cause the church of Inverness and its chapels to be properly served. The endowment was small for so considerable a charge, but the altarages and other fees received at the chapels for the many offices of the pre-Reformation Church rendered a small endowment sufficient for the chaplains.

Before passing to the next charter, we had better refer to a transaction in 1258 of John Byset, son of the founder -John Byset the younger of 1244. He appears to have been remiss in providing that stone of wax for the cathedral of Elgin which his father had originally agreed to give the cathedral of Ross, and which had been handed over, somewhat without reference to the giver, by the Bishop of Ross to the Bishop of Moray. The bishop also appears to have claimed not only the tithe of the can of the lands of the Aird held by John Byset-the tithe of the can of all the king's lands in Moray having been granted by William the Lion to the church of the bishop in 1171-84-but also the can itself.* The bishop also claimed a davoch of the church land of Conveth, and a davoch in Ross, called Erchless, which John Byset claimed as belonging to his fee of the Aird by hereditary right. The controversy was settled by the bishop surrendering his claims, which seem after the transactions that had taken place to have been unfounded, except the claim to the stone of wax; and taking in lieu of them a rent charge of 60 shillings, or three pounds' weight of silver, payable out of the lands of Wester Moniack.

It would seem from no mention being made of the connection of the church of Conveth with the Priory of Beauly that it had not yet been appropriated to the priory. We shall see hereafter that it was part of their possessions, and it is probable that the deed of arrangement of 1258 was made to enable John Byset the younger to give it to the priory. By 1275 it must have been appropriated, as it then had a vicar,† * Reg. Moray, pp. 133, 134. Theiner. Mon. Hib. et Scot., p. III.

the tenth of whose stipend was 9s. 4d., so that between these intervals the rectory was granted to some religious body, and probably to Beauly Priory, whose possession it afterwards was. John Byset is in this instrument of 1258 no longer called the younger as in 1244, and holds his property by descent and not, as John Byset the founder did, by grant from the Crown. John, founder of Beauly, had died in Ireland, leaving Agatha, his widow, by whom he seems to have had a second family, who formed the clan Eoin, or Bysets of the Glens of Antrim.

Among the witnesses to the instrument are Dominus Laurentius et Robertus dicti Grant; and looking at the fact that William le Grant not long before had the Byset manor of East Bridgeford by marriage with the heiress, and that this is the first mention of the name, we may suppose that the Grants were brought to Scotland from England by John and Walter Byset on their return from the exile of 1242. Another witness is Robert Byset, probably the lord of Upsetlington.

The time of the death of John Byset the son, is accurately fixed by the inquisition of a jury in Ireland in 6 Edward I. (1278), who find that he died nineteen years before that date, or in 1259, and that he had before his death given dower to the Lady Agatha, his stepmother, and left three daughters his co-heiresses,-Cecilia, the wife of William de Fenton; Elizabeth, the wife of Andrew de Boscho; and Muriel, the wife of David de Graham. They must have been all married before 1268. Being heiresses, they probably married young. Their history is detailed in the charters.

In the Chamberlain Accounts, vol. i., p. 31, which range from 1263 to 1266, the Chamberlain accounts for four merks as the tenth of the Bishop of Moray of the fine imposed on the wife of John Byset. She was probably widow of John Byset the younger.

Among the records of Scotland delivered by King Edward I. to John Baliol in 1292 was a letter of William de Fenton, Andrew de Bosco, and David de Graham, acknowledging that they had received from William Wyscard, Archdeacon of St Andrews, chancellor of the king, those charters which

the late John Byset [filius* h militis junioris] had deposited in the Abbey of Jedburgh. As William Wyscard or Wishart ceased to be Archdeacon of St Andrews in 1268,† this transaction must have taken place before that year. The blank here preceding the words " militis junioris," when taken in connection with the epithet John Byset the younger, in the letter of confirmation of the Treaty of Ponteland in 1244, must be filled by the words "John Byset ;" and the entry seems to establish that the deeds were deposited by John Byset, a son of John Byset the younger; that on his death in 1259 John Byset the younger must have left a son and three daughters, and that the son died without issue, leaving the daughters co-heiresses of his father and himself; so that there were three John Bysets.

If Forsyth's account of the earliest writ to the family of Grant is correct, the third John Byset was witness to this writ, which was a grant to Robert le Grant about 1268 from John Prat, knight. If Chalmers § is correct, that Gregory le Grant married Mary, daughter of Byset of Lovat, she must have been the daughter of the first John Byset, founder of Beauly Priory.

Gregory le Grant was sheriff of Inverness in 1263,|| and the Grants certainly appear about 1345 to be in possession of Stratherrick, when they succeeded the Bysets; and looking at the circumstances of their introduction into the North, it is probable they obtained the lands of Stratherrick in marriage with a Byset.

* Act. Parl. Scot., vol. i., App. 18, pref., p. 17. There is no h now in the ori ginal which is zincographed by H. M. Treasury.

+ Crawford's Officers of State, p. 15. § Caledonia, vol. i., p. 596.

Forsyth's Moray, p. 20.

|| Chamberlain Accounts, vol. i., p. 21.

No. V.

CARTA MAGISTRI HENRICI DE TOTTYNGHAM PRIORI DE BELLO LOCO.

EX AUTOGRAPHO 1274.

Magister Henricus de Tottyngham erat Rector Ecclesia de Taruodal.

"Sciant præsentes et futuri hoc scriptum visuri vel audituri, quod cum mota esset controversia inter Priorem et Conventum Monasterii de Bello loco ex una parte, et Magistrum Henricum de Tottyngham Rectorem Ecclesiæ de Taruedal ex altera, sub omnibus querelis, petitionibus, controversijs, injurijs, et dampnis inter eos datis et habitis; tandem de consensu partium concorditer compromiserunt in venerabilem virum Archibaldum Archidiaconum Moraviensem Dei gratia tunc electum Kattanensem et Magistrum Radulphum dictum Reny Subdecanum Moraviensem, et Magistrum Thomam de Boch Canonicum ejusdem Ecclesiæ et fideliter consenserunt in eosdem fide data, in manibus prædicti Domini tunc electi, quod dictorum compromissariorum arbitrio starent de præmissis omnibus et singulis sub pœna centum Marcarum solvendarum parti nolenti a prædictorum arbitrio resilire. Ad quam pœnam si fuerint, quod absit, commissa, solvendam obligaverunt seipsos hinc inde, et omnia bona sua, mundana et Ecclesiastica, mobilia et immobilia, subjicientes se jurisdictioni Domini Archibaldi Archidiaconi Moraviensis Dei gratia tunc electi Kattanensis, quo de plano et sine strepitu judiciali per sententiam excommunicationis posset partem volentem resilire a prædicto arbitrio, compellere, sicut prædictum est, ad pænam supradictam solvendam. Renunciaverunt in super hinc inde litibus, processibus habitis et habendis, appellationibus interpositis et interponendis, coram quibuscunque Judicibus, nec non et litteris impetratis et impetrandis, super præmissis omnibus et singulis ab ordinario, seu delegatis Judicibus, seu ad ordinarios vel delegatos Judices. Renunciaverunt et privilegio cruce signatorum, et regiæ prohibitioni et constitutioni de duabus dietis, et omni Juris remedio tam Civilis quam Canonici. Tandem partibus præsentibus die Jovis infra octav. Epiphaniæ anno gratiæ Millesimo ducentesimo septuagesimo quarto

in Ecclesia Cathedrali de Elgyn, habito prudentium virorum consilio, quorum nomina inferius sunt expressa, dicti Arbitri in hunc modum sunt Arbitrati, viz., quod partes prænominatæ, omnibus querelis, petitionibus, contraversiis, injurijs et dampnis omnibus et singulis renunciaverunt et dicti Prior et Conventus haberent libere omnes decimas totius terræ suæ pertinentes ad ecclesiam de Taruedal, usque ad terminum octo annorum plenarie completorum: termino incipienti ad Pentecosten anno gratiæ milesimo ducentesimo septuagesimo quinto: Et quod dicti Prior et Conventus recipiant annuatim suis proprijs costis et expensis infra dictos octo annos, in quolibet anno, per dimidium annum dictum Magistrum Henricum cum duobus equis et duobus garcionibus, et quod dictus Magister Henricus fidele patrocinium cum expensis eorundem præstaret et similiter serviet fideliter eisdem Priori et conventui quotiescunque servitio ipsius indiguerint, usque ad terminum octo annorum plenarie completorum. In cujus rei firmum testimonium huic scripto sigilla dictorum arbitrorum sunt apposita hijs testibus Domino Willielmo Decano Moraviensi, Domino Waltero Sureys Officiali Moraviensi, Domino Roberto vicario de Duffhus, Domino Willielmo Priore de Pluscardyn, et Domino Roberto de Bosyll commonacho suo et multis alijs.”

Not. There are three Tags appended to the charter; to the middle one only is affixed a seal.

This charter explains and illustrates the note already printed from the transcript of the Wardlaw MS.

The MS. stated that in 1235 Gillichrist a Rosse gave and confirmed the Half Davoch Lands of Tarradale to the monks of Beauly. The monks retained the lands of Tarradale, at least that portion which is now called Kilchrist, to the dissolution; this was in the parish of Tarradale, of which there seems to have been a chaplain rector in 1240.*

It appears that a controversy had arisen between the Prior of Beauly and Master Henry of Tottingham or Nottingham, rector of the church of Tarradale, respecting the lands of the priory in Tarradale, which, by the judgment of Archibald, Archdeacon of Moray, and then bishop elect of Caithness, and others, was settled in the cathedral church of Elgin on ThursReg. Moray, p. 275.

*