ATERIALS for framing a close consecutive history of the ancient owners of the soil previous to the sixteenth century are of the scantiest kind. The old civil records of Scotland suffered severely by the various invasions of the English, and particularly in the terrible invasion of 1544, when Edinburgh with the Palace and Monastery of Holyrood, and the whole surrounding district were laid in ashes by the Earl of Hertford. The seal and perseverance with which that work of destruction was carried on, leave but little reason to wonder at the loss of those public muniments which were not protected by the fortifications of the Castle. It is largely to private papers and monastic chartularies we owe any record of the transfer of land prior to this period.
The fluctuating and uncertain tenure of property, the result of the instability of Scottish affairs for three centuries preceding the union of the crowns, was undoubtedly unfavourable to the continued descent of heritable possessions, or the preservation of documentary evidence. On the Borders especially, wars, feuds, and forfeitures followed each other so fast, that few families proved sufficiently vigorous to take root and establish their influence.
With the advent of more settled government, and the practical union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in the person of James VI., came a better order of things. Some attempt was made at registration and to the preservation of titles to property, and though these old deeds are generally in Latin, and sometimes involved and obscure, still they are of the utmost value in tracing parochial history and family pedigrees, The lands of Duddingston parish may, generally speaking, be embraced under the two or three principal estates of Easter and Wester Duddingston and Prestonfield. We shall have occasion, however, in the course of our narrative, to refer to the neighbouring estates of Brunstane and Niddrie, and to several smaller properties.
