Church he was first, Archdeacon of Lothian, and afterwards Bishop of Glasgow.*
In the troubles times: that followed the death of Alexander IIL, Easter Duddingston seems to have changed hands, for in May 1290 we find Edward I. of England granting protection against proceedings for debt to ‘‘ William de Dodingstone, burgess of Edinburgh ;” and again in 1296, when the same monarch invaded Scotland to quell the ‘‘rebellion” of his vassal, John Baliol, among others who acknowledged his supremacy and swore allegiance, we have the name of ‘‘ Eleyne de Duddingston in the County of Edinburgh.”’
Whether this lady was a De Boscho, or represented the older family of the Dodins of that ilk it is impossible to determine.
After this, and for a period of one hundred and forty-five years, an impenetrable veil hides from us any knowledge as to the owners of the soil of Easter Duddingston, for no old parchments appear to have survived to let in a kindly ray of light.
The lands of Wester Duddingston were in all likelihood in early times an appanage of the Crown. As in the case of Easter Duddingston, the superiority was gifted to the Abbey of Kelso, founded by the liberality of David I. in 1128.
The gift included the Church with the Church lands ; and the interests of the Abbots in keeping periodical courts, exacting the service, and their receiving the annual feu-duty from tenants or vassals ‘‘in the chancel of their chapel in Duddingston,” were guarded by a local representative as their Baron Bailie. Thus in the time of Abbot Patrick (1258-75) we find that ‘‘Sir Simon de Preston, Knight, was made and constituted by the Abbot and his Chapter, the true and lawful Bailie of all the abbey lands lying within the barony of Duddingston.”
There were several small proprietors of ‘‘the lands and the town of Wester Duddingston,” of whom little but the names is known.
In 1311 Geoffry de Fressinglaye was proprietor of the barony or manor of Wester Duddingston. Having taken side with Robert the Bruce in the war with England, and the English King having established his authority over the greater part of the south of Scotland for a time, Fressinglaye, like many of the Scottish nobility, had his estates taken from him. An Act of Forfeiture was
