Perthshire in bygone days

BONNIE MARGARET DRUMMOND. 597
known as genealogist of the family. Principal Monro of
Edinburgh preached his funeral sermon, which was pub-
lished in Edinburgh five years afterwards. Hearers of
sermons in these highly evangelical days will be startled
by the following quotation : —
My Lords and Gentlemen, — So far have I discoursed of this con-
solatory argument to ease our minds upon this sorrowful occasion.
But you see another text — viz., the earthly remains of the noble
Viscount of Strathallan. The generous inclinations he derived from
his ancestors began to appear very early : a family too well known in
Britain for everything that is great, ancient, loyal, and generous, to
need any particular descant of mine," &c, &c.
This Viscount Strathallan was the grandson of James, first
Lord Madderty, and great grandson of Lady Margaret
Stuart, daughter of James the Fourth and Bonnie Mar-
garet Drummond.
CHAPTEB III.
BONNIE MABGABET DBUMMOND— continued.
" Full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of
this ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night can only clear away." —
Chables Dickens.
After a lapse of nearly four centuries, it would be pre-
sumptuous to attempt setting up any unimpeachable theory
of the life and character of Lord Drummond's daughter,
commonly styled " bonnie Margaret ; " but there can be no
presumption in examining, in 1879, what was written in
1824. Mr. Fraser Tytler's History of Scotland has attained
wide popularity, but that is no conclusive evidence of its
veracity ; and it will not be difficult to show that the por-
tion of it which applies to this ill-starred young lady, her
sovereign, and her father, is not only absurdly wrong in its
statement of facts, but one-sided in its inferences and un-
scholarly in construction.
First — at page 20 of volume iv. (first edition), this sentence
occurs : —
The marriage treaty was concluded and signed in the palace of