, the heir-female.
This happened in 1436, and it cost the King his life the following year
at the hands of Robert Graham, uncle and tutor of the young heir,
Malise, who was still detained as a hostage in England in security for
the payment of the King's ransom. But the impulse had been given;
though dead, the reformer King still spoke to the nation, and in 1442
James II, and his Parliament declared that the Earldom had fallen to
the Crown. In 1455 it was enacted that all regalities in the King's
hands should be annexed to the royalty, and subject to the King's
Court. This action in Scotland had the support of the Murray faction.
They had come to see the futility of any attempt upon the Stewardship.
In the year 1474--the very year in which Maurice Keir Drummond of
Concraig had parted with lands and office to his kinsman, the Laird of
Cargill--Sir William Murray of Tullibardine obtained from King James
III. a discharge or dishonouration of the Seneschalship of Strathearn.
The effect of this was that his person and his lands were emancipated
from the jurisdiction of the Steward's Court. This example was
followed by the Laird of Abercairny, who held a tack of the lands of
Tullichettle, which Sir William Stirling of Keir, the granter, was
called on to warrant. In 1483, the Laird of Abercairny, Humphrey
Murray, appeared at the Stayt of Crieff and withdrew his
suit--"_Levavit sectam suam de predicta curia_," which was transferred
by Crown charter to the King's Sheriff Court at Perth. Thus terminated
the jurisdiction of the Earls Palatine of Strathearn. It was followed
up by a declaration of date 16th February, 1505, to the effect that
"the Baroneys of new create and maid within the King's Earldom of
Strathearn within thir three years bipast" were released of all service
in the Steward Court of the King's Earldom of Strathearn. Such service
was now due to the King's Sheriff Court of Perth "in all times to cum."

In giving this rapid sketch of the early history of Crieff, I have
followed mainly the guidance of the writer of a historical introduction
to a little book entitled _The Beauties of Upper Strathearn_. For the
short account of the Skait of Crieff, I am indebted to one or two
articles in the _Strathearn Herald_, written by the late H. B. Farnie,
on the 17th and 24th days of November, 1860, just when the trenching
and levelling were in full swing. We must now turn to the later period
during which Crieff tasted th