Page:Annals of Duddingston and Portobello.pdf/75

42 Reference has already been made to the feudal superiority held by the Abbot of Kelso over the greater part of the parish. This continued for the long period of four hundred years—from the twelfth to the sixteenth century—when the superiority once more reverted to the Crown on the breaking up of the Abbey at the Reformation. During that period the Baronies of Easter and Wester Duddingston were held as separate and distinct properties.

To the charters granted by the Abbots at various times we are indebted for much of the family history that follows, and some of these, from the collection of original manuscripts made by the late Dr David Laing, now in the University Library, have not hitherto been published.*

The estate of Easter Duddingston, as we have seen, had been held through several generations in the family of the Dodins of Dodinestoun until about the years 1208-18. In the reign of William the Lion it had fallen into the hands of the De Boschos— a powerful family at that period. Reginald de Boscho had a grant made to him by Henry, Abbot of Kelso, which was confirmed by his successor Abbot Herbert (1221-36) to Reginald’s son, Thomas de Boscho, ‘‘The said Thomas and his heirs to hold the land in its parts and pastures, its mills and waters, and other liberties pertaining by right to the said lands of Easter Duddingston which Richard the son of Hugh had renounced, with half the peterie of Camerun,” in heritable feu, on payment of 10 merks of silver, ‘‘and doing the forensic service due to our Lord the King, and to us for the third of the town.” The ‘‘peterie” referred to was the peat moss, moor, or common, situated to the south of Prestonfield, near to Cameron Toll, now the green meadows through which the Suburban Railway passes, west of Duddingston Station.

Abbot Hugh, about fifteen years afterwards (1240-48) granted to Emma, the widow of this Thomas de Boschos, the custody of her son and heir, till he should arrive at lawful age, for which she paid twenty pounds of silver.†

The De Boschos held prominent posts in the Church and in the State at this time; one of them, Sir William de Boscho, being Lord Chancellor of the Kingdom to Alexander II.; while in the

by the University.
 * These are now, under the Editorship of Rev. J, Anderson, being published

Smaller