Page:Historical ballad of May Culzean (2).pdf/2



The historical ballad of May Culzean is supposed to founded on fact. There certainly was a Lady of that name, who lived in Carrick, and who is represented as a woman of extraordinary virtue and heroism, and who, we are led to believe, was a beautiful woman, and this Sir John, being of the order of Dominican Friars, has great authority in the country, probably about Carrick.

This order of Friars was first instituted at Ayr, by King Alexander the second, in the year 1230, when he built the church of St. John the Baptist in the citadel Ayr. This establishment was confirmed by King Robert Bruce, in the year 137 No doubt the order of Friars was soon extended all over the country, and particularly at Maybole, about nine miles from Ayr, where they built a very great church connected with an establishment of the