Page:The ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland ( Volume 3).djvu/13

 *ture observable in the later work may have been due to the foreign artists introduced at the time. We might, in view of the above circumstances, have given this remark a wider scope, so as to apply to such works as those above referred to and similar examples.

There is abundant evidence in the Exchequer Rolls that French master-masons were employed by James and Thus the Merliouns, a distinguished family of French master-masons, were in the royal service at Stirling in 1496, and members of the family are found at Linlithgow, Dunbar, Ravenscraig, Perth Church, &c. Latterly the king's French master-mason became a regular court appointment, and the office was held by several Frenchmen.

This importation of foreign artists may perhaps account for some of the exceptionally good examples, especially in connection with places favoured by royalty; but a good deal of time would necessarily elapse before such work could become general. Hence the revival was limited, while the architecture generally gradually deteriorated or changed to Renaissance.

The monument of Bishop Kennedy, in St. Salvator's, St. Andrews (a design undoubtedly superior to the general Scottish work of the period), is probably a French example. both in design and execution.

Mr. Chalmers lays stress on the influence of Queen Margaret's marriage to James as probably having produced some of the imitations of English perpendicular work found at Melrose and Linlithgow, and this may possibly have been the case.

In a review of Vol. in the Glasgow Herald attention