| Description | Letter written by William Robertson, Laigh Parliament House, Edinburgh on 22 February 1770 or 1779 to Rev. James Lawtie, minister of the Gospel at Fordyce, enclosing a transcript from the records of the Great Seal of charter erecting Fordyce into a Burgh of Barony. He states that the original charter is now lost and suggests that the transcription be inserted into the kirk Session records for preservation as it is unlikely that anyone else after his brother and himself should have access to or custody of these records for very many years. "My brother and I mean this as an inconsiderable Mark of Attention to the Place of our Nativity, to which we would with the highest Pleasure render a much more important Service if it were in our Power".
There then follows a copy of the charter of erection referred to dated ? granted by James IV, to Bishop William Elphinstone of Aberdeen at Stirling, 10 May 1499.
Appended are notes and an excerpt from a later charter of 20 April ? 1502 where the privileges of the Burgh of Barony of Fordyce are "more fully enumerated" and quotes a clause respecting aisle in the church at Fordyce.
There follows a comment [in another hand, perhaps that of Robertson's correspondent] stating this aisle is now called "Durns Aisle" where the scholars from Fordyce Academy sat after its foundation by Thomas Menzies. There is also given a quotation from a later letter by Robertson regarding this aisle from its foundation from 1516 onwards and the endowments transferred to the school by Thomas Menzies of Durn, some now lost and "the schoolmaster only retains of the original endowment the school, croft and a small feuduty in Fordyce". |