[188] We only know of this act from its being alluded to in the Privy Council Record.
[189] Cosmo Innes’s Preface to the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, 1844.
[190] Thomson’s Scottish Acts, xi., App. p. 139.
[191] See under March 1652.
[192] In the parish of Aberdour, on the north coast of Aberdeenshire, is the house of Auchmedden, once belonging to a family named Baird. A local writer in 1724 reports that, among some high rocks near the Auchmedden millstone quarry, ‘there is an eagle’s nest; and the pair which breed there have continued in that place time out of mind, sending away their young ones every year, so that there is never more stays but the old pair.’[193] ‘At one period,’ says a writer of our own day, ‘there was a pair of eagles that regularly nestled and brought forth their young in the rocks of Pennan; but, according to the tradition of the country, when the late Earl of Aberdeen purchased the estate from the Bairds, the former proprietors, the eagles disappeared, in fulfilment of a prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer, “that there should be an eagle in the crags while there was a Baird in Auchmedden.” But the most remarkable circumstance, and what certainly appears incredible, is, that when Lord Haddo, eldest son of the Earl of Aberdeen, married Miss Christian Baird of New Byth, the eagles returned to the rocks, and remained until the estate passed into the hands of the Hon. William Gordon, when they again fled, and have never since been seen in the country. These facts, marvellous as they may appear, are attested by a cloud of famous witnesses.’[194]
[193] View of Dio. of Aberdeen, Spal. Club, p. 447.
[194] New Stat. Acc. of Scot.
[195] See under May 21, 1650.
[196] See Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii., for a series of extracts.
[197] Life of Thomas Ruddiman, 117.