The Literary Correspondence of John Pinkerton, Esq (Volume 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MR. ROBERT VANS AGNEW TO MR. PINKERTON. Monmouth, Oct. 30th, 1797. Having lately read with much pleasure and instruction your History of Scotland, and joining in the wish, which I believe to be very general, that you may be induced, not only to write the more early part, but to continue it on to the period when a union blended the two kingdoms into one, I use the liberty to trouble you with this letter, to inform you that I am possessed of a good many original letters from Queen Mary and her two husbands, Francis of France and Darnley, from the Regent, and from King James the Sixth; as also from some of the principal men of Scotland at that time, to the lairds of Barnbarroch, my ancestors. These letters begin in 1559 and continue on till 1618, being ninety-three in number. I do not think that any thing very essential will be found in the letters; but they may serve to ascertain some dates, and give a curious picture of the manners of the times. From particular circumstances, the old papers of my family have lain for a great number of years in a neglected state. In the course of the examination which I have now caused to be made of them, some other curious papers have already been found; and it Sir Patrick Vans of Barnbarroch, in the county of Wig- ton, knight, married the daughter of Gilbert, third earl of Cassillis, about the middle of the 16th century. is hoped that more will appear. A journal kept by Sir Patrick Vans when he went ambassador to Denmark, of which we have as yet only found a part, is curious; and there is a very intimate letter from the Earl of Gowrie addressed to his brother, the laird of Barnbarroch, and dated the 6th of August, 1582, at Ruthven Castle, which shows that at that time he had no thoughts of the enterprise which he executed afterwards...