The Barony of Auchterarder remained Crown property until the time of King Robert the Bruce. King Alexander II., by charter, dated at Cluny, the 13th day of August, in the eleventh year of his reign (1227), granted to the Canons of the Abbey of Inchaffray the teind of his duties of Auchterarder to be drawn yearly by the hands of his tacksmen and bailies of Auchterarder. In 1296, Edward I. invaded Scotland with 5000 armed horse and 30,000 footmen. He passed the River Tweed on 28th March, and continued his progress until 24th April, when he routed the Scots at Dunbar with great slaughter. He continued his triumphant progress northwards, resting at various places. We are told that "on the Thursday he went to Stirling, and they who were within the Castle fled, and none remained but the porter, who surrendered the Castle, and there came the Earl of Strathearn 'to the peace,' and there tarried the King five days. On the Wednesday before the Feast of St. John (20th June) the King passed the Scottish sea, and lay at Auchterarder, his Castle; on the Thursday, at St. John of Perth, a good town, and there abode Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; this same day was John the Baptist's Day." His progress and the places at which he stayed are circumstantially narrated in the Itinerary from which we quote. He returned to Berwick on 22nd August, and the chronicler adds--"And he conquered the realm of Scotland, and searched it, as is above written, within twenty-one weeks without any more."[1] Attention is directed to the terms of the words of the Norman French Itinerary in reference to the King having taken up his residence in Auchterarder Castle. "_Le Mescredy devaunt Seint Johne passa le roi le Mere d'Escoce et jut a Outreard, son chastelle._" Reference is made in the narrative to many other castles in which the King lay, but only in this instance is the castle stated to have belonged to him. This is conclusive evidence that the Castle was the property of the Crown, and that the King took up his abode in it as such. The halting of Edward I. with his army at Auchterarder was not the only occasion upon which Auchterarder received an embattled host. In 1332 the Scottish army of Donald, the Earl of Mar, 30,000 strong, lay at Auchterarder previous to the disastrous Battle of Dupplin,[2] and in 1559 the army of the Dowager Queen Mary, under the Duke of Hamilton and Monsieur d'Osel, lay there, prepared to encounter the Lords of the Congregation.[3] The most disastrous military visit and the last was when the Earl of Mar, in 1716, burnt the town.