It suffered no second burning, though the Highlanders had possession of it, and Prince Charlie held a stormy council of war in the old Drummond Arms, at the foot of Hill's Wynd. Since then, Crieff has become a "braw toon" without the other "singe" its Highland neighbours destined for it. The coming of the railway in 1856, and the adoption of the Police Act in 1864, have done wonders, enabling it to take full advantage of its many attractions. It was loyal to the Hanoverian dynasty during the troubles of the "'15" and the "'45"; but one hundred years before the last outbreak it gave a kindly welcome to Montrose, who entrenched himself very securely at Callum's Hill, having doubtless his headquarters at the house of his kinsman, Inchbrakie. We come now to look more closely at Crieff, when it set out upon its comparatively undistinguished career as a kirk-town. No doubt it felt the loss of the Court of the Steward of the Earl Palatine of Strathearn, just as the whole strath felt the want of the sunshine of the Royal favour after the murder of King James I. in the Blackfriars Monastery of Perth, at Christmastide, 1437. But though, doubtless, many forsook it, some remained, and there were kirk-lands near by for the maintenance of the Gospel. Conflicting interests began to stir in connection with these lands. When they come under our notice the kirk-lands of Crieff are attached to the Chapel Royal at Stirling. In "Ane Index of Rights of the Chappell and of their Bulls or Patents" we read, as one of the contents, "Applicatio prima fructuum de Air, Kincardin, Crieff, et Pettie Brachley." This seems to have been sanctioned by a Bull of Alexander VI., of date May 16th, 1502; and surely it is interesting to know that the kirk-lands of Crieff, Ayr, Kincardine, and Pettie Brachley--wherever that was--were allocated to the Chapel Royal at Stirling by the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI., one of the prime disgraces of the Chair of St. Peter. But the allocation did not pass unchallenged. Crieff had its perpetual pensionary vicar in those days, and naturally enough he could see neither rhyme nor reason in the arrangement which a Pope had no doubt sanctioned, but which completely ignored his interests. The name of the worthy vicar was Master John Broune,[1] a discreet man, as he is called in the public instrument in which the process is recorded, by means of which he got an augmentation of stipend. The instrument begins in this way:--