More than any other of the Scottish border towns, Peebles has a right to talk of "royalty." A royal poet has sung of her Beltane Feast the evidence is at least as much for, as against, acceptance of the time-honoured {337}belief that King James I was author of "Peblis to the Play." Professor Veitch strongly favours that conclusion. And unbroken tradition points to the King as the author. From earliest times the town was a favourite residence of the Scottish monarchs, and to this day its place-names, such as King's Meadows, King's House, King's Orchards, for example, suggest royal traditions. The Burgh Records of Peebles, go back very far--to October 1456, in the reign of James II. It is a town of much interest and of much beauty, beautiful especially as regards its situation and surroundings, and there are still in it many remains that speak eloquently of the past. There is the old five-arched stone bridge, dating from about 1467, altered, of course, and widened since that date, but still the same old bridge. Until the erection of the bridge at Berwick early in the seventeenth century, I suppose that this was the only one spinning Tweed in all its course. Then there Is the ancient Cross of Peebles, which, after various vicissitudes and excursions, at length stands once more on the spot where it was originally placed. It is said by the writer of the Statistical Account of the Parish to have been "erected by one of the Frasers of Neidpath Castle, before the time of Robert the Bruce, and bears the arms of the Frasers." There are still to be seen within the burgh the ruins of the Cross Church, and of the Church of St. Andrew. The former got its name from the fact that in May, 1261, "a magnificent and venerable cross was found at Peblis," which was supposed to have been buried close on a thousand years before that date. Shortly after the unearthing of this cross, there was found near the same spot a stone urn, containing ashes and human bones, and on a stone the words carved: "The place of St. Nicholas the Bishop." On account of the miracles which were reputed to have been wrought where the cross was discovered, Alexander III caused a church to be erected on the spot, "in honour of God, and of the Holy Rood." This Cross Church in some unexplained way escaped practically unscathed during {338}the English invasion of 1548-49, and from 1560 till 1784 it served as the Parish Church--deprived, no doubt, of many an interesting relic of the past. At the last-named date, our zealous forefathers, _more majorum_, pulled it down--all but a fragment--in order, out of the material so obtained, to build a new Parish Church. (They had in those times a perfect genius for wrecking the beautiful and interesting, and for erecting the ugly and the dull.)