III. _The Commission to Sir John Maitland, the Chancellor, and Sir Lewis Bellenden, Justeis Clerk, and to Sir Patrik Ballentyne 1587_, to “enquire into the complaints against Lord Robert Stewart, lait Erle of Orkney, and James Stewart of Græmsay, his natural son,” is printed from the original MS., authenticated by the signature of Andro Elleis, Clerk to the Privy Council. This Commission was previously published in the Antiquarian Magazine, October 1848, by Mr. George Petrie, the most diligent and useful of Orkneyan Antiquaries, but by his kind permission is again presented to the public in a form more lasting and accessible. IV. _The Supplication to the Parliament be the Gentilmen of Orkney and Zetland (1592)_, is printed from a _Doubill_ of the same period among my own papers, and is inserted, not so much for the sake of any information derivable from the statements of these _Udack_ pretenders to Odal[1] rights, as to illustrate the ignorance which so rapidly effaced all Odal traditions even in Orkney, and to share with others my enjoyment of the pleasant “Measure for Measure” exhibited in the complaints of Laurence Bruce as a victim of oppression. Footnote 1: For etymological reasons, I prefer the terms ODAL and ODALLER to the more usual but less correct forms of UDAL and UDALLER. I have endeavoured to elucidate a subject so interesting to my countrymen, but so inaccurately understood even by those best acquainted with the general history of Scotland, by prefixing some introductory notices, adding an explanatory and etymological Glossary of unusual terms, and appending the Complaints of the Orkneyans against David de Meinars (Menzies of Weem) 1427, from the _Orcades_ of Torfæus, and a Sketch of the early Survey and Valuation, Rentals, Weights, and Measures of the Islands. I had intended to add a number of documents illustrative of Odal Law, Succession and Pedigree; of Things, Oaths, and Umbothskap; of the Conveyance, Assedation, Impignoration, and Redemption of Land; of the Transition from Norse to Scottish law, language and thought; and of the Oppressions and Assumptions of the Stewart Earls of Orkney. But the growing mass of such materials, and the difficulty of rejection or selection, where all seemed to me so interesting, have compelled me to forego so large an addition to a volume already unduly extended. BALFOUR, _31st December 1858_. INTRODUCTION.