power, although he brought all his great resources to bear on the castle. At length, through exhaustion and famine, and the effect of Edward’s battering engines, the garrison capitulated, and Olifurd was sent a prisoner to the Tower. He was one of the forty noblemen who, at Arbroath Abbey in 1320, signed the famous protest against papal encroachment. Sir William Olifurd is thus entitled to be regarded as one of the heroes of his country, and his tomb deserves all the care that can be bestowed on it. It lay over his grave in the church of Aberdalgie, and when that structure (not a stone of which now remains) was taken down it lay exposed to the weather for about seven years afterwards. In 1780 it was protected by a great stone slab being placed over it as a roof. This slab is only raised about 12 inches above the monument, so that it is with great difficulty it can be seen. The figure is really in better preservation than it appears in the drawing, but it is hardly possible to make out more of the carving. The stone roof above it is very insecure, and ought to be attended to; and some better defence is needed, as the action of the weather is causing the monument to scale off, and all the architectural decoration will very soon disappear. The slab requires protection from the sun as much as from the rain. The Sketch shows that the north or left side, which is in the shade of the stone roof, is better preserved than the south or right side, the former not being subject to so great an alternation of wet and dry as the latter. The monumental slab is in one stone, and measures 8 feet 2½ inches long by 4 feet 4 inches wide, and is 6½ inches thick, so that the figure is about life size. The face is quite destroyed. The canopy over the figure, which is engraved in the stone, is the best preserved part. This consists of three cusped arches. Beneath each side arch there is a shield; the one on the sinister side bears the Oliphant arms, the other is almost effaced. The side borders have been very richly carved. They are each divided into four niches, all of which have contained figures, but only one of them is now entire. The border on the dexter side is almost all gone. All round the stone there has been a raised inscription, of which only a letter or two at top and bottom now remain, and these will, doubtless, soon scale away. At the four corners the inscription has been blocked by the emblems of the evangelists, of which only a part of the emblem of St. Mark now remains, and this is so fragile that it might be picked away with the finger. There has also been some kind of geometrical figure in the centre of the inscription, only the beginning of which remains on one side. This is one of the finest of the few incised monuments which remain in Scotland. CREICH CHURCH, FIFESHIRE. The ruins of this church stand in an old churchyard, overshadowed by trees, not far from the ancient Castle of Creich,[192] and about six miles north-west from Cupar.