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The materials of the present volume, all taken from the charter-room at
Taymouth, have been selected more with the view of illustrating the
antiquities of the Central Highlands, and the modes of life and thought of
their inhabitants in the old time, than for any purpose of public national
history, or for the genealogy and antiquities of the family of Breadalbane.
But that family having so long borne sway in the district, their personal
affairs are to some extent mixed up with all local history; and a general
acquaintance with the early descents of House of Glenurchy is necessary for
the full understanding of the materials now brought together first
article. It is here brought together as the first article of our collection.
The "Black Book ok Taymouth," has been long known and
used as an authority in the Highlands. It is now for the first time printed
from the MS. of its author, Master William Bowie, who seems to have
discharged the double duty of family notary and pedagogue to the grandsons
of Sir Duncan Campbell, the seventh laird of Glenurchy. He dedicates his
work to his patron, in the month of June 1598, and though he lived to add
some matter of subsequent date, the conclusion, coming down to 1648, seems
written by a different hand. His chief object was to record the successive
acquisitions of property.
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