Scotland. At that time the Society could not have acquired it; but fortunately their intervention was not necessary for its preservation. On the failure of the older line, by the death of this youth, the relic passed into the hands of a younger brother of Malice Doire's. His son removed to Glenartney, where the Quigrich was again seen by Dr Jamieson, and was described by him in his edition of Barbour's Bruce. Archibald Dewar removed from Glenartney to Balquhidder, where he rented a sheep-farm; but having suffered heavy losses at the close of the French war in 1815, he emigrated to Canada, where he died, aged seventy-five.

His son, Alexander Dewar, the last of the hereditary dewars of the Crosier, is a hale old man of eighty-eight, in comfortable circumstances, the patriarch of a new race of Dewars, rejoicing in upwards of thirty grandchildren, and nephews and nieces innumerable. It is in consequence of his desire to see the ancient relic returned to Scotland before he dies, and placed in the National Museum at Edinburgh, 'there to remain in all time coming for the use, benefit, and enjoyment of the Scottish nation,' that the Society of Antiquaries has been enabled, partly by purchase and partly by his donation, to acquire the Quigrich, the most remarkable of all existing relics associated with the early history of the Scottish nation.

It was five centuries old before the light of authentic record reveals it in 1336 in possession of the dewar Cogerach, and since then it can be traced uninterruptedly in the line of the Dewars for five hundred and forty years. 'Its associations with the Scottish monarchy,' says Dr Daniel Wilson, 'are older than the Regalia, so sacredly guarded in the castle of Edinburgh; and its more sacred memories carry back the fancy to the primitive missionaries of the Christian faith, when the son of St Kentigerna, of the royal race of Leinster, withdrew to the wilderness of Glendochart, and there initiated the good work which has ever since made Strathfillan famous in the legendary history of the Scottish Church.'