KiLMARNOOK though now the greatest manufacturing town in Ayrshire is of no note in history ; even of him from whom it derives its name tradition furnishes us with but a frail memorial. St. Marnock is said to have died here about the beginning of the fourth century. But Kilmarnock is unnoticed in the annals of our country until nearly a thousand years later, and even then it is mentioned, not as a town, but as a territorial possession, conferred by Robert Bruce on his devoted follower Sir Robert Boyd. Prior to this it had been the property of Balliol, Edward's nominee to the Scottish throne, on whose fall it was thus gifted by his more successful and
more patriotic competitor.
