The original collection belonged to John Richardson of Pitfour (later Sir John Stewart-Richardson) who lent it to Peter Buchan for the compilation of his ‘Ancient ballads and songs of the North of Scotland’. Buchan intended to use it in the third volume of his work which was never completed. His extracts from it are contained in British Library, Add.MS.29409, folios 256-277; the whereabouts of the original is not known.

The paper is watermarked 1823.

The writers of the poems are not named, but the collection includes work by Alexander Montgomerie, Alexander Scott, Thomas Campion and others. A list of those items published by E H Fellowes in ‘English madrigal verse, 1588-1632’ has been inserted.