clearing up a couple of points.
I mentioned earlier :
"I strongly suspect the documents themselves are those which have been published by the Spalding club as part of a 4 volume work but note these are in the original latin."
The 4 volume work is the 'Antiquities of the shire of Aberdeen and Banff"
In "The Society of Advocates in Aberdeen" page 238
Kyng, Andrew 1568
Burgess of Aberdeen, Burgh agent *
Died Subsequent to October, 1617
* Cooper's "Cartularium Ecclesiae Sanct Nicholai," vol 2 p295
That Kyng's surroundings were not always of the most peaceful character is show in the following extract from the Kirk and Bridge Work Accounts - "1549, August 13th - Andro Meldrum wes sclane in Andro Kyng yard, and bureit in ye kirk."
That was the advocate and killing I referred to earlier BUT that isn't the same killing that's referred to in other works
New item
There are lists of burgesses of Aberdeen which include mention of an Alexander King e.g.
Alexander King, burgess
witness to a charter 16th May 1518
Alexander King, sergeant
witness to charter
31st Jan 1540
sadly no context with which to associate him with the Kings of Barra though there is mention later of a John King brother of General Sir James King, a Lt Col James King and oddly a Hans Jacob King
Regarding the reliability of the peerage work, I've no idea but like everything else it would be limited to what information was available/known to the author and how true that information actually was.
S_L