[3][6] The word benison means "blessing" and, according to the founders, the club's name came from a story about King James V, "the Gude-man of Ballangeich", who: "in the disguise of a bagpiper, was journeying to the East Neuk of Fife.
Failing to cross the Dreel Burn, in spate, a buxom gaberlunzie lass came to the rescue, tucked up her petticoats, and elevated her Sovereign across her hurdies to the opposite bank.
[8] The club's members, drawn from the upper classes of society, dined and drank together, exchanging obscene songs and toasts.
When thus ready he was escorted with four puffs of the Breath-Horn before the Brethren or Knighthood, and was ordered by the Sovereign to place his Genitals upon the Testing Platter, which was covered with a folded white napkin.
Thereafter the special Glass, with the Society's Insignia thereon and Medal attached, was filled with Port Wine, when the new Brother's health was heartily and humorously drunk, he was told to select an amorous Passage from the Song of Solomon and to read it aloud.
[13] The club was dissolved in 1836; some of its papers and relics were retained by one of the last members, Matthew Foster Connolly, burgh clerk of Anstruther Easter and Wester, who left them to his son-in-law the Reverend Dr J.F.S.
In 1892 an unknown author published Records of the Most Ancient and Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther with photographs of many of the relics.
In 2002 David Stevenson, emeritus professor of history at the University of St Andrews, published a scholarly book on the Beggar's Benison.