CARRUTHERS,
a surname derived from an ancient parish of the same name in
Dumfries-shire, which with Penersax was united to Middlebie in 1609, and
they now form one parish, under the latter name. On a height above the
site of the ancient hamlet of Carruthers stood a British fortlet whence
came the name Caer-rhythyr, ‘the fort of the assault.’ The lands of
Penersax (written also Penesax and Pennisax, vulgarized into Penersaughs,)
belonged in the fifteenth century to Kilpatrick of Dalgarnock, but
passed, in 1499, to Carruthers of Mousewald, and in the reign of James
the Sixth were acquired by the Douglases of Drumlanrig, the ancestors of
the dukes of Queensberry. A statue of Sir Simon Carruthers of Mousewald,
who married a daughter of that ducal house, lies in the aisle of the
parish church of Mousewald (originally Moswald, ‘the wood near the
moss’), its head pillowed, its feet on a lion, and its hands in the
elevated posture of supplication; but it has neither date nor
inscription. In ‘Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials,’ (vol. i. part I,) under
date, September 13, 1563, a bond is quoted as recorded in the Caution
Book (Liber Plegiacionis,) whereby Marion Carruthers, an heiress
of Mousewald, finds caution not to marry any chief traitor or other
‘broken’ man. One William Carruthers in Clonhede, was, January 26,
1508-9, convicted of transporting cattle to England (taken from the
laired of Newby), and of art and part of the slaughter at the same time
of Robert Hood and of an infant of two years old, as well as of the
burning of the place and mill of Newby, in company with Andrew Johnston
‘and the traitors of Leven,’ and was sentenced to be drawn and hanged,
and all his goods forfeited. The crime of sending, or ‘treasonably
outputting,’ as it was called, of cattle to England, was, in those days,
always visited with the severest punishments, as during the wars between
the two countries, frequent famines took place in Scotland; and the
constant force maintained on the borders led to the necessity of
bringing cattle from, rather than sending them to, the English counties.
On May 19, 1563, John Carruthers of Holmends (properly Holmains or
Howmains), George and William his sons, Edward Irvine of Bonshaw, David
Irvine of Robgill, and several others their accomplices, were indicted
for hurting Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, and slaying several persons whose
names were given; but the indictment appears to have been departed from.
On 18th March 1618 John Carruthers of Rammerscales, and
William Johnston, called of Lockerbie, were indicted for the slaughter
of Christopher Wigholme (now Wigham or Whigham), burgess of Sanquhar,
committed in June 1594, but the charge was not pressed against
Carruthers. For the slaughter of John Carruthers of Dormont, one Habbie
Rae in Mousewald and twenty-one others were put upon their trial, 3d
February 1619; but the case was remitted to the circuit court at
Dumfries, and the result is not recorded.
