CHANCELLOR,
a surname derived from the office of that name, and supposed to have
come from France at the Norman conquest with the Somervilles. A family
of great antiquity named Chancellor have held the lands of Shieldhill
and Quothquhan in Lanarkshire for more than four centuries, as appears
from a charter of confirmation still extant granted by Thomas Lord
Somerville to one of their ancestors, dated 6th March 1434.
In the ‘Memorie of the Sommervilles,’ it is stated that a firm
friendship subsisted between the house of Lord Somerville and the family
of Chancellor of Shieldhill and Quothquhan as early as the time of
Robert the Bruce, in 1317. In July 1474, William Chancellor rode with
the rest of the third Lord Somerville’s vassals, to meet King James the
Third on his way from Edinburgh to Cowthally castle, to partake of the
festivity of the “speates and raxes.” [See SOMERVILLE, Lord.] In 1567,
William Chancellor of Shieldhill joined the adherents of Queen Mary at
Hamilton, after her escape from Lochleven, and fought for her at the
battle of Langside, in consequence of which his mansion-house at
Quothquhan was soon afterwards burnt down by a party of horsemen, sent
out by the victorious regent Murray to demolish the houses of those who
had remained faithful to his unfortunate sister. The residence of the
family was then removed to Shieldhill, its present site. After the
battle of Bothwell-bridge, James Chancellor of Shieldhill was imprisoned
on suspicion of having harboured some of the fugitive insurgents, but
nothing being proved against him he was liberated after some days
confinement. The same gentleman was returned as elder by the presbytery
of Biggar to the first General Assembly which met after the revolution
of 1688.
Of this
name, Chancellor, was a celebrated English navigator, of the sixteenth
century, who was the means of establishing the Russian Company.
