KIRKPATRICK,
anciently sometimes spelled Kilpatrick, a surname derived from
Cella Patricii, the church of Patrick, and the prefix of the name
of no less than four parishes in Galloway.
The ancient
family of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, who possess a baronetcy, have,
according to tradition, held lands in Nithsdale since the ninth
century. In the reign of David I., (1124-1153), Yvo Kirkpatrick was
witness to a charter of Robert Brus the competitor, lord of Annandale,
and Eufemia, his wife, granting the fishing of Torduff to the monks of
Holme Cultram. His grandson, also Yvo, obtained from Alexander II. a
charter of confirmation of the lands of Kilosburn, [from Cella
Osburni] which belonged formerly to his ancestors, dated 15th
August 1232. In the Ragman Roll, among those mentioned as having, in
1296, sworn fealty to Edward I., are Stephen de Kilpatrick, and Roger
de Kilpatrick, the latter supposed to be of the Torthorwald branch of
the Kirkpatricks. These last afterwards took the name of Carlyle by
marriage. Roger Kirkpatrick, successor of John, was one of the
attendants of King Robert Bruce at Dumfries, when he met Comyn in the
church of the Franciscans in that town, and it was he who, on Bruce’s
rushing out, and expressing a doubt that he had killed the Red Comyn,
despatched the latter, with the exclamation, “You doubt! Ise mak
siccar,” (or sure,) which became the motto of his family, their crest
being a hand holding a dagger, in pale, distilling drops of blood. In
1314 he was sent on an embassy to England, in company with Sir Neil
Campbell, ancestor of the duke of Argyle. Roger’s son, Sir Thomas
Kirkpatrick, besides inheriting Closeburn, for his father’s signal
services and his own to his sovereign and country, got the lands of
Redburgh in the sheriffdom of Dumfries, as the charter of Robert Brus
bears, dated at Lochmaben, 4th January in the 14th
year of his reign.
In 1355, Sir
Thomas’ son, Sir Roger, who remained faithful amidst the general
defection of the nobles, distinguished himself by taking from the
English the castle of Caerlaverock and Dalswinton, and thus preserved
the whole territory of Nithsdale in allegiance to the Scottish crown.
The historian, John Major, says he levelled the former with the
ground. This however, could not be literally true, as he continued to
reside in it till his assassination by his kinsman, Sir James Lindsay,
in 1357. No known cause of quarrel existed between them, except that
Kirkpatrick, as tradition records, had married a lady to whom Lindsay
was greatly attached. Lindsay expiated his crime with his life, having
been executed by order of David II. ‘The Murder of Caerlaverock’ is
the subject of a very spirited ballad by the late Mr. Charles
Kirkpatrick Sharpe. Sir Roger’s son, Winfred or Umfrey, in addition to
the lands of Rebburgh, got those of Torthorwald, in the debateable
district between Lower Nithsdale and Lower Annandale. The son, or
grandson of the latter, Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, made a resignation of
the baronies of Closeburn and Redburgh into the hands of Robert duke
of Albany, earl of Fife, and governor of Scotland, for a new charter
of Tailzie, to himself and his heirs male, dated at Ayr, 14th
October 1409. He was succeeded by his brother, Roger Kirkpatrick, who
was one of the gentlemen of inquest in serving William Lord Somerville
heir to his father, Thomas Lord Somerville, before Sir Henry Preston
of Craignillar, sheriff-principal and provost of Edinburgh, 10th
June 1435, when he had on his seal, appended to the retour, the
escutcheon of his arms, supported with two lions guardant, though
afterwards the supporters were two talbots (Nisbet’s Heraldry,
vol. i. p. 147). In 1348, his son, Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, was one of
the conservators of the truce with England. His descendant, Sir Thomas
Kirkpatrick, knight, a gentleman of the privy chamber to James VI.,
obtained from that monarch a patent of free denizen within the kingdom
of England in 1603, and died about 1628.
His
great-grandson, Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, for his unshaken
fidelity to Charles I., was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, 26th
March 1685. His eldest son, Sir Thomas, second baronet, had four sons
and a daughter. The eldest of these, Sir Thomas, third baronet, by his
marriage with Susannah, daughter and heiress of James Grierson of
Capenoch, brought that estate into the family. Of the ancient castle
of Closeburn, a square tower about 50 feet high, consisting of a
ground floor and three vaulted apartments, Grose has given a drawing
in his ‘Antiquities of Scotland.’ The mansion-house, built by the
first baronet, partly with the materials of the old residence, was
burnt to the ground, through the carelessness of drunken servants, on
the night of the 29th August, 1748, and all the family
papers, portraits, plate, &c, therein consumed. He had eight children,
and died in October 1771. His second and eldest surviving son, Sir
James, fourth baronet, commenced in 1772 the limeworks both in
Closeburn and Keir, which have proved most beneficial to the district.
In 1783 he sold the estate of Closeburn to Mr. Menteth, and died 7th
June 1804. His son, Sir Thomas, the fifth baronet, sheriff of
Dumfries-shire, married Jane, daughter of Charles Sharpe, Esq. of
Hoddam, and died in 1844, when his son, Sir Charles Sharpe Kirkpatrick
of Closeburn, born in 1808, became sixth baronet.
The younger
brother of the 3d baronet of Closeburn, William Kirkpatrick of
Ellisland, married a daughter of Lord-justice-clerk Erskine. Their son
Charles, succeeding to the estate of Hoddam, assumed the name of
Sharpe, and was father of General Matthew Sharpe, M.P. for the
Dumfries burghs, who died in 1841, and of the antiquary and wit, Mr.
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe of Hoddam, who died in 1851. The latter
drew up a chart of the family tree of the Kirkpatricks of Closeburn.
_____
From a
branch of the Kirkpatricks, styled of Conheath, is descended the
empress Eugenié, consort of Napoleon III, of France. According to one
account, this branch springs from Alexander Kirkpatrick of Kirkmichael,
2d son of the 3d Roger de Kirkpatrick of Closeburn; the barony of
Conheath having been bestowed on him as the reward of his valour in
making a captive of the 9th earl of Douglas at Burnswark in
1484. Another account grafts it on the main tree at a much more recent
date. The Empress Eugenié’s great-great-grandfather joined the
standard of the Pretender in 1745, and being taken prisoner, died on
the scaffold. His son left Scotland, and settled at Ostend, whence the
family emigrated to Spain.
About the
middle of the 18th century, William Kirkpatrick,
cousin-german of Sir James Kirkpatrick, baronet of Closeburn, was
proprietor of the estate of Conheath, parish of Caerlaverock. The
estate had originally been one of the numerous possessions of the
Closeburn family, of which he was a cadet, but had passed out of their
hands, and was repurchased by Mr. Kirkpatrick’s grandfather. Mr.
Kirkpatrick himself had a very large family, the only remaining member
of which, Miss Jane Forbes Kirkpatrick, residing at Nith Bank,
Dumfries, who died Dec. 21, 1854, in his 89th year, was
aunt of the countess de Montijo, the mother of the empress Eugenié.
One of his sons, also named William Kirkpatrick, was for upwards of a
quarter of a century a merchant in Malaga, and American consul in that
city. He married Francisca, eldest daughter of Baron Grivignee, a
Belgian, and had one son, who died early, and three daughters. Maria
Kirkpatrick, the eldest, married Don Cipriano Palafox, then Count of
Teba, a grandee of Spain of the first class, later, on the death of
his elder brother, Count del Montijo, issue 2 daughters; the elder
married the Duke of Berwick and Alba, and died in Sept. 1860, leaving
3 children; the younger, Eugenié Marie de Guzman, Countess of Teba,
born at Grenada May 5, 1826, married January 29, 1853, Charles Louis
Napoleon, (Napoleon III.,) Emperor of the French, issue, Napoleon,
Prince Imperial, born March 16, 1856. William Kirkpatrick’s 2d
daughter, Carlotta, married her cousin, Thomas Kirkpatrick of Ostend.
The 3d daughter, Enriquetta, married the Count de Cabarrus, whose
sister was the celebrated Madame Tallien.
