MOUBRAY, the surname of an ancient family, the first of whom in Scotland, Philip de Moubray, descended from one of the Norman adventurers who came over with William the Conqueror, was the second son of Nigel de Moubray, and brother of William de Moubray, ancestor of the duke of Norfolk of that name. He came to Scotland with William the Lion, and by his marriage with Galiena, daughter of Waldeve, earl of Dunbar, he acquired the lands of Barnbougle and Dalmeny in Linlithgowshire, and Inverkeithing in Fifeshire. In 1215, and again in 1220, he was ambassador to England, to treat of the marriage of Alexander II, with the princess Joan. Galfride or Gotofride de Moubray, the next on record, was one of the Magnates Scotiae from 1287 to 1294. He was among those who swore fealty to Edward I., and those of his name in Scotland, like many of the barons of that period, frequently changed sides in the great contest for the national independence at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century. He married the second daughter of the Red Cumyn, slain by Bruce, and had five sons. The fourth son is supposed to have been the Sir Philip de Moubray, who was governor of Stirling castle in the English interest, previous to the battle of Bannockburn. On the day after that decisive victory he surrendered the castle to Robert the Bruce, and entering his service, ever after continued faithful to him. He accompanied Edward Bruce to Ireland, and fell with him at the battle of Dundalk in 1318.

He had a son and a daughter. The son, Sir John Moubray of Redcastle in Forfarshire, his mother’s property, was slain at Annan in 1332, on Edward Baliol’s side. The daughter, Philippa de Moubray, heiress of her father, married Sir Bartholomew de Loen, a foreign knight, probably of the house of Heynberg in Guelderland, related to the dukes of Gueldres. Their only child, David, assumed the name of Moubray, and was contracted in marriage to the Lady Janet Stewart, daughter of the duke of Albany, governor of Scotland. His son, Sir John de Moubray, was dead before 1st February 1426.

This line of the Moubrays subsisted till the reign of James the Fifth, when Sir John Moubray of Barnbougle left a daughter, his sole heiress, who married Robert Barton, son of Sir Robert Barton of Over Barton. In consequence he changed his name to Moubray, and in his line the family continued till 1675, when it failed. Barnbougle castle, the ancient seat of the family, on the shore of the Firth of Forth near Cramond, had passed by sale from them, in 1620, and is now the property of the earl of Rosebery.

William Moubray or Mowbray, as the name is usually spelled, the brother of the above-named Sir John Moubray of Barnbougle, was the founder of the branch of the Moubrays of Cockairny in the parish of Dalgetty, Fifeshire, the lands of that name having been bestowed upon him by the latter in 1511.

Roger de Moubray, the brother of Philip first above mentioned, held lands in Perthshire under William the Lion, and his brother, Alexander II., some of whose charters he witnessed. He granted in subinfeudation the lands of Moncreif and Balmachin to Matthew, who from them assumed the name of Moncreif.

The family of Cockairny have continued in an uninterrupted male line. Sir Robert Moubray, who succeeded in 1794, was knighted in 1825, and died in 1848.