So late as the reign of
Alexander III. (died 1286) the district extending from the Solway to the
Clyde was still known as Cumbria, or the land of the Celts; while the
country between Northumbria and the Forth was called Saxony, from the
number of English immigrants who had sought a refuge there when William
the Conqueror laid waste the district north of the Humber. In Cumbria
Christianity was introduced from Iona before it had been embraced by the
Saxons of South Britain. St. Ninian, from Rome, built a church in Galloway
in 412, and that long stood alone, but the Irish St. Colomba and his
followers had settled at Iona, and were active missionaries in
Dumfriesshire in the 6th century. "Tis plain," says Maitland, one of the
first authorities on early Scottish history, "that the Christian Scots
were converted before the arrival of Palladius, the first bishop, by
persons of a different communion to the Church of Rome, as is manifest by
the disputes afterwards carried on by Coleman and other Scottish chiefs
against the followers of Austin the Monk (St. Augustine) concerning the
keeping of Easter, which by its being kept by the Scots according to the
practice of the Eastern Church shows that our ancestors, instead of being
proselytized by the Church of Rome, owed their conversion to the Greek
Church, as no doubt the Britons did, by their maintaining the same
doctrine." Soul’s Seat or Salsit, in Galloway, was always admitted to be a
non Roman ecclesiastical house. As the Danes and Norwegians possessed the
Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and some authority over Argyllshire, it is
probable that they had a footing in Dumfriesshire. By or Bie, a Norse
termination, is found to several Dumfries names; and the ancient runic
cross at Ruthwell, adorned with Christian symbols, is similar to another
erected at Campbeltown in Argyll, and they are the only two remaining in
Scotland. The names of Bridekirk, Kirkpatrick, Redkirk or Rampatrick come
from Irish saints. St. Mungo is also Celtic; and the Roriesons anglicized
their appellation from MacRorie, its original form (borne by the Lords of
Bute), as did the Thomsons, Fergussons, Andersons, and some other families
with the termination son.
The Greek, rather than Roman, source
from which the Columba Christians derived their faith perhaps accounts for
the prevalence of Greek Christian names in the earliest records of
Dumfriesshire. Agamemnon, Homer, Achilles, Michael, Hercules, Constantine,
Simon, Alexander, Andreas, Nicolas (for both men and women), Helen, Agnes,
Catherine, Sapientia, and many more frequently appear. Chalmers has
conjectured that all the Norman families found in Annandale in the 13th
century were invited to settle there by David I., who, as Earl of
Cumberland, had been companion in arms with Robert Bruce at the Court of
Henry I. This Robert Bruce was probably the same who came over with
William the Conqueror or his son, and he appears as a witness in deeds
connected with Henry I. Robert de Comyn (the same as the French Comines)
was made Earl of Northumberland, and was killed at the siege of Alnwick in
1093. Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, who was killed on the same
occasion, did homage to England for the county of Cumberland, then united
to Dumfriesshire, a wild and uncontrolled part of Scotland; and his son
David having seen the superior refinement of the Norman French knights to
those of England and Scotland, hoped by their means to civilize the
natives of Cumbria, who were much the same as the wild Scots or Galwegians.
The crusades brought the military of all nations together on the fields of
Palestine, and made them acquainted with each other’s characteristics.
Like Malcolm III., Alexander III. did homage to the English King, his
brother-in-law, for Cumberland; and everything prophesied the closest
relations in the future between the two countries, when a series of
premature deaths, and what some call the unprincipled ambition, others the
high policy of Edward I., inaugurated a long war, and all its consequent
miseries. The misfortunes of Scotland towards the close of the reign of
Alexander III. began with the death of the King’s younger son David in
1281. In 1283 the elder son, Alexander, Prince of Scotland, also died, and
a letter from Sir Raoul Fleming to the King of England requested a safe
conduct for himself and the Sieur de Baliol, as well as for "their young
lady," widow of the Prince, through England, on her way back to her
father’s Court in Flanders. On February 5, the Scottish nobles had
recognised Margaret, daughter of the late Margaret, Princess of Scotland,
by her marriage with Eric, King of Norway, as their future Queen, and
Edward lost no time in obtaining, with much expense, a dispensation from
the Pope for his own son to marry within the prohibited degrees, with a
view to a future wedding between this youthful heiress and the Prince of
Wales.
A letter from Alexander
III. to Edward, in April of the same year, thanks the King for a long
course of benefits, and for his sympathy transmitted by his messenger,
Friar John of St. Germains, which afforded him great solace in these
intolerable difficulties and troubles which he has sustained, and still
feels, through the death of his most beloved son, the King’s dearest
nephew. [From the Scottish Chronicles collected in the London Record
Office edited by Joseph Bain, F.S.A.] Though death had carried off all his
blood in Scotland, yet one remained, the child of his own dearest
daughter, King Edward’s niece, and now, under Divine Providence, the heir
apparent of Scotland. Much good may yet be in store for them, and death
only can dissolve their league of unity. He requests a reply through his
messenger, Andrew Abbot of Cupar. The letter is dated Edinburgh Castle,
20th April, and 35th of his reign.
A letter to Edward I. from
this young Prince Alexander is still extant. He styles himself the English
King’s "own nephew, and first-born son of Alexander, King of Scotland, to
his most hearty uncle the King," and expresses the warmest affection for
himself, the Queen, and their children, and wishes to hear of them more
frequently. He believes the King will be glad to hear good news of himself
and his kindred, and as he has no seal of his own (he was but sixteen) he
uses that of Sir W. de Saint Clair, his guardian. His sister also wrote a
year later to the King, telling him that she is "healthy and lively by
God’s mercy, and hopes he will constantly inform her of his own state
which God keep, and of his wishes towards her." She seals with the seal of
Dame Luce de Hessewell, her chamberer—lady of the bed-chamber—and
concludes with a thousand salutations. The Armstrongs were even then
beginning to give trouble. One named John had been killed by James de
Multon, for whom Alexander III. solicits a pardon from his brother-in-law,
1281.
The Scottish King
re-married after the death of his son, but within a year was killed by a
fall from his horse over, a cliff in Fifeshire at the age of 44, and with
him ended the line of the native Celtic kings. Edward I. at once lent the
King of Norway, father of the infant Queen, 2000 marks to bring her to
Scotland, and granted annuities to severa1 Norwegians of rank; but the
child died, possibly of sea sickness, in Orkney, before she had touched
the Scottish shore, and while Edward was fitting out a great vessel at
Hull to bring "Margaret, the damsel of Scotland," to England. The Bishop
of St. Andrews wrote to beg him to come to the Borders to prevent
disorders, for the Lord of Annandale (Robert Bruce, the grandfather) had
unexpectedly arrived with a formidable retinue at Perth, and with eleven
other competitors was prepared to dispute the crown. The claims of nine
were soon dismissed, and of the pretensions of John Baliol, Lord of
Galloway and Annan, of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, and of Robert Bruce,
Edward I. gave the casting vote in favour of Baliol, as descended from the
eldest female branch, but on conditions which destroyed the independence
of Scotland, as they included the maintenance of English garrisons in all
the principal fortresses, and the performance by Baliol of homage to
Edward for all his Scottish provinces.
Comyn renounced his own
claim to support that of Baliol, his brother-in-law, and was appointed to
high office by Edward I. All the Scottish noblemen except William Douglas
took an oath of fidelity for themselves and their heirs in the most solemn
terms to Edward at Roxburgh, Berwick-upon-Tweed, and other Scottish towns
in 1296, and the documents which record it, with their names and seals
attached, called the Ragman’s Roll, are still preserved. With the
exception of the Bruces, the Dumfriesshire lairds seem generally to have
kept the oath. Dumfriesshire was indeed held by the English till the
disadvantageous peace with Scotland, made during the minority of Edward
III., and which an old English writer treats as a judgment on England for
the murder of Edward II.; and the Baillies, Cathcarts, Craigies, Gordons,
Grahames, Kirkpatricks, Setons, [With the Setons fear must have been the
motive, for the father of Bruce’s brother-in-law was hung, drawn, and
quartered by the English. The men of Galloway, descended from the wild
Scots who inhabited the Highlands and borders of Dumfriesshire, are said
to have thrown off their clothes when they went into battle. Speed depicts
them as wearing nothing but a blanket or plaid wrapped round them, and
held together by the hand like an Arab’s burnoose. The women wore the same
garment, but made a hood of it.] St. Clairs, Stewards of Bonkill, Carliles
of Torthorwald, and others, particularly Annandale men, fought for the
English long after the death of Edward I.
In the civil wars
occasioned by the arrival on Scottish soil of Prince James Stuart in 1715,
and of Prince Charles Edward in 1745, some members of a family adhered to
the cause of King George, while the rest took up arms for his opponent in
order to save the family property, and probably this was the case in the
time of the Plantagents. Even the horrible penalties for high treason
inflicted in England so late as 1745, and which were carried out most
illegally (and apparently introduced) under Edward I. (the Scots not being
his subjects could not be accused of high treason) did not deter some of
those most likely to fall into English hands from taking up arms for
Robert Bruce. The Earl of Ulster, related to both Bruce and the Stewards
of Scotland, gave his support to Edward I. Robert Bruce effected an
alliance with the native princes of Wales and with part of Ireland, and in
time many of the lairds of Celtic descent joined his standard. Of Norman
origin, it was natural that with those Scottish chiefs of Norman descent
he should at first adhere to Edward I., and it was not till he was
excommunicated by the Pope, and outlawed by the civil power for the death
of Comyn in the chancel of the Grey Friars’ Church at Dumfries, that he
openly assumed the role of a Scottish patriot. Almost the last of
Edward’s acts was to order the execution of Thomas and Alexander Bruce,
who had been taken prisoners in Galloway as they were marching at the head
of some Irish forces to join their brother. Although desperately wounded
they were carried actually bleeding on to the scaffold at Carlisle
(February 9, 1307). Three months before, their brother Nigel Bruce, had
been hung, drawn, and quartered at Perth by order of the English governor;
and the Countess of Buchan, with King Robert’s daughter Marjory, his
second wife, the Countess of Carrick (as she was called), and his sisters,
Christine and Marie, who was afterwards exchanged for Walter Comyn, and
married Sir Nigel Campbell, the ancestor of the Duke of Argyle, were all
dragged out of the sanctuary of St. Duthoc at Tain, where they had taken
refuge, and three of the ladies, including Bruce’s sisters, were
imprisoned in cages. In February, 1314, King Robert’s wife was in prison
at Rochester Castle. Edward II., then reigning, seems to have been very
humane with regard to the Scottish prisoners, and he ordered her at that
time to have "a sufficient chamber," and 20s a week for expenses. She was
also to be allowed exercise within the Castle and St. Andrew’s Priory at
suitable times. A year later she was exchanged with her sister-in-law,
Christine, her stepdaughter, Marjory, her brother-in-law, the Earl of Mar,
and the Bishop of Glasgow for some of the English prisoners captured at
the battle of Bannockburn.
In later days nearly every
Scottish family has tried to show that its ancestors was on the side of
Bruce or Wallace, but unfortunately this cannot be proved. The appeal by
the Scottish nobles to the Pope stating the proofs that Scotland had a
right to be independent, alleged truly enough that the signatures to the
Ragman’s Roll had been obtained by the "threats and horrid tortures" to
which Edward had subjected all who opposed him. It stated that the
Scottish nation (Speed, in the reign of Elizabeth, derives the name of the
Scots from Scyth) issuing out of greater Scythia, passed the Tyrenian Sea
and the pillars of Hercules, and for a long time resided in Spain. (In
Speed’s days Cape Finisterre was called Scythicus in remembrance of their
sojourn in Spain.) There, said the memorial, they could not be subdued,
though among a very fierce people, and they had eventually found their way
to the west of Scotland, where they expelled the Britons and destroyed the
aborigines, maintaining themselves against the invasions of Danes,
Norwegians, and English. This was dated from Aberbrothock, 1320.
Undoubtedly the Scots would have earlier shaken off the English yoke if
there had not been divisions among their leading men. It was the attitude
of the Scottish nobles, including Bruce and Comyn, that caused the defeat
of Wallace; and Sir John Steward of Menteith, who betrayed the popular
hero to the English, was on friendly terms with Bruce, and great-uncle to
his son-in-law. The temporalities of the bishopric of Glasgow, in
Annandale, were granted to Sir John Steward for "great services" by Edward
I. in 1306. These great services were the betrayal of Wallace, though Sir
John has apologists who try to prove his innocence in the matter. Sir
William Carlile, King Robert’s brother-in-law, did not join the Scots till
1317. He then forfeited his lands in Cumberland, but as his sons William
and John, and his brothers Thomas and James, all adhered to England, it is
probable that the descendants of one or other of them obtained the
restoration of the lands of Newbie in Cumberland, which bore the same name
as the paternal inheritance in Dumfriesshire. In later centuries there
were English Carliles of some distinction who claimed an origin from the
owners of Newbie in Cumberland. In the State accounts of Edward II., Sir
Thomas de Torthorald — i.e., Carlile of Torthorald—is described as
being killed in the English Warden’s raid on the Scots near Redcross,
November 30, 1314. The same year Johanna, widow of Sir James de Torthorald,
killed in the King’s service at Stirling, writes to acknowledge 8 qrs. of
wheat and 10 qrs. of beans and pease sent to her from the King’s stores
"for the sustenance of herself and her children." She appends her seal to
the letter, and a little later was granted an annuity. On the 24th of
July, 1347, an inquisition, held at Lochmaben under a writ of the Duchy of
Lancaster, by Gilbert de Joneston, Wm. de Levyngton, Robt. de Crosby, Adam
Latimer, Thos. de la Beck, Wm. Mounceux, Robert son of John, Wm. del
Lathes, Nicolas del Skaleby, Adam del Yate, and Helias Post, jurors,
declared William de Carlile to be the son and heir of the late John de
Carlile (second son of Sir William de Carlile and Lady Marjory Bruce), and
nearest heir to his uncle William de Carlile. They further show that the
late William did nothing against his lord (the English King) at any time;
nor did William, son and heir of the late John de Carlile, that he should
not recover his lands of Luce, in the Burgh of Annan, Loughwode,
Woodhouse, &c. Throughout his career Bruce was remarkable for his
magnanimity towards his enemies, and even towards his faithless friends;
and the same quality was not absent in his son David, nor in their
opponents, Edward II. and III. The difficult position of Dumfriesshire
lairds was evidently taken into consideration by the Scottish and English
Monarchs, for Thomas de Torthorald, the second son of Sir W. de Carlile
and Marjory Bruce, had been killed the previous year at the battle of
Durham when fighting by the side of David II. The head of the family in
1431 married Elizabeth Kirkpatrick. Their grandson, Alexander Carlile,
second son of the first Lord Carlile of Torthorald, received Bridekirk as
his portion, and his direct male descendant, John, son of Thomas, son of
Alexander Carlile of Bridekirk, had a charter of the ecclesiastical lands
of Torthorald in 1605 as one of the male heirs of the original grantee.
Robert Carlile, laird of Bridekirk, was one of the nearest of kin who took
out letters of slain for the murder of James Douglas, Lord of Torthorald,
who had married the heiress of the Carlile barony, and when he "was
walking in peaceable and quiet manner," as the indictment set forth, "upon
the High Street of the Burgh of Edinburgh, looking for nothing less than
any trouble, pursuit, or injury against him"(l4th July, 1608), was stabbed
by William Stewart, whose father, Captain James Stewart, had been killed
by Douglas in 1596. The relatives on each side were ordered to find
caution for keeping the peace, as "His Majesty (James VI.) cannot abide,"
[In spite of this objection by James VI. the practice was evidently in
full force in Dumfriesshire in 1628.] says the legal document, "the
reviving of that ugly monster of deadly feud, and will take care that
justice is administered in the matter if the said pursuers will challenge
Lord Ochiltree (Stewart) as guilty of the said slaughter."
But to return to earlier
times. The seizure by Edward I. of all Scottish deeds and charters
deposited at Perth, Lochmaben, and other towns held by his garrisons,
afforded room for much imagination with regard to some of the Scottish
family histories. The ancestor of the Grahames who broke through the wall
of Severus in the 5th century, the descent of the Kirkpatricks from Fingal,
and of the Stewarts from Banquo, could hardly be proved in a court of law.
The Stuart Celtic pedigree is found in the visitation of Notts as early as
1611, but is demolished by Lord Hailes; and the charters of grants of
lands made by members of the family to St. Peter’s Cathedral at York,
prior to the days of Bruce, [Among the early grants to the hospital of St.
Peter of York, Walter Fitzalan, Steward of the King of Scotland, grants
two pieces of land and a common pasture for the souls of King David and
Malcolm, and of his parents and predecessors, and for the present weal of
King William. Alan, son of Walter, Steward of Scotland, witnesses a
charter for King Malcolm. Eudo de Carlile, son of Adam, son of Robert,
also grants an estate in Dumfriesshire.] show their Norman origin. The
last Celtic Kings of Scotland resisted the claim of the Sees of York and
Canterbury to have any authority over Scottish churchmen. The Stewarts are
declared by the best chroniclers to be descendants of Fitz-Alleyne, one of
the companions of William the Conqueror, who was killed at Hastings. His
relative Alan obtained from William the barony of Oswestry, in Shropshire,
and possibly one of the family may have married Nesta, the daughter of
Griffith, Prince of Wales, as the pedigree alleges, considering their near
neighbourhood, but there is no proof of it. There is also no documentary
proof that Oliver Cromwell had any connection with the royal house of
Stuart, as has been alleged, but Charles Stuart, a grandson of the Prior
of Coldinghame, half-brother to Queen Mary, did bear arms against Charles
I. Many interloping Saxon families on the estates of Celtic lairds are
said to have adopted their predecessors’ names and pedigrees. But a love
of over-long pedigrees was always characteristic of Scotland. At the
coronation of Alexander III. an ancient Herald enumerated his alleged
ancestors, fifty-six in number, from the first Scottish King, and as far
back as one of the Pharoahs.
It is supposed that after
swearing fealty to Edward I. and his heirs for ever in 1296, and also
after the elder Bruce had been infefted in the lands which his father had
owned in several parts of England, Robert Bruce, the younger, and the
Steward family were impressed with the successes of Sir William Wallace
and his followers, and made overtures to join him. It must be owned that
their conduct at this period is very obscure. Blind Harry the minstrel is
really our chief authority for the career of William Wallace. The English
contemporary records scarcely allude to his exploits, but state that his
two brothers surrendered to the English governor at Perth, and were at
once hung, drawn, and quartered. The Scottish writers under the Stuart
dynasty naturally attributed patriotism to the fathers of their Kings,
throughout these almost civil wars, in the same way that they gave them a
Celtic ancestry, which Shakespeare has introduced into ordinary history;
but the English records relate that on July 9, 1297, "Robert de Brus, Earl
of Carrick, James, the Steward of Scotland, and John, the brother of the
Steward, confess their rebellion against the King (Edward), and place
themselves in his will." This John is supposed to have been John Steward
of Bonkill, who is reported to have been killed at the battle of Falkirk a
year later fighting for Scotland. Old pedigrees made him out to be the
father of Walter the Steward, who married Marjory Bruce, though Walter’s
father is now generally acknowledged to have been James the Steward, who
married Egidia de Burgh; but is there evidence beyond that of courtly
writers (who perhaps like those in Austria at the present day were liable
to a penalty and the suppression of their books if they wrote any ill of
the monarch’s predecessors) that John Steward of Bonkill was killed on the
side of Wallace? He was certainly alone among his kindred if he assisted
the so-called lieutenant of King John Baliol, who signed all his orders in
the name of Bruce’s rival. Baliol was brought to England and detained
there in 1296 in consequence of some of the Scottish nobles having
persuaded him to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with France
when at war with England, and Wallace’s rising was to accomplish the
object contemplated by that affiance, the expulsion of the English
garrisons from Scotland. If he had declared for the younger Bruce, whose
family for four generations had looked upon themselves as probable
inheritors of the throne, he might have obtained the full support of the
Stewards and Bruces, who were cousins through the mother of Robert I., as
well as connected by marriages with the Anglo-Irish de Burghs. At the
request of Edward III., when peace was temporarily effected in 1328, Sir
John de Carlile of Torthorald was restored to his property in
Dumfriesshire. Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick, the murderer of Comyn (Baliol’s
nephew), seems to have deserted Robert Bruce as early as 1315, when we
hear of him as commander of Lochmaben Castle (which had surrendered to
Edward II., when Prince of Wales, in 1306) holding it for the King of
England. He received as pay for himself and four esquires £4 16s 0d for
twelve days. At the same time and place Sir William Heriz and his esquire
were paid 36s; Sir Thomas de Torthorald, knight, and his esquire, 36s; the
esquire Alan de Dunwithie, with his valet and steed, 12s; Sir Robert the
chaplain, 7s; Henry de Carlile, a cross-bowman, 6d; and others in
proportion. After the battle of Falkirk, gained by the English over
Wallace, these Scotsmen received compensation for their slain horses at
the following rates:—Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick received for a brown bay
£10; Sir James de Carlile, £10; William Comyn, of the King’s son’s
household, 100s; Sir Humphrey de Jardine had only 12 marks for a black
horse with two white feet and star on its forehead; Sir Thomas de Carlile
lost one worth 100s; and William de Gardin’s valet’s horse was valued at 6
marks.
The murderer of Comyn had
been excommunicated by the Pope, and his end seems never to have been
ascertained. After serving Edward I., who appointed him a justice of the
peace, he turned to Bruce, yet was serving Edward in 1315, and apparently
again joined Bruce, for after King Robert’s fortunes seemed declining, and
he was known to be afflicted with leprosy, so that there was every
prospect of a minor sovereign and all the evils it would entail, Sir Roger
Kirkpatrick and his wife asked for a safe conduct and protection within
the realm of England. The same was asked for a year for Humfrey de
Kirkpatrick and Idonia his wife, December 12, 1322. Seven weeks later King
Edward II. ordered instant inquiry to be made by good men of Cumberland
and Westmoreland as to the abduction of Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, Knight of
Scotland, and his wife, who fled to England to save his life, and while
there, under the King’s special protection, have been seized by
evil-doers, and are still detained in some place unknown. This order is
dated from York, and as seven months later another to the same effect is
dated from Berwick-upon-Tweed, and there is no further mention of them,
they were probably secretly murdered by some of Comyn’s friends. In 1341
Humphrey Kirkpatrick, son and heir of Roger Kirkpatrick, was one of
seventeen hostages for the ransom of David II., who were sent to England;
another being John Fernyear or Stewart, afterwards Robert III.
A Humfrey de Kirkpatrick
was a witness to a grant of the lands and advowson of Ecclefechan to Sir
Robert Bruce and his heirs in 1249. The other witnesses are Sir Walter
Comyn, Earl of Menteith, Sir A. Cummin, Earl of Buchan, Sir John Cummin,
Sir William de Cunnynghame, Hugh de Mauleverer, Gilbert de Johnestoun, Ivo
de Jonesby, Richard de Crossbie, William de Boyville, William de Annaud,
clerk, and others. This is the first time in which a descendant of Le
Seigneur de Jeanville or Joinville—the name was spelt both ways in
France—is mentioned in Dumfriesshire records as Johnestoun [Archibald
Johnstone of Warriestoun, executed in 1662, signed his name Johnstown.] or
Johnstone, for it appears in the original French in a deed connected with
the Carlile family, signed by Gulielmo de Joyneville, as late as between
1191 and 1215. The barony of Joinville, in the province of Champagne in
France, passed in the 15th century into that of Lorraine. It was here, at
the Castle of Joinville, that the French historian of the same name, who
is described as a cadet of an ancient family in Champagne, was born in
1274, and was early introduced to the Comte de Thibaudeau at the French
Court. He died in 1319, but was at the height of his popularity with King
Philip le Bel when Geoffrey or Gilbert de Jeanville, [The deeds of this
period and long afterwards were usually signed by a clerk for all the
witnesses, who sometimes went through the form of putting their hands on
the pen; but, as they could not read the deeds when they were written,
mistakes are often found in places and Christian names. In a Scottish
Crown Charter of 1517 the same man is first called Herbert then Gilbert.
In a decreet of the Privy Council in 1591 Edward Johnstone of Ryehill is
called Andrew. In other registered Scottish deeds John is called James;
Peter is called Patrick; Ryhill, Robgill; Marion, Margaret; and the second
Marquis of Annandale and Earl of Hartfell is called Earl of Hertford, even
in the Register of Burials in Westminster Abbey in 1730. Gilbert and
Geoffrey are more than once transposed, and this Jeanville is called both
in copies of the deed.] known in Dumfriesshire as Johnestoune, an adherent
of Baliol, came in 1299 with the English Commissioners to sign a treaty
between Edward I. and the Scottish King John with King Philip of France,
which had been arranged through the medium of the Pope. The treaty was
signed for the Pope by Bishop Kenault of Vicenza, and for England by John
of Winchester, Symon of Salisbury, Bishop Aymer de Savoie, Henry de
Nicolas Guis de Warwick, Count Aymer dc Valence, Otto de Granson, John of
Bar Chevalier, and Geoffrey or Guilbert de Jeanville, and there can be
little doubt that the last was of the same family as Philip’s
historiographer, and that it was from the Joinville or Jeanville barony
that the Seigneur de Jeanville, mentioned by the old chronicler Guilliaume
de Tailleur as being with William’s army among princes and nobles from
Germany, and distant parts of France, came to join the Conqueror’s forces
before the battle of Hastings, and half Saxonized into Janvil, the name
appears again on the roll of Battle Abbey. Like other Norman French
families planted in Scotland, the Johnstones obtained estates in different
parts of the country, but the manor, if not the advowson, of the Church of
Johnstone was bestowed on the monastery of Soltray by Sir John de
Johnstone about l285, when he confirmed his father’s (Hugo de Johnestoune)
gift of the lands in Haddington to the same establishment. Soltray was
particularly intended for the reception of pilgrims and strangers. It is
difficult to find what other land the Johnstones owned so early as 1249,
as most of the estates they afterwards held then belonged to the Bruces,
Baliols, Corries, and Carliles. They may have held Graitney Tower, as
Constables of the Borders, and Cavertholme, which was an early possession,
for in1296 both Sir John de Johnstone and Gilbert Johnestoune are
described as of Dumfriesshire. In 1333-4 a charter of lands in Annandale
from Edward Baliol, calling himself King, to Henry Percy is signed by
Gilbert de Johnstone of Brakenthwayte, an estate which was later held by
the Carliles, and may have been exchanged with them, by marriage or
otherwise, for Loughwode or Lochwood, which the Carliles held at that
period (though it became later the stronghold of the lairds of Johnstone),
because Brakenthwayte was never reclaimed by the Johnstones during the
settlement of the Borders in 1603-20, when no title of possession seems to
have been too obscure to be used. The other signatures to this charter of
1333-4 were—Adam de Corry, Keeper of the Castle of Lochmaben; Walter de
Corry; Thomas de Kirkpatrick, in Penresax; William Kirkpatrick and the
clerk, Thomas of Carruthers. Douglas states that Gilbert de Johnstone had
a charter from Robert II. of lands in Lanarkshire, where Matthew de
Johnstone of Westraw is found in 1455.
In the reign of David Bruce
(1329-70), Stiven Johnstoune, whom his descendants affirm to have been
described in their genealogies as brother to Johnstone, laird of
Annandale, and a man of great learning, was in possession of the estate of
Johnstone in Aberdeenshire, but his branch of the family adopted a
different crest, though the same arms as the Johnstones in Dumfriesshire.
It is curious that the seal attached to Sir John de Johnstoune’s signature
(1296) to the Ragman’s Roll has the coat of arms now borne by all his
descendants, with the augmentations of mullets and garbs, only borne by
the Johnstones of Galabank and Fulford Hall, while Gilbert de Johnstoune,
who is supposed to have been his son, had on his seal a man on horseback,
similar to that which was adopted as a distinctive crest by the
illegitimate branch of the descendants of William Johnstone of Graitney
and Baron of Newbie. Like the Maxwells, they adhered to England, instead
of following the fortunes of Robert Bruce. This may have been from loyalty
or relationship to the Baliol family. King John Baliol’s son, Edward,
entered Dumfriesshire in 1332 with the aid, we are told, of the
Anglo-Norman lords, whose Scottish lands had not been restored them, in
spite of a clause in the Treaty of Peace, signed in 1327 between Robert
Bruce and the Queen Regent of England. Probably most of the Border lairds
assisted him, and a Charter, granting Ryvel and Comlongan to one of
Baliol’s supporters, Murray (ancestor of the Duke of Athol), is signed by
John de Johnestoune and his son, Gilbert, as well as by Humfrie de Bosco
and Roger de Kirkpatrick before 1331. Again, in 1347, Gilbert de Johnstone
was presiding over the inquisition which returned young Carlile as heir to
his uncle, under English auspices. In 1341 David Bruce invaded England
during the absence of Edward III. in France, possibly with a view of
obtaining the restoration of all Dumfriesshire. He was defeated, and taken
prisoner into England; but Edward was just then more set upon the conquest
of France than of England, and in 1356, owing to the capture of the
fortified towns in Dumfriesshire, and the offer of a ransom for the young
king by Robert Stuart, who ruled the country as Regent during his
imprisonment, Edward Baliol retired, so that the Johnstones, Maxwells, and
others were released from any further allegiance to his house. Sir John of
Johnstone, the son of Gilbert, was made a Warden of the West Borders at
this time, and Adam de Johnstone received a grant of the lands of Monyge,
Moling, and Rahills. The old Prior of Lochleven, Andrew Wyntoun, who died
about 1424, records, in the "Original Chronicle," the fame of Bruce, and
of the Scottish leaders, his contemporaries. He gives a few lines to Sir
John de Johnstone, who, in 1370, defeated the English army which invaded
Scotland at the close of the reign of Edward III.:—
When att the wattyr of Solway,
Schyr Jhon of Jhonystown on a day,
Of Inglismen wencust a grete dele.
He bore him at that time sa wele
That he and the Lord of Gordoune,
Had a sowerane gude renown.
Of ony that was of thar degree
For full they war of grete bownte
Sir John Johnstone’s son is
mentioned in a letter from Robert II. (1385), in which the King thanks
Charles VI. of France for the succour he has given him against the
English, and for the sum of 40,000 livres which Charles had sent to be
divided among "the Scottish nobles, his faithful allies." A list of the
recipients is given, and among them John of Johnestoune had received 300
livres. He fought under Douglas at Otterburn or Chevy Chase, and was one
of the constables (scutiferi) for keeping order on the Borders. In 1384 a
safe conduct was obtained for him into England, wherein he is described as
a military man. A large proportion of the Scotsmen, who asked for
safe-conducts into England, either for trade or to go to the Continent,
were Borderers. In 1413, one is obtained for Adam Johnstone, lord of
Johnstone; Herbert, son and heir of Herbert Maxwell, lord of Caerlaverock;
William Carlile, son and heir of John Carlile, soldier; Gilbert Grierson,
Gilbert M’Dowall, son and heir of Fergus M’Dowall; and Archibald M’Dowall,
soldier. In 1485, for Mr John Ireland, John Murray, David Scot, Gilbert de
Johnstone, Lord Kennedy, David Lyle, Alex. Hume, &c. In March, 1464, a
petition is presented from Adam of Johnstone, Robert and John Johnstone,
Gilbert of Johnstone, and Matthew of Johnstone for several safe conducts
for a whole year into England, with permission for two of them to trade at
English ports with three boats of 15 tons burden, which boats have
competent masters and mariners; also for the said petitioners to go freely
between the two countries with ten Scotsmen in their company. Among the
acts and decreets of this date in connection with a Borderer is one
against Elizabeth, the widow of a certain James Burcane in Bruges, for
detaining a pair of silver flagons, a stoup of silver gilt, a cup with a
silver gilt cover, and a silver goblet left in her husband’s care by John
Lord Carlile.
While the English Kings
appointed one wealthy English nobleman after another to the lordship of
Annandale, Robert Bruce gave it to Sir James Douglas, who was attached to
him not only by the ties of friendship, but by private wrongs sustained
from Edward I. His father had aided Wallace, and then submitting to the
English was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died, and his
estates were forfeited, for besides his so-called rebellion he was the
only Scotsman of rank who declined to sign the Ragman’s Roll. James
Douglas, then in France, came to Westminster, and offered to remain
faithful to England if Edward would restore to him his father’s lands. The
King declined to give him either the lands or any employment, upon which
he became a patriot, and joined Bruce. It is a well-known story that the
name of his friend was changed from Lokarde to Lockhart, because he
brought back Bruce’s heart, which James Douglas had endeavoured to convey
to the Holy Land; and the name of Lokard is found in Dumfriesshire as
early as 1200. When the English were finally driven from Annandale the
Douglases were for many years more powerful in this district than the
Scottish King.
The Cars, Kers, and Kerrs,
all one family, bear the same arms as the French branch of their house.
They first settled in Teviotdale, at Ancrum, Fernihurst, and Cessford
about 1330, but like the Hepburns of Bothwell, who are found in
Berwickshire at the same period, they belong to the east frontier more
than to Dumfriesshire. The Kerrs are now represented by the Duke of
Roxburgh and the Marquis of Lothian. The eldest son of their house, Andrew
Ker, was one of the hostages for the release of James I. In 1459 Andrew
Ker of Cessford, John Johnstone of that ilk, Thos. Cranstoun of that ilk,
George Ormiston, Charles Murray of Cockpool, William Carlile of Torthorald,
and James Rutherford of that ilk are bracketted as "scutiferi," and as all
"naval admirals," in the list of Border chiefs charged with the care of
the marches. The same year David Hume, Walter Scott, Simon Glendinning,
and Robert Crichton, Viscount of Nithsdale, were granted a safe conduct
into England.
The Borderers are often
compared to the Highlanders, who were of much the same race, in their
system of clan-ship, but with the difference that they were all horsemen.
The chief landowners were given baronial rights, which included the
services of the freemen on their lands, whom they protected from each
other and from the enemy. A code of unwritten laws existed, of which the
origin is most obscure, but the object of the county courts, to judge from
the cases tried, was to legislate between the families of the landowners,
and to punish ill-doers among them. The peasantry could be dealt with in a
more summary way. Their mode of life, as described by Froissart in 1323,
was of the roughest description, but when we read that Bruce’s army, which
was all cavalry, contained a knight or esquire to every five troopers, its
marvellous success is no matter of surprise. The "bold and hardy troopers
armed after the manner of their country, and mounted on little hackneys
that are never tied up or dressed, but turned immediately after the day’s
march to pasture on the heath or in the fields," brought no carts and
carried no bread. "They can live on flesh, half sodden, without bread, and
drink, the river water without wine. They dress the flesh of the cattle in
their skins after they have flayed them. Under the flaps of his saddle
each man carries a broad piece of metal behind him, with a little bag of
oatmeal. When they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh, they set this
plate over the fire, knead the meal with water, and make a thin cake of
it, which they bake on the heated plate to warm their bodies." But in
those times even the table of a Prince of Wales was not supplied with
modern refinement. At Perth, Feb. 10, 1303-4, when the Prince, afterwards
Edward II., gave a dinner to the King’s envoys—Sir Aymer de Valence, Henry
de Percy, Robert Fitz-Payn, and John de Beustede and their retinue "about
the peace with Sir John Comyn"—the King’s stores provided 1 shield of
brawn, 100 herrings, 1 bushel of beans, 4 roes, 2 bushels of pease, 2 1/2
flagons of acetum, 1 flagon of verjuice, some bread, and 2 casks 6
sesterces of wine. From the Prince’s store 11 bacons and 4 pieces of
sturgeon. On Friday, Feb. 14, the Earl of Warwick and Sir Hugh le
Despenser dined with the same Prince, on which occasion the King’s stores
supplied 1600 herrings, 44 stockfisb, 1 bushel of flour, 1 bushel of pease,
1/2 gallon of honey, 4 lbs. of anydoyne, 1/2 bushel of salt, 1/2 gallon of
vinegar, two shillings worth of bread, and 62 sesterces of wine, and from
the Prince’s store were added 9 pieces of sturgeon.
An inquisition at Dumfries,
April 23, 1347, held by John de la More, under sheriff (he was related to
the first wife of Robert II.) to infeft Thos. de Molton in the whole manor
of Kirkpatrick-Juxta, with the advowson of the Church and services of free
men, is another instance of the early practice of giving benefices to
laymen. Several Milners and Macaynes were the jurymen. Owing to the
sequestrations and exactions by both the Scottish and English rulers, it
was apparently difficult to find anything left but Church property with
which to reward loyalty in Annandale. In 1297, Clifford had orders from
Edward I. to occupy Bruce’s estates in Annandale with his contingent, and
in 1304 the escheats in other parts of Annandale amounted to £194 2s 6d,
being £33 6s 3d for the relief of Walter de Corry, 60s 8d from the farm of
the town of Annan, 19s 11d from toft mailes of the same town, 44s from the
Provostry of Newbie, 44s 9 1/2d from the Provostry of Kirkpatrick and
Gretna; 33s 4d from the mills of Moffatdale, £6 from the mill of Annan,
and 6s from Loughwood.
The extraordinary efforts
which Edward I. made to reduce Scotland to submission brought the greatest
misfortunes on his son, and even affected the reign of his grandson. He
had debased the coin to carry on his wars, and it was perfectly impossible
to perform his two dying commands to pursue the war with Scotland and a
crusade. The £30,000 he had left for the last purpose went to Hugh le
Despenser and Piers de Gaveston to pay the dowry of their wives, £15,000
being the dowry of an English princess, and Despenser had married the
sister and Gaveston the niece of Edward II. The country was impoverished
and sick of the war, as is shown by the secret convention of the Earl of
Carlisle with Robert Bruce, which cost the first his life and limbs. The
terms offered by Robert Bruce—who even styles himself Sir, not King—were
very liberal, and only to be explained by his already failing health.
Among other things, if his title were acknowledged, he undertook to build
an Abbey where daily mass should be celebrated for the souls of those who
had perished in the long war. But Edward’s last words still weighed on his
son; while England was put to enormous expense in providing for the
numerous Scottish prisoners, and the chiefs who still adhered to him.
Complaints are recorded from all parts of the country as to the inability
of the castellans and abbots to maintain them; even the once wealthy Prior
of Gysburn points out that his monastery is ruined, and that he now gets
nothing from Annandale and. Carlisle, which used to be the great source of
his revenue; and this went on throughout the century. In 1376 the English
officials cannot obtain the proper dues from Calfhirst (Cavertholme),
Annan, Gretenhowe (Gretna), Kirkpatrick or Redkirk, for the tenants are
ruined by the incursions of the Earl of March. In 1315 there had been a
scarcity, and with the false political economy of the day, the English
Parliament endeavoured to keep down prices, and ordered that a fatted ox
should not cost more than 15s; a fat goose, 2 1/2d; a fat sheep, 1s 2d,
and so on, till it became difficult to supply even the King’s table, and
the order was cancelled.
Sir Eustace de Maxwell
received £22 yearly from Edward II. in 1312 for the defence of
Caerlaverock, but he afterwards submitted to Robert Bruce, who razed its
fortifications, and compensated him. It seems to have been rebuilt very
soon, for the Earl of Northampton, then Sheriff of Annandale, tells an
anonymous correspondent, in 1347, that Herbert de Maxwell had come to him
in England to surrender the Castle of Caerlaverock under safe conduct from
the King. He desires that no one on the English march should annoy him or
his men, or take their victuals from them, and that he shall in all way be
treated as an Englishman. In 1356, Caerlaverock was stormed by Roger
Kirkpatrick, assisted by John, Earl of Carrick, afterwards Robert III.,
and Kirkpatrick was murdered the next year, in the middle of the night, by
Sir James Lindsay, like himself a son of one of Comyn’s murderers, and who
was executed for it.
To an active Borderer,
spending his life on horseback, close imprisonment in England was often
fatal, but it was only those whose friends could provide a ransom who were
thought worth capturing. An order in the handwriting of Edward III.
commands the Warden of the Tower of London to receive from John de
Clifford William de Gladestoun, chevalier, a Scottish prisoner, and keep
him there. Westminster, 1357. The following year Thomas Gillisbe,
Alexander Johnstone, James White, and John Roxburgh, imprisoned in
Eccleshall Castle, Staffordshire, where they were allowed to go at large
within the Castle, broke their parole, and escaped with their goods to the
march between Scotland and England, where "they confederated with the
lieges." An order was issued to re-imprison them, and deprive them of
their goods. In 1422, John Bell, James, William, John, and Walter
Johnstone, Donald Brown, and others were released from the Tower, and
allowed to return to Scotland to bring their ransoms. After depositing the
money, they would be free to go back to Scotland. |