KIRKALDY,
a local surname, derived from the town of that name in Fifeshire,
where there is said anciently to have been a place of worship
belonging to the Culdees, hence Kilculda or Kilculdei, in course of
time corrupted into Kirkcaldy.
One of the
brightest of our historical names is that of Kirkaldy of Grange. Of
the family, however, our public records furnish but a few scanty
notices. As their estates, lying in the parish of Kinghorn, adjoined
Kirkaldy, it is supposed that they derived their surname from that
town. In Prynne’s History, a Sir William de Kirkcaldy is mentioned as
one of the Scots barons who submitted to Edward III. of England during
one of his invasions of Scotland, and a charter of King David II.,
dated “Apud Edynburgeh,” contains the name of a Simeon Kyrcaldie.
There were
at an early period two principal families of the name, the Kirkaldys
of Inchtower or Inchture in the shire of Perth, and the Kirkaldys of
Grange in Fife. From their surname the latter appear to have been the
elder branch, although supposed to have descended from a younger son
of the former. Their connection with Fife must have been prior to the
reign of David II., as we find a pension granted by that monarch to an
Andrew de Kirkaldye, “Capella ano, 5 marcarum sterlingorum annustim de
custuma civitatis Sancti Andreae, quosque per Dominum Regem ad Aliquod
beneficium ecclesiasticum fuerit promotus,” &c. The house of Inchture
has long been represented by the noble family of Kinniard, Marjory,
daughter and sole heiress of Sir John de Kirkaldy of Inchture having,
at the end of the 14th century, married Sir Reginald de
Kinniard, knight, and her lands were confirmed to him by a charter of
Robert III., of date 28th January 1399. A minor branch, the
Kirkaldys of Wester Abden, also in Fife, appear to have ceased as a
distinct family about the beginning of the 17th century.
In the
Register House at Edinburgh are preserved no fewer than eighteen MS.
charters and two remissions (the dates ranging between 1440 and 1568,
both inclusive) relating to the family of Kirkaldy of Grange, now
extinct, but which at the period to which they refer appear to have
been one of the most important in the county of Fife. John de
Kirkaldy, a younger son of the family, vicar of Newburn in that shire,
is mentioned in Archbishop Shevez’s confirmation of privileges to the
university of St. Andrews, dated at Edinburgh, 2d June 1479.
William
Kirkaldy de Grange appears as one of a quorum which served Patrick
Crichton of Cranstoun-Riddel heir to his father, at Edinburgh, 7th
December 1506, and he is mentioned in a charter dated 13th
February 1528, as being alive in that year. His eldest son, Sir James
Kirkaldy, married Janet, daughter of Sir John Melville of Raith, one
of the early Reformers, in whose right he acquired the lands of
Banchrie and others in Fifeshire, with the baronies of Grange and
Auchtertool. Introduced by his father-in-law to the court and service
of King James V., he was made a lord of the bedchamber, and on 24th
March 1537, appointed lord-high-treasurer of Scotland, in place of the
abbot of Holyrood. “He was considered,” says Crawford, “one of the
wisest and worthiest in the nation, but through the interest of
Cardinal Bethune, he lost his office of treasurer.” (Officers of
State.) This did not happen, however, till after the death of
James V. He is described by his brother-in-law, Sir James Melville of
Hallhill, as “a stout man, who always offered by single combate, and
at point of the sword, to maintain whatever he said.” The year
following his appointment as treasurer, with his three brothers, Sir
George, who obtained the lands of Craigcrook in Mid Lothian and others
in Stirlingshire, John, and Patrick, his father-in-law, Melville of
Raith, his kinsman, William Barclay of Touch, and eight others, he
received a remission for all crimes, excepting treason, and in October
1539 he and his three brothers received a similar remission from the
crown. As an instance of the favour and confidence with which he was
treated by the king, it is related that on James’ return from his
voyage round the Isles in 1540, he showed the laird of Grange a scroll
drawn up by Cardinal Bethune and the priests, containing the names of
360 nobles and barons whom they had doomed to be burnt for heresy,
amongst which was his own, with those of several of his friends and
kinsmen. With honest sincerity he denounced the insolence and rapacity
of the clergy, expatiated on the abuses which they had brought into
the church, and on their great wealth and profligacy, and advised the
king to annex their benefices to the crown, as had been done by his
uncle, King Henry, with whom he strongly counselled him that he should
maintain a friendly intercourse. The king took the advice in good
part, and shortly after, when the cardinal and some other prelates
went to Holyrood-house, and renewed their application for the
punishment of heretics, after many reproaches, he thus sternly
addressed them: “Packe, you javells! (Jail-birds.) Gett you to your
charges and reforme your owne lives, and be not instruments of discord
betwixt my nobilitie and me, or elles, I vow to God, I sall reforme
you, not as the king of Denmarke doth, by imprisonment, neither yitt
as the king of England doth, by hanging and heading, but by sharper
instruments, if ever I heare suche a motion made by you again!” (Calderwood’s
Historie, vol. i. p. 146.) The same year, when Sir James Hamilton
of Fynnart, natural son of the first earl of Arran, was accused of a
conspiracy to the king, then on a journey to Fife, James sent the
accuser with his ring, to Sir James Learmouth, master of the
household, and Sir James Kirkaldy the treasurer, and by their means,
Hamilton was speedily executed. The treasurer’s second son, James
Kirkaldy, married Helen, daughter of Leslie of Pitcaple, and heiress
of Kellie in Forfarshire, a ward of the crown, and on his father’s
leaving court to attend the nuptials, in his absence Cardinal Bethune
and the priests obtained from the king a warrant to commit him to ward
in the castle of Edinburgh. His imprisonment, however, was short, and
he was soon restored to favour.
After the
disastrous rout at Solway, the king on his way to Falkland palace,
where he died soon after (on 13th December, 1542), visited
the treasurer’s house of Halyards, where he was courteously received
by the Lady Grange, “an ancient and godlie matron.” The treasurer
himself being absent, his eldest son, William Kirkaldy, and others,
waited upon the king. At supper, the lady attempted to comfort his
majesty, praying him “to take the work of God in good part.” “My
portion,” he answered, “of this world is short, for I will not be with
you fifteen days.” On his attendants’ asking him where he would hold
his Christmas, he replied, “I cannot tell; choose you the place. But
this I can tell you; before Christmas day ye will be masterless, and
the realm without a king.” The treasurer and his son, William, were
with the king in his last moments. By the advice of the former, the
earl of Arran assembled the nobility, and obtained the regency during
the young queen’s minority, and for a time the treasurer adhered
faithfully to him; but, when the Romish party obtained the ascendency,
he and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, and Balneaves of Hallhill, whom
he had made treasurer-clerk, were among the first to withdraw from
him. He keenly supported the English connection, and in 1543 was
dismissed from the office of lord-high-treasurer, mainly through the
machinations of Cardinal Bethune. In revenge, he joined the celebrated
conspiracy against that haughty and cruel churchman, and on the
evening of his assassination, with three of his sons, he joined the
murderers in the castle of St. Andrews, where his eldest son, William,
had been since the morning. To the assistance of the garrison, King
Henry remitted several sums of money, with £200 to the laird of
Grange, who appears to have received other sums from that monarch, for
his support of the projected marriage between the young Prince Edward
and the infant Queen Mary. At the meeting of the Estates at Edinburgh
on 4th August 1546, he and his three brothers and four
sons, with all others within the castle of St. Andrews, were declared
traitors and forfeited. On the surrender of that fortress, the
garrison blamed their countrymen for deserting them, and the laird of
Grange, on being carried with the rest prisoner to France, remarked,
as he embarked, “I am assured God sall revenge it ere long.” With
Monypenny of Pitmilly he was confined in the castle of Cherbourg, and
while there they stoutly refused to go to mass, the laird of Grange
telling the captain of the castle, on his insisting on it, that if
compelled to attend, “those that were there should see by their
behaviour how much they despised it.” After his release from Cherbourg
he resided in England and beyond seas till 1556, when, by the
mediation of the queen-dowager, he made his peace with the Scottish
government, and his forfeiture being withdrawn he had his estates
restored to him. He died soon after.
With four
daughters, he had five sons, namely, Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange,
the foremost knight and soldier of his time, of whom a memoir follows;
Sir James, who was hanged on the same scaffold with his brother in the
High Street of Edinburgh; Sir David and Thomas, who both served with
the garrison of St. Andrews, and being sent to Arran’s camp on
proposals of peace, were not allowed to return; and George, of whom
little is known. The daughter were, Marjory, married to Sir Henry
Ramsay of Colluthie; Agnes, to Sir Robert Drummond of Carnock; Marion,
to William Semple, second baron of Cathcart; and Elizabeth, to Sir
John Moubray of Barnbougal, chief of an ancient family, which became
extinct about 1620.
Sir William
Kirkaldy, the eldest son, married Margaret, daughter of Sir James
Learmouth of Dairsie, provost of St. Andrews, and with her he got, on
5th October 1564, a crown charter of the lands called
Nether Friarton, near that city. He had a daughter, Janet, who married
Sir Thomas Ker of Ferniehirst, ancestor of the marquises of Lothian
(see LOTHIAN, marquis of), an adherent of Queen Mary and one of the
defenders of Edinburgh castle, when besieged by the troops of the
regent Morton. The barony of Grange was restored on 29th
November 1581 to William, son of Sir James Kirkaldy, and nephew of Sir
William, the latter having no sons of his own. His mother, Helen
Leslie, the heiress of Kellie, proved false to her husband, and
betrayed him to her paramour, the regent Morton. He escaped from the
prison at Dalkeith, to which the regent had consigned him, and eight
days after she was found strangled in her bedchamber. In 1590 William
Kirkaldy of Grange, Sir James’ son, signed the Solemn League and
Covenant, and in 1596 he was indited, with three others, for
convocating an unlawful assembly. He had, with a daughter, two sons,
Robert, who succeeded him, and Thomas. On 14th May 1664,
Charles II. created John Kirkaldy, then in possession of Grange, a
baronet of Scotland, but the title was not connected with any grant of
land in America, as was usual with the baronetcies of Nova Scotia. Sir
James Kirkaldy, the second baronet of Grange, and ten other persons,
were, by order of the Scottish privy council, committed to the
tolbooth of Edinburgh, on 25th June 1674, charged with
holding an armed conventicle in Fife, for which he was fined £550. Sir
John Kirkaldy of Grange, the third baronet, was alive in 1722, and on
his death in 1739 the title became extinct. The estate of Grange,
after being in possession of a family of the name of Skene, and
subsequently of the Carnegies of Boysack, became the property of the
Fergussons of Raith.
Mr. Grant,
in the notes to the ‘Memoirs and Adventures of Kirkaldy of Grange,’
(Edinburgh, 1849, p. 382,) says that there are two families of the
name in England, Kirkaldy of Monkwearmouth, Durham, and Kirkaldy, late
of Sunderland, now of Liverpool, both of whom bear the arms of the
line of Inchture; namely, a fess wavy, between three mullets
gules, with the crest and motto of the lairds of Grange,
“fortissima Veritas.” He believes that there is only one family in
Scotland bearing the name.
KIRKALDY, WILLIAM,
of Grange, reputed the bravest and most skilful soldier of his time,
was the eldest son of Sir James Kirkaldy of Grange, high treasurer to
James V. He early embraced the principles of the Reformation, and was
one of the conspirators against Cardinal Bethune. After the surrender
of the castle of St. Andrews, he was, with the others, sent prisoner
to France, but contrived to make his escape, and afterwards
distinguished himself highly in the service of the French king. On his
return to Scotland, he attached himself to the lords of the
Congregation, and had several gallant rencontres with the French
forces sent over to the assistance of the queen-regent. For his
concern in the murder of Cardinal Bethune, he had been attainted, but
the attainder was taken off by parliament in 1563. In 1566 he joined
the confederacy of nobles for the removal of Bothwell, and the
protection of the infant prince, and at Carberry Hill received the
surrender of Queen Mary. He afterwards pursued Bothwell in the Orkney
seas, scattered his small fleet, and obliged him to fly, with a single
ship, towards Norway.
After the
battle of Langside, where he greatly assisted the regent Moray,
Kirkaldy was appointed governor of Edinburgh castle. He was also lord
provost of Edinburgh. Up to this period, he had shown himself to be
firmly attached to the Protestant, or king’s party, but during the
absence of the regent at the conferences at York, Maitland of
Lethington obtained an extraordinary ascendency over him, and,
unfortunately for himself, he was persuaded to give his support to the
cause of Mary.
The regent
Moray’s death in 1570 revived the hopes of the queen’s adherents; and,
being animated with the utmost rancour against their opponents, they
resolved on an immediate appeal to arms. Assembling at Linlithgow, the
chiefs of the queen’s faction marched thence to Edinburgh, and held a
parliament there, but were soon after compelled to remove to the
former town, where they openly proclaimed the queen’s authority. On
the other hand, the leader of the king’s party having chosen the earl
of Lennox regent, convoked the Estates at Stirling, and issued a
counter-proclamation. To the assistance of the latter, sir William
Drury, marshal of Berwick, arrived with a large force from England,
and a truce was concluded between the contending factions, which was
continued till the end of April 1571. On the day after its expiration,
Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, by a successful night attack,
surprised the castle of Dumbarton for the regent, and taking prisoner,
among others, Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews, who had sought
refuge in the fortress, that prelate was almost immediately afterwards
executed at Stirling, without even the semblance of a trial. On the 12th
of June, Kirkaldy held a parliament in the queen’s name in the Castle
of Edinburgh, and in the subsequent September, he projected a
well-concerted plan for seizing the regent and all the nobles with him
at Stirling, which, owing to the imprudence of those to whom the
enterprise was intrusted, proved a failure; but, in the accompanying
struggle, the regent Lennox was killed.
On the earl
of Morton being appointed to the regency, that nobleman set on foot
negotiations for an accommodation with the principal leaders of the
queen’s party, in which he was at length successful. Maitland and
Kirkaldy, however, in the expectation of receiving some promised
succours from France, still resolved to defend the castle of Edinburgh
in the queen’s behalf. That fortress was, in consequence, closely
invested by the forces of Sir William Drury, who had joined the
regent’s army with a formidable train of artillery. After performing
prodigies of valour, Kirkaldy saw his defences battered down, one well
destroyed, and the other choked up, his guns silenced, and his
provisions exhausted, and in vain offered terms. The garrison
mutinied, and threatened to hang Maitland over the wall, which
compelled Kirkaldy to capitulate, when he surrendered to the English
commander, May 29, 1573, on promise of good treatment. In spite of
this assurance, however, the brave Kirkaldy and his brother were
ignominiously hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh, on the third of the
ensuing August, and Maitland only escaped the same fate by taking
poison.
John Knox,
with whom he had quarrelled about the end of 1570, as related in the
life of the Reformer, had, previous to his death, in November 1572,
sent Kirkaldy, by David Lindsay, minister of Leith, the following
remarkable and solemn message: “Go,” he said, “to yonder man in the
castle (meaning Kirkaldy) – he whom ye know I have loved so dearly –
tell him that I have sent ye once more to warn him, in the name of
God, to leave that evil cause, for neither the craigy rock in which he
so miserably confides, nor the carnal prudence of that man Lethington,
whom he esteems even as a demigod, nor the assistance of strangers,
shall preserve him; but he shall be disgracefully dragged forth to
punishment, and hanged on a gallows in the face of the sun, unless he
speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God.” At the
instigation of Maitland, Kirkaldy returned a scornful answer, which
afterwards occasioned him the most poignant regret. “Begone,” he sais,
“and tell Master John Knox he is but a dirty prophet.” On the day of
his execution, when he saw the scaffold prepared, says Calderwood, the
day fair, “and the sun shining clear,” his countenance changed, and
Mr. David Lindsay, who was with him, asked him the cause. “Faith, Mr.
David,” he answered, “I perceive well now that Mr. Knox was the true
servant of God, and his threatenings to be accomplished.” He then
requested him to repeat Knox’s message, which he did, adding that he
had been earnest with God for him, and was sorry for that which should
befall his body, for the love he bare to him, but was assured there
was mercy for his soul. To this he answered, “I hope in God that,
after men shall think I am past and gone, I shall give you a token of
the assurance of that mercy to my soul, according to the speech of
that man of God.” It was about four o’clock in the afternoon that he
was thrust off the ladder, the sun being then west, according to
Calderwood’s minute description, about the north-west corner of the
steeple of St. Giles’. “As he was hanging, his face was set towards
the east; but within a short space, turned about to the west, against
the sun, and so remained; at which time Mr. David marked him, when all
supposed he was dead, to lift up his hands, which were bound before
him, and to lay them down again softly; which moved him with
exclamation to glorify God before all the people.” [Calderwood’s
History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 284.] His head,
after being cut off, was fixed upon the highest spike in the gate of
the castle of Edinburgh, which he had, with the greatest courage and
fidelity, defended to the last.
_____
KIRKCALDY,
viscount of,
a secondary title of the earl of Leven and Melville. See that title.
Kirkcaldy of Grange
By Louis A Barbé (1897) (pdf)
