CHARTERIS,
the surname of an Anglo-Norman family which, says Douglas in his
Baronage, “is of great antiquity in Scotland, and it is the opinion of
some antiquaries that they are of French extraction; that William a son
of the earl of Chartres in France, came to England with William the
Conqueror; that a son or grandson of his came to Scotland with King
David the First, and was progenitor of all of the surname of Charteris
in this kingdom, and certain it is they began to make a figure in the
south of Scotland soon after that era.”
The immediate
ancestor of the family of Charteris of Amisfield, *(anciently Emsfield,
and sometimes Hempisfield,) in Dumfries-shire, was Robert de Charteris,
who flourished in the reigns of King Malcolm the Fourth and King William
the Lion. In a charter of confirmation by the latter to the monastery of
Kelso, Robert de Charteris is one of the witnesses. It has no date, but
as Ingelram bishop of Glasgow, another of the witnesses, died in 1174,
it must have been granted in or before that year. His son, Walter de
Charteris, is mentioned in a donation to the monastery of Kelso, and
also the son of the latter, Thomas de Charteris, who lived in the reign
of King Alexander the Second. His son, Sir Robert de Charteris, made a
donation to the same monastery of the patronages of two churches in
Dumfries-shire, by a charter, in which he is designed Robert de Cornoto,
miles. It is to be observed that in ancient charters the family name is
often thus Latinized, but when Englished it is invariable called
Charteris.
The son of
this Sir Robert, Sir Thomas de Charteris, was in 1280 appointed lord
high chancellor of Scotland by King Alexander the Third, and seems to
have been the first layman who held that office. He was also, with Sir
Patrick de Graham, Sir William St. Clair, and Sir John Soulis, nominated
on an embassy extraordinary to the court of France, to negociate the
king’s marriage, which important negociation they quickly accomplished,
but King Alexander’s untimely death soon after prevented the good
effects of it. Sir Thomas died in 1290. His son, Andrew de Charteris,
was among the barons of Scotland who were compelled, in 1296, to make
submission to Edward the first of England; but he soon retracted what he
had done, for which he was forfeited the same year, and his lands of
Amisfield bestowed on an Englishman. Several others of the name who had
possessions in different counties, were also at the same time forced to
swear allegiance to the English king, as William de Charteris, Robert de
Charteris, and Osborn de Charteris.
Andrew’s son,
William de Charteris, did homage to King Edward in 1304, for his lands
in Dumfries-shire, but he took the first opportunity of joining the
party of Bruce, and was one of those patriotic barons who attended the
latter at Dumfries when Comyn was slain in 1306. With Walter de Perchys
he resigned the half of their barony of Wilton, in Roxburghshire, in
favour of Henry de Wardlaw. He died about 1330. His son, Sir Thomas
Charteris of Amisfield, was a most faithful subject of David the Second.
In 1335, when that monarch was in France, he was, by the estates of the
kingdom, appointed one of the ambassadors extraordinary to the court of
England; and, 20th March 1341, he was again sent on another
embassy to treat with the English. After King David’s return to
Scotland, he appointed him, in 1342, lord high chancellor. He was killed
in 1346 at the battle of Durham, where his royal master was taken
prisoner.
His descendant
in the sixth generation, John Charteris of Amisfield, married Janet, a
daughter of Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig, ancestor of the dukes of
Queensberry. Between the families of Amisfield and Kilpatrick of
Kirkmichael there were constant feuds. In Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials,
vol, i., under date March 19 and 20, 1526, John Charteris of
Amisfield, Robert and John his sons, Robert Charteris his brother and
thirty-nine others, found caution to underlie the law on May 29, in the
Tolbooth of Edinburgh, for the slaughter of Roger Kilpatrick son and
heir of Sir Alexander Kilpatrick of Kirkmichael, knight, and for the
mutilation of the latter; and on the 24th of the same month,
Sir Alexander Kilpatrick and his sons, Robert, John, and William, found
caution to appear the same day to answer for all crimes to be imputed
against them by John Charteris of Amisfield. He also became security for
the entry of William Kilpatrick his brother, the two sons of the latter,
and twenty-three others the same day.
His son, Sir
John Charteris of Amisfield, held, in the reign of James the Fifth, the
office of warden of the west marches, one of the most important under
the crown, and appears, from various charters, to have possessed an
immense estate, which is said to have been much reduced from the
following circumstance, according to a traditionary story narrated in
‘Forsyth’s Beauties of Scotland,’ vol. ii, page 312. King James the
Fifth being at Stirling, previous to setting out on a progress to the
borders for the redress of grievances, received a complaint from an old
woman, a widow, who lived on the water of Annan, that in a recent
incursion of the English into the district, her only son and two cows,
her whole support and comfort on earth, had been carried off, and that
Sir John Charteris of Amisfield, warden of the west marches, on being
informed of the outrage, and that the marauders were only a few miles
distant, not only refused to pursue them, but also treated her with
rudeness and contempt. The king told her he should shortly be in
Annandale, and would attend to the matter. When he arrived at the head
of Nithsdale he left his attendants, and went forward in disguise to the
castle of Amisfield. He requested the porter to tell the warden that he
came express to inform h im of an inroad of the English. The porter,
unwilling to disturb his master, said he had gone to dinner; but the
king, bribing him first with one silver groat, and then with two,
prevailed upon him to convey two messages to Sir John, the latter being
that the general safety depended on his immediately firing the beacons
and alarming the country. On this second message, Sir John, in a rage,
threatened to punish the intrude, when the king bribed another servant
to inform Sir John that the goodman of Ballangeigh had waited a
considerable time at his gate for admittance, but in vain; and throwing
off his disguise, he sounded his bugle-horn for his attendants. Sir
John, in great alarm, hastened to meet his sovereign, who reprimanded
him for neglect of his duty, and commanded him to pay the widow her loss
tenfold, adding that if her son was not ransomed within ten days, he
(Sir John) should be hanged. And, as a further token of his displeasure,
he billeted upon him his whole retinue, in number two thousand knights
and barons, and obliged him to find them in provender during their stay
in Annandale.
In 1581 the
son of this baron, Sir John Charteris (or Charterhouse, as it was
sometimes spelled), as cautioner for George Douglas of Parkhead, was
“unlawit in the pane of ane hundreth poundis,” for the non-appearance of
the latter to take his trial for high treason, in not delivering up the
castle tower and fortalice of Torthorwald to Robert Maxwell, messenger,
sheriff in that part, &c. On December 22, 1593, a commission was granted
to William Lord Herries and nine others, among whom appears the name of
“John Charterhous of Amysfield,” for the preservation of the peace of
the west borders, on account of the rebellion of sir James Johnston of
Dunskellie and others of his name. By his wife Lady Margaret Fleming,
daughter of John earl of Wigton, he had a son, Sir John Charteris, who
succeeded him. At the parliament held at Edinburgh, 15th July
1641, Sir John Charteris of ‘Emisfield’ was present as commissioner for
Dumfries-shire, and on 16th November of that year, he was
appointed one of the commissioners of parliament for confirming the
Ripon treaty. He was an active loyalist, and suffered many hardships on
account of his attachment to Charles the first. In April 1646, he was
cited before the parliament, and obliged to find security for his good
behaviour, nevertheless sentence of banishment was immediately
thereafter passed against him. Having been engaged with the marquis of
Montrose, he was apprehended and imprisoned in the castle of Edinburgh.
His brother, Captain Alexander Charteris, was one of five of Montrose’s
most distinguished officers who, after that nobleman’s execution, were
beheaded by the Maiden at Edinburgh, having been with him when he
appeared in arms in Caithness in 1540. Captain Charteris was the last
who suffered, and his death excited great regret. “He was,” says Browne,
“a man of determined mind; but his health being much impaired by wounds
which he had received, he had not firmness to resist the importunities
of his friends, who, as a means of saving his life as they thought,
prevailed upon him to agree to make a public declaration of his errors.
This unhappy man, accordingly, when on the scaffold, read a long speech,
which had been prepared for him by the ministers, penned in a peculiarly
mournful strain, in which he lamented his apostasy from the covenant,
and acknowledged other things which he had vented to them (namely, the
ministers) in auricular confession! Yet, notwithstanding the
expectations which he and his friends were led to entertain that his
life might be spared, he had no sooner finished his speech than he was
despatched.” [History of the Highlands, vol. ii. page 50.] Sir
John Charteris married Lady Catherine Crichton, daughter of William,
earl of Dumfries, by whom he had two sons, Thomas his heir, and John,
father of the notorious colonel Francis Charteris. On the death of his
uncle Thomas without male issue, Colonel Charteris became undoubted male
representative of the ancient family of Amisfield, but the estate went
to his cousin Elizabeth, only child and sole heiress of his uncle. She
married John Hogg, Esq., and her son, Thomas Hogg, assumed the name of
Charteris as heir to his mother, and was ancestor to the present family
of Amisfield in Dumfries-shire. Colonel Charteris having purchased the
lands of Newmills near Haddington, changed the name to Amisfield, from
the ancient seat of his forefathers in Nithsdale. He married Helen,
daughter of Alexander Swinton, a lord of session, under the title of
Lord Mersington, and by her had an only daughter, Janet, his sole
heiress, who married James, fourth earl of Wemyss, and her second son,
the Hon. Francis Wemyss, afterwards fifth earl of Wemyss, inherited the
estates of his maternal grandfather, and in consequence assumed the name
and arms of Charteris. [See WEMYSS, Earl of.] Arbuthnott’s epitaph on
Colonel Charteris, who acquired a vast fortune by usury and other vices,
had been much admired as a complete and masterly composition of its
kind. It is as follows: “Here continueth to rot, the body of Francis
Charteris, who with an inflexible constancy and inimitable uniformity of
life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of
every human vice, excepting prodigality and hypocrisy; his insatiable
avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the
second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his
manners than successful in accumulating wealth; for, without trade or
profession, without trust of public money, and without bribe-worthy
service, he acquired, or more properly created, a ministerial estate. He
was the only person of his time who could cheat without the mask of
honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand
a-year; and having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at
last condemned to it for what he could not do. Oh indignant reader!
Think not his life useless to mankind! Providence connived at his
execrable designs, to give to after ages a conspicuous proof and example
of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his
bestowing it on the most unworthy of all mortals.” In Pope’s Works, vol.
ii, p. 142, the following paragraph appears: “Francis Charteres, a man
infamous for all manner of vices. When he was an ensign in the army, he
was drummed out of the regiment for a cheat; he was next banished to
Brussels, and drummed out of Ghent on the same account. After a hundred
tricks at the gaming tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant
interest and on great penalties, accumulating premium, interest, and
capital into a new capital, and seizing to a minute when the payments
became due; in a word, by a constant attention to the vices, wants, and
follies of mankind, he acquired an immense fortune. He was twice
condemned for rapes, and pardoned; but the last time not without
imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He died in Scotland in
1731, [at Stoneyhill near Musselburgh, in February 1732, in the
fifty-seventh year of his age.] The populace at his funeral raised a
great riot, almost tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs,
&c., into the grave along with it.” As Colonel Charteris’
character, it is remarked in another place, was singular in every other
respect, so it is said to have been in this, that he was a coward who
had his fighting days. He would suffer himself to be banged and basketed
for refusing a challenge one day; and on the next he would accept
another, and kill his man. [Biog. Brit. Kippis’ edit. vol. i.
page 240.]
_____
The founder of
the old family of Charteris of Kinfauns in Perthshire, – which disputed
the chieftainship with the family of Amisfield in Dumfries-shire, – is
said by tradition to have been Thomas de Chartres, commonly called
Thomas de Longueville, a Frenchman of an ancient family, who having
killed a nobleman at the court of Philip le Bel, in the end of the
thirteenth century, turned pirate, under the name of the Red Reaver, and
was encountered and made prisoner by Sir William Wallace on his supposed
voyage to France, in 1301 or 1302, and, after being pardoned and
knighted by his own sovereign, accompanied Wallace to Scotland, and
fought against the English, first under his banner, and afterwards under
that of Bruce, who, as a reward for his bravery, conferred upon him the
lands of Kinfauns, in the neighbourhood of Perth; as an evidence of
which a double-handed sword, called the sword of Charteris, is professed
still to be shown in the modern castle of Kinfauns! In every account of
the origin of the Perthshire house of Charteris we find the same story
told, but we think it extremely improbable. It is more likely that that
family was a branch of the family of Charteris in Dumfries-shire, as the
name had become much extended in Scotland at that period, and that the
Sir Patrick Charteris, who was present with the earl Marshal and Lord
Crawford at the conflict of the clan Chattan and the clan Kay, on the
North Inch of Perth, in 1396, was a direct descendant of the founder of
the house of Amisfield.
In the
fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth, the family of Kinfauns
was one of great influence in Perthshire. In 1465, Andrew Charteris of
Kinfauns was provost of Perth and continued to be so till 1471,
inclusive. He again filled the office in 1473 and 1475. In the latter
year one Gilbert Charteris, who was afterwards dean of guild, was one of
the bailies.l In 1484 Andrew Charteris was again provost, and at various
times thereafter till 1503, which appears to have been the last time he
held the office. In 1507 John Charteris was provost, and also in 1509.
Others of the name frequently held situations in the magistracy of that
city. In 1529 William Lord Ruthven was elected provost, the first of his
family that ever filled the office; there could thus, up to that time,
be nothing hereditary in his occupancy of the provostship, as in
commonly believed. Between the Kinfauns family and the Ruthvens a
rivalry and feud seem to have existed, which, on several remarkable
occasions, led to fatal results. On 25th February that year,
Patrick Charteris of Cuthilgurdy, a near kinsman of the laird of
Kinfauns, and who had been provost of Perth, from 1521 to 1523, both
inclusive, and in 1525, and again in 1527 provost and sheriff, found
Robert Maule of Panmure as his cautioner that he would underlie the law
for art and part of the fire-raising and burning of the village of
Cowsland, and for the plunder of certain cattle and other goods, from
the tenants thereof, and from William Lord Ruthven; and on 28th
of the same month, John Charteris, his brother, and eleven others, found
security to answer for the same crime. On September 20, 1530, Patrick
Charteris of Cuthilgurdy received a letter of license to pass in
pilgrimage beyond the seas. On 30th September 1538, John
Charteris of Kinfauns was elected provost of Perth, but he seems to have
died soon thereafter, as on June 13, 1539, we find Thomas Charteris of
Kinfauns, convicted of art and part using a forged acquittance or
discharge of a certain large sum of money assigned by the king to James
Ross, his servant, due to his majesty by the death of Alexander bishop
of Moray, as hie heir, or granted to the king by the privilege of the
pope. He was sentenced to be warded in Edinburgh castle during the
king’s pleasure, and all his moveables to be escheated, but by
petitioning the lords of privy council, he was admitted to ‘free ward,’
on finding security that he would not attempt to escape. [Pitcairn’s
Criminal Trials.]
On August 1st
1543, the regent Arran issued an order to the provost, bailies, and
community of Perth, charging them to obey John Charteris of Cuthilgurdy
and Thomas Charteris of Kinfauns in all votes, in preference to letters
already issued in favour of Lord Ruthven, and on 1st October
following, John Charteris was elected provost. On 26th
January succeeding he was, however, by the regent and lords of secret
council discharged of the office, and on 15th April a
proclamation by the queen appeared against the said Thomas and John
Charteris, and their accomplices, to the number of eighty, denouncing
them rebels, and commanding them to be apprehended. On 7th
October the same year (1544) Patrick, Lord Ruthven, was elected provost
of Perth, and in the following January, on Cardinal Bethune’s
persecuting visit to that city with the regent Arran, he instigated the
latter to turn Lord Ruthven out of the provostship, and restore John
Charteris of Kinfauns to that office. He therefore applied to Lord Gray,
to whom he was allied, and persuaded him, and Norman Leslie, and others
of his friends, to assist him with their armed forces, in attacking the
town. The master of Ruthven, aided by the laird of Moncrieff and the
citizens, resolved to defend it at all hazards. Lord Gray was to enter
the town from the bridge, while Norman Leslie was to bring up ammunition
and ordnance by water to storm it on its open side, but the tide was
against him, and he did not arrive in time. The former finding the
bridge undefended, marched up into the town as far as the Fishgate, when
he was encountered by the master of Ruthven, who routed and repulsed his
party, about sixty of whom were slain. The Ruthvens ever after had
possession of the provostship till May 1584, when William, earl of
Gowrie, then provost, was executed at Stirling. In 1552, John Charteris
of Kinclaven, in Perthshire, was killed by the master of Ruthven, on the
High Street of Edinburgh, “upon occasion,” says Bishop Leslie, “of old
feud, and for staying of a decret of ane proces, which the said John
pursued against him before the Lords of Session.” [Bishop Leslie’s
History, p. 247.] this led to the passing of an act by the following
parliament, that whosoever should slay a man for pursuing an action
against him, should forfeit the right of judgment in his action, in
addition to his liability to the laws for the crime.
On the 29th
of May 1559, when the queen regent entered Perth with her French troops,
Lord Ruthven, then provost, was dismissed, with the rest of the
magistracy, and John Charteris of Kinfauns, who was not only no friend
to the Reformers, but entertained a hostile feeling to the citizens ever
since 1544, was appointed provost in his place. He was the queen’s tool
in fining, imprisoning, and banishing the inhabitants, but his reign was
short, lasting only till the 26th of June, when Perth
capitulated to the Reformers.
The family of
Kinfauns appear also to have been at feud with the Blairs of Balthayock.
On May 2, 1562, John Charteris of Kinfauns, with David, his brother, and
thirty-nine others, found surety to take their trial on the 15th
of that month, for attacking Thomas Blair of Balthayock and his
followers, and giving them injurious words. He protested that the
finding of the security should be no prejudice to him because he was a
parish-clerk; that is, that as a churchman he was liable only to the
jurisdiction of the church courts. Thomas Blair, on his part, and sundry
of his friends, also found security to underlie the law, for the
slaughter of Alexander Rae, in the feud with the laird of Kinfauns.
Owing to the loss of a scroll-book the result of these cases is unknown.
[Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials.]
In 1537 one
Andrew Charteris, a brother of the provost of Dundee, a friar, fled out
of Scotland to England, where he stayed a year, and thereafter retired
to Germany, where he cast off his cowl. After residing at Wittenberg for
twelve months he went to Antwerp, and was robbed by the way, but was
relieved by some of his countrymen when he arrived at the latter town.
Thence he went to Zealand, and in a letter still extant to his brother,
the provost, he inveighed vehemently against the whole Roman Catholic
hierarchy, bishops, priests, abbots and monks,
“Black friars and grey,
With all their trumpery.”
He was a man of a
ready genius and goodly appearance; so much so that King Henry said to
him, after he had talked with him an hour, “It is a pity that ever you
were a friar.” [Calderwood’s History, vol. i. p. 113.]
An eminent
printer and bookseller, in the Scottish capital in the sixteenth
century, was Henry Charteris, who published Sir David Lindsay’s works in
1568. He mentioned that he was present at the performance of Sir David’s
‘Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estatis,’ when it was “playit besyde
Edinburgh in 1544, in presence of the Quene Regent,” and that he sat
patiently for nine hours on the bank at Greenside to witness it. In
1589, he was one of thirteen commissioners appointed by a convention of
noblemen, ministers, burgesses, &c., held at Edinburgh, to meet weekly
to consult as to the defence of the reformed religion, and in 1596 the
Confession of Faith was printed by him in folio. In 1604 his name
appears among those members of the Edinburgh presbytery who subscribed
it of new.
His son, Mr.
Henry Charteris, was educated for the church, and about 1590 he became
one of the regents in the university of Edinburgh. On the death of
Principal Rollock, 8th January 1599, he was senior regent,
and on 14th February following he was appointed principal in
his place, and professor of divinity in the university. He held these
offices for twenty-one years. Although an eminent scholar, he was a man
of singular modesty, for in 1617, says Bower, when he arrived at the
honour of being principal and professor of divinity, he declined
presiding at the disputation which was held in the presence of the king
at Stirling. He was the author of the only Greek epitaph, among
twenty-eight, on Principal Rollock, and of two others in Latin. His
father was probably king’s printer and printer to the university, and
was for a very considerable time in the magistracy, but does not seem to
have lived to see his son so honourably distinguished as he became. In
1520 he accepted the parochial charge of North Leith, on which he
resigned the principalship and the divinity chair, but in 1626 he was
restored to the latter. He died two years afterwards in the sixty-third
year of his age.
