to Norway in 1286. The family adhered to
The Bruce during the Scottish War of Independence, and in 1316 David de Wemys witnessed
the homage of Duncan, Earl of Fife, to the Abbot of Dunfermline. On the failure of the
male-line of the earls of Fife (the earldom was resigned to the House of Stewart by the
last of the original line, a countess, in 1372), and the male-line of the House of
Abernethy (by 1334), the head of the Wemyss family became the senior male-line
representative of the House of Fife, and were later vested in the Undifferenced arms as
chiefs of Clan MacDuff.
The Abernethys descend from the hereditary
abbots of the Culdee monastery at Abernethy, and were the senior cadet (branch) family of
the House of Fife. Hugh, Abbot of Abernethy, died about 1150. He was succeeded by his son
Orm de Abernethy, who appears as a charter witness for the Bishop of St. Andrews before
1162. He may have given his name to the lands of Ormiston in East Lothian, which are
contiguous with those of Salton, which were in the possession of his descendants, under
their title of Lord Abernethy (a title which passed through heiresses after 1334, and
ultimately to the Hamiltons by the sixteenth century). The House of Abernethy possessed
the right to inaugurate the King of Scots as ecclesiastical representatives of the House
of Fife branch of the Kindred of St. Columba. Between 1189 and 1196 King William the Lion
granted the church of Abernethy to the Abbey of Arbroath, which had been founded in the
early thirteenth century by King William the Lion (of the line of David I and the Kindred
of St. Columba) as the seat of a new order in conjunction with the gradual secularization
of the old Celtic abbeys, a task completed by about 1300 under King Robert Bruce. About
the same time Lawrence, son of Orm de Abirnythy (sic), conveyed to the church and monks of
Arbroath his whole right "In the advowson of the church of Abernethy." This can
only refer to the kind of secularization of the old Celtic abbey-lands referred to in
Chapter IV, for Lawrence de Abernethy retained the land and position of dominus or lord of
Abernethy. The seal of Sir Alexander de Abernethy in 1296 bears the Abernethy coat of
arms, a differenced version of the arms of the House of Fife, born on the breast of an
eagle displayed (see under Lindsay).
The Scrymgeours have long been an important
family around Dundee and in the Kingdom of Fife, and in the late fourteenth century they
inherited a vast territory in Glassary in Argyle from the MacGilchrist lords of Glassary.
The Scrymgeours descend from Alexander Schyrmeschur, son of Colyn, son of Carin of Cupar,
who obtained in 1293 a tack or lease of the land of Torr, or Torer, in the parish of
Cupar, Fife from Thomas de Kylmaron (also in Cupar). He held the office of Royal
Bannerman, and in 1298 was made Constable of the Royal castle of Dundee by charter from
the great Lowland war leader and Guardian of Scotland, Sir William Wallace. He was later
executed by the English for carrying the Royal Banner for Bruce at the Battle of Methven.
His ancestors appear in Coupar at least as early as the first half of the thirteenth |
