bishoprics for life, with other
provisions. The representative of this line, Sir James Livingston of Kinnaird, was created
Earl of Newburg (Fife) by Charles II shortly after Charles’ restoration and return
from France (he had been granted a viscountcy in 1647 by Charles I). James raised the
King’s Life Guard of Horse, "the private gentlemen of the Kings Life
Guard," composed largely of Perthshire gentry, on Leith Links, Edinburgh, in 1661.
This regiment was later commanded by the Marquis of Tullibardine (of the Perthshire
Murrays). It should be noted that some Pennsylvania Germans Englished their name of
Loewenstein as Livingston.
The Lynches (de Linse) came to Ireland with
the Anglo-Norman invasion, and settled at Knock in what is now County Meath. At the start
of the fourteenth century a branch of the family settled in Galway City, where they became
the most important of the mostly Norman tribes of that city, often serving as mayors.
Several of the name were attainted, their property confiscated, at the end of the Jacobite
wars of the late seventeenth century.
The MacCostellos (Mac Oisdealbhaigh) were one
of the first Anglo-Norman families in Connacht, settling in Mayo, in what became the
Barony of Costello, which originally included part of neighboring County Roscommon (their
sixteenth-century seat was near Ballaghadereen, now in Roscommon). They were the first of
the Norman invaders to adopt a Gaelic name, which marks their descent from Oistealb, son
of the famous Gilbert de Nangle (Latin: de Angulo), who was one of the first Anglo-Norman
invaders. His family, the de Angulos, obtained vast estates in Meath, where they were
Barons of Navan. The family thence spread into Leinster and Connacht, where the leading
family adopted the Gaelic patronymic Mac Oisdealbhaigh, as we have seen. Those in
Leinster, and those in Connacht that did not adopt this form, became Nangles (de Nogla);
while those in Cork became Nagles. The Waldrons (Mac Bhaildrin) are a branch of the
MacCostellos in Mayo.
The Bissets’ (Biseid) ancestor came to
Scotland in the train of William the Lion on his return from captivity in England. The
first recorded in Scotland was Henricus Byset, who witnessed a charter by William the Lion
granted before 1198. His son John Byset witnessed a charter by Henry de Graham in 1204,
and was granted wide lands in northern Scotland by the king. The descendants of this John
Byset became very powerful barons in the North, but their power was broken as a result of
the murder of the young Earl of Atholl by Walter Byset, Lord of Aboyne. He and his nephew,
John Byset (founder of the Priory of Beauly in 1231) were exiled from Scotland (another
Bisset, Sir William, was freed from guilt), and took refuge in the Glens of Antrim, where
they carved out a territory under de Burgo, Earl of Ulster. From this John descends the
family of MacKeown (Mac Eoin—son of John) of the Glens of Antrim. It was through an
heiress of this family that the Glens came to the MacDonnells. In Scotland the Bissets
continued to be a family of importance, although most of the old estates passed through
heiresses to the Frasers and |
