the time period of about 1153 to 1165.
Symone de Ramsay witnessed a charter by Gilbert, Earl of Strathearn before 1198, and
William de Rameshej witnessed a charter by William the Lion before 1200. William de
Ramessay appears as de Dalwussy (Dalhousie near Edinburgh) in about 1235, and Sir
Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie appears in 1342, (the family were later earls of Dalhousie).
Michael de Ramesay was Sheriff of Fife in 1395. By the middle of the thirteenth century
the Ramsays appear as landowners in Angus, dividing into several branches during the
fourteenth century.
The Reids (Ruadh) of Colliston in Buchan and
the Reid Barons of Strathloch are early fifteenth-century branches of the Ramsays, and
probably descend from Patrick Reid (Red Patrick) Ramsay, who apparently married the
heiress of Strathloch in Atholl, a granddaughter of the chief of the Robertson. The
Strathloch family adhered to the Robertsons.
The Fothringhams of Powrie in Angus held
large estates in that county, and had a cadet family, the Fotheringhams of Ballindean,
seated in Perthshire. They descend from Henry de Fodringhay or Foddrynghame, deputy of the
sheriff of Perth in 1358, who received the lands of Balewny, near Dundee, from Robert II
before 1377. They take their name, originally Fotheringhay (Fotheringham is a corruption
caused by the resemblance of the final "ay" to "in" in old records)
from the manor and castle of Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire in England, owned in the
twelfth century by the Royal House of Scotland. Prince David, before he became King David
I in 1124 was closely associated with these estates, and that is why so many Anglo-Norman
families in Scotland came from Northamptonshire. Hugh de Foderingeye of the County of
Perth rendered homage in 1296. Walter de Fodringgeye was one of the executors of the will,
in 1291, of Dervorgilla, wife of John Balliol, the competitor for the Scottish Crown, and
was later associated with the son, Edward Balliol, with whom he came north in the latter
Balliol’s invasion of Scotland in 1332.
The Stirlings of Keir appear about 1160, and
branches of the family came to hold wide lands north of the town of Stirling and around
Cadder in Stirlingshire. They take their name from the town of Stirling. Gilbertus de
Striuelin and Walter de Striveling were witnesses for King David in 1136, while Peter de
Striuelin appears as a witness to a gift to the Abbey of Hollyrood in Edinburgh in 1158.
Sir John Stirling of Moray swore fealty in 1291, and was probably the ancestor of the
Stirlings of Edzell, whose large highland district of Glenesk in North Angus passed
through an heiress to the Lindsays. King James III was probably killed by Stirling of Keir
after the battle of Sauchieburn, after he had burned Stirling of Keir’s tower
(castle-house) a few days before. A branch of the family settled early in Nairnshire. |
