dumfries-1920/04-030

Transcription

HISTORICAL MONUMENTS (SCOTLAND) COMMISSION.

branch of the Maxwells, is conspicuous in one disturbed period of later Dumfriesshire
history. The name was particularly associated with the estate of Hoddom, but the
Herries holdings in the 14th century, when they were conferred, were principally
those of Terregles and Kirkgunzeon, on the Kirkcudbright side of the Nith, though
in the grants referred to they are included in the Sheriffdom of Dumfries. ¹ Hoddom
we first hear of in 1199,when Robert de "Hodelme" is accused of having allied him-
self at the siege of Carlisle with the King of Scotland (William the Lion, 1173 or 1174)
against King Henry II., his lord for lands in England. ² In the plea over this affair
we have mention of Robert's two sons Udard and Randulph de "Hodamme." ³ But
heirs male ceased, for in 1257 we find Thomas de Lacelles, the husband of the daughter
and heiress of Christiana daughter of "Odard de Hodeholm," in possession of the
English property in Cumberland in virtue of his wife's inheritance from her mother. ⁴
In 1292 we have Robert de Brus (the Competitor) in a successful lawsuit over the same
English lands in association with his wife Christiana, heiress to her grandfather Odard
of Hoddom, ⁵ both married for the second time. Adam de "Hodolm" appears on
the Ragman's Roll in 1296, ⁶ so that the Scottish property must have gone a different
way. As we have seen above, Annandale came to the Douglases in 1409, and soon
after that date Earl Archibald, in a charter now lost, gifted to Simon of Carruthers
the lands of Hoddom among others, ⁷ and in 1452 King James II. erected all these
possessions of the Carruthers family, including Hoddom, into the barony of Carruthers. ⁸
The cessation of the Carruthers family after the middle of the 16th century brought
about a fresh allotment of the Hoddom property.
The next great reconstruction of Dumfriesshire territorial ownership followed
on the suppression and forfeiture of the main branch of the Douglases in 1455. That
family was then planted to a greater or less extent in every dale of the county. But in
a country as yet administered almost wholly on territorial lines, through the principal
families, the extent of the possessions and power of the Douglas earldom was a menace
to the Crown, and the Earls did not trouble to dissemble the fact. Indeed, this house
occupied two other earldoms, brothers of the Earl of Douglas being Earls of Moray
and Ormond. When the Earl himself was forced into England, these two opposed
the forces of the Crown and were defeated at Arkinholm (Langholm) in 1455. The
royal army itself was under the command of a Douglas, the Earl of Angus. The
loyalists duly had their share of the extensive territorial spoils of the ruined
earldom. Angus, among other things, had a gift of the lordship of Eskdale. The
Maxwells, who had held for the Earl of Douglas the hereditary office of Steward of
Annandale, received it now from the Crown, and likewise supplanted the Douglas in
Nithsdale. Of the smaller folk the Beatsons profited most. John and Nicholas
"Batysoune," two brothers, had an hereditary grant of the five-mark lands of Dalbeth
in upper Eskdale for their services at Arkinholm, while Robert "Batysoune," for the
same reason, got Whiteshield. ⁹
Apparently anti-royalist sympathies in Dumfriesshire were confined to the
Corries, who suffered accordingly. George Corrie of Corrie backed the Albany-
Douglas raid upon Lochmaben in 1484, and was stripped of all his lands and
possessions, of some, however, it would seem only for a time. The lands of Corrie

1 Reg. Mag. Sig., i. pp. 98, 615. Cf. p. xx.
2 Bain's Calendar, i. No. 280.
3 Ibid., No.449.
4 Ibid., No. 2101.
5 Ibid., ii. p. 151.
6 Ibid., No. 203.
7 Buccleuch MSS., p. 56.
8 Ibid., p. 58.
9 Exchequer Rolls, vi. p. 557; Reg. Mag. Sig. (1424-1513), Nos. 632, 633.

-- xxviii