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OF THE

FAMILY OF ROBERT BURNS

AND OF THE

SCOTTISH HOUSE OF BURNES

BY THE

REV. CHARLES ROGERS, LL.D.

HISTORIOGRAPHER TO THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY
OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN
ANTIQUARIES, COPENHAGEN; MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF
QUEBEC, MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL AND
GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF NEW ENGLAND

LONDON

PRINTED FOR THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1877

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PREFACE.

Of the numerous biographers of the poet Burns, few have dilated on his lineage. Some doubtless felt that his position might not be elevated by any pedigree, however famous. Others may have been content to hold that himself being in lowly circumstances, any inquiry as to his progenitors would be useless and unprofitable. By his biographer Dr Currie he is described as "in reality a peasant."

What in respect of descent Burns really was these Memoirs will show. Remotely sprung from a landed stock, his immediate ancestors were yeomen, at first opulent, latterly the reverse. The family had produced another poet, the author of "Thrummy Cap;" but decided indications of intellectual activity did not appear in the house till subsequent to the marriage of the poet's paternal grandfather. The wife of this person was of the family of Keith of Craig, a branch of the house of Keith-Marischal. From the Keiths of Craig have sprung, among many other eminent persons, the celebrated Ambassador Keith, the Right Hon. Sir Robert Murray Keith, and Mrs Anne Keith, a considerable poetess and the accomplished friend of Sir Walter Scott. Isabella Keith, wife of Robert Burnes at Clochnahill, was mother of three sons who reached manhood. The eldest was grandfather of Sir Alexander Burnes, linguist, diplomatist, and traveller; the second 142343

had a daughter pronounced by the poet the smartest of her kin; the third was the poet's father.

The family name was originally Burnes; it has been variously spelt-Burnace, Burnice, and Burness. For a time the poet spelt it Burness; but prior to issuing proposals for the first edition of his poems in 1786, he finally changed the spelling to Burns, as the name was usually rendered in Ayrshire. Not a few descendants of the house, especially in the north of Scotland, adopt the form of Burness.

The present work is chiefly founded on Dr James Burnes' "Notes on his Name and Family," a thin duodecimo privately printed in 1851, and on entries in the parochial and other registers. Among the members of the poet's family who have afforded willing help may be named Mr Gilbert Burns, of Dublin, his nephew; Misses Agnes and Isabella Begg, of Alloway, his nieces; Mrs Everitt and Mrs Hutchinson, his grandchildren; and his relatives Mrs Adam Burnes and Lieutenant Albert Whish, both of Montrose. In many ways Mr Myers, town clerk of Montrose, Mr James Gibson of Liverpool, and Mr James M'Kie of Kilmarnock, have rendered praiseworthy and important service. Through the good offices of James Cowie, Esq., Sundridge Hall, Kent, an accurate account is for the first time presented of the circumstances under which the poet's grandfather, Robert Burnes, quitted the farm of Clochnahill, an event bearing materially on the latter history of the family. To render the genealogical narrative minute and accurate, no effort has been spared.

GRAMPIAN LODGE, FOREST HILL, S. E.,

October 1877.

GENEALOGICAL MEMOIRS.

ETC.

ETC.

THE name Burns or Burnes is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beorn, a chief, with the affix nes, denoting possession. At Burnesburgh, in Yorkshire, Athelstan, in 938,1 defeated the Danes and Scots. Burneston-juxta-Ermuldon, in Northumberland, was one of the estates left in 13912 by Jacoba, wife of John de Stryvelyn. The manor of Burneston, in Derbyshire, belonging to the abbey of Welbeck, and other places so called, are named in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.3 Burnestede, in Norfolk, belonged to Beatrix, Countess of Arundel, in 1440;4 and Burneshead, in Cumberland, was the seat of a family named Burnes up to the reign of Edward I.5

In Domesday Book in 1050 Godric de Burnes appears as owner of wide domains in Kent. In the reigns of Richard I. and John (1189-1216) are named, in connection with property in Kent, Eustace de Burnes, Roger de Burnes, and William 1 Hardyng's Chronicle, Lond. 1543.

2 Calendar. Inquisit. Post Mort., Lond. 1821, vol. iii., p. 127.

3 Valor Ecclesiasticus, temp. Henry VIII., Lond. 1825; Ducatus Lancastriæ, Lond. 1827.

4 Calendar. Inquisit. Post Mort.,' vol. iv., p. 197.

5 Burn's Cumberland, Lond. 1777, vol. i., p. 124.

Ellis' Introduction to Domesday Book, vol. ii., p. 63.

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