NAVAR-LORDS OF NAVAR AND BRECHIN. 141

Sir Thomas's heirs got Leuchlands, Hatherwick, Claleck, Jackston, and Stadockmore, which were formerly parts of the estate of Brichine."

The question of Maule's right of succession is said to have been raised from time to time, and a judgment in favour of the family to have been obtained in the reign of Queen Mary; but it was not until after the death of the seventh Earl of Mar, in 1634, that Patrick Maule by purchase acquired the lordship of Brechin, which, with the title, ought to have descended to him by inheritance.

Among others, Janet, or Jane, Countess of the eighth and unfortunate Earl of Douglas, whom James slew in Stirling Castle, had in 1472-3 “the liferent of the king's lands of Petpullock, etc., with the Lordship of Brechin and Navar in full satisfaction of her terce." This lady, however, held these lands only for a short time, as, in the same year, King James is recorded to have given a liferent lease of them to David, fourth Earl of Crawford, afterwards Duke of Montrose.2 The power of the barons as superior to the established law at this date is well exemplified in this case; for, although these lands were gifted to the Duke of Ross in 1480, Crawford maintained a right over them until the year 1488, when, on the complaint of the King," the Lordis decretis and deliveris that the said David, Erle of Crawfurd, dois wrang in the occupatioune and manuring of the said landis of the lordschipis of Brechin and Neware." He was accordingly ordered "to devoid and rede" them to James Duke of Ross, second son of James III.,3 but whether he did so immediately does not appear. From these lands the Duke of Ross assumed his secondary title of Lord of Brechin and Navar.

The Duke of Ross was ultimately Archbishop of St. Andrews, and died in 1504, at the early age of twenty-eight, when the lordship of Brechin and Navar again fell into the 2 Lives, i. p. 153.

1 Douglas, Peerage, p. 431.

3 Acta Dom. Aud. p. 123.

King's hands, at whose disposal it perhaps remained until 1527, when it was given to Thomas Erskine of Haltoun, a cadet of the family of Dun, and uncle to the Superintendent.1 He had a charter of the lands of Kincraig in the previous year, and was Secretary to James v. from that time until March 1543. He was knighted, and soon thereafter appointed a Lord of Session; he was afterwards sent as an ambassador to France to conclude the treaty of the intended marriage between the King and Mary of Bourbon-an alliance which was never completed. In 1541, he had a royal grant of the office of Constable of the burgh of Montrose, which he afterwards conveyed to his nephew of Dun, whose descendants held the appointment until the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1748. On 20th June 1545, Sir Thomas Erskine, as superior, confirmed a charter of the lands of Arrat, Lychtonhill, Pettyndreiche, and Nathrow,2 which was granted by John Erskine of Dun to Robert his second son, and in 1550-1 he excambed the lordship of Brechin and Navar with John, fourth Lord Erskine, for the lands of Pittodrie and Balhagardy in Aberdeenshire.3

In 1620, John the seventh Earl of Mar, tutor of Prince Henry, had influence enough to get such parts as he possessed of Brechin and Navar erected into a part of the lordship of Mar; but, as before stated, on his death Brechin and Navar fell to Sir Patrick Maule of Panmure by purchase in 1634; and, on being elevated to the peerage in 1646, Maule was dignified by the title of Earl Panmure, Lord Brechin and Navar.

Waiving the unfounded assertions of Boethius and others, that the first of the Maules, who settled in Scotland, came from Hungary with the queen of Malcolm Canmore, and afterwards received charters of the lands of Panmure from Edgar in the early part of his reign-we shall limit our brief notice of the family to the indisputable evidence afforded by records.

1 Misc. Spalding Club, ii. pp. lxxiii sq., 177 sq.

2 Dun Charters; Misc. Spalding Club, iv. p. 46.

8 On the Erskines of Pittodrie as related to the Erskines in Forfarshire, see Misc. Spalding Club, ii. pp. lxxiii sq.; Davidson, Inverurie, ii. p. 473.

arms.

NAVAR-MAULES OF PANMURE.

143

Suffice it to say, that they are of the Maules of the lordship of Maule,1 in the Duchy of Normandy, and bear quite the same One of these, Ansold Sire de Maule, and Rectrude his wife, are recorded as benefactors to the Priory of St. Martinin-the-Fields at Paris, about the year 1015, and nine generations are traced from them, chiefly through gifts to the Church.

Guarin de Maule, who came to England with the Conqueror in 1066, is the first recorded of the name in Britain. He settled in Yorkshire, and had a son Robert, who came to Scotland with David I., from whom he had various grants of land in the Lothians. This Robert had a son William, who, for his bravery at the battle of the Standard in 1138, obtained the lands of Easter Fowlis in Perthshire, and left three daughters, one of whom married Roger de Mortimer; and from a daughter of a successor of Roger the late Lord Gray was descended, and thus inherited the lands and barony of Fowlis.2

The direct ancestor of the present Maule of Panmure was Sir Peter de Maule (grand-nephew or great-grand-nephew to William of Fowlis), who, about 1224, married the heiress of Sir William de Valoniis, Lord of Panmure, and Great Chamberlain of Scotland. This was the time and manner in which the Maules became proprietors of Panmure, Benvie, Balruthrie, and other estates of the family de Valoniis, who had a gift of these possessions from William the Lion. This Sir Peter Maule died in 1254, leaving two sons. The second was the brave governor, Sir Thomas, who defended the castle of Brechin against Edward in 1303, in which noble action he was unfortunately killed by a stone thrown from the enemy's engine. But it must not be inferred from this fact, as is

3

1 This lordship was, at a later date, erected into a Marquisate, and, in the fifteenth century, the titles and estates were carried by an heiress into the family of the Marquises of Morainvilliers. See Reg. de Panmure, i. Pref., and ii. pass. 2 Reg. de Panmure, ii. p. 77 sq.: Anderson, Scot. Nat. ii. pp. 370 sq.

3 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. ii. pp. 442 sq.

4 The war wolf, or engine, employed at the sieges of Brechin and Stirling by Edward L. in 1303, discharged stones of two and three hundredweight.-(Brewster, Edin. Encyc., art. ARMS, i. p. 471.)

popularly too often done, that the family of Maule were lords of Brechin, or had any interest in it at that time, the titles and estates being then in the family de Brechin, from which family, however, they are lineally descended, and of which the late Marquis of Dalhousie was the true heir of line, though the title and estates have passed to the younger branch of his family.

As the genealogy of the Maules of Panmure is sufficiently traced in the principal heraldic books, and especially in the magnificent Registrum de Panmure,1 it will be superfluous to go into the history of those who flourished betwixt the time. of Sir Peter Maule's death in 1254 and the ennobling of Sir Patrick in 1646.2 It is enough to say that most of them were actively engaged in the important transactions of the periods in which they lived, and that Sir Patrick's elevation to the peerage in 1646 arose from his attachment to the person of Charles I., whom he followed in all his enterprises, and waited upon personally, until prohibited by order of Cromwell, who afterwards imposed the enormous fine of £12,500 on him and his son Henry, though only £5000 of it were exacted. Earl Patrick's fidelity to the King has been questioned by modern historians, who are inclined to think, from the fact that he made extracts from Charles's private correspondence, and forwarded them to the leaders of the Covenant in Scotland, that he had been guilty of a breach of trust. It is most probable, however, from the King's well-known double-dealing in these matters, that the Earl had not only acted with the connivance, but perhaps at the instigation, of his master: for, though opposed to Archbishop Laud, he was a strong Episcopalian in the time of King

1 The original Registrum de Panmure is a Ms. belonging to the family of Panmure, and written by the Hon. Harry Maule of Kelly, who died in June 1734. It was printed for private distribution, in two handsome quarto volumes, with plates, and editor's preface by the late Dr. John Stuart, in 1874, at the sole expense of the late Right Honourable Fox Maule Ramsay, eleventh Earl of Dalhousie and second Baron Panmure. His Lordship died when the printing had hardly been completed.

2 See the pedigree drawn out in detail in Registrum de Panmure, i. and ii., with the charters, etc., in full; Warden, Angus, i. 379 sq.; Burke, Peerage, etc., 1881, pp. 330 sq.

Gordon, Scots Affairs; Lord Hailes's Collections, etc.