Bartholomew Bertolf de Leslie, 1st Constable of Inverurie - Are there any primary documents, or reliable secondary documents, concerning Bartolf de Leslie?

Started by Anne Brannen on Saturday, September 4, 2021
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9/4/2021 at 3:57 PM

As we have it at the moment, Bartolf de Leslie is given as the founder of the clan Leslie, and the source from which this comes (it's the clan Leslie story) is that he was married to Beatrix, the daughter of Duncan, king of Scotland.

Problems with this:

Medlands (and wikipedia, for that matter) give Duncan three sons. Period, No Beatrice.

Here's Medlands on Duncan, with Beatrice not showing up: https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SCOTLAND.htm#DuncanIdied1040B

The Overview for Bartolf gives us the story as above, as given by the Clan Leslie historian -- but there are no citations of source documents.

The archived Clan Leslie site gives the same story, but no documentation -- https://web.archive.org/web/20170813143814/http://www.clanleslietru...

And I got there by looking up Bartolf Leslie in wikipedia, which handily sent me to the Clan Leslie material, and said he was married to Princess Beatrice, EVEN THOUGH the King Duncan wikipedia page does not say she existed.

However!

There exists a collection of historical records of the Leslie family, and snippets that I can see on the web say that the Beatrix information comes from 1792, John Brown, Genealogist of Scotland to the Prince of Wales, and he says that Beatrix married Bartolf.

Ok.

Nowhere am I seeing any evidence of sources, but the Scottish genealogist is important -- and would be the seal for this information.

So, unless somebody has something that Medlands doesn't have, I would think that we need to connect Beatrix of Scotland to Duncan, AND give notes explaining the situation.

Unless somebody has evidence that John Brown can safely be ignored.

9/4/2021 at 5:02 PM

I uploaded a picture just now regarding that official family tree from John Brown, to Bartholomew's profile. I once purchased a digital copy of the tree from the National Library of Scotland, which was 600mb in size. This is a tiny version of the tree with the important Leslie part enlarged. The branch to the right signifies Malcom, III's daughter, while straight above Malcom is one of his sons leading to more heirs. I suppose the daughter went to the right and stopped there because she did not continue the male line of the family. Please let me know if I can contribute any other (visual) information regarding this official, royal tree of Scotland.

9/4/2021 at 8:24 PM

Thanks!

It’s difficult to read, but I think I get the gist.

So, am I right I thinking that this is an officially accepted connection, even though the primary evidence isn’t being cited?

If I put this another way —

How did John Brown know that there was a Beatrice, daughter of King Duncan of Scotland?

The information came from somewhere.

It’s making me nuts that the sources aren’t being given.

9/4/2021 at 8:37 PM

I found a link that allowed me to read the book mentioned above concerning historical documents and the Leslies.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Historical_Records_of_the_Fami...

And interestingly, though no sources are given, the author states that according to various authorities, there were competing stories about who Bartof married. Still no word on how James Brown came to the conclusion he did.

9/5/2021 at 8:16 AM

I wish I could answer that, Anne. Alas, I can only include this paragraph from the bottom left of the tree:
"An Historical and Genealogical Tree of the Royal Family of Scotland. From the most EARLY ACCOUNTS, to the present time MDCCXCVII. Including also several ROYAL and NOBLE Families at home and abroad who have sprung therefrom whether Lineally or Collaterally. COLLECTED from the PUBLIC RECORDS, authentic DOCUMENTS, most approved AUTHORS and personal INFORMATION, by John Brown Genealogist to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for SCOTLAND."

9/5/2021 at 9:04 AM

Darn.

One of the things we often see in genealogies from that time period is an assertion of documentation, without the documentation being given. And we also see, quite often, claims that are based on stories, without actual documentation. And in this case, the assertion of documentation is about the whole tree in general, not pointed to this particular problem.

In such cases, usually, we would keep the disconnection, adding in notes as to why we've disconnected.

What gives me pause is ONLY the fact that the tree was put together by the genealogist to the Prince of Wales -- in other words, it has authority through that.

But I'm really very very very troubled by the fact that, apparently, no primary documentation as to even the existence of Princess Beatrix has come to light. AND that there were, before John Brown's Tree, several conflicting stories, as given by unknown "authorities."

AND as well by the fact that this is a genealogy for the Prince of Wales, focused on the connection of the royal lines -- the offshoot branches are not of as much importance to the focus of the Tree -- and I'm also aware of conflicts in genealogies between the English and the Welsh, and the English and the Irish, and so I worry that what's going on here is that in this particular tiny piece of the Tree the inherited story of the connection of Bartolf's wife to royalty won out over the other inherited stories; that there was no evidence in any of the directions, but that was the most satisfying.

I'm greatly troubled.

9/5/2021 at 9:11 AM

In 1878 John Davidson hedges his bets and says Bartolf is "said to have married the KIng's sister" -- https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgrXRMc1O-sC&pg=PA567&lpg=PA567&d...

9/6/2021 at 5:01 AM

This may be of interest about John Brown.

http://www.clandonald.org/index.asp?pageid=681118

9/6/2021 at 12:53 PM

thank you, Erica Howton -- that VERY useful site causes me to think that I am indeed correct in questioning the accuracy of that Tree; Brown did use many actual good sources, but he also relied on inherited stories.

So, frankly, I myself do not believe that there was ever any such person as Beatrice, daughter of King Duncan.

However.

That Tree is generally accepted -- not by scholars, but by a whole lot of descendants of the people in that Tree, and so we have the problem of how to deal with this.

It's not a case where we can, at the moment, show that Brown was not stringent in dealing with the Lewis part of the Tree.

But it's highly problematic that there are NO primary sources which even mention her.

I would favor keeping her detached from Duncan, adding in lots of notes and explanations, and locking the profile down.

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