Katherine Arbuthnot

1st cousin of her husband, and a direct descendent of Robert II, King of Scotland and Niall "of the nine hostages" King of Ireland

From "The Family of Burnett of Leys, with Collateral Branches" by George Burnett, LL.D., Lyon King of Arms:

http://www.archive.org/stream/familyofburnetto00burnuoft#page/29/mo...

Alexander Burnet of Leys (1575-1578)... married his cousin-german, Katherine, daughter of Robert Arbuthnot of Pitcarlies; and we have in the Heralds' Visitation of Norfolk in 1613 and of Essex in 1634 a full enumeration in order of seniority of his six sons, some of them men of mark in their day, and in the 1613 Visitation of his three daughters also. His children were:

• 1. Alexander, his heir
• 2. Robert, alluded to as a "divine" in a letter of his brother, Duncan Burnet, given in the Appendix.*
• 3. Thomas, M.A. of Cambridge, a physician of eminence, practicing at Braintree in Essex at the time of the Visitation of 1634. He married Jane, daughter of John Foys of London, and had two sons, Thomas, born 1612, and Alexander; and a daughter, Frances, who marries the ReV. Thomas Templer, rector of Weston, County Northampton.
• 4. Gilbert, Professor of Philosophy at Absle, afterwards at Montauban. He was according to Middleton's "Learned Men and Writers [of Aberdeen]", in such esteem that a National synod of the Protestants in France appointed his philosophical wrtings to be printed at the expense of the clergy; but he dying before his MSS were put in order, only his book of Ethics was printed. His "Ethicae Dissertationes, quibus perfecta et soluta philosophicae moralis idea modo accuratissime exhibetur", forms a small octavo volume printed at Leyden in 1649. In the Visitation pedigree of 1634, he is said to have had no issue.
• 5. Duncan was, like his brother Thomas, a physician and practiced at Norwich. He was according to Middleton a "learned, holy, and good man." A series of his letters, preserved at Crathes, fully bearing out the character which Middleton gives him, afford a delightful glimpse of the private life of the family at that period, and of the pleasant relations subsisting between Duncan and his kindred on Deeside. He married Jane, daughter of Robert Marsham of Little Melton, County Norfolk. In the Visitation pedigree of 1613 his arms are impaled with those of his wife; and he had at that date had issue, Robert, who was dead, and Mary, there called his "sole daughter and heir." The latter, as his letters inform us, was born on Michaelmas day, 1609. It must have been soon after this Visitation that he had another son, named Thomas, who when not more than 14 years of age, visited his cousin, Sir Thomas, at Crathes; as we find in the Aberdeen Burgh Records that on 29 September 1629, "Thomas Burnet, filius legitimus venerabilis viri magistri Duncani Burnet, medicinae doctoris, admissus fuit in liberum burgensem et fratrem gilde." The arms of this Thomas, as Thomas Burnet of Wood Dalling, County Norfolk, are on 3 June 1640, exemplified by William Le Neve, Clarenceux, in the books of the English College of Arms, with the middle holly leave charged with an annulet, for difference, and the usual crest. Seven of Duncan Burnet's letters are given in the Appendix, one addressed to Duncan's eldest brother, the laird, and the rest to his nephew, afterwards Sir Thomas Burnet.
• John. It would seem, from an allusion to him in one of Duncan Burnet's letters, that his father's efforts to make him a learned man like his brothers had failed of success. His name occurs in the Privy Council Records in 1593 as cautioner, along with his brother Leys, that Alexander Gordon of Lesmoir should not reset with the Earl of Huntly or the murderers of the Earl of Moray. He married (contract at Crathes, dated 30 April 1603) Helen wood, widow of Alexander Cumyn of Culter. In 1608, his eldest brother, Alexander Burnet of Leys, had once more acquired Tilliboy (and Kilduthie?) by purchase from Cumyn of Culter; and the same year Leys wadsetted Kilduthie to his brother John for 3,000 marks. John Burnet and Helen Wood had a son, Master Alexander, who would weem to be the "Master Alexander Burnet in Edinburgh" alluded to in one of Duncan's letters. This Alexander in 1642, under the designation "minister of God's word at the Kirk of Buckingham Fence in the County of Norfolk in England," made up his title by Precept of Clare Constat from his cousin, sir Thomas Burnet of Leys, as superior of Kilduthie, which he thereupon resigned to Sir Thomas.

References

• https://www.patrickspeople.scot/ourfamily/1957.htm