Alexander Chisholme

From History of the Chisholms with genealogies of the principal families of that name

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On the death of John de Chisholme de la Aird in 1436 without male issue, he was succeeded in the remaining lands belonging to the family in the Highlands and as head of the house by his next brother,

VIII. Alexander de Chisholme

Who married Margaret, described as "Margaret de la Ard and Layd of Erchless," daughter and heiress of Weyland of the Aird, by his wife, Matilda, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Malise Dei indulgentia Earl of Stratherne and jure usoris Earl of Orkney and Caithness, by his wife, Isabella, eldest daughter and co-heiress of John, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, by his wife, a daughter of Patrick Graham of Lovat and the Aird. Margaret of the Aird is mentioned in an indentured date at Kinrossy in the Barony of Cullace, Perthshire, in 1403, and in the same document her son, Thomas of Chisholme, is also named. She had a brother Alexander, designated "de la Ard," who was alive in 1375 and was made Captain of Orkney by the King of Norway. This Alexander, of the Aird, had in right of his mother, Matilda, eldest daughter of Malise, earl of Stratherne, Caithness, and Orkney, succeeded as Earl of Caithness, but he subsequently resigned the title and the lands belonging to the earldom to King Robert II.

The male line of the Earl of Orkney failed in the person of Magnus the Fifth, and a new race, sprung from a female branch, succeeded to that dignity, who were not only natives of Scotland, but internally connected with that Kingdom. For several centuries in those days, this Earldom had made a conspicuous figure in the annals of the North, not only on account of its territory, but for the spirit of its rulers and people, and its respectable and splendid connections. Besides Orkney, which was always considered as the centre of operation, and the seat of government, where the court and little parliament were kept, the laws enacted and justice administered, it contained not only Zetland, but the counties of Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, and had rendered tributary to Hebudae, which were for sometime subject to its dominion. Moreover, the ancient Counts that so long held it were all of them men of high rank and some of them of the most splendid talents. They were connected by ties of blood with all the monarchs that then ruled the North, and in the retinue they kept at home, as well as in the retinue they kept at home, as well as in the force they carried abroad, they had much more the appearance of sovereigns than of subjects.

The learned author of the History of Orkney says that Magus the Fifth, the last of the Norwegian Earls, left an only daughter who "was married to Malise, Earl of Stratherne, in Scotland, who probably enjoyed the Earldom in right of his wife without question, as no formal investiture seems either to have been sought or obtained. A claim, however, was made for this purpose by one Malise, in all probability a son of that marriage, and a caveat entered to secure the revenues in the country 'til he had time to take the steps that were necessary for obtaining what he considered his right. This Malise, who was also Earl of Stratherne, had been twice married, first to a daughter of the Earl of Menteith, by whom he had a daughter of the name of Matilda, afterwards married to Weyland de Ard. By his second wife, who was a daughter of the Earl of Ross, he had four daughters, the eldest of whom was married to William St. Clare, Baron of Roslin," whose son, Henry, afterwards succeeded to the Earldom. "Weyland de Ard had by his wife Matilda a son named Alexander, who inherited the Earldom of Caithness and a certain proportion of Orkney, in right of his mother; but he alienated the former to Robert the First, King of Scotland, and after he had resigned his share, and been governor of the latter only for a short time, he died without children AD 1369" ("The History of Orkney," by the Rev. George Barry, D.D.). Other writers place his death as late as 1376.

The following references will help to clear up many difficult and obscure points regarding the connection of the Frasers and Chilsholms of the Aird and Strathglass with the county and Earldom of Caithness: in 1296 Edward I, ordered John of Warren, Earl of Surrey, his warden of the Kingdom of Scotland, to cause to be delivered to Andrew Fresel, who was about to go into England beyond the Trent, 100 marks of the dowry of his wife in Caithness for the maintenance of himself, his wife, and family. The Andrew Fresel here mentioned was Sir Andrew Fraser, son of Sir Gilbert Fraser, Sheriff of Stirling, and the first of the name who settled in the North (Anderson's Family of Fraser, pp. 33-35). The King further ordered that all the lands and tenements which were of his wife's dowry in Caithness should be restored to Sir Andrew for the same purpose.

In 1330, we find recorded "the complaint of Symon Fraser and of Margaret his wife, and one of the heirs of the Earl of Caithness, concerning the Earldom of Caithness, dated at Kinross, on Dec. 4 in that year. This Simon was the son of Sir Andrew. He fell at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333, about the same time that Malise, Earl of Stratherne, became Earl of Caithness. This Earl Malise married Johanna, daughter of Sir John, Earl of Menteith, who was dead in 1329. The offspring of this marriage was a daughter, Matilda. In 1334, Malise styles himself "Earl of the Earldoms of Stratherne, Caithness, and Orkney." In 1345, he forfeited the Earldom of Stratherne. King David thereupon granted it to Maurice Murray, but Malise still "retained the Earldom of Caithness, which was inherited by his daughter Matilda, and afterwards by Alexander of Ard, her son by Weland of Ard."

In Bishop Tulloch's manuscript we are informed "that Alexander of Ard, by the law and custom of the Kingdom of Scotland, succeeded in right of his mother as heir to Earl Malise of Stratherne, in the principal manor or mansion of the Earldom of Cathanes, and held it with the right and title of Earl, and enjoyed also by the same right a perticate or quantity of the lands of Orkney, and acted as bailie and captaini of the people on the part of the King of Norway."

In 1375 Alexander of the Aird sold or resigned to King Robert II, the Earldom of Caithness, and the principal manor, with the title of Earl and the other rights belonging to him by the law and custom of Scotland, in right of his mother as the eldest daughter of Earl Malise. These included lands in Banff, Sutherland, and Orkney. In the same year King Robert granted to his own son, David Stewart, who in 1371 had been created Earl Palatine of Stratherne, the Castle of Brathwell (Brwl), its lands, and all the other lands as well in Caithness as in any other part of Scotland inherited by Alexander de la Aird, in right of his mother, Matilda de Stratherne, and a few years before resigned by him ("Origines Parochiales Scotiae", Vol. II, pp. 806-808). And thus the short connection of the family of the Aird and of their Fraser and Chisholm descendants with Caithness seems to have forever terminated. But it lasted long enough to become the basis of the theory that the Chisholms came originally from that county to Strathglass, and of the mass of fable to which it has given rise among the genealogists and chroniclers of the family. Alexander of the Aird appears not only to have resigned the Earldom of Caithness, but his lands in Banff, Sutherland, and Orkney, and about the same time to have resigned his possessions in the Aird to his sister Margaret, and her husband Alexander Chisholme; for some 20 years earlier William of Fenton, Lord of Beaufort, Hugh Fraser, Lord of Lovat, and Alexander of Chisholme are found on record as the three portioners of the Aird.

Referring to these events, Edmund Chisholm Batten says: "Alexander del Ard had been induced in 1376 to resign to the King the davoch of Garthyes in Sutherland, part of the Earldom of Strathern, which he inherited as the son of Matilda de Strathern. Afterwards he was appointed custodier of the Earldom of Orkney by the King of Denmark in a deed given by Torfaeus, and died without issue. Margaret del Ard, probably his sister, was anxious to recover these lands (The Priory of Beauly, pp. 94-95), and consequently she entered into the contract, to be hereafter described, with Angus of the Isles on his marriage with her daughter, styled "Margaret the Young" of the Aird.

But who was this Margaret de la Ard, or of the Aird, and what family did she belong to? That is a question which cannot with absolute certainty be answered. In all the private pedigrees of the Chisholms in which any reference is made to her, she is said to be a Fenton. This has not been proved. The female representatives of the Fentons continued to possess their third of the ancient inheritance of the Bisset lands in the Aird long after this period, and so did the female representatives of the Grahams, who carried their third to the Frasers of Lovat in 1367. John Bisset had died in or about 1259, leaving three daughters and co-heiresses - each of whom inherited and carried to their respective husbands a third of the Bisset lands in the Aird.

Marie, or Muriel, the eldest, married Sir David de Graham, by whom she had a son, Patrick Graham, who died without male issue. His mother, who as her second husband married Fraser of Lovat, carried her portion of the Bisset lands to the Lord of Lovat, whose representatives possess them at the present day. Cecilia, the second, married William de Fenton; and the youngest, Elizabeth, married first Rose of Kilravock, and secondly Andrew de Bosco, Lord of Redcastle (Kilravock Papers, pp. 27-28).

Andrew de Bosco died before 1291 leaving a son and heir John de Bosco, who along with John Bisset is mentioned in Grace's Annals of Ireland as coming in Edward Bruce's time with the Scots to Ulster. At Inverness in the year 1327, Elizabeth, the daughter of this Sir John de Bosco and wife of Alexander de Strevelyn, released in favour of the Roses any claim she had to the lands of Kilravock. In 1332-33, Nelo de Carrick and Johanna his wife and in 1349, Joneta, a widow, the daughter and one of the heirs of the late Sir John de Bosco, both execute a similar release in favour of Rose of Kilravock; and "we shall see hereafter," said Mr. Chisholm Batten, "the third of the Barony of the Aird, which must have belonged to Elizabeth de Bosco, belonging to the family del Ard" (Priory of Beauly, p. 67).

Harold the son of Donald of the Aird - "Haroldo filio Dofnaldi del Ard" - is one of the witnesses to a charter by Cecilia Bisset, widow of William de Fenton, of her third of the lands of Altyre near Beauly, to God and the Blessed Mary and John the Baptist, and the brethren of Valliscaulians serving God in the Priory of Beauly, for the aslvation of her own soul and the souls of her ancestors and successors. The charter is not dated, but it is supposed to have been granted about 1315. Another charter by Patrick de Graham of his third of the lands of Altyre to the House of Beauly, dated about 1325, is witnessed along with several others by Lord William de Fenton and John de Fenton, his son, "Johanne filio Christini de la Ard" - John son of Christin or Christian of the Aird, and the same Harold, son of Donald of the Aird, who witnessed the charter of the same lands by Cecilia Bisset 10 years before. William de Fenton, Lord of Beaufort, successor to the William de Fenton who married Cecilia Bisset, grants a charter dated at Beaufort on St. Valentine's Day, 1328, to the Priory of Beauly, of two merks out of the Mill of Beaufort. Among the witnesses are "Domino del Ard Milite; Alexandro Pylche Vicomite de Innernyss; Haroldo filio Dofnaldi" de la Ard, and several others.

Regarding these names, Mr. Edmund Chisholm Batten writes: "The name of Christian del Ard, whose son John witnessed Patrick Graham's charter and whose name was bourne by Donald, whose son Harald witnesses the charter and also Cecilia Byset's, introduces us to a puzzle in the history of the north of Scotland. The name 'del Ard' first occurs in the 'Ragman Roll.' In 1296, William Fitzstephen de Ard of the County of Inverness swears fealty to King Edward I. The same year Christian del Ard, then a simple esquire, is taken fighting against that King at the disastrous Battle of Dunbar, and sent with others, knights and esquires, a prisoner to Corfe Castle in Dorset on June 5, where he was allowed threepence a day by the Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset for his maintenance. The spectacle of the blue waters of the English Channel in the summertime must have chafed the spirit of the fighting Scottish esquire; and on Hugh, son of Earl William of Ross, coming into England in 1297, Christian, not improbably got free with Earl William and served Edward I. All all events, on Edward I's march to Scotland Christian del Ard and his companion, Hugh de Ross, ask of the King of grant of the lands which they hope the King would take from his rebellious subjects; and it is strange, as we find Christian del Ard and Alexander Pylche together as witnesses to this charter of William de Fenton, that Christian should, in 1306, have fixed upon not only the lands of Laurence and Strathbogie, but also those of 'Alexander of Pylche, Burgess of Inverness,' as his chosen possessions. Whether at this time Christian had any lands in Inverness, near that belonging to Alexander Pylche, does not appear; but in 1361 a perch of land is given to a chapel in a charter in the 'Register of Moray,' (p. 305) as lying between the land, which John, the son of Hugh, held of Christian de Ard on the south on the one side, and the land of William Pylche to the north on the other. In 1322 (Register de Aberbrothock, Vol. I, p. 305), the Abbot of Arbroth granted to Sir Christian de Ard, Kt., the lands of Bught within the Parish of Inverness, at a rent of four merks of silver and under the obligation to build houses sufficient to enable the Abbot to find in them a hall, chamber, and kitchen for his use when he visited Inverness. A counterpart of the charter is said to be left with the monks, with the seal of the said Sir Christian, which he then used and with the new seal of his arms. But he afterwards appears under another name. In Robertson's 'Index,' among charters of 16 Rob. I. (1322), the charter of Deskford is to Christian de Ard, Kt.; but the actual charter, which is printed in the 'Collections relating to the Shire of Banff,' is granted in 1325 to Sir Christian de Forbes, Kt. In 1329 the 'Register of Arbroath' mentions him as Christian del Ard, Kt. It does not appear what became of his son, John, who was a witness to Patrick de Graham's deed. John de Forbes is the first of the name mentioned in contemporary documents; this is in 1307. There is no authority for the earlier Forbes of the peerage books. Fergus de Fothes is not an ancestor; Fothes and Forbes are two different places. The story of Alexander de Bois defending Urquhart Castle against Edward I and being killed, and his son being saved and becoming the first Forbes suggest the family originating from the de Bois or de Bosco family, and this identity of Christian del Ard and Christian de Forbes, when connected with the fact that Margaret del Ard afterwards possessed the third of the Byset property, which had belonged too Elizabeth Byset, the wife of Andrew de Bosco, may lead to the discovery of the real origin of the family of Forbes" (Prior of Beauly, pp. 84-86).

It is thus almost certain that the family of De Bois or De Bosco, of Eddyrdor or Redcastle, on acquiring by marriage a third of the Bisset lands, immediately opposite the Aird, came to be known and described as "de la Ard, or of the Aird, and that Margaret de la Aird, who carried these lands to Alexander Chisholme on her marriage to that chief, was a de Bois or de Bosco. There is also the important fact brought out by Mr. Chisholm Batten - that the "christian de Ard" of 1322 is the "Sir Christian de Forbes, Kt.," of 1325; and the suggestion that the Alexander de Bois, who defended Urquhart Castle against Edward I, may have bene the first Forbes deserves consideration as a factor in this inquiry; for according to the traditions of the district, the lands afterwards acquired by the Chisholmes in the Aird and in Strathglass were originally possessed by the Forbeses.

In this way an obscure problem in genealogy hitherto inexplicable may possibly be solved. And further light is thrown on the point by the following facts - between the years 1362 and 1372, William, Earl of Ross, exchanged with his brother Hugh of Ross, Lord of Phylorth, and his heirs his lands of Argyle, which then included Kintail, Strathglass, and several parishes in Wester Ross, with the Castle of Eileandonain, in exchange for Hugh's lands in Buchan. Hugh died without issue and his brother, Earl William, re-acquired these lands. On his death, Philorth and Strathglass were carried by his daughter Johanna to her husband, Fraser, afterwards known as Lord of Philorth, progenitor of the family of Saltoun. In 1423, William Forbes of Kinaldie married Agnes, daughter of Fraser of Philorth, to whom she carried as dowry the Barony of Pitsligo, and the Forbes possessions in Strathglass, which afterwards in 1455 are found included in the Barony of Pitsligo. In 1524, Isobell Wemyss, Lady of Pitsligo, released her terce of these lands to her son, John Forbes of Pitsligo, who has a charter dated Dec. 20, 1536, of Easter and Wester Aigais, with the island of the same name, which formed part of his Strathglass lands, and which he at once deponed to Hugh Fraser, 5th Lord Lovat.

Alexander Chisholme is on record again in 1368. In that year, on the feast of the Blessed Trinity in the Chamber of Alexander, Bishop of Moray, at Spynie, in the presence of the whole multitude of canons and chaplains and others invited thither to dinner, Alexander Chisholme of the Ard, comportioner with William de Fenton, with joined hands and uncovered head, did homage to the Bishop for the lands of Ess and Kyntallirgy (Kiltarlity).

By Margaret of the Aird and Lady of Erchless, Alexander de Chisholme had issue:

• 1. Thomas, his heir and successor.
• 2. Margaret, who in 1401 married Angus, son of Godfrey of Uist and Garmoran, second son of John, First Lord of the Isles, the "Good John of Isla," by his first wife Amie, Heiress of the Macruaries of Garmoran. Godfrey's descendants are said to be extinct. His eldest brother John died before his father, leaving one son, also named Angus, who died without issue. Godfrey's next immediately younger brother was Ranald or Reginald, progenitor of the Macdonalds of Glengarry (Mackenzie's History of the Macdonalds and Lords of the Isles, p. 59).

On the occasion of Margaret the Younger's marriage, a curious agreement was entered in between her mother, Margaret of the Aird, whose husband Alexanner de Chisholme, was then dead and young Margaret's husband, Angus. It is recorded that in 1401, by an indenture dated at Dunballoch between Margaret, Lady of the Aird, Lady of Erchless and of that Ilk, and Angus, the son of Godfrey of the Isles, it was agreed that Angus should marry Margaret the Young, the daughter of the Lady Margaret of the Aird, with whom he should have from her mother 15 merklands, namely the davach of Croicheal and the half-davach of Comar Kinbaddy, within the bounds of Strathglass, to be held by Angus and his heirs by Margaret his wife; that should margaret die without heirs, the half of those lands and the half of the goods then jointly possessed by Angus and his wife should revert to Lady Margaret and her heirs (these lands of Croicheal are subsequently found in possession of Haliburton, who married catherine, the granddaughter and heiress of Margaret de la Ard, and Erchless, showing that Angus must have died without issue), the other half to remain with Angus for his life; that after his death the whole should freely revert to the Lady Margaret and her sons for recovery of the davach of Brebach Carinnes, and Invernaver in Strathnaver, the two Gartys in the Earldom of Sutherland, and Larynys in the Earldom of Caithness; and that in so far as the Lady Margaret and her sons might recover the said lands through the advice, assistance, and power of Angus, he and his heirs by her daughter Margaret, should have the fourth part of the recovered lands, and the other three-fourths should remain with the Lady Margaret and her sons; the entry of Angus to be at the feast of Penticost following, so that the fermes of that term should remain with the Lady Margaret, and taht the lands should thenceforth be at the will of Angus (Lib. Insulae Missarum, pp. 1 and 51; and the Pitsligo Charters, quoted in Origines Parochiales Scotiae, pp. 515-516, Vol. II). From this two important facts are made clear. First, that the lands in Strathglass which Margaret de la Ard brought to her husband Alexander de Chisholme, continued under her own personal control after his death, and second, that she still laid claim to some portions of the lands in Sutherland and Caithness, which had belonged to her late brother, Alexander as Earl of Caithness.

Alexander de Chisholme was succeeded in the remaining portion of the lands inherited from his father and brother, which were still extensive, and as head of the house by his son, Thomas de Chisholme, who is on record during his father's lifetime, in 1389, 1390, and in 1391-92, 1394, and 1398. He was Constable of Urquhart Castle in 1391-92, succeeding his father, who had at that date from extreme old age become too frail to perform the duties of that responsible office.