Name Change: Douglas to Drysdale

[Ronda231]

Hi Robert

Your hypothetical case would make some sense.

Regarding the Douglases charging a rental fee to the Johnstons, that would have been the nice way of doing things but Scotland in that period was a bit like the American Wild West of the 1800s.

Some context for the Annandale clan feuds can be found in a publication about the Clan Dinwiddie here:

https://electricscotland.com/webclans/dtog/dinwiddie4.html

In brief, all of the Douglas lands were confiscated by the Crown sometime within the period 1455-1484 and according to Dinwiddie at around the year 1500:

".......The great estates of the last of the Black Douglases had been confiscated and during his exile in England they had been divided by royal grants among the king's favourites. Many of the Douglas lands were in Annandale and some of these had been given to the Laird Carlyle by royal Charters..........., there was no real single authority there to oversee the wild and turbulent Lairds and Chiefs, who grasped at whatever they could seize and held it by their strong hand despite royal parchments ..... So it was, that the Laird of Johnstoun had taken forcible possession of certain of the forfeited lands of the Douglas in Annandale......."

Regards

[Ronda231]

I recently came across an old article, published in the Dollar Magazine in 1909*, which gives a slightly different viewpoint on the 1503 Douglas/Drysdale story and suggests that Lammonbie Mill on the Dryfe, may be the scene where the drama played out:



*The Dollar Magazine March, 1909 (Vol. viii., No. 29).

I've also enclosed the full text of this article as a rtf file

Regards