Publications of the Clan Lindsay Society - Electric Scotland

88 THE HOUSE OF KAIRfJIUTH.
cleuch and Carsluith, and who married James Lindsay,
was doubtless the dauj^hter of the said Jolm and
Elizabeth.*
In a charter granted in 1506 to Michael Lindsay,
her son, she is spoken of as if she had been {troprietrix
of Fairgirth in her own right ; and this seems to have
been the origin of the belief that the Lindsays acquired
the property by marriage with the heiress. Some of
the lands mentioned in the charter belonged to
Margaret Cairns by inheritance, but it need not be
understood that all of them were in the same category.
It appears rather that they were all treated alike,
merely because there was no necessity for making any
distinction between them.f There is no other reference
to Fairgirth as belonging to the Cairns family ; and it
is not mentioned in the royal charter which assured to
them the lands which they held of the Douglases.
James Lindsay, First Laiud of Faiiigirtu, is
sometimes referred to in the records as James Lindsay
of Carsluith, § for he was owner of Caraluith in right
of his wife. lie was probably tlie same as James
Lindsay, Custumar of Kirkcudbrigiit from 1401 to
1469. II During
part of this time the bailies of that
* In a recently published Ilistorij of the Family of Cuirnes or Cainis
(Lawtoi), Margaret, wife of James Linda;.y of Fairgirth, is given as iho
daughter of John Cairns, tirst laird of Orchardton, and ho as Llio aim and
heir of John, nephew of tho Provost of Lincluden. The pedigree ia
apparently conjectural, at least no proofs are given, and it is highly
improbable ;
in some of its details, impossible.
t Reg. Mag. Sig., XIV., 404 (Vol. I., No. 2'J8