History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

72 JOHNSTOUN
with other influential men opposed her unfortunate marriage with Darnley
in 1565, on the ground that it was prejudicial to the Protestant interests,
also because his father had joined England in 1547. But when the old or
the Reformed faith became a question of loyalty to the Queen or to the
base-born Regent who supplanted her, there was a reaction on the Borders,
aided by her personal attractions. She had paid a visit to Dumfries and
passed a night under Lord Hereis's roof on Aug. 20, 1563; and she came
again with her second husband, Henry Darnley, in 1565 with an army of
SOO men. Among other recipients of her favour, John Johnstoun of
Newbie received the escheat of the lands of Ryehill and a 5 mark land in
Cummertrees.
The Laird of Johnstoun was a member of the Parliament which established
the Reformation, but it was all the part he took in it. Still he was charged
with maintaining Gilbert Johnstoun of Poldean, a fugitive accused of theft
and fire-raising, and of " pressing to marry his daughter to Edward Irving
of the Bonshaw's son. He was told that he was displeased with all good
order as his life and doings did declare, and unless he kept his possession
in a more orderly condition the Queen's Majesty will so vigorously punish
him, that the West Marches shall take example and his house never forget it."
One of Johnstoun's daughters, Margaret, married Ninian Graham in 1531 ;
and his grand-daughter had long been the wife of the Master of Carlile.
Another daughter, Elizabeth, married Richard Graham.
It is easy to understand the old man's anxiety to marry all his daughters
rather than let them become wards of the Crown. His niece, a daughter
of Symon Carruthers of Mouswald, had killed herself rather than accept
the selected husband. Bessie or Elizabeth, his youngest, seems to have
married James Galloway. Two generations later the Laird could only settle
on a daughter the escheat of an Elsieshields. In 1566 the Laird endowed
his daughter— Irving's wife—with the rents of Wormanbie, also the copyhold
of Stapleton, " the Laird of Newbie the superior."
The agitation was so great in Dumfriesshire when the Queen was sent a
prisoner to Loch Leven Castle in 1567 that Parliament, in the name of the infant
King James, summoned nine chiefs, including the Bishop of Wigton and
the Laird of Johnstoun, to Edinburgh to consult on the best means of
pacifying it. Johnstoun died at Edinburgh two months later. The Queen's
escape the next year set the county in a flame, and her army of nearly
600 men was chiefly gathered from Galloway, Nithsdale, Annandale and
Liddesdale, including the Chiefs of Johnstoun and Newbie with their men.
Eleven Borderers of note signed a bond to support Queen Mary—Hay,
Lord Yester, Maxwell, Hereis, Edward Maxwell, Crichton, the Abbot of
Dundrennan, and the Lairds of Ros, Somerville, young Johnstoun for his
whole clan, and Lochinvar—while Drumlanrig, Lord Home, Glencairn, Lindsay,
the Earl of Morton, and many more took the part of the Regent. The rival
forces met at Langside on May 13, 1568, when the Queen's army sustained
a total defeat, and, escaping on horseback through Crawford, Sanquhar, and