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

2
THE EARLIEST JOHNESTOUNS
men, "three-score Carvels (Carliles) from Cockpool," and a Corrie, Crichton,
Kirkpatrick, Jardine, and Johnstoun, with retainers. These families still use
the same shield as their chief, Bruce, with a saltire or St. Andrew's Cross to
show their part in the Crusades, but with different augmentations.
David of Scotland had severe experiences. He was shipwrecked in Egypt,
taken captive by the Turks, and bought by a Venetian, who carried him
to Constantinople, then a Greek city. Here he was recognised and set at
liberty by an English merchant. At last he arrived safely at Alectum, in
Scotland, and gave it the name of Dei Donum, corrupted to Dundee, in gratitude
for his return, but it is unlikely that the Scots who accompanied him were
able to effect their escape.
Again a contingent from Annandale accompanied Robert Bruce, father
of the king, to the Crusade, in which Edward I. and Louis IX. took part.
Bruce was a more fortunate leader than Prince David. He even had the
honour of lending £40 to Edward, so was probably able to bring his clansmen
safely home.
The wars between two countries now happily united have little interest
at the present day, except to show that if nations once so bitterly hostile could
amalgamate, no hereditary enemies need be irreconcilable. It was the Border
warriors who for centuries preserved Scotland's integrity, and bore the brunt
of every invasion, and Camden, writing in the time of James VI., points
out that among these the Johnstouns were the most noted. They owed
their civilisation, superior in the Middle Ages to that prevailing in Galloway
and the Northern Highlands, to the Norman blood pervading the chief families.
The adaptable Normans intermarried with the natives of the districts where
they received lands, and introduced law, order, and a rude justice.
A Scottish Border antiquary (d. 1851) was of opinion that the original
Johnstoun, 1 like Bruce, Baliol, Gordon and Jardine, came from France with
William I. He identified him with the Seigneur de Jeanville mentioned by the
old chronicler, Guillaume de Tailleur, as assisting at the battle of Hastings, and
the name appears again, half Saxonised into Janvil, on the roll of Battle Abbey.
Gulielmo de Joyneville signed a deed connected with a grant to the Carlile
family in Dumfriesshire from William Bruce between 1 191 and 121 5, and
Geoffrey, or Guibert, de Jeanville, for he is called both in different copies, an
adherent of Baliol, came to France in 1299 with the English Commissioners, all
nobles, knights or bishops, to sign a Treaty between Edward I. and the Scottish
king, John, with Philip of France. The Scottish Commissioner, like his English
colleagues, must have been a man of weight.
1 The horrible incidents connected with the Wolf of Badenoch and that recorded in the
Legend of Montrose in the sixteenth century show a different social standard to that of the
Johnstoun chief who in 1598 wrote to the English Warden that he considered all his horses of
less value than the life of one servant; or to the Laird of Newbie, who in his Will, 1576,
directed his son to be good and friendly to the poor men of Annan, his tenants. The wills and
documents with their own signatures of the Keltic families at that date are rare compared to
those of men of Norman origin by marriage and descent. Lord Carlile in 1568 could not
write his own name, and Johnstoun autographs are found throughout that century. The head
of a Keltic clan in Dumfriesshire could not write in 1613.