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

THE JOHNSTOUNS OF CRAIGABURN 11
mother cannot hold him (i.e., support him), and to be his tutor till he was
twenty-one. To the said James he left Chapelhill, to be held of Lord Hcrrics ;
Gavelhill, in Wamfray, and Langhopc, in Twceddale, to his grandsons, John and
James (the last to be held of Michael, Lord Fleming), and to his sons, Thomas,
William, and Gilbert, to divide among themselves witliout cavil. Other lands
he shares between his heirs and his wife, to whom he gives all his " moveable
goods quick or dead, house and corn, horses, cows, etc., to sustain herself
thereby . . . with the advice of her sons, James, Thomas, and Gilbert,
making account of the same twice in the year, and the profits to be employed
for the sustenance of his children and grandchildren in necessity, unless
they prove wilful and ignorant, and will not use advice." He makes his
Will with the consent of all the family, and obliges his children to live in
the fear of God, and to serve the Laird of Johnstoun well and truly, "even if he
be unkind to you." He leaves a charge of £40 a year to his widowed daughter-
and exhorts his descendants to send their corn to be
in-law, Marion Mure ;
ground at the mill at Moffat, 1 as Thomas, his "oy," is the leader of their branch
under the Laird. To James, his second son, he left Glcnquotto and lands on
Tallow Water in Tweeddale. To his wife, his kindlic right to Glenhutton. His
horses, cattle, sheep, grain, etc., are valued at £331, 1 is. 8d. ; the money owed to
him £412, 4s. iod., the creditors being Robert Johnstoun of Newton, for violent
occupation of the lands of Newton, Robert and Thomas Moffat, the heirs
of James Johnstoun of Middlegill, and of John Johnstoun of Langwodend ; and
he owed £351. The Will is complicated in its details, but the distribution
to the minors, John, James, Frances, George, and John, was entirely left to his
sons. No lawyer was employed, the dwellers on the lands were to serve
their new masters ; the patriarch's desire was a command, and it was all carried
out as he wished.
The widow died on Nov. 1, 1582. Her sons, "James in Chapelhill,
Thomas in Moffat, William there, and Gilbert in Corhead," were her executors.
Her husband's debts were paid, and her sons were her only creditors except one
merchant, but none of her husband's debtors had paid their accounts.
Symon Johnstoun, a son of one of the Johns mentioned in Craigaburn's
Will, migrated to Poland, where there was a large colony of Scottish Romanists.
He married Anna Becker, and his son, John, an author and naturalist, was born
at Sambter, in Posen, in 1603.
John, Symon's son, was educated at Thorn, but in 1622 entered the
University of St. Andrews, where he gained distinction in Hebrew and natural
science. He returned to Poland in 1625, but four years later came to Cambridge
to study botany and medicine, and continued it in London, where he wrote the
chief part of his most important work, Thaumatograpliia Naturalis, an ambitious
production in ten parts, illustrated with copper plates. This book was
much esteemed in the seventeenth century, and translated from Latin into
German, Dutch, and English. It is dedicated to four Polish noblemen, with two
of whose sons he revisited England after he had graduated M.D. at Lcyden, to
1 This was a usual clause It appears in the Laird's tacks.