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

48
THE JOHNSTOUNS OF GRETNA AND LOCHMABENSTANE
Adam of Johnstoun was dead in Oct. 1508, though his son, James, was
not returned his heir till 1513. Reference is made at this time to the late
Laird having been pledge for Irving of Bonshaw, a fief of Corrie, which shows
that his ownership of the Corrie Barony was a fact.
The records are too much broken to know if the Laird Adam and his
kin had a right from escheats conferred by the previous King to lands which
they persistently claimed. The "good old rule, the simple plan" was very
much in force, but it was the policy of the Crown to preserve the balance
of power among the nobles, and the Johnstouns must have been much impoverished
by their losses in battle. The chance of a rich prisoner's ransom was
all the payment that even a chief received unless he got a grant of land,
and it often had to be divided among several captors.
James VI. was asserted to have given money with his own hand to
the Chief of a clan of thieves on the Borders to resist the power of the King's
Warden, and the same kind of secret influence was exercised a century before.
That Maxwell was growing too powerful for safety was shown a few years
later, when he chased the Sheriff out of Dumfries. He already held one
gateway into England through his allies, the Armstrongs. The other—Gretna
—was safer in the hands of a small, brave clan, Maxwell's rivals, than with
the Murrays who had followed their rebel Chief, and formed a bond of man-
rent with Maxwell. 1
Gretna Green 2 is still called Lochmabenstane, its old name, in a document
which Murray of Cockpool drew up in 161 5 to show his ancient claim to it
and to criticise the alleged rights of most of his neighbours. Murray stated
that it only came lately to the Johnstouns, since the death of the Earl of
Dunbar. He gives the names of the generations who had owned Graitney— John,
then living ; George, his father ; William, his grandfather ; and another whose
Christian name is a blank, but whom an uncertified document of 1542 calls
William. There were many scions of the family named William. Besides
those already mentioned, one is alluded to in a Charter by John Halliday, who
mortgaged some land in Hoddam to John Carruthers of Mouswald, May 31,
1439, for £10, lent him in his great "myster" i.e., need— "it was some time
Will of Johnstoune's." Another William was son of the Laird Adam (1488-
1509). In a lease by John Lindsay of Covington he is described as brother to
James Johnstoun of that Ilk 3 (1509-24), who had himself a son named William,
probably the same who was ordered to qualify himself for the office of sheriffdepute
in 1523. The age of this last William may be approximated by the
1 Aug. 27, 1487, the Murrays signed a bond of manrent with Maxwell, witnessed by Adam
of Johnstoun and Herbert of Johnstoun.
2 " From an ancient inscription in the Churchyard of Graitney it appears that a near
relation of Wallace is buried there, and the ashes of many of the Johnstones of Annandale are
said to repose within the precincts of the ancient church. At Redkirk Point once stood the
Church of Redpatrick (or Rampatrick) ; not a vestige now remains." New Statistical Account
of Scotland, 1845.
3 The Laird made several arrangements with John Lindsay of Covington, who leased to
him for nineteen years the land of Polmoody, in Moffat. The Murrays of Cockpool held a
mortgage on Polmoody.