A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

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OF FOUR-FOOTED BEASTS.
Which Sir John Baird of Newbyth, sometime one of the Senators of the College
of Justice, was son and heir of Mr James Baird, a younger son of Baird of Auchmedden,
who, as an Advocate and one of the Commissaries of Edinburgh, married
Bathia, a daughter of Dempster of Pitliver, by whom he had the above Sir
John and Sir Robert. Which Sir John of Newbyth married Margaret, daughter
to William Hay of Linplum, second son to James Lord Tester, and brother to
John, first Earl of Tweeddale. By her he had the present Sir William Baird
of Newbyth, who married first Helen, daughter to Sir John Gilmour of Craigmillar,
sometime President of the Session ; by whom he hath John, married to Janet,
daughter of Sir David Dalrymple, Advocate. Secondly, Sir William married
Margaret, daughter to the Lord Sinclair.
The boar's head, with all nations, is very much used as an armorial figure ; and
especially in Scotland, by many ancient families of different surnames in different
shires through the kingdom.
I shall begin with the ancient families, in the shire of Berwick, of the surnames
of GORDON, NISBET, SWINTON, REDPATH, and DUNSE, so named by their baronies,
which lie contiguous in that shire, from which their different surnames were
taken ; and who all carry three boars' heads of different tinctures ; by which it
seems that the tradition is probable that they were originally of one stock and
gens, and afterwards became the heads of families of different surnames ; their
antiquity appears in the charters of our ancient Kings, Edgar, Alexander, and
David, the sons of King Malcolm Canmore, to the church of Durham, and abbacy
of Coldingham, where they are not only witnesses, but, by their own deeds and
charters, are donors to these churches, which are to be found in the Treasury of
Durham, and other repositories and chartularies with us, of whom I shall speak a
little separately, and of ^their armorial bearings.
GORDON of that Ilk, azure, three boars' heads couped or ; the surname is from
the lands which they possessed in the shire of Berwick, of which there were several
eminent men. Edmond Howe, in his History of England, p. 163. says, Bertram
de Gordon wounded to death Richard I. King of England, at the siege of the
castle of Chalne in Aquitaine, in the year 1199. Ricardus de Gordon, by
the re-
gisters of the abbacy of Kelso, about the year 1267, gives some lands in villa sua
de Gordon to that abbacy ; and there, Thomas de Gordon, jun. as another donor,
a kinsman
is mentioned, with his daughter Alicia Gordon, wife to Adam de Gordon,
of the family, father and mother of another Adam Gordon, who confirms all these
donations made to Kelso (which are to be seen in the chartulary of that abbacy)
by Richard, Thomas, and Adam Gordons, his progenitors. He lived in the year
1308, and was a zealous asserter of the independency and freedom of his native
country, and stood firm for King Robert the Bruce. In consideration of his
good service, he got from that king the lordship of Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire,
which was then in the crown, by the forfeiture of David de Strathbogie. He married
Annabel, but whether she was the daughter of Strathbogie, as some say,
I
know not. His son and heir was Sir Alexander de Gordon, father of Sir John
Gordon, who, by a charter of King Robert II. had all his lands erected into an
entire barony of Strathbogie. He was succeeded by Sir Adam his son, slain at
the battle of Homildon 1401, leaving issue by Elizabeth his wife, daughter to the
Lord Keith, only a daughter, Elizabeth, his heir. She was married to Sir Alexander
Seaton, second son to Sir William Seaton of that Ilk, to whom Robert Duke
of Albany, in the third year of his government, gives a charter of confirmation of
the lands and baronies of Gordon and Huntly in the shire of Berwick, and of
Strathbogie and other lands in the shire of Aberdeen. She bore to him Alexander
Seaton, who succeeded, and William Seaton, the first of the Seatons of Meldrum.
Of whom before.
Which ALEXANDER SEATON, by some designed Lord GORDON, carried, for arms,
quarterly, first and fourth Seaton, second and third Gordon, as before, still keeping
the surname of Seaton. He married three wives : First, Honora Keith, daughter
and heiress of Robert Keith, grandson of Sir William Keith, Marischal of Scot-
land, and his wife Honora, heiress of the Lord Fraser, but with her had no issue ;
notwithstanding, the family of Gordon has been in use to marshal the arms of
Fraser with their own, as I have observed elsewhere in my Essay of the Ancient