18
THE CHARTERS
OF THE
PRIORY OF BEAULY
WITH
NOTICES OF THE PRIORIES OF
PLUSCARDINE AND ARDCHATTEN
THE FAMILY OF THE FOUNDER
JOHN BYSET
BY
EDMOND CHISHOLM RATTAN
PRINTED FOR THE GRAMPIAN CLUB
1877
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HISTORICAL NOTICES
John Byset first appears as the Lord of the Aird in the deeds of arrangement
between him and Bricius, Bishop of Moray, who died in 1221, and which
are confirmed by King Alexander II, in 1221. Byset must have been the first
of the family who acquired the lands of the Airs, for the king’s confirmation
expressly mentions that the lands had been granted John Byset personally.
When in 1226, giving the church of Kiltarlity to the leper house of Rathven,
he does so, among other objects, for the soul of William, King of Scotland;
so that the grant referred to by King Alexander II, had probably been made
to Byset by King William the Lion.
The Scalacronica states that William the Lion, in 1174 , on his return from
captivity at Falaise and in England brought back young Englishmen of
family to seek their fortunes at the Scottish court. Among these are named
the Bysets (Bisey)†. At this time Henry Byset may have come into Scotland.
From 1179 to 1187 William the Lion was engaged in putting down the
rebellion of Donald Bame,* who, after the Boy of Egremont’s defeat,
claimed to be the Celtic heir of Malcolm Canmore. William completed with
the people of Moray and Ross what his brother Malcolm had begun with the
people of Moray, expelling great numbers of the Celtic inhabitants, putting
the land under the feudal system, and granting it out in baronics, to be held
of the crown. Among these, in the province of Moray, the barony of the
Aird was probably granted to John Byset, to secure his victory over Donald
Bane; and about 1187 William the Lion founded two castles in Ross, one of
which was called Ethirdover. This, by the combined light thrown on it by
the lease of
*Scalacronica, Maitland Clan, Edinb. 1836, p. 41.
†It is said that Edmond, a son of Malcolm Canmone and St. Margaret, joined in the
conspiracy against the successor of King Edgar, and when the King succeeded,
Edmond seems to have adopted the course which saved his own life and preserved
the barone of his family. He assumed the cowl at Mer???, the Clariac priory, in
Somersetshire?. I note the fact as an illustration of the ??? connection then between
England and Scotland, which is likewise shown in the History of the founder of
Beauly.
OF THE PRIORY OF BEAULY
Kilcoy,* afterwards referred to, and the grant of Andrew de Boseho (Beauly
Diplomata, No. VII.), is settled to be the castle of Edirdor, or Redcastle, on
the Beauly Firth. In the latter part of his reign, the king probably appointed
John Byset hereditary constable of this castle, and attached to it the lands of
Edirdor, and at the same time gave him the barony of the Aird and the lands
of Kilravoch, for we find all these - the castle and lands of Edirdor, the
barony of the Aird, and the lands of Kilravoch - were the hereditary
possessions of the granddaughters of John Byset.
The name of John Byset first occurs in contemporary documents in 1204 in
the Register of the Abbey of Newbattle, and as a witness to a charter of
Henry de Graham.† As we find that the papal Bull for translating the parish
church of Kirkhill was obtained in 1210, just about the time that the
insurrection of the son of Donald Bane broke out in Ross-shire, and as John
Byset’s confirmation of this translation seems to imply his having promoted
it, we may not err in assuming that this grant was made by King William on
the quelling of the rebellion in 1211.
John Byset’s mother was live in 1221, as in the deeds of arrangement hr
grants a glebe to the parish church of Kirkhill for the soul of his father, who
was therefore dead, but not for the soul of his mother, who was lord of
Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire.
The Bysets in England were a family of baronial rank: they had the types and
insignia of nobility; they held high office about the person of the
Plantagenets; they witnessed the confirmation of the Magna Charta,
endowed abbeys and priories, and left that indubitable mark of their
importance by the additional name which some English parishes have
derived from them.
*Preface to Orig. Per. Scot. P. xxi; Book of Kilpatrick, P. 109
† Reg. Newbattle, p. 7.
HISTORICAL NOTICES
Preston-Byset tells the country folks of Buckinghamshire now, as CombeByset informs the men of Wilts, of the days long ago, when a Byset was the
lord of Preston and of Combe.* In particular, Manassar Byset, Server of the
Household to King Henry II, founded a house of lepers at Maiden Bradley,
in Wiltshire, and the successive members of his family confirmed and added
to the endowment. The pious maid of honour, Margaret Byset, who, passing
the night in watching and prayer, saved the life of Henry III in 1238 at
Woodstock from the hands of an assassin, had some time before added to the
possessions of Maiden Bradley.
The English Bysets were a united family, each member assisting the other;
and we find Manassar Byset giving the manor of East Bridgeford,
Nottinghamshire, to his brother William, and this William Byset obtaining
the consent of his son William, his brother Manassar, and his nephew
Ermulph, to his grant to the priory of Thurgarton for the souls of his father
and mother and wife, and of his brothers Henry and Ausold?, and his
nephew Henry. It seems probable that Henry Byset of 1198, the courtier to
King William the Lion, was a member of the family of East Bridgeford.
We may not proceed further without referring to the MSS. Which are
mentioned by writers on Beauly Priory, while it is impossible to avoid saying
that these MSS. Are entitled to no real credit. One is a history of the family
of Fraser of Lovat, intended for publication, 1749; and the other “a short
chronology and genealogy of the Bissets and Frasers of Lovat,Ӡ which,
although said to be written by Mr. James Fraser, minister of Wardlaw,
purports only to be a transcript of the Wardlaw MS. By Robert Fraser, 1725.
These two MSS. Appear to have been written in the interest of Simon, Lord
Lovat, who wished the history of his family coloured to suit his claims
against
*There is no more certain mark of the early importance of a family than the afix of
its name to that of an English parish. It is more to be relied on than the family
having the same name as the parish; in the origins of surnames many families other
than the owners of a village took their names from it; but no village ever took its
second name from any family but that of its lords.
† MSS., Advocates Library, Genealogical Collection, 38, 4, 8, 409-417.
OF THE BEAULY PRIORY
Amelia Fraser, who, in 1702, pretending to be heiress of the line Byset,
obtained a decree of the Court of Session, for the peerage of Fraser of
Lovat.
The Wardlaw MS., to which we before referred, was written by James
Fraser, minister of Wardlaw from 1661 to 1709. It is probable that he had
access to the Lovat Writs of 1652, and so far as he professes to copy actual
charters, he may be trusted. We have not seen the MS., but have obtained
extracts from it among General Hutton’s MSS., in the British Museum, and
also extracts made by the late Lewis M. Mackenzie, Esq. of Findon, whose
loss northern archeologists have to regret. When the Wardlaw MS. Passes
from transcribing charters or recording the events which passed before the
eyes of the writer, it is hardly to be relied on more than the MSS. Of 1725
and 1749; but as the compiler died before Simon, Lord Lovat’s contention
arose, his story is not twisted to suit the claims of rival parties.
As a specimen of the inventive powers or credulity of the writer of the
Wardlaw MS., he states that John Byset, the founder of Beauly Priory, was
the son of Byset, a courtier of William the lion, which Byset married Agnes,
daughter of the King. This marriage is a stupid invention of the seventeenth
century. The daughters of William the lion, legitimate and illegitimate,* are
perfectly well known, and duly inquired into on the claims to the crown of
Scotland in 1296.
John Byset of Lovat, the founder, makes the arrangement we have alluded to
with Bricius, Bishop of Moray, respecting the glebe of the parish of Kirkhill,
which cannot be later than 1221. The arrangement is confirmed by King
Alexander II,
*William the Lion had three legitimate daughters: (i.)Margaret, who married Hubert
de Bergh?, chief minister to Henry III, and let? An only daughter, Magota?; (2.)
Isabella, married Roger Higod?, Earl of Norfolk, ;(3.) Marjory, married Gilbert
the Marshal, Earl of Pembroke; she survived her husband, and died at London,
1244, He had four illegitimate daughters: (1.) Isabella, married in 1183 to Robert de
Bruce, and in 1191, to Robert de Ross; (2.) Ada, married in 1184 to Patrick, Earl on
Dunbar; (3.) Margaret, married in 1192 to Eustace de Vesci; (4.) Arfrida, married to
William de Say.