The Younger Children and Widow

of Patrick,

First Great Baron of Inchbrakie

Patrick the first Laird of Inchbrakie left four children, two sons and two daughters, the sketch of the eldest son and head of the family, George, will be found under his place as Second Laird; and his younger brother, Robert’s career is noticed also under a separate heading, as Archdeacon of Ross, founder of the family of Graemes of Drynie in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, where he had settled when he went north and where his children remained.

Patrick’s two daughters both married. Nicola the eldest, had at her birth been given the name of her aunt the Lady Nichola Grame, who married John Moray of Abercairny; and both aunt and niece were to bear the same surname through their wedded lives, though differently spelt, for Inchbrakie’s daughter became the wife of Patrick Murray of Ochtertyre.

The family of Ochtertyre sprang from Sir David Murray of Tullibardine, he had no less than seventeen sons, and it was the youngest of these (Patrick) who founded the Murrays of Ochtertyre. In about 1430 he became possessed of the land of Dullarie and shortly afterwards of Ochtertyre.

Nichola Graeme of Inchbrakie married Sir David’s descendant Patrick Murray the fifth of Ochtertyre, which estate lay about five miles from her home at Inchbrakie; there was even a more convenient meeting-place for the young lovers, a boon in those days of difficult locomotion when the women of the family rarely stirred from the protecting walls of their own homes, for by this time was not Patrick’s Uncle Antonio settled at Dollerie of which he had been granted a long lease, and his young nephew might often come riding over to see his uncle and cousins and possibly metal more attractive than them all! And we know that the estate of Dollerie marches with Inchbrakie on the east, and the bonny woodland walk that lies between, where the friendship between the young couple could be cemented into love; that friendship which had probably commenced when young Patrick Murray lost his father at Pinkie in 1547, and when he would specially be seeking counsel and advice from his uncle for the management of the paternal estates which then fell to him.

Nichola Graeme died April 1560, having left her only son William to succeed to the estate and carry on the line. This boy must have been reared and cared for by his grandmother, "Lady Ochtertyre" Agnes Hay of Megginch, a widow from 1547 until 1603 when she had attained the great age of 101 years, having seen her widowed son Patrick die in 1589, and four great grandsons born to her, the children of Nichola Graeme’s William, and of Bethia Murray of Letterbannochie, his wife. The genealogy briefly records a fact which shows us that William and Bethia close their lives in the same year 1647, within a very short space of each other, having attained their eighty-ninth and eighty first years respectively. From Nichola Graeme and Patrick Murray the line of Ochtertyre continues to this day, a baronetcy having been bestowed on their grandson William who was the eighth in line.

Jonet, the younger daughter of Inchbrakie’s first laird, married twice. We know less of her, and her connections by marriage, for the new ties made by Inchbrakie’s widow appear to have closed round the second daughter.

Lady Inchbrako had chosen for her second lord, Campbell of Glenurchy (ancestor of the noble House of Breadalbane), and when she followed him to his wild western home in Argyleshire, Jonet went with her mother, and the years of her girlhood and early womanhood would be passed near Ballock at her stepfather’s home in Glenurchy, where she first saw her future husband, Campbell of Ardkinglass.

One hundred years earlier, in the first part of the fifteenth century, the sister of Queen Annabel (daughter to Sir John Drummond of Stobhall) had married Sir Colin Campbell, and their second son founded the family of Ardkinglass who were thus kinsmen to Glenurchy.

Future records show that with the blood, they inherited the wild and turbulent spirit of the western highlands, for in the accounts leading us down to the middle of the seventeenth century (especially in those generations which succeed the date of Jonet and her husband) they appear in opposition to their king.

James Campbell was Controller of Scotland during the minority of King James IV, and his brother Alexander (Provost of St Giles in Edinburgh, 1554) becoming a Protestant at the Reformation in 1572, was made Bishop of Brechin.

Everything points to the surmise that James, Controller of Scotland was the husband of Jonet; though at present I have not proved it by the conclusive documentary evidence which confirms the other marriages of the family.

James Campbell’s name appears as acting surety on June 24, 1577, and March 29^th 1578, and we can realize the crushing sorrow that fell on Jonet and her husband the statesman, when the accusation was brought against their son, young Ardkinglass, in 1591, of the assassination of Sir James Campbell of Cawdor, husband of Mary Keith, daughter of the Earl Marischal. The turbulent spirit to which allusion has been made, ran very high in their children and succeeding generations; for their great grandson on 17^th January 1661 was put to the horn and denounced a rebel, warned to appear before Parliament and disobeyed, and was therefore on 3^rd September 1662 forfeited of his estates in consequence of "Murthour, birning, and killing of sundry persones of the name and surname of Lamond".

The Lyon King at Arms and his heralds took part in this ceremony which was of an elaborate description, thus testifying to the distinction of the forfeited man, these persons were all clad in their "Coates of Airmes" and at the principal gate of the Parliament House made their declaration and "raive their airmes", they then proceeded to the "Mercat Croce" of Edinburgh, and after three fanfares on their trumpets made the same declaration of forfalture and "also did ryve their airmes, and did affix thame backward on the said Mercat Croce". Various mentions continue to be made concerning Ardkinglass proving him as staunch an adherer to, and follower of his Chief Argyle, as his kinsmen the Graemes wee of their Chief Montrose.

Jonet Graeme’s husband, James Campbell of Ardkinglass, predeceased her, and she married for the second time Robert Buchanan of Leny, an ancient Stirlingshire family, but whose names do not show the somewhat unenviable notoriety of public mention. On one occasion in 1687 we meet with young John Buchanan, Jonet’s grandson; he and his kinsman, Robert of Arnpryer, are disputing concerning the exhibition of writs in John’s possession. The judges shrift to these disputants is of a singularly short and sensible nature, for when the case was laid before them "the Lords bade them agree".

The last record of Jonet Graeme is the testament made by her at Leny on the 16^th May 1574. She styles herself as Jonet Graeme, spouse to Robert Buchanan of Leny. This is given up in August 1575 by her eldest son, Campbell of Ardkinglass – no other relative is mentioned except her husband; and as debts due to him are mentioned, it is certain he survives her.

Lady Inchbrako bore her second husband, Campbell of Glenurchy, two daughters and then died. The elder, Beatrix, interests us most strongly of the two, for she renews her childhood’s acquaintance with Inchbrakie, by settling permanently in Strathearn as the wife of Campbell of Lawers, where she may cross our path in the sketch of her half brother the second laird.

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