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Notes relating to the family: Douglas of Toftis
Toftis: The site of a house or buildings; a homestead, also appar.
sometimes with reference to land ? attached to a homestead. Freq. in
collocation with croft, ?yard, etc. and with house, bygoings, etc.
The lands of Tofts in the north of the parish (of Kirktoun) appear to
have given surname to their possessors so early as the thirteenth
century. In 1296 Ingram, William, and Robert of Toftes, in the county of
Roxburgh, swore fealty to Edward I. In 1363 William of Toftys was rector
of the church of Great Cauerys. It was probably the same land which in
1478 belonged to Alexander Lindesay of Dunrod, and was by him held of
Archibald earl of Angus. It seems also to correspond with the Toftis
granted to Douglas of Drumlanrig by King James IV. in 1511 as part of
the barony of Hawick. In 1615 the lands of Toftis were the property of
Douglas of Drumlanrig, but during the remainder of the seventeenth
century they frequently changed hands.
1607: David Lumsden of Blenerne and Lumsden sold the lands of Blenerne
to Archibald Douglas, Esq. Of Tofts.
20th November 1609: att which time Pentland was wodfet to Archibald
Douglas of Toftis in liferent, and to his fone in fie under reverfion
1615, December 2: Letters under Privy Seal of confirmation of a tack of
the tiends, parsonage and vicarage of the Kirk of Kirktoun set be Mr
George Douglas (?of Cavers) in faviur of Martin Douglas of Toftis and
William Douglas his son.
28 November 1615: Archibald Douglas of Toftis was a Commissioner in the
case of Margaret Nicolsoun who was accused of witchcraft.
c1616: ...To denounce loot Complaint by James Douglas, brother of
Archibald Douglas of Toftis, ...
25th March 1617: Archbald Douglas of Toftis, fometime defigned of
Faftcaftle, and William Douglas, his fone
November 1619: Charter to Archibald Douglas of Toftis of the lands of...
17 June 1617: The laird off Blacader and Archibald Douglas of Toftis for
Berwick - Commissioneris for the barronis, Parliamentary Register
?161?: Douglas, Archibald, of Toftis Berwick-shire MP? (1)
16 Aug 1621: William Douglas of Toftis, Son? Archibald Douglas of Toftis
?father ..? Over and Nether Toftis... de Eccles
C1622?: William Douglas of Toftis, feuar of Pittilsheugh and Hairtsyd
Jan 26, 1625: William Douglas of Toftis acknowledges the receipt of a
loan from Robert Nicolson
Unknown date: ... Berwickshire Archibald Douglas of Pittendreich
(Moray), later of Toftis (...
Unknown date: Confirmation to William Dowglas of Toftis, son and heir of
Archibald Dowglas of Toftis, a charter of James Maitland of ....
1627: Esther Inglis dedicated a 'wee beukie' to a Douglas in
January 1607 - the 7th Earl of Morton, the bloke that would twenty years
later take an army to the Netherlands via the Isle of Wight, and be the
dedicatee of 'Encouragments for the vvarres of France '(1627) by Robert
Douglas of Tofts, the close friend of the tenebrous Earl of Lothian who
took his own life, whereupon Robert Douglas wrote an extraordinary
posthumous defence (in verse) of his friend's having chosen to end his
life. Robert Douglas himself was killed at the siege of Bois-le-Duc(2)
in 1629. He had been promoting ideas for new weaponry to both the Dutch
and the English in the late 1620s.
Unknown date: Charter to Archibald Douglas of Tofts of the lands of
Hartsyde, Easter, Wester and Middle, with mains thereof alias
Wettpeyjead, paying yearly 200 merks and ...
Unknown date: Charter to Archibald Douglas of Tofts of the £5 lands of
Pittilisheuche, paying yearly £7 5 s., with triplication.1 (f. 33.)
Other owners/tenanats:
• Johne Rutherfurde in the Toftis
• Alexander Mowat in Toftis
• Sir Alexander Belches, laird of Toftis — Berwickshire 1644-7 (as laird
of Toftis) served heir of his father, John Belches, of Tofts, (now
Purves Hall), Berwickshire.
Robert Kerr, Second Earl of Lothian, took his own life on 6 March 1624. The elegiac
response to it by William Douglas of Tofts is a long, extraordinary
poem, the only English elegy from the period in which a death by suicide
is commemorated without correction or judgement. In fact, the poem goes
further by offering a defence of suicide based largely upon classical
arguments and examples. The poem and its context are rendered all the
more complex by the mysteries surrounding Lothian's death: there were
rumours that murder, not suicide, was the cause of death, and a few
years later two Scottish women were convicted of witchcraft in
relationship to it. Furthermore, some suggested that William Douglas was
not only the close friend of Lothian but also his wife’s lover. That the
poem comes down to us in a single manuscript copy that was in fact
edited and added to by Sir James Turner decades later adds further
complications to an already sensational situation.
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Tofts, Rousay |
Confirmed
by a 1668 sasine, William Douglas of Egilsay disposed of Tofts, now a
deserted and ruinous house in Quandale, Rousay, Orkney to his son ‘with
the priviledge of the uppa thereof as the samen has been in use in all
times bygane past memorie of man.’ The uppa, the first rig in each field
or block of rigs distributed among run-rig sharers, was a privilege
reserved for the most important house in the community.
Notes:
1. This would have been a
Commissioner of the Scottish Parliament. I can
find no record of a Douglas being a Member of Parliament for Berwickshire, despite him
being included in my list of MPs
2. Also known as the Siege of 's-Hertogenbosch.
Robert was possibly in the Earl of Morton's regiment, commanded by Lord
Hay of Kinfauns.
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