Agnes Heriot

AGNES HERIOT

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Buchanan,_George_(1506-1582)_(DNB00)

Agnes Heriot, George Buchanan's mother, is said by all his biographers but on slight authority -to have been a daughter of Heriot of Trabroun, East Lothian, and so related to George Heriot who is well-known as the founder of Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh. On her husband's death she left the Moss, and in 1513 she took a lease of a farm in Menteith making all her boys (including George, not yet eight years old) joint tenants. GEORGE BUCHANAN: A MEMORIAL 1506-1906. Contributions by various writers, compiled and edited by D. A. MILLAR http://www.archive.org/stream/georgebuchananme00milliala/georgebuch...

It was while farming Moss a 40 shilling land of old extent,or a property of about 104 acres- that Thomas Buchanan, eldest son of Robert, the second of Drumikil, and grandson of [%E2%80%A6] Thomas of Bultoune, married Agnes Heriot.

She is supposed to have been one of the Heriots of Trabroun. William Buchanan of Auchmar, not always too reliable, was the first to give currency to the view. [Historical and (lenoalogical Essay, p. 70.] It is known that James Heriot, Canon of Ross, and Justiciar of Lothian died in 1522 ; the year in which George's maternal uncle and benefactor died. [Selections from the Old Records regarding the Heriots of Trabroun, by W. G. B. ; printed at Haddington, 1894, for private circulation, pp. 11-19.] Auchmar could scarcely have been aware of this fact. Yet, as there were Heriots in the West as well as in the East, the Trabroun descent rests, meantime, on a somewhat slight basis.

Better, however, than any Trabroun lineage is the reference by her son George : “such was the frugal care of his mother, Agnes Heriot, that she brought up her five boys and three girls to the estate of manhood and womanhood," 1 clearly a shrewd, capable woman, who fought bravely the battle against adverse circumstances. Buchanan, always reticent, and no sentimentalist, certainly owed more to her than is expressed in the self-restrained, if appreciative, words that have immortalized her name.

Although nothing definite is known regarding the daughters of Thomas Buchanan and Agnes Heriot the genealogists have tried to fill in the lacunae with picturesque details ; which need not here be mentioned. One of them, it may be inferred, became the wife of a certain Mr. Morison ; for it is known that an Alexander Morison published an edition of his uncle's paraphrase of the psalms. 2 As to the sons, Robert succeeded his father at the Moss in 1513 ; and, three years later, became, on his grandfather's death, laird of Drumikil. Robert died before 1525. 3 He is said to have been succeeded by his brother Thomas ; but this has not been conclusively established. If, for example, Thomas were the second son, it is curious that while his name does not appear in the lease of the lands of Olleron of Gartladdirnack, in Cardross of Menteith, granted in 1513, to Agnes Heriot and her sons Patrick, Alexander and George, it does appear in the renewal of the lease in 1531. He was then, presumably, laird of Drumikil ; yet his name comes last on the list : the order being, Alexander, Patrick, Mr George and Thomas. 1 Alexander, better known as of Ibert, apparently went to the Moss when his brother Robert died, or sometime later. The name of " Alexander Balquliannen in Mos " appears as a witness to a deed of date 21st October, 1553. 5 Patrick became a scholar, whose fame would have been considerable had it not been eclipsed by his still more famous brother George.

GEORGE BUCHANAN: A MEMORIAL 1506-1906. Contributions by various writers, compiled and edited by D. A. MILLAR http://www.archive.org/stream/georgebuchananme00milliala/georgebuch...