Biggar and the House of Fleming

EARLY CONTERMINOUS PROPRIETORS. CO 7
THE COCKBURNS OF SKIRLING.
The barony of Skirling, or ' Scrawlin,' was possessed by a
family of the name of Cockburn for more than three hundred
years. The first Cockburn of Skirling appears to have been
Alexander, who, some time prior to the year 1362, married
Margaret of Monfode, daughter and heiress of Sir John of
Monfode, to whom Robert I. granted the whole lands of Skir-
ling and the advowson of the church. The names of many of
the subsequent Barons of Skirling appear in our public muni-
ments. We may refer to one or two of them. In the year
1478, the Auditors of Parliament decided that Walter Tweedie
of Dreva should restore to Adam Cockburn of Skirling a silver
cup double gilt, having a foot and a lid, which Cockburn had
laid in pledge for twenty merks. At a Justiciary Court held
at Peebles on the 12th November 1498, Sir William Cock-
burn of Skirling, James, his brother, and John Paterson, in
' Kingildurris,' produced a remission from the charge of being
art and part in the slaughter of Walter, son of John Tweedie
of Dreva ; also of being art and part in the southrief of a
sword and shield from the said Walter, — and further, of fore-
thought of felony, in mutilating Andrew Tweedie within the
town of Edinburgh during the sitting of Parliament.
William Cockburn of Skirling, who flourished in the early
part of the sixteenth century, appears to have had a feud with
Alexander Crichton of Newhall. He was, in addition to other
acts of oppression, charged with carrying off a box of docu-
ments belonging to that gentleman, which he found in posses-
sion of Patrick Aitken, burgess, Edinburgh, — with forcibly
occupying his lands of Kirkrighill, pasturing on them seven
score of cattle and sixty horses and mares, overturning a ' fail
dyke,' etc. This case was brought by the Councillors of State
before James V. The King, who at the time was sojourning
at Crawfordjohn, wrote to his Councillors the following
reply : —
'Rex.
Traist Counsalouris, we grete you weil, and hes
resavit zour writingis anent the Laird of Scraling, and thinkis
zour avise and consel best anent the publishing of dome gevin