Memorials of the families of Lumsdaine, Lumisden, or Lumsden

10 FAMILY OF LUMSDAINE.
betwixt Dan William Drax, Prior of Coldingham, on the ta
part and Adam Forman 1 on ye tother with ye assent of ye
both parties of ye best and worthiest of ye county yt is to
say " — Here follow the names, twenty-four in number, the 20th
being Gilbert of Lumysden, and the 2 1 st Thom of Lumysden
(Raine, App. dcxxxviii.) 2
At this time the family had again become possessed of
West Lumsden, which was held by the Thomas just men-
tioned. A " Perambulatio," dated 1431 (Raine, dcxxxix.)
mentions Gilbert de Lumsden, Thom de Lumsden of Fast
Castle, and Thom de Lumsden of Coldingham. Again, in 1433
(16th April), Gilbert and Thomas of Fast Castle appear as
"free tenants" (Raine, cccxxvii.) In the Exchequer Rolls
(Vol. V.) Gilbert Lumsden in 1438 receives £6, 13s. 4d. for
keeping Fast Castle in time of wai\ Fast Castle had been
recovered from the English about 1410. It must surely have
been one of the strangest dwelling-places ever occupied by
civilised man. A little platform of rock, between 200 and 300
feet sheer above the sea, connected with the mainland by a
narrow isthmus, and quite concealed until you come to the
bank above and look right down upon it. Besiegers might
almost have thrown stones down the chimneys. One gaunt
mass of Avail, a fragment of a round tOAver, and some shapeless
mounds of masonry are all that is left ; but it can never have
1 Probably of Hutton in Berwickshire, an ancestor of the turbulent Archbishop
of St Andrews in the following century.
2 It was one of the earliest measures of James I., on his return from England in
1424, to cause all laws to be promulgated in the vulgar tongue, and the rule probably
extended to all legal documents.