History and traditions of the land of the Lindsays in Angus and Mearns

EDZELL — THE WICKED MASTER OF CRAWFORD. 33
respectively lairds of Vayne in Fearn, and Keitliock near
Brechin,* while, in virtue of the decision of Royalty, he was suc-
ceeded in the estate of Edzell and Glenesk by his grandson,
who ultimately became the ninth Earl of Crawford.
The elevation of Edzell to the peerage did not arise from any
failure in the male succession, for the eighth Earl had both a son
and grandson ; but it arose from the unnatural conduct of the
former towards his venerable parent, to whom he acted the part
of all but an absolute parricide. In possession of the fee of the
earldom of Crawford, as future Earl, he had the barony of Glenesk
assigned to him, and having all but independent sway, he ex-
ercised his power with the utmost un scrupulousness. He seized
the castle of Dalbog by force ; and, besides scouring the lands of
his relatives and neighbours in much the same manner as the
Rob Roy of a later period, it was found necessary to cite him
before the king as the heartless besieger of his father's castles —
as having imprisoned him in his own wards at Finhaven for the
space of twelve successive weeks, and as having carried him to
Brechin, and there confined him for fifteen days, during which
he pillaged his coffers and seized his rents.
This was the second time the old Earl had appealed to the
Crown for protection against his own son ; and as " the Wicked
Master " (for so he has been justly and emphatically dubbed by
tradition), pleaded guilty to the charges preferred against him, his
life was graciously spared ; but " he and his posterity were
solemnly excluded from the succession to the estates and honors
of the house of Crawford, and were blotted out as if they had
never existed, "f Of the future career of this desperate and un-
fortunate person, little has been preserved ; but his last sad end
favours the idea, that however great his penitence at the time of
his merited deprivation, he had still persisted in his reckless and
unprincipled conduct, since the ungarnished and emphatic record
of his death bears, that " he was sticked by a souter of Dundee
for taking a stoup of drink from him."|
This occurred in the year 1542, and his father pre-deceased
him, a poor, broken-hearted, disappointed person. It was in
this unprecedented and disagreeable state of matters that David
of Edzell, unexpectedly became heir to the estates and titles, of
* Lives, vol. i.. p. 438, 415.- t (a.D. 153031) -Lives, vol. i, p. 193, iic. t '&*<*, vol. i, p. 107.
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