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

THE GUTHRIES OF GUTHRIE. 297
sometime before 1640, as (on being deprived of his living, and
forced out of his official residence of Spynie Castle), he re-
tired in that year ' ' to his own estate of Guthrie, in the county of
Angus," where " he died during the course of the grand re-
bellion."* Bishop Guthrie's daughter married her cousin,
Guthrie of Gaigie, and thus became maternal ancestor of the
present laird of Guthrie and Gaigie, who succeeded his father
in 1845. But, although the direct descendants of Sir David
have now passed from the position of landowners, the present
family claims collateral descent through the Gaigie line, and the
surname is still plentiful throughout Angus-shire. f At no dis-
tant date the following provincial couplet was applicable to four
Angus-shire freeholders of the surname of Guthrie, who possessed
the various properties here named : —
" Guthrie of Guthrie,
And Guthrie of Gaigie,
Guthrie of Taybank,
And Guthrie of Craigie."}
The old part of the castle (which was perhaps built in
1468, when Sir David Guthrie obtained warrant under the
Great Seal to erect a stronghold here),§ is a place of great strength,
with a square tower of sixty feet in height, and walls nearly ten
feet thick, to which the present laird has added a spire and other
castellated embellishments. The gateway is a Gothic erection
of considerable elegance, being composed of a graceful arch,
flanked with towers, and bearing a fine sculpture of the family
• Keith's Catal. of Scotch Bishops, p. 152.
t Mr. Harry Maulo of Kelly writes :— " This family of Guthrie [of that Ilk] ended in the
time of King Charles the first, and the Barony of Guthrie [was] sold to John Guthrie, Bishop of
Murray, who left it to his daughter, whose posterity does now (1733), enjoy it," and it is still
(1853) with her descendants. This Bishop Guthrie was of the Guthries of Oolliston, in which
family there was a Nova Scotia baronetcy, which seems to have become soon extinct. — Information
by P. Chalmers, Esq., of Aldbar.
% Guthries were lairds of Pitforthy, near Brechin, before and subsequent to 1620. They
may have been related to the family of that Ilk. The famous William Guthrie, minister of Fen-
wick, author of the " Christian's Saving Interest," was a son of Pitforthy ; and William Guthrie,
the historian of a later date, was a member of the same family. The traditionary origin of the
family name of Guthrie, is well known :— One of the Kings of Scotland being driven on Bervie
Brow, a rock on the Mearns-shire coast, found a solitary tisberwoman on the shore, and being
hungry, he asked her to gut twa fish for him ! " I'll gut three .'" said the loyal dame. " Well,"
replied the King, " Gut-three for ever shalt thou be 1" Dr. Jamieson ( Scot. Vict., Pref. p. xi.) gives
Guthrie as a Pictish name, and shews its affinity to some Icelandic and Danish names. It is
curious to remark, however, that the oldest spelling of the name of the parish is " Guthryn," and
that the Gaelic Gath-erran, means " a dart-shaped division ;" and, by comparing the form of
the parish of Guthrie with that of old flint arrow heads, the resemblance will be fouud singu-
larly striking. § Crawford's Officers of State,
2 M