Historical account of the family of Frisel or Fraser, particularly Fraser of Lovat

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HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE
CHAPTER IL
» Douglao's Peer.
II. 603, 030.
Crawford, Oft of
State, 271.
Caledonia, I. 55+.
M'Farlaii's MSS.
Advoc. Lib. Vol. II.
p. KlO.
• New Edition,
p. 380.
The direct male line of the principal Family of Fraser, whose estates
were situated in the southern counties of Scotland, and principally in the
sheriffdom of Peebles or Traquair, thus failed in the person of the gal-
lant Sir Simon Fraser the patriot. All authorities are uniform in stat-
ing, that his heirs female, who are usually affirmed to have been his two
daughters, shared between them his valuable and extensive property. '
The eldest of them, * it seems, was married to the male ancestor of
the noble family of Yester or Tweeddale, and the youngest to the male
progenitor of the Lords Fleming and Earls of Wigtoun. Each of these
families quartered the arms of Fraser with their paternal bearings, t and
the office of Sheriff of Peebles devolved, in right of the eldest daughter,
upon that of Yester, who continued to hold it for many generations,
until they were accidentally deprived of it for a moment, by an act of feu-
dal delinquency, owing to Lord Yester having allowed certain prisoners
• We have no legal evidence for the Christian names of Hay and Fleming.
+ Being the nearest heirs general of the old stock of the Erasers, the Lords Yester
bore the principal arms of the Frasers. The Fraises in their Escutcheons were placed in
saltier, or after the form of a Saint Andrew's cross, Just in the very way, and the same co-.
lours as the Lords Lovat are proved to have carried them, by Heraldic MS. in the Advo-
cates' Library, and the authority of Nisbet's Heraldry. * Hence, as the Frasers of Philorth
did not bear them after this method, and the Frasers of Lovat did, the inference is clear,
that the latter were the senior branch. Farther notice of this point is taken in a subse-
quent part of the work,
4-