Genealogical collections concerning the sir-name of Baird, and the families of Auchmedden, Newbyth, and Sauchton Hall in particular

CONCERNING THE SIRNAME OF BAIRD. 11
There is a tradition that as King William the Lion was hunting in one of the
south-west counties of Scotland, and happened to straggle from his attendants, he
was alarmed at the approach of a wild bear, and cried for help ; upon which a
gentleman, of the name of Baird, who had followed the King from England, ran
up and had the good fortune to kill the bear, for which signal service the King
made a considerable addition to the lands he had given him before, and assigned
him for his coat-of-arms a bear passant, and for his motto, TJOtUttVUS ffcttt * y
and, if it will contribute to the credibility of this story, one foot of the bear came
north with Ordinhnivas' ancestor, and is still preserved, and indeed it well deserves
it, because of the enormous size, being fourteen inches long and nine broad, where
it is cut from the ankle. 1
It is not much above 300 years since the name of Baird was heard of in the
north of Scotland, except it may have been the families of Indety and Balmaduthy,
whose genealogy I do not know. The earliest writ in which it is mentioned that I
have heard of, is among Sir James Innes', of Innes, papers. It is a precept of
Sasine by John Lord Lindsay, of the Byres, directed to Beroald, John and
Andrew, of Innes, and James the Barde, 2 his bailies, for infefting James of Innes,
of that Ilk, son to Sir Robert Innes, in the lands of Aberchyrdar, which he in
Boyne in Banffshire, and near the place where this James Baird was settled. It
bears date February 1, 1464. Now, to take the account of his pedigree and
coming to this country, and of the two first marriages which his descendants made
in it, from an old sheet genealogy which Lord Newbyth gave the late Auchmedden
about 1695, which is the only instruction I have been able to find —
One James Baird, descended of the family of Cambusnethan (which had
ended some fourscore years before in an heiress called Jean Baird, as
mentioned in the public records, married to Stuart of Darnley), 3 was
settled in the county of Lanark, with his wife, daughter to Ker, of
1 This curious relique is in my possession. — W. N. F.
2 See Acta Dominorum Concilii et Auditorum.- — Ed.
3 Sir Alexander Stuart, afterwards of Darnley, married about 1360 (see Dalrymple's Collections,
394) Jean Baird, the heiress of Cambusnethan. See Introductory Notes, ante, sub an. 1292. — Ed.