Historical and genealogical memoirs of the House of Hamilton

458 SUPPLEMENT TO THE
above manner, after succeeding to Bothernock through her, and still holding like h«t
ancestors, of the House of Lennox, has clearly made it over to his youngest brother ;
thus completely confirmatory of the theory in these Memoirs. The circumstance is
also the more striking, as the Doctor admits, that if John first of Bardowie, had been a
younger son of Cadyovv, he would have obtained it upon the resignation of a Laird of
Cadyow.
John of Bardowie being obviously a different persen from Sir John Hamilton of
■Cadyow, son of David, the subsequent conclusion drawn from the marriage of the
former with Margaret Frazer is of course now untenable.
The next remark, grounded upon the supposition that David Hamilton the confirmer,
and David Hamilton of Cadyow, the witness, in the charter of 1381, are different,
(which however does not directly follow, it not beiDg incongruous in feudal principle for
a superior to witness a charter he afterwards confirmed,) is, that according to Crawford,
(who is not always correct, and who appeals to no strict authority,) David, elder of
Cadyow, died in 1373. The David of Cadyow, therefore, alive in 1381, must haw
been second of the name, and hence a different person from the preceding David, the
confirmer. All that need be urged in reply to an objection that has no legal foundation,
and evidently far from being relied upon, even by the Doctor himself, is the fact of the
R 'ru M ]sl' S a'f secon< ^ David of Cadyow being styled in a charter upon record as late as 1377 " filio
et heredo David filii Walteri militis." Now as his father is n:>t designated quondam,
or deceased; and as this is the very mode in which John, afterwards Robert the Third.
Vol. VI. p. 47. is, in 13.57, during the life of his father, described in a deed in Rymer's Fodera,*
there seems here pretty good proof that the first David so far from having died in 1373,
lived down at least to 1377, and besides indications of his having been alive at a
later period.
The date of the charter 1381, " at our manor of Daberf, 1 ' alone is decisive of the
Reg. R-oh. I. f. controversy. By a charter upon record, Robert the First feudally grants the fief of
Machan to Walter Fitz-Gilbert de Hamilton, and to the heirs of his body ; and the
subsequent Lords of Cadyovv, his undoubted heirs, are proved, by various evidence, t.i
It supra, p. 52. possess down at least to 1420. In that age every fief or barony hal " a manor," as it.
V,i,l. was called, which was peculiar to it, and where the proprietor resided, f Now as it
cannot be disputed that Dalserf was a manor ; as it is instructed by a Royal Charter
H, H j early in the 15th century to have been a member of Machan, when the dominium
utile was clearly still in the family, and, further still as it never can be shown by any
evidence to have belonged, during the period in question, to any other Hamiltons ; docs
it not hence clearly follow, by legal presumption, that the David Hamilton in the above
deed, who speaks of his manor of Dalserf, was no other than David Hamilton one of
the heads of the House, who assuredly flourished at the same time ? These undenia-
ble facts sufficiently refute the unsupported conjectures and insinuations of the learned
Doctor, that Dalserf neither belonged to David Hamilton, nor to any of his family, and
was not a part, or the manor house of the barony of Machan. By the way, he also is
* Johan Seneschal, /fc et heir Monsieur Robert Seneschal a" Escoce."
1 " Manerhini" — •' vulgo accipitur pro pnecipua domo feudi." Du Cange voce Mancriutn.