Historical summary of the Roger Tenants of Coupar

AN HISTORICAL SUMMARY OF THE
ROGER TENANTS OF COUPAR.
I ventured to suggest, in opposition to the
gratuitous assumption of a migration from
Ochiltree 1 that the Rogers in Coupargrange,
as free tenants and rentallers of the Abbey of
Coupar, had been the immemorial occupants and
dwellers on the land where we first find them.
My information did not then reach beyond
the testator of 1562, and this date I was dis-
posed to regard as the boundary of possible
investigation. It, however, plainly appears from
the public records preserved in H.M. General
Register House, that my conjecture as to their
early settlement on the Abbey lands was well
1 In combating the assertion of the historian of the Norman
House of Roger, I find I have been fighting a shadow. There
is no mention whatever of Lord Ochiltree in the Will of David
Roger in Redie. The words of this deed are "Item to my
Lady Vchiltrie iiij bollis ij firlots, teind bere of the said crope,
1581, at iiij merkis, the boll summa xij lib., and to her for iiij
bollis ij firlots, teind bere of the lxxx zeris, crope at iiij lib., the
boll summa xviij libs." What this reverend "historiographer"
may know of feudal tenures, and in particular of redendo exigible
from a tenant in fee by his overlord, is matter of conjecture,
save in so far as that his finding in this instance suggests a
total ignorance of the whole subject. Lady Ochiltree was
probably the daughter of some Forfarshire laird or Lord of
Erection, and as such, titular of the teinds. and by accident the
wife of Lord Ochiltree.