Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE ERASERS OF TOUCH-FRASER, ETC., AND COWIE. 71
Touch-fraser, in Stirlingshire, 1 and the date of this occurrence raises a pre-
sumption that his predecessor, Sir Eichard Fraser, who certainly escaped the
fatal autumn and winter of 1306, and was alive in April 1307, may have
lived long enough to have his last years cheered by the sight of his country's
restoration to independence.
At the same time, although Sir Alexander Fraser succeeded to the estate
of Touch-fraser and others, in the centre of Scotland, neither he nor his heirs
are found to have been in possession of the properties in the Sheriffdoms of
Berwick, Edinburgh, Eoxburgh, and Eeebles, which, by the mandate of
Edward I. for their restoration, appear to have belonged to Sir Eichard Fraser
in 1296.
It is possible that some of these were merely superiorities, and that they
may have been bought up by the tenants of the lands ; but Edward I. very
largely distributed the possessions of those who joined King Eobert's first
rising, or shared in earlier attempts at independence, and many of these
lands may have fallen to individuals who, afterwards changing sides, earned
by their services during the long war the right to retain them, or were too
powerful to be safely dispossessed of them, or in the then disorganised state
of the kingdom, some may have been taken possession of by faithful and
constant adherents to the cause of Bruce.
An instance of the first kind is found in the case of Sir Alexander
Fraser himself, who held the estate of Ugtrethrestrother, in Fife, which in
1297 Edward I. had taken from Macduff, then in rebellion, and had given to
his father, Sir Andrew Fraser; and one of the second in the charter from
Eobert I. to the good Sir James de Douglas, of the whole of the great
forest which he had so bravely and successfully defended, and which
extended over large portions of the counties of Lanark, Peebles, Selkirk,
Eoxburgh, and Dumfries. 2
It may therefore be inferred that the large grants in the districts of
Aberdeen, Kincardine, and Forfar, bestowed by the King upon Sir Alexander
Fraser, were not only rewards for his eminent services, but were also given
and accepted in compensation for such of his hereditary lands in the southern
counties as it was not in the sovereign's power to restore without incurring
1 Robertson's Index, p. 8, No. 86. 2 Ibid. p. 10, Nos. 15-26.