Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE FRASERS OF TOTJCH-FRASER, ETC., AND COWIE. 87
been also appended to the document. Although the seal of Sir William de
Keith has been brokeu off, the tag to which it was originally attached still
remains. The reading which gives the most satisfactory explanation of
the three shields used by Margaret Fraser, is that they were those of herself,
her husband, and her mother. The name or family of her mother is not
known through any documentary evidence, but the arms on the third shield,
if so considered, denote her to have been the offspring of an alliance between
a Stewart and a member of a family bearing fleurs-de-lis, and taken in
conjunction with her daughter's christian name of Margaret, and other cir-
cumstances to be narrated, suggest a possible descent for her.
In the Appendix will be found a short memoir of the Frasers of Fren-
draught, in which it is shown that James Fraser, youngest brother of Sir
Alexander Fraser, Margaret's grandfather, married the daughter and heiress
of Sir John Stewart of Frendraught, who had supplanted the ancient family
of Frendraught in that estate about the beginning of the fourteenth century,
and whose wife may have been the heiress of that family. The Frasers of
Frendraught carried the Stewart fess cheque 1 between their own rosettes or
cinquefoils, six or three in number, and they also bore a wolf's head as a
crest, and the old Frendraught arms were three wolves' heads.
Some former connection by marriage must have existed between the
Frasers and the Stewarts, though its nature is not traceable, as a dispensation
had to be obtained in 1322 from Pope John xxii., for the marriage of James
Fraser and Margaret Stewart of Frendraught, who were related within the
prohibited degrees. Such close relationship often led to further alliances
between families ; and it is not unlikely that Margaret Fraser's father may
have married a younger daughter of Sir John Stewart of Frendraught, who,
however, could scarcely have been full sister to Margaret Stewart, but may
have been her half-sister by a second marriage of their father with a lady
whose arms were fleurs-de-lis, and Margaret Fraser may have been named
after her aunt, Margaret Stewart.
The seal of Margaret Fraser, of which an engraving is given on page 89,
bears an inscription which, although much defaced, can still be read " S.
Margarete Freser." It is attached to the above-mentioned charter of ex-
cambion of the lands of Ugtrethrestrother (Struthers), Wester Markinche,