Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE FRASERS OF COWIE, DURRIS, AND PHILORTH. 141
by the failure of his male line, had passed to the Hays, and had been held by
them as feudatories of the Philorth family ; and though the record of these
transactions is very meagre, the object of them was probably the purchase of
the superiority by Sir Gilbert de Hay.
On the 31st of March 1502, Sir William Fraser resigned these lands into
the hands of James iv., who thereupon granted them, on the 10th of May
1503, to Sir Gilbert de Hay, to be held by him and his heirs in chief of the
Crown. 1
The price, however, had not then been wholly paid, and Sir Gilbert con-
veyed some, if not all, of the lands back to Sir William Fraser, under a letter
of reversion, by which the latter bound himself to restore them, upon pay-
ment of 500 merks, before Michaelmas 1504, and that sum having been paid
before the 31st of May in that year, he returned to Sir Gilbert the estates,
in which all interest of the Philorth family seems to have ceased from that
time. 2
Sir Walter de Leslie and Euphemia, Countess of Eoss, had granted the
lands of Faithlie (afterwards the site of the town of Fraserburgh) and Tyrie
to Andrew Mercer in 1381, and his descendant, Sir Henry Mercer of
Aldie, sold them to Sir William Fraser in 1504, to be held for an annual
payment of 25 merks. 3
Before 1505, James iv. appears to have claimed the barony of Kynedward,
as heir and successor of John, Earl of Buchan, killed at Verneuil in 1424,
who had obtained a charter of it on the resignation of Euphemia the Nun,
Countess of Boss, which, however, seems to have been inoperative, for the
barony remained in possession of the Lords of the Isles (also Earls of Boss)
until the forfeiture of John, Lord of the Isles, about 1490, when it was
granted by James in. to his uterine brother, James Stewart, created Earl of
Buchan about 1469, from whom Sir William Fraser received the regrant of
Scatterty and Byth in 1495. He died before 1500, and although he left male
issue, James IV. seems, on his death, to have asserted his claim to the barony;
but being unwilling, so runs the charter, that anything should arise there-
from to the prejudice of Sir William Fraser in the possession of Scatterty,
1 Antiquities of Aberdeenshire, vol. ii. p. 354.
- Ibid. p. 356. 3 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 124.