Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE FEASEES OF COWIE, DUEEIS, AND PHILOETH. 163
£10,000, payable to Sir Alexander or his assignee; and secondly, that if
Robert Fraser should wish to sell these lands after the decease of his father
and of Sir Alexander, he should be bound to offer them to the heirs of Sir
Alexander Fraser, or to any person he might nominate, bearing the name and
arms of the family of Philorth, for the sum of fifty-seven thousand merks ;
and upon the refusal of that person to purchase, that he should be bound to
offer them to the Lord Lovat, after him to Fraser of Strichen, and then to
Fraser of Muchall, at such price as could be agreed upon, or as such land was
worth at the time ; and if they all refused to buy, that he should then have
power to sell to whomsoever he chose. 1
The Laird of Durris did not perform his part of this bargain, for, being
deeply in debt to Fraser of Muchall, he sold him, during the lifetime of Sir
Alexander Fraser, those lands which (in spite of an attempt on the part of Sir
Alexander's grandson to set aside the sale and recover possession of them)
then ceased to belong to the family, and in the lapse of time became the
property of persons unconnected with the Fraser name, while the old
manor-place of Philorth received the appellation of Cairnbulg Castle from
the adjacent estate of that name, with which it was sold.
On her marriage, in 1606, to Sir Alexander Fraser, Dame Elizabeth
Maxwell, Lady Philorth, appears to have been infefted in liferent in the
lands of Cairnbulg. In order to protect her liferent right to these lands in
the event of her surviving Sir Alexander Fraser, she made a protestation on
5th June 1613 in presence of Eobert Fraser, sometime apparent of Durris,
now of Cairnbulg, that no disposition of these lands should be prejudicial to
her liferent right. 2
The liabilities of Sir Alexander Fraser having been to a certain extent,
if not altogether, met by these and other sacrifices of property, in 1620
he resigned the whole lands and barony of Philorth into the hands
of the Eoyal Commissioners for new infeftment to be granted to Alex-
ander, the eldest son of his heir-apparent, Alexander Fraser, by Margaret
Abernethy, whom he terms his oy, or grandson ; who, as will be seen,
succeeded to this portion of the estates during his father's life, by consent
of the latter to such arrangement ; but Sir Alexander appears to have
1 Philorth Charter-room. 2 Original Protestation at Kenmnre.