Frasers of Philorth > Volume 2

20 THE ABERNETHIES OF ABERNETHY AND OF SALTOUN,
and Sir Walter de Percy, instigated— as Fordun 1 and Wyntoun 2 both state —
by Sir William de Abernethy, who guarded another route by which the Earl
might possibly travel.
These two authors also agree in their accounts of the speedy vengeance
that overtook the criminals, whom Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell vigor-
ously pursued, and capturing Sir Walter de Percy and Sir William de
Abernethy at Colbaniston, in Clydesdale, immediately executed the former
and two squires, his assistants in the actual deed of violence, and consigned Sir
William de Abernethy to imprisonment in Castle Douglas, under the custody
of Sir William de Douglas, where he remained for the rest of his life. Sir
Patrick de Abernethy escaped to France, where he died.
Thus Fordun and Wyntoun. But documents, which they had no oppor-
tunity of consulting, show that, though Sir William de Abernethy may have
been a party to the Earl's assassination, and may have been punished for it,
his elder brother, Sir Hugh de Abernethy, was the person imprisoned in
Castle Douglas on that account, and as the head of the family, he was doubt-
less the chief instigator of the outrage.
The first of these documents is a letter from Sir Hugh de Abernethy to
the King of England in 1288, requesting his intercession with the Pope
respecting certain affairs to be laid before him by the bearer of the letter, the
Bishop of Brechin, 3 which evinces Sir Hugh to have been in some grievous
trouble ; and the second is more positive evidence, being an order from
Edward I., dated 28th June 1291, for the transference of Hugh de Abernethy
to the king's prison from that of William de Douglas, where he was confined
on account of the murder of the Earl of Fife. 4
The causes that led to the perpetration of this atrocity by the Abernethies
are unknown ; but it is possible that some dispute respecting the lands
exchanged between the two families in a former generation, or perhaps some
question of tribal privilege or rank, still in force at that date, in which they
conceived themselves wronged by the Earl, may have originated a deadly
feud between them.
1 Fordun, Gesta Annalia, p. lxxxii. 3 Historical Documents of Scotland, vol. i.
p. 69.
2 Wyntoun, lib. viii. cap. ix. 4 Rotuli Scotiae, vol. i. p. 2.