Frasers of Philorth > Volume 2

138
APPENDIX OF CADET FAMILIES.
It is impossible to say whether the Mauld Fraser who married Alexander
Dunbar, second son of John Dunbar, Earl of Moray, 1 was the daughter of the
last James Fraser ; but their son, James Dunbar, was Lord of Frendraught
in 1425, 2 and afterwards succeeded his cousin, Thomas, in the earldom of
Moray ; and the seal of his daughter, Janet Dunbar, Countess of Moray
1454, where the fess cheque again appears between three rosettes or cinque-
foils, 2.1, seems to show that she could claim a legitimate descent, 3 and it is
possible that the indented bar in the armorial bearings of James Fraser
may have been an error of the engraver, when the rosettes or cinquefoils
were reduced from six to three, arising from the slanting position of the
fess cheque' in the couche shield of the earlier seal, which suggestion is in
some degree supported by the rosettes, or cinquefoils, appearing in similar
positions to those into which the couche" shield of the earlier seal throws the
three below the fess-cheque.
Thus the line of the Frasers of Frendraught terminated in a female about
the beginning of the fifteenth century, and there is no record of any junior
branch of the family.
1 Pitscottie, p. 42.
2 Antiquities of Aberdeenshire, vol. i. p. 524.
3 Laing's Scottish Seals, vol. i. p. 56, No. 297.
Seal of Sir James Fraser, 1371. Seal of Janet Dunbar, Countess of
Moray, 1454.
Seal of James Fraser, 1402.