New Spalding Club > Thanage of Fermartyn including the district commonly called Formartine

The Tlianage of Fermartyn.
parts, and highly esteemed by Robert III. He got a share of 40,000 francs that were
sent by the King of France in 1385 to be divided among his faithful allies the Scots.
He was joined in a commission with Sir Henry Swinton and Sir John Dalzell to
treat for a peace with England in 1391, and was named one of the ambassadors
extraordinary to the same Court in the year 1392.
He married Elizabeth Lindsay, and built the tower of Fyvie Castle which goes
by his name. He died about 1433, leaving two daughters, co-heiresses, who
shared between them the Thanage of Fermartyn. The one Mariote Preston was
married to Sir John Forbes, son of Sir John Forbes, knight, and on July
6, 1420, she as daughter and one of the heiresses of Sir Henry Preston, Knight
of Fermartyn, granted a charter to the said Sir John on marriage of one half of the
Thanage of Fermartyn. This part is called Tolquhon, where Mariote's descendants
were for many generations (and are now represented in the male line by Rev. Henry
Forbes Leith of Whitehaugh), all of whom are detailed in the article " Tolquhon. "
Fyvie, the other portion of Fermartyn, containing Fyvie Castle, came by the
marriage of the other co-heiress to Alexander Meldrum, of the family of Meldrum of
Meldrum, descended of Philip de Fedarg, who flourished in the neighbourhood of
Meldrum in the 13th century — a family still represented in the female line by Urquhart of
Meldrum.
I. Alexander Meldrum of Fyvie.
He appears in 1438 as " Dominus de Fyvie." He resigned in that year " his whole
and entire lands of Banchory-Devenick into the hands of Walter, Abbot of Arbroath."
He seems to have died before 1450 or 51, as he is mentioned in a charter of that date
of Richard de Rutherford, burgess of Aberdeen, granting to his wife Mariota for her
life-time that wadset made to him by the late Alexander Meldrum of Fyvie of a certain
annual rent of ;^4o Scots to be uplifted from the lands of Waterton, Ellon, with the
fishings on the Ythan.°
The next to be found, a son probably of Alex. Meldrum and Preston, is
II. WiUiam Meldrum of Fyvie.
He is mentioned in an assedation of the tithes of Fyvie about 1475. " David
Abbot of Arbroath, let to an honourable man, William Meldrum of Fyvie and Elizabeth
his spouse, and to the longer liver of them, all the tithes of the towns of Five, Meikle
Gourdas, Little Gourdas, Haldauch, Sauchock, &c." '
In 1490, William Meldrum of Fivy makes a grant of 40 shillings from the lands of
Waterton, Ellon, to the Altar of St. Ninian's, within the church of St. Nicholas, Aber-
1 Ant. A. and B. I. pp. 270-1. 3 Ant. A. and B. I. p. 498.
2 His. MSS. Com. Rep. IX. 188.