Series 5 > Calendar of Fearn

100
CALENDAR OF FEARN
John MacCulloch of Meikle Tarrell’ (presumably a son of Hugh or
Angus, sons of Angus II, and so Marion MacCulloch’s first cousin once
removed), was ready to fight the issue in the Court of Session.
Meanwhile, with the probable connivance of her mother, and the
assistance of Alexander Ross of Balnagown, he took custody of Marion
herself. When the case came to court, Walter’s procurator claimed that
Meikle Tarrel had been ‘tailleit off auld to the airs maill’. For Andrew
Munro, it was argued that John MacCulloch had broken the entail by
not specifying heirs male when he granted the lands to Cristina
Monypenny in 1553 (RMS, iv, 828, confirms this). That done, he
asserted, the ‘nearest and laufull air of lyne necessarilie behuffit to
succeed’. This convinced the Court, Walter MacCulloch and his backer
Alexander Ross being charged to hand over the heiress (GD305/1/154/
67, 28June; for the case see CS7/53, 20v-21 v [26January 1574], 182v [15
March 1574], 435r-436v [16 June 1574]). Walter still styled himself
‘Walter McCulloch heir apparent of Meikle Tarrell in Ross’ (Macgill,
no.677, 5 August 1574), but he had to let Marion go.
In the following year Marion was again retoured generally, this time
to her father (GD305/1/129/7, 23 June 1575); a special retour to Meikle
Tarrel followed (Retours, ii, Ross and Cromarty, no. 9, 30 July 1577;
SC29/1/1, 102r-v, 30July 1576 [sic]). Her future was by then arranged:
she was to marry Andrew’s own minor son George (282). Before that,
to recover her ‘evidents’, her lawyers had to pursue several of the parties
involved (CS7/66, 27r-v, 6 November 1576). Her stepfather John Ross
of Nairn produced a handful and Walter MacCulloch’s agent several
more, but the main catch was made from Master Thomas Ross, who
came to court on 5 March 1577 (CS7/66, 379r-381r) with a box
containing thirty deeds and a book of copies of ‘divers infeftments’
belonging to John MacCulloch’s predecessors, the earliest being a
sasine of 4 March 1402. It is possible that, like Alexander Sutherland of
Dunbeath a century before (see Bannatyne Misc., iii, 94), the
MacCullochs had deposited their ‘evidents’ with the abbot for
safe-keeping.
Marion MacCulloch’s marriage contract was drawn up on 28
November 1577 (GD305/1/127/2). She brought with her tocher of
8,000 merks, receiving in return a modest liferent and remission of her
own ward, non-entry and relief. On 10 April 1578 she came to the Ross
consistory court with an edict served on Alexander MacCulloch of
Moy and Angus MacCulloch in Craighouse (see 65), ‘as tua of ye maist
honest and famous kynnismen’, to attend to hear her curators chosen.
The two did not appear, and Marion ratified the choice of Robert