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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2010-03 > 1269543868


From: M Sjostrom <>
Subject: those Butlers again
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:06:59 +0200


1)
there are a few very likely things in this:
a) the baronet would not have willingly given his legitimate daughter to a
poor man who were one of his own tenants
b) the baronet would have given some better inheritance or dowry to his
legitimate daughter, than just a tack


2)
the baronet title and the Sir (or dominus...) apparently have been added to
these explanations about William, by mere editors, as far as the
documentation concerns Christiana explicitly. Neither seemingly is in
contempotrary documentation.


3)

Bronwen asks: "The oldest child, Mary, married John Hodge. Gartmore
succession went through them. Who was John Hodge? "
I say: that is a good target for Bronwen to research. I would assume that
John Hodge was a man of more or less equal standing in landholdings, or
wealth, as the baronet. Or that the baronet was dead at the time of that
marriage. or that Mary was exceptionally oldish for marriage at that time.
Or that John Hodge held a good position enough say in government service -
such as, being colonel or judge.



4)
Christiana is clearly mentioned as having received a liferent of some land.
The liferent is a thing very typical of dower, and not at all typical of
dowry. Dowry -rather- is a holding intended to be passed to generations who
are progeny of the marriage, and not end upon the bride's death.
While dower was meant to take care of a wife's and widow's livelihood, rest
of her life, and quite consistent with that if dower ends with her life =
upon her death.
That thing which she received liferent of, should thusly presumably be in
hold of her husband-to-be.
She received liferent of Middle Mye, if we can rely on Bronwen's word about
that. This would mean her husband, John Drummond, held Middlemye.


5)
Also, I doubt the claim that the liferent was given to this Christiana,
*directly* by the baronet. What document says that the baronet, or any
William Graham, would have done that giving of liferent? Instead, the
natural thing would be that Christiana's liferent was given to her by her
husband-to-be John Drummond.
So, in this I request a more careful reading of the liferent document.

As I gather what Bronwen has written here and in earlier threads, and as I
gather what was reported of the documents of the Middlemye thing, that one
who granted the liferent to Christiana, was not mentioned as baronet, in the
authentic documentation.


6) if we can rely on Bronwen and her results, then John Drummond's own
family was landless.
".... not from a landed family"
This would mean that if John Drummond held some Mye and/or some other Mye,
those were new acquisitions.
Such as, the 'overlord' gave them to him as 'fiefs', for some reason good
enough.

Good reason would be as reward of longer service - in lieu of or as an
addition to 'salary'.

Another good reason would be for him to marry the overlord's female relative
- who possibly is 'difficult' to marry off.

John Drummond -from that deteriorated lineage- is not visible as close
relative of these Grahams. At least not before his marriage. so, his
tacksmanship seems not a result of *his* close kinship.

Instead, the tackmanship could be natural enough as reward from the baronet
to a useful one who had served him well, or to one who marries the baronet's
ward or illegitimate.


The baronet could have given such a minor concession (such as, tacks) from
his lands to someone who marries an undesirable bride from the baronet's
extended family. such as, his own illegitimate daughter or illegitimate
sister, or a remoter female cousin (impoverished or something) who were the
baronet's ward.



If the Drummond family of this, did not even hold a tack, before John's
marriage with Christiana, then the Drummond indeed were of low social and
wealth status.
They were not even near to aristocracy such as earls.



7)
a tacksman whose very tacksmanship was coming from Gartmore, is POOR when
yet contemplating marriage with Gartmore's daughter.


8) If we can rely on the piece of infornation that Elizabeth and William the
baronet, married in 1663
then it is very clear that any daughter, if born of THEM, i.e as child of
that Elizabeth,
would be relatively young in all the 1670s. Even in 1679. But certainly in
1673, such a daughter would be a young girl, under ten years old.
Everyone with any sense, would understand that if such a girl was married,
then it was an arranged marriage.

A ten-year-old girl does not choose her own husband in the sensical meaning
of that term. A ten-year-old child does not even have real desire to marry,
nor to have sex.


9)
The dating of Elizabeth's marriage, 1663, actually is a strong argument
against any of her daughters being in any marriage contracting before 1675.
Except if the contracted marriage were highly advantageous and between
social and wealth equals, in which case, it's still somewhat rare.


10)
if a contemporary document -against what has been reported here thus far-
really would mention Christiana explicitly as daughter of Gartmore, then
there should be an assumption she was his illegitimate daughter. Because,
the mention 'daughter' does not amount to an affirmation of Elizabeth being
the mother. And the circumstances and wealth ranks argues against that bride
being legitimate daughter.


11) the only thing which makes the supposition that Christiana was young
(ten or under) in 1674, is the desire to make her daughter of Elizabeth.
However, my impression is that Christiana was not exactly an underage child
at the time of her marriage contracting, but instead is likely to been in a
normal marriage age of rral middle classes of those days. Something even 20
years old.

Christiana, somehow favored and helped by the landowner, baronet, is married
at a normal age to a man who was more or less her social peer, son of an
illegitimate line of a good family, who got made a tacksman.
That is much more plausible than making Christiana as child-bride given by
baronet to marriage with the to-her-family-relatively-poor John, a
child-bride who would be so much higher than John in .terms of both social
rank and wealth.


12) Bronwen is wrong in alleging that 'happened all the time' marriages
between on one hand tacksman and on the other hand legitimate daughters of
baronet landowners and legitimate granddaughters of earldom-holding
landowning families.

My impression is that claiming such happened all the time, comes from
bringing today and recent happenings and culture, to the 1600s situations.
In the 1600s, things were so much different than in our egalitarian decades.

Such disparate marriage were rare. If there was some such, they are
exceptions.

A really *impoverished* noble family may have done such - if these had
already lost Gartmore and other estates. But they had not, so they lived so
it's a rare thing if their daughter would have married a tacksman.

It is implausible that a legitimate daughter of a baronet, a legitimate
granddaughter of a family who held an earldom, would have been married to a
tacksman.


13)

another point, to make such a really very rare and practically impossible
thing, is that in the 1670s (1673, 1674) any daughter born of Elizabeth (who
married in 1663) would have had only an arranged marriage. They were so
young that in those years, nothing else than an aranged marriage can be
really possible.

Those who now their history, know about arranged marriages, and
considerations around such.

It is practically impossible that a manorial lord's daughter when so young,
would have been given to arranged marriage to such a poor man.



14)
if we can rely on Bronwen and her data and her interpretations, then Mye
lands (as tacksman, seemingly not as owner nor lord over them) came to John
Drummond from William Graham, baronet, laird of Gartmore.
Also the Middle Mye piece, if John Drummond did not hold it before receiving
any land from this baronet.


15)
Bronwen has not managed to make sense out of the land transactions in
conjunction with this marriage. These transactions should however be
sensical, they should serve the needs of the marriage and the spouses, in
*consistency* with the culture of that epoch, if a specific transaction is
to be held to show a genealogical connection.


16)
it is somewhat unusual that a husband-to-be grants the dower to his bride
from land he has received from the bride's father. Also, it is unusual, odd,
to have the dower from lad who would been dowry. However, if the husband was
landless, up to that, then it can be understood.

In any case, it would have been simpler if the baronet would have given
Middle Mye as dowry to Christiana, instead of giving it to John Drummond and
then John Drummond to give it as dower to Christiana. This what happened,
indicates that Middle Mye was not from the baronet as dowry, not as part of
the usual marriage arrangements. It rises an assumption that John Drummond
had received at least Middle Mye from the baronet because of some other
reason than it being his wife's dowry.


17) In Scotland, there too existed laws and things to prohibit conveyance
of inheritance and too valuable gifts to illegitimate children.
Roughly put, one's estate was to be inherited by one's legitimate issue, and
the illegitimates were not entitled to inheritance.


18) this situation which has unraveled about the economic things happening
between the baronet and John Drummond, so much resemble to me some patterns
how wealthy men arranged some livelihood to their illegitimate children.
The wealthy one was inhibited from making a gift or leaving any such
inheritance, or giving dowry which is valuable, to an illegitimate child,
but instead he could -in feudal tradition- give some 'reward' property (some
land), such as some tack, to a man who promises to marry his illegitimate
daughter.
It is not her dowry, in legal terms. Although its motivation greatly
resembles the motivations of dowry given to a girl by her own family.

If so, then the acquisition of the bridegroom is not regarded as dowry, but
as fief. And a liferent granted from a part of such by the husband-to-be to
his bride (even if the bride is daughter or kinswoman of the laird of that
land) is naturally a dower.


19) the bridegroom, John Drummond, was made tacksman in 1679 - which
apparently was (some years) after the marriage itself.

Christiana married a tacksman (of some Mye lands) from a obscure Drummond
line that had deteriorated.

These facts should be remembered - when assessing what could have been
Christiana's background.


20)

Seemingly, nothing connects Christiana and Christiana's descendants to the
holdings or hereditaments of that Elizabeth. Christiana and her descendants
apparently show no such property which would been unquestionably inherited
from the Airth-Kinpoint.


21)
we should not forget that in the Airth peerage case, Mary was reported as
the sole daughter of Elizabeth. That leaves no room for Christiana to be her
daughter.



22)
There could have been at least two good reasons why Christiana's progeny did
not make claims to the wealthy inheritances of a) Gartmore, and b) Menteith,
Kilpont etc, upon the extinction of Mary 'Hodge's branch:
1) the possibility that Christiana's progeny was not descendants of
Elizabeth and baronet William. That's a very good reason.
2) the alternative possibility that Christiana was illegitimate - and thusly
she and her issue were not entitled to inherit.
Both of these, cut Bronwen's claimed lineage from Elizabeth.


23)

But the very fact that the Hodge branch went extinct, means a high
likelihood -practically a practical inevitability- that other, surviing
legitimate progeny from Elizabeth, woud have made a claim. These descendants
of this 'Tacksman' were not so rich as to forget such a possibility and
inheritance.
Somebodies would have remembered their rights and descent.
And, the fact that these ones held the tack in the same place, and at least
in some extent to same lands, would have meant they would have claimed their
that inheritance, if they really were descended by legitimate lineage from
the landholder(s) whose progeny otherwise went extinct.

When the whole other progeny went extinct, any 'disinheritance' (if such was
even possible) would have been at least controversial and a target of
claims, and likely the inheritance would have been claimed and taken desoite
of some early disinheritment - this is in part because the progeny otherwise
going extinct, there was not left those who directly benefited from any (but
in this case, unattested) disinheritment.


24) When Elizabeth's daughter (or elder daughter, as is Bronwen's wishful
thinking) Mary, in her issue, had inherited those hereditaments, then her
issue went extinct. So, contrary to what Bronwen verboses, there was no one
left to be in priority to Christiana anmd her progeny, on account of being
elder sister.

Whereas, Elizabeth's sister, another Mary (of whom we do not know if she was
elder or younger), and her issue, woould not have inherited the
hereditaments of Elizabeth and Elizabeth's husband the baronet, in priority
to their direct descendants - if legitimate such survived.
Gartmore surely did not pass through that Mary who was sister of Elizabeth.
Nor did Gartmore pass to thhat mary's descendants.

I underline: legitimate decent from Elizabeth's daughter Mary went extinct,
and at latest upon that, Gartmore's inheritance would hhave had heirs in
Christiana's progeny - if she was legitimate and their daughter at all.

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