BADGE: Rugh (Thalietrumo) Rue
An astonishingly varied array of memories is associated with the name of Lindsay in Scottish annals. The family has shone alike in letters and in arms, and has a history, marked alternately with deep shadows and brilliant lights. At the present hour the race is one of the most numerous in Scotland, and counts the holders of three earldoms and other honours on its roll of fame.
As with many other of the great houses of Scotland, the first ancestor of this family seems to have migrated into the country at the time when Malcolm Canmore and his sons were setting up a new dynasty supported by a feudal system of land tenure. The cautious old Scottish chronicler, Andro of Wyntoun, briefly remarks:
"Out of Englande come the Lyndysay;
Mair of thame I can nocht say".
According to the English antiquary, Sir William Dugdale, the surname was first assumed by the owners of the manor of Lindsai in Essex, but the locality is not now known. They are believed to have been derived from the Norman house of De Linesay, and to have "come over with the Conqueror". There were several considerable families of the name in England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In the Inquest of David, Prince of Cumbria, into the possessions of the See of Glasgow before 1124, the name of Walter de Lindeseya appears as one of the witnesses, and there is charter evidence to show that the chief Scottish families of the name are descended from him.
According to Chalmers, the most famous of the Scottish antiquaries (Caledonia, 2, 433), "an English emigrant named Lindsay", during the twelfth century, became possessor of the lands of Luffenach, now Luffness, in East Lothian. He is said to have possessed all the lands of Ercildoune and Locharret, or Lockhart. In the time of William the Lion his son, David de Lindsay, possessed the estate; and his son again, another David, granted the monks of Newbotle freedom from tolls in the port of Luffenach. At the same time there were Lindsays, father and son of Crawford in Upper Clydesdale, who were likewise both named David, and were benefactors to the monks of Newbotle. The latter of the two appears further to have been the David de Lindsay of Brennewell who, after 1233, gave the monks of Balmerinoch twenty shillings yearly to pray for the soul of Queen Errningarde, who was possibly his relative. This David de Lindsay was one of the Scottish knights and prelates who swore to uphold the treaty between Alexander II and Henry of England in 1244, when the English king had marched north to avenge the overthrow of the Bissets of Aboyne. The same David de Lindsay obtained the lands of Garmylton and Byres in Haddingtonshire from Gilbert the Marischal, who had probably obtained them by his marriage with Marjory, sister of King Alexander II, in 1235. His second son, William, was Chamberlain of Scotland in the time of Robert the Bruce.
In 1285 also King Alexander III granted a charter to Sir John de Lyndsay, who was Great Chamberlain of Scotland, to hold the lands of Wauchope in Dumfriesshire as a barony. The author of the Lives of the Lindsays conjectured this Sir John to have been a younger son of Sir David de Lindsay of Luffness, but as the later Lindsays of Wauchope claimed to represent the eldest line of the race, it is possible that Wauchope was the earliest possession of the family in Scotland. It was probably this Sir John de Lindesay who, as one of the six great barons of the realm, swore to acknowledge the Maid of Norway as heir to the Scottish throne, and who in 1289 was one of the attorneys for the trustees of the deceased Alexander III. His son, Sir Philip, took part with Edward of England against the Scots in the Wars of Succession, invaded Scotland with Percy, and was present at the siege of Stirling, but went over to Bruce after Bannockburn, and so retained his estate in Wauchopedale. In the Chronicle of Lanercost there is a quaint story told of him seeing a vision of St.Cuthbert, and so reforming his life. His brother, Sir Simon, was also a great man on the English side, and virtual Warden of the West Marches. He was a prisoner after Bannockburn, and forfeited by Bruce, but his son, Sir John, got a charter of Wauchope from the king in 1321, and was probably the Sir John de Lindsay who fell on the Scottish Side at Neville s Cross in 1346. The twelfth Laird was forfeited for Border slaughter in 1494, but parts of the lands were regained, and his descendants remained Lairds of Wauchope till the end of the seventeenth century.
But a chief seat of the Lindsays from an early date appears to have been Crawford Castle in Upper Clydesdale. Tower Lindsay, which originally stood on the site, was the scene of one of the adventures of William Wallace, who, according to Henry the Minstrel, stormed and took it from its English garrison, killing fifty of them in the assault. As the neighbouring lands took their name of Crawford-John from their owner, John, stepson of Baldwin de Biggar, in the reign of Malcolm IV, so the present parish of Crawford got the name of Crawford-Lindsay from its owners, William de Lindsay and his successors, who held it for several centuries. It is interesting to note that this William de Lindsay, the first known Lord of Crawford, married Marjorie, sister of King William the Lion. At a later day Robert de Pinkeney, grandson of the heiress of the original line of Crawford, claimed the Scottish throne as descendant and representative of Marjorie. On the forfeiture of the Pinkeneys, the Barony of Crawford was returned to the Lindsays, being conferred by Bruce upon his adherent, Sir Alexander de Lindsay of Luffness, a collateral descendant of William, first Lord of Crawford above referred to.
Another royal alliance of that time was the marriage of Sir William de Lindsay of Lamberton, also a descendant of William of Crawford, to Ada, eldest surviving sister of King John Baliol. This family, the Lindsays of Lamberton, was for a time by far the most important of the name, so far as property was concerned. It inherited, through an heiress, vast possessions in Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumberland, and Yorkshire, in addition to the "Baronia de Lindesay infra Berwick". It ended with Christiania, whose husband Ingelram succeeded as Sire de Coucy. Her grandson married Isabella, daughter of King Edward III, and was created Earl of Bedford. On the death of his eldest daughter Philippa, the Lindsay property escheated to the Crown. His younger daughter succeeded to Couey, from which house a great number of notable families descend, including that of Henry IV King of France.
During those centuries the Lindsays of Upper Clydesdale had to hold their own by the power of the sword against the frequent raids of the Douglases from Lower Clydesdale and the Johnstones and Jardines in Annandale. In token of the fact, till a recent time were to be seen the stone vaults which formerly served the farmers of Crawford Moor for secure defence, while several of the hills in the neighbourhood, which were the stations of scouts and beacon fires are still known as Watches. Other interesting memorials of those early times are the small holdings which still exist on the estate. These are of six acres each, and formerly had a share also in certain hill grazings. They were among the earliest of the small-holding experiments in Scotland, others being the king's kindly tenancies founded by Robert the Bruce at Lochmaben the lands held since the battle of Bannockburn by the freemen of Prestwick and Newton-Ayr, and certain settlements near Kilmaurs.
Among the most famous of the deeds of those early Lyndsays of Crawford was the part played by Sir James Lyndsay at the battle of Otterburn in 1388. When the Scottish knights drove back the English to the spot where the brave young Earl of Douglas had fallen, it was he who knelt and asked the stricken knight how he fared, and received the memorable answer "Dying in my armour, as my fathers have done, thank God !" And it was he who, at Douglas's command, again raised the banner of the Bloody Heart, and led the Scots to victory. This doughty warrior himself died unmarried. His mother was Egidia, sister of King Robert II.
Already, however, the Lyndsays also held broad lands in the North. While the father of the knight just mentioned had married the king's sister, that father's brother, Sir Alexander Lyndsay, had married the heiress of Glenesk and Edzell. This Sir Alexander of Glenesk himself became ancestor of the senior line of the family, but in 1365 he resigned to his youngest brother, Sir William Lindsay, the Haddingtonshire barony of the Byres, and it is from that youngest brother that the famous line of the Lindsays of the Byres and the Earls of Lindsay of the present day are descended.
It was Sir Alexander Lindsay of Glenesk who, during John of Gaunt's invasion of Scotland, attacked and put to the sword the crew of one of the English ships which had landed above Queen's Ferry, and his son, Sir David was one of the most famous knights of his time. It was he who rode the famous course at the tournament at London Bridge in May 1390. John, Lord Welles, the English ambassador, we are told, had at a solemn banquet ended a discussion of doughty deeds with the declaration: "Let words have no place; if you know not the chivalry and valiant deeds of Englishmen, appoint me a day and place where you list and you shall have experience". Sir David Lindsay accepted the challenge, and Lord Welles appointed London Bridge as the place of trial. At the first course, though Lord Welles' spear was broken on his helmet, Lindsay kept his seat, at which the crowd cried out that, contrary to the laws of arms, he was bound to his saddle. Upon this he dismounted, mounted again without help, and in the third course threw his opponent to the ground. Another of Sir David Lindsay's exploits, which ended less happily, was the encounter with the Highland marauders under Duncan Stewart, son of the Wolf of Badenoch, at Gasklune, in which many of the gentry of Angus were slain and Sir David himself was grievously wounded, and narrowly escaped. Sir David married Elizabeth, daughter of King Robert III, and in 1398 was raised to the peerage as Earl of Crawford.
At this period a daughter of the Lindsays came near to becoming a Queen of Scotland. A daughter of Sir William Lindsay of Rossie was wooed, won, and forsaken by the Duke of Rothesay, eldest son of Robert III, and it was in anger for this treatment of his daughter that Lindsay himself took part in the plot which sent the dissolute young prince to die by starvation at Falkland.
It was the great-grandson of the hero of the London Tournament who was known as the "Tiger" Earl of Crawford, or "Earl Beardie". While his father was still alive the Tiger had been innocently chosen chief justiciar by the monks of Arbroath, but, discovering him to be too expensive a protector, they had transferred the office to Ogilvie of Inverquharity. Burning at the insult, Lindsay raised his men and marched to attack the Ogilvies at the Abbey. As the battle was about to begin, his father, the old third Earl of Crawford, whose wife was an Ogilvie, came galloping between as a peacemaker, and was mortally wounded by a soldier who did not know his rank. Infuriated by the loss, the Lindsays attacked savagely, cut the Ogilvies to pieces, and afterwards utterly burned and ravaged their lands. The Tiger Earl had married Elizabeth Dunbar of the house of March, and the ruthless degradation of that house by James I made him a bitter enemy of the Stewart kings. It was through this that Earl Beardie made a bond with the great Earl of Douglas and the Earl of Ross that they should take each other's part in every quarrel and against every man, the king himself not excepted. Douglas could rival the king with his army in the south of Scotland, Ross had almost royal authority in the north, and the Tiger Earl was supreme in Angus, Perth) and Kincardine, The league threatened the throne itself, and James II only managed to break it by slaying Douglas with his own hand in Stirling Castle. The second signer of the bond, John, Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, was also finally, crushed and ended his days as an old man, penniless, in a common lodging-house in Dundee. The house of Lindsay was more fortunate. To begin with, the Tiger was encountered and defeated by the king's forces under the Earl of Huntly near Brechin, and on both sides the country was ferociously wasted and burned; but presently Crawford appeared before the king in beggar's weeds, with feet and head bare, and implored and obtained forgiveness. James fulfilled his vow to make the highest stone the lowest of the Earl's Castle of Finhaven, by going to the top of a turret and throwing to the ground a pebble which he found on the battlement there. The Tiger Earl died six months later. One of the notable memories of Dundee is the marriage, in the family mansion of the Earls of Crawford in Nethergate, of Maud, the daughter of the Tiger Earl, to Archibald Bell the Cat, Earl of Angus. Among others of the name who made a notable figure at the time was James Lindsay, Provost of Lincluden, who was made Keeper of the Privy Seal after the death of James II.
David, fifth Earl of Crawford, eldest son of the Tiger Earl, represented James III at the betrothal of the infant prince, afterwards James IV, to the infant Princess Cecilia, daughter of Edward IV of England, in 1473, and was made Duke of Montrose by James III in May 1488, being the first, outside the blood royal, to be raised to that rank in Scotland. He led his vassals and fought along with his relative, Lord Lindsay, at the head of the cavalry of Fife and Angus on the side of James when that monarch fell at the battle of Sauchieburn. It was he who finally transferred the chief landed interest of the family from Lanarkshire to the East of Scotland, exchanging the Crawford estates in Clydesdale with the Earl of Angus, now head of the house of Douglas, for certain lands in Angus. At the same time, as titles were attached to lands, Crawford reserved a sma11 portion of the Barony of Crawford, and a mound near Crawford Castle, supposed to have been the seat of the old Barony Court, is pointed out a still belonging to the family. The Duke married a daughter of the first Lord Hamilton, founder of another great house that had risen on the downfall of the Black Douglas, and with these powerful allies he managed to keep his footing.
At Flodden the Earl of Crawford led part of the vanguard of the Scottish host, and fell with James IV and the flower of the Scottish nobles. During the time of confusion after the king's death, the new Earl of Crawford was appointed Chief Justiciar of Scotland north of the Forth under the regency of Queen Margaret, and he was one of those who helped the queen-mother when she carried the boy-king, James V, from Stirling to Edinburgh, and declared him of age and the regency of Albany at an end. James V was then only twelve years old. At a later day he found it necessary to visit his displeasure upon Crawford, whom he deprived of the greater part of his estates.
Ten years later, in 1541, there occurred in the family an incident which might have proved still more disastrous. David, eighth Earl of Crawford, was seized by his sons, Alexander, Master of Crawford, and his brother John, who threw him fettered into prison. Indignant at the outrage the Earl disinherited the two young men, who were outlawed as guilty of "constructive parricide". Then, with the approval of the Crown, he settled his honours and estates on his cousin and next male heir, Sir David Lindsay of Edzell and Glenesk. Sir David accordingly became ninth Earl of Crawford, but at his death he was magnanimous enough to restore the earldom to the son of the "Wicked Master" of Crawford, with a provision that if the heirs male of the body of this David Lindsay should fail, the earldom should return to the heirs male of Edzell. Through this provision, upon the death of Ludovic, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, the honours should have vested in the descendants of Edzell. They actually did so in 1848, following the failure of the line of Crawford-Lindsay.
Meanwhile the Earls of Crawford continued to play a part in the most notable events of Scottish history. At the banquet which followed the marriage of Queen Mary and Darnley, while the Earl of Atholl acted as sewer and the Earl of Morton as carver, the Earl of Crawford was cupbearer; and after the fall of the Queen at Langside, the Earl of Crawford was among the Scottish nobles who remained faithful to her cause. Eight years later, amid the confusion which attended the overthrow of the Earl of Morton's regency, the Chancellor, Lord Glamis, was slain in a scuffle between his retinue and that of the Earl of Crawford; but Crawford did not suffer, and in 1583, when James VI finally threw off the yoke of tutelage, after the raid of Ruthven, the Earl of Crawford was one of the principal nobles who helped him to do so. On the other hand, in 1589, after the discomfiture of the Spanish Armada, when the Scottish Catholic lords threatened to overthrow the Protestant government, the Earl of Crawford was one of the chief movers, but though he was tried and convicted of high treason, and the leaders of the Kirk clamoured for his death, he escaped with imprisonment.
Among the darkest deeds in the family history was the barbarous murder by this twelfth Earl of Crawford, in James VI's time, of his kinsman, Sir Walter Lindsay of Balgavie. Lindsay was a Roman Catholic intriguer after the Reformation. Forced to flee to Spain, he wrote there an Account of the Catholic Religion in Scotland, and, after returning to Scotland in 1598, took part in all the feuds of the Lindsays, till he met his fate at the hands of his Chief in 1605. Even Sir David Lindsay of Edzell, however, whose effort to avenge him brought about the death of Lord Spynie two years later, was a noted Lord of Session and Privy Councillor, like his brother, Lord Menmuir, and others of his house.
This line of Chiefs of the Lindsays came to an end at the death of Ludovic, the sixteenth Earl, in 1652. Upon this event, under the arrangement made by Sir David Lindsay of Edzell, the ninth Earl, when restoring the family honours to the son of the "Wicked Master" a hundred years previous, the earldom should have reverted to the Lindsays of Edzell. But in 1642 Earl Ludovic had resigned his titles into the hands of King Charles I, and received a new grant of them, with succession to John, first Earl of Lindsay, and tenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres. Two years later Ludovic, known as the "Loyal Earl" from his support of Charles I, in which he took part in the plot known as "The Incident", was forfeited by the Scottish Parliament, but the act was premature, and it was only at his death that the Earldom of Crawford actually passed to the house of the Byres.
These Lindsays of the Byres were descended from Sir William Lindsay, youngest son of Sir David Lindsay of Crawford, who, as already mentioned, acquired the barony of Byres from his elder brother in 1365. Sir William was a famous knight, one of the "Enfants de Lindsay" of the chronicler Froissart, and knighted the son of St.Bridget of Sweden at the Holy Sepulchre. He increased his estate by marrying the heiress of Sir Willlam Mure of Abercorn, and from his natural son. Andrew of Garmylton, was descended the famous Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, the famous poet and Lyon King of the time of King James V. By his poetry, it has been said, the Lord Lyon "lashed vice into reformation", and his portrait lives in the well-known lines of Sir Walter Scott:
He was a man of middle age
In aspect manly, grave, and sage,
As on king's errand come,
But in the glances of his eye
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home -
The flash of that satiric rage
Which, bursting on the early stage,
Branded the vices of the age
And broke the keys of Rome.
Still is his name of high account,
And still his verse hath charms,
Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount,
Lord Lyon King of Arms.
Meanwhile Sir William Lindsay's elder son, the second Sir William of the Byres, married a daughter of Sir William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, and with her got the barony and castle of Dunnottar, on the Kincardine coast, which he presently exchanged with the Keiths for the barony of Struthers, now Crawford Priory in Fife, on condition that in time of danger the heir of the Lindsays should have refuge and protection at Dunnottar, a stronghold then considered impregnable. The Fife estate passed out of the family at the death of the heiress of the twenty-second Earl, Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford, who built the fine mansion which now adorns it.
Sir William's son, Sir John, was made a Lord of Parliament as Lord Lyndsay of the Byres in 1445, and it was his son, David, second Lord Lindsay of the Byres, who, on the eve of the battle of Sauchieburn in 1488, gave King James III the "great grey horse" which should carry him faster into battle or out of it than any in Scotland, and from the back of which the monarch was presently thrown with such fatal consequences at Beaton's Mill. Lord Lindsay himself brought to the battle a thousand horse and three thousand foot, the strength of Fife. The second lord was succeeded by his brother, "John, out with the Sword", and he again by his brother Patrick. The last-named was in his youth a famous "forspekar" or advocate, and the historian Pitscottie tells how, when his brother David, the second Lord, was put on trial after Sauchieburn, he came to the rescue. At first the rough baron banned him when he trod on his foot as a signal to avoid giving away his case in court but afterwards, when the young advocate obtained permission to plead, and won Lord Lindsay's liberty, the latter praised his skill and gave him the Mains of Kirkfather for his day's wage. At the same time James IV, angered by the young advocate's pleading, fulfilled his threat to place him where he should not see his own feet for a year, by imprisoning him in Rothesay Castle.
The fifth Lord Lindsay was one of the four nobles to whom the charge of the infant Queen Mary was committed in 1542, and Patrick, the sixth Lord, was the fierce Reformer and Lord of the Congregation who took part in the murder of Rizzio, challenged Bothwell to mortal combat at Carberry Hill, and at Lochleven Castle forced Oueen Mary to give up her crown. The wife of this ruffian was Euphemia Douglas, one of "the Seven Fair Porches of Lochleven", and it was his grandson, the tenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres, who was made Earl of Lindsay by Charles I in 1633, and inheritor of the Earldom of Crawford by his Chief, Ludovic, the sixteenth Earl, in 1642. He was one of the leaders of the Covenanting Party, was successively High Treasurer of Scotland and President of the Scottish Parliament and, taking part in the Engagement for the rescue of Charles I, was imprisoned by Cromwell in the Tower of London and in Windsor Castle till the Restoration in 1660. His son William, eighteenth Earl of Crawford, second Earl of Lindsay, and eleventh Lord Lindsay of the Byres, an ardent Presbyterian, last champion of the Covenant in political life, is styled by Wodrow the historian "the great and good Earl" of Crawford, concurred in the Revolution of 1688, and was appointed President of the Council in the following year. His grandson, John, twentieth Earl of Crawford, was first commander of the Black Watch, then known as Lord Crawford-Lindsay's Highlanders. At the time of the Jacobite Rebellion he held the Lowlands for the Government, while the Duke of Cumberland operated in the north; and after the battle of Dettingen he was saluted by George II with "Here comes my champion". He was succeeded by his second cousin, representative of a grandson of the first Earl of Lindsay, who had been created Viscount Garnock in 1703. And with the son of this holder of the family honours, George, twenty-second Earl of Crawford sixth Earl of Lindsay, and fifteenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres, in 1808, the Lindsay-Crawford line of earls came to an end.
The estates thereupon devolved upon the Earl's sister, Lady Mary Lindsay Crawford, to pass at her death, unmarried, in 1833, to the Earl of Glasgow, as descendant of the elder daughter of the first Viscount Garnock. At the same time, a strange series of contests arose over the succession to the various titles. Finally, by a report of the House of Lords, it was found that the Earldom of Lindsay had passed to the last of the Lindsays of Kirkfather, representative of the younger grandson of the famous "forspekar" of James IV's time. This individual was a sergeant in the Perthshire militia, and died of brain fever acquired in studying to fit himself for his high rank before his claim was proved. It was not till 1878, when other two earls de jure had passed away, that the claim to be tenth Earl of Lindsay, ninth Viscount Garnock, and nineteenth Lord Lindsay of the Byres was established by Sir John Trotter Bethune Lindsay, Baronet, of Kilconquhar, as direct representative of William, younger son of the "forspekar", and it is this peer's son who is now holder of these titles.
Meanwhile, on the death of the twenty-second Earl of Crawford in 1808, a claim to be Chief of the Lindsays and Earl of Crawford had been made by an Irish peasant, which gave rise to one of the most notorious peerage cases in Scottish history. As an upshot of the case, the claimant was sent to Botany Bay, and though on his return he renewed his attempt, the claim finally fell to the ground.
Previously, on the death of Ludovic, sixteenth Earl of Crawford, in 1652, the actual Chiefship of the Lindsays, which could not, like the title, be transferred by deed to a junior branch, passed to George, third Lord Spynie, grandson of Sir Alexander Lindsay, fourth son of the tenth Earl of Crawford. The first Lord Spynie, who had been made a peer of Parliament by King James VI, and had been vice-chamberlain to the king, after being tried and acquitted on a charge of harbouring the Earl of Bothwell, was slain "by a pitiful mistake" in a brawl in his own house in 1607, by Sir David Lindsay of Edzell, eldest son of the ninth Earl of Crawford. In 1672, George, third Lord Spynie, died without issue, and John Lindsay of Edzell thereupon became Chief, as great-great-grandson and lineal descendant of Sir David Lindsay, eldest son of that Sir David Lindsay of Edzell who in 1542 became ninth Earl of Crawford by reason of the misdeeds of "the Wicked Master", but afterwards re-transferred the title to "the Wicked Master's" son. John Lindsay made a claim to the Earldom of Crawford, both upon the terms on which his ancestor the ninth Earl had re-transferred the tide, and upon the ground that he was next heir-male of the original creation, but he did not succeed in upsetting the transference of the Earldom by Earl Ludovic to the Earl of Lindsay. His own male line ended in the person of his grandson in 1744, and the Chiefship of the Lindsays then devolved upon the descendant of John Lindsay, second son of the ninth Earl.
This John Lindsay, Lord Menmuir, was a very eminent lawyer who held several high State offices, and was one of the eight Magnates Scotiae who were made Governors of the Kingdom in the boyhood of James VI, and were known as "Octavians". He acquired the estate of Balcarres in 1591. His second son, Sir David, who succeeded, was made Lord Lindsay of Balcarres in 1633, and his son, again, was created Earl of Balcarres in 1661. It was his widow who married the Covenanting Earl of Argyll, and his daughter who in 1681 helped that Earl to escape from Edinburgh Castle by taking him out as a page holding up her train. Colin, the third Earl of Balcarres was an ardent Jacobite, spent ten years in exile after the Revolution, and, taking part in Mar's Rebellion in 1715, only escaped by the friendship of the Duke of Marlborough, It was his great-grandson, James, the seventh Earl of Balcarres, who had his claim to the Earldom of Crawford confirmed by the House of Lords in 1848, and thus united again the ancient title and the Chiefship of the Lindsay race.
The present Earl of Crawford is the twenty-seventh Lindsay who has held the title. His grandfather, the twenty-fifth Earl, was a noted traveller and collector of books, author of The Lives of the Lindsays and other works; his father, the twenty-sixth Earl, was distinguished as an astronomer, bibliophile, and philatelist; and he himself is the author of works on Donatello and Italian sculpture. After a distinguished career at Oxford, he was Member of Parliament for the Chorley Division of Lancashire from 1895 till 1913, when he succeeded to the title. He was a Junior Lord of the Treasury and Chief Whip in the last Unionist Government, and is a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and Honorary Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. In the great war with the Central Powers, he showed his patriotism by enlisting as a private in the R.A.M.C., and acting as a stretcher-bearer at the front, He afterwards held high office in the Government. While he holds the premier Earldom of Scotland, it is probable that, if precedence were determined by length of service in ParLiament, he would also be premier peer of the Empire, for his predecessors and he have sat in every Parliament, either Scottish or British, since 1147.
Throughout the centuries the Lindsays have been famous in many fields. Sir David Lyndsay, the Lyon King and poet of the Reformation, has already been mentioned. His fame is rivalled by that of Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, whose History of Scotland is one of our most valuable national documents, and by that of Lady Anne Lindsay, eldest daughter of the fifth Earl of Balcarres, whose song, "Auld Robin Gray", is one of the finest and most favourite of Scottish ballads. Among famous Scottish divines, too, were David Lindsay, minister of Leith, who accompanied James VI to Denmark to bring home his bride in 1589, and became Bishop of Ross in 1600; Patrick Lyndsay, Archbishop of Glasgow, who supported the Episcopal schemes of the same king, and was deposed by the revolutionary General Assembly of 1638; and David Lindsay, Bishop of Edinburgh, who crowned Charles I at Holyrood in 1633, and whose introduction of the liturgy in St.Giles' Cathedral brought about a tumult which directly helped towards the overthrow of that monarch. Among more recent divines have been William Lindsay, D.D., the United Presbyterian professor and author, who died in 1866, and the late Rev. Thomas M. Lindsay, LL.D., D.D., Principal of the U.F. College, Glasgow, and historian of the Reformation. And not less famous in yet another field was James Bowman Lindsay, the Forfarshire weaver, electrician, and philologist, whose patent of a wireless system of telegraphy in 1854 foreshadowed and probably suggested the successful Marconi system of the present hour.
To-day the Clan Lindsay Society is one of the largest and most influential of the bodies which perpetuate the traditions of their name in the past, and utilise the spirit of race and patriotism for benevolent purposes in the present. A notable and popular member is Sir John Lindsay, Town Clerk of Glasgow.
SEPTS OF CLAN LINDSAY
| Crawford | Deuchar |