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Clan Lindsay

ENDURE WITH STRENGTH


The name Lindsay is a territorial one, and first appears in the Scottish Borders in the 12th century.

The Lindsays married into the Royal family in the 13th century, and the seal of David Lindsay was attached to the Declaration of Arbroath, sent to the Pope to claim Scottish independence. Another David Lindsay famously took part in a tournament in London in front of King Richard II of England, and won his approval - subsequently he was made Earl of Crawford and Lord High Admiral of Scotland.

The Lindsay clan motto is "Endure forte" (Endure with strength) and the clan crest is a swan rising from a coronet.

Scottish History

of Clan Lindsay


In royal favour

Recipients of honours and titles that include the premier earldom of Scotland, the Lindsays have produced a memorable array of sons and daughters who have gained both fame and infamy.

Their roots lie with those Norman knights who accompanied William, Duke of Normandy, on his invasion of England in 1066 and who in later decades found a home in Scotland.

One possible derivation of their name is that it stems from ‘Lindsey’, meaning ‘Lincoln’s Island’, a district in Lincolnshire, while another explanation is that it derives from ‘the island of the lime tree.’

Walter Lindsay was a member of the council of Prince David, Earl of Huntingdon, and it is likely he was invited to Scotland sometime after the prince became King of Scots in 1124.

One of his descendants subsequently acquired the lands of Crawford, in Upper Clydesdale.

By 1285 the Lindsays appear to have been very firmly in the royal favour, as Sir John Lindsay, Great Chamberlain of Scotland, was granted a charter by King Alexander III to hold the lands of Wauchope, in Dumfriesshire, as a barony.

In 1494, however, the 12th Laird of Wauchope was forfeited by the Crown for his part in Borders pillage and slaughter. Some parts of the land were later regained, and Lindsays remained lairds until about the close of the seventeenth century.

Crawford Castle, in Upper Clydesdale, was the main seat of the family, and a tower on the site known as Tower Lindsay was successfully stormed by the great freedom fighter William Wallace during the Wars of Independence and the occupying English garrison put to the sword.

A landmark date in the history of the Crawfords is 1398, when Sir David Lindsay of Crawford was created Earl of Crawford.

An earlier fourteenth century marriage to an heiress of the great earldom of Angus had brought the Lindsays vast landholdings in this rich and fertile territory, particularly those of Glenesk and Edzell.

Angus became their principal territory through time, with Finavon, at the mouth of the Angus glens, as their main seat. This branch of the family became known as the Crawford-Lindsays.

Recognised as the premier earldom of Scotland, the earldom of Crawford was followed by the granting of the earldom of Lindsay to a branch of the family in 1633 and the earldom of Balcarres to another branch in 1651.

The Lindsays also held the Haddingtonshire barony of the Byres, and it is from this branch of the family that the renowned line of the Lindsays of the Byres and the Earls of Lindsay were descended.

In 1541 the 8th Earl of Crawford was seized by his sons Alexander, the Master of Crawford, and his brother, John, and unceremoniously manacled and thrown into confinement.

Understandably indignant over the outrage he disinherited his sons, who were found guilty of ‘constructive parricide’ and outlawed.

The earl accordingly made provision for his estates and honours to go to his next male heir, who was his cousin Sir David Lindsay of Edzell and Glenesk.

Sir David became the 9th Earl of Crawford, but on his death he restored the title to the son of the ‘Wicked Master’ of Crawford, with the important proviso that should this line fail, the earldom should return to the male heirs of Edzell and Glenesk

The Crawford-Lindsay line failed in 1808, but it was not until forty years later, following a judgement of the House of Lords, that his wish was fulfilled when the earldoms of Crawford and Balcarres were united.

The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres is today recognised as Chief of the Clan Lindsay.

Although the Lindsays recognise a close link with the equally renowned Crawford family, through a marriage in the twelfth century of a Lindsay to a Crawford woman, the Crawford family is officially recognised as a distinct family and not, as some claim, a sept of the Lindsays.

The confusion has arisen because the Crawfords, before acquiring their main lands in Ayrshire, had also at one time held the lands of Crawford in Upper Clydesdale.

Known as the ‘lightsome Lindsays’ because of their reputation for cheerfulness, the Lindsays were nevertheless involved in many grim and bloody incidents.

Martial valour appears to have been a strong family trait, and as early as 1268 Sir David Lindsay of Crawford and the Byres was one of several knights who died while on Crusade to the Holy Land.

Sir John Lindsay was one of the six trusted barons of the realm who swore to acknowledge the infant Maid of Norway as successor in 1289 to Alexander III, while Sir Thomas Lindsay of Crawford was one of the nobles who in 1320 signed the famous clarion call of Scotland’s independence known as the Declaration of Arbroath.

Sir Ralph Lindsay fought on the side of the great warrior king Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, after earlier supporting the rapacious cause of the English monarch, Edward I, known as the Hammer of the Scots.

According to legend, Sir Ralph resolved to reform his life after seeing a vision of St. Cuthbert. His brother, however, Sir Simon Lindsay, took the side of the English and was forfeited by Bruce after his victory at Bannockburn.

His son, Sir John Lindsay, restored his family’s honour by fighting to the death at the side of his fellow Scots at the battle of Neville’s Cross, near Durham, in Northumberland, in 1346.

The Scots king, David II, who had also fought bravely, was captured and held prisoner in England for eleven years.

Nearly forty years later, in 1384, Sir Alexander Lindsay of Glenesk played a daring role in attempting to repulse an invasion of Scotland launched by John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster.

Sir Alexander captured one of the English ships that had landed near Queensferry, putting the entire crew to the sword.

Knightly valour

It was in 1388 that Sir James Lindsay of Crawford achieved noble fame after helping to turn the tide of battle at Otterburn as the Scottish commander, James, the 2nd Earl of Douglas, lay mortally wounded on the field.

The Scots had earlier been involved in a skirmish outside the walls of Newcastle when the young Earl of Douglas managed to snatch the silk pennant from the lance of his adversary Henry Percy, heir to the 1st Earl of Northumberland and better known to posterity as Henry Hotspur.

Douglas proceeded to lead his army back towards Scotland, but Hotspur, stung by the insult to his honour, swore his precious pennant would never be allowed to cross the border.

He pursued Douglas, and the two armies clashed at Otterburn, the young earl receiving a fatal blow.

As the Scots army faltered, demoralised over the fate of their commander, Sir James Lindsay knelt by his side and asked him how he fared, to which Douglas replied ‘dying in my armour, as my fathers have done, thank God!’

On Douglas’s dying command, Lindsay raised the famed Banner of the Bloody Heart of the Douglases, rallied the Scots, and led them to victory.

The Lindsays performed further deeds of knightly valour, most notably in 1390 when Sir David Lindsay of Glenesk, one of the most famous knights of his age, took part in a famed tournament on London Bridge.

The young Sir David had been at a banquet at which Lord Welles, the English ambassador to Scotland, had boasted of the superiority of English knights and issued Sir David with the challenge ‘if you know not the chivalry and valiant deeds of Englishmen, appoint me a day and place where you choose and you shall have experience.’

Sir David readily accepted the challenge and the long and broad expanse of the bridge spanning the Thames was chosen as the venue for the joust.

On their first ‘tilt’ at one another, Sir David managed to stay in his saddle despite his helmet being struck a mighty blow by Lord Welles’s lance.

The partisan English onlookers, much in the same way as football fans may object to a goal scored against their team, clamoured that Sir David was guilty of cheating because he was tied to his saddle.

The Scots knight dismounted and then, unaided, hoisted himself and his cumbersome armour back into the saddle, demonstrating he had not been bound to his saddle, and proceeded to knock his opponent to the ground – disproving his haughty boast of the superiority of English knighthood.

Sir David Lindsay was also among a number of lairds and their followers who in 1391, at Glen Brierachan, bravely attempted to defend the shire of Angus from the ravages of Duncan Stewart, a son of Alexander, Earl of Buchan, known as the Wolf of Badenoch. A number of lairds were killed and Sir David wounded. It was this Sir David who, in 1398, was created 1st Earl of Crawford.

While Sir David is renowned for his valour, his great grandson gained infamy as the ferocious ‘Tiger’ Earl of Crawford, also known as ‘Earl Beardie’ because of the long, unkempt, ginger beard he sported.

The 4th Earl of Crawford, the Tiger not only set himself at bloody odds with his Angus neighbours, but with his monarch, James II. The Tiger’s father had been chosen as chief justiciar of Arbroath Abbey, but in 1445 the office was transferred to the rival Ogilvies of Inverquharity.

Taking this as a gross personal insult, the earl marched his men towards the abbey to engage a force of Ogilvies and their supporters. As the battle was about to begin the Tiger’s father, the 3rd earl, was killed by an Ogilvie retainer as he attempted to act as peacemaker.

Furious at the loss of his father the Tiger all but slaughtered the Ogilvie force before burning and ravaging their lands.

The Tiger Earl had also been stung by what he perceived as the degradation of the House of March, of which his wife Elizabeth Dunbar was a daughter, by the Stuart monarchs, and resolved to avenge this by entering into a bond with the 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.’

James II managed to crush the rebellion, with the Tiger Earl defeated in 1452 near Brechin by royal forces led by the Earl of Huntly.

The House of Lindsay was only saved from destruction, and the earl himself saved from execution as a traitor, when he appeared before his monarch dressed as a beggar, his feet and head bare, and abjectly apologised for his conduct and begged forgiveness.

The king duly pardoned the earl, and fulfilled an earlier vow he had made that he would ‘make the highest stone the lowest’ at the earl’s castle of Finavon, by throwing a pebble he had found on the battlements from the castle’s tower.

The House of Lindsay was saved, but the infamous Tiger Earl died six months later.

His son, David, became the 5th Earl of Crawford and was created Duke of Montrose by James III in 1488, only a few months before his death at the battle of Sauchieburn, near Stirling.

The battle had been fought between the monarch and rebels opposed to his rule. As he fled the battlefield, a mysterious stranger stabbed the king to death.

The 8th Earl of Crawford also fell in battle, this time at the disastrous battle of Flodden in 1513. He fell with his monarch, James IV, while leading part of the Scottish vanguard.

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Family History Mini Book


We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt from this mini book on the Scottish history of the Lindsay family.

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The Crests

of Clan Lindsay

Clan Lindsay
Clan Lindsay (Fifeshire 1530)
Clan Lindsay
Clan Lindsay
Clan Lindsay
Clan Lindsay
Clan Lindsay

Divisions

of Lindsay

Cobb
Crawford
Deuchar
Downie
Fotheringham
Rhind
Summers

Spellings

of Lindsay

Lyndsay
Lindsey
Lindesse
Linsey
Lyndissay
Lindissi
Lyndsey

199 Clan Lindsay

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