The Tweedy family, which has inhabited the piedmont hills of Central Virginia for nearly 250 years, has its origins in the Lowland border country of Scotland. There, along the banks of the River Tweed in present-day Peebleshire, is the ancient family seat.

A legend many centuries old holds that the family derived not only its name but its very bloodline from the shallow river that twists through the grassy valley that separates the Scots from the English.

It seems an elderly medieval baron, answering the call for a Holy Crusade to free Jerusalem from the infidels, left his pretty, young wife alone with her ladies at his stone fortalice in the hills of the border country. He was away for seven long, lonely years. Upon his return, he was surprised to find a robust lad, not more than three or four years old, clutching at his mistress' skirts.

Naturally, he was curious about the child and bid his young bride explain, if she could. With tears of distress streaming down her rosy cheeks, she told of walking alone along the banks of the River Tweed when, suddenly, out of the dark waters arose a spirit, a nymph who identified himself as "the Genius of the Tweed." Before she could flee, she said, the magical creature flung her against the muddy riverbank, had his way with her, then disappeared into the water as mysteriously as he had come. The child, she explained, was the biological result of this remarkable experience.

The aging baron, seeing that the boy was stout and keen-witted and unsure at his advanced age of his own ability to produce so fine a child, accepted the lady's explanation. He took the boy as his own son and heir and named him "Tweedie," after the river where his spirit sire dwelt. Upon the old man's death, the boy succeeded him as lord of his great estate and became the first of a long line called by his name. So the legend goes. [1]

But whether descended from a river sprite or from a mortal man, it is historical fact that the Tweedys were a powerful and influential family that played their full part in the turbulent Border history of Scotland for centuries. Their home was at a place called Drumelzier (say dru-MEL-yer; the "z" is not pronounced).

There, near the juncture of the River Tweed and one of its small tributaries, is a spot reputed to be the grave of Merlin, the legendary wizard of King Arthur's court. Thomas the Rhymer, a 13th century mystic, predicted: "When Tweed and Powsail meet at Merlin's grave, England and Scotland shall one monarch have.'' Three centuries later, on the day Elizabeth I died and James VI of Scotland inherited the English throne, the Tweed burst its banks and flooded across Drumelzier into the neighboring Powsail River. [2]

It was in this magical setting that the history of the Tweedy family began to unfold. In the early 13th century, during the reign of Alexander II of Scotland, one John de Tuedy was granted a royal charter to land in the rich and verdant hills along the Tweed. [3]

The record of this John de Tuedy suggests that the Tweedy name may have preceded the family's arrival in the vicinity. It's possible that the family brought the name to Scotland from Normandy or elsewhere and that its similarity to the name of the river is merely a coincidence.

From its earliest days in Scotland, the Tweedy family grew in wealth and influence. Finlay de Twydyn of Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, is on record as having rendered homage to King Edward I in 1296. [4] His son, Roger, greatly enhanced the family's fortunes by a fortuitous marriage to the heiress daughter of Sir William Fraser. The union guaranteed the Tweedys the privileges and protection of the powerful Clan Fraser and made Roger Tweedy and his heirs masters of Drumelzier and the vast neighboring estate of Oliver.

For more than 300 years, the family survived the dangerous and turbulent life of those times. Ancient records provide intriguing hints about their activities during that period:

• Waltere de Twydi was juror on an inquest at Lanark in 1303. [5]
• William Tweedie is referred to as baron of Drumelzier in 1331. [6]
• William Tuedin received a gift from Robert I of some tenements in Stirling [sic, Skirling] which had been forfeited by Gilbert Lindsay. [7]
• In 1362 there is mention of payment of nine merks yearly due from the lands of Hopkelloche by James of Tuedi and his heirs. [8]
• William de Twidy was a charter witness in 1370. [9]
• James of Tweedy, deputy of Joneta de Graham, lady of Walchtone in 1389 is doubtless the same James of Tweedy who witnessed a charter at Dalkeith in 1390. [10]
• Walter of Tweedy was granted an annual rent from the lands of Drumelzier in 1426. [11]
• On 19 July 1435, Walter Tweedie witnessed a charter at the Castle of Peebles (Neidpath). [12]
• On 8 March 1455/6, James Tweedie received a letter of maintenance from King James IV, who promised to defend him in all his lawful actions as one of his own familiars. In return, Tweedie promised faithful and lifelong service, and to keep his house of Drumelzier always ready at the King's disposal. [13]
• Walter Tweedie in 1478 was ordered to restore "to maister Adam of Cokburne of Skraling, a futit cop of silver with a covertour of the samyn, double gilt," which he held in security of a debt of 20 merks. [14]
• Thomas Twedye held a tenement in Irvine in 1542. [15]
• Magister Thomas Tueadie was commissary of Aberdeen in 1583. [16]

Two Tweedies served as members of the Scottish Parliament. Gilbert Tweedie represented Peebles in 1579 and James Tweedie, laird of Drumelzier in 1605, represented Peebleshire in 1608. [17] An inscription in memory of this Sir James Tweedie, dated 1617, is still visible over the entrance to the cemetery attached to the parish church in the village of Drumelzier. It reads: Hic Facet Honorabilis Vir Jacobus Tuedy De Drumelzier.

Variations in the spelling of the family's name have occurred throughout history. While Tweedy is the most common spelling in present-day America, and Tweedie the most common in present-day Scotland, there have been a number of other permutations. Among them are these: Tuedy (1560), Twedie (1608), Tuedye (1627), Tueydie (1631), Tweiddy (1682), Tueidie and Tweeddy (1684), Tuedie, Tuedy, Tueedie, Twyddie, Tweedie and Tweedy.

Figure II -- The ruins of Drumelzier Castle

Drumelzier Castle, was located hard by the River Tweed about three miles above Stobo. It is situated on a rocky turn in the river, which could be diverted to surround the building with water as an added defense against attack. The house was constructed of whinstone with freestone trim. The larger of two towers in the L-shaped structure apparently had one chamber about 18 feet by 15 feet on each floor. The ground floor was vaulted and the three upper floors were of timber. The smaller tower contained a door and a staircase. For security, the only openings on the ground floor were slits, and upper-story windows were equipped with iron grates and shot holes below the sills.

The ruins of the old house are now in the midst of modern farm buildings, which have been built largely of stone salvaged from it.

Nearby are the remains of an even earlier habitation of the Tweedies at Drumelzier. It is situated high atop a rocky knoll called Tinnies, a site extraordinarily well protected against attack because it backs up against a rugged ravine, virtually inaccessible to a threatening army.

Little more than a vast pile of dark, gray rocks remained of this structure when the author visited there in July 1992. The site was accessible only by climbing a rugged, windswept hillside populated by curious, black-faced sheep. It required great exertion to reach the summit of the hill, about 200 feet high. There, over an area of approximately a quarter acre, are strewn stones that were once part of the house. At each of what must have been the four corners of the original building, piles of rock, shallowly dished, mark what appear to have been towers of some design. At one corner, an intact piece of wall still shows an opening that was once a window. One can imagine our Tweedy ancestors gazing from that window at the sparkling ribbon of the River Tweed below as it flowed through green pastureland among rocky hills.

Oliver Castle, the other great estate that passed into Tweedy hands through marriage, has disappeared entirely.

The Tweedies had a reputation for being fierce fighters. Others soon learned that they did not make good enemies and were careful to stay in their good graces. The family waged savage feuds with several neighboring families, most notably with the Flemings of Fruid, the Veitches of Dawick, the Scotts of Branxholm and the Geddeses of Rachan.

J.W. Buchan and the Rev. H. Paton wrote this of the family's fearsome reputation: "With power came ambition, and a masterful spirit. They would not readily brook interference with their designs, and inevitably they came into collision with their powerful neighbours. From this time onwards the name of Tweedie became associated with deeds of violence and bloodshed." [18]

In 1524, John Tweedie had plans for his nephew James to marry Katherine Fraser, the heiress daughter of a wealthy family who lived nearby. Unfortunately, another man, John, Lord Fleming, coveted the same lady for his own son Malcolm. What the lady wanted we do not know, but it hardly mattered.

One November day, when Lord Fleming and his son were hawking with a small retinue not far from Drumelzier, they were ambushed by John Tweedie and a group of about 50 of his relatives and friends. Fleming was killed and his son captured. The young man was released only after he had consented to step aside and let James Tweedie's bid for Lady Katherine's hand be unrivaled.

In 1566, William and Adam Tweedie of Dreva were implicated in the murder of David Riccio, the favored personal secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots. [19] Though denounced as a rebel, William remained loyal to the queen, and his name appears in 1568 as a signatory to the Bond of Association for her defense.

The origin of the bitter hatred between the Tweedies and the Veitch family of neighboring Dawick is not known, but its results appear frequently in records of the time. On 16 June 1590, for example, the Tweedies spotted a member of the Veitch family conducting business in Peebles. They lay in wait for him on the road near Neidpath Castle and there killed him "with swordis and pistolettes cruellie and unmercifullie.'' A month later, the Veitches retaliated by murdering John Tweedie as he strolled along the cobbled streets of Edinburgh.

In December 1592, in retaliation for some unknown offense by the Tweedies, the Scotts descended on Drumelzier with about 200 followers and drove off 4,000 sheep, 200 oxen and cows, 40 horses and mares and goods valued at 2,000 pounds.

Historian William Chambers described another bloody incident that occurred that same year involving a member of the Geddes family: [20]

"We learn from an entry in the Record that they had perpetrated quite as deliberate a murder as that committed by them less than two years previously near the castle of Neidpath. Their victim...was one of the Geddeses, with whom they were at feud, and the scene of the atrocity was at a blacksmith's door at the Cowgate of Edinburgh....The complaint states that 'it is not unknawne how mony slauchters have been committit upon them by James Twedy of Drummelzeair and his friends...and now he has committed the barbarous murder of the said James Geddes within the burgh of Edinburgh... having by means of spies, watched the said Laird of Glenhegdon, near his lodgings, found he was in the Cowgait at David Lindsay's buith shoeing his horse, on the 29th of December.' "

For this murder, James Tweedie of Drumelzier was imprisoned. The following year, the King, losing patience with the incessant Border feuds, and "thinking upoun his awne estate and the estate of the Commonwelth altogidder disordowrit and shaikin louse be renoun of the deidlie feidis and contraversis,'' ordered a number of offenders to appear before him and his Council at Holyrood House in Edinburgh. James Tweedie of Drumelzier was one of these cited to appear on 10 March 1596. What came of that is not known, but shortly afterward there is recorded a bond paid by him of 10,000 pounds.

From 1600 forward there are frequent records of Tweedies becoming involved in various violent scrapes. Finally, in 1606, the king attempted again to bring order to the Borders. This time he endeavored to enlist the aid of the principal offenders. James Tweedie of Drumelzier is described in the royal writ as one "weill disposit to the peace and quietnes of the estaite.'' What the king had been unable to accomplish by force, he hoped to accomplish by flattery. But merely calling James Tweedie "weill disposit to the peace" did not make him so.

One summer evening in 1607, Tweedie was strolling along High Street in Edinburgh in the company of his friend Alexander, Lord Spynie. They were "gangand in peciable and quiet maner" when, suddenly, they were attacked. Spynie was killed. Tweedie was shot in the ribs and through the arms, but he recovered from his wounds.

In March 1611, the king issued a proclamation in which he boasted that nearly all feuding families in the kingdom had been brought under control. The Tweedies were the exception. "Wee do hardly think that there be any One Feid except this...unreconciled,'' he wrote in frustration. The Privy Council was ordered to take such action as they thought necessary to make the family behave in a more civilized manner.

The effort was not entirely successful. On 29 July 1612, James Tweedie encountered by chance his old rival the laird of Dawick by the side of the Tweed. The old hatred flared a final time. The incident is described by historian John Veitch as follows: [21]

They were alone when they confronted each other, the memories of centuries of mutual violence and mutual deeds of blood were quickened in their hearts, and that strange savage feeling of blood atonement seemed to thrill in both. They agree to settle the strife of centuries then and there, and as the birds waked the morn, Drumelzier was found dead beside a bush by the river, and the blood had stained the white blossoms of the hawthorn spray.

James Tweedie's eldest son, James, inherited his father's lands and titles, but he soon fell into debt. He was forced to surrender the lands and barony of Drumelzier, with the tower and manor place, to his cousin, John, Lord Hay of Yester, to satisfy a debt of 6,825 merks.

Lord Hay was not content merely to take the Tweedie lands. He also threw the laird of Drumelzier into prison. From there Tweedie issued a pathetic appeal to the Privy Council on 7 August 1627. He said that he had been kept prisoner in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for five years and four months and that, when the Lords of Session would have given him liberty, Lord Hay prevented it so that he might keep possession of the estates and keep him in captivity until the day of his death. As Lord Hay had everything he possessed, he said, only the kindness of his jailer had prevented him from starving to death.

Tweedie's touching plea for mercy was finally heard, and he was released, only to die a few months later. He left his sons James and John landless men.

Poverty weakened the family's cohesiveness, and, one by one, they drifted away to seek their fortunes in other parts of the world.

By 1715, the family was so scattered that one historian described them as "a powerful and domineering family now quite extinct." [22] Another writer put it this way: "The abrupt sinking into obscurity of the Tweedies is one of the more remarkable social phenomena of the county. As men of any mark, all disappeared about the reign of Charles I -- the race seeming to die out in the manner that certain kinds of animals vanish by drainage.'' [23]

But the historians were too hasty in counting the family out.

Many Tweedys remained in Scotland, some to farm in Tweeddale or to take up professions in nearby towns and villages. Some joined the great tide of emigration that carried Scots to other parts of the world. By 1700 there were already branches of the family established in Essex, London, Kent, Yorkshire, Bedfordshire and Cornwall in England. Others emigrated to Ulster under the plantation scheme of James I and traces of them can be found in Dublin, Fermanagh, Meath and other parts of Ireland. Still others eventually found their way to America.

Though the name of Tweedy is no longer as common in Peebleshire as once it was (In 1992, there were only three by that name listed in the local telephone directory), there is ample evidence of their presence there over the centuries.

Figure III -- The Tweedie Stone, St. Andrew's Churchyard, Peebles

In the old churchyard of St. Andrews, Peebles, there survives what is known as the "Tweedie Stone," a fine example of a "throuch," or alter tomb, now broken and greatly eroded. It is a long table-like slab of stone, resting on two stout supports on which are carved figures representing each of the four seasons -- a farmer sowing, a woman wearing garlands of flowers, a reaper with his sickle and a boy blowing his fingers to warm them against the winter chill. Against the monument stands a separate stone, once engraved with the armorial bearings of the family, but now quite illegible. The tomb, which is marked with the date 1704, covers the remains of two John Tweedies -- one a provost of the burgh -- together with their wives and daughters. A verse, no longer distinguishable on the stone, but recorded in church records, celebrates their memory and serves as a hopeful message to present-day Tweedys:

Figure IV -- The Tweedy coat of arms

The Tweedy arms, which has been used in various forms by many distinguished members of the family over the centuries, is described in armorial language as follows:

This describes a shield, blue in its upper third, and in its lower two-thirds, a red cross of St. Andrew, its edges scalloped, on a silver background.

There are several variations on this basic arms specific to individuals and branches of the family. Some bearings, for example, are decorated with escallops, or seashells, on each side of the cross and on the blue chief. The crest, or figure above the shield, varies according to the branch of the family. Some carry the bull's head, others the boar's head, others the dove, others the lion and anchor and still others the peewit with a trefoil in its beak, perched atop a prick-spur.

The family motto displayed with the arms and crest is consistent among nearly all the various branches. It is "Thole and think on'' or sometimes simply "Thol and think.'' The archaic word "thole," which has its roots in Middle and Old English, means "to endure" or "to bear." The motto is sometimes translated as "Suffer and think" or "Wait and think."

Historian William Chambers wrote that the Tweedy motto was "an admonition singularly at variance with the impetuosity of their character.'' [24] Ancient members of the family may have deserved Chambers' impertinence. But to the mind of the author the motto suggests the quiet, patient and contemplative nature that seems to be a characteristic of Tweedys of the modern era.

When Roger Tweedie married the heiress daughter of Sir William Fraser in the 14th century, the Tweedies became a sept of Clan Fraser. The Frasers were an old Frankish family who probably had settled in the newly consolidated realm of Scotland at the invitation of a king who needed knights to help him put down rival claimants to his throne.

One branch of the Frasers became sheriffs of Peebles and acquired Tweeddale through marriage. Their stronghold was Oliver Castle on the River Tweed.

The head of this family, Sir Simon Fraser, fought fiercely for Scottish independence beside the venerable Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce. [25] He is celebrated for defeating the English in three separate engagements on one day at Rosslyn in 1302, undoubtedly with Tweedys at his side. Eventually, he was captured and taken to London, where he was hanged naked in public, cut down while still alive and drawn, quartered and beheaded.

For his contribution to the cause of Scottish independence, Simon Fraser became a great national hero. Chiefs of Clan Fraser, to this day, are known by the title Mac Shimi, son of Simon. The chiefship of Clan Fraser is now vested in the Lords Lovat.

Sir Simon's eldest daughter carried his great estates to the Hays, now Marquises of Tweeddale, the same family that eventually came to possess the ancestral Tweedy lands.

The crest of the Tweeddale branch of the clan is the stag's head and the clan motto is "Je suis prest,'' French for "I am prepared.'' [26] It should not be confused with the crest of the separate and unrelated Fraser Clan whose symbol is a flowering strawberry plant.