Michael Forbes Tweedie. Published 1902.
CHAPTER I
TEN CENTURIES AGO
Whence they came, who they were, and what manner of men they may have been, is the natural thought of every man about his ancestors; it is but a matter of sentiment and of less importance than what manner of men we are, and whither we are going, yet it is doubtful which question has received, and does receive the more consideration.
We venture to think that pride of race and family is not altogether undesirable, for as Tennyson tells us "Ev'n the homely farm can teach us, there is something in descent". Ever since the Creation, the "family" has been the unit of all good government, of all order, and all organization, and its prosperity the keynote of all success; the knowledge that he has a good family record to maintain, and a name to uphold, has often done much to sustain a man in the hour of need; and it is indeed in this knowledge that the practical value of a recorded history of a family lies, quite apart from its antiquarian interest.
It was a feeling of this kind that first suggested the idea of collecting the records of the Tweedies. The search for the earliest traces of the family takes one back into the dark distance of the ages where all beginnings would be lost for ever but for the indistinct glimmerings of tradition which have reached us; but more fortunate than many families, the Tweedies can quote from the Master of all Scottish tradition the legend of their origin, which is related in the preface to "The Betrothed", as follows: -
"Scottish tradition ascribes to the Clan of Tweedie, a family once stout and warlike, a descent which would not have misbecome a hero of antiquity. A baron, somewhat elderly, we may suppose, had wedded a buxom young lady, and some months after their union he went to the Crusades and left her to ply the distaff alone in his old tower, among the mountains of the County of Peebles, near the source of the Tweed. He returned after seven or eight years - no uncommon time for a pilgrimage to Palestine - and found his family had not been lonely in his absence; the lady having been cheered by the arrival of a stranger (of whose approach she could give the best account of any one) who hung on her skirts and called her mammy, and who was just such as the baron would have longed to call his son, could he have made his age correspond, according to the doctrine of civilians, with his own departure for Palestine. He applied to his wife, therefore, for the solution of this dilemma. The Lady, after many floods of tears which she had reserved for the occasion, informed the honest gentleman, that walking one day alone by the banks of the infant river, a human form arose from a deep eddy still known and termed Tweed pool, who deigned to inform her that he was the tutelar genius of the stream, and bongre, malgre, became the father of the sturdy fellow, whose appearance had so much surprised her husband. This story, however suitable to Pagan times, would have met with full credence from few of the baron's contemporaries, had not the wife been young and beautiful, the husband old and in his dotage. Her family (the Frasers, it is believed) were powerful and warlike, and the baron had had fighting enough in the holy wars. The result was, that he believed or seemed to believe the tale, and remained contented with the child with whom his wife and the Tweed had generously presented him. The only circumstance which preserved the memory of the incident, was that the youth retained the name of Tweed or Tweedie. The baron, meanwhile, could not, as the old Scotch song says 'keep the cradle rowing,' and the Tweed apparently thought one natural son was family enough for a decent Presbyterian lover. So little gall had the baron in his composition, that having bred up the young Tweed as his heir while he lived, he left him in that capacity when he died, and the son of the river-god founded the family of Drummelzier and others from whom have flowed, in the phrase of the Ettrick Shepherd, 'Many a brave fellow and many a bauld feat'."
The legend of a river becoming the father of a child is a very ancient one - quite classical in fact, - compare, for instance, Homer's account of Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, King of Elis, and the birth of the twin Kings, Pelias and Neleus, her sons:-
"For fair Enipeus as from fruitful urns,
He pours his watery stores the virgin burns;
Smooth flows the gentle stream with wanton pride,
And in soft masses rolls a silver tide.
As on his banks the maid enamoured roves,
The monarch of the deep beholds and loves;
In her Enipeus' form and borrowed charms,
The amorous god descends into her arms;"
A pool in Tweed, near Drummelzier, is still called the "Devil's Pool", and tradition says that the family name was originally Tweedeil or Tweed devil, and thus subsequently Tweedie; this is, however, of course, mere tradition and nothing more, and has no real basis of truth. The first recorded form of the name is de Tueda, as a man living in the reign of Alexander II, but in whatever shape it may be found, there seems no doubt that the origin is the same, although after the manner of the times, it is spelt in many different ways, the same individual's name being sometimes differently rendered even in the same document; Tuedy, Tuedi, Tweedy, Twedy, Tueday, Tuedie, Tweedie, Twidy, Twedie, Tweidie, Tueidie, and even Twyddie, being a few examples in point. It was not until comparatively modern times that any uniformity was observed, but for the sake of convenience it is proposed to keep to one spelling of the name, except when an actual quotation is given, or reference made to any branch of the family which has definitely adopted another form of the name, and no one form is more correct or authentic than another. All of the name, no doubt, sprung either direct from the common ancestor who first assumed the surname from the river on which he dwelt, or from one of his followers; for it was not unusual in those wild lawless days for men to adopt the surname of the patron under whose protection they gathered, and to whom they were united by the common danger in bonds as strong as actual relationship, even if such did not already exist between them.
It is however with the days before feudal times, although subsequent to traditionary ages, that we propose first to deal, and we cannot find a better guide than Professor Veitch, the great authority on the district of the upper reaches of the River Tweed, for it is in Drummelzier, Hopkeloch, Kilbucho, and Oliver, and the adjoining country, that we find the family resident in the earliest days of its recorded history, when surnames first began to come into use.
Professor Veitch tells us that "this district, the land of foray and feud, of hostile inroad from England, and of aggression in return, has been the heart whence strong bold action, the gradual growth of history, tradition, legend, the continuous flow of song, ballad and music have moved the feelings and moulded the imagination not only of the people of the district, but of the whole land of Scotland".
The nature of the Country has probably changed but little, except perhaps that it was in early times clothed with birch and woods of a like nature. The Celtic inhabitants were found by the Romans in their forests, and many of the names throughout all the Border Country are indicative of felling and clearing. The land was a forest wherever soil and elevation permitted wood to grow, all part, no doubt, of the great and ancient forest of Caledon, Coit Celidon, and it is possible that the name Gadeni or Cadeni, borne by the ancient inhabitants of at least a portion of the Border district, meant dwellers in the wood. No doubt the hill-tops were as bare in the old times as now, but in the valleys and glens grew the birch, sallow thorn, mountain ash, and alder, forming a dense underwood with the Scotch fir, ash, and oak, juniper, bracken, fern, and common heather on the higher slopes, giving a fair picture of the Country in the times when Cymri and Angles held the land. Game of all kind was abundant, bird and beast of chase, red deer and roe deer, - even as late as the days of James V and Mary, and for many years afterwards.
All down the stretch of Tweed "the flood of Tweed" as it is called in the Border Laws, stands out the line of the now ruinous old castles and peels, of which many were held by Tweedies, such as Oliver Castle in the upper reaches, Wrae Castle, Drummelzier Castle, and Tinnies Castle; they extend over a hundred miles of country, memorials of the incidents and struggles of the Border, and its old rough life.
It is beyond the scope of our present work to enquire who were the people that in the past lived in this district, or to what races they belonged, our interest only begins when we first find signs that the dwellers in these ancient towers and castles were possibly the ancestors of the family which subsequently held the district for many years.
The names of these castles and peels to say nothing of the hills and streams on which they stand, point clearly to the owners having originally been that Cymric people who occupied the greater portion of the Lowlands for several centuries after the departure of the Romans from Britain, and who made such a gallant struggle against Pict and Angle and Scot to maintain their footing in those wilds. These forts were their last places of retreat in that district, and their last strongholds there were the Border Hills of Scotland, ere they were finally subdued, and emigrated from the district or were merged in the Kingdom of Scotland. Curiously enough the information obtained from Ptolemy and other historians confirms the supposition that the inhabitants of the valleys of the Tweed and the Clyde, at the dawn of history, were identical with those of Wales and Cornwall.
Coming to comparatively modern times, it is a matter of history that after the successes of William the Conqueror, or "Conquestor" - as is written on his tomb in Caen - many of the original Saxon landowners emigrated Northwards from England and actually reached Scotland. The Conquest, as it is called, really took seven years to complete in England, those who resisted being treated as rebels and their lands being forfeited.
Many persons of importance fled Northwards to Scotland, and there was in that direction a constant stream of Saxon emigration, which appears to have continued even down to the time of David I, when to this Saxon current was added a flow of French and Normans. We find from the early charters of David I, his brothers, and the Alexanders, that the Celtic names had gradually disappeared from places of importance in the Lowlands of Scotland, and the whole language ultimately formed and spoken there came to be a fusion of Angle, Danish, and Saxon.
At the Battle of the Standard, in 1138, the "Tevidalenses," that is the people of Teviotdale and Tweedale, formed with the Cumbrenses, the second division of the Scots, and the latest reference we have to the dwellers in the district as a distinct race, is in the reign of Malcolm IV, about 1165. After that they seem to have been wholly merged in the general population and the language known as Angle or the broad vowelled branch of the Saxon, became the spoken language of the country.
This confusion of tongues points to a large immigration from Northumbria and probably other parts of England, and the charter lists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries show a great preponderance of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman names of persons on the Tweed. No doubt many good Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman families settled in the Lowlands about the time of David I, who encouraged them, and had a bodyguard of "Milites Angli et Franci", or Anglian and Norman knights, at the Battle of the Standard, it was these "Milites Angli et Franci" especially that he gave estates on Tweedside, and it is here at this time, and as barons and landowners that we find the first historical record of the Family of Tweedie. The men to whom David gave estates on Tweedside, and their successors, soon held nearly all the lands along the Tweed and its tributaries. Each man built himself a fortalice, a mill, and a brewhouse, and surrounded himself with his own followers. Thus the old Cymric stock in the South and in a measure the Gaelic race in the north, were superseded, on the Tweed at all events, by men of Norman, Flemish, or Saxon blood, and probably from this stock sprang the ancestors of those who now bear the surname of Tweedie or Tweedy, or any of the kindred renderings of the name. The word Tweed is the Cymric Tywi, from the root Twy, and probably means "that which limits, checks or bounds", Twyad in Welsh meaning a "hemming in," Robertson gives the Gaelic, Tuath-aid "the river flowing to the north side," but the oldest spelling of the name favours the other derivation, Bede writes Tuid and in 1185 it is written Tuede, and the family surname no doubt arose from the original holders describing themselves, as is evident from the records, as John, or Thomas, as the case might be, "de Tueda", John of the Tweed, then John Tueda, or Tuede, and so Tweedie or Twedy.
At the first it is difficult to even guess at the personalities that these far away records disclose, for surnames were yet to be adopted, and a man was only known either by the lands he held, or as the son of his father, or by some such indefinite description, but in some cases even this still points to certain individuals as ancestors.
AD 1115-1124
Between the years 1115 and 1124, an enquiry was held regarding the lands and churches belonging to the Episcopal See of Glasgow, the proceedings of which are recorded in a document still existing, known as "Inquisitio per David principem Cumbrensem de terris Ecclesie Glasquensi pertinentibus facta." The supposed date of this document is 1116; by it the five oldest and wisest men of all Cumbria record on oath the possessions of the Church, and they deal particularly with the district in which the family of Tweedie is found. Among the names of these five is Gillielmus, filius Boed, which bears a strong resemblance, making due allowance for the phonetic spelling of the age, to Gylis, the son of Buht, who is described as of Drummelzier in another document of somewhat later date to which we will presently refer. Drummelzier being a possession which was inherited by the Tweedies through marriage with an heiress, we may fairly conjecture that Boed or Buht, and Gillielmus, or Gylis, were lineal ancestors of the Tweedies living about the year 1066, the time of the Norman conquest of England.
AD 1153-1165
In the reign of Malcolm IV, about the years 1153-1165, we find the King addressing the people of the land as "Francis, Anglicis, Scotis, et Galweiensibus" and again as "Francis, Anglicis, Scotis, Walensibus, Gauelensibus". The witnesses to these documents are the leading men of the period, amongst whom, with other names evidently hailing from the district of Tweeddale, appears the name of "Olifard", surely the name of the then possessor of Oliver, and if so, with very little doubt an ancestor of the long line of the family that have held Oliver ever since, of whom Tweedie-Stodart is the present representative.
AD 1175-1199
Oliver the son of Kylvert, possibly the same person as Olifard, appears among the followers of the great Earls of March between the years 1175 and 1199. He built a fortress on his demesne in Tweeddale which was known by his name as early as the year 1200; he married a lady named Beatrice who probably brought him lands on the Tyne in East Lothian, and according to tradition in the family, it was through her also that he acquired great estates on the Tweed.
AD 1200
About the year 1200 while William the Lion was king, we have a very curious and interesting document which has preserved the names of many persons and places of that period in the Valley of the Tweed. This is the Devise de Stobo, or the Marches of Stobo, preserved in the Chartulary of the Bishopric of Glasgow, which dealt with the very heart of the district with which we are concerned. Among the witnesses to this document we find Patricus de Hopkeliov, Gylis filius Buht aput Drumedler (to whom we have already referred) and Adam et Cosouold, filii Muryn aput Castrum Oliveri. Hopkelloch or Hopkailzie, now Kailzie, was one of the earliest possessions of the Tweedie family, and Patrick was a name in constant use in the family for years afterwards.
AD 1260
In the year 1260, we hear of "Erchebald of Hopkelioch" as a witness to a deed regarding the lands of Windilawes in Eddleston parish, while the names of "Archibald and Clement of Hopkeliov" appear as jurors at Peebles on the day of St Leonard in the year 1262 regarding the moss at Walthamshope.
In the far-away figures of Buht and his son Gyllis, of Kylvert and his son Olifard, Oliver, Patrick, and of Muryn and his sons Adam and Cosouold, the Tweedies of to-day may thus well recognise kinsmen. This however is but an idea, and having summoned up a vision of who their forefathers may have been, and whence it is possible that they came, let us pass on to the more certain facts disclosed by the records and see what manner of men the earliest-known ancestors of the family really were.
With the kind permission of his descendants, this information is reproduced from the book privately published in 1902 by Michael Forbes Tweedie. This highly regarded book includes many references to the original sources of the information, extracts from parish registers and some detailed family trees.
Copies of the book are known to be in the British Library, Edinburgh Central Library and the New York Public Library.
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