CAIRDENEY of CAIRDENEY of that ILK
A Missing Link in the Early History of the Rosses, Leslies, Royal
Stewarts and the Clan MacNab
in Perthshire.
By
Christopher Thomas Cairney,
The Cairdeneys
or Cairneys in Perthshire have a history as
interesting as that of any family in Scotland.
The Cairneys of
other parts of
“Cairney. An old
surname in Perthshire. A shortened form of Cardeny.... William Cairny had a charter of the land
'vulgo vocata lie gerves
aiker,' 1603 (RD., p. 498).
Thomas Cairny in
"Cardney. From the lands of Cardney near Dunkeld, Perthshire. The Cardenys
or Cairdeneys, 'an antient family in the
As one can see, the spelling of the name has gone through some changes
over the years, as is the case with many Scottish family names. "Cardney"
was the original form in 1375, and this lasted, with variations, until about
1700, coexisting with but later being overtaken by the more modern form " Cairney," which begins to appear about 1600.1
There is, above all, the antiquity of the name in Perthshire:
"The Cardneys,
a family now unknown and forgotten, were at one time extensive landowners in Perthshire, and, on another
occasion, those of that Ilk, and the other branches, may be dealt with."
So writes J. Christie in Scottish Notes and Queries 7.9 (1899)
129.
A Gothic beginning! There is also
an additional fact to whet one's appetite for the romantic and grotesque, for
the venerable House of Cairney of that Ilk, though
described as "unknown," was nevertheless very much of the blood royal
in Scotland, the Cairneys
being illegitimate descendants of the son of the sister of Robert the Bruce and
also important members of Robert II's
household, and the family further contributed to the rate of illegitimate royal
birth and incest in the young Stewart Kingdom:
"King Robert II. of
This from The
Scottish Antiquary (or, Northern Notes and Queries) 7. 103.
William, Fifth Earl of Ross, "grandfather"
of the Cairneys
The Earl of Ross referred to as ancestor of the Cairneys was the last medieval Earl of Ross of the
line of the O'Bjolans. His father had married Lady Maud Bruce,
sister of King Robert I of Scotland, famous to history as Robert the Bruce, and
also brother of Edward Bruce, King of Ireland.2 This William, fifth Earl of
Ross, himself had Royal pretensions that got him into a lot of trouble, and he
had little reason to rejoice in the rash acts of his life! He would rue the day he thought himself the
equal of the younger Bruce. Or perhaps
he thought it better to be ruled by Edward of
William's royal pretensions against Bruce, however, would pass on
seductively with his daughter and great-granddaughter, through the loyal
Leslies, who next inherited the Earldom, to the rebellious Alexander MacDonald,
Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, and would thus lead to many a parlay and
battle, including the great but inconclusive contest fought between the Norman
East of the Kingdom (the Leslie's and Stewart's Ross) with their broad
Scots speech and knightly encasement, and the roving Gaelic Highlanders from the
North and West (MacDonald's Ross): the battle of Harlaw (1411).
As a result the Earldom of Ross would finally, after the forfeiture of
the MacDonalds, revert so
decidedly to the Crown in 1476 that it would never be seen again: a singular
situation for one of the premier and original seven earldoms of Scotland.6
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, one of 12 Competitors for the
Crown, & son of Alexander III's
nominee (tanistair)
Children:
Maud
Bruce Edward Bruce Robert the Bruce
|
Maud m. Hugh O'Bjolan,
4th Earl of Ross, Sheriff of Cromartie
(Hugh m. 2ndly Margaret
Graham, mother of Hugh of Balnagown
and of Euphemia, Queen of
|
Children
of Maud:
William, 5th Earl of Ross,
Lord of Skye (d. 1372)
&
Marjory, m. Malise
Earl of Strathearn, Caithness & Orkney
Children of William:
Sir John “de Ross,” later
“de Cardney,” (natural
son), father of Robert de Cairney, Bishop of Dunkeld, 1398-1436
&
Euphemia, Countess
of Ross (m. Sir Walter de Leslie)
|
Children of Euphemia
include:
Alexander Leslie, Earl of Ross (d. 1405), m. dau. of Robt. Duke of
Father of:
|
Euphemia, Countess of Ross (d. 1440)
Mother of:
|
Alexander MacDonald, Earl of Ross (forfeited 1476)
As might be expected, the Bruce royal connection was dangerous but
advantageous. This particular Cairney ancestress, Lady Maud Bruce, had married the vastly
powerful Scottish magnate, Hugh, fourth Earl of Ross (Ross, like Fife and Strathearn, being one of the
original Seven Earldoms of
William was acting in self-interest, understandable in a certain light
when we consider that the Stewart of Scotland was himself in the process of
inheriting the throne of Scotland by a Bruce heiress, the Bruce male line
indeed failing in David II. But the
Stewart did inherit, as is well known.
And in spite of being sons and grandsons of the Earl of Ross, and also
attendant to this, our first Cairneys
played our their private and public dramas in the Royal Stewart Household,
being of no danger because of their illegitimate (natural) status in their
connection to William, who had never quarreled with his Royal Stewart kinsmen
anyway. And, in any case, the Earldom of
Ross was by this time safely (seemingly) settled on the Leslies, even closer Cairney cousins. The Cairdeneys or Cairneys were loyal supporters of the Stewarts and
contributed uniquely to the strength of the early Stewarts by providing them
with a "fresh batch" and new generation of illegitimate royal knights
settled in Atholl and ready
to defend the King, their father (Robert II) or brother (Robert III). In fact, illegitimacy was something of a Cairney career in those days, though royal and dressed up
with all the ceremony (and responsibility) of knighthood and property.
Sir John de Ross, First of Cairdeney, Father of the Cairneys
The first Cairney, as we have seen, was Sir
John de Ross, who became "de Cardney
of that Ilk" in 1375. And Mariota, the King's mistress, was
his daughter, as we have noted. In his
charter of Cardney from the
King, he is, as we have also noted, styled "dilectus consanguineus
noster" which could be
taken as referring to Euphemia
Ross, the Queen. But it is not stated
here as "frater regis," or as something akin
to "brother-in-law," so I believe this phrase "dilectus consanguineus noster"
refers to the descent noted from Maud Bruce, which makes him already a cousin
of the king, and not by the marriage or "in-law" relationship
pertaining to Euphemia, who
is not derived from the Bruce marriage (Earl Hugh having married twice). In any case, Sir John's main mark on history
appears to have been his children.
Robert de Cairney, brother of Mariota, was made Bishop of Dunkeld in 1398:
"He is said by Myln
to have been raised to the episcopate by Robert III. Out of the affection which
the king entertained for the bishop's sister, who presumably was Mariota de Cairdney 'dilecta
regis'
(Robert II.), mother of King Robert III.'s
half-brother, Sir James Stewart of Cairdney."
This from The
Bishops of
He played an active part in Scottish affairs. Robert de Cairney appears
listed between John Peebles and Donald Mac Naughton in a list of Bishops of Dunkeld in an early travel book sold in London,
Perth and at Dunkeld:
"The great aisle was added by Robert de Cairney,
the 18th bishop, and his successors; having been begun by him, and finished
only under John Raulston,
about the year 1450."9 The name is also given by Dowden as Cardany, Cardoni,
Cardine, Carden, Cardney and Cairney. He is described as "son of John Cardney of Cardeny and afterwards, by marriage, of Foss."
Here is a summary of his career taken from Dowden:
In 1379-80 the king of
He graduated at Paris
(determinant and licentiate) in 1381.
In 1392 he was receiver for
the English nation, and had for long been custodier of the key of the box containing the
common seal of the nation. He appears to
have had a son (Patrick Cardoni,
clerk of the diocese of Dunkeld,
was 'son of a bishop and an unmarried woman.'
And had been 'dispensed lately to be ordained to holy orders and to hold
a care, and was further dispensed [1431] to hold another benefice and exchange').
In 1394 "payment was
made to Master Robert de Cardney
for the expenses of John Stewart, brother of the king, studying at
He was provided to Dunkeld by Benedict XIII on 27
Nov. 1398.
In 1419 "a
declaration" was made by Elizabeth Grant, Lady of Stratherrick, before Robert, bishop of Dunkeld.
The bishop of Dunkeld in Parliament in
1429-1430. And he had been an auditor in
1424.
In 1431 the abbot of
He died suddenly at a great
age at Dunkeld on 17
January 1436 or 1437.
He built much of Dunkeld Cathedral and is buried
in a large monument in the south of the nave.10
Again quoting from The Scottish Antiquary:
"Robert Cardney,
Bishop of Dunkeld, was
brother to Mariota. Robert de Cardney, says Canon Mylne, Bishop
of Dunkeld by his sister's interest with the king. He added to
and adorned the Cathedral and built a Bishop's palace. He was excommunicated
for some time by the Pope for ecclesiastical disobedience; he was also one of
the hostages for the redemption of King James I from English captivity. There
are several sums given him by the Treasury; one for expenses in accompanying
his nephew, John Steuart
(sic) of Cardneys, when
studying in
Bishop Robert Cairney is also mentioned as an early
example of a Scottish doctor, from Paris, in an academic history of Scotland.11
According to Margaret E. Root in her Dunkeld Cathedral (Edinburgh: Her
Majesty's Stationery Office, 1950):
"Robert de Cardeny
was appointed to the see in 1398. Legal proceedings were taken and a trial
before an ecclesiastical judge-delegate in the parish kirk of
Root goes on:
"The next stage in the development of the building was the
beginning of the existing nave in 1406 by Robert de Cardeny.
Massive round pillars, carrying pointed arches and suggesting an
imitation of Norman work, divide the nave into seven bays and separate it from
the side aisles. A steep wooden roof
surmounted the nave and it was probably intended that both side aisles should
be ceiled with rib-vaulting but only the south aisle was thus completed. The north and south aisles are developed on
individual lines for the mouldings
of the nave and triforium
arcades on the one side differ from those on the other. At the level of the triforium the arches, placed directly over the nave
arches, are semi-circular and heavy but each is relieved with tracery
consisting of twin pointed arches and a trefoil. The clerestory windows above are not uniform
design and it is probable that Bishop Cardeny,
having erected a temporary roof, continued the walls above the level of the blindstory. Three of the windows at the east end of the
south wall and those in the north wall, except the westmost, are of earlier date than the rest. These line with the outer face of the wall
and were the work of Bishop Cardeny. The remainder which are set back into the
centre of the wall and have sloping sills, were completed by Bishop Lauder
whose shield, a griffin segreant,
appears on the outside of the south wall between the fourth and fifth windows
of the clerestory. Lauder also filled
the nave windows with stained glass, Cardeny
having completed the work of John Peblys
in the windows of the choir. Occupying the two eastern bays of the south aisle
is the chapel of St. Ninian,
containing the tomb of Bishop Cardeny. The tomb is set into the south wall but
appears to have been designed for a free-standing position, possibly between
two piers of the nave arcade. The effigy
of the bishop, mitred and
vested, lies in a recess, which bore the inscription 'hic jacet Dns
Robertus de Cardony Eppis Dunkeldensi
qui....ad incarnationem Dne MCCCCXX'. It is unfortunate that this memorial is so
much decayed for it has been a good example of fifteenth-century Scottish
carving. Bands of decoration and
wavy-leafed crockets rising to a handsome finial form a canopy over the
tomb. On the upper edge of the
sarcophagus are traces of the inscription and below, angels in canopied niches
and bearing shields alternate with ecclesiastical figures. Following a Scottish tradition there is no
window in the East wall of the aisle but numerous holes in the wall indicate
the position of a large retable above the altar. To the right of altar was a piscina, which is now much
damaged. In the corresponding position in
the north aisle there was probably an altar of the Virgin, endowed by Maknachtane, Cardeny's
successor" (12-13).
Robert de Cairney's
sister was Mariota:
"Mariote de Cardny, 'one of King Robert the
Second's Mistresses by whom he had many children' (Macfarlane, II, p.
302), had a charter from the king of the two Clyntres, etc., in the sheriffdom of Aberdeen in 1372 (RMS., I, 506).
Robert di Cardini, brother of Mariota, was made bishop of Dunkeld and died at a great age
in 1436, 'et sepultus in Dunkell coram alteri
Sancti Niniani' (Chr.
Fort., p. 112)" (Black 124-133).
It is interesting to note that she received what were probably Buchan
lands in 1372, the year of the death of her grandfather William, Earl of
Ross. These lands, which the Earl of
Ross had inherited from a Comyn
co-heiress, had been taken from William and his brother Hugh "by force and
fraud" by David II and given to Sir Walter Leslie and his wife, Euphemia, Countess of Ross. Their son Alexander, Earl of Ross, married a
Stewart, a granddaughter of Robert II of the Albany line, but the line failed
and Ross passed through an heiress, as we have seen, to the MacDonalds.12
"Mariota de Cardney is mentioned in the
Treasurer's accounts for various sums of money in 1380 for buying napery for
her use, and sums are also allowed for her son James for fees at St. Andrews
College, 1384." (The Scottish Antiquary, or, Northern Notes and
Queries 103-4).
According to the same source, King Robert's sons by Mariota were:
1. Alexander Stewart, received with other
charters one of the lands of Innerlunan,
A.D. 1378. He died before his mother.
2. Sir John
Stewart, got charter of Cardneys 1399, and of Airntully 1383. He was alive 1425. He married Jean, daughter of Sir John
Drummond of Stobhall and
sister of Queen Annabella. He left issue a son, Walter Stewart of Cardneys, etc., had a charter of
3. James Stewart got charter of Abernethy, A.D.
1373, and Kinfauns, 1383.
4. Walter Stewart, heir of tailzie to his brother in charter of Cardneys, 12th Feb. 1399.
In The Landed Gentry of Great Britain, under "Steuart-Menzies of Culdares" (and Cardney) Mariota gets mention:
"Sir John Steuart,
Kt., 21 May, 1424, at Scone, 7th natural son of King Robert II (1371-1390) by Mariota, dau. Of de Cardney of that
Ilk, and sister of Robert de Cardney, Bishop of Dunkeld."
Also, she is mentioned in The Story of the Stewarts:
"The mother of the three last named knights [Alexander, John,
James] was Mariote de Cardney, daughter of Sir John Cardney of that ilk, and sister
of Robert Cardney, Bishop
of Dunkeld. She received lands from King Robert in the
counties of Kinross and
(8) Walter Stewart, who, if this
be so, was probably born after the earlier grants had been made The lands
of Pitfour (the property
originally of Sir Alexander Stewart) and those of Burley (the property
previously of Sir John of Dundonald)
were certainly, in the next generation, possessed by a Sir Walter Stewart, who
appears on the assize in 1439, but whether he was a fourth son of Marion de Cardney, or only a grandson, is uncertain. He must have died about 1454, as his lands
were then in the Crown's hands, and he seems to have left no male issue, as in
1477 his elder daughter Egidia
Stewart, then a widow, conveyed her half of the lands of Pitfour to John Anderson, Burgess of Aberdeen."
(140-142).
One of the interesting revelations in this history is the number of Cairney-related illegitimate but politically significant and
royal offspring are unofficially helping to run the new
Sir John de Cairdney himself.
The Steuarts of Cairdney, ancestors of the Steuarts of Dalguise and Dowally
and ultimately of Steuart-Menzies
of Culdares and Cardney, chief of the name of Menzies. The Steuarts
of Cairdney were illegitimate
offspring of Sir John’s daughter Mariota
and the King, Robert II. Thanks to their
mutual Bruce connection, the King and his mistress would have been
cousins. After the King she was mistress
of
Alexander, the chief of the MacNaughtans and thus gave us the next
(illegitimate) Bishop of Dunkeld,
Dr. Donald MacNaughtan. So then she was both sister and mother to the
Bishop of Dunkeld in her
lifetime.
Dr. Robert de Cairney, who, though a Bishop,
was nevertheless the father of Patrick Cardoni, "son of a bishop and an unmarried
woman," who was ordained a priest with benefice and was Clerk of the
Diocese of Dunkeld.
So, there must have been something in the water at Dunkeld!
If one looks at the tomb of Robert Cairney
at Dunkeld, there are four
shields across the front, left to right: Atholl,
Strathearn, Ross, Strathearn. These are the important local earldoms,
except for Ross, which is far away to the north, but obviously important to
Robert Cairney.
So why are they all on his tomb?
The clue is a smaller shield a bit higher on the left side of the
monument, which are the arms of the Stewart Earl of Strathearn, which includes the fess chequy of the Stewarts with the chevronels of Strathearn. In fact, about the time of the building
of the monument, c. 1420, all of these important earldoms had somehow acquired
Stewarts as their earls! And they had
begun in the near past as ancient earldoms long in the hands of other families,
such as that of the O'Bjolans
of Ross, as we have seen. Clearly Robert
Cairney was the Stewart's bishop, doing the King's
work and advancing the King's interest during a turbulent time, and the Cairneys were very much a part of
the politics of rebellion and intrigue in the early
Sir
John de Cairdeney
| children:
Andrew of Cairdeney of that Ilk; Robert de Cairney;* Mariota*
(son: Patrick Cardoni, priest)
|
William Cardeny 1<sup>st. Of Foss
| sons:
Duncan Cardny of Foss;*
Alexander;* Adam; Patrick Cardney "of that Ilk"
(Patrick,
Shepherd of Dunkeld)
|
Andrew Cardeny of Foss*
|
Sir Andrew Kardny, Pope's knight at Methven by Perth, b. c. 1490*
|
Sir David Cardny, Burgess of
|
William Cairny, b. c. 1550
|
Patrick Cardny of Clachladrun,
b. c. 1580*
|
Robert Cairny of Tulchan,
b. c. 1610*
|
John Cairny of Tulchan,
b. c. 1640*
|
Charles Cairney
of Scones Lethendy, Bailie of
*City of
The Cairdeneys
of that Ilk and Foss
Andrew of Cardeny of
that Ilk had confirmation of a charter of lands in the sheriffdom of
The next big event in Cairney history was the
marriage of William Cardney
with the heiress of the MacNairs
of Foss which must have taken place about 1430, before the death of Robert Cairney:
William Cardney
first of Foss (or Fossach),
married the heiress of Macnair
of Foss, and both died in 1452. Duncan Cardeny succeeded, and he and his
son, Andro Cardene, figured in a case before
the Lords Auditors of Causes and Complaints in 1484. Andrew Cardein
of Fos
witnessed a retour of Neil
Ramsay in the barony of
Also noted in Black:
Adam de Cardeny was
admitted burgess of
This
The lands of Foss, in Perthshire, were included in the extensive Abthanage of Dull, which appears to have embraced the greater part of the parishes of dull and Fortingall, and there a chapel was erected at a very remote period. In the grant of the church of Dull and its dependencies, with the excep