The family of Burnett of Leys, with collateral - Electric Scotland

DEESIDE BURNETTS: XIII. SIR THOMAS. 59
He had, on I5th January, 1614-15, been, with his father, a party to a
grant of annual rent of 200 merks to six poor men of the parish of
Banchory. At a later period he had built a hospital at Banchory for the
support of the aged dwelling on his own estates and elsewhere within the
parish, and, in October, 1651, he mortified 6300 merks secured on certain
lands held by him in wadset in the parish of Crimond, for the maintenance
of the inmates of that hospital.
Sir Thomas Burnett was twice married, and had a family by each
wife. His first wife, whom he married in 1610, was Margaret, eldest
daughter of Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie,* to whom allusions are
made in the letters of his uncle, Duncan. Excellent advice is contained
in these letters on the duties of a husband. In the same bed-chamber
at Crathes where is the large oak bedstead of Sir Thomas's father and
mother, already described, there is a handsome wardrobe with carved
doors, which must have been of the date of the marriage of Thomas
Burnett and Margaret Douglas.. On one of the upper panels is the coat
of Burnett with the initials T. B. ; on the other Burnett is impaled with
the quartered coat of Douglas (the heart uncrowned) and Auchinleck,
with initials M. D. On the two lower panels the four initial letters are
united in a monogram. The issue of this marriage
two daughters.
were two sons and
I. ALEXANDER, Younger of Leys, admitted an honorary burgess of
Aberdeen in 1633, and in the same year married Jean, eldest
daughter of Sir Robert Arbuthriot of that Ilk, and sister
of the ist Viscount Arbuthnot. Her tocher was 20,000
marks,f and her father-in-law gave
her the life-rent of Pitten-
keirie, Brathinche and Invercanny, of Tillihaikie and Brigend,
and of Wester Slowie, Borrowstoun and Cowcardie. We have
found him in May, 1639, a petitioner against Montrose's proposal
to block up the harbour of Aberdeen in order to oppose the
landing of a Royalist force, and his name appears on the
*
Second son of the 9th Earl of Angus, whose right of succession King James VI., in the
capacity of heir of law, unsuccessfully contested on the plea of the invalidity of the exclusion of
heirs female in the settlement of 1547, which the King stigmatised as " against the law of God,
the law humane and of nature."
tMS. note by John Riddell of discharge of the same by Alexander and his father in the
Arbuthnot charter chest, of date 24th September, 1633.