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

DEESIDE BURNETTS: VI. ALEXANDER. 15
marriage, and the previous propinquity alluded to in the dispensation,
the relations between the two families seem to have been by no means
friendly.
It has been seen that Tilliboy and Little Culter are described
in the charter of 1324-5, conveying them to Alexander Burnard, as
formerly the property of John of Walchop. It is rather left to be
understood, than distinctly specified, that they had come into the King's
hands by forfeiture, and it is not specified by whose forfeiture. A
bounding charter was, as already noted, granted to Robert, son of Alan
of Walchop, by Alexander II. in 1247 of Tilliboy, Culter, and Ardboik,
including the lands in question. The heiress of the Walchop family
had, late in the I3th century, married Comyn of Inverallochy, and the
forfeiture may have been in his time, or his son's. But it is clear that
by some transaction of which we are ignorant the Comyns soon
recovered Culter and Tilliboy, the Burnets, however, not thoroughly
acquiescing in their possession of these lands. William Comyn of
Inverallochy and Culter was, at all events, so dissatisfied with his eldest
son for uniting himself with a daughter of a family with whom he was
at feud, that he threatened to disinherit him, and devolve both his
paternal estates and those derived from the Wauchopes on a younger
son, William. To defeat his father's purpose, Alexander Comyn entered
to a Bond of Manrent and Maintenance with Alexander Irwyn of Drum,
of date igth August, 1478. That document set forth how his father had
" "
shaped him of evil imagination and false suggestion to disinherit him
both as to his "auld heritage and new conquests," and Drum as his
" chief," binds himself to defend him in both as he would defend his own
heritage of Drum, and " fortify him both late and air in judgment as he
should defend his man and kinsman." * As the price of this protection,
Drum was to get 100 merks, the first payment to be made out of his
" marriage gudis," and his marriage is " to be completed, God willing, in
the eldest married Christian Burnet, daughter to the Laird of Leys, his near kinswoman, and
for the consanguinity procured a dispensation from the Pope, dated nth January, 1480, now
in the hands of Cumin of Coulter. His father, William, disliking the marriage, did dispose
to his second son, William, the lands of Inverallachie and others he then had in Buchan, and
reserved only the barony of Coulter with the pertinents to his eldest son."
*
Alexander Comyn's grandmother had been an Irvine. Drum, as has been previously
observed, calls Leys as well as Comyn his kinsman. If the mother or grandmother of the
latter had been an Irvine, the consanguinity between the Comyns and Burnets would be accounted
for, which made the papal dispensation necessary.