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A BRIEF (AND INCOMPLETE) HISTORY OF THE TAIT CLAN

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Genealogy is an inexact science. The path can be littered with errors and omissions. When it comes to Coats of Arms – presented to an individual, not a family, though they can be passed down the direct line – the Public Register in Scotland only goes back as far as 1672. So while the armorial bearings of the Taits of Pirn remain, others don’t.  Patrick Tait wasn’t just a fixer for old Lady Buccleuch (Elizabeth Kerr) – he was also a Knight of the Scottish realm. Sir Patrick was an official ‘procurator’ responsible for moving Lady Buccleuch’s cattle around and also looking out for them. He was placing her cattle on land in 1539 with the consent of her husband, the Knight Walter Scott of Branxholm, and was representing her at days of truce at the Redden Burn regarding stolen livestock from around 1536. He’d also been accused of pasturing sheep in England, with others of the family, in 1523, and of being involved in reiving with a number of the most notorious Armstrongs and Elliots a...
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FOR THE PEACE AND QUIET OF THE FRONTIERS

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On the 12 th and 13 th of September 1543, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a consultation involving Lord Wharton, the English Lord Deputy Warden General, the three deputy wardens and the captains of the castles at Carlisle, Norham, Wark and other strategic spots, appointed a number of watches to be set on the Border for ‘Peace and Quiet of the Frontiers.’ The watches were to be set nightly, with some in day time, ‘according to the ancient customs of the Marches’ and other clauses included that every man should follow a trod, upon pain of death, no man to harbour, aid or abet any fugitives, rebel, felon, murderer, English or Scottish, or ‘practice with them,’ also punishable by death. Those that signed the document were Lord Wharton, Lord Eure, Deputy Warden of the East March, Lord Ogle of the Middle March and Sir Thomas Dacre of the West. Sir Richard Musgrave, captain of Carlisle, Mr. Dunye, captain of Berwick, Sir John Horsley, captain of Bamburgh, Richard Bowes, captain of No...
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HOW MANY SCOTTISH BORDER FAMILIES WERE NAMED A CLAN?

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That great Borders writer Sir Walter Scott himself added a number of the Border Riding Families who were labelled 'Clans' back in 1814. So if you are interested in going for Clan status with the Lord Lyon King of Arms for your own family, as many are today, don't despair as there is some historical presidence to add weight to your claim outside of the '17 Unruly Clans' document. The list is quoted verbatim below. Scott's book is available from a number of sources. From The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland By Walter Scott, ESQ A little work called Moneypenny's Chronicle published in 1597 and 1603 gives among other particulars concerning Scotland a list of the principal clans and surnames on the Borders not landed as well as of the chief riders and men of name among them From this authority we add the following list of foraying or riding clans as they were termed not found in the parliamentary roll of 1587. It commences with th...
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