A BRIEF (AND INCOMPLETE) HISTORY OF THE TAIT CLAN
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 at Je