Lordscairnie
Lordscairnie MNZ S NO348178 1 70m
Karnyn 1172 x 1178 Barrow 1971 no. 1 [16th c. copy of 1395 copy; Bp Richard grants Moonzie MNZ and Cairnie to Odo his steward; see MNZ Intro.]
domin<us> de Carny 1342 x 1352 NAS GD124/1/1116 [David de Barclay (Berclay) ‘lord of Cairnie’]
Ber<c>lais Carny 1452 x 1480 RMS ii no. 1444 [printed Berelais Carny; St Andrews Church land]
Barclais Cairnie 1480 Martine 1797, 115 [18th c.]
apud Barclaycarne January 1497 RMS ii no. 2339 [issued there by Margaret Dunbar widow of Alexander Lindsay (4th) earl of Crawford]
apud Barclaycarne January 1497 RMS ii no. 2340 [see preceding]
Cuntascarnye 1518 NLS Crawford Papers, B230(a) [lands of Countess Cairnie and Moonzie (Ouchtermunsy); see discussion, below]
Cairny 1558 RMS iv no. 1698 [lands of Lattiesholl # MNZ between the lands of Moonzie, Colluthie MNZ and Cairnie (Auchtermonsye, Culluthy et Cairny)]
apud Carny 1558 RMS iv no. 1698 [place-date; probably Lordscairnie MNZ]
apud Carny 1569 RMS iv no. 1889 [place-date, probably Lordscairnie MNZ]
Carny 1593 RMS v no. 2273 col. 3 infra [‘touns and lands of Moonzie and Cairnie’ (villas et terras de Auchterminsie et Carny)]
terras de Cairny vocatas Cuntes-Carny 1603 RMS vi no. 1465 [‘the lands of Cairnie called Countess Cairnie’ to the Lindsays]
Kairny 1608 Retours (Fife) no. 196 [David Earl Crawford, Lord Lindsay, lands and barony or tenandry (tenandria) of Moonzie and lands of Cairnie]
Countesse-Carny 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Countesse-Cairny 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Countess Kairne 1654 Blaeu (Pont) East Fife
Kings cairnie 1684 Adair/East Fife
Lordskairney 1753 Roy [Cairney is name of OS Pathf. Lordscairnie Castle, while Lordskairney is applied to OS Pathf. Lordscairnie, on east side of road]
Lordscairnie Tower 1775 Ainslie/Fife [‘in Ruins. Earl of Crawford’; also shows Holecairnie immediately to the north][347]
Lords Cairnie or Hole of Cairnie 1814 Sasines no. 10,106
Lords Cairnie or Colt of Cairney 1817 Sasines no. 11,437 [error for Holl/Hole]
Lords Cairnie 1828 SGF
Lordscairnie 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc or SSE lord + en Cairnie
For meaning, and other early forms, see Cairnie KLM/MNZ, Section 1, above.
Though the name *Barclay’s Cairnie does not appear until 1452 × 1480, one David de Barclay (Dauid de Berclay) is described as Lord of Cairnie (domin<us> de Carny) in 1342 × 1352 (NAS GD124/1/1116). It is possible that the Barclays lost these lands in 1437, since two brothers, the Barclays of Tents Muir, fled to France following the assassination of James I at Perth in February of that year and were executed by the duke of Brittany for their part in that crime (see Tents Muir LEU, above, and Brown 2000, 184). This is further suggested by the fact that the lands of (Lords)cairnie and Moonzie ended up in the hands of David Dunbar of Cockburn, who played such a conspicuous and dramatic role in pursuing the king’s murderers (Scots Peerage iii, 21; Brown 2000, 188). Dunbar’s daughter and heiress, Margaret Dunbar, married Alexander Lindsay fourth earl of Crawford, which explains how the lands of Lordscairnie and Moonzie came into Lindsay hands, where they remained until modern times (see Millar 1895 i, 185–7). Traditionally the building of the castle is attributed to this Alexander Lindsay (nicknamed Earl Beardie or the Tiger Earl), died 1453, but Roland Tanner, in an unpublished paper of 1999, has convincingly argued that this was not the case, but rather that the Tiger Earl’s younger son, also Alexander Lindsay, was the man responsible. Alexander junior received sasine of the lands of Auchtermoonzie shortly before 9 March 1480 (NLS Crawford papers B146).[348] He was probably based here for much of his career, becoming seventh earl of Crawford in 1513, and dying in 1517 (Tanner 1999). This later dating fits better with the architectural remains, which Gifford would date to the early sixteenth century (1988, 315).
The first explicit mention of a castle or ‘mansion’ here is in a document dated 18 December 1525, when David, 8th earl of Crawford, granted the barony of Auchtermoonzie ‘with his lands of Cairnie, with the mansion of the same’ (terris suis de Carny cum mansione eiusdem) to his fourth son John Lindsay, a minor (NAS GD20/I/99 and Scots Peerage ii, 26–7, cited Tanner 1999, 16).
The first reference to these lands as Countess Cairnie is in 1518 in an inquest made by the steward of the Regality of St Andrews after the death of Alexander 7th earl of Crawford in 1517 (NLS Crawford Papers, B230(a); cited Tanner 1999, 15). The eponymous countess is probably the earl’s late mother, Margaret Dunbar, daughter of Sir David Dunbar of Cockburn, who herself had died in 1499 or 1500, having outlived her first husband, Alexander 4th earl of Crawford, by almost fifty years, and who was at Cairnie shortly before her death (see early forms, RMS ii nos. 2339, 2340) (Tanner 1999, 15–16). However, it is also possible that the eponymous countess was Isobel Campbell, wife of Alexander 7th earl of Crawford, who survived her husband, and who retained Moonzie and its chaplainry after his death, while her son, David, 8th earl of Crawford, inherited (Countess)Cairnie (February 1518 NLS Crawford Papers, B146, cited Tanner 1999, 15).
The above mentioned inquest of February 1518 was conducted by the steward of the Regality of St Andrews because the feudal superior of the lands of (Auchter)Moonzie and Cairnie remained the archbishop (previously the bishop) of St Andrews (see early forms of Cairnie, above).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4