Sir Alexander Fraser (d. 1332) and his 1st wife
John P. Ravilious
Hello All,
The account in Scots Peerage for the family of Fraser, Lord
Saltoun says of Sir Andrew Fraser (d. before 23 May 1306) that the
name of his wife is unknown, "though it is probable that she belonged
to the family of le Chen of Duffus,...' [1] . This is based on
statements and conjectures in Alexander Fraser of Philorth's work on
the family, based largely on a 1363 recitation of a letter of Robert
I, King of Scots dated 6 Nov 1312 concerning settlement of a dispute
between Mary de Moravia, widow of Reginald le Cheyne, and Sir
Alexander Fraser [2].
Unfortunately, no additional details have come to light as to
which lands were involved in the dispute, or what rights Sir Alexander
Fraser relied on or sought to exercise. While it is true that Sir
Andrew Fraser had certain lands (also unidentified) in Caithness by
right of his wife, it appears that the statements in Scots Peerage and
The Frasers of Philorth are only slightly in error as other evidence
of a relationship has been noted.
Before her marriage to Robert Stewart, the future 1st Duke of
Albany, Muriel Keith was dispensed to marry the 'last' Reginald le
Cheyne of Duffus. The following text concerns the faculty to dispense
her marriage to Reginald de Cheyne, dated at Fondi, 14 Jan 1378/9:
' Reg Aven 215, 50
To the bishop of Moray. Faculty to dispense Reginald Cheyn,
donzel, and Murielle, damselle, daughter of Sir William de Keth, of
Moray and Aberdeen dioceses, from the impediment to marriage arising
from the third and fourth degrees of consanguinity.
Fondi, 19 Kal. Feb., anno 1.
SRO Vat. Trans., iv, no. 46. ' [3]
Heraldic evidence (the seal of Margaret Fraser, wife of Sir
William Keith) and the dispensation for the marriage of Muriel Keith's
cousin John Keith to Reginald's siser Mariota le Cheyne (for affinity,
not consanguinity) make it clear that the relationship of Muriel Keith
and Reginald le Cheyne was traced through the unnamed 1st wife of Sir
Alexander Fraser [4]. It is evident that the rights in Caithness which
Sir Alexander Fraser sought to enforce involved not an inheritance of
his own as alleged by Fraser of Philorth, but rather that of his
deceased wife and their son and heir, John Fraser of Aboyne and
Auchterstruther.
Freskin de = Joan of
Moravia I Strathnaver
b. ca. 1230 I
I
I
Sir Reginald = Mary de
le Cheyne I Moravia
d. bef 6 Nov I m. bef 1270
1312 I
____________I____
I I
Reginald 1) NN = Sir Alexander = 2) Mary
le Cheyne Cheyne I Fraser I Bruce
I I (d. 1332) V
I I
Reginald John Fraser
le Cheyne of Aboyne
d. bef 9 I
Oct 1353 I _____________
= Helen of I I I
Strathearn Margaret = Sir William John
I Fraser I Keith Keith
I _____________I = Margaret
I I I
__I________________________________
I
I . I I
I I I I
Reginald ~ Muriel Mariota = 2) John
Cheyne Keith Cheyne Keith
(disp 1379) (disp 1369, 1379)
Any additional documentation, comment or criticism of the above
will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
John
Notes
[1] SP VII:425.
[2] Alexander Fraser, The Frasers of Philorth (Edinburgh, 1879):
' This fragment of information is in the shape of a charter of David
II., dated October 18th, 1363, which recites royal letters granted by
Robert I. on the 6th of November 1312, declaring that nothing in the
agreements ordered or arranged by the king between Lady Mary, widow of
the late Sir Reginald le Chen, and Alexander Fraser, concerning the
lands of Duffus, should prejudice the status of inheritance of Lady
Mary in those lands...' [vol. I, p. 45]
' It was this Mary, Lady of Duffus, who in her widowhood made the
agreement, by order of Robert I., with Alexander Fraser. She was the
wife of Sir Reginald le Chen before 1269, and a daughter of theirs
might have been of an age to become the wife of Sir Andrew Fraser
between 1280 and 1290, and migh have received dower lands in Catania;
and if, during the disturbances of that stormy period, the part of
Lady Mary's estates where those dower lands were situated had been
lost, or alienated by her, Alexander Fraser might have just claims
upon her other possessions, in lieu of the inheritance to which he had
right through his mother, but which it was no longer in Lady Mary's
power to grant him; and, so far as can be ascertained, there is no
other reason to be found for any such pretensions on the part of Sir
Andrew's son.' [vol. I, p. 46]
[3] Charles Burns, ed., Calendar of Papal Letters to Scotland of
Clement VII of Avignon, 1378-1394 (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable,
Ltd., for the Scottish History Society, 1976), p. 21.
[4] Further details concerning this and other issues concerning the
Keith family will be related in a forthcoming publication.
John P. Ravilious
Following is a cleaner version of the chart for this post.
JR
M Sjostrom
(and in need of dispensation) by CONSANGUINITY on account of a forefather's
first wife, provided that first wife was not the someone's direct
ancestress.
It was already since the 1200s (I think the reforms by Innocentius III) that
the roman catholic church had determined that affinity does not create
further affinity. So, usually a someone is prohibited only by his own
earlier marriages, but not by other marriages of his ancestors and
relatives.
Most certainly, already conceptually, affinity cannot create prohibition
named consanguinity.
So, if Muriel Keith was not direct descendant of the surmised Cheyne wife of
her forefather, the Cheyne marriage was not in need of dispensaation on that
account.
Either the first, Cheyne wife, actually then was Muriel's ancestress, or
the need for dispensation (which, after all, says CONSANGUINITY as the
ground and not affinity) came from some other ancestry the betrotheds
shared. In consanguinity.
John P. Ravilious
Friday, 8 January, 2010
Dear 'M',
Reference to the chart included in the original and followup
posts shows that Muriel Keith was descended from the first (Cheyne)
wife of Sir Alexander Fraser, and not his 2nd (Mary Bruce). This is
the source of the consanguinity between Muriel and Reginald le Cheyne.
If you are using the account in Scots Peerage or elsewhere,
typically showing John Fraser of Aboyne as a son of Mary Bruce, Andrew
B. W. MacEwen had shown some time ago that this is an error.
Cheers,
John
M Sjostrom
filiation (whatever was intended) - because this system invariably displaces
all attempts to make a graphical line.
See the results of your own messages, how they display.
John Fraser's filiation to mother is left to anyone's guess in that
displaced delineation....
So, any key filiation should thusly be explained in clear words by textual
means.
If John Fraser was not son of Mary Bruce but of an earlier wife, now
surmised and proposed a Cheyne,
that *could* be the source of consanguinity.
I would like to hear more precisely the grounds about who really was his
mother, and grounds why it was not Mary Bruce.
------------------------------------
M Sjostrom
Dupplin, 1332.
His (now seemingly second) marriage with Mary Bruce is said to been in 1316
circumstances seem to indicate that the first marriage (whatever it was),
was not a long time before that - instead it would have been a marriage
effectively of only some years or so.
Estimate: perhaps the first marriage was around 1310
It is also fairly certain that Alexander would not have been married to a
woman who would have been really much older than he.
On the other hand, if that wife was the mother of John Fraser, then she
cannot have been too young to have children in or before about 1315. Because
John in that motherhood needs to be born some time before his father's later
(1316) marriage with Mary Bruce.
-----
knight Reginald Cheyne had married his wife, Mairi of Duffus, already before
about 1270.
How plausible it really is that it would have been daughter of that marriage
who then were having her marriage as late as probably in 1310s ?
---------------------
the conflict about lands, resolved by a settlement in1312, was between
Alexander Fraser and Mairi of Duffus.
such sorts of conflicts, did such usually took place between a mother, and
her daughter (the daughter represented by her husband) ?
Usually, it was collateral relatives who had rival claims.
Whereas daughters and their families waited for the owner to die, to
inherit.
Mairi of Duffus was alive. What would be grounds that her daughter or her
daughter's family, would be already entitled to claim her lands?
I gather the Caithness lands were such which Mairi had inherited - the texts
do not indicate her husband Reynald being himself a heir of lands in
Caithness
whereas it would be more understandable if Mairi was in cinflict against a
heir/heiress of her sister or something like that.
-----------------------------------------
by the way, is there really evidence of an existence of yet another Reynald
Cheyne,
so that Mairi's husband Reynald and that Reynald who married Ealann a
Sratheireann, were not father and son, but instead grandfather and grandson
?