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 348 FIFE. i.e., " FIFE " Marqucssate [S.] (Hepburn), cr. 12 May 1 567, with the Dukedom of Orkney [S.] See " Bothwell " Earldom [S.], cr. 1488, under the 4th holder thereof ; all honours forfeited, 29 Dec. 1567. Earldom [I.] f. "William Duff, of Braco, in the parish of Grange I 1759 (near Keith) and of Dipple, both in co. Banff, s. and h. of William D.( a ) of the same, by his first wife, Jean, da. of Sir George Gordon, of Edinglassie, sue. his father in 1722 ; was M.P. for Banffshire, 1727-34; was cr. 28 July 1735 (during the regency of Queen Caroline) BARON BRACO OF KILBRYpE, co. Cavan [I.]; supported theGovernmentinterest during the rising of 1745 and was, 26 April 1759, cr. VISCOUNT MACDUFF^) and EARL FIFEC=) W He m. firstly Janet, widow of Hugh Forbes, 2d da. of James (Oqilvy), Stewart was beheaded 24 May 1425, but that the Duke himself (with his sou Alexander and the Earl of Lennox) was beheaded the next day. Ex inform. Joseph. Bain, F.S.A. [Scot]. ( a ) This William was second son of Alexander Duff, of Keithmore, and yr. br. of Alexander Duff, of Braco, a writer of the Bignet at Edinburgh (whose estates he eventually inherited) who was the founder of the wealth and position of the Duff family. (b) These titles were evidently selected to indicate a descent from the ancient Earls of Fife [S.] of the house of Macduff, who, in the male line, appear to have come to an end in the middle of the 14th century. As to this descent, it is (with a slight touch of Barcasm) most truly Btated, in Wood's Douglas, that tho' according to Douglas' Baronage and Lodge's Irish Peerage the descent of this William Duff was " derived from the ancient Earls of Fife the precise line cannot now be traced." Such descent, as given in Baird's Memoirs of the Duffs is apparently quite untenable. In " The church and churchyard of Cullen, by William Cramond, A.M.," 1883 (a very admirable little work and one of considerable research) there is a complete "expose of the fraudulent alteration of the inscription on a monument there erected [perhaps] to an Innts of Innes (about) 1539 and changed (probably in 1792) to Duff of Muldavit, W4, in order to add to the glory of [the then] Lord Fife." [Letter from R. R. Stodart, Lyon Clerk Depute, dat. 17 June, 1884.] See also articles by Mr. Cramoud in Northern Notes and Queries, vol. iii, p. 145, and vol. i, p. 114, referring to other articles " in the Genealogist [Oct. 1886] and elsewhere and carrying back the pedigree of William Duff (father of the 1st Earl Fife) not indeed to the Duffs " of Muldavit," and still less, to Macduff, Earl of Fife, but as far back as to a grand- father. This grandfather was one " Adam Duff in [not " of "] Cluniebeg," who was father of Alexander Duff, of Keithmore, the father of Alexander Duff (the purchaser of Braco) and of the said William. Beyond "Adam" it seems impossible to go. " The descent of the Earls Fife from the Duffs of Muldavit, tho' generally stated by the Peerage writers, is [writes Mr. Cramond] by no means clear. Their descent from the Thane of Fife, tho' as widely proclaimed, can surely not be named by the genealogist without a Bmile, and none would have been so tickled at the idea as the John Duffs of Muldavit, the worthy baillies of Cullen." The whole question was dis- cussed fully by the same writer in an article in " The Scotsman" of 29 July 1889, in reference to which, " Scotut" (on the 31st) remarks, "Your contributor has con- clusively shown that the claim made by the Duffs to be descended from the old family of Fife breaks down in several particulars. Others may be pointed out. The relinquishment of the prefix ' Mac ' is unaccounted for and I Bbould fear is unex- plainable. In the 14th centuiy such a thing was contrary to the usage of the time and no instance of it can be adduced. Also the armorial bearings of the families were entirely different. Your article further points out that the claims of the Duffs of Clunybeg to represent that family [the house of Duff] cannot be proved. This agrees with the opinion, expressed to myself, of the late Joseph Robertson, LL.D., probably tho most weighty authority on charter evidence that Scotland has ever possessed. ... To my knowledge James, the 4th Earl, went to very considerable expense in researches undertaken to prove a connection with the old historical family but wholly without success." The matter is thus summed up by " F. S. A. Scot." in " T/ic Olasgow News," Aug. 1885, who writes: " The preposterous pedigree set forth in some of the peerages is too absurd for eerious confutation." " (°) Not Earl of Fife." See voL ii, p. 102, note " a," sub " Cadogan."