Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/532

 512 CRAWFORD that took place between England and his native country. "(■*) Master of the Household, 1480; Lord Great Chamberlain [S.], in or before 1483; Joint High Justiciary of the North, 1487. On 18 May 1488, he was cr. DUKEC) OF MONTROSE [S.], the castle and borough of Montrose, i^c, being erected into a Duchy and conveyed to him and his heirs. Soon afterwards he distinguished himself on the side of James III at the battle of Sauchieburn, 9 June 1488, where the King was slain, and himself taken prisoner and deprived of his public offices. His Dukedom -v/zs forfeited by "the Rescissory Act," 17 Oct. 1488, annulling all grants made by the late King during the 8 months preceding. ('^) In Nov. 1488 he was constrained to resign to Lord Gray [S.] his hereditary Shrievalty of Angus. On 19 Sep. 1489, he, under the name of "David, Earl of Crawford and Lord Lindsay," received a new patent ('') of the Dukedom of Montrose [S.] under the Great Seal, in accordance with an Act of Pari. P.C. [S.] (*) For which "he was indeed well qualified, being princely in all his dealings," and his "magnificence" being "unbounded." See Lives of the Lindsays, where it is stated that " His heralds, the appendage of Sovereignty, are mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls, and as having exchanged their earlier name, ' Endure ' for ' Lyndesay,' the former having apparently been suggested from the motto of the family '■ Endure fort. ^ He seems to have been the first of the Nobility upon whom the honour of having a herald was conferred in Scotland [Endure Pursuivant became Lyndesay Herald in 1463 or 1464]. In England, however, Lindsay Herald s mentioned long previously, and in that Kingdom George Dunbar, the celebrated Earl of March, at the beginning of the 15th century, had a pursuivant under the title of Shrewsbury, evidently derived from his so signally conducing to the victory [1403] which fixed Henry IV upon the throne." C") The first Dukedom conferred in Scotland, save those granted to the Royal family. if) Only one other peerage dignity, the Earldom of Glencairn, was affected by this act. (<*) The analysis or abstract (all that is preserved) of the second patent commences thus: — " Data est litera Comiti Craufurdie, creando ipsum Ducem de Montrose, pro toto tempore vite sue et concedendo sibi cap. mess, et locum castri de Montrose, i^c." This has been generally considered as restraining the title to a life interest, but it is contended otherwise, and that " this new patent has been misunderstood, from an abbreviated phrase in the abstract, as restrictive of the honour to the Duke's lifetime." There were also other arguments in favour of the Dukedom continuing to the heirs of the grantee, as that the Duke was not affected by the act rescissory, " the young King having already taken steps which rendered it, in his case, nugatory;" and again, that even had it been so affected, the act was itself rescinded in Mar. 1503/4, when all things done by the then King, which were "either hurting his Soul, his Crown, or Holy Kirk," were revoked. See Lives of the Lindsays. The chief arguments in favour of the claim, set forth in a long letter, written by the then Lord Lindsay in Sep. 1865 to Sir Bernard Burke (printed in full in Burke's Extinct Peerage, edit. 1866), appear to be that the patent of 18 May 1488, "changing" the grantee's Earldom into a Dukedom to him " et heredibus suis" could only be annulled (i) by resignation, (2) by attainder or (3) by special annulment. Neither of the first took place. As to the last (i), the act rescissory of i 7 Oct. 1488, " being a general and penal act, could not per se and without specification affect a dignity," as was " established by a leading case.