“Siward, on being relieved from his confinement in the Tower, rose high in the confidence of Edward. On 26th September 1298, 7th May and 16th June 1299, he was summoned, by the title “Baron,” to serve in Scotland. His name appears on several occasions in the Wardrobe Account of 28th Edward I. In that year he received 41l. 5s. for the services of himself and his followers in the garrison of Lochmaben. Also an allowance of 2l. 13s. 4d. for the value of a horse killed at Kirkcudbright; eight merks for a winter dress (robe); and the like sum appears to have been paid to him for a summer dress. In the same year he was again summoned for the Scottish war, and also in 1301. He was made sheriff of Dumfries-shire in 1305, and was also aiding in the suppression of Robert Bruce in 1308; in which year he was appointed to the charge of a district in Galloway, under Edward II. In 1309 he was governor or constable of Dumfries, and is supposed to have died in 1310.
By his wife Mary he had two sons, Richard and John. They both attained the age of manhood; and John, in particular, appears to have followed the crooked anti-patriotic policy of his father. He accompanied the Earl of Pembroke in his invasion of Fife, as has been already mentioned, and was rewarded by Edward with an appointment as Governor of Perth. Little appears to have been known of Richard. He was married to Elizabeth —— in 1296. The arms of Siward, as has been already noticed, were sable, a cross fleury, argent.
“Walter de Huntercombe succeeded his father in his lands in the 55. Henry III., at which time he was of full age; and shortly afterwards married Alice, third daughter and co-heiress of Hugh de Bolebec, and who, in the 2d Edward I., was found to be one of the co-heirs of Richard de Muntfichet, in right of her grandmother Margery, his sister. In the 5th Edward I. he paid 50l. for his relief of the barony of Muschamp; and on the 12th December in that year, was summoned to serve with horse and arms against the Welsh: he received similar writs tested 6th April and 24th May, 10th Edward I., and 14th June, 15th Edward I. He was one of the peers who were present in parliament in the 18th Edward I., when a grant was made to the King, for the marriage of his eldest daughter, of the same aid as had been given to Henry III. for the marriage of his daughter the Queen of Scotland; and shortly afterwards the Isle of Man was intrusted to his charge, but which he only held three years, as, in obedience to the King’s commands, he surrendered his trust to John de Baillol in the 21st Edward I. In the 19th Edward I., by writ tested the 16th April at Darlington, he was ordered to be at Norham, equipped for the field by the ensuing Easter; and obtained a charter of free-warren in all his demesne lands in the county of Northumberland before the end of that year. On the 26th June 1294, Huntercombe was ordered to join the expedition then made into Gascony. His military services, during the remainder of the reign of Edward I. were incessant, for he was in the Scottish wars in the 25th, 26th, 28th, 31st, and 34th years of that monarch; was Governor of Edinburgh Castle in the 26th; Lieutenant of Northumberland in the 27th Edward I.; and afterwards Warden of the Marches there. In the 28th Edward I. we find that he was at the siege of Carlaverock; and in the next year he was a party to the letter to Pope Boniface, in which he is called “Walter Lord of Huntercombe.” It appears from the Wardrobe accounts of the 28th Edward I., that he was allowed 10l. as a compensation for a black nag which was killed by the Scots at Flete, on the 6th August 1299. But the nature and extent of Huntercombe’s services are best shown by his own statement of them in his petition to the King in the 35th Edward I., praying a remission of his scutage for the expeditions in which he had been engaged, with which prayer the crown complied. He says, that he had been in all the wars of Scotland up to that time; namely, in the first war at Berwick with twenty horse; then at Stirling with thirty-two horse, in the retinue of the Earl of Warren; then at Le Vaire Chapelle with thirty horse in the retinue of the Bishop of Durham; afterwards at Gaway with sixteen horse; and that he sent eighteen horse to the last battle, though he was not present himself, being then Warden of the Marches of Scotland and Northumberland. From that year nothing more is known of this Baron, excepting that he was summoned to parliament from the 23d June, 23d Edward I., 1295, to the 16th June, 14th Edward II., 1311, and died in 1312; but after the 25th Edward I. he was probably prevented by age from taking an active part in public affairs, for even allowing him to have been but twenty-one in the 55th Henry III., he must have been above sixty in 1307; which calculation makes him to have been about fifty when he was at Carlaverock, and sixty-four at his decease. Though he was twice married he died without issue. His first wife was Alice de Bolebec, before mentioned; but we only know that the Christian name of his second was Ellen, and that she survived him. Nicholas Newbaud, his nephew, son of his sister Gunnora, was found to be his heir.
“The arms of Huntercombe were ermine, two bars gemells, gules.”
L.
MEMOIR OF SIR SIMON FRASER. [Page 113.]
This warrior appears to have been most actively engaged in the battle of Roslin; and the renown which has in consequence attached itself to his name, will perhaps render the following notice of him acceptable.
* * * * *
Simon de Fraser was the eldest son of Simon de Frazer, the ancestor of the baronial houses of Saltoun and Lovat; and is supposed to have been a near connexion of William Frazer, Bishop of St Andrew’s, whose politics he appears in his early years to have adopted; for, when he was taken prisoner on the surrender of the castle of Dunbar in 1296, he swore fealty to Edward, and remained faithful to the English interest till 1302. He was repeatedly summoned to fight against his countrymen, particularly on 26th September 1298, and 7th May 1299. He also figured at the siege of Carlaverock in 1300 as a Baron;—in the same year, he was appointed Warden of the Forest of Selkirk, and, by that designation, the truce between the two countries was announced to him on the 30th October. In the same year, the sum of 64l. 18s. is charged in the Wardrobe Account, as having been paid him as the wages of himself and a retinue of three knights and twelve esquires, from 13th July till 3d September, at which time his horses were valued, and hire for 59 days allowed him. There is also an allowance of 17l. 6s. 8d. for the maintenance of his wife Lady Mary, her daughters and family, living in the castle of Jedworth, by the grant of the King, from Christmas till St John Baptist’s day, 26 weeks, at a merk per week, as per agreement with the Steward of Berwick-upon-Tweed.[100] On his withdrawing from Edward, he joined Comyn, and gained the battle of Roslin, as has already been observed. When the English afterwards succeeded in subduing Scotland, a severe penalty was inflicted upon him; he was banished from all the territories belonging to, or under the influence of England, for three years, and his rents for that time forfeited. In 1306 he joined Bruce; but having unfortunately fallen into the hands of the enemy, he was conveyed to London and ordered by Edward for execution;—after being drawn and quartered, his head was fixed upon London Bridge. “But,” says Mr Nicholas, “a much more minute and curious account is given of the tragical termination of Frazer’s life in a fragment of an inedited chronicle in the British Museum of the 15th century,[101] from which Mr Ritson printed the subjoined extract in illustration of a poem which will be more fully noticed.