108 Notices concerning Oxnam Parish. By J. Hardy. 



cottage now remains ; and the schoolmaster draws the £4 3s 4d, 

 " as a remuneration and encouragement for teaching poor chil- 

 dren." (New Stat. Acct. ^Roxburghshire, p. 266.) This charity 

 has recently been a subject of inquiry. 



Lady Yester was the same generous benefactor to whom 

 Edinburgh is indebted for the foundation and endowment of 

 Lady Yester's church and parish. A small work "Historical 

 Notices of Lady Yester's Church and Parish, Edinburgh ; by 

 James A. Hunter" (Edinburgh 1864, 12mo. pp. 12-18), enables 

 me to give an account of her and her donations, within a small 

 compass, and also shews her connection with a parish, to which 

 her title has no relation, and the facts stated, moreover, have a 

 direct bearing on the early history of the principal land-owners 

 of the parish. 



" The name by which her ladyship was so well-known, strictly speaking, 

 was not her legal one ; for, by referring to Douglas's Peerage, it appears 

 that Mark Kerr, who was the Abbot of Newbottle, renounced Popery at 

 the Reformation, and married Lady Helen Leslie, daughter of George fourth 

 Earl of Rothes. His eldest son was created Earl of Lothian, and died in 1609, 

 leaving four sons and seven daughters, the third of whom, Lady Margaret, 

 married James, Lord Hay of Yester ; so the title was never Lord and Lady 

 Yester, but Lord and Lady Hay, of Yester. But the title of Yester is not 

 quite unknown in the history of the family, as this name was legalised, 

 and a grant of lands was made afterwards under it to her and to her son, 

 Sir William Hay. The motive which originally induced her to assume 

 this name might have been the following : — She survived Lord Hay, and 

 then married her cousin, Sir Andrew Kerr, younger of Ferneyherst. She 

 procured for his father the title of Lord Jedburgh, and naturally expected 

 that in course of time she would be again the wife of a baron. Her 

 husband, however, predeceased his father ; and not choosing to reassume 

 her maiden name, and probably not wishing to be known as the Dowager 

 Lady Hay, she assumed that of Lady Yester — the title, Master of Yester, 

 being by courtesy that of the eldest son of Lord Hay. Her Ladyship's 

 eldest son was created Earl of Tweeddale. Her grandson, the second Earl 

 of Tweeddale, was created a Marquis, and Earl of Gifford. The 7th 

 Marquis succeeded to the titles, as being a lineal descendant of the second. 

 His son is the ninth and present possessor of the title." 



"The barony of Jedburgh, which Lady Yester, through her influence at 

 court, had procured for her uncle, descended to her husband's brother, she 

 having no family by her second marriage ; and it, on the death of the 

 third Lord, merged into that of Marquis of Lothian." 



" The author of the ' Inventor of Pious Donations,' sums up her good 

 deeds as follows : — ' Besides the many buildings, pax*ks, gardens, made by 

 her in all places belonging to her husband, in every parish where either 

 of her husbands had money rents, she erected and built hospitals and 



