888 NOTICE ON TWO MINISTERS OF ROXBURGH 



to the murder of her husband. She is the Lady celebrated 

 in the opening Canto of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" : — 



" Of noble race the Ladye came, 

 Her father was a clerk of fame, 

 Of Bethune's line of Picardie." 



The next (third) proprietor of Creich was David Betoun, 

 son of the last, who died unmarried in 1539. He was 

 succeeded by his brother, Robert, who accompanied the 

 young Queen of Scots to France in 1548, and after 

 her return became Master of the Household and here- 

 ditary Steward of Fife. He married, before 1540, Joanna 

 Renwall or Gryssoner, one of the Queen Dowager's maids 

 of honour. The following entry appears in 1540: — To the 

 Laird of Creich in part payment of his tocher with Madame 

 Grismore, £333 6s. 8d. By this marriage he had a large 

 family. The best known of his children is Mary Betoun, 

 one of the Queen's four Marys, who afterwards married 

 Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne. The marriage contract is still 

 extant, signed by the Queen herself, and by Darnley, Huntly, 

 Argyll, Bothwell, Murray, and Atholl. George Buchanan 

 greatly admired her, and in more than one poem celebrates 

 her praises. In the third book of his Epigrammata, he 

 says of her : — 



" Regno animus tibi dignus erat, tibi regia virtus, 

 Et poterant formam sceptra decere tuam." 



Among his other children were David (eldest) who suc- 

 ceeded him in the properties at Creich and Nether Rires, 

 and James, who became minister of Roxburgh. One of the 

 daughters married Erskine of Dun, superintendent of the 

 church in Angus and Mearns, and another married David 

 Betoun of Melgund, son of the Cardinal. This Robert 

 Betoun of Creich was alive in 1566; for in a letter by Queen 

 Mary to James, Archbishop of Glasgow, of date 2nd April 

 1566, she mentions, among those present with her at supper 

 on the night of Rizzio's murder, "the Laird of Creich." 

 The murder was perpetrated the previous March, 



