The Kerrs

From time to time I intend to use this blog to publish articles, or extracts of Tom Johnston's journalism.

Perhaps his most famous work is Our Scots Noble Families, which was first published in 1909. 

This classic text on land ownership in Scotland was so controversial that the newsagents John Menzies refused to sell it. 100 years later it has sold over 120,000 copies and is still in print.

The political climate of the day put the great aristocratic land owning families centre-stage. Johnston's polemic aimed to show that the aristocracy had only gained their wealth and power by exploitation and robbery on a grand scale. 

I thought I would begin with a topical name, so here is what he had to say about the Kerrs:

"It appears that not only the wicked but their descendants are allowed to flourish like the green bay tree. Here, in the Kers, we have the descendants of savage pirates, men who literally washed their hands in blood, men who stole without ceasing, and murdered without compunction, rewarded generation after generation with an annual payment of £145,554! 

"The founder of the Ker estates seems to have been a huntsman or forest-rover, who was taken under the patronage of the Douglases, and was, for some reason or other, given a charter of the lands of Altonburn and Nisbet. In 1451, James II gave the Kers the lands of Auldroxburgh "for payment of one silver penny at Whitsunday if demanded" and in 1488 James IV handed over "Roxburgh with its patronage of Maisondeau" for payment of "a red rose at the feet of St John the Baptist." It is well to have these accounts exact: they may be useful when the State demands restitution and the Duke makes an outcry for "compensation". The two supporters on the Roxburgh crest are "savages, each holding a beacon", and I can imagine nothing more appropriate, for with the Scotts and other robber clans, they were eternally at feud, and they carried their moonlighting and murdering right up to the streets of Edinburgh."

"At the Reformation of Church plunder period, the Kers absorbed the whole of the great property of Kelso Abbey, miles and miles of rich lands, baronies, lordships, mills, patronages, everything they could lay their hands upon, and the sole excuse given for this shameless rapacity is that "Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford was a great favourite at Court." These estates are today enjoyed by Sir Robert Kerr's descendant, although we are told in Crawford's "Peerage", that the Kerrs were forced to hand back about 20 churches and their tithes to the Crown. The first Earl was Privy Seal to Charles I, was notorious for his cruelty, and was long remembered for his discgraceful betrayal of Montrose. They specialised in open rapine, these Kers."