Stichill is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the historic county of

Roxburghshire Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh ( gd, Siorrachd Rosbroig) is a historic county and registration county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It borders Dumfriesshire to the west, Selkirkshire and Midlothian to the north-west, and Berw ...

, a division of the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders ( sco, the Mairches, 'the Marches'; gd, Crìochan na h-Alba) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lothian, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, West Lothi ...

. Situated north of the

Burgh A burgh is an autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland and Northern England, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burg ...

of Kelso, Stichill lies north of the

Eden Water Eden Water is a tributary of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders of Scotland. "Water" is the Lowland Scots term for a small river. The Eden Burn rises to the east of Lauder at Corsbie Moor on Boon Farm. The Eden Water passes Bassendean vill ...

and from the English Border at Coldstream. Stichill is mentioned as a manor of Sir Thomas Randolph, later the

Earl of Moray The title Earl of Moray, Mormaer of Moray or King of Moray was originally held by the rulers of the Province of Moray, which existed from the 10th century with varying degrees of independence from the Kingdom of Alba to the south. Until 1130 th ...

, when in 1308 it was considered forfeited to

Edward I of England Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassa ...

and granted to Adam Gordon.Balfour Paul, ''Scots Peerage Vol V'' pp291-2 Stichill is also mentioned in Kenneth Young's biography of Sir Alec Douglas Home. 1513 Flodden Field : Sometimes they fought farther afield but always against the English. One Home was killed in a battle against Henry Percy (Hotspur) at Verneuil in France in 1424 under 'auld alliance' of Scots with Frenchmen. Nearer at hand was Flodden Field, a few miles south across the Tweed from the Home domain near Coldstream. On that drizzling wet day in September 1513 it was doubtless true, as Walter Scott wrote, that ''The Border slogan rent the sky ! ''A Home ! A Gordon ! was the cry....'' but the third Lord Home's actions on the battlefield were open to misinterpretation. After an early successful skirmish against Lord Howard, Lord Home and his men retired from the field laden with spoils, leaving their King and hundreds of Scots to be slain and the battle lost. Home was severely criticized for running out. But did he? ' It is equally probable' his descendant Alec claimed at the annual Flodden commemoration 450 years later, ' that having fought the skirmish, Home interpreted his duty as advance guard to press on and secure for the Scottish army the ford at Coldstream which would guarantee its safety. ' Speech on the 8th August 1968. 'If the descendants of the slain had erected a war memorial in stone the names of honour would be our own, ' he said. Indisputable, however, is the fact that three years later, the third Lord Home and his brother were hanged and their heads displayed on the Tolbooth in Edinburgh. The feuding Scots wrought their vengeance in blood, their hatreds in destruction. In the time of Mary Queen of Scots, one of the Home castles that stood at Stichill, a few miles north west of the Hirsel, was 'destroyit ', and then rebuilt as a rampart against the English, thanks to a gift of 2,000 livres from King of France. The sixth Lord Home, instead of fighting the English, embraced them. King James VI of Scotland was his friend and with him in 1603 he travelled to London and to the throne of England. Home became a Privy Councillor and in March 1604 -5 was created earl as well as Lord Dunglas and Baron of Jedburgh. En deuxieme noces, he married a noble English girl, Marie Sutton, eldest daughter of 9 th Lord of Dudley, so putting the Scottish Homes firmly into the English aristocracy. ( Sir Alec Douglas-Home by Kenneth Young page 8 ). His grandson was not so lucky. He fought for the King in the Civil War and lost his estates to the Cromwellians. They were returned by Charles II in 1660 and the forth Earl of Home a member of his Privy Chamber, marrying Anne Sackville, daughter of one of the king's close friends, the Earl of Dorset. Strangely enough, later earl, the sixth, violently opposed the Act of Union of England and Scotland, and his son was suspected of Jacobitism. A contemporary described him as ' a tall slovenly man endowed with very good parts; is a firm countryman but never would acknowledge King William'. The eighth Earl, however, was a thorough Hanoverian and a professional soldier. He fought against Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45, and was rewarded by King George II with the Governorship of Gibraltar and the rank of Lieutenant-General. He was leas lucky in love. He married a widow, daughter and heiress of a rich Jamaican; but deserted her within a year because, according to one account ' she's a witch, a quean, an old cozening Quean'. ( The Merry Wives of Windsor, IV. iii. 180)

Pringles

The village lies in the historic territory of the Pringles, a notorious Riding family of Border

Reiver Border reivers were raiders along the Anglo-Scottish border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. They included both Scottish and English people, and they raided the entire border country without regard to their ...

s. The Pringles of Stichill are a cadet branch of the Pringles of that Ilk. Robert Pringle of Baitingbush purchased the lands of Stichill in 1628, and his grandson, another Robert Pringle, was created 1st Pringle Baronet of Stichill, in the Baronetcy of Nova Scotia, in 1683. The Current Baronet is

Sir Norman Murray Archibald MacGregor Pringle of Stichill, 10th Baronet Sir Norman Murray Archibald MacGregor Pringle, 10th Baronet (born 3 August 1941) is a Scottish accountant. In 2016, he won a legal case establishing that he was the rightful heir to the Pringle baronetcy, using DNA evidence that proved his cousi ...

References

Notes

2. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Kenneth Young p 8

Sources

* Balfour Paul, Sir James, ''

The Scots Peerage ''The Scots Peerage'' is a nine-volume book series of the Scottish nobility compiled and edited by Sir James Balfour Paul, published in Edinburgh from 1904 to 1914. The full title is ''The Scots Peerage: Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert ...

IX Vols''. Edinburgh 1907

External links

RCAHMS record for Stichill ParishRCAHMS record: Stichill House, doocotRCAHMS/Canmore record of Stichill Manse, SteadingSCRAN image: Stichill Manse, muck hole from byre to middenSCRAN image: Steam engine, boiler house, chimney, at Baillieknowe, StichillGooglebook: Stichill during the CommonwealthGeograph photo 1198333: Stichill LinnGeograph photo 159277 Stichill villageStichill and surroundings on Ordnance Survey map
{{authority control Villages in the Scottish Borders Parishes in Roxburghshire

Pringles

See also

References

Notes

Sources

External links