1st of Holmains
Roger de Carruthers - First Laird of Holmains
Roger appears in the surviving record not with a birth, marriage, or baptism, but with land. That is fitting for a man whose descendants would become identified for centuries with the estate of Holmains.
In 1375, George Dunbar, Earl of March and then Lord of Annandale, granted Roger de Carruthers a substantial group of properties: £4 land in Little Dalton, eight merks of land in Holmains, and forty-shilling land in Fourteenaikerbank. The grant also incorporated another forty-shilling holding in Little Dalton and the patronage of the church of Little Dalton. Carruthers & Reid identify this transaction as the documentary beginning of the Holmains branch. It is therefore better to think of Roger not merely as another name in a medieval pedigree, but as the founder of a landed house.
The authors of Records of the Carruthers Family describe these 1375 holdings as the nucleus from which the later and considerably larger Barony of Holmains developed. Remarkably, the lands remained associated with Roger's descendants for centuries.
Who was Roger?
Carruthers & Reid were unusually candid about the problem. They considered Roger the “undoubted progenitor” of the Holmains branch, but acknowledged that no surviving evidence directly establishes his ancestry. They regarded it as probable that he was a son of the John de Carrutheris who had received land from King David II in 1361.
King David II in 1361
That John had been granted half of lands formerly belonging to John of Raffols within the tenement of Mouswald. By the time the Holmains property next appears in 1425/26, that half of Raffols belonged to the holder of Holmains. This continuity of property is the principal reason Carruthers & Reid suspected a close relationship between John and Roger. Their cautious conclusion was that the John of 1361 was probably Roger's father or an uncle who died without issue.
A John Carruthers appears in this period as Chancellor of Annandale. Later Carruthers tradition has often treated him as Roger's father.
What Did Roger Actually Do?
Calling Roger's occupation simply “Laird of Holmains” doesn't quite convey what his life would have involved.
A fourteenth-century Scottish laird was not merely someone living comfortably in a tower. Roger belonged to the landholding military society of medieval Annandale.
His position depended upon land, lordship and service.
The wording and circumstances of his 1375 grant place him within the feudal hierarchy beneath George Dunbar, Earl of March, who then exercised lordship in Annandale. Holding these lands meant Roger was responsible for managing agricultural property and tenants, preserving his superior's interests, participating in the legal and political life of the district and providing the obligations associated with his tenure.
In a border district, that world also had a military dimension.
Annandale sat immediately north of the Anglo-Scottish frontier. Roger's lifetime fell within the long aftermath of the Wars of Scottish Independence and during continuing Anglo-Scottish conflict. Landed men in this region were expected to protect property, maintain armed followers when necessary and participate in the networks of allegiance that kept local society functioning.
Roger therefore wasn't a “soldier” in the modern occupational sense.
He was something broader:
a landed border gentleman whose property, authority, military obligations and family were inseparable from one another.
The Lands That Created Holmains
The 1375 charter is the centerpiece of Roger's biography.
The holdings included:
Holmains — eight merks of land
Little Dalton — £4 land, together with another forty-shilling holding
Fourteenaikerbank — forty-shilling land
Little Dalton Church — patronage attached to the grant
The properties had previously belonged to other landholders and had come into the lord's hands through forfeiture. Roger therefore entered possession through a deliberate act of lordship rather than merely inheriting an ancestral farm.
That distinction is important.
1375 is effectively the birth certificate of the House of Holmains.
The later family did not begin with a grand barony. Roger began with a cluster of strategically useful properties. His descendants accumulated additional estates until the name Carruthers of Holmains represented one of the substantial landed houses of Dumfriesshire.
And the family ultimately became the senior surviving Carruthers house after the extinction of the male Mouswald line in 1548.
Roger could not have known what his 1375 acquisition would become.
Roger's Wife —
Various modern family trees give Roger wives with names including Elizabeth Dinwoodie/Dunwiddie, and other reconstructed pedigrees have attached women from neighboring landed families to him.
At present, however, we do not have adequate contemporary evidence establishing Roger's wife.
Most importantly, Records of the Carruthers Family does not name her. After describing Roger's 1375 acquisition, Carruthers & Reid state bluntly that beyond his establishment on these lands, essentially nothing further is known about him.
That means we should not manufacture certainty where the original researchers themselves found none.
Could Roger have married a woman from one of the neighboring Annandale landed families?
Absolutely.
Marriage was one of the principal ways medieval landed families created alliances, transferred property and strengthened local influence. But until a charter, marriage settlement, sasine or other reliable pedigree identifies her, she should remain:
Wife: Unknown
The proposed Dinwoodie connection remains a possible research lead, not an established marriage.
*I will have to go back to Scotland in person to Little Dalton and dig her up, all online efforts are exhausted.
His Children
The succession provides us with Roger's most important probable child:
John Carruthers — 2nd of Holmains
By 1425/26, a John de Carruthers possessed Roger's original lands together with a much larger collection of property.
Carruthers & Reid treat this John as Roger's probable son and successor, while acknowledging the difficulties created by the fragmentary medieval record.
The estate John inherited—or otherwise succeeded to—included the original Holmains properties and additional lands scattered across Annandale, including holdings associated with Ecclefechan, Plewlands, Copwood, Bengalhill, Moffat, Tundergarth, Glaisters, Newlands, Ruthwell and Perisbie. The authors explicitly note that it is unknown whether some of this expansion resulted from marriage or service.
That is intriguing because it suggests that something significant happened to the family's wealth and alliances between 1375 and 1425.
Roger's Death
We don't have Roger's testament or burial record. What we do have is a documentary boundary.
Roger was alive in 1375 when he received the Holmains grant.
By 1425/26, John de Carruthers was in possession of Holmains, Little Dalton, Fourteenaikerbank and the associated properties. Therefore Roger: died sometime after 1375 and before 1425/26. His burial place is presently unknown. A birth around 1350 is a reasonable genealogical estimate, but it is not a documented birth date.
The Beginning of the Holmains House
Roger's importance comes from something unusually tangible.
He left land that remained identifiable through subsequent generations.
In 1375 there was Roger de Carruthers receiving Holmains, Little Dalton and Fourteenaikerbank. Fifty years later a Carruthers controlled those properties and substantially more. Generation after generation thereafter can be followed through charters, retours, sasines, marriage settlements, lawsuits and testaments.
Eventually the descendants of this small fourteenth-century landed house would become the senior Carruthers line. That makes Roger different from many medieval figures preserved only in pedigrees.
We can actually see his house begin.
Somewhere in Annandale in 1375, a transaction was recorded granting a man named Roger de Carutheris lands at Holmains.
For Your Reference;
Born: probably mid-14th century · Annandale, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Parents: connected to John de Carrutheris, documented in 1361; the precise relationship is not proven
Wife: unknown
Children:John Carruthers, probable son and successor; other children are not securely established
Occupation / Position: landed gentleman, feudal tenant, estate holder in Annandale; progenitor of the Holmains branch
First securely documented:1375
Death: before 1425/26 · probably Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Burial: unknown
Key Primary Record — 1375 Land Grant: George Dunbar, Earl of March and Lord of Annandale, granted Roger de Carutheris lands in Holmains, Little Dalton and Fourteenaikerbank, together with associated property and the patronage of Little Dalton Church.
Key Succession Evidence — 1425/26: By this date John de Carruthers possessed Roger's original holdings as part of a substantially enlarged estate, demonstrating that Roger had died before the grant and establishing the documentary transition to the next Holmains generation.
Arthur Stanley Carruthers & R. C. Reid, Records of the Carruthers Family (1934), Chapter V, “Holmains.” Read the original volume at Internet Archive
Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 710 — source cited by Carruthers & Reid for Roger's 1375 Holmains grant.
Historical Manuscripts Commission, Sixth Report, Appendix, p. 709 — 1361 Carruthers/Raffols evidence used in reconstructing Roger's probable immediate ancestry.
19th Great Grandfather of author Krysta Abesamis
