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.

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.

“These dynasties shaped much of the western Border world during the late medieval and early modern periods. Their towers, estates, and influence stretched across the surrounding countryside, tying together neighboring lands through both cooperation and violent rivalry. The Maxwells rose into one of the dominant noble houses of southwestern Scotland.”