William Sutherland (-before 1389), 5. Earl of Sutherland

Same as
Additional names
Parents
Father:1Kenneth Sutherland (-19 July 1333), 4. Earl of Sutherland
Mother:2Marjory (-)
Spouses and relationship events
Married:31343Margaret Bruce (-some time before November 1347)
They had a dispensation on 1 December 1342, as they were in the fourth degree of consanguinity, but in a papal indulgence granted to her on 6 November 1343, a year later, she is styled sister of the King of Scots, and not Gountess of Sutherland. Indeed, if the evidence of charters be taken, their marriage did not take place till 1345.
Married:4before 9 November 1347Joanna Menteith (-)
The William and Joanna had a dispensation, of date 9 November 1347, on the following grounds. They petitioned that Joanna had been married to John, Earl of Atholl, and Maurice Moray. That after the death of the latter. Earl William and she, ignorant that any impediment existed between them which should hinder their marriage, contracted matrimony per verba de presenti; but they afterwards learned that they were related doubly in the fourth degree of affinity, because William, John, and Maurice were related in the fourth degree of consanguinity, in consequence of which William and Joanna could not, without a dispensation, remain in marriage. They therefore petitioned accordingly. This shows that they had been married for some time before November 1347, so that the Princess Margaret had died not long after 30 March 1346.
Children
Children with Margaret Bruce:
John Sutherland (-1361)5
Children with Joanna Menteith:
Robert of Sutherland (-1442), 6. Earl of Sutherland6
Kenneth Sutherland of Forse (-)7
Attributes
Occupation:85. Earl of Sutherland
Events
Died:9before 1389
Personal Info
He succeeded his father on 19 July 1333, and was probably then of age. There is no evidence of his wardship, and he almost immediately took an active part in public life. Sir Robert Gordon asserts that the young Earl took part in the battle of Kilblene, when David, Earl of Atholl, was slain, but there is no corroboration of this. From an English chronicle, however, it appears that he was a leader of the Scottish force which besieged the castle of Cupar-Fife, then held by the English. The Scots, however, were put to flight by the activity and strategy of Sir John Stirling, Governor of Edinburgh Castle. In 1340 he took part, with the Earl of March, in a foray into England, and though, on their way home, they were intercepted by an English force under Sir Thomas Grey, and worsted, they did much damage, so that four years later a large part of Northumberland was still unprofitable.10
In 1343, or between December 1342 and September 1345, the Earl married Margaret, sister of King David Bruce, and that King conferred upon him in rapid succession considerable grants of land. On 28 September 1345 the spouses had a grant in free marriage of the thanage of Downie, co. Forfar, also of the thanage of Kincardine, with castle, etc., the thanage of Fettercairn, and the thanage of Aberluthnot, all in Kincardineshire, and the half of the thanages of Fermartine and Kintore in the sheriffdom of Aberdeen. This was followed, on 10 October 1345, by the erection of the earldom of Sutherland into a regality. On 4 November 1345 the King added the whole barony of Cluny in Aberdeenshire, and on 30 March 1346 the Earl and his wife received a grant of the King's rock or crag of Dunottar, co. Kincardine, with licence to build a fortalice thereon. In 1346 the Earl accompanied his royal brother-in-law to England on the expedition which ended so ignominiously at Neville's Cross. Froissart speaks of him under the name of the Earl of Orkney, as being the first to join the King, with 'many men-at-arms'. He is said to have been taken prisoner, but if so, his name does not occur in any list of captives. He seems to have occupied himself in the interval with his private affairs, but his next appearance in public life is in June 1351, when he had a safe-conduct to Newcastle to confer on the subject of King David's ransom. In September of that year his infant son and heir was given as a hostage for King David on the latter's return to Scotland for a few months. In 1357 the Earl himself, with his eldest son, was a hostage for the payment of the King's ransom, and remained in England for more than ten years, visiting Scotland at intervals, marked by the granting of various charters to relatives and others. On 28 February 1358-59 King David granted to the Earl and his son John the barony and castle of Urquhart, co. Inverness, which is said to have been in exchange for the thanages in Kincardineshire formerly granted, but the earlier charter was repeated in 1360. On 30 July 1366 the King renewed to the Earl the grant of the half thanage of Fermartine. Between 1360 and 1365 the Earl also received various sums from Exchequer in addition to £80 paid by the King towards his expenses in England. The Earl is said by Sir Robert Gordon to have died in 1370, and this is probably correct. He was alive on 27 February 1369-70, when he still held the frank-tenement of the thanage of Kincardine and others, the reversion of which was then granted to Sir Walter Leslie, afterwards Earl of Ross; but in June 1371, the barony of Urquhart was in the hands of the Crown, and the Earl was probably then dead. It has been stated that he was concerned in the murder of lye Mackay and his son Donald in 1370, and that his own death was the result of revenge.11
Groups
Issues

Sources

1 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, Volume VIII: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1911), Sutherland, p. 324-25, IV Kenneth.
2 Ibid
3 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, Volume VIII: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1911), Sutherland, p. 325-29, V William.
4 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, volume VI: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1909), Menteith, p. 130-33, V Mary.
5 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, Volume VIII: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1911), Sutherland, p. 325-29, V William.
6 Ibid
7 Ibid
8 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, volume VI: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1909), Menteith, p. 130-33, V Mary.
9 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, Volume VIII: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1911), Sutherland, p. 329-30, VI Robert.
10 Sir James Balfour Paul, Lord Lyon King of Arms, The Scots Peerage Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland Containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, Volume VIII: (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1911), Sutherland, p. 325-29, V William.
11 Ibid
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