| His name perhaps commemorates the patron saint of the parish and St. Cuthbert's connection with the famous Ruthwell Cross. He succeeded his father about the year 1474, when he had sasines of the lands of Ryvel, Howelset, and Arbigland. In the same year he was served heir to his father Charles, by a brieve out of Chancery, in certain lands in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, dated the 'fourteenth year of King James.' On 1 March 1477 he granted a charter to Archibald Carruthers of Mouswald of the lands of 'Colulungane Wode,' to which his seal is attached. Summoned to Parliament as 'Dominus de Cockpool,' in 1481 and 1487, he was amongst the leaders at the affair of Lochmaben and Kirtle Water in 1484, when, according to Bishop Lesley, he and the Laird of Johnston captured Douglas and 'gave him to the King.' On 4 September 1487 he mortified an annual-rent to the High Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Church of Caerlaverock for the souls of James in. and John, Master of Maxwell, whom he had slain in the course of the feud with that family. Besides this mortification he \vas bound by a bond of manrent in the same year to come to the Market Cross of Edinburgh or Dumfries, in linen clothes, and ask forgiveness, also to send three of his men to Rome on a pilgrimage, and to make amends to all. Lord Maxwell was bound to ask forgiveness in the same manner, and to find a priest to sing for the souls of each of Cuthbert's friends in Ruthwell Church. Contemporary records disclose a number of lawsuits, chiefly concerning thefts of cattle and the guardianship and ransom of English prisoners, in which this laird was engaged. In 1488 he was summoned by the first Parliament of James iv. on a pretended charge of high treason, 'as having taken sides with the King's father before his death.' He is supposed to have built the present Castle of Comlongan.13 |