| In 1575, he entered into a band of mutual assistance with Robert, Lord Boyd. In 1576-7 he and his brother William were tried and found guilty of pursuing Thomas Crawfurd for his slaughter. He married Grizel, daughter of Robert, third Lord Semple and got a charter 8 February 1573: "Johanni Blair de eodem, et Grizeldae Semple ejus sponsae, terrarum Thornlie-Wallace," &c.; also, on 1 February 1575, of Ryesholme, Flaskwood, North and South Blaise, &c.; and again, in 1580, of the forty shilling lands of Muirburn in Renfrewshire, and of Over-Birkheid in Ayrshire; lastly, in 1595, of the lands of Ramshorn and Meadowflatt, &c., in the shires of Edinburgh and Lanark, which formerly belonged to Sir James Foulis of Colinton, who, in exchange, got the lands of Oxgang, and half of the mill of Currey, both in the neighbourhood of Colinton. The name of John Blair of Blair, and that of his son Bryce, appear as witnesses in a charter by Thomas Craufurd and Margaret Craufurd, his spouse, to their son-in-law, John Blair of Giffordland, in 1595. In a discharge granted by Blair to the burgh of Irvine 14 May 1600 for parsonage teinds of some lands in the vicinity of that town, he designs himself "Blair of that Ilk, sometyme tutor testamentator to James Cuninghame of Mountgreenan, in behalf of the said James.'' The witnesses to this deed, which is in the charter chest of the burgh, are "James Mowat of Busbie, John Craufurd of Craufurdland, Thomas Nevein of Monkreddin, and William Montgomery, writter hereof.''13 |