Mark Carse of Cockpen

[jennyblain]

Dear all - a cousin and I are trying to sort out the various people named (Sir or not) Mark Carse, Cars, Cass, of Cockpen and some also of Fordell. There are at least three, and probably four or five, of this name, in the 17th century and moving into the 18th. We're going through not only the OPR but the parliament records (nicely available online) and various legal records, where we can get access to these. And anything else, of course.

Before I get any deeper, does anybody have connections here?

And, at least one of these is the 'Laird of Cockpen' of the song (original not so nice, later cleaned up in Lady Nairn's version).
Jenny

[Currie]

Hello Jenny,

I’d just like to say that House of Commons Parliamentary Papers is a great but often forgotten resource, and is available online via NLS.

And now for a short musical interlude: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4mr88q44C4

Happy New Year,
Alan

[johnniegarve]

Thanks for kicking off the New Year on a cultural note Alan, a well intentioned, if hauf biled performance! All The Best!

[Russell]

Hi Alan

That musical interlude we would describe as 'po faced' His guitar accompaniments was 'no bad' but his attempts at Scots pronunciation made my toes curl.
Received English just can't handle auld Scots.
Never heard of the singer before but I'll revisit his u-tube efforts to see what he does on the guitar

Russell

[jennyblain]

Indeed the pronunciation is pretty bad!

The lyrics by Lady Nairne are at http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/lairdc.html , as is a story told of the 'Laird', though this is probably a bit garbled. I've spent much of the last two days (as has a cousin) ferreting out information about the Carses of Cockpen and have been tracking them through various records of the Scottish Parliament at http://www.rps.ac.uk/

The first Mark Carse of Cockpen seems to have been on the other side from Charles I and II, though the second may have got on OK with Charles II. (The first had to pay a whopping 6000 pund Scots after the restoration, the same amount as the Earl of Lothian - the second got to be a tax collector...) Whether there's any truth in the story about the laird (the younger, it would have to be) playing Charles's favourite tune, or being abroad in the Hague with him, is - well maybe a bit iffy or embellished let's say.

However the original song, before Lady Nairne rewrote the sanitised version (which then got even more po-faced with additional verses, as in the recording), was rather different and there's a version at http://www.campin.me.uk/Embro/Webreleas ... Bobbit.htm. This may well be about the second one, Sir Mark Carse of Cockpen. Various of the later Mark Carses came in for Kirk Session rebukes. I'd love to know, though, about any unofficial offspring!

Guid New Year,
Jenny

[Russell]

Hi Jenny

Don't discount some of the tales as there may be more than an element of truth in them. I'm currently reading Latham's edited Pepys diary and it has surprised me the company that some of the lesser nobility kept back then. It may have been a very divided society but the nobility and merchants appeared to have mixed socially as well as through business interests.

Russell

[jennyblain]

Aye - except that the Laird of Cockpen is documented as being in Midlothian at least in 1653, 1655, and 1657-8 (from various writs and the diary of William Drummond, which are nicely online though took a bit of searching out). 'Young Cokpen' is there in 1657-8 too, as William Drummond goes drinking with him...

The Laird seems to have been a close associate of the Earl of Lothian, one of the leaders of the 'Kirk Party', and acts for him in a court case of 1653. And so, after the restoration, he gets a serious fine - the same as that paid by the Earl of Lothian.

But it's quite possible that the son became royalist, and even possible that one or that both, were at Worcester, though I think the son may have been pretty young then.

Jenny

[Pauline McQ]

There is an entry in South Leith OPR dated 23 September 1632 - Mark Carse ane of Newbattle and Margaret Kirkwood heir, I have not found any baptismal records for children of this union unfortunately at least not in this OPR. I am interested in Mark Carse as I found a reference in a sasine c 1650 of one Alexander Shed his servitor whose father another Alexander was a farmer in Granton and his mother Marion Corstoun an heiress of the Corstoun lands in Cramond who subsequently married Robert Mitchell of Gilmerton and also Glencrosse. Hope this of some interest to you.

Pauline

[jennyblain]

Hi Pauline,
Yes, the first Mark Carse, writer, married Margaret Kirkwood. Her father had built a big house in Pilrig. Mark Carse seems to have had a house in Edinburgh in addition to Cockpen, and two children were baptised in Edinburgh, Margaret in 1633 and Marie in 1650. Alas there aren't OPRs from Cockpen until later, so any children baptised there don't have registrations, and I haven't seen any from Newbattle although early references to Carse (and the marriage you found) have him in that parish.

I've seen a couple of mentions of an Alexander Shed, in the 1670s 'in the water of Leith', and there was a legal decision involving an Alexander Shed (against Robert Gordon and David Kill) in 1662.

Jenny

[Pauline McQ]

Hi Jenny

Is this Margaret Kirkwood related to Gilbert Kirkwood, who built Pilrig House and married into the Foulis family? As I'm sure you know there are references to Mark Carse or Cockpen in the Accompt Books of Sir John Foulis of Ravelston. Alexander Shed in the Water of Leith turns up in quite a few records but will require some more digging on my part to establish if he is the same Alexander.

Yours Pauline