|
|
The Armstrong Clan Society Dedicated to the Armstrongs, Crosiers, Fairbairns, Grosiers, Nixons and those interested in these surnames. Armstrong Clan Society - One Hundred Thousand Welcomes! |
|||
|
The Armstrong Clan Society has been organized to: 1) Seek friendship and unity among Armstrongs and associated families. 2) Provide for the preservation of Armstrong artifacts unique to the family and to maintain a library. 3) Serve as a genealogical and historical recorder of the membership, 4) Provide quarterly news, Armstrong history and genealogy via The Armstrong Chronicles, 5) Establish geographic membership representation.
Membership All Armstrongs, Croziers, Fairbairns, Groziers and Nixons, regardless of spelling, and their descendants, are eligible for full membership in The Society. All others interested in furthering the goals of The Society may become associate members. In the United States and Canada, dues are $25 per year, including two adults and all minor children. In all other countries dues are $35 per year, payable in US funds. You can click here to download a membership application. Any questions? Email Peter Armstrong at parmstrong2@sc.rr.com or mail to Peter A. Armstrong 128 Essex Dr Summerville, SC 29485
Lord Lyon, King of Arms, Recognizes an Honorable Company On September 24, 1984 the Lord Lyon, King of Arms granted warrant to the Lyon clerk to matriculate in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland in the name of Armstrong Clan Society, Inc. "acting world-wide and in particular within the United States of America" to further the interests of the Armstrong family. Matriculated in the 8th day of February 1985 in the 110th page of the 62nd volume of the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland.
|
The Armstrong - Fairbairn Link By DeWitt Armstrong and Donald Fairburn. From The
Milnholm Cross Newsletter, Summer 1991, Vol. III No.4. This was the
newsletter of The C Why is Fairbairn, or Fairburn, a sept of
the Armstrong Clan? The answer lies buried deep in the past. So few are
the written records surviving from eight or ten centuries ago that our
best clues come from oral legend. As with the border Ballads, however,
folk legends passed down through untold generations may prove more
reliable than written history. The Armstrong name-legend most widely
known appears in many places, but the earliest version was written in
1754. Curiously, every other version contains the same elements and the
same omissions. The story goes that in an ancient battle the King of the
Scots was unhorsed. His armor bearer Fairbairn, with one arm, picked up
the king and sat him upon Fairbairn's own horse. The grateful king decreed
that Fairbairn should thereafter be know as Armstrong, and gave him land
along the Scottish Border. Unmentioned in any version are details
of the battle, the name of the king, and who won. Partly because the name
Armstrong is recorded along the Border as early as 1223, a consensus among
our clan historians inclines towards the Battle of the Standard in 1138,
when David I lost to the English about 90 miles south of the Border. To
us this seems reasonable,
especially since the legend makes no claim that, owing to Fairbairn's
gallant rescue, the Scots were victorious. Had they won, would the legend
have failed to say so? Another legend, however, has come down
through centuries of Armstrongs. It used to be immersed in a fog of fairy
tales, closely matching Danish folklore, whose interest for our present
purpose would be slight, except for the appearance within them of the
Fairy Bear, which is to say the Fair Beorn. According to this ancient legend, the
Armstrong progenitor was an Anglo-Danish Earl of York, Northumbria,
Huntingdon, and Northampton named Siward. Earl Siward was a great warrior,
sometimes called, 'the Strong', and he was a major figure in the final
chapters of Anglo Saxon history just before the Norman Conquest in 1066.
The College of Heralds says that Earl Siward’s father was an Earl in
England named Beorn, and some scholars say that Siward was a nephew of
Cnut (or Canute), King of England. It was Cnut, at any rate, who about
1033 made Siward the Earl of York. Siward then conquered Northumbria about
1042, to bring that kingdom for the first time under the English monarch,
with Siward as its earl. On gaining the English throne, Edward the
Confessor kept Siward in his earldoms, so that Siward remained one of the
most powerful men in Britain. Then, up in Scotland, Macbeth killed
King Duncan, who had married Earl Siward's sister (or possibly his cousin
). Siward provided sanctuary for Malcolm, son of Duncan, and in 1054 led
his army north, accompanied by Malcolm At Dunsinane, Earl Siward defeated
Macbeth, whereupon Siward's nephew (or cousin) became Malcolm III, of
Scots. (Editor) This killing by Macbeth and mention of Siward’s victory
is noted in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Let us now note some evidence incised in
stone. From Shakespeare's play Macbeth. Recall the witches'
prophecy "... until great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall
come..", and we recall Siward's troops advancing camouflaged with oak
bows. Well, oak trees and bows appear on a number of ancient Armstrong
coats of arms, some still visible on tombstones along the Scottish Border
and in Northern Ireland. Also appearing on tombstones are swords of Danish
Viking style. Moreover, the main feature of the most ancient Armstrong
monument, the Milnholm Cross in Liddesdale, (dating from between 1250 and
1350), is a great two-handed, cross-hilt sword of the Viking sort. A
similar sword is on the 1583 arms of the Armstrong clan chief, among the
remains of Mangerton. We turn to chronicles of the time to
trace the sons and grandsons of Earl Siward. His younger son Waltheof,
also a noted warrior, became Earl of Northumbria under William the
Conqueror but in 1076 was beheaded for rebellion. Siward's elder son
Osbeorn was killed in the battle at Dunsinane, but he left two sons of his
own, Siward the Fair (or the White) and Siward the Red. About the latter
we know only through family legend, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and
other contemporary sources call the former by the name of Siward Barn, and
they tell of four events in his life. 1)
In 1070, King Malcolm while ravaging Northumbria, found on ships at
the mouth of the Wear River and a band of royal and noble Anglo-Saxons.
They were Edward the Confessor's heir Edgar Atheling, his mother and
sisters, plus Siward Barn, Earl Marlswein, and 'several other Englishmen
of great rank and wealth’. Having failed in a Danish aided attempt to
expel William the Conqueror, they hoped for refuge in Scotland. Malcolm
assured them of safe residence there, and after his return soon married
Atheling's sister Margaret, whose profoundly civilizing effect upon
Malcolm and Scotland led to her sainthood. 2)
In 1071, another revolt against William the Conqueror occurred.
Siward Barn brought a large body of troops deep into England, to Ely, and
joined in rebellion with several noble kinsmen, including Hereward the
Wake and the former earls Morcar and Edwin. Against them William the
Conqueror personally led the counteroffensive, shattering the rebel
force. Capturing Siward Barn and Morcar, he kept them alive, as captives,
in Normandy for seventeen years. 3)
When dying in 1087, King William the Conqueror released Morcar and
Siward Barn. Morcar was re-imprisoned by the new king of England. Siward
Barn managed to avoid capture and re-imprisonment. The final written record of Siward Barn
is dated 1091, in Durham, near the Border and well east of Carlisle. It is
a charter bearing signatures of King William Rufus, of royal officials,
and of noble witnesses. The latter include several earls and Siward Barn.
Historians think the charter may be a forgery made a few decades later.
Even if it is, we see that a knowledgeable ecclesiastical forger of the
early 1100s regarded Siward Barn as a Border region noble sufficiently
worthy to list in exalted company.
The language
used between 1104 and 1108 by the Durham chronicler Simeion to report the
1087 release by the dying king is worth noting. Simeon wrote "he
liberated. . . Siward surnamed Barn.. .". The significance for us is
that nine centuries ago scarcely anyone in Britain possessed a surname.
Only in the 1100s did surnames begin to appear, and most people lacked
them until the 1300s or 1400s.
Spelling was
picturesquely variable in the Middle Ages, and later, too. Bjorn, Biorn,
Beorn, Barne, Barne, Burn, and Bairn could equally be used for the same
person, even though in Denmark Bjorn meant 'bear' and in Scotland Bairn
meant 'child'. We could hardly be so foolish as to assert that no
Fairbairn in Scotland by the 1500s, say, owed his
surname
to the juvenile handsomeness of some forbearer. But we do believe that the
Border landholder Thomas Fairbarne who sued in a North Tynedale court in
1279 derived his name from Earl Siward's grandson Siward Barn. Further
research into records of the region, we feel, may well turn up still
earlier Fairbarns, however spelled
Research by
the Clan Armstrong Trust in Scotland has uncovered earlier instances of
the sllnl'!h'tlt: Armstrohg in the early 1200s. Their locations,
like Thomas Fairbarne's, are all in the near vicinity of the Border as it
then existed. In that era Scotland and England were still actively
contending for possession of Northumberland and Cumberland. Even though
the second Anglo-Norman king turned the Carlisle area into an English
stronghold in 1092, that area was frequently held by Scottish monarchs
thereafter. Penrith, located further south, was often a possession of the
King of Scots as well. These are areas where the Armstrongs were recorded
in the 1200s. Exactly when the
Armstrongs settled in Liddesdale will probably never be known for sure. On
that front line, records did not survive the incessant warfare. Some students think
Liddesdale was Armstrong country during the 1200s and possibly during some
of the 1100s. Just across a saddle in the Cheviot Hills from Liddesdale
lay North Tynedale, where we know of one Fairbarne in 1279.
So these two
legends, of Armstrong descent from Siward through Siward Barn (or the
Fair), and of Fairbairn renamed Armstrong by a rescued king, strike us as
simply two sides of the same coin. To date, each new discovery has tended
to reinforce this opinion, to support the ancient conviction that
Armstrongs and Fairburns (or Fairbairns) are the same stock. Short of the
Pearly Gate we are not likely to know for sure, but let the search go on! Editor Milton: There are, as you probably know, other theories as to our name origin. Updated 15 Nov 2008 |
|||
