Cousland was also associated with Robert or Thomas Cochrane, a courtier and favourite of James III of Scotland.

The castle is indicated as "Cowsland" with a sketch in the maps of the battle published by William Patten in 1548.

[5] It is said that in 1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, made her formal surrender to the Confederate Lords after the battle of Carberry Hill at Cousland Castle.

[6] David Calderwood's account of the battle places the Lords at the "north side of Cowsland".

[7] Cousland was forfeited by John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie and his mother Dorothea Stewart, and was subsequently granted to Hugh Herries, a physician to James VI and I who had helped to rescue the King from the Ruthvens at Gowrie House in Perth on August 1605.