In the year of her marriage an English army demolished the Kerr family seat of Ferniehirst Castle.
[3] When Robert Melville was questioned about Mary's jewels, he said he did not know which pieces, if any, were held by Jean Scott, but her "great friend", Margaret Learmonth, Grange's wife, would know.
[4] In July 1575 he wrote from Paris to Mary, Queen of Scots, describing the destruction of his houses with fire and gunpowder by English forces during the Marian Civil War costing him at least 20,000 crowns, and the injuries sustained by his family and followers fighting for her cause in Scotland.
He had lost his jewels and the charters of his lands left in a coffer in Edinburgh Castle which Regent Morton confiscated in 1573.
[1] A cipher key exists for Lady Ferniehirst's correspondence with Mary, Queen of Scots, in England.
[10] Lord Seton passed some of his letters to Lady Ferniehirst for her to address and forward to Mary, as he thought this would deflect suspicion.
Two of them, calling themselves Foljambe and Tunstead,[13] were fugitives sent by Mary, Queen of Scots, who had arrived Scotland in January by "a very wild and dangerous passage", and they stayed in the tower for fear of being captured and returned to England.
The English ambassador Robert Bowes heard that one man was really Sir Thomas Gerard of Bryn (who was involved in the Babington plot).
In December 1591 she persuaded her to intercede with James VI to allow the exiled Laird of Buccleuch to return to Scotland.