Hugh Fraser, 1st Lord Lovat

This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. (July 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Hugh Fraser, 1st Lord Lovat (c. 1436 - c. 1500/c. 1501), was a Scottish peer, and the Chief of Clan Fraser of Lovat.

Biography[]

Family[]

Fraser was the son of , 5th Laird of Lovat, and Lady Janet Dunbar. He was a minor when his father died and became a legal ward of Archibald Douglas, Earl of Moray (d. 1455), and then of Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis (d. 1459). Hugh married Patrick's daughter Violetta. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Robert II. They had a son, Thomas, and two daughters, Egidia, who married Farquhar Mackintosh, and Margaret. His grandfather, Hugh Fraser (d. 1440), 4th Laird of Lovat, was one of the hostages for the ransom of King James I of Scotland in 1424.

Education and life[]

In 1450 his father sent him to be educated by Lord Murray. He was known to the Regent Duke of Albany when introduced and knighted by James II and thence joined the Order of the Thistle.

Hugh was summoned to Parliament as Lord Fraser of Lovat sometime between 1458 and 1461. In 1464 he made an agreement with a kinsman, Alexander Fraser of Phillorth that each would agree to support each other's surviving heir, depending on who died first. It recognised the perilous lifespan of a highlander in an age of bloody civil conflict. On 13 May 1471, the Court Auditor on behalf of Flemyng ordered Hugh to pay for some land purchases granted two years previously.

Hugh opposed the chaos in the Isles that led to James II's early death. The Lord of the Isles recruited Viking mercenaries to plunder his lands. seize Inverness, march to Athol and burn the Church of St Bride. His tenants lay siege to Castle Lovat, but his clan remained loyal, easily repelling the invasion.

The MacDonalds victory at a battle at Caplach, west of Inverness returned peace to the glen of the Airds. On 31 March 1472, Hugh agreed to protect the citizens of the hill burgh of Nairn. He bought ore land for 50 Merks off William Wallace of Craigie, and, planted some orchards.

The late medieval period was lawless and violent, and after a period of peace, he was obliged to act for the King in the wars of the Lords of the Isles and his kinfolk. Clannish feuds broke out in Sutherland and Caithness. 18 peasants were killed in a dispute that burnt the priory of Beauly. Some racial disputes between Norman and Flemish descendants of the feudal clan system were complicated by James III's minority. Two years earlier he was party to a charter ratified on 28 February 1480.

Hugh was among the party of nobles who met the King when he crossed the Forth to Blackness in an effort to crush the rebellious incursions. The English defeated James, who was slain at Stirling before his loyal lords could intervene. Lovat lived to old age, but his favourite son was slain at the Battle of Flodden alongside James IV.

Death[]

He died c. 1500 and was succeeded by his son Thomas. Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, known as "Simon the Fox", was among his descendants. Lord Lovat had at least four sons Hugh, Thomas, Alexander and John as well as three daughters and two natural sons.

Notelist[]

References[]

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• www.fraserchief.co.uk
• [www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/lovat1457.htm]