Brady Family of Sauchie, Stirling & Easter Kennet — Research Notes

Glasgow Name Study: project home · research directory · digital workbench

Brady Family of Stirling and Easter Kennet — Research Notes

This page separates proved relationships from property-based hypotheses among fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century Brady/Brade families around Stirling, Rutherglen, Glasgow and Easter Kennet. The records are relevant to Esbell Brade, wife of William Glasgow and mother of John Glasgow, but they do not yet prove her parents.

Proved pre-1500 relationships

John's grandchild Gilbert cannot be made Richard's child merely because Richard is John's proved son. Richard was a clerk and received the next vacant chaplaincy in Stirling parish church. A John Brady younger appears with an unnamed wife in a 1471 tenement transaction and is a plausible alternative intermediate generation, but the abstract does not call him Gilbert's father. Robert Brady, bailie in 1468; David Brady; William Brady, chaplain; and Alexander Brade, witness in 1475, also remain unplaced.

Proved Rutherglen pedigree, 1538/39–1543

Five Latin instruments concerning one South Street tenement preserve four generations. On 24 March 1538/39, Mariota Hamilton, daughter and heir of the late James Hamilton, widow of the late John Brady, and mother of John Brady, resigned her tenement in favour of her son John's wife Isabella Oswald and the children born or to be born to them. Her son John consented as her apparent heir, while Mariota reserved her liferent.

Later instruments make the resulting family explicit:

Thus the secure line is:

James Hamilton → Mariota Hamilton (married John Brady) → John Brady, weaver and burgess (married Isabella Oswald) → Malcolm Brady, son and heir.

The property sequence is equally strong:

• 24 March 1538/39: Mariota settled the South Street fore-and-back tenement, garden and two adjoining rigs on Isabella and Isabella's children by John, reserving Mariota's liferent.
• 23 November 1542: John Brady and Isabella sold it to Master Nicholas Witherspoon, vicar of Strathaven.
• 8 January 1542/43: Witherspoon returned the whole holding in perpetual feu to Malcolm Brady, expressly son and apparent heir of John and Isabella, for 16s yearly and 100 ripe “Rob Hyndis” pears delivered in Glasgow.
• 16 July 1543: John, Isabella and Malcolm, expressly “their son and heir,” resigned another 2s annual rent from the same holding.
• 30 October 1543: John and Malcolm, his son and apparent heir, repeated the transaction with Isabella's consent.

This is a true hereditary property chain, not merely surname proximity. Other Rutherglen Bradys—William, Stephen, Stephen younger, Ninian and Cuthbert the sergeant—occur in the same records, but no relationship to this household is stated.

Gilbert Brady to John Brady of Easter Kennet

The following is strong circumstantial evidence, not an express parent-child statement:

• In 1523 a croft immediately south of the Blackfriars orchard belonged to Gilbert Brady.
• In 1531 the same Berkhous Croft belonged to John Brady of Easter Kennet, burgess of Stirling.
• Gilbert was dead by 24 April 1527, when the Crown disposed of the ward, non-entry and relief of lands formerly belonging to him.
• Gilbert held Easter Kennet land in 1514/15 (NRS GD11/35). John of Easter Kennet received sasine in nearby Carse and Dryfield riggs on 11 August 1534 (NRS GD11/38), immediately after John Brydie resigned them (GD11/39).

The same territorial designation and exact urban-property succession make John the leading candidate for Gilbert's son or other close heir. The relationship should remain uncertain until an original service, retour or sasine names it.

A 1537 Great Seal confirmation concerns John Brady of Easter Kennet, not a separate Robert Brady of Easter Kennet. Some later catalogue wording has caused that transaction to be misassigned to Robert.

Relevance to Esbell Brade

Esbell's chronology is compatible with the later Stirling–Easter Kennet generation, and her forename echoes Gilbert's wife Isabella. Her husband William Glasgow also appears in a 1526 remission centred on the Bruce/Sandilands network in the wider Stirling–Clackmannan district. Earlier, Alexander Brade and John Glasgw witnessed the same Stirling act in 1475, while Gilbert Brady bounded a property in a 1479/80 act witnessed by John Glasgw.

The newly recovered Rutherglen household is geographically and chronologically closer to Esbell than the Easter Kennet line. Glasgow records also name Jonet Brady, widow of Glasgow citizen Edward Scott, in 1528; Janet Bradye, joint longest-liver grantee with Glasgow bailie Andrew Muir, in 1531/32; Andrew Bradye as a Glasgow witness in 1532 and 1537; and Sir John Bradye in 1533 and 1548. Any of these could be collateral kin, but none is yet linked to Esbell by a kin term or inherited parcel.

Together these points make both the Rutherglen household and the Stirling–Easter Kennet kindred credible family-of-origin leads for Esbell. They do not identify her father, prove that she inherited Brady property, or establish that Stirling's John Glasgw was her husband's ancestor. Isobella Glasgow remains a probable daughter of William and Esbell on separate inherited-property and in-law evidence, but that uncertain placement does not identify Esbell's own parents.

Jonet Bradye–Mure family in Glasgow

The Glasgow title evidence now proves another Brady parent-child relationship and strongly reconstructs a second marriage:

The same 1564/65 title sequence directly identifies the late Edward Scott's four daughter-lines: Alison Scott, late wife of Michael Lindsay and mother of David Lindsay; Margaret Scott; Jonet Scott, widow of John Blair; and Marion Scott, wife of Archibald Hommill. Jonet Brady is a probable mother because she was Edward's recorded widow, but the instruments do not name the daughters' mother and cannot exclude an earlier wife.

Ninian Bradie and son James

On 24 January 1586/87 James Bradie, smith, entered a Garngad half-acre “as heir of q. Ninian Bradie, citizen, his father” and immediately transferred it to James Rob in Dalsholm. This is direct father-son and inherited-property evidence. Ninian's unusual forename and lay status strongly identify the father with the Ninian Brady found at Rutherglen in 1542 and in Glasgow in 1564 and 1570–71. Do not merge him with Sir Ninian Brady/Brydin, a chaplain and notary in Selkirk records.

The 1571 Rutherglen occurrence of Malcolm Brady also almost certainly continues the son and heir proved there in 1543: same rare forename, surname and place, twenty-eight years later. This is strong identity evidence, not a second relationship statement.

Sources

• Robert Renwick, ed., “Abstract of Protocol Book of the Burgh of Stirling,” The Scottish Antiquary 10 (1895), pp. 55–73, 136–175, particularly printed pp. 59, 61, 139, 160, 163 and 169: 1471, 1477, 1478, 1481/82. These are published abstracts of the protocol book, not manuscript images.
• Robert Renwick, ed., Extracts from the Records of the Royal Burgh of Stirling, A.D. 1519–1666, with Appendix A.D. 1295–1666 (Glasgow, 1887), Appendix p. 265: scan.
• R. Page and C. Page, “The Blackfriars of Stirling,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 126 (1996), pp. 881–892: PDF. The authors independently describe John as presumably Gilbert's son on the property evidence.
• National Records of Scotland, GD11/35 (1514/15), GD11/38 and GD11/39 (11 August 1534). Catalogue descriptions inspected; manuscript images not available online.
• Liber Collegii Nostre Domine: Munimenta Fratrum Predicatorum de Glasgu (Maitland Club, 1846), pp. 124–128, instruments dated 24 March 1538/39, 23 November 1542, 8 January 1542/43, 16 July and 30 October 1543: Internet Archive scan. This is a scholarly transcription; the underlying register image was not inspected.
• Ibid., pp. 89–90, 2 April 1528, for Jonet Brady, widow of Edward Scott; Robert Renwick, ed., Abstracts of Protocols of the Town Clerks of Glasgow, vol. IV, nos. 1115, 1134, 1158 and 1302, for the 1531–37 Glasgow cluster.
• Renwick, Abstracts, vol. III, protocols 795–796, pp. 54–55, 9 June 1564; protocols 822, 825–826, March 1564/65; vol. VI, protocol 1818, 9 January 1571/72.
• Renwick, Abstracts, vol. IX, protocol 2960, p. 125, 24 January 1586/87, for James Bradie as son and heir of Ninian.

Best next checks

1. Inspect Stirling Archives/NRS B66/1/1/1, protocol pp. 26, 28, 185, 219, 239 and 293, especially whether the full 1471 act names John Brady younger's wife or whether the heirship acts name Gilbert's father.
2. Locate the underlying 1527 ward/non-entry grant and the 1537 John Brady charter to test the Easter Kennet succession language.
3. Trace Malcolm's 1543 South Street title into his documented Rutherglen appearance in 1571 and search for siblings, spouse and heirs.
4. Test whether Jonet Brady, Janet Bradye, Andrew Bradye, Sir John Bradye, William, Stephen, Ninian or Cuthbert share property or kinship with the proved Rutherglen household.
5. Search burgh and Bruce/Kennet title writs for Esbell/Isabella Brade, dowry, marriage settlement, resignation or sibling consent.
6. Keep the unlinked bearers distinct unless a kin term or property succession connects them.