FlemingClans.com
"Scotland's Fleming Clan: a Genealogical History" - coming in 2027!
Patrick Fleming, 7th of Biggar and Sheriff of Peebles
(c1297 - before 1360)
Basic information about this person: \click here\
Patrick Fleming, son and heir of Sir Gilbert Fleming of Biggar, carried the Biggar branch of the family into Tweeddale through his marriage to a Fraser heiress. He never led the clan himself, but his son Malcolm would inherit its leadership when the Fulwood line of the Earls of Wigtown came to an end.
Family background
Patrick was born around 1297, the son of Sir Gilbert Fleming, 6th of Biggar, and his wife Marjory, the heiress of Biggar. He had a sister named Margaret. The Biggar Flemings were kinsmen of the Flemings of Fulwood, and Patrick was a younger contemporary of Malcolm Fleming of Fulwood, who became 1st Earl of Wigtown in 1341. The two branches remained closely linked throughout Patrick’s life.
Marriage to the Fraser heiress
Around 1312 Patrick married Joan Fraser, a daughter and heiress of Sir Simon Fraser of Oliver Castle and Neidpath. Sir Simon had fought beside William Wallace and Robert Bruce and in 1306 was hanged, drawn and quartered in London on the orders of England’s King Edward I. His lands were divided between his daughters: one married Gilbert Hay, ancestor of the Hays of Yester, while Joan brought the barony of Oliver in upper Tweeddale to the Flemings.
Tradition holds that, in recognition of this marriage, Patrick quartered the Fraser arms with those of Fleming, but this change actually came much later.
Lord of Hoprew
On 6 December 1322, in the full court of Patrick’s father Sir Gilbert Fleming at Biggar, William son of Baldwin of Edmonston resigned the lands of Edmonston into Sir Gilbert’s hands so that they could be feued to William Douglas, heir of Sir James Douglas of Lothian. Because William of Edmonston’s own seal was not known, he borrowed the seals of several respected men to validate the deed. The first of these was “Patrick Fleming, lord of Hoprew”, showing that by then Patrick held his own estate near Peebles and was a man of recognised standing.
Sheriff of Peebles
By 1327 Patrick was Sheriff of Peebles, a royal office that made him responsible for justice, revenue and the defence of the shire. He still held it in September 1346, when he appears as Sheriff of Tweeddale witnessing a charter alongside his kinsman the Earl of Wigtown.
Like many Scottish landholders, Patrick suffered in the wars that followed the Scottish defeat at Halidon Hill in 1333. In July 1334 England’s King Edward III, who then controlled Berwick-upon-Tweed, ordered him to give up his land at Berwick to Ralph de Coldyngham.
Final years and legacy
Before 1360 Patrick granted Breckonridge in the barony of Strathaven to John Graham. On 26 January 1360 a charter confirming Hugh de Crawford in those lands named Patrick as an earlier grantor, which indicates that he had died by then. His son Malcolm Fleming inherited Biggar and Oliver.
Patrick’s legacy lay in his heir. When Thomas Fleming, 2nd Earl of Wigtown, transferred his remaining estates to Malcolm in 1382, the Biggar line that Patrick had strengthened became the senior line of the Fleming clan, and it would later produce the Lords Fleming and the Earls of Wigtown of the second creation.