Person Page 755

SIR John Sandilands of Calder succeeded about the year 1426 and was formally infeft in the lands and barony of Calder on a precept from the Earl of Douglas as superior in the year 1437.



In the Exchequer Rolls we see a grant of customs to John de Sandilandis de Caldore in 1447 and Nisbet mentions a charter of the year 1466 granted apparently by this baron to his eldest son and heir Sir James Sandilands and Margaret his wife to which an armorial seal was appended having a shield couche with two coats quarterly 1st and 4th a bend for Sandilands 2nd and 3rd a man's heart and on a chief three stars for Douglas which shield is timbred with an helmet and thereupon for crest a head and neck of a horse and having only one supporter on the left namely a lady holding the helmet and crest which I did see in the custody of Mr Crawford author of the peerage Sir John de Sandilandis lord of Caldour is mentioned together with his son and grandson in the years 1478 and 1481 and he appears as defender in a civil cause in the month of December 1482.



He is stated to have married Christian Dundas second daughter of James Dundas of Dundas and he had two sons John and James and a daughter Alison married to Sir Alexander Boswell of Balmuto who fell at Flodden 15 13 John the elder son was assassinated when only twenty years of age with his uncle James Sandilands by Patrick Thornton a secret favourer of the Douglas faction who was apprehended and executed after trial The crime which was of political rather than personal import on account of the adherence of the family to King James II was committed near Dumbarton on the 21st August 1451.