Lord of Liddesdale


The Lord of Liddesdale was a magnate in the medieval Kingdom of Scotland; the territorial lordship of Liddesdale was first created by David I of Scotland, perhaps between 1113 and 1124 when the latter was Prince of the Cumbrians. From an early period the caput of the lordship was Hermitage Castle, the strength of Liddesdale. King David gave the territory to Ranulf de Soules, a knight from the Cotentin Peninsula. It was forfeited by the Soulis family in the 14th century and eventually passed to the Douglases, only to be lost to the Hepburns by order of James IV. Archibald Douglas, 5th Earl of Angus was renumerated for this loss by the lordship of Bothwell Castle, although the Hepburn Earls of Bothwell retained the territorial designation