THE Ruthvens derive their descent from a Norwegian baron named Thor, who, in the reign of King Edgar, founded the Church of Edinham, or Ednam, on the banks of the Tweed, the birthplace, five centuries later, of Thomson, the poet of the ‘Seasons.’ The charter which Thor granted to this religious establishment is a model for its brevity and clearness, and may serve to illustrate the process by which the waste places of the country were peopled and the inhabitants civilised. ‘To the sons of Holy Mother Church,’ ran this interesting document, ‘Thor the Long, greeting in the Lord: be it known that Aedgar my lord, King of Scots, gave to me Aednaham, a desert; that, with his help and my own money I peopled it, and have built a church in honour of St. Cuthbert, which church, with a ploughgate of land, I have given to God and to St. Cuthbert and his monks to be possessed by them for ever.’

Suconus, the son of this Thor, who flourished in the reign of William the Lion, obtained a grant of the manors of Ruthven, Tippermuir, and other lands in Perthshire, and was also superior of the territory of Crawford, in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, which the progenitors of the great family of the Lindsays held as vassals under him.

The descendants of Suconus assumed the surname of Ruthven from one of their Perthshire estates, and no fewer than three great barons of this designation are mentioned in the Ragman Roll among those who swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296.