Word: scrymgeours
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...scion of the plain, untitled Scrymgeours was lanky Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn, Conservative M.P. for Western Ren few and Under Secretary of State for Scotland. After 2½ centuries of collecting scraps of evidence, the Scrymgeours were now ready to lay claim to the Dudhope viscountcy, but hesitated to do so because Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn did not wish to resign his parliamentary job. In the 1945 Labor landslide, Scrymgeour-Wedderburn lost his seat, and the family presented its case...
...Scrymgeours are an ancient Scots family whose 12th century ancestor, Sir Alexander Carron, was surnamed the "Skyrmisheour" because of his valor in battle. In 1641 Charles I made John Scrymgeour Viscount Dudhope, a title that was to descend to "his heirs male lawfully begotten . . . whom failing his heirs male whatsoever." But when the third Viscount Dudhope (pronounced Duddop) died leaving no immediate heirs, the Dudhope lands were ruthlessly grabbed by the Earl of Lauderdale, crony of the profligate Charles II and High Sheriff of Edinburgh. The earl, a man of violent temper, bullied a court of sessions into upholding...
...month ago the claim reached its final court, the Committee of Privileges in the House of Lords. Last week seven peers, sitting round a table in lounge suits, delivered their verdict: Henry Scrymgeour-Wedderburn was, in fact and in law, Viscount Dudhope, Lord Scrymgeour. The Earl of Lauderdale, commented Lord Normand, glowering backwards three centuries, had shown the "grossest and most unscrupulous covetness." On his estate at Birkhill. Fifeshire, the tall, kilted fourth (or 13th, no one was quite sure which) Viscount Dudhope sounded disconsolate: "You know, nobody in the family really wanted to be a peer...