Fairlie

This family first appears in Ayrshire as proprietors of the lands of Fairley (the village of Fairley near Largs still exists today). Nisbet, in his commentary on the Ragman Roll of those who submitted to Edward I of England in 1296, states that Robert de Ross was heritor to the lands of Fairly in Cunningham whence the family took its name. The arms of Ross and Fairly both contain a lion rampant but this is such a common feature of Scots heraldry that little can be deduced from it. The name also arose around Edinburgh, and William Fairlie received lands at Inverleith from Robert I. The Fairlies of Braid claimed descent from a natural son of Robert II, and Nisbet cited as evidence of this theory the fact that they bore the red lion rampant on a gold shield of the royal house. There is, however, no other evidence to substantiate this claim. The family of Braid claimed the chiefship of the name when the original Ayrshire line failed. They acquired, by purchase, the lands of Little Dreghorn in Ayrshire which they renamed Fairlie. This line also failed to produce a male heir, and Sir William Cunningham of Robertland, Baronet, who had married the sister of the last Laird of Fairlie, assumed the additional name of Fairlie in 1781.