Scotlands Fight For Freedom

 Since our Scottish ancestors, the Johnstones, were a "Border" clan from Annandale, which was on the border of Southern Scotland and Northern England, many of our Johnstone ancestors were likely involved in Scotland's fight for freedom from England in the late 1200s - early 1300s.

Some of the history of the Johnstones I have found makes mention of the Johnstones going into Northern England to regain possessions such as cattle that had been stolen by the English, and that they fought constantly with the English.

Accounts reguarding the Johnstones and  the Scottish fight for freedom from the English seem to be mixed.

 

 

Historic UK.com tells talks about  one person from Clan Johnstone, "Sir John Johnstone of Dumfries "
to be exact- according to the Historic UK website that he once had  "pledged allegiance"  to England's King Edward 1st -

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Scotland-History/famousscottishclans.htm

 

WIKIPEDIA [and a few other websites and sources] tell us that the Clan Johnstone fought against  the English and that William Wallace [aka Braveheart]  had close association with Clan Johnstone -

"Sir John Johnstone, grandson of the aforementioned Sir John, was a highly active leader on the border and resisted the English quite well from 1377 through 1379. [6] He fought against the English armies at the Battle of Solway in 1378[7]. The Johnstones were also at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388. In roughly 1218, William Wallace gave the Lochmaben castle to Johnstone of Eskdale, who apparently was his kinsman."

The question now becomes, where is "Eskdale?"  And..what does it have to do with our ancestors from Annandale-Dumfries? "Eskdale" is a "glen" of Dumfries, so we can assume from this account that our very distant Johnstone ancestors  were   "kinsmen" of William Wallace - aka "Braveheart."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskdale,_Dumfries_and_Galloway

"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Johnstone

Since Edmund Johnston from our line was from Dumfriedshire, Annandale, Scotland
we can assume that one of  our ancestors was "Sir John Of Johnstone of Dumfries" - who was said at one time to have "pledged allegiance"  to England's King Edward 1st -

For more on the history of Scotland's fight for freedom, refer to the history books and historical accounts online. You can also learn about some of this history by watching the movie "Braveheart" [starring Mel Gibson] - but I'm not sure how historically correct this movie is...sometimes things that show up in movies are made up by  "Hollywood."

As stated earlier, I'm not sure how historically correct the movie is, but during one point in the movie, the MacGregor name is announced to William Wallace [AKA Braveheart] as a Clan who was coming to join the fight against England.

It is interesting to note that at one point in history, the name MacGregor was even "outlawed" -and so some MacGregors changed thier last name to Johnstone, [or Johnston] which is why I say that we may have MacGregors in our ancestory. [ click on MacGregor-Johnston for more info]

If I am not mistaken, the MacGregor and Johnston tartans also have some similarities.