NAPIER, Helen ¹

   User ID: M960.

Helen married Sir John MELVILLE 4th of Raith, son of John MELVILLE younger, of Raith and Janet BONAR 'of Rossie', about 1525.¹ (Sir John MELVILLE 4th of Raith was born about 1489 and died on 13 December 1548 ¹.). The cause of his death was execution for treason.

  Marriage Notes:

"Sir John Melville married .... secondly, about 1525, Helen Napier, stated by genealogists to have been the daughter of Sir Alexander Napier of Merchiston, but in a family memorandum, dated 1575, said to have been his niece, and her mother a daughter of the Laird of Craigmillar. This statement however does not agree with the chronology of the Napier family, and it is probable that the memorandum is incorrect. Helen Napier survived her husband, and in 1569 obtained from David Hamilton, son of the Regent, a charter to herself and her son John of the lands of the Abthanery of Kinghorn Easter, now Abden, of which she was still in possession in May 1584, but she probably died about 1588.

According to a memorandum preserved in the family Sir John Melville had by his first wife sons and daughters, but the sons died v.p. By his second wife he is said, on the same authority, to have had nine sons, of whom several are said to have died young, and two daughters"

from Scots Peerage (vol 6) ¹