Tracing the Hay family from the Lords of Yester to the present day
From Norman knights to Scottish earls
The story of the Tweeddale title begins centuries before 1694. The Hay family, a cadet branch of the great Clan Hay, acquired the barony of Yester through marriage in 1357, when Sir William de la Haye of Peebles married Joanna, co-heiress of the last Giffard lord. From that union, the family rose steadily through the Scottish peerage: Lords Hay of Yester from 1488, Earls of Tweeddale from 1646, and finally Marquesses from 1694.
The descent of the title from 1694 to the present
Patterns of succession across three centuries
For most of its history, the Marquessate passed from father to eldest son in an unbroken line of primogeniture. There have been two notable exceptions. The 10th Marquess inherited from his elder brother, the 9th, who died without a son in 1878. And most remarkably, the 14th Marquess inherited from his twin brother, the 13th, who died unmarried in 2005, making the current holder of the title the younger of a pair of twins born on the same day in 1947.
The title was created with remainder to "heirs male of the body", meaning it can only pass through the male line. Should the male line of the current Marquess fail, the Marquessate of Tweeddale would become dormant or extinct, though the subsidiary titles might descend differently depending on their specific remainders.
The Marquesses of Tweeddale belong to Clan Hay, one of the oldest and most widespread of the Scottish Highland clans. The clan's origins trace back to the Anglo-Norman period, and its members have held titles including the Earls of Erroll (the hereditary Lord High Constables of Scotland), the Earls of Kinnoull, and the Marquesses of Tweeddale. The clan motto is "Serva jugum", which means "Keep the yoke", a reference to the legend of the ancestor who used a yoke in battle.