Susan Cragin's background

My name is Susan Cragin. I have always wanted to visit Scotland, ever since I read Wildfire by Midnight, by Mary Stewart, when I was about ten years old. I didn't understand some of her sexual references, but I understood her descriptions of the scenery, and I wanted to see it. Who knew? Maybe there would be glamour, danger and adventure in a small Scottish fishing hotel for me, too.

My name, Cragin, is of course Scots/Irish in origin, and at each generation there has been a John Cragin. The first John Cragin in America was taken prisoner at the Battle of Dunbar, and shipped as an indentured servant to Massachusetts.

http://www.thehistorynet.com/mh/blbattleofdunbar/index3.html

According to family legend, Cragin was struck with smallpox on the way over and the ship's captain was going to throw him overboard, but a beautiful passenger fell in love with him, nursed him back to health, and eventually married him. Cragin was about 17 years old at the time.

The name Cragin is probably of Irish origin. Either Cragin was an Irish mercenary fighting for the Scots during Dunbar, or the family came during the Irish invasion of Scotland in the 5th century.

There is some sort of Cragin Castle in Scotland, unconnected with our branch of the family.
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou007.htm
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou028.htm

That's my father's side. My mother's side is full of Lyons, and Colbys and Edmunds. The first two came from Scotland, the last from England. Other than that, I can claim one Frenchman, three Native Americans, one Spanish Gypsy, and a French-Canadian as ancestors.

The Lyons are the most interesting, because the House of Lyon controls Scotland's heraldry.

The Lyon family is NOT native to Scotland. The name is French. Nonetheless, they've been there for quite some time. They arrived either during the Roman settlement period, or the Norman Conquest.

The most common theory is that they were part of the Norman Conquest, a group of soldiers from Lyons-la-foret, in Normandy. (That makes sense because the Lyon-Court now controls heraldry designations in Scotland, and the "royalty" stuff came from the Normans). That would put them in Scotland some years after 1066, when the first Norman invasion occurred.
Lyons-la-Foret is located in France very near where I stayed as a student, but I never saw it.
http://www.cometofrance.com/LYONS-LA-FORET.html
http://www.lyon-court.com/

The second and less common theory is that they were part of the Norman Conquest of Britain, and they were descended from soldiers from Lyons, which is today (and was then) a big city in SE France. This would put them in Scotland at the time of the Norman occupation of Britain, sometime between about 40 AD and 410 AD.
They would have been stationed in one of the Roman garrisons along one of the fortification walls. Hadrian's wall is the biggest, and the one everyone knows.
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Hadrian's_Wall.htm
However, the Lyons garrison was probably stationed along the short-lived Antoinine wall, further North.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_wall
I don't know which fort the Lyons group defended, but here is a link to the only fort still standing. This was defended by a clan from NE Gaul, right across the English Channel. (So NOT Lyons.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Castle_Fort

Having said that, I think I know exactly how the Lyons got there. This is what makes it interesting.

In AD 197, Clodius Albinus, the Roman Governor of Britain, took his Roman troops and some British troops, and marched South through France to attack the current Roman Emperor, Septimus Severus, and take over the empire. Albinius attacked Severus at Lyons, France, where Severus was holding the city with a bunch of troops, some of them local.
Severus won the battle and killed Albinius, but he was worried that there was a general uprising in Britain, so he marched back with his troops. He marched the length of Britain, and found that the Caledonians and the Maetae(early residents of what is now Scotland) had over-run Hadrian's wall and attacked Roman towns.
So Severus attacked the Maetae and the Caledonians. He marched North, past Hadrian's wall and at least as far as the Antonine wall, killing most of the Maetae men, and driving the Caledonians to the far North.
Severus strengthened Hadrian's wall, and re-built part of the Antonine wall. He left troops in various forts along the Antonine wall. I think there were 16 forts in all, each manned by a garrison of troops that all came from the same region, and one of the garrisons was manned by Lyon troops.
The troops stayed twenty years. The Antonine wall wasn't very substantial. I think it was only 4 feet high in places. People passed through it almost at will. The Roman forts became surrounded by small towns, and the troops eventually became part of the local scene, learning the language and trading with the locals. When the Romans gave up holding the wall, most of the troops just deserted and stayed where they were. Many had wives and children, and had used their military pay to buy local farms and businesses. Most had reached retirement age, anyway.
And that may be the origin of the Lyons in Scotland.

I was a Medieval History major in college, but to be honest, I think civilization peaked in the Iron Age.
http://www.scotlandspast.org/iron.cfm

Here are some relevant web sites you may find interesting.
http://www.edinburgh.org/
http://www.royalmile.com/
http://www.royalmile.com/info/holyrood.htm
http://www.stgilescathedral.org.uk/
http://www.skye.co.uk/
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/skye/portree/
http://www.blaven.com/
http://www.b-mercer.demon.co.uk/skywalk.htm
http://www.holidaymull.org/
http://www.discovermull.co.uk/photopage.html
http://www.castles.org/Chatelaine/GLENGORM.HTM
http://www.duartcastle.com/
http://www.tobermory.mull.com/Standing_Stones.htm
http://www.iona.org.uk/Centres.htm
http://www.isle-of-iona.com/
http://www.isle-of-iona.com/nunnery.htm