Scott, a great Border house whose pedigree has been traced back, somewhat dubiously, to one Uchtred Filius Scoti, or Fitz-Scot, a witness to David I.'s charter to Holyrood Abbey (1128), and thereafter to Richard Scot of Murthockston in Lanarkshire (1294), the cradle, however, of the race having been Scotstoun and Kirkurd in Peeblesshire. Anyhow, we find them possessors of Buccleuch in the lonely glen of the Rankle Burn, Selkirkshire, in 1415, and of Branxholm, near Hawick, from 1420-46 onwards. The then Sir Walter Scott fought for James II. at Arkinholm against the Douglasses (1455), and was rewarded with a large share of the forfeited Douglas estates; and at subsequent periods his descendants acquired Liddesdale, Eskdale, Dalkeith, &c., with the titles Lord Scott of Buccleuch (1606) and Earl of Buccleuch (1619). Among them were two Sir Walters, one of whom fought at Melrose (1526), Ancrum (1544), and Pinkie (1547), and in 1552 was slain in a street fray at Edinburgh by Kerr of Cessford, whilst the other was the rescuer of Kinmont Willie from Carlisle Castle (1596). Francis, the second earl (1626-51), left only two daughters—Mary (1647-61), married at eleven to the young future Earl of Tarras, and Anna (1651-1732), married at twelve to James, Duke of Monmouth (q.v.), who took the surname Scott, and was created Duke of Buccleuch. After his execution in 1685 his duchess, who had borne him four sons and two daughters, retained her title and estates as in her own right. She afterwards married Lord Cornwallis. Her grandson Francis succeeded her as second duke, and through his marriage in 1720 with a daughter of the Duke of Queensberry that title and large estates in Dumfriesshire devolved in 1810 on Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch (1746-1812), the pupil of Adam Smith, and a great agricultural improver. Walter Francis, fifth Duke (1806-84), was the founder of Granton, and owned in Scotland 676 sq. m.—an area larger than that of half of the sovereign states of the German empire. The Harden branch of the Scotts (represented now by Lord Polwarth) separated from the main stem in 1346; and from the Harden branch sprang the Scotts of Raeburn, ancestors of the greatest of all that great line, Sir Walter.
See Sir William Fraser, The Scotts of Buccleuch (2 vols. 1879); and Mrs Oliver, Upper Teviotdale and the Scotts of Buccleuch (1887).