Tour Scotland 4K Winter travel video, with Scottish music, of a sunny and very cold, road trip drive on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Letham in North Fife, Britain, United Kingdom. By the meteorological calendar, the first day of Winter is always 1st December in Scotland; ending on 28th of February. Weather forecast today was for temperatures to remain below freezing but will be mostly dry with some snow and ice and widespread hard overnight frosts where skies are clear. Letham is located just off the A92 road, around 5 miles from Cupar in Fife. The village is more than a millennia old. Although some 17th and 18th century buildings remain, the Letham we see today was all built in a relatively short period, from 1800 to 1820, by the Earls of Leven and Melville. Letham is a common place name element in Scotland, deriving from the Scottish Gaelic leathan, meaning " broad slope." The family of Melville which now holds these two earldoms is descended from Sir John Melville of Raith in Fifeshire. Sir John, who was a member of the reforming party in Scotland, was put to death for high treason on the 13th of December 1548; he left with other children a son Robert, born 1527, died 1621, who in 1616 was created a lord of parliament as Lord Melville of Monymaill. Before his elevation to the Scottish peerage Melville had been a stout partisan of Mary, queen of Scots, whom he represented at the English court, and he had filled several important offices in Scotland under her son King James VI. The fourth holder of the lordship of Melville was George, born 1634, died 1707, a son of John, the 3rd lord and a descendant of Sir John Melville. Implicated in the Rye House plot against King Charles II., George took refuge in the Netherlands in 1683, but he returned to England after the revolution of 1688 and was appointed secretary for Scotland by King William III. in 1689, being created earl of Melville in the following year. He was made president of the Scottish privy council in 1696, but he was deprived of his office when Anne became queen in 1702, and he died on the 20th of May 1707. His son David, 2nd earl of Melville, born 1660, died 1728, fled to Holland with his father in 1683; after serving in the army of the elector of Brandenburg he accompanied William of Orange to England in 1688. At the head of a regiment raised by himself he fought for William at Killiecrankie and elsewhere, and as commander in chief of the troops in Scotland he dealt promptly and effectively with the attempted Jacobite rising of 1708. In 1712, however, his office was taken from him and he died on the 6th of June 1728. Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven, was succeeded in his earldom by his grandson Alexander, who died without sons in July 1664. The younger Alexander's two daughters were then in turn countesses of Leven in their own right; and after the death of the second of these two ladies in 1676 a dispute arose over the succession to the earldom between John Leslie, earl, afterwards Duke of Rothes, and David Melville, 2nd earl of Melville, mentioned above. In 1681, however, Rothes died, and Melville, who was a great grandson of the 1st earl of Leven, assumed the title, calling himself earl of Leven and Melville after he succeeded his father as earl of Melville in May 1707. Since 1805 the family has borne the name of Leslie-Melville. In 1906 John David Leslie-Melville, born 1886, became 12th earl of Leven and 11th earl of Melville. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day. Find things to see and do in Scotland where you are always welcome. When driving on Scottish roads in Scotland slow down and enjoy the trip
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