Of truly martial stock, the Haigs can trace a descent that stretches back to a warrior of mixed Pictish and Norwegian extraction who survived a shipwreck off the Berwickshire coast in the Scottish Borders and, befriended by a powerful local lord, subsequently gained through marriage land near the River Tweed.
• His descendants thrived and came to hold high office, including the post of Constable of Scotland, and proved loyal to the cause of the nation's freedom and independence, often at great cost to themselves.
• William Haig, the tenth baron of the name, was among the many Scots who fell along with their king in 1513 at the battle of Flodden.
