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This family, according to tradition, descended from Bartholomew de Leslyn, a noble Hungarian, who came to Scotland with Queen Margaret, about the year 1067. He was the son of Walter de Leslyn, who had assumed this surnamefrom the castle of Leslyn, in Hungary, where he was born. Bartholomew being in great favor with Malcom Canmore, obtained from that prince grants of several lands in Aberdeenshire, which it is said he called Leslyn, after his own surname. Malcom de Leslyn., who succeeded him, was the progenitor of all the Leslies in Scotland. Robert Verstegan, in his Antiquities, remarks on the word ley: A combat having taken place in Scotland between a noble of the family of Leslie and a foreign knight, in which the Scot was victorious, the following Unes in memory of tho deed, and the place where it happened, are still extant: Between the Less-Ley and the Mair, He slew the knight and left him there. The name may be derived from Lesslo, a maritime territory in Denmark.
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