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The Barony of Braemar

The Barony of Braemar

THE BARONY

OF

The Baronage Press Three Pictures by Sutton Palmer a Hundred Years Ago

In the highlands, in the country places, Where the old plain men have rosy faces, And the young fair maidens Quiet eyes. Where essential silence cheers and blesses, And for ever in the hill-recesses Her more lovely music Broods and dies.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) who wrote his first novel in 1881 at Braemar The Old Mar Bridge looking towards

Balmoral looking towards Braemar The Barony of Braemar

MAR IS AMONG THE OLDEST NAMES in Great Britain, dating certainly from the ninth century, and perhaps from earlier. As one of the seven provinces of the Pictish kingdom of “transmarine ” (known as Alban, the land north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde), it was governed by a , later to be called an , and included what was to become known as . (Originally, all the seven mormaerships included two districts.) The district of Mar itself, without Buchan, stretched from the Braes of Mar in the west to the city of on the east coast, and from the Braes of Angus (another of the seven provinces) in the south to the River Don in the north.

The Earliest Days

The principal physical features of Mar, the two great salmon rivers of Don and Dee, and the Mountains that separate them in the western half of the earldom, have throughout history been of great strategic import. The Romans noted the land’s hostility to invaders in the first and second centu- ries, and the unidentified site of the great battle of Mons Graupius in A.D. 84 was probably fought close by (Mons Graupius being believed by some to be Mons Grampius). Tacitus reported that the and their allies lost ten thousand dead, while the Roman dead numbered 360. This may well explain why, when the Romans returned in A.D. 138, they appear to have forded the junction of the Clunie and the Dee at Braemar without opposition.

Archaeological evidence shows that throughout the first millenium the population on steadily grew, and we can assume that the little village of Auchendryne (the land of thorns) at Braemar, where the Dee could be forded, expanded with it. Its importance as a key military post in the control of the mountain passes (Glenshee to the south, and to the north, and Glen Tilt and Glen Feshie to the west) was empha- sised in 1040 when Malcolm III Canmore, after attacking Macbeth, the mur- derer (according to Shakespeare) of his father Duncan I, pursued him from Dunsinane. Macbeth fled east and then turned north, hoping to reach the base of his principal strength at Forres on the coast, but Malcolm first sped north, through the more difficult country to Braemar, collected rein- forcements there, and then turned his army eastward, down the Dee, to inter- cept his quarry and kill him at .

- 1 - Perhaps this endeared him to Braemar, for in later years he brought here his Queen, Saint Margaret, in the summer months, and here he built the first major fortification at Kindrochit to command the converging passes and the ford of the Dee. The little hamlet of Castleton was built in the shadow of the and many centuries later it was united with the village of Auchendryne to form modern Braemar. Here, too, he founded the , con- tests of physical strength, endurance and military skills, from whose contes- tants he selected the strongest and fittest for his army. These, of course, are the principal reason for Braemar’s international fame today, and they still enjoy royal patronage.

There are two legacies of Queen Margaret’s visits here. First is that the Episcopal Church in Braemar is dedicated to her (and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Andrew features her in a stained glass window). The second may be seen in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This is her Bible, known as the “Magic Bible”, which was accidentally dropped by a servant into the Dee, and, when recovered with its golden binding, inlaid jewels and illuminated pages intact, miraculously had only four leaves slightly damp.

There had been an earlier fortification, in the eighth century, built of timber by the Pictish King Hungus MacFergus, and named Doldencha. This was situated close to where now stands, but there is no trace of it today. Two centuries later Kenneth II, great-grandfather of Macbeth’s victim Duncan, came to hunt, leaving his name on the small rocky rise just outside the village, Creag Choinnich, Kenneth’s Hill, and this appears to have begun the royal interest in Deeside as a much-loved recreational area.

The Later Middle Ages

The War of Independence brought problems to Mar. English armies based on Aberdeen’s seaport ravaged the country, and when in his darkest hours Robert Bruce sent his womenfolk here for safety they were caught at Kil- drummie and subsequently endured the terrible cruelty of King Edward I. Among them was Christian, the widowed Countess of Mar, sister of Robert Bruce. Thirty years later, in 1336, Edward’s grandson, King Edward III, passed through Braemar with his army on the way north to Moray, and then returned to rape, pillage and burn everything on their march.

The at that time was the six-year-old Thomas (the of Mar in the direct line would have no surname for another hundred years). He

- 2 - traced his ancestry back through eight generations to Roderick, Mormaer of Mar, who died in 1114. When in 1374 Thomas died without children his young sister Margaret inherited the earldom, her husband William, 1st Earl of Douglas (son of Sir James Douglas, the famous brother-in-arms of Robert Bruce), thereafter describing himself as Earl of Douglas and Mar. After his death she married Sir John Swinton of Swinton, but had no children other than the daughter from her first marriage, Isabel, who inherited the title.

Isabel’s first marriage to Sir Malcom Drummond of Strathurd ended with his murder, while a prisoner, by Alexander Stewart, illegitimate son of Alexander Stewart, , son of Robert II. This was the first step in a conspiracy which led to him kidnapping her, imprisoning her in her own castle of Kildrummie, and forcing her to grant him her earldom in return for him marrying her, not an honour she sought. He outlived her twenty-seven years, dying without legitimate issue in 1435, but although her cousin and lawful heir, the first of the Erskine Earls of Mar, succeeded to the dignity and administered the estates, the Crown would not acknowledge him (the King being then a minor and those about him playing politics for personal advantage).

The Crown Holds Mar

Subsequently, some twenty years later, King James II granted the Earldom to his youngest son, Lord John Stewart, and when he died his eldest brother, then King James III, granted the Mar estates, and possibly the title also, to Thomas Cochrane, a favourite who had fomented much trouble between the King and his three brothers. (Modern historians believe he did not become the Earl and he is not numbered as an Earl of Mar.) Cochrane, having offen- ded several peers by his presumptious conduct, ended his life on the end of a rope, hanging, with six other unpopular royal favourites, from the bridge at Lauder, in the sight of the impotent King.

The next Earl of Mar was the King’s eldest brother, Alexander Stewart, , but he was forfeited a few months later, and then the King granted the Earldom to his youngest son, Lord John Stewart. When he died unmarried in 1503 there was a gap of nearly sixty years before the Earldom was granted again. During this time the revenues of Mar were collected by the Crown, and the rightful Earls, the Erskines, received nothing, but with the return of Mary Queen of Scots from France they had a chance to plead their case. Mary’s illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray,

- 3 - held the Earldom for a few months before resigning it, and in 1565 Mary restored to John, Lord Erskine, all the lands and titles the Crown had wrong- fully taken and still retained.

The Rise of the Erskines

The restored Earl of Mar, the eighteenth to hold the title, turned against the Queen, committed her to her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, and became Regent for her infant son, James VI. But, curiously, he is best remembered by genealogists for his restoration to the ancient title, for three centuries later English peers sitting in the Committee for Privileges in the decided that the restoration was in fact the creation of a new title, and on that basis the title and lands were diverted from the rightful Earl to an unscrupu- lous cousin, to the disgust of an incredulous Scottish public and the fury of Scottish peers. (This scandal is outside the scope of this article, but it may be noted that after a period of ten years of intermittent argument, and the intervention of , the Act passed in 1885 to reverse the ruling still held that while Queen Mary had restored the original Earldom she had at the same time also created a new one!)

The Regent’s only son, John, the 19th Earl, was very active in the reli- gious politics of the period and completed the recovery of the Mar lands sold by the Crown. It was during his time that , which had been expanded by Sir Malcolm Drummond of Strathurd under licence of Robert II and used since then as a royal hunting lodge, finally collapsed in ruin to be exploited locally as a convenient source of building materials. It was also at this time that the Earl was visited at Braemar by John Taylor, the English “Water Poet”, who left us a fair description of life then in the Braes of Mar –

Once in the year, which is the whole month of August, and sometimes part of September, many of the nobility and gentry of the kingdom, for their pleasure, do come into these Highland countries to hunt, when they do conform them- selves to the habit of the Highlandmen, who for the most part speak nothing but Irish, and in former times were those people which were called the Red- shanks. Their habit is shoes with but one sole apiece, stockings (which they call short hose) made of a warm stuff of divers colours, which they call tartan. As for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jer- kin of the same stuff that their hose is of, their garters being bands of wreaths of hay or straw, with a plaid about their shoulders, which is a mantle of divers colours, of much finer and lighter stuff than their hose, with blue flat caps on

- 4 - their head, a handkerchief knit with two knots about their neck, and thus are they attired. Now, their weapons are long bows and forked arrows, swords and targets, harquebusses, muskets, dirks, and axes.

My good Lord of Mar having put me into that shape, I rode with him from his house, where I saw the ruins of an old castle, called the castle of Kin- drochit. It was built by Michael Canmore for a hunting-house : it was the last house I saw in those parts ; for I was the space of twelve days after before I saw either house, cornfield, or habitation for any creature but deer, wild horse, wolves, and such-like creatures, which made me doubt that I should ever have seen a house again.

Thus the first day we travelled eight miles, where there were small cot- tages built on purpose to lodge in, which they called lonchards ; I thank my good Lord Erskine, he commanded that I should always be lodged in his lodging, the kitchen being always on the side of a bank, many kettles and pots boiling, and many spits turning and winding, with a great variety of cheer — as venison; baked, sodden, roast and stewed beef ; mutton, goats, kid, hares, fresh salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, moor-coots, heath-cocks, capercail- zies, and termagants ; good ale, sack, white and claret, tent, with most potent Aqua-vitæ.

All these and more than these we had continually in superfluous abundance, caught by Falconers, Fowlers, Fishers, and brought here by my Lord’s tenants and purveyors to victual our Camp, which consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred men and horses. The manner of the hunting is this : five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, and do disperse themselves divers ways, and seven or eight miles’ compass ; they do bring or chase in the deer in many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd) to such or such a place as the Nobleman shall appoint them ; then when day is come, the Lords and the gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to their middles through bournes and rivers ; and then, they being come to the place, do lie down on the ground, till those foresaid scouts, which are called the Tinchel, do bring down the deer. Then, after we had stayed three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear on the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which, being followed close by the Tinchel, are chased down into the valley where we lay. Then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as the occasion serves upon the herd of deer, so that, with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, and daggers, in the space of two hours, fourscore fat deer were slain, which after are disposed of some one way and some another, some twenty and thirty miles, and more than enough left for us to make merry withal at our rendezvous.

- 5 - Taylor reinforced the impressions he left us of the good life in the Earl- dom of Mar during those distant days of 1618 with the following lines –

Yet (arm’d with truth) I publish with my pen, That there th’ Almighty doth his blessings heape In such aboundant food for beasts and men, That I never saw more plenty or more cheape.

The Fall of the Erskines

But the old order changed and gave place to new. The Earl’s son, the Lord Erskine with whom the Poet lodged, who succeeded his father in 1634 as 20th Earl of Mar, supported the Royalists in the Civil War, had his Scottish estates sequestrated, lost his Irish estates in the rebellion there, and went blind before his death in 1653. This was the beginning of the Mar financial problems which were never to be solved. His son John, 21st Earl, lived in a small cottage until the Restoration, but although the Scottish estates were then recovered, they were heavily burdened with debt and fines incurred by the family’s support of the King. To pay some of the debts the 22nd Earl sold a large part of the lands, including the Barony of Erskine, the family’s original home, but the situation was worsened when he was ordered to resist the Highland rebellion of 1688 and in consequence his at Braemar, Corgarf and Kildrummie were very badly damaged with fire.

The 23rd Earl, when succeeding his father in 1689, was described as being “heir to more debt than estate”. Nevertheless, although technically insolvent, he played a key role in the politics of the time, pushing strongly for the Union with England, and becoming Secretary of State for Scotland in the new British nation. However, his loyalty to the incoming King George I, for whom he procured a loyal address from the Highland clans, a notable achievement, was ill-rewarded, and he was dismissed by the new monarch so harshly that he went over to the Stuart cause. He then began to recruit the Scottish aristocracy to the support of the Old Pretender, and in the late sum- mer of 1715, under the cover of a great hunt similar to that described by John Taylor, he raised the Stuart standard in Braemar at the place where the Invercauld Arms Hotel now stands.

The ceremony began well, with the Earl of Mar’s Punchbowl, a hollow in a rock by the Linn of Quoich, being filled with brandy for the pleasure of his guests, but when the gilt ball fell from the top of the flagstaff on which

- 6 - the standard now flew, it could be interpreted only as an ill omen. And thus it proved to be. On 13 November 1715, at the head of around 12,000 men, and with no plan of action at all, he met and was defeated by a Hanoverian force of 4,000. He subsequently fled to France, his honours were attainted, and his estates confiscated. In 1724 two members of the Erskine family, Lord Grange and the Laird of Dun, bought most of the Mar estates from the Government to be held in trust for the Earl’s son, Thomas, and the title of Earl of Mar was eventually restored to the family in 1824, but the Erskine family was never to win back its pre-1715 eminence. John Farquharson of Invercauld, Chief of the Farquharson Clan that had notionally been followers of the Earls of Mar since the 13th century, brought five hundred men to the Rising and after capture languished in the Marshalsea prison in , but when freed he returned to Braemar and in 1732 bought the castle and its sur- rounding land from the Erskine settlement for incorporation into the Inver- cauld estate. As a condition of this purchase he had to acknowledge that the Earls of Mar had been the Farquharsons’ feudal superiors.

The Rise of the Duffs

Some of the western parts of the Earl’s remaining lands were acquired by William Duff of Dipple and Braco. During the years that followed their initial purchases around Braemar, the two men followed aggressive acquisi- tion policies, buying up the ancient Mar lands as their proprietors encoun- tered financial problems, so that eventually there were only two significant estates left on the Braes of Mar — Invercauld and, as the Earls named their lands, the Mar Estate.

The Duffs now became the principal landowners in western Aberdeen- shire and, with their estates along the southern coast of the Moray Firth, one of the richest families in Scotland. They claimed descent from that Chief of the clan who in the year 1056 AD, in Malcolm Canmore’s army, allegedly slew Macbeth. He is said to have been the Thane of Fife (although there were no such thanes), and, as such, a distinguished figure in Scottish history whose powers and privileges his successors in the Earldom of Fife believed they had inherited. It was in the exercise of her family’s rights, as they had come to be accepted, that the Countess of Buchan, the sister of the absent , placed the crown on the head of King Robert Bruce (for which pious act she later suffered seven years in an iron-barred cage exposed to Berwick’s cruel winds).

- 7 - The senior line of the Macduffs died out towards the end of the four- teenth century with Isabel, daughter of Duncan, the 8th of the Macduff Earls of Fife, after four husbands had failed to give her an heir, and in 1752 the Lord Lyon declared that the representation of this line was to be vested in the Earls of Wemyss whose seat was appropriately in Fife. However, a long way north, along the southern coast of the Moray Firth, other members of Clan Macduff had been flourishing, the first of these on record being John Duff of Muldavit, near Cullen in Banffshire. Family tradition insists on his descent from the famous “Thane”, and that his descendant two hundred undocumen- ted years later was Adam Duff of Clunybeg in the parish of Mortlach, Banff- shire. “Gentry the Duffs have always been,” wrote Charles Rampini in the “County Histories of Scotland” series, where he reported that Adam Duff of Clunybeg was an enthusiastic Royalist heavily punished by the Covenanters.

Adam’s sons Alexander and John fought under Montrose and also suf- fered in those troubled times, but the family’s fortunes were about to prosper. Alexander’s wife Helen, daughter of Alexander Grant of Dallachie, brought him a rich dowry and he acquired the lands of Keithmore, matriculating arms in 1676 as Duff of Keithmore. His elder son, Alexander Duff of Braco, was a Writer to the Signet in where he specialised in feudal law, and, when he returned to his ancestral country, he used that knowledge and the purchase of its owner’s debts to seize control of Balvenie, an ancient barony owned at various times by Comyns, Douglases and Atholls. He was active in national politics but, dying only five years after his father, left an only son who, regretting an unwise and childless marriage, committed suicide. The riches and lands his canny legal expertise had accumulated then passed to his brother, William Duff of Dipple.

This inheritance added new power to an already successful businessman then prospering principally as a banker, or old-fashioned money-lender, but active also in every aspect of foreign trade, both import and export, north of Aberdeen. He was ever ready to help local lairds with their liquidity prob- lems, and was even faster when foreclosing on the lands they had given him as security. His only surviving son, William Duff of Dipple and Braco, for whom the Barony of Braemar was confirmed, inherited £30,000 in cash, a rent roll of £6,500 a year, and unencumbered estates, in all totalling substantial wealth at that time. Like his uncle he became the Member of for Banffshire. In 1735 he was raised to the peerage with an Irish title as Baron Braco of Kilbryde, and in 1759 he was promoted to be Viscount Macduff and , which titles, although in the Irish Peerage, appeared to reinforce

- 8 - the family’s claims to descent from the Macduff Earls of Fife. This appear- ance was further strengthened in 1760 by the addition of the ancient Fife lion rampant as the first quarter in the new Earl’s arms, the Duff of Braco coat being relegated to the second and third quarters.

James Duff, the 2nd Earl Fife, Member of Parliament for Banffshire and then later for Morayshire, inherited all the characteristic traits of his family. He was an enthusiastic politician, a clever and acquisitive landowner, and he worked hard to earn a good local reputation and the influence that brought. When he died in 1809 leaving no children, his brother Alexander became the 3rd Earl Fife, but he held the titles for only two years before dying, his son James inheriting as 4th Earl Fife and replacing his family’s political interests with an enthusiasm for military life, fighting with considerable distinction in the Peninsular War. He was twice wounded in action, and became a Major General in the Spanish army, but he later followed tradition and became the Member of Parliament for Banffshire.

A Royal Marriage

When he died childless in 1857 at the age of eighty, his nephew, another James Duff, inherited the titles as 5th Earl. He, too, was Member of Parlia- ment for Banffshire. (As an Irish peer he could sit in the House of Commons at Westminster, but this was not possible after he was created Baron Skene in the Peerage of the .) His wife, a daughter of the 18th Earl of Erroll, was through an illegitimate daughter a granddaughter of King William IV, so when his only son Alexander, the 6th Earl, in 1889 wedded Princess Louise, eldest daughter of the , the future King Edward VII, (and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria) it was a marriage of third cousins.

Two days after his marriage, the 6th Earl Fife in the Irish Peerage, who had earlier been created Earl of Fife in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, was created Marquess of Macduff and . Subsequently these two latest titles were given a special remainder in favour of his daughters, so that despite not having a son his senior peerage honours would continue. His elder daughter, Princess Alexandra, thus became Duchess of Fife in her own right when he died in 1912, and, as her only son, Alastair, had died prema- turely in 1943, the Barony of Braemar, together with other estates, under the terms of his will passed on her death to her nephew, Alexander Ramsay of Mar, who thus became the most recent Baron of Braemar. He married Lady Saltoun of Abernethy, Chief of Clan Fraser, and died three years ago.

- 9 - The Village of Braemar

The Barony of Braemar now offered for sale by its owners has become world famous not so much for its history and the role the owners of the Mar lands have played in the political and military life of Scotland, but rather for the Highland Gathering and the Games organised by the Braemar Royal Highland Society of which the Queen is Patron. This event held on the first Saturday of September attracts wide interest and enthusiastic competitors from all the countries to which the Scots have emigrated. Its surrounding countryside, of course, is renowned for its beauty. The village of Braemar, 1100 feet above mean sea level, has a dry and bracing climate, and the surrounding mountains are frequently snow-capped. The two ancient churches in its constituent ham- lets of Castleton and Auchendryne are Episcopalian and Catholic respectively, symbolising the rivalry between the Protestant Farquharsons and the Erskines who held to the older faith, but although Braemar’s duality is evidenced in the two principal hotels, the Invercauld Arms and the Fife Arms, in its two mills and the two Village Halls, both of which carry Queen Victoria’s name, the atmosphere is one of tranquillity and friendship.

Royal Associations

The Royal associations with Braemar are owed to more than the Queen’s pre- sence at the Gathering every year, for her Highland estate at Balmoral is Braemar’s eastern neighbour downstream on the Dee. This was originally a property that came to the Farquharsons when William Farquharson of in 1663 foreclosed on its mortgage, but it was incorporated into the Barony and lands of Braemar when James Farquharson, 11th of Inverey, sold it to the 2nd Earl Fife in 1798. (He had previously sold Inverey to the Earl in 1786, and died unmarried, but the representation of the old Inverey family survived through the Farquharsons of Tullochcoy who founded new wealth at Dunedin in New Zealand, and, in Scotland, through the cadet line founded by Francis Farquharson of Belnabodach, a property bought by his uncle from the 5th Earl Fife.)

The 4th Earl Fife let Balmoral in 1830 to Sir Robert Gordon, brother of the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, the future Prime Minister, and when he died unex- pectedly in 1848, having made substantial improvements to the castle and the deer forest, the Royal Family took up the lease and fell in love with Deeside. Four years later, Albert, the Prince Consort, persuaded the 4th Earl Fife to

- 10 - sell him Balmoral for £31,500 — and soon thereafter the we know today emerged from the joint endeavours of Prince Albert and William Smith, architect son of the Aberdeen architect who had rebuilt the old castle.

The Castles of Braemar

Only the foundations of Braemar’s original castle, Kindrochit, may now be seen, but the new Braemar Castle, built in 1628 by the 19th Earl of Mar to contain the burgeoning power of the Farquharsons, is today in fine condition. It was attacked and burned in 1689 by the Farquharsons of Inverey under the leadership of John, “the Black Colonel”, during the campaign of “Bonnie ” after they had outwitted the Government troops of General Mackay, but ironically it has been held by the Farquharsons ever since John, the 9th Laird of Invercauld, bought it from the Erskines in 1732, after the post-1715 attainder of the Earl of Mar. It was subsequently used as a fortress for Hano- verian troops, but today it is the seat of Captain Alwyne Farquharson, 16th of Invercauld, Chief of the Farquharson Clan, and is open to the public.

The New Baron

The Trustees expect there to be keen interest in what by any standards must be accounted a unique opportunity. Apart, obviously, from the leading cities, Braemar is worldwide the most famous place in Scotland. The history of the Braes of Mar stretches back into a long unwritten past, and during the last thousand years their owners have wielded at divers times great military, poli- tical and economic power. The more recent Barons of Braemar have enjoyed close royal connections as neighbours, and the Royal Family, famously in love with beautiful Deeside, attend every year the Highland Games at the Braemar Gathering of which the Queen is Patron. Yes, Braemar is unique.

The new Baron may be of any nationality, although the Trustees hope that the successful candidate will have some Scottish ancestry. If he or she is already armigerous, the Lord Lyon is expected to award the heraldic addita- ments of a baron’s chapeau and robe. If not already armigerous, the buyer will be entitled to petition the Lord Lyon for a grant of arms with baronial additaments. When the procedures are complete, the Crown will have recog- nised the new Baron and thereafter the formal style of address will be, for example, John Smith, Baron of Braemar. (The amount of land to be trans- ferred with the Baronial title is small, being the minimum necessary.)

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