ROBB BUCHANAN - Key Persons
The Buchanans belong to a numerous clan in Stirlingshire, and the country on the north side of Loch Lomond. The reputed founder of the clan was Anselan, son of O'Kyan, king of Ulster, in Ireland, who is said to have been compelled to leave his native country by the incursions of the Danes, and take refuge in Scotland. he handed, with some attendants, on the northern coast of Argylshire, near the Lennox, about the year 1016, and having according to the family tradition, in all such cases made and provided, lent his assistance to King Malcolm the Second in repelling his old enemies the Danes, on two different occasions of their arrival in Scotland, he received from that king for his services a grant of land in the north of Scotland. The improbable character of this genealogy is manifested by its farther stating that the aforesaid Anselan married the heiress of the lands of Buchanan, a lady named Dennistoun; for the Dennistouns deriving their name from lands given to a family of the name of Danziel, who came into Scotland with Alan, the father of the founder of the Abbey of Paisley, and the first dapifer, seneschal, or steward of Scotland, no heiress of that name could have been in Scotland until long after the period here referred to. It is more probable that a portion of what afterwards became the estate of Buchanan formed a part of some royal grant as being connected with the estates of the Earls of Lennox, whom Skene and Napier have established to have been remotely connected with the royal family of the Canmore line, and to have been in the fist instance administrators, on the part of the crown, of the lands which were afterwards bestowed upon them.
The name of Buchanan is territorial, and is now that of a parish in Stirlingshiure, which was anciently called Inchcaileoch ("old woman's island"), from an island of that name in Loch Lomond, on which in earlier ages there was a nunnery, and latterly the parish church for a century after the Reformation. In 1621 a detached part of the parish of Luss, which comprehends the lands of the family of Buchanan, was included in this parish, when the chapel of Buchanan was used for the only place of worship, and gave the name to the whole parish.
Anselan (in the family genealogies styled the third of that name) the seventh laird of Buchanan, and the sixth descent from the above-named Irish prince, but not unlikely to be the first of the name, which is Norman French, is dignified in the same records with the magniloquent appellation of seneschal or chamberlain to Malcolm the first Earl of Levenax (as Lennox was then called). In 1225, this Anselan obtained from the same earl a charter of a small island in Lochlomond called Clareinch - witness Dougal, Gilchrist, and Amalyn, the earl's three brothers - the name of which island afterwards became the rallying cry of the Buchanans. He had three sons, viz, Methlen, said by Buchanan of Auchmar to have been ancestor of the Macmillans; Colman, ancestor of the MacColmans; and his successor Gilbert. His eldest son, Gilbert, or Gillebrid, appears to have borne the surname Buchanan.
John Buchanan, the younger son, succeeded by testament to Menzies of Arnprior, and was the facetious "King of Kippen", and faithful ally of James V. The way in which the laird of Arnprior got the name of "King of Kippen" is thus related by a tradition which Sir Walter Scott has introduced into his Tales of a Grandfather: - "When James the Fifth travelled in disguise, he used a name which was known only to some of his principle nobility and attendants. He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of Ballengeich. Ballengeich is a steep pass which leads down behind the castle of Stirling. Once upon a time when the court was feasting in Stirling, the king sent for more venison from the neighbouring hills. The deer was killed and put on horses' backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily they had to pass the castle gates of Arnprior, belonging to a chief of the Buchanans, who chanced to have a considerable number of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather short of victuals, though theyhad more than enough liquor. The chief, seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, seized on it, and to the expostulations of the keepers, who told him it belonged to King James, he answered insolently, that if James was king of Scotland, he (Buchanan) was king in Kippen; being the name of the district in which Arnprior lay. On hearing what had happened, the king got on hoseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buchanan's house, where he found a strong fierce-looking Highlander, with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. This grim warder refused the king admittance, saying that the laird of Arnprior was at dinner, and would not be disturbed. 'Yet go up to the company, my good friend' said the king, 'and tell him that the Goodman of Ballengeich is come to feast with the King of Kippen'. The porter went grumbling into the house, and told his master that there was a fellow with a red beard at the gate, who called himself the Goodman of Ballengeich, who said he was come to dine with the King of Kippen. As soon as Buchanan heard those words, he knew that the king was come in person, and hastended down to kneel at James's feet, and to ask forgiveness for his insolent behaviour. But the king, who only meant to give him a fright, forgave him freely, and, going into the castle, feasted on his own vension which Buchanan had intercepted. Buchanan of Arnprior was ever afterwards called the King of Kippen". He was killed at the battle of Pinkie in 1547.
The elder son, Patrick, who fell on Flodden field, during his father's lifetime, had married a daughter of the Earl of Argyll. She bore to him two sons and two daughters. The younger son, Walter, in 1519, conveyed to his son Walter the lands of Spittal, and was this the founder of that house. On the 14th December of that year, he had a charter from his father of the temple-lands of Easter-Catter.
The elder son, George Buchanan of that ilk, succeeded his grandfather, and was sheriff of Dumbartonshire at the critical epoch of 1561. By Margaret, daughter of Edonstone of Duntreath, he had a son, John, who died before his father, leaving a son. By a second lady, Janet, daughter of Cunninghams of Craigans, he had Willian, founder of the now extinct house of Auchmar.
John Buchanan, above mentioned as dying before his father, George Buchanan of that ilk, was twice married, first to the Lord Livingston's daughter, by whom he had one son, George, who succeeded his grandfather. The son, Sir George Buchanan, married Mary Graham, daughter of the Earl of Monteith, and had, with two daughters, a son, Sir John Buchanan of that ilk. Sir John married Anabella Erskine, daughter of Adam, commendator of Cambuskenneth, a son of the Master of Mar. He had a son, George, his successor, and a daughter married to Campbell of Rahein.
Sir George Buchanan the son married Elizabeth Preston, daughter of the laird of Craigmillar. Sir George was taken prisoner at Inverkeithing, in which state he died in the end of 1651, leaving, with three daughters, one son, John, the last laird of Buchanan, who was twice married, but had no male issue. By his second wife, Jean Pringle, daughter of Mr Andrew Pringle, a minister, he had a daughter Janet, married to Henry Buchanan of Leny. John, the last laird, died in December 1682. His estate was sold by his creditors, and purchased by the ancestor of the Duke of Montrose.
The barons or lairds of Buchanan built a caslte in Stirlingshire, where the present Buchanan house stands, formerly called the Peel of Buchanan. Part of it exists, forming the charter-room. A more modern house was built by these chiefs, adjoining the east side. This mansion came into the possession of the first Duke of Montrose, who made several additions to it, as did also subsequent dukes, and it is now the chief seat of that ducal family in Scotland.
The principal line of the Buchanans becoming, as above shown, extinct in 1682, the representation of the family devolved on Buchanan of Auchmar. This line became, in its turn, exict in 1816, and, in the absence of other competitors, the late Dr Francis Hamilton-Buchanan of Bardowie, Spittal, and Leny, as heir-male of Walter, first of the family of Spittal, established in 1826 his claims as chief of the clan.
The last lineal male desendant of the Buchanans of Leny was Henry Buchanan, about 1723, whose daughter and heiress, Catherine, married Thomas Buchanan of Spittal, an officer in the Dutch srvice, who took for his second wife, Elizabeth, youngest daughter of John Hamilton of Bardowie, the sole survivor of her family, and by her he had four sons and two daughters. Their eldest son John, bron in 1758, succeeded to the estate of Bardowie, and assumed the additional name of Hamilton, but dying without male issue, was succeeded by his brother, the above named Dr Francis Hamilton-Buchanan.
There were at one time so many heritors of the name of Buchanan, that it is said the laird of Buchanan could, in a summer's day, call fifty heritors of his own surname to his house, upon any occasion, and all of them might with convenience return to their respective residences before night, the most distant of their homes not being above ten miles from Buchanan Castle.
Sir Maurice Buchanan, grandson of Gilbert, and son of a chief of the same name, received from Donald, Earl of Lennox, a charter of the lands of Sallochy, with confirmation of the upper part of the carrucate of Buchanan. Sir Maurice also obtained a charter of confirmation of the lands of Buchanan from King David II in the beginning of his reign.
Sir Maurice de Buchanan the second, above mentioned, married a daughter of Menteith of Rusky, and had a son, Walter de Buchanan, who had a charter of confirmation of some of his lands of Buchanan from Robert the Second, in which he is designed the king's "consanguineus", or cousin. His eldest son, John, married Janet, daughter and sole heiress of John Buchanan of Leny, fourth in descent from Allan already noticed. John, who died before his father, had three sons, viz, Sir Alexander, Walter, and John, who inherited the lands of Leny, and carried on that family.