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CLAN
DONNACHAIDH’S FIRST CHIEF
Duncan de
Atholia
Duncan is
said to have been born in the year 1275, just in time to take part in the
opening rounds of the War of Independence against the English.
Traditionally, William Wallace sought refuge in Atholl after his defeat at
Falkirk in 1297 but one is on surer ground when considering the chief’s
relationship with Robert Bruce. John Baliol was installed as Edward of
England’s puppet king in 1292 but his master removed him four years later
for “contumacy”, leaving the country without a monarch. Bruce and the Red
Comyn were rival claimants for the throne. At a meeting in the Franciscan
priory at Dumfries in 1306, Bruce slew his opponent in front of the high
altar. Alastair Macdougall, Lord of Lorne, was married to the dead man’s
aunt and therefore now had a blood feud with Bruce.
In 1306
Bruce was crowned at Scone and soon after was routed at the battle of
Methven. He, his queen, and a few followers escaped into Atholl and were
received by Duncan. He had his stronghold in a castle on the island in Loch
Tummel, which was submerged in 1950 when the loch was raised by five metres
by a hydro-electric dam, and Bruce took refuge in the Wood of Kynachan just
a couple of miles to the west. A ford on the Tummel, now beneath Dunalastair
Water, was the King’s ford. The King’s Hall was in the woods to the south
and the Queen’s Pool was a little further downstream. Strong tradition tells
of an unrecorded battle between Lochs Tummel and Rannoch at this time.
Innerhadden was where the battle started. Dalchosnie next door means field
of fighting; Glen Sassunn is the glen of the southerners, the route taken by
the enemy troops. The result was a victory thanks to the women of the day
who supported their menfolk by filling stockings with stones and using them
as clubs to devastating effect.
With Duncan
and his Clan by his side the king ventured west and was defeated at Dalrigh
(the field of the king) near Tyndrum by the Macdougalls of Lorne and retired
back to Strathtummel. In this battle the king lost the brooch with which he
pinned his cloak, and this is still in the possession of the victor’s
descendants. Eight years later the Clan went down to Bannockburn to fight
alongside Bruce to defeat the English and make him undisputed king of Scots.
Bannockburn, of course, is the seminal battle in the fight for Scots
independence from England. As a result, every clan wishes to claim that it
was part of Bruce’s army. The earliest written reference to the
participation of the clans seems not to come until 1822, when the historian
David Stewart of Garth listed twenty one Highland chiefs that were there,
but he gives no source for the information.
As far as
Clan Donnachaidh is concerned, there is a very strong logic that Duncan,
unquestionably a close associate of the king, would have been there with the
Clan and he is one of those on Stewart’s list. As well as strong logic,
there is strong tradition that supports this. Clan Donnachaidh is said to
have been a little bit late for the conflict, and were part of the
contingent that came down from Gillies Hill at the decisive moment of the
battle and these reinforcements tipped the balance in Bruce’s favour.
The Clan
had several more encounters with the MacDougalls. The only record of one was
written down by Ewen Macdougall. Clerk to the Earl of Breadalbane at
Taymouth, in the 1820s and describes the aftermath of a cattle raid or
creach against Clan Donnachaidh. The Macdougalls were tracked west and the
two forces met in Glen Orchy ‘where they fought bitterly, the Rannoch men
were slain and their Chief fled with difficulty. The slain were buried and
the cairns are still called Cairn nan Rannoch, or Rannoch Men’s Cairns, and
their arms cast into a small Loch near the Cairns called Lochan nan Arn.’ It
seems likely that this is a traditional local interpretation of Bruce’s
defeat at Tyndrum after which the losers’ weapons were also said to have
been thrown into the loch. If so, it would indicate that the bulk of Bruce’s
army were Clan Donnachaidh men, and that the ordinary Macdougall warriors
were more pleased to have defeated them than the king. The monarch must have
been a remote figure to most people, intent on consolidating his national
position. Duncan’s followers were local rivals against whom clashes must
have been frequent.
However,
with Duncan at its head the Clan was usually on the winning side. It is
possible that his most famous meeting with the Macdougalls is an amalgam of
several skirmishes, particularly since the date given by one source of 1338
would make him past his prime for legendary feats of agility. They sent an
army into Atholl and Duncan, disguised as a beggar, entered the enemy camp
to scout it out. His cover was penetrated and he had to flee for his life.
He chopped down one of his pursuers and then jumped across the chasm of the
river Errochty to escape. The spot is now beneath the dammed Loch Errochty
so the distance, reported variously between 11 and 16 feet, cannot be
confirmed. His Gaelic name, Donnachd Reamhar ( pronounced ‘rev-ar’), means
literally Fat Duncan, but a gravitationally-challenged warrior in his
mid-fifties is unlikely to have managed such a leap. ‘Robust’ or ‘stout’
would surely be a more accurate translation. Another of his sobriquets was
Gaisgeach Mor Fea-Chorie…the great hero of Fea Corrie. The corrie, a remote
cleft in the hills west of Trinafour, was the muster point for Duncan’s
warriors before any campaign. It, too, is submerged beneath Loch Errochty.
The battle
was the following day. At first light, the chief’s standard was pulled from
the ground and with it came the Clach na Bratach…the Stone of the Standard.
This snooker ball-sized globe of rock crystal is one of several charm stones
to have survived. That of the Stewarts of Ardvorlich is the Clach Dearig…the
red stone. The Campbells of Glenlyon had one but theirs was given to them by
a visiting ‘wizard’ in the 16th century, presumably part of his
stock in trade. Such stones have been made and venerated in all cultures for
millennia. They are to be occasionally found as grave goods in pagan Saxon
burials and would have had religious or mystical significance in
pre-Christian religion. But how one came to be in the wilds of Atholl can
only be guessed at.
The Clach
na Bratach is the most famous and has the oldest history of any of these
stones. It was said to be carried into battle before the Clan, confined in a
little cage on top of the standard pole. Otherwise it lived in a silken
purse, the last knitted for it by the Countess of Breadalbane. Its prime
function was for healing. Any water in which the stone had been dipped had
curative properties for both man and beast. It could also predict the
future. When the stone became cloudy, it signified the approaching death of
a chief. The consternation of the Poet Chief in 1715 when he consulted the
Clach before going off to fight in the Rising can be imagined when he saw
that it had developed a great crack through its heart. Perhaps it told the
truth. If Struan had not joined the rebellion, his own fortunes and that of
his successors might have been very different.
With the
newly-found charm, Duncan and his Clan trounced the Macdougalls and captured
their chief. He was imprisoned on Eilean nain Faoileag…the Island of Gulls,
now topped with a castellated Victorian tower, at the west end of Loch
Rannoch. One day a man rowed out with barrel of apples. These were upset and
during the confusion as the guards scrabbled around to retrieve them,
Macdougall took the boat and escaped, leaving his captors marooned. An older
version of this story has MacDougall living in comparative freedom under
parole and breaking it to make his escape.
Duncan’s
death and its circumstances appears in a manuscript written by Duncan, the
14th Chief, in the eighteenth century. He said he was copying
what originally appeared in the Red Book of Clan Donnachaidh which was
destroyed in a fire at Meggernie Castle, Glen Lyon, in the 1650s.
‘Duncan,
desirous to have the whole or some part of his large possessions secured to
him and his posterity by written rights from the crown, repaired to court
which was then at Scoon or at Perth. He had his enemies but it seems they
could not prevail against his favour with the King; his business was
finished of an evening, and next morning he was to pay his court and receive
charters from the King’s own hand. Besides other occasional attendants he
always had twelve chosen servants about his person but one of them was a
traitor, Blair by name, who was bribed to destroy his master. This he
actually accomplished, for when Duncan was getting himself dressed in the
morning for his appearance at Court, Blair with his fist struck a razor or
knife into the crown of his head, and then attempted to escape, but his
master drove a chair at him which broke his back and Kenneth McGilivie,
another of the servants, dispatched the traitor with a spear. All this was
hushed up for the time. Duncan immediately caused his head to be bound up
with bandages and caps and went to the Court. The King, observing his
countenance as well as the tying up of his head, asked of him what was the
matter and he answered that indeed the Gentlemen of the court had made him
sit up and drink more than was fit for a man his age. He received his papers
and departed but had not gone far from court when his People were obliged to
put him in a litter; his papers were laid under him, he ordered his men to
carry him to Dull and not to slacken their speed whether he was dead or
alive, and if he should die by the way his body was not to be touched till
his son Robert should arrive. Robert found the charters and buried his
father at Dull where his grave is shown to this day as a rarity for its
length.’
Duncan
married twice, once to a daughter of the Earl of Lennox through whom he
secured Rannoch and secondly to the co-heiress of the Ewen, Thane of
Glentilt, and thus greatly extended his lands. By this second marriage he
had a son, Patrick, who obtained Lude and his descendants held that property
for the next five centuries.
But others
were establishing a presence in the neighborhood. The original Menzies was
one of those French knights who came to Scotland to make their fortunes. The
family had land in Atholl before 1300 and, like so many others of their
kind, they founded a clan. The Stewarts, from Brittany in France, also
arrived in the area. Walter the Steward married Bruce’s daughter and their
son became king. He held the earldom of Atholl himself and granted it to his
son in1375. In his ‘Book of Garth and Fortingall’ in 1888, Duncan Campbell,
the schoolmaster in Fortingall, delightfully described the first Stewart
Earl and the arrival of others of his kin thus: ‘His revenue and estates
were not very great, but he had a great many allies, and pretty numerous
company of gentlemen of his own surname to surround his motehill and fight
under his own banner. Some of the Stewarts were cadets of his own house;
many were collaterals that had been called in from Lorne. A few were
descended from the Walter of Atholl line, and more than a few from the Wolf
of Badenoch. To these were added Stewarts who boasted ancient or
illegitimate descent from kings and princes who, when hunting the deer,
wooed Highland maids in sequestered glens.’
Time and
again over the ensuing generations members of Duncan’s Clan would marry
Stewarts. Time after time over the years their interests would coincide. In
combining to defend all Atholl they would gain the reputation as the most
formidable warriors in Scotland.
Reprinted
from ‘The Robertson; Clan Donnachaidh in Atholl” with permission from the
author, James Irvine Robertson
The
complete book is available at
www.librario.com |
