I'm Bruce Fummey. When was the last Scottish clan raid?
When did it happen? Why did it happen, and what did it look like? Obviously it'd be
tartan clad, claymore wielding, hairy men charging, screaming half naked down a mountainside,
and since Culloden was the end of the clan system, it must have been some time before 1746 right?
I've brought you to Elgin, 35 miles east of Culloden, to describe a clash of the clans that you
probably didn't expect. If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then
click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen. In the meantime let me tell you a story.
Culloden was long past. The Stuarts weren't coming back. The Tories and Whigs who'd broadly supported
Stuarts and Hanoverians, respectively at that decisive clash, settled things differently now. The
clan system had been brutally crushed. The King had to work with Parliament, indeed the context
of today's story, is the UK parliamentary elections of 1820. You didn't see that coming did you?
It's 85 years since Culloden. It was no longer George the Second on the throne,
in fact, the new election was prompted by the death of his grandson, and nephew
of the notorious Butcher Cumberland, George the Third, so dearly loved by our American cousins.
There's also a context of social change; workers demanding fair treatment, rights and representation.
In the central belt, what they called the Scottish Insurrection, would lead to the country's last
public beheadings, but as the Cato Street Conspiracy down south showed, the clash
between workers and the powerful, wasn't limited to Scotland. This was now the United Kingdom.
Anyway that's the situation in the wider country, but we are in Elgin.
Grant Lodge here has seen better days. It was built 40 years before today's story as a town residence
for good Sir James Grant, who also happened to be the Tory MP for the area. He'd died a few years back,
and now that he was dead, his assets, title and presumably his parliamentary seat, would go to
his eldest son. The problem was that his eldest son was mentally incapacitated.
Obviously he couldn't be an MP. He'd have to sit in the House of Lords, what's more his younger
brother was abroad in the military, so the Whigs in the area saw this as an opportunity to capture the
parliamentary seat. You see the seat was made up of five burghs, and it was the representatives
of those burghs who would choose the MP. Two of the burghs were controlled by Whigs and two by Tories,
which just left Elgin. Controlling that was like a penalty box dive in a Euro Championship semi-final,
priceless! The Whig candidate was Lord Fife. Now when I say Fife, I mean the Duff's of Banff Fife,
not Central Scotland Fife, so don't worry, he hadn't had sex with any cousins.
Sheep? I couldn't possibly comment,
although there's talk amongst the shepherding ... it doesn't matter. The point is that by March 1820,
Lord Fife had bribed enough of the town council, that the votes were exactly split. What's going to
happen now? So what happened here in Elgin, Duffs on one side, Grants on the other? On Saturday the
11th of March 1820, the pro-Grant councillor, Robert Dick, I think his friends called him Bob Dick, Dick
Bob ... anyway he was standing outside his shop and a vehicle came screeching round the corner at speed.
He was bundled into the back and the carriage high tailed it off to the port at Burghead, where he
was put on a ship to Sutherland. Francis Taylor was another Grant councillor. He was grabbed at
his garden gate. He didn't even get the security of a ship. They put him on an open boat that took
17 hours to cross the Moray Firth in a storm, so that he didn't turn up to vote. These days all
you need to do to stop folk voting is a rainy day, and something decent in the telly. The thing
is that if these two didn't get back in time for the council meeting, then the Whigs would win the vote,
but the Duff faction weren't going to leave anything to chance. They also ramped up the
pressure here. What was left of the Grant family were stuck in this house as the Elgin-based Duff
loyalist intimidated them and surrounded the house. Threats were hurled, abuse was thrown, violence
was promised. It was a time to act. As I said, the titular head of the house was incapacitated, and he
was looked after by his sisters, so it was down to one of those sisters, Anne Grant, to take the lead.
Non-Scots may not have heard of Grantown-on-Spey. It was a planned new town that had just been built by
the Grants on the River Spey, and Anne wrote two letters; one to kinsman John Grant on the south
side of the Spey, and the other to young Patrick Grant. Now he was the renowned Victorian General,
who would be the Commander-in-Chief during the Indian Mutiny but, that is for a future event.
This was late Saturday night. She sent a servant south towards Speyside in the cover of darkness.
I'm sure that the servant would have known the route well, but on foot
even during daytime, Google maps predicts an eleven hour journey.
The one saving grace, was that that would mean arriving in time for church on the Sunday morning.
There'd be no need to send round the fiery cross, if parishioners were in church
clinging to the old rugged one. So by afternoon, 600 men were heading north to the rescue. Not with
targe, dirks and claymore, but with strong words and sticks. Now Speyside is whisky country, and
innkeepers bills suggested that some was enjoyed along the way, but come Monday morning, the Grants
started to arrive in Elgin, to throw a protective cordon around Grant Lodge, and parade in strength
up and down the street. As the day developed, Duff reinforcements started to arrive in town.
There was confrontation brewing. Who would come out on top., the Grants or the Duffs?
So George Abercrombie, the local Sheriff, tried to calm tempers. He entered the house here to
negotiate. Eventually it was agreed that he would appoint Special Constables to protect the peace,
the siege of Grant Lodge would be lifted, and the Speyside Grants would return home.
On the way they stopped in Forres, and a week later, Captain Grant had to pay
Forres innkeepers 73 pounds, five shillings and tenpence for entertainment expenses racked up there.
Now with whisky selling at 40 pence a gallon, that sounds pretty entertaining for a Monday. The
upshot the whole thing was that it was the Grant candidate who continued as the Tory MP. Eighty-five
years after Culloden was supposed to end control of the clans, a clan raid in Elgin secured power for
the Grants in parliament. Of course today the clan system is well and truly dead in Scotland, but
these events show that loyalty didn't disappear overnight. In 1820, a Grant was still a Grant.
With the Representation of the People Act still 12 years away, clan loyalty could still secure shady
parliamentary representation. At the start of the 1820s, tribalism was given way to a more general
parliamentary corruption. At the start of the 2020s ... well I'll let you decide. If you want a
story from when clan battles were far more common, then why not watch my video about the Battle of
Glen Fruin here. In the meantimetha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.