Hiya, I'm Bruce Fummey. Have you heard the story of the last Jacobite? Who was he? Where did he live?
How did the Hanoverians punish him and when did he die? Let me take you on a journey of discovery.
If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history then hit the
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let me take you on a drive.
The Jacobite cause started in 1688.
Now if you're in any doubt, then watch my video 'The Jacobite Rebellion or was it?',
but of the many Jacobite uprisings; the two that are remembered most are the 1715 and 1745, and today
I'm going to take you to where they started and finished. As we go on a road trip to Braemar.
I also want to tell you about a guy called Peter Grant.
Now straight away the football fans are going to think of a guy that played
midfield for Celtic in the 80s, and the rockers are going to think of the manager of Led Zeppelin.
Given that my subscribers are largely rock and roll football fans who like a bit of history,
I'm going to focus on the name by which our Peter Grant came to be known.
Like many Highlanders, he was known by his address, his home, the name of his croft, Dubrach.
Now the Jacobite rising in 1715 started on the 6th of September,
when John Erskine, Earl of Mar came back from London to his home,
the earldom of Mar to raise the standard for the rightful King so that's why we're going to Braemar.
Now by the way, a huge thanks to Liam McNamara for the drone shots, brilliant eh? Now the croft of
Dubrach was on the Braes of Mar, so it might be natural for Dubrach to leave Dubrach and join
up with Mar's Jacobite cause, but he didn't, because he wasn't yet Dubrach, he was only one at the time,
and the recently crowned George the First of Hanover might have thought that he'd dealt with
the Jacobite threat when it collapsed in Preston and fizzled out on Sheriffmuir on the 13th of
November 1715, but Jacobite sentiment remained in these hills and glens as Dubrach grew to manhood.
Of course Dubrach grew into a big, ginger, hairy, illustrious, Claymore wielding Highland warrior.
Well nearly, he actually apprenticed as a tailor, so by the time he was 31 and Bonnie
Prince Charlie landed in the West Highlands Dubrach was in Aberdeenshire stitching away,
but one night he put down his needle and the next morning he took up a broadsword. Now how
will a tailor fare in the face of cannon fire? Well they say he got through it pretty well, and
many a Redcoat faced the ferocity of a Highland charge, then a Claymore measuring his inside leg.
The first proper battle was just south of Edinburgh at Prestonpans, and our tailor showed such bravery,
that he was promoted to Sergeant Major, and that bravery continued right through to Culloden.
He's reputed to have demanded that they put away their guns
and just get into the Redcoats with their swords. Sounds like a Weegie to me,
but however unusual Dubrach has sounded up until now he was more unusual still, because he wasn't
killed at Culloden, but he didn't escape. They say that he killed 12 men before he was captured.
Now stories grow arms and legs, like similes grow wearisome. What we can say for sure is that he
was captured and taken to Carlisle to where a Hanoverian courtroom was waiting for him.
I once visited Carlisle Castle and the guide gleefully showed me a dimple in the stone
wall one of the dungeons which she said had been eroded by the tongues of Jacobite Scots
licking the wall in a desperate attempt to quench their thirst with any drip of water they could get.
Aye you'll not be wanting a tip then eh?
It's certainly true that horrific conditions meant that some would die before facing the
likelihood of deportation and servitude, or a quicker but more gory traitor's death
and Dubrach, no ordinary character, somehow he managed to go over the wall, escape the Castle,
avoid capture, cross the border, and travel through hostile, Hanoverian Galloway
all the way north to arrive back home here in the Braes of Mar,
the problem was that the Redcoats had occupied the staunchly Jacobite area and were barracked
at Braemar Castle. How many nights did Dubrach have to spend out in the cold hills? How many
days hidden in the heather waiting for sustenance from some friend or kin, or a Redcoat bayonet, an
outlaw's capture and a traitor's death? Like his Prince he survived and avoided Redcoat capture,
in spite of the price on his head. The general amnesty granted after Culloden wasn't until 1747,
but eventually Dubrach settled back in the life of a tailor and a crofter.
He had six children with a wife 32 years his junior and yet she still predeceased him
at the age of 65. That was 1811, when Napoleon provided a new bogeyman for Hanoverian Britain.
They've forgotten about old Dubrach, by this time he was living with one of his bairns in
Angus. Now in our modern days of roads, that seems like a long way away from here but in truth the
Angus glens are a walk over the hills behind me, and it was two walkers in those hills who came
across him in his senior years and they were astonished by the sprightliness of old Dubrach,
and the fact that he was even alive at his age, hale and hearty. He regaled them with
stories of Culloden and the 45 and he showed them how to use a broadsword. Now at the end
I'll leave a link to regale you with more of my Jacobite stories, so be sure to watch some,
but Bonnie Prince Charlie was long dead by now.
Cameron of Lochiel and Lord George Murray were gone. He'd outlived George the Second, who they'd all fought
against. He'd outlived that King's son, Frederick, he'd even outlived his grandson George the Third and
seen him lose the American colonies, all from this Highland glen. None of them had come to Scotland,
but it'd been decided that George the Fourth would visit Edinburgh in 1822. The Jacobite threat was over,
so Sir Walter Scott had Lowlanders, English and German royals all dress up in Highland garb,
even some of the cowed clans turned out for the pageant or pantomime as I should say. Now as it happens,
one of Dubrach’s well to do walking gents was friendly with the Honourable William
Maule, later Lord Panmure and he petitioned George the Fourth to provide a pension for his oldest enemy,
and somebody thought that it'd be a great idea and a demonstration of the newfound unity of Georgian
Britain if the last surviving Jacobite was presented to George the Fourth on his visit to Edinburgh.
Now the story goes the old Dubrach was taken down from his glen and a new suit of clothes was made
for him so that he could sit for a portrait and then be presented to King George in his Edinburgh visit, a
bit like when the Queen meets the plebs here at the Braemar Gathering today. Now being a tailor to
trade, old Dubrach would have known the value of a suit of clothes and he gratefully accepted them,
but he refused to wear them for the big meeting. They say that he turned up to meet George the Fourth
in the same clothes that he'd worn on the 16th of April 1745 when he stood against the
man's great-grandfather on Drumossie Moor. When asked to take off his hat, old Dubrach politely
declined and covering the embarrassment the King supposedly said, 'Oh grant you're my oldest friend',
to which Dubrach replied, 'Na na Your Majesty, I'm your auldest enemy.' It was all
laughed off as good sport, misunderstanding and a confusion of accents, and old Dubrach
headed off the unreformed, last Jacobite with a pension of 52 guineas a year.
At 108 he didn't have that long to enjoy it, but he did enjoy sprightly good health right up until he
died two years later at the ripe old age of 110. They say 300 came from all around and four gallons
of whisky was drunk to see him off. His youthful 81 year old pal Charles Lamont was one of the three
pipers that led the coffin playing 'Wha'll Fight for Charlie's Right?, and he was laid down to rest here
in the cemetery next door to Braemar Castle which had housed his Redcoat hunters all those years ago.
I dare say he'd outlived them all and there was no one coming to hunt him now.
There'll be a link for you to see a playlist to Jacobite stories in a second, but first I should
say that portrait old Dubrach sat for now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh with
the great and the good, and here engraved in this slab it says, 'The old loyal Jacobite is at peace,
he kept faith with his rightful Monarchs all of his life, a hero and a man of honour to the last'.
If you're passing Braemar Castle, why not stop in at the kirkyard and pay your respects to old Dubrach,
the last Jacobite? Tha mi an dochas bum bith lath math leibh.
Tiorridh an drasda.
you