I'm Bruce Fummey. In February 1813, this hotel was owned by the Marquis of Stafford.
Having married the local heiress and landowner, he was responsible for some of the worst
excesses of Highland clearances, before then being honoured with the title, Duke of Sutherland.
The hotel was called the Sutherland Arms in those days, and it was the key location in the struggle
between humble crofters, who wanted to farm the land to which their ancestors belonged,
and one of the richest men in England, who decided that he could make even more money
by throwing them off it. In those days I would have boycotted the Sutherland Arms, but today
it's called the Golspie Inn. Actually the locals still call it the Sutherland Arms, but it's just been
bought by mates of mine, who are in the middle of renovating it, and they've given us access to help
tell you the tale, but first I have to tell you about events that took place in Strath Kildonan
schoolhouse. 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.
A meeting was planned for Tuesday the 2nd of February, 1813 in Strath Kildonan Parish
School. The meeting had been proposed by William Young and Patrick Sellar, the two men who were
the impetus behind the depopulation of this strath, to introduce large-scale sheep farming.
The meeting was to sign a bond between the estate that Young and Sellar represented
and the current tenants. You see William Young had bought additional land for the Marquis and Countess
of Stafford on Scotland's wild and windy northern coastline. An expert book of the day, published by
a man called John Henderson, said that because Sutherland's north coast was exposed to frequent
rains and stormy weather, its crops of corn were so stunted in their growth as to be too short
for the sickle, but Young hadn't bought the estate for the Staffords or himself to farm, but for the
poor suckers who were about to sign this bond. At a recent soireé, with beer and sandwiches, Young had
explained to the reasonable people of Strath Kildonan, that the land was of marvellous quality.
Each person evicted from the land in which they currently rear 20 to 30 cattle here, would be
given two to three acres on this exposed north coast land, to rear a couple of cows
and grow some corn, and the corn wasn't stunted, our marketing people are calling it pygmy corn,
smaller, yes, lower yielding, yes, but it's cute, it's cuddly, and if you package it in colourful
shiny boxes with cartoon pictures of hobbits, we think there's a market. Anyway the meeting was to
sign this bond. Now the Strath Kildonan crofter's lack of enthusiasm for uprooting their homes for
a Wendy house on a rock face, so that Young and Sellar could set up sheep farms on their land,
had caused a bit of a stooshie (row) a month earlier. I actually made a video about that and I'll leave
a link to that later. So the Sheriff Depute arrived with a deputation, to be met by around 200 crofters.
Now, I'm not going to tell you what they suggested the Sheriff Depute do with the bond,
but if you've ever tried to smuggle heroin over a Turkish border crossing ...
I'll tell you what, said the Sheriff Depute, why don't I spend the night in Helmsdale,
and anyone who changes their mind, can come down in the morning and sign the bond.
Nobody went down to sign the bond, but they did send a guy called John Bannerman
with a letter, in which they offered to pay the same rent as the sheep farmers proposed, in order
to stay on their ancestral land. When John Bannerman arrived, it turns out that the Sheriff Depute
wasn't that interested in the content of the letter, but he did want to know exactly
who'd written it, who contributed towards it, and who agreed with it. When John Bannerman
refused to give them that information, he was arrested taken to Dornoch, and locked up in jail.
Oh! There was all sorts of talk about the injustice, the deceit, what to do, do we rescue him?
In the end they had a whip round to raise the bail money to get him out.
That was the equivalent of four years' earnings for a teacher at the time. So the Sheriff Depute
went down a different route. After interrogating the shepherds that had been involved in the
previous stooshie with the crofters, they got enough names to dispatch a Sheriff Officer with four men
and warrants, back up the Strath. Do you think they saw him coming? Do you think he was welcomed in?
Do you think any of the men they sought were available? The Sheriff Officer said, look, all they want to do
is to hold an evidence gathering interview. All those named in the warrants need to do
is to turn up on the 10th of February at the Sutherland Arms and the matter will be resolved,
and that's what brings us here. As I say, this was the Sutherland Arms back in those days, built
five years earlier, and like pretty much everything else in Sutherland, it was owned
by Lord and Lady Stafford. Come inside. On the left is the Sutherland Coat of Arms. On the right
is Granville Leveson-Gower, the Marquis of Stafford
My mate found this when he took up the floor during the renovations to upgrade this hotel.
Now it's not original to when this place was built, five years before the events that I'm describing,
actually I think it's linoleum made in Kirkcaldy. The point is that whether without these crests
folk would be under no illusion. If you were a crofter coming into this hotel, you were entering the
domain of your lords and masters. The offenders had been told to arrive for questioning on the 10th.
Of course when the handful of offenders arrived, waiting for them would be William Young, Patrick
Sellar, the Sheriff Depute, the Sheriff Officer and several Constables. This was a trap to lock the
identified miscreants up just like John Bannerman before. What the authorities didn't realise
was that from up and down Strath Kildonan and Strath Brora, who knew that their time would come as
well, men and women had got up before light to walk to Golspie. Arriving in small groups of five or six
each, so as not to alert suspicion, when noon came and the authorities coiled to spring the trap, they
looked out this window and saw the biggest mass of people ever gathered in one place in Sutherland.
Each one was armed with a cudgel, and waiting for the Constables to do their worst.
Suddenly it was the authorities that were trapped. You go out and speak to them, no
you go out and speak to them, no you go, who the f**k is Spartacus anyway? It's no me!
Finally Patrick Sellar came out to tell the crowd that they were foolish if they thought they could
defy the King and fight against the laws and rights of Britain. Someone in the crowd pointed
out, that it was their brothers and sons who were on the Continent fighting against Napoleon for
the King, laws and rights of Britain. Seeing two of the culprits that they had targeted in the crowd,
the Sheriff Depute told the Sheriff Officer to take a group of Constables and arrest them.
John Sutherland and Donald Polson went to give themselves up, but the crowd pulled them back. As
the Constables moved forward, a man raised his cudgel and stepped in to bar the way. His name
was Robert Bruce. I wonder if they for a moment considered the significance, or is it that the
name Bruce brings with it its own courage, strength and nobility? Dinnae (don't) be so stupid!
For Young and Sellars and the Staffords, when they found out, this act of defiance was the limit.
These backward, primitive, yokel rabble rousers should know their place! The law was there for a
reason. If the scales of justice weren't tipped by the weight of property, what were they there for?
If justice couldn't be implemented by Constables and Sheriff Officers, there were always the troops.
Land and belonging's an emotive thing isn't it? Sometimes when I tell foreign guests
that I take on tour, that here in Scotland there's no trespass law and we have the right to roam, they
bluster about letting people walk on their land, and yet it strikes me, that when it came to it,
they'd expect those same ordinary men to go to foreign field and protect that land for them,
but the problem with calling out the local militia was that half of the militia were
the very men standing here in the crowd awaiting eviction. The other half were sympathisers. This
time the Sheriff Depute in Dornoch wouldn't be enough. Send for the Sheriff himself in Edinburgh.
I don't know if the Sheriff took tea and cream scones in the lounge of the Sutherland Arms
slash Golspie Inn, what I do know is that every member the local militia in Sutherland was
ordered to hand in their weapons, and then the Lord Advocate authorised Fort George to send
regular troops from the British Army. Now remember, there were people still alive that had stood at
Culloden. I'm going to leave a link to one of my must watch videos about one of them at the end.
Just think how much World War Two, the Cold War, Vietnam still impacts on our psyche today,
and consider the impact of disarming Highlanders and sending British troops.
The troops came and the men started presenting themselves for interview,
but whilst this was happening, something else was happening in parallel.
Actually I'm still here, but William Macdonald, a local man from Brora, was a recently retired
Recruiting Sergeant from the 93rd Regiment. He was already in London, with instructions,
travel expenses and a slush fund of a thousand pounds. His distinguished military service and
connections earned him access, and influence. One of the people that he met was Frederick, Duke of York,
the second son of King George the Third. To him, Macdonald put a proposal that the region would
supply 700 volunteers to serve anywhere in the British Army, on condition that their mothers,
sisters and elderly were guaranteed not to be evicted. Imagine that! The improvement that you're
offered is so unappealing that you'd offer up your son to war with Napoleon or whatever other danger
the British Army might put him in, rather than starve on that windswept, rocky outcrop.
Imagine that you as a son, would rather volunteer, than see your family evicted. Imagine the country's
wealthiest landowner, and his agent, so heartless, that when offered the same rent as the shepherds
proposed, insisted that only a fate worse than death would do for the hitherto clansmen.
It's maybe not surprising that the people of Sutherland suggested this deal.
This had been the Highland way, the blood of your sons in return for land, but when that blood had
been spilled, the land was given over to sheep. When this route was blocked, Sergeant Macdonald
found another. He met with a Colonel Archibald MacLaine, a Highland Gael from Argyll,
if these Sutherland farmers couldn't stay in their homes, then what if, when the 700 men came forward
their families could be provided with travel to British North America?
You might call it Canada. Rather than starve in the bleak, inhospitable coast,
to where Lord Stafford would send them, would the British Army accept 700 volunteers then?
Two incidents coincided. In 1812, the Americans decided to invade what is now Canada, and the
Earl of Selkirk had bought land at Red River, but was struggling to find people to populate it.
If only there was a way to get a regiment of troops and people to settle in Canada!
By the time Sergeant Macdonald got back to Sutherland to collect a list of those
willing to take the Canadian deal, Young and Sellar were making their own list
of people that were prepared to move to the Sutherland coast.
The number of names on the baddies list was 12. The Canadian list gained over a thousand
It looked like Colonel Archibald MacLaine would have a new regiment to lead,
and Lord Selkirk would have colonists for the Red River. On the wall of the church that we visited in
Strath Kildonan earlier, there's a plaque which reads in memory of George Bannerman of Kildonan,
great grandfather of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker PC, QC, MP, Prime Minister of Canada,
1957-63 and all of the Selkirk settlers from Kildonan, who in 1813 migrated to the Red River
settlement, to what is now the Province of Manitoba. I'd say he was of noble stock. I've heard that people
say that these clearances were justified because the land was too poor to make a living.
There may be some truth, but how would forcing folk from produce exporting land, to less
productive land help that? I've heard folks say that people left willingly, I'm sure some did,
but what's clear is that there's volunteering and there's volunteering.
If you missed the first video in this series, then you can click the white tab
up there to find it. If you haven't watched my video on the last Jacobite, then it's a great
story with some fantastic scenery, and you'll find that by clicking this link here. In the meantime,
tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.