IN Gaelic they are known as Clann Donnachaidh, or Duncan, and they claim descent from King Duncan I, who was killed by MacBeth, not in his bed as Shakespeare suggests, but on a battlefield near Forres.
Robert Duncan, or Robert Riach, Grizzly Robert, was the 4th Chief of Clann Donnchaidh. He was a strong supporter of King James I, who was murdered in front of his wife at the Blackfriars Friary in Perth. Grizzly Robert tracked down and captured two of the assassins, Sir Robert Graham and the King’s uncle, the Earl of Athol. They were both tortured to death in Edinburgh and Robert was granted the barony of Struan in Perthshire.
The Robertson crest badge shows a right hand holding an imperial crown in recognition of the clan’s help in finding the king’s killers and it is in honour of Robert Riach that his descendants took the name Robertson.
Not surprisingly, the Robertsons have a long tradition of Stewart and Jacobite loyalty and their 13th chief, Alexander Robertson of Struan is the only man known to have fought in all three Jacobite rebellions.
He was training for the priesthood when he joined the first Jacobite rebellion in 1689. He was captured at Sheriffmuir in 1715, but escaped to France, was pardoned in 1731 and returned to Scotland.
He led 700 men to join Prince Charles in 1745. By then he was too old to fight and is said to have returned from Prestonpans in the Hanoverian general Sir John Cope’s carriage.
Following the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746, government troops burned the clan seat, Alexander Robertson’s home at Dunalastair. He spent his final years exiled in his own lands, living in a single story hut on the edge of Rannoch Moor.
One of the most notorious of the 19th century Highland Clearances took place in the lands of Strathcarron, far from the traditional Robertson territory around Blair Atholl. The Strathcarron lairds were descendants of William Robertson, a 17th century Inverness merchant who bought the lands from a bankrupt Munro following the Battle of Culloden. In 1841, his descendant, also called William Robertson, instructed his factor to issues writs of removal on all the tenants in Glencalvie.
The local minister had been assured by Major Charles Robertson, the laird’s heir, that the tenants were safe so long as they paid their rents. Major Robertson was in Australia with his regiment and his father was in London. They left the estate management to their factor, James Gillanders, who increased the rents. The tenants agreed to pay, but three days before a meeting, sheriffs officers rode down the glen.
What took place next has become a legendary episode that somehow crystallises the tragedy. In Croick Church in Glencalvie the suffering has – quite literally – been written into the fabric of the building.
With nowhere else to go, left without food or shelter, the 18 families, some 90 people, gathered in Croick churchyard. They were not allowed inside the church, because their presence would have been seen a desecration.
They scratched their names on the glass of the church windows: “Glen Calvie people, the wicked generation” and “Glen Calvie people was in the churchyard here May 24th 1845.”
Croick Churchyard is also where James Gillanders is buried and for years his grave was used as a rubbish dump.
Clan Chief – Alexander Gilbert Haldane Robertson of Struan is the 23rd Chief of Clan Donnaichaidh.
Clan Donnachaidh Clan Centre and Museum is at Bruar, Blair Atholl.
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